Joe Biden pledged on Wednesday afternoon that every vote would be counted, and predicted that he will be declared the next president.
Biden spoke at a Delaware convention hall, as President Donald Trump’s campaign went to court in Pennsylvania and Michigan to seek to pause the vote counting.
“Now every vote must be counted,” Biden said. “No one is going to take our democracy away from us; not now, not ever. … We the people will not be silenced. We the people will not be bullied.”
Biden noted that he is winning in enough states to reach 270 electoral votes, but stopped short of outright claiming victory.
“When the count is finished, we believe we will be the winner,” he said.
Biden was declared the winner in Wisconsin, and he took a lead in Michigan of more than 1%. In Pennsylvania, Trump had a lead of more than 300,000 ballots, but that lead had narrowed dramatically throughout the day.
Biden vowed to unite the country after a bruising campaign.
“Once this election is finalized and behind us it’ll be time for us to do what we’ve always done as Americans: put the harsh rhetoric of the campaign behind us,” Biden said. “To make progress, we have to stop treating our opponents as enemies. We are not enemies. What brings us together as Americans is so much stronger than anything that can tear us apart.”
The Trump campaign has complained that its observers were not allowed to closely monitor the count at certain locations in Philadelphia and in Michigan. The campaign went to court to seek a temporary halt to the counting in both states, to allow a procedure that would give greater access for the observers.
The campaign also joined a lawsuit originally brought by the Republican Party of Pennsylvania that seeks to invalidate ballots that arrive up to three days after Election Day. The state’s Supreme Court allowed such votes to count provided they are postmarked by Election Day.