Trump refuses to back down

CNN -- As the drama unfolded across the country, the President's allies launched legal challenges and floated conspiracy theories while Trump tweeted "Stop the Count!"

On Thursday night, Trump effectively sent a signal that he has no intention of leaving power without a fight if he ends up losing the election. The speech from the White House briefing room -- in which Trump falsely claimed that votes that were cast before and during the election, but counted after Election Day, are illegal votes -- could end up being one of the most dangerous presidential statements in American history.

The President also made ludicrous claims that his leads on election night shrunk because Democratic officials keep finding ballots, when in fact the counts have narrowed because election officials in many states counted the vote-by-mail ballots, which favored Democrats, after the Election Day votes, which tended to favor Republicans.

Utah Republican Sen. Mitt Romney tweeted Friday that Trump's comments about a rigged election "damages the cause of freedom here and around the world," going further than the rest of the Senate GOP conference, where some top Republicans have continued to defend Trump's baseless claims of voter fraud.

As the President spoke Thursday night, the daily tally of new US coronavirus infections hit 114,876, the worst daily count ever, encapsulating how Trump's political obsessions have driven his neglect of a crisis that has killed more than 236,000 Americans.

Road to 270

It has long been known that Biden would benefit from a late surge of mail-in balloting that was preferred by Democrats amid the pandemic. The President spent months on the campaign trail, falsely blasting mail-in ballots as prone to fraud -- one reason why GOP voters have proven far less likely to use them.

Trump cannot find a route to 270 electoral votes without Georgia and Pennsylvania, so his chances of securing reelection will hinge on developments in those two states in the coming days.

In Arizona, several tranches of votes from Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix, narrowed Biden's lead to just less than 40,000 votes, with Trump's team insisting the President will eventually prevail and keep his hopes of a path to 270 alive.

If Biden holds leads in Arizona and Nevada, he will get to 270 electoral votes and become the next President, regardless of what happens in Pennsylvania and Georgia.

CNN projects Biden will win at least three of Maine's four electoral votes, plus Wisconsin, Michigan, Hawaii, Rhode Island, Minnesota, Virginia, California, Oregon, Washington state, Illinois, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Colorado, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Vermont, Delaware, Washington, DC, Maryland, Massachusetts and one of Nebraska's five electoral votes. Nebraska and Maine award two electoral votes to their statewide winners and divide their other electoral votes by congressional districts.

CNN projects Trump will win Montana, Texas, Iowa, Idaho, Ohio, Mississippi, Wyoming, Missouri, Kansas, Utah, Louisiana, Alabama, South Carolina, North Dakota, South Dakota, Arkansas, Indiana, Oklahoma, Kentucky, West Virginia, Florida and Tennessee and four of Nebraska's five electoral votes.