Joseph R. Biden Jr. has defeated President Trump in Wisconsin, flipping a state President Trump narrowly won in 2016, according to The Associated Press.
With more than 98 percent of the votes counted, Mr. Biden had 1,630,389 votes and Mr. Trump 1,609,879, a margin of more than 20,000 votes, or 0.6 percentage points.
But under Wisconsin law, a recount can be requested if the margin between the leading candidates is less than 1 percent, and Mr. Trump’s campaign manager, Bill Stepien, said even before the race was called that the campaign would “immediately do so.”
“The president is well within the threshold to demand a recount,” Mr. Stepien said Wednesday afternoon.
In 2016, a statewide recount increased Mr. Trump’s margin in Wisconsin by 131 votes.
Whoever requests the recount would have to pay for it unless the margin is less than one-quarter of 1 percent.
Mr. Biden’s narrow Wisconsin advantage came after several of the state’s large cities — including Milwaukee, Green Bay and Kenosha — reported results from their absentee ballots on Wednesday morning.
The Biden campaign maintained a sharp focus on Wisconsin after the state was one of three crucial Great Lakes states that the party lost four years ago. It was a key part of the campaign’s hope of clearing a straightforward path to 270 electoral votes.
During his campaign, Mr. Biden made three visits to the state, which was set to host the Democratic National Convention before it became an all-virtual event because of the coronavirus pandemic, which is currently worse in Wisconsin than in any other battleground state. He maintained a steady lead in the polls in the run-up to Election Day.
In 2016, Mr. Trump became the first Republican presidential candidate to win Wisconsin since 1984, narrowly defeating Hillary Clinton in a state with a large population of white, working-class Democrats.
