By Nikhila Natarajan

New York, Nov 7 (IANS): Champagne bottles are going pop in the Joe Biden camp but they're keeping it low key for now.

Three nights out from US election day, the flash and bang of a ritual announcement from news networks announcing a winner has not yet happened but top politicos in Washington are already hailing "president-elect Biden" and the electoral map tells a fairly simple story. It goes like this: Joe Biden leads against Trump 253-214 and is ahead in at least four states where more than 95 percent of the votes have been counted. Among these, Pennsylvania is the ball game, with 20 electoral votes. A win there takes Biden over the top. A win for Trump keeps him in the hunt. A loss here means curtains for Trump.

Here's how the other races look, all of which offer Biden several paths to 270. Biden and Trump are locked in a dead heat in Georgia, with a razor-thin lead for Biden. This is heading into a recount. In Pennsylvania, Biden is leading by more than 15,000 votes. Arizona is too close to call, with Biden leading. In Nevada, Biden is ahead by 20,000 votes. Trump leads Biden in North Carolina.

Biden has received more than 74 million votes already, a never-before number in American political history.

Meanwhile, at the White House, Trump is fixated on the idea that the US Supreme Court must tangle with his grievance over mail-in ballots. This method of voting is a common feature of US elections which got elevated to a whole new level during the pandemic and ended up being a game-changer for Biden.

There's already one election case at the Supreme Court involving a Republican plea to exclude ballots that arrived after Election Day in Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania Secretary of State has indicated that those ballots are unlikely to affect who gets the state's electoral votes.

Trump remains combative. "This is a case when they are trying to steal an election, they are trying to rig an election," Trump said from the podium of the White House briefing room on Thursday, November 5. These remarks came just around the time Trump's lead in Pennsylvania began evaporating.

Trump's campaign manager Bill Stepien said the same thing using vivid imagery in a call with reporters. "Every night the president goes to bed with a lead and every night new votes are mysteriously found in a sack."

One response is on the Biden website: "When all the votes are counted, Joe Biden will be president of the United States."

A more aggressive stance came today: "As we said on July 19th, the American people will decide this election. And the United States government is perfectly capable of escorting trespassers out of the White House," Biden campaign spokesperson Andrew Bates said in a statement.

The next president of the United States will be inaugurated on January 20, 2021.