you get the best wireless coverage for your phone. ...you're about to find out! you don't even know where i live... hello! see the grinch in theaters by saying "get grinch tickets" into your xfinity x1 voice remote. a guy just dropped this off. he-he-he-he. that's all for this special election edition of "meet the press." a nation divided. >> a blue wave would equal a crime wave. and a red wave equals jobs and security. >> the president not on the ballot. but he's made this election all about him. >> a vote for steve is a vote for me. a vote for sin did is a vote for me. a vote for david is a vote for me. >> democrats fighting for control. >> are you all ready to win this

election and take this country into a far better direction? >> their magic number, 23 seats to win back the house. an electrifying night and the chance to make history. the first results just moments away. ♪ live from democracy plaza, "the vote: america's future." >> on a tuesday night in november of 2018, good evening from our election headquarters live from 30 rockefeller plaza here in new york, renamed democracy plaza for the midterm elections. the first polls have closed moments ago. we are awaiting our first results. the first official referendum, really, of the trump era. and president trump himself, who may not be on the ballot tonight, but whose political

future is very much on the line. >> happy election day, everybody. it is something i feel like we've been waiting for even longer than we usually wait for elections. but in part it's because the early vote for this election was so huge, and it started right off the bat. it feels like election night has been here for a few weeks already. but now it really is. i'm rachel maddow here with brian williams. we have never seen this many races this close. not just in the house, but also marquee races in the senate. tonight some of the most exciting races and surprising results may also come from the governors races. 36 governors races tonight including historic ones in georgia and florida. and we here at msnbc, we all love sleep and family life as much as the next guy. but if there are enough too close to call races tonight, we may not know who controls congress until morning if then. >> if midterm election --

whatever the outcome tonight, 2018 midterms may be remembered for images like this across the country. americans starting early this morning, standing in long lines, some of them for hours to cast their vote. here in the studio we are joined by our panel, and in the field, of course, our rogue warriors have fanned out across this country. but you know what's coming next. >> that's right. we, as you do, we need to get right to msnbc national political correspondent steve kornacki. how soon are we going to get some indication of how this night may go and how the big races are going to go? >> i believe we just got our very first votes. we do. the very first votes of the night are now in in the critical 6th district of kentucky.

republican-held seat, democrats are trying to pick it up. 479 votes here, andy barr is the incumbent republican here. amy mcgrath challenging in a district donald trump won 55-39 in 2016. why are democrats interested in this race? they're interested because you see the red, this is the rural part, votes in a rule part of this district, small county, menefee county. the democrats are interests because the area around lexington, half the population in lexington, in frankfurt, the types of voters who democrats think are particularly motivated for them in the trump era, younger voters, college-educated voters, white collar professionals, that sort of thing. you've got an abundance of them around lexington, some around frankfurt. you also have trump country in this district. it's sort of a mishmash of both. so this is going to be a test of that democratic energy. it's going to be a test of the democrats' ability to make inroads into trump country. it's going to be a test of whether that republican energy that was there for trump two

years ago is still there. so again, all we have right now, this is a county for what it's worth, i can tell you in 2016, this is a county donald trump won with 72% of the vote. the early returns we have here show 57%. we're going to get probably about 2,000 votes here. this is probably about 20% of the vote coming in in this county. if the republicans are significantly under 60% here, i think they'd be in trouble. we'll see where that lands. we're going to check right now, we've got a little bit more coming in. we're going to check indiana. the other big thing closing right now is the senate race in indiana. let me go back and see if we've got some returns there. question do not have votes. in indiana, 33% of the entire vote in the state was early, so they tend to report that fast. we'll bring that to you, not the entire state is closed, but a

significant chunk of it. any minute indiana. i'll let you know. indiana and kentucky 6th, at this hour between 6:00 and 7:00, that's where all the action is here. key house race, key senate race. >> steve kornacki, thank you very much. it's very exciting to have first voted on the board even if there's only four of them. >> busiest man in show business. >> exactly, and it will be a busy night for steve tonight. we have exit polling data. this is nbc news national exit polling. we've got a couple of big top lines. i want to put these to our panel in studio. one of the first things that we have learned tonight is trump job approval rating. according to the exit polls tonight we've got trump with a 44% approval rating. a 55% disapproval rating. within those numbers, we've got some finer lines, including the president's strong disapproval rating at 47%. which is very high. we've also got voters saying the

most important issue for them is not the most important issue you see in every other election. it's always the economy. but look at this. exit polls nationwide are saying that health care is the most important issue. the economy isn't second, the economy is third. number one, it tells you this election is happening in a good economy. number two, it tells you that the democrats were right when they said health care was going to be the most important issue in this election. it tells you the republicans were right that they could elevate immigration to a place it almost never is in order to try to motivate their base voters heading in. >> it also tells you that the rap the democrats got for not having a message was wrong all along. it was one of those things that the national media, sometimes we get wrong. the democrats had a message, health care. they never blinked, they never strayed from it, and it looks like they got their message through. i think the evidence was six weeks ago, you saw republicans lying about their positions on pre-existing conditions. so it's not surprising to see

that big number on health care. it must be rewarding for the democratic candidates who picked that ask stuck with it. >> at the same time, seeing the immigration number pop above the economy has got to be seen as success by the president in particular, by the republican party that went along with them on this really strongly anti-immigrant message. >> also, if we had a functioning government, if we have one after this election, which would be ideal, if the government is split, more important that it be functioning. they will address the health care issue next year. the president will have to take the lead on pre-existing conditions. he'd made claims he's as good as the democrats, he'll have to prove that. on immigration, another chance for accommodation by both parties. we shouldn't have to face these same two top issues two years from now. if our government works, if our republican form of government works, they should address those two issues in a divided government. >> trump sees immigration as the ultimate wedge issue. not as a policy issue that's designed to be solved, he sees it as a casting issue for

pickingville lant -- picking villaiain villains, riling up the people. >> a normative value. i'd like to see a government respond to the electorate. if the electorate says health care is the number one issue? come up with a modification of obama customer that the republicans can vote for and get 218 votes in the who us and move it. immigration, they had a really good comprehensive bill in 2013, bring it up. boehner wouldn't bring it up to the floor. pass it. i'm sorry, i'm positive about elections. they should lead to, we have engagement, time for the marriage. let get married, let's do something. >> gene, what are you seeing? >> i also see that democrats did connect with the health care issue. i think that's the headline from that. immigration is really interesting. because we have a president who doesn't want to solve the immigration issue because he

wouldn't have -- that's the wedge. he wouldn't have the wedge. so i can't be as optimistic as you are that anything is going to get done. as long as donald trump is president, on immigration. what those numbers don't yet tell us is who connected with independents? i think we're going to talk a lot about that tonight. democrats connected with their case, republicans with their base, but there are a lot of independents. >> the immigration number to me isn't about whether or not it works. it says that donald trump drowned out every republican candidate's message because the republican candidates didn't lead donald trump to a message about immigration. the midterm candidates running under the banner of republicans didn't choose to run on immigration, they followed donald trump there. the democratic candidates running in midterms chose to run on health care, and their surrogates who are normal, like former president obama, biden, followed they said on their issues. the difference on imxwraction is this is not something republicans running for congress chose to run on, this is something trump drowned out

everything else. >> that's what i mean. donald trump is within the republican party, that i know best, you're all dumb, i can tell you how to do your jobs better than you ever have, i pick immigration for you. >> yes. it swamped everything else. there's been reporting in the last week that paul ryan pleaded with the white house, please let us talk about the economy, which doesn't stink forever. no go. >> right. >> meanwhile, good economy, it's issue number three, way down. it makes no sense. >> before we're done this could turn out to be the election of pre-existing conditions. it could be the election of new voters. very much will be some sort of referendum on donald trump. one of the western senate races we're going to be waiting for into the evening is in arizona. that's where correspondent goddi schwartz is waiting for us in tempe tonight. >> hey, yeah. whoever said the youth were not going to turn out for a midterm election did not come to asu.

you've got basically what's an impromptu party here. people giving out pizzas, ice cream, giving out water, there's a deejay that's about to start playing some music. and this is why. over here, this is where the voting is happening. this is a line going in. i want to show you something that is jaw dropping. we just talked to somebody that was here for 2016. they said during the presidential campaign, during the presidential election, that right there was about where the line stopped. now check this out, take a little walk here, look at all these people that are voting in line here. many of them have been waiting for over an hour. how long have you been waiting? >> about an hour, yeah. >> hour. we've heard people waiting as long as two hours. and the line just continues on. these are all young voters. that stretches all the way over there. where those dorms are. the enthusiasm here extremely high. this is a state that usually does a lot of early voting. we know the electorate has already turned out about 75% to 80% here in arizona.

we know about 41% of them are republicans. we know about 33%, 34% are democrats. the majority of them are independent voters. and that's what we're seeing here. a lot of the independent voters we've talked to, they're fluctuating between martha mcsally and her challenger, kyrsten sinema, who has a home field advantage here at asu. she used to an student here. she was also a professor. but a lot of these students say that this is the race that they're looking at. a senate race. we're on a college campus, we're at a university, and this is how engaged a lot of the youth are. back to you guys. >> that's fantastic, gadi, thank you for that. speaking of the power of television, one of the chants during the women's march, "this is what democracy looks like." >> yeah, and it's great work by the crew being able to see perspective, to see how many people were in line. while we were talking to gadi we got more news out of the exit polls. these are early nbc news national exit polls. this number sticks out to me.

according to the early nbc news exit polls, 16% of voters nationwide are first-time midterm voters. people who have never, ever voted in a midterm election. among those, this is the democrat/republican split. 61% of them supporting a democratic candidate, 36% supporting a republican candidate. now 16% may sound like a sliver of the electorate. but turning out for the first time to vote in a midterm? that's the kind of -- those are the people that democrats are targeting. >> that is how the democrats are going to have a very good night. that's how they're going to do it, changing the makeup the electorate. that's how president obama won. when democrats prevail in states like georgia and battleground states like florida, it's because they turn out bigger parts of the democratic coalition that typically just turns out in presidential years. >> that was a figure that chuck todd gave us when we first got the exit polls. 72% white, 28% nonwhite, the

overall electorate, according to those early exits. that's more like the 2008 election, presidential election, than subsequent elections. >> and it's interesting too, when you think about the anecdotal experience of voting in an election like this. if it's the first time you've ever voted in a midterm election, either because you never voted at all, or because you only think of voting in a presidential year, turning out to vote for the first time this year, a, means you're motivated. b, means youing if out how to do it. that's why the voter suppression story ends up being super important. if one party is counting on turning out people who are not used to voting in elections like this, who never voted in an election like this before, the more barriers, the more complicated you make it, the longer and more arduous you make the process, the more you can winnow down that number. >> there's a culture to voting. once you get into it, you're into it. you go to the community center, the local church. young people don't go to those places. they go to starbucks on campus on the street, but it's an

unusual step to go back to the old neighborhood. in this case it's great because you can vote on campus, that's cool. i thought that report was fantastic. i'm with brian. that's the kind of thing we can do that you can't do in the press and print press is show people doing it. i remember being with mandela in south africa when they voted in '94. you actually saw voting happening for the first time, and it's thrilling. >> i was there for that election. that was an election. this may be something, but that was an election. i am keeping one eye ottman i affectionately call call coach k. in coach's corner. we're going to go to a break. when we come back, update the numbers. look at those little squares. oh, there we go. that's all we're going to say. a few squares filled in on the map of indiana. we are just getting under way. please stay with us, live coverage continues after this.

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♪ the vote 2018. the midterm elections. over to the board we go. steve kornacki, i have watched your map of indiana populate with a few colors. what does it all mean? >> it's starting to fill up. you see here again, only about 20,000 votes, a little bit more in, statewide. you see the republican out to the early lead. it's republican country that's coming in very slowly. here's the interesting thing we can tell you about indiana. hillary clinton got blown out in this state two years ago. the margin, she lost by almost 20 points. she won four counties in this state two years ago. now donnelly managed to win this state six years ago when he ran for u.s. senate. obviously we're going to see here how much is donnelly improving off hillary clinton's numbers from two years ago? how close is he getting to the numbers he posted when he won this state six years ago? let's take you through to give you a sense what was we're seeing in these counties. these are republican counties.

poe has ski point, you see the result early, 55-42 for braun. when donnelly ran and won in 2012, he got 44% of the vote in this county. he's a little shy of that. look how hillary clinton did here in 2016. he's 20 points north of what hillary clinton got here in 2016. let's go to miami county. republican territory. he's 8 points north of where hillary clinton finished, 21% for clinton in 2016 tonight, donnelly running at 29%. that is not where he finished in 2012. in 2012 he managed to get 39% of the vote in miami county. again, you see an improvement there. how about this one, this one might need explanation. whitley county, republican territory, 62% in the early going for donnelly. this was a 73% trump zone. this is the trend we're seeing in these republican counties so far for donnelly. we know he's going to be behind. when you add these together, these are some of the strongest areas for braun. but hillary clinton got 38% of

the vote here in 2016. there is an independent and libertarian candidate who's going to get a couple of points. donnelly needs to be running 10 points plus better than hillary clinton. so those early numbers you see, he's down statewide but it suggests a competitive race. the big thing for democrats, marion county, lake county, south bend, st. joseph county, and the wild card tonight, southern indiana. this is an area that swung hard to donald trump, but as recently as 2008 with obama, 2012 with donnelly. democrats could compete and win counties down here. if you see any blue popping up in this southern part of indiana tonight, that is a very encouraging sign for democrats. >> steve kornacki, thank you very much. take a look at the race tonight in tennessee. tennessee senator bob kocher decided he did not want to stay in the senate anymore. the race to replace him has been interesting. marsha blackburn, congresswoman returning as a very conservative republican for that senate seat.

against phil bled sen, the democrat who's running as a conservative democrat, a moderate in that race. chris jansen is outside nashville in antioch, tennessee. what do you think? >> reporter: incredible lines. something we have not seen as we've been going around tennessee. take a look at this. people have been coming in after work, they wind around, they have voter i.d., you have to show photo i.d. then take a look at this line, it's been running one to two hours all day long. voters patiently waiting. when i talk to poll workers they told me frankly nobody's been leaving. maybe a handful of people. then they asked how late the polls were going to be open? and that they would come back. there is here a big change that is happening. this used to an rural area, now it's suburban. one of the fastest-growing areas of tennessee. key for phil bredesen, it's majority minority. a lot of immigrants are here. i want to talk to you, londa.

people have been waiting in line, including you, why wait so long? >> just wanting my vote to count. especially with the health care, i work in the health care field. the quality of life for not just me but all citizens. >> are you settled on the senate race? >> yes, ma'am. bredesen. health care issues and the constant appeal of obamacare. we deal with patients every day that don't have health care insurance. luckily our institution has other funding available to cover the deficiency with the patients. compounded with not only them but myself as well. >> i know we have somebody standing in line. we're going to let her go back into line. but they are going to keep this open as long as they can. most importantly, maybe, there have been lines like this, i am told by the bredesen campaign, in memphis and nashville. they're eancouraging people to

stay in line. they need to win these kinds of districts if they're going to win this race. and the pizza has arrived. some of the workers have been here ten hours now. they're happy to know they're going to get fed. >> thank you very much. seeing all those people turning out, young adults turning out, chris is saying that's a one and two-hour long all day and everybody's there with their kids, little kids, kids in strollers and babes in arms. that is a lot to do in seeing people do that, knowing they're going to be an hour or two, people not living. it makes you feel good. >> plus another voter voting on health care. >> yeah, exactly. we are waiting on news right now out of one of the tightest races in the nation. and one of the most closely watched. it's the battle for governor in georgia. the democrat is stacy abrams, former democratic leader in the legislature. the republican is brian kemp, who has a dual-hatted role, he's also secretary of state, which means he's running the election in which he is competing.

this is a race that has had a lot of national news, ups and downs. we'll go to georgia next. take prilosec otc and take control of heartburn. so you don't have to stash antacids here....

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♪ midterm election 2018. we are joined by a democratic incumbent in the u.s. senate, amy klobuchar of the state of minnesota. senator, for most generalist viewers, thank you for joining us, first off. they are seeing you for the first time, perhaps, since the kavanaugh hearings. before we talk about the politics of tonight, i'm curious, have you been surprised to see how much traction the other party has gotten out of the kavanaugh hearings every night, rally after rally? we hear the president's talking point that a good man was mistreated. >> well, rallies are one thing, brian, but votes are another. and it is true that they have been trying to play this issue out. but what i hear from minnesotans is they want to talk about

people getting kicked off their insurance for pre-existing conditions. the price of prescription drugs. as you've seen over time, the people of america have realized, whether they agreed or not, he got on the court. and for them to keep using this as an issue, i think you're seeing with independent voters, especially in a lot of our congressional district votes in minnesota, this issue is not determinative. you can see it in your exit polls. >> senator, what struck me a couple of weeks ago was how the midwest is really in play this time. states like pennsylvania, wisconsin, michigan voted very narrowly for a total of 70,000 votes in total for president trump. this time around it seems like the midwest is moving into the democr democratic corner across the board for governor, senator, probably house as well? >> we don't want to take anything for granted but i am wearing my purple dress for a robe, besides prince and the vikings. this is the moment where the midwest and a lot of our states

that, as you recognized, either voted for trump or, in minnesota, barely did hillary win. it's a change. these governor races. i talked to our candidate, fred hubble in iowa. he's feeling good down there. you look at illinois. you look at how well tammy baldwin is doing. i talked to her this morning over in wisconsin. and in these incredible congressional races in the suburbs, where i think we're going to take back two seats in two congressional races in minnesota. both currently held by republicans. as we look at -- i think our projections may be that two-thirds of eligible voters may be voting in a midterm in minnesota, despite flurries of snow. >> you know, i think this whole campaign tonight we're going to be covering here is in republican territory. it's an offensive for the democrats. you can tell me, do you know a single karl malonic incumbent in the senate or house that's worried about re-election? >> you'll have to talk to them.

i think what you know, those numbers where we have 35 senate seats up, and i think 22 of them are democrats that are running. those are extraordinarily difficult odds. we know that going into it. but we have such great candidates like claire mccaskill fighting it out. heidi, i talked to her, remember last time she held up the paper that said her opponent won, and she won. and so i think we've got to give these guys tonight and also we've got the house and then these governors races and it is really all about turning out, but it's also about independent voters. and what they think of the president's behavior over the last year. >> from the twin cities tonight, our thanks to democratic senator amy klobuchar of minnesota. thank you very much for making time to talk with us. back to the board we go. because i have -- told we have an update on kentucky 6th. though i see indiana. >> we'ring tooling between the two of them. a little bit more of indiana,

what's going on here, about one-third of the vote in indiana is early vote. then you start getting more of the same-day votes. i think the county where we got the best read now in terms of the most vote in, right down here, this is lawrence county. you see briaun, 365-31 over donnelly. when donnelly won in 2012 in this county, he got 40% of the vote. right now he's running under that. however, when hillary clinton got clobbered in indiana two years ago, she got 22% here. so we also might be seeing a different vote distribution pattern emerge here. the benchmark for don't believely, it would be great for him if he's running at his 2012 level, but also, if he's running consistently double digits, close to double digits ahead of hillary clinton that would put him in the game. to kentucky 6th, the congressional race we're watching, very early, but again we can just show you a little bit what's happening here. the absentee ballots are coming

in in these rural trump counties, for example, this is a county where donald trump got 72% of the vote. showed you a minute ago, 72% of the vote here in 2016 in this county. 57-42 in the absentees. the margin district-wide for donald trump was 55-39. so running 15 points off his number here. that's an encouraging sign for democrats. this is a county where trump got 66% of the vote. in 2016. running at 59% right now. so early indications there. democrats expected to do better. we're going to find out as more of this comes in, especially around lexington, if it's better enough for them here. >> steve kornacki for us with the data. i want to tell you, i said a moment ago that we are going to get to georgia. we are about to get to georgia. we're not only looking at what's going to happen there with that race, we've also got exit poll data showing voters' concerns about voter suppression and whether or not eligible voters will have their votes cast and counted. we've got interesting anecdotal information about how that's

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election day began today with reports of mechanical glitches and human errors leading to long lines and frustrated voters in precincts all around the country. look at this line in gwinnett county, georgia, in greater atlanta. the batteries inside a polling machine there had died. it took nearly two hours to find a power cord to charge up that machine. so for want of a single power cord, all these people gave up all this time today just trying to vote. storms overnight caused power outages in knoxville, tennessee. at one polling location voters literally had to cast paper ballots by lantern light. which doesn't make for great tv but is a great story. chandler, arizona, just outside of phoenix, wins for the weirdest voting problem of the

day. this morning when poll workers showed up just before 6:00 a.m. to open up, they discovered the landlord had foreclosed overnight on the office where people were supposed to be voting. foreclosing on the office, locking the poll workers out, locking voters out, and locking the voting machines inside. where no one could get to them. it's been that kind of a day. tremaine lee is at a polling place in atlanta, georgia. tremaine, thanks for joining us. what have you been seeing today? >> rachel, thank you very much. here in atlanta, georgia, where voters may be poised to make history by possibly electing the first black female governor in the united states. but this race has been controversial from the very beginning. concerns about voter suppression efforts, especially coming down from brian camp, the secretary of state, who is also running for governor. not the least of which is the gutting of the voting rights act. you talk to folks who have been around the block a few times and they say they saw this coming a mile away. but today, even though there's

excitement and long lines everywhere you go there's also concerns about voter suppression efforts and things going wrong at the polls. derek johnson, head of the naacp, derek, what have we been seeing? there have been concerns across counties and across atlanta that these voter suppression efforts are working. funny business at the polls? >> we're preparing a lawsuit right now to extend voting time for precincts in gwinnett county. you have voters standing in line over four hours because they didn't have power cords. we're finding the same stories in other counties. we're standing outside the morehouse precinct where we'll have been turned away because of the exact match. it's unfortunate brian kemp did not stand down as secretary of state to ensure a fair election. >> how much do you think is mismanagement of the polls and how much might be nefarious? >> whether malicious intent or benign neglect, it should not take place. we should have a transparent and fair system. he should have stepped down.

i wish we could bring criminal charges against how he's treating our democracy during this election cycle. >> is there concern any of this controversy, what we're seeing at the polls, women impact voter behavior at all today? >> i am excited with the level of enthusiasm, the determination of voters to stay in line. i'm encouraging voters to stay in line, whether you're in georgia, florida, any other state, because no matter what, don't leave the polling place unless you cast a ballot, whether provisional or an actual ballot. >> inside this auditorium in morehouse college, there's over 100 people still waiting in line. so students all day. the lines stretched down the block. i talked to volunteers, you see behind me a bunch of poll watchers saying that every hour of every moment of the day, the line stretched to 150 people or more. there's still young people in there ready to vote. there's excitement, but also a lot of concern. >> tremaine lee for us in morehouse, at morehouse, appreciate you being there for us, tremaine. you're mentioning about concerns about voter suppression.

we do have some new exit poll data. nbc news was able to do exit poll data of georgia voters in terms of their concerns about voter suppression. look at this. the concern that people who aren't eligible to vote will nevertheless be able to vote, that's 41%. the concern that eligible voters will be prevented from voting, that beats it by double digits, 51%. if you break it down by race among georgia voters, you'll see why the numbers shake out that way. the concern that people not eligible will vote is a concern of a majority of white voters, 54%. among african-american voters, look at the concern that eligible voters will be prevented from voting. 73% of black voters in georgia are saying they have concerns that eligible voters will be blocked. i have concerns that there's an extra "l" in the first mention of eligible on that screen. but that's the sort of thing that i'll have to take up during the commercial break. for now being go to ari melber

of "the beat" who's been monitoring stor rids like this, concerns like this anecdotal evidence, statistic call evidence that there may be worries about the vote across the country. >> that's right. focusing on georgia, where this has been an issue from the start. in context, brian kemp purged triple the number of vote there's made the margin of re-election in the last governors race. we're talking about something that could decide this race. everyone fired up about it. the news i have for you is late-breaking hut here within the last two hours that is trying to remove brian kemp from overseeing the rest of this election. that's something a lot of people have been talking about. we heard derek johnson from the local naacp talking to tremaine lee about similar efforts. so this is something that could also matter tonight or going forward if there's a runoff or certification. all of this relating to issues you've been covering when you look at the attempted cyber hack, information that was put out as many people say as lacking evidence as an effort to intervene, the voter purges. some places we've seen today lines of hours in georgia.

we're tracking all of this. it's the kind of thing that like so many other races tonight, if it's tight, these things could decide it. if there is a blowout in one direction or another, these issues tend to fade into the background on election evenings. >> let me ask about that lawsuit that you said was filed. this is election day. this is election evening. polls are about to close. closing all over the country. i know from covering these issues, as you do, that the courts are always very reluctant, as a matter of supreme court precedent, to get involved in election matters too close to an election. what does it mean to have an election, to have a lawsuit filed on election night, trying to get kemp out of the middle of the election that he's running in? >> you're exactly right. the courts generally want to avoid anything that would look like them getting involved in the politics. they also have a countervailing obligation to defend voters' rights. what this is specifically, we just got off the phone with larry schwartzman in georgia, is several voters saying, remove kemp. >> ari, thank you very much, much prior toed, my friend. we're going to go to a break, our last break before we

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welcome back. just about eight minutes before the hour. eight minutes before reportable poll closings we'll have for you. promise to your all evening lock is when steve kornacki gets enough numbers to report to us, we will go to steve kornacki. in the coach's corner, looking at you. you got something from kentucky. >> if you're seeing this for the first time, what you're looking at here. 435 districts out there. a lot of them we know going into the night it's going to be democratic or republican.

the gray here kind of represent the noncompetitive districts. as they're called officially throughout the night, they're going to fill in red and blue. see the couple of expected republican ones have already been called. what you see in yellow, we think that's the battlefield tonight. we think that's where control of the house is going to be decided. we have 66 of them highlighted here. what they are are 66 republican held districts where democrats have the best chance of getting pickups. what democrats need to do, the name of the game tonight, is net game, net pickup of 23 seats. we think this is going to be the hart for democrats. could be surprises. could be districts off the list that pop up. we will get them to you. mainly going to be concentrated here so that's why we've set it up this way. all 66 of these districts exactly one of them has votes coming in right now. it is that sixth district of kentucky. now give you an update and you see it is nipping the republican incumbent by a fraction of a

point. still in the early going. mainly absentee vote going in. what happens here if you remember the very early vote, leading by a lopsided margin. we set sort of mcgrath is going to sink or swim based on what happens here. fayette county. this is lexington. this is university of kentucky. this is one of only two counties in the state of kentucky that voted for hillary clinton in 2016. she won jefferson county and she won fayette county. she won nothing else. she got 51% of the vote here in 2016. mcgrath running at 59%. benchmark in my head is 60%. mcgrath wants to be on the north side of 60%. she's on the cusp of that. looks like absentee vote. see that she's going to sink or swim on that. go to outlying areas. you got very republican areas in the outlying parts of this district. see a lot of red there. you probably see blue around

frankfo frankfort. getting the lead to go back to the big board here. one district getting action right now. in less than ten minutes that's going to change in a big way. all these districts in florida are going to start getting results. four competitive districts in virginia. going to start getting results two right here. small geographically big in terms of the stakes right outside of atlanta. sixth and seventh going start getting results. things are going to really be picking up here in the next couple of minutes. >> steve kornacki. one of the big senate races that has received more than outsized national attention is the ted cruz senate race in texas. he is running against a national democrat democratic. no democratic has won in 25 years. he has become a national story for a reason. the numbers say that ted cruz should have no problem. this race has attacken a bit of a life of its own.

chris hayes is at the ballpark. home of chihuahua. who had chihuahua on the night's bingo card. different kind of campaigns democrats are running in statewide elections. chris, what are you seeing? >> it's a -- first of all, it's a gorgeous ballpark and gorgeous town. this is the site of one of the most interesting experiments, the most interesting experiments of democratic politics happening in the nation. he's from el paso. no one has ever been elected state wide in el paso. people didn't know what he was. need to raise money. threw up the old play book. went to 254 counties. raised enormous sums of

montgomery nationally and small dollar donors. here's why tonight is going to be interesting. in 2014. votes cast in the year in 2016. the cruz people came in thinking it was going to be a six million vote night. right now, all the politicos and most sophisticated data say it's an 8 million vote night. that's a 2 million miss for the cruz campaign. the question is where are the voters and who are they. where did they come from. there's a sense of uncertainty about this. and it's because orourke chose to do something bold and did not do something others have done before. the math has not been working. this way of doing it, i think, at the end of the night going to end up with orourke

outperforming a lot of candidates in the last 25 years. >> one of the things that matters when you take that kind of approach. try to get people out vote whino haven't voted before, you have to start thinking about how hard it is to vote or how easy it is to vote in that state. one of the things we hear nationwide about why texas won't budge even as demographics keep changing in what looks like democratic direction, it's hard to vote in texas. hard to register. hard to vote. go out of their way to make it as arduous as possible process. how has the orourke campaign dealt with those issues specific to that state the republican

legislature has a wrath of restrictive law and other obstacles. it was even low turnout state before the obstacles. low turnout state then. the campaign has just been trying to sort of sheer. they hit a ton of doors. the idea is you get as many people at the polls. people there to protect the vote. hope for the best. >> chris hayes in el paso. thank you very much. much appreciated. >> we are now under a minute away from the top of the 7:00 hour eastern time. as you heard steve kornacki say, this will be the hour that our board will start to light up. the competitive house races will start to reflect themselves on the board. on the right, you see the states that are a half a minute away from closing. georgia, indiana, all of indiana, all of kentucky, south carolina, vermont and virginia and in the lower right-hand

corner of your screen, you see what the stakes are tonight. there is not a candidate, a single national candidate as there would be in a presidential election, but for many of the democrats, many of the republicans watching, that candidate is named 23. the 23 seats the democrats need to take control of the house. now, the 7:00 hour has alooirri and we have the following projections. in indiana in the senate race there, we're calling it too close to call at the top of the 7:00 p.m. hour. in the vermont, no surprise the re-election of bernie sanders, the independent who caucuses with the democrats. in virginia, no surprise, hillary clinton's former running mate, tim kaine, this is the race cane was in against cory stuart who made a big splash early. not so much along the homestretch. the u.s. senate at this hour and