By Staff, Agencies

Democratic Presidential candidate and former US Vice President Joe Biden expressed confidence he will win the presidency as he insisted every last vote be counted, while US President Donald Trump launched multiple lawsuits in hopes of halting vote-counting in three crucial battleground states he can’t afford to lose.

Biden said it’s clear he’s winning enough states to reach the threshold of 270 electoral votes necessary to clinch the presidency. Biden won Wisconsin and Michigan Wednesday, flipping the two Midwestern states Trump won in 2016, and he expects a strong showing among outstanding mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania, where he holds a sizeable advantage.

“I’m not here to declare that we’ve won, but I am here to report that when the count is finished, we believe we will be the winners,” Biden told supporters in Delaware Wednesday afternoon.

Biden also used the moment to call for unity following the bitter campaign. He urged Americans to work harder to listen to each other and leave the divisive election behind them.

“To make progress, we have to stop treating our opponents as enemies. We are not enemies,” he said.

Meanwhile, Trump’s campaign launched several lawsuits in hopes of stopping vote-counting in Michigan, which Biden went on to win, and Pennsylvania and Georgia, which are still counting votes. Trump is also calling for a recount in Wisconsin, which Biden won by more than 20,000 votes. A 2016 recount in Wisconsin changed the margin in Trump’s favor by 131 votes.

Biden called for the democratic process to be carried out to completion.

“No one is going to take our democracy away from us. Not now, not ever,” he said.

In another sign of confidence, the Biden campaign launched a transition website on Wednesday, promising to prepare “at full speed so that the Biden-Harris Administration can hit the ground running on Day One.”

While Biden voices optimism, Trump spent the day sowing confusion. In a series of tweets, Trump baselessly claimed that the election was rigged against him and then declared victory in four battleground states that have not yet reported their final results, or that Biden has already won.

Twitter warned that the claims “might be misleading about an election or other civic process.”

Earlier Wednesday, Trump attacked media organizations for not declaring him the winner, saying in an early-morning appearance that it was "a major fraud on our nation."

"As far as I'm concerned, we already have won this," he said, calling for outstanding ballots not to be counted.

In a tweet later in the day, he seemed to imply the election was being rigged against him.

“Last night I was leading, often solidly, in many key States, in almost all instances Democrat run & controlled,” he wrote. “Then, one by one, they started to magically disappear as surprise ballot dumps were counted. VERY STRANGE.”

Twitter warned that the claim “might be misleading about an election or other civic process.”

The confident tone from Biden comes after his campaign expressed earlier Wednesday that he was “on a clear path to victory.”

“Joe Biden is on track to win this election, and he will be the next president of the United States,” said campaign manager Jen O'Malley Dillon.

In many cases, outstanding votes are from Democratic-leaning areas, she argued.

In Pennsylvania, Gov. Tom Wolf said he had “promised Pennsylvanians that we would count every vote and that's what we're going to do.”

For now, the Associated Press says that it's too early to declare a winner in five battleground states, including Pennsylvania, Georgia and Michigan.

In many key states, a small margin separates Trump from Biden, with large numbers of mail ballots yet to be counted.

The COVID-19 pandemic has led Americans to vote by mail in numbers far higher than normal, which has slowed counts in several states. Democrats appear to be more likely to vote by mail than Republicans.