Joe Biden Overtakes Donald Trump To Lead Pennsylvania By Under 7,000 Votes
Democratic nominee Joe Biden pulled ahead of President Donald Trump in Pennsylvania on Friday, making his chances at taking the Oval Office a step closer to reality.
As vote tallies continue to trickle in from Pennsylvania, as CBS News reported, the former vice president took the lead in the important battleground state, which carries with it 20 electoral votes.
As of Friday morning and 95 percent of the numbers counted, The New York Times shows that Biden leads Trump with 3,297,591 votes to 3,290,774, which is 49.4 percent for the Democrat and 49.3 for the incumbent.
Despite the steady climb — Biden once trailed by over a million votes — the state has still not been called one way or the other and likely won’t be until more of the ballots are tallied. Still, the momentum appears to be on Biden’s side, as many of the ballots still to be tabulated are expected to be cast by Democrats.
Experts expected Pennsylvania to break early on for Trump as in-person ballots were cast, but as the mail-in numbers were counted, they believed the state would gradually shift blue. Because of concerns with in-person voting during the pandemic, many Democrats opted to use the remote option. Trump also encouraged his voters to appear in person after spreading concerns about fraud with mail-in voting, which experts claim is unfounded.
Earlier in the week, Trump “claimed” the state in a tweet, as The Inquisitr previously reported.
“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,” he wrote.
Twitter put a label on the tweet to warn viewers that the states hadn’t been called for either candidate at that point.
In reaction to his narrowing lead in Pennsylvania, Trump fired off a tweet criticizing the integrity of the process.
“‘Philadelpiha [sic] has got a rotten history on election integrity.’ @Varneyco @FoxBusiness,” he quoted.
The message echoes many of his in recent days accusing the election of being riddled with fraud, though experts say that there is no evidence to support the claim.
Biden also managed to swing both Michigan and Wisconsin, two other states that went for Trump in 2016. Those races were called on Wednesday, putting the former VP within close range of nabbing the 270 electoral votes needed to claim victory.
Additionally, he has taken the edge in Georgia by a slim margin.