Will Donald Trump concede US election on Thursday? Joe Biden is on the verge of victory
As hundreds of thousands of remaining votes are counted in Georgia, Joe Biden is on the verge of winning the presidency.Many of these ballots are from Democratic-leaning districts, and since just a few thousand votes separate Donald Trump and Biden in Georgia, this may be fatal for the president's hopes of a second term.
Biden needs only to be declared the winner in Pennsylvania or Georgia to grasp the prize he has sought since he first ran for the presidency more than 30 years ago.
But he knows that this country remains deeply divided.
This was not the landslide election or the repudiation of Trump that so many Democrats expected.In fact, given the headwinds of a pandemic, Trump's shockingly poor performance in the first debate, and the wildly erratic nature of his presidency, perhaps the most remarkable feature of this election is how close it is.If Biden does reach the threshold of 270 Electoral College votes on Thursday, then all the pressure will be on Trump to concede.
Robert Moore with the latest from Washington
That will be an immensely difficult moment for the president since he has repeatedly claimed the election has been stolen and that massive fraud is underway.There is, of course, absolutely no evidence for that allegation. None at all.His legal options are very narrow; he cannot easily justify filing frivolous and desperate lawsuits when the country wants clarity.
Trump has spoken of appealing to the Supreme Court. But what would he appeal? The careful counting of legitimate votes?This may be the ultimate test of whether Trump can accept any political convention or norm.
In this case, can he accept that American democracy depends on a peaceful - and preferably a gracious - transition of power?
Ultimately, if he refuses to accept defeat, I assume senior Republicans from the Senate and the House would pay a visit to the Oval Office and urge him to concede.And if that doesn't work, then the system - Trump supporters will call it "the deep state" - might need to figure out how to evict him from the White House.
That would certainly be unprecedented territory for the Secret Service or the US Marshall's Office.But there is no rush.
Whatever happens, Donald Trump remains president until noon on January 20, 2021.