(WASHINGTON, D.C.) — Election Day is turning into election week as the counting of votes continues across the country, with preliminary results showing tight races in several key battleground states.
Candidates need 270 Electoral College votes to secure the presidency. ABC News projects President Donald Trump currently has 214, while former Vice President Joe Biden has 253, including Wisconsin — where ABC News is characterizing him as the apparent winner because the vote is very close and has not yet been certified.
Both President Trump, the Republican incumbent, and Biden, his Democratic challenger, addressed the nation in the early hours of Wednesday morning, each expressing confidence in the race for the White House.
By Wednesday evening, Biden again delivered remarks urging patience, but the president remained out of public view, taking to Twitter instead to decry supposed voter fraud and claim victories in states that haven’t finished counting ballots — all while his lawyers waged legal battles to halt vote counting in key states.
Biden, with a comfortable lead in the popular vote, has also broken the record for obtaining the most votes ever cast for a U.S. presidential candidate with more than 70 million and counting — in an election that has shattered early vote records and is on track to eclipse the 138 million who went to the polls in 2016.
Still, the uncertainty has sparked protests across the nation, with some turning violent and ending with multiple arrests.
In Portland, Oregon, a riot was declared and the National Guard was activated due to violence downtown. At least eight people have been arrested, according to the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office.
In New York City, skirmishes broke out between police and protesters in Greenwich Village. The NYPD said more than 20 people were arrested in the violence.
A small group of angry demonstrators attempted to barge inside the TCF Center in Detroit on Wednesday afternoon, chanting “stop the count” as votes in the battleground state were being tallied, a spokesperson for the city’s police department told ABC News.
Other demonstrations sparked in Las Vegas and Chicago.
Protesters across the country called for officials to count every vote as President Trump continues to claim current vote counts are fraudulent and filed lawsuits in several states to challenge vote totals.