Biden projected to take battleground state of Michigan in presidential election: US media

WASHINGTON - US Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden is projected to take the state of Michigan, a battleground sitting President and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump carried four years ago, US media networks reported on Wednesday.

With 97 percent of the expected vote in, Biden is ahead of Trump by a margin of 1.2 percentage points in Michigan, according to NBC News.

With Michigan carrying 16 electoral votes, CNN now projects Biden to have garnered 253 electoral votes, leading Trump by 40. It takes 270 electoral votes to win the US presidential election.

The six states of Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona, Nevada and Alaska have yet to be called, according to CNN.

In a speech from Wilmington, Delaware, Biden said he is "not here to declare that we have won", but is "here to report, when the count is finished, we believe we will be the winners".

The Trump campaign announced earlier in the day that it had filed a suit to halt vote counting in Michigan, complaining that it "has not been provided with meaningful access to numerous counting locations to observe the opening of ballots and the counting process".

The campaign has also said that it will request a recount in Wisconsin, where Biden is forecast to have another victory by a small edge, and that it is suing to halt counting in Pennsylvania until "there is meaningful transparency".

Meanwhile, Fox News now puts Biden's projected number of electoral votes at 264, counting the 11 votes of Arizona in favor of the former vice president.