Election Results NC 2020: Trump Leads, 117K Mail-In Votes Remain

Updated 8:45 a.m. Wednesday

NORTH CAROLINA — President Donald Trump held a narrow lead over former Vice President Joe Biden early Wednesday in the battle for North Carolina's 15 electoral votes based on unofficial returns released after polls closed. In a 2:20 a.m. speech in the White House, President Donald Trump claimed victory in North Carolina and said the election is a fraud that requires U.S. Supreme Court action.

Former Vice President Joe Biden has said he expects to win the race, and the national news organizations have not called North Carolina for either candidate.

About 117,000 absentee ballots remain unaccounted for, according to state election officials. In North Carolina, ballots that are post marked Nov. 3 and received by Nov. 12 will be counted.

"Millions and millions of people voted for us tonight," Trump said in remarks at the White House. "A very sad group of people is trying to disenfranchise that group of people and we won't stand for it."

SEE ALSO: NC's Final Election Results Won't Be Known Until Nov. 12

He said his campaign was ready to celebrate the surge in voter turnout nationwide, and a win in North Carolina, where he said he was 77,000 votes ahead of Biden with absentee ballots outstanding. “They can’t catch us,” Trump told supporters.

Unofficial returns showed Trump beating Biden by a margin of 2,732,084 votes to 2,655,383 votes. The president won North Carolina in 2016 when he ran against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The voting should stop, the president said, and he said his team will head to the U.S. Supreme Court. "This is a fraud on the American public this is an embarrassment to our country," Trump said. "We were getting ready to win this election, frankly, we did win this election."

Early voting usually favor Democrats, but Trump took 50.2 percent of that vote, reported the News & Observer. Biden won absentee mail-in ballots by about 375,000. The official race call will hinge on uncounted absentee votes and provisional ballots.

The state board of elections said North Carolinians are voting by mail in record numbers this year because of the coronavirus. All ballots must be postmarked on or before Election Day to be counted.

"Because of the surge in by-mail voting, more ballots than usual will be counted after Election Day," election officials said.

According to the state voting officials, nearly 75 percent of the state's estimated nearly 7.4 million registered voters participated in the Nov. 3 election.

(See real-time election results from the North Carolina elections office at the bottom of this story.)

In the hotly contested U.S. Senate race, early returns also showed Republican incumbent Thom Tillis bested Democratic challenger Cal Cunningham 2,629,873 votes to 2,536,312 votes.

Voters reelected Gov. Roy Cooper for another four-year term Tuesday. Cooper claimed 51.5 percent of the state's votes with a ballot count of 2,795,905 compared to Republican challenger Dan Forest's 2,554,441 votes.

Election Day voting began at 6:30 a.m. in North Carolina. While polls were officially to close at 7:30 p.m., poll hours were extended at several poll sites due to reported delays. The extension meant that results, which are reported once all of the state's 2,660 Election Day poll sites close, will now be released at 8:15 p.m.

Throughout the day, voting largely went smoothly throughout the state, however some voters reported issues ranging from voter intimidation to lack of access for the disabled.

Four hours into voting in Charlotte, some voters reported feeling intimidated by a man with a gun outside the poll site at the Oasis Shrine Temple, a poll watcher told ProPublica's Electionland, which is taking tips about voting problems. "A man is walking around near the polling site with a gun in a holster," the complaint said.

A precinct manager with the Mecklenburg County Board of Elections confirmed the incident to Patch, saying the man arrived with the handgun and was allowed to cast his vote, and then called the Board of Elections office himself after the gun provoked reaction from others at the location.

"He was complaining that people were hollering at him as he was leaving," Precinct Manager Mike Crutch said.

Several hours later and after the armed man was banned from the site by an election official, the man was arrested when he returned.

SEE ALSO: Armed Man Arrested At Charlotte Polling Site: CMPD

Near Asheville, authorities issued a warning about robocalls spreading misinformation to voters. "Do not listen to these robocall voicemails!," Buncombe County Government said, via social media. "Today is your last chance to vote. If you are in line by 7:30 p.m., you will get to vote."

Elsewhere in the state, tensions mounted at a poll site in Polk County, North Carolina were a protester was dressed in a Trump suit and mask with a large campaign flag emblazoned with guns, which some voters found intimidating. In Wake County, a truck with a large campaign flag reportedly drove through a parking log outside the 50-foot buffer zone at the poll site, aggressively honking the horn. At a poll site in Cabarrus County, a man with graphic anti-abortion, pro-life signs reportedly screamed at voters.

Numerous complaints also rolled in regarding the lack of curbside voting for the disabled. Every polling site in the state is required to offer curbside voting, however it has not been uniformly accessible due to a variety of reasons, such as lack of personnel, signage or plan.

One week before Election Day, North Carolina voters had already turned out in full force, far outpacing early interest during the 2016 general election. By Nov. 1, nearly 4.6 million ballots had already been cast, representing a voter turnout of 62 percent of the state's registered voters before Election Day polls opened their doors Tuesday.

Sunday's RealClearPolitics average of polls on the state of the presidential race in North Carolina showed it a virtual tie with 47.7 percent support for Democrat Joe Biden, and 47.4 percent support for President Donald Trump.

SEE ALSO: Complaints Of Intimidation On NC's First Day Of Early Voting

Changing political demographics in the state in recent years has turned North Carolina into a toss-up state, thrusting it into "the center of the political universe," according to CNN. "The state the President won by more than 3 percentage points four years ago has continued its gradual political transformation, moving away from the red states to its south and toward its bluer neighbors to the north," CNN said.

Both the Trump and Biden campaigns spent considerable time and energy in North Carolina leading up to election day for one core reason: 15 electoral votes. Those 15 electoral votes are crucial for Trump to remain in office, and without them, his route to staying in the White House becomes more difficult.

Return to Patch for tonight's local election results: Subscribe to free News Alerts.

The bid for president is an expensive one, expected to surpass $5 billion in spending by the time the election draws to a close, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Second to that, is the North Carolina Senate race, which is the most expensive Senate race in U.S. history, the organization said. As of Oct. 13, more than $233 million has been spent on advertising alone in the general election by the campaigns for Democrat Cal Cunningham and GOP incumbent Thom Tillis.

The cash outlay indicates the high stakes, observers say. In this year's election 23 GOP seats and 12 Democratic seats are put before voters — and forecasting predicts Democrats are favored to gain control, according to FiveThirtyEight.

Three days into October, however, North Carolina voters received their own version of a tawdry "October Surprise" when news broke that Cal Cunningham, the Democratic challenger in the state's closely contested U.S. Senate contest, admitted to exchanging sexually suggestive text messages with a woman who's not his wife. Cunningham publically apologized to his wife, family and friends but said he would not drop out of the race.

Here are real-time results for Federal Races from the North Carolina State Board of Elections:

SEE ALSO:

• NC Senate Candidate Admits To Sending Sexually Suggestive Texts
• FBI Charlotte Warns About Election Disinformation Campaigns
• Armed Militias And Poll Watchers: Know The Laws In North Carolina
• NC Voters Urged To Wear A Mask, Wash Hands Before, After Voting

Meet some of the candidates

• Meet The Candidate: Leigh Altman For County Commissioner At-Large
• Meet The Candidate: Alicia Brooks For Superior Court Judge
• Meet The Candidate: Rich George For Soil & Water Conservation
• Meet The Candidate: Sunny Panyanouvong-Rubeck For District Judge
• Meet The Candidate: District Judge Rex Marvel Seeking Reelection
• Meet The Candidate: Kimberly Best For District Court Judge
• Meet The Candidate: Paul Newby For NC Supreme Court Chief Justice
• Meet The Candidate: David Tondreau For NC State House