Trump confides he’ll declare Election Night victory if it appears he’s ‘ahead’: report

President will reportedly make the claim regardless of the votes still being counted

Donald Trump has told confidants that he will declare victory on Election Night if it looks like he’s "ahead," a new report on Sunday has claimed.

The president will make the claim regardless of how many votes are still being counted in key states like Pennsylvania, according to Axios.

Mr Trump has reportedly talked through the scenario over the past few weeks and plans to appear at a podium and prematurely claim he has won, three people told Axios.

Insiders say that the president would act only if he appears to be winning in the battleground states of Ohio, Florida, North Carolina, Texas, Iowa, Arizona and Georgia.

Observers have said that Mr Trump may appear ahead in Pennsylvania on Election Night, but that there will be a large number of mail-in ballots still to count.

 “This is nothing but people trying to create doubt about a Trump victory. When he wins, he's going to say so,” said Trump campaign's communications director Tim Murtaugh.

And it is expected that Mr Trump’s campaign will try and have any ballots counted after 3 November thrown out amid baseless claims of election fraud.

Trump campaign advisor Jason Miller openly said that the president will only fail to be re-elected if Democrats engage in “thievery" and “be able to change the results” by counting all ballots.

Pennsylvania officials are not allowed by law to start counting ballots before Election Day, and ten times more mail-in ballots are expected than in 2016.

"I expect that the overwhelming majority of ballots in Pennsylvania, that's mail-in and absentee ballots, as well as in-person ballots, will be counted within a matter of days," said Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar.