Trump appears to acknowledge ‘very close loss’ in Arizona while blaming voting machines

The president continued pushing a theory that ‘Dominion Voting Systems’ was behind millions of deleted and switched votes in favour of Joe Biden

(REUTERS)

Donald Trump appeared to acknowledge a “very close loss” in Arizona after his campaign reportedly dropped a lawsuit in the state as it determined the margin could not be overcome.

The president again blamed voting machines by repeating claims the “Dominion” system is behind projected results, which saw Arizona won by a Democrat for the first time since 1996.

“Now it is learned that the horrendous Dominion Voting System was used in Arizona (and big in Nevada). No wonder the result was a very close loss!” he wrote.

The president’s apparent acceptance of losing Arizona came just hours after lawyers for his campaign dropped a lawsuit seeking a hand review of all ballots cast on election day

"Since the close of yesterday's hearing, the tabulation of votes statewide has rendered unnecessary a judicial ruling as to the presidential electors," wrote Kory Langhofer, a lawyer for the Trump campaign, according to CNN.

NBC News on Friday become one of the final media outlets to call Arizona for Joe Biden after the Democrat led with 1,668,648 votes to 1,657,250, a margin of 49.4 per cent to 49.1 per cent – or 11,398 votes.

While Fox News and The Associated Press called Arizona in Mr Biden’s favour early in the election count, the Trump campaign had maintained the state would flip once all the votes were counted.

Mr Trump’s reference to the Dominion Voting System in the tweet was the president’s third reference to the company in two days.

On Thursday, the president repeated a claim that Dominion deleted millions of his votes while switching hundreds of thousands more to Mr Biden. He also promoted Fox News’ Sean Hannity calling the system into question.

Dominion Voting Systems said in a statement that it “denies claims about any vote switching or alleged software issues with our voting systems.”

The report Mr Trump referenced in his first tweet aired on One America News Network, which promoted a theory posted to a pro-Trump blog that claimed that millions of votes were switched or deleted.

It was based on an anonymous comment claiming the findings were supported by data from the polling firm Edison Research. Company president, Larry Rosin, denied the claim.

“We have no evidence of any voter fraud,” Mr Rosin said in an email to Associated Press.