President Donald Trump and Democratic rival Joe Biden opened their tally with a predictable string of victories while key prizes including Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania remain too early to call.

Pennsylvania still needs to count upwards of 80 percent of the total vote. It’s going to be taking a while. So far, pollsters’ forecasts of wide margins are not showing up. Instead, what we see is a colour coding that’s all too familiar.

The electoral vote count as of 10 a.m. IST Wednesday morning placed Biden at 209 and Trump 118. The magic number is 270. Deep red states have not budged. Trump has already picked up South Dakota, Utah, Missouri, Louisiana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Arkansas, Alabama, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia, and Indiana. The last time Utah went to a Democratic presidential candidate was Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964. And the last time a Democratic candidate won Alabama was Jimmy Carter, 1976.

Meanwhile, Biden has won Colorado, New Hampshire, District of Columbia, New York, Vermont, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island and California. Virginia, once a battleground and now a Democratic stronghold, has also been called for Biden.

Even before Election Day, a record number of Americans had cast mail in votes, accounting for more than 70 percent of the total vote in 2016.

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