60s and even more chilly heading into the weekend, laura. wow, we'll get that taste of fall. we are gathering the local news on the races and will have updates in the network coverage. back to nbc "today." hey, guys. good morning. the sun's up. it is 7:30 with a look at the white house on this morning after election day. at this hour, the question remains who will get to call 1600 pennsylvania avenue home for the next four years? >> i'm glad you said the sun's coming up because some things are certain. but as for the election results, not so much this morning. let us look at where the electoral vote race stands right now. remember 270 is the number to get. right now joe biden has 224 electoral votes, 213 for president donald trump, but those gray states, those are the ones that are either too close

to call or too early to call, meaning there's still a significant amount of vote needed to be counted to make a prediction. seven of those states are the battle grounds that you've heard so much about, pennsylvania, michigan, wisconsin, north carolina, georgia, nevada and arizona. >> kind of let everyone know it wasn't going to be election day, it may be election days or election week. that's exactly where we are right now. let's begin with tom costello. he's keeping his eye on that vote count. tom, good morning. >> good morning. i think it's worth repeating and we've been saying it for weeks on the "today" show, on "nbc night live ne nightly news," the vote will take days to count. we are looking at the highest voter turnout we believe in a century, about 157 votes and no state declares a winner on le election night. they all have their own processes and deadlines to do

this. pennsylvania right now, the governor says they still have about a million mailed in ballots to count. they paused overnight. absentee ballots postmarked by election day can arrive by friday and be counted. the secretary of state has insisted despite what the president has said that all votes will be counted in pennsylvania. in georgia some key counties in georgia paused counting overnight. there were some problem with some vote tabulation issues in and around the atlanta area. also there was a water pipe that burst in the state farm arena, where they're tab lat tabulatin. at least 50,000 votes there were paused. atlanta will pick up again today. this may take time on georgia. keep in mind this is very much still a work in progress. in arizona, voters have five days to correct their signatures on the ballots. they will not finish count bein

the vote until november 10th. we could get more data tonight. nevada mailed in ballots in nevada post marked by election day can still be counted. nevada officials say there will be no final tab until thursday and specifically they're waiting on democratic-leaning clark county for nevada. we're going to be watching that closely. and then we look at north carolina. ballots postmarked by election day can be counted. we need to also make the point there are concerns about specifically pennsylvania and michigan and wisconsin and what their laws, what their rules allow for county ballots. all of those legislatures set the rules. all of those legislatures are controlled by republicans. so it's important to note when the president is concerned about what's happening in those states, those are republican legislatures setting the rules. in 2008 it took two weeks to finalize the vote and in 2016,

the president knows michigan wasn't formally called and confirmed until two weeks after election day. again, these things take time. back to you. >> michigan had the narrowest margin in 2016. i don't know, some of these other states might give it a run for its money this time around. >> some people are waking up and saying i thought arizona was called. there are some networks and news organizations that are calling states but we are taking our time. >> chuck is really the expert on this. but the fact of the matter is nbc news has its open decision desk. we do not communicate with them. they make their own calls and they are very, very careful. so you might see other news organizations say calling florida well before we did. we have not called arizona for joe biden. other networks have. this is just the way we've decided as a network we will proceed with caution. we are not concerned about being first. we are concerned about being right. and i think that's a lesson that we take very much to heart. >> well, it's a lesson we learned the hard way as a

network in 2000 when we called florida and we had to pull it back. you don't want to pull back a call like that. you don't want to pull back the presidency. frankly, you look at georgia. we didn't call it, a lot of other folks tried to directionally call georgia early that night and it was just our folks who spent a lot of time with these models were like not touching that one with a ten-foot pole. trump may still win georgia, but it was not correct to ever characterize that as that somehow was headed in his direction yet. >> we're proceeding with an abundance of caution and just going where the facts and votes are and we'll continue to do so. during the speech overnight, the president vowed to go to the supreme court to dispute the election count if it comes to that. let's bring in justice correspondent pete williams. he's a veteran of those wars, as is and last jeremy bash. jeremy was part of the recount in 2000 in florida as a young lawyer for al gore, the democratic candidate.

pete, i'll start with you. we talked about this before. i said if it gets to the supreme court. the fact of the matter is there already are cases pending before the supreme court. >> if the electoral vote end up being close and if pennsylvania could make the difference, then a lawsuit already there would be the one most likely to get the supreme court involved. the republicans object to the decision by pennsylvania's state supreme court, it ruled in september that because of the pandemic and postal service delays, mail votes will be counted if they arrive by friday of this week, three days after the polls close. so the republicans first asked the supreme court to put that ruling on hold. that failed on a 4-4 vote. then the republicans asked for a full-up appeal and asked that it be heard immediately. the supreme court said, no, we're not going to take it right now but that appeal is still waiting there waiting for the supreme court to decide whether to take it up at all. in the earlier two round justice

amy coney barrett did not vote. if the case does come back to life, she'll undoubtedly face pressure from many quarters to recuse. the justices will no doubt have to ask themselves this question. having turned down the republicans twice before, before it was known whether pennsylvania could be critical, how would it look for the court to then step in and take a grant and grant the republicans' request to take that case on a fast track, knowing that a ruling could decide the election for president donald trump. the supreme court fell stung by the criticism that followed bush have. >> go-- bush v. gore 20 years a. >> those ballots have to be post marked by election day -- >> actually they don't. >> is that right? >> that's part of the problem here. no, they don't have to be post marked. they either have to be post marked or there has to be proof that they were mailed after the election -- after election day.

that's been one of the republicans' objections now, we've talked to election officials and the postal service in pennsylvania and asked them do you postmark all the ballots? in some places ballots have prepaid postage and in that case they probably don't go through -- >> pete, are you telling me somebody could put a ballot in the mail today as long as it gets there by friday? >> that's what the republicans object to. now, of course you have to first ask yourself this question -- could the postal service deliver it by friday if you put it in the mail today? that's a question. but, secondly, the way the state supreme court ruled, they said that you must count the ballot if it arrives by friday if it postmarked and unless there is some indication that it was sent after election day. then you wouldn't count it. that's one of the sort of bones of contention here. but the majority of the ballots are those that of course were put in the mail before or on

election day. >> well, this is what happens when you unleash the lawyers. here's another one. jeremy bash, jeremy, i already gave your resumé there. so obviously every state is different, every state's rules is different. this is a different year, it's 20 years later, but walk us through what these recount fights really amount to, what it really cops down mes down to. we all remember the hanging chad in florida.ly ground of dispute here in 2020? >> the first step is all the votes have to be counted. the big difference between florida in 2000 and what's happening today is that in florida in 2000 the litigation was over the recount. the supreme court stepped in and said stop the hand recount of the votes. here in 2020 in all of these states, most of the votes haven't even been counted. as chuck and kasie and you guys walk through where the votes are

to be counsted. assuming they're all in, people can say there were problems at voting places or problems with the ballots. there are multiple ways to challenge what happened at the voting places. i have to say looking at yesterday, there were very few problems, no evidence of fraud. there's no basis i can see right now for a candidate going in and challenging legally the validity of what happened yesterday. >> jeremy, were you up at 2:20 in the morning when president donald trump spoke and he mentioned he thought the eceltion had been stolen and he s going to take it to the supreme court? i'm curious what your thoughts were? >> frankly, that's outrageous. first of all, there's no basis to go to court, let alone the supreme court. we all knew because of covid there were going to be mailin ballo -- mail-in ballots.

if there's election controversy, maybe that gets litigated in the courts but i don't think that's going to happen this year. >> pete and jeremy, thank you so much. we have a lot more to cover ahead. we'll see what is going on there, including the votes are still being counted in some key states. and how are voters reacting overnight? this is a moment where we've seen a lot of tensions on the streets, we've seen boarded up store windows but we've had a

good morning you guys. 7:43. it's the morning after the election. the race, as you can tell by our big board right there still unsettled. president donald trump and joe biden split. it's 224 for biden, 213, each trying to get to 270.

>> a lot votes remain to be counted. claire mccaskill and rich lowrie, editor of "the national review," both of them joining us and have been up all night as well. rich, let me start with you. you look at the map. there were a lot of surprises for the president, pleasant surprises, starting with florida early in the night. he took a commanding lead in florida, which some people thought was more competitive than it ended up being. >> trump overperformed almost everywhere and in florida he had a very robust team working it really hard. this is one of the things underappreciated by trump. everyone was focusing on the various distractions and the gaffs, but there was a real concerted effort to build a very serious get out the vote operation that we now know was very effective and had considerable proficiency. and it's gotten him on the cusp of reelection.

now, as we're seeing, you know, in realtime here, his leads in the blue wall states, he's going to need at least one of them and perhaps more are vulnerable to the late-arriving, late-counted absentee and mail-in ballots. so it's up for grabs now. but he wouldn't be here if he and his team hadn't done an incredible job turning out their voters and founding more of them. >> there are a lot of unpleasant surprises i think you could say for biden. i think he was expecting to take so some states that ended up going red. assess what you see on that big map right there. >> well, if you look at that map, there really aren't any states that have been flipped by either candidate yet. except for if we want to count arizona, that would certainly be a flip for joe biden. but nevada was a democratic state. so if we end up with nevada, that's not a change.

it really still comes down to the states that a credit to the biden campaign they focused on, those three states, wisconsin, michigan and pennsylvania. let's just assume that the vote tallies turn out the way people are expecting at this point. the irony is that donald trump is going to lose the presidency the exact way he won it four years ago. and if he takes it to the supreme court and the supreme court validates it, that will give joe biden a lot of credibility because everybody in the country knows this is a republican supreme court right now. >> well, rich, how do you see it? do you think this is one that's going to be resolved by voters on the map? tight, might take a while but it's going to happened the old fashioned way? or do you think we may be looking at one of these drawn-out, recount potentially lawsuits that could go to the court? >> it depends. and the scenario people have been focused on from the

beginning and still may play out here is an extremely narrow result in pennsylvania where pennsylvania is a tipping point state where potentially the result is determined by a segment of votes that will be under a cloud, and that, as pete williams was describing, that would be late-arriving absentee ballots that are being counted because the pennsylvania supreme court changed the rules in september. if that makes it up to the supreme court, that pennsylvania ruling is really vulnerable. there are three certainly probably four maybe five maybe even six if it comes to it u.s. supreme court justices who i think would believe it was improper for the pennsylvania supreme court to do that. but that's, you know, that's only if it's really close in pennsylvania, but you can't rule it out. >> and in fact, i believe the court left it so those late-arriving ballots would be segregated in the event that the court took up that issue. but i know there was a little

confusion around the table about that. i think -- rich, i'm sure you're familiar with it, i think you're a lawyer, too, that the ballots have to either be postmarked election day and can arrive no later than friday or there just has to be no evidence that they were sent after election day. so the bottom line is you cannot send a ballot after election day under any ruling of the court and expect it to be counted. correct? >> right. i'm not a lawyer but my understanding -- >> well, i just appointed you one. >> i don't know whether that's an honor or an insult. but some of the potentially prepaid envelopes don't have a postmark. pennsylvania said we're going to presume that they were sent prior to the election, unless there's evidence otherwise. so the nightmare scenario here for everyone and especially for chief justice john roberts and if there's someone who maybe didn't get a lot of sleep last

night it's john roberts, because i think he ducked this pennsylvania case when it came up before the election because he kind of figured, what are the odds it's all going to come down to pennsylvania, looks like biden is going to win and we won't have the court's fingerprints on this at all, which is what he prefers because he's a real institutionalist and he cares about the reputation of the court. but it could come back to the supreme court with everyone knowing that effectively the court would decide the outcome of the election, which would be very bad for the court and be very bad for the country and for me it would be an indication that john roberts and the courts grasped it prior to the election. >> senator mccaskill, you are a lawyer, are you not? >> we may just throw that around today. >> the legal term for it is a hot mess. >> yeah, it's a hot mess. so there are several things that would throw this into this category of uncertainty around

the law. and the ballots in pennsylvania. first, pennsylvania would have to be determinative. if biden wins wisconsin and michigan and nevada and arizona, he doesn't need pennsylvania. so pennsylvania is not a key. if pennsylvania turns out to be a key, then this is an issue of the burden of proof, savannah. the way the pennsylvania supreme court found the case was there is a presumption that the ballot was sent in a timely basis. that's the essence of what the legal challenge would be. is that burden of proof, should it be shifted to prove you didn't mail it as opposed to having to prove that you did mail it before election day. or on election day. >> we want to check on those numbersin pennsylvan in numbers. fishs -- first you have numbers coming in from wisconsin? >> look at this. we now only think there is

100,000 votes remaining we have biden up 20,000 votes so his lead has basically doubled. this is shrinking. it's going to be less than 1% but i will tell you this, the question will be is what you guys are going to ask, what are the recount procedures? well, luckily, we have those. >> of course you do. >> and i will get that for you shortly. they're in here. so here's the georgia procedure. no automatic recount. half of 1%. that's the only way you have to be within that to even be able to ask. if it more than .5, they won't do it. all right, our next state is wisconsin. no ought mat beiautomatic recou. you can petition when it is within 1% of the vote. it was less than 1% of the total vote of wisconsin. the idea of a recount in wisconsin looking pretty high. pennsylvania, the more writing you see and the less numbers you see just shows -- look at this

one. petition for a recount. three electors need to request one. anyway, there is an automatic recount within half of a percentage point. that's the most important thing to go from there. then clearly there become some different data. check this out. you want to see how long we could end up here? after thanksgiving. if it's down to pennsylvania, we're going to be waiting until after thanksgiving, if the vote is close. we don't know the vote is going to be close. nevada, no automatic recount but 1% and you can get a recount. let me give you north carolina. .5% or 10,000 votes. let me tell you, 10,000 votes i was telling you is probably going to be the margin. it's going to be right around 10 for biden coming up short. i'll be curious to see -- we could have recounts in four or five states. >> it's like florida times five. >> it was the nightmare we've all been worried about. what if florida was more than one state?

>> here we are. >> let's take another pause. we need an election day pause. hey, al. >> it's going to feel like lay may. it might be nice to get november out of your head. salt lake city today, fiephoeni 93, detroit 66, 13 degrees warmer. that warmth spreads to buffalo, near 60, 71 in richmond. cincinnati sunday you're 75, 68 in new york city by sunday, mid 70s in raleigh. little rock will see good morning. i'm meteorologist kari hall. let's take a look at our high temperatures for today. it's going to basically be a repeat of yesterday with our highs reaching into mostly the

70s. some mid-70s for the south bay. a few upper 70s for the inland east bay as well as the north bay. as we go through the forecast we'll have this nice, sunny weather for today and tomorrow. and then a big drop in temperatures headed our way for friday with more clouds. off and on showers. it's going to be a soggy weekend. and that's your latest weather. guys? >> al, we have a lot of political discussion happening that the moment, don't we? chuck, we just gave some new numbers on wisconsin for people who missed those. >> we did. look, the margin, maybe we can put it up on screen. i think we can put that up. the margin is less than 1% now, 97% is reporting and at the end of the day, you know, this is when you're that close, you're going to ask where the votes come from. the votes come from anywhere. most of it's coming in the mail. this is why it is likely that biden's lead will increase. right now it's less than a percentage point where i just told you, it heads us into recount territory. if biden can get that over 1%,

perhaps he can avoid a recount on that front. but, i'm sorry, we got about a hundred thousand estimated vote out there. trump would have to win a big chunk of that hundred thousand to make up that difference, burr he -- but here's the real bottom line. i don't think we call wisconsin today. when he gets this close, get to 100% because when you're that close to potential recount situations, no network will seriously call it. maybe you might say apparent winner when 100% is reporting, but you got to wait till the recount. >> and just very briefly, one thing we learned in the 2000 florida recount is that the strategy that any campaign uses really matters here. the bush team now in many positions of power, brett cavanaugh. that's part of why the president's rhetoric will be so

important here. >> coming up, andrea mitchell will be here with her take on where things stand. >> and coming up, just how well the president fared in this election. but first, this is and a good morning to you. thanks so much for joining us. i'm marcus washington. >> and i'm laura garcia. want to get you current on the most closely watched state and local races early this morning. we begin with proposition 22. the measure pushed by ride share companies to allow drivers to remain contractors and not employees with full benefits. it's meant to challenge the state's new gig economy law. as you can see with more than 70% of the votes counted it appears to be on its way to passing. >> prop 16 is the state's new affirmative action measure. it would reintroduce minority

hires in public universities. right now it's going down to defeat. it's losing by more than ten percentage points. >> proposition 19 would change the tax assessment for some property transfers eliminating the inheritance exemption. it would assist people over 55 who have lost their homes in a natural disaster. right now it is winning by a narrow margin only 70% in right now. >> and prop 15, meanwhile, would raise taxes for commercial properties. a race here is close with about 70% of the vote in this morning. but right now it's going down to defeat. let's get you caught up on a couple more key local bay area measures. >> that's right. like measure rr. it would authorize a sales tax increase to help keep cal train afloat. because of the pandemic it's been in desperate need of financial help. ridership has been down. voters in three counties weighing in, and right now it appears to be passing in all

three counties. voters in contra costa county approved measure x. it will add a half cent sales tax generating $80 million in revenue. it needed a simple majority to pass and got nearly 60% of the vote. >> other notable races this morning, state senate district 13, well, 65% of the vote in right now. right now josh becker has 77% of the vote. republican alex glew has 23% of the vote. and state senate district 15, 53% of the vote is in this hour. democrat dave cortese has 54% of the vote. his opponent, also a democrat, ann ravel, 46%. across the bay area for some election night is a time to come together and celebrate.

people went all out in one oakland neighborhood decorating everything in red, white and blue, watching results come in safely on a tv outside. there was even a white house briefing room where people were asking tough questions. there was also a sanitation station. this group says it won't let covid-19 stop them from getting together. >> i think anything good that brings people together is always good to be around the table and having good food, having fun. >> the hosts say they have been preparing for this party for four years stocking up on decorations at fourth of july sales. right now at 5:00, still counting. millions of ballots remain outstanding at this hour leaving several states yet to declare a winner in the presidential race. right now joe biden leads the electoral college count. that didn't stop the president overnight to falsely claim he's the winner.

>> we will win this and as far as i'm concerned we already have won it. >> it's not my place or donald trump's place to declare who has won this election. that's the decision of the american people. >> well, this morning biden urging patience as president trump says that he's taking the fight to the supreme court. we are watching those results come in very closely this morning. live team coverage of all things election from the bay area to the white house. the third hour of "today in the bay" starts right now. and a good wednesday morning for you the day after election day. well, we still don't know a lot but we'll get you through that this morning. i'm marcus washington. >> and i'm laura garcia with a lot of coffee getting up early to watch decision 2020. we'll have more coverage on that in just a little bit. we'll check in with mike as well. let's say good morning to kari hall. she has a look at the temperatures this early morning hour.