By Andy Sullivan and Jeff Mason

WASHINGTON, Nov 5 (Reuters) – Democrat Joe Biden moved nearer to victory within the U.S. presidential race on Thursday as election officers tallied votes within the handful of states that can decide the result and protesters took to the streets.

Incumbent President Donald Trump alleged fraud, filed lawsuits and referred to as for recounts in a race but to be determined two days after polls closed.

With tensions rising, about 200 of Trump’s supporters, some armed with rifles and handguns, gathered outdoors an election workplace in Phoenix, Arizona, following unsubstantiated rumors that votes weren’t being counted.

Anti-Trump protesters in different cities demanded that vote counting proceed. Police arrested anti-Trump protesters in New York Metropolis and Portland, Oregon. Over 100 occasions are deliberate throughout the nation between Wednesday and Saturday.

The presidential race was coming down to shut contests in 5 states. Biden, 77, held slender leads in Nevada and Arizona whereas Trump, 74, was watching his slim benefit fade in must-win states Pennsylvania and Georgia as mail-in and absentee votes had been being counted. Trump clung to a slender lead in North Carolina as properly, one other must-win for him.

Trump needed to win the states the place he was nonetheless forward and both Arizona or Nevada to triumph and keep away from turning into the primary incumbent U.S. president to lose a re-election bid since fellow Republican George H.W. Bush in 1992.

Edison Analysis gave Biden a 243 to 213 lead over Trump in Electoral Faculty votes, that are largely primarily based on a state’s inhabitants. Different networks stated Biden had received Wisconsin, which might give him one other 10 votes. The magic quantity for the profitable candidate is 270 votes.

Biden predicted victory on Wednesday and launched a web site to start the transition to a Democratic-controlled White Home.

Trump has lengthy sought to undermine the credibility of the voting course of if he misplaced. Since Tuesday, he has falsely declared victory, accused Democrats of attempting to steal the election with out proof and vowed to battle states in court docket.

U.S. election consultants say fraud is uncommon.

Trump’s marketing campaign fought to maintain his probabilities alive with a name for a Wisconsin recount in addition to lawsuits in Michigan and Pennsylvania to cease vote counting. Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson referred to as his staff’s lawsuit “frivolous.”

His marketing campaign filed a lawsuit in Georgia to require that Chatham County, which incorporates the town of Savannah, separate and safe late-arriving ballots to make sure they don’t seem to be counted.

It additionally requested the U.S. Supreme Court docket to permit Trump to hitch a pending lawsuit filed by Pennsylvania Republicans over whether or not the battleground state needs to be permitted to just accept late-arriving ballots.

The maneuvers amounted to a broad effort to contest the outcomes of a nonetheless undecided election a day after hundreds of thousands of Individuals went to the polls through the coronavirus pandemic that has upended every day life.

“They’re discovering Biden votes in every single place – in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan. So unhealthy for our Nation!” Trump posted on Twitter.

Biden stated each vote have to be counted. “Nobody’s going to take our democracy away from us, not now, not ever,” he stated.

THE PANDEMIC EFFECT

The contentious aftermath capped a vitriolic marketing campaign that unfolded amid a pandemic that has killed greater than 233,000 individuals in the USA and left hundreds of thousands extra jobless. The nation has grappled additionally with months of unrest involving protests over racism and police brutality.

The US set a one-day file for brand spanking new coronavirus circumstances on Wednesday with not less than 102,591 new infections, and hospitals in a number of states reported a rising tide of sufferers, based on a Reuters tally.

Supporters of each candidates expressed anger, frustration and concern with little readability on when the election can be resolved.

Within the nationwide widespread vote, Biden on Wednesday was comfortably forward of Trump, with 3.5 million extra votes. Trump received the 2016 election over Democrat Hillary Clinton after profitable essential battleground states regardless that she drew about Three million extra votes nationwide.

If victorious, Biden will face a tricky battle to manipulate, with Republicans showing poised to maintain management of the U.S. Senate and sure block massive elements of his legislative agenda, together with increasing healthcare and preventing local weather change.

(Further reporting by Mimi Dwyer in Phoenix and Tim Reid in Los Angeles; Writing by Andy Sullivan and Jeff Mason; Modifying by Howard Goller)