Actions

Explainer: Why the Associated Press called Wisconsin, Michigan for Biden, but hasn't called Georgia

Explainer: Why the Associated Press called Wisconsin, Michigan for Biden, but hasn't called Georgia
Posted at 12:38 PM, Nov 05, 2020
and last updated 2020-11-05 13:38:52-05

The E.W. Scripps Company is a partner with The Associated Press and has been following guidance from their election desk on 2020 race updates.

Below is the AP's explanation as to why they have not declared a winner in Georgia and why they declared Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden the winner in Michigan and Wisconsin.

WISCONSIN

The AP called Wisconsin for Democrat Joe Biden after election officials in the state said all outstanding ballots had been counted, except for a few hundred in one township and an expected small number of provisional ballots.

Trump’s campaign has requested a recount.

Statewide recounts in Wisconsin have historically changed the vote tally by only a few hundred votes; Biden leads by .624 percentage points out of nearly 3.3 million ballots counted.

“Despite ridiculous public polling used as a voter suppression tactic, Wisconsin has been a razor-thin race as we always knew that it would be," Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien said in a statement. "There have been reports of irregularities in several Wisconsin counties which raise serious doubts about the validity of the results. The President is well within the threshold to request a recount and we will immediately do so.”

--

MICHIGAN

The Associated Press declared Biden the winner of Michigan at 5:56 p.m. EST Wednesday after conducting an analysis of votes and remaining ballots left to be counted.

It showed there were not enough votes left in Republican-leaning areas for Trump to catch Biden’s lead.

Biden had a 70,000-vote lead on Wednesday evening, a margin over Trump of about 1.3 percentage points.

It's the third state President Donald Trump carried in 2016 that the former vice president has flipped, narrowing Trump’s path to reelection.

On Thursday, a Michigan judge dismissed the Trump campaign's lawsuit over whether enough GOP challengers had access to the handling of absentee ballots, the AP reported.

--

GEORGIA

The Associated Press has not declared a winner in Georgia’s presidential contest because the race between President Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden is too early to call, with outstanding ballots left to be counted in counties where Biden has performed well.

Early Wednesday, Trump prematurely claimed he carried Georgia.

But the race is too early to call because an estimated 4% of the vote still remains to be counted.

That includes mailed ballots from population-dense counties in the Atlanta metro region that lean Democratic.

Biden is overperforming Hillary Clinton’s 2016 showing in those counties — including in their more upscale suburban reaches.