Trump: Democrats are trying to steal the election

U.S. President Donald Trump said he is ‘up big’ and accused the Democrats of trying to steal the election.

In his now censored tweet by Twitter police, Trump wrote: ‘We are up BIG, but they are trying to STEAL the Election. We will never let them do it. Votes cannot be cast after the Polls are closed!’

Trump also said he would declare victory from the White House saying: ‘I will be making a statement tonight. A big WIN!’

His tweets were a reaction to rival Joe Biden’s statement, in which he assured supporters he is on the path of winning the election.

‘Keep the faith guys,’ Biden tweeted. “We are gonna win this”.

In a short address after, he told supporters: “We feel good about where we are. We really do. I’m here to tell you tonight that we believe we’re on track to win this election.”

He spoke as many key swing states are still undecided.

Biden called on the nation to “be patient” with tens of millions of mail-in votes posted during the COVID-19 pandemic still uncounted.

‘We knew this was going to go wrong, but who knew this was going to go into tomorrow morning, maybe even longer”.

While polls showed Biden leading previously in many states, the election is now too close to call, with many states neck and neck between the two candidates.

Reuters reported Trump was leading Democratic rival Joe Biden in the vital battleground state of Florida on Tuesday, while other competitive swing states that will help decide the election, including North Carolina, remained up in the air.

The two contenders split the early U.S. states to be projected in the White House race as expected, with conservative states like Alabama, Indiana, Kentucky and Tennessee going to Trump and Democratic-leaning Massachusetts, Vermont, New York and Connecticut going to Biden, according to projections by television networks and Edison Research.

But none of the approximately dozen battleground states that will decide the race had been settled as polls closed in a majority of U.S. states, with close races developing in many of them.

In Florida, widely seen as a must-win state for Trump in his quest for the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the presidency, Trump was leading Biden 51.2% to 47.8% with 93% of the expected votes counted.

Electoral College votes are assigned to each state, in part based on their population.

Part of Trump’s strength in Florida came from an improved performance relative to 2016 in the state’s counties with large Latino populations. Trump’s share of the vote in those counties was larger than it was in the 2016 election.

For months there were complaints from Democratic Latino activists that Biden was ignoring Hispanic voters and lavishing attention instead on Black voters in big Midwestern cities.

The Biden campaign disputed this but in the weeks leading up to the election, opinion polls in key states showed Biden underperforming with Latinos.