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dream more, dream faster, and above all... now, i'll dream gig. now more businesses, in more places, can afford to dream gig. comcast, building america's largest gig-speed network. this is "cnn tonight." i'm don lemon. a little past midnight here on the east coast live with all the breaking news coverage of tonight's election results. and the big story, the special election in ohio. the republican candidate has a narrow lead but the race still too close to call tonight. there you see the results that are available up on your screen.

99% of the precincts recording tonight, and that is ohio's 12th congressional district. my political team is here with me. mr. david swerdlick, ryan lizza, terry set mier, mike shields, hillary rosen. good evening or morning or however you want to say it. so, david, let's bring you in. what's your take? >> my take is like the congressional generic ballot democrats made about 6, 7% with the ohio house race. but if balderson holds on i don't think they can take a moral victory away from this, don. what's at stake for democrats is subpoena power. if they win the house they get subpoena power. whether or not that leads to impeachment is another question. but this isn't another time in america, no legislation is going to get done. you're either winning seats or taking over the committees and

you're changing chairman nunes to chairman schiff or you're not. >> but a win is a win, and don't you think that gives republicans a certain confidence that even though they are behind that they can get their act or you know what together come november? there's still a long time to go. >> that's right. democrats might pick up seats. they might win the house, but the onus is on them to prove they can get their voters out in november. they lost the house in 2010, did poorly in 2016 even though it was presidential election year. the onus is on them to show that their voters will come back. >> and a moral victory isn't going to cast a vote here in washington when the house is -- and that's the point. that being said, a win is a win. and we'll take it. but this is wake up call to

republicans. this should have been a slam dunk. run away should have been called five minutes after the polls opened. and i think republicans understand, okay, we understand, we need to organize more, we need to make sure when we get to november we're not going to have districts that should have been slam dunks be close like this. >> so whatever reason, are these districts so safe that they can withstand a blue wave come november? >> no, there are 40 districts that are closer than this district. so, you know, what we learned tonight is that if you can take a district that was an 11 point spread and turn it into less than a one-point spread think of what you can do in those districts that were, you know, one, two, four point spreads before? >> which there a lot of.

>> what it does is put a huge number of seats in play for democratic enthusiasm. now, that's going to result in a lot more republican spending than we had before. maybe both sides get motivated on the money but republicans will have more money. so that's a big concern for democrats. >> i think the ground game in a close election like this matters. that infrastructure is there, and we have the money for that. it's more speaking with the voters. like i said before nancy pelosi could be the speaker, they could have subpoena power and essentially grind to a halt. things are going well. they need tawao wake up and understand -- democrats are motivated. if we can motivate our base i believe that can happen in november. they all know it's an election in november and we tend to turn out in higher numbers in mid-terms. the complacency thing is

something of a wake up call for republicans. >> in michigan abdul lost the democratic race for governor. he is a progressive and had the backing of bernie sanders and also of alexandria cortez. what message does this send to the party? >> i've long felt like this phenomena that happened in the cortez race against joe crowley was sort of overplayed as a bellwether. >> nancy pelosi said as much as well. >> and it's not because i don't think there is a huge swath of the democratic party that would like to see, you know, better health care, more government paid for health care and corporations held to a higher standard. it's just that i don't think that the democrat is as divided as the story tells it. and i think that what you see here is a much more united, we want to elect the person who has the best chance of winning in

november in almost every one of these races. >> it's about district. you know, that what happened with the joe crowley-cortez race, that district worked for there. that's not going to work in the conor-lamb districts in 2018. so i think for democrats this interm fight is very interesting. what's going on with them is being overshadowed obviously by what's happening with republicans and trump. but that is something to watch. there is certainly tension there. >> i think that tension is overplayed. mike, i'll let you go in after this quick. mike said earlier the republican party has enough room for trump supporters, enough room for everyone. >> the republican coalition, there's traditional republicans and new republicans that are more trump.

>> so hold on that thought. why is it different? stoohave a cortez or a bernie sanders which a bit more progressive than -- >> i think you're going to see the nancy pelosi part of the democrats or the establishment welcome them in where it works but then shun them where it doesn't, where it's not beneficial to them. it's a different dynamic, though. they're not looking at the progressive -- the left wing progressive part of the democratic party the way that the republicans and the trumpers are looking at those of us who have questioned what happened to the party based on the way they've sold out a lot of their principles for trump. >> some of the left wing, the radical left hasn't won as much, but they have pulled all the other capped dts to the left. so you have many of these democrats that are winning these primaries that are for abolishing i.c.e., affordable

health care, and the tax increase it pushes them out of the mainstream of suburban voters -- >> i can't believe you didn't jump in on the radical left. >> here's the point, you make the argument that mike is making and can say the exact same thing about the trump coalition. what we do know, though, is that the trump coalition as it stands is actually decreasing its numbers. >> that's true. >> what we saw tonight in ohio 12 was a reduction in the trump vote. and, you know, normally you have a president who works to expand their base. and what we are not seeing with this president, what we are not seeing with the republicans is an effort to expand the base. >> i do have to say just in my limited -- in my, you know, i'm not one of you political experts. i observe. republicans always come home. republicans always come home

regardless of who the candidate is. >> the democrats are split a lot on policy. we have the cortez wing. the sanders wing is more socialist and more to the left on policy issues. republicans overall i feel we're still united on policy. we want limited government, most of us are pro-life, most of us want immigration reform that's still reasonable. but it's the tone and tactic. >> you've been awful quiet tonight. i want to take this republican primary race of governor in kansas tonight, really close. running neck and neck now with the incumbent jeff collier. that was a risky move for the president. >> kansas is not one of the super trump states. he did not relative to romney

say in 2012, trump did not do funom funf phenomenally better in kansas. so this is not necessarily a state where trump has more juice, but if kobach pulls out tonight i think there's no doubt you have to give the president -- >> do we have to sound bite? i want to discuss that. go on. >> most republicans think kobach is the weaker of the two capped dts in the general. >> and this was a four-way primary race, two. and i believe the other two lesser candidates on the republican candidate side pulled double digits away from the top two guys. so where are those people going?

>> those are anti-incumbent votes. when you have other people that vote against the incumbent, those are all a coalition of anti-incumbent voters. >> kobach, he was part of the commission that was set up to investigate election fraud, and members of the committee who were ton there said nothing really came out of that and they were pushing really to confirm what the president thought was happening when it comes to election fraud and none of that was true. someone who actually sued and got the information that was on the committee i spoke to him the other night, watch this. >> we didn't find anything. in fact, this is one of the things, when we got the documents this past week, we went thru them and we published them. there was actually a draft report. we never discussed the report, what it was going to look like and include, but there was a draft included with sections of cases of demonstrated voter fraud and those were left very

tellingly blank. so there was nothing at all. >> what do you think was the ultimate goal of this commission? was it to prove the explanation the president came up while he lost the popular vote to his rival. >> i said at the time if you would have found a fraction of the number he was talking about we would have had a problems on our hands. but it seemed to be very evident that the purpose of the commission was to validate his statement, whether there's any evidence to back it up or not. >> is that what this endorsement was all about? >> absolutely. >> republicans have this two-part strategy they win elections when there are fewer voters in the election and then you have the president claiming that the fix was in for democrats in 2016, and this committee was meant to reinforce that idea. >> everybody stay with me. much more ahead on our breaking news of tonight's coverage of elections. gas, bloating, constipation and diarrhea

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we're back now with our breaking news, the special election in ohio's 12th congressional district too close to call although the gop candidate has a narrow lead right now. one of the two races not on tuesday. let's bring in mr. harry enten. harry, welcome back to the program. this was a tight race in ohio. the president is bragging about it now, tweeting about it. was this really good for republicans in. >> sure, you win at race and therefore you have an extra incumbent running in the fall. keep in mind there are about 70 other congressional districts that republicans currently hold that are more democratically leading than this one. and democrats only need a neck gain of 23 to take back the house in november. to me it's not a good result for

republicans when you look at congressional races overall. >> how important, harry, is support for the president in places like ohio 12? >> in the mid-term election mid-terms are referendums on the economy. and it was about even with this approval rating, and that's where we end up about a 50/50 race. if you look at the polling towards the fall you see that voters who approve of the president's job are overwhelmingly voted for republicans, those who disapprove overwhelmingly voted for democrats. nationally the disapproval rating for the president of the united states is far above his approval rating and that's why democrats are favored to take back the white house come november. >> it has been said that democrats are doing better in suburban areas. these races are all about the suburban area but you sttypical do better in urban areas.

how important is the divide here moving forward. >> you saw it tonight in franklin county which is the urban part of the district danny did very well and other districts which are much more rural he did quite poorly. but if you look at the nation overall the nation overall is much more urban than this particular district is. if you extrapolate out to the nation as a whole democrats will be fighting at much better ground. >> we've been talking about ohio, kansas, michigan, missouri, but there are important races going on in washington state. talk to me about that. >> washington state has a system -- if you remember all the democrats running against the republicans in the primary, if turns out if you look at the votes in past years there was one congressional district i was

really looking at which is the washington 8 district. republicans want to hold it in the fall, but if you look that the cumulative democratic vote right now it is outpatesing the cumulative republican vote, and that could be a good sign for democrats. >> are you seeing warning signs in some of the reiss in washington? big warning signs. >> i'm not just seeing it in washington. if you look at other races as well what you see are a number of republican incumbents below 50%. and it's very close even in districts where you might not necessarily expect it. if you look for instance at congresswoman rogers, that race is very, very close. she's obviously a high ranking member of the house on the republican side and she is below 50%. if she went down in defeat come the fall, that's a very bad seat for republicans.

>> i say the president has been bragging and tweeting about the win or at least the perceived win they think is happening in ohio. but did his endorsement you think help chris kobach in kansas? >> if you look at the kansas resu result right now you have a tight race. if you look at the endorsements before kobach was still ahead. that may have in fact held back any positive advance for kobach based upon the trump endorsement. >> harry enten, appreciate your time. we have much more on our election night coverage straight ahead. but up next rick gates and paul manafort's trial cross examined

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cnn projects that john james wins the republican nomination for u.s. senate in michigan. jaymes is an african-american iraq war veteran who was endorsed by president trump. he's going to face democratic incumbent debby stabenoh. i want to get to some news here. paul manafort's long time deputy rick gates facing prosecution on tuesday. and michael moore a former u.s. attorney for the middle district of georgia. hello, both of you. thank you for coming on. so julia, the defense got their first crack at cross examining rick gates. how did he hold up? >> well, vbts we're all interpreting this from the outside, but it appears a couple of things happened that are worth repeating here. one is that he was contrite. he addresses the jury, apologizes, says he's trying to

make things right. and at no stage during this cross examination was the defense able to separate gates from manafort. in other words, the defense strategy has got to be gates acted by himself, that he was doing this all on his own. and i think just from the testimony we've seen so far the defense failed in that regard. manafort is clearly pushing gates or conspiring with gates to do all of these illegalities. in fact there's a liep in one of the documents where manafort says to gates, you told me you were on top of this. that's the statement from the leader to the worker bee, fix this. i think in that sense the defense did fail to do the one thing they needed to do, which was gates was doing all this illegal stuff on his own. >> but he was forced to admit an affair and that he had embezzled money from paul manafort. do you think the defense succeeded in painting gates as a

flawed witness? julia? >> yeah, so i think obviously the corruption and the sort of icyness of all these characters is sort of rampant. so it's for the jury to decide whether the guy who's trying to come clean now is better or more trustworthy than the guy who's not speaking. and i think that the prosecution sort of, you know, prepared the jury for the bad news about gates. but what we have to remember about gates, and this is true in all these national security cases is it's not like gates is just saying something is there's no corroborating evidence. what gates is doing and he's essentially validating the documentation prosecution already has. the e-mails, the tax forms, the faulty financial dealings. and then remember the five witnesses who have already testified, the book keeper and others in the office saying, yeah, this was all illegal. so i'm not saying gates is irrelevant, but he's not -- he's just simply validating the

documents, the electronic information and the other witnesses. so -- so in that sense he's more valid. >> so michael, rick gates claiming that manafort tried to secure jobs for associates in the trump administration, this trial is really about bank and tax fraud. is this testimony something you expect the prosecution to pursue further? >> i don't know how far they'll go into that. at this point it's really about showing that manafort was trying to kwluz h to use his position. i don't know how far they'll dieg ddig into it. i think julia is right in the sense it was not a good day for the manafort team. essentially rick gates comes in, he gives his statement, owns up to what he's done. we can talk about an affair or seekia secret money. >> but his attorneys say he had a great day, michael. >> well, that's fake news i guess what i'm trying to say.

because they didn't have a good day. it's never a good day when you have to come out and say it's a good day in court like that. so really gates came in, he stuck to his deal, he was contrite in some things. he knew he was going to have to talk about that, but he was prepped. and there's nothing new the mueller team did not know going in. all this information already came out. the bottom line is he is piecing together and corroborating evidence already in the case. the jury is sitting there thinking, well, why didn't they bring this guy in. and now gates is here, and gates has come in and said, look, i did some stuff wrong here. but i'm here to tell you i did wrong. >> but, michael, it's tough because gates worked for manafort for 20 years, and so do you think it's potentially a mistake for the defense to paint gates as a corrupt liar without even painting manafort with the

same brush? >> well, i think they probably splattered paint on manafort through their cross examination today. and really what do they have? at the end of the day you've got these e-mails, these statements, the book keepers and accountants that say manafort told them what to do, so what other choice does the defense have? i don't think it's a winning strategy for them. i've said this and i have every expectation that manafort is going to be convicted. but they really don't have great facts on their side. the only thing they can kind of do is throw darts at gates and hope they can deflate him somehow. but it's hard to change some of the things manafort puts into e-mails and records. >> julia, i heard you say yeah when you said he's going to be convicted. it's his first real chance to show what he's got. how he's doing? >> it appears to be a very strong case and i think you want to lead with a very strong case. and i want to remind everyone this is trump's campaign

chairman and deputy campaign chairman. the case is not about trump, and obviously that's the atmospherics. i want to remind people while we're talking about the legalities or illegalities that put manafort in debt and sort of drew him to the trump campaign money train, he was so in debt baz he knew on the other side of this he might make money. i think from the national security perspective take a step back. think how corruptible manafort and gates are through this process because they're getting foreign money to support this lifestyle. they are doing all sorts of illegal things that are pretty well-known to probably their clients. and so from the perspective of the national security perspective, these guys are so easily corrupted by a foreign entity, and i think that's where the trump aura and the mueller stuff all is in play here. these guys were, you know, they

were just, you know, ripe for a foreign entity to take advantage of them. >> listen, thank you both. i appreciate that. listen, i do want you to stick around. but i want to bring in alice stuart in, because alice, you went to the courtroom. you visited this morning. give me your impression. >> it was clear gates was being forthright. he was putting it out on the table. manafort sat there and he seemed pissed, you know, that everything was being laid out there on the table. and while we spent so much time talking about manafort spending so much on the ostrich jacket and now we know gates spent money on a jacket in london. those are the juicy details, but a lot of today was document after document after document which clearly outlines what they were doing to hide money, to setup shell corporations to claim income as loans, and it

was all very dirty and underhanded. and i think so far they've made a very good argument that they broke the law, and i don't know see how the jury can come to any other conclusion. clearly he's guilty. but the key is we didn't hear a lot about trump, we didn't hear about key things that really directly connect them with the trump organization. >> they can't really bring that up. >> they can't bring it up, and the judge was very clear. and the one time gates had the opportunity he said a presidential campaign and were talking about some other people that were sitting in there. they have done a good job of separating it. this looks like two crooks who capitalized on their ability to get clients overseas. and they're two dirty guys. one is coming clean and the other is not. >> but what they did bring up today is the bank of cypress, one one of the russian oligarchs who

bought that property from trump which was questionable because the property was overinflated in price. and our commerce secretary wilbur ross took over that bank. and the bank of cyprus is notorious for russian money laundering. so that aspect of it and the connection to our commerce secretary and russian oligarchs and trump is of significance and shouldn't be ignored. when we come back, how robert mueller's investigation could be playing with voters. what linda graham warned the president about. that's next. sometimes a day at the ballpark

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so a prominent republican senator saying that he gave a big warning to president trump about the russia investigation. let's discuss now. my political -- i like to say dream team because this is my dream team. ryan, lindsey graham said he golfed with the president and warned him if he tried to shutdown the mueller investigation that the gop would

pay the price in the mid-terms. good advice? >> well, no doubt it's good advice. i think lippedy graham has gone from the most intense trump critic during the primaries, had a bit of a debutante and now he's become close to the president. i think he kind of sees himself as this kind of translator between the hard core pro-trump world and the never trump world, although i think he's lost a lot of his cred -- i do think he's tried to be this kind of bridge even though he's gotten awfully close to the president. and i think he used to say that the presidency would be over if for instance he fired mueller or rosenstein. he's softened that over time i think partly because he's seen american voters will tolerate anything from the president and

he's made a political analysis about maybe trump's presidency wouldn't pea ovbe over now. >> i agree with ryan that his advice is right if you're risk averse and if you're a normal republican which senator graham is. if you're somewhat a gambler like president trump is who knows if he'll feel too much heat on him. president trump, yes, will face a political problem if he up ends the mueller investigation. he will look guilty. but if you look at his poll numbers he's at 43.3% in the real clear politics average, like less than a percent below where he was inauguration day. republicans are behind him, and at this point who is undecided

on where they stand on trump at this point. he knows that much. he's not a deep policy thinker, but he can read a poll. >> the president asked him about ending the mueller probe, he tweets about it a lot relentlessly. he's been told not to tweet about it but he can't help himself. >> he's like a child that's told don't touch the stove but i touch it anyway because i can. for donald trump the biggest thorn in his side has been this investigation from mueller, and i think to david's point about linda graham's position shifting so much -- or that was ryan -- it's because the trump tact has been let's discredit mueller, discredit the investigation because the facts of the investigation are not on trump's side per se especially with the trump tower meeting and what we're finding out. they haven't been forthcoming

but it doesn't matter because they're going for a political solution here, not a criminal one. and it's about to arriving impeach. and it's working so far because republicanerize tuning it out, they don't care and that political calculus is working so far for the president. he wants to fire mueller, he wants to fire rosenstein and jeff sessions for goodness sakes, but i don't think he really cares what lindsey graham thinks. something is holding him back from doing it. >> also there's value for the president in keeping this story out there the way it is. it consolidates republican support. what we know what lindsey graham said to the president is only from lindsey graham's mouth and who knows what he actually said to the president. where democrats have to be and why democrats are actually on the campaign trail is because

they're actually talking about the administration taking away health care. they're talking about, you know, children being put in cages at the borders. they're talking about a tax cut going exclusively to wealthy corporation. that actually is working on the campaign trail. i think you'll see that continuing. the more that donald trump screams about mueller and the russian hoax i think that, you know, he is actually trying to drown out the facts of what they're -- >> but you know what you don't hear about a lot anymore, draining the swamp. that's the whole idea -- that's the reason -- only the best people, right remember only the best people. i want to take a look at some of the folks in the trump orbit with serious legal or ethical troubles. michael flynn, a former national security advisor, pled guilty to lying to the fbi. manafort's former campaign chairman on trial for bank and

wire fraud among other charges. rick gates, deputy campaign chairman pled guilty to financial fraud and lying to investigator. you have other folks who left the white house after scandals like rob porter who resigned after his ex-wife's alleged physical abuse, scott pruitt who pled guilty to ethics issues and on and on. so she said republicans -- trump supporters don't care. i'm sure traditional establishment republicans do care, maybe, maybe not. what happened? this doesn't matter? >> clearly based on the approval numbers amongst his base it doesn't matter. >> are you surprised by the world that we're in -- i just want you to imagine, but can you imagine if this were the clinton administration and all of this was happening? what do you think you'd be sitting here saying as a republican? >> i don't think we'd be talking about this if this was happening under the obama administration -- >> under clinton, if all these

people were charged and pleaded guilty? >> but we would be bringing it up, republicans we would never let this stand if this was going on. there's another channel that dedicates like hours of their prime time programming still relitigating hillary clinton who lost and what the clintons have done since 25 freaking years ago, so there's no way republicans would ever allow this if a fraction of what trump's people have done. >> we knew about his past with women, about his past with business, we knew about a lot of things he did in the past. at the end of the day -- >> even surrounding himself with sketchy people? >> that is new revelation? >> let her finish her thought. >> the reality is people knew the kind of person he was and

the people we surrounded himself and he still won. in my view i voted for him because of his policies, not his tone and tactics and that's why republicans voted for him and they will vote for him again. >> yeah, people did know the kind of person he was, they had a sense of what he was. but he said i will hire the best people, we'll have the best people come in there and make the best decisions. he's proven he's incapable of acting presidential as it's been traditionally defined. he described himself one way, winked and nodded to voters and the people around him have been -- >> because if you have 4% economic growth, you have wages going up, you have kavanaugh and gorsuch on the court, you have tax cuts, especially the republicans and the people that voted for president trump think this is all noise. yes, politicians in d.c. do stuff and they'll go through five staffers on that one job

and he doesn't care -- >> it's up around 30% under trump. unemployment went down around 3% under obama, it's down a point under trump. it can't be the economic results. it's that republicans like their guys. >> you see no hypocrisy and no double standard here? >> no, what i'm saying is this comes back to that you're taking it literally thing. i'm going to do things differently, things are going to be different. the results for the party, what they actually care about is not who was the epa director -- >> who's winning and who's losing, right? that's what this is about. who's winning and who's losing. the people who are winning are getting a big fat tax cut.

the people who are losing are the ones getting their education benefits cut, people not being able to get health care, everybody losing because the federal budget is all going -- >> listen, i got to go. >> when president obama agreed to extend the bush tax cuts for a year, that didn't it's a double standard. >> all that moral high ground stuff, economic anxiety stuff, it was all b.s. total, complete hypocrisy and a double standard. >> it's a terrible standard. >> when we come back, i'm going to get answers to this question. will race be a factor in november's midterm? chicken?! chicken.

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all right. will race be a factor in this fall's election, and could it work to president trump's benefit? back with me, my political experts. i got to ask, tonight, the president held a dinner for ceos of major corporations. five of them publicly broke rank with the president after the both sides comment about charlottesville. has everyone moved on with that? what's happening? >> i don't think everyone has moved on from charlottesville. i do think race is a factor, because you just have to look at the president's behavior. if the president thought his racist statements, race-baiting was not working for him, i don't think he would do it. but when he comes after lebron

james, you, congresswoman waters, colin kaepernick and other professional athletes, he's making a calculation that his base is either indefiniiffe to it, or kind of likes it. >> does he feel like he can say racist things with no consequence? >> if you're donald trump, he can. and not only can you say insulting things about lebron james and you, he did it on the heels of ohio. and it appears to be okay when you're donald trump. when you look at 7 of the 8 special elections in the cycle have been won by republicans. so it hasn't been a tremendous detriment for republicans coming out to vote. i think it will be a factor for

some people, i've talked to farmers about the tariffs, and they'll still vote for trump. at the end of the day, they'll come home to the republican party. >> well, of course race will be a factor. because it will be a referendum on the president and the president is a racist. race will matter. one of the most disappointing things that donald trump has done in his year and a half as president, he has ripped a lot of scabs off of racial wounds in this country, and he's removed the social taboo of being a racist. and he's given certain people permission to say certain things. and that could rebound sadly to his benefit in come circumstances.

but i think at the end of the day, history will show that that doesn't -- you don't get away with that for too long. >> and i think the key point is, too many people during the campaign in '16 saw donald trump's behavior as an act. when he becomes president, he's really not going to be this way. he doesn't really believe it. but if you talk to people in new york, who went through the central park five and the history of donald trump, they tried to warn people, he has a long history of racist behavior. and i think what people have learned is that this actually is much more ingrained. not only will he be racist, but he has no problem associating with people like that. >> and i think the one piece is, the only place that could matter more is turnout in urban areas. as harry said before. and also, whether it turns off

suburban voters. >> go ahead, mike. >> race plays a role in every ejecti election. when you talk to democrats and republicans, look at the ohio race we looked at tonight. there are urban and suburban voters, and rural voters. you always do a race breakdown, and line them up with a party. i wish he would go to chicago. his inaugural address talked about stopping the carnage. they're being killed there at 9/11 level rates. the president has policies to do that, i think he should go to chicago -- >> the president doesn't care about chicago. >> i'm giving him my advice. >> the reason i wanted to hear from you, you're a woman of color in the republican party. you still consider yourself a republican. >> yes, conservative first. >> when you see what's happening

now, is there an issue with your p party and the president? >> yes, and the people who ignore that donald trump has elevated these racial issues, that's a disservice. the republican party can't continue this way. it will shrink. and the "washington post" just did a story about people feeling emboldened because of the president's behavior. >> thank you, everyone. our coverage continues with john voss in l.a. john? cnn breaking news. >> don, thank you. hello and welcome to our viewers and in the united states. breaking news from ohio, a special congressional