our economy. from the plains to the coasts, we help americans invest for their future. and help communities thrive. >> john: there is breaking news all new at 2:00 and an official announcement on the senate race in georgia. a contest that is proving to be every bit as important as analysts had predicted. >> sandra: a live look, screen left in atlanta, we are expecting to hear from georgia secretary of state brad raffensperger, set to speak any moment, and confirming to fox news they say this race is heading to a run-off. >> john: the race between republican herschel walker and

democrat incumbent rafael warnock starting from scratch and with control of the senate up in the air, it may all come down once again to the peach state. welcome back as "america reports" rolls into a second hour. i'm john roberts in washington. everything old is new again, sandra. >> sandra: sandra smith in new york. aishah hasnie is live in atlanta, i believe through the glass we can see brad raffensperger is ready to go and hear an announcement soon? >> yes, absolutely. in fact, i think that you can see him through the window there right now. he's inside his office about to walk out to the podium and make his remarks. i just caught up with him in his office about 20, 30 minutes ago, and i asked him point blank, sandra, is this race, this very heated senate race neck and neck, is this headed for a run-off, and he told me yes. it is officially headed for a

run-off. and that is what he is going to announce in just the next couple of moments here, and he says look, there were just not enough votes left -- not enough outstanding votes for either candidate, if they were to put it on this side or that side, to go past that 50% threshold that is required by georgia law. it's very unique and special to this peach state. they have to break that 50% threshold and neither candidate will be able to do that. looks like we have some movement in the office but still waiting for the secretary to come out. now, look if you are herschel walker's camp, the candidate, you are elated right now. because this is the best case scenario for you, considering how the votes have been broken down at this hour. i just got a text message from the walker spokesperson, he said it's overtime, and we are confident. as to whether or not walker will hit the ground running

continuing on with his campaign or perhaps will take a break, that spokesperson responds tbd. so we will find out whether that campaigning will continue right off the bat. now, rafael warnock, if you are him, you are thinking man, i wish i would have just gotten to a couple more groups of people, maybe made a couple more stops because he was very, very close to breaking that 50% threshold. let's pull up where the tallies are right now, the two candidates, just about 40,000 votes apart, again, warnock leading walker. that margin had widened this morning in warnock's favor and you can take note of the vote count there. libertarian took away 90,000 votes from the candidates that could have helped either one of those out. now, everything went into a tizzy this morning, overnight, i

should say, this tweet from the coo, tweeted last night, county officials are doing the detailed work on counting the vote we feel it is safe to say there will be a run-off for the u.s. senate here in georgia slated for december 6th. adding a tongue in cheek gif, the only thing to make this better was overtime, but that was not an official announcement. we are now getting the official announcement today. both camps say they anticipated for this, watching the polls, the polls were neck and neck, the margins getting narrower and narrower, and now we certainly know it is official that we will now see georgia head to a run-off. sandra. >> sandra: aishah, keep us posted and update from georgia any moment now. john. >> john: let's bring in martha maccallum, so still some vote out unreported in the state of

georgia, including some of the big counties. but the secretary of state brad raffensperger, not enough to push either over the top, declaring the run-off. >> here we go again, like stepping into the way back machine in 2020 and you remember we were all in georgia, it was kelly and david, two senate race run the last time around and that night shifted the political landscape for the following two years. that was the vote that led us to a 50/50 senate and if you take a look at the map you'll see that we may actually end up there exactly once again, and that would leave kamala harris with the v.p. vote to be the deciding factor in all of the legislation that we have seen. the infrastructure bill, the inflation reduction act, all of it that is because of that 50/50 senate. you know, this has been quite a

24 hours. a ton of looking in the rearview mirror for republicans today, they are fighting to maintain or to gain, i should say, control of the house of representatives. we are still waiting for a couple dozen seats to come in on the house side. i'm told by people in the leadership group that they believe that they'll get there, and they believe the number will be north of 224. we'll see if that pans out. it could come down to georgia. we are about to get the official announcement and four more weeks of campaigning for warnock and walker. december 6th the date for that run-off election. >> sandra: watching georgia, arizona, nevada, republicans have high hopes in nevada, martha, being anybody's guess where all this goes next. we are awaiting a lot of the slow vote tallies to happen like

in maricopa county. to your point about reflection in the republican party, you do wonder what the days and the weeks to come look like as both parties gear up for 2024, martha. >> one of the interesting undercurrents here, became clear when we started looking at the fox news voter analysis, the combination of exit polls, whether people walked out of the poll or voted early, and there was this kind of cluster of issues that were also important to people and into that basket fell abortion, fell climate change, and i think what we are seeing is that those issues mattered more to voters than they were telling us in the time that led up to this. and in some cases i think it's why you are seeing some split vote in the governor's race versus the senate race, and i think that there was almost an effort on the part of some voters, women in particular, to sort of, you know, put a stop-gap on that abortion question, and we saw referendums

that went the way of kind of hitting the brakes on what the supreme court did, and also in kentucky there was a vote to lock in a more stringent abortion law in kentucky, that failed. and you heard jim messina, looking to 2024, i'll want referendums on as many state ballots as i can get them. the issue was thought to fall by the wayside, i think it's pretty clear it did have an impact last night. >> john: georgia, the pending run-off, one of the reasons many people say kelly lefler and david perdue lost to warnock and osthof trump said you cannot trust the vote, and many stayed home, how will that influence

the run-off and also one of the big questions here, will brian kemp, who won his race over stacey abrams, potentially throw his considerable political heft behind herschel walker? >> he certainly could. he avoided a run-off himself and you are right. we remember covering that story, the northern parts of georgia where everybody was stinging, many voters were stinging and the former president was still stung from the loss in 2020 and they decided they did not have trust in the system and they stayed home and the support for the two candidates, he did come in and rally for them at the last minute, but it was not enough to put them over the edge. and discussion back then about then they would have the quality to win the race. enormous amount of effort poured into the second chance for herschel walker that it appears he's about to be given in a run-off, and also have the libertarian candidate who would not meet the mark, that leaves about 70,000 votes currently on

the table to go to one of these candidates as well. so, all -- cliche, but all eyes are going to be on georgia and i'm not kidding, all hands on deck focus to nail that down. >> john: thank you for being with us, appreciate it. see you soon. >> great to see you. >> sandra: i believe brad raffensperger is at the microphone. head to georgia. >> we figured you would like more than two hours of sleep but a little bit of update and more information. we had a beautiful day yesterday in georgia and beautiful day here again. it was a very successful election day. we saw georgians from all over the state cast their ballots to make their voice heard. it's still a wonderful thing. this vote, this democracy. this republic. i still stand in awe of what we saw and what our forefathers

have built on this nation. something so unique and human history. it's truly divinely inspired. that said, it takes people, lots of people, very hard working people to make it happen. so i want to give credit first to our elections team, my office led by our director, blake evans. the deputy director, dr. jesse harris, and michael barnes, our director of the center for elections. their team has done amazing work and they worked with the greatest county election teams that i think our nation has to do the tough on the ground work of running polling locations, processing voters, and counting the votes. and speaking of processing voters, we had an average speed of processing voters at the polls that was simply amazing. we saw processing speeds of 48 seconds and actually got down to 47 seconds for a few moments.

it was that kind of processing speed that led to two-minute average wait times, you know, across the state. i have a screen shot if anyone wants to see it later. i read online a person wanted to test our line forming law. so he loaded his car with boxes and cases of bottled water to give the voters in line. he started driving around and his problem was he couldn't find any lines. and so he even said in the article "the system is running so smoothly today that no one lined up in the sun." so that is tremendous to see that kind of responsive and good results that we had at the county level. i know all of you are probably voters also and you probably had that same fantastic experience. and the credit for that goes to the counties and it goes to the voters. the voters took record advantage

of preelection day voting, they had shattered the records for both absentee by mail and early in-person voting in a midterm. and we have seen that the counties almost fully complete the county, and only after 2:00 p.m. on wednesday. we see less than 10,000 voters to potentially be added to the count outside the handful of votes that can be accepted by monday, november 14th. most of the races have a clear winner. in fact, i spoke last night, bea wynn conceded, i thank her for that. that's the way it's supposed to be. we need all candidates who come up short to acknowledge it and to come back and fight within our system another day if that's their so choice. there is one race in our state that is going to be moving to the december 6th run-off. that is the race for the united

states senate between senator rafael warnock and herschel walker. our office has already began the behind the scenes work to start building the ballots. so ballots are being built as we speak and counties are making preparations. so some specifics for the process. voters can request absentee ballots now through monday, november 28th. there are about 150,000 voters who will receive an absentee ballot because they are on the rollover list. these people are either 65 or disabled. our absentee ballot request portal is now open. early voting must begin no later than monday, november 28th, in all counties. we do participate that some counties will have saturday voting after thanksgiving, and

november 26th. we are working with the counties to see what their plans are so the voters can make their best plans. a very heavy lift for the counties, it's a four-week run-off period but i have confidence they will take all measures required to rise to the task. while we are working preparing for the run-off, we all have our obligation to close out the november 8th election. counties must certify by tuesday, november 15th, by 5:00 p.m. then we move to the risk limiting audit. wednesday, november 16th, then the audit must be complete by november 22nd. and the state must certify by friday, the 25th. that's the day after thanksgiving. it's a lot of work, but that's how the machinery of our democratic republic works. we welcome it because we know at the end of the day everyone wants to know that we have

honest and fair elections. and we do. i will ask the voters to come out and vote one last time. we have no control over how many campaign ads our voters are going to see over the next 30 days, but we'll make sure that we have honest and fair elections. i want to thank the voters. i want to thank you for your strong participation. i want to thank you for just being so friendly and really working with the system. we only had seven precincts out of 2700 that did not finish yesterday, had to extend past the 7:00 p.m. deadline. i want to thank the election workers. they worked long days yesterday and working some long days ahead. i want to thank the poll workers, and i want to thank all of their families who support them. and a special thank you to our team. thank you and i will take your questions. yes, ma'am. >> [inaudible]

>> no, we kind of knew where it was headed and we wanted to make sure that it was what it was going to be. right now we are down under 10,000 votes, and we look at how many this person has, and add all of 10,000 to it. they would not have 50%, and likewise on the other side so that's why we are, you know, tell you that there will be a run-off and that's why we started building ballots this morning. >> [inaudible] >> sandra: all right, that's the news. he believes the race there will go to run-off and has just declared so. that means four more weeks of campaigning for the candidates, december 6th the day for georgia. undecided senate race there. >> john: well, at least it's four weeks and not eight like two years ago. thank you goodness for small

miracles. bring in byron york, so, we have georgia going to a run-off now, still don't know what's happening in arizona, don't know what's happening in nevada. we were talking as we were watching raffensperger speak there are two scenarios does not matter what happens in georgia. >> that's right. looks like mark kelly has a big lead in arizona. if democrats keep that seat, it's all nevada, and it looks like adam laxalt may be able to win and that would take back a democratic seat for republicans. if he does that, then georgia means everything. but if he doesn't, if democrats -- if catherine cortez masto manages to keep the seat in nevada, georgia is an afterthought. democrats will already have control of the senate. that's the scenario we are looking at and we'll know it well before the run-off. >> john: we hope, i mean, with -- >> let's hope that. >> john: a third of the votes

outstanding in maricopa county, for pete sake, we will not know until the end of the week, and lord knows when about nevada as well. 30,000 foot view here and what happened with the gop. we were expecting this time yesterday that it could be a red wave. there wasn't, mayra flores lost her seat after winning in june, said the red wave did not happen. republicans and independents stayed home. do not complain about the results if you did not do your part. she was on fire about her loss. >> it didn't happen. in the big picture, the thing that most analysts had predicted was that republicans would take control of the house, and it appears that that's what's going to happen. now, they have done it by a much smaller margin than some republicans predicted, but appears they are going to take control of the house. if president biden has a

legislative for the second half of his term -- >> john: what do the next two years look like if they have a marginal majority, no way they can cobble together democrats necessary to override a veto. looks like a recipe for gridlock for two years. >> the president himself said it would be a horrible couple of years. and the republicans will go to the donors and supporters and say we are here to stop all the bad things that joe biden and the democratic party would do. so, that is a big change and if they -- if it -- as it appears, republicans take control of the house that's huge. as far as the senate is concerned, clearly republicans got overtaken with a sense of optimism that you could just see it growing, you know. several weeks out. they were telling me, they were telling me we think we can win in pennsylvania, we are not

sure. well, that became we are sure we can win in pennsylvania and then they were sure they were going to win in georgia and then they started talking about long shots like we think we could win in new hampshire or maybe even win in washington state. didn't even get close to that happening. >> john: since we covered the senate, call four number 7, ron desantis, looks like he has more political capital now than any other republican who currently holds office and the big question, we talked about this, will he declare for 2024 at some point and is he willing to go up against president trump who is laying the ground work he's going to kneecap him pretty hard. what jason chaffen said earlier with harris. >> the people i talk to, they say we love donald trump. we are so grateful he beat hillary clinton. we love his policies, we think it's unfair how the media has treated him, unfair what the department of justice has treated him but you know what, we don't like all the drama. we like ron desantis.

>> john: we like ron desantis, and he said further to that that a fight between ron desantis and donald trump doesn't do the republican party any good heading into -- >> it could be really bloody. desantis is in a strong position, decisive re-election. if he waited to 2028, he would be the former governor of florida. a lesson a lot of people took from barack obama's rise was do it now, don't wait for another few terms in office and then run until -- when you are mature enough to win. so i really see him going now. now, the thing is it's clear donald trump would like to run in the republican primaries as incumbent president and clear the field. that's not going to happen anymore. and we have seen the last few days with the former president saying he knows a lot of dirt on ron desantis. and he'll let it out if desantis

runs. you can tell it's not going to be a pretty process. >> john: maybe there is a tattoo somewhere we don't know about. >> oh, boy, headline news. >> john: donald trump did dispatch one popular florida governor but i think desantis is a different animal. >> trump's lesson from 2016, he knocked down every one of the republican rivals, including the former governor jeb bush and his lesson was hit them hard. >> john: desantis hits hard, we'll see. >> sandra: president biden is going to face questions, this is happening a short time from now, we are told he'll be speaking at 4:00 eastern time. the white house is "elated" after democrats losses were less than the shelacking some had expected. but the gop is on the verge of winning the house would give republicans control of the powerful house oversight committee that launches investigations. jacqui heinrich is reporting from the north lawn as we await

the president and what he might say after last night's big night. >> yeah, that's right, sandra. the big take away here at the white house is that they say democrats ran on the president's agenda, not away from it. and it was successful. they think the president spoke to the issues that americans care most about, including abortion and clean energy. but it is fair to at least question that, given that the president was an unwelcome visitor on the campaign trail in those swing states. his low approval numbers, and then also the democrat strategy in the end was effectively to put trump on the ballot again, a strategy they tested before and believed would be successful once again. we will hear from the president this afternoon and see what he says. some think biden may use this moment to launch his own 2024 run. >> i would be very surprised and said we are sorry american

people, led you astray, and pushes biden to run. i believe he believes he's the only person to beat donald trump. >> midterm message almost nothing what he would like to accomplish in the second half of his term, maligned ultra maga republicans, alarming picture what a gop controlled congress would look like and touted or sometimes exaggerated past achievements like with job creation or deficit reduction. very little insight into what the next two years look like. the only plan biden started to lay out was to codify abortion rights. if republicans take the house, we are learning more about who biden may have to work with. house minority whip steve scalise does not plan to run against kevin mccarthy for the speakers gavel. >> you say you will support kevin mccarthy for speaker and pledge no not run against him. >> yeah, and i've said it very

clearly. i'm supporting kevin. >> the president will speak at 4:00 p.m. eastern and take questions on his first solo news conference on american soil since january. >> sandra: live from the white house as we await the president a short time from now. john. >> john: we are expecting a briefing out of clark county, nevada, as election officials give an update on the vote counting there, which is going more slowly than people would like it to. >> sandra: could another big midterm surprise be store, oregon, if they send a republican to the governor's mansion.

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this point. this as reports indicate much of the outstanding vote is mail-in, and concentrated in clark county. the fight for governor, our desk says joe lombardo is in a better position but it's too close and too early to call. coming down to clark county, waiting on an update from there. what do we expect from the briefing we are about to hear? >> how familiar does this all sound, sandra. it's going to come down to mail-in ballots in clark county, nevada. i was here for weeks after the 2020 election as we went through this same process and here we go again in both these critical races. the senate race between incumbent democrat, catherine cortez masto and adam laxalt and then between steve sisolak and sheriff joe lombardo.

come down to mail-in ballots, almost certainly the ones mailed here in clark county, which vegas is at the heart. so, they are starting to count them. the issue here is that if you sent your ballot in and it was postmarked up until yesterday, they have until saturday to arrive and they have to legally be counted. so we could be going for some time. it simply depends how many of those mail-in ballots they have in their hands today and how many they can count today. that's the information we hope to hear from the registrar, joe gloria, shortly. here is what he said earlier today. listen. >> no speeding up the process. statutory deadlines, we have to take the u.s. postage through saturday and if the process does not end until monday -- >> one of the interesting things to look out for here, sandra, is that adam laxalt, the republican

challenger to senator catherine cortez masto was the lead voice for president trump in challenging the results here in nevada in 2020. alleging widespread fraud. of course, the courts and election officials said there was no evidence whatsoever of widespread fraud. it will be very interesting if adam laxalt loses in a squeaker. if he follows that same playbook this time, at the moment laxalt has something like a two and a half point lead, but clark county votes tend to break for the democrats, so it's anybody's guess right now which way this critical senate race is going to go, sandra. >> sandra: why the update we are waiting any moment now is so critical. we'll be listening for that. the john. >> john: out west, arizona, two key races also remain too close to call. kelly o'grady is in phoenix, and

when are the votes expected to be counted, kelly? >> good afternoon to you, john. officials at the maricopa tabulation office says we should expect 95 to 99% of those votes reported by friday. the rest of the state will hit that timeline as well. maricopa is the big one. a lot to change between now and the end of the week when it comes to what the race looks like. some context on how and why the race is evolving. start with the senate. 66% right now reporting. democratic incumbent mark kelly leading by five points. he heavily won in that early vote but masters is closing the gap overnight as day of voting data comes in. now, it's important to note the spread. kelly started 18 points ahead but masters has already made up 13% overnight. we are seeing the new batches heavily skew for the gop, there is still about 90,000 votes separating the two, so there is a lot of ground to make up there.

on the governor's side, it's a lot tighter. kari lake is inching closer, just 12,000 votes separate the two. hobbs, started ahead at 14%, and that has narrowed to just under 1%. big reason is lake has been winning a lot of the batches by 70 to 80%. just wrapped a presser an hour ago. latest what to expect. 60% of the electorate resides here, so maricopa county is the holy grail. 400,000 votes remain, a little bit over that. the next batch this evening. record 275,000 early ballots were dropped off yesterday, why it's taking so long. more people voted in-person in this election than in 2020. so lake and masters encourage their base to vote on election day and that's part of what is making yesterday's vote counting machine malfunction so

impactful. and the lake team says they feel confident they will win comfortably so. when the votes come out tonight, an indication where this is going to trend. back to you, john. >> john: kelly o'grady for us. >> sandra: the biggest winner of all might be ron desantis with his decisive victory in florida. the state is now solidly red. what does this mean in terms of the next big elections, and we are talking 2024 next. we all have a purpose in life - a “why.” maybe it's perfecting that special place that you want to keep in the family... ...or passing down the family business... ...or giving back to the places that inspire you. no matter your purpose, at pnc private bank, we will work with you every step of the way to help you achieve it. so let us focus on the how. just tell us - what's your why? ♪

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>> sandra: many of you know the economy was the top issue on voter's minds, across the country, but number 2 and 3 you might not believe it. here to talk about it is tom bevin, grate to have you here. i want to sort of take our viewers through some of the questions we had voters answer and get your reaction to them. our fox news voter analysis on national level, when asked how important was the supreme court overturning roe v. wade decision on abortion to your vote, those that said that was important to their voting decision, 70%, tom, to 30% who said it was minor or

not a factor. does that surprise you? >> it surprises me a little bit. i mean, that's not what the data, the preelection data was showing in the polls. obviously it was important to democrats, high on the list, even above inflation, but even among independents, the economy and the inflation was the number one by either 3 to 1 or 4 to 1 in some polls. so that number is a little bit high, a little surprising. i mean, again, not for democrats in the slightest. >> sandra: then again, maybe there were a lot of folks that were overlooking these issues as it turns out. tom, i look back at clear politic heading into last night, as of november 1st, you had the gop taking 54 seats in the senate. that obviously is proving to be far off from what we know so far. >> we actually had them picking up three seats in the senate was the final projection, and we'll see where, the senate is undecided, we'll see where that nets out. but obviously, it was a strong

night for democrats. they defied history and expectations. if you look at every metric used to judge midterm elections from presidential job approval rating, you look at the economy, inflation, all of those numbers this was a daunting environment for democrats and they surprised everyone by performing as well as they did in the house races. they won a number of very competitive close house races. >> sandra: you had odds winning pennsylvania, masters winning arizona, and bolduc winning new hampshire, right? >> we had hassan in new hampshire, masters ahead by 0.3. >> sandra: i ask you, obviously there were growing hopes, gop hopes this would be a bigger night, particularly with the senate races for their party.

and we go back to the questions voters were asked in our voter analysis, and it's really something. how important is the future of democracy to the vote. 86% say it was an important factor. obviously this was a big thing that democrats ran on, tom. >> it is and look, we are still learning about this, and maybe that number was higher and was a more resonant message outside of just speaking to democrats, which is what i think the biden administration was trying to do. that could also include republicans who said listen, you know, it's important to me as well. but viewing it through a different lens. i think the most important thing, the biggest thing that jumped out at me, sandra, in the exit polls, is that democrats won independents by two percentage points. independents have voted for

voting for the out party by 10, 15 points. >> sandra: i want to finish off here. when asked how concerned about climate change voters were, 61% said very or somewhat, 39% not concerned. climate change was up there, and it was on mind of voters when they head to the ballot box. so, is this a missed opportunity for republicans to have some sort of m he is sagging there for voters who care about this issue? >> again, that's an issue that splits down partisan lines. democrats are concerned about it, republicans not concerned, and independents in the middle. you could make the argument that republicans, they thought crime was the issue driving some races in wisconsin, in new york, and in that senate race in pennsylvania. and it was a concern to people but it was again, down the list, below the economy. and i think republicans may have gotten distracted and focused too much on that.

>> sandra: to that point, i'll finish off with that question. which inflation factor was the most important to the vote. inflation was polling time and time again, number one issue for american voters and this was really interesting. 48% say it was about groceries and food for them. i mean, people are really feeling the pain at the grocery store and the expensive nature of putting food on the table for their family, and gas was number 2, 16% say that factored into their vote. housing is a big one. utilities, double digit, all major concerns for american voters and a big part of the republican messaging heading into last night. thank you very much for joining us. tom, good to see you. >> john: florida was arguably the biggest win for republicans last night, pulling off victories in the senate and the governor's races. ron desantis winning in a landslide. now many people are looking at him for 2024. bring in ari fleischer, new york

post front page from this morning, ron desantis, picture of him with the words defuture underneath it. do you have any doubt he has the greatest political capital of any republican who currently holds office? >> well, first let me just saying i know somebody in mar-a-lago, florida who may cut off his subscription to the new york post. i think ron desantis had tremendous momentum into the election and support from many republicans for a possibly presidential race in 2024, and after last night it's even more so. i think there is no question. if ron desantis wants to take on donald trump and it's a one-on-one race, that is a fair fight. ron desantis could win it, donald trump could win it. but there is no question donald trump could be defeated and it would be a fair fight. >> john: take a look at the numbers from last night. statewide, he beat crist by 19

points, 59-40. in miami-dade county, flipped that red from blue the first time in 20 years, and take a look at the demographic breakdown, desantis won 57% of hispanic voters, 52% of women voters, 52% of independents, that is a white house winning profile, ari, if i have ever seen that if he can repeat that nationally. >> well, that's a huge if. i remember when chris christie had huge numbers and people thought it spoke to his possibilities in a primary. here is why ron desantis is a popular governor. he's a conservative, two outsider, and three he's normal. and i think there is a longing for normal inside the republican party and in this nation. they want people who will let it rip, say what they think, are blunt, direct and don't sound like politicians, but don't want them to go too far outside the

bounds of normalcy in politics. and when you see how ron desantis greeted joe biden during the hurricane, that's part of normalcy in government, politics. that combination is his greatest strength. outsider without being a wrecking ball and gets things done. >> john: you said a certain candidate might cut off the mar-a-lago, cut off the subscription, and threatening to release information on him very personal that only ron desantis's wife would know. now, we don't know if he has a secret tattoo or something else, but trump is prepared to go to war here. >> or if it's nothing. we also heard there was a secret taping system inside the white house that donald trump didn't have. look, why i say it's a fair

fight. donald trump is formidable, the populus leader of many inside the republican party. ron desantis is formidable. key is how many republicans will have the courage or conviction to take on donald trump. conservatives, then they can't defeat donald trump. donald trump will win. if it's one-on-one, it's a fair fight, and donald trump could lose. >> john: jason was on with harris falkner earlier today and said a knock down, drag 'em down, bloody fight is in no one's interest in the republican party. listen here. >> i don't think republicans want to hear infighting between donald trump and ron desantis. and right now donald trump keeps taking shots at ron desantis, that is not going to play well. >> john: what do you think? >> well, i think prior to a primary nobody wants to hear that, republicans want to unify and win in 2024. in the course of a primary, get ready for it and i do think

there will be a primary, i don't know that desantis wants to run, we'll see. that's up to him individually. but if he does run, it's going to be rough. i mean, we just know that, that's how donald trump runs. it lets it rip, zing and effective at it. yes, republicans would like calm. no, i don't see that happening. >> john: not even finished with 2022, and into 2024. >> sandra: right back to work for governor desantis in florida as a potential hurricane takes aim at the state. >> this is likely going to be a storm that you are already seeing gusts now. it will affect huge parts of the state of florida pretty much all day on thursday. it's called the newday 100 because it lets veterans borrow up to 100% of their home's value. not just 80% like some typical loans. that extra cash can make a huge difference

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parts of florida's eastern coast are under a hurricane warning. if any -- nicole turns into a category one hurricane, could be the first time in november. let's bring in our hurricane specialist. he's one of the statest most trusted voices on this. welcome to you, sir. what do we need to know about nicole? >> hi, sandra. it's just offshore and coming ashore tonight. here you can see on the radar, you can see out of miami, we're on the edge of the radar range. the eye of the storm is over here in the bahamas. what we see are the bands of rain. another band comes in, it gets stronger and stronger. this will peak this evening in to about midnight. looks like the time that and la fall will happen. what is already happening this very strong wind is blowing in here against the shoreline that

was damaged in ian. so it doesn't have the normal protection especially in the daytona beach area, on towards cape canaveral. it could intensify over the bahamas and weaken over the state of florida. look how far the strong winds extend to the north. they will blast the entire state of florida and plus the carolina and georgia coast as it comes in. looking at it step by step, here it comes. tonight it's over the bahamas or everly evening there. tonight it makes landfall. then it heads to central florida. these are the hurricane force gusts that affect orlando to gainesville, the villages and all the way up to florida with gusty winds. tomorrow will be a nast the day in the state of florida. >> thanks, bryan. we'll be catching it.

could be the second time that we've seen a hurricane make landfall in the north of november. big deal. thanks, bryan. for more, stream fox weather on your favorite tv device. that brings us to the top of the hour. great to be with you, john. i'm sandra smith. >> john: i'm john roberts. by the way, in nevada, that press conference is that we won't know the official results until the 18th. i'm john roberts. martha? >> martha: wow. good afternoon. i'm martha maccallum. so here we go again. control of the senate could come down to a georgia run-off four weeks from today. there's the latest numbers, if you can get a look at the percentages there. it's very tight. democratic senator raphael warnock and herschel walker in georgia. the stat