♪ always great to have you with us, especially today, i'm frances rivera. >> and i'm phillip mena. welcome to a special ed igs of "early today," we are tracking the latest election results as control of congress hangs in the balance. at this hour nbc's decision desk projects that either party still has a chance to win power in the house, and let's look at the current state of the competitive senate races, both parties still neck and neck there as well. >> we could be left waiting to know who has won georgia's senate seat, neither democrat

rafael warnock more herschel walker has met the 50% threshold necessary to be declared a winner in that state they could be on their way to a runoff election. nbc has projected that democrat john fetterman has won in pennsylvania defeating dr. mehmet oz in a very closely watched race fetterman campaigned while recovering from a stroke and now he has flipped that seat for the democrats. >> this campaign has always been about fighting for everyone who has ever been knocked down, that ever got back up meanwhile, in ohio nbc news projects that republican j.d. vance will win the race for ohio's open senate seat defeating democrat tim ryan. vance who was endorsed by former president donald trump is known for writing a book about his family. >> my simple promise to you, to everybody here, you are not always going to agree with every vote that i take, you're not going to agree with every single amendment that i offer in the united states senate but i will never forget the woman who raised me, i will never forget

where i came from and i will never forget the great people of ohio thank you for this honor to serve you, i will fight for you every day. in wisconsin senator ron johnson is facing a serious challenge from mandela barnes, that race is too close to call. we're also watching arizona where the race between mark kelly and republican blake masters is still too early to call and we're starting to see results from nevada, the race between katherine cortez masto and republican challenger adam laxalt is too early to call. a judge denied mast stowe's request for the polls to stay open two hours, the complaint came after precincts ran out of paper to print ballots earlier in the day. to the house where history is being made. in vermont democrat becca balint is projected to defeat republican opponent liam madden ending the state's streak as the last state to send a woman to congress balint will be the state's first

lgbtq representative. >> i give you my word tonight that i will not back down from hard fights in washington. i will carry your hopes and your wishes and your stories with me. i will stay rooted in our communities here in vermont and i will work for our most vulnerable neighbors every single day and another history making win in florida, 25-year-old maxwell frost is the projected winner in the state's 10th district beating 72-year-old republican calvin winbush a retired green beret. frost will be the first member of gen z to reach the house of representatives. notable districts flipping starting in florida's 13th district where anna luna is projected to defeat the democrat she is the first mexican american woman elected to congress in this state in the lone star state democrats getting a state in texas's 35th district greg caesar is projected to win

over dan mcqueen i want to delve into our panel joining us is jonathan allen, lauren egan is an nbcnews.com national reporter and nate persilli is at stanford law school all of you, welcome as you jump into this. what we are not reporting on, though, is this red wave that so many people were anticipating and, jonathan, we have former president trump who said early on that if the gop wins this, hey, i can get all the credit for that, if we lose i'm not to blame. so at this point what does it mean for donald trump where we are here and we are not talking about a red wave >> are you saying donald trump says heads i win tails you lose? i feel like we've been here before with him and the credit and blame thing. he is going to do everything he can to point the finger at other people, at mitch mcconnell, at

others in the republican party and say that it's their fault. we have already seen him trash colorado senate candidate who lost but the truth is i think donald trump is both the most dominant player in the republican party today and also somewhat weaker today than he was yesterday. >> we're going to talk about that i know you're here for a little bit more because i know we want to dot, dot, dot, continue that conversation. >> lauren, i wanted to ask you about what happened in the state of pennsylvania and the gubernatorial race there donald trump had embraced a candidate doug mastriano and given your experience covering the state of pennsylvania in the end do you think that helped him or it hurt him >> well, he lost, so i think that probably hurt him and i think that there's going to be a lot of candidates around the country today who a lot of republicans who are reflecting on that and are sort of having a conversation about what role do they actually want trump to play going forward as we look ahead to 2024. i think the big question now is whether or not the republican

party uses this as a moment to reset, a moment to rethink about what role former president trump is going to play in this upcoming election, but we've also had this conversation many times. we've had this conversation about are republicans going to use this to say, do you know what, we want to move on past trump and they haven't we will have to see sort of what shakes out over these next few weeks and what we are hearing from reactions from republican leadership. >> given thefact that there were so many election deniers on the ballots for these midterms and, nate, i want to bring you in and talk about what we haven't seen so far at least, a candidate who has lost coming out to claim victory like trump has done, although we've seen and heard kari lake considering she will do it if she loses her race in arizona. are there states easier to challenge the results than others and does she have the legal venues to take this into dispute? >> you have to have a reason, you can't challenge it for challenging sake right now i think her race does

not look like it's so close that it would be within the margin of litigation, as we say. so depending on the state they have different rules as to how close election needs to be before you get, for example, a hand recount or an automatic recount or then what the criteria would be for a lawsuit. it's sort of early to entertain those ideas. i should say we should be guaranteed that there will be some house races that will end up in court, there's just so many that are outstanding and that are very competitive and that could come down to a few votes. >> lauren, in that same vein what we are discussing here, dr. oz, he is not officially conceded yet to john fetterman in pennsylvania, even spoke to his supporters before the race was called, said it was too close for a decision to be made. so all that you know about him and his campaign, do you think that he could be pushing the election results here, challenging them >> i think we're going to have to see what happens once we have

every single vote counted. it really duds, i think, depend on what the margin is. certainly he's indicated that that is an avenue that he would be interested in exploring, but, again, i really do think it sort of kind of comes down to if this is by a pretty sound amount then it's going to be kind of difficult for him to pursue that, but it looks like this actually is going to be a fairly close race, that we're going to be keeping a close eye on. anything that the oz campaign might be saying as we get into wednesday here. >> oz is projected to lose in pennsylvania and mastriano as well herschel walker in the balance, you know, headed towards that runoff in december. picking up where we left off, where does this leave trump as far as this big announcement we have all circled on our calendar that november 15th date. >> yeah, 11/15/22 trump says it's going to be a big

announcement we think he's going to announce that he's been running for president. he's been basically running for president since he lost, said he didn't lost, think he's still the president again. going to allowance on 11/15 the big question is ron desantis springing off a huge victory in florida says i'm going to take a shot at the king, i think i can beat this guy and if i beat this guy in a primary i will be a superstar and candidate in the general election far better known people than ron desantis have tried and been felled by trump, insulted by trump, had their family members insulted by trump and trump has hinted that he will do that to desantis we could get a clash of the titans in the republican primary or desantis could pass, decide to run another time. >> the messaging leading up to this announcement, how that will shift with former president trump in the days to come is what's going to be curious to watch. >> what participation he will have going forward in those elections. still undecided in the house,

they only needed five seats, the republicans did, to flip that. such a small margin, but if they do happen to take control and nancy pelosi does have to hand over that gavel to possibly kevin mccarthy in all likelihood, what does their agenda look like coming in 2023? >> probably impeach, impeach, impeach, impeach, and stop any of the biden legislation, investigate whatever it is they might investigate. the impeachment issue is potentially a problem depending on the margins if people won by a couple of points, some may be reluctant to jump into that with biden having had a better night than was expected but the pressure on