Trump, Biden Locked in Close US Presidential Race 2020-11-05 American President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden are locked in close races in the battleground states on Election Day. Several races remain too close to call in the most fiercely contested states. Trump is leading in the southern states of Texas, North Carolina, and Georgia. Biden is leading in Arizona. In the North, vote counting continues in the states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. Biden made a brief appearance in Wilmington, Delaware on election night. He told supporters the election "ain't over until every vote is counted." He added, "It's not my place or Donald Trump's place to declare who's won this election. That's the decision of the American people." Speaking from the White House, Trump claimed that he was about to win the election when the vote counting was stopped. He said, "This is a major fraud on our nation... So we will be going to the U.S. Supreme Court. We want all voting to stop. We don't want them to find any ballots at four o'clock in the morning and add them to the list." Both candidates gained expected victories. Biden has been predicted winner in states from Virginia up through most of the East Coast. Other states called Biden victories include California, on the west coast. Trump was predicted winner in much of the South including Alabama, several central states, including Kansas and Missouri. Election Day is usually the end of the presidential campaign in the United States. This year, it may just be the beginning. More than 100 million voters sent their ballots through the mail or voted early. The record number represented 73 percent of all voters in the 2016 presidential election. The early votes, however, will take days to count. Each state has its own deadline for confirming election results. Republican and Democratic Party activists have fought over the voting processes well before Election Day. Late on Tuesday, both sides were preparing for possible legal fights over ballots and the process for seating the winner. What's next? In the U.S., the presidential election is decided by winning the majority of the Electoral College votes and not the popular vote. There are 538 electors in the Electoral College. The winner of the popular vote in a state will win the electors from the state. December 8 is the deadline for the states to choose electors. They will meet on December 14 to vote for president and vice president. A majority of 270 electoral votes is required to elect the president. There have been five winners of the Electoral College who actually lost the popular vote. They are John Quincy Adams in 1824; Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876; Benjamin Harrison in 1888; George W. Bush in 2000; and Donald J. Trump in 2016. On January 3, 2021, members of the new Congress take office. Three days later, the new Congress will count the electoral votes and officially confirm the winner. I'm Caty Weaver. Hai Do wrote this story for Learning English. Mario Ritter, Jr. was the editor. ________________________________________________________________ Words in This Story locked -v. held in a fixed position battleground states -n. a state in which voters of both major parties are fairly evenly split deadline -n. a date or time when something must be finished