Georgia election results: Biden takes lead in count for crucial state for first time with nearly all ballots counted

State has not turned blue since 1992, but would be enough to give Biden the presidency if he can also hold onto Arizona

Joe Biden has taken a dramatic late lead in the vote count for Georgia, having trailed president Donald Trump in the crucial swing state since polls closed on election day. 

Mr Biden went ahead by a margin of 917 votes at 4.30am local time, according to the Associated Press, with more than 99 per cent of the vote counted. 

Of the latest batch of 1,843 votes tallied, just over 1,600 or about 87 per cent went to Mr Biden. NBC News estimated that there were around 65,000 ballots still to be counted in the state as a whole.

The new batch of votes came in from Clayton County, a suburb of Atlanta which tends to vote Democrat and which comes under the congressional district held by the late civil rights leader John Lewis. 

While several counties paused for the night late on Thursday, Clayton vowed to keep tallying absentee votes until every last one had been reported. The county was seeing roughly 85 per cent of its vote go to Mr Biden, and had 3,500 ballots left to count as of 1.30am local time.

“We're going to stay here until every single absentee ballot is counted,” Clayton County’s supervisor of elections Shauna Dozier told CNN a few hours ago. “We're doing our best to get every vote counted,” she said, while urging patience from those waiting for a result.

Georgia would provide enough electoral college votes to take the Democrat above the crucial threshold of 270, if he can hold onto his lead in Arizona. Arizona was declared for Mr Biden early on by several networks, but is now being watched closely.

Election officials say more than 99 per cent of the vote has now been counted in Georgia, with both candidates on about 49.4 per cent of the nearly 5 million votes cast in the state.

Mr Trump won Georgia by a sizeable 5 points in 2016, taking 51 per cent to Hillary Clinton’s 46 per cent.

Georgia has been reliably Republican since 1972, except when a southern Democrat was on the ticket – Georgians sided with native son Jimmy Carter in 1976 and 1980 and Bill Clinton in 1992.

For the full results and reaction as it all comes in, follow our live blog here.