united states. >> we saw the last weeks -- >> i can tell you from my first trip 15 months ago, people were saying where's the president? one of the legacy conversations will not just be the switch from biden. but the two years before that, would you travel and people would say where's the president? he was invisible because he couldn't do events. he wasn't talking about his agenda and trying to explain the of the could of living stuff. yeah, it sucks in a lot of places. the united states is could go better than a lot of the places around the world. >> there will be a lot told about that. >> kaitlan? >> reporter: yeah, jake, to give you a reality check of where the trump campaign has been watching this election day playout. they woke up confident that ultimately, their candidate was going to win. that donald trump would win this race. when i was talking to

them about what they thought the next few days were going to look like, one, they thought this would go on for several days. they did not think the numbers would be as generous as they are, the numbers have been coming in as they've been reported. and they had counseled donald trump that their would likely not be any kind of decision within the next 24 hours or so. donald trump himself was frustrated about that and saying that he wanted to know what the outcome would be tonight. we are seeing now, the donald trump campaign in real- time as we've been talking to them are adjusting to what they've been watching play out over the last three or four hours. >> he's feeling really good. i talked to a number of people who were with him who said he was ecstatic. they already said he was in a different head space than in 2020 when he was angry. watching those results come in. he said he still couldn't understand why they wouldn't get the results tonight. we're seeing a lot more of

the states being called now than even his own team anticipated. i was told they were looking very carefully at wisconsin and pennsylvania and they thought that maybe they would have some idea by tomorrow what those results would look like. we're seeing the results coming in, there's so much more of that vote counted than they even anticipated. so clearly that shifted their entire mentality around that. donald trump coming here and getting ready to speak. >> donald trump is in the building right now. he was about a ten- minute drive away. i was there at trump's victory apart when he was there in 2016. they were shell- shocked that he had won. he himself was stunned by winning. it was a surreal moment to see trump and his family on stage as he was speaking. then we know what happened four years ago when he came out and spoke and declared victory that was not his and

never would become his, chg belonged to joe biden. so i think the question for a lot of people watching is gone what he will say tonight. as he is going to come out. the race has obviously not been called yet. aseeing the numbers that were better than even they were expecting. >> we know their team had not spent a lot of time. the difference is their internal polling was showing them:

talked according to testimony from other aides who were there urging trump to go out and declare victory. he's now down the riser. donald trump was surrounded by elon musk we know was at mar-a- lago tonight. there were photos of him sitting with donald trump as he was preparing to come over here. robert f. kennedy jr. is there as well. dana white, tucker carlson. donald trump jr. , obviously senator j.d. vance and those who are now around him that has changed including his own campaign managers. >> one of the interesting thing is they managed at times to keep him at bay and protect him from his own instincts.

not all the time. donald trump can say and do what he wants and he often does. one of the thing that he saw when he was in pennsylvania speaking over the weekend and making incredibly inappropriate and insulting comments was soucie to stand as a buffer and stare at him. they were saying they were trying to wrap him because he was going too long. there were questions whether it was because of timing because everybody knew what he was saying could cost him the election that was such a narrow margin. there was at lot of uproar even from his allies. so his orbit has changed in terms of the people he is surrounding himself with. people who have tried to stop him from his own instincts. >> as far as how the numbers have gone, they thought north carolina would be a gut check. back to you.

we have a major projection. the great commonwealth of pennsylvania. this is a huge, huge achievement for donald trump and a huge bucket of electoral votes. 19 of them for for path back to the presidency. as of right now, with those 19 electoral votes added from pennsylvania, donald trump is within spitting distance of 270 electoral votes. he has 265 electoral votes. vice president kamala harris has 187 electoral votes. 270 are needed to win. john king, donald trump is within a a hair's breadth of being re- elected as president. >> where we are now, 265-187. he's leading here.

he is almost certain to get this. that would get him to 268. you're at the point now where just pick it. he could possibly move into it with nebraska. that would get him to 270 with nebraska which is a pretty safe bet. he could possibly get an electoral vote out of maine. but he's leading here, leading here, leading here, leading there, and he needs two. if he gets that one. if he gets that one and that one, he's way up. and now that's where he was when he won. he was at 304, 306. that would be 310 if he sweeps. no guarantee he will sweep by any means. but he's leading in a couple states, plus congressional districts on the board. emphasis on could, he could

pass 310 electoral votes. you come back to where we are now. he's in a commanding position. let's do the math the other way. it gets interesting. so this is now red in our county. here's the challenge when you do the math the other way. you assume that stays for the republican. let's just for the sake of argument, a big comeback for the democrat. a big comeback for the democrat. democrat holds new mexico. holds minnesota. wisconsin, wins michigan, you see this count? see this count? this is new jersey. there's connecticut. there's new hampshire. what do you want to pick? you could even go statewide. it won't happen but let's go statewide. do you all of maine.

come back out. what does that get you? it could come back to this if she wins everything. pennsylvania is what makes donald trump again -- we're not done until we're done but pennsylvania, in every path she had. any reasonable, plausible path to 270 including the common wealth of pennsylvania for the vice president of the united states. you get to a place now. where you come back over here. you're looking at this ma'am and you're saying, is she going to win alaska? no one is going to vegas on that one. where is she in any of these? is there any way to come back? 73% of the vote. it's 266,000 votes. again, just look at the live outstanding vote. we'll move this up so we can see it better. yes, yes. the outstanding vote in michigan is disproportionately democratic. but there's a fair amount of republican votes out there. you have 266,000 vote lead and a map that looks like that.

i don't do impossibles but do i improbables and that's improbable. you come over here to wisconsin. again, 119,000 votes ahead. that has come down a tiny bit. it was a state won by 22,000 votes in the last two elections. donald trump is ahead by 119,000 votes. so you look at what's left. 92%. sure, the biggest is here. but look at those immodest votes. in chess, she's blocked. donald trump is not across the line yet. we have more states to go through. but she is essentially blocked from getting to 270. >> all right. stand by for a projection. cnn can now project that kamala harris will get that one electoral vote from omaha. nebraska gives its electoral votes according to congressional district. kamala harris will get one of them. donald trump will get another one of them. of the five, let's look at it. donald trump now has

266 electoral votes because we just gave him one from nebraska's i think first congressional district. kamala harris has 188 because we just gave her one from nebraska's second congressional district. 270 are needed to win. donald trump needs only four more electoral votes in order to be the president. dana? >> i mean, pennsylvania, you look at those numbers. 266. 266. four more and you just saw the math that john did. the path that he, the different paths that he put out there for donald trump, and that for kamala harris, and -- >> that map of where she did not perform, the completely grayed out map where she never outperformed biden by more than 3%. that's just rough. >> i think there are two stories here. one is the burden that she

faced. to go back to the very beginning of the night when we did the right know extra, wrong track. 26% of the country thinks the nation is on the right track. 72% think they're on the wrong track. when it came to the performance of joe biden, it was 41% approved. 58% disapproved. so she had an enormous burden. and people are unhappy with the way the biden- harris administration has run this country for the last four years and she did not succeed, i'm not sure it was possible, now distancing herself from biden. there is another part of the story we have to talk about. which is donald trump. the fact is when you go back to january 6th of 2021 to today, it is an extraordinary comeback. he was a pariah when he left town on january 20th. refused to even go to the inauguration. the vast majority of members

of his own party wouldn't be seen with him. over the course of the four years, he proceedsproceeds win himself back into the party, declares right after the tremendous defeat of the republicans. there was certainly an unsuccessful showing in the mid-terms in 2022. wins the contested primary. this is his party. >> not just his party. >> what? >> it's not just his party now. >> no. it's his country. >> we have to be careful. we haven't called it yet. but pennsylvania makes it extremely tough for kamala harris. and that's one of the things, the trump side of this. one of the most extraordinary dynamics that we didn't necessarily see coming was that there was still a hidden trump vote. even those who are big supporters of donald trump would tell me, well, now

they're loud and proud. people who are maga are very open about it, so on and so forth. except you if you look at the exit polls, nationally, there are so many pockets of formerly democratic coalition voters who have moved in an extraordinary way. latino men. an 18- point swing for donald trump. he got 18 percentage points more among latino men than he did in 2020. >> also the campaign made this concerted effort to go after the never trump vote. being out there campaigning alongside liz cheney, talking about having republicans in the cabinet. it seems like that did not move people. that is still in some ways the never trump community is kind of a homeless community. it didn't help democrats in

this conversation. in really any of the states. you don't get the sense that there was this vast, as you said, hidden vote that somehow pollsters missed or people voted in secret. that kind of conversation -- >> and the fact is, that the trump campaign identified what the majority of americans, and it appeared for the first time he would win the popular vote in addition to the electoral vote, what they cared about. what they cared about is the fact that a box of cereal costs $9. that with southern republican governors shipping illegal immigrants north, that the whole migration issue has become a national issue. that you feel it in new york and illinois and a bunch of northern states. the transgender issue was, you know, this version of the cultural wars, people were surprised at the fact that he spent more money on the

transgender issue than he did on the economy or immigration in terms of advertising and it obviously seems to have worked like gang busters. he really identified what the concerns of the majority of americans was and he played to it. and she faced this overwhelming burden that people just didn't like the direction of the country as it stood now after four years of biden and harris. >> the big term of 2024 is the man- od sphere. we're all living in the man-o- sphere now. zm let's talk about the mistakes that were made. things that weren't looked at. obviously, there will be a lot of finger pointing, naval gazing. >> i'm still convinced that kamala harris performed better than joe biden would have tonight. i think there were so many of us, even those who didn't like donald trump who after the debate performance couldn't in good conscience vote

for joe biden for four more years. but there is a misreading. and i'm guilty of this in some ways. a lot of people don't like donald trump is man. it's the feelings around crime and the economy. i think this was a very republican add that was all over the airwaves. a budge of women standing by supporting him. i think that resonates with people. >> yeah. i don't want to engage in an autopsy prematurely. and i'm sure there will be a lot of discussion. not just about what happened in this campaign but about, when parties lose, it is an occasion for re-evaluation. and i think the valuation. >> it should do that. as i was telling you before, i appreciate the democratic party. i think it believes in the use

of institutions to help lift people up that we're a better country when you do. but the democratic party has become more of a suburban, college educated, professional party, and it still feels allegiance to working people and it tries to fight for working people. but it approaches working people like missionaries. or like margaret mead approached the natives. and democrats would say we want to help you be more like us. the implication was if you work with your hand or work with your back, you're less than. these are the people who make our country go. they deserve respect and dignity. i think kamala harris tried to express that in this campaign. it has to be more of an exercise over 90 days of a

campaign. you talked about solar panels and so on. i don't even understand how people can question that we need to do something about climate change given the catastrophes that are besetting us now. if you make your living extracting fossil fuels and old energy from the ground, and you make a good middle class living that way, and people say for the good of humanity, you're going to have to give up your good middle class job, that obviously doesn't sit well. let me say one of other thing because i pushed one of your hot buttons there. >> me, too. >> there will be plenty of critiques. kamala harris completely overperformed expectations. i think she handled herself with a lot of grace. i think she probably turned

into one of the great debate performances. to the point we've seen, now guy who appears to be the president-elect, donald trump, didn't want to debate her again. and i think she tried to appeal to the better angels in people's nature. >> it was this moment that i realized that america elected the guy that said they're eating the cats and the dogs. >> i think kamala harris had to do two things. she introduced herself. she tried to do that by saying that she was on the economy for the people, middle class, contrasting his kind of rich as hell kind of thing. she tried to do that. the border issue. tough on the border and accused trump of politics on the border. she just got beat by her own

words. >> her own words from 2019. >> and more recently as well. if you look at trump's ads, biden biden- omics is working. she doesn't separate herself. she said not a thing comes to mind. she doesn't separate herself from biden and then the whole transgender thing. the ads just beat her to death on tying her to the economy, tying her to biden and tying her to weird stuff. so there was really never a great response. to your point, the ad that came out that was beating kamala up around fear about israel not being protected. there was never a response from the campaign only which i thought was a mistake. trying to fight back on her own ads alone. you tied her to the economy, to

biden. >> i agree. i didn't want to engage in the autopsy before the race is called and before she drops out. the answer on, i can't think of anything offhand about where she would differ with biden was disastrous. no doubt about it. the question is what motivated it? and whether she felt she did not want to -- >> loyalty. loyalty. >> she should have just said, i'm grateful to him. you know, i'm proud of many of the things we did together and i i'm not going to critique him. i'm talking about the future would have been a better answer. can critique whether she's a crack messenger or not. when you're selling a product american don't want to buy, it doesn't mat here the messenger is. what are you selling? what are the american people looking to buy?

maybe it's not green new deal. maybe people like driving -- listen. >> 330,000 clean energy jobs. >> there's something afoot here. when you look at the map with the counties, 3%, there is a blank map. there is something the republicaned are selg. >> we're awaiting donald trump's comments at any moment.

. former president trump, there you see him -- ♪÷÷ ain't no doubt i love

this land ♪ ♪÷÷ god bless the usa ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ from sea to shining sea ♪ ♪÷÷ pride in every american heart and it's time we stand and say ♪ ♪ i'm proud to be an american where at least i know i'm free ♪ ♪÷÷ and i won't forget the men who died who gave that right to me ♪ ♪÷÷ and i gladly stand up

next to you and defend her still today ♪ ♪ there ain't no doubt i love this land ♪ ♪÷÷ god bless the usa ♪ ♪÷÷ i'm proud to be an american where at least i know i'mi'm ♪ ♪÷÷ and i won't forget the men who died who gave that right to meme ♪ ♪÷÷ and i gladly stand up next to you and defend her still today ♪ ♪÷÷ there ain't no doubt i love this land ♪ ♪÷÷ god bless -- >> former president trump waiting for the song to end. you see speaker mike johnson, vice presidential j.d.

vance. let's listen in. >> wow! [ chanting ] >> thank you very much. these are our friends. we have thousands of friends on this incredible movement. this is a movement like nobody has ever seen before. and frankly, this was, i believe, the greatest political movement of all time. there's never been anything like this in this country and maybe beyond. and now it's going to reach a new level of importance because we're going to help our country heal. help our country heal. we have a country that needs help and it needs help very badly. we're going to fix our borders. we're going to fix everything about our country.

and we made history for a reason tonight. the reason will be just that. we overcame obstacles that nobody thought possible. and it's now clear that we've achieved the most incredible political thing. look what happened. is this crazy? but it's a political victory that our country has never seen before. nothing like this. i want to thank the american people for the extraordinary honor of being elected your 47th president and your 45th president. and every citizen, i will fight for you. for your family and your future. every single day, i will be fighting for you. with every breath in my body.

i will not rest until we have delivered the strong, safe, and prosperous america that our children deserve and that you deserve. this will truly be the golden age of america. that's what we have to know. this is a magnificent victory for the american people that will allow us to make america great again. and in addition to having won the battleground states of north carolina, i love these places. georgia, pennsylvania, and wisconsin. we are now winning in michigan, arizona, nevada, alaska, which would result in us carrying at least 315 electoral votes.

but it's much easier doing what the networks did, or whoever called it. because there was no other path. there was no other path to victory. we also have won the popular vote. that was great. [ cheers and applause ] thank you. [ chanting ] >> thank you very much. winning the popular vote was very nice. very nice. i will tell you. a great feeling of love. we have a great feeling of love in this very large room with unbelievable people standing by my side. these people have been incredible. they made the journey with me. and we're going to make you very happy. we'll make you very proud

of your vote. i hope that you'll be looking back someday and say that was one of the truly important moments of my life when i voted for this group of people beyond the president. this group of great people. america has given us an unprecedented and powerful mandate. we have taken back control of the senate. wow! that's good. and the senate races in montana, nevada, texas, ohio, michigan, wisconsin, the great commonwealth of pennsylvania. were all won by the maga movement they helped so much. and in those cases, every one

of them we worked with the senators, they were tough races. and i mean, the number of victories in the senate was absolutely incredible. and we did telerallies with each one of them. sometime we did two or three and it was amazing to look at all those victories. nobody expected that. nobody. i wanted to thank you very much for that. and you have some great senators and some great new senators. and it also looks like we'll be keeping control of the house of representatives. and i want to thank mike johnson. i think he's doing a terrific job. a terrific job. i want to also thank my beautiful wife melania, the first lady.

who has the number one best- selling book in the country. can you believe that? she's done a great job. works very hard. works very hard to help people. so i just want to thank her. i want to thank my whole family. my amazing children. they are amazing children. we all think our children -- everybody here thinks their children are amazing. that's a good thing when you think they are. but don, airing, ivanka, tiffany, barron, laura, kimberly, . my father-in- law victor is tremendous. and we miss very much

melania's mother. we miss her, don't we? she would be very happy now standing on this stage. she would be so proud. she was a great woman, that one. beautiful inside and out. she was a great woman. i want to be the first to congratulate our great -- now i can say vice president- elect of the united states, j.d. vance. and his absolutely remarkable and beautiful wife. he's feisty. go into the enemy camp. it is certain networks. a lot of people don't like

that. do i have to do that? which one? cnn, msdnc. all right. thank you very much. like the only guy i've ever seen, he really looks forward to it. and then absolutely obliterates them. say a couple of words. >> wow! >> well, mr. president, i appreciate you allowing me to join you on this incredible journey. i thank you for the trust you've placed in me and i think we just witnessed the greatest political comeback in the history of the united states of america.

and under president trump's leadership, we're never going to stop fighting for you. for your dreams, the future of your children, and after the greatest political comeback in american history, we're going to lead the greatest economic comeback in american history under donald trump's leadership. >> thank you very much. he's turned out to be a good choice. i took a little heat at the beginning but he was, i knew it was a good one. about as good as it gets. we love the family and we're going to have a great four years. we're going to turn our country around. make the country something very special. lost that little, that little thing called special we have to make it. we're going to make it so

great. the greatest country and potentially the greatest country in the world by far. right now we'll work very hard to get all that back. we'll make it the best it's ever been. we can do that. if we had to wait longer, i don't know. it was going bad and it was going bad fast. we'll have to seal up those borders and we'll have to let people come into our country. we want people to come back in but we have to, we have to let them come back in but they have to come in legally. they have to come in legally. let me also express my tremendous appreciation for susie. the job you did. come here, susie. she likes to stay in the back. let me tell you. the ice maiden.

chris, come here, chris. susie likes to stay in the background. she's not in the background. come here. >> this was unexpected. i want to thank obviously president trump for this journey. it was a great one. and he's a hell of a candidate. he will be a hell of a great 47th president. and this team that we had the best team and of course, even my boss, susie wiles, the best. >> thank you. and thank you, susie. look at this. she's shy. i've never seen her be shy before. susie! they're great. everybody up here is great. everybody up here is very special. but the trump -- who did you say? oh, let me tell you. we have a new star. a star is born.

elon. >> he's an amazing guy. we spent two weeks in philadelphia and different parts of pennsylvania campaigning. he sent the rocket up two weeks ago. i saw that rocket. i saw it coming down. when it was left, it was beautiful, shiny white. when it came down it didn't look so pretty. it was coming 10,000 miles an hour and burning like hell. i said what happened to your paint job? he said we never made a paint that could withstand that kind of heat. i saw it come down and turn around. it's like 22 stories tall, by the way. it looks a little smaller than that but it's big. it came down and down. you saw all that fire burning. i said only elon could do this. and i told the story. i told it last night.

i had a man on the phone. i had the screen muted. no sound. i was talking to a very important man who happens to be here. that very important guy, one of the most important people in i would say the country, actually. but you know, i was president, and now it looks like i was going to maybe be president again so i figured i could ask him to hold. i asked him to hold. especially because you're going to be president again, they hold. so i took the phone down. i'm looking down at the screen. i see this crazy thing that is coming down. it looks like it is going to crash. oh, no! i said do me a favor. do you mind holding for a couple? i want to see this. i thought 2 a space- age movie or something. i put the phone down. i didn't pick it up for 45 minutes and he was holding. this spaceship came down. i saw the engines firing and it looked like it was over. it was going to smash. then i saw the fire pour

out from the left side and put it straight and it came down so gently. and then it wrapped those arms around it and it held it. like you hold your baby at night. your little baby. and it was a. but thing to see. i called elon. i said elon, was that you? he said yes, it was. i said who else can do that? can russia do it? no. can china do it? no. can the united states do it other than you? no. nobody can do that. i said that's why i love you, elon. that's great. when we had the tragic hurricane helline, it was big water. as big as we've ever seen. it built lakes out of nothing. fields became lakes. the danger was unbelievable. the people from north carolina came to me and that would it

be at all possible for to you speak to elon musk? we need star link. what's starlink? a form of communication. i called elon. people were dying. they had no communications. i called elon musk. i said you have something called starlink. yes, i do. what the hell is it? it's a communications system that is very good. i said elon, they need it really, really badly in north carolina. can you get it? he had that there so fast. it was incredible. and it was great. he saved a lot of lives. he's a character. a special guy. a that years genius. we have to protect our geniuses. we don't have that many of them. we have to protect our super geniuses. we have the u.s. open champion. he's fantastic, slightly longer than me. hits the ball a little longer than me. just a little bit.

bryson dechambeau is up here someplace. where is he? bryson! ahh! he's hitting balls. he's on the way. he's hitting balls. bryson! he had a great, he has a great career going. great u.s. open, bryson. a fantastic job. and we have dana white. he's a tough guy. so dana started at usc and came to me.

nobody wanted to give him -- they said it is a rough sport. a little rough. and i helped him out a little bit. and i went and i said this is the roughest sport i've ever seen. i began to like it and he loved it. and nobody has done a better job the at sports. and he's a very motivational kind of guy. he gets these fighters. and they really go at it. it's become one of the most successful sports. he's doing so well. i would like dana to say a couple words. people love to hear from him. >> nobody deserves this more than him and nobody deserves this more than his family does. this is what happens when the machine come after you. what you've seen over the last several years, this is what it looks like. couldn't stop him. he keeps going forward.

he's the most resilient man i've ever met in my life. this is karma, ladies and gentlemen. he deserves this. they deserve it as a family. i want to thank some people real quick. ayden ross, theo, last but not least, the mighty and powerful joe rogan. and thank you, america. thank you. have a good night. >> that's a piece of work. he's an amazing guy. most of all, i want to thank the millions of hard- working americans across the nation who have been the heart and soul of this really great movement. we've been through so much together. and today you showed up in record numbers to deliver a victory like really, probably like no other. this was something.

this was something special. we're going to pay you back. it has to be turned around. it has to be turned around fast. we'll turn it around and do it in every way in so many ways. we'll do it in every way. this will forever be remembered as the day america regained control of the country. so i want to say that on behalf of this great group of people, these are hard- working people, these are fantastic people. and we can add a few names like robert f. kennedy jr. he came out. and he's going to help make america healthy again.

he's a great guy. he really means it. he wants to do some things and we'll let him go to it. i just that, bobby, leave the oil to me. we have more liquid gold, oil and gas, we have more liquid gold more than any country in the world. more than saudi arabia. more than russia. bobby, stay away from the liquid gold. other than that, go have a good time, bobby. we're going to be paying down debt, reducing taxes. nobody else can do it. china doesn't have what we have. nobody has what we have. we have the greatest people also. maybe that's the most important thing. this campaign, this campaign has been so historic in so many ways. we've built the biggest, the broadest, the most unified coalition. they've never seen anything like it in all of american history.

young and old, rural and urban. we had them all helping us tonight when you think. i was looking it a. i was watching it. some great analysis of the people who voted for us. nobody has ever seen anything like that. they came from all corners. union, nonunion, african american, hispanic american, asian- american, arab american, it was an historic realignment uniting citizens of all backgrounds around a common core of common sense. you know, we're the party of common sense. we want to have borders. we want to have security. we want to have things with good and safe. run a strong and powerful military. four years, we had no wars. except we defeated isis. we defeated isis in record

time. but we had no wars. they said he will start a war. i won't start a war. i'll stop wars. this is also a massive victory for democracy and for freedom. together we're going to unlock america's glorious destiny. we'll achieve the most incredible future for our people. yesterday as i stood at my last stop on the campaign trail. i'll never be doing a ral ly again. can you believe it? i think we've done 900 rallies. can you imagine? 900. 901. something. a lot of rallies. and it was sad. everybody was sad. many people, i said this is our last rally. now we're going on to something far more important. the rallies were used for us to be put in this position where we can really help our country. that's what we're going to

do. we're going to make our country better than it has ever been. i said that many people have told me that god spared my life for a reason. and that reason was to save our country and to restore america to greatness. and now we are going to fulfill that mission together. we're going to fulfill that mission. the task before us will not be easy but i will bring every ounce of energy, spirit, and fight that i have in my soul to the job that you've entrusted to me. this is a great job. there is no job like this. this is the most important job in the world. just case in my first templt we had a great first term. my great firm term. i will govern by a simple motto. promises made, promises kept.

we'll keep our promises. nothing will stop me from keeping my word to you the people. we will make america safe, strong, prosperous, and free again. i'm asking every citizen across our land to join me in this noble and righteous endeavor. that's what it is. it is time to put the divisions of the past four years behind us. it is time to unite. we have to try. it will happen. success will bring us together. i've seen that. i've seen that. i saw that in the first term when we became more and more successful. people started coming together. success is going to bring us together. we are going to start by all putting america first. we have to put our country first for at least a period of time. we have to fix it. together we can truly make america great again for

all americans. so i want to tell what you a great honor this is. i will not let you down. america's future will be bigger, better, bolder, richer, safer and stronger than it has ever been before. god bless you and god bless america. thank you very much. all right, donald trump taking a victory lap of sorts. i do not think that as far as i know, any major news organization has declared him to be the victor but it certainly seems that he is on his way to that point. and there he is giving a generally, as far as he goes, unifying and generous speech. he invited to speak his

campaign managers as well as dana white, as well as his rupt senator j.d. vance of ohio. maybe i missed something. has anyone actually declared him? in any case -- >> fox. >> fox has. in any case, he's well on his way tom point. >> he did not dispute in any way the results of this election. so obviously he is feeling more confident in it. >> i think there was one in that long speech. there was one key line. america has given us an unprecedented mandate. it may not be unprecedented. but there's no other way you can read these election results than he has received a mandate. in his personal victory, in the senate, the republicans taking the senate and picking up more seats than expected. he said they've taken the house. they haven't taken the house yet. nobody has declared that.

i don't see any other way to read this than he has a mandate to fulfill his agenda. >> 100%. one of the things that is so significant is the democrats treated his first term as a fluke because he lost the popular vote and won the electoral vote. and in that sense, it was to a degree, although that has certainly happened in history before. this is a sweeping victory. john and i were going over the margin of error even in the blue states, new jersey and new york. he significantly shrank the partisan chasm in those states. and we have declared the republicans will take back the senate. we don't know what will happen to the house. but he does have a sort of mandate without question. >> yes. and he talked in this speech about the promises that he's made. and he said he's going to keep

them. so some of the most clear promises that he has made are on the economy. very, very sharp tariffs that have been controversial in the business world and economists, assuming he gets that through, assuming that happens, we will see if that is true or whether it will help. on the immigration front, since the minute he came down that escalator in 2016, a huge topic for him. this time around it's ahead said point blank, he is going to engage in mass deportation. we'll see how that works. we'll see just even the mechanism of that. and the other thing that i don't think we should lose sight of is that he has said very clearly, multiple times that he will go after and prosecute his enemies. how he will go about doing that, what that means for who

would be his attorney general, we will have to wait and see. we should remember that if he is the person who raises his hand and takes the oath of office, january 20, 2025, thanks to the supreme court, there will be far fewer guardrails, checks on him legally. that will be the law of the land that he will be able to do a lot more. and not to mention the federal indictments against him will almost surely disappear. >> they're gone. >> he talked about putting the last four years behind us. those are some things that will go away. i want to recognize something dana white said, this is karma. to hear that through the lens of his supporters. between his convictions, impeachments, et cetera, that he has been persecuted and this

was their response to that. that was a huge applause line in that room. >> yeah. there is a man who was impeached twice. a man who has survived two assassination attempts. one of them very serious. four indictments. almost 100 charges. and it looks like he will have walked through all of it. >> and on 34 counts, a convicted felon. >> and we'll see what happens on that conviction. what punishment he faces. i don't understand how a man like that couldn't feel tremendously empowered to do whatever he wants. because he has got the mandate. the system i don't believe it was a persecution by the system or a weaponization, but he certainly does. and it seems to me he'll feel, they did their worst to me and i survived and i thrived and the country gave me a mandate. >> i think there are a lot of americans watching who

are trying to make sense of tonight. trying to figure out why this happened. and i know there are those who think that this is a manifestation of ugliness among their fellow americans. this is a vote for bigotry, a vote for mysogyny, a vote for racism, et cetera. i want to take a moment and reflect on the fact that if you look at the reasons why the voters who decided this election voted the way they did, it is not because of those parts of the maga movement or trump's comments in the past. it's not about vindicating trump for the lawsuits or the criminal charges or the impeachments. the people who decided thisthis election.

the people in the being states who switched or turned out don't like the country as it is right now. mainly because of the three issues. like people like it or not, donald trump ran an issues- based campaign. whether or not his two- hour stem winder rally speeches covered all of it. it was mainly because of the economy and the beating the people are taking at the gas pump and the grocery stores, inflation, and immigration, the fact immigration, there is a crisis at the border. there has been for several years. the first couple years of the biden administration they were in denial about it. and asked as though anyone who asked about it also having to do with foreman policy. you can say you can look at what is happening in ukraine and what is happening in the middle east and all over

the world and believe that or not believe trumps only had something to do with it but it is true there are wars going on right now that were not going on during his presidency. i am not saying correlation. but i know there are people out there who are worried that this is a statement. this vote for donald trump is a statement of dislike of them. and i don't think that is what people should read into. >> i agree with most of what you said. this is a man who would get up at rallies and say i am your retribution. this would go back to the david axelrod. there are millions of people who feel that there is an inside game. where the democratic party coaches them almost like missionaries. like we want to help you and make you like us. he was in effect saying i am representing you against those people. i agree

that a lot of it doesn't have to do with misogyny and racism. but i do feel that there is a, one of the big dividing lines is college educated people and not college-educated people. there is certainly a class element. >> i'm saying that the people who swung their votes, changed their votes, decided this election. i am not saying all 85 million. i am just saying, i think that people need to think about the economic reasons first and foremost. >> that's what i was going to say is that one of the things that, i think maybe the biggest thing that donald trump renovated from was the fact that he had been in the white house before. and the economy was better. and people remember that. and that is such a fundamental across-the-board for pretty much everyone who

voted for him. >> your takeaways for what we heard from donald trump >> just on that conversation that you were having, what i am hearing from the trump campaign in the last hour or so if they are looking at these numbers. they are taking all of that and saying, what the margins are in these states that they were so worried about as of this morning. and also looking at the popular vote and believing all of that is an affirmation of what they have been saying on the campaign trail for the last two years. donald trump arguing about the current administration and believing it was a message that resonated that despite moments like the madison square garden rally and all these other, where all of that did not necessarily matter and it was still essentially what he has been arguing. on immigration or the economy. criticizing the message or not, that is what came through. i think the other thing that

stood out being on the stage tonight was the power around him. susie wells getting up there, she did not speak. she was the only person he called to get on stage who did not say a word. >> and adamantly shook her head that she was going to speak. >> one of the most powerful and influential people of this campaign. >> absolutely. her name has already been floated. there are a lot of people around him that believe if she wants that job, she can have it. that she is the best person fit for it because they believe she is somebody who can keep him at least somewhat in line. we know that he is not somebody who can be controlled. but for the most part, susie wiles has been a very good job at trying to keep him in line as much as you possibly can. and one thing i want to point out, when we saw,

harris ascended to the top of the ticket, there was an argument inside of the trump campaign that kept pushing out. if donald trump would beat her, it would be because they would be able to link her to the current administration and the unhappiness that americans felt particularly when it came to issues like immigration, crime, inflation. and they believed, they kept pushing that message, trying to drown out all the other noise, particularly the noise with having donald trump as a candidate. somebody who says whatever. if they could drown him out with this constant messaging about the economy in particular, about crime, that they could win this election. if that is why the people voted, they were right. obviously we saw the enthusiasm that came with kamala harris but their point was that at the end of the day if he can make the case that she is tied to the current administration, then they can make the case to when in november. and i can

guarantee you they believe and they feel very good about the stock that they stuck to that messaging. donald trump did not always stick to the messaging but the campaign was pushing that. >> that was something you saw constantly. it was a different campaign than what we had seen. the candidate himself was the candidate. there weren't major staff shakeups week before the actual race. and that was a question of the closing message. a lot of them began to feel that way. obviously today changed their perspective. she did not attend the trial in manhattan, we have heard from her. we saw him at donald

trump's actual announcement two years ago. but kushner was not there -- ivanka was not there. she has largely stayed out of the light. after his conviction as we talked about, she never came down with him. she wasn't there. she was never seen publicly with him. and there was a lot of questions about that. even he brought up on the campaign trail how she was there on the campaign trail in 2016 and 2020. and she had largely disappeared. it was notable that she was there today. speaking to somebody earlier who said they weren't even sure she was going to show up to that watch party. everything started shifting. but she has really taken a back seat. >> obviously a moment that jd

vance and donald trump summed up. jd vance calling it the greatest political comeback ever. and donald trump saying he believed they had seeing the results for a reason. obviously the question is what that means and what is to come. >> thanks so much. and anderson, it is hard to think of a political comeback that is actually more significant than this one. i am tempted to say richard nixon but that falls short of what donald trump has done. >> not just the electoral votes but the popular vote as well. continued discussion about what this means and obviously democrats are going to be looking at this very closely about what it was that, why they didn't deliver. >> and we talked a little about that. we should talk about what

it wasn't. it may have been a mandate for some of the policies around the economy and immigration. there will be battles over some aspects of that and their wisdom of some of it. but certainly he should feel like he has been affirmed on that. it wasn't a mandate to wantonly use the power of the presidency to publish his political enemies, it wasn't a mandate to help enrich himself and his friends. it wasn't a mandate to single out groups in our society for scorn. i would love to hear from van on this. but let's be absolutely blunt about it. there were appeals to racism in this campaign and there is racial bias in this country and there is sexism in this country and anybody who

thinks that that did not in anyway impact the outcome of this race is wrong. i am not saying that was the main reason. i think they ran honestly strategically his campaign, i said many times, they ran a very smart campaign. it was ultimately rational, well conceived and well executed campaign for an irrational candidate. and they overcame him to sell his message or the message that they thought he should be selling. let's not confuse what this was and wasn't. let's be very clear about it. >> i think it's going to be a long time for us to figure out what it was and wasn't. i do think it is bitter in the mouth. the racial and gender dimension of this. the only way

that you can begin to see it, can you imagine a woman of color acting like donald trump acted, even for one day. the kinds of things that he did, the way that he would insult people, you don't feel like you have that freedom. you feel like you really are somewhat constrained. you are always running something in the back of your mind. how am i going to be perceived. will they think that all black people are this way or all women are this way? there is a license that he has to just be a fool. just to be an obnoxious to everyone. and for people to go well, he can still be president. there is nobody who doesn't have that phenotype that feels that free. and so i do think that what i am hearing from people is, what do we have to do to be

acceptable? people see things very differently. kamala harris, she is not oprah or beyonce, she is not some untouchable black woman in the popular. but she is a respectable woman and she is somebody who served in all three branches, served in the courts, the legislature, and executive branch, local, state, federal. she should have been qualified enough to be able to not have this sort of outcome. just give me a second. i think what happened last time, everybody ran to the economic. the tea party was just people, they had economic anxiety. but the people with the most economic anxiety were lacking from people. many of these can be true at the same time. >> may be a bad messenger and the bad message. kamala harris

has never run an election in a state that wasn't 100% democratic. she has been elected in the state of california her entire career. she has run as a prosecutor, ag, she ran for senate, and she has never had to build a coalition, never had to really campaign. when she ran for president on her own, she tanked. she didn't get anywhere. so when this came about, she didn't run again. she has never been tested. running for president is a skill. barack obama wasn't good at it when he started. barack obama got good at it. you helped him get good at it. maybe she was just a bad messenger. >> plenty of ways to cave

creek-- critique her as a candidate. i think the fundamental point, no one, i don't care how good a candidate you were. it is very hard when there is a 20% right track number in this country. when two thirds think the economy is bad, regardless of what it is. >> i am saying the message. >> yes. that is all true. but that doesn't obviate the fact that there were some people who probably voted against her. we have never had a woman president. there is sexism in this country, there are people who voted against her because of that. clearly people voted for her. >> michelle obama is one of the most admired people in america. >> trust me. there were plenty

of people who weren't terribly happy about it. >> i think that the wrong take away from this would be that by running toward the center and away from positions, that was a mistake and she should have doubled down on ultraleft and tried to play to the progressive base. i think this is a sweeping indictment of the progressive left that has gone so far that it alienates so much of the center. there is a rural urban divide but a cultural divide where people feel left behind for part of the democratic party. and i think she was right to moderate. that is what she should have done. but she had a three month window to do that. she is somebody who is not battle tested and was bearing the brunt of joe biden for 2019. >> donald trump on the brink of a stunning victory. also fighting for control of the house.

>> and historic election night with donald trump poised to win back the white house. let's take a look. the magic number obviously 270. let's look at the battleground states we have not called yet. kamala harris 45.6%. donald trump 320,968 vote lead. with 81% of the estimated vote in from the wolverine state. in wisconsin, donald trump 51.1%. donald trump with a 120,903 vote lead in a state with 94% of the estimated vote reported. donald trump with a 31,000 point lead.

with an estimated 54% of arizona vote. 76% of the estimated vote in. >> haven't called michigan or wisconsin or the western states. we are still waiting on control of the house which now becomes vital. donald trump is winning the popular vote.

another way, to get to 270, to officially get there donald trump either we call wisconsin or michigan soon. when alaska comes in later, that would get him to the edge. donald trump is knocking on the door. he is going to get there. he is going to get there. i am probably not supposed to say that but he is going to get there. here's another way to score this. excuse me for turning my back. this is where we are right now. that number could change. we have 50 states. republicans are winning 31 to 19. in a football game, if the coach will get together and say what can we do differently? ronald reagan 149 states. the next election, george bush won 40 states. and democratic governors, bill clinton in arkansas, jim hunt in north carolina, the

democratic governor of florida. governors say we have a problem, what are we going to do about it? this is going to be a fascinating conversation. because you see the three states. it is possible the vice president picks up one of the other. the math is pretty damning. democratic governor, democratic governor. arizona is going republican. where are the people going to stand up? that is my biggest question. and say houston we have a problem, how do we fix it? back in the bill clinton days, that was the democratic leadership council. you just had one at the table. a lot of those conversations are happening. democrats need a new way to talk about urban america. to talk about crime and a new way to talk about and counter donald trump what the democrats call fake populism.

the democrats say it is fake populism, how do we answer? why is that happening out there? that is what the messaging problem is. and when you say what are they talking about, this is what they are talking about. we were standing on a platform here. donald trump is getting 50% of the vote right now in that county. those used to be democrats. those are blue-collar workers a few miles north of detroit. a lot of them are union members. 58% of the vote. in an election where democrats are trying to pull back, donald trump took more. there you see it. then you come to oakland county. this was republican territory. donald trump at 42% in 2020, at 43%, just a tad better. trump made

gains with blue-collar workers. this is going to take a while to analyze all of this. collar workers. joe biden had 45%. and it is a point or two but the democrats are in the wrong direction. a lot of democrats scoff when they see all this in the middle. nobody lives there or flyover states. when the score is 31 to 19, it is time to have a conversation about who we are talking to and who we are losing and who won't listen to us. that is the issue

there. talking about this earlier, joe biden got 61% in new york state. it is a blue state. 61% in 2020. the vice president is down to 56%. so even in the reliable blue states, margins are down. you can write it off if you want. to the really bad cost-of-living climate you live in. but you can also say our message did not counter his message. he is winning 96%. all that i five point race. four years ago it was 10 points. even in places that are blue on this map, the margins are more narrow. your margins have shrunk even in the states where you have one for years. the three states that may joe biden president in 2020 once again

made donald trump president. we are not done with account there but you see that as well. >> still ahead. will republicans hold onto the house or will democrats take it back? the latest on that plus more on donald trump on the verge of victory and what comes next.

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or a parasitic infection. don't change or stop asthma medicines without talking to your doctor. ask your eczema specialist about dupixent. >> donald trump now 266 votes, just for shy of what is needed for him to return to the white house. boris sanchez is looking power. current balance of >> reported projections to bring you. sleeps in crossover districts beginning with the 22nd house district in new york. this is in upstate new york in the syracuse area. a district that joe biden won. democrats john manion defeating brandon williams to take that seat. and we anticipate flipping for democrats. the opposite happening in the

eighth district. he is now projected to win that seat. what does this mean 40 magic number. democrats have to pick up. the math starts to get a little bit complicated. keep in mind, there are districts where republicans are leading in places where democrats hold seats. these are results, we are getting them in the 19th district. in the ithaca area. josh riley, democratic is

currently up 3600 votes in front of freshman republican incumbent. another one to tell you about, this one on long island. another district joe biden won four years ago. currently leading republican incumbent. 92% of the vote in this district. this is the northern suburbs of phoenix. you have the democrat in this race. an e.r. doctor. slim margins. obviously still a close race. let's take a look, beginning with the district in pennsylvania. this is house

district 7. you have ryan mckenzie leading susan wilder by roughly 5500 votes. 99% of the vote. it looks like it is trending in that direction. in michigan house district 7. leading by 17,000 votes against curtis hurdle. this is in the lansing area. this has an open seat. meantime a key race from alaska. the republican leading the democrat incumbent. actually the first native alaskan ever voted to congress. this is an open format in alaska so you see her going against a fellow democrat. 55% of the vote. obviously alaska at a state that donald trump one. what does that mean for the balance of power in the

house of representatives? 169 democrats with one pickup, 197 with four pickups for republicans. 69 seats remaining up for grabs. as you know, to 18 needed for control. >> we will check in with you a little bit later on as well. ashley allison is joining us. obviously this is not the outcome you had hoped for. what are you looking at about what went wrong? >> i think she wasn't able to put the coalition together she needed to in each of the states. it was never going to look the same. but we have always talked about this would be in the margins. if you pull off even 1% of the base constituency. you are not going to be able to keep that state or hold that state. so i have

heard a lot of people talk about the conversations we need to have. and i think we do need to have conversations as a party. but the conversation i want to have is for people who showed up and voted for kamala harris and tell them to hold their head up high. in 2016, having to walk back into the white house and i was embarrassed to go to work because i felt like i had filled our country. despair is not the time to lose hope. it is the time to dig down, do some soul-searching and fight for a better day. many of the communities that are most vulnerable and are really afraid right now, the trans community, immigrants, people of color. some people of color voted for donald trump. but you are worthy, visible, you're not alone. so you can feel what you feel right now but we have to do work to protect the most vulnerable. and for the people who did support donald trump, we have sat on this network and

people have said the things that he said about retribution and going after his enemies. when he does that, it is your responsibility to hold him accountable and not let him do that and not let him undermine democracy. because it is bigger than him. this is not his country. it is our country. he just happens to be most likely elected to run it for four years. >> what do you expect the next couple months to be like? >> look, he has an opportunity here to try to unite the country after a huge victory. he has won the national popular vote for the first time since 2004. this is a big deal. this isn't backing into the office. this is a mandate to do what you said you were going to do. get the economy working again for regular working-class americans, fix immigration, try

to get crime under control, try to reduce the chaos in the world. this is a mandate from the people to do that. i am interpreting the results tonight as revenge of the regular old working-class americans who has been crushed, insulted, condescended. they are district of people who get up and go to work everyday and trying to make a better life. and they feel like they have been told to just shut up. they have complained about the things that are hurting them in their own lives. i also feel like this election as we sit here and pour over this tonight is something of an indictment of the political information complex. we have been sitting around for the last couple weeks and the story that was portrayed was not true. we were told puerto rico was going to change the election. liz cheney, nikki haley voters, women lying to their husbands.

before that it was tim walz. night after night after night we were told all these things and gimmicks were going to somehow push harris over the line. and we were just ignoring the fundamentals. inflation, people feeling like they are barely able to tread water at best. that was the fundamental of the election. so i think both parties should look at the results and figure out what went right and wrong. i think for all of us who cover elections and talk about elections and do this on a day-to-day basis, we have to figure out how to understand talk to and listen to the half of the country that rose up and said we have had enough. >> i think we have to listen to everybody. i've been seeing this whole time, the poles did not have it right. the spread in some of these battleground states are larger. not as close as we thought it was going to be. we thought we were going to

be counting. it hasn't been called get the likelihood he gets to 270 is highly probable. the people who voted for kamala harris are struggling to. they are feeling ignored too. a republican pain is no greater or less than a democrat. and we have a moment now, i am not saying you're doing this, we can have a i told you so, or we can do what donald trump said. i believe i have the right to feel skeptical of. that he wants to unify this country. actions speak louder than words. >> that is the opposite of what i'm saying. i have been on the losing side of tough nights here in my professional life. it is not easy to lose a race like this. one of my most crushing nights was 2012. i know it was one of your best. i

understand. and i do think the new president has a responsibility to make the whole country feel like they can be part of a more optimistic future. i think the way this campaign was run was basically on the democrats thought there were enough people who hated trump or were willing to win the race. there is more to making president than simply not being donald trump in the eyes of the people. they have been told trump is modern-day hitler or at least a fascist. now, harris is going to wake up and concede to that person. and then, she has to go to the senate and certify the election. >> which she will do. >> i am a little concerned about an election in which half the country was conditioned to believe that the person who just one the national popular vote is going to be a dictator, eliminate the constitution and so forth. we have to reckon

with that. >> the people who said that he was a hitler lever weren't democrats. they were republicans. they were republicans who worked for him. so it is not just these elite democrats over here. you had a pretty broad consensus from that was very concerned and remains concerned. so it is not just on us to stop calling names. it is up to him to indeed show he is not going to be those things. >> not just the elite democrats. just the elites. >> you just dismiss it. >> i am not dismissing it. how do you look at these results and not conclude that the non-elite parts of the country basically said we have had enough. whether that was enough on the economy or immigration

or what you did during covid. whatever. that has always been the appeal. is that you all are being misled by the elites. the experts. the institutions and whatever. he didn't get along with them in this election and it looks like the people agreed. >> scott, look. first of all, i am always willing to be introspective about how we talk about these things and how we think about them. they weren't actually that wrong. they are going to be mostly a discussion we ought to have. but you sat on this maybe at this very table in january of 2000--

2021. you are someone who believes in the institution. the reason that people are worried and wary about donald trump is because of the way donald trump has behaved. when he was president, after he was president. and during the campaign. how many times do we have a discussion about his message as related in his campaign ads and the disturbing things he says about jailing his opponents and shooting his opponents. it is not like people make that stuff up. it is concerning. i would say to you that it is the responsibility of people who supported him to hold him as we should hold him to the commitment that he made to work on the problems of the american people. and to not indulge in the kind of craziness that we sometimes heard from him.

>> cnn election coverage continues after this.

>> welcome back to cnn special live coverage election night in america. at this moment, donald trump looks like he is about to what is an historic political comeback. dismantling democrats wall. you can see right behind me we have 266 electoral votes. 4 short of the 270 he needs to officially win. but all signs point to that right now. let's get over to phil mattingly at the magic while. trump at 266 electoral votes. we have not officially called the race yet. what still remains? >> there is a lot to dig into about what it happened. but he is 4 short of the threshold. he

is not there yet. what is outstanding, why hasn't it been called? we don't call races. we don't get paid to do that. but what we do know is what is outstanding. everything in gray is what we have not called. everything that is filled and has been called. it is vertical to know at this moment, states that have not been called get that add up to 270 are very much heading in donald trump's direction right now. why do we say he is on the brink of winning? start here. the state of alaska has not been called yet, 56% reporting. that is a pretty substantial lead. like he is on track. the expectation was this was a state that would go into republican hands. that is three electoral votes. looking for one additional electoral vote.

the expectation was that he would win. where does it stand right now? a healthy eight point lead. add that one vote to alaska, there is your 270. what else hasn't been called? michigan, wisconsin, arizona, nevada. the biggest tale of the night is the fact that new jersey has not been called. if you are a democrat, new jersey still had not been called in your favor. back in 2020 joe biden won by nearly 16 points. there is no expectation that kamala harris is going to lose new jersey but the fact that it has been called tells you a lot. wisconsin, michigan, the sunbelt states, north carolina. what do you notice about all

seven. >> >> we will start with michigan. donald trump up by 324,000 votes. these were states that were decided by tens of 20,000 votes back in 2016. joe biden bumped it up higher than that. that is a huge margin. over to wisconsin. donald trump with 96% reporting is up by 108,000. >> that is a very big margin in wisconsin. full stop >> if you don't believe john berman, your mistake, however, we are back to 2020. back to 2016, donald trump won by 22,000 votes. where are we in 2024? donald trump with 96% reporting is up by 108,000. we haven't even gotten into arizona and nevada which are on the early side of reporting. all seven of the battlegrounds.

looking toward either already called or heading toward donald trump. >> a very good description of why we haven't already called the race yet even though every single sign is pointing to a trump victory. we are on the precipice of donald trump perhaps being declared officially the next president of the united states. now the question is, why? what did we see in some of these key battleground states? let's look at pennsylvania. tells the story of what has happened. >> if you look at pennsylvania, this has been ground zero for democrats and republican campaigns. more than 100 million in ad spending. this was the linchpin state. that lead is double what joe biden won by in 2020. if you want to understand why donald trump is where he is and why he flipped it back, let's start here. where are the places he outperformed 2020 numbers by 3% or more? that is a significant

over performance. in the eastern part of the state, joe biden was able to keep the margins down. he was able to cut into donald trump's 2016 margins. these are blue-collar areas. working-class white voters without college degrees. doing it in a major way. the other thing, this is the biggest concern. there were two theories. the democrats said we have to run up huge margins in suburban areas in particular. talking about allegheny county. you need to ensure that donald trump doesn't cut into far to urban areas. sean that he was making inroads with black voters. that will balance out any of trumps support in these rural counties where he was going to run up huge margins. this is philadelphia county,

12% of the voting population is here. the biggest county in the commonwealth of pennsylvania. you must be doing very well. let's look at what happened in 2020. she is underperforming. now let's push out into those counties. this is montgomery county, where joe biden blew out the margins in 2020. underperforming. bucks county, a county joe biden flipped in 2020. won by four points. harris actually losing the county. that is the case up and down the democratic strongholds. not just in pennsylvania but throughout the blue wall. >> i think it is important to note he is over performing almost everyone in pennsylvania but by less than three points. in philadelphia and montgomery county. >> that leads into what i was saying initially. there was a theory which was hold down bidens margin in the stronghold

and cut into them particularly in the bigger cities. but then in your strongholds on places like butler county obviously. it is where the assassination attempt took place. 65.9% to 33%. he is around there, over into beaver county 58% back in 2020. what is he doing this time around? bumping it up. you knew trump was going to win. it was just a matter of how much. this is not a blue wall story. this is not a sunbelt story. if you pull up every single county in the country. and you show where donald trump has outperformed his results by 3% or more. look at all the counties. these are not just in white working-class communities without a college degree. this is upper new york. the reason

that new jersey hasn't been called yet. this is in the border of the texas region. this is out west as well. this is the window. a one segment type of victory. this is a sweeping victory and come back. >> donald trump leads the popular vote by 4% as well. phil mattingly. we have a lot of time to talk about this, we are going to keep on digging into the numbers. cnn has been studying the numbers all night. we have assembled the best team in the business. we will talk about the american elected electorate and piece together the puzzle that has really created an incredible night here. cnn special live coverage continues after this.

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cnn special live coverage election night in america. if you're just tuning in, donald trump appears poised to become the 47th president of the united states. taking a wrecking ball to the so-called blue wall states that the harris team thought was its best path to the white house. a couple of caveats off the top. there is still vote to count. cnn has not projected some of the critical battleground states and a couple others that will formally decide the presidency. that does increasingly look like a formality. donald trump is just short of the 270 electoral votes he needs to win. he's at 266 right now. but three big battlegrounds north carolina, georgia and pennsylvania have all gone for trump. and the remaining four battlegrounds arizona, nevada, michigan and wisconsin trump leads in all of them. the vote left to count is quickly shrinking. the take away seems to be that the electorate is mad as hell and

they will not take it any more. the economy mattered most to voters. everything else that mattered did not matter nearly as much. january 6th, immigration, abortion. the chaos of the final few weeks. the biczar behavior, the offensive, often racist, sexist musings of donald trump seem not to have mattered at least not as much. crucially we're seeing what could very well be a political realignment. according to the exit polls the democratic coalition of the working class, black men, latinos, white women who helped propel joe biden to the white house four years ago, they're now offering donald trump a ladder to power. just a short time ago trump spoke to his supporters in florida and made a nod to unifying the country. >> we're going to help our country heal. help our country heal. we have a country that needs help and it needs help

very badly. we're going to fix our borders. we're going to fix everything about our country. >> all right. as we said some key states have not been officially called. stand by for a key race alert. we are waiting still for the official calls from arizona, nevada, michigan and wisconsin. you can see where the results stand right now in arizona with 11 electoral votes up for grabs. donald trump with a 48,000 vote lead at this point. 55% of the vote in. he is ahead there by 2.5 points. in nevada six electoral votes up for stake. donald trump ahead by some 57,000 votes there. almost 5%. that's with 88% in. both arizona and nevada were states that joe biden won four years ago. if these results hold they would be flips for donald trump. the same is true in michigan with 15 electoral votes. donald trump there up by

230,000 votes with 86% in. this was a state joe biden won by more than 100,000 votes. so a major flip perhaps in store. in michigan, in wisconsin with 10 electoral votes. donald trump ahead. wisconsin is a state that's always very close within 10, 20, 30,000 votes in elections since the year 2000. that vote lead seems very large, although we're still waiting for a few more votes to be counted there before we have an official call. let's take a look at what that means as far as the electoral map. donald trump has 266 electoral votes at this point. he only needs 270 to win. he is a state or two away at this point from the official call that he will be the 47th president of the united states. vice president kamala harris currently at 205

electoral votes. again, no official call just yet but it does seem very close perhaps even inevitable. let's go to phil mattingly at the magic wall. some of these states we're talking about right now. michigan, wisconsin, let's start there. >> we'll start there. two blue wall states that have not been called yet. donald trump's lead substantial in the state of michigan. 86% reporting. you go into the state of michigan, particularly after the last two cycles and you know where the democratic strongholds are, you know where donald trump needs to do well. let's start with one of those democratic strongholds. wayne county. a ton of vote is outstanding. we'll have to wait and see how that all breaks down. if it looks anything like the current margin, like the current separation between the vice president and donald trump, that explains a lot about what's happening here. this is the largest county in the state. 17.6% of the voting population lives in this state. that margin, you're saying 29 points. that's a great sign for the harris campaign. it's not when you look at what joe

biden's margin was. at five points. these aren't just democratic strongholds. these are critical vote drivers in these states. we see it in milwaukee, wisconsin, philadelphia and pennsylvania. you see it here in wayne. this is one of those areas the democrats have moved heavily into, taken control of and started to turn out major vote over the course of the last couple cycles. this county back in 2020, joe biden won it by 14 points. little more than 14 points. kamala harris underperforming. so the theory of the case from the harris campaign is run up your margins in those critical urban areas and you always run up big margins and blow out your margins in the suburbs. the places like oakland county. that's how you hold down donald trump's gains. smaller but they add up if you add two, three t four points to what he did in 2020. in the suburbs, urban areas, biggest counties and biggest vote drivers that has not happened yet. if you want to know where donald trump

has been overperforming, the counties where he's overperforming by 3% or more. this isn't overperforming by a vote. this is overperforming by a substantial margin, one of them wayne county. move over. the home of ann arbor. ann arbor is not a conservative place. i say that even as an ohio state. right now kamala harris is underperforming. whether that has to do with the gaza issue which is something that is very critical in michigan. whether it has to do with students not turning out when you move back over to wayne county. the african american vote or second largest city in wayne county, deerborn which has the largest arab american population in the state. >> taking a look at other states. in the mean time, i'm going to talk to harry. you have some of the exit polling. you have the story behind the

story from what we've seen all night. >> that's exactly right. look, before the election we were talking about potentially historic realignment. it has born itself out. we can start off with latino voters. kamala harris is leading among latino voters by eight points. there have been exit polls since 1972. no democrat has had such a small lead has kamala harris has right now in the history of the exit polls. asian voters as well. what do we see? kamala harris is leading among them by 18 points. you have to go back since 2004 to find a democrat performing as poorly among asian voters as clam is right now. what about voters under the age of 30. this is another vote in which donald trump is excelling for a republican

candidate. we see kamala harris up by 13 points. significantly worse than joe biden did four years ago. in fact, you have to go back since george w. bush days once again to find a democrat performing that poorly. if donald trump's first victory in 2016 was about winning white working class voters this victory in 2024 was about going into normally democratic pastons and taking those voters a lot of folks never thought he could potentially do. >> thank you very much. i want to bring in my panel of political experts. mark preston. professor leah wright. the story here is obvious to see. donald trump is doing better almost everywhere and in some cases with almost everyone. >> really, you know, i think back to could -- basically democrats who live in the midwest. could the democratic party come back and get them.

there's been a lot of talk over the past decade or so. clearly they're gone. they are gone. i also think the idea that the democratic party is this party that is immediately going to have any kind of immigrant come and support them is kind of gone as well. we've seen that with latino voters now that are not monolithic, one. and two, they're not necessarily beholden to the democratic party. talk about just a realignment across the board. >> big picture take several steps back. we got a guy who was voted out of office four years ago who has been convicted of a crime, who is now either poised to or depending how you look at it pretty much secured the presidency once again. the first president since grover cleveland to be voted out and then back in. just from historical perspective it's stunning. >> it's stunning. it's a reminder it is a referendum not on donald trump but a referendum on the democratic

party. i think that's incredibly important. the 2020 election was absolutely a referendum on donald trump. voters were angry about the pandemic. they held him responsible for the pandemic. they voted for joe biden. the mistake here though is that the democratic party rather than institutionalizing those coalitions that came out of the 2020 election they assumed that those things were a referendum about the democratic party and about the strength of the democratic party. what we're seeing now is that the fractures, the tensions that have really been i think in front of all of us since at least 2016 with hillary clinton's loss to donald trump all of those things are coming to the fore. all of the things the democrats thought they could rely on. the the cultural questions. the questions about donald trump's racism, bigotry. they found out those things are not enough to bind those winning coalitions together. it is no longer enough in american politics to say hey, that guy is a bad guy.

there has to be more. for this election in particular it was about the economy. >> we'll have to take a look at what the numbers say. the wrong track number the right direction, wrong track number in the polls. only 27, 28% of the country thought it was headed in the right direction. that really was a sign that the battle was uphill maybe straight uphill for the democrats. >> if you go into the numbers as i'm sure harry will over the next 25 million hours we'll be on air discussing this, 80% of the voters who supported donald trump saw the economy was on the wrong track. we weren't going in the right direction. we always talk about the economy. seems like we have these discussions every election where the day after we say wow, the economy really was what drove it through. we're tripping ourselves over what we think is the hot button issue that the party is trying to push. abortion in this case. immigration as well. they were

hot issues. really were driving issues. the reality is it's the pocketbook. that really affects people. that's what we saw happen here. >> and continue to see as the night goes on. there's still senate races to call. the house of representatives still up for grabs. all trending in one direction. next we'll go live to the site of the celebration tonight donald trump's campaign headquarters where he spoke not too long ago. much more special election night in america after this.

welcome back to election night in america. i'm kasie hunt in new york. sometimes we overuse the word but we truly did just watch an unprecedented political comeback for donald trump the former president seems poised to cross the 270 electoral college threshold. he holds leads in all the important battleground states. trump hq in florida. of course celebratory mood there tonight. what you're learning, what you're hearing at this hour. >> yeah, i think this will come as no surprise to you, kasie

but when talking to donald trump's advisors, allies, those close to the former president, they obviously say they are excited. they are enthusiastic about where he is. there is a sense of relief. i tell you that. going into tuesday they did not anticipate what we are seeing. we have not yet called the race, but he is well on his way to securing that necessary 270 electoral college votes. they had really thought this was going to be dragged out for longer. they thought this race was going to be much closer. particularly in those key battleground states. than ultimately what we saw unfold overnight. i do want to talk about what we heard donald trump say moments ago when he took to that stage. his election night watch party and gave a speech. i will say as someone who has covered donald trump for several years that as far as his speeches go i would argue that was one of the more

unifying types of remarks we've heard from the former president. he talked about wanting to heal the country. he did declare victory even though like i said we have not yet projected it. i think at that point fox news had called the race for donald trump. but he also mentioned one key thing which i think is so important. this is what i'm also picking up on. they -- we saw that republicans won the senate. donald trump called that a mandate. he said he was given a mandate from the votes but also looking ahead to having a republican senate if he is in office. i think that was a key thing he had mentioned while walking through some of the top priorities that he wants in a future administration. so all in all a good night for donald trump's campaign. they've returned to mar-a-lago. we'll hear more conversations unfolding over the next 24 hours or so as they look to what this means for the former president as well as his campaign. >> yeah, well, what is your sense too of how they're

thinking about a potential -- it's almost not potential any more. they're poised to do it. we have yet to call it. but the second trump administration. who they're going to put in those posts. obviously elon musk someone who has been a huge part of the trump campaign. what are you hearing? >> jockeying has begun. at this point a presidential candidate, one of the nominees you normally have an official transition process. donald trump does have a transition team. they have not gone through some of the more official channels for how that should operate. including working with the biden administration on some of that process. all to say that is because donald trump very superstitious. he did not want to have serious conversations before election day about who would fill top cabinet positions and key administrative roles. however, we are told and this is also according to some reporting

from my colleague and i, some people have been calling donald trump over the last few hours. calling top aides trying to feel out the sense of what possibilities there could be for them in a future administration in this expected administration. so we're starting to see some of that take shape. it's very early on and i will tell you, donald trump as far as, you know, presidential candidates go, he is far behind that process in what we would see normally for a republican nominee and someone who had just essentially won the election. >> i know you're going to be there for us throughout the night. thank you. our panel is here to discuss. as we start, thank you all for being here with us. i want to look at this moment from earlier tonight. donald trump's running mate senator jd vance describing what we're seeing and painting the on going results of this election in no uncertain terms. >> and i think we just

witnessed the greatest political comeback in the history of the united states of america. and under president trump's leadership we're never going to stop fighting for you. for your dreams. for the future of your children. >> the greatest political comeback. kristen, after january 6th i had a hard time imagining we would be here again. how do you -- i mean, you're a pollster who looks at this data all the time. you were wondering for weeks before this what was going to be right about it, what was going to be wrong about it. what did we learn about america? >> i think we learned america is very, very frustrated and was looking for change and in the end decided that change meant going back to something they felt a little more familiar with. donald trump. we know that voters have been angry. they're frustrated. we know these right track, wrong track numbers are terrible.

they can be terrible for a lot of different reasons. democratic voters that say it's terrible because we think donald trump has poisoned the climate and sewed all of these seeds. but a majority of voters seem to be saying we don't think the party that's in charge now can fix these problems. we need to go back to donald trump. it's in some ways the buyer's remorse election. for a lot of voters after january 6th donald trump's job approval was in the mid30s. if you ask voters now did you approve or disapprove of donald trump's job it goes up to almost 50% that say they approved. there is a sense of buyer's remorse. >> michael singleton, you and i have spent so much time over the course of the election cycle. black men in particular the economic anxiety that many were experiencing. and you saw harry enton walk through some of the numbers for groups of voters that honestly voted for joe biden in bigger numbers than they were willing to vote for kamala harris this time.

what do you see? >> look, i think it was indeed a clear mandate. you have a lot of people who do feel left behind. despite ethnic differences. i think the idea that reproductive rights alone was going to propel the vice president certainly helped, clearly you saw women who voted for that issue in terms of state mandates but also voted for donald trump. >> arizona. >> correct. so i think we have underestimated the frustration and the anxiety of a lot of working class people in this country. you're seeing this transformation of the republican party to a multiracial working class party and the democratic party becoming wealthier, more highly educated. the question for me becomes how does the party just these new concerns of these new people. our policies in the past haven't typically addressed their concerns. now they'll have to.

>> jeff duncan, you put it on the line for harris. you were someone who in the state of georgia in the thick of the 2020 election when donald trump tried to change those results, who really felt personally the impact of how that played out. you worked hard for kamala harris. what does it say to you that at the end of the day voters said to donald trump in bigger numbers than we expected we want you back in the white house. >> absolutely. i think towards the tail end of the election cycle it started to become apparent that donald trump as an outsider was better perceived than as an insider. when he was running in 2016 he was an outsider and he was judged on his rhetoric. he was judged on his tone ante nor. in 2020 he was judged on the merits of what he did. how he reacted to covid. how he had issues with foreign leaders. now he embraced that outsider role. and i think he's that -- he's audiblized that angry

voice in peoples heads. inflation, immigration, whatever the issues. he's got to figure out a way to take that from being the mouthpiece of that anger to figuring out how does he solve some of these real problems. he's made a ton of promises. some of them i hope he follows through with and some i hope he doesn't. >> in ways i'm sure for you it feels like you've been here before. last time there was an election where people were based in new york city. there were celebrations ready right at hillary clinton headquarters. i don't think they went so far this time with kamala harris' team. being well aware this was going to be a close election. it's less close than they expected. what lessons to you think the democratic party needs to learn from this? >> i think it's hard for us to say that right here tonight as we're looking at the initial data because don't want to draw broad conclusions. clearly

on the economic message there's something about that that it certainly resinated. but i think what people were missing doesn't exist any more. i'll be curious to see how does trump try to deliver on that promise. our economy is not the same as it was pre-covid. how does he supposedly bring back all this good times. i think it says too that we talked about this over the last couple of years. the administration has not done a good enough job communicating with people about what they've done. the trump campaign was able to once again i think jeff is right tap into frustration and anger as an outsider. without the sort of as an incumbent outsider in some ways. in 2020 it was harder for him to distance himself from being the incumbent. he was in the white house and we were in the middle of a pandemic where we needed to see him every single day talking to us about the economy and what's going

on. >> bakari, you were one of the most optimistic democrats i would talk to. you were very bullish on harris' chances. states like north carolina. other places where clearly didn't go that way. what went wrong? >> i'm not sure what went wrong exactly in terms of the fact that kamala harris ran a gaffe-free, scandal-free, raised a bunch of money, built a plane while she was flying type of operation since july 21st. i do think we saw an electorate move further to the right and the electorate was probably more conservative than we gave it credit for. there are no tears tonight. democrats have been here before. this is not anything new. america gets what they deserve. if you want four more years of donald trump, you have it. more importantly than that, you think about clarence thomas and samuel alito are in their 70s.

the supreme court will change for the future of my kids and my kids kids. that is what was at stake in this particular election. no one's going to say this because everybody tends to get on their high, you know, dr. phil horse and say this country wasn't built on dei when it was literally built on the backs of slaves who did it for free. there is something to say about the fact it's difficult for a woman to lead in this country. and everybody's going to be like oh, no, we rejected identity. no, you didn't. you really -- you literally did not. >> and a woman of color. >> let's back up. you have someone who is 78 years old. who has displayed more misogyny and racism. has been gaffe prone. and what he's going to have for the next four months, five months, six months is the benefit of somebody else's economy. just as he had when he got into office in january of

2017. he benefited from barack obama's economy. what everybody around the table will tell you if they're being intellectually honest is all economic indicators are trending in the right direction. although people may not be feeling it at their kitchen table, every single economic indicator that points to a good economy. >> but it seems like rich people are feeling that and working class people aren't. isn't that the basic message here? isn't that what we're learning from voters? coalition is saying this isn't working for me. >> that has nothing to do with the fact that the economic indicators are what they are. >> i just mean those indicators seem to show the wealthiest are doing well and others are not included. >> that's the problem with my democratic friends and they seem to be aloof to this. you can point to all the charts. people know how much money they have at the end of every single week. they know how much goods cost in the grocery store today compared to four years, five years ago. running on the message that joe biden and

kamala harris have done wonderful things for the economy is just not real for every day people and it's why they said with all due respect we're rejecting this notion. we do want to go back to at least the first two years of the trump term. >> that doesn't exist. you can't. >> why didn't your candidate win then? >> it doesn't have to do with whether or not we won. my point is -- you're going to get in a time machine and go back four yearsing with that's not the point i'm making. the point -- don't look at me like that. >> what's the point? >> the point i'm trying to make is where we were in 2017 and 2018, we can't just get in a time machine and go back. >> the point is your message didn't resinate. >> i said that. >> i think to try to pretend and paint a picture. i get your points in terms of the charts. i get it. i'm a numbers guy. most people are saying i get the numbers. i don't have a 401k. >> i was just saying was for the first six months of 2025,

whatever successes we're going to get on this tv show and claim that donald trump has had are going to be because of the simple fact that the policies put in place were working and people will begin to feel it by then although they don't feel it now. >> before we wrap up here, alex thompson, you have been covering the biden campaign followed by the very abbreviated harris campaign. we have not heard from her yet. we expect to hear from her in the morning. what are you hearing from inside the campaign right now about how they think this happened? what the questions are that are being raised. i certainly already heard some quiet so far but people saying well, joe biden had still been at the top of the ticket would this have been different. i'm skeptical of that. i want to know what you're hearing. >> the finger pointing is starting. it's only going to become more direct. i'll give you two quotes from it people i talked to tonight. former biden advisor. how do you spend $1 billion and not win? what the

f. >> well done. >> there's a lot of f bombs that get thrown as well. >> on the other end just like a long time democratic operative said we slept walked into disaster and swapping the pitcher in the sixth inning wasn't enough. kamala harris did as good a job as he could have done. now, you know, to bakari's point, was it gaffe free? i don't think that's fair. she also went on the view and said, you know, that she couldn't think of anything she would have done differently than joe biden. people would have admitted that was a gaffe. that being said it was a tough hand and she played it pretty well. >> thanks so much. stand by for a cnn projection. we do have breaking news. cnn is ready to

make a projection in new jersey. cnn now projects that vice president harris will carry the state of new jersey. you can see she's some 200,000 votes ahead right now. less than 5 points ahead. she will get new jersey's 14 electoral votes. what's surprising is that it's taken us until what is it, 4:35 a.m. eastern time to call new jersey. it's stunning, in fact, that it has taken this long. one of the biggest surprises is how well donald trump has done in some of the bluer states that we're used to. we will talk about that extensively. right now kamala harris, we do project will win new jersey and its 14 electoral votes in terms of where that puts the electoral map right now. that gives her 219 electoral votes. the big important number is the one on top of that. donald trump is at 266. just four electoral votes away from the 270 he needs to

officially win the white house. those states are ones we have not projected a winner yet in. you can see alaska leaning heavily toward trump. nevada, arizona, wisconsin, michigan. all leaning toward trump right now. he is poised to get to that 270 and perhaps soon. voting desk is tracking them all. we'll get an update after a quick break. you're watching cnn special live coverage of election night in america.

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the #1 prescribed biologic by dermatologists and allergists, that helps heal your skin from within. serious allergic reactions can occur that can be severe. tell your doctor about new or worsening eye problems such as eye pain or vision changes including blurred vision, joint aches and pain, or a parasitic infection. don't change or stop asthma medicines without talking to your doctor. ask your eczema specialist about dupixent. welcome back to cnn special live coverage election night in america. let's get to the voting desk. omar jimenez is standing by there. one of the states we have yet to call, yet to make a projection is in wisconsin. what are you seeing there? >> well, of course at this point we're trying to see where is there additional vote and what the timing is for that additional vote to come in at this point. we have some so we're looking to see if there is -- there are some numbers

where we can find some of that clarity. specifically we want to look at milwaukee. keeping an eye on the margins there. timeline for more info which may be shortly. as we understand from our team on the ground, the thumb drives with the exports from the tabulating machines have been handed off to the county where the upload has now started. as of now the estimate is we'll have those votes within 10 to 15 minutes. at this point it may be less based on what we got to communication. these are the city of milwaukee absentee ballots. part of why this is so critical. let's take a look back at when president biden upon the state in 2020. you see how close it was based on where we are right now with 96% of the vote in at this point. the margin is much bigger than that with donald trump in the lead. these added votes if this timing holds up here within the next few minutes could give us clarity to how this race will turn in the end. >> that is good information there, omar jimenez, thank you

very much. the thumb drives delivered in wisconsin. we could get results, new results from milwaukee very soon. that could be decisive. let's get back to phil at the magic wall here. donald trump leads in wisconsin by 109,000 votes. once we see those ballots in milwaukee, unless kamala harris wins milwaukee by 500,000 votes which is literally impossible we may get a better sense of what officially is happening in the state. >> yeah. >> talk to democrats and republicans, they have a good sense of where this is going. there is significant amount outstanding. largest county in the state of wisconsin. democratic stronghold. not necessarily going to change the race. what's it going to do to this margin? significant margin by five points from what joe biden did. four points from what joe biden did in 2020. the issue harris campaign has had is they're willing to

acknowledge they had work to do in urban areas. donald trump made in roads there. what they said was in places like wisconsin if you push out or go into suburban strongholds. more educated parts of the state, that's where we'll make up for it. that's where we'll balance it out. that's the university of wisconsin. that's the home of madison. you can't be as soft as they've been in urban population centers that used to be strongholds and not make up for a significant way in places like dane. >> we're talking about milwaukee there. let's drive two hours south. projected will go for kamala harris. the numbers in illinois, particularly in chicago. man

are they eye popping. >> yeah, did you and i think we were going to be talking about illinois at this point in the morning after election night? no. but the reason why is the story that it connects to in places like milwaukee. in places like detroit. in places lookout the country where democrats have long held significant advantages in these urban areas and majority african american areas. that's a big margin. 88% reporting. now compare it to 2020. that's stunning. >> that is a huge difference. >> joe biden got 82.5% of the vote in chicago in 2020. kamala harris right now with 88% reporting is at not even 62%. and so people are going to try to figure out we've been looking at exit polls. trying to get a sense of where things stand. if you go into the states where democrats traditionally win and win by a lot, where they are not doing as well as they traditionally do. where donald trump is

overperforming in a place like maryland which is a state we called for kamala harris. they got a new senator. larry hogan was defeated by angela alsobrooks. pop in over here frederick county but also you go into baltimore area. the mar gyp is not near what we saw in 2020. four and five points below. that's the same in prince george's county in maryland. you push up into new jersey, which we just called. this was another thing. i've been tracking this throughout states we normally don't spend a lot of time looking at. where democrats traditionally run up big numbers. traditionally a majority african american population. joe biden won this. kamala harris is underperforming. this is an issue in urban population centers. democrats usually blow out the vote on throughout the

country right now. >> we're going to continue that fascinating conversation you're having. this had me looking at pennsylvania early in the night. it was clear those counties, we've talked about them ad nauseam for months. bucks, chester, montgomery, delaware. those were places harris needed to run up the score if she was going to have a shot here. trump making gains elsewhere in more urban areas. african american black voters. she really needed to get things going there. they ran a strategy aimed at that late in the game here. it wasn't enough. what is going on? >> it's hard to say what's going on at 4:45 when we got the results a little while ago. what we saw was black voters held the line in these urban centers and i think you'll see that. many of the exit polls

still have him at about 12, 13, 14%. but it didn't offset the slight tick that you saw in every single rural county around those states of pennsylvania or georgia where he would tick up three points from last year and she would either hold pat or just fall slightly behind what joe biden performed at. so, you know, at the end of the day you were comparing everything to 2020 and they just did not meet that mark. the question is why. what was that fundamental inability to meet that mark and not being able to justify set the rural uptick we saw donald trump being able to achieve. >> we can't underestimate. can somebody run a 100 day, 107 day campaign and win and it was always going to be very hard. they were trying to change out

the crew, put in the jet fuel. so i think as we get more data and better understand what's happening in the electorate, some of it may be things we've talked about. the electorate didn't feel like they knew her well enough or didn't feel like they knew whether or not they could trust her with the economic issues which by the way, for women candidates the economy and national security are always two very hard issues where you have to, you know, shore up your credentials and pointing back to 2016, sexism. i'm going to say also racism and bias had to have played a role. >> what you're saying is part of the reason why a lot of democrats are very angry at joe biden tonight. they feel that the decision to run again when he was 80 years old was very reckless. risky decision. a risky gamble that he lost. then he chose kamala harris. not just in 2020 but he chose her

basically gave already $100 million head start when he endorsed her and gave her his campaign. you know, in some ways while a lot of people want to say well, kamala was bad in an interview. she was bad in an interview with 60 minutes. there are a lot of democrats that are much more angry at joe biden tonight. >> just say, yes, i was expecting that because some felt like if he'd have dropped out sooner and she would have ascended as the nominee she would have had more time. >> yeah. i don't think there's any candidate no matter when they started. this decisive of between republicans and democrats. the right choice was putting kamala harris in when they did. these numbers would be worse if joe biden was going to be the candidate. if you'd have plugged kamala or anybody else in earlier, this was a mandate by america. >> really quick, i think the question was if you'd had a process two years ago. >> if there was a real democratic primary.

>> once again, donald trump ran as the outsider and people appealed to it. if they ran the same messaging they did afternoon didn't talk about the economy or didn't take the border seriously enough it would have been the same result. i think what i see is there was a multitude of issues inside the democrats. as i was campaigning in pennsylvania, wisconsin, north carolina, georgia. there's all kinds of issues. they weren't speaking about the economy. the transgender issue bothered some segments of the group. abortion was one spoken in two different divisions. there's a healthcare portion and a birth control element to it the democratic party has a lot of work to do and soul searching. >> coming up next here, a rubber stamp for the trump agenda? the on going fight to control congress. we have much more. cnn special live coverage coming up in it minutes.

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brink of clinching 270 electoral votes and the white house. control of congress is as at stake here. cnn projected the senate for the republicans. but still some key senate races are outstanding. we're lucky to have jessica dean tracking it all. jessica, what's the latest? >> let me walk you through some key race alerts we have been following as this night has gone on. these are in the blue wall states we've paid so much attention to. let's start in pennsylvania. dave mccormick leading bob casey. that's with 95% of the vote in. this was a seat democrats certainly hoping to hang on to. dave mccormick ran last time in the primary. he did not win. this is his second try at it. let's take a look at our next state here. michigan. mike rogers leaving alyssa a current representative at 48.5 to 48.4. just a razor

thin margin in michigan with 91% of the vote in. and also in wisconsin where you have leading the incumbent democrat tammy baldwin. 94% of the vote in there. all three of those would be pick ups for republicans who already control the house. because take a look -- i'm sorry, the senate. the balance of power with republicans at 51 to democrats 41. they've picked up two seats tonight. so now the question is will they continue to pick up more seats. that is what we're tracking. all three blue wall states should they go republican would be pick ups for the republicans. >> very close though especially in michigan right now. the question is how long are donald trump's coat tails there we could find out in the next several minutes or hours. the former president appears to be close to crossing 270 electoral

votes. the treasure he needs to win, stay with us. our special live coverage continues right after this.

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four electoral college votes from victory. welcome to cnn special live coverage election night in america. it is just seconds after 5:00 a.m. here on the east coast. the presidential race is officially undecided but officially is doing a lot of work in that sense. the winner appears more and more obvious by the minute. donald trump is on the cusp of clinching the oval office and becoming the 47th president of the united states. the battlegrounds we said would decide the race have broken for or may soon bend toward the republican. three big ones in the trump column. north carolina, georgia, pennsylvania. the four still on the board heading into the ninth inning and showing a trump lead a sizable trump

lead. arizona, nevada, michigan and wisconsin. ahead or declared in all seven of the battleground states. how did donald trump do it? like 2016 he ran up the score in the rural areas. but unlike 2016 or 2020, he seems to be rewriting some of the dna of his political coalition. cutting in to the traditional democratic advantages with women, perhaps black voters. definitely latino voters. some key states have not yet been called. stand by for a key race alert. as we just said four states still at this point cnn has not made projections there. but let's walk through them one by one. in arizona with 11 electoral votes up for grabs donald trump is ahead by some 50,000 votes. 48,000 with 55% of the vote in. still a lot of votes to be

counted there. donald trump ahead. in nevada, donald trump is ahead by 57,000 votes. pretty sizable margin and a fairly small state. 89% of the vote in there. six electoral votes up for grabs. a fairly comfortable lead at this moment in nevada. in michigan, 15 electoral votes up for grabs. trump with 120,000 vote lead now. that has can just grown over the last few minutes. 94% of the vote in. we'll check very shortly to see where some of that new votes just came in. in wisconsin, 10 electoral votes up for grabs. donald trump ahead by 110,000 votes. 97% of the vote in. every state you're looking at right there, states that joe biden won four years ago. states that donald trump is now leading in. any one of these states at this point could put him on top of the 270 electoral votes he needs to win the white house.

let's take a look at that map. right now donald trump has 266 electoral votes. vice president harris at 219. so practically any state still on this map save alaska now would put him over the top and he is leading in almost all of these states. save new hampshire and maine at this point. this night into the morning very much, very much in donald trump's favor. let's go over to the magic wall now and talk about a few states are we just saw now votes be tabulated. michigan. >> we've been waiting. 94% reporting donald trump with a significant 120,000 lead. significant if you compare it to his 2016 margin. we've been waiting for this county here. wayne county. won 17% of the voting population hanging around 55, 60% of the vote.

that's jumped up to 84%. the biggest take away from this new batch of votes that has come in is it did not dramatically move this margin. >> i think it moved it in trump's favor. >> not good news for the harris team. they've tried to watch this regular corner stone of democratic vote gathering. vote turnout in the state of michigan. this is where you run it up big. the suburbs are critical. this is the driver for democrats in this state. it was for joe biden in 2020. the reason i mention that. look at the margin. look where harris is right now. underperforming by four points where joe biden was in the state. we were checking earlier. joe biden in oakland counties. suburban county. we talked about realignment. in the blue wall states like michigan. oakland

county is what democrats would point to. you combine that with wayne county. underperforming by two points there as well. place he was supposed to run up margins. did better than 2020. >> just quickly in michigan, where is there still vote? we say 94% reporting. it did just shrink a little bit. >> the size of the bubble tells you how much vote is outstanding. blue bubbles are in counties kamala harris is currently leading. you look at the size of this bubble here which is of course wayne county. they have 19% in the biggest county. that's a lot of vote. is it 150,000 plus votes that will all go to kamala harris? seems unlikely. it means we're still trying to get a read on where the vote is outstanding. you take another look though. if you pop up to one of donald trump's strongholds. this is actually a

really important point here. i remember as that night started playing out getting text mathematicals from republican operatives on the ground saying i don't know what we're seeing right now but this is unlike anything we've seen. helped drive him to his narrow victory here. flip to 2020. trump held on to mccomb but the margin narrowed. what's happening this year? >> that's 17 points. that is a huge win. >> it's enormous. at the same time, wayne is underperforming democratic margins. that's your game. it hasn't been called yet. we'll see what comes in with wayne. you said ninth inning earlier. we're two outs in the ninth inning as we continue to watch this game.

>> let's talk about some of the exit polling and what we're learning about shifts in rural, urban, suburban voters. >> i want to zone out and sort of look at national picture; right? we'll talk about the suburban vote first. donald trump is up by two points in the suburbs. this was where kamala harris' campaign said we're going to expand joe biden's margin. what happened was it flipped the other way. biden had won in the suburbs by two points. what about rural counties as well? we've been talking about the fact that donald trump has been running up the score in the rural counties and what do we see in rural counties? we see look at this margin. holy spokes. you go back four years ago. donald trump won in rural areas but only by 15 points. he's done more than 10 points better in the rural areas. and then of course kamala harris even if she can balance it maybe she could do it in the urban areas.

four years ago joe biden won that group by 22 points and so she's only doing a point better in the urban areas. the bottom line is when you look at the rural areas you see trump expanding upon his margins. you see in the suburban areas he flipped it. kamala harris is just doing a point better. that math doesn't work for harris. it's a big reason why donald trump isn't just doing well in michigan but across the nation. >> thank you very much. let's speak with our panel. i'm here with -- we're after 5:00 a.m. on the east coast. this might be a time where people are starting to wake up if they got any sleep at all and they're looking and saying what just happened? >> look, i think we've just seen donald trump for all the criticism that donald trump is going to get he deserves an incredible amount of criticism. what he has shown us is we are a divided states of america.

we're not a united states of america. we come from all different parts of the world. we come here in this big melting pot and we think we're this homogenous stew. the fact is we are not. i think that's what we have seen. not only in this election but we've seen that when donald trump came on the scene in it 2016. >> i will say counterpoint to that though, and believe me i'm not saying we're going to join hands and start singing songs together. donald trump improved like in cities. in rural areas. in the suburbs also. it's kind of an everywhere improvement from 2020. >> i think one of the things we have to pay attention to is what the electorate was telling us over and over and over again. they said very specifically that they wanted change. we knew from the beginning i've been saying for several weeks now since kamala got into the race that whoever was the change candidate or that voters perceived as the

change candidate would win the election. we know they said very specifically they were feeling the burden of the consequences of the pandemic. so even as you have an administration that has historic highs. we're still seeing urban centers, suburban centers, rural areas that people are saying it is not translating. i'm still feeling the pain of inflation. of high rents of high mortgages. i cannot afford to live. last thing we heard is that a number of americans said over and over and over again that they felt like they were being left behind. that is important. when voters tell you they feel left behind, they're also telling you that they want to be heard. they want you to make a deal with them. the thing donald trump does well.

>> economic numbers saying they're pretty good. pretty good. the issue is you can't tell people how they feel. people feel how they feel. one of the things you've started hearing over the last few hours and you will undoubtedly hear for the next several days if not weeks if not years is the idea of a political realignment that donald trump is changing what have you seen that supports that argument? >> you can see donald trump is doing better than any republican candidate has done since the advent of exit polls in 1972. we were having fun at the magic wall. bronx is one of the most diverse counties in

the united states. we had seen so many signals. all those segments that donald trump was showing historic strength. a. as the vote is coming in, those preelection polls were dead on. >> coming over here and got into an uber and my driver was frozen gal. he said what's going on in the presidential election. looks like donald trump is going to win. he said great. i said oh, interesting, so why are you so supportive of donald trump and he said two things. the economy. money, money, money. then he said abortion which i thought was interesting. but the reason i say that is my response to him was you get angry at his language and some of the things he's said and he just laughed it off. he said no. like you can't take that for serious. it's basically i'm more

interested in how many dollars i'm going to be able to take home every week than what donald trump might say that could afternoon me. >> interestingly we talk about the class divide in this country. we often say college, noncollege educated. now the income has inversed itself. if you look at the exit polls, donald trump is winning among voters who made less than $100,000. their family income for the year while kamala harris is winning those who made $100,000 or more. donald trump has flipped politics on its head. it's a reassignment. race realignment. income realignment. it's an age realignment with donald trump doing historically well. >> while i do think there's a realikement, i'm not necessarily sure it is tied to the republican party or even specifically anything donald trump has done extraordinarily

well. in a lot of respects there are things we're seeing on the exit polling and polling leading up to the election where voters said that, you know, they didn't like the things coming out of his mouth. the majority of voters including voters who ended up voting for donald trump perceived him to be bigoted, racist, all of these things. there is a reassignment happening around how americans interact with politics and how they think about how politics operates. they are increasingly used to this nastiness around politics but that also extrapolates out to other things. ufc. we saw dana white on stage. we see this isn't a normal part of joe rogan, of youtube, of the streaming area. people became far more comfortable with this during the pandemic when they were isolated. so with the explosion of things like the man-o-sphere or these interactions i think we're beginning to see people

who are different kinds of voters, including being transactional voters. i would really cautious republicans in terms of saying this is a mandate. what kind after mandate if any is this? we are still counting votes in several important states. donald trump poised with almost any movement at this point to officially get over that 270 electoral vote map. stay with cnn. our special live coverage continues. election night now election morn in america.

this is cnn special live coverage. stand by for a key race alert. these are the races we're still watching even though donald trump clearly ahead in all four right now. any one of these states would put him over 270 electoral votes what he needs to win. he is winning by 50,000 in

arizona. he's winning by 57,000 votes in nevada. up by 120,000 votes in michigan. and 110,000 votes currently in wisconsin. as we said he's at 266 electoral votes right now. any one of those four states would put him over the 270 electoral votes that he would need to officially be the president-elect of the united states. that moment could come at this point at any time. now our harry enton has been looking through the exit polls. one of the metrics that generally predicts victory or points you in a direction is who has the higher favorability. >> exactly right. since 1956 the more popular candidate has won in every election except for one. who has a higher favorability rating? harris or trump? and yet of course donald trump is on the verge of victory. how the heck did he do it? that 8% that said neither

and that 2% who said they had a favorable view of both candidates. i haven't met those 2%. amongst those who said they had a favorable rating of neither candidate, this looks very much like 2016. look at this advantage for donald trump. it's a 23 point advantage and then look at this. a substantial double digit advantage for donald trump. so the bottom line is this. yes, kamala harris better liked than donald trump but that 10% of the electorate that either liked neither or both going overwhelmingly for the former president. that has made all the difference in the world. >> the double haters and the double lovers. >> the double laters and the double lovers. maybe we can get those two groups together. >> i think we just coined that last phrase there. let's go back to kasie. >> my eyebrow is stuck to the top of my head. you and your double lovers. who wants to

take this? 2% of americans like both of these people. who are they? but second of all, that does really underscore the depth of the division in this country and not really bode well necessarily for the next four years. >> i don't know. if anybody thinks the country is going to come together because donald trump is the president of the united states they're delusional. that's kind of first and foremost. i think that the first couple of months of the trump administration are going to be jarring for many people. i think the executive actions you'll see, the unfettered reign and the new cast of characters we have emerging on the political scene who don't have much political experience. >> whoa might you be referring -- >> you know, you'll have a kennedy close to government which kind of warms the soul on its face until you find out we're talking about rfk jr. then you have elon musk who concerns me with his kind of unfettered access to

everything. as a billionaire oligarch. i keep going back to this. one of the things i'm not going to do is sit here and reject the notion of this is what the people wanted. america always gets what she deserves. but in this particular case you're going to have donald trump, you're going to have elon musk and rfk jr. and if that puts fear or trepidation in your heart i think that's rightfully placed. if you love the risk in that joy to steal a kamala harris phrase, so be it. >> looks like trump's going to win the popular vote. which he didn't before. >> literally just said. i said that's what -- that's what they wanted. >> the problem is elections -- the way you have to win an election now sets a candidate up for failure in the job they run for. you think about all these things that donald trump has to do now. he had to do and say all these things to win the election. now he's got to go execute on an economic plan. he's got to execute on an immigration plan. he's got to

execute on a foreign policy plan. the delta between what you have to say to get votes on the trail versus what you have to do to be effective. that's this anormally. this is the thin margin that doesn't like either side. it's shirts versus skins. it's tribalism at its finest. you never get back to where you you solve problems. nobody is going to solve these problems with campaign rhetoric. >> just real quick to piggy back on what jeff said just briefly. let's extrapolate what you said to the foreign policy realm. you have putin and ukraine. what does donald trump do with that? we know what we believe he's going to do with that. we also have a war raging in gaza. what does donald trump do with that? when you're talking a account that delta, people are, there are people who literally they're on twitter. they say we voted for donald trump because we don't want any more wars. >> i mean that's one of the things i heard on the trail.

>> that's america first. >> i think that question is something that -- >> the exit polls only a few voters said that foreign policy was their number one issue. if they did, donald trump won those voters by an enormous margin. it's easy to talk about this election as being it's the exit stupid; right? there's an element of incumbent parties have been following pop democrats are the incumbent party. people want change. the economy hasn't been great. i think there's something even bigger going on here. when i ask voters in my focus groups and we did this in a survey too. what is this election about to you? very few people said it's about the fact that milk is expensive. few people said it's about the fact that cost of living has gone up. some people did. but most people talked about it at a higher level. just a feeling that stuff's not working. nothing's working. it doesn't feel like someone like me has a

voice any more. i think for democrats they're very surprised to discover that a majority of americans think that donald trump is the solution to rather than the cause of that problem. >> pew research had an analysis that came out and talked about how more americans are more pessimistic about the future and have fond memories of the past. you see that in the exit results. donald trump's approval rating have increased. his standing is stronger than it has been. heise improved his margins despite months of messaging from democrats about his character or about what a potential second term of a trump administration would look like. voters said we hear you but we don't care. we think this guy is better on all of these other things. we remember that ponder time in the past with him. things have not been great for a lot of people over the past four years. many people voted for president and the vice president thinking this would be a new direction. that hasn't been the case.

>> one of the things i keep thinking about. the race for the vast majority of it. for a long time it was comparing him to donald trump. this dynamic continued when kamala harris was at the top of the ticket. that was strength versus weakness. and that really, you know, when people talk about biden's health and how old he was, it was about whether or not he was strong leader. how much of that -- >> you can see it in trump's paid advertising. they never tried to play into sort of you know she is -- they usually played the fact she was laughing. they tried to make her -- that was really a synonym for being weak. for being flip. every single ad it was weak, dangerously liberal, failed. that was like their thing on the add. the internal

tumult in the democratic party is only beginning. seeing my phone just in the last hour i mean it's incredible just the amount of second guessing that's going on. one person involved in the harris campaign said people are just super depressed because this morning the leadership of the campaign was expressing extraordinary confidence. they felt they were definitely going to win. and that was different from 2016 to 2020. donald trump was the underdog in both races. we think we can make it but maybe not. sort of recalled 2012 which i know you covered where both campaigns would be confident going into election night then it went one way. >> i will say, you know, i spend my i election nights talking to dozens of sources at once. when i asked them tonight who was poised to win this election, overwhelmingly they all said. even those who previously expressed thoughts maybe donald trump is on path

to win this said i kind of feel like harris has this edge. that point is well taken. obviously it was incredibly repudiated here. karen, where do you come down on this question of of whether or not biden shouldn't have run here and would that have decided what the outcome differently. >> if biden had decided not to run sooner let's say in the first place decided not to run or, you know, even closer to initial decision, it certainly would have given the vice president more time to build the relationship with the american people. as i mentioned before, with women we have 20 years of data looking at women running for executive office when itment cops to the economy and when it comes to security

slash national security, those are always the two areas. for women who run for governorship, usually having been the attorney general is the pathway because then you've got certain credentials. >> i have to push pause here. we have reached a historic moment in this election. john. >> that's right. we can now project the winner of the presidential race. it is now official. cnn projects that donald trump has been elected president defeating vice president kamala harris and making a political comeback unlike any in modern american politics. now we can make this projection now because cnn projects that donald trump has won wisconsin. you can see right there currently ahead by 30,000 votes with 99% of the vote in mr. trump is only the second former president in u.s. history to be reelected to the white house. he will return to office after two impeachments

in his first term followed by unprecedented criminal indictments and felony convictions. mr. trump scoring a landmark victory as he now heads back to power leading a politically divided nation. cnn projects donald j. trump is elected the 47th president of the united states. let's go over actually let's just take a quick look at the wall here. we can see with wisconsin donald trump now has 276 electoral votes. harris with 219. you need 270 to win. he is now over that mark. the ten electoral votes in wisconsin puts him over that threshold and cnn now considers him the president-elect of the united states of america. let's go over to the magic wall. bill mathingly is there. let's talk about wisconsin. those votes from milwaukee came in. that's what made the difference. the margin is a lot smaller for trump than had had been. still

enough. >> what we've been waiting for throughout the course of the night has been a significant chunk of vote in mil milwaukee had been outstanding. what we saw five minutes ago. 109,000 votes that came in milwaukee. largest county in the state. usually a democratic stronghold. that vote broke down about 80% harris to 20% trump. roughly based on as i was doing the math on it. it changed the margin in milwaukee by fairly couple points amount. not a dramatic amount. fairly couple points amount. there is some vote outstanding but this was enough to make the calculation that donald trump's vote lead right now was enough to call the state of wisconsin if donald trump projected to be the next president of the united states. i think what this doesn't change despite the fact more than 100,000 votes came in a democratic county that vote split 80/20 for harris. that margin is still beneath what joe biden was doing in 2020. so

a similar story. not as dramatic as it had been. like we've seen in some other urban areas. wayne county holding in that space. philadelphia holding in that space as well. underperforming in milwaukee county by a point or around a point. underperformance or matching margins in a place like dane condition county. a democratic stronghold. joe biden in 2020 won this. harris running about six tenths of a point behind him. the reason that's problematic is if it you pushp into areas around vote drivers like waukesha. if you push up into the rural parts of wisconsin, donald trump's running up big margins. waukesha, washington, ozaki. pushing out around milwaukee. there's been some view and i think there's been

some midterm years where democrats have said donald trump lost a little bit of ground here back in 2020. he won it by 12, little over 12 points. but holding more or less the margin shedding here, doing better over here in washington county. waukesha. crucial waukesha. democrats thought they could make in roads pushing out of their urban and suburban areas. they didn't. >> normally when we just project the winner of the presidential race it would be a huge historic moment. i will say it's been so clear over the last few years it was trending this may. maybe doesn't land with the same boom it would otherwise. that's because of what we're seeing in other so-called blue wall states. let's check in on michigan. >> 95% in it. donald trump with

116,503 vote lead. the question always in these moments in time, race hasn't been called yet. you see a lead like that in michigan. where's the vote outstanding? what are people waiting for? potential pathways. biggest blue bubble. a democrat-led district. this is wayne county. 17 plus percent of the population lives here. home of detroit. still 19% outstanding. we saw how the vote batch that just came in split so heavily towards harris. what does that mean for michigan? possible pathway here? big question is if you look at the margin in wayne. and you compare it back to 2020. underperforming by four plus points. the question is is this a composition or make up of the vote to this point or is this what we've seen in urban areas in had philadelphia and milwaukee. to some degree in

detroit. the added element of the second largest city in this county is deerborn. deerborn is the largest arab american community in michigan. that's been a concern for democrats because of what's happening in gaza whether or not that has an effect as well. we'll have to wait and see as that vote comes in. that's what we're waiting on. the other place where if you're a trump voter, this is the 2020 map. 2024. 7% outstanding. not only is donald trump running up a margin, he's blowing out his 2020 and 2016 margin. >> at this point somewhat academic at least in the race the official race for the white house. we now do project that donald trump has been elected president of the united states. phil, thank you very much. we'll continue to count the votes as they come in. they do tell an important story and there are still super important races for the senate and congress which we'll get to in a minnesota. let's go over to kasie and her panel. now that we have projected a winner. >> we have indeed. the history

this measuring 5:30 a.m. on wednesday. donald trump has won the presidency for a second time. this time after having served for four years then disputing the 2020 election an then of course rallying a mob to the capitol to try to interrupt the peaceful transfer of power there. americans deciding to send him back to the white house for a second term. and jeff duncan as we mark this moment i do want to take a second to reflect on that reality because there was a point in the wake of what happened on january 6th where the republican party had a choice about what to do. they could have decided to convict him. they didn't do that. kevin mccarthy posed with donald trump and it was the beginning of what would become another run for him to the

presidency. of course now we know how that has turned out. considering what you lived through, what the country lived through, what do you think it says about us as a country? >> i'm going to start by just a heart felt congratulations -- a sincere congratulations to donald trump. i worked for four years to try to not elect him as a candidate for our party and also as president. he's won the race and he's won it the hard way. i never would have thought we'd have been there. tens of millions of americans including republicans never thought we'd have been here. you add up the baggage along the way on his time in office and the time out of office. it's uncomfortable for somebody like me who who is a life long conservative to watch this happen. it is what it is. the ball is in his court. what's he going to do with this? is he going to wreck the car because he wants to and he can? is he going to sew chaos and confusion? or is he going to take time to fix stuff? he's that one personality that can do this. like if he just

changed course and tried to work across the aisle and put a nikki haley in his cabinet. showed a propensity to work with people he doesn't agree with it would send shock waves through this country. >> considering he couldn't campaign. >> i was going to say. that doesn't seem to be his mojo. that's not his deal. he doesn't heal and bring people together and say now let's come together and move forward. said something earlier about solving problems. what concerns me is i don't think he cares about really solving problems except for the most expedient one of not going to jail. when he was talking about tariffs, what have we heard? going to bring inflation back up. bad for the economy. bad for jobs. even some things if he enacts some of the things he's talked about. mass deportations. what is that going to mean in the day-to-day lives in our country? and the damage that

that could do. i hear what folks are saying about i agree. this is what you want, this is what you got. this is who you are. we will have to live with the consequences if he does plan to and actually move forward on enacting. we could have a national abortion ban. women are going to have to deal with it. that's what my concern is. i don't think he's going to try to bring people together. or try to work across the aisle. the way things seem to be going with the congressional race he may not have to. >> hopeful tone. >> we always talk about these things of bringing people together. i don't know if that's necessarily the aims of politics. you need two parties going back and forth. did president biden bring the country together? i know a whole lot of republicans who would say hell no. you spent three and a half years criticize these people calling them racist, referring them to them as uneducated. now they've

won. they've rejected the elitism that comes out of washington, d.c. they rejected the elitism that's come from republican establishment. i don't know why we can't ignoring this reality. donald trump won again by a very sizable margin. for a reason. and i think to minimize the concerns that people continue to say they have about our party establishment, about the democratic party establishment is not not going to change things. what propelled this man to the white house in 2016 is still there. it's still there. i think it's incumbent upon the leaders to figure out what they need to do. >> i was just going to say, one thing that sources are saying to me is it wasn't just that republicans rehabilitated donald trump. but democrats including most especially the biden white house gave him an opening to come back. the fact is that joe biden when

inflation was coming back they were dismissive of concerns. they called it transitory. when it looked there was a potential for covid to come back they held celebration in the white house south lawn. called it independence from covid day. there was afghanistan. there was the denial and dismissiveness about the board border was not a crisis. all of those governing issues they treated in some ways this is what i'm just reflecting the views of people within the administration as they're reflecting on tonight they now feel that the administration sometimes treated it as a pr problem. >> it absolutely created that opening. the primary message being used against trump was donald trump's going to lose. go with me, i can be a winner. in every poll i saw when you asked republican voters who do you think has the best chance to beat joe biden, they'd say

donald trump. republicansfelt confident that in a donald trump versus joe biden matchup that donald trump was go edge to wipe the floor with joe biden. they felt confident saying i like donald trump. you're not scaring me with this argument he's going to lose. i think he's a winner. >> one of the things we also need to reflect on is donald trump is a very, very flawed man. i don't think that can be lost on where we are today. you have someone who i don't want to run down the resume. criminal charges that most likely now will go away because he controls the department of justice or, you know, the things with stormy daniels or all of these things baked into the cake. as a country you asked a very big question. we became numb to the lack of

character that is donald trump. it's fascinating to me because i know religious conservatives who will go to the mat for donald trump. that's what i don't necessarily understand. somebody's going to have to explain to me, particularly the white male evangelical and what we saw today were white women come out. i think that the missed bet for kamala harris was betting that white women would support her in a way unlike how we felt they left hillary clinton at the altar in 2016. we thought that was going to be vastly different. it wasn't. rural white women. college educated white women. all those white women we thought in those wild counties that phil were talking about, they just didn't come home.

>> as everybody goes through this election and is trying to figure out what could have gone differently, i'm sure there's going to be a lot of instinct to say gosh if only we'd just told americans more of how donald trump was a terrible person. i just think you have enough voters who are telling us in the exit polls i don't like donald trump personally but i'm voting for him anyways. >> i hear you. but i was -- i'm looking at -- i was trying to answer. i hear you politically. what you're saying is politically prudent. you asked what questions do we learn as a country. we literally have one of the most fundamentally flawed men we've ever put in a position of power back there again. all i have to do is point to the rhetoric not from democrats. i'm not making this up. i can point to the rhetoric from republicans on january 7th and talk about what type of man this is. >> i think that's the problem. donald trump judged as a candidate is almost a

republican god. judged as an executive isn't. he's got this very fragile period of time where if he doesn't clean up, his favorabilities will start to go down. you'll see that show up in the polling data. the republican party is going to divide. ronald reagan would roll over in his grave if he listened to well we won so we're going to lock in and get our way. there's this gravitational pull happening in one segment where you're with me 80% of the time. that mentally is lost. >> i don't disagree with that, necessarily. but i do think when you talk to a lot of rural republican voters about the republican party, the whole tea party movement itself they will say the establishment wing of the party they have completely forgotten about us. we'll turn out and vote every single election. we empower these people. they go to dc and adopt

policies that is irrelevant to mobilizing and uplifting us. i hear that often. i spend a lot of time with trump voters. i talk to them about why they're so angry. all of the failures of the party writ large. maybe i don't like donald trump. you know what, he's putting a spotlight on all of the failures from george w. bush and the wars and my son was killed and the trillions of dollars we spent. i'll go back to the gingrich era. they said they were going to do this in terms of morality and looked when. folks are still angry. i think the failure was on us as a party to not address those things. we promise to address them and we never got around to it. >> i think in a place of anger is a horrible place to make decisions and set policy. that's the juxtapose. >> i understand. >> there's this angry voice trying to set policy and direction. that's what resinates with donald trump.

>> a lot of people in our party are angry. >> two things can be right at the same time. they can be angry and they can be wrong. >> that's fair. why haven't we attempted to reck isle that? we had the tea party movement. clear opportunity to figure out what in the hell are we doing wrong as a party. why are so many people looking at the leadership and saying wait a minute here, you're still moving in the wrong direction. >> ironically, y'all just won. you sound like we should be. >> from. >> this is mistake we made in 2016 i saw them making in 2024 which is we kept telling people more bad facts about donald trump. oh my god, he said this thing. oh, look, he discriminated against black people. he's done but at a point what people didn't hear and i do think this was a

mistake, you have to bring that home to why that matters to you. what i heard from republican voters in those suburbs in pennsylvania, white blue collar voters were not hearing him talk about us. we're hearing him talk about the revenge and retribution and tax breaks for the wealthy. but we don't hear them talking about us. i think one of the pathways was to connect why the flaws in this individual is actually going to damage your life. it's going to have a meaningful impact on you. not just saying he's bad. >> that was one of the fundamental disconnects inside the alliance of democrats trying to get harris elected at the end of the race. all right. it's official. donald trump elected the 47th president of the united states. next new reaction, analysis. stay with us.

welcome back to our special coverage. donald trump will now be the next president. he will have a republican senate but at this point we can't project who will control the house of representatives. jessica dean has a no projection in that fight. >> that's right. we have some key cnn projections in this fight for the house. let's start first in new york. that is the place that really fueled republicans thin majority in the midterms. let's take a look. mike lawler hanging on to his seat in the house. defeating mondaire jones. that is something republicans certainly wanted to see. democrats hoping to flip that seat. let's now move to michigan. we're going to go to the seventh district. this was alyssa sltokin's seat. she's running for the senate. tom barrett picking this up. this is a republican pick up in the fight for the white the house. this is going to stay

democratic. kristen mcdonald rivet in that race. in the eighth district in it michigan. and in wisconsin the third district. let's take a look at this. you see derek van orden winning there. the incumbent. the republicans keep that seat. a lot of eyes now on the house. will it become a check for president trump as he takes office with a republican senate or will it become -- will it stay republican and make the congress kind of a glide path for a lot of his legislation. this is the balance of power as it currently stands. the magic number is 218 to control the house. right now republicans sitting at 201 with five pick ups so far. the democrats at 177 with two pick ups. 57 seats remaining. one thing to remember as we continue to get this data, a lot of these seats that they're hoping to flip democrats are out in this california and john, of course, that's going to take a while. they are notoriously slower in

counting their ballots. >> those five republican pick ups makes it a lot harder for the republicans to lose control and the democrats to take back control, which is something the democrats would love. some sign of success in this morning. thank you so much. just a huge moment for the country. donald trump as of minutes ago has been elected the next president of the united states. you are watching cnn special live coverage. stay with us.