Election updates: Biden takes Michigan, putting him one swing state away from victory
Savannah BehrmannUSA TODAY'S coverage of the 2020 election continues as states work to finish counting the ballots. Be sure to refresh this page often to get the latest information on how things are going.
USA TODAY will have live election results.
Democrats keep a key Senate seat
First-term Democratic Sen. Gary Peters fended off a challenge from Republican John James, according to Fox News and NBC. The projection is good news for Democrats still attempting an increasingly narrow path to taking the Senate majority.
“I am sincerely honored that the voters of Michigan have once again put their trust and confidence in me to represent them in the United States Senate,” Peters said in a statement. “As we look ahead, I am energized to keep working to move our state forward and continue putting Michigan first.”
Prep for the polls: See who is running for president and compare where they stand on key issues in our Voter Guide
Michigan had been a key target of both parties but Biden ended up scoring the state after Trump won by a slim margin in 2016.
The win means Democrats will still need at least two more wins if Biden takes the White House, three more wins if Trump wins. They still have a chance to take seats in Alaska, North Carolina and two chances in Georgia, which has been solidly red for about two decades. One of the races in Georgia will go to a runoff while the others have been too close to call.
Biden poised to capture 270 electoral votes
Democrat Joe Biden is one state away Wednesday from capturing the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidential race, a dramatic demonstration of how rapidly the landscape of the contest changed in 24 hours.
Though Biden did not secure the quick and decisive outcome some in the party had hoped for, he has edged closer to a result that many observers had predicted: A deficit on Election Day in battleground states that was slowly erased and turned into narrow leads when the crush of absentee ballots were counted.
Biden won both Wisconsin and Michigan on Wednesday, huge electoral prizes that represented the partial rebuilding of the "blue wall" of Democratic-leaning states that collapsed around Hillary Clinton in 2016.
The wins there left Biden standing at 264 electoral votes — just six shy of the needed 270.
The results meant that President Donald Trump has to capture all of the outstanding states, hope that the projections of a Biden win in Arizona were wrong or find a legal strategy.
Biden's wins on Wednesday shifted the focus to the Southwest, specifically Nevada and Arizona. Biden has, as of 7 pm EDT, an extremely slim lead in Nevada, which was too close to call throughout Wednesday. Election officials there said they did not expect to report additional results there until Thursday.
Arizona, meanwhile, has become a rallying cry for Trump's team. Aides to the president have argued that the state was projected for Biden too early — that outstanding ballots would benefit Trump. State officials there were set to release new vote counts late Wednesday and into Thursday morning.
Pennsylvania remains a must-win for Trump, but mail-in ballots that make up the remaining votes are expected to continue heavily favor Biden and could give him an edge to carry the Keystone State. Counting in that state will continue Thursday.
The count from Alaska is outstanding, though the state is a heavy favored to go to Trump.
Biden could also secure the presidency if he carries Georgia or North Carolina. Trump had leads in both of those states late Wednesday.
—John Fritze and Joey Garrison
Conservative group to PA: Count every vote
As President Donald Trump tried to stop votes from being counted in Pennsylvania and Michigan, a conservative group that opposes Trump launched a billboard advertising campaign opposing the effort.
The more than 100 billboards across the state paid for by Republicans for the Rule of Law read: “Count Every Vote.”
"This is Civics 101," said Sarah Longwell, the group’s strategic director. “First the candidates make their cases to the people and ask for their votes. Then the people vote. Then the votes are counted to determine who won the election. It has worked for over 200 years, and there’s no reason to change it now."
The Trump campaign filed suit in Pennsylvania Wednesday to temporarily halt vote counting "until there is meaningful transparency and Republicans can ensure all counting is done above board and by the law."
— Maureen Groppe
Trump camp files with Supreme Court to overturn counting mail-in ballots received by Nov. 6 in Pennsylvania
President Donald Trump’s campaign on Wednesday filed a request with the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene and overturn a Pennsylvania state Supreme Court ruling allowing election officials to count mail-in ballots received up to three days after the election.
The U.S. Supreme Court had let the deadline stand in a ruling last week but left the door open to hearing a challenge if the state proved to be pivotal in the election.
“That time has come,” the Trump campaign filing Wednesday says. “Given last night’s results, the vote in Pennsylvania may well determine the next President of the United States.”
Ballots received after the polls closed Tuesday were to be segregated from those received earlier to allow for court challenges.
The case was initially filed by the Republican Party of Pennsylvania and the Trump campaign is now seeking to intervene in the case in its application to the nation’s highest court.
The justices has already refused to decide in Republicans’ favor twice. But Associate Justice Samuel Alito, writing for himself and Associate Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, said there had not been enough time at that point to hear and decide the challenge.
Pennsylvania officials on Wednesday defended the state's ballot-counting process. “Pennsylvania is going to count every vote and make sure that everyone has their voice heard," Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, said in a statement. "Pennsylvania is going to fight every single attempt to disenfranchise voters and continue to administer a free and fair election. Our election officials at the state and local level should be free to do their jobs without intimidation or attacks. These attempts to subvert the democratic process are disgraceful.”
— Donovan Slack, USA TODAY, and Crissa Shoemaker DeBree, Bucks County Courier Times, USA TODAY Network
Biden wins Michigan
Joe Biden has taken Michigan, perhaps the state he most needed to take back from President Donald Trump in his bid to become the nation’s 46th president.
Biden overcame a hefty Trump lead on Wednesday in the “blue wall” state, which along with Pennsylvania and Wisconsin had crumbled in 2016, as more absentee ballots were counted.
Well more than 5 million ballots were cast in the state, a record that surpassed the 2008 vote won by President Barack Obama. More than 60% of the votes were cast by absentee ballot.
Turnout in Detroit topped 50%, the highest in two decades.
About 28,000 voters took advantage of same-day voter registration, which was offered in Michigan for the first time in a presidential election.
Four years ago, Michigan was Trump’s narrowest win over Hillary Rodham Clinton, with a margin of less than 1 percentage point. He was the first Republican presidential nominee to carry the state since 1988.
Trump tried to repeat his upset in part by holding his final campaign rally in Grand Rapids, just as he had four years ago.
“This is a poll,” Trump said in reference to supporters who stayed past midnight to see him there Monday night. “This is not the crowd of somebody who’s going to lose this state.”
But Trump wasn’t the last national candidate in the state. Democratic vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris spent part of Tuesday in Detroit, where Biden had campaigned with former President Barack Obama on Saturday.
Biden reminded voters that the Obama administration rescued the automobile industry with government investment after the 2008 recession. By contrast this year, the number of manufacturing jobs in Michigan was down before the pandemic, and unemployment remains stubbornly high.
The pandemic and economic crisis were important issues in Michigan, where thousands have protested Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s ordered restrictions to curb the virus. Trump openly fought with Whitmer over the pandemic and downplayed the threat she faced from an extremist group's plot to kidnap her. Whitmer accused Trump of "stoking distrust and fomenting anger.”
— Maureen Groppe
Biden: ‘We will be the winners’
Democratic nominee Joe Biden said Wednesday he expects to win enough states to win the White House, but he wouldn’t declare victory yet.
“I’m not here to declare that we’ve won,” Biden told reporters at the Chase Center in Wilmington accompanied by his running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris. “But I am here to report that when the count is finished, we believe we will be the winners.”
While votes are still being counted, Biden cited a 20,000 vote margin in Wisconsin and a 35,000 vote margin in Michigan, which he said were the same or larger than President Donald Trump won those states in 2016.
“I feel very good about Pennsylvania,” the Scranton native said because the remaining votes are absentee, which he’s been winning by 78%.
— Bart Jansen
Biden wins Wisconsin
Democratic nominee Joe Biden has won the state of Wisconsin, a key “blue wall” state that had crushed Hillary Rodham Clinton’s hopes in 2016.
Biden’s win in Wisconsin, which came a day after polls closed and as absentee ballots from the Democrat-heavy city of Milwaukee poured in, represented a major shift in the tight race toward 270 Electoral College votes between Biden and President Donald Trump, widening the former vice president's already growing path to the White House.
Biden overtook Trump Wednesday when Milwaukee reported its roughly 170,000 outstanding absentee votes, which were overwhelmingly Democratic. Late returns from Green Bay and Kenosha only added to his slender lead. The state, with 10 Electoral College votes, had long been considered a top tier battleground with the potential to give huge momentum to Biden or Trump.
If Biden also captures Michigan and keeps his lead in Nevada, it will allow him to secure the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House even if he loses Pennsylvania, where votes were still being counted in a close contest.
In a closing crescendo of campaign travel, Trump made five trips to Wisconsin in the final month of the race amid a surging of coronavirus cases. His last stop, in Kenosha, came the day before the election.
Biden made his only October visit to the state on the Friday before the election. He outspent Trump heavily in the home stretch on TV in Milwaukee and Green Bay, the most important media markets.
Turnout in the state topped 3.2 million – the most votes ever cast in a Wisconsin election. At least 71% of the state's voting-age adults cast ballots – the highest turnout rate ever after the 2004 election.
In the end, the result was much tighter than polling had predicted. For much of Wednesday morning, Biden led by a mere 20,000 votes, close to Trump’s winning margin in 2016. Polling conducted before the election had regularly shown Biden with a near double digit lead in the state.
It was the fourth time in six presidential elections that Wisconsin was decided by less than a percentage point, and the sixth time in eight presidential races that the winner failed to reach 50%.
Wisconsin was not only at the epicenter of the presidential race. It was also at the center of the two national crises that shaped the campaign's final months: the pandemic, and the clash over policing and protest. Its coronavirus caseload rose faster than any other top battleground.
Democrats were devastated by the loss there in 2016, marking the first time a Republican presidential candidate carried the state since Ronald Reagan in 1984. Trump mercilessly mocked Clinton for not campaigning frequently enough there, suggesting she had taken it for granted at her peril.
– Craig Gilbert and John Fritze
Trump campaign says it filed lawsuit in Michigan to 'halt counting'
President Donald Trump's campaign said Wednesday it filed a lawsuit in a Michigan state court to "halt counting" ballots in the state until the Republicans could gain access to the tallying process.
The lawsuit, which the campaign did not immediately make available for review, appears to be one of the first filed in the wake of tight contests in several battleground states.
"We have filed suit today in the Michigan Court of Claims to halt counting until meaningful access has been granted," Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien said in a statement. "We also demand to review those ballots which were opened and counted while we did not have meaningful access."
The prospects of the lawsuit are not known.
– John Fritze and David Jackson
Who turned out for Trump? Similar to 2016 but ...
Based on early election results, county demographic data largely reflects – and even intensifies – trends from Trump’s election four years ago. Trump solidified his dominance in the poorest and least educated counties while losing ground in highly educated and high income areas.
With several swing states still counting ballots, Democratic nominee Joe Biden leads the popular vote and remains ahead in electoral college votes as well. Data analyzed by USA TODAY offers insights into how various groups voted beyond information from exit polling, like the Associated Press’ VoteCast exit survey of voters.
Biden so far has fared better than 2016 Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in the top 300 counties with residents with a bachelor’s degree or higher, claiming 12% more of those counties and nearly 1 million more votes – receiving 60% of the vote in all.
Trump won the bottom 300 counties for education in each election, this year increasing his reach there to 71% of votes, up from 68%.
Even with economics top of mind for many Americans, voting results based on income and employment status followed similar trends to 2016.
The top 10% of counties by median income moved away from Trump. Four years ago, he won nearly two-thirds of them compared to 57% of those counties thus far in 2020. The counties with the lowest incomes, meanwhile, moved in his favor by 3 percentage points.
Some aspects bucked what might have been expected fallout from the coronavirus among those most affected.
Counties with the highest unemployment rates in August cast nearly 40% of their votes for Trump, an increase of 3 percentage points compared to 2016. Trump also increased his support in counties with the greatest percentage of workers in service jobs, a group particularly hard hit by the coronavirus pandemic. He earned about 47% of votes in those counties, six points more than his share four years ago.
In one outlier, Trump fared better in the most diverse counties than he did in 2016. Trump was in the lead in about a third of the counties with the most people of color. He won 29% of those counties in 2016.
– Rachel Axon and Dan Keemahill
Maine Sen. Susan Collins defeats Gideon
Maine Sen. Susan Collins has been reelected. Democratic challenger Sara Gideon conceded Wednesday afternoon, acknowledging that she lost a hard-fought and closely watched contest to the Republican incumbent.
Democrats had hoped a win by Gideon would help them gain a majority in the Senate, but the race in Maine was among several disappointments for the Democrats nationwide.
Gideon said during a livestream at 1:30 p.m. that she called Collins to concede.
"I congratulated her on winning this election, and I told her I will always be available to help serve the people of Maine," Gideon said. "Ultimately, that's why I entered this race. And it's why I got involved in public service in the first place."
– Steven Porter (Portsmouth Herald)
North Carolina Senate race remains uncalled
Trailing by 96,707 votes in unofficial returns out of nearly 5.42 million ballots, Democrat Cal Cunningham on Wednesday afternoon has not conceded the election for U.S. Senate against incumbent Republican Sen. Thom Tillis.
“The State Board of Elections is continuing to count ballots, and we plan to allow that process to be carried out, so every voter can have their voice heard,” said Cunningham Campaign Manager Devan Barber.
Tillis declared victory in a speech to supporters late Tuesday, and his campaign issued a statement Wednesday afternoon reasserting that he won.
“Tillis’ victory proved pollsters, pundits and the media wrong, as North Carolinians once again chose a problem-solver who keeps his promises and delivers results,” the statement says.
As of late Tuesday, the North Carolina State Board of Elections said there were around 117,000 absentee ballots remaining that had been sent to voters but not returned. It’s unknown how many of these will be returned and how many were marked for Cunningham or for Tillis. There were also two minor party candidates in the Senate race.
For these absentee ballots to be counted, voters had to put them in the mail no later than Tuesday, plus had them postmarked Tuesday. The ballots must arrive at county election offices no later than 5 p.m. Nov. 12.
Democrats need to gain three more seats to take a majority in the Senate, if Biden wins the White House, and four seats if Trump retains it. So the outcome here for either party is crucial.
— Paul Woolverton, Fayetteville Observer
Maine divides votes: 3 for Biden, 1 for Trump
Democratic nominee Joe Biden was projected to win Maine, but not the state’s competitive 2nd Congressional District where President Donald Trump campaigned repeatedly.
Maine is one of two states, along with Nebraska, that divides its electoral college votes. Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District supported Biden, while the rest of the state backed Trump.
Maine’s 2nd District, the largest district east of the Mississippi, covers most of the state geographically outside of the more Democratic areas of Portland and Augusta. Trump won the district in 2016, marking the first time in history that the state split its electoral votes.
Trump campaigned in Bangor and invited a lobsterman to speak at the Republican National Convention. He promoted reopening a stretch of the Atlantic Ocean off New England to lobster fishing, after the area had been closed under the Obama administration while Biden was vice president.
Trump also made a quick stop to visit an orchard in Bangor in late October.
But Maine as a state has supported Democratic presidential candidates since 1992. Biden enjoyed support for his proposals to strengthen requirements for the federal government to buy products manufactured in America.
– Bart Jansen
Trump campaign vows to request Wisconsin recount
President Donald Trump’s campaign vowed Wednesday to request a recount in Wisconsin, one of the nation’s most closely watched battleground states, before either candidate was projected to win its 10 electoral votes. Biden was holding a slight lead in the state.
“Wisconsin has been a razor thin race as we always knew that it would be,” said Bill Stepien, Trump’s campaign manager. “The president is well within the threshold to request a recount and we will immediately do so.”
Though the state was too close to call, Democrat Joe Biden appeared to erase Trump’s lead in early returns and was ahead by a slim margin by Wednesday morning.
A Biden win in Wisconsin, should it happen, would represent a major break in the race toward 270 Electoral College votes in his favor, substantially widening his path to the presidency.
Biden overtook Trump in early returns as Milwaukee reported its roughly 170,000 outstanding absentee votes, which were overwhelmingly Democratic. Late returns from Green Bay and Kenosha only added to his slender lead.
Democrats were devastated by the loss there in 2016, marking the first time a Republican presidential candidate carried the state since Ronald Reagan in 1984.
A candidate in Wisconsin may request a recount if they trail by no more than 1% of the total votes cast for the office. Who pays for the recount depends on the closeness of the final results.
– John Fritze
Trump attacks vote counting – but GOP blocked changes
As votes are counted in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, President Donald Trump tweeted criticisms about the time it's taken to count ballots – without noting that Republican legislators contributed to the long counts in those same states.
"They are finding Biden votes all over the place — in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan. So bad for our Country!" Trump tweeted mid-day Wednesday.
Biden has benefitted from counts of absentee and mail-in ballots. Democrats organized mail-in voting campaigns to appeal to people who worried about going to the polls in person because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Election officials in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin wanted to start counting these ballots earlier. But GOP-run legislatures in those states blocked changes that, as in other states, would have allowed earlier preparations to count these votes.
Twitter flagged another Trump tweet in which he claimed officials in Pennsylvania were trying to make a 500,000-vote advantage "disappear."
Content in the tweet "is disputed and might be misleading about an election or other civic process," Twitter said in a note attached to Trump's post.
– David Jackson
Georgia expects to finish counting 250,000 votes today in tight race
Election officials in Georgia, which President Donald Trump currently leads Democrat Joe Biden narrowly by around 87,000 votes, expects to finish counting around 250,000 votes by the end of the day Wednesday.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, told reporters about 200,000 absentee ballots remain uncounted in the state. He said there are also about 40,000 to 50,000 in-person early votes to be counted.
“Every legal vote in Georgia will count,” he said.
Most of the outstanding ballots appear to be in counties in and around Democrat-heavy Atlanta, which is likely to favor Biden, as well as Savannah. The former vice president has also held a major advantage with absentee voters nationally including in Georgia.
– Joey Garrison
Mitch McConnell: GOP needs to do better
After Republicans outperformed expectations Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell nonetheless said he’s “disturbed” by some GOP deficiencies that need to be addressed.
Democrats, who outraised many GOP Senate incumbents, do a much better job at harvesting small-dollar donations through the internet, said McConnell – who was outraised in his own, successful, reelection bid.
And Republicans need to win back the suburbs and improve their standing with college educated voters and with women, the Kentucky Republican emphasized.
“I’m disturbed by the loss of support in the suburbs,” he said. “We had, overall, I think a better election than most people thought we were going to have, across the country. But, yeah, we have improvement we need to make.”
McConnell, though, praised President Donald Trump for turning the presidential contest into a cliffhanger when “everybody was writing him off.”
“It was an extraordinary campaign,” he said. “I think it also helped us in our Senate races. With the exception of Maine, the places where we have the best chance of winning are the places where it looks like he won.”
McConnell said it’s possible enough of the outstanding Senate races could be called Wednesday to determine whether he becomes the minority leader or stays in the majority.
“I’ve been both. Majority’s better,” he said.
– Maureen Groppe
Mitch McConnell: Not unusual that Trump claimed victory
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., dismissed concerns Wednesday about President Donald Trump’s false claims that he won the election and the Supreme Court should get involved.
“It’s not unusual for people to claim they won the election,” McConnell told reporters in Kentucky. “But claiming you’ve won the election is different from finishing the counting.”
McConnell said he’s not troubled by Trump’s reference to a legal challenge because, in close elections, both sides lawyer up.
“I don't think the president should be criticized for suggesting he may have some lawyers because the other guys are certainly already doing that,” he said.
In early morning remarks at the White House, Trump cast doubt on the validity of ballots cast by mail because of the pandemic and said he would be going to the Supreme Court because “we want all voting to stop.”
Some Republicans have pushed back on Trump's unfounded claims of fraud and threats of litigation.
McConnell praised the “beauty of the Electoral College,” saying it’s a useful system during close elections like this one. The Electoral College guarantees that you have finality in each state, he said.
“We ought to be grateful for the Electoral College,” he said, “in a close election like this.”
– Maureen Groppe
Biden campaign officials contend he's on track to win Electoral College
Campaign officials for former Vice President Joe Biden argued Wednesday that the former vice president is on a path to accumulate the Electoral College votes in competitive states to win the election against President Donald Trump, but that they would fight for every vote to be counted.
"Joe Biden is on track to win this election, and he will be the next president of the United States," said Biden campaign manager Jennifer O’Malley Dillon.
“We expect that at some point later today that the vice president will address the American people,” she told reporters in a conference call. “We’re speaking clearly on the data in the states.”
When asked why the race was so close, O’Malley Dillon said: “They’re swing states for a reason.”
“We are going to win Wisconsin, recount or no recount,” she said, citing the prospect that a candidate could request a recount if the margin is within 1%. “We are very confident Wisconsin is ours.”
Bob Bauer, an expert in election law who is advising the Biden campaign, said Trump and the Republican Party tried repeatedly to halt voting in the days leading up to the end of voting Tuesday, but were rejected in state and federal courts. Bauer said Trump would also lose if he reached the Supreme Court.
“These specious claims were rejected by court after court,” Bauer said. “He will be in for one of the most embarrassing defeats any president has suffered before the highest court in the land.”
Trump's court claims complained about guidance given to election officials, about the use of drop boxes, in-person absentee voting and the length of lines, Bauer said. But he said it’s impossible to imagine the Supreme Court supporting any of the claims.
“It’s impossible to imagine it will have any merit,” Bauer said. “We’re winning the election, we’ve won the election.”
– Bart Jansen
GOP statehouse majorities hold off flips ahead of redistricting
Democrats who hoped to gain statehouse control in some key battleground states came up short of their goals on Election Day, as redistricting of state and federal voting districts looms in the new year.
Overshadowed by the attention to national politics in the lead-up to the election, Democrats had methodically targeted seat pickup opportunities in several legislative chambers to flip party control in Arizona, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Texas.
While some statehouse seats are still being tallied, Republicans held onto control of many of those places, notably in North Carolina’s state House and Senate. Texas, considered one of the biggest flip opportunities, also stayed red. Republicans likely will hold key voting majorities in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan ahead of reapportionment next year.
Tallies by the National Conference on State Legislatures, a bipartisan group, said as of Wednesday morning, it appeared to be the fewest party control changes since 1944, when only four chambers changed hands, calling it “remarkably status quo.”
Majority party control in many states will play a crucial role in the once-in-a-decade redrawing of Congressional maps based on the new Census. Redistricting has become an increasingly political process, where critics say both parties seek to chop up the map to favor their party or to dilute the voting power of racial or ethnic minorities.
About 6,000 state legislative seats out of the nation’s 7,383 were up for grabs on Tuesday. Republicans have held a majority of state control since the 2010 election, when 13 chambers switched to majority GOP. Going into Tuesday night, Republicans had controlled 59 of 99 state legislative chambers.
– Nick Penzenstadler
Biden campaign: Election 'moving to a conclusion in our favor'
The Joe Biden campaign is bullish about its chances to reach 270 electoral votes to claim victory in the race for president as the counting of mail-in ballots continues in several battleground states.
“This is moving to a conclusion – and moving to a conclusion in our favor,” a campaign official told USA TODAY on Wednesday morning.
In Wisconsin, the official said the Biden campaign is “confident we have won” and expects it to be called later Wednesday morning.
In Michigan, the Biden campaign believes it has built an “insurmountable” lead, the official said, with the mail-ballots still to be counted expected to favor Biden. The campaign believes the race in Michigan will be called by midday Wednesday.
The aide said they feel “confident” about Pennsylvania, with votes from hundreds of thousands of mail-ballots in Philadelphia to be released either tonight or tomorrow.
The campaign expects vote counts in Georgia to conclude by the afternoon Wednesday and for Nevada to be called Thursday.
If Biden wins Nevada, Wisconsin and Michigan, it would put the former vice president at exactly 270 electoral votes regardless of what happens in Georgia or Pennsylvania.
– Joey Garrison
Biden takes slight lead in Michigan
If vote-counting trends hold, Michigan is offering a vivid illustration of the blue wave.
Shortly after midnight, President Donald Trump had a big lead with 54% of the vote. Shortly after 9 a.m. EST, Democrat Joe Biden took the lead by 12,000 votes.
And there were still hundreds of thousands of ballots to count – most of them absentee, which tend to favor Democrats.
Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said final results are likely by Wednesday night.
At least 5.26 million ballots were cast overall, a record that surpassed the 2008 vote, when Barack Obama won the state. More than 60% of the votes were cast by absentee ballot.
Turnout in heavily Democratic Detroit was expected to be close to 55%, the highest in two decades.
About 28,000 voters took advantage of same-day voter registration, which was offered in Michigan for the first time in a presidential election.
– Richard Wolf
What's going on in Pennsylvania?
Pennsylvania's 20 electoral votes are poised to play a decisive role in a close presidential race. Trump needs them.
Republican President Donald Trump is leading Democratic challenger Joe Biden 52.4-46.5% in the Keystone State, but that could change as about 1 million mail-in votes are counted.
Those mail-in votes are expected to heavily favor Biden because more Democrats voted by mail, while more Republicans voted in person. Also, the mail-in votes are largely uncounted in counties won by 2016 Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton: Philadelphia, Allegheny, Chester, Bucks, Delaware and Montgomery.
– Candy Woodall (USA TODAY Network Pennsylvania Capitol Bureau)
Biden holds narrow lead in Nevada, results not expected until Thursday
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden held a narrow lead in Nevada as of Wednesday morning as the Nevada Secretary of State said it would not release any more results until Thursday.
The Secretary of State's office said in a Twitter post they had already counted all in-person early and Election Day votes, and mail ballots sent through Nov. 2. The state still had yet to count all of the mail ballots received on and after Election Day, as well as provisional ballots.
Nevada was one of several states that mailed all registered voters a ballot this year, making it difficult to estimate how many ballots were still left to count.
The state's six electoral votes could be part of either candidate's remaining path to victory with several states still counting ballots. Biden held a roughly 8,000-vote lead with about two-thirds of the vote counted.
– Nicholas Wu
Where do things stand
Democratic nominee Joe Biden has secured the key battleground states of Arizona and Wisconsin. Biden also picked up a win in Maine, with three of its four electoral votes (Maine is one of two states that doesn’t award all their electoral college votes to the statewide winner).
President Donald Trump secured wins in Texas, Florida, Ohio, Iowa, Montana, Idaho, Utah, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Louisiana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Kentucky, West Virginia, Indiana, South Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama and Arkansas.
Biden won Wisconsin, Minnesota, Hawaii, California, Oregon, Washington, New Hampshire, Colorado, the District of Columbia, New Mexico, New York, Virginia, Vermont, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Maryland, Illinois, Delaware and Connecticut.
That gives Biden 248 electoral college votes and Trump 213 as of 3:45 p.m. Wednesday. A candidate needs 270 electoral college votes to win the election.
Biden camp slams Trump statement on outcome as 'outrageous'
A top aide to Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden slammed President Donald Trump's premature declaration of victory early Wednesday and threatened to defend the counting of legally cast ballots in court.
"The president’s statement tonight about trying to shut down the counting of duly cast ballots was outrageous, unprecedented, and incorrect," Biden campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon said in a statement. "It was outrageous because it is a naked effort to take away the democratic rights of American citizens."
Trump falsely claimed during remarks at the White House early Wednesday that he had won the presidential contest, even though ballots were still being counting in several states that would actually determine the outcome, and he threatened to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to halt the counting of ballots he described as a "fraud."
Trump:Trump falsely claims he has won election, even though ballots are still being counted
Trump's remarks were consistent with his statements prior to the election in which he sought to cast doubt on the millions of absentee ballots cast this year because of the coronavirus pandemic. Those mail ballots always take time to count – sometimes several days. This year, there's simply more of them to count.
Polls taken before the election indicated that Democrats were far more likely to vote by mail and Republicans were more apt to vote in person.
"We repeat what the Vice President said tonight: Donald Trump does not decide the outcome of this election. Joe Biden does not decide the outcome of this election," O’Malley Dillon said in a statement. "The American people decide the outcome of this election. And the democratic process must and will continue until its conclusion."
– John Fritze
Biden and Trump express confidence
Democratic nominee Joe Biden addressed supporters late Tuesday night, saying he felt he was "on track" to win the election because of support from mail-in votes, while urging supporters to exercise patience while states count ballots.
"We feel good about where we are," Biden said. "We really do."
More:Facebook, Twitter label Trump claims over ‘stealing the election’ as potentially misleading
Early Wednesday morning, Trump suggested – falsely – that he had already won, while million of ballots remained outstanding.
“Frankly, we did win this election,” Trump told supporters in the East Room of the White House. “As far as I’m concerned, we have already have won.”
Facebook and Twitter on early Wednesday warned social media users that Trump's claim is potentially misleading.
Dems losing chance to flip the Senate
The chances of Democrats flipping enough seats to take control of the Senate appeared to be dwindling early Wednesday as Republicans fended off challenges in a number of key races. You can track those results here.
You can also stay updated on control over the House of Representatives here as Democrats are projected to retain control but have been underperforming.