more are still being counted. joe biden gained more votes in the peach state and now has a narrow lead in georgia. the third hour continues right now. and a good friday morning to you. thank you for making us a part of your morning. i'm marcus washington. and i'm laura garcia. we're tracking election results and also, get this, some rain headed to the bay area. a look at when and where. we're going to see that moving in later this afternoon but excited about it. it's not a big storm system but it will bring in at least some spotty showers for parts of the bay area. storm ranger powered up ready to track the rain. the timing of it at 1:00 to 2:00 this afternoon for parts of the north bay. the rest of the bay area may not see it until later this evening as it moves from north to south

with hit or miss showers. mike, how is it looking now getting out the door for work? very different than ten minutes ago. the camera shows you all lanes now backing up toward the toll plaza itself. we have the backup that just formed again as folks flooded in towards that area. we also have slowing for highway 4 through concord which has been there early morning. i thought it would clear as the construction cleared but that is cleared from the roadway. back to you. >> thanks so much, mike. there are razor thin margins in several battleground states as the final outcome of the election still unknown this morning. just confirmed within the last few minutes joe biden ahead by a very slight margin in pennsylvania. he's ahead by just more than 5,000 votes.

battleground states are still to close to call. "today in the bay's" tracie potts is live for us in wilmington with reaction from both campaigns. tracie? >> reporter: there's a lot of anxiety building, a lot of excitement building, particularly on the biden side. let's make sure we know where we are and put this in context. biden is leading in georgia by just a little bit. he is leading in pennsylvania, but they are still counting votes. the states have not been called. the electoral votes have not yet been awarded. but it's a change in where we're headed and president trump recogniz recognizes, the president was tweeting what he called illegal votes. they're actually just votes that continue to be counted from the large number of mail-in ballots that came in. president trump saying that his

gains are being eroded by what he considers illegal votes. twitter says several of his middle of the night tweets were actually possibly misleading. we are also hearing from joe biden who has said to be patient. he still beliefs he will come out on top. again, the numbers are trending in that direction. those electoral votes have not been awarded. we don't know how many votes they have to count after this big dump came in this morning giving biden the lead at this point. marcus and laura? >> before you go i want to go back to the false claims the president keeps making. does he have any support among the republican lawmakers? >> reporter: he has a lot of republicans criticizing him, i can tell you that, on twitter with strong words calling it reprehensible, insane that the president would make these

comments. again, these are republicans talking about the president saying that it's dangerous and wrong for him to question a legitimate process. here was chris christie, former new jersey governor, who helped the president in his first debate, but questioning what the president is saying now. >> we heard nothing today about any evidence. i want to know what backs up what he said. >> reporter: so the president not getting a lot of love from republicans as the numbers continue to grow against him particularly in georgia and in pennsylvania. we'll continue to watch that count. >> how things have changed. >> interesting. >> interesting to see how they're distancing themselves from him now. 6:04. you can keep up with the latest results on our website, nbcbayarea.com. we have live updates as they happen on our website and our free nbc bay area app.

6:04 this morning. head outside and take a look at this across the bay area. the golden gate bridge, downtown san jose. fall finally getting its appearance here in the bay area. fall like weather. what does this mean for outdoor businesses really trying to make it during the pandemic? "today in the bay's" cierra johnson is live for us. i know we've been talking about this when the temperatures were warm, it was nice. now they're cooling down and that might cause a little issue. >> reporter: it is chilly this morning. these temperatures are what the business owners knew these days were coming. it's getting colder. whether or not it's worth dining al fresco when it's cold outside. you can see behind me there are several heat lamps because they're trying to keep these

folks warm. in contra costa county they're dealing with keeping customers warm and figuring out how many customers they can have. the cases there are going up and there could be some new restrictions. those new restrictions going into effect moving from the orange tier to the more restrictive red tier. to break down where cases stand in contra costa county the health director says cases have risen to 5.1 per 100,000. that number is up from 3.7 cases per 100,000 at the end of october. the more restrictive red tier. indoor dining is allowed 50% or 200 people, whatever was fewer. now going back to 25% or 100 people. the same thing for indoor movie theaters. 50% capacity. they're now at 25% capacity. the same goes for churches.

fewer customers means more restrictions and navigating this up and down has really been difficult. >> constantly worrying to cover all the costs, if you can keep that place open. it's been here for a long, long time. that's hard. >> reporter: the health director says when looking at the cases in contra costa county the greatest increase is coming from 19 to 50-year-olds. she says that group surprisingly are the essential workers, the health care workers and frontline workers. those covid cases are rising. so just do what you can to help slow that spread.

we're live in mill valley, cierra johnson for "today in the bay." >> got to be careful. thanks so much, cierra. take a look at what we dusted off and brought out of the bay area garage this morning. this storm coming is the first one for fall. finally that feeling of fall is here. maybe our fashion forecast. can we finally get the boots out? we can get out the boots, the sweaters, all of that stuff. i've been looking for my heated blanket because we are going to see very cool air coming in. we're feeling it with the high winds and can see the wind is further to the north as the storm system moves in. the cooler air is arriving. as we look at storm ranger, exclusive to nbc bay area. we moved it out of the garage, parked it on san bruno mountain.

that's the red beam that you're seeing there getting only a look at the bay area so it gives us a second-by-second update as it continues to move around. the rain doesn't arrive until this afternoon. not all of us will see it. it will be spotty and then take a break for saturday and see more showers coming in on sunday. you can see it up around parts of northern sonoma county, lake and mendocino county seeing some of the showers moving in. down across the peninsula and starting to approach the south bay. a slight chance we could get some heavy rain or some isolated thunderstorms in there.

if you're making plans to get outside just a heads-up it's going to be chilly and windy and we'll see more showers moving in. light spotty showers coming in and it will taper off by sunday night into monday. we'll be able to track that on the nbc bay area app. good morning, everyone, it is 9:10 in the morning on the east coast. 6:10 in the west. good morning to you. we're following breaking news in the presidential race. it is a consequential moment because joe biden, the former vice president, has taken the lead in pennsylvania. this is a state that continues to count ballots. makingin ballots that have been largely favorable to joe biden. and because of that, just this morning within the last few minutes, hoda, he has taken the lead in pennsylvania.

pennsylvania being a checkmate state so to speak. if he wins it -- >> talking about -- 5,500 -- yeah -- 5,500, that's the gap that we have. chuck todd, take us to it. >> here's the thing, we expect another 20,000 mail-in ballots out of philadelphia. again, the former vice president has been winning those at a greater than 80% clip. 31,000 ballots, he had a deficit at 31,000 ballots, and joe biden netted more than 25,000 votes. just shows you how high of a clip he is winning, not just philadelphia but these vote-by-mail votes in philadelphia. you heard maybe another 100,000 outside of philadelphia. but the math is just in the former vice president's favor here. he's winning all of these vote-by-mail ballots by some advantage, the ones in southeast pennsylvania, 75%, 80%, 85%

clip. he's been winning at a higher rate than election day. >> can we go back, 6:10 out west, some people probably haven't had a first cup of coffee. >> you're right. two things happened to them -- >> exactly. let's explain why pennsylvania is so consequential when you look at the president's path to 270 and joe biden's path to 270. >> let's show you here. we're at 253, 214, of called races here. and look, wisconsin is apparent winner. it is technically within the recount margin. when it gets surveyed -- you can't ask for they recount unless as you point out it's -- the rurneturns are unofficial before certification. that doesn't include that. as you can see here, you called it a checkmate state. this is it. so you know, the president here can carry north carolina, say the vote -- fthey find the typo

he catches here, something magical happens in clark county, it just -- it doesn't work without pennsylvania. unfortunately, also for the president, though, this -- nevada doesn't -- it's going to be tight, but it -- the math doesn't work in his favor. arizona i'm not going to characterize. i think it's going to get tighter and tighter. but at this point, georgia, frankly, you'd rather be joe biden. in fact, he took the lead overnight when more ballots came in. there's not a lot to count. but i want to take you and show you where the majority of votes that are left in georgia, what county they're in. it's gwinnett county which is -- excuse me, which is a county that joe biden was winning by almost 20 points. and these are going to be vote-by-mail votes. he's going to probably win at a greater clip than that. >> we're also waiting for military and overseas ballots. >> as many -- there could be as many as a thousand. the projection is probably about

3,000. and here's the thing -- don't try to characterize it, people say military ballots, they lean republican. the rank and file military, surveys by "stars and stripes" the newspaper of the military, showed they were as divided as the country is. >> no one wants to read the tea leaves, but it's vote counting time -- >> we're counting the leaves. >> should we find out what's going on in biden county? kristen welker is at the headquarters. >> reporter: hey, hoda and save savannah. heard from a top biden adviser responding to the fact that biden has taken the lead in pennsylvania and georgia. this adviser says they are thrilled, campaign staff are elated, and confident. and look, this fits in line with what they have been anticipating would happen. we've been talking to them over the past 48 hours or so. and they have expressed increased confidence that biden would ultimately pull made it

pennsylvania, and they said georgia's going to be very tight. and so it is. and yet, clearly they are emboldened by the fact that biden is leading in that state. they've also expressed confidence about their chances in nevada as well as arizona. and of course, we heard from the former vice president yesterday speaking here in wilmington, delaware. he said that he and senator harris feel confident that once all of the votes are counted that they will ultimately prevail in this rail. and he of course struck a very different tone than we heard from president trump who was raising questions about the legitimacy of this count process. vice president biden saying, look, we need to stay calm. he urged patience and said every vote needs to be counted. let me just set the scene here for you, though, in wilmington. i'm standing in front of the stage where biden spoke on tuesday in the overnight hours after the official election day. and i can tell threw have been signs of life -- tell you there have been signs of life in and around the stage behind me. there have been mic checks going on. people making sure that the

lights work, that the stage is set. so i think that it's safe to say the biden camp is projected an air of confidence and signaling that we might yet hear from vice president biden again soon at some point today or within the coming hours. so a very active scene here outside the biden campaign headquarters as we continue to get reaction to the latest developments in the vote count. >> kristen, thank you. if you're just catching up, we've not called pennsylvania for joe biden, but he has taken the lead this morning. and there are still votes to be counted. let's turn now to peter alexander, at the white house. hey, peter. >> reporter: hey, so we are here at the white house waiting to hear any word from anybody at the white house, trying to go into the west wing. the door there remains locked. nothing new from the president this morning on twitter. again, we did hear his fierce comments yesterday in defiance of the facts that we're witnessing now, saying in effect that he has won this election if you count only the legal votes. without any evidence suggesting

that there have been illegal votes that are responsible for his magically, miraculously to use his word disappearing lead. to be clear, there is say way to adjudicate that. the legal process. instead of making these claims without any evidence and even some of the president's allies, chris christie among them, have said there is no basis for the claims the president's been making about what's taking place in states like pennsylvania. even the republican senator pat toome toomey saying he has not been evidence of widespread voter fraud as the president claims here. so at this point, we're waiting to hear what if anything we'll hear from the president or from the campaign. the president's campaign advisers in recent days had been holding calls with reporters, sort of mapping out their strategy and their thinking, trying to project confidence. there is nothing that at least to this point we've heard from them so far. and privately in my conversations with some of the president's aides andal lights, there's a real -- and allies, there's a real frustration about what the message is, what they're trying to say as they watch the president's lead in

pennsylvania, and now in georgia, evaporate. the president initially was saying stop the count. that obviously wouldn't work because were you to stop the count, which you can't, joe biden would have been declared president. then he said stop the fraud. it's erratic messaging. even as the president attacks these mail-in ballots that are being counted now, that are heavily skewing in favor of joe biden, it's the president who against the wishes of a lot of his own aides and advisers was telling his voters not to vote by mail, to do it in person. they fear that might suppress their own vote. it's possible that that had some impact. none of cha we're seeing now -- none of what we're seeing is out of the blue. we've been telling you for weeks this is likely what would take place. not who would win or lose but the early vote would favor joe biden most likely as democrats for whatever reason were more inclined to vote early or by mail. and the day-of vote would favor the president of the united

states. again, the president with his first remarks since election night here last evening. nothing on his public schedule today. one other note i should make is one of the other frustration in terms of the legal team there's frustration that there's not an legal adviser like a james baker type, as one said it, who of course led george w. bush's recount battle back in 2000. this time around, one aide saying to me you have corey lewandowski, the former campaign manager, and rudy giuliani on a street corner in philadelphia. that's not going to cut it. >> all right. thank you. keep us posted. joining us democratic lieutenant governor of pennsylvania. mr. lieutenant governor, good morning to you. i think the first question is how many more votes to your knowledge does pennsylvania have to count, and when might we see them? >> give or take it's around

115,000 to 120,000, and they're going to continue to count them. i'm unaware and would pretty. all but guarantee there's not one county or area of pennsylvania where the mail-in ballots don't skew significantly toward vice president biden. i've been saying this for a while. math is math. you saw that this morning, and year going to see vice president biden increase his lead throughout as reports come in. >> you know, if you are a fan of the president, you're watching this razor-thin margin and may be saying, well, the president's talking about all this fraud, all this fraud that's going on. what's your take on that? >> my take is we wouldn't be arguing whether one plus one equals three. we would dismiss it out of hand because we know that's not true. at what point does yelling about voter fraud and the complete utter ann bsence of it like yelg

fire in a theater. the president marginalized himself as no more than a troll saying outlandish things that have no base nice reality. math is coming, math arrived in a big dose as joe biden went ahead just now. we're going to see that bank. and there's nothing behind that other than math. >> you obviously are not a fan of the president or a member of his party. there is a lawsuit in pennsylvania -- >> no -- >> i just want to make sure people -- yes, of course. i want to make sure people understand where you're coming from. yep. >> math. you know, math doesn't respond well to opinion. you know? it's math. and that's what we're going to be looking at in pennsylvania throughout the day. >> right. okay. you're counting mail-in votes, you have 100,000 left. we know they've favored joe biden because that was his campaign strategy telling voters mail your vote. president's was show up in person. all the in-person votes have been counted. now they're counting the mail-in votes.

that's why we've seen things develop this way in pennsylvania. i do want to ask you, lieutenant governor, about this lawsuit that is on hold for the moment. having to do with a decision by the pennsylvania supreme court, that ballots that were sent before election day, they have to be sent before election day, but arrived up to today, three days later, i'm calming them the tuesday to friday ballots, that they could be counted. local officials decided to segregate those ballots, and to my understanding, i'm hoping you can confirm this, are those segmented ballots the ones that are potentially controversial? have they been counted and added into this total yet, to your knowledge? >> no -- they haven't. let me be clear, i don't think those ballots are even going to be an issue. i think the number of outstanding ballots -- and i want to be clear -- the ballots being counted now are the ones that were received on or before election day by 8:00. so those aren't subject to any lawsuits. you know, the president can sue a ham sandwich, he can send a thousand lawyers to

pennsylvania, but it's. going to change the basic fact that every one of these ballots in play that's going to be counted throughout the rest of the day has been lawfully received and going to be counted, and they're all going to skew in his -- joe biden's favor. we've seen it happen and happen, and it's going to continue to happen. and that's -- >> lieutenant governor, when are we going to know for sure what the count is in florida? do you think you'll know by the end of the day -- >> in pennsylvania -- >> pennsylvania, sorry. >> we're all on little sleep -- >> yeah, i can't specify an exact time. i mean, as mr. todd was just indicating, it's like, you know, like i said, math doesn't care what your feelings are. math is going to lead us to the truth, and the truth is that i am not,a ware of one single -- not aware of one single county where the mail-in ballots didn't skew in the vice president's favor approaching 90%. and it's unlikely we're going to see that at this point going forward. so i think you're going to see the vice president's lead

expand, and i would see it -- maybe expand to maybe 75, you know, low six figures at this point. >> all right. pennsylvania's lieutenant governor, thanks for joining us on a busy day. appreciate it. >> thank you. >> thanks. >> i want to make -- i want to make a quick point here. that we're going, we're having to track these vote-by-mail numbers, you heard the lieutenant governor says there's the 60% clip overall, 90% in areas. we could have been stuck doing this in the state of florida, too, had we only counted essentially republican votes first, then democratic votes, i mean unfortunately the pennsylvania state legislature th>> in both pennsylvania and

florida you have republicans who made those decisions. so in pennsylvania, it was the republican legislature that said you're going to count the in-person first, you can't even open those mail ballots until 7:00, 8:00 on tuesday night of election night. so that's how it is in pennsylvania. in florida, you've got a

republican governor, ron desantis, and the legislature there. they decided no, let's do it the opposite way. we're going to do mail first and then in person. and you saw that it developed a different way. looked good for biden at first then ultimately trump won big in florida. >> that's right. and you know, we -- one of the things that people worry about when they're making these decisions is you don't want to skew what people are thinking when they walk into the voting booths. so everyone wants to make sure that if you're counting mail-in ballots before election day, that that count stays a secret. that's part of how they think about these decisions. but you know, the reality is here, and i hope that the takeaway is for everyone that counting all of the ballots and encouraging people to vote, no matter how, is the way to go. to chuck's point about these vote-by-mail ballots, the president got enormous turnout. he -- if he does, in fact, lose this election, he'll lose it with a lot more votes than he got in 2016. that means republicans turned

out in higher numbers. but he was out there discouraging people to vote by mail, saying that's not safe, it's potentially fraudulent. raising questions about that. it is possible that that hurt him. we'll never know really that reality. but i hope that one of the takeaways that we have from this election and there have been some assumptions in the past that if more people vote it's going to benefit democrats. there are sometimes legislatures or other bodies or politicians who make decisions about that, right, and they say, oh, well, i'm going to perceive -- you see it in the lawsuits, that if we win this lawsuit that will count fewer ballots, it will be better off for my political party. i hope that we can just be done with that. >> they legislate based on their own confirmation bias, the conventional wisdom turn out to be wrong. our pollster was ranting about this when we were talking about turnout. he said, look, we had an idea up to a certain number, but there's a point where so many people vote that you have to throw out

sort of assumptions. in low turnouts, the patterns matter a lot. the higher the turnout, you have to throw out historical context. we've never had an election like this where so many people participated. >> right. >> so many people participated in different ways. >> let's -- >> republicans in texas have said they made a mistake. they assumed all the new voters would be democrats and they weren't. >> let's get to the numbers because everyone's on the west coast is going what is happening. another battleground that flipped in joe biden's favor. talking about georgia. biden leading there, slim, slim margin. we've got blayne alexander in atlanta for us. hey blayne. >> reporter: hey, hoda. we just got new updated numbers from the secretary of state's office. i want to run through those. the first is a number that we've been watching, frankly, since election night. that's the number of votes still outstanding. we know that as of 8:15 this morning, later this morning, rather, there are about 8,197 outstanding votes still in the state of georgia.

now that's across five different counties here in the city. the state, rather. but the biggest share comes from gwinnett county. we're watching that very closely, not just when the votes come in but where they're coming from. that gives us a good sense of where those counties stand so far and what we can possibly expect. so we know that the lion's share of those, more than half, about 4,800 votes are going to come from gwinnett county. that's a county that joe biden is already leading by about 58%. it's a metro atlanta suburb. another number of them are coming from cobb county. another metro atlanta suburb. but of the three remaining counties, those are all places where president trump currently has a lead. so we're talking about five counties still left to report their votes. two of them are blue, three of them are red right now. so that just kind of lets you know that already that's kind of split as to which way the votes will possibly go. now, in addition to that, we're looking to see ballots coming in possibly from military and overseas ballots. now the secretary of state says that there could be as many as,

likely not get this money, but as many as 8,900 ballots that could possibly come in, as long as they're postmarked by tuesday, they can be countsed if they're received by today. you heard chuck todd earlier say that likely projections is that we'll get far fewer than those that actually come in. so that's the second batch of numbers that we're watching right now. now we saw joe biden take that narrow lead overnight. that was thanks in large part to clayton county. that's one of the counties right here in metro atlanta just to the south, a heavily democratic area. they uploaded some more votes overnight. reported some more votes overnight. and that's what allowed joe biden to shift into that very narrow lead. now one bit of context i have to give you guys is that even though georgia is still not finished tabulating all of the votes, the current votes, the first count, we're already very strongly in recount territory. that's because state law says if candidates come between -- within .5% of each other, that means that a candidate can request a recount. well, as of right now, they're at the same percentage. so it's already very clear -- in

fact the secretary of state's office has essentially acknowledged as much that georgia will almost certainly go into a recount for these numbers so far, guys. >> all right. if anyone wondered if their vote mattered, all you have to do is look at the razor-thin margins and realize they do. thanks. all right. it is 9:30 in the even. 6:30 in the west. this is an nbc news special report. we're on the air because in pennsylvania the perennial battleground and checkmate state for both candidates, joe biden has taken the lead this morning. we were told there's about 115,000 votes still left to be counted in pennsylvania. that brings us to john lipinski, director of elections for nbc news, and the person who helps to make these decisions about when the network can call a race for any given candidate. we're not doing that yet, john. right now we have said that joe biden is taking the lead. that's the results we've gotten from pennsylvania. we haven't said that he will ultimately prevail in pennsylvania. what is your thinking, and what

are you expecting this morning to unfold? >> yeah. the way i sort of see the race right now is you had said we have about 115,000 ballots to count. they're mail ballots. most are going to go for biden. but these are the tough ballots to count. so of those 115,000, i know there's about 25,000 right now in philadelphia, there's about 35,000 in allegheny, but not all of those ballots are going to be counted. we don't know yet. what they usually do is the more difficult ballots are counted later. so my guess is there's going to be a number of those that won't be counted at all. >> why are they more difficult? sorry to interrupt. what do you mean they're more difficult? >> because they may have problems with the ballots. like they may not have been filled out cleeorrectly. they're checking to see if they meet the qualifications for being counted. some of them -- it's always, historically, and i know it's the case because we've talked to people, they're going through and checking them one by one to see whether or not they're going to count or not. >> i think a lot of us don't know about timing, how long does

that take to count one by one and just back to savannah's point again, do you think that sometime in the course of this day that we will be able to make a call on the race? >> there's a decent probability of that. i mean, it's looking good for biden right now. we're not there yet. you know, he only has a little bit over a 5,000-vote lead. we're definitely going to need to get into, you know, solid, you know, five-digit lead, and they're going to -- philadelphia's expecting to get through their ballots today. allegheny's going to count later, starting at 5:00. so the timing's a little unclear. the one threatening ing we don' there's probably 75,000 to 100,000 provisions. they usually break democrat. but this is an unusual election, we're being careful. >> 115,000 votes outstanding, we heard that from the lieutenant governor. you mentioned provisional ballots. first of all, tell everyone what that means. and then is that over and above

the 115,000? >> that is over and above the 115,000. provisionals are people basically come to the polling place and have to cast a ballot, and there might be an issue. you know, sort of with -- you know, for why they need to do that. the biggest issue in pennsylvania is that if people decided that they requested an absentee ballot but decided that they wanted to vote in person instead, they needed to come to the polling place, bring their ballot with them. if they did not bring the ballot exactly as it was supposed to be, with all of the pieces, they would need to cast a provisional. we're expecting a lot of them to be under that scenario. >> okay. so the provisional ballot is, okay, we're going to let you file this ballot, but we're going to put those in a separate pile and check them out and make sure you're legit and make sure this is right. this is isn't fraud. that's why they get counted last and are harder to count. john, thank you. >> that's interesting. so pennsylvania's over here, but you wonder about the other states. we don't hear now much about nevada and about arizona and what's happening in those places.

but can something else happen -- >> it could. by the way, the trump campaign is anticipating, they've put out a statement, the election is not over. that is the headline in the statement from the trump campaign's general counsel, matt morgan. and they're saying the following on all the states, i'm going to summarize, not read directly, georgia is headed for recounts, and i'm going to quote from the release, "where we are confident we will find ballots improperly harvested," is what they're saying, this idea, they use a phrase about do more people take -- gather up absentee ballot and deliver them to a drop box in a chunk, in a group that one person maybe gather from an entire, you know, senior center or something like that. that's the implication. there's not evidence that there was some widespread use of this and what they're defining as, quote, harvesting there. in pennsylvania, they're saying, they're alleging that their observers weren't allowed in and that that has spoiled the process. in nevada, they're citing this idea that people may have voted that didn't live in the state.

that's that lawsuit that they're attempting to file, that pete williams was telling us about last night. then they're just projecting confidence about arizona. they just believe that when all the votes are counted they're going to win arizona. they're basically saying, they're anticipating that a lot of news organizations are going to end up saying, hey, joe biden has gotten what he needs here. so they're just setting the stage. it's pretty clear whatever any media organization announces today, the trump campaign is not ready to accept that as a result. >> they're fighting at three, four, five-front war now -- >> and that's the problem. they want to count -- >> pennsylvania, we've got a problem with this, georgia we've got a problem with that, in arizona bwe think we're going t win out right. nevada, this claim. they can make those claims, make them -- i don't remember what -- you got to go -- >> he said about whining, that donald trump is somebody that, yes, he is a whiner. he whines until i win. >> be that as it may -- >> that's the strategy -- >> it's not whining if you have

a legitimate claim. you are well within your rights to bring that claim before a court of law and have it heard and have the evidence heard. a recount, if you are within the margin of where a recount is allowed, you are well within your rights to pursue that. so the trump campaign has indicated that it will do so. and the votes will continue to be counted. >> we did hear from the trump campaign. let's figure out what's going on in the biden camp. kristen, you've got new info.? >> reporter: that's right. the reactions just pouring in from the biden campaign and from biden aides and allies. let me take you through the latest that we have. one top adviser, and i'm going to be reading off of my notes because it's literally coming in as we speak, one top adviser tells me that they are just thrilled, campaign staff are elated, we got a text in all caps, feeling good, someone else said they are already popping bottles over at the biden campaign headquarters. but one adviser cautioning, wait a minute, there's been no final call, no final call on these states that we're talking about.

no final call on the whole race. let's just hold out before we get too excited. so it's safe to say, though, that they are energized by the fact that biden has pulled ahead in pennsylvania. you have all sorts of aides and advisers also on twitter. one person tweeting out a picture of the president and saying, you're fired. of course, that familiar tag line from "the apprentice." taking a step back, when you think about biden's strategy, he visited pennsylvania 14 times, more than any other battleground state. now you see why, now you see that that could potentially bear fruit. that could potentially be make or break for the vice president. and remember where he was on the final day of this campaign. he was in pennsylvania, in scranton, in philadelphia, urging voters to get out and make their voices heard. we can now report that if there is at some people a call, we will hear from the vice president. so everyone watching and waiting along with all of us. the anticipation growing. guys?

>> we'll be back with you. andrea joins us. this is a moment, but they may be popping champagne over at biden headquarters, but we got to wait until these votes are counted. >> like the lieutenant governor told you, math is math. he's seeing is one way. you heard from john lapinski, there are quite a number of provisional ballots. they have to look at that. we have to be 95.5% sure, we're 99.5% sure, rather, which is absolutely sure before we say anything this consequential at nbc news. that is just, you know, flat out. the fact is in arizona, it could go either way because in arizona you cannot presume this 80/20 split in the ballots about to come. as you know, people are used to mail-in balloting, it's not just the democrats using that. it's republicans and democrats. in nevada we don't know where everything is coming from, it could be from the reno area, not just in clark county. and there are pockets of republicans in clark county and in las vegas. so you know, we just have to be very careful. the president is right to have

some confidence in arizona. and maybe nevada. but the problem for him is that the path as we've been reporting all along is so narrow. he's got to win three out of these four states. joe biden just has to take pennsylvania, all he needs is 18 votes. >> that's what i was going to turn to chuck, you set it up nicely. that's what's interesting. pennsylvania's the story of the hour. and it's incredibly consequence. but arizona and nevada is a separate path for joe biden. and he is leading there right now, although it's -- he's hanging by a thread there in arizona. but let's say arizona, nevada went joe biden's way, he wouldn't even need pennsylvania. he could get to 270 there. >> what i was going do, let's accept some of the trump campaign's premises here about so north carolina -- you know, i agree with them there. let's say that the recount and the military ballots give him georgia, and that's fine. say they catch joe biden in arizona. as you can see here. the good news for the president is if those -- if that happened

for him, he wouldn't need nevada. pennsylvania would be enough for donald trump, right. so actually even nevada wouldn't actually play a role here. so but the problem is it's just a one-state issue that the trump campaign has because they can't win it without pennsylvania, right. say they got lucky in nevada. as you see here, they could get all of this and pennsylvania by itself is enough for joe biden. so look, i know they have these four-state litigation strategy here, they have no choice. they're going to have to -- if they're going to pursue a litigation strategy here, they only have one state that they have to focus on. there's no other way out of this. 20,000 votes in a recount in wisconsin, you're just not going to find 20,000 votes. it's hard to find 2,000 votes in a recount. 2,000-count deficit is hard to make up, let alone a 20,000 vote. i know they want to go through irregularities and all these other places, but the math indicates, going back to math, there's only one state that matters that's left for either

candidate, and it's pennsylvania. >> that brings us to our analyst, claire mccaskill, former senator, rich lowery, editor of "the national review," and a conservative. rich, is this a legal strategy, or is this a political strategy? because it seems like the ultimate goal here on the trump campaign's part is to just sow doubt and questions. and where does that ultimately lead? >> well, first i want to keep this alive. and that means forestalling the organizations from calling the race for joe biden. this is why there's been such an obsessive focus at the white house. on fox news, calling arizona for joe biden. which turns out to have been a premature call. they don't want a trump-friendly network being the first one potentially to call the whole presidential race for joe biden. the optics would be terrible. there are a couple of other layers to this onion. there's rhetoric, it's what the president says, does he say it's fraud and not accept the result. that doesn't change anything concrete. but it accepts -- it affects the

sentiment within his own party which is potentially significant. there's the legal aspect, and they just need to find a way to cast a cloud around enough votes in some of these states so they can say it's decisive. so they're engaged in the effort now. it doesn't seem to be compelling evidence of anything yet. but that's what they're going to try to do. and then the final layer and what i think we should be brushing up on the procedures, is challenging the electors. is there a -- some attempt to stop the electors from being appointed, sent to congress from pennsylvania using the -- >> on what basis? >> or is there an attempt to get congress to not accept those electors? and my understanding reading quickly congressional research report is that the houses vote separately on objections to electors once they come to congress. so you presume the democratic house would reject an objection and the senate might accept it. i'm not sure that would be the case. but that wouldn't be enough for the president.

>> when you add -- >> i know. we were just listening to the folks over at the biden camp, kristen welker saying they're popping champagne. do you think that's premature, or should they go ahead and pop it? >> they shouldn't pop it yet. there could be a shocker here somewhere along the line. clearly it's trending their way. and i've been a biden skeptic from back in the primaries, but if the blue wall states hold for him, it is a vindication of the strategic insight of his campaign which he just needs to be slightly more appealing in those states than hillary clinton was. not a huge amount because the margin was so small for trump in 2016 -- just a little bit. looks like that's what's happening. >> claire, we'll let you get in on this from the democratic side of things. what do you think about the notion that folks are popping champagne corks over at biden headquarters? and by the way, that was just one email from a source. so i'm not saying that they're officially popping champagne. but you know, the notion of them

celebrating right now? >> i think they're going to wait until the rest of these ballots come in in pennsylvania. and i predict when they do they're going to end up with a margin somewhere north of 75,000 votes. at that point in time, then they can pop the champagne because my sources tell me, savannah, that the segregated ballots where there's the only wisp of a legal basis for any challenge, the segregated ballots are somewhere around 10,000. that won't make any difference. that's not a big enough number that it will even be relevant. and the supreme court will be glad not to have to weigh in if, in fact, that turns out to be true. so this really boils down to do they have a legal case. and here's the problem the trump campaign has -- they are used to lying and getting away with it because it's just out in the ether. you can't lie in court. you have to have evidence. and every lawsuit they've

brought they've lost because they have no evidence. the only lawsuit they brought, it was settled. and they admitted in that lawsuit that there were republican observers in the room. they just wanted to argue about where they stood. and it was settled. so they have not yet even brought one lawsuit with any evidence that a court would recognize. so i say as soon as the rest of the votes are in in pennsylvania, i think they're fine to pop the champagne. >> all right. senator mccaskill, rich lowery, thank you so much. >> thanks. tom costello's been watching the vote count closely for us all week. what are you seeing, tom? >> reporter: a couple of points. we've hear complaint about how long it is taking specifically in pennsylvania to count the vote. it's important to point out the republican legislature in pennsylvania came up with the rules which said they could not start counting the mailed in ballots that had already been flooding in, they could not start counting those until election day. other states were allowed to start tabulating and counting in

the days leading up to election day because they knew they had a mountain of votes coming in because of the pandemic. pennsylvania's republican legislature said, no, you can't start until election day. and that is why this is taking so long. let's also stress here, and we've done it many, many times, but there is very little in what the president said last night that is actually true. the truth of the matter is this process to count the votes takes days, sometimes weeks, that has happened for 200-plus years in this country. we have become a customed to the networks called projections on when a candidate appears to be winning. but that's not the final vote. it's not the final call. it's not certifying the vote. this is a process that takes considerable amount of time. i would also say, i'm sure like you have, i've received an awful lot of messages and activity on social media from people all over the country, friends of mine, concerned about stuff that is bubbling up on the internet. specifically in right-wing

circles, calling into question the legitimacy of the counting process and of the vote. i think it's worth repeating many, many, many times, that there is simply at this point no evidence that has been in in way validated of anything that's happening fraudulently across the country. election officials from both parties who are running this election say that it appears to have gone incredibly smoothly, despite the fact that they have volumes and volumes of mail-in ballots, that the actual processing has gone very, very smoothly with democratic and republican observers in place the entire time watching the process. we've had very few reports of mechanical breakdowns, a couple of minor problems on election day itself. but beyond that, really that was isolated. and so ultimately, this is a test of the democracy itself. and do we trust in a system that we've spent 200-plus years in developing, and it's, of course, coming down now to pennsylvania,

the keystone state, living up to its name today, guys. >> all right. tom costello. that was great perspective from tom. >> yeah. let against to peter alexander at the white house. you got your ear to the ground. what are they saying over there? >> reporter: we're not hearing a lot from the white house, but we are speaking to campaign officials who describe the mood, according to two of them, as deflated now. they say privately that they are exhausted, and there's a real apprehension that they're in for what could be a days' long fight without the potential for any concession from the president on the back end right here. and to that idea, and of course it's premature because the race is not over, the campaign even posting a statement saying the race is not over. we have spoken to campaign officials and those close to the president about whether there's been a conversation about the potential of losing. i'm told, quote, there is no talk of a concession, that's not a conversation anyone is having right now. so you really have this potential for what's going to be an uncertain several days ahead if the trajectory of this race continues in this direction right now. you saw the president walk into the briefing room yesterday and

remarks that were really removed from reality, saying that there was widespread voter fraud. just going on and on about conspiracy theories. again, as tom indicated, without providing any evidence. and i think one part that's sort of best demonstrates the inconsistency of this message is that the president was touting republican victories in the house and senate at the same time as he was saying that he was cheated out of votes. you recognize those votes are cast on the same ballot. that was just one of many inconsistenties that we've been seeing. it echoed what you've heard in recent days where some trump supporters were saying keep count. and others were saying stop the count, depending on the state and the position where the president was. that echoes what you hear privately. again from campaign officials, saying they don't know what the message is right now. it's not clear who the field general is right now. we're told by campaign officials that they're having conversations about who that person should be, who should be going before cameras today to

communicate the public message of the campaign. again, they put out a statement a short time ago from one of the attorneys within the campaign saying that this race is not over. they say once the election is final, donald trump will be re-elected. savannah and hoda? >> thank you, peter. we've been hearing, too, that we heard ted cruz and we heard lindsey graham kind of being team trump. i was wondering from peter, if you're still there, is there anybody else who's raising their hand and standing with the president? >> reporter: what was notable, you bring up an important point. obviously yesterday there was a lot of quick criticism, mitt romney, chris christie, saying the president's comments were inflammatory and not informative. you heard from donald trump jr., the president's son -- we know the president sent his sons eric and don trump jr. -- to speak on his behalf, to fight for him in recent days. you've seen them at news conferences in different states. donald trump jr. basically called out those republicans, said where are you, republicans, you should be standing with me dad right now, with my father right now.

and within a matter of hours, several of them then did, ted cruz going on fox news, lindsey graham going on fox news saying what was taking place in pennsylvania, i think in his words, was crooked as a snake, the process there. and it wasn't just those two men. but notably kevin mccarthy, who for those not familiar, is the top house republican, the house minority leader leader. likely to remain the house minority leader in a new congress when it adjourns in january. the congressman from california saying that donald trump won this election, saying that his supporters, his folks cannot be silenced, they have to unite to stop this from happening. it was pretty incendiary remarks, i think most observers would agree. >> and on the "today" show this morning, we had senator pat toomey, the republican from pennsylvania, saying he was disturbed by what the president had said and that he had not seen any evidence of the widespread fraud that the president has spoken of. so we actually are starting to see the fractures in the

republican party over how you're going to deal with this when there are allegations being made without evidence that call into question the results of the election. >> toomey decided ton seek re-election for another term -- >> perhaps that's why he has that -- you know, everybody has their own politics. >> by the way, it's the same divide we've been seeing with the elected republicans throughout the trump term. the people that seem to be wringing their hands publicly are the people that wring their hands publicly about the president's comment throughout his term. the same people that have gotten his back have been the same people that got his back. in some ways you're seeing the familiar splits that have been inside this republican party since donald trump took it over. >> all eyes on pennsylvania. should we go to stephanie gosk? did she -- >> i was going to explain where we were. let's go to stephanie. and after that, just sort of what -- where the state of the vote count is, allegheny there's a little question and -- anyway, let's get stephanie's report first.

>> reporter: i can talk about allegheny. i can actually talk about allegheny. we should do that because it's interesting -- we're talking about 120,000 or so votes out there remaining. there is a trunk of votes in allegheny county that right now the mail-in votes that they are not counting. and let me explain them a little bit. back when allegheny county started sending out mail-in ballots to people in their county, long before the election, there was a printing error. they made a mistake. so they had to send out 29,000 new ballots to those same people. well, two gop congressional running for congress, they sued allegheny county and their board of elections for the way that they -- the way the board of elections handled this issue. they then settled in court, and the settlement said these votes are valid, but they can't start counting them until 5:00 tonight. and when they count them, they have to open them up and do the

way they have been doing all of the mail-in ballots. but they also will have to check those voter rolls and make sure that that voter didn't vote in some other way somewhere else. we're talking about margins and -- and you know, should the margins get big enough where something like there doesn't matter, then the point will be moot. however, if the margins stay close in this state, those 29,000 ballots could matter quite a bit. and over the course of today, certainly it will matter when they start counting them. that's going to take a while to go through all of them. guys? >> and i believe that either it was you or somebody on our air said that allegheny county wasn't going to start counting those until 5:00 tonight -- >> that was the -- that was what they -- they couldn't touch them until 5:00. stephanie was clarifying, they were talking about it. there's another 2,200 ballots that allegheny -- this is sort of and this is by the way happens all over the country -- that you put it in the scanner, you know, you ever had a paper jam? okay.

literally 2,200 ballots that may have went in the wrong way, had a rip, didn't process. so they have to go back and almost -- in the words here, you re-create the ballots, everybody watching, so that if the piece of paper that the voter actually used just the machine won't read it and they want the machine to read it with all the observers watching -- >> you have democrats and republican observers there -- >> you re-create the ballots and then so it can get counted. this is where why you have observers and why and it's done literally under a very transparent process. obviously you don't know who the person -- who the person actually that cast the vote, but they have to do that literally just to fix -- >> there are always republican and democratic observers always. >> always. >> always. >> it is something that all campaigns -- in fact, by the way, all campaigns are invited, all parties are invited to do it. they don't always go to every polling place. our scott mcgrew )s fresh

analysis after the twists and turns of the weekend. plus.. tracking the pandemic across the bay. he next

that would fall within the half of a percent. but if the margin goes north of 35,000, which our map indicates it's likely to do it won't even be in that official recount mode. that is an important threshold we're looking at. >> andrea? >> and you also have a provisional ballots, remember, that the governor, you don't know how many. >> the lieutenant governor told us 115,000 ballots outstanding, mail-in ballots. i don't know if i wrote it down -- >> by the way, joe biden netted a couple thousand. out of bucks, another suburban county.

the vote by mail they dropped about 3,000 ballots. he won 2,000 of them. again, it's proof that even though 51% county the vote by mail went 2-1 and in this case just now this is why the math clearly favors or goes to what the lieutenant governor said. even in the red counties, the vote by mail favors the biden campaign. >> because that was the biden campaign strategy. >> they wanted their voters to vote by mail. and actually the trump campaign had great turnout. its strategy was to turn people, turn out new voters in pennsylvania, registered new voters, found new voters in pennsylvania. they showed up at the polls. that's why we have such a tight race. but the question is was it enough? >> like i said, the blue wave and the red wave -- they crashed into each other. >> a tight election. we will continue to follow it. we're going to pause in a moment here so that we can have other stations join us as we get ready for the top of the hour. but we are watching the votes

come in. we are very close to resolution, perhaps, in pennsylvania, which is that all-important state. we still watch arizona, georgia, nevada, we have a lot to cover. let's take a pause here and thank you for being with us. we will rejoin you in just a moment. hi, everybody, good morning again and it is 10:00 in the east and 7:00 a.m. in the west coast and in breaking news and special report and counting the vote counting in key battlegrounds this morning. if you just woke up in the west coast or sleeping in on the east coast because you were up late, there is a lot to tell you about. joe biden the former vice president has officially now taken the lead in pennsylvania, and he has a narrow margin there, and narrower one in georgia, and the president in the meantime has gained ground