US election 2020: Biden says he has enough votes to win the presidency

'Yesterday proved democracy is the heartbeat of this nation’

Joe Biden has claimed he has enough electoral votes to win the presidency. Paying tribute to his supporters and the 150 million people who cast votes, the former vice president declared that “democracy is the heartbeat of this nation”.

In a brief but notably determined statement, delivered alongside running mate Kamala Harris, Mr Biden made it clear that he was not claiming victory.

Yet, as it emerged that both Wisconsin and Michigan — states Donald Trump won in 2016 — had been bagged by the Democrats, he said he was confident of passing the threshold of 270 electoral college votes required to win the White House.

"My fellow Americans, yesterday proved that democracy is the heartbeat of this nation, just as it has been the heartbeat of our nation for two centuries,” he said.

“More Americans voted in this election than ever before in American history — over 150 million people cast their votes. I think that's just extraordinary.”

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As the race stands, Mr Biden has 253 electoral votes, while Mr Trump has 214. The president has launched two legal challenges to stop votes being counted in Pennsylvania and Michigan, and another in Arizona.

Mr Biden said that after a long night of counting, “it’s clear that we're winning enough states to reach 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency”.

He added: “I'm not here to declare that we've won. But I am here to report that when the count is finished, we believe we will be the winners.”

Soon after Mr Biden spoke, Mr Trump tweeted: “We have claimed, for Electoral Vote purposes, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (which won’t allow legal observers) the State of Georgia, and the State of North Carolina, each one of which has a BIG Trump lead.”

At the same time, the president’s son, Eric Trump, and his sometime lawyer Rudy Giuliani held a press conference in Philadelphia to claim — with no evidence — that there had been an infraction in the counting process and that the Trump campaign was suing to stop it.

Democrats have long expected to face legal challenges from the Trump campaign, and have spent millions of dollars to prepare lawyers to respond to them.

“We have won Wisconsin by 20,000 votes, virtually the same margin President Trump won that that state four years ago,” said Mr Biden, who is making his third bid for the White House.

“In Michigan, we lead by over 35,000 votes, and it's growing – a substantially bigger margin than President Trump won Michigan in 2016. Michigan will complete its vote soon, maybe as early as today. And I feel very good about Pennsylvania.”

He added: “Virtually all remaining ballots to be counted were cast by mail. And we've been winning 78 per cent of the votes by mail in Pennsylvania. We've flipped Arizona, and the second district of Nebraska.”

Mr Biden said it was of particular pleasure to him that he had won the popular vote as well, something Mr Trump could not claim in 2016.

“Every indication is that majority will grow from a popular vote lead of nearly 3 million votes,” he said.

“Indeed, Senator Harris and I are on track to win more votes than any ticket in the history of this country.”