It looks like the waiting game will continue. At least until today.
The highly anticipated race between Republican President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger and former Vice President Joe Biden appeared too early to call on Tuesday night.
As of 10:30 p.m. Tuesday, Mr. Biden was projected to receive 224 electoral college votes to Mr. Trump’s 213. A total of 270 electoral college votes are needed to win the presidency.
In Santa Barbara County, the unofficial results of vote by mail and mailed ballots showed Mr. Biden and vice presidential candidate and Sen. Kamala Harris had received nearly 70% of the vote, tallying some 99,400 of the more than 145,500 total votes with 46% of precincts reporting.
Mr. Trump and Vice President Mike Pence had garnered nearly 42,600 votes, good for about 29%. No other candidates received more than 1%, according to the county elections office.
The local vote mirrored the state’s unofficial results, with 68% of Californians voting in favor of the Biden-Harris ticket. A little more than 30% of state voters cast their ballots for Mr. Trump and Mr. Pence. Roughly 50% of the state’s precincts had reported as of 10:30 p.m. Tuesday.
Despites thousands of ballots that had yet to be counted, The Associated Press called more than 40 states on Tuesday, many of which were not considered major surprises.
The AP said Mr. Biden will carry California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New Hampshire, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia and Washington.
Mr. Trump was expected to win the traditionally red states of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, South Carolina, South Dakota, Wyoming and West Virginia.
By 8:30 p.m. local time, election officials in a pair of key swing states — Pennsylvania and Michigan — announced that ballot counts in some areas of the states wouldn’t be finished until today.
Multiple media outlets reported that the states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada, North Carolina and Georgia were too close to call as of Election Night.
Before the semi-official results were released, more than 100 of Mr. Trump’s family members, friends, donors and staff gathered at the White House to watch returns from the East Room. Mr. Trump was watching votes come in while upstairs in the residence along with a few close aides. According to the Associated Press, most of the top campaign officials were monitoring returns from a “war room” that was set up in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.
Mr. Biden spent Tuesday last-minute campaigning in Scranton, Penn., where he was born, and in Philadelphia. The Democrat challenger also made several local stops in Wilmington, Del., where he spent Election Night.
Just before 9:45 p.m. Tuesday, Mr. Biden addressed his supporters from Wilmington, many of whom were in their vehicles as he gave remarks.
Mr. Biden, who was joined by his wife, Dr. Jill Biden, said his campaign felt good about where they stood as of Tuesday night.
“I believe here tonight we are on track to win the election,” he said, as cars honked in support.
Mr. Biden called for patience until all the votes were tallied, and said that results may not be known until today.
“We knew this was going to go long, but who knew we were maybe going to go into (this) morning and maybe even longer,” he explained. “We knew because of the unprecedented early vote and the mail in vote that it was going to take a while. We’re going to have to be patient until … the hard work of tallying the votes is finished. And it ain’t over until every vote is counted, every ballot is counted.”
Mr. Biden added that it is not his place, nor Mr. Trump’s, to declare who won the election.
“That’s the decision of the American people,” Mr. Biden said. “But I’m optimistic about this outcome.”
Mr. Trump had announced he would make remarks on Tuesday night, though had not taken the podium as of 11:15 p.m.
He did take to Twitter before addressing his supporters at the White House and said, in part, “they are trying to STEAL the Election. Votes cannot be cast after the Polls are closed!”
The tweet was flagged by Twitter, with the social media site saying that some or all of the content shared by Mr. Trump “is disputed and might be misleading about an election or other civic process.”
email: mwhite@newspress.com
