President Donald Trump is receiving criticism after he claimed victory before either presidential candidate reached the necessary 270 electoral votes in the 2020 presidential election.
Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said that it is “not unusual” for candidates to claim they won an election even before all the votes have been counted, and added, “I can think of that happening on numerous occasions.”
“But, claiming you win the election is different from finishing the counting. And what we’re going to see here in the next few days, both in the Senate races and in the presidential race, is each state will ultimately get to a final outcome,” McConnell said.
He went on to say Americans should not be surprised that Republicans and Democrats are getting lawyers ready to potentially contest the results.
Watch the video below:
Mitch McConnell in subtle and indirect message to President Trump: "Claiming to win the election is different from finishing the counting,"
— David Begnaud (@DavidBegnaud) November 4, 2020
pic.twitter.com/m79hVMjndd
Early on Wednesday morning, Trump said, “We were getting ready to win this election. Frankly, we did win this election.”
However, as of 1 p.m. EST on Wednesday, several key battleground states had yet to be called for Trump or Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.
Biden is leading Trump in the crucial states of Arizona, Michigan, and Wisconsin, with a majority of the estimated vote counted in those states. However, Trump maintains a lead in Pennsylvania.
While Trump is in the lead in that the Keystone state, The Washington Post noted that a majority of the votes counted are from rural conservatives areas that tend to favor Trump, and there is a large chunk of votes remaining in urban areas.
And the state’s Attorney General Josh Shapiro told ABC News that it could take a couple of days until all the votes are counted in the state.
He added, “We’ve been saying for months we’re going to secure, protect, and count every vote, so we secured the vote, we protected it and now it’s being counted.”
As of 1 p.m. EST on Wednesday, Biden has 227 electoral votes while Trump has 213.
