USA / Biden leading in Georgia; if he wins the state he'll win presidency: Exit polls

Washington: Former Vice President Joe Biden is now leading President Donald Trump in Georgia, a stunning turn of events in a once reliably Republican state that Trump must win in order to clinch reelection.

The race was tightening dramatically early Friday not only in Georgia but also in Pennsylvania, another state the President cannot afford to lose if he is to keep alive his hopes of a second term.

The momentum of the race has shifted in Biden's favor -- putting him on the doorstep of the critical threshold of 270 electoral votes needed to become president -- as he has racked up huge margins among mail-in ballots favored by Democratic voters.

Biden jumped ahead of Trump in Georgia around 4:30 a.m. ET Friday and leads by just more than 1,000 votes. The former vice president's surprising strength in Georgia stemmed from huge turnout from Black voters in Fulton County and other suburbs around Atlanta, fatigue with Trump in Georgia's fast-growing suburbs -- which have become increasingly young and diverse in recent years -- and assiduous work over more than a decade to boost Democratic registration in the state.

No Democratic presidential nominee has won the state since Bill Clinton in 1992. Clinton narrowly defeated former President George H.W. Bush in that state in part because he and Bush were in a three-way race that included Ross Perot, an independent candidate for the presidency.

As the drama unfolded across the country, the President's allies launched legal challenges and floated conspiracy theories while Trump tweeted "Stop the Count!"

Tight races are also going into overtime in two other states that could influence the destiny of the race, Nevada and Arizona.

Biden so far has 253 electoral votes and the President has 213, according to CNN projections.

Pennsylvania, the state that could take Biden over the 270-vote threshold, could complete most of its outstanding counts on Thursday or Friday, officials there said. The former vice president is only behind Trump by a little more than 26,000 votes in the Keystone State after having trailed at one point by more than half a million ballots in the hours after polls closed. Tens of thousands of votes remain to be counted. Most of them are from strongly Democratic areas, including about 50,000 from Philadelphia, City Commissioner Al Schmidt told CNN Friday morning.

Trump cannot find a route to 270 electoral votes without Georgia and Pennsylvania, so his chances of securing reelection will hinge on developments in the two states in the coming hours.

But on Thursday night, Trump effectively sent a signal that he has no intention of leaving power without a fight if he ends up losing the election.

The President's speech from the White House briefing room could end up being one of the most dangerous presidential statements in American history. In it, Trump falsely claimed that votes that were cast before and during the election, but counted after Election Day, are illegal votes.

Trump made ludicrous claims that his leads on election night shrunk because Democratic officials keep finding ballots, when in fact the counts have narrowed because election officials in many states counted the vote-by-mail ballots, which favored Democrats, after the Election Day votes, which tended to favor Republicans.

As the President spoke, the daily tally of new US coronavirus infections hit 114,876, the worst daily count ever, encapsulating how Trump's political obsessions have driven his neglect of a crisis that has killed more than 234,000 Americans.

Biden urges calm

Even as the votes are still being counted in Pennsylvania, Biden's advisers have mounted an aggressive behind-the-scenes push to get his supporters -- and, even more importantly, Republicans -- to help validate the sanctity of the election.

The Biden campaign took note of Trump's dire tone in the White House Thursday night and began a plan that is underway Friday to get Biden's old allies in the Senate -- and others from a lifetime in public life -- to speak to the legitimacy of the election.