cases. that sentencing, dan mentioned, just a couple of weeks away for the manhattan d.a.'s case. a question about how soon donald trump would do something about the special counsel's case. people have been pointing out, the first thing they can't wait, "we can't wait for donald trump to fire special counsel jack smith." we know from donald trump's own words that would be the first thing he would do, within two seconds of taking the oath of office. >> david: let's stick with this live picture and bring pierre thomas and aaron katersky in. our chief justice correspondent, our chief investigative correspondent. pierre, it's not a surprise that getting rid of jack smith would be one of the first actions and aaron katersky, you can speak to the felony charges and convictions here on the local level in new york city. pierre, let's start with you and what your sources within the justice community make of sort of the evolution of this

evening? >> david, if this holds up, and it looks like it will, donald trump is about to become the most powerful president in modern history. primarily because of the fact that the justice department will be completely at his beck and call. the supreme court basically made that clear. think about this. fbi director chris wray is probably on borrowed time as we speak. he'll be gone, more than likely. he'll have the ability to install, after senate approval, a new fbi director. that person carries extraordinary power to investigate. and at the end of the day, in terms of doj, the president, again because of that supreme court ruling -- the supreme court basically said, it's okay for the president to weigh in at doj about whether he chooses to. all these different guidelines the justice department set up in terms of the president should not weigh in on criminal cases, that is likely to potentially be null and void.

>> the former president's scheduled to be sentenced november 26 in this new york after convicted of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. his attorneys there with him in florida successfully delayed that sentencing twice. that's looking like a pretty prescient decision. it's hard to imagine judge juan merchan sentencing him to anything that would represent a meaningful sentence for that felony conviction. the sentencing can go forward. undoubtedly the judge will be influenced by these new circumstances. >> david: a lot of people watching developments as they unfold. aaron, pierre, our thanks to your both as well. any new numbers from pennsylvania, rick? >> not really, david. we're waiting on philly, waiting to see a little bit more. it's daunting math. i've been clicking on this board to try to find any way to piece together the votes. and look, there's always a hypothetical. you could say, if all of these votes that we think are all break in one direction, maybe, maybe, maybe. but it is just really hard to

strain to see the numbers in this one state, to say nothing of the three states we're talking about. what we saw across the country tonight was a rightward shift, a maga shift. that happened in red states and blue states and red areas and blue areas and purple areas, all the same. pennsylvania tells an extraordinary story. we were looking at you literally can draw a line through the state from erie through state college all the way to northampton county to find places that should have been and would have been trending toward democrats. democrats thought they had a good chance there and that seems not to be the case. the story of turnout in cities appears to have been down. that's why you see very narrow margins in places like new york and new jersey and rhode island and across blue america where the voters did not turn out in the same numbers. >> david: so curious, linsey, do we have a handle from exit polling, the gender gap nationally? there had been so much talk going into election day, if kamala harris was going to be elected, it was going to be

through the power of women voters. you saw donald trump surrogates even in the 11th hour, even today, signalling on social media, men, if you're out there, vote. otherwise, kamala harris will win if it's only the women. in so many words. i wonder where we landed tonight? >> linsey: looks like -- jon, i want to verify -- 54% for females? 54% of females harris and 44% went for trump. we don't have the graphics in that moment. >> david: 10-point gender gap. for men? do we know? sorry to put you on the spot. >> david: 54 trump, 44% for harris. >> david: 10 and 10? >> david: >> linsey: yes. >> david: gary langer, our pom administer here at abc news. going into election night, what did the final abc news poll, if you can pull this up in your head, i'm sure you can at 2:00

in the morning. what was the gender gap in the final poll? >> very similar to that. this gender gap is dead normal. it's almost exactly the average gender gap we've seen in exit polls since 1996. and women are more apt, by 10 points, to be democrats than men, and therefore to vote that way. it's a typical gender gap. what's interesting, though, that is harris' number among women was a few points, 3 or so points, off of joe biden's. >> david: off? >> she did worse among women than joe biden? i mean, that's an astounding -- >> david: those are final exit poll numbers? >> they'll be tweaking it well into the morning. >> linsey: she did 2 points worse than joe biden did in 2020 with the female voters. >> david: if that holds, that is really, really interesting. >> also another point which is, this is the first presidential election since we've been doing exit polls -- 1976 -- where republicans outnumbered

democrats coming to the polls. right, gary? >> yeah, just by a couple of points, but the first time we've seen it. since 1976, the first -- >> david: stand by. there's the call of the night. we can project now that pennsylvania, the biggest battleground prize of the night, will go to former president donald trump. abc news can now project that donald trump has won the 19 electoral votes in the state of pennsylvania. we had said for weeks leading up to this election, this is must-win for kamala harris and donald trump. abc news now projecting donald trump wins the state of pennsylvania. rick kline, take us to the board. that essentially gets him the presidency, although we have not called what he absolutely needs to get to get there, right? you see the path on the board. >> i want to be careful with the math here. that gives us, according to abc news projections, 265 electoral votes for donald trump. and i want to playthings through

a little bit and make the assumptions, and they are assumptions, but this is how things work in politics. if everything falls into place for some of the remaining places, alaska with the three electoral votes would be a shock if alaska did not land for donald trump. one of the congressional districts in nebraska where he's leading, he's already been awarded one of them. one of the congressional districts in maine. this is what we're looking at. that would be 270 electoral votes. being very careful here, we have him at 265. >> david: that number on the board is the hypothetical. >> that is a hypothetical. >> david: it's expected to go his way, the final dominos here. mark burse tin, our producer, tell me again? nebraska 1 goes to trump? there we go. we're projecting one electoral vote from nebraska will go to donald trump. that's the one that you thought would go his way. >> yes. >> david: this is the hypothetical number up there. the chips are falling into place, in so many words. >> that's exactly right. alaska is a very republican

state. it's going to vote for donald trump, almost certainly. >> david: 269? >> that's correct are 269, a tie in the electoral college under the rules, broken by the house of representatives. almost certainly the house of representatives will be controlled by enough republican delegations to give donald trump the presidency. but that other district in maine would be the majority maker. we still have wisconsin, nevada, arizona -- >> david: he leads in wisconsin? >> 266,000 votes in michigan, although there's a lot of detroit left. 120,000 or so votes in wisconsin. nevada is still coming in. trump is up by about 99,000 votes. he's up in every other state that we have on the board tonight. >> david: we're waiting to hear from the former president. abc news projecting pennsylvania, the biggest prize of the night among those could i seven battleground states, goes to donald trump. really not a path here on the

board for kamala harris at this point. it's just the final chips for donald trump. i'm so curious while we wait for the former president and wait for the final math to come in. states like new hampshire we haven't called. minnesota where governor walz is from. can you click on those and bring us up to speed? >> sure. 80% of the vote in, harris is up 86,000 votes. it's going to be tighter than in the past. new hampshire looks like it probably lands in the same place. but look, we've talked about this shift everywhere. that's the popular vote. 5.2 million votes more than kamala harris. he's in a very strong position to break 50% for the first time. he did not get -- didn't get that close. our polling didn't show him north of 47, 48%. either of the times he ran before, without getting a majority. tonight, he could get it. >> david: hillary clinton won the popular vote by almost 3 million. joe biden won it by 8 or 9 million? >> yeah, we can go -- you can see exactly where the numbers

were. 7 million-vote edge. he only had 47% of the vote. four years earlier, he only had 46% of the vote. lost by about almost 3 million votes. this is a different night. this is a different electorate. this is one that has fallen for -- fallen in trump's direction in a very considerable way. red states, blue states, everything in between. >> david: you're looking at popular and electoral college. we've had discussion in this country where popular goes one way, electoral goes another. that's not the storyline? >> it's not likely there be. there's a lot of vote out west, a lot in california. those margins will tighten. right now, that's a strong advantage, a very strong likelihood that he will win not only the electoral college, also the popular vote. >> david: that's really going to matter to the former president. >> i mean, absolutely. let's not forget, republicans have had a hell of a time winning the popular vote. george w. bush won the presidency in 2000 but lost the

popular vote. he did win the popular vote -- >> >> david: in 2004. >> in 2004. but donald trump wins the presidency and loses the popular vote in 2016. this is a -- by the way, all indications, we don't know what overall turnout's going to be, but this is going to be a high-turnout election. this is going to be a very high-turnout election. it may approach the kind of turnout we had in 2020, which was the highest percentage of eligible voters voting since 1900 in america. so trump is going to claim a mandate, and he's going to have reason to claim a mandate. >> david: no question. people will look back at the different avenues, the different routes to reach the voter that donald trump used this time around. he had a three-hour conversation with joe rogan late in the campaign. a huge audience. a lot of people said that he was reaching out to voters and men and young men in particular in ways that campaigns hadn't used

before. kamala harris went on "howard stern." "charlamagne tha god." she tried the podcast route on popular programs on sirius xm. to go on "joe rogan" and have joe rogan endorse him in the 27th hour, in 2024, those are powerful things to do, and they work for a campaign. >> it was an effort to get people to vote who didn't normally vote. some cases never voted. i think -- i'm sure linsey's got the exit polls on this. what we see trump doing better than harris, significantly better among those who were first-time voters. >> for all of those efforts to outreach the harris campaign, all of that was just playing to his base. that it was doing nothing to expand his reach. clearly not the right assessment. >> david: we'll stay with this live picture, waiting for the former president. talk us through what you're seeing with new voters. >> linsey: first-time voters, 8% nationwide of the electorate, 54% went for donald trump. 45% for kamala harris.

what i think is really interesting, what's different, rick klein said tonight is different. one thing that's different is america is a more diverse country, but the electorate tonight is less diverse. so for example, if you look at 1992, 82% of the electorate is white. fast forward to 2020. we still have this 67% of the electorate was white. fast forward tonight, it went up by 4 points. you have 71% of the electorate was white. that broke, by and large, for donald trump in his favor, by 12 percentage points, those white voters who showed up. the biggest significance that we've seen, as far as any racial bid, latinos. the highest shift of any. 13% up over hispanics from 2020 for him. 18% increase over hispanic males from 2020. so quite a big difference for him.

he went after and targeted those latino voters, and it worked for him big-time. >> david: it did. that was a main goal of this campaign was try to peel away latino support. is maria still listening in on the conversation? mariah elena, when you hear those numbers, donald trump was successfully peeling away support joe biden had four years ago, lindie davis describing the electorate as ■morewhite than four years ago, comparatively to previous presidential elections, what do you make of that and the success in this campaign, outreach to reach latino voters? as you have said many times on, latino voters in one part of the country are not the same as other parts of the country. he did have significant success tonight. >> that's true, david. yeah i am a little bit surprised. latino voters still support vice president harris and democrats

in general in higher numbers than donald trump. florida has been the outlier, the only state in the country where the majority of latino voters supported former president trump. we'll see if that changes tonight. republicans don't need a majority of latino voters to win, they just need to cut into democrats' lead. it looks like, from the numbers, that might have happened today. the republican presidential candidate that has gotten the highest percentage of at latino vote was george w. bush in 2004 with just about -- above 40%. martha was right that this time around, the economy is the top issue for latinos. that's what they're voting for. putting a roof over their heads, feeding their children. they trust trump on the economy. as far as immigration is concerned, it used to be that an issue that drew latinos to democrats with the promise of immigration, it never materialized. the views have now shifted and they prefer a more hardline approach at the border,

especially states like arizona. they don't want to be associated with the chaos at the border. those that trump calls criminals. a few weeks ago there was a "new york times" poll sha showed two-thirds of latino voters thought when trump was disparaging immigrants, calling them criminals, he was not talking about them, he was talking about "other immigrants." so, you know, it's surprising. it's also surprising that a sizable number of latinos said they support mass deportations. maybe without realizing that it would not only hurt the economy, but it's going to lead to separation of families. >> david: maria elena salinas, thank you. your context is always so helpful. eric trump has sent out on social media this image of the former president, presumably holding the speech that he will give tonight. we have reported that he hadn't prepared a speech for this evening, but if the time came and he needed one, he said he would put one together quickly.

eager to hear that here tonight with the rest of you. john santucci reporting the entire trump family is there at the convention center, his children, including ivanka and bar aron and melania trump also there voting with the president. >> it's remarkable because this is the first time since the republican national convention that the entire trump family has been under the same roof. and think about, david, the trump 1.0 white house, if you will. we know that ivanka and jared were right there by donald trump's side. jared kushner's office right off the oval office. ivanka trump right above the oval office. the kushners have said they are not going back to washington. they have not been involved in this campaign. should donald trump be declared the winner, do not expect jared and ivanka to go to the white house. it does beg the question, i've asked many sources over the last couple of weeks, would any member of the trump family go?

as we've been reporting, david, one of the members that has been very active in this campaign is donald trump jr. i spoke to him earlier tonight. he said that his family feels incredibly vindicated by the results so far. and one of the things he said to me is that he felt that so far, he had an impact on this race. as we know, david, we reported on the air with you. it was don jr. that really was the driving force behind j.d. vance being on the ticket with his father. tonight, don jr. telling me, "my guy is going with my father potentially to the white house." >> david: any word what the tone will be here? >> you know, it's evolved, david. when i say that, as result is were pouring in, sources were telling me, he's going to go right up to the line from declaring victory. i can now agree with my colleague, jon karl, hearing the same thing, it does indeed feel like donald trump's going to

come out here and declare victory. though we have not projected the race. i do think, david, the question of tone is going to be quite interesting. i say that because, think about 2016. pretty much at this hour of the night when donald trump came with his family into the hilton hotel, just steps away from trump tower, it sounded like a speech of unity. i don't think we're going to hear too much of that tonight. maybe some tenors. look at where donald trump has been. look at the words his son tells me as i just reported a few moments ago. vindicated. i do think you're going to feel a little bit of those tones that we've gone reporting over the last couple of days. some of the darkness. some of the things he's been talking about feeling and seeing around the country. talking about the southern border. i'm actually curious, david, in addition to the tone, how much of the first steps of an agenda do we hear from donald trump tonight? those first actions he would take come january. >> david: john, stick with us.

a question for you. i saw faces in the crowd there, former governor doug burgum, governor kristi noem, vivek ramaswamy. two of the three ran in the republican primary though they never debated donald trump because he didn't show up, turned out to be a strategically smart move of him. burgum, ramaswamy, noem, are those potential players in a cabinet? >> everything is potential right now. we are not the point of any short list. we are on the long list phase. we are in the multiple list phases. different people have been submitting lists at this point. so i think anybody right now is possible for sure. there are already aides i've spine to talking about who would be the next press secretary. some people talking about what positions they want. talking to sources, some of them were in a place of measuring the drapes, figuring out what role they wanted in a future

administration. so i do think for the group of governors and senators and members of congress, alise stepanek is around here as well, highest woman ranking republican in the house. they are definitely all on a potential list. david, let's be clear. these are lists that have been built by folks without talking to donald trump. so whatever the lists are and have been, that's going to be a very different story come tomorrow morning. >> david: senator marco rubio talking to newt gingrich. two other names. senator marco rubio would be a real contender to be some sort of position in a potential trump administration, which looks obviously very likely at this point. >> yeah, absolutely. marco rubio clearly positioning for a cabinet secretary job. senator tom cotton, another one. they'd probably both imagine themselves as secretaries of defense. you know what donald trump's going to do. it's a -- 2016, after he won -- although this time, as he's told

me, he knows people. he's going to do "the apprentice" thing. bring people in, talk to them. i've asked him many times about what his cabinet would look like, what his white house staff would look like. a little bit like talking about a no-hitter in the seventh inning. he's superstitious, wouldn't want to talk about it. he's appointed a transition team. it's headed in part by howard watnick. and he's, you know -- they've been establishing lists of names. they've begun the process of vetting candidates. the key thing you're going to see this time that's different than last time is the emphasis, the primary emphasis is going to be on loyalty to donald trump. >> david: loyalty -- >> and the military, right? how do you do that with the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff?

he has said already he will get rid of all the woke generals. i think in some ways, you'll see a loyalty test there with the military as well. the current chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, he may look at and say, oh, this general is woke, i want him out of there. c.q. brown had a very emotional videotape that he released right after the george floyd murder, talking about diversity, talking about racial injustice in this country. it will be very -- i'll be very curious to see what he does there. >> how do the senior officers dole with that? when he chose mark milley, he thought he was choosing somebody that was going to be loyal to him. mark milley turned out to be the ultimate in his mind -- >> yes, we know the turning point for general milley, that was walking across lafayette park during the -- >> george floyd. >> during george floyd protests and millie peeled off and said,

this is political. and later apologized for that. so it certainly -- at that point for donald trump, he was no longer a loyalist. although he managed to stay. >> david: rachel scott, from your reporting on the trail, names that you have interacted with that you think have potential shots at being part of a trump administration? >> i had my eyes peeled on doug burgum, who was there, north dakota governor. vivek ramaswamy as well. we've reminded just how much this is a party that has coalesced around the former president. after january 6th, mitch mcconnell saying donald trump was morally responsible for what happened that day. he's now endorsed him. if donald trump is the projected winner, if he goes to the white house, there is no senate majority leader, mitch mcconnell. he's stepping down. he's going to be retiring from that position as the longest-serving republican leader in the senate. there will be a different sort of cast of characters around there. there's questions about if

there's going to be guardrails -- this is the former president, david. >> president-elect donald j. trump! >> david: thank you, rachel. >> first lady melania trump! and the trump family! accompanied by vice president-elect j.d. vance! second lady usha vance! along with friends and campaign staff! ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> thank you very much. wow. >> crowd chanting: usa, usa!

>> thank you very much. this is great. these are our friends. we have thousands of friends in this incredible movement. this was a movement like nobody's ever seen before. and frankly, this was, i believe, the greatest political movement of all-time. there's never been anything like this in this country and maybe the earth. and now it's going to reach a new level of importance, because we're going to help our country heal. help our country heal. we have a country that needs help. and it needs help very badly. we're going to fix our borders. we're going to fix everything about our country. we made history for a reason tonight, and the reason is going to be just that. we overcame obstacles that nobody thought possible. and it's now clear that we've

achieved the most incredible political -- look what happened. is this crazy? gut it's a political victory that our country has never seen before. nothing like this. i want to thank the american people for the extraordinary honor of being elected your 47th president and your 45th president. and every citizen, i will fight for you, for your family and your future. every single day, i will be fighting for you. with every breath in my body. i will not rest until we have delivered the strong, safe, and prosperous america that our children deserve and that you deserve. this will truly be the golden age of america. that's what we have to --

[ cheers and applause ] this is a magnificent victory for the american people that will allow us to make america great again. and in addition to having won the battleground states of north carolina -- i love these places. georgia, pennsylvania, wisconsin. we are now winning in michigan, arizona, nevada, alaska. which would result in us carrying at least 315 electoral votes. but it's much easier doing what the networks did or whoever called it. because there was no other pat. there was no other path to victory.

we also have won the popular vote, that was great. thank you. >> crowd: usa, usa, usa! >> thank very much. thank you. winning the popular vote was very nice. very nice. i will tell you. a great feeling of love. we have a great feeling of love in this very large room. with unbelievable people standing by my side. these people have been incredible. they've made the journey with me. and we're going to make you very happy. we're going to make you very proud of your vote. i hope that you're going to be looking back someday and say that was one of the truly important moments of my life, when i voted for this group of people beyond the president.

this group of great people. america has given us an unprecedented and powerful mandate. we have taken back control of the senate, wow. that's great. and the senate races in montana, nevada, texas, ohio, wisconsin. the great commonwealth of pennsylvania. were all won by the maga movement. they helped so much. in those cases, every one of them, we worked with the senators. they were tough races. and, i mean, the number of victories in the senate was absolutely incredible. and we did telerallies. we did telerallies.

sometimes two or three. it was amazing to look at all of those victories. nobody expected that. nobody. so i just wanted to thank you very much for that. and we have -- you have some great senators and some great new senators. and it also looks like we'll be keeping control of the house of representatives. and i want to thank mike johnson. i think he's doing a terrific job. terrific job. i want to also thank my beautiful life, melania, first lady. who has the number one best-selling book in the country, can you believe that?

oh, no, she's done a great job. works very hard. works very hard to help people. so i just want to thank her. i want to thank my whole family. my amazing children. and they are amazing children. we all think are children are great. everyone here thinks their children are amazing. that's a good thing when you think they are. but don, eric, ivanka, tiffany, barron, lara, jared, kimberly, michael, thank you all. what a help. what a great family. my father-in-law, victor, tremendous. and we miss very much melania's mother, amalia. we miss amalia, don't we? she would be very happy right now standing on this stage, she'd be so proud. she was a great woman, that one. beautiful inside and out. she was a great woman.

i want to be the first to congratulate our great, now i can say, vice president-elect of the united states, j.d. vance. and his absolutely remarkable and beautiful wife, usha vance. and he's a fiesty guy, isn't he? you know, i've said, go into the enemy camp. and you know the enemy camp is certain networks. a lot of people don't like -- sir, do i have to do that? he just goes, okay, which one? cnn, m scsdnc. he's like the only guy i've ever