By CATHERINE THORBECKE and MORGAN WINSOR, ABC News

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(WASHINGTON) — Election Day is turning into election week as the counting of votes continues across the country, with preliminary results showing tight races in several key battleground states.

Candidates need 270 Electoral College votes to secure the presidency. ABC News projects President Donald Trump currently has 213, while former Vice President Joe Biden has 225.

Both Trump, the Republican incumbent, and Biden, his Democratic challenger, addressed the nation in the early hours of Wednesday morning, each expressing confidence in the race for the White House. Trump invited about 400 people to the White House East Room for an indoor watch party as the election, considered by many a referendum on his handling of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, unfolded before them.

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In the weeks leading up to Election Day, more than 100 million early votes were cast, shattering early turnout records across the country.

Here’s how Election results are unfolding. All times Eastern:

Nov 04, 11:46 am
Trump campaign baselessly claims he won ‘if all legally cast ballots are counted’

The Trump campaign on a press call Wednesday argued both that if all “legal ballots” are counted the president wins — despite not providing any evidence that there have been any illegally cast ballots — while also projecting confidence that the remaining vote count in a number of states will swing to the president.

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“If all legally cast ballots are counted, the President would win,” Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien claimed.

The campaign did not provide any evidence throughout the call, or even attempt to explain, what basis they had for claiming ballots might be illegally cast and took no questions.

The Trump team hinted at a legal fight; Stepien said Wisconsin is within 1% and in “recount territory.”

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Trump campaign senior adviser Jason Miller said he believes Nevada is “still in play,” banking on mail-ballots. Without providing evidence, Miller also said Nevada is a place that is “rife with corruption,” setting the stage for a battle and argument if Trump does not win.

In Arizona, Stepien claimed the final batch of votes being counted will bring more votes to the president.

And in Pennsylvania, where Stepien acknowledged that there are still over 1 million ballots to be counted, he added that he’s confident Trump will hold his lead.

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Miller said they believe that Trump is going to continue to over-perform with Black and Latino voters there as well, contributing to Trump’s lead.

Stepien ended the call by saying, “honing in specifically on Pennsylvania and Arizona, if all legally cast ballots are counted, the president will win.”

-ABC News’ Will Steakin

Nov 04, 11:43 am
Biden’s campaign says it expects to win the election by this afternoon

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Biden’s campaign manager, Jen O’Malley Dillon, said her team is “confident” that the former vice president will win the White House, based on the available data from states.

“Joe Biden is on track to win this election and he will be the next president of the United States,” O’Malley Dillon told a virtual press conference Wednesday morning. “So we believe we are on a clear path to victory. By the afternoon, we expect that the vice president will have leads in states that put him over 270 electoral votes.”

O’Malley Dillon said the campaign anticipates Biden to ultimately win the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Nevada and Wisconsin, which would bring his tally of Electoral College votes well past the 270 mark needed to secure the presidency.

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She said Georgia remains “a toss-up,” but added that there are many outstanding ballots in Atlanta, an area that favors Biden. She said North Carolina is also a tight race and the campaign believes it’s currently leaning toward Trump.

“Last night, the president of the United States falsely claimed that he had won this race and then demanded that votes stop being counted,” she told reporters. “Let’s be extremely clear about something. If Donald Trump got his wish and we stopped counting ballots right now, Vice President Joe Biden would be the next president of the United States.”

ABC News projects Trump currently has the lead in Pennsylvania, Georgia and North Carolina, while Biden has a slight lead in Michigan, Nevada and Wisconsin.

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With 86% of expected vote reporting nationwide, ABC News projects Biden currently has 225 Electoral College votes while Trump has 213. ABC News has not yet projected wins for Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Maine, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Nov 04, 11:25 am
Pennsylvania officials say they’re approaching 50% of mail-in ballots being counted

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Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf said at a news conference Wednesday morning that election officials “are still at work counting the votes” and added “we may not know the results even today.”

“But the most important thing is that we have accurate results, again, even if that takes a little longer than we’re used to,” he added. “I will do everything within my power to ensure that the results are fair and that every vote is counted.”

Pennsylvania’s Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar said the state is approaching 50% of the mail-in ballots being counted, but added “there’s still millions of ballots left to be counted.”
 
Boockvar said the state had somewhere between 2.5 and 3 million mail-in ballots cast this year, or about 10 times the number of mail-in ballots than in the previous presidential election.

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Nov 04, 9:21 am
Rubio counters Trump’s stance on vote counting

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., took to Twitter Wednesday morning to apparently contradict Trump’s stance on counting votes.

“The result of the presidential race will be known after every legally cast vote has been counted,” Rubio tweeted.

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Rubio is the first Republican senator to publicly react to Trump falsely declaring victory in the presidential election and urging the national vote count to be halted.

Nov 04, 8:22 am
Georgia’s secretary of state expects counting to be done by end of day

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said vote counting in the Peach State will “definitely” be done by the end of the day.

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“By midday, we should be pretty much through it. Probably by the end of the day, we’ll definitely have it done,” Raffensperger told ABC’s Good Morning America co-anchor Robin Roberts in an interview Wednesday.

“We had a successful election,” he added. “Over 4.8 million Georgians voted, which is also a record turnout for a presidential election.”

Once counting is done, Raffensperger said Georgia’s election officials will conduct the first statewide audit of paper ballots to help verify the results and “give voters that additional layer of confidence.”

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“That’s very important,” he said.

There are 16 electoral votes up for grabs in Georgia, a key battleground state in the race to 270. With 92% of expected vote reporting, ABC News projects Trump currently has a slight lead in Georgia with 50% while Biden has 48%.

Nov 04, 8:19 am
‘Way too early’ to call a winner in Pennsylvania, attorney general says

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Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro said it’s still “way too early” to know which presidential candidate will win the 20 electoral votes up for grabs in the Keystone State.

“There’s still a lot of vote left,” Shapiro told ABC News chief anchor George Stephanopoulos in an interview Wednesday on Good Morning America.

“Counties are full steam ahead on counting every eligible vote,” he added.

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With 75% of expected vote reporting, ABC News projects Trump currently has the lead in Pennsylvania with 55% while Biden has 44%.

When asked about Trump falsely and prematurely declaring victory, claiming he will go to the Supreme Court to stop vote counting nationwide, Shapiro said, “It doesn’t work that way.”

“The president doesn’t count these votes. The clerks in our communities count these votes,” he said. “We’re not going to let anything interfere with that process.”

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“The bottom line is we’re going to make sure here in Pennsylvania that we respect the will of the people,” he added. “We’re going to get an accurate count, it’s the law.”

Nov 04, 7:25 am
‘Hundreds of thousands of ballots’ still uncounted in Michigan

Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said election officials in her state were counting ballots through the night and they’re not done yet.

“Hundreds of thousands of ballots in our largest jurisdictions are still being counted, including Detroit, Grand Rapids, Flint, Warren & Sterling Heights,” Benson wrote on her official Twitter account Wednesday morning. “Every vote will count.”

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Michigan is a key swing state in the race to 270 electoral votes. With 86% of expected vote reporting, ABC News projects Trump currently has a slim lead over Biden of less than 27,000 votes.

Nov 04, 6:39 am
Nevada says no more results till Thursday

Nevada’s elections division announced Wednesday morning that no more results will be released until Thursday at 9 a.m. PT (12 p.m. ET).

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The division said in-person early votes, in-person Election Day votes and mail-in ballots through Nov. 2 have all been counted so far. That means mail-in ballots received on Election Day, any mail-in ballots that will be received over the next week and provisional ballots have not yet been counted.

All active registered voters in Nevada were mailed a ballot for the 2020 presidential election.

“Ballots outstanding is difficult to estimate in Nevada because every voter was sent a mail ballot,” Nevada’s elections division wrote on its official Twitter account. “Obviously, not all will vote.”

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With 86% of the expected vote reporting in Nevada, ABC News projects Biden currently has a very narrow lead in the Silver State, by less than 8,000 votes.

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