PHILADELPHIA — All the votes may not have been counted, but the mayor has seen enough.
At a Friday news conference, Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney, a Democrat, attacked President Trump’s accusations of election fraud in the city and said he “needs to … frankly, put his big boy pants on.”
“He needs to acknowledge the fact that he lost, and he needs to congratulate the winner,” Kenney said.
Thousands of ballots remain to be counted in Philadelphia, and Kenney’s statement suggests to election workers that the count no longer matters and the result is a done deal, even as Trump vows to challenge it.
Officials in the state have yet to give a definitive timeline of when they expect the process to conclude. The president’s campaign has filed several lawsuits asking for a pause to the count, alleging “irregularities” by poll workers.
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Kenney went on to say that the ballot voting process in the city is operating smoothly and asked the public to remain patient.
“What we have seen here in Philadelphia is democracy, pure and simple,” he said.
Other city officials, such as City Commissioner Omar Sabir, defended the integrity of the vote-counting process and pushed back against allegations of fraud.
“Ignore a lot of the noise that’s going on,” he said after the mayor’s remarks. “Allow us to complete the counting process.”
“From the beginning, we have said that all legal ballots must be counted and all illegal ballots should not be counted, yet we have met resistance to this basic principle by Democrats at every turn,” Trump said in a statement Friday. “We will pursue this process through every aspect of the law to guarantee that the American people have confidence in our government. I will never give up fighting for you and our nation.”
As of Friday afternoon, former Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden held a 5,500-vote lead over Trump in Pennsylvania.
