North Carolina: Trump leads Biden by 1.4% but there’s still 200k mail-in ballots left to count this morning
- There is still an estimated 200,000 mail-in ballots left to count in North Carolina
- Trump currently holds a 1.4 percent lead over Joe Biden in the state with 94 percent of the votes tallied
- As of 8am EST, Trump had a 76,000 vote-lead over Biden some 12 hours after the state’s 2,600 polling booths shut on Election Day
- As long as the 200,000 mail-in ballots that are still left to count are postmarked by November 3, election officials have until November 12 to count them
- Election results were also delayed across the state after 10 polling places were kept open longer because they opened late or had technical difficulties
President Donald Trump has declared victory in North Carolina but the race is still too early to call with vote tallying still underway this morning.
There is still an estimated 200,000 mail-in ballots left to count.
Trump currently holds a 1.4 percent lead over Joe Biden in the state with 94 percent of the votes tallied.
As of 8am EST, Trump had a 76,000 vote-lead over Biden some 12 hours after the state’s 2,600 polling booths shut on Election Day.
There are 15 electoral votes at stake in North Carolina.
As long as the 200,000 mail-in ballots that are still left to count are postmarked by November 3, election officials have until November 12 to count them.
So far, Biden is outperforming Trump when it comes to mail ballots.
Of the mail-in ballots, some of those voters could have voted in person on Election Day or not voted at all.
Election results were also delayed across the state after the North Carolina State Board of Elections voted Tuesday to keep 10 polling places open beyond their initially scheduled closure because they opened late or had technical difficulties.
The extensions ranged between 17 and 45 minutes and matched the extra time it took to get them open.
The delays were at least partly due to issues with printers or other electronic equipment.
Trump, who is locked in a tight battle with Biden to secure the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency, prematurely claimed in the early hours of Wednesday that he had won the state.
Volunteers verify the contents of a ballot box at the O.P. Owens Agricultural Center before brining the information to across the Robeson County Board of Elections in Lumberton, North Carolina on Tuesday night
‘We’ve clearly won North Carolina, where we’re up 1.7 percent, 77,000 votes with only approximately 5 percent left. They can’t catch us,’ he said during an appearance at the White House.
Trump also said he planned to contest the US presidential election before the Supreme Court.
It was unclear, exactly, what legal action he might pursue.
Biden campaigned heavily in North Carolina but Trump is still leading due to support in rural and suburban counties.
Biden is trying to become the first Democratic presidential candidate to win the state since Barack Obama in 2008.
Trump beat Hillary Clinton in North Carolina by 3.6 percentage points in 2016.
The key presidential battleground also has a hotly contested US Senate race.
Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper was reelected, defeating Republican challenger Lt. Gov. Dan Forest.