same for all the other animals out there. maybe both parties need a non-living mascot or imaginary one, because elephant and the donkey, they just called and said to leave them out of all of politics. well, i want to thank you all for watching, i will see you back here tomorrow night for another election eve special, anderson cooper 360 is next. down to the wire appeared both candidates spend the final sunday plea getting the battlegrounds. we will show you the potential path for each.

a new poll out of iowa stuns many. does it signal a late shift? we will talk to the poster who conducted it. the campaign continues to tell stories about election fraud in pennsylvania. we will talk to pennsylvania's top election official about what the campaign is clearly. just one full day of campaigning and more than 70 million early ballots already cast. this is what sunday looks like for vice president harris, the former president, tim walz and jd vance. the vice president overnight in the detroit and in east lansing a short time ago. she did not mention the former president by name. >> two days to go. we are ready. we are ready. in one of the most consequential elections of our lifetime. and we have momentum, it is on our side. can you feel it? >> the president speaking

tonight in macon after making news and a prior stop in pennsylvania. >> this piece of glass here. but all we have really over here is the fake news. and to get me, somebody would have to shoot through the fake news and i don't mind that so much. >> a campaign spokesman says he was actually looking out for their welfare far more than his own, which only makes sense if you don't listen to what he said. >> and to get me, somebody would have to shoot through the

fake news. and i don't mind that so much. >> later in north carolina come he seemed to think he was in pennsylvania. >> we have great republicans running, and you have one of the best of all right here. david mccormick. is he around someplace? >> he then corrected himself, saying we just left him. he is a great guy. north carolina and five other battleground states are within the mourn-- margin of error but this from the des moines register eating a lot of attention. within the margin of error but three points ahead of the former president. we will talk to the pollster behind it later on in the show. john kane starts us off with a potential path for each to 270. at this point, which candidate has the advantage in the electoral college? >> if you look at the day, neither. essentially you just put up the battleground states,

it is essentially a tie. harris claims some momentum, a little bit of momentum for harris may be. but this is race number 10 for me and i have never been on a sunday night with a race so close and so collocated. if you just go through the average, it shows a dead heat. either candidate could win either of these. both of the toss-ups. either candidate could win them all or they could have a back and forth. somebody wins around and somebody wins the next one. harris has had a small but consistent lead in michigan and wisconsin. you put those for her. if you look at the average of our polls of oliver battleground states, pennsylvania is a battleground. trump has a slight lead. but if you take our averages literally at the moment, trump has the lead there and a slightly out

there. that gets you to 262 for trump, 251 for harris. if they play it out exactly as the averages are right now. they could break. what does that mean? the conversation we would be having since the beginning, the biggest prize is battleground pennsylvania would decide it. under this scenario, harris one that, either way you would need one more. the only thing left on the board is that. the 19 in pennsylvania. if you look at this race and come back to this, the "easiest" path is just to win the blue wall. she is the next president of the united states on this sunday night. can she do that? yes. but is it also possible donald trump wins all three of those states to upend american politics? that is possible too. there is a little bit of data that suggests an advantage for her but i would caution everybody to say we will count them tuesday night into wednesday and beyond. this one is that close. >> how does all this compared to 2016 and 2020? >> that's where it gets

interesting. on this night in 2016, we had hillary clinton projected to win 268 electoral votes. she was leading all of the blue wall states. she lost all three of them. so again, be careful. there are surprises. on this night in 2020, on the other hand, we had a clear sense we had biden over 270. in this map to pick up georgia and arizona as well. in 2020, we had a clear climate. in 2016, we had advantage clint clinton although there was evidence of late momentum. back in this campaign where we are tonight, you have a campaign where you have seven battleground states as close as they can be with perhaps a smidge of evidence of late harris momentum. >> thanks very much. david you've seen a lot of campaigns, this is just exhausting. >> i think i know now. >> i feel like we have had this

conversation every day for i don't know how long. >> i think i've said before, humility is the order of the day. nobody really knows. it is so close. nothing would shock me. it wouldn't shock me if one of the other candidate took five of those states or more. it wouldn't shock me if it was very close advantage to one or the other. but i will say this. when you have a situation like this, you look at the campaign at the end of the campaign, and it is a profound difference. because kamala harris, people criticize her for being cautious. she-- caution and being deliberate and executing at the end of the campaign, that is a real advantage. her message is down, it's coordinated with her. but here's the other thing, donald trump is as out of sync as she is in sync. >> just juxtaposed. talk about

low energy. >> who looks like the winter up there? he said in an interview in the atlantic, another amazing piece in the atlantic, he reported that someone said to trump and complement it him on the fact that his campaign was very disciplined. and he said, disciplined? what does that have to do with winning? he may find out on tuesday. because he's been so undisciplined that he has taken the campaign off its message every night. now we are showing footage of him talking about reporters getting shot. do you think anybody in his campaign headquarters wants that to be the story on the sunday before the election? i think if donald trump is keeping an enemies list at the end of the campaign, he might want to pencil in donald trump on the top line because he will be the guy who beat himself. >> do you think this is as close as the polls suggest? >> i will remain humble. it is

close but what i do think is different is he is saying things about the press, he still had the rally from a week ago. that actually feels like it was a month ago at this point, that madison square garden. when we think about how time is moving with this campaign. especially since she is only running for 100 days. i think there are people who will leave out of the house on tuesday morning and make decisions based on that. because one thing i won't be humble if i made a mistake and said i don't think there are that many undecided, i think there are. people are looking for a pathway to vote for kamala harris and donald trump is giving them to her. >> i would not be surprised if it went either direction. campaigns come down to fundamentals. the data seems to be telling us nothing other than it is statistically tied. very much that is kamala harris. if you look at the stats on the number of doors

they are knocking and everyone in the battleground states, it is massively outpacing where the trump champagne should be. a lot of money has been diverted to this election integrity. whereas kamala harris has what we call screw you money. she had an ad taken out on the sphere on las vegas. she's got that. >> is what many people dream of. >> a disciplined closing message. she is not talking about trump, she is talking about a future looking message. juxtaposed to donald trump, who in 2016 there was a core message. better trade deals, america first, securing the border. now i could not tell you what the messages. so the momentum is on one side but i think it is statistically close. >> i would rather be talking about other things than the event this morning. i mentioned there was a great ad out, they

put this ad out on unity, it's a fantastic commercial. but the messaging just isn't in sync. i will just remind everybody, i was on the ground in 2016 and driving the bus. and to think that there was some sort of coordinated messaging, a better message or discipline them it just wasn't true. there was more enthusiasm, trump is the leader of the movement. he is not a politician. >> there is more enthusiasm now. i am saying there is more coordination. in 2016, it was chewing gum, tape. there was no organization. there was no get out the vote effort. we were running against the clinton machine. and there was this grinding everyday. >> is he the same candidate? >> yeah. i was there. you remember the access hollywood tape? does anybody remember that? after that came out. i

was going to that event thinking, see how many people show up. and it was packed. >> he wasn't disciplined but he was dynamic. i was with him in 2020, and he sounds much different now that even in 2020. there is a lack of focus, lack of energy. >> the campaign in 2020, i think it was dead man walking. this campaign, there is energy. he was talking about the wrong state, you are in four different states in one day. >> you are doing an admirable job. but he is not the same guy. let me say one other thing. just as a practitioner who has been through this, one of the reasons why the comment that the vice president made on the view got so much, when she

said no, i can't think of what i would do different. she was being polite. but it seemed like she was affirming the message of the trump campaign against her. he is every day going out now and affirming her message about him. >> even if he is the same person from 2016, 2020 and 2024, people are tired of it. there was a freshness about it in 2016 and i am not saying his base is not, his base is riled up about it but we've been talking about floors and ceilings. it just keeps growing and when you have last sunday when you talk about somebody handling her, women don't like to be talked about like that. people didn't like the access hollywood tape and it was something different. now eight years later, it's a little

old. >> the new york times has a really good editorial today where they go back and talk about all these folks they interviewed. after interviewing like 800 people, we think trump might win. this isn't breitbart. >> will talk to pennsylvania's secretary of the commonwealth after the former president accused election officials there of fighting so hard, he said, to steal the election. also some of the unprecedented efforts to keep election day safe and secure. the

the

additional fencing going up around the observatory in

washington where the vice president harris spent part of her weekend in what was for many a surprise appearance on saturday night live playing opposite mayor rudolph. >> i wish i could talk to someone who has been in my shoes. a black am a south asian woman running for president, preferably from the bay area. >> i don't really laugh like that, do i? >> a little bit. , take my palm-ala. is what do we always say? keep calm-ala. >> what is the method it-- message tonight? >> anderson, on this sunday night live version of that,

vice president harris wrapped up her speech not long ago. her last michigan rally. there were thousands of people here. many of them have already voted but she was sending a message to those who haven't. her campaign is not about being against someone, it is about being for something. this is a dramatically different closing message that we have heard from her even in recent days when she was drawing a deep contrast with donald trump. that is over for this period. she is trying to end on a hopeful message to try to encourage her supporters to get out the vote. they believe this is a contrast in its own right. they see how former president donald trump is ending his campaign. again, the michigan part of her campaign involving her is in the books. her campaign obviously the surrogates will be out for the day tomorrow. it is all about pennsylvania, she has stopped across the

commonwealth. anderson, her best strategy, she believes, her advisers tell us, is through the blue wall of pennsylvania, michigan, wisconsin and of course that blue dot in omaha. but there is no doubt they are feeling optimistic. but she also said this is not over. she encouraged everyone here, particularly those who have voted, to find others who haven't. anderson? >> christian homes in macon, georgia with the former president. what is your sense of what the coming hours will look like? what have you heard today? >> the former president closing message is not exactly what his allies or advisers hoped it would be. being told by these allies and campaign officials he was going to deliver a message of unity but that is far from what we have seen. as i'm sure earlier in the show, he was going off the rails on different topics, at one point really complaining about polls that came out that showed him trailing behind kamala harris. a lot of his speech was

profanity laced. and he has a sordid sluggish and hoarse voice at times. they are all exhausted and ready for this election to be over. and in addition, a lot of them are exasperated. particularly some of his allies who believe that he could win on tuesday, however, they believe the messaging he has been putting forward is not the way to do it. one ally said how hard is it to go out there and just say kamala harris broke it, i am going to fix it? instead, we heard him go off on a number of tangents, a lot of them with violent and dark rhetoric, as he heads into tuesday. again, his campaign has been feeling hopefully optimistic. or at least slightly. every single person you talk to know the that every vote counts and they believe that this is not helpful toward his campaign

into tuesday. >> can you not actually see his face? >> he has a hat on and his coat. it's underneath the shadow right now. but if you look closely, you can see it up there. he definitely has a shadow we look. >> i was looking at different monitors. kristen, thanks very much. back with the panel. some lighting would be good. was it a good idea for her to spend time on saturday night live? >> i think so. it's a risk you could go on there and bomb and that's not good. but that was a funny skit. but the best part about it, she seemed very relaxed. she seemed very human and she got to show self-effacing humor which is always winning in a politician. they took a little bit of a risk doing it but i think it was a great thing to do on the

final weekend. >> a moment from the former president rally, i just want to play this. >> it's terrible when kamala says she worked at mcdonald's, she never worked there. but i did a little bit. this place is amazing. just remember, it is other people saying it, not me. >> yeah. >> we don't like to be called prostitutes as women. it is as simple as that. but if the leader says it, his followers, that is what followers do. they feel that they are given permission , which is why for the last three years many of us have sat and said there is a responsibility to stop this type of language and behavior. i want to just point out one thing that was discussed about the momentum. the word momentum, when we talk about sports, it means you are either

behind what you have is moving in your favor or you are tied. that's what i keep hearing from the harris campaign. we are not winning yet but we can score enough points to get over even if we just went by one point. that is what she's asking her supporters to do. you also see this in the rallies. i know we talk a lot about comparisons. i remember in 2016, beyonce and jay-z, bruce springsteen, these rallies and surrogates are not the same. she has cardi b, who wasn't even going to vote four months ago. they are reaching different people that are not traditional voters. that we talked about donald trump, cardi b reaches a lot of voters. if they go to the polls, they will vote for kamala harris. >> i think the most interesting thing to watch is the gender gap. donald trump may have made a brilliant but high risk

strategy of trying to reach out to low propensity largely white male voters. targeting people like jake paul and joe rogan and that character. but do those actually translate to large numbers at the polls? i don't know. in doing so, they did alienate women. they fall into the trap of things like the tony hinchcliffe guy speaking at a rally. on the flipside, kamala harris has a 10 to 15 point advantage with women. if you have more women turning out, that could end up determining the election. it is just which side turned out in greater force. >> we watched john king say that it was down to one state. pennsylvania. i wish i was there right now. but i talked to ask about this, when you look at the numbers, i said where do you think she falls in the vote total? do you think

she is obama, clinton, biden? that is what it's about right now. does she outperform biden? she is going to fall short there. dish-- she is not going to outperform biden in philadelphia. biden got more votes than obama in 2008 because he was viewed as a pennsylvanian. where is she going to win those big numbers? trump has been increasing his vote total. he is not going to win philadelphia but he has been increasing his vote total piece by piece. he had 90,000 and 120,000. it is about losing less. i think he's going to do very well in bucks county. if kamala harris doesn't crush it in the philadelphia suburbs, she's going to lose. >> to the discussion earlier, it seems like he is intentionally doing things to pump up the vote in the philadelphia suburbs. >> that is one of the issues. his ad has been running

nonstop. that's been running in the deli that has jewish mother's lamenting, they don't like donald trump but they are concerned about anti-semitism. they think trump is going to make them safer. this is the same narrative you see in the new york times piece. we don't like trump but we are going to vote for him. >> i think you want her to perform like obama 2012 in philadelphia. where he actually increased black voter turnout by 4%. if she can do that, people thought he had maxed out in some places. he had not. he went and found people who had not engaged in our democracy and if she can do that. >> the romney campaign thought -- i just want to clarify. i wasn't saying he was pumping up the vote for himself. i think everything he is doing is pumping up the vote for her in suburban areas.

>> >> the nikki haley op-ed. we don't like donald trump but on the economy, on israel, on things we think he is just better. >> i think nikki haley might be one of the only woman voters for trump at this point. but when you have nearly half 1 million puerto ricans in pennsylvania and you have that gap and doubling down on it after the fact. that is the thing that is going to matter. then you've got icons of the latino pop-culture, like jennifer lopez. that does matter. and late breakers are real. this is what i'm realizing. there are people who are making up their minds as we speak. i am hearing from them every day. >> not just independent white voters. there's a lot of people deciding. i think in addition to the campaigns, there are millions of doors being knocked by independent expenditures. i think the labor union knocked 5 million doors. people working in statehouse races knocking 100,000. those

are the things that you also look to convert. >> we have a very big senate race going on. mccormick is spending gobs of money. we are campaigning for him everywhere. but it may not be trump voters, there is this unique dynamic there. he has casey on the ropes. you have a big race as well. so it's going to be much easier for people to vote for trump and mccormick together. >> ashley, allison, david elk throughout, thank you so very much. coming up, more on that new poll out of iowa. the pollster who conducted it has a long exceptional track record predicting i will races. she joined us next.

earlier, we showed you that surprising new poll out of iowa that shows harris up three points over the former president. which is a big turnaround from the same in september. that number is still within the margin of error so there is no clear leader. but a swing like this and from such a well-respected pollster with a lo former president said it was intentionally skewed to favor harris. >> i have a poll that i am 10 points up in iowa. one of my ebony's just-- enemies said i am three points down. why do they announce a poll that is highly skewed toward democrats? when you read it, they interviewed former democrats than they did republicans. why do they do that? i guess there

is a law that they have to say that because they would have preferred not having to say that. >> i am joined by jn selzer, whose firm conducted the part-- poll. how surprised were you at these numbers? what do you make of them? and also, obviously, feel free to respond to what the former president said. >> thank you for having me. we first saw the numbers on tuesday morning, monday night was the first night in the field. and i walked into the office, i had seen overnight the data and it had harris leading and my assistant said, did you see the data? i said, i would like see weighted data. that is how we take care of things that make our poll and representative. we align things with the known population and we extract from a larger group. the people who meet our

definition of likely voters. and that is people who have already voted and people who say they will definitely vote. so when former president trump says we interviewed more democrats, that is what came out of our data. we did nothing to make that happen. i am a big believer of keeping my fingers off the data so we did it the way we did. when he won in our final pull twice in two election cycles, very same method. >> he said you are an enemy of his. clearly that is not the case. you have had polls in the past that have shown that hillary clinton wasn't going to do as well in iowa as people thought. so you have been delivered news which has upset democrats and republicans and people all over the map in the past. >> right. without favor toward one side or the other. i think that the best news i can deliver, this is true of the

nonelection related clients, my best job at what is true. then you know what you are working with, you can make adjustments as you need to. but i can see that there is any advantage to me or my career in messing with the numbers to make it look a particular way. there is no upside. >> i want to bring in john and david axelrod. they all know you and respect you. john, i know you have been reading from the pool. what's to come to you? >> a quick piece of history first, the 2020 map. a lot of people out there said mom, that can be possible. look at this in 2016. it is possible it is possible. it's been a while but iowa voted overwhelmingly for obama in 2012 and 2008 as well. there are a lot of independent in iowa. i just want to say despite what the

former president said, i have known her a long time. she is one of the best in the business. and she is right. the data is what the data is. so here is what's interesting. among female voters in iowa, overall a 20 point gap. 56 to 36%. now i want to bring up independent. you are always looking late in the campaign. the democrats are loyal, the republicans are loyal to theirs. look at that. 57 to 29. my question for you would be, why? the six week abortion ban in iowa took place a couple months ago. trump has been pretty dark in his rhetoric come insulting the vice president quite a bit. is it something she is saying, he is saying, something within iowa? all of the above? >> i am going to go with all of the above. if i can't single one thing out. i will note that our previous polls this year in february and june, trump led with independence. so what happened between june and

september? biden left the ticket, kamala harris joined, there was a surge of enthusiasm, there was a surge in the proportion of people we talked to who said they would definitely vote. that was our criteria in june. and especially among older people, it is over 90% of people that we talked to in that age group who say they are going to vote. and they tend to vote for kamala harris. and women in that age group specifically and strikingly. >> let me ask you something. i don't want to geek out here. but we hear a lot of posters. talking about nonresponse bias. to try to explain why polls have been so off in the past few cycles in capturing some of this infusion of trump voters that they hadn't spoken with

and hadn't been included in their sample. they are trying to find ways to wait them to account for that and cut that number down. you don't believe that is the way to go. explain it. >> well, i can control what i can control. known population parameters. >> i think a lot of people don't know what that means. what does that mean? >> it will sound very antidemocratic. some people get more than one vote and some people get a little bit less than one vote. so if we end up in our sample, we take a sample of all adults in the state of iowa and if we've got too many who are older or too many that are women, we adjust it to look like the census. so we are within congressional districts because they are not all

age-appropriate lee. we want to adjust our data so it looks like a cross section of the state of iowa when it comes to age, , geography and sometimes education. from the bigger poll, we pull out 808 who met one of our criteria as to be a likely voter. they have already voted or they say they will definitely vote. and so from that cross-section of the state, more people to say they are going to vote, they show up. in more plentiful numbers in our likely voter sample. it is just that easy. what i say is i am allowing my data to reveal to me this future electorate. and the people who are using the exit polls or the recalled vote, which i don't think of is very reliable at all, i call that pulling

backward. they are adjusting their data to fix last mistake. i have always allowed my data to show me. without fear or favor. what my best shot at what the future electorate is going to look like. >> to second john's point, i have worked with you over the years. and you are a person of great integrity and skill. so when you say something, people listen. >> really great to have you on. thank you so much. up next, the former president tries to scare voters in pennsylvania about voter fraud and election security. the commonwealths top election official joins us next to respond.

in a speech earlier in pennsylvania, the former president spent several minutes stoking fears about voter fraud in pennsylvania. >> look at what is going on in your state. every day, talking about extending hours. whoever heard of this? we should have one day voting and paper ballots. they spend all this money, all this money on machines. and they are going to say we might take an extra 12 days. and what do you think happens during that 12 days? these have to be decided by 9:00 to 10:00, 11:00 on tuesday night. bunch of crooked people. these are crooked people.

>> i am joined by secretary of the commonwealth alex schmidt who oversees the election there. i appreciate you being with us. he offers no evidence obviously for what he is saying. what do you say to these allegations? talking about one day voting, claiming that if it takes 12 days to count all the votes there is making allegations there are 12 days of cheating and voter fraud. >> it must be some sort of misunderstanding. every voter in pennsylvania whether they vote by mail or vote in person on election day is voting using a voter verified paper ballot. there is a paper ballot record of every vote cast in pennsylvania to tabulate the results and is used in two audits so ensure those results are accurate. >> they have been lying about

paper ballots, even the dominion voting machines which i have have-- they have had problems with. a judge did grant a request ordering a three day extension for in person return of mail-in ballots that were allegations of election interference from trump allies. can you explain what happened there? >> yes. in pennsylvania, we don't have early voting the same way many other states have early voting. we have mail ballot voting in advance of election day. and we have voting in person on election day. there is an opportunity for voters to go to their local board of elections to apply in person for a mail ballot. so they file an application, the board processes that application, and if approved provides the voter with a mail ballot. that they can complete on the spot and return right then and there. bucks county

was one of the many counties that really had a lot of people showing up. it has been interesting , i ran elections in philadelphia in 2020. that republicans have gone from suing to close down board of elections officers for voting by mail to seeking to have those office hours extended for days to have people vote by mail. >> how frustrating is this for you? obviously this is just the tip of the iceberg of what we expect to see over the next several days or weeks who knows. you are able public and-- a republican, you care about the sanctity of the vote, there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud. these are lies. how frustrating is

this for you? >> anderson, i was a republican election commissioner in philadelphia. elected in 2011 and re-elected in 2015 and re-elected in 2019. i have investigated hundreds of allegations of voter fraud. and that is why i feel like i can speak with some degree of authority and knowledge about wanting when it occurs and when it does occur. and when it does, the extent to which there is evidence of it. and allegations of widespread voter fraud in pennsylvania are completely and totally unfounded. voters should have confidence that we will have a free affair, safe and secure election in 2024 just as we had in 2020. >> i appreciate what you did and i appreciate your time. coming up next, inside election security preparations in one battleground state.

police forces across the country increasing security efforts for election day and beyond with the divisions over the election, the long shadow of january 6th attack on the capitol. >> know where your polling locations are but don't go unless you are explicitly requested to respond. >> police department in battleground states across the nation are gearing up for the 2024 election like never before. >> i've been in this business for 25 years. i can't think of an election where we have had as much planning and preparation for safety, a lot of that has to do with what happened on january 6th. >> cnn granted access to a madison, wisconsin police briefing on what officers should anticipate. >> what we look for in criminal intelligence is not only day of

protecting the ballot, if there is going to be any protest activity. >> is interesting, the battleground states, i feel like the chiefs have all been talking. >> thousands of police chiefs all over the country are taking this seriously. if something happens in another part of the state, i want to be aware of it. i want to be able to let folks know hey, this is what happened and in georgia or arizona or pennsylvania. >> is not only problems on the ground that worry police chiefs. they are concerned with social media. >> the disinformation worries me. we will be responsible for correcting that narrative. >> cities say they are ready. in philadelphia, courts are canceled on election day to free up hundreds of officers. in georgia, panic buttons have been installed at precincts and in arizona, plainclothes officers may deploy in parking lots of voting sites. >> our first path is also going to be to de-escalate to see if

we can diffuse the situation. >> a lot of focus on november 5th, election day. but law enforcement is also concerned about the days after the election. as votes are being potentially tallied. and also the certification process which takes place at the capitol in december. >> the application-- apprehension is what happens after that. if people don't accept the results. >> this is your ballot activated. >> for pat butler, an election volunteer for nearly five decades, she says she isn't worried. >> it is just remarkable. >> do you feel like you need to prepare differently? >> we want to try to prepare for worst-case scenario. but i do believe depending on who wins or loses, the conversation

will change. we hope there is a concession speech and it allows people to heal and move on and put what appears to be a divided country back on the same path. >> have there been any specific threats? >> so far everything seems to be okay at the polling sites. in the days and weeks after, if there is this tallying, that is what they are really worried about because that's when they feel people are going to sue and there anger is going to build. >> thanks so much. countdown to election day continues right here on cnn. right here on cnn. up next, breaking news, fight to the finish. harris and trump speaking tonight as polls show sign of momentum for harris in the final hours. plus, new reporting on trumps inner circle issuing a