The count continues.
We are three days out from Election Day and we still do not know who won the presidency.
Former Vice President Joe Biden won the popular vote, but at this hour still hasn't secured the requisite 270 electoral college votes to take the win. A number of key states are in the balance, including Pennsylvania, Arizona, Nevada and Georgia.
Mail-in ballots are what election officials are counting in these states and in those are largely favoring Biden. For that reason, leads President Trump jumped to on election night based on in-person ballots have now been shrinking for days as the remaining early vote ballots are counted.
His campaign has called for vote counts to stop, filed suit in a number of places and the president himself last night called a press conference inside the White House where he made unfounded claims that illegal votes are being counted and that Biden’s campaign is perpetrating fraud. Networks cut away from coverage in the middle of his tirade, saying he just was not dealing in the truth.
By the way, Ohio will count ballots that arrive up to ten days after Election Day, as long as they were postmarked Nov. 2. The bulk of counting was done within hours here and there was no nail biter. President Trump won by an even wider margin here than he did in 2016. Are we really still a battleground state? Is Ohio a bellwether?
Again yesterday, for the third time this week, Ohio set another daily record for new COVID-19 cases. The Ohio Department of Health reported 4,961 cases in its daily afternoon update.
Governor Mike DeWine says hospitalizations have increased in Ohio by 55% over the last two weeks.
Fifty-six of Ohio's 88 counties are now listed as red--or the 2nd highest level on the state's color coded public health advisory map. The governor says 86% of the state's population lives in a red county.
No counties have yet met the criteria for purple or the highest advisory level. No counties are on a watch list indicating they are at risk for being designated a purple county. To help meet the challenge of the surge, DeWine announced a new Director for the Ohio Department of Health, Stephanie McCloud and a Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff.
Nick Castele, Reporter, Ideastream
Taylor Haggerty, Reporter, Ideatream
Karen Kasler, Statehouse News Bureau Chief, Ohio Public Radio/TV