Election 2020 presidential results

There are still about 20,000 mail-in ballots to be counted in Georgia's Fulton County, Director of Registration and Elections Richard Barron tells CNN late Wednesday evening.

He added that the county may have to resume counting ballots at some point Thursday.

Fulton County has counted 121,683 ballots as of 11 p.m. ET, and will need several more hours to finish going through the absentee ballots, Barron said.

In a CNN television interview less than two hours ago, Barron thought his team would finalize their ballot count “sometime between” midnight and 3 a.m. ET.

Why this matters: There are 16 electoral votes at stake in Georgia. CNN is yet to project a winner in the state. Joe Biden leads the race for the presidency with 253 electoral votes. President Trump has 213 electoral votes. The candidates each need 270 electoral votes to win the presidency.

A source familiar with the matter says that if Georgia is close, “of course” the Trump camp will ask for a recount if he loses. 

It’s currently a 33,000 vote margin and there’s around 90,000 remaining to be counted.

In Georgia, a candidate can ask for a recount if the margin of victory is less than half of one percent. 

Earlier today, the Trump campaign announced the intention to seek a recount in Wisconsin.

President Trump’s campaign is considering taking legal action in Arizona and Nevada as votes are still being counted, two sources told CNN. 

As Trump’s path to victory has narrowed dramatically, the campaign pursued a tactic the President has often relied on throughout his life; litigation. The campaign has launched legal fights in several battlegrounds, called for a recount in Wisconsin and is now weighing further lawsuits. 

Not only are officials laying the groundwork to contest the outcome, they’re also trying to buy themselves time to slow the counting in states where he could ultimately lose, according to the sources.

CNN's Kaitlan Collins walks through the latest:

President Trump started the election with a large lead in Georgia, but as votes continued to be counted overnight, the numbers narrowed. 

“372,407 votes at midnight,” John King reported during CNN’s special election coverage. “Then overnight at 1 a.m., it drops to 249,497, continue to count overnight, at 2 a.m. it’s 118,000 and change.” 

King continued to layout how the "trend line has been against the President" over a 24-hour period.

“As the count continues through the day, 10 a.m. you get to 103,000 and then 9 o’clock tonight, we see it down to 39,000 and then we pop out to where we are now and it’s 33,000. So that has been a steady trend as they count the votes.”

CNN's John King explains:

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden leads the race for the White House with 253 electoral votes. President Trump has 213 electoral votes.

Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs said there are about 600,000 outstanding ballots in the state and about 340,000 in Maricopa County, where Phoenix is located.

Based on CNN's latest projections, this is where the race to 270 currently stands.

Reminder: Each candidate needs 270 electoral college votes to win the presidency.

A Trump adviser says officials inside the campaign believe they will claw back enough votes in the late returns in Arizona to capture the state by a narrow margin. 

"We get AZ," the adviser said. 

But the adviser acknowledged there is no room for error for the President. With Georgia teetering, Arizona is a must win for Trump.

A separate GOP source close to the campaign said resignation is building inside Trump's team that the election is slipping away. But they're not ready to accept defeat just yet, the source said. 

The adviser said the other obsession for the campaign right now is still Georgia.

"Georgia is a big deal," the adviser said.

CNN's Jim Acosta walks through the latest:

A Biden campaign adviser says they “feel good” about Georgia, along with Arizona and Pennsylvania, as votes continues to come in the state.

They’ve kept a close eye on Fulton County, Georgia, throughout the day as they’re hoping the margins in the state will continue to tighten as more votes come in from the Atlanta area.

Advisers have long viewed Georgia as an expansion state where a win could help complicate Trump’s path to the presidency.

Biden himself paid a visit to the state, where he delivered his closing argument speech, and the campaign deployed its more powerful surrogate Barack Obama there in the final day of the campaign.

There are still 29,000 mail-in ballots left to be counted in Fulton County, Georgia, said Richard Barron, the county's elections director.

Barron also told Tuchman that the Fulton County election website would be updated with the ballot counts between 12 a.m. ET and 3 a.m. ET. 

“We know that everyone’s looking at us, looking at Georgia, and it could determine the next president,” Barron said.

The election director added that he hasn’t felt any pressure from the presidential campaigns to speed up the counting but praised the poll workers for their hard work. 

“I’m very proud,” Barron said. "My staff has been working long hours for many months, since before the June election.”

President Trump spent the day angrily phoning Republican governors while publicly casting doubt on his own legal strategy that he personally instructed aides to carry out.

After Fox News called Arizona for Joe Biden last night, Trump instructed aides to begin filing lawsuits almost immediately. Those aides spent most of Wednesday putting together half-baked legal strategies, partly in order to buy them more time as votes were being counted in critical states like Arizona, one source said. CNN has not projected a winner in Arizona.

Trump has been angrily calling Republican governors all day, including Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, according to two sources.