democratic policies, and their party's future in power. >> we don't have time to be wasting on these phony trumped up culture wars. >> terry is running against an acolyte of donald trump. >> but was it enough to stem the tide of a new red wave that emerged in the final days? >> this election is a dead heat. >> i'm a unifier, he is a divider. >> it's a dead heat with the youngkin campaign coming up fast on the outside. ♪ >> bret: it is 7:00 p.m. on the east coast, which means polls have just closed in the state and commonwealth of virginia. the fox news decision desk says it is too early to call this race between democrat terry mcauliffe and republican glenn youngkin. but we are following the results as they come in. good evening, everyone. and welcome to our nation's capitol, i'm bret baier.

>> martha: good evening, everybody. i'm martha mccallum and welcome to coverage 2021. biggest race of the night show down in virginia. two months ago terry mcauliffe was expected to easily win this contest in the state that president biden carried by 10 points. the challenger glenn youngkin has closed that gap and could become the first republican to win a statewide election there in more than a decade. >> bret: choice seen as referendum on the white house. one of the first major elections since the president took office. what happens tonight could very well foreshadow next year's midterms. >> martha: we have team fox coverage of democracy 21. reporters spanned out throughout the commonwealth and the best analysis in the business. >> bret: but, first, let's go to alexandra hough with the youngkin campaign in chantilly, virginia. alex? >> well, good evening. yeah, this headquarters is just starting to fill in for the official watch party tonight. they are handing out popcorn. they are gearing up for a celebration. as you mentioned though, for youngkin to even get to this

point seemed unlikely from the start. is he running against somebody name i.d. who served in this role before. but it was the issue of education where he truly found his footing in this race. he essentially found a void in representation for parents feeling frustrated about their say that they were able to have in kids' schools. he filled that void. on 38-bus stop bus tour he promised to end what he sees as government overreach in schools. also on the campaign trail he notably did not include any big party names. that did not impact crowd size whatsoever. past couple weeks. he wrapped up campaign with a parents rally in loudoun county and truly a best of your knowledge of people came out for that he was up very early this morning, too. we were up there and caught up with him in polling place. stopped in to talk with voters and even played basketball. here is whether a he said. >> i just felt this great surge of momentum for the six six to

eight weeks. when you get to travel around this amazing state and meet with, i think we met with between 25 and 50,000 virginians in the last 10 days and just see everybody coming together. >> yeah. so, on sunday, he spent a lot of time in far southwestern virginia which some could have looked at as wasted day already solidly republican out there and the population isn't very high. those kind of numbers he needs higher than expected turnout to potentially offset the loss and other more vulnerable districts. that was a place that he could very seriously making voter contact is something that he has emphasized all along the campaign trail. this emphasis on parents, that's what a lot of campaigns nationwide are going to be watching because if he is able to pull this off tonight, we will likely see parents front and center and more campaigns nationwide to come. send it back to you. >> bret: head back a little bit later. alex, thanks. >> now go to rich edson at the mcauliffe campaign headquarters tonight in mclean, virginia. good evening, rich.

>> good evening, martha and bret. democratic party officials are telling us that they are feeling pretty good where the vote is turning out in this state and turnout efforts have paid off here. but we will find out for sure soon. as these vote totals start come in. they are still setting up the election night event here. this is, i think, the third time that we have heard wham on the sound track. probably hear it a few more times before it's over. turnout over the last few days has hit all the democratic strongholds fd of this state. norfolk, hampton, richmond, roanoke and, of course, northern virginia. they hope they brought enough democrats to the polls to deliver terry mcauliffe a second term as governor. now, mcauliffe held his final rally last night at a beer garden in virginia. randi weingarten spoke ahead of him at the event. polling ahead of this race showed education has become a major issue among virginia voters. and mcauliffe losing significant ground on that issue. another issue former president donald trump, at least for the

mcauliffe campaign who has tried to tie his republican opponent to trump at nearly every stop. >> glenn youngkin is closing his event with donald trump here in virginia where we are going to put an end to donald trump's future plans right here in virginia. i have beaten trump twice in virginia. tomorrow we go 3-0. >> now on many levels this race has had a national tone to it of course, those who have been campaigning for terry mcauliffe in all of this, he has had the president, the vice president, tim kaine, the senator, a number of folks in congress, especially the majority whip jim clyburn for south carolina. he has been out as well. we talked to a clyburn aide about his role in this. he said he was more than happy to jump on because for him it was about turning out the african-american vote. he said that's important in this race and that's what he wanted to do here as we wait and see where everybody has been voting in this state. soon enough, how they voted. back to you.

>> martha: rich, thank you very much. rich edson. >> bret: shannon bream is tracking our fox news voter analysis survey with the latest numbers. shannon, what's on the minds of virginia voters. >> shannon: well, good evening martha and bret. still too soon to know our winner. the candidates have a very solid base of sporters. dig in to what the numbers are telling us. with the mcauliffe's treating trends this race was his to lose. youngkin the political newcomer with biz savvy has surprised many by making this a very tight contest. here's what we know so far from fox news voter analysis election survey. take a look at the strengths for each candidate. a majority of voters under 45 years old support mcauliffe. he has 5 point edge there. there is even stronger support for mcauliffe among women under the age of 45 giving him a 26-point lead. the middle ground moderates give mcauliffe similar lead 25 points there. black voters go solidly for democrat and large majority support mcauliffe giving him a huge 75 point advantage.

important to note while mcauliffe has advantage among these groups is he running behind the support levels that these same groups had for the democrat in the last governor's race. that is how youngkin is making this a closer race than a lot of people ever expected. so let's take a look at youngkin's strengths. seniors ages 65 and older were more likely than any other group to vote early as in prior to election day not early this morning. more than half report voting in advance. youngkin holds a 14-point advantage with that group. this is big increase in support from seniors since the 2017 gubernatorial contest there in virginia. another strong group for youngkin is white men. is he getting 6 in 10 of them. about a third of the electorate are white voters without a college degree and youngkin has a strong 35 point lead among the working class voters. finally even stronger is youngkin's support for whites vang groups. 8 in 10 with him. a battle going on for fully one half of voters who live in suburbs the hard-fought group

that group gives a slight edge to mcauliffe. exciting stuff. much more fox news analysis of the virginia gubernatorial race in the coming hours. back to you. >> bret: all right, shannon, thank you. >> shannon: expert analysis for you throughout the night. start by bringing in our own chris wallace and brit hume. chris, your thoughts as we wait for the first numbers to start rolling in here from virginia tonight. >> well it, seems to me this is really a battle of the commonwealth vs. the campaign. when i say the commonwealth, virginia. it really has become a blue state. there has been a lot of talk already this evening about the fact that just a year ago biden won by 10 points. but, i think even more remarkable is that the last time that a republican won any statewide office, governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general was in 2009. evidence time since then the democrats have won all three statewide tickets. so, you know, that is a tremendous built-in advantage for terry mcauliffe going into

this race. and i don't think it's an overstatement to say that when youngkin became the republican nominee in may, he was generally seen as a kind of sacrificial lamb against a very popular exgovernor terry mcauliffe. that brings us to the campaign. i think there is no question about it, glenn youngkin has won the campaign. first of all, he has really determined the issues that they have fought this campaign on. especially education, especially the issues of teaching race in school, transgender policy. mask mandates. all of that. and also we can't overstate the self-inflicted wound from terry mcauliffe in that debate when he said i don't think parents should be telling schools what to teach. youngkin jumped on that. and has beaten it like a horse ever since then. youngkin also has been very effective in the way he has handled donald trump who is a net negative in the state of virginia. he has kept the die hard trump supporters while not tying himself too closely to trump. i would say that in the end, it

feels, it feels like glenn youngkin is going to win this race and in the closing days he has had bigger crowds, more enthusiastic crowds, but then you get to the math, and things can change. we will see how the world turns tonight. >> bret: brit, that education issue really was a big turning point in the past few weeks. i just want to take you back to when former president obama was talking to crowds with mcauliffe about how he talked about some of those issues. take a listen. >> >> bret: we had that he basically said time we don't have time to be phony trumped up culture wars. it has moved the needle in this race, brit. >> it has, bret. it has been very much in youngkin's favor very much education which is where this issue has hit in this campaign has been a major issue there were earlier polls before this

one we had today that said it was the number one issue what we have learned today is at least for in the polling we did today, it turns out not to be number one. it's up there number one is the economy. which is good news for youngkin as well because he rates better on the handling of the economy on the issue of the economy than does terry mcauliffe. i might add to what chris was saying about trump, as an issue in this campaign, it's -- as a national matter, republicans looking at virginia tonight are going to be looking to see how this candidate about did in trying to deal with trump who has been an elephant in the corner of the room here because terry mcauliffe made his campaign against youngkin very much about trump calling him an acolyte trump. claiming falsely youngkin was closing out his event with trump. which never did happen. youngkin did not campaign with trump although trump did enforce him.

the question arises is this the issue mcauliffe used. he obviously thought best issue. he pounded mercilessly. if young wins or comes close to winning in what is now as we all now a blue state that may be a blueprint for republicans going forward on how to deal with trump and it wills also be interesting to look down southwest corner of virginia where trump won overwhelmingly those counties down there. youngkin will need those votes. he will neat the unthesists. by staying away from trump. he loses them. that will be telling as well. a lot to catch here a man himself a potential candidate but for most now an issue. >> martha: that's going to be one of the big questions tonight, i think, in terms of the analysis at the end of the game whether or not glenn youngkin was able to drive out those voters in the southwest part of virginia to the same extent that president trump was able to do it. but, you know, with regard to joe biden, chris, i thought this

was interesting today. president biden and you can really track the change in this -- in the polling on this election to the same point in august and september when you started to see the climb in the numbers for joe biden. he from this virginia race tonight when he spoke in glasgow this afternoon. here's what he said. >> i have not seen any evidence that whether or not i am doing well or poorly, whether or not i have got my agenda passed or not, is going to have any real impact on winning or losing. even if we had passed my agenda, i wouldn't claim we won because biden's agenda passed. i think it's going to be very close. >> martha: what do you think about that chris? >> chris: it's interesting. there have been white house operatives putting out the word all day this is not a referendum on joe biden which is an odd thing to do when your guy terry mcauliffe has a chance of winning it. almost seems like they have been prebutting the idea of don't blame us if mcauliffe loses.

there is no question that joe biden has had an impact on this race, his sharp decline in the polls. he is at 42, 43% support in virginia. if he were at 52% o 53%, i think that mcauliffe would have a much better chance of winning tonight and frankly, if he had passed more of his agenda, for instance, if they had taken the win back in september or august on the infrastructure bill, and they had that big covid relief bill in the early part of the year and then a bipartisan infrastructure in august, that would have changed the narrative a lot from the failures in afghanistan, the failures with inflation, the problems at the border. there just hasn't been a positive biden and democratic agenda message that's gone out there. so mcauliffe instead of having an asset in joe biden and his agenda i think has had to kind of carry him like a weight tied to his ankle. >> bret: brit, you know, the national issues up on capitol

hill, sometimes they don't factor in to different races. in virginia, maybe even more so because it's right here and there are a lot of workers who are federal workers who work around the city of washington, d.c. but, it's interesting to see how youngkin campaigned and he campaigned in northern virginia a lot in the closing days of this election. in place like fairfax and loudoun county. and those went some 520,000 votes for joe biden over donald trump in the last election. >> brit: well, bret, you campaign sometimes in a place for different reasons. sometimes you campaign because you think you are going to win the area and trying to build up your margin and sometimes trying to hold down the other guy's margin. and with joe biden and his record in such bad odor now after the disasters of the late summer and fall, youngkin may well conclude -- may well have concluded that he can contain the overwhelming margins that terry mcauliffe will probably need to win this election. so it makes some sense for him

to campaign in northern virginia. let's remember, you know, that this is the first chance that voters in virginia, who now hold unfavorable view of biden's record have to register that disapproval. yes, he is not on the ballot but is he very much in the background of this race, prance not to the great extent that trump is but is he very much in this. >> martha: chris, with regard to trump being in the background of this race, it's very interesting to sort of watch what the former president has done here as well. because we saw how he inserted himself in the georgia race in the senate race. it did not end up going republicans' way. there was also, i think, a bit of distance on trump's part as he watched this unfold as to whether or not he wanted to be attached to someone who might win or might lose. it will be interesting to see how he spins this either way. >> chris: yeah, and, in fact, i'm told by some top republican operatives that the trump camp is not all together happy with

youngkin yes if he wins he will be happy to take credit for it and to see it as an affirmation of his strength in a state he lost by a lot just a year ago. but, you know, youngkin has not embraced trump. he has not asked him to campaign. and, you know, to the degree that we have been talking about this might be a blueprint for other republicans of how you keep the trump supporters, but without having to deal with the negatives of donald trump, i'm not sure that the former president necessarily will be happy if that becomes the blueprint for the 2022 midterms. >> bret: okay, gentlemen. thank you very much. we are getting some of the raw vote in. as that comes in you will see it both in the bottom of your screen and wwill have panels on the side as that raw vote comes. in it's interesting that virginia is doing it differently now. they have got mail-in ballots and the early processing. they expect to dump a lot of that early. so we could get that, you know, within the next 10, 15 minutes. in big numbers.

but then you also have to weight that with how democrats and republicans vote. it will be much more democratic leaning likely because the early vote and the mail-in vote tends that way. the rural counties also will report early and we should see some of that raw total soon. >> shannon: just like we saw in florida in the presidential election, they began processing, so putting all of these mail-in votes. they got 1.1 million early votes in virginia. and, you know, just a couple hundred thousand. i think over 100,000 the last time around. this is reflective of the huge difference that we have seen since covid in the way states vote. you have a lot of early vote that come in. as long as your vote was postmarked by today it can be counted as late as friday in virginia. if it's close we could still be looking at this on friday. >> bret: as we said, the issue of education, it's a hot one. take a listen. >> we got a window into our children's education when they were working from home behind

computers for the better part of a year and a half. and there was some concerning things that we saw as a result. >> i think kids have to learn history, good, the bad the glulg our taxpayer money has been invested in some teacher training and that would be enrolled -- or rolled into the student curriculum that i didn't agree with. >> martha: parents in loudoun county, virginia have been front and center in the debate over critical race theory in schools and tonight they are hoping to send a message, mike emanuel is standing by with more on that for us tonight. hi, mike. >> martha, bret, good evening to you. at this local polling place had is in loudoun county, virginia. local voters told us education issues fired them up. >> well, i don't like the way things have been going in our schools. i'm a new parent and i would like to see some changes made. >> we're just not happy with how they think this is their little play pen to mess with people's

lives. kids still have to wear masks even when they are vaccinated. >> education has been such a red hot issue here in loudoun county and one comment from democrat terry mcauliffe made it a central campaign issue. >> i'm not going to let parents come in to schools and actually take books out and make their own decisions. i don't think parents should be telling schools what they should teach. >> in loudoun county there have been feisty school board meetings for months. some parents angered about how the school system handled the covid lock down in reopening. others upset about schools adding principles of critical race theory to the curriculum despite extensive fox news reporting on crt. mcauliffe suggested it isn't an issue here in virginia. >> you see what's happening georgia and florida because they're talking about this critical race theory. it is as i said before and i will say it again, it's never been taught in virginia. i really hate it because it's a racist dog whistle. >> republican glenn youngkin

took the other side providing quite a contrast for virginia voters. >> what we won't do is teach our children to view everything through a lends of race where we divide them into bucket one group is oppressor and one other group is a victim. we pit them against each other. >> being competitive in the northern virginia suburbs like loudoun county is critical if republicans want to end that 12-year losing streak across virginia. martha? bret? >> martha: mike emanuel in loudoun county. thanks, mike. >> bret: all right. let's brings in the former doj spokesperson, the executive director of fight for schools ian prior. ian, thanks for being here. how big an issue is this? >> well, education has been a huge issue out here in loudoun county. and northern virginia overall. fairfax as well. this has been burgeoning for really two years. i mean, you know, it's been said, obviously, the covid lockdown really, you know, force the parents to get out there and

get to school board meetings and try to get schools reopened but it also put them in a position where their home, they are working from home. they have got their child next to them on their chromebook working as well. and they started to see what was actually going on in schools. and then the third element is we have had a lot of teachers, a lot of teachers given us information about what is going on with these teacher trainings and how they are being instructed to teach children. it's not just parents and students but teachers as well that are concerned. >> bret: ian, do you think that this is a blueprint for other races around the country as this issue has bubbled up, obviously, in this race but isn't there a blueprint for maybe republicans in other suburban places that are looking towards the midterms? >> yeah, i think it is one of the important things about this we have been so focused on politics of division mr. youngkin said put in boxes get paired against each opener to win elections.

they really need a powerful unifying issue that's going to get people out there that transcends political ideology race, gender. parents go out and vote we saul it today eastern lowden collecting signatures for recall. we collected well over 3,000 really before 2:00 today. there is excitement out there and parent are engaged. >> bret: do you sense a shift? i mean, have you followed this for the past few weeks and you have seen the shift personally? >> yeah, i think the shift out here hinged on two things. one, terry mcauliffe during the debate saying parents shouldn't have a role in how schools teach two the issue of with sexual cover-up in loudoun county. a lot of parents whether conservative or liberal started to realize maybe there is something going on here where political agendas being in school put before student safety.

and that's really sort of been the turning point on getting a broader swath of people to pay attention to what is exactly going on in our schools. >> martha here. what's your feel for loudoun county this evening? the youngkin campaign said today that they felt like they could win loudoun county and, you know, just a couple of weeks ago it's fast they everywhere competitive here there. what do you think as you look at this tonight as we wait for more numbers? >> yeah, well, i can tell you i was at the polls from 6:00 in the morning until roughly 6:00 tonight. and i was in eastern lowden. that is not exactly a hot bed of, you know, republicanism here. but what i saw was pretty 50/50 as far as voters going. in being engaged, taking sample ballots, coming out and signing the removal petition its. so if you are getting 50/50 in eastern lowden locations, that's going to bode well for how he performs there. >> martha: how much traction do you think this parents' movement has and in other races and how much does it depend on whether

or not youngkin wins or loses tonight? >> well, i think regardless of whether he wins or loses, if he is able to make it extremely close, i think it's going to show a blueprint for certainly the midterms and other statewide races that are coming up because, again, i go back to the idea that this is a unifying theme for parents. right? children and how their children are educated twhearnd learning in school. everyone wants to make sure they are going to be set up for success in life. i think when you look at someone like youngkinen. he did a great job speaking to parents. speaking to independents while also maintaining, you know, the base of his party where, on the other hand, you saw terry mcauliffe who just really looked like he was focusing only on talking about trump and appeasing the unions and appeasing his base and he never reached out to independents and parents. >> ian a passion of yours throughout this whole period and i'm sure the fact that it's become very competitive is something that is graphing for

you. we will see how it goes tonight. clearly the parents in virginia have been very fired up over what's happening in their schools. we will see how it translates at the voting booth. thanks, ian. >> bret: well, we are still getting the raw vote numbers and you can see those as we come in here. 4% and there's the breakdown. we have the specific counties and the data in the each individual counties and when we do, we will start going to bill at the billboard and break that down. we can also tell you that mcauliffe campaign is telling our reporters in the field they have passed along this information that the fairfax county election officials have said that they are delaying the reporting in the early vote ballot the campaign is saying they don't know when to expect the votes to be counted but it will not be by the county's self-imposed 8:00 p.m. deadline. as we mentioned before, they were trying to get all the early votes, the mail-in votes and that data that had already been

counted dumped into the system early. now, let's, you know, we have flashbacks back to 2020 and the early days of figuring out where everything was in the process. right now call the fairfax county election supervisor and see what the deal is about getting that vote and that data early in and on the boards. >> martha: i would just point out that youngkin campaign said earlier today that they were watching fairfax really closely. that if they beat 31%. if they had 31% of the early vote it would mean that they were going to have a really good night. you can bet both sides watching fairfax numbers really closely in that early vote to get a sense of where this thing is going. so a delay will heighten the tension in both camps no doubt. >> bret: let's get some analysis from katie pavlich news editor at town hall.com and juan williams fox news analyst. katie, where do you see this race as we start the actual data coming in, the vote totals and where we have the fox news voter

analysis? >> katie: well, bret, it's close. rainy day in virginia. polling places i saw were busy. people were out to vote. i would say looking back on this issue of education and that september 28th debate between glenn youngkin and it terry mcauliffe when terry mcauliffe put his foot in his mouth and said parents essentially don't have a role in deciding what teachers teach. he didn't just say that because the debate moderator pressed him he said that because glenn youngkin held him accountable to his own record of governor and brought up the fact that he vetoed legislation in 2016 that would have given parents the veto power over getting rid of sexually beings political science sit books in their children's school. terry mcauliffe is a product of the clinton machine. is he a politician. he is part of the democratic establishment whereas glenn youngkin is an outsider who came and listened to parents. and he held mcauliffe accountable to the things he did previously as governor, which wasn't just simply about what books go in the library but also vetoed bills about parental choice in terms of creating

charter schools and allowing parents to use tax money for parental savings accounts. the school education issue is, of course, been amplified by covid. it's be been amplified by the cover-up in loudoun county of rape among children and keeping parents out of school board meetings. but it's bigger when it comes to mcauliffe's record on this. also what i would say about just the race in general and the work that's been put. in glenn youngkin was willing to go to the southern most parts of virginia, despite them being republican, not to take advantage or for granted any single vote. he ended his campaign in northern virginia old town alexandria, loudoun county, blue places where is he looking for every single vote. terry mcauliffe has been pretty arrogant throughout this process. until that debate really thought he had this in the bag and been try notice the last couple of weeks are make up for it by bringing in big names by president obama, joe biden and of course the president of one of the largest teacher's unions which has created the problems in virginia randi weingarten. that's the difference here we

will see if it pays off for glenn youngkin. >> martha: juan, obviously education has more typically been a democrat issue. we know that as katie just said, randi weingarten was brought out on stage last night. she is obviously head of one of the biggest teachers unions in the country. >> we have controversial figure in the covid phase in education. so, you know, what do you think about how he has tried to close this and bringing all of the big names to virginia as this thing got tighter and tighter? >> juan: well, it's all about turnout, martha. you know, and for the democrats, you have to keep in mind that the democrats know they have more votes in the state of virginia than republicans. so the issue is how do you excite or how do you get them to turn out as we saw in the fox news polls. you know, people aren't right now enthusiastic about joe biden's performance. so the question is how does mcauliffe stir them up? obviously, you know, glenn

youngkin has stirred up republicans. he can rely on trump somewhat. but really he has relied on that education issue and that's been the centerpiece of all of his ads. but, the key for terry mcauliffe, who won, by the way in 2013 by just i think 2.3% when he first won the gubernatorial race in virginia. the key for him is now trying to get those democratic voters to respond, again, looking back at when we learned from those fox news polls that -- exit polls. we can see that you know, is he doing pretty well new england suburban voters and black voters and doing well among women voters and educated voters but are they turning out? are they coming to the polls? katie mentioned it's been a rainy day. have they shown up? because everybody, i don't think if you are a republican or democrat there is any denying that glenn youngkin's push on education has given him momentum in the closing days of the race. but then again, terry

mcauliffe has more democrats if he can get those democrats to the polls. >> yeah and we are going to be watching all of this as the raw vote total comes in and matching it with voter analysis and what we have from that. katie and juan head back to that in a bit. >> martha: big race we are watching tonight new jersey governor and check in with bill at the touch screen after this. ♪ ♪ >> tech: when you get a chip in your windshield... trust safelite. this couple was headed to the farmers market... when they got a chip. they drove to safelite for a same-day repair. and with their insurance, it was no cost to them. >> woman: really? >> tech: that's service the way you need it. >> singers: ♪ safelite repair, safelite replace. ♪

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♪ ♪ >> bret: welcome back. it's election night. looking at the headquarters. it's early. there is a lot of carpet to be seen. people are just starting to gather. it will be a while. too early to call this race and we are just getting the raw data in. as you can see 15% at the bottom of your screen, youngkin at 55%, mcauliffe at 43. don't focus on that. because it's where the vote is coming from that matters. where the vote is really coming from and we are starting to see some of the early vote. the mail-in vote and maybe some of these early rural counties as well. >> martha: we want to get a sense of whether youngkin or mcauliffe are ahead in the places where you would expect or

if there is something different going on tonight. bill hemmer has been tracking all of that data as it comes in from virginia. and we are all dying to see some of the numbers from these counties. >> bill: so am i. >> bret: here they come. >> bill: i have been hitting refresh for 36 minutes, guys. we have some numbers coming in. remember blue for mcauliffe and red for youngkin. and i will show you, listen, it's early, bret as you mentioned. a lot of carpet out there. we will canvas the state together and we're kind of -- we are going to see these numbers together for the first time here. let's remember northern virginia across the potomac from washington, d.c. richmond down here in the center. a lot of this is southwest virginia. a lot of rural areas. let's start up here in loudoun county, seems to be a hot topic of conversation right? population wise it's number 5 out of 133 counties and cities in the commonwealth. so there is a lot of votes still out there. mcauliffe with an early lead 53-46 over youngkin kin. many analysts had expected

before we get into voting today. youngkin needed to be around 42, 43, 44% to have a shot statewide. so we just keep an eye on this percentage here and see how it goes throughout the course of the night. come down to well here is prince william. 3 of 133. you see mcauliffe and youngkin here early 5700 votes. 4900 votes. we will just -- we will keep the powder dry on prince william county. come down here this is chesterfield county. 4 out of 133. a lot 6 suburban voters here. you could p could have circled this county months ago to try to understand where are republican voters or where are independent voters who did not go with the trump train for the past four years are they coming back to the republican party now? here is where it stands. mcauliffe at 45.5. youngkin at 53.5. still considerable amount of vote that still has to come in. many believe youngkin, if he gets to about 52% and holds

that, that would portend good things for him statewide. remember, this is richmond here, nothing coming in just yet. chesterfield just to the south. henrico county has been trending as we mentioned an hour ago more and more blue over the years. mcauliffe has a yield right now just checking 52.5. 56.5 to youngkin. we had expected enlike dough stay in the blue column. if that were to go red we would have an early story early in the night. the youngkin team doing hand stand. richmond. scan area here southwestern virginia. donald trump's numbers were so strong you are talking 80, 82, 83%. just get an early check right now and see well, this is washington county. he is at 85%. still some vote to be counted there in washington county. tasewell i mentioned. this is one of these keys to victory for youngkin if you can

get over 80%. really needs to be 82, 83 to match the numbers from donald trump. let me just pop around here. you know, tasewell i know now. it's not buchanon. it's buchanon. just a little bit of a -- it's a local thing. bret. >> bret: i know. you got to get right otherwise you get a lot of emails. >> bill: i heard you the other night in a very similar situation. youngkin about 85% here but still some votes come in. not a huge county here. 183 throughout the entire state. so we are starting to get some more data in. >> bret: bill, let me take you up to to fairfax. we are getting from rich rich edson state party officials say fairfax is going to release a partial count of the early vote in person ballot count. they have to rescan a portion of them. they will release a portion what

they have what they have soon. the rest of it will come later tonight. unclear what is complete as of right now. what's your percentage on that right now? >> bill: this is population rank one out of 133. so you can see how important fairfax is. >> bret: they have no vote in. >> bill: adjusted dhings to make up for that i just checked the email. they said they a self-imposed deadline of 8:00 eastern time which is an hour after the polls closed. they are not going to meet that deadline either by the way. why, i can't tell you. let me show you this, bret. go back to the presidential election just 11 months ago. this is fairfax county, right? joe biden got 70% of the voted. this is a strong blue county in northern virginia. the difference was 251,000 votes in biden's column over donald trump. you see now the importance of fairfax. so what's happening there, i do not know. but maybe folks like rich edson on the ground can give us a bit more info in fairfax. we know it's going to be

important throughout the entire night. >> bret: any other things pop out? you put down chesterfield which is key. brit. >> bill: i got a little data here in the southeastern part. this is the tide water here region here hampton road. this is virginia beach county. this is two out of 133. so you know how high it ranks. youngkin spent a lot of time younger man living in this part of the state. republicans felt there was a chance here they could get more voters out and show greater strength in this part of virginia. maybe they can. but you know the numbers are early right now. only 6700 raw votes youngkin and 4500 mcauliffe. they have a long way to go for counting there in virginia beach. let me just pop over here and see how we are doing in chesapeake county. big population 8 out of 133. early right now with numbers here. just a couple thousand votes between mcauliffe and youngkin.

>> bret: louden. >> bret: go back there and see where we are now. >> a lot. i agree with you. 63,000 mcauliffe. youngkin 55,000. you ever going to to have at least 200,000 raw votes, i believe in loudoun county before the night is over. so you might be halfway. but depending on turnout we may have a little bit more to go. 53%. 46.7. it would seem right now, bret and martha, that youngkin is holding his own in loudoun county. when it comes to try to get the percentage down for what youngkin needs in order to win the statewide, so yeah we are keeping an eye on that. again, i think you have got probably 50% of the vote that is still outstanding there in loudoun county. you want another place? this is interesting right here. this is montgomery county in the southwest. this is blackburg, virginia. that's where you find virginia tech. you look at these areas right now and try to figure out, you know, with the democratic vote how it's going? it's very early here. mcauliffe only a couple

hundred votes and youngkin at 565. a ways to go, still. >> martha: bill, take a luge at richmond again? >> bill: richmond city not to be confused with richmond county, okay? richmond county is over in this area here. we are early in the night for that county. expect youngkin to do well. this is richmond city it has been a strong area for democrats for quite a long time now. but there is no data just yet in the county that ranks 9 out of 133 counties. >> bret: it's interesting to watch where you think the biggest determining factor is here, bill. where this entire race comes down to. is it how well mcauliffe does in northern virginia or is it how well youngkin does in the southern part of the state? >> bill: that's a great question here. i think based on our voter analysis. what i can say early on, bret,

is that youngkin seemed to be doing very well in the rural areas but not quite as well as trump did, yeah, 11 months ago. but in the suburbs, he was doing that much better than trump, you get it? you know, fewer people here, more people here, which seemed to portend as to why youngkin is making it a battle here in virginia tonight. i would just keep an eye on that. we will see how the percentages come in. then in these suburbs, again, martha mentioned chesterfield here. let's see what happens here in montgomery. and little to the south pulaksi county as well. just see how this comes in now and see whether or not the rural area if you are off by a point or two, and southwestern virginia but you make up a point or two in places like loudoun county, well, it's more than awash. have you done the work that your campaign set tout do. so that will be the key for his campaign tonight. >> martha: yeah. youngkin campaign set tout win

loudoun county. i think a lot of people two weeks ago would have said if he had a good showing there it would be impressive and potentially enough to out balance what we're talking about in southwestern virginia. but, you know, as of this morning they were saying we plan to win loudoun county. which would be very interesting and obviously makes that a really important place to watch, especially given it's really the heart beat of this whole parent issue. >> bret: one more quick thing. and that is the vote that we are seeing now, according to what the virginia officials were telling us was going to be early vote and mail-in ballots and then we are seeing some of the smaller rural states in the south. but, that vote is not characteristic of the whole common wealth. >> bill: correct on that. what we expected was the early vote to to be more blue than red. one other thing that's fascinating about virginia. you for this. perhaps the audience does, prance they don't. there are 38 cities throughout the entire state. little specks on a map that you can see behind me right now they

have their own governments. they run their own show. it's like charlottesville right here in this area right here that we talked about or up here if you just -- you see that speck on the map right there? that's arlington county, virginia. across the river from the potomac. its population is enormous given the relative nature of the state. seven out of 133. and just next to it as alexandria county, virginia. again, high in population. this is where democrats have moved over the past 12 years. it's where the growth has been in the state. this area right here is critical for mcauliffe victory. if he is able to pull this out tonight, and for youngkin right now just before i give it back to you guys, just back to loudoun county and just watching this percentage here now, you still have a good 80,000 maybe more raw votes to come in. so we are watching that carefully. back to you guys now in d.c. >> bret: we're going to head back. frequently. >> martha: very interesting if that early vote is coming in the way it looks it's interesting to

watch for tonight. thank you, bill. so president biden was hoping for legislative win before the polls close tonight. could his party's infighting affect the outcome? it's all part of our special coverage of democracy 2021. ♪ ♪ i've been in the hospital for for 76 days now. and by the grace of god i'm still here. i died three times. they gave me a 5% chance of living. so i highly recommend everybody to get the vaccines and really protect themselves because this is no joke.

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>> martha: welcome back. supposed to close in new jersey where fighting to unseat democratic governor phil murphy. eric shawn's live from the headquarters in asbury park, hi, eric. >> hi, martha, good evening. there may be a lot of anticipated but jack jenna relayed to keep up a winning streak and that is incumbent new jersey governor a second term. it hasn't been since jimmy carter was president that incumbent democratic governor of the state has won the statehouse twice. he is a former new jersey simulant and running for the governorship for two years now. he has been focusing on the perennial issue in the state,

high tech texas. the highest including the highest property tax. he has been really aiming at the incumbent governor murphy on that issue as well as social issues. he said governor murphy is too liberal for the state. for his part, murphy said that he is too extreme even though his rhetoric has been as a moderate republican. however, murphy did win the state by 14% two years ago for president biden won by 16% and there is an edge of 1 million democratic voters of republicans. let's take a look at some of the history or the last democratic governor to reclaim the state happen in 1977 when brandon byrne over republican challenge but then jim florio a $3 billion tax hike that enabled the republican at that point to gain the state house and sean corzine had a sales tax hike that

enabled chris christie to enable the statehouse and a vote to murphy but we will see what happens after the polls close, martha back to you. >> martha: thank you, eric. >> bret: he has covered this closely in virginia, josh, looking at the numbers, looking at specific counties and we went to the billboard and digested some but what do you look at right now? >> i'm looking at the suburbs and the base counties in the rule parts of the state. it looks pretty likely now that youngkin have turned out a lot of republican voters. a very tight turn out in parts of the state but the key for youngkin i was to make end roads in the suburban county that hasn't done so well and in recent elections. i'm looking out loud and county where it looks like youngkin is doing well but we have a lot of vote to count. chesterfield county outside of richmond where the bellwether

race needs to win there and put a little margin between himself and mcauliffe. but these are counties where moderate swing voters. and space have been more pragmatic message in the campaign may have one biden and clinton voters over the last election. >> martha: chesterfield is interesting right now, a county that president biden carried although typically very conservative, and it is 55/45 with 47% of that vote in. what does that tell you, josh? >> look when you look at the messaging on vote campaigns, terry mcauliffe was betting by tying youngkin to donald trump, he could win the vast majority of those voters that just turned away from the republican party during the trump years. that he could get that vote back and win over the suburban vote. what it looks like now is that youngkin made significant inroads.

but how big are those in roads and how big are those margins? but if he can win chesterfield in loudoun county outside of the d.c. is close. it is a very encouraging for the youngkin campaign. >> bret: it looks like it might be close, josh. this might come down to the wire and go extra innings even looking how the numbers are coming in. >> it is all going to come down to the suburbs. the question is did democrats on the suburbs and by the suburbs during the trump years or nearly rent the suburbs? youngkin spent a lot of time in the blue areas, loudoun county come i think, education argument was made most aggressively with the critical race theory issue front and center there. it will be a real test whether republicans have found a political message to win the outer suburbs that the inroads were made in the last few years. >> bret: josh, thank you so much. we will get back to bill and the billboard.

bill, you have been digging through the date of and political reports, and follows closely, he needs to win by 12%y my benchmark. it had four turn out and won by 10% and needs to compensate for other types of suburbs to win. it looks like this to be close. >> i was just listening to the analysis and i do agree that youngkin has done a better job. and i will pop around the map with the time we have left here. again, i think a hundred thousand votes to out there but the fact that youngkin is hanging in loudoun county 47%, remember what the prediction was prior to. he had to be in the low 40s minimum so he's holding his own. let's pop down to chesterfield and see what we are getting right now. a big population. still a lot of votes but youngkin to win this county as josh was describing to you, a pretty good chance state wide peer at the republican won a state wide race in virginia since 2009.

they felt they've got a good attorney general, good lieutenant governor on the ballot. you could see some of that string throughout the night here. just down to virginia beach, we haven't seen for some time with my young youngkin republicans thought that youngkin spent a lt of his time and a lot of votes out because by population of ranked 2 out of 33 and counties and cities but youngkin at 58%. so far for the youngkin campaign, that would be pretty decent now. now in the southwest, i just -- look, it is rule virginia, not a ton of votes down there but you want to see how these voters are doing in places like washington county. over here in scott county. i will go back 11 months ago and look what donald trump was doing, 83.6 over here in washington county, 75.8, my favorite, right, 83.34 trump and you come back to current days

today and okay, they ricoh, 85.8, youngkin, he's holding his own in the ruled areas. that is one key, right? the other key is the suburban areas. and chesterfield to see if any more voters clicked in. he's holding his own in chesterfield with 55% of the vote. >> bret: bill, we have a long way to go, but right now would you rather be youngkin question >> bill: wow, that is the game, isn't it? i guess you could be right but the bellwether county, the predicted winners every time the last 40 years, one is more and right now youngkin has an edge in that county. the other county is prince edward and you talk about the game come if i can get it here, prince prince edward about youngkin has the lead too. those are your two bellwethers in the commonwealth, guys. >> bret: come back a lot, bill, thanks. we will watch results roll in and stick with fox news for

continuing coverage throughout the evening. it might be a long one. >> martha: it will be interesting and we we will be back for special coverage at 11:00. "tucker carlson tonight" is coming up next. ♪ ♪ >> tucker: fox news alert tonight, there has been a hitch and highly anticipated count in virginia governor's race. fairfax county the biggest and most democratic county in the state of virginia will not be supplying its vote results on time. we were supposed to have early vote after 7:00 eastern but an hour ago fairfax county official announced there is a delay and they need to rescan the ballots. they will release partial vote of early vote in person sometime this evening. we will be tracking that for us