Joe Biden has said that he now has “no doubt” that when the count is complete he will be declared the next American President.

The former US Vice President appears to be in the driving seat in the race for the White House with 253 Electoral College votes and leads on President Trump in Arizona and Nevada.

President Trump is currently on 214 College Votes with leads in Georgia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.

The winner will be declared when one of the two candidates reaches 270 College Votes.

President Trump has continued to make unsubstantiated claims about voter fraud and has launched legal challenges to the counts in a number of states.

Delivering a statement to the nation this evening, Mr Biden warned that each and every ballot must be counted, noting that “we will know very soon” who the winner is.

“In America, the vote is sacred,” he said.

“It is how people of this nation express their will and it is the will of the voter, not anything else, that chooses the President of the United States of America.

“So, each ballot must be counted and that is what we are going through now – and that is how it should be.

"Democracy is sometimes messy. It sometimes requires a little patience as well, but that patience has been rewarded now for more than 240 years with a system of governance that has been the envy of the world.

“We continue to feel very good about where things stand.

“We have no doubt that when the count is finished, Senator Harris and I will be declared the winners. So, I ask everyone to stay calm. All people to stay calm.

“The process is working; the count is being completed and we will know very soon.”

Mr Biden said he had just come from a coronavirus briefing with his running mate Senator Kamala Harris.

He expressed sympathy with the family members of each and every one of the nearly 240,000 Americans who have lost their lives as a result of the virus this year.