Shawdesh desk:

Joe Biden has taken the lead in Georgia over Donald Trump by 917 votes, CNN reports.

The 2020 US election battle is now neck and neck in the southeastern state, with the Democratic presidential candidate ahead by an ultra-thin margin. The latest ballots to have come in are from Clayton County, which is largely Democratic, according to the TV news channel. The latest figures put both candidates in equal standing in terms of percentage points – each currently hold 49.4% of the state vote.

It could lead to an exciting flip for Biden, as the state is overall traditionally Republican. There are reportedly 11,000 votes left to be counted in Georgia, as well as another 8,900 votes from overseas due to come in at 5pm. Trump previously had a lead in Georgia but this has become weaker and weaker over the past 24 hours. He was up 18,000 votes on Wednesday night and was up 9,000 votes yesterday morning.

It is impossible to tell which way the county will swing, with 1,145 ballots left to count in Forsyth County, which is primarily Republican, 1,797 in Laurens County, 700 in Cobb, 444, in Floyd, and 456 in Taylor.  And 4,800 votes are left to count in Gwinnett County, which is the county with the second largest population in Georgia, where Hillary Clinton in 2016 became the first Democrat to win since 1976.

It comes after the current president blamed a burst pipe for helping Biden narrow his lead in the count in Georgia. Trump told a White House press conference Thursday: ‘In Georgia a pipe burst in a faraway location totally unrelated to the location of what was happening, and they stopped counting for four hours, and a lot of things happened.