Washington correspondent
The most dangerous scenario has started to unfold.
On Wednesday morning, the United States woke up with no clear election winner, but with provisional results that put Joe Biden the advantage.
Almost 24 hours after the polls closed on Tuesday evening, ballot counts in seven disputed states continued through the day on Wednesday.
The numbers are slowly but inexorably added up in favor of the Democratic candidate.
At the end of the day, with his victory assured in Wisconsin, and likely in Arizona and Michigan, the candidate was close to the 270 electorate voters needed to be proclaimed the winner of one of the most contested elections in recent history. the United States.
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Follow our LIVE - US Presidential: Biden given winner in Wisconsin, Trump wants to recount votes
Late in the afternoon, when his lead became such that his victory was no longer in doubt, Joe Biden said he expected to win the White House, refraining from claiming victory prematurely.
“I'm going to rule as US president,”
Biden said.
“There will be no Red States and Blue States when we win.
Just the United States of America ”.
The rise of Joe Biden, who could become the US candidate elected with the most votes, is the latest twist in a hard-fought campaign.
Carried out in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic and in a tense climate, the American presidential election was incredibly disputed to the end.
President Trump has already started challenging the fairness of the vote.
As he has been suggesting for several months already, he accused the Democrats of massive fraud.
On the night of Tuesday to Wednesday, after an evening where the first results were much more favorable than all estimates, before balancing over the counts, Donald Trump made a speech heavy with threats.
From the eastern wing of the White House, alongside his wife, Vice President Mike Pence and his wife, Trump spoke in a low voice, announcing his victory over Joe Biden and accusing Democrats of rob him of the election.
“
We were winning and we had to put it all on hold,
” Trump said.
“
Such a vote, such a success, the citizens voted in a record fashion to support us.
We won states we weren't even supposed to win: Florida, Ohio… They couldn't catch us… We had such a great night.
And all of a sudden, everything stopped….
It is massive fraud, it is a shame for our country.
We were on the verge of winning this election,
”continued the president.
“
We are going to go to the Supreme Court to stop everything.
We don't want them to add newsletters at the last minute.
It is a very sad moment.
As far as I'm concerned, we have won
”.
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In the morning, Trump again accused his opponents of robbing him of victory, in several messages on his Twitter account:
“Last night I was in the lead, often with a solid lead in many key states, in almost all of them. cases run and controlled by Democrats.
Then, one by one, they began to magically disappear, as surprise ballots were counted.
VERY STRANGE, ”
Trump wrote.
“They're finding voices for Biden everywhere - in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan. It's sad for our country! ” “They're doing their best to get rid of my 500,000-vote lead in Pennsylvania as quickly as possible. The same in Michigan and elsewhere! ”
The Democrats will try to steal this election.
The President needs your help!
We can't let far-left rioters sabotage our election
Donald Trump campaign
But Donald Trump has not yet conceded his defeat.
After posting messages on Twitter accusing
Democrats
of
"massive fraud"
, Trump launched legal proceedings to challenge the counts made in Pennsylvania and Michigan.
Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump's personal lawyer, accused Democrats of fraud in a press conference in Philadelphje.
“We have filed appeals.
Our observers are forced to stand several meters away and cannot verify the validity of postmarks or the regularity of signatures, ”
Giuliani said.
“It makes it easy to add 50,000 false ballots.
We went before a Democratic judge and I'll let you guess what his decision was ”.
Trump's campaign is demanding a temporary halt in the counting of votes in both states until their observers are allowed to witness the counting operations, and to examine the ballots already counted.
Trump's inflammatory strategy has made many big names in the President's Republican Party cringe.
Thus, Chris Christie, former governor of New Jersey and close to Trump, judged that it is "
a bad strategic decision, a bad political decision
".
"
This is not the kind of decision that we expected tonight from someone in his position
."
“I was distressed because I just heard the president say
,
”
said Rick Santorum, another figure in the GOP.
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If the strength of the Republican vote was a bitter surprise for the Democrats, and proved wrong to almost all the surveys, polls and forecasts, the counting times were on the other hand expected.
The Covid epidemic had led most states to put in place or relax provisions to allow advance or postal voting.
Some, like Florida or Texas had planned to start counting these ballots before voting day, to be able to have a result on election night.
Others, like Michigan or Pennsylvania, only allowed counting to begin on polling day, causing additional delays.
The extremely high participation considerably increased the number of ballots to be processed and consequently these delays.
The responsibility for this count, like that of organizing the election, depends on each state.
The officials of the states still in the process of counting the ballots have multiplied the reassuring interventions.
We still have between two and three million ballots to count, but it was predictable
Kathy Boockvar, Secretary of State for Pennsylvania
"
It takes time because we count each ballot,
" Jocelyn Benson, Michigan Secretary of State, warned Wednesday morning.
She also recalled that the state legislature, with a Republican majority, was opposed to starting in advance the counting of the anticipated ballots.
“
For 18 months, we have tried to change our rules to be able to process them in advance,
” she explained, “
but our assembly decided otherwise.
That's why it takes time
”.
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Pennsylvania may take even longer to publish these results.
The state plans to take into account bulletins sent before Tuesday but which could still arrive in the coming days.
"
We still have between two and three million ballots to count, but it was predictable,
" warned Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar.
"
I ask everyone to be patient, we will count each ballot,
" she said, promising that the majority of ballots would be counted on Friday, although "
we will have to wait until next week to have all taken into account. the votes
”.
But political time is in danger of running out.
In the volatile climate of an extremely polarized America, these delays have already brought the country into a period of dangerous uncertainty.
As the atmosphere of the past few months has led to fear, the United States has found itself deeply divided between two camps, each of which fears that the adversary will maintain or seize power illegally.
The precedent of the 2000 election, when tight results in Florida led to a recount of ballots in some counties and plunged the United States into weeks of uncertainty, are remembered.
An institutional crisis had been avoided by the intervention of the Supreme Court, and the Democratic candidate, Al Gore, had conceded the victory to his Republican opponent, George W Bush.
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But twenty years later, the climate is much more worrying, and no camp seems inclined to the slightest concession.
The lead that seemed to crystallize on Wednesday in favor of Joe Biden, who won 248 voters in the middle of the day, bringing him closer to victory, could place the country in a perilous situation: a Democratic candidate elected in number of votes, facing a Republican president who refuses to concede defeat, and ready to challenge the result by all means.
Trump has multiplied statements in recent months that point to his intentions.
Asked several times whether he would agree to acknowledge a possible defeat and lend himself to a peaceful transfer of power, the president had avoided giving a clear answer, except on one occasion.
Throughout the campaign he repeated warnings of massive fraud by the Democrats, "
the only way they can win
."
And against the danger represented by far-left activists, presenting Joe Biden as the candidate of the rioters and arsonists.
Trump has also been very reluctant to distance himself from armed groups, which have stepped up public demonstrations in recent months, notably to protest against measures intended to stem the Covid-19 epidemic.
During the last televised debate with Joe Biden, Trump sent an ambiguous message to the Proud Boys, a far-right armed organization with a presence in many states: "
Stand aside, but be ready.
".