The Joe Biden campaign let it be known late Friday morning that it will have no trouble making sure President Donald Trump is removed from the White House if he--as looks increasingly likely--loses reelection but refuses to go voluntarily.
With votes still being counted in crucial states, Biden campaign spokesperson Andrew Bates said in a statement that "the American people will decide this election," and then--in a quite apparent reference to Trump--added that "the United States government is perfectly capable of escorting trespassers out of the White House."
Trump, meanwhile, continued to lash out and make "pathetic" and false claims that fraud is the reason he remains behind in key states, particularly Pennsylvania.
The presidential race as of midday Friday remained "too close to call" for most major news outlets and decision desks, but the window was rapidly closing for any chance for President Donald Trump--who has continued to lie and spew nonsense about election fraud as it suits him--to win reelection.
As of this writing:
- Joe Biden has taken the lead in Pennsylvania.
- The latest ballots in Nevada saw his lead over Trump double. According to the latest numbers released by the state, Biden now has 624,246 votes (49.83% of the total), compared to Trump's 602,170 (48.07%). The current difference of 22,076 votes, is approximately twice Biden's earlier 11,000 vote lead.
- In Georgia, Biden also took his first lead Friday morning as that state's counting neared completion, though the race remained within the margin of a possible recount and nearly tied with the candidates each carrying approximately 49.4% of the vote. With an estimated 64,000 thousand votes to count, NBC News reports that Biden's lead currently sits at 1,584 votes.
- Arizona also remained "too close to call," but Biden's lead had increased to 50% over Trump's 48.6%. In that state, with just over 225,000 votes left to count, Biden maintained a lead of nearly 44,000 votes.
Of those four key states, none is more important than Pennsylvania, where a confirmed win there for Biden would all but assure him of surpassing the 270 electoral college votes needed to secure victory. According to the New York Times--which now calculates that electoral race as 253 to 214 in favor of Biden--a win the Keystone State--worth 20 electoral votes--"would be decisive" for the Democratic former vice president.
"If Joe Biden's lead over President Trump in Pennsylvania holds, he will win the presidency," the Times reported.
Mr. Biden, who was winning the popular vote by more than four million votes and has already won 253 electoral votes, pulled ahead of Mr. Trump in Pennsylvania by about 9,000 votes on Friday morning. If his lead holds -- and it is expected to -- the state's 20 electoral votes would vault him past the threshold to win the election. In Georgia, his lead was so narrow that state officials said a recount was inevitable.
In Arizona, Mr. Biden maintained his lead as election officials continued to plow through tens of thousands of ballots from Phoenix and its sprawling suburbs. His advantage shrank slightly, but not by as much as Republicans had hoped. In Nevada, Mr. Biden nearly doubled his lead Friday to around 20,000 votes.
While the results are still not official, political observers were becoming increasingly willing to say out loud that the contest is now over and that Biden should be considered the winner.
"Biden has won, but Trump won't concede," tweeted former labor secretary Robert Reich just before 11:00 am on Friday morning. "Since elections are officially over only when the loser concedes, this one will be going on until January 20, when Joe Biden is sworn in. Between now and then, Trump will make our lives as miserable as he can."
