Presumptive President-elect Joe Biden’s lead is growing in Pennsylvania.
A range of media outlets declared Biden to be the winner of Pennsylvania on Saturday and, by extension, the winner of the 2020 election. With over 99% of the ballots counted, Biden’s total vote count grew on Wednesday to 3,381,608 compared to President Trump’s 3,331,125, giving him a 50,483 vote lead, according to the Associated Press.
Trump has not yet conceded the race as he waits for legal challenges and recounts in battleground states to play out.
Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, said in a Fox News interview over the weekend that the Trump campaign has evidence that may flip Pennsylvania away from Biden. He claimed that Republican observers in Pittsburgh were “kept out of the room or kept away from the room” where mail-in ballots were being counted for 24 hours, adding that 135,000 ballots were counted during that period. Giuliani said that the Trump team was also looking into whether ballots were cast in the name of people who are already dead and if ballots were “backdated,” citing evidence in part from the Postal Service.
The Democratic-controlled House Oversight Committee tweeted on Tuesday that USPS worker Richard Hopkins, who signed a sworn affidavit claiming that postal supervisory officials devised a plan to backdate late ballots, told officials in the Postal Service’s inspector general’s office that he no longer stood by his claims.
Hopkins claimed in the affidavit that post office workers were directed to pick up late ballots and backdate them, which was first reported by the investigative group Project Veritas. The group’s founder James O’Keefe tweeted that Hopkins was “coerced” by agents, and video of Hopkins shows him saying he did not, in fact, recant his statements.
As of Wednesday afternoon, Biden has 290 Electoral College votes according to the Associated Press, 20 above what is needed to clinch the presidency.
