NEW YORK (1010 WINS) -- Joe Biden said Wednesday afternoon that he is not declaring victory -- after all, votes are still being counted in 7 states, according to CNN -- but he expects to win the presidency.
Just minutes after he spoke, around 4:15 p.m., CNN projected that Biden will win Michigan.
"Now after a long night of counting, it's clear that we're winning enough states to reach 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency," Biden said.
He cautioned, though, "I'm not here to declare that we've won ... But I am here to report when the count is finished we believe we will be the winner."
Earlier in the day, Biden’s campaign held a briefing, saying they believed the Democrat was on a "clear path" to win the election.
Biden campaign manager Jen O'Malley Dillon and campaign adviser Bob Bauer remained optimistic in their "Election Day Protection Briefing" and slammed President Trump's premature claim of victory.
Dillon said Joe Biden is "on track to win this election and he will be the next president of the United States."
"We believe we are on a clear path to victory," Dillon said. "By this afternoon, we expect that the vice president will have leads in states that put him over 270 electoral votes."
Dillon said the campaign expected Biden to win Wisconsin, Nevada, Michigan and Pennsylvania, while she said the race was tighter in Georgia and North Carolina but that those two states were "still in play."
"We're watching them closely, especially Georgia," Dillon said.
She said Biden would probably speak sometime on Wednesday.
"We expect that at some point later today that the vice president will address the American people," Dillon said.
Neither Biden nor President Trump had secured the 270 Electoral College votes needed to carry the White House as of Wednesday morning.
The race hasn't been called in several key battleground states, including Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. It was unclear when or how quickly a winner might be called in those states.
Trump prematurely claimed victory early Wednesday morning and said he would take the election to the Supreme Court, although it was unclear what legal action he might take since votes are routinely counted beyond Election Day.
“We’ll be going to the U.S. Supreme Court — we want all voting to stop,” Trump said.
Biden’s campaign called Trump’s statement “outrageous, unprecedented, and incorrect.”
“If the president makes good on his threat to go to court to try to prevent the proper tabulation of votes, we have legal teams standing by ready to deploy to resist that effort,” Biden Campaign Manager Jen O’Malley Dillon said in a statement. “And they will prevail.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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