neither of them has a yellow brick road you can see from space. these are pretty narrow paths that each of them are going to be following. that's why individual states like michigan are who we're watching. >> channeling it three times -- michigan, michigan, michigan -- given its importance tonight. here we go up the side of the building. in the golden state, in california, the projected winner is hillary clinton. note the electoral votes, 55. in the state of washington, hillary clinton the projected winner. in the state of oregon in the pacific northwest, hillary clinton, the projected winner. in the state of hawaii, four electoral votes, hillary clinton, the projected winner. in idaho, interesting race, as we've been saying, donald trump, the predicted winner, four electoral votes. here is the bar graph to 270.

here is the math. right now, hillary clinton, 209, to donald trump's 172. more on that as we continue. here are the states we continue to watch. too close to call, and these are some big ticket items. florida, pennsylvania, georgia, one of the first states to close here tonight. here we still are. michigan, michigan, michigan. north carolina, 15 electoral votes. minnesota with ten. iowa, still too close to call. nevada, still too close to call. ditto, new hampshire. and the state of maine, which we have moved from too early to too close, with not even half the raw vote in. now the list of states we are characterizing too early to

call. arizona. wisconsin. and utah. >> let's take a look at the reds and the blues down on home ice. in this road to 270, unmistakable color patterns, but a west coast bulwark with this 11:00 p.m. eastern time poll closing for hillary clinton. >> it's interesting. at this poll closing, this is the first one where we've had all of the races called. we had no too close, no too early in the races that just closed at 11:00. also no surprises. had any of these been a surprise, it would have been seismic. idaho will be red. the whole west coast is going to be blue, including the island state of the hawaii. we only have one state left to close now, which is alaska. that's the only state outstanding in terms of its poll closing. we're just waiting to states that are too early and too close to call.

>> let's go to a senate call on the wall here in the studio. ron johnson going back for the republicans. the democrats were quite confident that mr. feingold would be going back to the u.s. senate. chris, what's the quote you've been using all night? you can't go home again. >> i think feingold would have been a big surprise. historically he would have been the first person to beat the person who beat him. as most of tus have been tracking, everyone said this was the second easiest. the third easiest was going to be indiana. that was going to be easy. then we got the two or three outstanding now. so it's very much up in the air now. they needed net four, the democrats did. i do have values besides my horse race interest in this.

i do know certain senators who are solid enough to stay there in normal circumstance. kelly ayotte, much more hawkish for my taste, but a solid senator. if she holds on, that shows she's got the stuff. but this thing is up in the air. they didn't knock off burr. ross didn't win. they didn't knock off -- they didn't pick up the vote in indiana. they didn't pick it up now in wisconsin. they picked it up in illinois, but they're just beginning this climb, and there are not many options left. i think they now have to win the other ones, new hampshire and pennsylvania. >> and missouri is still too early to call. >> that's going to be one interestingura interesting race between the old pro, been around forever and a guy with all these washington connections, a real leap type and up against this guy kander, who knows how to lock and load a gun with his blindfold on. >> more fascinating ads of this

cycle. >> less than 40% in, but blunt has a big lead this terms of the vote in already. new hampshire and kelly ayotte's race, that's very close. >> we have a projection. donald trump is being awarded north carolina. just came in, 15 electoral votes. this makes all kinds of different paths even more interesting. there's the electoral race. 209, 187. here it is in color. >> we're going to have to start talking about the deer tracks again, the paths at this point. >> still contiguous. it's all red together. >> if you're going to hike it, that's useful, but in terms of who's going to be president, i want to know the numbers. >> i want to hear from james carville. >> we have james carville and mike murphy here. james, you were already discounting north carolina for

the clinton campaign. >> yeah. not going to win virginia now if you didn't carry north carolina. frts as we were watching this last group of returns, it was one of the senate races that got your attention more than these presidential returns right now, and that was wisconsin. >> we cauldron johnson easy early in wisconsin, which tells me the democrats in wisconsin is going to be narrow. the math in michigan, mike and i were just doing some back of the envelope calculations. i can see a way that she can win michigan, but, you know, look, every domino has to fall now. >> michigan's super close, but there's a lot of detroit left to come. if it's normal and some jenessee county which is flint and ann arbor. she's in the hunt in michigan. it's tight, but we're looking at that, saying, if detroit is only worth 300,000, it's starting to

look like she's the nod there. and then we hear ron johnson, who is considered the second most vulnerable republican who is won comfortably in wisconsin, that indicates the drama may be moving to wisconsin. >> so for the scorecards at home, if the clinton campaign takes michigan, the next thing to watch is wisconsin. wisconsin could be what breaks it or makes it. >> right. it looks like the republicans may retain the senate. if trump wins the presidency, the democratic party will have the least amount of power that i can ever remember a political party having, both at the national level and the state level. it's hard to overestimate what this means tonight. >> we haven't carried wisconsin since '84. so he's turning the map a little bit upside down in some ways here. >> if it happens. >> if it happens. >> let's be clear. i want to be very clear, there's a way that the democrats can win the presidency. i want to be clear about that, but, again, now, the dominoes have to start falling our way. >> back to you, brian.

>> all right, lawrence o'donnell, thanks. steve kornacki over at the board. let's talk paths here, steve. >> yeah, let's look at what it would take for donald trump. you see the scoreboard right now with the new updates. let's take you through a couple scenarios here. it's not been called, but donald trump is leading in florida right now. georgia, it's not been called, but if donald trump were to get these two states. new hampshire is too close to call. it is winnable for trump. there's this rural congressional district in maine, very winnable for trump. leave michigan and wisconsin alone for now. again, if he wins arizona, and by the way, there's one congressional district in omaha. again, if he wins that, look where he's sitting, these are the most winnable states where he's sitting. he would be one state away from the presidency. now we're talking about michigan. you got a lot of democratic vote to come in michigan. trump leading by about 40,000 votes.

wisconsin, still votes coming in from milwaukee and the county where madison is, democratic areas of the state. however, we're seeing rural counties that are traditionally blue flip to red in wisconsin. wisconsin, right now, that's too close to call. nevada, that would be the other target. trump needs to win nevada or wisconsin or he needs to win michigan. if he does that, he's president elect. >> all right. let's talk about it. nicole wallace. >> i have been hearing for the last hour that republicans are giddy about controlling all three branches of power, which is what a lot of them think is in reach tonight. i've also heard from my parents who said, if you're lucky, trump won't deport you. i'm not so sure. if i go missing after here, i think i'm near the top of it.

but we just had bill on across the hall and all of the polls were wrong. she did not have a 3.5-point lead going into this morning, and that's what the average of polls had her at. this is not a map that reflects a three-point lead. she didn't have it. i don't know that she ever had it. i think the clinton camp is already putting out this spin and it's half the story, but the other half is what it did to him. he closed stronger than anyone in recent political history. and our folks that were on the trail with him talked about it. the "new york times" wrote an incredible piece about how it was a thunderbolt that got him on message. he made a closing argument that is being reflected in the exit polls about being an outsider. in a year where you like no one, you pick the known unknown. and that's what they picked. i know they don't like her, i don't know how much i don't like him. and the closing argument from

the clinton campaign, this is about what kind of country you live in, is something every parent is going to have to grapple with. because this is the country we live in, where the disgust -- ten months, i called him political chemo, who takes ought all the healthy blood cells. the cancer was washington. and a lot more people than we predicted view them -- >> but why aren't any incumbents losing? >> george w. bush campaigned for every republican who won tonight on the board. and his message was anti-protectionism, ant anti-isolationism and anti-nativism. and i think they calculated that at the top, they want change. >> but how is that smart if you're voting for two different things? right? you're voting for two opposed things. >> it's far more likely at this point that he wins than she

wins. it's far more likely at this point, and i see this not as someone who voted for him. but it's far more likely that he wins and that tomorrow morning we're talking about a trump cabinet than a clinton cabinet. >> i'm not disputing that. what i'm disputing is that the diagnosis is that people wanted to get rid of washington. they would have thrown out ron johnson. >> she's been there 30 years. they viewed her as less appealing than him. i'm looking at the same polls you are. >> but it's not a diagnosis for the rest of what happened tonight. which i think is fascinating. i don't know what it means that the republican party survives intact and the only thing that change system a radically different person on top. what else changes? >> paul ryan and jim comey, two rauchz, become like the last dinosaurs tomorrow morning. >> because trump's going to try to throw ryan out. >> you think donald trump wants to work with the speaker ryan? he may say so tonight. paul ryan is in danger.

he had the most uncomfortable and real excruciating endorsement of donald trump. if trump wins, i think he wants a speaker thats going to go along with his -- >> that vengeance is mine, john mccain, you're dead. >> i'm only half joking about getting deported myself. it's not intact. but it has, at the level of our voters in our base, it has embraced change or stability. >> and what does the new party call itself? >> i keep thinking of prince. the band formerly known as republican. >> had they thrown out more people running for house and septemb senate, i would think -- >> it's a pretty radical change at the top, though. >> very. >> one of the questions i think we would be asking if this went that way is, you know, where do you draw the line? pro-trump, anti-clinton in terms of how people voted and why.

>> wree hae have a poll which hn believed in as religion. right direction, wrong direction question. it can be mean we were too far left or right. you have to read it the way we read it. but it's been pretty consistently, two-thirds we don't like the direction of this country. so we tried. we picked hope, the big poster. i was for that all the way. and we're looking all the time for change. made a change in 2008, '10, making a change in '14, and maybe a change in '16. the president had a tremendous bond with the candidate for presidency. she's my candidate. but it's not working tonight. it's not clear yet who's going to win. but i do think there's tremendous response to the wrong direction number that people keep trying to find the president they want. and they keep hoping -- the bernie crowd -- this guy wasn't going to be president, but it

was pushing that button, i want change. >> and people who liked trump, liked bernie as a second choice. more hot water, whatever they're saying, like the kid says, i want an item. >> in bernieville, a republican has just been elected governor. >> i just think there's an urge for something we don't have. and if trump wins, i think it will be the toughest job in history for him to deliver what he promised. if hillary wins she has to deal as an establishment figure, the first woman president with a need to try to bind this country together and keep it workable for four years. and that means dealing with whatever is left on the republican side. >> across our newsroom, hugh hewitt, we've had many discussions with you over this campaign season. we have them all on video. so what do you make of what

you're witnessing? >> well, i am perhaps the only reluctant admitted trump voter in the building. i think there are millions of people like me, people who are worried about the supreme court. i think obamacare is the untold story. i think it clobbered people in pennsylvania and wisconsin. that's why ron johnson one. i had him on my radio show talking about obamacare. i think republicans are holding the senate because there's a promise of repeal and replacing obamacare. while i understand nicole's concerns, i don't share them. i think you'll see a completely disruptive change force. there will be a drop in the market tomorrow. it will come back, he will surround himself with mike pences. they will not throw out paul ryan. he will want to accomplish things. he's a builder. he's a very different personality than we've dealt with before. but for all the reluctant trump voters out there who came home in the last few weeks, we're feeling as though it's a policy election and it's a rejection of secretary clinton's ethics.

that's what it comes down to. >> hugh hewitt, we'll continue to knock this around in this room. we're going to fit in a break. we are covering to call it a fluid situation at the presidential level is an understatement. we'll be right back.

>> we are back. these are the faces in the crowd. that is the jacob javits convention center on the west side of manhattan, along the hudson river. we showed the over-flow room earlier, before the actual crowd had been loaded in. there was a story in the new york tabloids, that was knocked down just a few days ago, with the victory fireworks celebration that was planned for tonight over the hudson river, until cooler, calmer, and more

reasonable heads prevailed within the clinton campaign, and they stopped the fireworks two or three days ago. >> stopped the plans for the fireworks at least. >> yeah, that's the situation we're looking at. steve kornacki's at the board, talking about wisconsin. steve what, have you found? >> yeah, look, we're talking about wisconsin. one of these states, if it comes to this scenario, where things break trump's way, this could be one of those that puts him over the top. he is leading right now by 60,000 votes. now, where are the votes left? there are votes left in milwaukee county where clinton's winning big. probably more than a hundred thousand votes left here, depending on turn-out. clinton will pick up votes here. she will also pick up votes in dane county. 300,000 votes cast in 2012. you can see still have votes out. clinton will make up significant ground here. here's the problem. also out, la crosse county. this is starting to come in.

trump is leading all around here. here's a shocker. brown county, where green bay is, this was an obama county, donald trump is winning this by 20 points and it's only half in. you want the story of wisconsin and the rust belt, the story of america in a lot of ways, check out this red-blue map and look at the sea of wed in wisconsin, a state that last voted for a republican 32 years ago in 1984. what did this look like just four years ago? look at all that red. in the obama election four years ago, look at all that blue. donald trump has taken, and at a lot of these are very small counties. he's turned them red tonight. and wisconsin could be going republican for the first time in 32 years. >> wow. i want to just talk about one factor that we haven't discussed at all over the course of the evening, which is in some of these states, where trump is leading, even if we don't have a call in those states, just these

very close states, wisconsin among them. there are a number of these states in which the third-party balloting, the third-party vote is a factor in terms of the size of the margin here between trump and clinton. again, you can't always say that every third-party vote came from one major party ticket or another, but in florida, which we have now called in new hampshire, wisconsin, in iowa, in all of these places, the numbers that you're seeing for a third-party, more than account for the difference between the two candidates. so if those states end up getting called with these very tiny margins, you may see that the gary johnson vote is what made the difference. that the gary johnson and jill stein vote is what made a difference. i'm not just talking about utah, which is a very interesting three-way race. i'm talking about the state of florida. depending on where those votes came from, a lot of democrats may be looking at gary johnson and seeing ralph nader there.

>> yep. not a pretty picture for them. >> well, it is what it is. people go into this eyes wide open. if you vote for somebody who can't vote for president, it means that you don't care who wins for president. >> that's what i think. and when you talk to people like that and saying, why are you letting the vote go against the person you normally support, they act like you're not really taking sides. some kind of neutrality. >> switzerland. >> and even switzerland was a pro-german neutrality. you really do take sides. what side are you on is a pretty good question. the union guys always ask that, what side are you on? and people don't like making decisions because then you're responsible for who wins and people don't want that responsibility. oh, there's flaws with hillary, not sure i like her, all right, make a decision. some of the republicans, if this is what happens tonight, went home and said, i care more about a conservative supreme court

than i care about a guy with problems as president. i'll live with donald trump. >> but the idea that you look at donald trump and you think manhattan billionaire thrice married -- >> but it's the -- >> he's also promised to build a wall on the southern border and ban all muslims from coming into the country. why do we believe some of these things and not the others? >> they're hopeful. >> hope is a word for it. delusion is another. >> i think i good argument can be made, the issues he ran on, illegal immigration, loss of jobs through bad trade deals, and wars he opposed, he may not have a commitment to any of those. how do we know? they were brilliant marketing decisions because they tapped into real feelings out there that people really have. >> joy reid. >> i was going to say really quickly on the third-party vote f you talk to particularly younger voters who are choosing

third-party, it wasn't even not wanting to make a decision, there was sort of a chic to saying i'm above both of those candidates. and i think we have to own a little bit in the media ourselves, this idea that we sort of equalized, not us sitting here at this table, but generally and broadly, the idea that these were two equally flawed, equally unpopular, sort of two sides of the same bad coin candidates. >> give me an example of someone who did that. >> every story, if you google stories of hillary clinton, the term trustworthiness, honesty, it was in every story. whether or not the story had to do specifically with that. and i think that resonated with a lot of younger voters, in particular, who had a sort of a vague feeling. >> a cool cynicism. >> that she was just as bad. so there was a chic to saying, well, both of those two candidates are so bad that i'm going to take the sort of high road of picking one of the others, even if they didn't know

anything about them. i have two kids that are old enough to vote, who had friends that were like, i don't like either one, and they didn't know anything about johnson or stein, but said, i'll choose this third option. but that margin in florida, over 200,000 votes combined for that candidate. so actually, you are making a decision. it could flip the election. and on the question of donald trump and what it is he believes in, i think one of the things that we know he believes in for certain is revenge. so if you are paul ryan or hillary clinton -- >> so smart. >> we know he believes in that. >> he has a list. >> deeply. so one thing you can count on is that given all of that power and all of those powerful agencies with which you can seek revenge -- >> in terms of paul ryan and the revenge factor, we've heard from paul ryan tonight. paul ryan was re-elected to his own seat in congress tonight. but we've heard from him on the broader state of the race.

>> paul ryan has been re-elected and addressed supporters. he'll be returning, as of now, as speaker of the house, although it's going to be a very uncertain future for him, should donald trump emerge victorious tonight. we do know, as you said, that donald trump believes in revenge. it's one of his core beliefs. he's stated it often. you hit me, i hit you back. here's paul ryan, talking to his supporters in janesville, with his fingers crossed. >> i'm so eager to get back to work for you, to get on with fixing our country's problems. we have so much potential in this country, so much potential. and if we can just tap it, that's what's ahead of us. you know, by some accounts, i've just been sitting there watching the polls, by some accounts, this could be a really good night for america. this could be a good night for us. fingers crossed. -- should things break republicans' way the rest of the night, they have a very

realistic chance of controlling both the house, the senate, and the white house. and the question would then become who's in the driver's seat on policy? what does the trump administration look like? is it a version of paul ryanism? a person who supported free trade deals including the tpp in the past, mike pence, who voted for nafta. is it trumpism? something in between? remarkably, we sit here tonight with not a very good idea at all of what that looks like. >> chris hayes at our news desk, thank you. i would say, can we put up that bug we had up there a moment ago, the dow bug. one of the things chris was reporting on earlier -- >> dow futures. >> -- we've been watching the markets react whenever donald trump appears to pip up in the polls right now. and tonight, you see the dow jones futures, obviously the market is not open in the united states. these are futures, people betting on what's going to happen, making their stakes about what's going to happen at

market opening, down nearly 700 points tonight with donald trump having such a better night than people thought he would opinion. >> t >> -- thought he would. >> we have a call , the state o florida. what we are terming the apparent winner, donald trump in the state of florida, 29 electoral votes. here is the electoral math. 216, trump, 209, clinton. the race for 270, here's how it plays out visually. so much talk about the paths to 270.