Michigan’s Secretary of State Promises Results Within a Day

Biden’s campaign says its lead in the state leaves him “on track for a win.”

Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson.NS via ZUMA Wire

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

The state of Michigan has about 100,000 votes left to count, with those results expected within 24 hours, Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said during a Wednesday morning briefing.

As of 11:25 a.m., the state’s published vote counts showed former Vice President Joe Biden ahead of President Donald Trump by a little more than 33,000 votes. Trump won Michigan in 2016 by 10,704 votes.

In an early-morning speech from the White House, Trump falsely claimed he’d won the election, and said that “we want all voting to stop.” Jen O’Malley Dillon, Biden’s campaign manager, fired back on Wednesday morning, saying that “Joe Biden is on track to win this election, and he will be the next president of the United States,” citing apparent leads in Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, and Nevada.

Bob Bauer, Biden’s lead election lawyer, assailed Republican state legislatures in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, for a purposeful effort to aid Trump by blocking the pre-Election Day counting of ballots: “They were looking to log-jam that process,” he said “And they did that with the precise effort to set up the claim that the president was making yesterday.” Proposals for the ability to process and count mail ballots at least a week before election day, in order to prevent confusion and a window for disinformation much like we’re seeing right now, were shot down by Michigan Republicans. A Republican proposal to allow for 10 hours of pre-processing, but not counting, was all that was eventually adopted.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate