mostly do not want chaos with employees. i think there is the thing boiling under the surface and people coming up to me all the time in diners and airports and saying i am a conservative and i cannot vote for him. that is what you will see show up. they may not be answering polls, but she is doing so well and i think there's a good reason to be confident. only if you vote. everyone in the country has to get out and vote, even if it means lines. you stand in lines for tons of things, coffee every day, people can stand in line to vote create this is our duty as americans. >> i present your time. thank you. >>

it is election day in america. i am wolf blitzerer . after a chaotic and historic presidential campaign it comes down to today at this hour polls in all 50 states are open and already we have seen long lines at polling stations are certainly a lot of energy on the ground. tens of millions are out and now deciding whether they want to send vice president kamala harris or former president donald trump to the white house. >> good afternoon to you and to all watching on this historic day. i am aaron burnett. this is philadelphia. this particular line stretching for blocks as our photojournalist is showing you. harris needs a very strong turnout in philadelphia. in north carolina, let's show you some images there from that crucial

battleground state. voters are saying they have never seen lines like they are seeing today. this is after early voting for 10 days, two weeks in some cases and still this turnout. we will see where it ends. some time ago both harris and trump had a message for voters . >> we have to get it done. today is voting day and people need to get out and be active. >> it is nice to find out the lines along, the conservative and republican lines are long and i hear we are doing well. >> the first polls closing in six hours. as the important battleground states georgia is first, polls will close in north carolina 30 minutes later. at 8:00 p.m. eastern pennsylvania polls will close and the 9:00 p.m. eastern michigan, wisconsin and arizona will close finally by 10:00 p.m. eastern and nevada will close. as we are watching all

of these returns come in we are watching specifically the two candidates race to cross that 270 electoral college threshold. we have a team of reporter standing by from the crucial battleground states for the campaign headquarters and we just showed you the very long lines in philadelphia. i want to go to danny freeman who was on the ground for us right now live in the battleground state of pennsylvania. danny, what are things like where you are? >> reporter: i will be honest, there's a lot of energy. we are in lancaster county, it is kind of the central part of the state, we are in millersville specifically and we are at a place which is a funeral home. nonetheless, people are excited to be voting. we are also close to millersville in a university . a lot of people coming out at this lunch rush, should we say.

let's see if some of these folks want to chat with us. are you a first-time voter? you want to chat with us? we are live on cnn. my name is a danny. what is your name? >> savannah. >> what brought you out today? >> it is time for a change. >> what do you mean? >> i am here for women rights and stuff like that. i really like to talk about in depth. >> are you a first-time voter? >> i am a first-time presidential voter . >> how do you feel about voting in the first presidential election? >> i am a little scared . it is exciting. it is definitely surreal almost to be here and be able to do this . i am excited to have a voice and stand up for what i believe in. >> do you mind sharing who you will vote for? >> kamala. >> did you expect to castor first presidential vote at a funeral home?

>> no. >> what was your name again? >> savannah. >> reporter: that is what we are seeing out here in this particular voting spot because it is so close to this university. i will note here in lancaster county , this is the largest red state really in pennsylvania and it is one of the largest red counties in pennsylvania. it has gone for former president trump twice before. democrats are trying to make a play , at least to close the margin as much as they can. seeing the results in lancaster county that may be indicative how close the commonwealth is when we see these results . back to you. >> danny freeman, thank you so much and thank savannah as well. >> it is wonderful to see someone's first time voting that they could have that feeling, that feeling is special to americans. your member that feeling of the first presidential vote . i remember it back in 1994. let's go to josh campbell in

the swing state of wisconsin in the city of madison. what are you seeing? >> reporter: the energy here is a strong, steady flow of voters. i was once a precinct captain and a coworker and it is special to see the volunteers coming out and people casting their vote. let's get to a voter, this is rachel thomas step over here. she is a nurse at the veterans hospital grade thank you for what you do. i have lived in a lot of places around the country and never in a battleground state what is it like knowing you have a impact on the future of the race? >> it means a lot to me. i am from minnesota originally, i moved here for college and i have lived here for a while and i see more of a division living in a red state. i think it is important that everyone educate yourself on your vote and you go make your vote. >> what issue or issues is top of mind? what is driving you to the polls >> a lot of things, reproductive rights being one.

i am a young woman and i have a younger sister has so many people in my life that have stubble struggled with these issues and it's important to educate yourself and you go out and make your decision. >> are you comfortable saying who you are voting for? >> i am voting for harris. >> when you look at the two candidates, are you voting more for the person you like or are you voting against the person you might not like ? >> obviously everyone will have their own opinions. i tried to educate more. i am not a big that's like i don't really support the person , i try to educate myself more and not let that affect it , it kind of does, morals are involved. it is yes and no. i vote for what i believe in but i'm happy that she supports going forward with life, valuing others kindness. >> it is a pleasure meeting you. thank you for everything.

>> reporter: just to tell you one last thing here about wisconsin itself one thing we hear from officials is that it will take time. for many reasons that is chief among them, all of the early votes cast for election day they could not count those until today. officials continue to say that , just because it will take time does not mean there's mischief at play, we have to count the votes. >> so great to hear from the voters across the country. josh, thank you. wolf. >> i want to bring in phil mattingly at the wall. pennsylvania and wisconsin are key battleground states. it was a sense what's going on . >> this is the map it has not been filled in with red or blue, in six hours that will change. what we're looking at is what happened in 2020. if we can draw some analogs and comparisons. let's start with where we saw josh campbell in dane county, this is a democratic stronghold county .

second largest county in the state, almost 10% of the voting population is here at the margin in 2020 joe biden winning by almost 53 points. if you're a democrat for the harris campaign you are looking at this county and saying that bump that up. you need to do better in dane county to offset some of trump's strength in the working class white regions of the state. what will be interesting to watch and why this matter so much it is the largest county in the state and it is a democratic stronghold. this will be assigned as to whether the former president has made inroads in urban areas vertically among black men. if he does the votes become more important. let's swing over to the commonwealth of pennsylvania. that's ohio emigrate state. let's get to pennsylvania where danny freeman was in lancaster county. the reason why lancaster is so important is to danny's point, this is not a battleground county this is not north hampton, for donald trump

these are the places that he lost ground in 2020. in 2016 what happened in lancaster county he won . it what happened in 2020 he still won handily by almost 16 points, joe biden ate away. these are the type of places that trump needs to bump his margins up the reason why is simple, we saw it in 2020 play out in vivid fashion, particularly in montgomery but across the counties outside of philadelphia where joe biden was running a huge vote, winning bucks county, winning montgomery county by huge amount, winning chester county by a huge margin. for democrats you look at philadelphia pushing out to the suburbs come you look at allegheny county and the houma pittsburgh for trump laces like lancaster up through this area but also outside of pittsburgh, outside of allegheny county where the trump campaign knows they will win those counties but how much. >> very interesting. we will watch all these states very closely. you will be a busy

guy. >> that is all we want to see is that map and how it comes in and where we will be looking as the polls are closing in a few hours. we heard from president trump a few moments ago with melania trump and he was talking about the long lines . i want to go to broward county in florida, another crucial one and presidential politics that is where randi kaye is. what are voters telling you? >> reporter: aaron, more than 23,000 voters have voted in person here on election day in broward county, about 650 at the polling place where we are in parkland florida. they have been evenly split. we spoke to 18 voters, 10 for trump and eight for harris. one woman said she is voting for harris but a couple weeks ago she was a voting for donald trump. the last couple of weeks she has heard from his rhetoric and she did not like it. she thinks what he has been saying has not

been something that is in line with her views and she does not like what she is hearing and now she is voting for harris. she came out and brought her mom to vote for harris as well. here is what a couple of other voters told us as well. >> i voted for harris. i am excited to give a woman a chance to be represented. i want to get back to being able to respect each other's viewpoints and get back to common decency. >> he is amazing. i think he does good for the economy and he was a great president. >> your 25 years old. why trump? why do you think it would be better? >> i do not trust harris for many reasons. i don't want to get into it. i just think donald trump is true . he speaks what is on his mind, he does not say the right things, but he does do the right things for the united states. >> nothing he says offends you? >> you cannot let the world

offend you. i have watched simpsons and family guy and they offend every race. if you don't laugh you will not be happy in this world. erin i spoke to one administration haitian man here is that for a long time he was undecided and then when he heard the comments that donald trump said about haitian migrants eating people's pets in springfield, ohio, which we heard is not true, that's when he made up his mind and decided to vote for kamala harris. what donald trump has been saying seems to be resonating as well as kamala harris among the voters we have been speaking with. >> it is interesting to hear from that woman. thank you for that and for sharing. we have seen some minor issues . you heard trump say in that press

conference that the voting is safe and it seems to be going smoothly, that is the case across the country there have been some minor issues in pennsylvania at the polls and we are following that closely. if there's anything you need to note you will hear it here. let's get to paula reid at the boating desk. what happened? >> reporter: of course pennsylvania one of the critical states that we have seen a few issues at polling sites. let's start in cambria county. here authorities ordered that the election sites have to stay open until 10:00 p.m. . this came after a software malfunction disrupted voter ability to scan their ballot. officials say they learned about this issue this morning, they called a specialist and they are working to resolve it. they tell voters all ballots will be accepted, secured and counted by the board of elections and they urged residents to continue to vote. our colleagues report that some did leave the polling

site as issues were being sorted out but the polls and the county will be open until 10:00 p.m.. in allegheny county, two polling locations expressed delays after a judge of elections was late to one location and a different judge of elections never showed up to his site. election workers are now in place and both sides are up and running. if we go to philadelphia county, the district attorney there says there have not been any election related arrests, but they are seeing behavior that is quote a little more aggressive than what we have seen in the past that had roughly a dozen calls this morning. i have spoken with legal teams from both campaigns, these are the kinds of issues that they expected today. even these smaller issues could result in additional legal challenges as the campaigns want to make sure every vote is counted. >> all right, paula, thank you. our special coverage of election day in america continues as we are all here watching the boat , soon waiting for the results. we

will take you to the harris and trump campaign headquarters to see how they are feeling at this moment.

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election day in america . less than six hours until the first poll closings and parts of indiana and kentucky. we have cnn correspondence covering the harris and trump campaigns closely. first let's get to alayna treene who is in west palm beach, florida. you have reporting on trump's plans today and tonight and how they are feeling inside the trump campaign. >> reporter: that is right. we have learned that donald trump's campaign has been having behind the scenes conversations about how tonight will go to one key question and they do not know the answer yet, is when and if he will leave his mar-a-lago resort that is where he will be watching election i coverage, and head to the convention center to address the press.

when i talked to them they said they recognize the election is likely to be very close, it will not be called tonight. they do have a sense that some critical swing states will be called tonight and that is the question of whether or not trouble go out and talk to people , reminiscent of what we saw back in 2020 three at one source said there have been discussions of trump coming out to speak after critical battleground states are called another told me it is still a question even if he comes out at all to address the press. we did see donald trump moments ago boat here in palm beach with his wife, former first lady melania trump a reporter asked him, do you plan to declare victory this evening? this is what he said. he said quote, yeah, i'm hearing the same things you are hearing. i am hearing states where i'm up by a lot but they --. he essentially said i don't know,

if something happens i don't know what will happen in terms of declaring victory. in normal times i would go over to the convention center say at 10:00 normal times meaning he was railing against not just paper ballots and in-person voting but criticizing the process of mail-in voting and realizing this will take a longer time. one thing i want to be clear about in discussing all of this is remember what happened in 2020 when donald trump went out morning , late morning right after the election and preemptively and falsely declared victory despite is not knowing the relax election results and him ultimately not winning. that is the key question that people have anxiety about is if he will have to do that this evening. as of now is teams that it is unclear if it is a plan or if you will see him. >> alayna treene over at the trump campaign headquarters in west palm beach, florida. i want to go to the harris campaign headquarters, priscilla alvarez is on the same. what is the latest from

the harris campaign headquarters? >> reporter: what i'm being told by harris supporters is not until the very end. essentially to continue this mobilizing push. the vice president is not on the campaign trail, she concluded that yesterday crisscrossing the battleground state of pennsylvania, but she is anticipating in radio interviews where she is continuing to press for people to vote and also outlining her own vision, especially targeting those people who are on the fence as to who they are voting for. in doing so she is also telling you how hurt they will go. she said she has a tradition of having dinner with family on election night and that is what she plans on doing later tonight. behind the scenes, harris advisors are working around the clock to try to bring in as many votes as they can especially working with the ground game infrastructure that they have been a shot over the last year.

tonight is also a testament of many strategies that they put into play over the last several weeks, which was holding out the coalition, not just locking in their base but trying to reach disaffected republicans, those are fatigue from president trump and also using issues like reproductive rights to galvanize voters. over the course of the morning they, like us have heard from voters who continue to cite reproductive rights and they hope that strategy of using that issue and leaning in on it could pay off in the end. the harris team has also said they recognize it could be a lengthy process as the votes come in later tonight. they say they will remain calm and confident as that happens. certainly they are not letting their foot off the gas as they continue to mobilize voters who are heading to the polls. >> priscilla alvarez over at the harris campaign headquarters at howard university in washington, d.c. thank you very much. erin over to you. >> let's go to rosa florez in

houston, texas. texas getting a lot of attention, what are voters there telling you ? >> i have a voter here this is chuck sutherland. one of the big questions in texas is, will republicans actually vote for harris ? chuck, do you want me to call you chuck? you are a republican. you just voted, who did you vote for ? >> kamala harris. >> tell us why. >> i cannot forget january the sixth. when that happened it stayed ingrained in my mind and i could not go the other way. and i am looking at harris's policies, did i totally agree with the biden administration on things? not really. right now i look at what harris is doing, i look at what inflation is a doing, it is looking much better now . i'm looking at my

investments for the past four years, my investments have done really well and the housing market . i own a home and the value of that house has gone up. my network has gone up. >> reporter: you are a dentist and a father four girls. did reproductive freedom as an issue important for you? >> being the father four girls, definitely. i have four strong daughters and they probably would shoot me if i did not vote for their rights. hour before i toss it back i want to ask chuck if you have other republican friends who are doing the same thing you are? >> i have some republican friends who are doing that , i have a place in the country and a place in the city and in the country it is mostly republican , staunch republican . in the city , i got it both ways , then we have our certain group

in the country that we kind of hang together and we are all like, we were republicans, now we are independence. >> they will vote for kamala harris? >> they will vote for kamala harris. >> reporter: erin back to you. >> very fascinating. angst for chuck to share all of that openly. that takes courage. before -- former president trump is speaking right now at his headquarters in west palm beach. let's take a listen. >> we have done a lot of rallies. we got in about 5:00 in the morning. we left michigan , i think michigan is going to be great , especially since we killed the biggest factory, auto factory anywhere at any time . we did that without being president . that

was a big thing. i think michigan is looking good they are all looking good. what do you think of susie? which you say good ? >> [ applause ] >> we just wanted to come over. we will see you tonight and hopefully they will get these expensive computers going. the reason you use computers is to save time so it is fast . you do not use them so you have to come up with an answer three days later. that is a little scary when they say what are you doing? you use a computer because it calculates quickly. you use paper to save cost at the paper turns out to be quicker than computer, so we do not like that. there are a lot of things happening in our country that needs to be changed and we will do it and we will do what is right for

the country. let's see if we can close it out. wouldn't it be nice if after spending billions of dollars that they could have a computer given answer by 10:00? it does not make sense. it is crazy. inc. you very much. have a good day. you will be watching . watching a make sure there is no cheating, right? thank you, everybody. >> the former president speaking in west palm beach. i am here with everyone. he was making a joke there about cheating, for many it is not a joke it is not a joke in the context of january 6th. what are you hearing from republicans about how they feel on the ground right now? >> i think they are hopeful , but i am sensing pessimism. this is anecdotal, this can get you in big trouble in elections

and predictions and early stuff does not mean much . i do sense the bullishness on the harris site. as to president trump's point , if you have a major population state like florida that can get there results done on a reasonable time on election night, i do not believe in conspiracy theories, but we need to do a better job of speeding this up. florida can do it and do it accurately -- >> other states should create >> they said. why does it have to take days? >> visa days is not a bad word. we have all gone farther than that. >> let's contextualize this, governor. i actually said on townhall night when anderson was talking to kamala harris and at that point you thought kamala harris was going to win. are you feeling what the governor said which is an optimism rise among harris ? >> i think folks are cautiously optimistic. we have had a lot

of conversations about early voting. look at the numbers from early vote , democrats are doing better than they did in 2020. it is .1 zero of a point better. if they are able to activate the ground game that they have been working on , they could probably pull this off. it is not just the harris campaign. there are independent groups, labor unions knocking on millions of doors, groups like lacka voters matter who have been on the ground when joe biden was at the top of the ticket as well is now. the final thing i will say, a lot of folks say it is baked in, or whatever that saying is , i think it might be baked, but the cake will fall in the oven. they might have put one too many eggs in the ingredients and that egg was probably rotten from the language they used at msg or madison square garden for non-new yorkers. there is something about the cake baking but there are some

ingredients that could mess up the rest. >> my feeling is , a couple of weeks ago trump was in the catbird seat and the last two weeks it looks like that has fallen out the partially madison square garden, he is kind of melted down. instead of a mature ending it has been a lot of anger. the other big question, if lindsay was running he would run away with it because he's old school republican. the question is how many republicans will vote for kamala? >> we just saw chuck from texas. >> chuck is my guy. i have not met him but we are both houstonians. i think it will surprise people the number of public is going for kamala. i am hearing anecdotally but it is a lot. kamala has made an effort to reach out to them. i spoke right before her at the dnc, that sends a message they are serious about republicans joining the coalition. >> mac, trump talking about all

of this weather the results obviously, i understand your point, if florida can do it why can't others i heard governor desantis making that point last night. trump has been talking about the results through the day and so far he has not seen any issues that he is not stirring the pot as much as he has. this is what he said a little bit ago in west palm beach. >> if i lose the election, if it is a fair election, i will be the first one to acknowledge it. so far i think it has been fair. i think there has been a lot of court cases, both sides are lawyered up. thousands of lawyers, thousands. can you imagine ? part of that is because we have too complicated of a process. >> that is pretty tame. >> i take hope and those comments that we are at a point now where both sides can recognize the validity of the election results. that is where

we need to get to, to remain a great democratic republic. not to mention, in addition for it being good for the system , it probably does not hurt politically in the final few hours. if he had been talking like this the last few weeks he might have been in a stronger place on election day. we were talking to folks, i cannot find a republican in a battleground state , particular wisconsin and pennsylvania who does not feel good about donald trump's numbers. part of that is because of early vote part of that is because traditionally where republicans are vis-à-vis democrats showing up on election day in pennsylvania for example. often democrats are walking in with six , seven, four years ago it was 1 million vote advantage , today it is about 400,000 going into election day. they are very optimistic about the turnout. overall high turnout may help trump. all of the poles we have seen the last few weeks shows trump does better with registered voters then with likely voters. voters were mostly engaged have an opinion

but they do not necessarily like him , it is the infrequent voters if they get them out to the polls he was met. high turnout is good for donald trump . >> i understand your argument. i have seen those arguments from of the world and everyone who has this new twitter personality because everyone is a political expert. the difference is, in 2020 we had something different going on, covid. it through off voting patterns. is take clark county for example -- >> in nevada. >> in las vegas, nevada. democrats were on a path to beat republicans on election day. we never show up on election day in numbers that consume or beat out republicans. keep going and keep voting in las vegas. number two it shows the early voting members you were talking about were a lot of voters anyway and you see cannibalization happen before your eyes in real time. the second thing which is equally as important is there was a long month-long narrative built

about donald trump somehow getting black voters because he had antonio brown and le'veon bell and he was getting gold shoes and a mugshot. not only was that narrative asinine but not bearing fruit. you are seeing in fulton county , you are seeing in north carolina, all throughout georgia , and lines in pennsylvania of black voters, particularly black women , they carry democracy all the time, but you're also seeing black men come out and voting in numbers and that's what the harris campaign looks at and is excited about . >> it is public information, you can find out who voted . you don't know how they voted but you can find out who voted. >> much more with our panel as a special election day in america coverage continues. >> next, bomb threats forcing two georgia polling locations to temporarily close. it turns out it was a false alarm . we

will explain.

7 welcome back to our special coverage of election day in america . we are learning several voting locations in georgia maybe staying open later. the reason is non-credible bomb threats were

made at two polling locations. let's get to sarah murray. what have you learned about the specific bomb threats where they were and it turns out they were not credible. hour they were a handful of non-credible threats today in two instances polling precincts had to close for about 30 minutes to an hour while security did a sweep and confirmed they were not credible. we should note all 177 polling places across fulton county, which is where i am, this is not one of the places affected, there are police officers there to help address the threats. georgia secretary of state held a news conference earlier where he said their understanding is the threats were of russian origin. take a listen to what he had to say. >> we have heard some threats that were of russian origin . i do not know how to describe if it is viable, we don't think they are , but in the interest

of public safety you always check it out . we will just continue to be responsible about stuff like that . we identified the source as western russian. >> reporter: the fbi is working with state and local officials to investigate. these are non-credible threats. as i was talking to voting rights activists , they say they do not want this to dissuade people from showing up to vote. they said it is safe to turn out and cast your ballots and it should not disrupt folks in fulton county from showing up and voting. >> sarah, thank you very much. it is important to follow all of this and emphasize how crucial communication has been from the secretary of state in georgia he said he anticipates a possibility they could call georgia tonight. >> we shall see. let's get to our political team, what are your sources

inside the harris campaign telling you right now? how do they feel? >> the words are cautiously optimistic . how many times will be here that today? they feel very good about the gender gap, reproductive rights, the ground game, there is some anxiety about pennsylvania . that is the state that they are watching closely about voter turnout. they feel that they have done enough to compensate by getting out older voters by getting out women and a senior republican just texted me about something that everyone needs to remember which is , republicans who may vote for harris in pennsylvania, let's remember that nikki haley , who is out of the race got 16% of the vote in the pennsylvania primary, those are registered republicans, 150,000 votes. if that was a protest vote against trump, there may be , nikki

haley said she is voting for trump , there may be 149,000 extras who might consider voting for harris. >> as far as turnout is concerned, what tea leaves are you seeing? >> democrats need significant turnout particularly as we have seen publicans do better in early voting then we saw the last election cycle yet the question is , republicans have had success , not demonizing mail-in voting that trump has done , they have emphasized that more, the question is , the new boaters that republicans have had they added to it looks those of the people that will come out on election day anyway. the harris team has spent time building this turnout operation and investing money. they have knocked on more doors. trump has relied on outside groups to turn out voters. that can be a successful tactic to bring in voters, that is a big question.

also abortion in some of these key states, referendum in nevada and arizona, two of the seven critical battleground states , does that impact the ultimate turnout , that will be one of the big questions. >> republicans voted in bigger numbers this time then they did four years ago. what is the expectation ? >> republicans feel good but to the point are they voters were going to vote anyway or are they new voters , the joe rogan vote? that is the vote that donald trump is relying on. these are low propensity male voters across all social economic and racial and ethnic backgrounds, do they actually show up? listen, if you are the harris campaign to make you feel better about the coalition that you want to put together , these are older voters in some cases, white voters, women who make up a larger share of the electorate, and you have an issue of abortion which has

proved to be activating an energizing issue. you saw the woman savannah in pennsylvania who said this is the first time she is voting in a presidential election and for her it is all about women's rights and reproductive freedom. >> in that way you feel good about that. one of the other dynamics , i have heard anecdotally from a lot of black and brown voters and women is they wanted to wait to vote until election day to be a part of the crowd and be a part of this historic moment in a way that they did not feel they could do with a mail-in ballots or early ballot. that could be something that is going on as well in terms of the dynamics on election day for democrats. >> everyone continues to read in the expeditions or what is going on. thank you very much. do not go too far away we have a lot more to assess, election day in america coverage continues in just a moment yet million is heading to the

polls, up next, the live report from battleground michigan. we will be right back.

welcome back to our special coverage of election day in america. millions of americans going to the polls waiting in lines. we have seen long lines in the key battleground states. this is philadelphia, pennsylvania, tempe, arizona, and atlanta, georgia. in detroit, people waited to cast their ballot. let's get to michigan where kylie atwood is in grand rapids. trump was just talking about how he feels optimistic and the harris campaign feels optimistic. what are officials saying about how fast they can count the votes? >> reporter: the secretary of state today expressed optimism that they will have the unofficial statewide results

here in michigan by midday tomorrow , if not sooner. one of the main reasons for that is because they are able to preprocess mail-in ballots before election day, that started on october 28. they have been able to do a lot of the work ahead of time. the secretary of state saying that puts them in an extremely good position to handle the late incoming ballots that they will see later today. i want to show you what we are seeing here at the church eight miles south of grand rapids. when folks come in, they fill out an election day application to vote piece of paper. then they move over here and check that information with the clerks here . it is quiet now, i asked people why they think that is the case, maybe because people are eating lunch . there has been a consistent flow of people throughout the day. then they take their ballots what they get here , they go right over here and they cast the ballots. they pick who they are voting

for then they put it through that tabulator. you can see that black position right there. this is a process that is moving incredibly swiftly here at this church in kent county michigan. kent county is a critical county for both of these contenders for both trump and harris. why is that? in 2016 trump won, in 2020 biden won. both campaigns harris and trump are eyeing this county as a pivotal county. i do want to know when it comes to election results that we are expecting to see in michigan later tonight and maybe early tomorrow, maybe midday tomorrow , there have been republicans that have seized on the possibility that later results are reasons for questioning the process . folks that we talked to here, even those who are supporting former president trump and cast a ballot for him said they are not worried about that and they will trust the integrity of the process and what the results say at the end

of the process. >> thank you very much. everyone has learned a lot on how they are counted and what more information, prior to four years ago pretty much know what new. let's get to our director david charlie and who is looking at the votes cast in any one of these pivotal states. >> we were looking at the pre-election vote in michigan , more than 3 million people, three point 3 million votes were cast prior to election day. that makes up about 60% of what the total presidential vote in michigan was in 2020 . we do not know what the total vote will be this time, that is key hooking at the pre-election vote. we need to learn about the election day vote to get the whole picture. of the 3.3 million, we see a gender divide, no doubt about it, women participated at a greater rate than men in the pre-election vote, 55% of pre-election ballots cast in

michigan were cast by female voters, 45% by male male voters. it is slightly a narrower gap than we saw four years ago in the pre-election vote in michigan. that was a 12 point advantage towards women, 56% to 44%. as more republicans and clearly more men have participated in pre-election voting in a place like michigan , you see that margin narrow a little bit which gives each side information about what kind of voters they need to turn out on election day itself. >> david, thank you very much. >> phil mattingly is here at the magic wall. let's take a closer look at michigan what else are you seeing? >> donald trump won in 2016 and joe biden flipped it back in 2020. let's start where kylie

atwood was. this is the home of grand rapids, this was traditional establishment republican inside the state of michigan. this is where gerald ford was born this is where his presidential library is about the meyer family comes from here and it has shifted dramatically over the last couple of cycles. the question is can molly harris match or do better than what joe biden did in 2020. that the question and why places like king county is so critical, it's not like milwaukee or philadelphia were democrats expect to win a huge boat, concern on if donald trump gained inroads on votes in the rural country. also -- is dearborn. it is home to send a population of americans who are very concerned about what is happening over in israel and gaza, whether or not that has an effect we will be able to see it here . >> we will watch that vote carefully. a lot of these votes

coming in. thank you very much. we will be right back, much more of our special election day in america coverage will continue. . >> tens of millions of americans are casting their ballots on this truly historic election day.

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a history of making election day in america. i'm wolf blitzer. more than 80 million early votes already cast about to o b joined by many millions more today. long lines at polling stations around the country with control of the house, the senate, and the white house all at stake. >> a history- making day, no matter what happens, wolf. i'm erin burnett. here's the number we're all going to be watching, of course, when the first polls start closing and some states start to be projected. that is 270. the number of electoral votes needed for kamala harris to become america's first female president or for donald trump to be only the second president in american history to win two consecutive -- i'm sorry, two

non- consecutive terms. he spoke just moments ago at his campaign headquarters, which is near mar-a- lago in florida, saying he's encouraged by the number of republicans he sees voting at his polling place. and here's what his running mate j.d. vance told reporters after voting in ohio this morning. >> look, i feel good. you never know, until you know. but i feel good about this race. i felt good about my own race a couple of years ago, when i voted in this exact same spot. >> we have our cnn correspondents all over the map, including nick valencia in lawrenceville, georgia, and ed lavendera in surprise, arizona. let's go to nick first. nick, tell our viewers exactly where you are and what you're seeing. >> reporter: well, in the spirit of transparency, wolf, we wanted to show our viewers the life of a ballot. here we are in gwinnett county at the voters' registration office, and this is where the vote totals for the precincts in gwinnett county will be tallied up. because of state law since october 31st, they've been

pre- processing absentee by mail ballots, that's this machine right here. that's what it does. separates the ballots physically from the envelope. but unique to today, election day, as of 9:00 a.m. , the tabulations can start, and this is what you're seeing right here behind me. this row of machines was exclusively used during early voting. what you're seeing here are volunteers who will later be sequestered who are actually pulling that data, that voting data, and putting it on to memory cards. they take those cards, transfer it about 90 yards down the hallway into the tabulation room. those cards will standby for 7:00 p.m. when they can officially start to upload those votes to the secretary of state's office. and they are expecting by eight o'clock p.m. to have about 60 to 65% of all of the votes here in the county tallied for or accounted for. i want to bring in the guy who's in the middle of it all, the elections director here, zach manifold. zach, you said you expect to eclipse the 2020 voter totals for the county. tell us about that. >> yes, we were all together between advanced and absentee by mail, we were down about 20,000

altogether, about 320,000 so far, compared to 340 last time. but we only did 73,000 ballots on election day. last time, as of 10:30, we were about 35,000. we feel like we're going to make up that difference. we probably could end having a record- breaking turnout by the end of the election. >> it sounds like you're expecting 20,000 more votes this election than you did for 2020. >> well, 20,000 more election day votes. >> more election day votes. that's the difference. >> if we get there, we'll eclipse that number from 2020. >> how are things looking right now? you have a lot of precincts, 166 throughout this country, it's a bellwether, crucial for both the democratic and republican candidates. how's it looking out there? >> very smooth today, no lines. everyone's been pretty happy. it's been pretty calm. we're feeling pretty good about the morning so far. >> we've seen other story lines from adjacent counties, fulton county, particularly. there were non- credible bomb threats there. there have been safety and security issues. anything to worry about here?

i've noticed extra security presence, sheriff's departments, deputies here. >> we have had one incident, just recently. >> reporter: this is new to us. can you tell us about it. >> i don't have additional information yet. i will share it when we get it. but we have had one incident, just recently. >> reporter: just recently. well, we'll get more information on that off- camera wolf. but another county new to cnn gwinnett county dealing with its own security issues. has it led to any disruptions at all in the precincts? >> yeah, we had one polling location that had to evacuate. >> reporter: is it still evacuated right now? >> it is. >> reporter: so how long do you expect before that is remedied? >> i don't know. again, when we get more details, i'll let you know. >> reporter: we'll let you get back to work, zach. busy day for you. thank you so much for taking the time with cnn. this is a very active area. it's only continuing to get more and more active as the day goes on. they said between 5:00 and 7:00 p.m. is when they expect to be the busiest times here in gwinnett county. as we work to get more information on that security threat, wolf, we'll bring you

back more details as we get it. wolf? >> people like to vote after work. nick valencia in georgia for us. thanks very much. i want to go to cnn's ed lavendera right now in arizona. ed, first of all, i understand you're with a trump supporter right now, right? >> yeah, we'll set the scene for you here, we're in surprise, arizona, one of those western suburbs of phoenix here in maricopa county. this county is incredibly significant in this battleground state. a reminder, in 2020, arizona was won by biden, by less than 11,000 votes. no other states had a closer margin than that. maricopa county went for trump in 2016, went for biden in 2020. this is kind of like the battleground within the background. and it is a festive atmosphere. we've got a dj playing music. you've got people handing out flyers on how to vote. if it was afternoon, we would pour a cocktail and start dancing around here, but it's still a little early for that, wolf. we'll talk to georgian, you just voted for

trump. >> donald trump. >> reporter: walk me through why you cast that vote. >> yeah. so, just seeing what's been happening in the past four years, you know, i voted democrat the past four years, and i'm really disappointed in the administration, now everything has been going. i was in the mortgage industry for quite some time and that hurt us pretty bad. i lost my job because of it. dealing with the recession and everything. and i know that everyone is saying we're looking for solutions from every party, right? in actuality, the solutions they came up ere no solutions. it hurt us even more. now we have to have a son with parents and you know, daughter, all the families get together to be able to even afford a home or even afford rent, you know? >> so the economy is the number one issue for you? >> absolutely. it impacts every one of us. >> reporter: did you vote for biden in 2020? >> i did. i'm sorry, i did. yeah, i did.

i was deceived, but i'm a walking example of how people can change their mind, you know? you just go with the evidence of you know, what benefits you? what benefits you and your family. so biden has not been beneficial to my family, at least. >> your a car salesman now. >> i'm a car salesman now. is that one of the reasons why the economy is just top and center for you? >> yes. lots of opposition, they had to regroup with banks trying to just regroup. and unfortunately, they have to let a lot of people go. it's just a matter of profit, right? i mean, profit is not a bad word for anyone. that's democracy. this is, you know the country we live in. we vote to be able to make a profit and have a good life, right? >> reporter: hey, i appreciate you sharing your story with us and making time for us. that's one of the voters. we've been talking to voters all morning long, wolf. a great variety. we're watching this particular suburb closely, because as i mentioned, this is one of those areas where a lot of

the political world kind of watching closely, what's going to happen with voters in these suburban areas around cities like phoenix, wolf. >> ed lavendera in surprise, arizona, for us. ed, thanks very, very much. erin, back to you. >> wolf, really interesting to hear that voter who had voted for biden last time, now voting for trump. he said biden has not been beneficial to my family. joining us now, the senior arizona senator, democrat mark kelly. and senator kelly, i don't know if you had a chaps to listen to ed lavendera there in surprise, arizona, and listening to that particular voter. when you hear him speaking about -- he gave his reasons for why he chose to vote trump today. does that give you caution about what's happening in arizona? >> well, i did hear what he had to say. and what comes to mind for me is that kamala harris actually has a plan for him and his family, creating good- paying jobs in the state of arizona, bringing

down the cost of housing and health care, tax cuts for 100 million middle class americans, not billionaires. he talked about, you know, affording a home and she has a plan for new home builder tax credits to help build more housing. donald trump's plan, specifically for arizona, i just want to talk about that for a second, erin. he wants to kill the chips and science act. killing that legislation is going to lay off tens of thousands of people in the state of arizona. he also talked about tariffs on anything coming in from mexico. mexico is the united states' biggest trading partner. there are thousands of people in the state of arizona who have jobs because of this trade with mexico. so donald trump's plan for the arizona economy specifically is really awful for the state of arizona. it will affect him and his family. >> so, senator, the reason --

it's interesting that you chose to answer the question in that way. and i want to emphasize the time it is where you are. it's 11:00 in the morning. and perhaps you're answering it this way, because you know that people in arizona could have listened to that voter, and you want them to hear the other side, right? i guess, if the context of this is 4. 36 million people have already voted in arizona, already today. how many more do you think still have to go? i mean, how much more do you think is still out? >> there are going to be a lot of people that vote today. we have the polling places, polling locations are going to be open for about another eight hours or so, and there's incredible enthusiasm. i was just at a canvass kickoff event, where people are going to go knock on doors. we have a lot of volunteers over the weekend, here in arizona, we knocked on 212,000 doors, made over 600,000 phone calls. we have thousands of volunteers doing this work. donald trump's campus

operation is paid for here in arizona, largely by elon musk. we have volunteers that are committed to the candidate and are excited about this election. and we've got to get out the vote. and i think it's going to be close in arizona. so we've got more work to do. there's time for people to vote. they can vote all the way up until 7:00. they can actually be standing in line. they get in line by 7:00 p.m. , they'll be able to vote. >> look, i know you and i have talked over the past months, and when it comes to elon musk, you have conflicting feelings, but a lot of respect for him in many aspects of his life. but interesting that he's playing such a significant role there in the turnout for trump. when you talk about how close it's going to be, though, how do you feel at this moment? what's your feel on the ground? you say you still have people out knocking on the doors. do you think kamala harris is on track to win arizona right now? or are you not sure? >> i think she's going to win arizona. i also think it could be really close. in 2022, our attorney

general, chris maze, won a statewide election by 280 votes. as wolf mentioned, in 2020, the biden/harris ticket won by just less than 11,000 votes. statewide elections in arizona are often close. mine were in 2020 and 2022. but because of the enthusiasm i see, and also the bad deal that donald trump gave, especially to arizona women, taking away their rights to make their own decisions about health care, that has caused women in arizona to bounce between one really bad abortion ban and another. and he takes credit for it. he talks about how he killed roe v. wade. that has affected their health care here in our state. and because of that, we see women turning out at really very high rates. >> yep. all right, well, thank you very much, senator kelly. it's good to alk to you. i appreciate it. wolf? >> erin, can i say one more thing here?

>> sure, go ahead. >> can i just add, that senator jeff flake, jim mccain, mayor john giles, republicans, they want their party back. they're not -- you know, this isn't the republican party of john mccain. i sit in john mccain's senate seat. we have republicans that want to see, you know, this whole trump effort or this era of donald trump to be past us. so we have a lot of republicans that are supporting kamala harris, because they know she's ready to do this job on day one, wants to take this country into the future. donald trump just wants to drag us back to the past, continue to shred alliances, take away rights, especially from women, and give big tax cuts to billionaires. they know that that's not the direction our country should be going in. >> all right, senator kelly, i appreciate your time. thank you very much. and we'll, of course, have senator kelly speaking to people who have not yet voted in arizona. there's a lot of them and he

wants them hear the argument. >> erin, very good interview with senator kelly. thanks very much for that. let's get a closer look at arizona, his state, right now. i'm here at the magic wall with phil mattingly. give a sense of what you're seeing, hearing, what do you see going on? >> the interview with the voter followed by senator kelly is such a wonderfully vivid window into the contrast right now in this critical battleground state. as you've mentioned, as the senator mentioned, 10,457 votes separated joe biden from donald trump. first time democrats won the state of arizona in a presidential race since 1986. the reason why democrats were able to win this state is where ed lavendera was standing. maricopa county, 61. 5% of the voting population lives here. this is the be all, end all on some level. other counties that have somewhat tangible levels of vote will cancel one another out. this is the question coming into today. joe biden won this county for the first time in a generation by just over two points. is that margin attainable? can the harris campaign

match that or just fall a little bit underneath it? and then, perhaps, run up more vote in pima county, second largest county, this is typically a democratic leaning county. can they do that? i think the big question, though, is two-fold. one, what we heard from the voter. take a look at, when you talks about cost of living, housing has been a huge issue here. where you see the darker color here, the darker kind of yellowish- brownish color here, that is where counties have kept up with less parody, wages to cost of living, right? so where you see darker counties, that means there's been more struggles to keep up with cost of living in these particular communities. what's the darkest county or one of the two darkest counties in the state of arizona, when it comes to the ability of wages to keep up with cost of living. it's maricopa county. that's getting at the economics trouble here. the other is abortion. there is an abortion ballot initiative here. and you talk about that being a central issue that we've heard from campaigns over the course of the last year. nationally, wolf, abortion ads

have been all over the place. almost 50,000 abortion ads over the course of the last several months, underscoring that for democrats, they believe this is a winning issue. it's on the ballot. there's a critical senate race as well that they need to win. they think they can win. will that pull harris over the line, or will this be an issue where the economy, and some of those republicans that the senator was talking about, mccain republicans, kind of traditional, gop establishment types, moving back towards trump because of those economic issues. one other wild card i would note here. maricopa, 219,000 new people cross a very diverse set of people. what does that do? where do they go? do they follow what we saw in 2020, or move in a different direction because of what we've seen? that will determine who wins this state this time around, wolf. >> and we'll find out, i'm sure, not too long from now. thank you very, very much, phil mattingly. and nick valencia

moments ago referred to issues at some polling places in georgia. up next, we'll have more on some of the other hiccups and the snags that are going on with voting around the country and what's being done to address them, as election day in america continues.

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election day in america. i want to go straight to cnn's nick valencia in georgia's gwinnett county. we have some new reporting on the threats, yes, threats at various polling places in the state. what are you learning? >> the communications director here in gwinnett county telling me, wolf, that a precinct, two precincts, one location has been evacuated as of 12:44 because of a security threat. there's minimal details at this time, other than this being the mountain park activity center, which is about 26 minutes away from where i'm standing here. we believe that center is still activated -- or evacuated, i should say, and there has been a disruption to voting. we understand that the local police have now taken the lead in the investigation. we've reached out to them and are waiting on calls back. but again, georgia finding itself at the center of the story on election day.

wolf? >> all right, nick, thanks very much. hard to believe this is going on in our country, but it clearly is. i want to go back to erin. >> all right, wolf. let's go to phil mattingly now, just for a closer look at the magic wall, given nick valencia's reporting there on the issue, for a closer look at georgia. >> yeah, look, where nick is right now, and i hope everything ends up well there, and gets sorted out, but gwinnett is a critical, critical county. if you want to look back to 2020, when joe biden was able to flip the state of georgia into democratic hands in a presidential election since bill clinton in 1992, the story atlanta metro area, nine counties that went so heavily towards democrats, that biden was able to overcome trump's strength, particularly in the northwestern part of the state. what are you talking about here? well, you start with cobb county. it's the third largest county in the state. this used to be a republican county. it's part of that realignment/transition in the suburbs that we've seen over the course of the last

several cycles where joe biden won this by 13. 3 points. in 2016, hillary clinton narrowly won this, flipping it, narrowly. the question coming into today, can the harris campaign match this margin, match it or bump it up a little bit, given the fact that there's been a pretty significant population growth in this area as well. obviously, we've been talking about the critical urban areas in all of the battleground states. fulton county, the largest county in the state, 10% of the voting population is right here. not unlike milwaukee or wayne, these are critical areas for democrats to run up huge vote. the question in fulton is, does this margin hold? bakari was addressing some of the things people have been talking about throughout the course of the last several months. is donald trump making some inroads here with black voters, particularly black men. this will be a telltale sign right now later this afternoon or later this evening, i should say, in terms of where that vote is, in these critical battlegrounds. one other issue i think you want to look at here, cherokee county, this is a place that trump is expecting to win and expecting to win by a lot. the question will be margins.

can can he run up bigger margins, or can kamala harris make further margins and chip away at this. that will be one of the questions coming into the night. >> and i'm curious when you look at some of those more rural counties, and we know that kamala harris actually went and spent some time there, right, trying to do exactly what you said, trying to run up the margin, knowing she had lose, but trying to lose by less, and therefore to run up the numbers overall in the state. i would imagine you're looking at that in a lot of those red, more rural counties. >> red, more rural counties. and one way to look at this, too, it wasn't just the vice president, but it was bill clinton going out on a sequel of his 1992 bubba's for bill tour out on the road, kind of trying to make inroads. and this is one marker that's important here. the darker the county you see here, the higher the percentage of african- americans that live in that county. and a good chunk of -- yes, obviously, it's fulton county, it's the atlanta metro area, as well. over here, olumn must, georgia, chatham county, but

through here what's known as the black belt, one of the questions going in, there were some maller counties, 15,000 votes maybe max, where joe biden overperformed what hillary clinton did in this part of the state. it's not a huge part of the vote. one question i heard when i was down there a few weeks ago is can we get out and show people we care, show people we're engaged, and show up for the first time, when a lot of people in these communities haven't heard from democrats. they're just expected to vote that way, if they vote at all. one of the key questions going into the night, will that actually have an impact. you come down here to places like doherty and campaign. particularly when compared to the atlanta metro area, or into chatham county, where savannah is. that's going to be one of the big questions coming in. the other two is pushing out to the rural areas, like effingham outside of savannah, georgia. brian, bullock county, as well, where you have seen democrats make a push, not expecting, erin, to change the game. if you look at this margin right here, donald trump

winning by almost 20 points, there's no expectation that kamala harris will win bullock county, but if you shave 2, 3% off of that and meet your margins in the metro area and perhaps dig out a little more vote in chatham county where savannah was, where they actually did quite well in 2020, where everyone was paying attention up here, then off pathway. the trump campaign knows that, they're trying to do the same thing on the other side. >> right. of course, the margin is less 11,000 votes, last time around. as we all know. thank you so much, phil. more now. the justice department has sent election monitors to keep an eye on things in several states. not all were welcoming of the justice officials, as we are watching the vote come in across the country, cnn's paula reid has more on this specific issue from the voting desk. paula? >> yeah, erin. we've learned the justice department will be allowed to send election monitors to polling locations in texas and missouri. and this development comes after republican officials in both states filed lawsuits attempting to block the justice department from doing this work.

notably, in missouri, it was a trump- appointed judge that said the federal monitors will be allowed in this little county here, st. louis county. now, in texas, the state has actually indicated ed d that they have reached an agreement with the justice department where monitors will be allowed, but they will stay outside of polling places. now, every election, the justice department sends monitors to observe the voting process in dozens of counties across the country. these monitors are specifically tasked with helping to monitor compliance with federal voting rights laws. this year, monitors are slated to be sent to 27 states today, that's up from 18 states during the 2020 election. erin? >> all right. paula, thank you so much. and when we come back, we're going to check in with nevada's top election official. so much talk about what's going on across the state, but also crucially in clark county with nevada, las vegas. also be speaking to a senior adviser to the trump campaign, as this history-making election day in america continues.

election day in america. millions of voters going to the polls. an army of election officials working overtime.

cnn's stephanie elam is in las vegas with one of them, nevada's secretary of state, francisco agular. give us a sense of what's going on. >> yes, wolf. i am here with the secretary of state and secretary, how is it going? i know this is one of your brainchilds, having people vote inside of allegiant stadium. how is it going so far? >> it's going well. we're very excited about it. we're excited to have people voting. this is our third poll location we've visited throughout the morning. people are enthusiastic. that's what we want to see. we know nevada is a battleground state. we know we will determine who the next president of the united states is, and it's great to see nevadans take on that responsibility. >> reporter: how is election day going so far in nevada? >> it's going well. there's a consistent line at most polling places. we believe we're up to speed on mail ballots and we can get election results out tonight to nevadans. >> and here in nevada, people have to be in line by 7:00. the polls close at 7:00, but that's not really the end, right? >> that is correct. everybody who is in line at

7:00 p.m. tonight will have an opportunity to vote. >> okay, so they have to be in line. what happens after that? does someone stand in line. how do you make sure that nobody else get in line. >> there's usually a poll worker who's in line to make sure people who show up after 7:00. we will wait until every person has an opportunity to vote. >> obviously, as you were saying, this is a battleground state. you have these six electoral votes that are up for grabs here. nevada traditionally takes a longer time to get its votes tabulated. what is it looking like this time? >> i can tell you, ever since i became secretary, we looked at nevada law and said, what are our opportunities to increase efficiency. how do we bring transparency into the process? the amount of time we can decrease from waiting for results is less time we have to deal with dis and misinformation. >> how does it work clearing the ballots, make sure the signatures matchup, who's voting and what they previously sent in, that seems like a long one. >> it is. and we're experiencing a little bit of an issue with it now, given that we're seeing

high engagement and turnout amongst our youth. and this is probably the first time they've had to use an official signature. what's on their driver's license, their voter registration form, and on their ballot is a little bit different, so we're trying to work with them to drive up the curing process. >> obviously, you'll be out here. wolf, this is what's happening here in nevada, as the election day is still just in the early start of the day out here, out west. >> stephanie elam, thanks very much for that update. and thanks the secretary of state as well. i want to turn to brian lanza, a senior adviser to the trump campaign. brian, thanks so much for joining us. what are you hearing about the turnout from inside the campaign? >> reporter: first of all, wolf, thank you for having me. listen, we don't have data from a lot of places, but we have a lot of anecdotal evidence and we have voters. and what we do have is a lot of data from the early vote. we're very impressed and satisfied with the early vote data that's come in. we're very confident that that trend is going donate. but what we've seen on election day is we've seen

a lot of photos of a lot of lines, a lot of anecdotal evidence. and we encourage everyone to stay in line and vote, and bring your friends to vote. because today is a critical day. >> you know, brian, we're told that the trump campaign's ground game operation was largely outsourced to outside political organizations. what is your level of confidence in the ability of an outside group to deliver the turnout you need to win? >> we have supreme confidence. it's important to remember that donald trump is a businessman, so he knows how to make things better and efficient. so he looked at this and saw how inefficient they are in running their get out the vote program, and decided to instill efficiency and instill priorities. and that's what you see. we can point to our early vote totals, where let's look in nevada. we saw that being covered recently. for the first time in history, republicans lead the early vote in nevada. that's never happened since the early vote started in nevada. let's look at arizona, where we had a tremendous early vote lead in maricopa county. we have a 22- point edge

in maricopa county, republicans with respect to their early vote. republicans have made up a 20- vote gap on early vote against the democrats from four years ago. so when you look at the data, you know, we have confidence that the organization is winning, that the outsourcing was the right decision. but they have to execute until 7:00 and we have to make sure those people that stay in line stay in line. that's the most critical thing. we need to make sure everybody who votes, who has a plan to vote, stays in line and actually votes. >> we'll see if that happens. what's the mood like over at trump team headquarters in palm beach, florida? >> listen, wolf, i learned in politics, there's only two ways to run a campaign. you're either running hard or scared. we made the decision to run hard. the mood is everyone is laser focused on doing what they need to do today to execute, execute, execute. so president trump was at the headquarters a couple of minutes ago. he brought a lot of energy to the place. you know, you saw energy along the streets. so there's positive energy going everywhere, but we know our role today. today, our job is to execute, execute, execute for the

president. and make sure that people turn out and vote. and those that turn out and vote stay in line and cast their vote. >> do you have a sense, brian, of how the former president is feeling about their prospects as we await for the results to begin coming in later today? >> yeah, i mean, the president left it all on the table. you saw last week where he was crisscrossing the country doing rallies. the only thing president trump knows how to do is maximum effort going forward every time. and you know, that's how he is, that's how he was this morning, that's how he was the first time i met him in 2016 when he decided to run or in 2015. he feels good he's left everything on the field. he obviously feels he can do more. that's president trump. he feels he can do more than the average person. that's the reason we need him as president. this is a man focused solely on one thing, and that's working for the american people. >> brian lanza, thanks very much for joining us. >> thank you, wolf. >> erin, over to you. >> all right, hearing brian lanza, governor

pawlenty, you were feeling anecdotally perhaps a bit of concern for republicans. what you hear when you hear brian lanza? when wolf asked, how are you feeling about today, he said, we don't have data yet, but let me talk about the early vote. what are you thinking about that? >> all of these campaigns will say, it's going great. but eventually throughout the course of the day, you'll get some numbers. and there are things you can rely on. the relative differential between women voting and men voting is something to keep on, as cnn reported earlier. but the other thing that's going to be really crucial tonight is this. did the pollsters and all of these models get or not get the stealth trump vote correct? and all of these turnout models sort of presume it helps democrats in certain areas, maybe republicans in certain areas, but i still think it is very difficult to measure and predict the so- called stealth underpolling trump vote. >> you've worked on campaigns. obviously, many of you have been in campaigns. we were just talking about election day. but when you're on election day, you're talking about the deluge of data that you're

getting all day. >> absolutely. you have someone from a field organizer, who has been recruiting volunteers in every neighborhood, all the way up to the campaign manager sitting in a boiler room. and the information is going down from the top -- bottom to the top -- or down from the bottom and from the bottom up. and you're getting how many people were online when the polls opened. how many people are processing at a time? how many doors have you knocked? how many did you convert? how many volunteers are showing up? data is the one thing off surplus of. and you have a data team sitting in your headquarters, running through the role, all the time. okay, we've banked this many voters, we banked this, we banked that. we're going to move resources. we're going to shut down this staging location, where canvasses are coming, because we feel good about this and converted our voter. we're going to move them across town. if you have an operation, that's what's happening today and you're getting data. >> of course, a lot of the on the ground operations for the trump campaign,

matt, have come from uper pacs, but what do you hear? because he is getting data. he chose not to discuss it here. >> in some cases, it does present a challenge. even though the federal election committees can coordinate on field operations, there's still a lot of uncertainty as to what type of information they can share and when. you have a lot of groups with big investments in field operations, that are doing a lot of the turnout. now, the challenge is, if it's a local republican party volunteer, who's sitting there checking off voters as they come in, so you know who's coming and who's not, how quickly is that information getting to a place where it's operational for an outside organization. this is going to be the test case about whether you can actually rely on other groups to do it. and we have seen some aspects of this in the past. the democrats relied in 2004 on groups like move-on. org and others to do a lot of the ground operation. we'll see if the trump campaign can have more success. >> and whether that coordination is an issue. can i ask you, congressman, about something else that was just said.

the secretary of state nevada was on with stephanie elam. and he was talking about high engagement in youth vote. maybe people read about something about it. but that's what they were seeing. and that basically, those young people, matching signatures is an issue. >> yeah, yeah. >> look, with nobody wants to be on a hanging chad in nevada. but we were all sitting here listening to that going, oh, whoa, whoa, what did he just say there? >> we were talking earlier, if this comes down to nevada, you can see this being a hanging chad situation. i'm actually a supporter of voter i.d. , because i think it's so easy. i voted in texas with voter i.d. , you handed them your i.d. , you get your ballot. >> just like going to costco. >> that aside, it does present the problem, fit comes down to nevada, you'll have every one of those ballots challenged. by the way, my signature does match what my signature was five years ago. you just evolve over time. the interesting thing with the young people, specifically, is, i think there's a

gender difference in the young people. certainly, men under 25 are going trump. women under 25 aren't. we're in the middle of this political realignment. and i think the polls aren't capturing it. >> you know what's funny, when i went to vote, they were showing me the signatures, before they showed me my old one, i had to sign. and i was like, you're going to be matching this to a signature of so long ago, so i stopped and went really slow and careful, and i was surprised by how close it was. the slash doesn't work, and that's the world we live in. but what did you hear from brian lanza? >> i love brian. i think that he fed us a bunch of, it's too early to call it what it is. but it's 1:42 p.m. if your campaign doesn't have any data at 1:42 p.m. when polls have been open since 7:00, what are you running? i think that the biggest faux pas -- because i've been somebody who's come on this air and just heaped praise on chris and susie whiles and jason miller for the campaign they ran. the biggest mistake they made

was outsourcing this to charlie kirk and elon musk. and you're seeing this. we know what's happening at university city right now in pennsylvania. we know those young people are turning out in high numbers. i can tell you what's happening in clark county right now. and i'm not even in their headquarters. i can tell you where black voters need to show up more, in durham, for example. in the raleigh hear, in g reens boor greensboro, in winston-salem. i think they're seeing a turnout problem. but this thing is not over. and we're still away from peak voting hours. especially black folk. they show up at 5:00 to wait in line for two, three hours. >> i think one thing that they might be seeing, we saw it a little bit, what david chalian said on the early vote. in qr seeing more women show up right now and you're trump -- >> and we are seeing that. but of course, in the youth vote, interesting, that is not one thing.

all right, next. what democrat running mate, tim walz, of course, kamala harris' pick just had to stay at a top in pennsylvania as election day in america rolls on.

campaigning did to the end when election day began. just a few moments ago in harrisburg, pennsylvania, vice president harris' running mate, tim walz, made a final pitch to voters. listen. >> choose what you know is right, i would say. the opportunity for hopefulness, unity, forward- looking versus this absolute chaos of donald trump. >> tim walz in pennsylvania, which could be the whole ball game tonight. phil mattingly is with me over here at the magic wall. tell us more about what you're looking at right now. >> there's a reason more than $100 million has been spent on this day by republicans and democrats than any other battleground state. they know how critical it is, a linchpin. it's interesting where tim walz is. we talk about it all the time. where campaigns spend money and where they send their candidates, that's the tell as to what's most important.

coming into the harrisburg area for vice presidential candidate, governor tim walz is important, because this is one of the few counties outside of philadelphia where democrats traditionally hold a pretty significant advantage. joe biden back in 2020 by about eight points, 8. 5 points. what did hillary clinton do back here in 2016, in narrower margins. we talked about it lout the course of the day, we'll be talking about it all night. whether or not the harris campaign is able to match what joe biden was able to do in 2020, in terms of shifting the margins from donald trump in 2016, even counties they won, also counties they lost, that will be critical to watch. but it's what's outside of the hagerburg area. this is cumberland county. you look at this margin and say, why are we paying a ton of attention to cumberland county. from a population surge over the past several years, this is one of those counties could perhaps show whether or not the strength of the harris campaign can push out beyond the counties. this is a county that josh shapiro, the governor was able to flip towards democrats

in his 2022 campaign. the senate candidate, john fetterman, was not able to do so. how trump performs here will be very interesting to watch. we talk a lot about al legheny and philadelphia. there are a couple of places i'm most interested in going into the night. and this is the western .a. area right here, a significant amount of vote. whether he can bump those margins up is key, and right in there, how donald trump matches up with 2016 versus 2020, that more than anything else will the story about donald trump's strength in a state where he'll have to matchup with the philadelphia, with the allegheny county, the harrisburg, and the vote for harris. >> important points, indeed. phil mattingly at the magic wall. i'm back here with cnn's manu raju and nia- malika henderson and janie gangel. pennsylvania is kpleernlt, but what about michigan? what are you hearing about that? >> so two sources who are

very familiar with the harris campaign's internals have said they are confident about michigan. they think that they have michigan, they have they have wisconsin. you get mixed reads on some of the other states. some people say, you know, we're going to be good in north carolina. we're going to be good in georgia, north dakota. they don't know yet, wolf. jen o'malley, the campaign manager said, i think the word that everybody has to go by, listen to, they have to be patient. they don't know yet. she also has said that they can win without pennsylvania. they want pennsylvania, but if they get two out of three of north carolina, georgia, what's my third one? >> arizona. >> not arizona -- >> nevada. >> nevada. >> two of three of those three, they're not so confident about arizona. that they can live without pennsylvania. i just want to point to one other thing that they are looking at.

and that is older voters. and this actually has to do with that iowa poll we saw where harris was up, unexpectedly. a republican source of mine just texted me and said that his mother is a lifelong iowan, she last voted for a democrat in 1960. she voted for donald trump twice, but the source said, after january 6th, she vowed to never support trump again. she felt that not voting or a write- in vote would be a vote for trump, so she voted for vice president harris. >> interesting, indeed. manu, how likely, based on all of your reporting, is what we're calling a trifecta? either party winning not just the president, but the house and the senate as well. >> it's more likely for the republicans to do that, than for the democrats, just simply because of the map and the united states senate heavily favoring republican right now. it would be a monumental upset if the democrats were somehow

retain control of the united states senate. they also have three in red states. one is almost certain to flip. that's west virginia and the senate right now is 51-49. that would mean a 50- 50 senate. those two other red states, montana and ohio, which they're defending, democratic incumbents. they would essentially have to run the table and have very few pickup opportunities, really just texas is the one opportunity, and that's what's to be seen as a long shot. just to keep the senate at 50-50, that's very difficult. the house is interesting as well. there are so few true toss- up districts in the house. maybe eight, maybe a dozen or so. a lot of them are in new york, in california, and the suburbs and the like. typically, house races go with the presidency, but given where these are and how few there are, perhaps there's a split verdict among voters, where the president may not have a house in his or her same party. there are so many different variations that could play out. but republicans maintaining having total control of washington is the most likely

scenario, if you look at democrats with a very little chance, given the senate. >> nia nia- malika, i know the harris campaign is really hoping for a big night in some of the blue wall big cities that we're talking about. cities like philadelphia, pittsburgh, detroit, milwaukee. what are you hearing about? >> this is one of the reasons why kamala harris has been calling into radio stations all day. she's going to be doing it throughout the day, trying to drive up turnout in these big blue cities. this is the way that biden was able to win, it's the way obama was able to win, as well. her coalition is going to look different if she wins, it's going to be a winning coalition that looks different than biden's winning coalition and obama's winning coalition. you talked about older voters, for instance. it's one of the reasons she was palling around with liz cheney. they see a very different demographic. they realize that there is some kind of drop- off among african- american voters and particularly black men in particular. it's almost like, you know,

sort of, there are black republicans, right? and you know, maybe 12 to 15% in that sort of voting bloc, i think, is causing them to say, okay, where can we look for other voters? and that's where you see other voters as well. and the woman factor, across all demographics. they want to do really, really well among african- american women voters. they typically do. but they're also looking at, can they sort of shift things, as well, with latino women voters, right? can they up the margins? they're going to win that voting bloc, but can they even up the margins and that's where issues like abortion come in, democracy comes in, the madison square garden of festival of racism and sexism come in, as well. they think their closing arguments were about open, but also, they had this contrast with donald trump in these last days, really going - script, and being very sexist,

at times racist as well, in talking about women in different voting s. >> thanks very much for now. we have more to discuss down the road for sure. we'll take you to harris and trump campaign headquarters adds well, when we come back, on this election day in america, as our special coverage continues.

and welcome back to our special coverage of election day in america. i'm erin burnett in washington. right now millions of americans casting their ballot for either vice president kamala harris or former president donald trump. well. >> and it is truly a historic day. i'm wolf blitzer. both sides right now incredibly nervous as we count down until the first polls close. and that's just four hours from now. we are live over at both the harris and trump campaign headquarters. i want to start with cnn ice priscilla alvarez at howard university in

washington dc. update our viewers on what you are hearing. >> reporter: the vice president is largely spending her day behind closed doors but she is participating in a spate of radio interviews across the battleground states as she tries to mobilize voters and reach those who may still be on the fence outlining her vision in each of these interviews. also planned for the vice president later today is a dinner, a ritual of hers to have dinner with family and friends at her residence. before then going to her election night party at howard university. her alma mater. one she talks fondly of and say this will be her full circle moment. i'm told harris advisers have directed their staff to continue to knock on doors to consistently and frequently focus on mobilizing voters making sure they are getting out to the polls because of course, well today is a day that will test the strategy by the harris campaign. one that we have seen play out the last several weeks about reaching disaffected republicans in the red rural

counties and leaning in on reproductive rights. as we have heard from the voters over the course of today. some of them voting because of reproductive rights and freedoms, the harris campaign is seeing much of the same. i have been talking to some of her former aides who have been with her on election night in the past. and there is one race in particular that has come up quite a bit. her 2010 race for california attorney general. that, too, was a razor thin race that was called three weeks later where she of course won that race and won former aide to the vice president telling me telling me that was a time when they had to practice patience but it is also a time they are reflecting on quite a bit today. because it may also be a scenario this is going to be a lengthy process because the polls and the votes are close, all that remains to be seen. they are telling reporters and they are telling strategists privately that they are going to remain calm. they are remaining confident in what they are

seeing in the data, again, hoping that they can eke out that victory against former president donald trump. but certainly until the voting polls close, they are going to continue that ground game that they have talked about so extensively the last year. wolf? >> all right, priscilla alvarez in howard university in washington dc. i want to go to cnn's kristin holmes. tell viewer whats you are hearing. >> reporter: well donald trump and his team also really believe this is going to come down to the margins. that's why the former president is spending the entire day doing a series of tele rallies targeting swing state voters and specific demographics. he is holding them targeting seniors, as well as unregistered voters, people who could still register today to vote. and young men. remember how critical young men are to donald trump's voting block. the other states he is going to be doing rallies in,

pennsylvania, wisconsin, nevada, states his team believes are critical to his victory. the advisers are watching carefully. wisconsin, pennsylvania. they believe there is a lot riding on those two states in particular. they will be watching the results behind closed doors. elon musk will be there and some of his children. and he will be attending a party, a dinner watch party at mar-a-lago. but of course the big question remains if he is going to speak. aides, allies, do not want a repeat of what happened in 2020 when donald trump came out early and prematurely and falsely claimed victory in the 2020 cycle. they are telling me that he is in a different head space now. they acknowledge it's donald trump and anything could happen. but there are a lot of internal discussions happening right now as to what exactly his remarks would look like if he comes over to the

convention center. that's where we will be set up as the press outside of his mar-a-lago resort or whether or not he comes at all. and what those remarks would look like. a lot of what i'm being told is that everything is going to come down to those margins. to the voters and they are waiting. kristin holmes, thanks very much. erin, over to you. >> all right, the campaigns both watching what's happening across the country and of course how this plays out. cities and states beefing up security to try to keep elections secure. a calm normal election in america. john miller joins us now. john, as you talk to local and state officials and see what's happening across the country, there have been some unprecedented security measures put in place. can you tell us some examples? >> reporter: well, there is the

fbi's election security command post which was opened on friday and is now operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week at fbi headquarters. they are monitoring threats across the country. and they are able to farm them out to every one of the fbi's 55 field offices has a smaller version of that in ecc they call it. a response team that can go out on any lead in response to the election process. any skull duggery. they are aligned with that. the u.s. attorneys. we have seen among the states, local law enforcement and election officials. if you look at georgia, they have a tech system where poll workers can send alerts directly to authorities saying if something is going on, they have issued thousands of lanyards with a panic button built in which will go directly to 911. you have seen a lot of this

combination of local law enforcement. layers of federal law enforcement and technology. >> that's incredible. the lanyards with the panic buttons built in. you mentioned georgia. earlier the secretary of state had talked about how there was of russian origin bomb threats. they were not credible. from russia. they managed to reopen the polling stations and continue with voting but how many things like that are happening across the country? does the fbi have a sense at this point? >> so more. more of that. i received a statement from the fbi confirming what we were reporting earlier. which is that sources were telling us that the origin of these threats are coming from russia. that of course could be read as a pattern. a layered pattern of

disruptive activities. including fake internet posts about immigrants illegally voting. but the fbi statement says the fbi is aware of bomb threats to polling locations in several states. many of which originate from russian email domains. none are credible so far. this is the difficulty. these kinds of threats are literally meant to cause disruption. evacuation. disrupting the voting process. and it is one of the nuances where security officials and election officials have to figure out how to do a quick sweep of the area. do a search. figure out there is nothing hazardous and do that without the process being interrupted or only briefly interrupted. >> right. and of course, that is the whole point. to just not create questions. later on, something. >> it is deny the objective. if the objective is simply to cause disruption, how do you

thwart that without giving into the basic intent? >> all right. john miller, thank you very much. and monitoring that. congressman, it is interesting as we talk about this situation. georgia, noncredible voting back up and running. several other states have experienced that. they say many threats coming from russian origin. the intent is not to stop the voting. it is to disrupt it. slow it down. cause chaos and a lack of confidence. >> it creates chaos. it can feed into a narrative of stolen election. it can discourage people. if you are in line, you have waited an hour, all of a sudden they are shutting down the polling place. you're like well i will go home and come back. you may not come back. it hits confidence. and the interesting thing is the technology we have to know this stuff comes from russia. russia is not trying to mask this. they don't care. their goal is

just to create chaos. >> so, also what he was reporting on, the lanyards that poll workers are wearing that are equipped with a panic button. >> it is incredible that technology exists. in sites across the country. we can see it here in washington dc. they are taking all sorts of measures to keep the poll workers safe. to keep people safe while they are attempting to vote. in all phases of the process. it hurts my heart that it is even necessary. because remember the good old days and you would just go vote and it was your civic duty and it just felt good? now you have to think about it. what are all the considerations. it is also important this is part of why talking about and reminding people it is okay. just stay in line. if it takes a little longer for the voting to make sure every vote is counted, that's okay, too. it doesn't necessarily mean that, it

doesn't mean chaos or skullduggery. i love that john used that word. i have to use that again. we are all learning that. i think we learned a lot in 2016 and 2020 in terms of okay. how we vote and how this comes out is a little different than maybe we used to be used to. and that's okay, we have to let the process play out. so far, you haven't seen either campaign jump on either of these thing as of yet. >> not yet. and i will say, you will probably get some later election results as a result. if a polling place closes for an hour, they will stay open for an hour. the other thing i will say, it is all part of a group trying to restore faith in the democratic processes. we took a national poll. foreign interference and actually sensorship stories by media were the top two issues voters were concerned about when they were concerned about what could actually rig an election. not the voting machines or concern about who is counting the

ballot. it was those two things. >> governor, donald trump has talked about this in several different ways today. first he said that he doesn't see any issues with the vote thus far. he talked about violence. and his own supporters. and let me play a part of what he said earlier at mar-a-lago at campaign headquarters. >> my supporters are not violent people. i don't have to tell them that. and i certainly don't want any violence. but i certainly don't have to tell -- these are great people. these are people that believe in no violence. unlike your question. you believe in violence. >> um, obviously, at the end, you could see his anger there. governor. what i find interesting though, is actually you are looking at these lines and some of the lines where our reporters are interviewing people and you see people back to back in line who very well could be voting completely the opposite way. and that they are standing there, one of them might talk to cnn. i have

actually been, felt emotional bolstered by all of this today. how people have behaved. >> me too. and we do see these isolated examples and hopefully they will stay isolated but it is great to see him talk about not seeing violence. maybe it had to do with the fact he was up until 3:30 a.m. at grand rapids michigan. maybe after he takes a nap he will roar back up. but that's a good message for him to convey. and we should all celebrate these elections in a safe secure manner. and hopefully he will too. >> look, i want to thank all the election workers out there today. that are being great public servants. let's protect our democracy today. election is one of my favorite days. it makes me love america so much more because of our democracy. let's keep these events isolated and there is a hot line. if you see something, you

can say something. 1-866-our vote. there are lawyers on the other end, bipartisan lawyers to resolve any issues. >> in the country of georgia, they just had an election that was stolen by the government in charge. and there were so many things done to do that. the fact we have so many eyes on these polls shows how safe these elections are. that is something we should appreciate. >> when you go to nick valencia or kylie atwood. they are in the room showing you. >> the more voters know, the more they trust the process. >> they are the ones rigging it. our coverage continues in a moment. we will talk to jim kleiburn of south carolina to see what he is looking for as millions and millions of americans are headed to the polls.

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it's the verizon 5g home internet i got us. oh... he used to be a competitive gamer but with the higher lag, he can't keep up with his squad. so now we're his “squad”. what are kevin's plans for the fall? he's going to college. out of state, yeah. -yeah in the fall. change of plans, i've decided to stay local. oh excellent! oh that's great! why would i ever leave this? -aw! we will do anything to get him gaming again. you and kevin need to fix this internet situation. heard my name! i swear to god, kevin! -we told you to wait in the car. everyone in my old squad has xfinity. less lag, better gaming! i'm gonna need to charge you for three people. welcome back to our special coverage of election day in america. we are now less than five hours away from polls closing in the crucial

battleground state of georgia. this is a state both campaigns have spent a lot of time, a lot of money on. cnn's isabel rosales joins us. what are you hearing? >> reporter: well things are certainly running smoothly at this polling site. one of 177 in fullton county. the state's most populous county and home to atlanta. folks going right in and right out. and we heard from the secretary of state that the time to check in has dropped to 49 seconds across the state. the time to actually wait in line is under a minute. so certainly voters are happy to go in, do their civic duty and come right out. in secretary of state says he is optimistic that georgia will be able to have a winner by tonight. because of how quickly the information is being posted. there a state law

requiring counties to report that data. the majority of the data by 8:00 p.m. of course they won't stop counting until they have all the votes counted. i did speak with one voter here, first time voter. 19 years old, gen z. her name is lauren. she voted for kamala harris. here is what else she had to say. >> i was amazed. i didn't think i would be able to see that in my lifetime. not only a woman, but a black woman running for president. it was just amazing. i feel like no question. it should be pro choice and i feel like it is amazing to be able to support someone that supports me. >> reporter: and it hasn't gone smooth for a very small percentage of people. some sited have seemed phony bomb threats of russian origin. the fbi saying that, too. i spoke with one voter who had to wait an hour before they were

allowed back in to the polling site in union city. he is suspicious they were being targeted because of the demographic of union city which wolf, the census bureau says is 90% black. so he certainly thinks it wasn't a mistake that his polling site was the one to receive those threats. >> cnn's isabel rosales. joining us now, democratic congressman jim kleiburn of south carolina. thank you so much for joining us. what early indicaters are you looking for as the results come in later tonight? >> reporter: thank you very much for having me. i'll be looking at fulton county. gwinett county. i'll be looking at nash county in north carolina. wake county, north carolina as well. we got

reports here last week that the turnout of early votes in eastern north carolina seem to be a lag a little bit. several of us went to north carolina. so on sunday, i did several events. several faith groups. trump was only ten minutes away. so i think that he sees what we got reports on this morning. that there is a big surge in eastern north carolina. especially in nash county as well. of votes. that we were looking to turn up early. but seeming as if they just wanted to wait on election day. so i think the reports will be good tonight. >> congressman, i understand you had a chance to speak with president biden earlier today. what was his message? >> it was yesterday i spoke to

the president. he called to reminisce a little bit about the ride we have had over the years. and to tell me how honored he was to have picked kamala harris to be his running mate and endorsed her to succeed him. and i have talked to him a little bit about the bookends of his career. to be eight years as vice president of the first african american president to run. to be elected. and to have had the guts to name a woman of color to succeed him gives us a tremendous bookend to his career.

>> you certainly played a role in president biden's ability to become president of the united states. a couple of weeks ago, congressman, you said that you were concerned about black men staying home. how much is your estimation of their turnout changed during this final stretch? >> well you know, when i started getting those reports, wolf, i started doing some of my own investigations. going to the barbershops. i go to a barbershop though it may not look like it. given reports on what kind of discussions were going on there. my mother was a beautician and i keep close contact with cosmotologists across the state of south carolina and other states. they are not saying to me what i was hearing now i hear the african american men supposed to be

deserts kamala harris, will turn out in numbers that i think will help to make a difference. there is no big difference between the african american men and women when it comes to voting. we have to realize the party of lincoln lingers. the people who voted in 1876 got double crossed on. 99% of the votes, the african americans voted for the republican. so that has been a tradition coming out of lincoln. so we have got to get people to understand all republicans are not the same. lincoln was a great emancipator. we have members in

the republican party who are decent honorable people. but we have some that are not decent and honorable. and donald trump represents that group. >> congressman, thank you very much for joining us. appreciate it very, very much. i want to get back to our panel right now. i want your immediate reaction to what we have heard. >> the congressman has been in the southern states. in the more urban and rural areas as well. and you have seen over the last years, particularly in a state like georgia, black voters matter. latasha brown, some of the work they have been able to do in that state calling in the black rural voters who might not have felt like they were part of the process. they will be key to this win if kamala harris is able to win georgia. and you also heard him talking about maybe there will be a shift

around the edges among black men votes more for donald trump and them trying to go into the barbershops. go into beauty salons and churches to reach some of those folks as well. we'll see what happens. we don't know. georgia, about 30% black. the electorate will be about 30% black. and then in north carolina, it is about 20% black. the good news i think for the kamala harris campaign is there is obviously a history of activism there. a lot of young voters. hbcus which are ripe areas for organizing. they can vote right on their campuses in many ways and they have won georgia before. biden, and warknock. so there is hope there. >> hbcu, historically black

colleges and universities. >> governor kemp who is a republican but who stood up to trump in the past, yes, he did come out and endorse trump. but, let's just say that he said the right thing but the real question is my sources in the republican community say has he really unleashed the power of the republican party the way they can in georgia? and the sense is they haven't. i spoke to one very high ranking republican in georgia who said let's wait to see. we'll know the votes in the suburbs very quickly in georgia. what happens with that vote? the other thing i have heard, they were very upset. madison square garden was an inflection point. whether it was language about puerto ricans, insulting women, violent rhetoric about liz cheney, about saying he never should have left the white

house. this is not the way you close a campaign. >> you know, i want to play for you and for our viewers something that trump said earlier about his chances in this election. listen to this. >> i feel very confident. i have. we went in with a very big lead today. looks like republicans have shown up in force. >> so are they really as confident as he claims to be? >> everything is within the margin of error, there is a split decision in the rust belt and sun belt states. maybe one of the campaigns effectively sweeps all seven states. one of the things he said was that he would accept the outcome of an election if he lost. if it was a fair election. well, he didn't accept what happened in 2020. that he lost. what you can expect tonight is if he is on track to losing he will

probably come out and declare he won or say something similar to what happened in 2020. how does the republican party respond in the immediate aftermath of that? there is so much that could happen here. this race could be historically close. >> people are bracing for him to declare victory even if the votes are not counted yet. thank you very much. our special coverage of election day in america continues in just a moment. we'll talk to michigan secretary of state to get an important update on how the vote is going in that crucial battleground state.

right now, we are getting an update on the non-credible bomb threats made in georgia by the secretary of state. >> just kind of pro rate that out to the rest of the day. over 1.1 million. we don't know if the trend will continue. that's what the big

news should be. i think that is pretty darn awesome. then we have a few things that happened. one of them. in the weeds, but in peach county this morning it was a little cold down there. someone plugged in the space heater that was also serving the county ems for the election management system. so it fried that. so it was replaced this morning. these are the things you don't expect. a very minor issue. what is really interesting is a lot of people call our call center. averaging an answer of 16 seconds. really responsive

getting back to people. we have gotten greatback. we want everyone in georgia to know i have led on making sure the nation has fast, secure elections. so much of it is about the voter experience. the customer. which is the voter today. and we are just really grateful we have check in time in under a minute. we have a lot to be proud of. i want to make sure everyone understands this. that georgia is not going

to be intimidated. russia has decided they picked on the wrong georgia. they need to pick on the other one in the black sea because we will not be intimidated. we are just excited about where we are right now. i don't know if anyone had any questions. >> you talked about some precincts in cobb county that will be held up in late. are you aware of others? >> you just heard the secretary of state in georgia talking about the non-credible bomb threats. talking about a record turnout on track. let's go to the michigan secretary of state. i don't know if you heard your colleague there in georgia. he was talking about the threats that georgia has dealt with. but he is saying that vote sergeant on track. a couple of places may be open 30 minutes longer because of

delays. have you had any places with massive disruptions in michigan or delays at this point? >> we have not. similarly to my colleague in georgia, we have seen extraordinary engagement and turnout. all across the state, i have visited polling places throughout the day. and there are literally parties at the polls. people dancing and celebrates which is what today should be. and people standing in line voting with different candidates but proud to respect each other's right to vote. that is what we are seeing above all else. >> i'm glad to hear things are continuing. you are plowing right on through it. can i ask you, you talk about the record turnout in georgia that he is

talking about brad, he believes they will be on track for that. are you seeing record turnout in michigan all in? >> yes, we are. leading up to today, 3.3 million michiganers have voted. our highest turnout election ever was in 2020 where 5.5 million michiganers voted. so we are on track to match and possibly surpass that based on the energy and the turnout i have seen at the polls. we will know more later today. but i'm optimistic that we are seeing very high turnout. continuing to break records. it is all across the state of michigan where people are voting and proud to be voting and really celebrating today. as election officials this is what we hope to see. >> can i ask you if you think you will have presidential results tonight? >> that's the hope. the

biggest determining factor will be the closest of the race. we have 7,000 military and overseas voters. the ballots can be returned up until monday or tuesday of next week. as long as they are postmarked by election day. they will count. so we'll see it depends on the margin of victory for any particular race. but that said, i have been very encouraged by how efficiently and securely our largest communities are tabulating those votes that came in through the mail. detroit as said they will be up by tonight. probably around midnight. we do expect results to be in sooner than they were in 2020 which was midday on wednesday. >> i know that is something everybody will celebrate if that happens. i want to ask you one other thing. you talk about the celebration at the polls. but there had been reports of one trump supporter threatening violence at a polling location. is there anything more you can tell us about that? it appears

it was isolated. >> yes it was isolated. i talked to some folks there. law enforcement cam by to check. we had a field team in place to respond to things like this. and what we are seeing in this incident and others is that they are very isolated. and they are not deterring anyone from voting. and for every one issue like that, we have an abundance of joyful stories and experiences as well. that is what we are particularly proud of. >> secretary, appreciate your time. as the voting continues in michigan. perhaps on track for a record in michigan. georgia as well. let's go from one battleground state to another. in the blue wall. an update on issues in polling stations in pennsylvania that there had been struggles. let's go to paula. >> reporter: we have been looking into what is going on in cambria county. polling

locations will be open until 10:00 p.m. after a software malfunction disrupted voters' ability to scan their ballots. we learned this issue was caused by a printing error. the bar code was printed incorrectly. employees traveled 70 miles west. they are expected to bring back and distribute reprinted ballots across the county this afternoon. now ballots that voters cast already that can nod be read by the machine will be hand counted and we learned mail-in ballots are not impacted by this issue. but election officials said in a statement at this point, our focus is getting people to vote. now let's go to allegheny county. we learned the mail-in ballot return rate has exceeded 2020. as of last night. more than 219,000 mail in ballots were returned.

interestingly, officials have already begun counting the mail-in ballots in pennsylvania. in that state, they come in multiple envelopes so officials started by extracting the ballots from their outer secrecy enveloped and started extracting the ballots from the inner envelopes to begin scanning. results are not expected to be posted until after 8:00 p.m. in pennsylvania because officials cannot start tabulating them until election day. erin? >> thank you very much, paula. and our special coverage of election day in america continues. we'll go live on the ground. he needs it to win in his map. so what are voters saying now?

well here we are, just under five hours away from polls closing in north carolina which has become a crucial battleground state. top election officials saying there have been no reports of any

election interference. wilmington, north carolina, miguel, you have been talking to voters all day. what have you heard? >> reporter: now look, this is a purple county. as purple as it gets. this is a county trump won in 2016, biden won it in 2020. and both parties are working very hard. there's been big lines for most of the day today. there's been a lull throughout the afternoon here. but you know, we have talked to democrats, republicans, a ton of unaffiliated voters in new hanover county as well. across the board, everyone we spoke to, there's one common theme. whatever they result tonight, they want it to be definitive. >> for the world i think, no matter where we're at right now with kamala or him. it doesn't matter to me. the world will choose or the united states is. who is the president. but for me, it is what i believe is the best thing for our country and what

i have to choose from, i believe he's the best one. >> right. um, and do you think, i mean, you've seen the rhetoric on both sides. do you think we can get back to a normal sort of way of operating. >> i believe we can. you know. >> reporter: so look, he is voting for donald trump because he says the economy is driving his vote. we have spoke to a lot of women. a lot of women are bringing their kids to the polls. kids too young to vote. they believe that they hope kamala harris will be elected tonight and in the days ahead. they want their kid to see what is happening. there is a lot of energy here. this is just one polling site here. there is a republican and a democratic tent out here. they are handing out information as voters go into the polls here. high energy. most voters in early voting in this county and across the state had already cast their votes before today.

but talking to elections officials here, they said they expected it to be extremely early. there were huge lines all day all this morning and they expect very big lines this evening before polls close at 7:30 p.m. back to you. >> that's right. as people come after work. all right, miguel, thank you very much. wolf? i'm back with my excellent panel. other than simply looking at the people waiting in line right now, what can the campaigns really do to try to figure out if they are getting their people out there to vote before the polls close? >> yeah, i mean they're getting data back about who is showing up or the voters they contacted, did they already cast their ballots? and they can send folks to areas where they feel like they are not getting the numbers they need. these campaigns, the democrats have a better operation than the republicans at this point. they have specific numbers they want to see in these areas. they had a certain number going into election day. a certain number of voters and votes they

wanted to bank going in. and now they have another one. you know, you think about what democrats were doing going into this. they were sending high profile surrogates all over the place. the obamas, bill clinton, you know. wes moore. jasmine crocket. everybody was out and they were trying to connect with voters and get voters to the polls during the early election days. and listen, we obviously don't know what is going to happen. but the democrats certainly have a superior ground game. it is more data fueled. we had bryan lanza on at some point earlier today and he said they didn't have any data. maybe he didn't have any data. ideally the trump campaign has some data. and they can sort of figure out where they need to juice the numbers and maybe send some door knockers out to the different counties to kind of juice up the numbers. obviously, these campaigns are engaged in trying to get voters

to the polls even at this late day. >> just to talk about as we are going to, pennsylvania. pennsylvania, pennsylvania. their ground game was so extraordinary that in the last couple of days i spoke to a volunteer who said they had more volunteers than shifts to send young people. >> you're talking about the harris campaign? >> the harris campaign did. also, the other thing we are hearing and this is just anecdotal. looking at lines. but we are hearing in philadelphia from a democratic party official who thinks the day of turnout is very impressive. that is important for the harris campaign. because there was concern about getting out enough young voters, black voters, and in philadelphia. we spoke to one person from the harris campaign who is knocking on doors in pennsylvania, western pennsylvania. three weeks ago,

this person said to me, they knocked on 30 doors. one person said they were enthusiastic for harris. they went back this past weekend, completely different picture. this person attributed a lot of it to donald trump's rhetoric. in the last week. these were undecided voters who seemed to return for harris. >> there is some concern from trump quarters about what's happening on the ground. there was a tweet from charlie kirk in ground of the ground operation. that the trump campaign has outsourced. he said the turnout was mixed right now. and he is calling on their supporters to come out to the polls. we'll see. maybe that is a motion motivational tactic. that one one of the big things at the end of the day, if the harris campaign does eke this out, the decision that trump made that the elon musks

of the world and the turning point usas of the world to do that ground operation. because of their criticism of the way the republican national committee had dealt with this in the past. you heard bryan lanza telling you senior trump advisers didn't like the way the rnc was doing things. that is why they changed thing to the outside operation. that was a big gamble. will it be successful? we'll see. >> if the harris campaign loses pennsylvania where is the best chance for them to pick up the votes from other states? >> it will be really hard. you are seeing in the sun belt states, according to the polls perhaps not as tracking as well as they would hope at this late juncture. places like arizona and in georgia. but you know, they would have to figure out a way. north carolina being one of them. this is why trump has spent so much time in north carolina in the last several days. a few times per day. stumping across the state. worried that harris could pick

that off and block his ascension to the white house. but no doubt about it, i mean, if harris gets the three blue all states, pennsylvania, michigan, wisconsin, she is likely the next president. >> we will continue this conversation. and our special coverage of election day in america continues next. voting continues across the country with the first polls closing in just about three hours. we'll be right back.

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♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ election day in america is here. all across the country, tens of millions of americans, some braving long lines, have been making their voices heard, not the pollsters anymore, but for real at the ballot box. in just three hours, the polls start closing and the counting begins. just three hours of a campaign that feels like it's lasted three years. in pennsylvania within the last hour, election workers started and began to open, to process, to scan those mail- in ballots trying to speed up what

was a slow and legally contested process back in 2020. we're hearing from state officials who anticipate much more efficiency this time. by and large with only a few exceptions with what are called noncredible bomb threats in the atlanta area the voting has gone smoothly. heavy turnout in georgia and michigan, secretaries of state there speaking moments ago saying what they're seeing on track possibly for records there. we have cnn correspondents across the map. cnn's brian todd is in western pennsylvania. cnn's rene marsh is in virginia. brian, given our viewers a sense of what you're seeing and hearing where you are. >> reporter: well, wolf, a lot of excitement here in western pennsylvania where the lines here at the north township precincts one and two have been going out the door all day long. i can take you a little bit closer as the lines move in. two precincts voting here. north treybane townships one

and two. once you get in here you have about ten more minutes to be processed and then to vote. people here are just telling us they are excited to be out here [ inaudible ]. voters who really [ inaudible ] are focused on -- >> brian, your mic is breaking up a little bit. i'll get back to you. rene marsh is in virginia for us. give our viewers a sense of what you're seeing and hearing. >> reporter: that's right, wolf. we really have seen a steady flow of people coming in to cast their ballots. we were here since early this morning when these polls opened. i had a chance to speak to many of these voters coming out after casting their ballot and i will say the majority of people we've spoken to at this particular site saying that they cast their ballot for harris, but we still were able to find some trump supporters who cast their ballot for him.

i spoke in particular to one 21-year- old college student who cast his ballot. he said he voted for joe biden the last time around, but this time, he's voting for trump. take a listen. >> the thing that really resonated with me and trump is the fact that he was able to go on many, many interviews and put himself up front without a script or any anything he was supposed to say. he was speaking off the top of his head. on youtube there's tens of hours of trump podcasts. he's very strong. i get a sense of strong strength in him. >> reporter: all right. and then also we spoke with harris' supporters and many of them understanding the history here. i spoke with one 93-year- old man. he was involved in the civil rights movement. he remembers a time when he wasn't able to vote. he said he couldn't even own a home here in fairfax county,

and so this particular moment when he came to cast his ballot, he was filled with emotion. i want you to hear from that voter. wolf. >> i remember back in 1931 when i was born, and my grandfather came here, i couldn't vote. in fact, i have lived to see this, and i [ inaudible ] tears. >> reporter: as far as what we're seeing here, i have to say, it wasn't to find trump supporters here at this fairfax county voting place. we know fairfax county usually leaning blue, but there were many who said they were planning vote for trump or they had voted for trump. however, when it came to putting their views on camera they didn't want to. one woman worked in the army. her coworkers assume she's voting democrat. she didn't want to be on television saying she was voting otherwise.

another one saying she just didn't want her neighbors and friends to know she had decided to vote trump. so the trump voters here at this site a bit camera shy. but they are here, wolf. >> fairfax county virginia outside of washington, d.c. , rene marsh, thanks very much. we're getting closer to the polls closing. i want to go back to the magic wall. phil mattingly is with us as well. give us a sense of how close we are. >> voters are voting. that means because polls haven't closed there are no results in here. in a few hours we will see this populate with red and blue in terms of where the candidates are actually standing, but right now, this is what we're waiting for. battleground states in particular, wolf. we know there are seven. we've been talking about them every single minute of every day for the better part of last year. georgia is what we're watching first that closes at 7:00 p.m. eastern and north carolina. southeastern sun belt states at 7:30. pennsylvania will close at 8:00 p.m. michigan, the vast majority of the state closes at 8:00 p.m. at 8:00 p.m. there are parts of the state on the

central time zone that go to 9:00 p.m. the vast ma jority at 8:00. arizona and nevada at 10:00 p.m. in terms of what we're going to be watching, this is the map right now. not currently filled in as we're waiting for polls to close. 2020, i want to start where we saw rene. it is the largest county in the state of virginia we're not expecting virginia to be a potential win for donald trump. something joe biden won handily and glenn youngkin won in an off year election and outperformed where republicans had been what's interesting about virginia we see results come in, fairfax county is one of those types of counties the largest county in the state of virginia where in the early part of the evening you get a look how is kamala harris matching up to what joe biden did in a stronghold county in northern virginia in a part of that state that will look at least somewhat similar, both on a median income basis and demographic basis to other types of strongholds in those battleground states. watch the margin you saw joe biden winning by almost 42 points back in 2020.

how is harris doing? the other interesting element here is this, this is where i actually want to go up to pennsylvania. obviously, joe biden winning this state the commonwealth of pennsylvania by 81,000 votes in 2020. there's a reason why republicans have been optimistic about where they've been here. that reason is tied to two things in particular. it is the registration gains that they've made. democrats used to have a significant, significant advantage in registration in this state. republicans have cut it in half since the 2020 election. it's the early vote totals by party. we don't know who people voted for but democrats traditionally outvote republicans in the early vote in mail- in balloting by significant margins. that's been taken down two to one and republicans saying that's a great sign and telling everything. what's going to be interesting you watch in philadelphia, in the counties out in allegheny county in person vote the lines we're talking about what does that mean? is it democrats are turning out in a major, major way and in person? every assumption that the trump campaign or republicans have made could be wrong. if they don't they have problems.

that's the reality. >> it's going to be exciting to see these votes actually counted and reported. we will see what happens, phil. thank you very much. erin, over to you. it is exciting in part because there's really no model. nobody knows. you can make an argument any way an and we don't know until we know. the long lines we're seeing them, you saw brian todd showing them in pennsylvania, in michigan, in north carolina. we're seeing them everywhere. absolutely everywhere. that's a great thing. we could see record turnout in a lot of places. in particular right now you are hearing some updates on maricopa county, the most populacepopulace in arizona. >> ability about 60% of the population. no democrat had won maricopa since bill clinton until joe biden won 2020. it was one of those counties that flipped. right now republican it turnout on election day is two to one over democrats. democratic turn joets 20%. republicans saying that's a good sign in arizona especially given the fact that republicans

walked into a lead on election day with early voting absentee voting today as well. which isn't as uncommon in arizona as other states, right. republicans are conditioned or are used to voting early in arizona. but the fact that now they're also leading on election day turnout you don't know how the independents are voting, but republican turnout two to one over democrats right now. >> as we look at what that may or may not mean, i know the harris campaign felt confident, you know who votes, you don't know how, but in early voting they had seen registered republicans voting and they said those are republicans who always vote. high propensity voters. they felt there was a cannibalization happening. going to vote early and not on election day. it appears that what matt in maricopa county, that may not be the case. >> it's true. and this is part of why every campaign wants to have multiple pathways to 270. at some point if that pattern continues and a decision that arizona is out of reach, you still got plenty of states on the board to play with.

i think one of the things that we should be continuing to look at, arizona is one of the states that has an abortion measure on the ballot. we have ten states. how does that impact turnout in those ten states. and as we've seen, every time it's been on the ballot, turnout has gone up and those measures have passed or not passed depending on the language of those measures. how that impacts turnout is important to continue to watch when we start getting some exit poll data. >> one of the interesting things about arizona, it's, obviously, tough for the harris campaign of basically almost all the swing states, but they do have a very, very good republicans for harris coalition there. very intense. there's a lot of more mon vote that has gone harris. all the people that stood in the gap during the 2020 election challenge. steven richer and bill gates that stood in the

gap and have grown a significant amount of these folks for harris. while i don't think the republican for harris numbers are going to be like, you know, again 50% of republicans, you may see more than you see anywhere else. that could be interesting to watch. >> which is fascinating. you know, governor, let me ask you about what we heard from rene marsh in virginia in fairfax county she said she had spoken to trump voters and mentions having to mention women in all these cases didn't want to tell their neighbors, friends, one worked in the arm yeah, they were voting for trump. is that your voter if there is going to be one, women who feel society says you have to go for harris and bring your daughter to vote and if you don't you're the self- trump voter? >> i know a number of them personally because of their job, their neighborhood, profession, family relations who do not want to admit they voted for trump and it is the trump voter. these models don't have that measured or assumed correctly, that gives the trump campaign i think room for a lot of growth in these numbers as we

see over the next hours. >> you've been looking at the gender gap. good thing for harris, but do you see that as a risk? >> i don't think those are self- voters, those are the women who voted to donald trump in 2016, 50% of the white women who voted. what we're seeing is there are a lot of women who voted for trump and going in to vote for harris depending on who their friends circle is. there's a gender gap. on arizona you have the navajo nation that is a massive voting block and they turned out in record numbers in 2020. you have -- >> they're having issues in apache county, machines were down and delays. >> yes. if that has high turnout, adam's point on the lds almost half a million people. and then the latino population. we can't forget about latinos in arizona who may have been disgusted if they did not

vote early before the madison square garden is a bridge too far. it will look different in every state. arizona if the two to one ratio holds out, it could be for trump. >> they have a big impact down ballot. everyone thought kari lake was probably dead in the water in arizona's race. region polling showing her closing that gap to within five. that might be the turnout driving those numbers. >> we will see. you will be with me. wolf? we have to take a quick break. wolf, and i will be back. new hampshire's republican governor will join us governor sununu as the trump campaign tries to turn the granite state red. election day in america, is brought to you by luxury mattresses made affordable.

election night in america focusing now on new york. yes, new york. cnn's jason carroll is out on long island in nassau county. jason, what's the feeling like on the ground where you are? >> well, wolf, let me set the stage here. we've seen a steady stream of voters that have come inside this polling place. this is an area, it is the fourth district out on long island. we call it one of those swing

districts. this is an area where it went for democrats for years and then in 2020, 2022, it flipped and went for the republicans. so democrats are hoping this can be their path to victory, their path to taking over the house again. we've been speaking to voters all morning long, all afternoon long. a number of republicans we've seen a great deal of turnout from them. a number of them telling us they feel as though this is once again going to be their year because of the top of the ticket, because of donald trump. but in talking to democrats, we've also heard from a great deal of enthusiasm because of harris they're feeling they can take back the district. they feel as though this will be their path to the house because of kamala harris. we're just going to have to see what happens. it's been very interesting to hear from voters both sides are energized. there's one point, wolf, where both sides really seem to agree. they want all of this to be over and they're hoping that when it is over, many of them telling us they're hoping that this is a point where the country can

come back together. wolf? >> jason carroll on long island, we will see what happens in those republican districts if the democrats have a chance at capturing those congressional districts and then we will see what happens on that front. very important congressional races coming up erin, over to you. wolf, talking about new york, new hampshire is a state that the trump campaign tried to put in play late in the race. back before biden got out they really felt that was one they had a shot at. jd vance went there as recently as sunday. joining us is the republican governor chris sununu. here we are on election day. obviously, you are supporting donald trump. what are you seeing right now on the ground in your state? >> yeah. look, as everyone has been talking about, tons of energy, long lines. the process is working, which is great. i think that's what people are seeing across the country. very few issues. i was in the secretary of state's office a couple minutes

ago. very few issues other than maybe some complaints of long lines but the process is definitely working. even i was watching cnn this morning and every once in a while across the country hearing one story or another but all being dealt with for the most part. everything is smooth. high voter turnout as you know. usually favors the challenger. who is the challenger in this race is the question. who is seen as the agent of change. i would argue that doesn't bode well for the current administration. but we will see. it's going to be a great day no matter what. >> you stepped out of the secretary of state's office. we heard from the secretary of state in michigan, jocelyn benson, secretary of state in georgia brad raffensperger as things look now they are on track for record -- a record number of people voting in their states. polls have been close. we will see if we hit those numbers. are you seeing the same in new hampshire or do you think it will fall short? >> absolutely. yeah. i mean it will be at or around a record number. we have one of the highest voter turnouts in the country. a record is a big deal. but no, i would say we're

definitely on track on the early predictions. i think these guys did a great job. they made sure everyone has more than enough ballots. same day voting registration. that process works well. high number of folks partaking in that. so far it all works really, really well. i do think, you know, you guys touched upon the hidden voter, the voter that doesn't answer the polls or doesn't answer the polls correctly so to say. we look at -- we have a lot of that in new hampshire, right, that live free or die spirit, no the picking up the phone or answering surveys. my sense and the more we're seeing on the ground there's a lot of that that tends towards trump versus kamala harris. you know, dixville notch, you talked about it this morning as well, in 2016, trump loses 6- 2, in 2020 loses 5-0. it's 3- 3 today. that's not a sample of the country, of course, but there's clearly folks going back to now voting for trump who never done it before. that's a reality that's coming out of the

woodwork. >> so let me ask you about dixville notch because you mentioned it, and i understand the way that you walked around that statute and looked at it, that's accurate what you said. another way of looking at it would be to say in the primary all the voters in dixville notch voted for nikki haley, now splitting half harris, half trump, half the haley voters going for harris. not going to extrapolate to the country. i'm looking through that one lens. do you see any of that happening? >> no. not really. look, nikki haley went up and talked person throw the voters and earned all the voters in the primary prip she did a great job with that. they all voted for biden before. they voted for this administration and half of them said, i guess that was a mistake. that's a telling story of -- a small sample, of course, but that doesn't show up in the poms. the thing i look at, these metrics not poll metrics. no matter what -- >> like what. >> trump is going to get a higher number of latino

and african american voters than any republican candidate in history. that's a real telling sign when you look at again this early voting a new phenomenon in the country but the early voting margins that folks were expecting in pennsylvania and otherwise are not materializing for the democrats as predicted. that doesn't come up in a poll. that's just the reality of, you know, the actual actions being taken on the ground. matt mauers did a great analysis of what you're seeing in terms of the enthusiasm with the base voter, not just the independents but the base voter and in new hampshire, as you brought up, jd vance came here one of the last days. that means trump's internal numbers see that they have a shot here. kamala kept spending millions and millions of dollars in new hampshire which means she knew me didn't have it wrapped up. those types of things are leaning towards a trump win. i think it's going to be contested. i would be shocked if we had a clear winner tonight and i think there's going to be a

lot of if you don't hire 5,000 lawyers and send them home the same night they will earn their money which way or another. it will be bumpy but we will get a winner. >> it's amazing. you look at what you're talking about the poll in iowa and hey, people can be forgiven for having whiplash in what is going on. i guess that's what you like when it's your birthday. happy birthday there, governor. >> thank you. we're not talking about that. at this age we ignore those. it's election day. >> all right. thanks. to phil mattingly at the magic wall. closer look at the granite state. you heard the case made by chris sununu who, obviously, is voting for trump, but, you know, dixville notch is all we've got right now honestly for 12 hours. like all we've got. six votes. >> yeah. i get the urge to take any piece of actual realtime data and try and explain what's happening for the rest of the country and i have a lot of respect for the governor and his understanding of the state.

i would caution people, dixville notch not the harbinger of what is going to come although always an interesting color story. this is the map right now as it stands as the governor was laying out 3-3. it's going to be a lot more. i think the real question and the reason jd vance was sent to the state republicans have looked at this particularly back in 2016 and said this is one of those places democrats with the exception of governor sununu send it win statewide and we feel we have a shot at. what happened in 2020 made people inside the trump operation say probably not this year, maybe not this cycle. in 2020 joe biden won by 59,000 votes, by a handy margin, more than 7 points. that was also the same exact year that the individual you were talking to, governor sununu crushed his democratic opponent in the state. what's interesting as you ticked through here -- if mauers is sitting up there with you still he understand this state as well as anybody running

governor christi's operation in the '16 campaign and congress himself is what you look at what changed in 2020 from 2016 when hillary clinton won by a narrower margin where are the counties that joe biden did better in? a lot of these counties, mauers will correct me if you talk to him, what we call specificspecific places, but they're not huge vote drivers, right. barrington. this is a place in total that has about 5,000, 6,000 votes. donald trump won it in 2016. joe biden flipped it back. if you start adding up every county you see blue here, a county that donald trump won in 2016, joe biden flipped it back in 2020, that adds up to a significant margin and go back to 2016 and take a look at where things stood, this was very close. this was about as close as it gets 2700 votes. real question is it's been on the periphery, does it mean they're playing games and seeing if they can coax something out here.

it's an open question. obviously, the governor very focused on dixville notch. >> that's all we got. i mean, you know -- >> i get it. >> all right. phil, thank you. so much more ahead including philadelphia's district attorney who had this warning for anybody thinking about interfering with the vote. >> if you're going to try to bully people, bully votes or voters you're going to try to erase votes, any of that nonsense, we're not playing. ef around and find out. don't let john king have all the fun. experience the cnn magic wall in the palm of your hand. get live results and immersive election experience. the magic wall. find it in the cnn app today.

election day in america. less than three hours to go until polls start closing in parts of indiana and kentucky. and turnout so far very, very strong as millions of americans cast their ballots. we've been seeing long lines in key battleground states in tempe, arizona, folks started lining up early this morning in atlanta, georgia, they're seeing very heavy turnout and this is the scene in warren, michigan, just outside detroit.

and here are the lines in philadelphia new hampshire pennsylvania to be clear and we now have fixed our technical difficulties with cnn's brian todd. he's joining us from pennsylvania right now where just moments ago the state's governor expects the vote counting to go faster than it did back in 2020. brian, update our viewers. >> wolf, we do expect it it go faster than 2020 and a sense of exhilaration in pennsylvania because it is finally the voters' day after all the buildup, all the hype. it is the day the voters can finally have their say in who wins. here in western pennsylvania throughout the state of pennsylvania voters we talked to here are just jacked because they know that this is a battleground state. they know that they're going to have a real say in who wins this election. two people who just voted here in the precincts one and two. reba and shawn douglas. what are the issues that brought you out here? what do you care about the most?

>> women's rights for me and just morale in general between the two candidates. that was my decision. >> shawn, what about you? what are the issues that drove you? >> my main concern is the economy and putting the united states first above really any other country, so that's what brought me out is to voice my opinion and do what i think is best for the economy and the united states. >> and the process, now the process here, don't be fooled by no line here, by the way, because this line has gone out the door and down to the corner for much of the day. >> it was smooth in and out for five minutes for me. >> yeah. very smooth. i'd stopped by this morning at 7:00 and the line was around the building. but -- so came back later and it was a little more reasonable. it's still a good process. >> all right. thank you, guys very much for talking to us. good luck and thanks for coming out. also just kind of a reflection here of the importance of the battleground, you know, the

battleground vibe in pennsylvania. we had voters three of them tell us that they may not have come out here and voted if they didn't know that this state was so critical a battleground state and they would make a difference. wolf, back to you. >> brian todd reporting in pennsylvania, thank you very much. the vice president kamala harris is speaking right now over at the democratic national committee headquarters in washington. i want to listen in. listen to this. >> oh, my gosh. [ applause ] >> hi. i am well. i just came by. people from every background who are all here making calls to reach out to our fellow americans to remind you toto vote. have you voted already? you

did. thank you. [ applause ] thank you so very much. you know, it's so important that everybody participate, and i thank you. i'm sure you have a lot of other things you could be doing taking the time to vote. thank you. you enjoy your day, okay. [ applause ] >> madam president. >> back to making calls. we have voters -- >> everybody. >> jennifer. it's kamala harris, how are you? i am well. i just wanted to call you to make sure you know where you can go vote today if you haven't already. have you voted yet?

oh, thank you. thank you so very much. thank you for being active and participating in this very, very important process. we can't do it without you. >> oh, good. what's your name? >> faith. >> yeah. >> hi. it's kamala harris. i can't wait for you to grow ten years more. but -- >> really appreciate what you're doing. >> you know what, i think it's so important. we have so much work to do to keep reinforcing the department of education and giving them all the resources there and i can tell you're really smart. working really hard. you are still a leader at every

age that you are 8 years old, that's serious leader. so you're in third grade? yeah. second grade. >> that's all good news for me. i'll take it. that sounds great. >> okay. okay. thank you. thanks for the time. please take care. okay. okay. thank you. >> all right. that's right. go blue. all right. >> your vote and everyone behind you -- >> okay. go ahead. so important. how are

you doing? >> thank you for all your sacrifice. for 30 years and i understand what you've gone through, and i just want to thank you. [ inaudible ] . >> oh, my god. >> that's right. >> i just want to thank you. i want you to get energy. i want you to give power. >> thank you so very much. i appreciate it. >> thank you so much. thank you, thank you. that's -- i appreciate it. very much. we are all doing this together. that's right. we're all doing this together. thank you. i thank you. you too. you too. all of us.

okay. oh, i'm so excited about that. oh, you are. oh, i'm so excited. >> you are -- >> well, i just ask you, milwaukee radio interviews this morning. what -- the milwaukee small business, the community is just thriving. so i'm looking forward to paying attention to your work and supporting you. thank you. thank you for all -- >> we're going to continue to monitor what's going on at the democratic national committee headquarters in washington, d.c. the vice president there you can see on the phone speaking with potential voters, urging them to go out and vote even at this very, very late stage. we will continue to monitor and see if there's any more developments unfolding. we will get back to it. meanwhile, other important aspects of what's going on just

yesterday, the philadelphia district attorney larry crass ner had this warning for anyone planning to interfere with voting there. listen. >> anybody who thinks it's time to play militia, ef around and find out. anybody who thinks it's time to insult, to derive, to mistreat, threaten people, ef around and find out. we do have the cuffs. we have the jail cells. we have the philly juries and we have the state prisons. if you're going to try to bully people, bully votes or voters you're going to try to erase votes, if you're going to try any of that nonsense we're not playing. ef around and find out. >> his message don't ef around by any means. the district attorney larry californianer krazner joining us. what threats were you hearing about that made you come out with this very, very

strong warning? >> wolf, we had all kinds of information from different sources. we have good partners with the fbi and other federal agencies as well as the philadelphia police department. but the good news is, it's been very smooth today. it's been a little bit more aggressive, but we do not have a single arrest today in relation to the election itself. we have been -- we have been dispatching lawyers and police officers and detectives to make sure everything was smooth, and it has been in this cycle just as in the last cycle, pretty smooth. high turnout. no big problems. better hoping that will continue with the evening's rush. >> polls have been open in your state since 7:00 a.m. this morning and you've got several more hours to go until the polls close, especially in philadelphia. is your warning, do you think being heard? >> well, it seems to me that

a whole lot of work has bun done by a lot of people, and they found out. maybe they found out in advance, but that's the way you want it. we don't want the problems. we just want a fair, free, final election, and it looks like so far that's exactly what we have. >> i know you've set up an election task force hotline so that voters can report any concerns or possible irregularities. what kind of calls have you received so far? >> we've received a lot of calls that are pretty similar to what we get basically every election cycle, but to me maybe the most important point is we have almost no calls whatsoever that are claiming actual voter fraud. we have probably about five calls of that nature. three of them look like they don't -- they're not worthy of additional investigation. just sort of a misunderstanding of the rules that sort of thing. a couple require a little bit more work. look this is a city of 1. 6 million people.

unless i'm mistaken the largest city among the swing states or at least the second largest and what we are seeing in general is smooth sailing when it comes to this election. nothing that so far has been worthy even of an arrest. >> smooth sailing is good. larry krazner the district attorney, good luck to you and your folks over there as well. there's a lot more news we're following on this historic day right now. new voting turnout numbers just in from nevada. stay with us. an election like no other and all comes down to this. >> we can now make a major projection. >> the way only cnn can bring it to you. election night in america. special coverage begins next on cnn.

as election day in america evolves, we've seen officials in several key states reporting especially heavy turnout right now. we're watching all of this unfold. i want to go back to cnn's paula reid over at the voting desk. update our viewers, paula. >> wolf, the nevada secretary of state has released the first numbers on in- person election day voting. revealing that 57,000 people have already turned up to

the poll and it's interesting the breakdown. they report 20,905 registered republicans, 16,799 registered democrats and 19,154 listed as other have voted in the first three hours since polls were opened and these figures will be updated as the day goes on. the secretary is also busy texting voters they need to cure their ballots and verify their signatures before they can be counted by the november 12th deadline. as of today, 13,906 ballots need to be cured, 12,939 have been successfully fixed. the bulk of the outstanding ballots that need to be cured are in this county down here clarke county. that is where las vegas and suburbs are located and where democrats need to drive turnout if they want to carry the state. now historically it's been older voters who often have problems with their mail- in ballots and other signatures or the

dates but nevada says it is seeing a trend of younger voters who need to fix their ballots and they also say those younger voters don't tend to answer their phones when the secretary of state calls. they have until november 12th to fix those ballots if they want them to be counted. wolf. >> let's hope that happens. paula reid, thank you very much. take a look at the lines in just some of the battleground states that have been campaigned -- that the campaigns have spent a lot of time and money in. i want to go straight to cnn political director david chalian. what are the campaigns paying the most attention to as we get closer and closer to the first polls actually closing? >> reporter: well, wolf, one of the things that campaigns are doing today is figuring out who else is left to turn out. because there is a big turnout in preelection vote. take a look at all the votes cast thus far before we got to election day today. 83. 7 million. it's probably going to go higher than that once all the mail ballots that were cast get

tabulated. that would be more than half of the total turnout in 2020. so what does that leave today for campaigns? what they're doing is they're looking precinct by precinct at their targets in these battleground states about what they need since they have a lot of information about those early voters, what do they need to turn out on election day and are they meeting those targets? if they're below you're going to see a surge of resources to get out the vote. you're going to hear candidates go on radio or do telerallies at the last minute to make sure they surge with campaign resources to get their target made. if they are meeting their target you will see the resources deployed elsewhere. it's a constant tracking of election day turnout knowing everything they know about who already cast their ballots. >> it's critically important. thank you very much. up next, the closer look at how voting is going on in california as we wait for those first exit polls. we will be right back.

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welcome back to our special coverage of election day in america. we're just about an hour away from the first exit polls which will give us a glimpse, a glimpse into who voted and for which candidate they voted and why. i want to go live right now to cnn's veronica miracle joining us from santa ana, california. what are the voters telling you over there, veronica? >> reporter: well, wolf, we've heard from a lot of voters today. you can see how long the lines are right now. it has been -- we've seen a steady stream of voters since we got here at 8:00 this morning and not only have we seen voters who wanted to vote in person, we've seen a steady stream of cars of peeping dropping off ballots at the -- people dropping off ballots. three people we spoke to said they voted for former president donald trump, they said the economy was the most important issue for them and that during former president donald trump's presidency, they felt that the economy was at its best

and that's why they decided to vote for him today. one man said although he voted for the former president, he doesn't think he's going to win. take a listen. >> it's just an intuitive feeling, you know. i don't think he had the best debate performance. basically the reason i think he's going to lose is because of the 2022 elections and all the pro- trump candidates lost with the exception of jd vance. >> all voters we have spoken to say this process has been similar so they've had to wait in line and they feel like it's been transparent and everybody has been happy with how the voting has gone today. back to you, wolf. >> veronica, thank you very much. we're going to get back to my panel and manu, the trump campaign's ground game operation has been outsourced to other groups including charlie kirk's "turning point action. " charlie kirk tweeted this today, let me put it on the screen, turnout is mixed and now where we want to be.

we need more people to vote. we can't let turnout flatline. text everyone you know. make more noise. we need more, end quote. what do you make of that? >> he could be trying to encourage voters to get to the polls but maybe seeing something that is drawing concern. i am eager to see these first exit polling information that we're going to get here in about -- in minutes here. we're going to learn about the nature of this electorate. is it the people the trump campaign has been trying to get to the polls, non- college educated voters, particularly male voters, that will make up the deficit with women voters, we've seen some of the early voting numbers come in some of the states women outpacing men. they have to make up the ground there given the gender gap that's going to exist here. what are the issues that are driving the voters to the polls today? the economy always number one. what is underneath it? the border. the issues the trump campaign has been hammering on? like democracy that could be more favorable to democrats or

abortion. so critical as we await the numbers and determine what have the campaigns got their voters to polls. >> all the polls in the battleground states being so close, very tight. there's -- it's produced a lot of high anxiety on both sides right now. >> yeah. and soon we will -- we will know the answer, but i asked one democratic strategist who has a lot of insight into the polls, i said, what do you know? and he said to me, do you want me to answer with my brain, my heart, or my ptsd trauma from 2016? he said, we really don't know yet. i think this is the time for dan rather, as tight as a tick was one, and then one source sent me this, we are nervous as a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. we will know in a couple hours. >> a lot of people are nervous right now and, neal,

let me get to you, because as you know we're watching all of this unfold, but we don't really know who is going to win right now do we? >> we have no idea. this is one of the closest elections we've seen. you've seen these polls be tight as tick down the -- down to the wire in the seven battleground states. what's interesting is these candidates couldn't be more different. they closed in very different ways. kamala harris closed with an upbeat vision and you had donald trump all about grievance and sort of talking down to americans, being racist and sexist, and we will see. i think one of the things that will be interesting when we see the exit polls is the late deciders, right. did they break for donald trump or did they break for kamala harris? we had some insight from the kamala harris campaign saying they were breaking, the late deciders for kamala harris. what did the msg rally have to do with that? so that will be something we will learn. >> manu, what are you

hearing from the hidden trump voter and harris voter? >> trump has under performed in public polling versus the outcome we saw in 2016 and 2020. but the question is going to be tonight, is about whether or not democrats are -- the under polling of the abortion voter. since the dobbs decision democrats have been -- expectations in other elections will that out pace the hidden trump vote. >> thank you very much. it's been a pleasure working with all of you all day. appreciate it very much. again, we're just about an hour away from the first exit poll data and two hours from the first poll closings. cnn's election night in america gets under way right now. it's election night in america. voters are having