Biden vote lead over Trump widens to 7 million

Democrat Joe Biden's election margin over President Donald Trump widened to more than seven million votes Thursday even as Trump and supporters persisted in claims of fraud.

One month after the November 3 election, new local tallies from New York drove victor Biden's total to 81,264,673 votes, compared to Trump's 74,210,838, with a total 158.4 million votes counted so far, according to data compiled by the Cook Political Report.

That gave Biden a solid 4.4 percentage point margin over the Republican president.

Biden has captured 306 electoral votes for his victories in individual states, well past the 270 needed to win the presidency.

Trump continues to insist Democrats engineered a massive fraud in the vote and that he is the real winner, without offering convincing evidence.

Administrative and court challenges lodged by his campaign have repeatedly failed, and Biden, near-universally recognized as the president-elect, will be confirmed as winner by the Electoral College on December 14.

Biden will be inaugurated president and occupy the White House on January 20.