The Edge of Night: With Joe Biden holding a narrow lead in the electoral college and the race too close to call, President Trump is already claiming victory, crying fraud, and demanding a halt to vote counting.

  In the early morning hours Trump told friends and supporters gathered at the White House, “This is a fraud on the American public. This is an embarrassment to our country. We were getting ready to win this election. Frankly, we did win this election. We did win this election.”

  He went on, “We want the law to be used in a proper manner. So we’ll be going to the US Supreme Court. We want all voting to stop. We don’t want them to find any ballots at four o’clock in the morning and add them to the list.”

  Biden said, “It’s not my place or Donald Trump’s place to declare who has won this election.” 

  Earlier, Trump had tweeted, “We are up BIG, but they are trying to STEAL the Election. We will never let them do it. Votes cannot be cast after the Polls are closed!”

  Votes are always counted after the polls close, but not cast. Twitter put a disinformation warning on the President’s tweet. By law in some states, notably Pennsylvania, election officials are not allowed to start counting mail and absentee ballots until election day. The counting might spill into the rest of the week.

  The NY Times has Biden leading in the electoral college 227 to 213 with eight states yet to be called; Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada, Arizona, and Alaska.

  Biden has 50 percent of the vote to Trump’s 48.4 percent, but for a second time, it’s possible for Trump to lose the popular vote and win the presidency.

  The election may hang on what happens in the so-called “blue wall” of traditionally Democratic states that Hillary Clinton lost four years ago; Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. CNN’s John King quipped last night that if Joe Biden can rebuild the blue wall, Donald Trump will pay for it.

  This morning, Biden has a narrow lead in Wisconsin. The President is up in Michigan.

   The difference is in the mail ballots in the uncalled states. Pennsylvania has 1.4 million mail ballots to count. Mail balloting has skewed Democrat, but the ballots have to be counted before we know what difference they make.

The Senate: The Democratic effort to win control of the US Senate appears to have failed, with the Democrats picking up only one Republican-held seat and six other races still undecided.

  The Democrats needed to turn three seats and in the presidency.

  At the moment the seat split is 45-47, not counting the two independents who vote with the Democrats.

   Democrats defeated Republican Senators Cory Gardner of Colorado and Martha McSally of Arizona, but lost the Alabama seat held by Sen. Doug Jones.

  Lindsey Graham of South Carolina held on to his seat and the mealy-mouthed Susan Collins of Mainehas a slim lead. Sen. Joni Ernst in Iowa, a big Democratic target, defended her seat.

Viral News: The election for the moment has eclipsed the growing coronavirus pandemic in the US — growing fastest in some of the states that will turn the election.

  More than 92,000 cases were announced in the US yesterday, one of the highest totals of the pandemic, along with more than 1,120 deaths. Hospitalizations have also topped 50,000 for the first time since August 7th. As of this morning, 232,635 Americans have died.

  No matter what happens in the election, President Trump will be in charge of the virus response at least until January 20^th but he has campaigned claiming the virus is going away. He hinted in a speech that me might fire the revered epidemiologist, Dr. Anthony Fauci.

  Dr. Deborah Birx, the lead medical authority on the White House pandemic task force, issued a private memo this week saying, “We are entering the most concerning and most deadly phase of this pandemic.” She wrote, “This is not about lockdowns — it hasn’t been about lockdowns since March or April. It’s about an aggressive balanced approach that is not being implemented.”

The Obit Page: Betty Dodson, a sexologist and advocate of women taking care of their own sexual needs, has died at age 91.

  She taught women that you don’t need a man for sexual gratification. She taught masturbation for women and changed how women think about it.

  “The most consistent sex will be the love affair you have with yourself,” she wrote in “Sex for One” a guide that began as a short primer in the feminist Ms. Magazine. “Masturbation will get you through childhood, puberty, romance, marriage and divorce, and it will see you through old age.”

Trending: With the election still uncertain and the virus spreading, trending big online are searches for “How to move to Canada.” You can’t. Foreign nationals are not allowed into Canada right now.

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