After major wins for Joe Biden on Wednesday when the Fox News Decision Desk projected that he will win in Wisconsin and Michigan -- two states where President Trump came out on top in 2016 -- the Democratic nominee sits at 264 electoral votes, needing just one more state to win the White House.
Trump currently has 214 electoral votes in his column.
With his team expressing optimism in his path Wednesday, Biden confidently said that he was "not here to declare that we won,” but to “report that when the count is finished, we believe we will be the winners.”
Striking a presidential tone, Biden said he would govern as an "American president" and that once the dust is settled from the election he plans "to lower the temperature, to see each other again, to listen to one another, to hear each other again, to unite and heal, to come together as a nation."
Meanwhile, Trump is at 214 electoral votes and claiming victory in a handful of states where either the result is not yet clear or the Fox News Decision Desk has projected that Biden will win.
"We have claimed, for Electoral Vote purposes, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (which won’t allow legal observers) the State of Georgia, and the State of North Carolina, each one of which has a BIG Trump lead," the president said in a tweet. He added that he is claiming Michigan conditioned on confirmation that "there was a large number of secretly dumped ballots," a claim that was walked back by the person whose tweet inspired an earlier Trump post on the matter.
Fox News has confirmed a discrepancy in Michigan returns, which is apparently what Trump was citing in his tweet, was the result of a typo by one clerk that was quickly corrected.
And Trump's team is claiming that Republicans in a handful of key states are being blocked from "meaningful access" to observe the elections workers counting ballots. Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani claimed that ballots in Philadelphia could "be from Mars as far as we're concerned."
Sen. Chris Coons. D-Del., a Biden surrogate, said that the claims by Giuliani and the Trump team "smack of desperation."
On Thursday the Trump campaign said an appellate judge had ordered it to be let in the convention center in Philadelphia where votes are being counted and allowed within six feet of the workers counting the ballots, apparently meaning that it will be given the "meaningful access" it wants. Previously observers were kept much farther away from workers counting mail ballots, and now, according to the Trump campaign, they will be allowed within six feet. The Trump campaign added in a press call that it expected further legal action to ensure that it can see ballots that were previously counted.
"Our team of 15 people will be let in right now to observe the vote-counting process," Trump backer and former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi said to the press. "If there is one illegal vote that is cast it takes away" from Pennsylvanians who cast legal ballots.
Added Trump campaign adviser Corey Lewandowski: "This is a win for every person that's cast a legal ballot in the state of Pennsylvania."
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"Big legal win in Pennsylvania!" Trump said in a Thursday tweet.
Biden spokesman Bill Russo said on Twitter that "We don't care if your observers are 18 feet away or 15 feet away or 6 feet away -- as long as election officials can do their jobs.."
Trump representatives in Philadelphia, however, said that the city was not following the appeals court's order. The city has asked the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to weigh in but it has not ruled.
The Trump team has also filed a lawsuit to stop vote-counting in Michigan over their objections regarding "meaningful access," and said it will request a recount in Wisconsin. In Georgia, the Trump team filed a lawsuit alleging that a GOP poll observer saw that late absentee ballots were being added to others that were received on time.
The Trump team also announced later Thursday morning a lawsuit in Nevada as it alleges that people who were dead or have moved out of the state during the pandemic voted illegally. It did not provide specific evidence at the event.
Their press event included a woman named Jill Stokke who said she went to vote in person and was told that she had already voted by mail. Nevada earlier this year passed legislation making it a universal vote-by-mail state, meaning that mail ballots were sent to every registered voter. Republicans raised concerns that sending so many ballots to people who had not requested them could open up the possibility of fraud.
"I went to vote and was told I already voted," Stokke said. "They also took the ballot of my roommate."
Joe Gloria, the Clark County, Nev., voter registrar, pushed back on Stokke's claims, saying he'd personally dealt with her.
"In our opinion, it's her signature," Gloria said. He added that she refused to provide a statement to the county and that the Nevada Secretary of State's office, which is controlled by a Republican, backed Clark County's handling of the situation.
Trump backer and former acting Director of National Intelligence Ric Grenell -- who currently serves as the Special Presidential Envoy for Serbia and Kosovo Peace Negotiations -- lead the event in North Las Vegas.
With the presidential race still undecided, the emerging results in the four key states of Pennsylvania, Nevada, North Carolina and Georgia will swing the race one way or another. Trump needs to sweep all four states while a win for Biden in any of them would give him at least 270 electoral votes, the number needed to win the presidency.
Nevada, where 76% of results were reported as of Thursday afternoon, is the only state where Biden leads as of Thursday afternoon. As of Thursday afternoon Biden was ahead of Trump by 11,438 votes, which comes to slightly less than 1%.
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The ballots yet to be counted in Nevada, the Elections Division said, are mail ballots that were received on Election Day, mail ballots sent by Election Day but received later, and provisional ballots. Generally throughout the country, those kinds of votes have swung toward Biden.
In Georgia, nearly all ballots are in with 99% reporting as of Thursday afternoon and Trump leads by just under 13,000 votes, the equivalent of two-tenths of a percent. The Fox News Decision Desk has not yet called the race in favor of Trump.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, speaking to the press on Thursday morning, said that about 60,000 ballots in the state remained to be counted.
"It's counties who run elections ... some are more resourced in others," and some have more votes to count than others, the secretary of state said.
"The reality is it's about 60,000 votes that are out right now," Raffensperger said. He added that his office is working with local elections offices to ensure numbers are all uploaded properly. "Accuracy is vital and it's the key to all of our processes."
The situation is similar in North Carolina. Trump is holding a small lead of about 1.4% with 94% of votes reported as of Thursday afternoon. Trump's lead equates to just over 75,000 votes.
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North Carolina allows mail ballots sent by Election Day to be received up to nine days later. This means there may be more ballots yet to be counted in the state, according to North Carolina State Board of Elections Executive Director Karen Brinson Bell.
"There are also no more ballots that can be cast for this election. All eligible ballots have already left the voter's hands," she said.
Bell also alluded that it may take some time before additional results are able to be reported in the state, noting that with "very few exceptions would North Carolina's numbers move before the 12th or the 13th."
But with the nature of Trump's lead in the state it is possible -- but not guaranteed -- that with slightly more information, media organizations could be able to make a projection in the presidential race in that state.
Alaska, for a dearth of data, has yet to be called. But Trump, in the 50% of votes counted as of Thursday morning, holds a significant lead.
Finally, in Pennsylvania, where the Trump team leveled its most serious accusations of election-related hijinx -- but did not name any specific examples of ballot irregularities -- Trump continues to lead as of Thursday afternoon by just under 110,000 ballots, the equivalent of 1.7%. That lead is smaller than the lead the president held even hours earlier on Thursday.
But because Pennsylvania was unable to start counting its massive stack of mail ballots, which were requested in significantly larger numbers by Democrats than Republicans, until Tuesday morning, the result in the state is still up in the air.
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As of Thursday afternoon, 88% of ballots in the state are reported and significant numbers of ballots remain to be counted in several counties. These include Democratic strongholds like Philadelphia, but also many rural counties that are leaning toward Trump.
Notably, Allegheny County, which encompasses Pittsburgh and is leaning heavily for Biden as of Thursday morning, is reporting just 81% as of Thursday afternoon.
"In Pennsylvania, every vote is going to count," Gov. Tom Wolf said Wednesday evening. "I'm going to fight like hell to protect the vote of every Pennsylvania. And I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure that every vote counts, because in Pennsylvania, every voice matters."
Republicans, meanwhile, have slammed Democrat officials like Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar and Attorney General Josh Shapiro in Pennsylvania over alleged bias.
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"To have this kind of stuff going on at the 11th hour is unconscionable. So we have a totally lack of faith in her ability to do her job and to do it fairly," Pennsylvania Senate Majority Leader Jake Corman, a Republican, said in calling for Boockvar to resign. Corman specifically panned last-minute changes in guidance on so-called "naked" ballots from Boockvar's office to local elections officials.
"We believe every legal vote should count," Corman said, specifically noting that there is not a result in the presidential election. "I think the governor should ask her to step aside so that the people of Pennsylvania can have confidence in the integrity of this election, whether it's Joe Biden, whether it's President Trump ... all we want to do is have confidence in the result."
If Trump manages to pull out victories in North Carolina, Georgia and Nevada, the presidential election is likely to come down to the result in Pennsylvania, which may not be decided for days or more. And, if Trump's claims made after 2 a.m. Wednesday as results poured in are to be believed, that state could come down to a Supreme Court case.
Fox News' Brooke Singman, Bruce Becker, Amy Wehinger and John Roberts contributed to this report.
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