Election 2020 presidential results

Votes are still being tabulated in key states. Here’s a closer look at the numbers in closely watched counties in those states.

“The simple fact is there are still votes to be counted … votes cast legally still to be counted in states where the margins are thin,” according to CNN’s Jim Sciutto. 

In Georgia, 8% of the vote remains to be counted.

Fulton County, Georgia

DeKalb County, Georgia

In Michigan, 14% of the overall vote still needs to be counted. The Michigan secretary of state told CNN that “hundreds of thousands” of votes still need to be counted in the state as a whole.

Wayne County, Michigan

“In both those states, it's urban areas that tend to favor Democrats. The question, of course: Is it enough to turn the results in those states, and ultimately given their position as battleground states in this election, to turn the election overall?” Sciutto said. 

In Wisconsin, 3% of the vote remains to be counted, while in Pennsylvania, 25% remains. Pennsylvania allows mail-in votes to be received and counted up until Friday.

CNN has not projected a winner in nine states across the country — Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Maine, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

CNN’s Phil Mattingly mapped out a potential path for Biden:

If Trump wins Alaska, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Georgia, and if Biden holds on to his lead in Wisconsin, Nevada, Arizona and Maine, and overtakes Trump in Michigan, that’s Biden's path, Mattingly said.

Mattingly also mapped out a potential path for Trump:

If Trump wins Pennsylvania, hold his lead in Michigan and flips Nevada, because it’s currently a very close race, he will have the votes he needs. 

“[He] doesn't need to win Georgia, needs to dig into some Democratic territory, and needs to somehow manage to hold off Joe Biden in the state of Michigan, and hang on to a very sizable lead right now in Pennsylvania, and he's over 270,” Mattingly said.

CNN's Phil Mattingly lays out paths to 270 for both Biden and Trump:

Fulton County, Georgia, has just begun counting absentee ballots. They started at 8:30 a.m. ET Wednesday after stopping Tuesday night at 10:30 p.m ET.

An estimated 48,000 absentee ballots are still outstanding. 

Fulton County is Georgia's most populous county with more than a million inhabitants.

Roughly 79,000 absentee mail ballots are still uncounted in DeKalb County. They are scheduled to start counting at 11a.m. ET this morning.   

It's the morning after Election Day, and it's still too early to project a winner in the presidential race.

Votes are still being counted in Alaska, Arizona, North Carolina, Nevada, Wisconsin, Michigan, Maine, Georgia and Pennsylvania.

As the sun comes up on a long night of tracking votes, a Biden campaign aide said the campaign is confident it’s on the right track based on the states they’ve won and what’s yet to be counted

According to a source close to the campaign, the campaign always thought this would be a close race, pointing to campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon’s tweet a few weeks ago warning of a tight race. 

“We have the burden of relying on the vote that takes the longest to count,” the source said. Even so, this person and the campaign remain optimistic when all votes are counted, Biden will be declared the winner.

CNN's Jessica Dean reports from Biden campaign headquarters:

The counting of votes is still underway in Wisconsin. Throughout much of the night, President Trump was ahead by over 100,000 votes, but now, with 97% votes reported, Joe Biden is ahead by nearly 21,000 votes.

What happened? The answer lies in mail-in voting, according to CNN’s Phil Mattingly.

Milwaukee County, home to the city of Milwaukee, is a major urban center and the biggest county in Wisconsin. It's also home to about 16% of the state’s population.

The same happened in Brown County. President Trump still holds a lead in this Republican county, but Biden has received a boost via mail-in voting in Green Bay, which has a Democratic base.

The same was seen in Kenosha, Wisconsin, Mattingly points out.

Remember: This points right to the red or blue “mirage” that was expected in several states due to the unprecedented levels of mail-in ballots and early voting due to the coronavirus pandemic.

As a result, in some of the most competitive states, early results may look too rosy for former Vice President Biden, before falling back down to earth and becoming more representative of the true outcome. In other states, Trump could see early leads that slowly narrow as more ballots are counted.

This won't be a sign of fraud or irregularities. Rather, it's just a reflection of how states count votes. Some states process early ballots first, and will report those early in the night, while others save them for last. 

CNN's Phil Mattingly explains Biden's competitive lead in Wisconsin:

It's the morning after Election Day and ballots are still being counted in some states. 

As of early Wednesday morning, it was still too close to call in Alaska, Arizona, North Carolina, Nevada, Wisconsin, Michigan, Maine, Georgia and Pennsylvania.

Based on the races called so far, this is where the race to 270 stands right now:

Biden holds the lead in the Electoral College at this stage in the count, with 224 electoral college votes. Donald Trump has 213 electoral college votes.

Both candidates still have pathways to get to 270 electoral votes – the number of votes needed to win the presidency.

See latest breakdown of states with narrow margins:

For the second time in two years, Democrats are a whisper away from turning Georgia blue. 

In 2018, Republican Brian Kemp narrowly defeated Democrat Stacey Abrams to become governor. Now, the presidential race remains too close to call hours after the polls closed. The outstanding votes almost entirely come from parts of Biden-friendly Atlanta and its suburbs. 

With more than 90% of the estimated vote in, Trump leads the former vice president by a little more than 118,000 votes. But with Fulton, DeKalb and Gwinnett Counties, among others, still yet to complete their counts, the race remains in the balance – contrary to Trump’s claim early Wednesday morning that he’s already won it.

No Democratic presidential nominee has won in Georgia since 1992, when Bill Clinton defeated incumbent George H.W. Bush. Barack Obama came close. Hillary Clinton, in 2016, got closer. Abrams, in the gubernatorial campaign, came within 1.4 percentage points of victory in a race marred by evidence of voter suppression.

Democrats’ slow and steady climb has been fueled by a rapidly diversifying electorate and suburbs that are, at once, growing and becoming increasingly hostile to Republican candidates. The state GOP has compounded the issue, refusing so far to expand Medicaid under Obamacare while Gov. Brian Kemp, in 2019, signed a so-called "heartbeat bill," one of the country's most restrictive abortion laws. 

Sensing opportunity, vice presidential nominee Sen. Kamala Harris, who was joined by Abrams, and Obama both visited the state in the final push ahead of Election Day. Sensing a tight race, Trump also visited over the weekend.

Biden’s fate could be decided over the next day, as the final votes are tabulated. But the political world will keep its eyes on Georgia for weeks to come. Both Senate races – one a special election – could be headed to runoffs early next year.

No matter who wins the presidency, those races have the potential to decide the balance of power in the US Senate for the next two years.

Read more here.

Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said “hundreds of thousands” of absentee ballots remain to be tabulated in the state.

“We’re on track to have a much more complete picture, if not the vast majority of jurisdictions, reporting out by the end of today,” she told CNN’s Don Lemon. 

Absentee ballots are still being counted in cities like Detroit, Flint and Grand Rapids, she added.

Votes are still being counted in key states across the US, and while Democrats seem to have “really run up the score in a lot of big metros,” CNN analyst Ron Brownstein said “Trump's hold on Trump country looks utterly unshakable.”

Democrats consolidating major metros but haven’t expanded their margin in the suburbs, Brownstein noted.

“It's just the reality that we are living in a time where we have this trench between two very different coalitions that want very different things and very different visions of what America is,” he added.

CNN's Ron Brownstein analyzes latest trends: