2020 U.S. Election: What you need to know right now

President Donald Trump falsely claimed victory over Democratic rival Joe Biden on Wednesday with millions of votes still uncounted in a White House race that will not be decided until a handful of states complete vote-counting over the next hours or days. A look at the latest in the race for the White House.

-Facebook and Twitter flagged some of Trump’s posts on the U.S. election as votes were still being counted, in a real-time test of their rules on handling misinformation and premature claims of victory.

-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s campaign said on Wednesday it has legal teams standing by if Trump follows through with his threat to go to court to try to stop the counting of votes. A look at what might happen if the U.S. election result is disputed.

-The U.S. presidential election will be decided by a handful of states that could swing to either Trump or Biden.

-Fox News faced criticism from Trump’s campaign and its allies on Tuesday for projecting that Arizona’s 11 electoral votes would go to Biden, as other news networks sought more evidence before making a call.

-A Democratic drive to win control of the U.S. Senate appeared to fall short, with Democrats picking up only one Republican-held seat while six other races remained undecided early on Wednesday.

-Americans turned out by the millions to vote on Tuesday in a mostly calm show of political determination and civic duty amid the coronavirus pandemic and deep tensions around one of the most polarizing presidential races in U.S. history.

-As the U.S. presidential race remained undecided, Trump showed some surprising gains with Latino and other nonwhite voters, but they may have been offset by losses among those who supported him four years ago, according to exit polls conducted by Edison Research.

-Democrats entered the 2020 elections looking to win back much of the commanding presence Republicans gained in state government, but with voting results complete in more than 30 states, there were no changes in control of any lawmaking bodies by early Wednesday.

Global perspective

-Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani said on Wednesday the result of the U.S. election was not important for the country’s clerical rulers, but that the next president in Washington should respect international treaties and laws.

-Praying that Biden wins, asylum seekers in Mexico hold their breath as the U.S. votes are counted.

-Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa congratulated Donald Trump on what he described in a tweet as a clear victory in the U.S. presidential election, becoming the first European Union leader to do so.

Investor view

-Investors rushed to adjust portfolios for a tighter and later U.S. election result than many had assumed before Wednesday, with pre-poll expectations of a clear Democratic party win in White House and Senate races look wide off the mark.

-Asian share markets turned skittish and S&P futures wobbled on Wednesday as results from the U.S. presidential election showed an agonisingly close race with no clear winner yet in sight.

-Wall Street investors, hunting for clues on who will win the U.S. presidential race, are looking at the election results in a few dozen counties that could be indicative of broader trends.

By the numbers

Betting market odds on the U.S. presidential election have begun to tighten once again after flipping in favour of Trump over Biden according to data from three aggregators. Britain-based Smarkets exchange is giving Trump 55% odds of winning, up from 39% when polls opened. The odds on Trump had risen to 80% at one point.

After the campaign trail

Expected events and Reuters coverage on Nov 4:

-Reuters/Ipsos to release results of Election Day poll which includes interviews with 40,000 voters

-TV ratings data to be released which will show how many people tuned in to watch U.S. election returns roll in on Tuesday night

-Monitoring for reactions from both Trump and Biden campaigns as the vote count continues

Refinitiv customers see more election coverage on the Election Apphere on Eikon or Workspace.

Media customers can find complete multimedia coverage on the Reuters Connect planning calendar here here.