Who is winning the United States election?

Donald Trump and Joe Biden both regularly racked up electoral college votes on election night, but neither reached the all-important 270. Hundreds of thousands of ballots, many of which were mailed, remain to count - which the president took advantage of to claim victory prematurely even as a number of battlefield states remain in play.

“We won this election,” Mr. Trump said in an inflammatory and lies-laden speech to family and White House supporters. He has said he will try to prevent the counting of legitimate ballots in the states he currently leads, while saying he is really trying to maintain the "integrity" of the vote.

Mr. Trump won Texas, Florida, Ohio, West Virginia, South Carolina, Kentucky, Indiana, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, l 'Oklahoma, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Utah, Idaho, Iowa and Wyoming, by AP. He was not declared the winner in Georgia, although he incorrectly said he participated in his East Room harangue.

Mr. Biden, the former vice president, won New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Vermont, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Illinois, Colorado, Minnesota, California, Washington, Arizona and New -Mexico.

Mr. Biden has 225 Electoral College votes so far, while Mr. Trump has 213. All eyes are now on the Rust Belt - again.

Democrats may look with dismay at the current status of the so-called “blue wall” states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, but hundreds of thousands of votes remain to be counted; in Philadelphia and Detroit, stacks of mail-in ballots will only be counted until Wednesday and possibly later, which could delay the announcement of a winner by midweek. Georgia is in a similar location.

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Mr Trump took a victory in Florida, a must-have victory for him and the state where he has his estate of Mar a Lago. Left-wing Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted her frustration over her party's failure to engage Latino voters in the state. “The necessary effort has simply not been made,” said the New York MP.

Meanwhile, Mr Biden's first leads on the Ohio and North Carolina battlefields have been curtailed by a resurgence of Trump, though the latter state was not called up for either candidate.

Both men had access to the White House on election night, although the president's options were more limited. Mr. Biden's victory in Arizona put pressure on the incumbent.

In a brief address to supporters overnight, Biden urged them to "keep the faith" and be patient while the votes are counted. Although he said it was not up to him or his opponent to declare the final victory, he told the jubilant fans that he believed he would win. Facebook added an explanatory note to a post the Democrat posted saying he expected to win.

State and national investigations had previously shown Mr. Biden a considerable lead over Mr. Trump, including in states the Republican incumbent won in 2016, such as Arizona, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan.

However, the former vice president in some of these major battlegrounds was just above the margin of error in some polls, leading many experts to view states like Pennsylvania as a dud in this. electoral cycle.

A final poll released by YouGov put Mr Biden nine points ahead of Mr Trump in a national average, with a margin of error of 3.2%. The voting site also predicted that Mr Biden would receive 382 votes in the electoral college, saying he was 95% confident the former vice president would fall within a range of 314 to 412 voters.