UPDATES: Biden wins Michigan as Trump sues; presidency remains in flux

ORLANDO, Fla. – President Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger, Joe Biden, are in a tight battle for the White House.

Many of the battleground states, including Georgia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, have yet to be called.

Trump has won Texas, Florida, Iowa and Ohio, while Biden carried Arizona, Wisconsin, New Hampshire and Minnesota.

It takes 270 electoral votes to win the presidency.

Stay up to date with the tight race on ClickOrlando.com.

11p.m.

Joe Biden won Michigan and Wisconsin on Wednesday, reclaiming a key part of the “blue wall” that slipped away from Democrats four years ago and dramatically narrowing President Donald Trump’s pathway to reelection.

A full day after Election Day, neither candidate had cleared the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the White House.

But Biden’s victories in the Great Lakes states left him at 264, meaning he was one battleground state away from crossing the threshold and becoming president-elect. The long and bitter election, conducted in the shadow of the deadly coronavirus pandemic, seems to be nearing an end -- though Trump is trying to mount legal objections in several states.

8 p.m.

Trump campaign asks judge to order Ga. election officials to follow law on storing, counting absentee ballots.

5:56 p.m.

Democrat Joe Biden has carried Michigan and its 16 electoral votes, further dismantling Donald Trump’s Rust Belt wall of support that helped deliver him the presidency four years ago.

The flip from red back to blue was a huge blow to Trump, whose victories in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania in 2016 sent him to the White House. Biden also carried Wisconsin, though Pennsylvania hasn’t been called yet.

Biden’s victory in Michigan pushes him to 264 Electoral College votes, six short of the 270 needed to win the White House. Trump is at 214 electoral votes. Nevada, which has six electoral votes, is among the states Democrat Hillary Clinton won in 2016 that hasn’t yet been called.

Biden’s campaign had particularly focused on turning out Black voters in Detroit, who failed to show up for Democrat Hillary Clinton in the numbers that Barack Obama received during his two presidential bids.

Despite needing to win Michigan, Trump took frequent swipes at the state’s Democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer, who was the target of an alleged kidnapping plot that was foiled by federal law enforcement. Chants of “Lock her up!” toward Whitmer echoed at Trump’s rally, and he railed against the governor on Twitter for her cautious approach to the coronavirus pandemic.

5:20 p.m.

The top elections official in Nevada’s most populous county says more results will be released Thursday morning that include mail-in ballots received on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Clark County Registrar of Voters Joe Gloria said at a news conference Wednesday afternoon that he did not yet know how many ballots had been received but uncounted in the Las Vegas area.

Early results showed Democrat Joe Biden with a slim lead over President Donald Trump in Nevada, but it was too early to declare a winner in the race Wednesday with a large number of ballots yet to be counted.

The Nevada secretary of state’s office initially said a new batch of results would be released Thursday morning. But Deputy Secretary of State for Elections Wayne Thorley said in a text message that the state would likely release some additional results Wednesday afternoon but that he did not know how many would be included.

Gloria said he would be holding daily 10 a.m. news conferences until all ballots were counted, including provisional ballots that were cast by voters taking advantage of same-day registration, electronic ballots sent to overseas voters or ballots for disabled voters.

5:15 p.m.

The Associated Press has not yet declared winners of the presidential contests in Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina or Michigan.

President Donald Trump, however, has prematurely declared that he has carried the states.

Trump tweeted Wednesday that he has “claimed, for Electoral Vote purposes, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (which won’t allow legal observers) the State of Georgia, and the State of North Carolina, each one of which has a BIG Trump lead.”

“Additionally, we hereby claim the State of Michigan if, in fact,” he says, “there was a large number of secretly dumped ballots as has been widely reported!”

Trump has been trying for months to undermine public confidence in the election if he does not win.

Trump’s Democratic challenger, Joe Biden, currently has 248 electoral votes, while Trump has 214. It takes 270 to win the presidency.

5:15 p.m.

U.S. Postal Service inspectors found just 13 ballots — all in Pennsylvania — during an Election Day sweep of mail processing centers ordered by a federal judge.

The ballots were found in two separate mail processing facilities and were expedited for delivery to local election offices, according to court records filed Wednesday.

U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan in Washington, D.C., had given the Postal Service until Tuesday afternoon to search 27 facilities in several battleground areas for outstanding ballots and immediately deliver any ballots discovered to election offices.

The agency said it could not complete the judge’s order under his timeframe but noted that it had already conducted morning checks at processing hubs and planned another sweep of 220 facilities handling election mail before polling places closed on Tuesday.

4:55 p.m.

President Donald Trump’s campaign has accused a Michigan election official of failing to ensure that challengers and bipartisan observers watch the processing of absentee ballots.

The Republican campaign filed a lawsuit Wednesday seeking to stop the count, which was mostly centered in Detroit, until Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson allows more inspectors. There was no immediate response from a Court of Claims judge.

The Associated Press has not yet called Michigan.

Trump’s allies chanted, “Stop the count!” inside TCF Center, where ballots were being handled. The Detroit elections department was expected to finish counting absentee ballots by Wednesday evening.

Democratic Attorney General Dana Nessel says, “Michigan’s elections have been conducted transparently, with access provided for both political parties and the public, and using a robust system of checks and balances to ensure that all ballots are counted fairly and accurately.”

More than 3 million absentee ballots were cast in Michigan in the first major election since a new law made them available to any voter. But local election clerks couldn’t start counting them until after polls closed Tuesday.

4:20 p.m.

Joe Biden says he’s not ready to declare victory as vote counting continues in the presidential election, but he says, “When the count is finished, we believe we will be the winners.”

The Associated Press hasn’t called the presidential race. Biden currently has 248 electoral votes, while President Donald Trump has 214. It takes 270 to win the presidency.

Biden addressed reporters Wednesday afternoon from Wilmington, Delaware, alongside his running mate, California Sen. Kamala Harris.

Biden says, “Every vote must be counted.” He added, “We the people will not be silenced.”

Biden also tried to sound like a president-elect, promising to reach out to political opponents and insisting that the presidency “itself is not a partisan institution.”

Biden did not take questions. President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign has filed lawsuits in Pennsylvania and Michigan as ballots continue to be counted in both states.

2:45 p.m.

President Donald Trump’s campaign says it’s suing to temporarily stop the vote count in Pennsylvania, claiming lack of “transparency.”

Justin Clark, Trump’s deputy campaign manager, said in a statement Wednesday that the campaign is “suing to stop Democrat election officials from hiding the ballot counting and processing from our Republican poll observers.” He said the campaign wants “to temporarily halt counting until there is meaningful transparency and Republicans can ensure all counting is done above board and by the law.”

Clark also said the campaign would seek to intervene in an ongoing Supreme Court case involving the deadline for receiving mail-in ballots.

2:30 p.m.

President Donald Trump’s campaign says it has filed a lawsuit trying to halt the vote count in battleground Michigan.

The latest counts give Trump’s Democratic challenger Joe Biden a small lead, but the race is still too early to call.

Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien says in a statement Wednesday that the campaign “has not been provided with meaningful access to numerous counting locations to observe the opening of ballots and the counting process, as guaranteed by Michigan law.”

He says a suit was filed Wednesday in the Michigan Court of Claims “to halt counting until meaningful access has been granted.”

Michigan is a critical battleground state that helped deliver Trump the presidency four years ago, along with Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Neither Wisconsin or Pennsylvania has been called yet.

2:20 p.m.

Biden wins Wisconsin, flipping state from 2016, according to the Associated Press.

Biden has defeated President Donald Trump in battleground Wisconsin, securing the state’s 10 electoral votes and reclaiming a key part of the blue wall that slipped away from Democrats four years ago.

The Associated Press called Wisconsin for Biden after election officials in the state said all outstanding ballots had been counted, save for a few hundred in one township and an expected small number of provisional ballots.

Trump’s campaign has requested a recount. Statewide recounts in Wisconsin have historically changed the vote tally by only a few hundred votes; Biden leads by .624 percentage points out of nearly 3.3 million ballots counted.

The victory for Biden bumps him up to 248 electoral votes, while Trump has 214. It takes 270 to win the presidency.

1:20 p.m.

Hours after President Donald Trump said he’d take the presidential election to the Supreme Court alluding that people were voting after polls closed, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio appeared to address the president’s message on Twitter.

“The result of the presidential race will be known after every legally cast vote has been counted," the Florida lawmaker wrote. The post was made moments after Trump said Wednesday “we want all voting to stop." The president’s tweet echoing a similar sentiment was flagged by Twitter for misleading content as no voting takes place after polls close -- they are merely tabulated.

11:30 a.m.

Election officials in Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin are set to provide updates on the counts underway in those battleground states.

Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger addressed election results at 11:30 a.m.

Raffensperger said 200,000 ballots still need to be counted but “every vote will count.”

10:05 a.m.

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf announced Wednesday he would provide an update on the state’s general election at 10:30 a.m. Watch the livestream here.

His address comes after Philadelphia City Commissioners addressed the media regarding mail-in ballots.

“We’re still counting,” Lisa Deeley, head of the Philadelphia City Commissioners, said Wednesday morning. Election leaders assured they were working diligently to make sure all votes would be tabulated.

“It takes time. It takes time to open those many ballots as everybody knows. That’s why we knew it was going to take longer,” Deeley said.

[WATCH LIVE: Philadelphia election workers counting ballots]

9:35 a.m.

Philadelphia leaders previously said the state wouldn’t have an updated number on mail-in ballots until 9 a.m. on Wednesday, Lisa Deeley, head of the Philadelphia City Commissioners, a bipartisan board of elected officials in charge of elections and voter registration is expected to host a news conference at approximately 9:30 a.m.

9:20 a.m.

4 a.m.

Democrat Joe Biden’s campaign says it will fight any efforts by President Donald Trump’s campaign to go to the U.S. Supreme Court to prevent ballots from being tabulated.

In a statement sent before 4 a.m. Wednesday, Biden campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon called Trump’s statement that he will “be going to the U.S. Supreme Court” and that he wants “all voting to stop” “outrageous, unprecedented and incorrect.”

O’Malley Dillon says the Biden campaign has “legal teams standing by ready to deploy to resist that effort.” And she says, “They will prevail.”

The Associated Press has not declared a winner in the presidential race. There are still hundreds of thousands of votes left to be counted, and the outcome hinges on a handful of uncalled battleground states.

3:06 a.m.

Democrat Joe Biden has won at least three of Maine’s four electoral votes in his bid to unseat President Donald Trump.

Biden won the statewide tally and the 1st Congressional District, good for three electoral votes. Trump, meanwhile, hoped to claim one electoral vote in a win in the 2nd Congressional District. The 2nd Congressional District hasn’t yet been called.

Maine split its electoral votes four years ago, awarding three to Democrat Hillary Clinton and one to Trump, who won the more rural and conservative of Maine’s congressional districts.

It marked the first time in state history that Maine divided its electoral votes.

Maine is one of only two states that divides its electoral votes. The other is Nebraska.

In the race to the 270 electoral votes needed to win, Biden has 238 while Trump has 213.

2:52 a.m.

Democrat Joe Biden has won Arizona and its 11 electoral votes, flipping a critical battleground state that Donald Trump won four years ago and that could help determine which candidate wins the presidency.

The victory by Biden was a huge blow to Trump’s chances for reelection. Arizona has backed a Democratic presidential candidate only once in the last 72 years.

Biden’s campaign had focused on Arizona as part of its expanded battleground map through the Sun Belt, citing demographic changes, new residents and realignment away from Republicans among key suburban voters.

Arizona is among the more than half a dozen states that will help determine which candidate gets the 270 electoral votes to capture the White House.

Biden’s massive advantage in campaign cash allowed him to put Trump on defense across the country and work to build an unstoppable lead in the Electoral College.

In the race to 270 electoral votes, Biden has 236, while Trump has 213.

2:40 a.m.

President Donald Trump is vowing to ask the Supreme Court to weigh in on the inconclusive election. The Associated Press has not declared a winner in the presidential race.

Trump appeared before supporters at the White House early Wednesday morning and cried foul over the election results, calling the process “a major fraud on our nation.” But there’s no evidence of foul play in the cliffhanger.

The night ended with hundreds of thousands of votes still to be counted, and the outcome still unclear in key states he needs if he is to win against Democrat Joe Biden.

Nevertheless, he has cast the night as a disenfranchisement of his voters. He said: “We will win this and as far as I’m concerned we already have won it.”

Trump says: “We’ll be going to the U.S. Supreme Court -- we want all voting to stop.” In fact, there is no more voting -- just counting.