Trump’s Call to Stop Counting Ballots Would Actually Doom His Campaign

Even top members of President Trump’s own campaign aren’t buying into his baseless, wild-eyed call for states to stop counting ballots. That’s for a good reason: Trump now needs those votes to win. 

Trump trails Democratic nominee Joe Biden in crucial states including Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, and Wisconsin. His presidency now dangles by a thread, unless significantly more votes for Trump are found among the ballots left to be counted. 

Both campaigns insisted Wednesday they believe a full tally of the remaining ballots will put their candidate over the top. For now, however, Biden is leading by narrow margins—and may well have the wind at his back, as crucial Democratic strongholds appear to still be counting in the Great Lakes states. 

Trump campaign staffers effectively ignored Trump’s late-night call for “all voting to stop,” and instead pushed the claim that further counting would work out to Trump’s advantage. 

“The president can win, and the president will win,” Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien told reporters on a hastily-arranged conference call Wednesday morning. Stepien said “conservative” estimates by the Trump campaign indicate the president may ultimately win Pennsylvania by 40,000 votes and Arizona by 30,000 votes.

Trump campaign strategist Jason Miller likewise insisted the continued counting would help Trump.

“We want to make sure that legally cast ballots were counted, and that illegally cast ballots were not counted,” Miller said.  

Meanwhile, Trump continued to angrily tweet on Wednesday morning about “surprise ballot dumps” that he claims are hurting his odds of victory.

“They are finding Biden votes all over the place—in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan,” Trump tweeted. “So bad for our Country!”

Biden’s team wouldn’t be too heartbroken if Trump got what he wanted. Biden is currently ahead in enough states to put him in the White House, and it appears that unless Trump can come from behind and flip Arizona or Nevada, two states where his team hopes they can close the margin, he’ll lose the election.

“If Donald Trump got his wish and we stopped counting ballots right now, Vice President Joe Biden would be the next president of the United States,” Biden campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon said on a Wednesday morning press call.

Biden currently leads Trump by about 21,000 votes in Wisconsin, where it appears all votes have been counted. As of noon EST, his lead in Michigan was over 30,000 votes, and growing. He’d also won an Omaha-based district (Nebraska awards an Electoral College vote to each House seat). Right now, if every state’s current count were frozen in place, Biden would get exactly 270 Electoral College votes needed for victory.

That means Trump needs to pull off a surprise.

The only places where an immediate halt to vote-counting would benefit Trump would be Georgia, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania. Biden’s team is hoping outstanding ballots in metro Atlanta could flip Georgia, though it looks like a tossup, and it appears that the remaining votes in North Carolina won’t be enough to change the outcome. In Pennsylvania, Trump’s 700,000-vote early lead has already been trimmed to less than 500,000, with plenty of Democratic-heavy mail ballots still out, including a big trove in the liberal Philadelphia area.

The Associated Press called Arizona for Biden. And while the state’s count is likely to continue to tighten, it seems less than likely that Trump can overcome his current deficit in the state.

If the map were frozen right now, Biden would be headed to the White House. And while Trump continues to demand a halt in ballot counting, his team clearly knows the only way he can eke out a win at this point is for more ballots to come in—and come in strong for their boss.