President Donald Trump continues to allege he won Wisconsin in the presidential election, despite the fact that unofficial results show Joe Biden winning by 20,540 votes and as top Wisconsin elections officials conclude the election was fair and accurate.
The president tweeted Wednesday alleging pollsters at two national news outlets produced a "possibly illegal suppression Poll" showing him down in Wisconsin before the election. Trump continued in the tweet that on election night votes coming in showed him tied with Biden, and that he and his supporters are now "preparing to win the state."
The Fake Pollsters at @ABC/@washingtonpost produced a possibly illegal suppression Poll just before the Election showing me down 17 points in Wisconsin when, in fact, on Election Day, the race was even - & we are now preparing to win the state. Many such “deplorable” instances!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 11, 2020
The Oct. 28 pollthe president mentioned found that likely voters favored Biden by 57 percent compared to Trump's 40 percent, a 17 percent difference. The error margin among likely voters is +/- 4 percentage points, according to the ABC/Post poll.
By Tuesday evening, Trump was slightly ahead in Wisconsin with many of the votes cast on Election Day processed. As the night turned into early Wednesday morning, and as more absentee ballots were processed, Biden pulled ahead to first place. By late Wednesday morning, NBC News and other national news outlets projected Biden as the winner of Wisconsin by about 1 percent of the vote.
Since the week of the election, the Wisconsin Elections Commission has fought back against misformation claiming voter fraud in the state. The most recent pushback from the WEC came this Tuesday when Wisconsin's top elections official released a message to the public that continued to conclude the election was fair and accurate.
In that message, WEC administrator Meagan Wolfe wrote that the election was "conducted according to law and in the open."
"While the results are still unofficial and are currently being triple checked as part of the canvass and certification process, we have not seen any credible information to cast any doubt on those unofficial results," Wolfe explained.
The Trump campaign says it plans to ask for a recount in Wisconsin, though they must wait until all votes are canvassed by county clerks. Once the last county is in, Trump has until 5 p.m. the following business day to request the recount. Counties have until Nov. 17 to report their canvassing results to the state.
Meanwhile, Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos says he plans to issue subpoenas as part of an investigation into the election. Vos told reporters Wednesday that he wants to make sure the election was fair, but adding that he thought it "unlikely" that the state would find enough evidence of fraud to change the results of the election in Wisconsin.