get in a group chat and put in >> announcer: this is an abc news election update. an abc now reporting chief anchor george stephanopoulos. >> good morning. we're good morning on the air with breaking news. joe biden has pulled ahead of donald trump in the state of pennsylvania. you see it right there right now. after days of counting he now leads donald trump in the state of pennsylvania by 6,000 votes, 20 electoral votes at stake. if you look at the entire map, joe biden is leading in enough states to give him more than 270 electoral votes to be the next president of the united states. we're not ready to project all those states. we're going to go straight to tom llamas. >> george, a lot has changed since we went to bed last night.

let's dig in with pennsylvania right now. joe biden has taken the lead right now. he has about a 6,000-vote lead, just under 6,000 votes. there's still 130,000 ballots that still need to be counted. if you're saying this race is very close, we're talking about a 6,000-vote lead. there's 130,000 ballots that can be counted. president trump can catch up, maybe. here's the problem for president trump. at least 60% -- 60,000 of those 130,000 ballots that have yet to be counted are coming from philadelphia, the surrounding suburbs up through the lehigh valley and joe biden is making eastern pennsylvania even more blue. >> tom, let me stop you there. through the night joe biden has been winning. he's been winning the deep blue areas by 70, 80%. >> yes. because of the mail-in vote, when we look at pennsylvania, look at the ratio right here,

this is pretty much the breakdown. 80% are going to joe biden. i want to say 30,000 of that 130,000 still to be counted is coming from pittsburgh, a very deep blue county. >> also overnight, joe biden pulled ahead in georgia. >> right. at this hour right now, joe biden is on top with 1,000 votes. still very, very tight. there's about 8,000 votes still to be counted in georgia. the reason joe biden is on top is the vote is coming from places like gwinnett county. he's up 58.3 to 40.4. other counties are bigger for democrats, fulton and clayton. 80% of the vote going 0 joe biden. when the votes are coming from there, that's why joe biden is taking the lead. >> let's go to georgia.

steve osunsami is there. this could still take some time in georgia, steve. >> reporter: it could. we expect to hear more from the secretary of state today. he's holding a news conference later today. george, i want to underline, there are a lot of georgians waking up this morning, democrats and republicans, wondering what georgia did they wake up in. that's how significant this lead that joe biden has taken is. if he's able to hold on to it, he will accomplish something in georgia that president obama wasn't able to do twice. it is really breaking the conventional wisdom we're seeing here. there are people on the left who are celibaebrating and saying people like stacey abrams had a lot to do with this lead and john lewis, part of his district is responsible for a number of

these votes for joe biden. about the vote itself, the secretary of state who i will underline is a republican. we'll get more to that later. he points out there are about 8 to 9,000 outstanding votes. we're going to be counting military and overseas votes today. about 17,000 of those i think or so have laalready -- 18,000 of those have come in and are already counted. the secretary of state believes there may be about 9,000 potential more of those ballots that have to be in by the end of the day to day. that's where this lead could be adjusted and where the president could gain a few more votes. the other thing i'll point out is there's a huge effort -- there's a new ground war taking place on the left and right with both democrats and republicans encouraging voters who may have had issues with their absentee ballots that can be fixed to do

so by the end of business today. they called those cured ballots. those ballots could make a difference. tom mentioned gwinnett county. they finished counting most of their votes last night. they're planning to submit them today. we expect those votes to count. that's a blue county. the latino vote there is big. that number could shift again. >> steve, we're within a margin for an automatic recount? >> reporter: we are. the secretary of state is already prepared for that. he has said that a recount -- this is what he said yesterday. a recount shouldn't change the numbers much. he got new equipment. he said it would take a week for a recount. either candidate can order one. something about the secretary of state that i keep saying and want to say again, for all these allegations about democrats stealing elections and some of

these -- this notion that the election is being stolen, that's not going to play as well in this state where republicans control the legislature, the governor's office and where the secretary of state who runs the elections here is not only a republican, but also a supporter of the president. >> steve, thanks. let's go to pennsylvania. eva pilgrim is there. joe biden in the lead with many more votes to come. >> reporter: it was that big ballot drop from philadelphia that put him in the lead. it was about 30,000 ballots that were counted. the people in this city celebrated that moment. you have to remember that donald trump pointed out philadelphia multiple times saying bad things happen in philadelphia. this city is really proud. it's a proud city. proud of their history, proud of their people. they view joe biden as one of them. dr. jill biden is from this area. they are celebrating that this count from philadelphia is what put him over the top at this

point. jer george, we're still watching to see as the ballots come in. we're looking for the magic number of about 34,000. that would put biden ahead of a possible recount here in pennsylvania. he's not at that point yet. >> eva, thanks. let's go to pat toomey. senator toomey, thanks for joining us. joe biden has pulled ahead. do you think the president still has a chance in your state? >> he does, george. there's certainly still a path for the president. it's an extremely narrow lead. we have to remember this process goes beyond the first vote count. for instance, in pennsylvania we know there are some minor irregularities. those will have to be litigated. there's been a terrible lack of transparency in the philadelphia vote counting process. we have a rogue state supreme court that unilaterally decided

to rewrite election law to allow ballots without a postmark to be counted days after the election. >> the supreme court ratified that, didn't they? >> they did not ratify that. they said by a 4-4 decision they would not impose an injunction at that time leaving the door open to adjudicate that. i think that's likely to happen. if it turns out it's that category of ballots that create the margin of victory for vice president biden -- i have no idea whether that's the case. that has to be litigated. i think we've got a long way to go. we have to finish the counting and all legal ballots have to be counted. that takes as long as it takes. there's probably going to be a legitimate recount and then there will be legitimate litigation. i think that's the way it's going to go. we need to let this process play

out. >> the president said we should stop the counting. number one, the ballots that have come in do not include anything received after november 3rd. >> hold on, george. i'm not away that's the case. i don't know how we could know that in philadelphia since observers have not been given the opportunity to get close enough to observe. >> the supreme court ordered those observers to come in. we've been watching the count on television. i was talking to the lieutenant governor this morning. he said there's not been any widespread irregularities or fraud. >> george, i have acknowledged that. i'm not aware of any widespread or systemic fraud. however, nobody can say with confidence that the ballots that are supposed to be segregated in philadelphia are in fact being properly segregated because, even this morning, i spoke with the republican who's responsible for overseeing that process and he continues to be denied access

to the point where you can see what's happening. they're in the room. the room is the size of a small town. he can't get close enough to see what's going on. all i'm saying is there are some unnecessary problems and we'll have to get this resolved. >> one of the reasons it's taking so long is because the state legislature in pennsylvania said you couldn't start processing the absentee ballots until election day. i do take your point. let's say we go tlhrough the process, are you prepared to say once that's happened this has been a fair and free election? >> george, look, i voted for donald trump. i endorse donald trump. the person i want to be the next president is the person who wins the electoral college legitimately. i think our system is absolutely going to enable us to do that. i'm going to accept the results. >> senator toomey, thank you for

your time. >> thank you for having me. >> let's go to mary bruce. she's with the biden campaign in delaware. mary, i know that the biden camp has been having increasing confidence through the night. they believe they have this? >> reporter: george, they did. they believe this is inevitable and imminent. we heard joe biden come out yesterday and all but declare the race is over. they're extremely encouraged by what they see in georgia and all eyes are in pennsylvania. they're continuing to urge patience and urging everyone to remain calm. you heard joe biden keep the faith, democracy is messing and urging americans despite what the president is saying this is the process playing out as it should. that stark contrast with the white house is one that has been

extremely notable, despite the president's remarks last night. joe biden not responding directly to those. his team feels the more the president comes out and makes baseless accusations about voter fraud, they feel it underscores their argument they're winning. >> cecilia vega, are we getting a statement from the white house? >> reporter: it's a statement from the campaign. the strategy is being laid out and they're starting to carry what the president has been saying for the last few weeks which is raising questions about the integrity of the election. this statement comes from the general counsel for the campaign, matt morgan. he's not someone we heard from. let me read you some of the lines of it. quote, this election is not over. the false projection of joe biden as the winner is based on results in four states that are far from final. then they tick off each of the states. georgia is headed for a recount.

we're confident we'll find ballots improperly harvested. there's no evidence of that yet. we have not seen any evidence. we've been saying if that's the fact we would report that. we've not seen any evidence of improperly harvested ballots in georgia. they say in pennsylvania there were irregularities. volunteer observers were not allowed meaningful access. we heard from pennsylvania election officials who said the election has run smoothly. campaign says in nevada there appear to be thousands of individuals who improperly cast mail ballots. this campaign has offered no evidence of that. the president mentioned that last night. we've heard this from campaign officials. they offered zero evidence. then they say the president is on course to win arizona out right and they are blasting the news organizations that called the results of that election there. the president said he wants to

see this go all the way to the supreme court. we've seen the campaign file multiple -- this blitz of legal challenges, three of which have been tossed out by the courts. the strategy right now, george, appears to be one where they're focussed more on influencing public opinion, rather than changing law or changing the case against them in the courts. we're starting to see cracks in the ranks, people are not coming out and saying this publicly, but privately folks are starting to question this legal strategy as to whether this is the way to go for the president. >> we'll be keeping an eye on that. i want to go to nate silver from fivethiryeight. nate, let's look at pennsylvania and georgia. what's your read first in the state of pennsylvania, 130,000 votes out there? joe biden's lead has climbed to about 5,800 hundred. how solid is that?

>> it's very solid. i don't think there's a path back for trump. so far these are all mail votes. they've got 4-1, 3-1 to biden. if it continues, he'll be up by 70,000 votes, 1%. there are provisional ballots in pennsylvania. if you ask for a mail-in ballot and you say you don't trust that, i'm going to go and vote. those have not been counted in the count so far and that will go for joe biden. >> georgia much closer now. still have votes out there, provisional and military ballots out there. >> georgia is in the margin of surprise. it doesn't look like there's enough votes for trump to come back. you don't know how the military votes will go. there can be tabulation errors. it would be surprising if trump

won georgia. it's reasonably to leave georgia uncalled. it's a very close race. >> right now we have the secretary of state of georgia on the phone. secretary, thank you for joining us. can you tell us how your count is going? have you seen any irregularities? when do you expect to finish? >> right now at 9:00 a.m. we had 8,000 votes left in four counties. we have 8,890 military ballots outstanding that will be counted if they're returned by the close of business today. >> have you seen any widespread irregularities, any strong evidence of fraud in your state so far, any counting of illegal ballots? >> we are investigating every report we receive. we also have an open process to make sure we allow monitors into all elections so we're open and transparent. >> how would you describe how your counting process has gone so far?

>> we don't count. the counties do that. they're working diligently to get that done as soon as we can today. obviously we understand the national significance of georgia and we want to make sure we defend the integrity of our election. >> has there been an election with integrity so far? >> that's what we fight for every day. if we hear about any situations, we investigate them. >> have you come upon anything in that investigation that concerns you so far? >> i would say it's too premature to give a defined answer on that. we're so close. we understand because it's so close that the candidate that comes up within a half percent can asks for a full recount. we'll have a full recount if it goes the way we think. >> how long would that take? >> it's putting all the paper ballots together and running them through the scanners.

there's about 5 million votes cast and they have to all be tabulated. >> do recounts change the recount? what's the margin of error? >> we've never done a full statewide recount. this is the first time in 18 years because we have the verifiable paper ballots. we brought that in in 2019. >> secretary, thank you for your time this morning. >> thanks, george. >> let me go back to nate. we talked about georgia, that's likely to go to a recount. let's more to arizona and nevada. in nevada joe biden's lead fairly solid at this time? >> yeah. we have mail-in ballots from clark county. those have been very blue so far. i would expect joe biden's lead to grow there. >> arizona? >> arizona there has been decent news for president trump. he has been almost at the pace he needs in the late counted ballots to catch up.

there's some evidence the remaining ballots won't be quite as friendly to him. arizona is the most in doubt i think actually. >> if you put it altogether, you're seeing joe biden's -- the ceiling on electoral votes, 306, that's if he wins all these states. >> and there's also aska which uncalled technically. >> it is technically. i've been reading some analysis suggesting that alaska may be a bit closer because so much of the mail-in ballot hasn't been counted. >> the democratic senator made a bold snamt that he will catch up when the mail-in votes are counted. we've seen these gigantic splits between the mail-in vote and in person vote. we can't say for sure. it's more important for the

senate. if al gross won that race, democrats would have 49 senators going to the run-offs in georgia. that's salien tt there. >> your bottom line is joe biden will get the votes he needs in nevada and pennsylvania? >> that's the problem, if we woke up and see that joe biden has failed to win in georgia and arizona, i wouldn't be surprised. pennsylvania and nevada are problems for the president. >> let me bring in chris christie. chris, i was listening closely to senator toomey just a few moem moments ago. he was taking a different line from the white house. yes, we'll use every legitimate challenge we have. we want more transparency in the process. we'll go through the recounts, but not suggesting he has evidence that illegal ballots

have been cast. >> no, because there is no evidence yet. it was what i was saying last night and throughout the night and this morning to people calling me. if there is evidence, we need to see it. if there isn't, we have to stop indicting the system. that's my issue. i brought lots of indictments as a prosecutor. i didn't lose any of them and the reason is because i looked at the evidence first and convinced it was beyond a reasonable doubt and then brought charges. one of the things you're seeing is the absence of don mcgahn. this race was just as close in 2016 as it is now. there were recounts in 2016. you never saw any of this mayhem because there was a legal strategy. >> one of the ironies is if joe biden wins those four states, he'll get 306 electoral votes.

>> what you're seeing is the scrambling of the complaints being dismissed and not showing success, it doesn't appear that prior to election day they had somebody quarterbacking the legal approach, laying out a plan and having people on the ground to execute that. i know in 2016 don mcgahn had that plan and executed it. he's one of the most qualified election lawyers in the country. he wasn't there this time. he left the white house and was distanced by people in the white house away from the campaign and the president. one of the things you're missing here -- the reason folks like me don't have confidence in what's happening is because we don't have anybody in charge of the legal process. >> who is running the show? >> the answer is i don't know. >> u.s. history for 200. >> i don't know, george. what i will say is the absence of don mcgahn is being felt by

that campaign starkly in the last couple days and underestimated over the course of time. he's handled the supreme court nominations. he handled some of the difficult legal issues through the years. what we need to know is is there evidence? >> we have the democratic senator from pennsylvania bob casey. senator casey, thank you for joining us. how do you see this vote going during the day? >> george, good to be with you. i think the lead will grow. i don't know exactly where it will end up. i've been saying for a few days now i thought in the official count, which could be two weeks down the road, which is very typical, that i think he'll be ahead by somewhere north or south of 100,000. >> that would be outside the

scope of a rekouncount, or an automatic recount. on the issue of irregularities, what have you seen? senator toomey was talking about transparency. do you have any evidence that ballots that came in after election day have been counted? >> the allegations of fraud are just a big lie. we know that. we know that there are ballots that will be counted that came in after election day, the ones postmarked on election day. i think it's a rather small numb number though. i can't say i know the exact number. from one credible source that is very close to these numbers, the estimate was somewhere around the 10,000 range. >> you're confident, even as the votes come in today and the

recount is completed in two weeks, that joe biden will have won the state of pennsylvania and is the next president of the united states? >> yes. >> senator casey, thanks for your time. i want to go to sara fagen. pat toomey seemed to be walking the same line that mitch mcconnell came out with. every ballot must be counted. if there are illegal ballots, we'll investigate it. >> that's all you can do as a republican. there is not evidence of widespread faraud. it doesn't help any political leaders who want bright futures to say there's fraud when there's no evidence of it. i agree whole heartedly with governor christie. this campaign lacks a legal strategy. it would have been smarter to focus solely on pennsylvania, the fact that perhaps as senator toomey just said, republicans

are not being allowed to witness the ballots. i heard the same thing from somebody in clark county last night who i talked to on the phone. no republican has been allowed in the counting center. it doesn't mean there's fraud. that does lay concern. you have to lay groundwork before you come out with a sledge hammer and allege widespread fraud. the campaign has failed to do that. >> jon karl, we saw the president trying to spark outrage among republicans last night. some of his senate allies have responded. >> reporter: some have. they responded really after being basically dared or maybe threatened by the president's sons. you had both eric trump and donald trump junior go to twitter to demand to know where the gop is on this, where republicans are and saying they would remember. anybody thinking about running for president in don jr.'s tweet

needs to be heard from. after that almost on cue you saw a few go on fox news in prime time, josh holly of missouri, ted cruz of texas. we saw lindsey graham come out and suggested that maybe the pennsylvania legislature which is controlled by republicans would vote to select its own al electors to the electoral college. by and large, republican leadership has been quiet. mitch mcconnell put out a statement overnight. he said every legal vote should be counted. any illegally submitted ballots must not. the courts are here to apply the laws and the voting will go on. i've been talking to republicans behind the scenes on this,

outside of the president's inner, inner circle who are saying the president is going to sound off. he's going to do his thing, but it's not going to matter. the counting will go on. the electoral college will determine the winner echoing what pat toomey was saying. >> terry moran, in the last couple days you spoke to the attorney general of nevada, state officials in georgia, pennsylvania, arizona, to a person they say no evidence of widespread fraud. this isn't likely to go very far in the courts. >> it's not. one of the things that's developing is the judges are looking at the cases and literally laughing them out of court. the federal judge in pennsylvania heard them say

they're blocking them out and then with the evidence he find out they were in the room. he said what's your problem? >> pat toomey said it's a big room and they want to go closer. >> the judge said go figure it out like grown-ups. they went from 20 feet to 6 feet. they're still complaining. the problem they've got with the madcap legal situation, if you can call it that, really the law is not your friend at this point. the source of law in this country and every judge knows it are the votes of the american people. that's a force that donald trump has to deal with. he better come up with better legal arguments. right now judges are saying there's no evidence here. get out of the court until you come back with something better. >> matthew dowd, you're a veteran of the recount of 2000. the place where politics and law intersect, the candidate with

the lead has the advantage going into the courts. >> reporter: 100% and in many ways the politics is more important than what the legal arguments are that his president and allies might want to be making. this is a profoundly more -- better situation for joe biden than what was going on in florida in 2000. in florida when the official count was done, it was 900 votes. it was the process of the recount that started to diminish that from 900 to 600 and it ended up 500 to 600. we're talking now about thousands of votes. we know the margin now. my back of the envelope math, when i look at what's remaining, is joe biden will have upwards

of a 60 to 70,000 vote lead when it's all done. that's a much different situation when you're dealing with 900 votes in florida and thousands and thousands of votes that joe biden has an advantage of this year. >> across several states. yvette simpson when you look at this now at friday it turns out the african-american community in detroit, philadelphia, atlanta and las vegas all came out for joe biden. >> they did. that was not without a lot of work. we're talking about stacey abrams and her work, also lots of organizing efforts from organizations across the states. there are a lot of organizations that are black focussed who were doing the work to get people to come out. they came out overwhelmingly. i love that. the real question is what does that look like now? how do we serve those people?

rahm and i were talking about the importance of delivering for black persons in this moment who really showed up. it's not that surprising. african-americans are deeply impacted by this pandemic. the racial unrest that's happening, the war that trump has caused siding with white supremacists, emboldening white supremacist has really motivated african-american voters. that good old organizing that still works in communities, bringing out new voters. it's not just shifting the demographics. it's expanding the electorate and getting those folks engaged and bringing them into the fold. great effort in all these cities. >> rahm emanuel, what does joe biden do now? if this keeps going in the same direction, looks like he'll have between 279 to 306 electoral

votes. unlikely to have control of the senate at least until january. lay out how he should behave in the next months. >> i decided to work out today to "midnight train to georgia." if you know a song for arizona or nevada, i'm open. 45 minutes of "midnight train to georgia." you saw this yesterday. you'll go from the politics to the policy of governing. you'll see his rhetoric move that way from the assumption to the assertion he'll be the next president. you have to take stock. democrats and biden's team will be away of this bill clinton wins and the republicans take over the house. you have gains with barack obama and you lose control in 2010. how do you avoid the boom and

bust of the democratic party? if you step back -- not trying to be an advocate -- trump did better with minority communities and stole some votes. >> let's use better language. >> he got votes typically republicans don't get. same with what joe biden did, he did better in areas that democrats typically don't get. you have to look at the race and learn lessons. the other thing he has to look at -- you have a campaign still going on in georgia. what you're communicating nationally has a direct impact on those senate races. he will govern in the tradition -- remember after 2012 he went to negotiate with mitch mcconnell the tax bill after the election. he has a working relationship of trust, not just with mitch mcconnell, but other leaders.

he's saying i'm offering my hand. he will be cognizant of where his votes came from and what the country needs to implement smart, progressive policies. >> heidi heitkamp, joe biden if he becomes president, has to bri bridge your wing of the party with progressives and moderates, how does he do it? >> he'll focus on today's challenges, which is the pandemic. as much as joe has the relationship with the senate republicans, i think his base of bringing the country together is with the governors. they're experiencing this huge pandemic, this huge problem. they're in it with this president. i think there's a great way to build the kind of relationship they need to build to go into infrastructure and go into economic work.

i think all of those actually fit within the progressive moderate. what we need to do doesn't have a label there. it has to be done to bring this country back to semblance of governing. >> i want to go back the georgia. gabriel sterling is holding a press conference now. >> we'll go over the details in the vote counts. there have been changes overnight and even changes from the time we walked into the front door of the office to the podium today. good to see everybody here this morning. we close in on a final tally. the secretary just announced a particular set of numbers that went down from the time we walked from the door to here. our new total is 4,169. they are in a handful of counties. in cherokee county, 150 ballots they did not upload.

they're uploading those today. there are 75 now in cobb. there's 444 in floyd. there's approximately 3,500 in gwinnett as we went through what they reported as opposed to what they have left to scan. that's it. lawrence county the 1,769 votes we had yesterday, we're basing those on the absentee ballot differences. when they did their reconciliation process, they discovered they had accidentally uploaded those into their election day totals. their totals will not change. the vote type will change. outside of that we don't have any other numbers we're aware of. i want to remind everybody we have ballot curing processes today, verification process for provisional ballots and we can still get military ballots in by close of business today if they

were postmarked on tuesday. there's an unknowable amount of ballots available to be counted. they are in the hands of the election officials now, other than the military ones. i can assure you there are teams of 20 somethings around the state, republicans and democrats, finding those ballots to cure and they're going through that process county by county. to pre-empt a question, are we seeing any widespread fraud? we're not seeing widespread irregularities. we're investigating any credible accusation. let me tell you one thing, when you have a narrow margin, little small things can make a difference. so everything is going to have to be investigated to protect the integrity of the vote. our office intends to do that. looking at a wide margin,

doesn't matter as much. wide narrow, it does. we understand it and our investigators are aware of that. it's important to protect the integrity of the election from all sides. i'll take any questions you have. >> reporter: with the margin we have and the certainty of a recount will we know by the end of november? >> with the timeline we have laid out, essentially -- let's go through the timeline again. we should know by the end of november. we have a mid december deadline. the one things that always going to be unknowable is lawsuits that affect what we have to do. we're a country and nation of laws. if the judge items us to do something, we have to do that and let the legal process work. >> that's the situation in georgia. i want to go to arizona. whit johnson is there. we're expecting more votes from

maricopa county? >> reporter: george, that's right. keep your eye on arizona. within the next 30 minutes we're expecting the next dump of results. because the race is so close here, it could give us a clear picture of what we're looking at. let me break down the numbers. joe biden still leading donald trump by about 47,000 votes. outstanding, roughly 260,000 ballots across the state. if you do some rough math, donald trump would have to get in the ballpark of 60%, maybe more of the remaining votes to be able to overtake joe biden. democrats this morning are telling us they're very confident. when you look throughout the state you have pima county, it leans democrat, there are a number of outstanding ballots there. the republicans talk about pinal

county, where they have ballots outstanding. both sides are looking at the numbers closely. once again, it all comes down to maricopa, the most populated county in the state, shifting demographics. one of the fastest growing latino populations in the country. so far it's been leaning towards joe biden. that's what we're waiting to see in the next 30 minutes. >> matt gutman, we're expecting more votes in nevada. >> reporter: about 50,000 mail-in ballots in about an hour 20 minutes. the biden campaign is -- they're hoping this gives them a bigger cushion. this is not where they expected to be, with only 11,000 votes separating biden and trump. hillary clinton and president obama handedly won this state. they're hoping for some breathing room. they really need nevada right

now in general for the election. one thing we've been talking a lot about is fraud. people have been showing up at the election headquarters where we've been for a couple days. there was one woman who had a death certificate of her father who died of covid in august. she had a ballot sent to her house in october. she said this is fraud. a lot of people are seizing on bure bure bureaucratic mistakes. there is a federal referral sent to bill barr saying -- by the trump camp -- alleging there are thousands of fraudulent ballots here. there's no evidence of that. the "las vegas sun" said the

former attorney general who filed that is trying to set fire to the election process. >> tom llamas, start out by giving joe biden the two states, nevada and pennsylvania. >> nevada and pennsylvania, he doesn't need both. if he gets both, he's at 279. he's on his way to the white house, george. >> we have at least two more states hanging out. >> you have georgia. if you give him georgia, his number goes up. the problem here for the president is that if he doesn't win pennsylvania, there's not enough -- the math doesn't add up. he gets to 259. there are still lots of votes out there. biden hasn't put the president in checkmate, but the president is running out of moves. >> he has to hold on to georgia, turn around arizona where biden has a lead right now and turn around pennsylvania. >> he needs pennsylvania.

it's really hard to do this math without pennsylvania unless he gets nevada as well. like i said he's not in checkmate, but there's not a lot of moves left. >> let's go to rick clean. we think there's about 130,000 votes out in pennsylvania. we heard senator bob casey say he's confident biden is going to win. walk us through where the numbers are. >> our decision desk at abc news is looking at the universe of two different types of votes. you mentioned 130,000. about a third are probably from republican leaning counties, counties in the western part of the state. crawford, beaver, armstrong, blair. joe biden has been winning consistently in the mail-in vote. those are republican leaning counties. it's possible donald trump makes up some portion of the narrow lead. the lion's share of the votes are from democratic leaning

counties. there's an unknown quantity of provisional ballots. this is when a voter goes to the polls and there's some question of eligibility. that number is larger because some people out there asked for mail-in votes. if you asked for a mail-in ballot and you don't use it, you fill out a provisional ballot. that's another universe of votes lingering out there. >> the biden campaign had been extremely confident starting tuesday evening. they have a pretty good idea sometimes down to the individual who got these ab concesentee ba where they are and whether they need to get to the polls. >> they've been modelling this from the start. they have felt good about their numbers throughout. this is basically progressing as they said it would, which is to say after election day you saw

that large lead that looked on paper to belong to donald trump begin to evaporate. not because votes came in late, but because they came in erm ar and the county wing was delayed until election day. >> mary bruce, there was hang wringing among democrats that joe biden was running a lackadaisical campaign. the one lesson joe biden took from the hillary clinton campaign was he is not going to ignore that blue wall. that will get his first, second, third and tenth priority. >> reporter: that was learned loud and clear. look at where joe biden spent time. he was also in those states they were hoping to flip, the trump states they could get, they never were letting their eye off the key battle grounds,

michigan, wisconsin, pennsylvania, the blue wall they're still keeping an eye on. they were keenly aware of the lessons learned four years ago. while they had their teamed fanned out they were not going to let go of those states. it was also the message joe biden has been hammering this entire campaign, digging in especially in the last few weeks as he began to ramp up his campaigning, telling his personal story over and over because he thinks that scranton versus wall street message resonates, especially in the upper mid western states as he tried to regain those blue collar voters. >> jon karl, the president paid attention to those states and did turn out his vote. >> reporter: he did. he speeded his vote total in many places he was targeting over 2016. he targeted minnesota as well. minnesota, wisconsin, michigan,

pennsylvania, spent much of his time there. it has to be said, george, he also -- even as he is losing these states, we don't know pennsylvania yet, even as he's losing michigan, wisconsin, even minnesota, he exceeded expectations in each of them. the margin is much tighter than a lot of people anticipated. much of the public polling suggested it would be. >> nate, we talked about this in the past. there will be talk about this in the future. as the days go on, the popular vote will be closer to the public polling. most of the pup liblic polling greater margins for joe biden than he'll end up with. we've had two elections in a row where there was an error in the polling, maybe not as bad as it appeared tuesday night, but an

error in the polling favoring joe biden and it turns out that donald trump was getting more votes than pollsters were picking up. >> we should wait for all those to be counted. it could be a 3-point margin for joe biden which is not far from the public polls. in minnesota, new hampshire, the polls did fairly well. i'm not sure about wisconsin. you had an 8 or 9-point lead for joe biden. he'll win by 1 or 2 points. iowa polls showed a closer race there. it's a regional problem. in the south, georgia the polls spot on. north carolina close. arizona pretty good, colorado. in the midwest there's something pollsters are not picking up on. >> rahm, you want in on this? >> we have to think about this. the blue wall because of what happened in 2016, but there's

three other pieces. there's a rocky mountain blue wall if arizona and nevada happen. >> colorado. >> colorado and new mexico. when you look at north carolina and georgia, they're trending more like virginia and less like mississippi, alabama, arkansas and louisiana. you're getting regional breaks that i think tell you something if you actually are the right message with the right candidate that give you a different map. fdr, ronald reagan, bill clinton knocked off an incumbent president. this is significant. >> he got to it at the end which is candidate dependent. these walls we talk about only exist if the candidates execute. you said there's a blue wall

here and there. when you were listening to the "midnight train in georgia" i'm sure that was the fantasy in your head. >> actually not. just staying awake was. >> those blue walls were supposed to exist. hillary clinton couldn't keep the blue wall. it was candidate specific. donald trump appealed to them. hillary clinton didn't. i said to the president a year and a half ago the toughest person in this field is joe biden. joe biden will appeal to white college educated suburban voters in the blue wall. you don't want biden. you want anybody but biden. >> i want to bring in yvette simpson. you were a fan of elizabeth warren and bernie sanders. are you prepared to accept the democratic voters in the primaries made the right choice that joe biden was the right candidate? >> you win what you organize

for. i think these wins we're seeing, particularly with bralack and brown voters, is because we organized voters. with hillary clinton there was not an organizing effort. we didn't organize the way we did here. part of the democratic party strategy is talk about issues. you don't have to use words or phrasing that's polarizing. talk about health care. talk about race, equality. they're kitchen table issues that cross many boundaries. actually organize your voters. don't talk about likely voters. we expanded the electorate because we went out. if we do that, we win every time regardless of the candidate. >> mary alice parks? >> i'm just not convinced folks

like bernie sanders are going to see these results the same way. there's a lot of data here. you can pick apart a story that works for your narrative. i think that part of what progressives are going to cling to is that the urban centers delivered in the end. does that mean that actually joe biden spent a lot of time tlryig to reach out to an obama, trump voter that didn't come home? we'll talk the next few years about some romney, mccain, biden voter. like governor christie said that's probably college educated wealthier suburb and balanced out with diverse urban sercente. i'm not sure progressives will view this the same way that rahm is talking about. democrats will have an incredible struggle with young voters from coastal cities.

they'll look at some of this gap in the representation. they'll look at the popular vote. they'll cling to that and say 4 million votes isn't something that should be sneezed at. that's a third of states in this country -- fewer than 4 million people in it. there's going to be a growing conversation about whether california and new york are under represented in this process. >> i think bernie sanders -- look, bernie and i don't agree. i think he and elizabeth warren deserve a tremendous amount of credit. they were focused on a singular goal, winning. our differences we'll deal with that later. they were incredibly pragmatic where the 2016 bernie didn't do that for hillary. they understood we'll work out

progressive policy after we win. the election is the key. >> sara fagen, the same can be said for the republicans. >> absolutely. if you're the trump campaign and you're serious about running in 2024 -- they're already making those moves. you have to do some real soul searching. in wisconsin donald trump underperformed congressional candidates. >> we want to bring in nancy pelosi. she's starting to speak now at the capitol. are we going to be able to hear this?

we've heard nancy pelosi and mitch mcconnell at the same time. that's the last time that's probably going to happen. i wanted to bring in heidi heitkamp. >> what's interesting is we're talking a lot about progressives and the moderate wing. i think the soul searching that the democratic party needs to do is we really believe that donald trump was the worst president in this century, but yet millions and millions of americans voted for him. what was that? how do we begin to develop a national party persona? we can't win senate seats and we can't win swing districts and house seats unless we develop that kind of dialogue with these voters. yes, it's a great victory for vice president biden, but we

absolutely need to dig into these numbers and figure out how we bring this country together regionally in places like north and south dakota where we elected democratic candidates. >> terry moran, i'm looking at the map, seeing all that blue -- the red in the middle and the pockets and cells of blue and reflecting on before we got into the election. it was clear if you asked the people supporting donald trump who is going to win the election, they said donald trump of course. they would be shocked if joe biden. democrats might have been fearful that donald trump would win. they couldn't believe they were living in a country that could elect donald trump. that's a problem for whoever is elect elected. >> absolutely. if you ask republicans to describe democrats, they describe someone way further to the left than most democrats are. if you ask democrats to describe

the political positions of republicans, they describe extreme republicans. most aren't that way. that goes to the great sort that it may be while we're divided on important issues, we're less divided than distant. we don't know each other. one of the things we heard joe biden say is we'll see each other once again. this distance between us is really a big problem. it's geographical as well as cultural. that's a hard thing for a president. >> we'll be talking about that more in the days and weeks. coming up on 11:00 on the east coast. look at the electoral votes right now. joe biden has 253 electoral votes in the states we've projected so far. donald trump 214 electoral votes. over the course of the evening joe biden has parking lotted ahe pulled ahead in pennsylvania,

georgia. he's still ahead in nevada and arizona. that's where things stand in this hour. still not enough vote in to project the outstanding states. joe biden is ahead right now. house speaker nancy pelosi we have her. let's listen in. >> good morning, everyone. i wish we weren't wearing masks so you could see how exciting it is to come before you today with joe biden having the mandate that he has and pretty soon the hyphen will be gone from vice president to president elect joe biden. it's a happy day for our country because joe biden is a unifier, because he is determined to bring people together, because he respects all points of view

and, as he has said, i ran as a democrat, but i'll govern for president of all the people, whether they voted for me or not. i'm so officially pleased with the outcome that is imminent and also personally delighted because of the quality and caliber of leadership that joe biden will provide. this morning it is clear that the biden/harris ticket will win the white house. his election is historic, propelled by the biggest vote ever in the history of country. 73.8 million and counting americans, is most votes ever received by any presidential ticket in history. president elect biden has a strong mandate to lead and he'll have a strong democratic house with him and many democrats in the senate.

this has been a life or death fight for the fate of our democracy, as he said, the soul of our country. we did not win every battle in the house, but we won the war. in 2018 we won 40 seats. 30 or 31 of them in districts where trump had won before. they were in trump districts. in preparation for the 2020 election, i said to people you have to help us -- they said you've won. let's do the senate and white house. no. we won in districts, trump districts, with trump not on the ballot. in the next election he will be on the ballot and that makes winning those districts a steeper climb. i'm pleased we overwhelmingly won those districts, not all of them. not all of them, but next time he won't be on the ballot.

one of the reasons we were able to win so many seats was because of the caliber of leadership of our members. some of them won. a few did not. all of them excellent. i hope that some of them will reconsider -- will consider going at it again. as you know, the right to vote is a sacred right in our country. having that vote counted as cast it's the foundation of our democracy. we must be patient. we said to people be calm. this monday, tuesday -- sunday, monday, tuesday be calm. be confident. be patient and the votes are tallying and the races are called. we look forward to continued victory in house races and we look forward to progress for people which was our agenda and

continues to be for the people. lower health care costs, bigger paychecks by building infrastructure, america in a clean way, cleaner government, hr-1 which will be the first on the agenda in january. while we prepare for the new biden administration, we must also move swiftly for a new coronavirus relief bill. we can do that. we want the republicans to come back to the table, the white house. for two days in a row over 100,000 cases were reported. the imperative to act could not be greater. over 9.5 million people infected. nearly 250,000 deaths and tens of millions on unemployment. again, i'm calling on the administration to come back to the table. congress is also committed to

passing an omnibus bill. this is imperative. it's our responsibility to keep government open and have an omnibus bill. we intend to do that, not a cr. we want to do that in a way that gives confidence that we'll have government open and continue to be. rather than having a cr. so, sadly instead of crushing the virus, it appears the trump administration will use its final moments in office in a desperate last step to destroy every possible protection for america's health and well-being. so many people have said to me

and perhaps -- >> there we have house speak nancy pelosi saying a coronavirus bill is still a top priority for the house democrats in the wake of what she says is a joe biden victory. we want to bring that to mary bruce. you cover capitol hill. the politics so dicey there. we saw in the negotiations between nancy pelosi and steven mnuchin that senate republicans were not going to go along with anything they were negotiating. any sense that could change now? >> reporter: they're still fundamentally completely apart on what they want. the two sides can't agree on how much money to spend and what to spend it on. mitch mcconnell just spoke to reporters and he still seems to be eyeing a smaller deal. mitch mcconnell has in many ways taken a back seat letting house speak pelosi work this out with

steven mnuchin. mcconnell has made clear he wants to get this done by the end of the year. you hear speaker pelosi saying that's going to be the top priority. the two parties agree they need to do something. we can't lose sight of the fact that there are millions of americans desperately looking to washington for some kind of economic help, some kind of life line. the life lines they passed in the spring have run dry. they agree they have to do something. they have not been able to bridge the gap for months. it's going to be the top priority when they get back to washington. they do also have a lot of other big item things they need to accomplish. you heard speaker pelosi mentioning the funding deadline. that's december 11th. they have until then to avoid a government shutdown. both parties have a vested interest in that. they would be tackling a transition, possibly cabinet appointments and there's always

a question about what would happen with the supreme court, george, which is headed to what could be a sieismic decision. >> i want to bring in cecilia vega. even if joe biden is the president elect, donald trump will be president until january 20th. i wonder how engaged over a covid relief bill. >> reporter: it's been head spinning up to this point where he stands on that. he sent his party into a freefall with twitter mixed messages. if i were to predict what the next couple months will look like in terms of president trump's engagement and messaging, i think for the foreseeable future we'll continue to hear him sow discord in terms of the vote results coming in or when a decision is declared he'll be sticking to the legal arguments and the fight his team is waging right now. i would imagine we'll see a lot

of twitter activity over the next few weeks from the president himself. george, i want to go back to something that nancy pelosi just said. she said that we're in a life or death fight for the fate of our democracy. we're not just talking opponents on both sides at this time. we're talking about two extreme like i've never seen in my lifetime. you have the democrats who think it's a life or death fight. you have trump supporters listening to the words he's saying and think the election is being ripped out from underneath him and stolen, despite the fact there's no evidence to support that. these are not two sides who see different politically right now. these are two sides who think the other are fundamentally evil. i was looking at a poll of virginia voters.

31% of biden voters wouldn't have accepted a trump victory. 26% of trump voters said they wouldn't accept a biden victory. the first order of business needs to be to figure out a way to start this dialogue of bringing this country back together. so much easier said than done. >> the votes are still being counted. let's take another look of where things stand. i want to show the state of the race. this gives a pretty good idea of what has to happened. biden needs to win two states there and donald trump needs three, plus pennsylvania. tom llamas, go back to the board. >> we can just show viewers. you're hearing a lot of numbers. you're hearing about tight margins. when you look at the board it puts it into perspective. if joe biden wins pennsylvania, where he currently has a very

small lead, around 6,000, it's game over. he gets to 273. all he needs is 270. if we talk about the president, he has to win pennsylvania, north carolina, georgia and he has to come out west and win either arizona or nevada. the problem is right now where the vote stands it doesn't look like he'll have that path. to talk about joe biden, joe biden can do it with nevada and arizona. the president is at 268, joe biden at 270. george, we've been doing this for three days now. it tells the story. joe biden has more paths. the president has a very narrow path to victory. as more votes are coming in, that path gets narrower. >> more votes are coming in from the state of arizona. let's get those from whit johnson. >> reporter: george, we're looking at the numbers from maricopa county, the most

populated county in the state. donald trump is chipping away at joe biden's lead. biden statewide up by about 43,000 votes. he was at 47,000 votes 20 minutes ago. statewide biden is leading 50% to 48.6%. there's still resultis tricklin in. around 200,000 outstanding ballots still statewide. once again, the margin shrinking, but just a little bit. if you look at what's left of the remaining ballots, president trump needs about 60%, maybe even more, to be able to overtake joe biden down this final stretch. we're still trying to look and see what's outstanding in pima county, it generally leans democrat and pinal county. if there's some balance shift there, that could make the difference. i can tell you the clock is

ticking here on president donald trump in the state of arizona. regardless of what happens, if you look at big picture, this was a solidly red republican state for years. a democrat has not won here since 1996. before that all the way back to 1948. now with the increasing latino population, people moving here from other states like california, this state is becoming solidly purple. not just for this election, but the foreseeable future. if you look at the senate race, mark kelly is trending higher than joe biden. potentially we could have two senators from arizona going for the senate for the first time since 1953. >> nate, if you look at the five states still outstanding, you gave north carolina to donald trump. you thought arizona was second. what is this telling you? >> this is bad news for donald trump. he needed a 20-point margin.

it's a lot of votes. i was an optimist for trump in arizona. i think biden is the more likely winner in arizona. >> you think he's the likely winner for arizona, nevada, pennsylvania and georgia. >> that arizona batch was bad news for trump. >> which brings him to 306 electoral votes, exactly what donald trump got in 216. >> north carolina we won't know for a while, same for alaska. we might land right on 306. >> david muir, basically taking the 2016 map and flipping it. >> and going in, if elected, with more of a mandate. the story if joe biden is declared the president elect will be his own coalition. so much talk about the obama coalition. you'll have to take a look at who joe biden was able to bring into the fold here. there are some through lines, through all the battle grounds. no matter what region you talk

about, we look at the map, wisconsin, michigan, in the lead in pennsylvania, georgia, what he's been able to go in georgia, as we heard from whit, the possibility of arizona and nevada. look at the numbers out of pennsylvania. they mirror what we've been talking about. independent voters are a huge part of the election when all is said and done. 51% of independent voeters in pennsylvania went with joe biden, 43% to donald trump. the dividing line in the country about whether to deal with the pandemic before the economy, in pennsylvania, 54% said we had to contain covid. when you break it down, 85% of people -- this we saw over and over -- who thought we must deal with the virus first went with joe biden. in the suburbs, still very strong support for donald trump in the suburbs, but joe biden

was able to peel away some of the suburban support. he brought some republicans over to his side. suburban women, 53% went with joe biden. he made up ground with suburban women in the country. there are a lot of things on social media this morning. hillary clinton tweeted a thank you to stacie abrams for what you're seeing in georgia. there was some softness in the latino vote and the african-american vote in this country. given what happened to georgia you have to give joe biden credit and certainly stacie abrams. joe biden is going to get a lot of credit for bringing people from the other side, talking about his working class roots from the beginning, scrappy joe from scranton, that's how he was able to rebuild the blue wall and bring people into the fold. >> martha raddatz, you spent a lot of time going across the

country during the campaign. covid was on ever's mind, but different reactions depending on the part of the country. >> reporter: exactly. you could cross into a typically red state and the masks were gone. there was an arrogance about that. you could cross into a blue state and the masks were on. it's on everyone's mind. honestly, george, i was surprised how many people were out especially in the cities, crowded, very crowded, as if we're going on with our lives covid or not. that was definitely on people's minds. what i'm so interested in now and to david's point about joe biden's and his roots, especially in pennsylvania, is healing the country if joe biden does, indeed, becomes the next president. i think probably that republican senate will help those who supported trump, see that joe biden has to reach across the

lines. he has to work with republicans. i think probably if it was a democratic sweep, it would be more difficult for joe biden to heal the country. i've already got lots of texts from people who are hugely disappointed, trump supporters hugely disappointed. i don't see any real outrage. yes, there are some people talking about conspiracies and they should count every vote and they believe what the president said yesterday and some of them don't seem outraged by those baseless accusations the president made. at the same time they sort of turned down the heat and said, look, if they get this done and joe biden's the president i may not like it, but i'll do the best i can. >> i was going to say, martha, even the sporadic protests we've seen in nevada and arizona didn't seem to have a tremendous amount of energy behind them. >> reporter: they really didn't. that's the absolute hard core.

you're going to have the hard core. i think you'll see some malicious go to ground about this and pop up later. i think law enforcement will be tracking that very, very carefully. generally all of the people i -- i talked about this before. to me the moment about how the country will move forward is the man in ohio who told me he thought donald trump walked on water and there was nothing he could do to dissuade him and he was really upset that donald trump talked about fraud in the election. that to me indicated what a lot of that base might think. >> fight hard up to the election and when it's over, let the votes be counted and declare the winner. >> reporter: exactly. that's what i've seen from voters who see that joe biden is the likely next president. >> martha, thank you. the votes are still being counted. i want to go to eva pilgrim in

pennsylvania. >> reporter: joe biden is up by about 9,000 votes. still about 120,000 ballots that still need to be counted. george, i want to talk about what's going on inside the room where the ballots are being counted here in philadelphia. that's something that we keep hearing people talk about, those barricades separating the observers from watching the ballot counters. this is what i have been told. there were about 15 republican ballot watchers that have been in that room. the barricades were setback about ten feet from where all the activity was going on. that was in accordance with state law. they went to court. trump's campaign and the gop went to court. argued to move those forward. they moved them forward to six feet because that's the current covid regulation. we're aware that's the regulation that people stay six feet apart because this country

is in a pandemic. we reached out to city officials. one of the city commissioners confirming for us that the ballots are being segregated that arrived after election day. they've not been counted and george, i want to point out the commissioner that confirmed that for us is a republican, al smith. he's the vice chairman of the commission. he says those ballots have not been counted and they are segregated here in philadelphia. that's just really important for people to understand. you know, this is a blue strong hold. it's a democratic strong hold in the state. there are republicans and democrats working on counting those ballots inside that room. those people have been counting around the clock. they just want to get the votes counted so there's a total that people can look at, george. >> glad you clarified that. senator toomey suggested some of those votes weren't being counted. let's go to steve osunsami in georgia where joe biden has the

lead as well. >> reporter: yes, george. one of the discussions happening right now is all about the recount. the recount in georgia is not automatic. one of the candidates has to request a recount. that recount can take place if there's less than 1% of votes between the two. the secretary of state, who is a republican, talked about yesterday he had already ordered equipment to process the rekounr recount. the recount can't be requested until after they certify the electi election. that's where they think this is going to end up going, to a recount. the tone from the secretary of state's office is different today. yesterday when he talked about this he shared that he didn't believe that the numbers would change that greatly based on the way that elections are run here in georgia.

i'll also underline again the points that he has made over and over about the security measures taken in this election which seems to contradict any allegations of fraud. >> we want to bring in the mayor of atlanta, keisha lance bottoms. mayor, you just recovered from covid. you feeling better now? >> yes, thank you. >> you're feeling better with the numbers you've seen overnight? >> this is incredible. i knew we were here, but to see it happen -- in georgia we lost john lewis and c.t. vivian, to see people lineup and make their voices heard, it's what they fought for. i'm grateful we're here in this state and i'm grateful for joe biden for believing that georgia could go blue. >> how confident are you that that lead is going to survive

the counting of the provisional ballots, the military ballots and the recount? >> the military ballots traditionally go to the republican party. this is an interesting year with donald trump and the military. i don't believe the numbers will be as high as we formalnormally them. i'm confident the numbers will stand. it's going to be a thin margin. we're used to tight elections in this state. three years ago i won by 852 votes. i'm confident it will stand, but it will be a close one. >> so far, as mayor, have you seen any indication of fraud, any irregularities in the ballot counting? >> i have not. the challenges we had were early on in early voting, what we saw with the long lines and the glitches. after that, it was a very smooth process. i've not seen any irregularities

as it relates to the vote count. i've not heard of any concerns regarding that, any credible concerns. i think that a recount is appropriate and if that gives people the confidence that's what we need to do. >> if vice president biden survi survivin survives the recount, it looks like there's no rest for you in georgia. you're going to have two senate run-offs? >> yes. it's going to be a tough firefightfight. traditionally republicans out vote us in run-offs. i'm confident that people will be motivated to turn out in january and we'll keep reminding people it's not over. for joe biden to truly be successful as president he's going to have to have the senate with him. >> usually you have a lot of fatigue after a presidential election. >> we've got energy in this state. so many people didn't think we

would be here. to see that we are here, i believe is really going to motivate people to continue to press forward through january. we're celebrating and it may be a bit premature obviously because the state has not been called for biden. the fact that we're even having this conversation about georgia is something to celebrate. >> mayor bottoms, thank you for joining us. we have news out of arizona. mark kelly will win the special election out of the state of arizona defeating martha mcsally. there you see democrats have picked up two seats on the republicans, arizona and colorado. republicans picked up a seat in alabama. that means the two senate run-offs in the state of georgia are all important. >> they are critical.

i agree with mayor bottoms. the effort and energy continuing in georgia will happen. people in georgia know, not only could they be credited with winning the presidency in this way, they can also be credited with winning the senate which is so critical. i don't know whether georgians are more upset with trump or mitch mcconnell. once we start to spin the messaging and say we can take mitch mcconnell out of the power seat, we'll get people fired up. >> mitch mcconnell will be all in on those elections. >> he's going to have to be because the majority is at stake. we'll see a replay of the campaign that just occurred. democrats if they control the senate, they're going to pack the court. they're going to move to a more aggressive climate policies, more spending. joe biden said he wants $4 trillion of tax increases. if mitch mcconnell is removed as the senate leader, that will

likely happen. >> rahm, joe biden is going to have to deploy a lot of resources. those two seats could make all the difference. >> without a doubt. two points. one in 1992 in the transition when gays in the military were coming up, there was the debate around bill clinton's policy affected the run-off. yesterday, in the house a number of moderates were saying why do i have to defend charges about socialism, green new deal? you have a race that's going to continue -- joe biden is going to look to the administration. there's a lot of stake for his agenda and progressive politics in those two races in georgia. therefore, conscious of history, conscious of what just happened, they have to look forward there and keep one eye on the periphery of how to run the race in georgia, create an

environment more conducive for democratic candidates. >> chris, what role does president trump play in these races? >> it depends on whether the president decides he wants to play a role or doesn't. nobody can predict that. on the two georgia races, mitch mcconnell, to save susan collins in maine and to save thom tillis, no one thought that would happen. everyone thought that hickenlooper and kelly would win. that's not a surprise. he's got two good candidates in georgia. mitch mcconnell typically doesn't lose these. it will be very interesting to watch. he'll be in charge. >> jon karl? >> reporter: republicans are confident in both of those races. they think they perform better

in georgia in run-offs. they also think if joe biden is the president elect that helps them. it helps them make the argument to elect a republican to be a check on the power of the democrats, to keep a republican check against all the things that sara was talking about, big tax increases, green new deal, environmental movements. you know, who knows? that will be the center -- georgia will be the center of the political universe. those two seats will determine control of the senate. republicans like their chances in that. >> i would say to counter rahm's point, double down on what worked in georgia. rafael warknack is a progressive candidate. he's got a good chance. we'll have a moderate and

progressive running races. we'll come together and do this work and let the georgia folks lead. continue to organize the same voter. >> i've seen the warknack add showing himself eating pizza with a fork. he said get prepared. i want to bring in mary alice on this. we saw the role that stacey abrams played in the presidential election. she'll be engaged in the senate races as well. >> absolutely. she'll be getting a lot of credit for what's happened in georgia. she comes back to this idea that the easiest way to suppress the vote is to tell people their vote doesn't matter. she's been working on programs that give people confidence in their own vote. systems like letting folks track their ballot if they mail it in. letting folks cure their ballot. i said isn't that asking a lot of a voter to go through all those steps. she said it's about something

bigger. it's about telling people they can trust the system and that their destiny is in their own hands. with warknack there was another ad that went viral. he talked about racial inequity personally. he said he was accused of shoplifting as a kid because he was walking with his hands in his pocket through a grocery store. we'll see that at the forefront in the race in georgia. >> david muir, the turnout in the special elections and whether the composition of the electoral is the same, it's interesting. >> it's encouraging for democrats. we knew the demographics were changing in georgia for sometime. if joe biden is declared the winner in georgia, it's the first time since bill clinton in '92. in addition to stacey abrams,

she didn't win, but she almost did and joe biden looks like he's on his way to victory. here's some of the numbers. white voters made up fewer than 3-5 votes in georgia. more latinos, more asian voters cast in early voting than in all of 2016 in georgia. new voters, 800,000 georgia voters were not eligible to vote in the last presidential election voted. 49% are people of color. 45% are younger than 30. 50% of its voting eligibility, the population under the age of 45. we've seen that huge migration to atlanta and the suburbs surrounding atlanta. democrats are very pleased if they can keep this machine up and running and they believe they have a chance to sweep both. >> tom, you wanted in on this. >> stacey abrams, i wonder if

democrats in georgia are regretting not pushing her harder to run in the senate. she's the superstar of the democratic party in georgia. if it's going to come down to one or two of these elections, you wonder if democrats regret she's not on the ballot. i know she wants to run for governor again. >> it's up to her. >> imagine if she was a democrat running for senate. would she be ahead? would she need a run-off? >> you know her pretty well. what do you think? do you think she has second thoughts? >> i don't think she thinks that way. she's very particular. she's got a plan. she's going to run for president by 2040. i know she loves executive leadership over legislative leadership. i think she makes the run for governor again in two years. >> one thing we haven't mentioned because he's not going away is donald trump. >> that's the question i was going to ask.

>> i talked a little about joe biden. we talked about what mcconnell is doing. donald trump is not going to go away quietly. that's going to be a great organizing tool for the democrats. >> i want to go to matt gutman in nevada. joe biden increasing his lead. >> reporter: yeah, apparently 22,000. he was just under 1%, now he's under 2%. this is close to where hillary clinton was at 2.5% in 2016. this will make the biden camp feel good. still 190,000 outstanding ballots left to be tabulated. the vast majority mail-in ballots and the vast majority of that almost 90% coming from right here in clark county which is a democratic stronghold. they're feeling good right now. it's quite likely in fact they'll do better than hillary clinton did in 2016 here in

nevada. again, you can't underestimate the covid factor and unemployment factor here, especially in las vegas and in clark county. it has a near 15% unemployment rate. george, that's more than twice the national rate. >> tom llamas, the map is getting smaller by the minute for donald trump. >> it is. this is the what if scenario. if you take out nevada now, just because the lead has changed there and joe biden is more on top, let's see. we're still waiting on alaska. we'll give that to president trump. if nevada is not his, he has to win pennsylvania where he's no longer in the lead. north carolina, georgia, where he's no longer in the lead, and arizona. he needs four states. it just gets very hard for the president. we've made this point throughout the morning and over the last few days. joe biden is on top in pennsylvania. if it stay that is way, he gets to 273 and it's game over.

there's still a lot of votes out there. we'll cover every twist and turn as it comes. the path for joe biden looks easier than for president trump. >> chris christie, can his legal team and his political team -- if he's behind in georgia, pennsylvania, arizona, nevada, can they really fight a four-front war in the challenges and recounts? >> they can. i don't know if they'll win. they can. it's up to the client. you know, one thing you learn as a lawyer early on, you can advise your client, you can attempt to influence your client, but in the end your client makes the decisions about how to proceed. if you're uncomfortable as a lawyer, you get out. >> you're not the president's lawyer. you are his friend. what do you need to see to be able to tell him this is a fight worth waging? >> you know, george, i think those are really kind of personal judgments to have to

make. i think the president needs a little bit of time before anybody is going to have that kind of conversation with him, including me. you know, if you want to influence someone in one direction or another, you have to engage whether they're receptive to hearing it. i think given what we saw last night from the president, he's still in fight mode and not what do you think i should do mode. everybody takes different time in that. for al gore, he fought for 37 days. i'm sure there was some people who thought he should and some thought he shouldn't. >> some wanted him to fight longer. >> sure. when you know someone well, you gauge whether they're receptive to your advice unless you think it absolutely must be given, whether they're receptive or not. we're not at that moment quite yet. he has to think about what the map looks like for him.

>> sara, you wanted in on this? >> if the president overtook biden in arizona, if all of a sudden there were overseas military ballots that came in in georgia and it was close -- >> he pulls into the lead again he's got a fight? >> yes. then there's a real legal fight over these ballots that arrived after election day in pennsylvania. that's a nightmare scenario for the country, but there would likely be legal standing based on the constitution. >> that's when you get into a math issue. if he had a 100,000-vote lead and 20,000 votes have been segregated, doesn't matter. >> i agree. there's some estimates it could be 200,000 or more. you're right, it's a math issue. if it's close, it will be a dog fight and more republicans will come out to defend the president. that looks increasingly

unlikely. >> mary bruce, if the states get projected today, joe biden will speak to the nation tonight. he won't wait for a concession call from president trump. >> reporter: no. i don't think he'll be holding his breath for that call. they're waiting for the states to be called. once he's comfortable they've reached the 270 mark, he'll come out. we've heard the growing buzz at the stage. we're learning more about the mood today inside the biden camp. they've had their daily staff call and we're told there is a real recognition among the campaign that this is really happening, that they will be declared winners. that's their sense now. there's been a more reserved stance. staffers are being told to keep their head down, but now there's

a sense that they did it. take a moment, take it all in and enjoy it. >> mary, the speech is not going to be a somber oval office type things. it's going to be celebrating a victory. >> reporter: i think that's right. you'll hear joe biden continue to hit upon the themes we heard him hit upon in the campaign, talking about the road forward, talking about the massive challenge of trying to unite the country, outlining his priorities which we know is trying to tackle this virus, to lead the country out of the pandemic. joe biden, it will be a moment if it does happen is something he's been waiting for, fighting for for more than 30 years. i think there will be a moment for victory and also a moment to recognize the real very serious challenges ahead of him. >> he was elected to his first office 50 years ago, new castle county council, two years later the senate.

i want to bring in matthew dowd. you were with george w. bush in 2000, mid december, not early november when he was going into the white house. what was your advice to him? it was a question i asked rahm earlier. about how to handle the days and weeks between now and the inauguration, the message he sends the country, how does that apply to joe biden? >> there was two pieces of advice we all gave george bush. one, be humble. two, seek to heal and unify the country. i think it's so telling today 160 years ago, abraham lincoln was elected in 1860, today. 160 years ago today. joe biden reflecting on what abraham lincoln said which is we are friends, not enemies. let's not let the strains of passion break the bonds of

affection that we have and appeal to our better angels to unify the country. my guess is joe biden's be talking about that for a long time. look at the address he gave in gettysbu gettysburg. joe biden knows this moment isn't a time to stick your fork in the other guy's eye. it's to begin to unify the country and be president of all america, not just blue america. >> do you think the country is ready to hear that despite the polarization we see on that map? >> reporter: i think the country is incredibly ready to hear that. on both sides of the aisle people are tired. they've been anxious, frustrated, angry. they haven't liked the chaos, including trump supporters, as well as biden supporters. the country just wants to settle down, go about their business. they want to know somebody is

doing what's in their best interest. they're tired of the want to ge. they want to talk to their neighbors again that they've been arguing with because this election highlighted that. i think almost everybody in america is ready to calm down, get past the chaos and go back to the way we could govern the country in a much more unified fashion. >> heidi heitkamp, what do you think your constituents what to hear? >> exactly what matt said. they don't like the drama. they don't like the tweets. it's time to talk about policy and bring the country together. i sound like a broken record. go to omaha, nebraska and have a big meeting with all the governors of this country. that sends a message to red america. i see you, i'm here. it sends a message to the governors that we can work

together and build momentum. you're not going to do this in the beltway. he needs to get out into the country and start governing the country in the outside in. that will build power and ability to move things in washington, d.c. >> terry moran, it's a great challenge for joe biden if he's elected. great challenges lead to great opportunities for incoming presidents. >> that's how leaders thing, no question about it. donald trump has been such a dominant penalty dominant personality in our politics. he didn't talk about deficits and didn't want anything to do with reforming medicare or social security, that whole paul ryan gospel. all that was gone.

he talked a game of economic populism. there may be majority support for that program. one of the most popular things he talked about and never did, infrastructure. never happened. that is something, rebuilding an america that needs it for the 21st century that you get pretty good numbers on. >> had he followed through on that he might have had a chance to unify the country. david, you asked joe biden how he would unify the country. >> yes. i asked him about the line he began using at the convention saying he might be the democratic candidate, but he would be an american president. he said the president's job is to heal, to heal the country that needs healing. i'll be a president that tells the truth, takes responsibility, invites the opposition to the oval office. he talked about how democrats and republicans hadn't been to the oval office and figured out

how to help americans during covid. he said it's time to unite the country, bring us together. it's going to take time to heal. matt dowd says he thinks the country is ready for it. i wouldn't be surprised if we hear that language from joe biden tonight. >> it's likely. rhetoric is one thing. words do matter. no question about it. you also have to have the policy behind it. little harder to see policies that unite democrats and republicans in washington. >> couple things. the fact is this is true to joe biden's -- he's authentic. it's not just words. communication, rhetoric is important. it's authentic to his being. it's one of the things he was attacked for, you don't understand the real world. he held on to this belief, no, i do. in every period of time whether it was jefferson, lincoln,

franklin roosevelt, you've had a person that has smoothed things over and found a new path forward. joe really believes that. in the policy area, i think he'll be the first to reach out. this is slightly beyond policy. it's more of kind of a decency of -- i keep getting back to the picture in minnesota where he elbowed the protester there and said i'll be your president. i think the policies get changed. doesn't mean you walk away from health care. do you try to hit a home run or build on something that achieves the goal of more health care coverage and better cost control? those are things that find people a seat at the table. >> that's on the legislation, chris. i wonder if a big ger opportuniy

for joe biden -- will this issue of covid -- >> governors care about money and if you can give us the money to do what we need to do, we'll execute. vice president biden has said he wants to give more money to the governors for covid. the governors can say i'll use this money to help solve some of the problems covid has caused in my state. i have no doubt knowing joe biden that what rahm said is

true, that is who joe is. he wants to bring people together. he believes that in his heart. he believes he's the guy that can do it. the real challenge for him is what i said the other night when we were on the program. he's going to try to unify the country and the democratic party at the same time. i think that's going to be an enormous challenge and one that will prevent him from having the time of relationship with republicans he wants to have. he's going to have to show the republicans early on he wants to take on fights with his own party. if he's not willing to do that, republicans will see him as just another democrat. >> one of the things i think if you're joe biden, sure, you would probably like to win the senate. there's a part of you that recognizes that a republican senate is probably ultimately better for the vision that rahm laid out. if that's where he wants to take

the country, a republican senate allows him some foil with the democrats and progressives who are going to demand more on climate and taxes. he has a natural break where he's just not going to be able to do those things. he has somebody to blame for it. he can find a more centrist position and make some incremental change, which the country, the typical independent voter, likes. >> yvette, you're shaking your head, but that's factual. if the republican senate is there, it will be harder to implement those ideas. >> we're envisioning the republican party of a decade ago. mitch mcconnell has held over 400 bills that the house majority has sent over. let's remember the way that mitch mcconnell dropped obama. that's the mitch mcconnell i

expect to see. if you're joe biden, you want that majority. the senate is still overwhelmingly moderate. you'll have the moderate house which can tussle with the senate. i can't imagine a president that doesn't want the trifecta. the idea is if he can get that, we can talk as a party how to deliver. >> rahm and then heidi. >> two quick things. the vice president is going to reach out to republicans and bring them to table. >> you always want the majority if you can get it. >> yeah, you want the majority, exactly. it's a fact. he's going to deal with reality, not what he wants, but what he has. i think mitch mcconnell has to make a big choice. the other thing is, this is on all of us. joe biden has talked about all of america.

i've made this mistake. we talk about red and blue america. our language has to contribute to an environment where we see each other. >> fair point. heidi heitkamp, weigh in here. >> george, i think that everybody has underestimated a pivotal moment in the debate when the president went after the vice president and said, look, you're a communist, you're a socialist. joe biden said i am the democratic party. what i say is what the democratic party believes. he's identified what he wants to do with health care. it's not medicare for all. when they talked about the green new deal, he said i have the biden deal. he laid out a tax plan that does not roll back all the corporate income tax. look at his plans. they're not -- they're clearly defined. i think he believes this is a mandate for his plans. he's going to promote those, but

he's going to listen. he's going to bring people together. i have great optimism about what's going to happen in this country. if in fact he doesn't just deal with the beltway and get in the swamp and he gets out into the country where people are willing to listen and engage and want to see this country move forward. >> thank you, heidi. martha, i want you to switch gears. one of the other challenges for the vice president is healing relationships with our allies as well. the president has had a fractured relationship with nato. clearly the relationship with china is going to be front and center. it seemed like leading up to the election everyone overseas was holder their breath. >> reporter: that's exactly what

was happening and what i've been talking to people about. they were simply waiting, holding their breath. if donald trump is -- that's a long shot now -- re-elected, they were nervous about that. they knew they could wait out four years, but not eight years. what they've seen in the last 48 hours has only made them more certain that a joe biden presidency would end this sort of chaos, especially our allies. you absolutely need allies and you need allies to face those adversaries. some of those adversaries are laughing when they see the president make statements like he did last night. they want to see chaos in this

country. i think joe biden will try to heal that if elected president. one of the first things he will do is reassure our nato allies. also, this does tie in to healing our country. i think he'll go slowly and methodically as a president. heal our relationships with allies, reengage with china. don't be adversary or send love letters to kim jong-un. i don't think you'll see him slashing the $700 billion budget. i think he'll go slowly in places like afghanistan where the president suggested all the troops should be out of there. biden is no fans of leaving troops there forever. i think he wanted them out, but things like that he'll do

methodically. i want to talk about that kind of outside the beltway that heidi talked about. you just have to remember the 68 million people who voted for donald trump. many of those people voted for donald trump because they disenfranchised. this is a shared space, a shared country. we all have to do this together and hopefully people who feel disenfranchised and feel forgotten can be part of that shared space. >> can he get that message out on the number one issue the u.s. is facing, the world is facing,

it's a global pandemic? perhaps demanding a different approach. >> reporter: it's going to be tough, george. people are dug in. across the country people want to move on and this is not the time to move on. it's a very, very serious time for covid and david was talking about that as well. we are in the middle of second, third wave. a lot of deaths. a lot more cases. if he does it with compassion and leadership and everyone i talked to about who they want as president talks about leadership. if he can show that leadership and the reason we have to do that to protect others, so we can get the economy back -- if donald trump had done that, if donald trump said to the nation we'll fight this together, put your masks on, this may have been a different outcome in the presidential race. joe biden needs to pick up that ball and in some way where he understands that he has to

reverse what a lot of people are saying and do it with compassion and power and leadership that people hopefully will listen. it is the single most important thing we have to get through right now. >> terry moran? >> the damage is done around the world. the world leaders looked at america, the world population looks at america differently. it's not just the personality of donald trump which is a bull in the china shop around the world. it's the tens of millions of people who voted for him. in part a rejection of the global consensus of both parties. if you're the president of france or prime minister of denmark, you have to think they might do that again and my strategic planning for my country -- the voters in this country as well -- we can't count on the united states in the same way. angela merkel said it.

europe has to recognize we're alone. nato will be cobbled together and he'll focus together. we're a different country in the eyes of the world, in some ways, a lesser one. >> pierre thomas, one of the relationships the vice president has to tend to is his relationship with the intelligence community. president trump had been talking about firing the fbi director and put his own people in the intelligence community. what do we expect from joe biden there? >> reporter: george, this much i can tell you. in all the years i covered the justice