The key battleground state of Wisconsin has been called for Joe Biden in America’s knife-edge election, as President Donald Trump’s team pushed for a recount.
The president also instigated legal action over ballot counting in neighbouring must-win Michigan.
Media outlet AP declared Wisconsin had narrowly gone for Mr Biden by some 20,000 votes.
President Trump’s campaign manager has said he will “immediately” request a recount in Wisconsin.
Bill Stepien said in a statement: “The president is well within the threshold to request a recount and we will immediately do so.”
Neither candidate has yet achieved the 270 electoral college votes necessary to win and counting was still under way in the states which will decide the outcome.
Mr Trump’s campaign has taken legal action over ballots being counted in Michigan, according to Mr Stepien.
He claimed the Trump campaign “had not been provided with meaningful access to numerous counting locations to observe the opening of ballots and the counting process, as guaranteed by Michigan law”.
He added: “We have filed suit today in the Michigan Court of Claims to halt counting until meaningful access has been granted. We also demand to review those ballots which were opened and counted while we did not have meaningful access.
“President Trump is committed to ensuring that all legal votes are counted in Michigan and everywhere else.”
The events came as Mr Trump continued to question the legitimacy of the election, while Mr Biden’s campaign claimed the Democrat challenger was on course for the White House.
Victory claims
President Trump had earlier falsely claimed victory and threatened to go to the US Supreme Court, as he warned that a “fraud on the American nation” was being carried out over the way votes were being counted.
Mr Biden’s campaign said the president’s extraordinary comments, made in the White House against a backdrop of US flags, were a “naked attempt to take away the democratic rights of American citizens”.
The Democrat challenger’s campaign team said Mr Biden was on course to take key battleground states, providing him with a path to the presidency.
However, Mr Trump’s team insisted that the president would secure a second term, including through a shock comeback in Arizona, a state which major news organisations have already called for Mr Biden.
In a dramatic statement in the White House, Mr Trump said Tuesday’s election, which was characterised by a high number of mail-in and early votes, in part due to the coronavirus crisis, had been “an embarrassment to our country”.
“We were getting ready to win this election – frankly we did win this election,” Mr Trump said.
The president announced that “we will be going to the US Supreme Court, we want all voting to stop”.
Mr Trump has nominated three of the Supreme Court’s nine justices – including, controversially, Amy Coney Barrett, whose appointment was confirmed just a week before the election.
It is unclear what, if any, legal basis the president would have, with Mr Biden’s camp insisting that the law required every “duly cast vote” to be counted.
Mr Biden said: “We won’t rest until everyone’s vote is counted.”
His campaign had been braced for Mr Trump to seize on record numbers of postal votes to allege he was being cheated.
Mr Biden’s campaign chief Jen O’Malley Dillon said the Democrat was on a “clear path to victory” and would “garner more votes than any presidential candidate in history”.
Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Nevada would all go to Biden, she claimed.
Among the remaining undeclared states, Georgia is a “toss-up” and North Carolina is “really tight” but “probably leaning towards Trump right now”.
Further results in Nevada, where the two candidates are neck and neck, will not be announced until Thursday, leaving six college votes up for grabs.
Steady queues of voters flocked to the polls on Tuesday after about 100 million Americans voted early, setting the nation on course for a record turnout figure.
Each state gets a number of electoral college votes roughly in line with its population and they largely hand them all to the winner in that state.
With 538 up for grabs across the country, 270 is the winning number – a target which remains within reach for either candidate, depending on how the results unfold over the coming hours and days.
