Biden’s lead over Trump surpasses 6M votes as more ballots are tallied

President-elect Joe Biden reached a lead of more than 6 million votes over President Trump on Friday as ballots continue to be counted in some states. 

The Associated Press and other major news outlets called the race for Biden two weeks ago, although Trump has repeatedly refused to concede, claiming without evidence that he won and that there were widespread cases of voter fraud in key states such as Pennsylvania and Michigan, both of which voted for Biden. 

As of Saturday morning, Biden held a total of 79,816,557 votes nationwide, compared to 73,781,603 votes for Trump, according to the AP. 

Biden is projected to lead the electoral vote count with 306 votes, with the sitting president holding 232. 

Several lawsuits from Trump’s legal team and other Republicans have either been dismissed or dropped due to an inability to provide sufficient evidence of voter fraud and voting irregularities. 

With a Dec. 8 deadline for states to resolve any election disputes, the Trump team has ramped up its pressure on Republican election officials and lawmakers to delay the certification process. 

On Friday, Trump met with two top Michigan state lawmakers he had invited to the White House, a move that prompted concern from many as an attempt to alter election results in the Midwestern state. 

Michigan Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirley and Speaker of the Michigan statehouse Lee Chatfield, both Republicans, said in a joint statement following the meeting, “We have not yet been made aware of any information that would change the outcome of the election in Michigan,” and that the two “will follow the law and follow the normal process regarding Michigan’s electors.” 

The president reached out on Tuesday night to officials in Wayne County, Mich., who had sought to block the certification of votes there. The effort by those officials brought calls of racism from Detroit’s mayor due to the number of votes by Black Americans that might have been overturned.

The efforts by Trump and his team to dispute election results has led to bipartisan criticism, with House Republican Conference Chair Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) saying Friday that Trump and his legal team must present tangible evidence to back up their claims of voter fraud, adding that “If the President cannot prove these claims or demonstrate that they would change the election result, he should fulfill his oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States by respecting the sanctity of our electoral process.”