tonight, taking the lead. joe biden edging closer to a historic electoral victory. >> you don't have a final declaration of victory yet, but the numbers tell us it's clear. we're going to win this race. >> the former vice president urging calm and patience. >> let the process work out. >> where the votes stand as a tense nation zeros in on pennsylvania. we're in the key states with voters watching it all. but the latest from president trump and the republicans vowing to continue fighting and standing firm on unfounded claims of fraud. >> we have seen some discrepancies in michigan and some irregularities that deserve

investigation. >> our abc news powerhouse political team standing by with realtime analysis. this special edition of "nightline," "your voice, your vote," will be right back. and mine's unlisted.. try boost® high protein... -with 20 grams of protein for muscle health- -versus only 16 grams in ensure® high protein. and now enjoy boost® high protein in café mocha flavor. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ (beeping sound) ♪ ♪

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tonight, donald trump's hopes for four more years in the white house now dimming as joe biden is on the cusp of winning the presidency. biden slowly widening his leads in crucial battleground states. but when will america know for certain who our next president will be? >> we don't have a final declaration of victory yet. >> reporter: joe biden addressing a tense nation after another day of uncertainty in america. >> i know watching these vote tallies on tv moves very slower, slow, and -- as slow as it goes, it can be numbing. but never forget, the tallies aren't just numbers. they represent votes and voters. men and women who exercised their fundamental right to have their voice heard. >> reporter: this evening the former vice president and running mate, senator kamala harris, once again urged calm. >> we may be opponents but we're not enemies. we're americans. >> reporter: a clear path to victory remains in sight with biden on the precipice of a

presidency. >> look, we both know tensions are high. let the process work out. as we count all the votes. you know, we're proving again what we've proved for 244 years in this country. democracy works. >> reporter: poll workers methodically counting around the clock to complete their vote tallies in four battleground states. the race to 270 hinging on pennsylvania, arizona, georgia, and nevada. vice president joe biden expected to come out on top after pulling ahead in all four states. meanwhile, the president doubled down, even though he has prematurely and falsely declared victory, tonight tweeting, joe biden did not wrongfully claim the office of the president. i could make that claim also. legal proceedings are just now beginning. this all coming after a fiery press conference thursday night where he baselessly called into question the democratic process. >> if you count the legal votes, i easily win. if you count the illegal votes,

they can try to steal the election from us. >> what donald trump is doing is testing. he's testing the election system. he's testing our institutions more broadly. it is something unamerican. it's alien to who we are. >> reporter: the president's supporters reacting to his unfounded claims about a rigged election. >> we want trump! we want trump! >> reporter: swarming vote counting sites in maricopa county, arizona, demanding that votes be counted. in michigan, demanding conversely that they don't. >> stop the vote! stop the vote! >> tensions running high on all sides. hundreds of donald trump supporters have been showing up at the county recorder's office protesting, some of them armed. state officials are urging patience, promising to count every ballot. >> reporter: all eyes are on pennsylvania. a win here would put biden over the top. on election day, the former vice president was significantly behind trump in pennsylvania,

but there are more than 1 million mail-in ballots waiting to be counted. though the president has falsely claimed he won the state, biden is now ahead. his lead is expected to grow. tonight in philadelphia, celebrations in the street. biden supporters here are confident that they will win the presidency. >> we're starting to move forward in some democracy. we still have a long way to go. >> reporter: brittany smalls of black lives matter outside the convention center where votes are being counted. >> the numbers are reliant on the black community. we're saying we are part of the process. >> reporter: she worked tirelessly to turn out black voters and they came through. biden overwhelmingly winning the city. >> 2016, we heard the call. and we decided to take action, to turn our anger into action in our communities. >> reporter: philadelphia native pastor karl day knows about the power of the black vote. >> it looked early on like black america wasn't going to show up

strong at the polls. by tonight, there's a recognition that if, in fact, joe biden wins, it's in great part because of black and brown people voting in philadelphia, in pittsburgh, in tucson, and different -- in atlanta. >> detroit. >> detroit, yeah. >> yes, sir. yes, sir. yes, and i wholeheartedly believe that. and i'm truly proud as an african-american man, a pastor, a community leader, that we've shown that what it looks like when we all come together, gather, the power that we do have. >> reporter: at an abc news town hall with president trump in september, he took the president to task. >> you've coined the phrase "make america great again." >> right. >> when has america been great for african-americans in the ghetto of america? >> reporter: day, undecided at the time, voted for biden. >> we wanted to believe the love and celebrate every voter in philadelphia, whether they voted republican or democrat, just to let them know, guess what, we still have to love each other,

we have a responsibility. it's ultimately everybody's concern or care with the betterment of all americans. >> reporter: outside of philly, voters also made big gains for biden. katie and morgan harris live with their two children in westchester, pennsylvania, a suburb of philadelphia. in 2016, both voted for trump. >> i did have this underlying hope that being in the office, being the president, you would act a little more presidential. >> reporter: this year they flipped for biden. >> i'm just tired of how we speak to each other. just neighbors, family, friends. on social media. and i think he is leading the way in that. >> reporter: they hope their votes can help unify the country. >> we need to be the united states of america. we need to come together, unite, and move the country forward together. >> reporter: it's been a divisive election cycle. >> who's on your list -- >> gentlemen, i think -- >> reporter: the president facing multiple crises. hundreds of thousands of americans dead in the pandemic.

the near collapse of the economy. ongoing racial reckoning. now perhaps he's facing the consequences. >> black lives matter! black lives matter! >> reporter: this has been an election largely defined by early and mail-in voting due to the pandemic, a strategy democrats strongly encouraged. it was those votes, received before election day, but often counted last, that will likely push biden over the top. while president trump himself votes by mail, he urged his supporters to vote in person on election day. >> i like to vote in person. call me old-fashioned. but a lot of people, a lot of our people want to vote in person. they want to vote. >> reporter: mail-in voting is a legal and secure way to vote. despite the president calling it fraud. >> it's a scam. sending ballots -- >> going into the election, looking at the polls, donald trump was already looking for some way to delegitimize it and he seized on absentee ballots, what he calls mail-in ballots.

now that these races are so close, in arizona, he now needs those mail-in ballots in that state, and in other states, to count. he shot himself in the foot. >> reporter: president trump set the stage for legal battles he hopes will help him in states where he is lagging behind. >> we were winning in all the key locations, by a lot, actually, and then our numbers started miraculously getting whittled away, in secret. >> on i've been told by multiple people close to the president that if this process ends, the legal challenges don't pan out, they fully expect that donald trump will give a concession speech. but it will be a very trump-style concession. i'm told that it will be full of complaints about how this election has gone down, suggesting not so much that he lost, but that it was stolen from him. >> reporter: several of the trump lawsuits have already been thrown out due to the lack of evidence. >> donald trump loves to sue people, and he's insistent that he's got to find a way in court to overturn this election, get to it the supreme court, he said that's what he wants to do. sounds like donald trump wants a lot of recounts in a lot of

different states here. the problem with recounts, and it's a tribute to how accurate the counts usually are. in america, recounts don't change that many votes. >> reporter: one state guaranteed to see a recount, georgia, traditionally red state, where biden now leads by a slim margin. >> even democrats have been surprised by joe biden's performance in georgia. the president's lead at one point was somewhere north of 370,000 votes. now separated by just mere thousands of votes. the size of a high school. the big question tonight is how many votes are out there to be counted that are already in the bank, in time for the deadline that could possibly affect the outcome of this race? >> you use your power. the power to vote. >> reporter: part of biden's edge here, pushed from the atlanta area and suburbs, where the black vote expanded thanks in part of the efforts of stacey

abrams. abrams narrowly missing the race for georgia's governor. since then she's spearheaded the fight against voter oppression. still many stand with claims of voter fraud. >> stacey abrams complains about voter suppression. their suppression what they're doing to us now as well. >> reporter: other trump supporters say they would respect whoever wins. >> it's going to take you and me. it's going to take the one on one. it's going to take one on one, every day, each person making a decisive choice to respect the other person regardless of what their political stance is. that's why i'm very clear that i will respect whoever becomes our president. >> reporter: at the end of this historic week, a weary and divided nation now watches and waits as democracy plays out in realtime. and next, our political powerhouse team on when this divisive election will be decided.

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♪ election week, all eyes are still on three swing states in a grueling campaign to count all the outstanding votes. right now i'm joined by republican strategist sara fag n

fagen, yvette simpson, ceo of democracy for america, thank you for staying up late with us. joe biden spoke to the nation earlier tonight. what was your takeaway? >> well, i think he wanted to give a different speech. they had thought they were going to give the victory speech because they thought the networks were going to have declared the race already over but he couldn't do that. he gave a conciliatory speech. it reminded me of the husband, i mean, the father of a bride and the bride's seven months' pregnant and he's like, am i supposed to tell everybody she's pregnant? no, no, don't tell everybody she's pregnant. well, everybody knows she's pregnant. that's what biden's position was. everybody knows how this is going to turn out but he's like, don't say it yet. >> yvette, we know the president is making a lot of noise and claiming baseless legal threats. should biden be more aggressive in responding? >> i think at this stage it's better for him to take the calm approach. we don't want people to get too

worried. we know folks are already anxious and might take the lead. i think what he did today was really smart. he went through each of the states he thinks he's going to win. he even said, i'm going to get 306 electoral votes. after what we heard from the rnc chairwoman what we're hearing from donald trump's supporters, i think him saying, we got this, don't worry, we know the end is coming, stay in here with me, being calm and being present what is we need right now. trump turns up the heat tomorrow, we learn more from him, louder rhetoric, then i think we need to hear the other joe biden where he says, wait a minute now, we need to declare this thing right now, or you need to understand that we believe we've got this. stop throwing a wrench in this election where so many people have worked so hard to vote this year. >> sara, if the president does lose, does he have a responsibility to address his followers and urge peace under a new president? and do you think he'll do that? >> well, if he does, in fact, lose, and we're not there yet but it's looking more likely that is going to be the outcome

of this race, he does have a responsibility to also help unify the country. i don't expect we'll see that. he's a very different style from any president we've ever had. and i suspect any president we ever will have. yes that would be the appropriate and proper thing to do. >> thank you for the visual earlier. president trump remains defiant, repeating unfounded claims of voter fraud. does he comp have any evidence, one, and will the legal action taken by the campaign even make a difference, you think? >> the answer is zero evidence. i was saying earlier to a friend of mine that the president has as much evidence as the democrats have that the republicans cheated in iowa and in maryland and in maine to take those senate races. there's the same amount of evidence as exist in both of those real worlds. and it's none. and so i think this is a -- more of a psychological process, in

my view. i think as we've said earlier, the writing seems to be pretty clear on the wall. this is not an election being decided by 600 votes in florida. this is an election being decided by tens of thousands of votes with margins that are fairly big. bigger than in 2016, interestingly enough. we've already seen the margins across the three blue wall states in the midwest. biden's margins are twice or three times as big as donald trump's were in 2016. and so i think they're going through this process, unless they come up with something definitive and not just a poll worker wasn't allowed to get within six feet or something. it has to be real ballot fraud. and so far, there's been not an ounce of evidence on anything that would attempt to overturn this election. >> sara, joe biden has said he wants to be president to all of america. can he reach across, you think, to trump supporters and make them feel like they're part of this new america? >> he can. and he will have to work extra hard at it if he wants to get those most loyal trump backers.

i do think there's a large pocket of republicans who voted for donald trump, they liked his policies, they were concerned about the democratic -- democratic party moving too far to the left. but they didn't like donald trump's twitter. and they held their nose and they voted for policy. they're easier to get. and i think what he's doing over this weekend is he's bringing those people along quickly to his -- at least to him being a president that they can respect, even when they don't agree with him. >> yvette, we had senator bernie sanders on the air earlier. how hard of a time will joe biden have keeping the progressive wing of the democratic party happy, in line, in this america he hopes to build forward? >> i think what he has to do is make sure that he's responding to the needs of the people. progressives have brought this election, i think, black and brown folks and progressives have brought this election to biden when you think about where the votes came from, the type of

organizing progressives did. what they expect is for joe biden to make sure that he's taking care of the people who we care about, which is everyday americans. i think that's going to be easier than folks think. folks that painted progressives into this corner as radicals, we just want people to have health care, we want them to have education, we want them to have a good quality of life. i think that's going to speak across the country, particularly when we're in a pandemic where a lot of people are suffering. i think as long as we see joe biden listening, as long as we see we have a voice at the table, as long as we see him fighting for the things that matter, i think we're going to be just fine. >> yvette, sara, matt, thank you so much for your time tonight. sleep fast. i guess we'll be back at it tomorrow. we'll be right back with "the final note." ...could be all your softf odor surfaces?ome... odors get trapped in your home's fabrics

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♪ finally tonight, "good morning america" will have all the developments in the presidential election first thing tomorrow. you can get the latest any time at abcnews.com.

that's "nightline" for this evening. thanks for the company, america. have a great weekend. good night.