this is "al jazeera america" live from new york city. i'm jonathan betz with a look at tod today's top stories. typhoon haiyan is headed towards vietnam after tearing through the philippines. the country is still assessing the scale of the disaster. they estimate as many as 1200 people may have been killed. a spokes woman for unicef told al jazeera many victims were young children. haiyan is expected to make landfall in vietnam on sunday. the storm is one of the largest on record when it hit the philippines yesterday. religious leaders in germany marked the 75th anniversary of krystallnatten the infamous night of broken glass whether they rampaged through germany and austria destroying jewish homes, businesses and synagogues. it comes from the broken glass in the city streets from the

store windows scattered that night. word leaders are? geneva talking about iran's nuclear program. they're working towards a deal to reduce the country's nuclear capabilities. talks have been going on since tuesday. we're awaiting a news conference from geneva. we'll bring it to you live as soon as a deal happens. those are the headlines. "inside story" is next, and for news updates around the world head to aljazeera.com. thanks for watching, and have a great weekend. >> a squeak center purple virginia, and in the deep state of new jersey, a republican route. a look at what election 2013 tells us about the future. tonight on inside story.

>> hello, i'm frank se sno. the ing goes all is politics, but the national implications are to be found in the political tea leaves. in virginia, a brass knuckle campaign brought terry mcauliffe to the governor's mansion, and in new jersey, republican governor chris christie raised his national profile with a landslide victory. did he surprisingly well with women, independents, moderates and minority voters. and in colorado voters rejected a major tax increase for schools but voted for a tax to regulate it's new marijuana market. tonight on inside story we're going to search the results for clues to where the country is headed politically. first this background.

>> in virginia it was a photo finish in the race for governor. businessman and former democratic national committee chairman terry mcauliffe eked out a victory against attorney general ken cuccinelli winning by a mere two and a half percentage points. the federal shut down may have had an impact. after the 16-day stretch polls showed cuccinelli along with tea party support across the country. in his victory speech mcauliffe pointed to washington as a dysfunctional government poster child that virginia should avoid. >> the truth is this election was never a choice between democrats and republicans. it was a choice about whether virginia would continue the mainstream bipartisan tradition that has served us so well over the last decade, and a time when washington was often broken just

think about what virginia has been able to accomplish when we work together. >> but virginia is polarized, too, and cuccinelli's concession speech was not much of a concession and it said that tea party politics was alive and well. >> we said this race was a referendum on obamacare and although i lost tonight you sent a message to the president of the united states that you believe that virginia understands that obamacare is a failure, and that you want to be in charge of your healthcare and not the government. at last count i was aware of despite being outspend by an unprecedented $15 million this race came down to the wire because of obamacare. >> reporter: in near high

profile governor's race new jersey's chris christie cruised to a huge re-election victory. the popular governor took a very different approach from cuccinelli marketing himself as bipartisan and maybe as a guy who has higher aspirations. >> now listen, i know if we can do in this trenton, new jersey, maybe the folks in washington, d.c. should tune in their t.v.'s right now to see how it's done. >> reporter: christie won by a lopsided 60- 3% margin in a traditionally democratic state. breathtaking dimensions of christie's win. 57% women. 51% hispanic, 21% african-americans. christie put together an impressive politico application, 66% independents, 31% liberals, and 61% of those who identified themselves as moderate. on the other side of the country

colorado hosted a different kind of election, ballot referendum losing by a huge margin was amendment 66 a proposed tax increase of close to $1 billion to change school funding. after the amendment's rejection, governor john higgin looper released a statement expressing disappoint. al jazeera has more from denver the democratic governor of colorado spent a lot of personal capital on this and it was resoundingly defeated, and raises questions about his re-election effort next year. >> reporter: but the other tax question, proposition aa, a 25% tax on recreational marijuana won by a huge margin, 65-35%. the taxes are expected to bring

in $70 million a year. although the dust has barely settled these results will be scrutinized for trends, personalities and for politics to watch. the question now how will they change politics in the near term and the 2014 congressional elections already taking place. joining us to discuss the election results in virginia, new jersey, colorado, and beyond in las vegas, laid moore, senior analysts and professor of political science at the university of nevada las vegas, and mark fisher with me in studio, senior editor of the "washington post." i want to start here with the "washington post" and in studio because virginia is across the river. that's where we'll start the conversation. virginia as bell weather, what do you see what happened there and what terry mcauliffe accomplished. >> as bell weather for how virginia is going, and is there a lesson there for 2016 and the united states

at large--hmm--maybe. this shows that democrats can win in the off-year election when there are fewer people. >> i want to spend just a minute on virginia and mcauliffe. let's talk about policy for just a second. many saw him as a carpet bagger. he has never helds office before. he's a creature of northern virginia and he hasn't done anything, say the critics. he is in a very polarized state himself. >> it's going to be a tough road for him because he still goes up against the republican dominated legislature. he won by presenting himself as the bipartisan moderate guy which is not really what he is. no one in the history of terry mcauliffe has ever accused him of bipartisanship. >> what are the issues he wants to attack? >> he wants to find money to

expand education, and take care some of the major traffic issues in the washington area and roads, and he wants to do something about job creation. but he's up against that. >> the take away from this is that the democratic party can put up, maybe not almost anybody but certainly somebody like terry mcauliffe who even to a lot of democrats is anodous guy, comes out of the money politics of washington that they can win with candidates like that and republicans put up extreme tea party people who are unelectable even in southern states like virginia. i mean, that's the most amazing thing to me. even in virginia, which is still kind of a republican-leaning state, terry mcauliffe who is

not really even from virginia can win because of the republicans couldn't help themselves but put up through that primary process such an extreme candidate. >> david, i have to jump in here for a second because ken cuccinelli, a very conservative republican, did very well. this was not a break out for terry mcauliffe by any means. >> i do not deny that he came close, but what i'm say something this, this should have been a fairly straightforward easy victory for the republican party, and arguebly for republican party from five, six, seven years ago. the message out of this is the republicans in an election that really leans towards them or used to lean towards them. they can't even beat a candidate as potentially weak as terry mcauliffe. >> let me pull you in here. if we want to dive into why ken cuccinelli lost we have to look at your results in your

polling. the latino vote we know 66-29 toe mcauliffe. the asian vote went to mcauliffe. >> absolutely. what we found, particularly for the latino voters, the immigration issue was the deciding issue for them and you have two candidates with very different opinions on immigration. you have the republican candidate along the anti-immigrant wing of the party using hostile rhetoric that turned off the latino voters. that's becoming a litmus test for candidate. if they cannot get past the immigration issue they can't get past the issues that might resonate with latino voters. asian voters are being turned off by this as well and there is other data, college-educated whites are turn odd by this. this may be winning issues in the state of virginia six or

seven cycles ago, but many peel they're there to solve problems . >> obamacare, ken cuccinelli pounded away at this thing, has to be something real sobering. he seemed to get traction. this is not a popular piece of legislation. >> not clear. the polling shows that people are split, and many who can't stomach him voted in support of obamacare. obamacare is a wash in virginia, and republicans would love it if the message we just heard was true, that the tea party was damaged by this, not what happened. >> we'll talk about the tea leaves for the tea party right after this break.

i'm phill torez. coming up this week on techknow. they may look like smokers. >> oh my gosh, it actually smells like pizza. i would eat this. >> they're not. >> wow. >> welcome to the world of vapor. >> there's like hundreds of variations that you can make. >> we tend to regulate that in this country. >> we don't like people making their own moonshine.

>> the science behind e-cigaretts. >> wow, ya, now we're actually spiking. and to contact the centers and

>> welcome back to "inside story." we're going to turn now to

colorado where the taxes are on the table, and that's about where they stayed. still us with in las vegas david de moore of latino decisions. and david sirota and mark from the "washington post" here in studio. you're following this closely. big referendum issue to help fund and redefine the way public education is funded. it did not succeed. a, were you surprised, and b, what were the the implications? >> i was not surprised. this was a ballot measure that had a lot of outside money coming in from a very anti-public school foundation, the walton family, michael bloomberg, anti-union, against the teachers union. it pore ported to raise revenue but a lot of that money would be earmarked to go into privately administered charter schools. there were sixes about what the

ballot measure was, and it didn't succeed. at the same time before we say that colorado was tax adverse there was a tax increase on the ballot to raise taxes on newly legalized marijuana. some might say to fund school grow a massive field of weeds and tax it more. >> what does this mean for education in colorado? >> folks who want to better fund education and services, need to do more. returning tax rates back to the clinton era tax rates performed better than this ballot measure which went down in defeat . people are suspicious of schemes taking money out of traditional

schools and put them in private schools and charter schools. people who want to fund education better figure that out really quick. >> this is a debate that goes on in every state of the union. what do you take out of this? >> i think that explanation is a little overly complex. it's are the quite simple. just as americans love to criticize their politicians in washington for wanting to cut taxes and spend more well, that's what americans want. they want those education services. they want all those things that tax dollars will pay for, but they don't want to pay for it. the tax on marijuana is popular because it's someone else who is paying for it. but when it comes out of their own pocket to pay for better schools they're much mor more reluctant to do it. it's two faced where they want the services but they don't want it pay for it. >> does it make it less likely

you'll move to colorado. >> with when you look at at las vegas, there was a school bond that was floated that failed, and on the 2014 ballot we'll have a statewide initiative to tax businesses for education here. it will be another test case of some of those dynamics in nevada. >> let's move from mars and look down at planet earth and look at these elections from a distance. when you look at all of these things, including bill de blasio, a blazing liberal who wins new york, and the first white mayor who wins in detroit. what are the national lessons that you take away as we experienced over the last several hours. >> there are a couple of lessons. first, you're starting to see the demographic trends that people like myself have been looking at a couple of election

cycles beginning to kick in. it gives you a good sign that the demographics are really taking hold here. and of course the second lesson here is that you know, these are isolated events here. so it's hard to project here. but what you see are the candidates make the claim that them interested in governing, and that resonated with voters. >> david sirota? >> that's exactly right. i think that voters are voting for the old harding the administration, what they call a return to normalcy. ken cuccinelli, go back to that, the word sodomy was in the debate. the word transvaginal ultrasound was in the political debate. people were saying, look, i don't want somebody like that who has to deal with that or who

is dealing with those kinds of things in office. i just want people who can get stuff done. >> mark fisher? >> personality still matters in a big way. chris christie wins regardless of party and ide ideology. ken cuccinelli and terry mcauliffe with problems with their personalities. and there is anger out there, people are frustrated, and demographics this is a changing country. some states that we're talking about are changing dramatically, and republicans have not kept up on that. >> raising the curtain on what is going to be an amazing return to business, and that's it for today, you can keep up the debate by logging on to our facebook page. thanks for watching. take care, good night. ...

hello. you are at the "lining post." we are looking at egypt where most of the voices in the media are lining up behind the military government. those who do not are getting much less air time. . kenya and the fall out from the siege at the mall in nairobi. new rules for the media. reporters don't like them. what's with the israeli journalists moving into politics? commuting the boarding sentence of the new york ci