captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> woodruff: good evenin i'm judy woodruff. on the newshour tonight: it is election day. voters across the country head to the polls with control of congress and many states at stake. ne will have live analysis all night from our seateam of observers, as we track races for the senate, the house and governorships. it is the first test of the trump presidency at the ballot, and the results will determine the balance of power, and shape policy to come. all that and more, on tonight'sb newshour. or >> major fundinghe pbs newshour has been provided by:

kevin. >> kevin! >> kevin? >> advice for life. life well-planned. learn more at raymondjames.com. >> bnsf railway. >> consumer cellular. >> and with the ongoing suppor of these institutions: >> this program was made possible by the corporation forb publadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> woodruff: good evening, and welcome to our pbs newshour election night special. at stake, control of the u.s. house of representatives and the u.s. senate.

there are also 36 contests for governor. it is 8:00 p.m. on the east coast-- polls have now closed in we hope you settle in with us. we are joined at the table all s night widicated columnist mark shields, "new york times" columnist david brooks, amy walter of the cook pal report, karine jean-pierre of k veon.org, and chris busk the online journal, american greatness. welcome, hello to af you. we will also be checking in with public dia reporters all across the country watching key contests.ci our yamiche or is at the white house, and jeffrey brown is with the democrats here in shington, d.c. let us start with the first results of the night. and a note to ewers: the newshour will be reporting on the projections made by at least of a csortium of broadcast networks or by the associated press, which for the first time this year is partnerinwith fox news to analyze exit polls

and project winners. let's look at virginia. we were able to call some time ago. the polls closed in virgia the senate rice between tim kaine defeating his republican challenger cory stuart. he was hillary clinton's running mate, vice presidential running mate. court owe stut a conservative republican who don get the of the embrace of the republican national party. the raceay be closer in parts of virginia than some people expected. we're going to look at those number as they come iyo can see now it's 47% of the vote now tim kaine ahead. in visito bernie sanders wins re-election in his seat to the u.s. senate with onl ty 12% e vote reporting, 10% of the vote counting, comingn at this point. he has 61% to his republican challenger who is a real estate broker in the state of vermont.

no surprise there. everyone expensed bernie sanders would cruise to re-election. here is the first house race result we're able to call tonight and this is n a pick up for democrats.e jennifersen defeating incumbent republican bar imraw callstock in the american virginia suburbs of washington d.c. this is a district that sketches all the way out. it goes for many miles but it ie strongly rnted here in the d.c. area. it was expected that barba callstock even though she's not a strong supporter of president that his presidency would be a drag on her in this area and that increasingly blue district virginia 10 and that's what appened. we ayou see projecting jennifer wexton. here's a senate result in the state of polls have just closed in ohio. ohiosherrod brown winning the

seat . he was challenged by jim. again very little of the vote reported. they are making his call literally as the polls close. that means that it's based on exit polls, interviews with voters as they left their polling places and also interviews or some projections based on what they call key precincts, key districts around the state. so that's one we've been watching. i don't think call to make, another real act for the democrats. elizabeth warren ina the stte of massachusetts. the polls barely coming in, they just closed inus massats. she was challenged by jeff dial, the republican but no one i think expected elizabeth warren to go down. her name is associated over a decision she's making whether to run for president in two years but there was no, i don't think anybody expected that elizabeth warren would not hold on to her senate seat in massachusetts. and another mold for the democrats. hs christopher fehe in the

state of connecticut defeating his republican challenger matthew cory. again this is a place where the polls have just closed in the state of connecticut but the sense is with very early returns or exit polls, they are confident in making this call. another hold for the democrats. again these are states where you didn't see a big contest. om carper holding on to his seat in the date of delaware challenged by robert eyelet and againhe polls have just closed but because it's expected that mr. artlet with a not going to be posing a significant allenge they feel comfortable giving that seat toa toper. another hold for the democrats in the state of maryland. ben cardini wnning his fourth term re-elected to a fourth term in the senate fighting off aal nge by republican tony campbell. and as i said in these other

calls that that's a state that it was not held in any suspension. here in massachusetts, though, you have a hold forepublicans. charlie baker very popularth governor i state of massachusetts. he's being declared the winner just as the pol close challenge from democrat jay gonzales but again the folks doing the projections feel comfortable giving that one toba charlier. so far it's a hold in all these seats as you see it is in the state ofns penvania. projecting that bob casey is winning re-election that is a democrat in pennsylvania. that's a state we're ching for a number of really interesting house races because they've shaken up the i map pennsylvania. we're going to be watching those and talking about those races through the night. lou the republican defeated there. in the state of pennsylvania another non-surprise but governor tom wolfe is re-elected to the state householding up a challenge from scott wagner.

we featurem on the newshour earlier tonight saying i'm goino to w at least i think i'm going to win re-election. all candidates speak optimistically until they win and that's what scott wagner was doing and we predict tom wolf. mark shields the democrats hel on and the governors seat in massachusetts. so far this looks like the results we ected. >> yes, judy. i'm surprised we haven't called the governor of maryland larry hogan because the three most opular governors in theuntry are all republicans. charlie baker the repn ubli massachusetts, a very blue state. larry hogan republican in maryland is very blue state. d alabama are red states but what struck me is that the, we had numbers up there that's less than 1% of theote in ohio with

649,000 votes.e unless theyly got a lot of people in to vote, 1% is not going to be 649,000.i ennsylvaniaa in both were out of the donaldbo trump plak and both failed. pt woodruff: what do you see there as an atty any challenges. >> every election has goodet mas of math. one of the thing i'm seeing is sort of a dul wave theory in sort of areas where you expect democratto be strong they are really strong. so barba comstock, she's affluent counties, suburban counties outside of washington. >> woodruff: you're looking inside the numbers here in the >> no the number inside the numbers inside the numbers. s and in tate race, joe donnelly is out p out performine

republican area so it could be publican areas are a way for republicans and democratic areas are a wave. there's a lot going on, a lot of strong supporters both area. at the end of this race, 53% ofd voters said thnelly's vote against kavanaugh was significant. and so if republicans do well in some of these pretty muh red states the kavanaugh hearings actors.e one of the >> woodruff: amy, what are you seeing in these exit 308z. >> i'm looking at some of the results coming in and again none of these were a surprise but we talked about this earlier about the mid west the battleground in 2016 that i tipping rather easily to democrats. these were supposed to be, now these are democratic-held seats right now. but these ealy 2017 were supposed to be the preimminent senate races because these were

states that trump carried, ohio in particular and now we're talking about in control of the senate really coming down to whether republicans can win in states that trump cred by double digits. in states he carried by single gits democrats holding on. the states in double digits like indiana and missouri those are the ones, if those flip to republicans, that is a goodp night for rublicans but it also shows the limit of where the sort of trump movement is still strong. it's why florida can be really important. it looks like this is like flora always is -- florida always is, very very very tight.e and thmbers coming in look, as david noted, almntost ideal to the way they looked in 2015.r look at whamp number was in some of these rural counties, that's what rick scott is t gettin candidate for the senate. so it is going to in many ways,

this is mirroring that nationalized election we had in 2016 in that state. >> woodruff: if that hold, good news for the republicans. >> it is. i've been looking at the number as well and it's incredibly tight in in a as amy -- in florida as amy is ying and it will come down to the wire and that was florida at least in 2016 donald trump one by 1 percentage point. the race tt you called that's interesting because it's one of the races that we've been looking for at the house is comstock, as you stated at the beginning, it shows a drag that donald trump has te suburbia areas and that's what's going to make or break a of these house races is the suburbia areas ad the mix of rural areas as well. we he haveompetent at the time i districts across the country and i think that's one tell >> woodruff: and chris buskirk, i don't know if you had

a chance to look at a number of these exit polls we're not able to show them to the audience but we're starting to se them. are you seeing strength as amy and kare are discussing in places that donald trump carried in 2016 but where he is still strong. >> yes. i think this goes to david 's point which i thick is smart is that you may have these sort of two simultaneous going next to each other which mean it's not a wave atl really, right. the big picture is we're not talking about a bilue wave which people were talking about re talking ago, we' about is what's going on in indiana is it possible that the republicans maybe could wind up holding the house,si pose, sure. and are republicans going to maybe pick up a couple in the senate. that's a very different conversation. why? this goes back to the discussion we were having earlier about turnouer yes we knew was going to be heavy democrat turnout but in these countries and districts

that are deeper districts, the president's very popular and his baseurned out too. so i think it's it's just going to be a lot closer than people thout maybe a coue months ago. >> woodruff: as we've all been saying whle not on the ballot, president trump has been constantly campaigning to help republicans, but today, he has been relatively quiet itwatching returns at the house tonight. and so is our yamiche alcindor. we don't have that many surprising results yet it's prety much what have so far. are they saying much at the white house yet. >> they're no saying much at the white house but as the fred grows his watch party of familyj and fleppest outside the gates right next to me there's a large protest happening where people are having a party essential anthey're saying n means no and this memovement, they should be taken seriously.g this is a eam because of course the fred stands accbyused

everal women of sexual assault and misbehavior. peop outside the gates ae trying to send a message to the president. you can hear pretty easily. winning in virginia is a big deal for the trump brand because wexton ha talked about here poetment barbara comstock shoul be calrbara trumpstock so while he was not on the ballot he was someone talked about in ad after ad. nk's a big deal for the trump band and i thihe president's probably looking at that and a little nervous as these returns come in. >> woodruff: take use ins the white house. housewhos the president with this evening, is the entire staff on duty? what's going otthere. >>eems like the entire staff is on duty. i was just walking around the whe house and there are several communication staffers watching the results come ine th communications office. but the president is i'm told he's watching it in the

residents of the white house which is kind of the personal atmospre of the pesident that's not for business meetings. and there he is joined by family and friends those people likely include first lady melania trump ved eyronica trump who is the daughter of the president and works here. c also jarh nurs kushner who is te son-in-law. and allies cory landau ski mightily someone whos an advisor to the president. he's someone who is very closehe toresident. so essentially a party for family and friendsome and gather and the mood will be very good if republicans pick up a lot of seatsd keep a lot of seats. if not it migart to get solemn. >> woodruff: as you told us earlier we tonight know yet whether the president 's going t.to say something toni >> we do not know if the president 's going to say something. he tweeted about five hours ago again encouraging people to vote for republicans but has not tweeted. the white house put out a

statement that the president is clear he gave america a choice whether or not they want prosperity of the trump oministration or want to backward and vote for democrats. the president is making it veryl he tried his best in more than 50 rallies over 30 states to go out there and to get people voting for reptlicans but noe president is quietly waiting back to see what happens. >> woodruff: we'll be coming back to you later. >> tnk you. >> woodruff: right now i have lls to call i'll ow them to you as we call them. in a florida congressional district this is one that's been watched pretty closely.ub this is a recan seat that's been picked up by a democrat. nna shalala who was the secretary of health and humican se for president bill clinton surprised a lot oopf when she said she wanted to run for congress as a democrat. she defeated the republican again the republican seat maria

elvira salazar is a television news anchor said to be a popular news anchor in that area but atr this point we calling the race for donna shalala. so that's a any ito deocratic hands. here is another race in flsrida. this florida 25. mario is the winner by a large margin every marry flores.is i don't think as a surprise. 38% of the vote and he's got 62%, almost 20 points ahead of her but we are prepared to call him the winner, mario diaz balart even though about a third of the vote is in. in the state of tennessee, the republican holds on to that seat, bill lee. we are projecting that he's the winner. again 1% of the vote so we know not many votes have been counted

but based on the entrants and exit poll interviewssith vot as they go to vote and based on other sort of key they call them key precincts that the political scientists look around the state they are comfortable cang bill lee the winner over carl dean in tennessee and that is a hold for the republicans. ro>> woodruff: our jeffrey is at a washington, d.c. hotel where democrats are gathered. jeffrey tell us where you are and what you're seeing and hearing. >> where am i, judy? i amown town washington in a hotel ball room with several hundred democratic staffers. these are staff members from all the offices membersrom their district. you've been talking all night about indiisdual races. s sort of ground zero for the hope for democrac side of

taking back the house. so justetting started. it's quite loud. there are a few hundred people. i think they are expecting several hundred as the night goes on. >> woodruff: jeff are they saying that the party tsars are going to show up whether it's chuck schumer or nancy poice? who are the stars. >> nancy pelosi is sup be here about 8:45 to talk and then later on i just n on sunny myer the deratic whip and obviously a man who knows how to keep count. i just heard your niece telling you about jennifer wexton and i assume you talked about that earliebut i wassking congressman hoya what he was watc cng morearefully early on and he pointed to jen wexton doing better than i think they thought as a really positive sign. he also told me they were keeping an eye closely on mcgrath, that race in kentucky .

he's of course leaving a vry positive note at the moment as you would expect talking about turnouts being good talking about all the positivesho fully breakingway. things are going on a long way ahead of em. everybody is certainly in the midst of a party.ho sunna one of the top democrats is very positive right now. >> woodruff: jeffrey brown partying the night away with the democrats. thank you. try to keep things under control and wel come back a little bit later. >> all right, judy. so we're cominback to the table. somti'mruck some of these house races aren't coming in. >> maybe you don't remember but i'll just set the piture, the year began, the cycle began.

the playing field for democrats, the possibility of them taking over theoughes wasnsidered a tremendous long shot because they needed 23 seats. there were very few easy pickups. there were very few districts ry clinton carried that a republican was sitting in. and so theio quewas how could democrats break these structural advantages. the answer was, they had a lot of candidates and they had a lot of money and an unpopular president but what we're seeing in many of these districts where president trump did carry even though he carried very narrowlyg these races aring to be very very close. i think another important thing to remember and why, ano reason why the house is competitive on these open seats, that the suthern florida results tell you all you need to know that w maro won easily but that district that doa nna shaln they are very close to each other. hillary clinton carried both of

these districts but because the alala district was an open seat decided to retire, that put that seat into play. had she stayed in office where she have held on? i don't know. but i think it would have been more competitive and we'll be watcng for the other south florida replican carlos ca cabella. i think this is going to be a very very close race for the house. the fact that th virginia races we have one, the virginia for wexton that was almost a la up for democrats, they had to win that. but these other raes in virginia, the second that are very competitive, ook right now very very close but the republican is up by a littl bit in both of those masses. so these virginia florida

democrats were hong to come out with a pretty good cushion. i'm waiting for new jsey and pennsylvania to get a better sense what the house will look n like but rig it's breaking really this is sort of a best case scenario right now for republicans that they are only losing the most most most vulnerable and they are not losing that sort ofecond tier of vulnerable whatever it is. >> woodruff: it's 8:25 east coast and we should point out we have half the country the lls have closed in haf the country they closed in 16 states including a couple of the ones amy was mentioning in pennsylvania and new jersey. m >> i'rprised how well the republicans are doing or how putdly they are doing let it that way. so far you have momentum on that side. i'm looking at the florida races and goernor races 70% in and the senate races republicans e up on that. those are key races. iat's interesting is those races are basicalntical so people are very excited.

people are voting party quite a lot and republicans are doing pretty well i should say. >> woodruff: as we're talkingt aborida, we are reminded that florida is home to many critical races this year. we've been talking about that we traveled there just last week to highlight how the state could reshape the political landscape. we're joined by david smiley ati the ami herald. so david we've been talking about the races you're watching d what are you seeing, what are hearing especially in that governor's race that everybody has been looking at? >> well democrats are very nervous right now about andrew gillum. he's down about half a point and his watch party is on edge inle gaty hoping that -- tallahassee hophat his numbers are going to climb. most of votes are in at this point d i'm starting to hear some nervousness from democrats

he may notn and florida may be irretrievably a republican state for the foreseeable futurewh >> woodruff: about in the senate races as david was saying, the two races have kind of trackedto gether. gillum being the more i guess you should say e fusive candidate. bill nelson the democrat running for re-election to the seate not as visible on the campaign trail but it was assumed that his numbers might track along with gillum. >> right. a lot of expectations that llum would help bill nelson and right now bill nelson is within a quarter of a point of rick scott. he's actually doing better than gillum is. both of them tooclose call, very typically florida. it's going too down to the wire. we're still counting votes in uth florida whedemocrats were trying to run up the score but they're alllso skiounting votes in the pan handle where ll.ublicans have done very we

democrats did see a huge spike or very nice spike in voter turnout but so do repenlicans. votethusiasm is up across the board. >> woodruff: what you just said about it being s nrow reminded me of what susan mcmanus, a political scientist who just st pped town e university of south florida this year was telling me when we were twh just last week she said so many florida races come town to within a 1% margin. but you still have in florida a number of house rac we are watching very closely. >> yes. democrats feel pret good i think in miami-dade county, donna shalala is going to succeed so the democrats got the race that was seen as a give me when it start ear.th start it looks like carlos curbelo the e pet me of the precarious moderate republican may go dow n e 26th district. i don't think democrats really thought they would be mario

diaz so two out of three ain't bad if you're the democratic party.l >> woodruff: ght. we appreciate it. thank you very much david smiley with the miami herald. we have a raccawn call right now about 8mentsmented 30 on the east coast. we have a pick up fthe democrats an important governor's race in the state of illinois. j.b. pritzker defeating the incumbent bruce relnor who won the seat and was considered the businessman who was going to home in and change illinois politics but alonge way has become pretty unpopular at least atesome quarters of the st and you see that now. this is a projection based onsi lly very little. there are only about 60,000 evotes have been counteds than 1% of the precincts reporting but the experts are projecting thajb pritzker will

defought theum int bruce rauner. joining me is doug colling of georgia. he's on the phone from atens georgia campaign headquarters for the republican for governor. what are you hearing, tell us what you're seeing. what kind of night is this turning out to be foric repus. >> i think it's turning out to be a really good night. it's going to be inttier that there was a comment earlier on your show that maybe it's unbad or whatever. if you just look at what was going on in the country without the wins the deocrats were ing to take over and fight back from 2016. as i have been throughout the country if you went to these districts there was as mucush ensm from the republican base as the democratic base in many of these areas. it's not surprising to many of us that we're all holding on. we've onllost unfortunately the seats that were some of our

mmost vulnerable. right w we feel good we ar we just have to keep fighting and we were fighting a lot ofoi perception in and i think this is a really good night so far. we've got a long way to go but so far right here in georgia we feel good. gressman how con much difference in all this has president trump made in his campaigning for republicans. >> i think president trump has done well. what's been forgotten inside e beltway is that he can do nothing right. when he goes into the dis dicts evstricts that are close there are 15, 20, 30% of the b republice that is very much behind this president even in districts that are not that cybe went for hillainton and that base turns out, he e alsothat base out but h makes the shark contrast especially in georgia and manyth places igovernor's races and the senate races and even tell hoaty is if -- tell hay do you want a future that looks like the obama administration or

a future tt looks like the last 24 months. even te exit ls say the thonomy is doing very well. that's what's iese debates going up to the election. >> woodruff: we're certainly seeing some evidence at ths point this evening that president trump's campaigning has made a difference. congressman doug collins who ivs thce chairman of the canublican national repub committee joining us. congressman thank you very much. >> thank you very much, have ai goodht. >> woodruff: amna nawaz and lisa desjardins are back with some of the ke digging into the data and what they mean for the bigger picture. amna? >> aso the congrsman's point and as we heard over the course of the night and last several weeks president trump has loomed large in several contests. you want to take a closer look ect some keyld a races on the ground. if you bring up that senate map. what we e looking at here and what you're looking at half past 8:00 on the east coast what

matters right now. okay so there are 35 states that voted for u.s. senator today and those are all the states that you see marked in gray, blue red. and of course the ones being defended by drks, those are in thue these are not just any democratic statese are ones that are vulnerable these are the competitive states in blue and red. what's notable see all of these blue states down there, these with the exception of new jersey, all of ese are states that prsident obama won and that's why it's hard to take over from republicans this year because of all the trump wins in 2016 in these states that have democratic senators. three those states polls have closed. you're loong very closely go through these and give us a sense.wh indiane the incumbent democrat joe donnelly is being challenged here. what have we seen so far. right. democrats really like this racer come reasons. donnelly is a campaigner.

the libertarian in this railin, she had a strong presence in that debate. she was hoping she would b force for joe donnelly who actually advertised for her at one point. what we're seeing inese early results is that mike braun the republican is way ahead. i want to look he at the they states what amy brought up earlier. states where the president won by double digits this iswhere trump won by 19 points and look at the margin right now with 37% reporting. he has also visited a numbeof times in recent days as well. west virginia next, hat do you say. >> now this is the power i think of the candate. now only 10% reporting so we could be seeing that from a trawrlztocharston which takes lo report. this is a state that votedby 42 points for president trump. only one state favored president trump mo in 2016. yet here he is doing well in these other return but you know

these comes could very well get closer i joe manchin goes down tonight and joe donnelly. that's a real problem for democrats not just in the senate but it shows i think kind of the surge of republican activism. >> let's go to florida and look at that rac a bill nels democrat here as an incumbent. what's going on. >> here's a state wheenre prestrump barely won by one point. so you see it.'s 50/ this is also a candidate factor here because rick scott actually is perhaps on the ballot here. he went into some problem with red tie and this has been and refe as much about him and the proceed and you see it's 50/50. >> let's look at the big pire tracking any trends that areer ng. these will continually be updated. walk us through right now. >> look at tat. the solid red. these are seats firmly in republicntrol. either they weren't on the ballot or haven't been called.

firmly democratic control. but the republicans are leading in a moment. >> all right. add to this. these circles are places that voted for president trump. so how are they ting tonight please tell us magic board. >> we see indiana voting, trump for republican. florida looks like that s probably for some reason it must have just changed. you see west virginia. so right now trump is helping his party a lot. there you go three key states ong many we're going to be looking at. back to you judy. >> woodruff: those help us understand what's going on. thank you both. they were talking about florida. we've been talng about flrida at the table here, david, mark. you botloh have beeking at some of these early numbers coming in. we knew it was going to be close. we talked about yo about it, i b

are we seeing the trump effect ev deeper anmore meaningfulha more twe thought it would be mark. >> let's be honest. florida hanot elected a democratic governor since 194 and there's no question that democrats were bullish. they were really hopeful and aunt misoptimistic and every pod gillum in the lead. desantis hadn't run knowless campaign but is florida the ball game really in national politics. is rick scott a two term liability as karine mentioned with red tie and soorth actually going to beat bill nelson. they are very very close but i think right now the democrats have picked up two house sats

and they need 23. early in the evening it is not a blue. >> it's no happening. fits happening it's not happening before 9:00. >> think have to win a lot of really close races. the bar d looking gere. in richmond dave brat is looking pretty good. he's the republican incumbent. not for sure but a lot of these races the way it's breaking it' like wuld have been a wave with the democrats really swamping and the republicans nging on. again too soon to tell the national trend but itot a big massive tsunami. >> woodruff: you're looking at gender and otheder graphics. what are you seeing. >> about florida, we talked so many about women and how important women voters are to this election these are the

early election polls out of florida which shows ron desantis the republican winning over by a bigger margin than anrew gillum and desantis was winning by 17 points. gillum winning women by a impressive 12 points but the discussion around women the suggestion being that democrats were going to win women by 2 points & a place like floridaab we're pr not going to knowm for soe time the make up of the electorate. how significant was the afican american vote there. how many young people turned out.th e latina vote was there but again in the race that i'm really watching for is the carlos cube low district. this is a must win in the state of florida . it is one that curbelo has a

republican very talented member holding on to a seat that hillary clinton won very easily but if not, if republicans hold ahis seat, this is going to be very late night and we are likely going to have to wait until we get to the wesstt coa to have a better sense of what this might could be. woodruff: we don't have to wait for at least few more results because i'm told we have at least one race we can call and i think it's in the state of yes, new jersey. bob know mendez holding on to his site. indicted for corruption survived a trial and was awe but certainly had a rough period of his time in the senate deal with. he is going to be the seat even though right now wth 2% of the vote and he's behind his republican challenger bob hugin. the folks doing the projecting

are comfortable to project bang menendez will hang on to that seat. mark shields wonders where the a ryland reagan stands. this is ld for republicans. he is a popular governor in that generally blue democratic state day feeting ben gellous. 2% of the voe ben jealous is ahead but we're able to project our kreagz at ap and the networks able to project larry hogan holding on to that seat. so pbsewshour special correspondent jeff greenfield, we talked to him once befniore t. we want to talk to him again. jeff you've been watching some of these numbers and hearing thr cotion what are you thinking. >> i'm thinking for a lot of democrat that is going to start feeling a little like ground hog day. just about this time two years

ago the confidence thiaary clinton was going to win was winning to ebb. i notice 5mented 38.com is like the oracle of kill fi where they check in 20 times a day. this morning he had democrats with and exseven chance of holding the house. the last number i saw and it changes radically is five and nine. a suggestion it's going to be tuch much closer than the aun misses on the democratic side thought. i think amy is right we're looking very hard at new jersey pennsylvania and some extents new york where there are as many as ten competitive house seats and the deocrats now ed to win most if not all of them to be back in the captain seat anthen maybe wait for california. i think the other thing we need to remember is that wheowe lok for instance at trump's national approval ratings and then you look at some of the competitive states particularly where the democratic senatorsare in, trump's approval ratings are

much higher there so the idea he is going t drag th entire republic machinery down to th feet was always a miscome ception. i always found it soci fasting that even contemplate if i might at this hour what would it meanh ifdemocrats for the last year and-a-half they were going to take the house. if thy fall short, i don't know. i guess i would want the xanax confession political event in america. oodruff: that's okay. i guess you could give them a plug, jeff. we'll give you a dispensation to do that. it is still early, it's no 9:00 in the east but the trends are such that yes we are discussing whether this is going to be a night with any kind of a wave for democrats. so one of the most closely tched senate races this cycle has surely been in the state of missou roughly $90 million were spent on that one race making one of most exensive in the country. public media reported jason

rosenbaum of ketc is joining us now from st. louis. so jason, we're wat senate race between the incumbent democrat claire challenger josh.truct what are you seeing on that and anything else there. >> we have been seei huge turnout in this area and we've been getting reports of very robust turnout in both the rural areas of the state and some of toe conservative suburbs that josh holly need win. that is kind of a mixture of very close race between claired mccaskill sh hawley. this has been tied for weeks if not months. both candidates as yu mentioned before have enormous amounts of money behind them and i think the consensus i if claire mccaskill holds on, it givdees e crats at least a narrow chance of taking over the senate without mccaskill winning is basically impossible. >> woodruff: we're lookingen

jason roum we're looking at the very early returns coming y in, ur state of missouri less than 1%. they are ver close in the count. you've also got a congressional race, ann wagner of the republican trying to hold on to her seat. she's been challenged by the democratic court van osranld. we came a number of times for josh hawley. how much did he talk about the house races. >> he didn't talk about the chouse races that much se most of the house races beside second district race are not terribly competitive. president trump's sole focus was on the sicgnal re. and frankly president trump is probably less popular in some parts of the second congressional district and other congressional districts in missouri. however the second congressional district is more competitive than years past is a difficult get for democrats just because it was drawn by the repuican

legislature to be a republican seat. so if cort ends upcoming very close or he wins outright that is definitely a good sign for mccaskill but ann wagner iss widely seenne of the smartest and savviest political minds in the entire state. so we'll be looking to seehat happens there for sure. >> woodruff: that district we should say st. louis subbs and we talk about president trump coming in here repeatey. he made missouri his final stop of this campaign season. he was in cape jared i hope i'mr ouncing it correctly where he brought out a list of prominent republica to be on stage with him and to to the the horn for josh hawley. >> that's big deal because josh hawley needs not only to win some of southeastissour but win big. that's pretty much how other

statewide contender. eric grie tunnels and roy blunt prevailed in 2016 desteaving good chirnlings. president trump coming into a place like cape gerardo are like what republicans want and it could make a diference. missouri has very small counties but not a lot of people but if they all vote in mass for josh nawley, it would be a good sig for him for sure because mccaskill needs to hold down those margins like she's done in 2006 and 2012. >> woodruff: josh hawley we should point out he'es state 's attorney general. we can draw a stat line when what he's saying and president trump. i was there to moderate a debate between the two of them and you could barely pry josh hawley away from president trump's position. not that that was a test or anything but it was cetainly an element of his campaign. all right jason rosenbaum, thank you very much. we appreciate it. >> thank you for having m >> woodruff: i think we are able to now make another projection and this is ine

state of kentucky. this is a race we have been talking about the democrats really want to win. andy bar,h te republican winning, projected win that is over amy mcgrath the former fighter pilot, somebody who the democrats who i say put a lot of attention and shhad gotten a lot of media attention just because of herhy biogrnd democrats thought there was a lot of money in the race with the attention around her that she was ex the kind of candidate that could turn that district but it sn't meant to be. that's kentucky's sixth district and as you see the projection is that andy barr the republican prevails. jw we want to move from missouri where wst were talking to the state of georgia hasre the race for governo been drawing national attention with visit after visit from president trump fom former president obama and as we just

heard a few days ago from oprah winfrey. we are now joined by bill nigut of georgia public broadcasting. .ill health he owe to you -- hello to you. bring us up to date on some of the races that were watching but especially the governor. >> hello judy. we have an incredibly close race here in georgia right now. the last polling showed it as a dead heat between the republican secretary of state brian kennele and his dmocratic challenger stacy abrams. the turnout here like across the country has been pretty extraordinary at least anectally from talking t people who have gone to the polls today and in early voting here likin many places around the can country, more than 2.1 million people voted early in georgia. that smashes all records and soo we'rking for record journalout by the end of the. electi what we've got here right now that's most interesting i think is for the first time forever we

have a progressive docrat. abrams is running as a progressive democrat against a conservative republican. in the past in georgia we've always seen democratic candidate ruas conservatives and that hasn't worked very well. adrums has a new equation. >> woodruff: and bill nigut, what is it about, what gave stacey adrums the faito think that a progressive agenda coulde pel in a southern conservative state like georgia? >> for a couple, well first of all she realizes that past candidates in statewide races on the democratic side have not succeeded in their efforts to try to run to theg riht. the voters here would rather just elect a republican. so a couple ars back stacey abrams started the new georgia project.to her goal bein expand the base of voters in georgia and hopefully to bring in new

democratic voters to the rolls. we'll see tonight whether at's been successful. >> woodruff: we know that she ran i guess it was the campaign for michelle nunn who ran a few years ago. remember from talki stacy abrams she thought it was moving to get frankly white georgiaians to consider voting democrat.s >> thaing to be an interesting challenge for her. she needs probably o 32%the black vote here and maybe 27% of the white votwhich is why against the advice of some democrat abrams has not just confined her campaigns to metro atlanta, she's spent a good amount of time in rural georgiat which cand don't do very often trying to pick off some of hhose white voters but also going across whaty call here the black belt cities like

albany and others trying to see if she can pick up some of the rural voters that brian kemp needs if he's going to win this race tonight. >> woodruff: all right. mill nigut joining us fro atlanta. thank you very much bill, it's good to see you. so back withsur expe here at the table. i have to come to you on this question whether the sow was ready, it was a big story when the south went from democrat to republican decades ago and te people who are saying maybe with diversity electorate the south may be ready to turn lmocratic but oks like we're not sure whether we're going to see it in georgia tonight orot. >> i don't think it is. that's what we're going to fi out. but i think kudos go to the people who are run aring as themselves. i canit disagree wh bernie sanders but i can still respect the fact that he's runningn

authentic campaign. ultimately if you want to take georgia and turn ite or if you want a blue state and turn it red they have to run themselves and try to persuade the people the policies and princies they are running o are correct. even if georgia was not to elect a democratic governor which i don't think will happen, the ground work at leasts being paved for democrats. these thgs don't happen over night but you first have to tell voters who you are e. woodruff: what about that karine jane pie >> i'm not ready to throw in the towel just yet.se of coe was just saying that it's not going to happen so i'm just saying i want to wait and see. stacey abrams ran a very authentic campaign. she as the last guest mentioned wshe did the ne georgia project and had worked on expanding the base of 2013. we have to remember there was

voter suppression happening inan georgiso we will see. i mean there was extremely high early voting turnout. there are people waiting on long lines today, eed we'll s. i just want to see but i do want to say new jersey senate to me that's shockinghat we held on to that because democrats are very concerned about that seat because of menendez an what happened to him and trying to hold on. donna shalala, that was, thes republicd a great d ndidate, was not expecting to flip that seat at happened. ksd also what i'm hearing in florida from fon the ground is that people are still on-line miami-dade, long line. peoplere waiting to still vote. and it was from what i saw 30 minutes ago it was 50% in a broward cound 40% in palm

beach. so you know, he's going to havhe numbers in miami-dade, huge huge numbers. so we'll see, we'll see. >> woodruff: rather. we are going to take a moment now lto tak to someone and to look at the fact there are a a numbwe've been saying competitive house of representative races where the results were expected to be very close. four of those we're watchingo closely are in new jersey. one of the candidates in those races is demrac her name is mikie sherrill racing off against rebeblican jay webin the 11th congressional district a suburban area outside ofma attan. mikie joins us in pe pane. we don't know the results yet but we're having conversations in our table tonight how these

results are coming in sloweran xpected . what are you seeing and what are you hearing. >> so we've seen a lot of momentum and excitement on the ground. we've seen people coming out to our canvas and our phone banks in huge numbers. we're excited because ys because we've had so much enterest in election we hav votes by mail and we're still counting those so it's going a little slow here. >> woodruff: usual one of the democrat candidates tha democrats like to point to as one of the strongest people they recruited to rn inquiry former anyway -- run your former navylo you're a former prosecutor. you have what they call a golden resume. did you get the kind of sport t you thoughts t you would get in this race. and i mean from the establishment, thearty. >> right. so you know is we've gotten great support from the party but lot of what we focused on is t'slly new jersey and wha

happening here and what we need to have happen here to move our economy forward. this has been worst for our state than any other we need infrastructure and affordable healthcare. focusing on the votere in new jersey is why we developed such a great campan and great momentum here. >> woodruff: what do you think you have going in your favor and what do you think has been the tough challenge for you in this race? >> so going in my favor i think has just be aen people hee ready for change. they're ready for new they're tired of the partisan bickering in washington. they know as a navy helicopter pilot i put the country first and i will continue to do so in washington. and then i thi you know,' ve really -- >> woodruff: i'm so sorry we're going to have to interrupt you. we started this coversation slow and my apologies to mikie sherrill we'll be watching your race as theght goes on.

we hope to get back to you. stay with us. local states will gives updates. i want to talk about how the young voters affected the election. >> one big question for election day today is did young people sh up at the polls. the newshour student reporting labs are network of high school journalism programs explored that with youth voters. >> i think it's really important part of our democracy and ie think that evryone should take part in it because that's our citizens.merica >> young people are less likely to vote because they think that their vote doesn't matter. and onete won't change anything. >> i am one of those 18 year olds that do not go to voting polls to vote. >> i do not vote because i do not pay attention to what's going on in the news want to just throw a vote out there. >> my peers are really quiet

about it. they don't really talk about politics too much because it's very uncomfortable and my family isn't voting either. >> i think teachers are a littlt us talking about politics so that might negatively affect the youth voteecause people are hearing less about it. >> i think the onlyay to get people to vote more is making the voting required. >> lower the voting age to around 1cause i feel like if we start voting a the a younger age it will beome routine. >> our generation is sogy technoriven that if voting were literally at our fingertips, then that's an initiative to get all young people to vote. >> we have a miniature goat on the campus and that was our voting goat and many people stopped by to pet the goat and play with the got and we say hey you've taken a minute do you

have a minute to register to vote and we registered a lot of people that day so that was awesome. >> what would get me to vote is something that would affect me every day. minimum wage car payments, taxes. >>ink the rising cost of college education is important m because it's most the most relevant to me in l myfe. >> especially considering the recent school shootings and so many attempts to get rid of birth control and pla parenthood. >> it is one of the most important elections especially fibere it seems like the of the country is coming apart. >> i think what's encouraging me to vote is the fact that some of my ancestors didn't get to vote and they didn't get a say of how their lives were spent. >> saying thing are bad without trying ton change themd then like major change in vg ot candidates will change the problems you see. >> i think voting does matte i think it's kind of an obligation especially because as a woman the people who came

before us fought so hard tirelessly for our right to vote. >> woodruff: welcome back to our pbs newshour election night special. i'm judy woodruff.l at stake, cont the u.s. house of representatives and the u.s. senate. there are also 36 contests for governor. it is now 9:00 p.m. on the east coast. polls have now closed in 3 states. we hope you will continue to settle in with us. we are joined here at this table in washington, d.c. all night long with syndicated columnist mark shields, "new york times" columnist vid brooks, am walter of the "cook political report," kareem jean pierre and

kris of the online journal ofer an greatness. we are able to make a call of one of these rac we' watching tonight in the state of indiana. this is a loss for the democrats. republican mike braun, businessn, is projected to defeat the incumbent democrat joe donnelly. this is one the democrats very much wanted hang on to if they had any hope of climbing their wayk b a majority, but it wasn't meant to be, at least according to th projection. as you see, 50% of the vote in, there's a pretty significant lead that mike braun has. of course, we dn't know what it's going to end up to be but that's where we are right now. wait a minute.ld i'm toe hve one more call we can make. this is in the state of new york. not a surise, but it i, i'm sure, kes certsen gillibrand

happy, won thelection easily, a projection based just as the po s closed innew york state, as we said, 9:00, defeating shell farley, the not in doubt, but once you see the check mark by your name, it must give you a little since of relief. not a surprise, this one, must give relief to john barasso, republican incumbent in the state of wyong, defeating his democratic challenger gary trauner. again, this is not a surprise. new mexico, martin heimrick, democratic incumbent sending off mick rich, the republican. martin hinrich was expected to slide to relection, so not a surprise. this is a projection being made just as the polls close in the

state of new mexico. so we have a little bit more information, david brooks. we know we have the surprise result or at least the unhappy surprise to democrats in the statof indiana that joe donnelly has gone down to defeat to mike braun. >> yeah, that seems now extremely unlikely the senate is flip. the republicans are looking pretty good, they may pick up a few seats there. ton house side, it's still pretty close. ito not what we thught but it's looking close. for example, this richmond seat pretty night. 94% of the precincts in and she has a tiny 4a-vote led, so that could be a metaphor for a lot of these house races thatin are just tight. in georgia, i noticed we're looking mostly the governor's race but trump had a 52% approval, 47 disapprove, and nce things follow the trump numbers pretty closely, that doesn't look so good for the democrats in the governor's race in georgia. >> woodruff: we wertalking

about that before the break at the to of the hour is stacey abms was trying to do something no african-american had done, become the first african-american gover georgia. >> first african-american governor. the country's only had two african-american governors, doug wilder in virginia in 1989, and deval patrick of massachusetts. so it was an enormous task. we're not talking about somebody getting blown out. we're down to florida being a cliffhanger, and if someone -- >> woodruff: with andrew gillum. >> with andrew gillum. if someone had said a black tallahassee mayor could come a witheyelash of being elected governor of florida without the opposition of a popular republican president, i think you're dreaming, and the hunt,still don't get me wrong, but i don't think we should start pulling

our ir out andaying, my god, the country is going to hell and we're just vicious and mea spirited. he's run a great campaign and is still very much in competition. so, to eme, it's a great story, and i hope it has a happy ending e both cases. >> woodruff: we hanother result in the united states senate in e state of tennessee. this is a hold for republicans, marsha blackburn, the republican congresswoman defeaor projected to defeat phil bredesen, a former governor ofth state, very popular democratic governor but justea wasn't to be. tennessee turning redder and redder. bob corker stepping down after aimia waer he expressed disagreements with president trump. i'm sorry. i'm told we have more results. we won't go into a conversation. we'll come back to that? just a minute. here's a hold for republicans, not a surprise at all, greg abbott, the governor of the state of teas defeating lupe

valdez, the democrat. polls just closed in texas. rieg abbott, pretty popular governor, no su he has won reelection. in wyoming another non-surprise, but i'm sure a relief to mark gordon, the republican candidate for governor defeating mary throne. lls are closing, the votes just coming in, that's a comfortable win. that's a very republican state. it would have been a shock if the democrats came -- were projected to win there. and that is the last call we have to make right now. but, amy, coming back to some of these other numbers. in indiana, tennessee -- we have been seeing th one kind of slipping away in the last few days -- but it's looking vry tough for the democrats to take back control. >> absolutely. th is always a tig rope. >> woodruff: yeah. and they needed to be able to

hold indiana, hold florida, and try to pick up some of these open seats like tennessee. the other goobit of news if you're the president is tha marsha plaqueburn is going to be a much more reliable ally thaner bob cover was. she literally embraced him throughout the campaign. she wa running s very similar to trumps on issues like the caravan and immigration,nd it's also a turning point for tennessee. tennessee for the last few ars has had -- the state, of course, has gotten more republican, but ey've had a nd of republicanism that is more of that throwback republicanism, more country club than a party. she represents sort of the first member of the new brand of republicanism to come into power in the state of tennessee, and, you know, you think, again, of names like lamlarexander, bob

corker, governor haslem all came hom that wing of te party. >> woodruff: what does it mean for preesident trump n marsha blackburn has that seat in tennessee rather than bob corker? >>rom his perspective, frankly, a huge trade up. this is what we were talkingf about ore, uh you have the blue wave in blue areas, the rei wared areas, so the senate republican from tennessee now becomes moref a pro-trump senate republican. i think we'll prbably find out the -- that ron desantis wins florida that's what people are texting me on this. whiff rick scott, ron desantis is pobably more pro-trump than rick scott is, and we're seeing it played out i these different areas. >> woodruff: i guess the only thing weeard ron desantis disgee on the president on is

helping puerto rico. but other than that he fully embraced the president. the president's been down to florida several times to campaign for him. quickly, t tod corinne, w't know what's going to happen in the florida governor'race. it will be a disappointment to democrats if andrew gillum es down. >> it will be. andrew gillum was seen as a rising sta anoer energizing candidate. you saw what was happening in the last couple of months since the general election kicked off with himnd with tens of thousands of people showing up at his rallies. let's not fon rget,e primary, he was not expected to win at all. >> that's right. d he came out of a pack that was much more centrist democrat, he had no money, so hl was this magic coming out of the primary. so it would be disappointild. also, he wave made wpotentially history -- ell, he could still make history as being the first african-american comi out of gergia.

>> woodruff: we're talking about the so-called trump effect. let's turn to white house correspondent yamiche acindor watchi this from the white house. yamiche, it is looking like somp of tple the president was campaigning for are doing well sinight. >> if you're the pnt and looking at the senate returns, you're feeling good. you think of joe donnelly losing while joe manchin, in west virginia wins, joe marc jon who aligned himself with the president in that he voted forh brett kavana be confirmed to the supreme court, a very popular vote amongmocrats but president trump thanked him chinwas very happy joe man did that, so if you're the president you're looking at the returns and thinking someone like marsha blackburn and other republicans aligned with me will be the people who have my back in thenkenate. so i the president is likely feeling good. but again we have not heard from the president. it's beenu about six hrs since he last tweeted, which is a long time for the president who ves to take to social media to talk to the people of this country.

>> woodruff: yamichei turn from you to jeffrey brown, watching democrats as they are gathered at a hotel on capitol hill. what are they saying as they watch the returns? >> brown: behind me as i speak is nancy pelosi. she just came out. the congressman from new mexico led the over the take back the house. nkght now i thihey're still in pep talk mode. they're not really talking aboul partly races. you could perhaps even hear nancy pelosi talking still has she has for hours and days about what democrats can offer. a congressman was here to tell everybody they still shouldvo . so the crowd has grown here. the mood is still optimistic. but the word we have been kedring from people as we tal to them is cautiously optimistic. some of that is based o what

they experienced two years ago as they watched whahappened on a night very much like this. so we're hearing a lot of that eutious optimism, and t pep talk that goes on. >> woodruff: well, the cautious optimism will hold until we receive more harder nu we've seen some, but a lot more yet to come. jeffrey brown, thank you. we'll be coming back to you through the nig. for right now, going to colleagues amna nawaz, lisa desjardins, back with some of the race we have been tracking, talking about and what they mean. amna. >> judy, that's right. some of the key races we have been tracking still too clo to call. we'll track the story we're seeing unfold. let's take a look at the margin of victory. rthis is an incredible ning point with our digital game, tracks not just who wins add loses but how much. >> it's not abstract art. (laughter)

for republican, the pink is where republaicans are ding, the races haven't been called there yet. same for blue and light e. this is the line, what we're seeing is this bulging lightr pink and dared. this tells me that republican at this moment are running close races. i think we feelhat sentiment from the table, too, is some of the place where democrats were hoping to be ahead already, are republicans are holding on and you see it in the margin of victory. >> the democrats are winning big in the middle. they're not winng the close races. where it matters is where we look at the vulnerable houseen incu we identified earlier. obviously these have yet to be called. we are marking off people who hold their seats versus with those who lose them with an x. what's the story (a giant wall of faces, thesare members of congress in the three most vulnerable categories this year, a tossup race or ale racaning slightly one way or the other.

of these 56 men and women who would like to return to their jobs, just one is a democrat. most of these are republicans. look at what we have so far. the races called for the incumbents on the ballot tonight, so far only barbara comstock, a republican, has been sent back home. now, what's interesting is we've got big ballot polls closing, so we'll se ne illinoiw jersey come in, pennsylvania race is still ahead to be called. >> potential pickups for democrats, right. >> right. ey have not been seen coming through yet. >> these incumbts are all also in office. >> some of the races you notedrl r. we have jersey races. >> yeah. i think the story tonight we heard it before is the suburbs. new jersey typifies that because there are new jersey suburbs and new york suburbs.th southern part of new jersey,

tom macarthur, he voted for e tax cut bill, not popular if that street. look how well he's doing against andy kim. >> number 4, rick scott. here you go farther north in new jersey, tom running against leonard, known as moortd but being beat by this aggressive former obama aid now. >> 14 has got an lot of national attention. what's the picture? >> so we move from the new york and philly suburbs to the chicago suburbs. this is something of a brigh spot for democrats. lauren underwood has gotten a t of attention, a registered nurse, first i time capt. , -- first-cymtimediante. illinois six district, a long-time incumbent in that

district. there you go. peter roscomb, also bright spot for democrats. democrats initially were not sure this candidate was the best for that district but is now leaning. so i think the source for democrats is the sburbs. right now in major metropoliser suburbs, gly they're leading but not everywhere and we saw it in the races there. >> the story starting to emerge. tracking all thee aces. these dated in realtime. you can go anytime to pbs.org backslash "nehour". >> woodruff: it looked like an ice cream cone laying observe its side but you say it's a fish. we can discuss that later. we'll come back to the roundbl but i think we may have a race to call. is that right? no, we're not quite ready. so considering what we know s

far. david brooks, we're beginning to kie a picture of yes the democrats are pi up some seats but ifthere is going t be a blue wave, we don't see it >> and i think the donnelly and joe manchin race suggest the sen traltd or at least the importance of the kavanaugh hearings, that was the thing that really got the republican voters coming o, got the excitement building. i think we're also seeing in joe bredesen's loss, the loss of a democratic moderate. he was not only the taylor swift candidate but also a modate. so if the democrats don't do as well, there will be recriminations and, in some cases in florida, for example, in georgia, you could say they've nomined the st liberal candidate they could, that's probably a mistake, bu on the other hand phil bredesen is not some's idea of a liberal, he didn't do that:

>> woodruff: mak, recriminations, we're not ready to do that yet, but, in tems of moderate democrats versus progressive democrats, are we starting to see any pic emerge or do we have to wait until the end of the night? >> well, first of all, judy, phil bredesen was not only a quality candidate, he was a quality public servant. he was twice governor of tennessee, a very successful mayor of nashville, enormously respected. i don't think that marsha blackburn is of the same quality as a public servant. she may develop into something, but, i mean, this proves to me that tennessee is totally a red state, and whenever a party loses -- and i don't think the democrats lose it -- they're now losing in two rublican house districts in virginia, a tied area against two republican incumbents. but when a party loses, the

party always goes through a terrible battle of inrospection and civil war and say the reason we lost is we weren't specic enough and dramatic enough on what we stood for and we have to more clear. if you're a conservative, you have to be more rigid. if you'rea liberalocrat you have to be unequivocal. the otheside says th reason we lost is we have to get closer to the mainstream, so that's the hgument they've. it will come down to who does win, who will be the posteboy of winning. if beto o'rourke were to pull it ouin tk, peple would say, my god almighty, the way you win is byunning a positive campaign. that's a change of pace. >> woodruff: i thk we have a race to call. do we? i'm looking now for some directions from my colleagues in the control room. s in tte of west virginia, this is one we were watchin joe manchin, the democrat who has sometimes embraced

president trump hold on to that se. 47% of the vote so far. but he is being projected the winner, joe manchin fighting off a challenge from republica businessman patrick morsi. another call we can make, no surprise in minnesota. y klobuchar depending off a challenge from republican jim newburgher. 1% of those vote closed in minnesota. amy klobuchar was expected to hang on. i think the sty where -- the surprise of those two we have en most waching, of course, is in west virginia. so we're going to head out of a washingtin and out west to arizona where the decision by senator jeff flake not to seek reelection opened up a tough fight for that seat. public media reporter christopher conover of arizona pbs is in tucson, christopher, what are you hearing? your polls just closed inhe

last 15 minutes or so. you don't have a race to cal yet but what are you seeing and hearing? >> what we're seeing and hearing is the counting is probably going to take a while. the latest polls on this that t came out ove weekend had the republican martha mcsally leading the democratic kyrsten sima by 4% mrgin of error, so it's been a statistical tie and has been that way really since august with one or the other candidate leading but alwaysar within then of error. we probably, tomorrow morning, still may not knowho the next u.s. senator from arizona will be. we'll obably count for a while. >> woodruff: please don't tell us that. please tell us that we're going to know. (laughter) in the next few hours. chriopher conover, president trump, i think it's fair to say that martha mcsallyn was noof the president's closest allies whenhe was a member of congress, but since she's run in the senate race,

e's found her way to back him on just about everything, hasn't e? >> she certainly has. she definitely kept him at arm's leng a two yeao, and even before she declared that she was running for u.s. senate, since then she has fulbly emraced the president and most of his policies. she came t of a vey tough primary where she was going against two vy strong trump supporters including sheriff joe r. pyle of mar copa county o campaigned across the country with the president. >> woodruff: we're also looking in your state at yourt very iesting governor's race that is likely to stay with the incumbent doug doocy. i know we're also looking at the races in arizona but one we've had an open eye on is open republican district 2, marthay' mcsaseat where i assume we don't have any numbers on arizona two ye. >> we don't but polls -- we

don't have numbers on that but nings have shown that le democratic. >> woodruff: which would be a pickup for the democrats because of coursit was the mcsally seat. just fnally, christopher conover, is there a sense in th state that more visits from presidentrump could have lped martha mcsally or was it better -- considered beter that he didn't come anymore than he did? >> the president won here by three or four points, so not everyone is a huge supporter, and when you look at registration, it's split pretty evenly between republicans,d independents amocrats with republicans and independents being one and two and democratsh beinrd, but all in that 30% or so range. >> woodruff: and, again, we should point out that arizona nate seat we're talking about is the one jeff flake had. he stepped down. the other arizona senate seat,e, of cours john mccain, who passed away earlier this year,

that seat being filled with an appointment. christopher conover, thank you verthank youvery much, and we'ln with you laer on. moving on, how historically conservative texas has been home to an interesting andco etitive senate race. emily from the texas tribune jos us. we're talking about ted cruz being challenged by beto o'rourke. what does that one look like right now? >> well, we have a senate race down here in texas. what we're looking at now is the race b beto o'rourke and ted cruz is neck and neck after early voting. the rend line we're seeing so far in the state, and obviously this is early, preliminary returns, but the cies are going blue and the suburbs are not going nearly as red as cruz needs them to. >> woodruff: are you --

the suburbs are not going nearly as red as cruz needs them to. we're also seeing that, you knot sound. >> woodruff: hi. we can still hear you, emily, i don't know if you can hear me. looks like we have an audio problem with emily rimshaw. >> we had a senate race in texas, beto o'rourke and ted cruz are currently neck and neck after the early vote. what we're seeing in preliminary totals from early voting is the cities are really going blue in texas, the suburt are nooing nearly as red as cruz needs them to be, so this could end up being a tight night, a nail biter down to the wire here. 5 million texans voting early, approaching the presidential year, something lie 40% of registered voters in texas turned out early so we're looking at real numbers theory. this is going to be a tight ra. >> woodruff: i hear you saying

it's not enough for ted cruz to do well in rural texas, he also needs to be competitive in thee suburbs aroundxas' large cities like dallas, like houston and austin and so on, san antonio. bsolutely, particularly the suburbs outside those urban communities. the rend lines were seeing are not great for him. so far we've seen in dallas county, in thecongressional race there, pete sessions, congressman sessions downt agaillin allred. inouston, the publican is trailing there. there are not enough voters inr the rural of texas to account for what's looking like a very purple set of suburbs. >> woodruff: that would be fas fascinating if that were to happen. two republican incumbents given contest by demchocratic lengers but it wasn't at all clear that they were going to be able to knock off tese long-time republican incumbents

in culberson and sessions. emily, we'll come back to you through the night. so many races to follow in texas. you have 36 congressional districts to keep an eye, you've also not a governor's race which we have not called bush we did call greg abbott, so we know the result there but you get to keep youe r eye on est of it. emily, thank you very much, with the texas tibune. so, amy, we've made a few more cas, joe manchin in west virginia. and very interesting what emily is saying now aut ted cruz, beto o'rourke and significantlye a couple of house races. >> this is what we've seen as the map comes together on the house. we'll ha a better understanding. but the role tha suburbs play is critical for democrats and what has turned texas for beto

o'rourke to be competitive is he energized bringing new voters to the polls,ut these suburban districts around houston, around dallas a, places that voted for mitt romney ovrwhelmingly, it's in their dna to vote republican, nton voted for hillary cli and likely voted for beto o'rourke and the question now is do they vote for the democratic house candidate and, if so, again, we'll get back to where we started this conversationde about this di america, right, that we have with. there's a red part, there's thea really red, lly blue and then in and around the suburbs is where you see the lighter reds and llues, but the bues are moving out from the urban areas to the inner subbs and the reds are rural and then creeping into the sort of edge of the xeurbs. su woodruff: so these are real coplation interestburbs and

is this a problem for republicans? >> i'm not ready to say it's a problem. i think this is a regional issue. i was looking at this a few minutes ago. the vote counted so far in texas is the pre-election day vote, the old vote and what's come in and been counted are the areas you would expect to be blue. it's entirely posble we'll see what it's all counted, we'll sel the regispect of this, in some ways more than the urban rural divide, so you see what's going in the noheast versus the south and the upper midwest. i think these regns have thir own personalities in a way that's sometimes more telling that be jus saying, well,'s a suburban versus rural or whatever. >> woodruff: sing suburbs in new england are different from suburbs in dallas. >> exactly right. >> woodruff: probably should say that's aiven.

>> it's different being in the philadelphia suburbs, but something is happening that we're seeing the naionalization of the suburbs that the people in dallas right now, many of th are there as transplants. they're not texans. they got thererom california because in large part it'she success of the republican administrations in texas bringi those businesses to texas, they brought with them those workers. >> woodruff: but it can be a bright spot. we'll see wt hpens tonight maybe for democrats. i was in texas about two weeks ago. dallas, texas and the energy for beto was pretty -- i've never seen anything like that buzz you have t remember -- because remember we're talkg texas, a state donald trump won by nine months in 2016, mitt romney won by 16 points in 2012, so this is a red, red district. beto, another authentic candidate, energizing, ehad to

expand the electorate, and that's why when i was sealing the numbers, the polling coming out thlast couple of weeks, i wasn't quite spyre if that was correct because we don't know what the electorate is and i think that's wat we're seeing. is it the young voters, the suburbs? did he motivate enough people of color? i think that's why it's se. cl >> woodruff: while we're talking about texas, it's a good moment, i think, toke one of the longer views we were trying to take throughout this night from time to time and that is with his to b michael beschloss who follod so many presidents and i'm thinking ofnd johnson and how things have changed since he went to congress and then vice president of the united states but also close to his home state of texas. th w's for sure, and the no republican party in texas till really 1961 wh ten joower

was elected as the senator from texas and jim baker, for instance, who was secretary of state and. under george hsh his old friend, he was a texas democrat in e60s. he had to convert to becoming a republican when he became george h.w. bush's campaign manager in houston in 1970 when bush rant agaioyd benson. another thing i'm thinking about, judy, is if we're seeing a comic wave nationally, the early predictions begin to fade. i think we always he to remember especially in these midterm elections, events oftentimes intercede. i was so interested in what our friend dave brooks id about the possible impact of the brett kavanaugh hearings,specially in a place like tennessee and reminded me of1962 where in mid october huge predictions the republans would be able to gain seats against john kennedy who was president, a democrat in term tendency you see in mid

elections where presidents in the white house lose seats,nd something interceded called the cuban missile crisis two weeks before the election.le kennedy was o buck the trend, was able to increase hisi senate hos to by four seats, and one who lost was richard nixon running for governor of california, planning for the last two wee to make the big push. he felt that the fact that allen the attentionto the democratic president, essentially meant that he would lose. >> woodruff: reminding us once again that the best laid plans don't always turn out that way or, you know, the political fortunes can flip.li >>they do. >> woodruff: in an instant. michael beschloss, tcnk you very mh. great to have your insights right now. we'll be tal throughout the night. let's go to william brangham in the news room to talk about election curity tonight. are there problems? >> thanks, judy.

there have been some problems. we reported on some of these earlier. emts of varied proin varied states today with the mechanics of voting, long pol lines, problems with voting machines, people waiting for hours and hours. we've also been lo at very closely for any hint that there's been any kind yber attack on our voting system. to help us pars through what we do and do not know i'm joined by any thatgenic -- nina jenkowitz. welcome. >> thanks for having me. so today i understand d.h.s. and the f.b.i. have been looking kohl's at this said -- looking closely at this said there were no major atte acks on ting system they could identify, right? >> right, they said there were no intrusions into the election infrastructure whatever. there may be more that comes out in the coming weeks. we'll see what happens. it will take a couple of weeks for things to get verified, but we know there have been ongoing

efforts to influence the elections through information campaigns. the d.h.s. and otw enforcement agencies came out with a statement saying the russians in particular are still ry active inheir information campaigns online. >> and i understand these agencies have also been quck to identify particular instances of misinformation online. we saw some videos they were flagging. what kind of things were they pointing out today? >> right, so toay what's egteresting is we're looking at more homwn disinformation, this isn't necessarily attributable to a former malign actor. there were a couple of narratives including one aboutbu beto o'rourking il illegals over the bored tore vote for him. >> democratic candidate. exactly. another instance of purported voter fraud video in ohio which was debunked, but still on social media not removed by facebook and twitter. in onstance, facebook and twitter were removing voter suppression attempts

misinformation, and this is the type of thing we need to see amo bi of. fwas hoping to see a bit more proactive behavim the social media companies given what we learn01 in 26. when you're dealing with authentic american voices which are setting disinformation we run into free speech of speech issues. >> also seems to be this is the power of social media both tole connect peut also allows one person with a video that looks to beolutely legitimate to get hundreds of thousands of retweets spread all over facebook and make peoine gey fear their vote won't be counted. >> absolutely, and in that one instance, there was an issue printing out the ticket with the vote being cast, so it shored on the that the woman had selected a republican candidate, the ticket was deayed in printing out, so the person who had voted before her voted for a democrat candidate and it showed that she thought she had that. she was able to cast her ballot properly after that, but in all the time it took since he

uploaded that video to social media, it was replicated thousas and thousands of times across the internet and you can't probably track them nequickly. it'sf the problems of the digital age, unfortunately. >> as i mentioned earlier, wehi also have s system rehave every single election where there are redibly long lines, machines break down, people wait for hours, the ballots are not correct, poll workers arenot educated and after every election we vow to do differently and in every new election we have the same problems again. when will w s geterious about finally addressing this (i hope it will be soon. nshave observed electn a number of post-soviet countries and when we go to pooling steion there, one of th things that we elf every polling station is is there a long line and overcrowding, then we deliver the assessment of the election and expecting the countries who are developing to make the chang a next yed for some reason the united states is unable to do ta

our infrastructure is set up for loturnout and when we have instances of high turnout, whicl is snly in the 40% to 60% range, our infrastructure is totally overwhelmedso hopefully this will be a lesson. i know particularly senator obuchar is a huge proponent of trying to fix the issues and i hope thiswilectio be a learning point for us. >> thank you. s for having me. back to the studio with judyru wo. >> woodruff: thank you. i'm back at the round table in washington. mao shields, david oks, amy walter, corinne jean pierre and chris buz buzzkirk. >> they're saying the russians are still trying to iterfere, the chinese and others, we don't have a sense at this point it'sm changinghing in this election. we don't know. >> i always thought it wasun

kely it changed anything in 2016. people disagreed with me on that. there is usoch information, it's hard to see what the russians put into our bloodstream was worse or would have a big effect, on especially how locked in people seem to be, and that's true this time where people are just very locked in. we're seeing that in race after race and the democrats are beginning to pick up seats looks like in pennsylvania and otherr places so thds of taking back the house are now looking better. if they take it back, it will be a very small takeback, guaranteeing maximum possibility instability and unfriendliness in washington in the next years but that's what it looks like. >> woodruff: the state of colorado, democrat jared has a hold for the democrats, john leaving the house. defending walker stapleton. jared will be the first openly gay governor of a state to be

elected governor of a state. so there's a bit of history that's been made with this.it a relief for democrats, i think democrats expected mark shields to hold on -- >> they did. -- to the governor's seat inco rado c but always a relief to see the check mark. >> absolutely and jared palis is the first openly gay governor to seek the office as a gay male, father and husband and a successful businessmd member of congress. so that is good. just to echo what davidaid, i think the battle for the house is going to be close, i rally do, and it's going to be just a series of cliffhanger races across the country. we will be counting for several weeks, and i don't know if the results of the majority in the house will hang on the recounts,

but it could very well. so that compounds the suspense, the uncertainty. peter heart, the democratic pollster said, apropos of the division and polarization of the country, quoting from walt kelly, p povo cartoonist of a generation ago, we met the enemy and it's the other party. and democrats are willing am republicans for everything from halitosis stale bread and republicans will blames democrth pimples and no dates on saturday night. so it's reached that point.s >> itting really personal, mark (laughter)th (talking asame time) >> that's where we are now. if we're quoting philosophers peep it at pogo. >> that's true. >> woodruff: aie, you're looking at a lot of races, i

believe we had a reporter inte arizonling us it's going to be a long night there as well. >> the states weeally need to hear from -- new jersey, pennsylvania, illinois -- those are places with a lot of potential democratic pickuu. i want to in a plug for my colleague at the "cook political report," thus far the race haves broken pretty much exactly as he had rated them. the races thus far that have gone to republicans are those that we had in the lean republican column, this is why we're talking about it not being a being wave. in a big wave sometimes the lean districts end up getting wip out, and this goes to tissue, again, most of those ifln rida, a state where turnout was incredibly high on both sides where the race for governor and senate is coming down tthe

absolute wire, in place like pennsylvania where the top of the ticket fors republicans very weak. illinois, we've already called -- we haven't but thece or governor is already called, very weak topi top of te ticker in l.a. isn't a pull out to vote in state elections like in florida. so once we get thnumbers in i think we'll have a good sense of that. >> woodruff: you mentioned pennsy call in one of the house districts we have been watching. this is peonnsylvania 17, one have the new thinkly-drawn -- newly drawn districtin a shade where the districts have been shuffled and shuffled. connor lamb, a name you recognize because he won a special election last year and running in a district against another incum cnt,ngressman keith rosss, an incumbent. we have very strange district by district situations in the state

of pennsylvania. >> the other thing that looks likely to happen and will be fie t time since 1970 that there is a split decision in terms ofg one party picp house seats and the other party picking up senate seats whether in nixon's first midterm election in 1970 where republicans lost house seats but picked up one or two senate seats thatea so regardless, right now, democrats are picking up househa seats, we knowis going to happen, and it looks more likely than not that republicans will pick up senate seats. >> woodruff: so like richard nixon in 1970. >> oh, boy! (talking at the same time) (laughter) >> woodruff: corinne, you were around -- >> corinne, you were around, you covered part of deicmocr politics back in -- of course, you weren't. but we are seeing dichotomy here. we with're waiting for results to comin. don't know what the final

picture will look like butou could have two opposite results. >> i want to start off saying a year ago, talking about senate competitive seats for democrats was unheard of because the terrain, the political terrain for democrats in the senate election is one of the worst terrains in decades. it was really difficult for democrats to do well in senate seats. in the house, i think democrats will indeedake ck the house. i think, also, something that i had brought up earer is the governorships. the governorships are going to be hiss torewell kinics -- hist wins for democrats which are important in redistricting. we saw history in colorado with the first openly gay man who talked about his children andfa liar ri. >> woodruff: a guest on the "newshour" tomorrow. >> that's a great plug. and we'll see inlinois, we're seeing some wins across the

country in tose upper midwestern states. a lot of -- many of them that donald trump won. so i think that's a big win for democrats there as well. >> woodruff: chris, if you're donald trump and setting in the white house tonight, put yourself in his shoes and mind, what are you pleased about at this point and what are you worried about? i i'm pleased my party is going to pick up seathe senate. i think that's sort of baked in the cake now. i've said a few wee republicans will probably pick up two to four. i think that's probably where we'll wind up, and democra pick up in the house. so i'm not too happy about that because that switches things. out goes devin nunes difficult r the trump administration because there is an agenda there. >> woodruff: what do you think his strumategy will be assg the democrats take control of the house? what is his approa going to be? >> start the presidentia

campaign tomorrow. i think that's it. >> woodruff: running against the house? >> middlimmediately. retried to marbleize the election and the perpetual campaign continues on. >> woodruff: any hope of cooperation between the two parties? rget it? >> i think if we agree on setting the date for the next election we wille doing pretty well. (laughter) >> woodruff: whoa, we're setting a high bar. november something of 2020. (laughter) mark.no >>er state resolution i think we could agree on, not to take a fight with chris, but devin nunes has an agenda. cont suggest adam schiff has an agenda and devin nunes doesn't. the first house intelligence immittee chair in thestory of that organization to turn it into a partisan. it's alwaybeen a nonpartisan

group. >> adam hiff is not a nonpartisan by any means. politics is parton.se >> the hointelligence committee has been an island of nonpartisanship until. this i wanted to pick up on one thing michael said, only two incumbent presidents who won sees in the house of representatis in the first midterm, john kennedy diin 1962 and george h.w. busge-- ge w. bush in 2002, both of them in e cusp of war a commanders in chief. there was a cuban missile crisis and in 2002 about to go to war in iraqfter 9/11. i raise that because the questions i had and doubts i raised about donald trump strategy, why he didn't run onod conomy, he ran as commander-in-chief. we had a threat, the threat was the caavan. he elevated immigration concern

to an issue, and it's going to be tough to argue if, in fact, the republicans eemerge in better shape tonight. i think they will louis the house. i think democrats will win the l use, but it wil narrow. but i think he changed the entire agenda of the election a innational security election with his immigration case. >> woodruff: we can imagine the folks in the ite house are working now to prepare whatever remarks he may make tonight or in the morning if as kris buzzkirk says is true and they start the next campaign in the eorning. amna nawaz, lisajardins, they have been lookg at new races to call. amna, over to you.ha >>s, judy. in our here's the deal corner, we're focusing in on key races we have been keeping track of oner the course of the night. the more informae get, the more results we can input into our chabrs.

let'g up the balance of power. this is looking at house races so far. set the table for us aga we can't remind the people enough what is we're looking at. >> the goal line is in the middle which doesn't happen often. in this case is e al lin in the middle and you see republicans on the rightrk the ed are seats that have already been called, guaranteed, soar soar says the associated press. the pink is where republicans are leading and vice versa for the democrats. right now a virtual tie in theob house aniously we have most of the races yet to go, but if you look a little more osely, you kind of see republicans creeping up a little bit more quickly than democrats. >> democrats could pick up seats in the midwest but is a tougher fight. >> right. last night we talked about suburbs and the importance of them. we havmidwest suburbs,

republican areas but close to cities. in nebraska talng about omaha. in kansas -- that's kansas three and in missouri st. louis. so these are suburban districts where inome case also hillary clinton won and in some cases president trump wons. >> kan first.t. ri look what's happening. this is a woman who is getting a lot of national attention. charisse davis is leading against incumbent kevin yoder. she's a native american and lesbian, if elected she wl be the first native american woman in congress if she holds on to her 22% lead. t notabls district won by hillary clinton. this is one of those that i think democrats expec were hoping. this kind of on the easier to get list tonight. >> this is where president tru won in 2016.

nebraska's two district. >> president trump won this by a little more than one point. this is a little harder fors democr get and right now the republican is leading over kara eastman. she is a more progressive candidate. democrats wanted somebody else in this seat but she won in the primary and had so momentum. now it's almost a tie. so thareflects the 2016 vote. >> in missouri, dos that trend hold? >> president trump won this district. the suburbs of st. louis by 10 points. here you see a hard working young attorney cortvan u cort ve who is giving the long-time republican a run for her money. early results, i expect the numbers to change, but i think what we're seeing is in sol of e districts it's hard to predict and there are some tsndidate eff democrats, we talked about races are won to win. this is one within their region

they wouldn't have expected a year ago. >> and this could have affect on the senate race. we'll talk about that. all of these are updating in realtime, go there anytime to get the lates back to you judy. >> woodruff: thank you, amna and lisa. so helpful to go back to the bigger picre to beeminded where we are as the night goes on. getting close to 10:00 in the east, and, so, numbers of races are coming in but we still haven a lot thatt known, amy, and fferenceooking at the di between joe manchin able to hold on in the ate of west virginia which donald trump won west virginia by more than 40 points. but indiana, joe donnelly not able to hold on. >> and i do think that some of this -- and we have to wait, of course, until montana. that's a wys to go before the final votes are counted int montana, bntana, west virginia are two states

where you have democrats holding those two states that trump won handily by double tinlts, but they have an image and brand, the democrats do, in those states that makes it hard to nationalize them. remember manchin was one of the only democrats that voted for brett kavanaugh, but jon tester voted against kavaugh. he has taken votes against many of'sresident trugenda items on healthcare on taxes. the president went too mntana a lot, but to west virginia a lot, too. but i ink there is sothing about being from a smaller state and being able to sort of build an idey.nt and this is how things used to be in the olden days when people used to split their tikets. remember the concept? >> woodruff: vaguely. unlike the president -- i like the president of this party t i'm voting for my member of congress from another party because they represent my state

or district well. doesn't happen often. west virginia is one of the fw places where we're seeing it happen. >> woodruff: i think we have a callo make. florida's 26th district. this is repntublican incum carlos kubella going down to defeat to a democrat debbie powell, an ecuador-born perso who decided to challenge somebody who both of them with hispanic heritage but there was a sense that he might be vulnerable in this district that hillary clinton won in 2016. here's another, let's look at this other race. here we go, pennsylvania. one of the races we were watching closely, thiss nnsylvania five. i believe this is a philadelphia suburbs. mary scan, a democra defeating

pearl kim. i'm sure this is a republican district. yes, i'm toldt is a reublican district. that's one of the democratic pickups in that scrambled state. minnesota 3, a congressional district, dean phillips, the remocrat holding on for the democrats -- i'm s flipping it from the republicans, erik paulsen. so, again, the demrats are looking at turning the house and is is the way th do it. colorado six, jason crow. this, i believe, is also a pickup for the democrats, defeating mike kaufman, the incumbent, and that means the democrats are closer to taking ov control of theuse. stay with us. quick break now. local stations will give youte upon races in your areas. for the others, amna nawaz introduces some ig ton's

house winners. >> ayana prssley defeated a ten-term incumbent for the democratic nomination in >> nawaz: thanks, judy tonight, we're taking a moment to spotlight congress' newest faces. ayanna pressley defeated a ten-term incumbent for the democratic nomination in massachusetts' 7 she was unopposed tonight, and is officially heading to congress. pressley will represent the city of boston, and her win is a first for new england. nathan gonzalez of insid elections has the details on pressley's candidacy. >> ayanna pressley made history tonight as the first african american woman to be elected to represent massachusetts-- and new england-- in congress. but while she's new to congress, she's political outsider. before becoming a politician herself, she worked for massachusetts mocratic senators ted kennedy and john kerry. she was elected as t first woman of color to serve on boston's city council, a position she held for close to a decade.

pressley was raised by a single mom on the north side of chicago. her dad was in and out of jail. she went on to attend boston uauniversity, but never grd. years later, she revealed that she was raped while in college. >> i am a survivor of sexual assault while a college student. ared by 17.7uth million american women, and like 90% of those other rape survivors, i knew my attacker. >> that experience motivated her to work with other survivors of sexual violence. pressley focused herca congressionaaign on her connection to local politics, releasing this ad showing her riding the city bus. people from every walk life are on that bus. everyone connected in that momentjust trying to get where th a're going. inatter of blocks, you will see a stark visual contrast of life experiences, household median income and quite literally life expectancy drop by decades. >> though there was no

republican on toniest's ticket, ey won a tough democratic timary in september against michael capuano,-term incumbent backed by the state's political establishment. pressley's district is the only majority-non-white district in the state. she said it was time her constituents had a congressman who looked like them, and who was willing to challenge the status quo in washington. >> for our brothers and sisters behind the wall, change can't wait. to our immigrants worried about the knock on the doo change can't wait. to women whose rights are perpetually under attack, change can't wait. to the residents of the 7th congressional district, change can't wait. >> pressley joins a list of notable democrats to represent the 7th district, including house speaker tip o'neill and president john f. kennedy.

>> woodruff: welcome back to our pbs newshour election night special. i'm judy woodruff. >> it is still not clear who will control the u.s. house of representatives and the u.s. senate. it is 10:00 p.m. on the east coast. polls now closed in 44 of the 50 states. we hope you will continue to settle in ith us. i'm joined here at our table, our studio in washington, d.c. all night long by syndicated columnist mark shields, "new york times" columnist david martin, amy walterf the "cook political report," corinne jean pierre of move ondorg an chris buzzkirk of the online journal american gre iatness.

so good to have all of you here as we watch these races. come i we'll check in with public media reporter with our colleagues in washington, at the white house, democratic party gathering headquarters. i guess you could say yamiche alcindor at the white house, jeffrey brown hanging out with the democratsno let's starw with the first results of the night, and note to viewers, at least as this hour, the "newshour" will be reporting on these projections made by at ast two of a consortium of broadcast networks or esby the associated p which for the first time this year is partnering with fox news to analyze exit polls and to project winners. so here we go with e call. this is kansas, the third congressional district charisse david defeating kevin yoder. kevin yoder being the incumbent republican. this is a pickup, what we by our nlculation, this is the nth pickup tonight for democrats o republicans sheets.

charisse davis is a lawyer.e she will be rst lesbian native american in congress. so there are a number of historic firsts tonight, and we're able to call this one. ois is again in the sta kansas in the third district. here we go to new jersey, and to a woman we just spoke with a few minutes ago, earlier in the last hour. mikey cheryl, defeating the republican -- this is an open seat but it was held by a republican, rodney freelinghausen held that seat for decades. jay weber holding on to republicans. rechael cherytired navy pilot, former federal prosecutors, as we said a moment, a people described it a lden resume for democrats, she is able to pull that out. it is lathee,olls in new jersey close add few hours ago, so i think some people thought the raculd be called sooner, but we are ojectic it for mikey cheryl. here's a win for a man who wanted to be elected president

in 2012, now elected to the united states senate, mitt romneyprojected the winner in the state of utah. he was running against a democrat jenny wilson but utah, of course, a y verpublican state and never any doubt mitt romney would win.te co in fact, no vote counted but the experts say it's safe to project mitt romney the winner here. and here in the stat state of michigan mi, 22% of the vote, we are able to project a winner for the democrats, gretchen whitmire defeating the republican. again only 22% of the vote in. but it looks as if -- and i ess the polls there closed just about an hour ago. bill shooty was seing -- i'm looking at the resume now -- is the attorney general in atchigan. it was an open held by

republican rick turdout to be ar governor there for a number of reasons. gresh etch whitman former prosecutor that is a flip fortr thcks. one of several films republican to demrat of -- flips republican to democrat state houses we've seen.his eveni where do we begin? david brooks, some good ws in this last hour, and i'm going to stop. i've got two more calls to share with all of you. i think these are house races, is that right? here in new york. this is new york 11. this is a pick up for the democrats max rose defeating mac donol n. you can t where that is. >> that's in long island. that was not expected but that was one of the districts tha was an obama district. obama had carried that and donald trump carried itn 2016.

>> and democrats picking it up for republican. so david brooks, a mixed picture but you're starting to see a slow march by the democrats toward a jority in the house. >> early in the evening it looked a little grim for them but they're pickering up some wins like staten island is a big kwin. people lto bash on pollsters but if you took all the pollsters prediction you would have a house pick up of 20 seats and senate pick up of two seatss ind of looking like that. rural erica is pretty republican and urban ameca is democrat and suburban is moreh democraticn it was. so with the trump effect things have turned a little blur. it's a good for human humility that donald trump is losing the

house. e democrats are running against phenomenally unpopular and owe fend are president and they are doing well but not a tsunami. >> woodruff: many of the house races fought on purple to blue turf, senate races fought in republican states. we've gotwo more house races to call. shese are in the states of pennsylvania, thisin the philadelphia suburbs. this is a pick up for the democrats.ss chhool has not defeating the republican greg mccauley. again a quarter of te precincts reporting that projecting again that this is a pick up for the democrats. this is pennsylvania six. and one more big race to call. in the state of kankrsa kobach, the controversial colorful attorney general for the state of kansas going down to defeat by democra laura kelly. kansas, it doesn't get a lot bluer than kansas -- imorry, did i say i ue.

meanted. that's why allr you are hee with me. it doesn't get muchde red but having said that, kris i kobachs surprised. >> i am surprised by that one so it's my turn to say whas the matter. that one and the staten islandse race tre the two that have been outliers. the other ones, we talked aout the other races four or five hours ago and hardly come up with mostly right answers. those two i think are unusual. >> woodruff: any theories about what happened with kris kobach. >> i don't know it well enough. >> woodru: amy. >> nationally, as secretary of state, as someone onim gration. this is also a state that is reeling after years of republican control. sam brownback, the governor was

unpopular due to a big tax cut that ultimately was reinstated and many republics ended up losing their seats so this is a big deal for democrats especially suns they are with an independent candidate in the race. >> race. >> woodruff: i should have mentioned him. >> even though kobach was so unpopular that this independent candidate would siphon off enough to give co-back the win and it's likely to help them win the house seats they have in at play. they'll help with the down ballot, absolutely. and another governorship i've been talking about all night and how important it's going to be for democrats. >> woodruff: i did make a mistake a minute ago. crisco back is a secretary of state not attorney general for the state of cans but that is a big pick up for laura kelly, the

democratic state senator who defeats. it's an open seat. let' go back to yamiche our colleagues. so yamiche, we're seeing som r gosults tonight from the president 's perspective but also some results they probably don't love. >> right now sarah sanders the press secretary just walked out and talked to reporters. she said the preside is feeling good when he looks at these senate races. she said that the places where e president went physically and campaigned for candidates, those are where the people arery doing ell so she said essentially that the president was a good facs tor and waart ed go to these rallies. i specifically aer about democrats picking up the seats in the house. what does the president think about democrats picking up seats including barbara comstock is called barbara thumpstock and she that he's willing to work with democrats in the house. she does not belie and the president does not believe that there's a big blue wave coming

but of course if democrats take e house that's a big deal for democrats here. >> woodruff: so is thmes the first he press staff has come out to talk with all of you, yamiche, tonight. >> this is the first time that the press came out. earlier in the evening a person in thecommunications staff came out and we shouted a couple questions but he woldn't take our questions. so then sarah sanders came out and she talked top reorters for a couple minutes. actually i just saw her walk by right now so 's probably out to do another hit because once the white house starts feeling good stair awe sanders can come out and ta to ople. right now she's out yet again going to talk to rep iortea few minutes. >> woodruff: keep your ear to the ground or however you get that information at the white house yamiche. we're going to be coming back to you throughout the night. i'm going to go to jeffrey brown as we said is hanging out with democrats but i think we have a call first to make, a projection. here we go. north dakota.

heidi heitkamp who is running for re-election. the democrat has gone down to defeat. it's projected she would go don to defeat to the republican congressman kevin cramer. this is one that hado loked difficult for heidi hide cam going back -- heitkamp a number of weeks. north dakota is a state that has been long ago it was a state that sent democrats and republicans to waon but increasingly it is increasingly republican. and i believe heidi hid heitkams the statewide elected democrat annow there won't be an elected democrat in the state of north dakota. we were watching for washington kevin cramer the winner in north dakota. jeffrey brown, that can't be good news for t.e democ they may have some other things to be happy about but maybe not rth dakota.

>> maybe hn'e couhear me. >> it's an interesting time he in the last 20 minutes half hour, i can't hear your discussion but it seemed like things were slagging a little bit here. one aide i was speaking to earlier i said how are you doing anonhe said well i know i feel good when i look over here and i don'feel good when i look over there. but in the last 20 minutes or so i mean you have it at least heri in building music got louder when they started announcing many more for democrats in all kind of states and they got excited abo wisconsin, kansas, florida,lo ing good. so the crowd starts cheering

more and music going up. there is music flowing i can tell you that. the polls went down a little bit so i'm going to go a little bit with momentum swing for the moment. >> woodruff: jeffrey brown trying to hear above the music and alcohol or a little bit of alhol at the democratic. >> stevey wonder. the music's gotten better, judy. >> woodruff: jeffrey brown our arts and music critic able to appreciate the celebratory atmosphere at least about some of tonight's reults i think is fair to say. mark shields, we were talking earlier about moderates and moderates in theepublican nkrty has faifde faded away i ti er time and now we're seeing moderates in the democratic party go down tnight, some of them. >> i think it's tough to make a

case tmebody who was going to be 60/40 in his or her party is first of all is going to risk immediately aa primary cllenge. and the energy and the activity and the ney is on the polls of the two party. i mean if you're going to raise money it's a lot easier to raise money as a very liberal democra and it's easier to raise money as a very conservative republican. take heidi heitkamp in north dekota who had a record that was certainly more mte than most democrats, in that state election day dona trump was 60/39 favorable. th's a pretty impressive number. in the last gallop poll before the election he was 40% favorable nationally. so you lotok north dakota you have a president who is at 60-39, that's a mountain to

climb. you can make the case losing house seats that donald trump'si coat tls he's wearing a tank toh but in nokota he had real coat tails. i know it's a greatl. vis >> we have an important senate race to call. ted crnguz holn to his senate seat in the state of texas spending off the very shall we say the darling of the democratic party beto o'rourke who was all over the state, raised a lot of money, got a lot of attention. gave ted cruz i think it's fair to say a run for the money but right now with 23% of thete being counted or precincts reportin the projection is that ted cruz will hang on toa that set. here's another call. this is a house call in t

state of pennsylvania another one of those philadelphia lsuburbs but itooks like has flipped from i think marty nodstein the republican the democrats a winner her name is susan wild. this is a district i think democrats were optimistiwothey d be able to flip and they are able to do it. but i do want to come back to texas. do we have another race to call? here we go. this is a house seat in th state of wisconsin. that's right.ul yan, so this is a hold for the republicans. brian style or is it steel u i -- 12e8, i want to get it right. defeating a democratic. it is brian style, my apologies. we've got more than 8 0% of the vote and we are able to project the republicans will hold on to that seat. i think those are the calls.

crisckris kobach i wat to come k to what donald trump said about ted cruz in 2016 they were running against each otheror president. i know they've kissed and made up figura÷ speaking since then but it is quite the turn around and the president was there campaigning fo him a helped ted cruz fend off a frious challenge. >> yes, myavorite part of that is whether he was up on stage,es the ent said he is not lyinged the anymorelyg neg ted s beautiful ted. picking up four or five points against the guy who run against cruz, his entire campaign many 700,000. you talk about the effect of money and sometimes it's not as much as you you think.

>> woodruff: david it does say something about parties getting their hopes up about making a change.y >> almost evo or three years there is an almost blue wave in texas and i'll believe it when i see its. this race determined who had lawn signs in ann arbor, but texas is preitty much stll texas. >> woodruff: robertsta, our host of washington week in review and inthe intrepid washington post reporter, following the races. what do we see so far? >> so far judy top operatives from around the country says the pay has had tgh defeats in suburban areas, but the president's base holn in rural and ex-urban areas, which

is an uplifting, note, but the mocrats are coming back. >> woodruff: and how much are they attributing what's happening to president trump or not? >> they attribute it to president trg ump rallyhe republican base, the ability to fend off this democratic bluewa in several areas, in part is attributed not only to president trump but to the economy and the strengths of the economy but the democrats have seen the trump base is still there, for joe donnelly who struggled tonight but the democrats have seized on things like health care. fa really positive nig democrats on that signature issue. >> woodruff: we've had some discussion tonight bround our table about how soon the 2020 election is going to get underway, when the president comes out and makes comments,

what are your senses on that? >> it's an open field in the democratic party. what we're going to havto pay attention to judy in the coming weeks, wt happens in the leadership in the house of representatives with this new upended house of representatives. for republicans retiring house speaker paul ryan who wil heading for the exit, will they go behind the trump t, the majority leader when they plot their oe?wn fut >> woodruff: the role, will president trump have a role as those leadership decisions get made? by the way we have not called the house, for the democrats yet. we know th trend seems to be moving that direction. but i'm curious about wh the president can play a role in those leadership decisions? h the president stis a tight grip over the gop and he could put his hand on the scle to make sure that kevin

mccahy asends as speaker ryan leaves congress. but you see the republicans and the conservative movement have a real reckoning in the coming months as he president tries to work with democrats. leader pelosi she's making overture to president trump at m thment on prescription drugs andru infraure. victories on the courts, regulation tax cuts, will they get wary of the president as many he in history. where it's interesting there's also the perspective that the president, i think there's indication coming out what wee have beenaring from the white house, in recent days, the president may want to run against the house as he tries to catapult himself to reelection. working with democrats at timesl bu working against the house simultaneously.

>> you're going tosee president trump try to use house democrats as ale vol democrats will try use president trump as a foil in 2020. what happens, the real question, in 201 can they get anything done, then start to battle each otheer ahad of the presidential election. 2020 is a year of choosing, potential bipartisanship if the democrats don't want to move immediately against president trump and trying to cut a deal with him at the same time knowing he has a history of notl ys being a ideologi ideological politician. c now let's turn to our

colleagues, lisa desjardins and amna nawaz. amna back to you. >> race after race av race,th e were all the vulnerable house incumbents.ht republicans fig for their seats or seats that democrats could potentially pick up. w lisa what ar seeing now in terms of a pattern? >> we saw early, carlos carbello was forecasted to move his race, since then we have seen republican incumbents go against them. keith rostak lost to connor lam. we are getti into x's. there is a loto fill in. what this also means on these folks right here for whom there

is no check or x these races are close. >> that's right, still waitingto ee those fill np if you look to the minnesota map right now, minnesota three lisa we saw earlier was one of those places, there was an incumbent republican who lost that seat, th f has beipped oblue. what are you seeing when you look at the map? >> minnesota we see one state in the country where we see mocrats on defense. see these districts? these are districts that are open, they have left one in campaign for governor. i think minnesota three, yeah we can call up the results this jane lewis and look at this, 50-50, amazing. hhis is a jason lewis, former conservative talkw host. these two have run against each

other, angie craig, who is a lesbian and mother of i think four, she is an interesting character trying to do this agn, right now e is within sights of her goal in a suburban district. >> first district in minnesota what are we seeing here so fr? >> here we see the opposite right? i want to remind everyone this was a demt.ocratic distr all right, so if jim haggedorn the republican continues to hold this lead this would be a republican house flip. they don't have manys opportunitr that this year but this is one they may take advantage of. y is is a reapressive race, this man has run for this seat three different ties an he's up against a very strong democratic contender, bronze star leader. >> we want talk about the balance of power so far, filling in realtime, lisa, what we are seeing there, a lot of red. >> it's close rlly, it's really close and people can't

zoom in but can on your computer, but you can on your website, this is all california. so that is good for democrats potentially. >> this is going to fill in in realtime, going to throw it to judy. >> amna and lisa thank you ve we're going to talk to someone who is wating tonight's results, chair of the democratic party tom perez. from democratic headquarters in downtown washington. by our count there are no 13 seats in the house that have flipped, from republican to democrat. tom perez, what do you make of the results so far? what do you see? >> well we're going to take the house jud's ust a matter of when. the polls will close in a littl wht in california. if you are in line stay in line. make sure you vte becse we've got opportunity there. you look around the country. you see the ra utah where we have an opportunity.

somebody has to, what's the matter with kansas? the answer it's rning democratic, not only as the congressional level but we election of laura kelly. crech en witmer the -- gretchen whitmer e governor-elect of michigan. there is no doubt about it,'v got close races in wisconsin, maine, florida, georgia. but we have become a 50-state party again. southu look at the race in dakota right now, a guy named billy sutto chas thehance to be the next governor there. one thing we did thisear judy is we had that 50-state footprint. we expanded the electorate. we reached out to people who frankly we should have toouk tao before but we didn't. that's a shame on us moment. that's we have done so much better, we talked tol foks. obviously excited about the

house of representatives. we need gardrails on this president. we need to protect people in these position he, medicare c, medicaid, social security and the house majority is going to do just ts. >> woodruff: tom perez, now that the democrats go forward, two networks predicted that the democrats wit dill othat, fox ao nbc, is thig to be a fight to the finish tall way to 220? >> we warrant -- all the way to 2020? we want to talk about infrasucture iprovements people in well paying jobs jectowledge things like pro labor agreements that are win-win solutions. these are things that ouht to be bipartisan issues. because the number one issue for voters today judy was health care. i worked for senator kennedy in

the mid-90s. we had divided goverental in the mid-90s after the 90 elections, we were able to get .hings do i know that nancy pelosi and others on the democratic side of the house they want tmove forward for people, that's what people want. they don't want to go tod at night wondering if they're going to lose theirealth care or get a quality public education. they want result and that's wha we're going to fight for is results and accountability. >> woodruff: so jus quick postscript, i'm told that all networks, cbs, nbc, fox, several networks have now caled the democrats taking over the house. if thaas what happens republicans keeping the senate, i'm told, i want to make sure i'm hearing, i'm reporting correctly, what i'm hearing? a number of -- so we're -- the is republicans will keep the senate, democrats will take control of the house.

but my question is: where are peopse going te cooperation? you mentioned infrastructure, you ensepreexisting conditions. but we haven't seen this cooperation before now. where it going to begin? >> we have proposals, i heard donald trump and i heard some ou these icans in their closing arguments saying oh no no no, we really want to protect people with preisng conditions. it's really simple to do. it'sod embd in the affordable care act. so step 1 could be go to tat lawsuit that's filed in texas and get rid of it because now the department of justice is not defending that lawsuit. if you relly are serious about protecting preexisting conditions then you need to protect that critical filler of the affordable care act. and infrastructure was once a capartisan issue. and i hope it be a bipartisan issue again. because we needo repair our roads and bridges and ourtu

infrastr across this country so we are going to work on these issues. we need to come up with ar solution fur dreamers. when i was in the obamara adminion there was a bipartis immigration bill in 2013 passed the senate by a vry, very comfortable margin. we could decide to do that again and we will. >> woodruff: very quickly tox perez who is the leader of the democratic party taking over the house, is it nancy who is it? >> well, that's going to be onet of the fotes obviously that the democrats will take up. i have profound respe for leader pelosi. frankly we wouldn't have an affordable carect without nancy pelosi. she has done so much there. that wtol be up he leaders of the housing. i'm sure one question they will asve themsis given importance of health care in this mid term election who, what leader what person is best situated to ensure that wefo ow through on that critical promise that we have made to the

voters to protect access to health care, to protect medicare, medicaid and social security. that's the question that i thinp a lot oople are going to fowbs on. >>woodruff: tom perez the chairman of the democratiou party, thankery much for speaking with us, we appreciate it. >> pleasure to be with you.we >> woodruff: sre watching these returns come in and it's important to remember that il's not ony candidates that voters choose but a range of ballot initiatives. our william brangham is in the wsroom, william, john. >> hey judy that's right, there are dozenof balt initiatives all over the dhawn voters have been voting on today and they cover the gamut. there's abortion rights, votg rights, there's marijuana legalization. there's energy policy but there's one t te thahn's been looking at in particular in florida that could have a dramatic impact on the people who get to vote on that state. amendment 4. >> tonight the florida voters

have voted to amend theau constitution tmatically restore voting rights to convictfelons once they completed their sentences ad parole and any other change. this will give voting rights to 1.4 million people in florida. this is the biggest group of people to get the vote in one fell swoop since women got the vote in 1920. th s join 19 othates who automatically give the felons the voting right after they have finishedheir terms. florida had been one of only fourt sates iowa, ceknd virginia, who have given fel voting rights. >> to insert almost 1.5 million voters, we know largely black

largely brown, we know how important that is in a r presidentie. >> the governor and the senate race, it has a official change the state in a great way. it had suprt across the political spectrum, not only the aclu but th koch brothers suppod this the opponents said thi could give the undeserving back their rights. >> thisd adressed another substantial way about decisions which are are were made ton issue of grymandering. >> where they get to voas and who they get to vote for. 34 states currently have the lawmakers have the state legislatures draw the lines after every census. another one coming up in 220,

they will redraw lines in 2021. four states, michigan, colorado, utah and missouri voting whether to hand that over to some sort of commission, in one case in missouri they would appoint a state demographer, a single nonpartisan person to draw those lines. if you want to know how this affects the outcome, how it affects e outcome in the house races that are being decided tonight, michigan that one state that has it on the blood tonight, in the last in the ballot tonight, they had a trifecta, the republicans controlled the governor's office and also both house he of the state legislature, they redrew the lines. in 2016 democratihouse candidates in michigan got 49% of the vote but they only won aive of the 14 state's congressional sts. flip side is maryland, which had

a trifecta in 2010 after the 2010 census. aftethe 20 republican wave, republicans got 42% of the vote but only won one of the eight i house sea maryland. >> amazing how powerful those maps can be. john yang, thank you very much. we're going to go back to judy woodruff. >> woodruff: thank you. aclu was trying with the koch brothers. lina epstein the republican, long a republican seat it is a pickup by the democrats, to haley stevens, a former oama htaffer, she worked in the obama campaign and in treasury. we are projecting that as a win. this is a big lose f republicans. pete sessions, long time

congressman from the state of texas 32nd district going dow to democrat colin alread, a former nfl player and a lawyer. pete sest ons turned be surprisingly vulnerable up against a professioll footb player who went on to work in housing and urban development, hud under obama. another house race to call, in it 90, another prominent republican member, pete rascomb, goingwn to sean rastin, one of the chicago exurbs that hillary clinton won. amy tellings it's her home district. this is a significant, all three of these significant losses for republicans. and i think that's it for. now

david brooks with pete roscomb going down pete sessions and then that other seat, the open republan seat imichigan, we're seeing the blue -- i don't tknow if anyone who call a wave but it is a blue move, a boulevard -- >> a ripple, a giant ripple. >> a giant ripple. >> and i withdraw an oklahoma 5 which is anther suburban oklahoma city district where kedra horn looks like she's going toa bet pete russell. lmocrats do fairly we i'd love to see what the noegnco breakdown would be. >> woodruff: what do you mean? >> these are patterns we haver seen oe last several cycles, more of them, college generators, college and a little more more going republican. even if you are in suburban

dallas, suburban oklahoma city, you are in highly edcated college educated america. the other thing i just saw a fact. every time congress has flipped from one house to another it is -- an nfl player has been elected, sterve lant was one of those. >> woodruff: you just made that up! >> no. >> in oklahoma, who was the krmer -- j.c. watts. >> kemp, i donow about that. >> j.c. watts arf won guy who played professional football at the university of oklahoma. bien he played in canada. then i think thg story to me colin elroid is a civil rights lawyerad a distinguished career but he beat pete sessions who was an institution in th house. i was chair of the communication

he commitk e, you talabout the leadership being central, three of the most important members of the house when you are on the majorities and i s told today, by veromy prent republican that pete sessions was going to lose because beto oh roarke, sessions continually deal with it, o'roarke,ing he was sad about it, likes sessions enormously, as do a lot of ople. >> he can have an effect on races -- >> this is a disttrict tha hillary clinton carried as well. david said it quite well. we're going to have a country and we started off this nversation earlier tonight when i talked about we have these divisions that we ponted out in 2016 have only hardened, they have -- we exposed a lot of these divisions in the century

between rural an urban college educated noncollege educated, these dis picking up in the house almost all of them were won by hillary clinton. and are they do share this in common they are wel educated, their eltorate is well educated, many cases these are very afloournt areas. in many cases these are places where mitt romney cared. you look at the numbers for how hillary clinton did the there, how the governor's race went there, this was a districmitt romney carried not that long ago. we are seeing is realignment in essence, of the house, an impact on the house, what it means for 2020 is a whole differently story. >> republican. >> woodruff: it would best integ to see how far left or how moderate these are,

corinne jeanpierre, it would be interesting how moderate these are. >> it is true beo o'rourke won so slrongly, he isso going to probably help turn some state legislature seats as well. colin alread, we endord him, civil rights lawyer, we meaning move on. he was a progressive candidate running against petee sssions the incumbent. there are a couple of other congressional districts in deep red texas who hd some progressive bone afiedz bona fis

bona fides. >> happened inedistricting they had an uphill climb this year again as were talking about, these are districts that hillary clinton won.so anwhat i keep seeing is that the congressional districts are realigning themselves with their congressional representation along the lines of how they voted in the last election. >> woodruff: all right let's connect is to the bigger plan let's go bam to amna and lisa. c> looking at the democra pickup that text district, you were mentioning earlier, not the t pickup inhe deep red state. >> that is another one of the important races, john culberson, losing, she was in a very tough

battle in this race to evn get to this point, up against a progressive candidate in a very tough primary that went into a runoff to even get to this point. another place to look is alsomi igan, mitch 11th and we've been hearing from the table, haley stevens, i like to talk about is case amna because you talk about national trends,his is a battle royale about the auto industry, harry stevens, epstein owns an auto parants cothat is part of the auto industry and here we have the democrat in auto country and that could be significant for 2020. >> this of cour to the democrats as a pickup. one of the other races you are trackings a key race michigan as well, michigan 13 and here you have this as well. >> obviously this was not a contestede, rachat rashidad.

ta moment in history, she has now become the most muslic am woman in congress. significant, there are only two muslims in congress right now, keith ellison has left, there is another one who wiloin her to become one of the first muslim american woman in congress. >> not just who is winning but how they are winning and what kind of shapes everyone is seeing emerge. this is a margin of victory for these camdidates. >> i getting peckish now. i am seeing this sideways ice cream sundae. more democra are winning by a wired margin. what these means, generally

unopposed, is what we'reeeing. democrats put up more candidates against republicans, that is a 50 point win, a huge win, butn new for of these republicans, you still see many of the republican races ithe middle being called. basically it's close. a reminder, mocrats want to pick up 23 race he, we've talked about those clinton races, places where clinton won, 23 exist, 23 replican districts that were won by hillary tsinton, exactly what democ need. >> that is updating in real time. back to you judy. >> woodruff: all right and thank you both and let's turn once again to special correspondent jeff efnl greenfi, democrats taking control of the house, republicans control of the senate. what does that look like to you? >> the first thing it looks like to is that after $5 billion

worth of ads and entire forest level to print what's left of the print paper, we are where we were a year ago. the first term general sistorical precedent of the president's party . but what i would come back to is what i started with. all rightnow wat? and my feeling is, we are going to see a continuation of a very unpleasant political envinment. one thi we haven't mentioned is most of the losses or many of the losses of the rpublicans are relatively moderate incumbents, kaufman in colorado, means the repcan caucus would be more to the right than it is now. the freedom party morin the republican caucus than it does now. that doesn't strike meas the necessary formula for cooperation with ara dem

majority that includes some rstbers who think that the fi order of business ought to be impeach the president of the united states. it would be difoficult nancy pelosi whoever the leader of the democrats to rein that in. something otr than an enormously polarized process. the margin of f victory,u take the democratic house votes and subtract the republican votes, roughly 30 seats, in 2010 when the republican prality was 7% they won 60 plus seats. some of that is gerrymandering, a lot of this is incdes dering. it's going to increase the feing that the people voed for us. senate races in relatively red country that prevented us from caitaking over. i hate toe pessimistic.

i'm an optimistic guy. but i can't see the pathway to where more civil compromise exists. >> woodruff: i think you're right, basically an optimist. we're going to have to keep taki your temperature throughout the evening jeff. >> another thing that would hearten th democrats depending on the outcome of some of thesee or races, a mass itch shift of power, a few years ag, to the democrats who will and this has profound political consequences. ae have apportionment environment labor. that may be the big story of the f:ght. >> woodro question about it, we need to look at it, we will continuto, a number of these big races, governorships, jeff greenfield, thank you so much, we will be coming toou now i think we have a race to call, arizona too, ann kirkpatrick the democrat picking up a republican seat. is this the martha mcsally

seat? >> gabie giffords, who was verys tragicalt and wound he and had to step down.r ann atrick taking that seat from leah mquez patterson. another call in the state of ohio, big disappointment for the democrats. mike de wine, defeating richardordway, a democrat. the governor stepping down term limited, many think he may run for president, but nocertain of that at all. but he did step down from the governorship. mike de wine, a fixture in ohio politics, lieutenant, or attorney general i'm sorry. >> attorney general now but he was lieutenant governor. he was united states senator, he

was elected to the house of representatives in ronald reagan's first term. you talk about crebility. >> woodruff: when he was in washington as a members of e-is now elected governor,d richrdway head of the consumer protection bureau under president obama, put a lot of hope in him. >> abstolutely. nk it's fair to say, favored. this i think is a trump story. trump carried ohio by nin, e poinio has never -- has once voted for a losin presidential candidate. it is now a more red state than the others have been. i mean i think this locks it in as a -- u know, sherwood brown the democratic senator woul wo reelection but republicans own columbus in the state hou>>.

think it's still true every senate seat has fallen to the republicans and every house seat has flipped to the democrats. ohio, florida, georgia, these ure places where democrats hope to pick p governor's pangs he but they aren't going to haveth of the three probably. >> woodruff: although the night is still -- >> young. >> woouff: not young but some races [simultaneous speech] remains distance. >> woodruff: so i'm looking at all this, chris buskirk cblg i'o going toe back to you. what does it mean if wes e moderates in the democratic party? >> i want to be a little contrary, because in act it becomes easier to do certain things which i know is prob

the opposite of what people think. but there is a certain sense of there's a sandoff that takes place and both sides can go back on place he, intrfrture is a good example,ton perez has been talking about that, it may be easy to oget something on infrastructure that are noncontroversial, a place where both sides can go back and latok he voters and say you know what we do america first deal if you are a freedom caucus member or we do a jobs deal if yu are bernie sanders. >> woodruff: it is counte, ntuitive corinen you have people moving to the outer edges on both parties. >> it is going to be tough because we have to reember why democrats were able to take back the houses, peiople --e i said i went to orange county, california, i went to dallasi went to georgia over the weekend, and a lot of peo while they cared about health care, they cared about the

economy, it was clear theyu wanted the h to be a check on this president. so it's going to beeally hard for democrats in the house to now say they're going to lead -- ey want -- not democrats in the house but the people who support them to sy they are roing to support their candidates or thlected officials to work with republicans when that was one of the huge reasons that thegot put into those seats in the first place. woodruff: amy. >> yes, except some of theseru democrats arning on the message of we need to fix stuff in washington. we don't want any more fihting. we want to focus on solutions, i'm a problem-solver. so there is going to be a big disconnect between many of the democrats who are coming to washington many of whom arel brand-new to pics, they haven't run for anything before and there's going to be a tremendous amount of preure on guess what you don't get to be an independent when you are part

of a caucus, there is a team ane yo to be a team player. and that's not what theyn r they didn't run with a big fat i'm a democrat flashing ove their heads. very few of them ran ads that explicitly called out donald trump. many of them adsaying wan't wait to impeach donald trump. many of them ran ads that say i'm not voting for nancy pelosi. this is, they ran in districts that hillary clinton carried oar barack obama carried. making very little inroads to places where trump hada crried. still these are districts that have republican dna and if they want to hold onto them they can't do that by moving too far to the left. >> woodruff: i think we have a call to make in the state of minnesota many, tim walls, the democrat defeating jeff johnson,

the republicad is is one we have been watching. this is what, with 49% of the vote reporting, this was mark dayton's -- >> he was term limited. >> woodrf: term ited but this is a hold for the democrats. and one more to calm. vernor of new mexico, this is also aold for -- >> this is easy martine >> michelle luhan grirch, both of them -- griffin, both of them serving in the house that is a pickup for democrats. with that we're going tothask you stay with us. we'll take a quick break now, some stations e ll giv update on your arein others, amna nawaz announces the summary

of house winners. >> we're taking a few minutes tonight to introduceviewers to some of the new faces heading to washington for the first time. republican anthony gonzalez will represent ohio's 16th district in the u.s. house of representatives. gonzalez laid in the nfl for indianapolis colts and the new england patriots but before that he was the star receiver for ohio state football. he entered politics for the first time. he be t outsan palmer to beat out jim renaisi, the district includes a mix of rural areas and cleveland and canton areas. electing renaisi in 2016 by a 3i

point ma >> anthony gonzalez was a first round pick in the 2007 nfft dra and played for five seasons for in.anapolis colts in his campaign the wide receiver turned republican congressional candidate targeted ohio state football fans by remiing them that he had once played for yecs, he even announcing a football game. >> from me playing for buckeyes, my family is thankful to liv the american dream, grit, tenacity, hard work, that's how we succeeded and that's the values of northeast ohio families live every day. >> after anee injury, he worked first at a silicon valley startup then i his family's eel business. i'm not a career politician, i april a conservative, one, universal god given rights for all individuals in this country. two a limt ited governmose

primary purpose is to secure and defend those rights and three a free enterprise stem much that we can exercise our rights productively. >> within a month of announcing his candidacy he had raised more than $500,000, some of which from his temmates, including colts quarterback peyton manning. he promised he wouldn't alwvoays the party line. he said he would vote no for the affordable care act. but he credits the gop tax cuts hir growing the economy, republican leade has given businessmen rean to be optimistic. >> i feel like i have peyton madge as quarterback and yu every play. that's exactly the type of business envonment we need in this country. >> one of the few professional athletes touchdown in congress.

♪ ♪ ♪ >> woodruff: welcome bk to r pbs news hour election night special. i'm judy woouff in washington. it is now 11 p.m. on the east coast. polls have now closed in 49 states.oi we are jned at the table by all night with oura pl mark shields, david brooks, amy walter, jeanpierre, and chris oi the on- journal, american greatness. we will check in with public media reporters across the testsry watching these co wore watching.ch

our yaalcindor is at the white house, and jeffrey brown is with the democrats here in washington. let's turn tul res with clocks striking 11:00 in the east. here areesults both parties were biting their fingers over. governor of florida. hold for the republicans.ro desantis defeating the mayor of tallahassee andrew gillum. many democrats placed hopes on him being the first afhcan-american governor of state of florida. 99% of the vote. in it's 50% to 49% at this point.r it'sjected that ron desantis will be thene win andrew gillum has conceded to desantis. in the state of minnesota tina smith holds onto her seat. she was appointed after al frank

en stepped down. accusations made against him in the me too movements. she holds onto her seat defeating karin housley the republican. in illinos we are loking at a house race, lauren underwood. this is a pick up if i'm not mistaken. a big pick up. laurennderwood woked in the obama administration and has a nursing degree. she has defeated randy hultgren. in the state of hawaii this is d mazie hirono the democratic incumbent prominent during the kavanaugh confirmation hearings. she holds onto her seat. holding of "challenge from the

republican curtis. for governor of hawi. david ige. i'm sorry if i don't pronounce at correctly. he is elected governor. holding that seat for democrats defeating the republican andria tupola. and one more race to call. in the state of california calf thdemocrats holding onto the se. jerry brown was governor and n.en again, he has stepped dow gavinwsom. defeated john cox, not a surprise. to all of you. to david bros, not a particular surprise but a big -- we didn't call for it. we called the florida. we haven't called florida senate. we called floor nowhere. govern that's a disappointment for

democrats. >> yes. that and the georgia race are history making potentially not to be thi >> if i'm a democrat i have to move out city and the suburbs and go someplace. you have to understd the institutional structure. the democrats up over all nie. democrats flock together more than republica do. they are concentrated and that's bad competing in the senate. we maybe in a position where republicans have a history where nothing is forever but have a good position in the senate for a ways to come and democrats have a position in the house. >> mark shield.t >> no take on david's relocation program. [laughing] >> redistribution across the country. >> i just want them to move out of mygh nerhood. >> they feel the same weigh, i tell you that. when you say th democrats to win back the house needed to carry the nation by more thn

6%. now it's called the house of representatives. if that doesn't tell you something about the drawing of the lions. john and william had a discussion earlier about what maryland did in redistricting. it was done after 2010, across the country to the point where in ohio a state that is other/50. it has been aeather vein state, the republicans had three out of four house seats. that's wrong and unfair, it's unrepresentative. i really do think that -- i hope that it was on the ballot in several places to day that we won't go to a more equitable system. an iowa type system. an arizona type system. there is a fare rdistricting. i do. you shouldn't have to win ten percent more votes to getalf of the seats in the congress of

ahe united states. >> goingck to the florida governor race here is a little clip what andm rew gild to say. i'm corrected we don't quite have it yet. we wi al bridrew gillum to you in a minute. amy, whiethes relocating democrats or something else some of what they're trying to do is not working yet. >> some of what democrats areng tro do. early in the ear that's the line we used at the political reporter. the chances of democrats taking the house were long. one of two things eded to happen. they needed to have a relocation program to get voters out of the suburbs or president trump needed to be parcularly unpopular. they didn't move the voters. they have a unpopsiar prent, especially in these concentrated areas. i do agrdee with davi, this is a bigger challenge for democrats. you get more and more people

flocking in to these inner ring suburbs.mo feweng out. virginia is changing that a little bit. we will see the resulit. s, it takes a longer time for that to take affect change the state. the bur bergonih suburbsnged virginia. it hasn't changed georgia, north carolina, texas or arizona. those are the places democrats thought by now they would be in better contention the demographics are holding up, younger voters and the surban vote. it's not enough to hold off or make up for th republican hold in those places. >> now i'm told we do have a clip of andrew gillum in mak a concession speech in atlanta. let's listen to that. rd.we let our voices be hea

we didn't slink from the shrinke challenges or the power. we spoke trth to power. just because we didn't come out victorious we didn't retreat. we st sood up,ood strong, we spoke out. because we recognize we have power too. >> andrew gillum spking. he was not atlanta that's another state. he was in tallahassee. the capitol city of florida andw also ciich he is the mayor. coming back to you,arine, we don't have a relocation program in this country now. democrats have to wait. it is really interesting to see what these candidates were trying to do even if they fell short. what lessons they may of learned for the future. >> yes, it's heartbreaking you had o'rourke making that race

competitive. a senate race we didn't think would be competitive. it's been 25rs since a democrat has won state wide in texas. you had gillum doing the same and stac abrams in georgia. they were energizing the base. florida specifically it's complicated. it's like five states one. it's not a easy state to break through. the demographics are changing. two years ago donald trump won by the same percentage point of desantos. it's going to take som time. i think what democrats have learned this time around is that it good to have authenticeal candidates talking about the issue, and not to run away from that at the end of the day this was a midterm election. the amount of people thashowed

up for democrats. it's presidential numbers, close to presidential numbers. >> should be proud of. that. chriswhat are people seeing in a race like a florida or a texa >> seeing the trump base is still there. this was not, there was no stop of donald trump in the party or nation wide. that a lot of donald trump's policies represent a restoration of his torics. prebush era priorities. whatever peoples miss givings aroppe turn up for donald trump. when he's at the top of the ticket you have tnder if the close races wouldn't of gone the other way. there will be rematches in two years. >> looking at florida. woodruff: we don't see this

as a warning sign for the ture, the close of the race? >> florida is like that, it always seems to be. it's one percent being a lot. >> do we have anything on the florida senate race? >> woodruff: do we have any. no call yet on the floterida seace. that means it's close. >> really close and closer -- woodruff: senator nelson. bill nlson. i'm told we do have a house result this. is not, not what we were just lking about. new york 22. >> that's a big one. >> a big one. woodruff: decrat anthony brindisi holding off claudio tenney. think i got ten e-mails a day from claudia teny telling me about her district. >> that is a trump district. >> one of the other districts he

won in new york. >> woodruff: yes. yamiche is at the white house. the house is going democratic, appears to be without all of the counts in. therare good news reports tonight for the president. definitely good things for the president here. he's sitting and watching with friends and families a few feet fromife. ou look at the florida race president trump went to floridam and caigns for ron de santos. it was a close race and co controversial. democrats were trying to turn out votes of young voters of color and puerto rican voters coming after hurricane marie afplt the pesident's message stuck and carried ron de tntos ove line there. sanders was out talking a moment ago and said the president feels

good about the he could get another supreme court justice through if the republicans hold onto that. i asked sara sanders about the house and whe pther theresident felt nervous about what was going on in the house with the democrats picking up the seats. she said the president is opein and ing to work with the president. the democrats need to come to washington being serious about passing legislation. so you have them tting the ownness on democrats. >> wdruff: if there is something for the white house to worry about there is something to celebrate. i think you can say thefo same democrats. let's go quickly to jeffrey own watching and listening to democrats in washington dc. ff, what are they celebrating, what are they worried about? >>i think hear you. i wish we had more of a -- e

last half hour, you know cheers d drinks. they got what they wanted here. as i was telng you all night long a lot of clear mood swi tns ings went up and down. it wasn't so real where it would land. watching the crude and talking with people i guess i feel more relief at this point and they got what they wanted. >> woodruff: they did get what they wanted. >> even the last half hour we had moments they watched and saw disappointing results. as in the florida governor race. a miged niht over all. you can put a sense in the room as it goes up and down. o woodruff: jeff, any sen speakers or are they partying the night away?

[laughing] >> woodruff: apologies. we love the music in the background. it's hard to compete with that.r jeffren holding down the for the for the pbs newshour in downtown washington with the democrats. jeffrey, thank you. we will come back to you before the night is over. i want to come back to dvid and mark on a question abomo rates. do we spend too much time worrying about them or welcome to the new world of american politics period. >> you knoevery election tonight for my adlt lifetime a moderate candidate has been replaced by il -- candidates. we see less moderation in the electorate. that's a trend too. you see the lines harden for demographic

lines.wo der how college educated and uncollege educated voers went. last vote they split. this year they had a 22 point advantage to democrats. so we're very much splitting along some deep lin. racial lines. income lines. education lines.ry the cous sorting and entrenching. >> woodruff: what does that bode for the next few years, mark. w ll, i'm not sure what it does. - itnot to be on jeff greenfield's hanging pessimism but it's not for building mpromise or consensus. for democrats the argument is glen gram members of congress

and daughter of the most popular figure in modern day florida who lost. would she of won. polarizing and moderate candidate. think you could make the case she should be more formidable and de santos record would be the issue. there were 5.6 million votes casted in floorida 14. there were over 1 million cast today. that's the argument of the andrew gillum supporters gave. we wgelnerate. if bill nelson hangs onto win it's bedcause of anrew gillum's tes brought out. >> woodruff: how do you explain that. the theory going inhere was a tide behind gillum. he was going to help bring bill

nelson with him. >> cynical and skeptical. there was somethng known as te bradley affect. tom bradley was the mayor of los angeles a favorite to win. the republicans organized under george -- in that election in california. far better absentee ballot then ever done befor bradley won on election day. republicans won organizatio and getting votes in absentee. it's called the baey affect. everyone thought tom bradley would win. he didn't win. the question was people going to tell the pollsters something less candid. >> a grow. woodruff: gone through the night and not talking about race in these. we say it would of been a black governor if won. same thing with sta abrams in

georgia. we will find out, amy walter, as we looathe exit poles and talk to people. people's answers reflected and answering why they voteda certain way. >> yes the exit poles will give us data. we will have to dig through voting data before we tell the story of this election. at 2016 we found the exit poles give you a good first glae and broad outlines. it takes getting the voter files back. digging into those, matching up the acndtual votes to uerstand where the groups of folks voted. to me struck me as i was coming into the election i wrote about a couple of weeks ago that the last nbc wallstreet journal roll, the demographics of feeling of donaldump mirrored the final look of the voter files o6 where voters voted had thaty hrebg.o

in other wordsyou felt about donald trump in 2016. how you voted in 2016 remained pretty much the same as how you felt about himn i 2018. so that youenow th white non college -- didn't move they dug in deeper this. is a remarkable thing. president who has decided from the very beginning. spite the fact heidn't win the popular vote. he won narrowly in the electoral college b t 10,000 votesat he was going to buckle down on his base never interested in building a broad collision. we wondered whult wohappen running in a midterm election with 44 % approval rating and very committed base. well are you seeing what is happening. these districts that went for hillary clinton that are mre

t burban that are reflexing against trump we the democrats. the deep dark red states the swing states of florida, one or two point states still stayed iu the mp camp. so>> woodruff: so even though a lot of the information is yet to be plumed you are able to pull together an analysis. >> true. woodruff: we are going to quickly go to amna andisa looking at this from a different perspective. >> thank you, dy. it's coming up on 11:30 on the east coast it's tme to take stock and look at what we will seet. lisa, this is a cool graphic. walk us through what we're seeing here. >> this is th balance of power in the house as we have it at this moment. if you look at the while circles. the red for republicans and blue

for democrats. the white are those who have flipped tonight. if it's red with a circle it was a democratic district. lock where the circles are. this is what democrats hoped to see. they're on tis sid to take over the house democrats needed to flip a net of 23 seats. theyt here yet according to our official tally. as we have mentioned these circles that we don't have results for in the grey. that's the state of calcaornia . known for often voting democratic. >> this is updatinal time on the website too. that's the edrrent count. you mentialifornia. let's look closer at that state now. >> magical stphrao just like. >> thesetricts high lighted iat. arlightedare competitive. >> california brings sen potential turn overs from seven republican districts that are vulnerable in the throw top

cagories of vulnerable districts. of the 7 targeted districts, six were won by hillary clinton. f thel it's fertile ground. seventh district the 50th district that's duncan hunter jr. voted trump but duncan hunter jr. isnder indictment. democrats think there could be a pick up there. thhot spot is orange county. that's that. >> so all of the action is not h juppening in the house elections tonight. we didn't get a chance to talk about e g picture yet but senators. locking at the close rac do we see so far. >> we're learning the fate of mbers of vulnerable me the u.s. senate. it's a mixed fate. look who is returning. we have democrats, tina spheus here in minnesota. ted cruz. fhese, these folks are, some o them here and we are locking at

the next senate. >> le's look at the red state democrats. >> yes, joh josh hawley to clae mccaskill. josh is young at 38 years old. in addition for a flip for republicans it's aal generati flip. that's something to notice in the races tonight. >> let's look at florida before we go. >> a squeaker. >> mark asked about this for good reason. lock how close. about 50,000 votes swarating the of them with everything reported. it's rick scott by 50,000 votes. who knows if the absentees are in. it's a tight race not called yet even thgh a hundred percent of the precincts are reported. >> all of those updated in real time on-line.

go to pbs.org/newshouse >> woodruff: thank you. talk about the cliff hanger. rick scott and bil nelson race is coming to an end. we're making an end debbie abenow holds onto her seat michigan. poles closed two and a half hours ago.it a little closer then some forecasted. she is defeated, projected to defeat john james a republican. an arm yvee ran. the president talked about him in michigan. it wasn't enough to john james over the finish line.we o now to the state of california calf. eesults in key house races ar starting to come in. public media reporter, paul schaefer of san francisco is

with us. hello, scott. >> hello, judy. woodruff: your poles closed not too long ago. what do you see in the hous? ra >> well the results arew really -- so ftes in. we know there is a lot of voter intere more than 4 million people voted before today. we had 78 of eligible voters registered. t that's the highr a midterm election since 19506789 we know from preelection poles especially races in orange se.nty are very, very clo california has relatively liberal rules about countingot ba those postmarked today and come in by friday will have to be counted. we could have a third ballots ouigtanding after ton so it could be a long time before we know who wins ese seats. >> of course you have your work cut out for you. california has more congressional districts then any other states. i think it's 53.

>> right. woodruff: you have more than half a dozen, a good dozen to keep a watch on. i wanted to ask about the senat we called the governor's race for gavin newsom. do i an feinstein, some were not sure she would run again. she is running, did run, is running. look at this number. it's very very early. this is, i can't read it. 5% ofhe vote but it's expected she will hold on against kevin de leon. >> yeshis is a case two of democrats running. kevin is a democrat from los angeles. do i an feinstein is so welknl n. has the money. i don't even think kev was on tv. didn't have the funds to get his message out. >> woodruff: the house races watching some in ore untry.

i remember being in orange county for ronald reagan and it was red as red could be. >> yes. there is a large change of demographics. latino immigrants. llary clinton won the county. first time a democrat did that since 1936 with fdr. it's changing. these are not easy pick ups for democrats. they're in play and they could flip, some of the's y no means a sure thing for democrats >> woodruff: alright. that report from california. we will come back to you when we can. keeping an aye on the california senate race. we will see what happens. it's expected ne feinstein will hold on. think we have a race now to call. yes, we do. the senate race in the state of washington where the poles

closepollsclosedl haf hour ago . is a hold marcaia well she is holding onto the seat defeated republican susanutchison. 62% of the vote. in a significant margin. maria canptwell was exted to hold on comfortably. in new jersey a house race. a house race we're watching closely. this is a pck upr the democrats. tom mainowski defeated leonard lance sy erving manars in the house. tom is being declared the winner. at is one more move in thismo atic ripple that david brooks -- >> ander tow. >> this is looking less ripply. woodruff: this is bigger than a ripple.

a serious pick up for democrats. oklahoma 5 kendr horn defeated steve russel. it's a close race. the fact that the democrats have found victory in this red state. my birth state. i know it wel.l it is a red state this. is significant. >> yes.n this isher place we will talk about the money in the races. a lot by sall donors helping to boost democrats. a couple of thesse ditricts fell off the radar. a guy nammichael bloomberg spent a lost money in places like illinois. the seat we talked about, lauren underwood won and this district in oklahoma that nobody paid attention too. they went into these races and dumped a ton of money the last minute and caught republicans that were not quite frankly taking the race if they took the races serious enough or were not able to

respond. we will see if they were successful in georgia as well in places where pwhropl berg went up with his super pack for a number of ads w. druff: interesting point to make. we have one more call to make in iowa thi is aick up for the democrats in iowa. abby finenaur defeating the incumbent rod blum. this is the northeastern state corner of washington. abby potentially the second member of congress assuming alexander cortez wins. they're both 29 or 30. very young. y s, under 30. woodruff: you only have to be at that to serve in the u.s. house of representatives. not that young. [laughing] >> thato yung.

>> you. woodruff: chris, iowa, oklahoma. pick ups fodemocrats. what do you make of that. >>i yes. s talking about earlier it's tough to get the wave of the election. you can get your opponent sleeping. a lot of money spent in a telligent way. mike bloomberg did it i think he caught republicans a sleep at the switch in some of the districtbo you think the lessons for people to take away. everyone will try to tak the macro lessons away likere blicans did wrongly after 2012. one thing is targeted money can be effective -l jeff is joining us from new york. you looked dood and gloomed about the future of the country. where are you no? >> i have had complete change of heart. no, look i think you have to take reality for what it is.

i think the rhetoric about we want to cooperate is just not relevant or not appropriate or not accurate given the kids of politics we have been playing. by the way speaking of i don't know if this is a heart warming story. remember the arizona congressman whossiblings cut an ad against him. he won by a landslide. to the point i'm getting at what are the mechanisms. i would love to be proven wroth. perhappresident will bring in chuck, nancy pelosi and the new repubhecan leader. aid maybe his tone could of been softer. i'm justaying there ar two years. >> if you know donald trump from new york and several decades of evidence this is not

his natural fot. maybe he will be changed. maybe he will say i couldo something if i wasn't the kind of person whose been at thef thoets my opponents my whole life.ic my skem comes from watching the guy. i would love to hear what the argument is that donald trump won't be donald trump. look imagine what he would of done runing on the economy, ogram.nfrastructure p if he didn't say the democrats were not only wrong but eager t bring in criminals to the united states and under mine our way o life. maybe he will change. 's possible. put me down as a skeptic. waoefplt we're marking you down as a skeptic from doom and gloom. what if from a progress sieve stand point, jean-pierre, if

nancy pelosi and schumer went to the white house and tried to cut deals. how would that be received in the democratic party. >> i think it would be problematic. you have a president spending the last two years pushing divisive legislation, policies, we are dealing wittih immig. we are dealing with children being separated at the borr. now being in detention centers. we aret dealing wh a lost things not going away that the president is doubling down on. i can't imagine that the base would be okay with that. we have to take care of those things first before we can een deal with the working with dold trump. >> mark shields working with the democratic party for a long ti, how do you seet? i think i see that the democrats ought to take somee heart in fact that if, if the founding

fathers had thir way the country would be entirely red. >> woodruff: mark, i will oterrupted you. >> it'skay, judy. it's your show. woodruff: nancy pelosi is speaking now in downtown washington let's take a listen. >> it's all about the children. i want to before iank you all mercifully i want to thank my colleagues and acknowledge their leadership and presence here. [cheers and applause] >> our distinguished whipfromry nd. [cheers and applause] >> assistant leader of south carolina. [cheers and applause] >>lso let's assume they're all distinguished bobbie scott of virginia. [cheers and applause] >> and eschew of califnia.

[cheers and applause] >> t.k. of north carina. [cheers and applause] >> -- of california. [cheers and applause] >> -- of texas. [cheers and applause] >> karin of california. [cheers and applause] >> don buyer of virginia. [cheers and applause] >> and brendan boil of pennsylvania. heers and applause] >> we all join in thanking all of you. many of you are our vips. our real vips. our volunteers in politics. women and men mobiling in historic numbers to see what that gop was doing and refused to stand still. every call you made, door you knocked, text you sent, every conversation you had made the difference between winning and losing in this election.

thanks to you we owned the ground. thanks to you. [cheers and applause] >> thanks to you tomorrow will be a new day in america. [cheers and applause] >> remember this feeling, knowo the power t win. [cheers and applause] >> and almost allla congraons that dynamic diverse incredible candidates who have taen back th house for the american people. let's usalute all! [cheers and applause] >> today is more oan abut democrats and republicans. it's about restoring the constitutions checks and balances to the trump administration. [cheers and applause] >> it's about stopping the gop and what mitch mcconnell has done to medicare, medicaid,

affordable care act, healthcare of 130 million americans working with preexisting conditions. let's hear it more for preexisting medical conditions. [cheers and applause] >> it's not ening wealthy interest free reign over washington.th more than ang it's about what a new democratic majority will meann the lives of hard working americans. [ applause ] [cheers and applause] >> that's what its about. democrats pledge to congress that works for the people. for the people. lower the cost oflt heare by lowering the cost of prescription drugs, raise worker wages with strong ecoowmic rebuilding infrastructure of america, clean up washington to make it work for all americans. we will take very stong legislative action to legislate

ask negotiate down the price control of prescription drugs hurting seniors and families across america. who will deliv a transformational investment inn americanrastructure to create more good paying jobs. rebuilding roads, bridges, schools, water, broadband networks, schools, housing and beyond. we will drain the swamp of interest money. when we do america has greater confidence for all tha* government works on for our children when they know the peoples interest will prevail not the dark specialn iterests. and stark contrast to the gop congress the democratic congress will be lead with trans rent see antranstransparanceyand opeh

the membe of congress and the president of the united states. we will have accountability and strive for b wpartisan shth fairness on all sides. we have a responsibility to find our common ground where we can stapd our ground and where we can't but we must try. we will have a bipartisan marketplace of ideas that make our democracy strong. a democratic congress will work for solutions to bring us together. becae we have all had enough of division. [cheers anapplause] >> woodruff: we'ng listeo house minority leader nancy pelosi who will play some roll, we expect, in the ledership of the new house of representatives with the democratic majority ojected by all the news organizations. we hear her speaking about, healthcaeexisting

conditions, working across party lines to get something done on infrastructure, ending division l washington, sheso talked about accountability, holding public owe tpurbldz accountable which would be a reference to the president i'm here at our table. just a few miles away from where nancy pelosi is speaking in downtown washington at a hotel. mainterrupted you. >> you did. woodruff: apologies to go to nancy pelosi. we wanted to hear what she had to say. >> absolutely. woodruff: is it your sense this is any mssage from democrats tonight in what she ticulated here? >> it's what she said during the campaign. a consistent theme from her. i will say wis no. the most important election the country faces, the democrats face between now and the presidential primary race is the election of a leader in the

house. if nancy pelosi is not elected in my judgment is the most effective speak neer my lifetime then she will be subplanted by someone more of anf ntationallist. whatever nan pelosi is she's a grown up. i like john boehner personally. he couldn't carry her school ba. i will say this the democrats if the founding fathers had prevailed and white men with property are the only ones vote in this country this would be a republican country by a margin of 3-2 women voted for democrats 59-39.

non whites who are only enfranchised by th act of congress and by progressive legislatures who stood up for justice ga democrats 75%f their votes. that's asians and african americans and latinos. so,s if in fact it were a white maleountry it would be overwhelmingly republican this. is a important lesson in this election. >. woodruff: i want to get chris to comment on. ths it raise a question of the republican party. 59-39 voting democratic. >> the number i looked at. we will see the data shake out. the roll of marrie playing. single women vote more democrat and married women vote with a majority to republicans.

i don't think it's just a straight up defender of the data. other things. people are complicated. family matters, faith matters. alall of these things play into it. >> woodruff: we do have a race toiall. am looking for that. the state of iowa house race. cindy axne defeated david youngh in state of washington. ese southwestern corner of the state includingmoines. we know outside groups spent a lot of money on the race. this is a district going for obama and for trump.r anotck up for democrats in their move to regain the majority of the house. we don't know the final number will be.k we th's what, amy, in the 30s? >> yes definitely heading for. that california has five or six

races, seven rae tha we need to find. what i'm surprised we haven't gotten a lot out of new jersey. we're waiting on a cople of pennsylvania races. for the most part it looks like -- >> 45. >> at let. woodruff: do we know speaking of iowa,ing -- >> close. woodruff: this was a question. >> is the most republican district in the midwest that distri of his it's been consistently. ron evelt didn't everry that area. he won by singgle dis in the projection i saw. four or five point margin. >> woodruff: steve king. >> yes. steve king did.f: >> woodre are continuing to watch the house races. it's fascinating to see the make ups of the districts and how they go. how they vote as chris says.

married women, unmarried women, and the racial makeup. as we mentioned earlier it's not just candidates on the ballot. there are fascinating initiatives being diswicussed. iam is with john yang. i will go to both of you.h >>nk you, judy. we're following these referendums across the country. john, you have been looking at one inia lou. it's about chopping away at one of the last vestiges of jim crow, right. >> yes. the voters in louisiana have struck down a law rejected a lae allowingony convictions by non unanimous injurie it took ten of guilty to convict someone for murder and send thep rison for life without the possibility of parole. only one other state allows n unanimous jury verdicts and

that's oregon. >> i was in uisiana earlier this year for a story on criminal j'rstice reform th doing there. i met these men. older blck men early 70s, 10 went away decades ago on murder charges for no unanimous juries. >> you mayot knw it this was a inthestigation intis last year. a lot of cases the juries are not polled. cases where they're polled the judge often seals the results of the poll. you don't know you were cnvicted by a non unnimous jury. this was established in the 19th century. the law makers were acknowledging they were getting around the 14th amendment. that says that black people have

serve on juries. this is the response we may have to put them on but we don't have to listen to them. we can ignore the votes. originally it only required nine to convict. it was upheld by the supreme court in 19712. saying it didn't violate the federal cons advertise tuition due process. then it was changed to tenhe it hald for more than a century. now finally struck down. >> amazing development there. also we were looking at another race in massachusets about gender identity. a complicated initiative there. they are one of the first states to do what they haneve do >> massachusets the first state in the country where voters have voted to protect gender identity as a prohibitegrounds of discrimination in public accommodations. this was an attempt to repeal a law passed in 2016.

it was defeated. the attempt to real was defeated. this became a big issue after the north carolina law on public barmes. now further controversy under the trump administration. >> yes. reports of departnt of health and human services are trying to inssence redefine gender as male or female and unchangingth under the lef a person's life. which transnder advocates argue this would eliminate them legally from the ledgek. we had secreta azor on the show he wouldn't admit they were going forward this or considering this. awhat that me for a state like massachusets we don't exactly kn. >> for thirst time voters have gone to the poles and voted say gender activity can't be grounds for discrimination.t >>s interesting initiative we're following. the rest will be on our

we are going back downstairs to dy woodruff. >> woodruff: thank yu, we're learning a lot from you. we have two races to project in the state of missouri. this is a big pick up for republicans. claire mccaskill is going down in defeat to josh hawley. he is38 or 39 years old. the state attorney geeral. claire mccaskill tough candidate holding several public offices in the state of month movement there was inreasing view this would be a hard one for her. never the less a lot of moey spent in that race. president trump was in there as we said. it was his last spot of the campaign. he was in missouri. that was last night, all of that

campaigning helped pay off for josh hawley coming to washington the new center to. a important house call this. is a picup for the democrats. abigain spanberger defeated the incumbent dave brat when he defeated a republican leader in the house. he ran to the right, true red conservative. his district has changed or something has changed. because he is now gone down and lost to spanberqer. amy, abigail spanberger was one the democrats counted on winning. >> they were hopeful. there are two stories here. agn a changing suburbs story. chester field county. was a rock red suburban areas

around richmoit. i thin went for hillary clinton narrowly in 2016. so again i think that's another check off box for suburban t voters. i doow if this is shake paoerpshakespearean or -- >> trump carried it. >> not chester field county. >> that's right. >> but the other story about this dave brat was the posterfo chilthe tea party movement. it was a challenge for eric cantor. a colfelege proor out of nowhere. he won in a primary handedly. became the poster child for anti-immigration. the loss of eric cantor stomped

immigration reform dead in it's tracks. terwas headed to the house a passing the senate. once cantor lost it was okay. clear that the grassroots are not going for a immigrati reform. looks what happened to eric cantor. four years later he has been defeated in this rpublican district. you know who beat him and voted for herv over dae brat was eric cantor voters. that isho pu abigail in. >> woodruff: fascinating. we are tk about the house and the senate. i want to bring everyone up to date about the governor ract'es. look at a number of these and see what is happening in the state houses. we have reported the state of florid hold for republicans. ron desantis. so that is a hold for republicans. let's continue to go down the list. in kansas laura kelly.

this is a pick up for democrats. she defeated kobach and orman. it was thought maybe we wouldn't ache a result tonight or ko would be favored, the secretary of state. that is a pick up for democrats. michigan, a pick up for democrats.ch gr whitmer defeated bill schuette. one more pick up for democrats in the state of illinois. jb pritzker. the venturep caitalist winning over bruce ra a state where both candidates spent a lot of their own money: in georgia we still don't see a ll. for that race although it appears with what 91% of the

vote in, that is quite a substantial margin. it's curious why it's not called yet. bryan kemp and stacy abrams. looking at these governors we know governors have a to do with redistricting and organizing a state. you get close to a presidential election. not to mention the iues governors deal with in their ows st important pick ups for tkepl kragts and disappointments. >> yes. heavy disappoint phepts with florida and georgia. stacy abrams and andrew historeally. we ha looked at these races historically. in the uppner midwest we're waiting on a few more. we said redistricting and medicaid expansion. this could lead to medicaid

expansion potentially about a million people can be cover for health insurance. it's a big big deal. so those are the you know redistricting as i mentioned. immigration is on the table as well. which could also be something the governors have to deal with. this are keyot issues. the democrats having control of thates could really be, could really lead to progressive moveint. >> chrish democrats holding so few of the governor ships going no tonight it was almost no pl fe to goor them but up. what do they hod?l >> republicans had 30 3 * 3%. woodruff: what does it mean more president trump to be picking up, holding onto florida. we don't know for sure for georgia. it's not looking good for stacy abrams. be losing illinois and

michigan and a couple of his other sta >> michigan maybe the one, if you're donald trump looking at mags al politics that's the one you want to keep. i was hooking at numbers. 's within papers in wisconsin. that's not gone yet. these are important foral presidenolitics. when you look down gove still wield a lot of power. a loof pow are in the central government and mao you have to look at what does the state legislature look like and the priorities. >> woodruff: you're right we didn't just show ohio. that is a hold forca repub as well. important hold for republicans. >> a last point on. that if i was jb, i may not celebrate to the. this maybe the worst job in the country. governor of illinois.

>> woodruff: what do you mean by oiat? >> illis bankrupt. nobody can fix it, no plan to fix it, no will to fix it. you get in this position, mao the governor is holding the bag. he has work cut out for him. >> woodruff: bring in jerry brown. >> right he can't run in california for another eight years. >> woodruff: we have enough new information to go back to the emite house and yamiche. ae you tripping tp to talk to you. what are they saying now. >> white house counselor kellyanne conway stopped by reporters and tato us in 28 minutes. the white house must feel goo about how the elections went. she went on and on. i got three or four questions in. it's remarkable for the white house this late. when the president shows up in a district they have learned he

helps republicans. when you look where president trump went republicans were doing well. she was happy about the overnor's race in flrida. he held ron destos get out of what would be a rut and she has said the preside has been calling people surrounded by family and friends. some people there#2"jpresident s his wife. the president's children are around. she wouldn't say who the president is callingut its almost we're pretty clear the president's likely recalling republicans an congratulating them and talking to them about how to move forward. kellyanne conway had a message to democrats who just took control of the house. she said democrats should not be focused on subpoenaing the president and should not be focused on investigating the president but they ouldn't be looking for his tax returns and instead they should be working with the president on