Biden wins Wisconsin and Michigan, narrowing Trump’s path

By JONATHAN LEMIRE, AAMER MADHANI, ZEKE MILLER, JILL COLVIN and ALEXANDRA JAFFE
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON  — Joe Biden has won Michigan and Wisconsin, pushing him closer to 270 Electoral College votes and narrowing President Donald Trump’s possible path to reelection.
Only a handful of battleground states remain uncalled including Georgia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.

Both Michigan and Wisconsin represent parts of the “blue wall” that slipped away from Democrats four years ago, paving the way for Trump’s election. Biden’s campaign had counted on winning back at least some of them.

Speaking at an afternoon news conference, Biden, joined by his running mate Kamala Harris, said he now expected to win the presidency, though he stopped short of outright declaring victory.

“I will govern as an American president,” Biden said. “There will be no red states and blue states when we win. Just the United States of America.”

It was a stark contrast to Trump, who early Wednesday morning falsely proclaimed that he had won the election, even though millions of votes remained uncounted and the race was far from over.

The Associated Press called Wisconsin for Biden after election officials in the state said all outstanding ballots had been counted, save for a few hundred in one township and an expected small number of provisional votes.

Trump’s campaign requested a recount, in addition to filing lawsuits in Pennsylvania and Michigan. Statewide recounts in Wisconsin have historically changed the vote tally by only a few hundred votes; Biden led by 0.624 percentage point out of nearly 3.3 million ballots counted.

It was unclear when or how quickly a national winner could be determined after a long, bitter campaign dominated by the coronavirus and its effects on Americans and the national economy. But Biden’s possible pathways to the White House were expanding rapidly.