Biden snatches leadership from Trump in Pennsylvania and cherishes victory, though the countdown continues
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden snatched the leadership in the key state of Pennsylvania from his rival, Republican and US President Donald Trump, on Friday, although the count is still ongoing and no winner has been officially declared.
Biden is holding Pennsylvania and Georgia in his hands as he waits for a court battle from Donald Trump. The trend is favourable to the Democratic candidate as even the media do not cover the complaints and legal claims of the still Republican president.
Pennsylvania has counted some 30,000 new ballots, 87% of which were in favour of Biden, so that the former vice president currently has a 5,587 vote advantage over Trump, according to the latest data published by the state's electoral authority. Thus, Biden leads with 49.4% of the vote as opposed to 49.3% for Trump.
A victory in Pennsylvania would provide Biden with the 20 delegates needed to win this election, although Georgia, Arizona and Nevada also remain in play, all of which have heart attack counts and states that Trump needs to win to turn around the current trend.
Biden has 264 delegates in the Electoral College (though some media question Arizona's 11), while Trump has 214.
In recent hours, Biden had already narrowed the gap on Trump, who had a 750,000 vote margin on election night.
That lead has been eroding as Pennsylvania counted the mail ballots, a resource that Democrats have used more often in these elections to avoid crowding in the context of the pandemic, while a majority of Republicans waited for Election Day.
Pennsylvania law provides that absentee ballots cannot be processed until Election Day, which has slowed the process.
Authorities estimate that some 200,000 votes remain to be counted and want to conclude the count this Friday.
In the 2016 election, Trump won all 20 of Pennsylvania's electoral votes, 40,000 votes ahead of her Democratic rival, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
