Presidential race too close to call in Pennsylvania: Fact check
Written by Victoria Scialfa on November 5, 2020
Presidential race too close to call in Pennsylvania: Fact check
Please be patient: We most likely won’t know the results of the Nov. 3 election in Pa. and across the country for several days. Click here for all of over election coverage and results as we get them.
President Donald Trump and his campaign are continuing to falsely state he’s won Pennsylvania. Trump first made the baseless claim during a late-night campaign speech several hours after polls closed in Pa., pointing to his margin of hundreds of thousands of votes.
When counties stopped tallying votes Tuesday night, they still had well over 1.5 million uncounted mailed ballots on hand, plus tens or hundreds of thousands of votes anticipated from in-person results at polling places that hadn’t yet been reported, as well as provisional ballots.
So, that was double or triple the president’s lead at that time of about 676,000 votes.
That disconnect — along with Trump calling publicly for Pa. to halt its vote count and initiating multiple court actions to force that — prompted two former governors from opposing political parties to address reporters Wednesday morning: Democrat Ed Rendell and Republican Tom Ridge.
“American voters will decide the election, neither Donald Trump nor Joe Biden will,” said Ridge.
By Wednesday afternoon, the president’s edge had been cut in half – and then some – to about 300,000 votes.
Still outstanding: At least a million mailed ballots plus those uncounted in-person votes and provisional ballots, which counties process last.
Yet Trump continued his false narrative, as did some of his closest supporters, during an appearance in Philadelphia.
Also Wednesday, former vice-president Joe Biden said publicly he’s confident that he’ll win his home state.
The Associated Press hasn’t called the presidential race yet because neither candidate has secured 270 electoral votes.
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