>> today is our independence day. we are going to win back the white house. >> are you fired up? ready to go? >> this presidential campaign has been going on for a long time, but now it's in your hands. >> with your vote, you can say that this country has always been great. >> do you want america to be ruled by the corrupt political class, or do you want america to be ruled by you, the people? >> 2016, when everything was on the line, you voted for a stronger, fairer, better america. we want to welcome our viewers in the united states and around the world. this is "new day." it is tuesday, november 8th, 6:00 in the east. i can't believe i'm about to say this, but it's election day in america finally. the finish line is now in sight for hillary clinton and donald

trump. today it is up to you, the voters. both candidates, though, battling late into last night. >> the first polls open this hour. you got 12 states. millions of voters will start this great process. people already lining up at their polling stations like this one. this is richmond, virginia. >> who's that guy? >> you know who that is. that's senator tim kaine, democratic vice presidential nominee. just cast his vote. there is so much at stake. who will we be as a country? which direction will we go? let's begin with cnn's phil mattingly live in raleigh, north carolina. that's a big state today. >> reporter: yeah, no question about it. a key battleground and a crucial toss-up, according to both campaigns. guys, 18 months of rallies, of round table, of debates, ending here in raleigh, north carolina, for hillary clinton. a big rally, a lot of millennials, crucial to that north carolina group.

big questions, will history be made tonight? hillary clinton back home in new york after crisscrossing the country on her final day of campaigning, hoping to make history tonight. >> our core values are being tested in this election, but my faith in our future has never been stronger. >> reporter: appealing to voters at a midnight rally in raleigh, north carolina. flanked by jon bon jovi and lady gaga. >> there is no reason why america's best days are not ahead of us. >> reporter: tens of thousands gathered outside philadelphia's independence hall for her largest rally of the campaign. president obama and the first lady rallying voters for clinton. >> are you fired up? are you ready to go? >> reporter: and pleading with them to protect their legacy.

>> i'm also emotional because in many ways speaking here tonight is perhaps the last and most important thing that i can do for my country as first lady. >> i am betting that tomorrow you will reject fear and you'll choose hope. >> reporter: obama symbolically passing the torch, pulling out clinton's step stool for her to speak. clinton zeroing in on her closing argument. >> every issue you care about is on that ballot. >> reporter: trying to move past this divisive campaign. >> we have to bridge the divides in our country. i regret deeply how angry the tone of the campaign became. >> reporter: a deliberate move, aides tell cnn, to prepare for what happens next should she win tonight. governing -- >> tomorrow night this election

will end, but i want you to understand our work together will be just beginning. >> reporter: guys, weeks and months of packed schedules. let me tell you what's on the schedule today. you're looking at what tim kaine is doing right now. that's it. there's nothing else public for hillary clinton or for tim kaine for that matter. the field staff hard at work getting out the vote, trying to make sure they raise their margins on election day. for the most part, it's the candidate by themselves with their closest advisers writing two speeches, according to aides, one concession, one victory. other than that, alone with their thoughts. alisyn? >> phil, thank you for all of that. so donald trump last night hitting many of the same themes that he's been hitting for more than a year. he slammed clinton, the washington establishment, and the media. trump says it's time for the working class to strike back. cnn's sunlen serfaty is live at trump tower in new york.

>> reporter: that's right. we certainly saw vintage donald trump on his last day on the campaign trail. trump only landing a few hours ago back here in new york after he made that drive final push, campaigning well past 1:00 a.m. this morning in michigan. trump saying it certainly has been a long journey for him and now 511 days after that journey first started here at trump tower, it comes down to this. >> it's now officially tuesday, november 8th. >> reporter: donald trump pulling off one final campaign frenzy. >> today is our independence day. today the american working class is going to strike back. >> reporter: sprinting to the finish with a rousing midnight speech in grand rapids, michigan, blitzing through five states in the final 24 hours. >> i thought new hampshire was going to be my last speech, and i heard that crooked hillary clinton was coming to michigan.

i said, let's follow it up. >> reporter: trump knocking clinton's celebrity supporters. >> we don't need jay-z or beyonce. we don't need john bon jovi. we don't need lady gaga. >> reporter: and trying to project confidence. >> today we're going to win the great state of michigan, and we are going to win back the white house. >> reporter: the republican candidate even reflective in his final campaign rally. >> it's almost hard to believe. we started a year and a half ago. we started with 17 very talented people. now we have one flawed candidate left to beat. >> reporter: earlier trump talking up a celebrity friend of his own, new england patriots quarterback tom brady. >> he called today, and he said, donald, i support you, you're my friend, and i voted for you. >> reporter: but brady hasn't

publicly endorsed trump, and yesterday he denied having cast his ballot on a boston radio show. >> no, i haven't voted yet. >> reporter: and trump will be casting his vote later today here in new york city. he'll be watching some of the returns, spending some time here with family, friends, and staff at trump tower. at some point then he'll move over to his watch party at a hotel in midtown manhattan. chris, the real interesting thing is his watch party is only 1.5 miles away from clinton's watch party. such an interesting dynamic. both candidates so close as the results start coming back. chris? >> they'll probably be able to hear each other tonight. that will be very interesting. thank you very much. so this is the day for you in the united states. polls are going to start to open during this hour. 12 states will open their doors. millions of people can go out and exercise their right. we just watched senator tim kaine in his home state of virginia. that's a critical battleground. 13 electoral votes up for grabs. hillary clinton hoping her

running mate's home state stays blue. we have cnn's brian todd live in ashburn, virginia. we just saw senator tim kaine. he's getting out there. how about by you? >> reporter: chris, a lot of enthusiasm here. people have been lining up since 5:00. it's cold outside. they've been braving the cold, snaking this line all the way out the door and around the corner. this is where they're checking in here at sanders corner elementary school. patiently waiting their turn to check in here then go vote. here's what we talk about, about the enthusiasm. it's been a long and divisive campaign. no one knows that better than you, chris. as we talk to voters here, not tamping down their enthusiasm. look at this line. it snakes all the way out the door. as we said, these people have been lining up since before 5:00. we got here long before 5:00, and there were people here already. look at this. going all the way out the door here at sanders corner and around the corner. voters yesterday and the day before, we were at various events, talking to us about they were tired of the divisiveness of the campaign, tired of the

tone and rhetoric, but it never stops their enthusiasm. a big surge in early voting here in virginia. more than 530,000 people cast early ballots. that hasn't tamped down the enthusiasm to come out on election day. check this out. it's snaking all the way down and around the school. i mean, there were 60-some people here almost an hour before the polls opened, chris. so this gives you a real gauge of the enthusiasm here in virginia. it is a crucial battleground state. the race is tightening in virginia. hillary clinton, donald trump have both been in this county trying to win over votes. they're counting on counties like this because this is a swing county. this could go either way. obama narrowly won it in 2012. donald trump counting on it this year because he came here on sunday night in a last-minute appeal, hoping to win some of these folks over, chris. >> hey, this is what it's all about, brian. we're going to check back with you. let's bring in our all-star political panel. david gregory, ron brownstein, jackie kucinich, and abby phillips. good to have you all here.

last night we saw both campaigns end where they began. very different and defined messages. we saw star power. we saw pageantry. david, what is the takeaway at the end of that last night into this morning? >> you know, it is an amazing contrast that we have. a nasty campaign, very unpopular candidates, two candidates who are scrubbing this electoral map, looking at the shape of the electorate with very different messages. you know, donald trump is trying to restore an america he says is lost. he represents radical change, crude change to a lot of people, but radical change when, what a of voters wanted. he's reshaped the republican party. here's hillary clinton, the ultimate insider, a kind of party chief within the democratic party, trying to assert her hold over the electoral college. the ultimate insider, the ultimate outsider. he finished kind of dark and angry, she finished a little more upbeat. >> to david's point, we had a billionaire from new york city

in the backyard of walter ruther in michigan talking about the american working class will be back as a republican. and you had a democrat in philadelphia and elsewhere and in raleigh, basically saying we're going to welcome everyone into this new america. and this kind of realignment of the two-party coalition, from a republican party that was essentially white collar, white american, and a democratic party that was blue-collar white america, to one in which republicans are increasingly focusing on the middle class and the democrats are this diverse coalition of socially liberal whites that's tilting them more toward relying on the sun belt. they can't completely abandon the midwest. >> abby, how about that line that brian todd just showed us? he said people have been standing in the cold for an hour before the polls opened, and you saw it snake all the way out the building and down the block. people are activated. they're energized. regardless of whose message it is you're taking to the polls with you this morning, people want a stake in it. >> and what's amazing is how

many people have actually already done this. this is the election day version of what has been going on for about two or three weeks in some states. so i think we are definitely going to see huge amounts of turnout, but for people watching tonight, we're going to be potentially up very late because some of these lines are very long because a lot of people are casting their ballots today. a lot of people are making last-minute decisions about who they vote for. and that's the kind of uncertainty that really leaves us kind of not sure what's going to happen later tonight. >> you know, the other thing i wanted to mention about last night that we haven't seen in other cycles is the extent you had the incumbent president there. he's popular, probably at the height of his popularity. he left it all on the field last night. i mean, you heard the fired up, ready to go chant. you heard -- this is a whole ball game. if donald trump wins, the chances that the senate and the house stay in republican hands are very, very high, meaning his legacy, he will watch his legacy be chipped away piece by piece, you know, over the next couple years. this really is the whole ball

game. >> and you talk about the prospect of 16 years of democratic rule. this was a president, barack obama, who wanted to be a consequential president on the order of a ronald reagan. he has an opportunity to achieve that. it's also what kind of america are we and do we want to be. in "hamilton," the lovely musical, there's that great line in that song "immigrants get things done." well, immigrants are now poised to perhaps deliver this election for hillary clinton. we are talking about a surge in the latino vote that perhaps could be decisive in florida, in north carolina, in nevada. so it's very interesting that immigrants are not just thinking about, you know, comprehensive immigration reform but are thinking about how the country thinks about them as they group, how welcoming we are as a country to immigrants. >> a hillary clinton ad actually spoke to that. jimmy schmitt narrated. exactly what you're saying. >> it's kind of the america we're becoming. all the voters who feel left out

from what that is, the coalition of transformation and coalition of restoration. but in terms of the obama legacy, one bigger legacy, there's not been a democratic majority on the supreme court in 45 years. we have all grown up in a world where there's a conservative and republican majority on the supreme court. if democrats win the white house, certainly if they win the senate, even if they don't, in all likelihood there's now going to be for the first time in 45 years a democratic majority in the supreme court. >> which is one of the reasons they've come home. a lot of republicans don't like trump, understand this reality, and vote -- just like people who are for gun rights. >> itted cruz laying some frightening groundwork. >> john mccain has suggested it even. >> you're talking about "hamilton." another line out of his song, he's talking about he's not going to waste his shot. hamilton was that embodiment of -- >> i knew we'd get to show tunes. >> we're there. >> i see it as more of a historical reference.

i'm not evolved enough. that's what today comes down to though. nobody knows the numbers if as well as you do, ron, but they're all predicated no matter what demo you're looking at, at who comes out today. if those lines aren't the reality all over the country, someone is going to lose their opportunity to complain. >> every four years the biggest problem pollsters have is not figuring out how groups are going to vote, it's how much of each group is going to vote and figuring out the composition of the electorate. it's even more important than usual this year. for example, we're likely to see the biggest divergence ever between the vote of college educated whites and noncollege educated whites. donald trump is so strong among working class whites, but is at risk of becoming the first republican to lose the college whites. the distance between voters of color and noncollege whites will be enormous. every point that is different in the composition of the electorate has a huge impact on the outcome and probably donald trump's best chance on the last day is what it was on his first day, which is that he produces an electorate that is more blue

collar, more nonurban than the pollsters are expecting. >> abby, we have a little illustration of what's happening with the hispanic vote. we just want to show it because it is notable how much it's up. florida, north carolina, georgia, obviously we could look at nevada and other places, but you see it's up significantly. 89%, 79%, 144% from the last elections. >> folks are breathing a sigh of relief in brooklyn about that. there was some concern going into this that maybe donald trump, you know, being sort of -- vilifying illegal immigrants wouldn't be enough. maybe it wouldn't be enough to cause some of these folks to come out, and they have. the question is, especially in a state like florida, what actually happens to those hispanic voters. it isn't a sure thing for democrats in florida to say hispanic voters are going to come out 80%, 90% for them. i think this is going to be a key test of what happens there. i still think -- it's been surprising to me how many cuban-americans and others are not as opposed to donald trump

as one would expect. and that actually continues a long trend of that group trending toward the republican party. >> it won't be 80 or 90, but it will be the highest ever in florida. >> 60% of new voters in florida, hispanic voters, voting for the first time. >> panel, thank you. >> they're going to have record turnout, that's for sure. in that way alone, florida is going to be a model for the rest of the nation. we're going to hear from both campaigns this morning. we have the vp presidential nominee for the democrats, tim kaine. we just watched him voting in his home state of virginia. and we have donald trump jr. on in the 8:00 hour. the race to 270, the big test today for both candidates, which states hold the keys to victory, which ones should you be watching tonight. we break all that down. >> we get to play with a map. oh, yes. and do you want a chance to be featured on cnn's election day coverage? of course you do. it's so easy. just take a picture of yourself voting. go to your instagram, use the hashtag my vote. you all use like a thousand hashtags anyway. just include this one.

we'll be picking pictures all day, just like the ones you're seeing on your screen. even your dog. >> can dogs vote? that's not allowed. [burke] hot dog. seen it. covered it. we know a thing or two because we've seen a thing or two. ♪ we are farmers. bum-pa-dum, bum-bum-bum-bum ♪

hillary clinton: i'm hillary clinton and i approve this message. vo: in times of crisis america depends on steady leadership. donald trump: "knock the crap out of them, would you? seriously..."vo: clear thinking... donald trump: "i know more about isis than the generals do, believe me." vo: and calm judgment. donald trump: "and you can tell them to go fu_k themselves." vo: because all it takes is one wrong move. donald trump audio only: "i would bomb the sh_t out of them." vo: just one. [first, all customers who have changes been impacted right. will be fully refunded. second, a confirmation will be sent when new personal or small business checking, savings or credit card accounts are opened.

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welcome back, everybody. let's take a look at some live pictures right now. this is ashburn, virginia. look at all that excitement. >> a white court. that alone is startling. >> why we are showing you this is because there's a huge line at this school snaking around the block. people have been waiting in line for an hour in the chilly temperatures before the polls opened here because they were so excited to vote and there is just a little snapshot of what you'll be seeing all morning. >> and look, all different legs but all the faces america. >> poignant. donald trump and hillary clinton barn storming several key states i the final hours of the campaign. where they were matters, as each candidate fights to get to ma

magic number of 270 electoral votes. so let's bring in cnn political analyst david gregory. he's at our magic wall to break down all the numbers. david, tell us what last night says about what they're investing in. >> we're going to build a wall. it's a beautiful wall. ours has the electoral map on it. it really is a story of defense and opportunity. so where was hillary clinton last night? she finishes off the night in pennsylvania. she also goes to north carolina. pennsylvania is really about turning out the minority vote, also the college-educated vote in the collar counties of philadelphia. if she can hold on to that, it really shuts down a lot of the path for donald trump. at that point, she could just be a nevada or a new hampshire away from going over the top, over 270. she becomes the next president. if she loses in pennsylvania, maybe that's a sign that things are happening in the midwest among working class white votes that are helping donald trump. could be a sign of a bad night for her, something she wants to

watch out for. in north carolina, she's spending so much time there. you have the highest percentage increase in the latino vote in north carolina, a great target of opportunity for her, a state that romney won back in 2012. for donald trump, he goes to michigan. he goes to michigan as perhaps insurance if he were to lose north carolina. he's really got to sweep a lot of these battleground states from nevada, hold arizona, he has to win florida and north carolina and ohio. if he loses in a state, michigan could be an opportunity for him as some insurance. again, largely white state. maybe a little more in keeping with his voters. >> david, stay there at the wall. we want you to keep playing with it for us. we want to bring back our panel. ron brownstein, jackie kucinich, and abby philip. >> when i first started covering politics, we were talking about the republican lock on the electoral college. there were so many states that were so reliably republican.

now there's a different reality. there are 18 states that democrats have won in at least the past six consecutive elections. the blue wall. 242 electoral college votes. it's the 11 states from maryland to maine except for new hampshire. it's illinois, michigan, minnesota, and wisconsin in the upper midwest. it's the three west coast states, and hawaii. if you just add to that real quick virginia and colorado. just maybe highlight virginia and colorado. and new mexico. at that point, you're at 269. any one other state puts you over the top. if she holds the blue wall, adds to it virginia, colorado, and new mexico, diverse states with big hispanic populations, then if she wins either nevada or new hampshire, it's done. even if he wins florida, ohio. what that really means, he has to dislodge a brick from the wall. >> this is the key here. michigan at the very last minute became so competitive. and it really does kind of scramble the path for hillary clinton, meaning that it forces

her to really rely very heavily on places like north carolina and florida to shut trump down because michigan is the wall. >> do you want to see david do that? so give her michigan. >> give him michigan. >> that's what i mean. give him michigan. >> this is where the groundwork that the hillary clinton campaign has done kicks in. >> they're doing their operation. i get it. >> that matters. >> it does, unless you have a wave of enthusiasm that overwhelms organizations. so if he wins michigan and he wins ohio and florida -- >> and north carolina, you win. >> well, you got to give him arizona. >> there you go. >> now, that's not implausible. >> the biggest problem for pollsters is predicting the composition of the electorate. there are two different ways it

could go. one way is that the electorate is more white working class, more nonurban whites. what trump is doing is, in fact, bringing out this army of voters. the other thing, chris, it's equally possible that the electorate will be more diverse. the electorate has been two points more nonwhite every four years pretty much for the last 20 years since 1992. most of the late polls are having it even or up one. the good news is we won't have to speculate too much longer. >> can i add an historical note here? >> please. >> in the '60s when lbj was president and they passed civil rights legislation, he said we've lost the south for a generation. republicans are in a similar position with the latino vote. i remember interviewing lindsey graham in 2012. he said we're in a demographic death spiral if we do not pass comprehensive immigration reform. president george w. bush does not expect to see another republican president in his lifetime, he has told people. this is a moment, when you have

a surge in latino voters where republicans are on the verge of losing them. >> you know who else said that about immigration? donald trump. >> in 2012 after mitt romney lost. >> the statistic we used in the last hour, just worth pointing out, in the last polls, donald trump is up 32 points among white voters without a college education. that gets him to 40% of the total vote. exactly the same margin ronald reagan had among white voters without a college education in 1984. it got him to 59% of the vote. it's a very different country. can he squeeze out one more victory with that coalition? sure. in the long run, is that where you would place your chips in a diversifying society? i'm not sure. >> but abby, since everybody agreed after 2012 that the key to winning was the hispanic vote and that republicans weren't doing it right, that was what was in the autopsy. that's what donald trump said himself in various media outlets. he said what you need to do is

treat them with kindness and make them feel included and like productive members of society. why didn't he do that this time around? >> how things change. it could very well be because donald trump realized at some point that his most likely path would be going through this sort of white working class vote, and he really doubled down on that. and it required him to really throw that other ideology out the window. the problem is, as ron has said as nauseam, there are not enough people, there are not enough voters to make that a truly viable option for republicans. the only thing that they can potentially count on is if potentially some voters say, you know what, the divisiveness is something i don't agree with, but maybe i want a republican supreme court. maybe we don't want to hand democrats a white house yet again. that's a possibility. >> ron and i talked about the

opportunity cost of trump doing what he knew -- look, in 2004 it became clear the conservatives in the republican party were not supportive of comprehensive immigration reform. that's what sabotaged the late effort by george w. bush in his presidency. trump in 2012 could say that but that was difficult to achieve in the republican party. but the opportunity cost of trump with a strong populist dem gojic message in 2016 is he alienates a lot of these college educated voters who are normally republicans who were looking to break for hillary clinton. >> this fracture is going to continue. >> especially if he doesn't win, if he does better than mitt romney, he'll have a better case to say my path is a better path. that's going to be a big divide. >> it will be very interesting to have you all back tomorrow with these thoughts. stay with cnn all day and night. we'll have every race covered. you can join us on "new day" tomorrow. we start at 3:00 a.m. eastern for complete results coverage. >> all right. no matter whether or not you're

angry and going to the polls or you believe in a better america and you're going to the polls, you better go to the polls. we're showing you ashburn, virginia, right now with that signature white basketball court. all those people lined up behind those screens. who knows what their race, what their gender. all have american flags. all are exercising the franchise. there are 100 ballot measures. actually, more of them, for voters to decide on in all of these different states, including recreational marijuana. there's assisted suicide. really big issues. many of them citizens put on the ballots of states like yours. we'll take you through them when we come back.

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"new day" is being shown all over the world, but for you in the united states, hopefully this is part of your reality. forget about the inconvenience, forget about the weather. this is about voting. this is about your chance to act on what you've been talking

about for over a year. these are live pictures of people getting ready to go. these must-win battleground states. this is north carolina that we're looking at. raleigh specifically. could be a nail biter. 15 electoral votes at stake. we have cnn's victor blackwell live in raleigh bringing us this shot this morning. what's it like so far? the polls just getting ready to open down there. what's it been like so far, my friend? >> reporter: well, the line started just after 5:30 this morning, chris. the line has more than 100 people in it. people have been driving up all morning. let me tell you why we're here. this is precinct 1310 on the north side of raleigh, one of the larger precincts here in this area in wake county. wake county being the battleground in this battleground state. in the last six elections, democrats have won this county three times, republicans have won this county three times. take a look at the line. this is a precinct that went for romney in 2012, mccain in 2008. the candidates and the campaigns know how important this precinct

and in county is. how do we know? they were here within the last 18 hours of their campaign. 15 electoral votes on the line for north carolina. the big story out of north carolina, early voting. setting a record this year. more than 3.1 million early and absentee votes counted this year so far. we know that there are some demographic questions about who is showing up. the hispanic vote here, more than 79% increase over 2012. still, a small percentage of the electorate. white voters have 22%. black voters down 5% in early vote. we'll see who shows up today. alisyn? >> we sure will, victor. thanks so much for that. voters are also packing precincts in the battleground state of ohio. the state offers 18 electoral votes. ohioans want you to know they've picked the winner in every presidential election since 1964. that's where we find cnn's martin savidge. he's live in parma, ohio, with more. martin, what are you seeing?

>> reporter: hey, alisyn. one of the reasons we're here is this is one of the areas that could see a crossover vote going in favor of donald trump. it's a working class kind of neighborhood. we saw people lined up outside. the voting is under way. it started at 6:30. about 75 people immediately walked in. early voting has been under way in the state of ohio for the last 29 days. it only ended yesterday afternoon. the indications there are as follows. there are about almost 1.8 million votes that were cast in early voting. that's nearly a quarter of the registered voters in this state. it's up slightly from 2012 but not up a lot. in fact, the secretary of state said he was rather surprised, given the fact that early voting is popular and now more accepted. in cuyahoga county, early voting down across the board about 15%. that does not bode well for hillary clinton because, of course, cuyahoga county is her strongest point in this state. if you didn't get a lot of votes coming out of cuyahoga county,

it could mean she may not do well in this state. polls close at 7:30. chris? >> all right, martin. that's the right analysis. as you well know, the x factor is always turnout, how many will come out and where. that's what we'll be following all day long. now, voting is not just important because you're going to get to pick the president, although that should be more than enough. you have senator, you have legislatures going all the way down. you have ballot measures. 162 of them across the country. they range from everything from background checks on guns to recreational marijuana use. minimum wage is a big deal. and many of these initiatives were brought by you, not legislators. so will the people have a referendum? will they come out and take their own action? let's discuss some of these issues with cnn senior legal analyst jeffrey toobin and cnn business correspondent christine romans. jeffrey, first one for the legal mind. the advancement of the proposition of legalized marijuana in colorado, legalized assisted suicide. how do you see these two playing out? >> well, this is -- you know,

colorado was one of the two states, washington state being the other, that legalized marijuana for recreational use. these have proven popular in these states. the assisted suicide has passed in other states. marijuana has passed. we're going to see how well it does around the country today. but the polls are showing that it has a very good chance of passing today in colorado. >> all right. let's hop quickly to minimum wage. very big deal, christine, on different levels. take us through some of the contrast between the politics and the reality when it comes to minimum wage. >> you're going to see this in four states. it looks like they're going to pass. every minimum wage ballot initiative since 2000 has passed. even in red states two years ago in the midterms, you saw several red states pass higher minimum wage. that's traditionally been something republicans have said don't tell us what to do. that's only going to raise costs for us and we're going to have to cut jobs. the reality is people across the

country have consistently voted for raising the minimum wage. there's this fight for 15 you've heard from the progressives. they'd like to see $15 an hour. that's not on any of these ballots. it's more like $12 an hour or $13.50 an hour and easing it in slowly so businesses can adjust. one of the reasons why it's becoming more popular, i think, is because there's this realization that the minimum wage today when you adjust for inflation, it's not -- you don't make as much as you did a generation ago. people feel like they're not making as much. the taxpayer is subsidizing the company who is paying those wages. there's some studies that show more than half the people who are getting the minimum wage, they're getting other, you know, government subsidies for their life taxpayer subsidies. it's the company that should have to bear the cost of that. >> that's an interesting point many voters won't think about. they'll think about what's right and wrong versus their own interests. who's going to pay for this difference between the wage and what you need to live? the company or you? jeffrey, gun laws. those are a big deal. the federal government gets a lot of heat, but most of it

needs to be done at the state level. what do you see with advancements of checks across the country in these ballot measures? is anybody trying to make it easier to get a gun? >> you know, after the newtown massacre, president obama threw all his effort into tightening gun laws in the united states, most specifically trying to establish background checks. he failed and the senate didn't even get a vote in the house of representatives. these are state-by-state efforts, almost exclusively to tighten background checks. the problem with background checks at the state levels is how portable guns are. most of the crimes in new york state are committed with guns that are purchased originally in other states. several states are trying to pass gun control laws, but gun control laws are not politically all that popular. it's why it didn't pass in the house of representatives. so i think it's a very unclear scenario about how many gun

control laws will pass around the country today. >> also, quick point, jeffrey, people are going to see there's going to be controversy about people showing up to the polling station with open carry permits, with weapons that are visible. some will say that's scary, but for others, it's a political statement as well. the basic law is, correct me if i'm wrong, if you have open carry, then you can carry it unless there's a specific law which many people haven't made, to protect polling places differently. true? >> that's right. and open carry laws have become much more popular since our last presidential election. so we will undoubtedly see, as you see in open carry states, people going into the polling places with guns. just on criminal justice, let me give you one more sort of very weird fact about today. in california, there are two ballot initiatives about the death penalty. one ballot initiative says ban it altogether. another ballot initiative says make it easier to impose the

death penalty. so voters could go dramatically in one direction or the other or go in contradictory directions. that's just one of the weird things about having these ballot initiatives. there's 17 of them on the ballot in california. >> and a lot of them are citizen generated. and it reflects this real divergence in the country right now, what kind of country do you want to be. a lot of people believe we've lost things we should restore that made us america. other people are saying, no, we have to move forward and embrace who we are now. what's going to happen? we'll see today. let's end on california. >> you might even say, chris, that some people want to make america great again. >> yes, yes. i have heard that. i've seen it on lawns near my house. so christine, let's end in california. proposition 67. this is an unusual one. it's the first of its kind. it's about plastic bags. >> so a couple years ago the state banned plastic bags. you have to pay 10 cents to get a paper bag at a store. for example, if you're in san

francisco, you cannot walk into a walgreens and get a plastic bag anymore. this puts prop 67 to the people. the people can decide. now there's an industry push from the plastic bag association, you know, saying, look, people should have the right to be able to have a plastic bag. but the environmentalists say, no, the bays are full of these plastic bags, we don't want them. the state has already voted -- the state has decided not to have them. this puts the measure to the people. >> it goes to the formation of culture. i noticed the other day that when someone offered me a bag, i said no. this is not something that's on my mind. yet, you see the culture changing. people are walking around with their own shopping bags so you don't have the plastic ones. people say they care about the environment. that's been a big deal in california. let's see how it does on the referendum. >> and california has led on things like this. there are other cities and states around the country who have looked at that plastic bag ban or a the lt least charging of money to use them. >> thank you for making us smarter on this election day. now we all have to get out and

vote and see what becomes a reality in this country. alisyn? >> well, the department of justice is deploying hundreds of election monitors across 28 states to make sure that your vote will count today. so what you should know as you head out to the polls. we bring in our experts to discuss. first, let's take a look at your voting instagrams. >> what do we have? what kind of pictures do we have? >> check it out. >> nice. medical field, respected. very nice. covered up his sticker, but we know it's there. [burke] at farmers, we've seen almost everything, so we know how to cover almost anything.

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okay. you're looking live at a polling place here in raleigh, north carolina. voters are lining up across the country this morning. raleigh, north carolina, is just one where we've seen the lines stretch all the way down the block. there's a lot of battleground states, obviously, that could decide this election. north carolina being front and center. so as you head out to vote, you

should know that extreme measures are being taken to protect your vote. more than 500 department of justice election monitors will fan out in 28 states to make sure this process works. for more, let's bring in michigan's secretary of state ruth johnson, and election law professor at the university of kentucky college of law, josh douglas. great to have both of you with us this morning. secretary johnson, let me start with you. how can voters in your state know that the process is legitimate and not rigged? >> well, we have a very unique system here in michigan. we take many different positions with what we do to make sure that they are going to have integrity. first of all, we have paper ballots, which i think is very important, so we can always recount. we've cleaned up our qualified voter file by taking off 889,000 people that had died or moved from michigan. and then we also have a canvas support at the county and at the

state. so 1,603 local clerks conduct the elections. some of the best in the country. >> that's interesting, secretary. it sound like you're a model of cleaning up the rolls so that dead people are no longer on there and there can't be voter fraud in that way. do you think other states do it as conscientiously as you do? >> i can only speak to michigan and tell you we've done a lot of things to make sure we have integrity. we started out with initiatives called safe, secure elections and have put many things in place to ensure the integrity in michigan. we've not had problems. we have everything in place. we're ready. i'm encouraging people to vote today. it's so important to have your voice heard. >> professor, you study this and specialize in this for a living. do you feel as though since 2000 our system has gotten better and we've fixed what ailed us then? >> i do think it's gotten

better. although, there's certainly more we can do. we've gotten better in that there's more scrutiny in the process. we've also had a lot of judicial scrutiny as to protecting the right to vote. so there's certainly more we can do, but certain things like a federal law that was passed after 2000 that says that if you show up to the polls and for some reason there's a problem, your name is not on the voter rolls, you don't have the proper form of i.d., you can't be turned away. the voter -- the poll workers have to give you a provisional ballot. we'll let you cast that and then we'll set it the aside and see if it should count after the process, outside of the heat of election day. so things like that, fail safe measures which really protect the individual right to vote, are really important. >> so secretary johnson, what are these federal election monitors who are fanning out across the states going to be doing today? what can they do at the polling places? >> well, i can tell you in michigan, we already have a system set up so that we already are monitoring as we go.

so i suppose if the election monitors were to be in michigan, they would just be another addition to that. but we already have poll watchers. we have challengers. we have things in place, rules and policies. michigan follows those, so we're very fortunate. we haven't had problems like you might see in other states. i'm very proud of our local election officials, and we have 30,000 poll workers that work two or three times a year. they do a great job too. for people that would like to see their ballot or know where to vote, they can go to michigan.gov/vote. >> fantastic plug for michigan there. professor douglas, part of why this issue has been raised is because donald trump has been talking about it on the campaign trail and saying that the system is rigged and the people need to be very vigilant at the polls. let me play for you what donald trump said a couple of weeks ago in colorado. >> i hear these horror shows, and we have to make sure that this election is not stolen from us and is not taken away from

us. and everybody knows what i'm talking about. and this crooked media -- you talk about crooked hillary. they're worse than she is. >> professor, how big of a problem -- give us some context here. how big of a problem is election fraud in all of its different permutations? >> yeah, i think that statement is really unfortunate because election fraud, voter fraud does not happen very often. i'm not going to say that voter fraud never occurs, but it's pretty rare. it's a pretty small part of our system. and it typically happens, you know, for local elections, small jurisdictions. the other thing that's important to realize is the kind of voter fraud that he seems to be talking about is people voting 10, 15 times on the same day or in-person impersonation.

i show up and pretend i'm someone i'm not. that simply doesn't happen. that's not the kind of voter fraud we see that exists. the small instances of voter fraud that do sometimes happen go through absentee balloting or through complacent poll workers. in-person voter fraud, things that voter i.d. laws would root out, simply just don't happen. there's been a lot of studies that have looked at this and there hasn't been the evidence. >> the bottom line is voters should feel very confident when they go to the polls today that their vote will count. professor douglas, secretary johnson, thanks so much for joining us. >> thank you. >> thanks for having me. >> chris? >> problems happen, but we've never had anything widespread. certainly nothing that would justify the notion that the entire thing is rigged. the better message is the reality of today. people are getting out and lining up to vote, especially in the battleground states, specifically north carolina. the race there is expected to be a nail biter. got 15 electoral votes at stake. cnn's victor blackwell, he is live in raleigh. but you are in the county that is the battleground within the

battleground which you said very well earlier. what's the situation? >> reporter: well, the line has gotten even longer now. hundreds of people in this line. started about 5:30. let me give you a look here. it stretched all the way back into the parking lot here. this is a county that inside the state that set a record for early voting, wake county set a record for early voting with more than 300,000 people casting those early votes. let me put that into context for you. more people cast those votes early than the total number of registered voters in 97 of north carolina's 100 counties. so the expectation was that quite possibly there would not be these long lines with the voter turnout already before the polls opened today of about 43%. but we see that the people here in this community of bedford on the north side of raleigh are in line. this is going to be what we expect, i guess, for the few hours starting this day. polls open until 7:30 tonight. in just a few minutes that the

polls have been open, lines across raleigh extending. chris, alisyn? >> victor, you're in the place where history will help be made today. you're going to be in this place. it's going to be part of the tapestry of history. thanks for being there. he points something else out. you have to check when your polls open locally and when they close locally. states are different. meanwhile, we're following a lot of news this morning, including a live interview with democratic vp nominee tim kaine. let's get right to it. we are finally going to close the history books on the clintons. we will open a bright new chapter. >> we face the test of our time. what will we vote for? >> it is november 8th, a day we make america great again. >> this election is on us. it is in our hands. >> are you ready to go make history? >> republicans need to come

home. >> after eight years as your president, i'm asking you to trust me on this one. >> we're hours away from a once in a lifetime change. >> this election will end, but our work together will be just beginning. welcome to our viewers in the united states and around the world. this is "new day." and it is election day in america. >> i never thought we'd get here. >> you look better. i look worse. nothing unusual there. but this is an historic day any way you look at it. the end finally in sight for hillary clinton and donald trump. it is now up to the voters. both candidates battling late into the night. during this hour, polls are going to open in 17 more states across the country. many millions having their opportunity to have their say. those states include some of the key battleground races. florida, michigan, pennsylvania. they could decide this race.

>> so we're already seeing long lines across the country. take a look at some live pictures. there's so much at stake. you're looking at north carolina here. let's begin with cnn's phil mattingly. he's in raleigh, north carolina. phil, what's the latest? >> reporter: good morning, alisyn. obviously a crucial swing state here, a state that both campaigns say really is still a toss-up, a state that hillary clinton could effectively close the door on donald trump's campaign if she wins. that is exactly why even into this morning at 1:00 a.m., she was still talking to supporters, trying to close that deal. hillary clinton back home in new york after crisscrossing the country on her final day of campaigning, hoping to make history tonight. >> our core values are being tested in this election, but my faith in our future has never been stronger. >> reporter: appealing to voters at a midnight rally in raleigh, north carolina. flanked by jon bon jovi and dy