Trump Campaign Requests Help From MN Supporters To Fund Legal Challenges To Election
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- With the presidential race still too close to call Friday morning, President Donald Trump's campaign is asking for contributions from supporters in Minnesota as he deploys legal challenges to elections in five battleground states.
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On Friday morning, the Republican Party of Minnesota sent out a release from the Trump campaign, entitled "President Trump Needs Minnesota's Help."
"America's free and fair elections are the foundation of our country and we must fight to keep them that way," the Trump campaign said.
The campaign is requesting contributions to the "Official Election Defense Fund." On the website, it says that the president believes the "Democrats want to steal this election" and that "there will be fraud like you've never seen, plain and simple!"
CBS News is reporting that the president has shifted his efforts to keep the White House from the ballot box to the courts, with his campaign filing a barrage of lawsuits in several battleground states as part of his quest to secure the 270 electoral votes he needs to win reelection. The Trump campaign confirmed it has deployed legal teams in Pennsylvania, Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, and North Carolina.
The Trump campaign said "this election is not over" in a separate press release Friday morning.
"The false projection of Joe Biden as the winner is based on results in four states that are far from final," the release said. "Georgia is headed for a recount, where we are confident we will find ballots improperly harvested, and where President Trump will ultimately prevail. There were many irregularities in Pennsylvania, including having election officials prevent our volunteer legal observers from having meaningful access to vote counting locations. We prevailed in court on our challenge, but were deprived of valuable time and denied the transparency we are entitled to under state law. In Nevada, there appear to be thousands of individuals who improperly cast mail ballots. Finally, the President is on course to win Arizona outright, despite the irresponsible and erroneous 'calling' of the state for Biden by Fox News and the Associated Press. Biden is relying on these states for his phony claim on the White House, but once the election is final, President Trump will be re-elected."
WEB EXTRA: Click here for full election results.
Democratic presidential candidate and former vice president Joe Biden took a slight lead in Pennsylvania Friday, which, if he wins, would give him the electoral votes needed to win the presidency.
Biden has also edged ahead in Georgia, with a slight 1,579-vote lead over Mr. Trump as of Friday morning as votes were still being tallied. The Georgia secretary of state predicted there would be a recount. At this point the two both have 49.4% support, and the state mandates a recount if the difference between the candidates is under 0.5%.
As of Friday morning, CBS News projects that Biden leads the race with 253 electoral votes — just 17 shy of the 270 needed to win the presidency, while Mr. Trump trails with 213.
