By Mark Z. Barabak
Los Angeles Times
President Donald Trump and challenger Joe Biden battled into Tuesday night with no clear winner, as major contests remained too close to call and prospects grew that a decision in the presidential race would await an ongoing count of votes cast before Election Day.
The president asserted that Democrats were trying to steal the election and tweeted, “We will never let them do it.”
“Votes cannot be cast after the Poles are closed!” he said, misrepresenting the tallying of votes cast before Election Day. (He subsequently corrected the spelling of “polls.”)
Twitter immediately flagged Trump’s statements with a disclaimer saying it was “disputed and might be misleading” about the election.
Both candidates staked a series of victories where they were expected to prevail, as Biden claimed a lead in the popular vote. Indeed, the political map was shaping up to look a good deal as it did four years ago.
In perhaps the least surprising development of the night, the contest appeared to narrow to the three Great Lakes states — Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — that delivered the presidency to Trump in 2016. Only this time, it could take days to know the outcome.
Biden easily won California as part of a West Coast sweep and carried other Democratic strongholds, including Minnesota — which Trump narrowly lost in 2016 — as well as Biden’s home state of Delaware.
Trump once again won Florida — the campaign’s biggest battleground — and prevailed throughout most of the GOP-leaning Deep South and other Republican bastions. He also won the Republican-leaning states of Ohio and Texas, where Biden made a late play.
That left just a handful of states that will decide who claims the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the White House.
Biden was ahead in Arizona. Trump was leading in the rest: Georgia, North Carolina, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
But millions of early votes — which are likely to favor Biden — remained to be tabulated.
That was precisely the nightmare scenario many Democrats feared.
Biden addressed supporters shortly before midnight in his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware, expressing confidence he would ultimately prevail.
“Look, we feel good about where we are,” Biden said, as his wife, Jill, clapped next to him and the crowd honked their car horns in a riverfront parking lot. “We really do. I’m here to tell you tonight we believe we’re on track to win this election.
“We’re going to have to be patient until the hard work of tallying the votes is finished,” he went on. “And it ain’t over until every vote is counted — every ballot is counted. But we’re feeling good.”
Even so, for some Democrats, who recalled Trump’s upset victory over Hillary Clinton, election night had a stomach-churning familiarity. At the least, it seemed Biden won’t get the Electoral College landslide that some of his supporters had fantasized.
On Tuesday night demonstrators wandered listlessly outside the White House as it became clear the night would not deliver the thumping repudiation of Trump they had hoped for.
India Travis, 32, a hairdresser, sat on the sidewalk with a friend anxiously watching CNN on her phone.
“If Biden won, I wanted to be here and around people,” she said. Now she wasn’t so sure.
“I felt more confident in the beginning than I do now,” Travis said.
In the fight for the Senate, Democrats picked up a seat in Colorado, where former Gov. John Hickenlooper defeated freshman Republican Cory Gardner. But that gain was offset by the defeat of Democrat Doug Jones in Alabama, who lost to former Auburn University football coach Tommy Tuberville.
In Iowa, GOP Sen. Joni Ernst beat back a strong challenge.
As expected, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was reelected in Kentucky, and in South Carolina, Republican Lindsey Graham withstood a tidal wave of Democratic cash to win his fourth term.
But control of the chamber was still up for grabs with most other competitive races undecided. Democrats need a gain of three seats if Biden is elected and four if Trump wins. (The vice president casts the tie-breaking vote in the Senate.)
Democrats, meanwhile, maintained their control of the House and were poised to add seats.
Turnout nationwide was robust, reflecting the sense of urgency attending a presidential election conducted under an extraordinary shadow — a deadly pandemic, economic collapse and an emotional debate over racial justice.
Not surprisingly, those issues surfaced as the main guide to voter preferences, according to exit polls conducted for a consortium of television networks.
About a third of those surveyed cited the economy as the most important issue guiding their vote for president, and they overwhelmingly backed Trump. Just about 2 in 10 cited racial inequality, and they overwhelmingly supported Biden.
Slightly fewer, just under 20% of those surveyed, said the pandemic guided their choice, and they too backed Biden by a lopsided margin.
Opinions regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, which overarched the campaign, served as a kind of Rorschach test that reflected the country’s deep polarization.
Trump minimized the virus and scoffed at safety measures, such as wearing a face covering in public, even after being hospitalized last month with COVID. He said it was far more important to rally the economy, even if it meant a greater spread of the virus.
Biden modeled caution — he pulled off a mask before speaking Tuesday night — and followed health guidelines as he traveled the country, turning Trump’s attitude into a central focus of his campaign.
The divisions were stark: More than 4 in 5 Biden voters said efforts to fight the pandemic were going badly, while only 1 in 10 Trump supporters felt that way.
Despite widespread fears of election-related violence, the voting Tuesday was mostly peaceful.
Scattered reports showed some incidents of targeted misinformation and other mischief aimed at keeping voters from the polls, but those did nothing to dampen enthusiasm on a day many had circled in red ink.
Total voter turnout is expected to surpass records in many states and perhaps nationwide. Even before the polls opened Tuesday, more than 100 million Americans had cast their ballots in person or by mail, a measure of the enthusiasm on both sides and precautions some took to avoid the risk of COVID-19.
To ensure every one of those votes is counted, a federal judge ordered the U.S. Postal Service to sweep its facilities for outstanding ballots and rush the delivery of any that were found. Postal Service officials said they lacked the personnel to fully comply.
Voters were waiting outside polling places nationwide even before the sun rose; the lines they formed could be measured in terms of football fields or city blocks.
Sisters Rubria Toscano, 74, and Martha Melcher, 67, waited three hours at a community center in Henderson, Nevada, just outside Las Vegas, to cast their ballots for Trump.
“We voted, we used our voices,” said Melcher, who wore a bright red fedora, on which she proudly placed an “I Voted” sticker.
Kamaria Brooks, 40, waited months until she felt it was safe to fly home from Houston, where she has sheltered during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Biden voter went straight from John Wayne Airport to her polling place in Irvine, California.
“I refused to miss today. I need my voice to be heard,” said Brooks, who was clad head to toe in Black Lives Matter regalia. “There’s a lot of stuff that impacts me and my community.”
While the vote count was creating drama, the balloting proved far more peaceable than some had feared.
Misdirection and misinformation occur every election. There was heightened concern this time, owing to Russia’s interference in the 2016 election and efforts by Trump to undermine confidence in the balloting by, among other things, making false claims about voter fraud and the illegitimacy of mail-in ballots.
But for all the worries over armed intimidation, marauding militias and other threats of Election Day violence, law enforcement officers and vote monitors reported nothing extreme or out of the ordinary.
(Times staff writers Stephanie Lai in Irvine, California; Melanie Mason in Wilmington, Delaware; Chris Megerian in Washington; Brittny Mejia in Las Vegas, Michael Finnegan in Philadelphia and Matt Pearce in Los Angeles contributed to this report.)
