WASHINGTON – With votes still being counted, President Donald Trump on Thursday sought to undermine confidence in the nation’s election, making accusations from the White House about the integrity of the results in his race against Democrat Joe Biden.

Hours earlier, Biden insisted the counting could be trusted and urged patience from Americans.

The candidates’ contrasting postures intensified a time of uncertainty as the nation and the world waited to learn which man would collect the 270 electoral votes needed to capture the presidency.

His path to victory narrow, Trump pushed allegations of electoral misconduct in a series of tweets and insisted the count of ballots submitted before and on Election Day must cease. In his first public appearance since late on Election Night, he amplified the conspiracy theories amid the trappings of presidential power.

“This is a case when they are trying to steal an election, they are trying to rig an election,” Trump said of Democrats, whom he accused of corruption.

Biden took a different tack, speaking briefly to reporters after attending a COVID-19 briefing to declare that “each ballot must be counted.”

“I ask everyone to stay calm. The process is working,” Biden said. “It is the will of the voters. No one, not anyone else who chooses the president of the United States of America.”

Biden’s victories in Michigan and Wisconsin put him in a commanding position, but Trump showed no sign of giving up.

It could take several more days for the vote count to conclude. The contests in Georgia and Pennsylvania, along with Nevada and North Carolina, were tight with votes still being tabulated.

The Trump campaign said it was confident the president would ultimately pull out a victory in Arizona, where votes were also still being counted, including in Maricopa County, the state’s most populous area. The Associated Press has declared Biden the winner in Arizona but said it was still monitoring the vote count.

“The Associated Press continues to watch and analyze vote count results from Arizona as they come in,” said Sally Buzbee, the AP’s executive editor. “We will follow the facts in all cases.”

While Trump has insisted that ballot counting must stop, it was unclear exactly what that would include. Counting for votes received by Election Day was continuing, but roughly 20 states allow ballots to be counted if postmarked by Election Day but received in the days after. In some states, that is as long as nine days, or even longer. Some of the deadline changes were made as a result of the pandemic, but others are just routine parts of state election laws.

It was unclear when a national winner would be determined after a campaign dominated by the coronavirus and its effects on Americans and the national economy. The U.S. on Wednesday set another record for daily confirmed cases as several states posted all-time highs.

Beyond the presidency, Democrats had hoped the election would allow the party to reclaim the Senate and pad its majority in the House. But while the voting scrambled seats in the House and Senate, it ultimately left Congress much like it began – deeply divided.