US Election live: Trump erupts as Biden closes in on presidency

With his re-election chances fading as more votes are counted in a handful of battleground states, USPresident Donald Trump launched an extraordinary assault on the country’s democratic process from the White House on Thursday, falsely claiming the election was being “stolen” from him.

Offering no evidence, Trump lambasted election workers and alleged fraud in the states where results from a dwindling set of uncounted votes are pushing Democrat Joe Biden nearer to victory.

“This is a case where they’re trying to steal an election,” Trump said, who spoke for about 15 minutes in the White House briefing room before leaving without taking questions.

Biden, the former vice president, was steadily eating away the Republican incumbent’s leads in Pennsylvania and Georgia even as he maintained narrow advantages in Nevada and Arizona, moving closer to securing the 270 votes in the state-by-state Electoral College that determines the winner.

Biden would become the next president by winning Pennsylvania, or by winning two out of the trio of Georgia, Nevada and Arizona. Trump’s likeliest path appeared narrower - he needed to hang onto Pennsylvania and Georgia while overtaking Biden in either Nevada or Arizona.

Final results in each state could take days. Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar said on Thursday afternoon the state still had about 350,000 ballots yet to count but expected the vast majority to be tallied by Friday.

In Georgia, Gabriel Sterling, an election official, said it would “take time” to process tens of thousands of remaining ballots. Arizona, where there were at least 400,000 ballots remaining, and Nevada, which had 190,000 uncounted votes, were also expected to take days to complete their tallies.

Should US President Donald Trump legally challenge the outcome of the US election or accept defeat gracefully?