Members of both parties believe their candidate can win
President Donald Trump 
Democratic candidate Joe Biden
Both the local Republican and Democrat chairwomen see a possible path to victory for President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden, respectively.
While votes in several key swing states are still being counted, President Trump’s campaign has demanded a recount in Wisconsin and filed lawsuits in Pennsylvania and Michigan.
In an interview with the News-Press, Santa Barbara County Democratic Party chairwoman Gail Teton-Landis said that Mr. Biden can win the presidency if he can retain his leads in Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, and Wisconsin. The chairwoman took exception to President’s Trump’s remarks that his campaign had already won Tuesday’s election.
“Every vote needs to be counted and it’s not up to Donald Trump to say that the election is over. That’s not how it works in this country,” she said.
As of Wednesday afternoon, The Associated Press’ election results showed Mr. Biden at 264 electoral votes while President Trump is at 214. While AP has called Michigan and Wisconsin for Mr. Biden, President Trump’s campaign announced it will ask for a recount in the latter and has filed a lawsuit against the former.
A statement from the president’s campaign manager Bill Stepien said the lawsuit is due to President Trump’s campaign allegedly not being provided “meaningful access to numerous counting locations to observe the opening of ballots and the counting process, as guaranteed by Michigan law.”
President Trump’s campaign has also filed a lawsuit in Pennsylvania against the state’s extended deadline for receiving mail-in ballots.
Mr. Biden was leading in Nevada as of Wednesday afternoon by a narrow margin of a .6% vote percentage and AP had called Arizona for the former vice president. However, Arizona’s certainty was then thrown into doubt when a data error regarding the percentage of votes that had been counted in the state was identified by New York Times editor Patrick LaForge, according to The Hill.
On Wednesday morning, it was reported that 98% of the vote had come in. As of 3:50 p.m. on Wednesday, the AP map showed that only 84% percent of the vote had come in and Mr. Biden had 3.4% lead.
A statement written by a Santa Barbara GOP supporter who wished to stay anonymous and sent to the News-Press Wednesday afternoon by Santa Barbara County Republican Chairwoman Bobbi McGinnis said that Republicans are confident President Trump will pick up Arizona since the approximately 520,000 ballots left to be counted as of that time dwarf his lead of approximately 93,000. Also, those ballots are from heavily Republican counties.
“We are now confident we will now win AZ by 30,000 votes,” she said.
As of Tuesday afternoon, North Carolina and Georgia were leaning in the president’s favor but hadn’t been called yet. The statement Ms. McGinnis sent to the News-Press remarked that the president’s lead in these states is “insurmountable.”
It added that the GOP believes President Trump will win Nevada by a margin of over 5,500 votes and that his lawsuits in Michigan and Pennsylvania are “not only within the President’s legal rights,” but are also “his responsibility.”
“Anyone who thinks that a 270 declaration in the next 24 hours by the mainstream media for a specific candidate to deliberately sway public opinion is going to derail our determination to protect the legal integrity of this election – or deter us from its ultimate victory – is not only naïve, but hypocritical,“ the statement read.
email: jgrega@newspress.com
