But what we can also say is that Donald Trump seems to be doing better than his critics.

The pundits, oh, the media in the United States or indeed in Europe seem to think he would on that.

The battle for the White House has proved rather tougher for Joe Biden.

Thanet looked when the Americans started to go to the polls.

There is a live picture off the White House.

My colleague in Washington, D.

C.

Is Katty Kay catty?

Yeah, we're being reminded during the course of this program and this night that this really is a 50 50 country, Uh, Democrats went into it hoping that they could have a knock out blow against Donald Trump, that they might take a state like Florida, a state like Georgia or North Carolina, and shut Donald Trump out of the race to 270 Electoral College votes in order to win the White House.

That hasn't happened, but there are several big states that are still not called, and that's because of the covert pandemic and the number of Americans who voted early, who voted by Post and those ballots haven't yet Bean counted yet.

And so that is why Joe Biden has come out within the last half hour and said to all his supporters, You have to be patient.

Donald Trump has tweeted within the last few moments that he thinks that any votes that accounted after the polls closed our votes that are being stolen and that he is going to win.

So we are in a fee Brel atmosphere Andrew.

And this is probably the result that the country didn't necessarily need because we are facing now the prospect off days of not knowing who the next president is going to be on days of a vacuum, let's room for mischief, lawyers, contests, even potentially violent.

So let's hope none of that happens.

But right now we are in a position where we don't know who the next president of the United States is going to be, and we may not know it.

Even by the end of today or even by the end of the week.

There is huge uncertainty engulfing America.

Now we have no idea how it is going to be resolved.

We've heard from Joe Biden.

We're still waiting to hear from Donald Trump, though he has already implied that people are trying to steal the election on that he has one to bring you up to date on the latest picture, with the results declared, Let's go toe Christian Fraser at the BBC Touchscreen Christian.

Well, if you are just waking up and joining us, you've timed it perfectly.

We're getting into the nitty gritty off the race.

This is how the map stands at the moment.

Let me remind you were talking about the Electoral College.

This is the figure that one of these men has to get to 270 orm or will deliver the White House to them.

Joe Biden, currently in blue, is in 205 on Donald Trump in red on 171.

What are the big states that have gone so far?

Well, Ohio and Florida in the last couple of hours, Ohio here has gone to Donald Trump, right in the sweet stop for Donald Trump, it is older, whiter state.

You can see eight points ahead with 91% of the vote, counted pretty much where he was.

In fact, in 2016 Florida, it's always close, isn't it?

Not so close this evening, actually.

Donald Trump eking out a bit mawr for the Republicans in Florida.

Three point lead there.

That was called about an hour ago.

Now there are some states here on the East Coast, which has yet to close to call.

Let's talk about North Carolina, which was close in the polls before the election.

Donald Trump here has a 76,000 vote lead.

There are 220,000 votes to count.

There must be some uncertainty in North Carolina for them not to call that at the moment.

This was the absentee vote excused heavily towards Joe Biden.

We don't know what those votes are that they still have to camp, but they haven't called it Georgia.

I'm going to urge some caution on a lot of people, saying that he is leaning to Donald Trump tonight that it's going towards Donald Trump.

They've had a few problems with the count in Georgia, but they're now counting this absentee ballot on excuse again towards Joe Biden, one million votes still to count.

It's a lead that Donald Trump has there of 236,000 votes.

Let me tell you that the New York Times is actually projecting Georgia for Biden by 67%.

I don't know what they based that on, but I know that some of those votes are gonna be in Atlanta.

It's a 67% probability, The New York Times, he's saying.

But some of those votes are in Atlanta, and some of it will be that absentee votes so that one very much still in the balance.

Arizona Out in the West.

Better news for Joe Biden.

Not yet called but you'll see it's a healthy lead for Joe Biden by seven points, 80% off the vote counted.

Fox News had already called it for Joe Biden.

White House didn't like that.

Not quite sure what the Republicans are seeing here, but it looks to me as if that is going towards Joe Biden.

I'm looking at the rest of the map.

It's suddenly all about the Midwest, as we said it would be at the beginning of the night, so let's get to our safe map here.

Okay, So these are the states that I think will be in red and blue by the end of play by perhaps nine o'clock.

And what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna key in those that a little later today may have bean colored in forest.

So, Texas, we think we'll go for Donald Trump.

We're going to leave North Carolina and Georgia for the minute.

I'm going to put Arizona in the Blue column.

We've just shown you that Nevada looks pretty good in terms of the absentee ballot.

Okay, so that's what the score would look like.

233 216 So what might we get?

Well, AP have already called Minnesota for Joe Biden.

That takes him 2 to 43 He's now 27 short.

Okay, we've got Pennsylvania is 20 votes, so he could take Pennsylvania.

Some of the exit polling looks quite good for Joe Biden.

Combination of two of those three would deliver the White House to Joe Biden going to put here Pennsylvania in red.

I'm going to put Georgia in red and North Carolina just to show you that if it goes to Donald Trump and those go to Joe Biden as we think they were looking at the absentee ballot, suddenly main to Nebraska to to congressional district look very important.

Nate Silver, who knows a little bit about polling, has said that where goes New Hampshire could go main.

Two.

It's a very similar electorate.

That would be enough for Joe Biden, but it's not there yet, so we're gonna put it in gray, and that's just one example.

It's a scenario, but there's an awful lot in the balance.

It is on a knife edge.