Although media sources have not immediately called the race for the Democratic presidential nominee — probably in part due to the rather thin margin between the two candidates — Joe Biden seems to have won Wisconsin. In 2016, Donald Trump won the state of Wisconsin by a little over 27,000 votes, and the state was a critical pick-up in his path to victory alongside states like Michigan and Pennsylvania. This time, Wisconsin Elections Commission Administrator Meagan Wolfe said in an early Wednesday appearance on NBC that “all of the ballots have been counted” — and at the time of her remark, Joe Biden led in Wisconsin by a little over 20,000 votes.
(UPDATE: The Associated Press has called Wisconsin for Joe Biden.) Listen to the remarks from Wolfe below:
WATCH: "All of the ballots have indeed been counted," Wisconsin Elections Commission Director Meagan Wolfe says.
"We're not seeing that there's any counties that haven't posted their results on their websites."
Track latest Wisconsin results here: https://t.co/GrcGGYyeVt pic.twitter.com/CNL50hUTnU
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) November 4, 2020
The Wisconsin Election Commission subsequently clarified on Twitter that to the best of their knowledge, only two “small” towns hadn’t yet reported their results to their counties, and the total number of voters in these towns was apparently only about 600. (That update came just after noon, Eastern time.) Thus, no matter potential slight blips between “counted” ballots and officially reported ballots, Biden seems to have clinched a win in Wisconsin, which ended up stunningly close for the second presidential election in a row.
Remember, the unofficial numbers being reported for Wisconsin come from the news media. The state doesn't have its own election night system for unofficial results. The WEC won't start getting official numbers from county clerks til next week.
More here:https://t.co/hKzI82DCeC
— Wisconsin Elections (@WI_Elections) November 4, 2020
Wisconsin is not the first state that Trump won in 2016 that has moved to the Democratic column this time around. Fox News also issued an early call for Arizona, insisting that there was no way that Trump could overturn Biden’s lead in the state. The Associated Press eventually also called the state for Biden, who led Trump by about 93,000 votes, with an estimated 84 percent of the vote in. Critical states that were still inconclusive as of early Wednesday included Michigan and Pennsylvania, both of which could help decide who wins the presidency.
Trump has alleged that late changes to vote tallies represent a Democratic effort to steal the election for Democrats, who the president claims have sought to fraudulently “rig” the election in their favor. The president’s claims are baseless. Post-Election Day changes to vote tallies have taken place because valid votes have been getting counted. States have long taken quite awhile to work through all of their ballots. Presidential elections have never conclusively or officially ended on the night that polls close, no matter the president’s repeated claims that the election should have conclusively ended on Election Night. Official certifications of final results have consistently taken until well after Election Day.
Even if the data shows Trump losing, he could still challenge the election results in court. in an angry middle-of-the-night speech from the White House in the hours after polls closed on Election Day, Trump insisted that he would take his complaints about late changes to vote tallies all the way to the Supreme Court. It’s unclear how Trump might even be able to get an audience before the Supreme Court, since it’s not as though he can simply knock on the door and say “hello, would you hear my complaint?” There has to be a case.
President Trump made baseless claims about the presidential race early Wednesday, saying he would go to the Supreme Court. It was unclear exactly what kind of challenge he had in mind. https://t.co/0Tt5KjTebK
— The New York Times (@nytimes) November 4, 2020
As of early Wednesday, Biden was ahead in the states that he needed to win. Although the states had not been called as of early in the day following Election Day, Biden led in Nevada, Michigan, and (as noted) Wisconsin. Altogether, those states have 32 electoral votes, which would be enough to make Biden the winner of the election with apparently an even 270 electoral votes, which is what’s needed to win.
