Joe Biden is expected to address the nation during prime time this evening, the Wall Street Journal has reported.

Biden poised to move quickly on transition if he’s declared winner will likely deliver tonight a virtual victory speech while his team prepares to move quickly and announce major pieces of his transition into the White House.

Biden’s team is also preparing for a stark reality: If he wins, he will have to fight for the legitimacy of his own victory.

As of Friday morning, Biden has 253 electoral votes, while President Donald Trump has 213, according to CNN projections. In the battlegrounds, Biden has taken narrow leads in Pennsylvania and Georgia, as well as kept his leads in Arizona and Nevada.

The stage is set in Biden’s hometown of Wilmington, Delaware, with fireworks ready if Biden is declared the winner of the election and a speech takes place Friday. 

Meanwhile, his advisers have mounted an aggressive behind-the-scenes push to get his supporters — and, even more importantly, Republicans — to help validate the sanctity of the election.

The Biden campaign took note of President Donald Trump’s dire tone in the White House on Thursday night and began a plan that is underway today to get his old allies in the Senate — and others from a lifetime in public life — to speak to the legitimacy of the election.

His campaign also made clear that a Trump concession is not necessary. “The American people will decide this election. And the United States government is perfectly capable of escorting trespassers out of the White House,” Biden campaign spokesman Andrew Bates said in a statement Friday morning.

Biden does not plan to wait for any of Trump’s legal challenges to be settled, a person familiar with the plan said, and intends to immediately shift into mode of President-elect to avoid ceding any momentum. 

The Biden transition team has been working behind-the-scenes for months — as required of all candidates seeking the presidency — but the urgency of the plan is being seen by Biden advisers as even more importance in the wake of Trump’s questioning the legitimacy of the election.

One of the most important conversations Biden will have is with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

The two men have not spoken yet — a Biden aide said that would be premature; a McConnell adviser said it hasn’t happened — but they expect that call to be made later Friday. 

The Kentucky Republican will play a key role in approving members of the Biden Cabinet if Republicans continue to hold their majority — which even Democrats concede is likely, with party control potentially hinging on two January 5 runoffs for Senate seats in Georgia. 

Biden and McConnell have a long relationship, serving together in the Senate for decades, but also working closely and cutting deals during former President Barack Obama’s administration.

“He will need that relationship more than ever now,” a friend of Biden’s said.

For McConnell’s part, he intends to take a remarkably cautious approach to Biden — given the sensitivity surrounding Trump’s expected refusal to concede — but a person close to him said he will speak to Biden when the time is right and will be eager to do so.

Biden sought to project confidence and competence on Thursday, attending a briefing on the coronavirus pandemic — a crisis that he could soon be tasked with managing — and delivering a short speech in Wilmington. 

“Stay calm. The process is working. The count is being completed,” he said as votes were being counted in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania, with Biden at 253 electoral votes, according to CNN’s projections, of the 270 he needs to clinch the presidency. 

“Each ballot must be counted, and that’s how it should be. Democracy is sometimes messy; it sometimes requires a little patience as well,” he said. 

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump has told people he has no plans to concede even if his path to victory is blocked

Facing a disappearing pathway to victory, President Donald Trump offered little indication on Friday he was prepared to concede defeat, leading those around him to wonder who might be able to reckon with a leader who has given virtually no thought to leaving the White House.

Even as vote totals now show him trailing former Vice President Joe Biden in key battlegrounds, Trump has not prepared a concession speech and in conversations with allies in recent days, he has said he has no intention of conceding the election, people familiar with the matter said.

So far he has been bolstered in his stance by those closest to him, including his senior advisers and his adult sons, who have mounted an aggressive effort in the courts to challenge the results and have pressured other Republicans into defending him.

Top aides, including his chief of staff Mark Meadows, have not attempted to come to terms with the President about the reality of what is happening. Instead, they have fed his baseless claim that the election is being stolen from underneath him. 

Trump has acknowledged to some allies he recognizes the electoral math will not work in his favor, according to people familiar with the conversations, but has maintained that a prolonged court battle and corrosive rhetoric about election fraud would sow enough doubt to allow him to refuse to accept the results.

Two campaign advisers and one source close to the President said Trump will exhaust his legal avenues for fighting the results in several key battleground states before giving any consideration to conceding.

“He’s in fighting mode,” one source close to the President said. “He thinks it’s in his benefit to fight.”

While the reality of Trump’s impending loss has set in for many people close to the campaign, others are advising the President to continue fighting the outcomes and investigate claims of fraud.

Biden’s campaign voiced little concern at the prospect of Trump clinging to power.

“As we said on July 19, the American people will decide this election. And the United States government is perfectly capable of escorting trespassers out of the White House,” campaign spokesman Andrew Bates said in a statement. 

The Trump campaign released a statement Friday morning making clear it will refuse to concede the election, calling any projections of Biden as the winner “false” and the race “far from final.”

“This election is not over,” Trump campaign general counsel Matt Morgan said in a statement.

Still, some of the President’s allies have grown concerned that someone will eventually have to reckon with him that his time in office is likely coming to an end. It is a possibility the President did not consider in a serious way during the election, despite polls showing him with only a narrow path to victory, believing that looking past Election Day was bad luck.

The delicate matter of a loss — and a potential post-presidential life — was not discussed widely among his team and was not raised often with the President, who believed adamantly he would win.

Trump spent much of the campaign claiming Biden was the worst presidential candidate in history — and suggesting that losing to him would amount to abject humiliation.

“Losing is never easy,” he said at his campaign headquarters on Election Day. “Not for me, it’s not.”

Now, people around Trump are working to identify who might be able to communicate to him the stark reality. There has been talk of potentially Jared Kushner or Ivanka Trump, though their willingness to lead a difficult intervention wasn’t clear.

One idea being floated is framing potential conversations with Trump around the idea of preserving his brand for life after being president — and explaining that dragging out an election he clearly lost would ruin his businesses and forestall whatever political future he’s hoping for.

Before the election, Trump raised the prospect of running for President again in 2024 if he were to lose, though only in a joking manner. Even in likely loss, Trump garnered more votes than he did in 2016 and his future role as a Republican kingmaker seems secured — though some fear a drawn out and ugly loss could damage his standing.

Trump has spent the days since election night ensconced at the White House, angrily phoning allies and demanding that more people come out to defend him. He has complained that his legal team is ill-prepared to wage an effective battle in courts, according to one person who spoke to him.

He sounded downtrodden during an evening statement from the White House on Thursday and departed the room without answering for his false claims about voter fraud.

In meetings with his team in the Oval Office and the White House residence, Trump has asked why more Republicans weren’t coming out to allege voter irregularities or make the same claims he was making about votes being counted after Election Day.

He also pressed them into arranging a public statement, something he’d been itching to do since Wednesday. Aides had successfully stalled, believing anything the President said would damage his standing and make matters worse.