♪ good evening. i am steve kornacki. welcome to a special sunday night here. we are less than ten days to go, nine days to be exact, until election day. this really is the home stretch of the 2020 campaign. this truly is a year unlike any other. and another stark reminder of that tonight, early votes that have been cast so far in this presidential election, there's the total cast so far. that number as of today is now higher than the total early vote for the entire early voting period four years ago. we are now past it and there are still, as we say, nine days to go, nine more days of ballots to be coming in before we're actually at election day and before the big board behind me

starts lighting up with those first results on election night. let's go right in. over the next hour we're going to take you through what we know about where this presidential race stands at this moment, what could happen to change it in the remaining days. this is the 30,000-foot view to start with. this is the national polling average right now. here's joe biden leading donald trump. this has been the story for the entire campaign. joe biden has led the national polling average throughout this race. his lead over donald trump at 7.7 points. biden's average up just a bit above 51%. biden leads trump. it's been the story for a while ago. but, of course, we all remember 2016. we remember two things. number one, we remember that hillary clinton won the popular vote in 2016 and donald trump

still won the electoral college. trump doesn't necessarily have to catch biden in the national popular vote to win the election. that is the other thing we remember from 2016. in those final days, the race tightened just enough for trump to get through in the electoral college. let's compare it. you can see hillary clinton enjoyed a lead over donald trump. it was 4.3 points on average at this point. 7.7 right now. of course, this was the moment, it was right around this time, very end of october 2016, when that james comey statement came out saying he was reopening the e-mail investigation, more e-mails had been discovered. by election day, that lead that hillary clinton had over trump in the national polls was sitting at about 3 points. her final popular vote margin ended up at two points. this did tighten further in the final days.

let's see what happens with the 7.7 margin biden has. does anything happen in the coming days that makes it move one day or the other? that's the 30,000-foot view. let's look at the states that will decide this race. first, michigan, pennsylvania, wisconsin. what do these states have in common? obviously they all went to trump in 2016 by very slim margins, less than a point, a fraction of a point in each one of these states. all three of these had not gone for a republican in a presidential race since the 1980s. these states, trump flipped each one. these are the three states that made him the president. you see the margins. what does the polling look like in these states now? these are the three battleground states where in the polls at least joe biden enjoys his biggest leads over donald trump right now. we're going to spend a lot of time throughout this hour going through the path to 270, various ways biden could get there,

various ways trump could hold him off. i tell you right now, the interest way for joe biden to become president is simply to win these three states. you see what trump got in 2016. you see where biden is now. next category of states, florida, arizona, north carolina. they weren't as close as the first three. where do they stand right now? again, you've got biden leads. then you've got georgia, ohio, texas, iowa. these are all still single-digit trump wins in 2016. were they high single digits? here's what the polling looks like there now. look at georgia, look at iowa. some big progress there, at least in the polling for joe biden versus how hillary clinton finished. that is a look at the battleground states. that's a look at the national polling average. again, we're going to break this down state by state on the map here as the hour goes along. first, let's have a conversation

here about where this race stands and about where this race could go. joining me for that, democratic pollster margie romero. she's a senior fellow at the ethics and public policy center and a columnist for the "washington post." margie, from a democratic standpoint we mention the example of the memory that everybody has of 2016 and what happened in the final days of that campaign. you see trump is running from behind again. you see the battleground states are a little bit closer. you see democrats getting excited about early voting numbers . you see the trump folks saying, just wait until election day, we're going to swamp them then. do you see similarities between now and 2016, or do you see something different right now? if so, what would that be? >> i think for a lot of democrats are not looking at the polls. they're trying not to look at the polls. they're trying to get through the polls. the stakes are so high that

people don't want to in any way seem complacent based on poll numbers or averages. that's why you see early voting. that's why you see so many people out there volunteering. i think there are a couple things that are different. the first is you have an incumbent president who is clearly vulnerable. much different than having an open seat where two candidates are vying for a position. here you have an incumbent president who has been underwater in his ratings since the first day he took office. that's not a position of streng strength. even if the polls are different from where they are now by a little bit, there's still a real sign of vulnerability for the president. on top of that, you have joe biden's favorability improving as we get closer to the election, which is unusual for any candidate running for any office. i think the last thing i would look at is how people are

changing relative to 2016 or in what way is there improvement. there are some groups moving more left leaning and some groups more right leaning. if you look at a lot of the polls now, a little bit more left ward. that's not necessarily all at the same rate. they don't all end at the same point. but you have a variety of groups moving a little bit more democratic across the board. that shows a variety of different paths for biden. >> you spent a lot of time in the last several years really looking at and trying to understand the coalition that propelled donald trump to the presidency in 2016. margie is saying she thinks things might be a little different now because he's an

incoi incumbe incumbent. what do you say in terms of those differences and the possibility of a different result this time around? >> i think those are very important differences. look, a president running for reelection going back to 1972 almost always gets within one percentage point of his final job approval rating. donald trump needs to have about 47% of the national vote and lose by three points or less to win the electoral college. he's a little over 44% right now in the real fair politics average. he needs a late, quick reassessment of his presidency. that's not forthcoming, it's going to be very difficult to see how he canaetrepeat. >> you say he needs a late break his way, a late reassessment his

way. what would get him that in the next nine days? >> i think the only thing that could really get him to that in the next nine days would be people looking and thinking about the unprecedented pandemic that has struck the world, how it's not just the united states but now europe is going through lockdown after lockdown in country after country. saying, maybe he didn't do as bad a job as i thought. maybe it's just harder ereer toe than i believed. i'm just saying if donald trump doesn't do election day with a 3-5% approval rating, the polls would have to be significantly off akrcross the board for dona trump for donald trump to pull off a second win without winning the popular vote. >> we mentioned a polling error. if you look at the 2016 polling, certainly in some of these key midwest states there were polling errors then. the possibility that the polls

are dramatically off right now, that they're dramatically off in a way where president trump is going to do much better on election day than it looks right now, what do you say to folks who are saying this ining the just going to prove to be wrong? >> i don't think anybody should root on the polls to be wrong. i know that folks on the right say there are shy trump voters who are nervous about telling a person they don't know on the phone that they support the president. that their secret weapon is the fact that people are embarrassed to say they vote for the president. i don't think that's a sign of strength. those are folks who were shy trump voters in 2016, they would be able to find them and reach them in telephone surveys now in 2020. i don't know if that particular

concern will be born out. but i do think we should think about two different ways, two different things to look at. one is the composition of the electorate and democratic performance. there's two different ways of approaching it. if you look at groups that have been very strongly for the president like white men, are they going to be a larger percentage of the electorate or are they going to be less supportive of the president than in 2016. those are some things to look at and examine. >> thank you for helping us get things started on this preelection special. appreciate that. again, just nine days to go now until election day. with time running out, full court press for both tickets. schedules are packed. the trump campaign heading to some critical battleground states. the biden campaign heading into red states they say could be up for grabs this time around. we're going to get the latest from the trail. latest from the trail

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there were some key developments today when it comes to what both of these campaigns are planning for the final week or so of this campaign. the president, he and his team, they say he is set to visit the see battlegrounds of pennsylvania, wisconsin and michigan this week. joe biden is planning upcoming stops in georgia and now texas. texas is a state the democrat hasn't won at the presidential level in 44 years. jimmy carter in '76 the last one there. and vice president mike pence is keeping up a full travel schedule despite five of his associated now testing positive for covid-19. among them, his chief of staff,

mark short. as news broke tonight of that fifth pence aide or associate testing positive, the vice president was rallying voters in north carolina. he did not mention his colleagues. his spokesman says the vice president and his wife have tested negative for the virus, adding that, quote, vice president pence is considered a close contact with mr. short. in consultation with the white house medical unit, the vice president will maintain his schedule in accordance with cdc guidelines for essential personnel. let's bring in ali vitale who is following the biden campaign from wilmington, delaware. also with us, nbc's josh letterman who has been covering the trump campaign for us. josh, let me start with that news about the vice president. a number of folks around him now in his orbit have tested positive for the coronavirus. we saw this happen recently with kamala harris. she stepped off the campaign trail for a period when this happened. he is not doing so.

can you tell us a little bit more about the thinking there? and also there is the senate vote pending now on the confirmation of amy coney barrett to the supreme court. he's going to be present for that, is that correct? >> reporter: that is a little bit of a moving target. as of yesterday, mike pence said that he not only plans to be there for amy coney barrett's confirmation vote, but actually to preside over it himself. then we learned about this new outbreak in the vice president's office. his office made it very clear he is not pulling himself out of his business or his campaign schedule as cdc guidelines would suggest for someone who was a close contact for a known positive covid-19 individual, that being the vice president's chief of staff. instead, based on the idea that he's an essential worker, he's going to go about his business. now, in the last few minutes or so we got the vice president's public schedule for tomorrow. it actually doesn't mention

anything specifically about that vote for amy coney barrett. so we are trying to find out from his office whether the vice president still plans to go in person to the senate, which obviously would raise all kinds of questions about whether that's a safe thing to do, given that we know that sometimes when people contract the coronavirus due to the incubation process of the virus, it takes several days before you'd actually test positive. so the fact that he tested negative today doesn't necessarily mean he wouldn't be positive tomorrow or the next day. take a listen to what some republican senators had to say or not say when they were asked today about whether it makes sense for pence to come to the senate in person. >> let's talk about vice president mike pence. >> he's a good man. >> you think he should be presiding over the senate tomorrow? you think that's it safe for him to be here knowing that?

>> he's been wearing a mask everywhere he goes. >> mitch mcconnell ignoring questions repeatedly when he was asked about the situation involving covid cases and the vice president's office. but if you want an indication of how the vice president is taking all of this, just look at what he is doing tomorrow. we know the vice president will be traveling to minnesota for a make america great again event, not changing his procedure really in light of this new outbreak. >> okay. so you mentioned there too at the end minnesota. that's the trump campaign trying to flip a blue state from 2016. in fact, minnesota, a state that hasn't gone republican since the '70s. ali, let me ask you about what for democrats is sort of another white whale. that's texas. we mentioned kamala harris apparently on her way there in the coming days, a state that

hasn't gone democratic since 1976. the question there is, how real and how deep is this democratic effort to go after texas? you could send the vp candidate. but the other question is, are you sending money? are you going to be on the air waves in houston, in dallas, in these expensive media markets? how real is this late democratic push in texas? >> reporter: well, steve, they're earning headlines, which helps at this point. but there is some investment behind this. some of the spending numbers from the biden team, since they went on the air in september, they've spent about $2.1 million on the air waves. tomorrow they've got another 1.8 million set to go on the air waves. there is an investment there. frankly, there's two ways you can read those numbers. on the one hand, it's a bigger investment than you see from democratic presidential candidates in a state like texas. they're also the only game in

town on the air waves there because the trump campaign isn't really spending anything in terms of advertising in texas. but on the other hand, it's not that much money given, as you said, the expensive media market and just how big the state is. still, there is some foot traffic. dr. jill biden went there for the kick off to in-person early voting. kamala harris is set to go to the state on friday. so they are sending some people there to show they want to try to capture the energy we've seen in texas, frankly, that democrats have been salivating over especially since 2018 and that really close senate race between beto o'rourke and ted cruz. they really do think this is a case of continuing to identify dormant democratic voters and getting them out to the polls to vote. steve, you look at the larger picture that's happening. the schedule that we know about for the democratic ticket, you've got kamala harris going to places like texas, joe biden is announced to be going to georgia on tuesday. what it's starting to look like is that democrats are looking at

a really aggressive electoral map. i have been assured by sources on the biden campaign that we are going to see them hit those more traditional battleground states, north carolina, wisconsin, florida. but at this point when you look at the schedule, you see the democrats trying to be aggressive in terms of the states they want to show face in with only a few days until election day. and joe biden, though, is also talking about the specter of 2016. it hangs over everything here. tonight on "60 minutes" listen to what he said. >> it's not over until the bell rings. i feel superstitious when i predict anything other than it's going to be a hard fight. we feel good about where we are. but i don't underestimate how he plays. >> reporter: steve, nothing in the bag until election day until the voters vote. >> all right. ali vitale there in wilmington, delaware, josh letterman on the

trump/pence beat for us. thank you both. in 2016, trump flips pennsylvania. the state had gone for the democrats six elections straight before that. now you look at the polling. trump again trailing biden in pennsylvania. we are going to be live in that critical battleground state, many say a must-win state for the president. we'll be there right after this break. first, we caught up with some iowa voters waiting to cast their ballots early. >> i think the president will win. i think he'll be reelected. >> there are a lot of people -- >> i'm voting for biden. i don't want to say i'm doing it reluctantly but i'm more interested in just getting rid of trump. so that's where i think my vote will have the most power is

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pennsylvania, you got to get out and vote. you know, if we win pennsylvania, we win the whole thing. >> president trump trying to keep pennsylvania ready. flipped it in 2016. he's going to make a three-stop blitz tomorrow through the keystone state. he trails joe biden by seven points in the latest poll out of pennsylvania. joining me is navy base's maura barrett on the ground in beaver, pennsylvania. maura, what have been you been hearing? we said it early. it had been 1988 the last year a republican won pennsylvania until trump got it in 2016. what's the mood on the ground right now? >> reporter: right, stooefeve. trump only won here by 44,000 votes so both candidates

focusing in on this battleground state. and we've seen the president losing support among white voters without college degrees and suburban women. here in beaver county, both of those demographics are exemplified. it's a suburb of pittsburgh where blue cal lolor workers uso work in the steel industry. there is a new shell plant down the road from where i'm standing that a lot of folks credit for trump bringing into town, but that was actually signed back in 2012. fracking is something people look to energize the local community, but it's not ahead of anything on the list when it comes to health care, the covid pandemic or the general economy because of covid. take a listen to what aarerin gabriel told me. >> i think people are tired of what they've been seeing the last four years. i think they're tired of the

divisiveness. i think they're tired of the us versus them mentality and they're ready for someone who can really utilinite us. i live in a fairly rural part of the county and there's a lot of fracking going on. i don't think it's brought the economic boom that everybody thought it was going to bring. it's not the first topic that people talk about. >> reporter: so who pennsylvanians are voting for, obviously very huge here in these final nine days, but also how pennsylvanians are voting has become increasingly confusing. just this week the state supreme court ruled that ballots cannot be thrown out due to signature verification but ballots can be thrown out if voters don't include that secrecy envelope on their mail-in ballot. basically we know if the election isn't called on election night in other states, we might be waiting on pennsylvania for several days

after election night. >> very important point. pennsylvania might be one of the slower ones when it comes to getting those returned. that's something to keep in mind. maura barrett, beaver, pennsylvania, thank you for that. we said at the top we are going to take a bunch of deep dives into the electoral map this hour, into the battle for 270. let's fire it up. let's start here. let's start where it all ended in 2016. this is the map that made donald trump president. he got 306 electoral votes. joe biden is trying to unseat donald trump. what's his path? what does he need to do here on the electoral map to get to 270? we said it at the top. let's start with the most direct route that joe biden has. it involved pennsylvania. it involves michigan. it involves wisconsin. again, they used to call these part of the blue wall. remember that? people stopped talking about the blue wall after 2016. but these were states that it had been since the 1980s, that

was the last time they voted republican until they went for donald trump. but they barely went for trump. as maura said, it was about 45,000 votes for trump in pennsylvania. it was tighter in michigan, tighter in wisconsin, a fraction of the point there was the margin. how about this? direct route for joe biden would be this simple. improve on hillary clinton's showing by one point in wisconsin, improve by one point in michigan, improve by one point in pennsylvania. president-elect joe biden, flip those three states, don't lose any of the other clinton states and right now he looks pretty well-positioned for that. that would be it. he would be over 270. let's say trump were to get pennsylvania for the sake of argument here. what other paths does biden have? if he gets wisconsin, if he gets michigan, how about north carolina? that would put him over. if he missed in north carolina, how about florida? you've seen the polling with

biden up too there. georgia maybe even. or any combination here. if he gets these two, wisconsin and michigan, pretty much any one other here could get him here. arizona is a state where democrats think they've made strides in the phoenix metro area. 11 electoral votes. 269-269 tie. that would go to the house of representatives. but the other place where democrats think they've made strides, it's in nebraska. not the entire state of nebraska, but nebraska one of those states, maine is the other, that gives out electoral votes by congressional district. there's a congressional district that's basically omaha that trump won by three points in 2016. and the democrats think they're going to be able to flip. mar marecopa county. they think they can flip that

seat in omaha. there's the combination that could get biden there where he misses in florida, north carolina, georgia, but he gets two to three midwest states. he gets arizona because of the phoenix metro area and he gets that congressional district in omaha because of that suburban metropolitan shift we've been talking about. that is a formula for 270 for joe biden. biden leads nationally. we see biden leading by varying margins in most of these swing states. what it means is there are a number of potential paths on this map that would get joe biden to 270. he's got more than one way to pull this thing out. we will see. also, president trump, are there paths for him? can he hold onto 270? we're going to walk through that a little bit ahead. as president trump predicts that his margin will be wider than four years ago. s margin will be four years ago >> you remember that beautiful

night in november four years ago, right? well, i don't think this one will be as close. i don't think this is going to be as close. close i don't think this is going to be as close. change in plans. at fidelity, a change in plans is always part of the plan. ♪ ♪ smooth driving pays off with allstate, the safer you drive the more you save you never been in better hands allstate click or call for a quote today . time to start brushing with parodontax toothpaste?

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welcome back to our special hour. when we last left things off, we were going through the different paths joe biden has to get to 270 to win the presidential election. we said what about the president, does he have a path to reelection? what would that path to reelection look like? a couple things when you look at this electoral map to think of when you talk about the president's path here, we said this last segment with biden, wisconsin, michigan, pennsylvania. it's biden's most direct route to victory. that makes it the most vulnerable spot trump has on this map. the polling in these three states is the weakest for trump of any battleground. if trump goes over, he is not

going to hit more than 270 electoral votes. the first order of business for the president is to find a way to win one of these states. for a couple of reasons, this campaign seems to be zooming in on pennsylvania. you see that in the money, you see that in the time they're spending. keep in mind, pennsylvania the biggest of these three in terms of electoral votes as well. so if biden were to pick off wisconsin and michigan, but trump were able to engineer a victory in pennsylvania, you see that 306 total that trump had in 2016 would drop, but he'd still be above 270. he'd be at 280. from that point, his margin for error would be almost nonexiste nonexistent. if he were to lose florida at that point, a georgia, a north carolina, an ohio, anything like that, that would be it. that would be curtains for trump. there is the possibility in a scenario like this where if he lost arizona but managed to hang

onto that congressional district in omaha, that would be a 269-269 tie for him. but basically for the president, pennsylvania, one of the three midwest states but really pennsylvania looms as a must-win for him. the other way of looking at this for the president is, florida, how florida looms as a must-win state. that's going to be one of those 7:00 eastern time we're going to start getting vote returns from florida. we're probably going to get a pretty good picture of where things are going in florida on election night. just look at florida on its own. if trump were to lose florida, it's a state he won by one point, three points in 2016. you see biden leading by about two in the polls right now. losing florida wouldn't be itself put trump under 270. but look how close. 29 electoral votes. if he just loses florida from that 2016 coalition, he's down to 277. again, a loss in any one of these midwest states at that

point, if he were to lose michigan, which is the one of these three where he looks the most vulnerable, that alone, florida plus michigan or florida plus wisconsin, florida plus pretty much any one other state would probably cost trump the election too. he's got to shore up florida. he's probably got to hang onto pennsylvania. at that point, some paths would open up. that's the way i look at it. from trump's standpoint, he's got to win florida and pennsylvania. those are not by themselves going to get him reelected, but they would open up paths to get him reelected. we could then start going through this board and finding different ways he hangs on. if he doesn't get both of those states, though, certainly if he doesn't find a way to win one of those three there, you really have a hard time coming up with those paths. there are some must-wins that really emerge for the president when you look at this map. let's be joined by michael

steel, former chairman of the republican national committee, senior advisor to the lincoln project. former maryland congresswoman donna edwards. and rich lowry, editor at the "national review." i really want to ask a big picture question of all three of you. we talked about what it might take in terms of this map to get biden elected, to get trump reelected. with nine days to go, what are you looking at? what are you looking for in the final week or so of this campaign? rich lowry, i'll start with you. >> i don't think there's much option, steve, for the president at this point except for trying to dance with the one that brought him, which means pounding on these rallies, working as hard as he can talking about the issue differences as much as he can and then hoping -- it's not implouzabi implausible that he nips and

tucks his way into traditionally red states that are battlegrounds this year, that he retains florida. republicans won two big statewide races in florida in 2008. and pennsylvania, he's going to be traveling there again this week. they've always felt a little better in pennsylvania in part subjectively because they thought the crowds are a little bigger, there's more energy there. obviously going to make every use possible of biden's statements in the debate to end the oil industry. problem is, pennsylvania is a little further out of reach than the traditional red states that are battlegrounds now. so they need some tightening and a combination of the polling or a massive turnout to get them over the top. >> donna edwards, same question to you. what are you looking for here? >> i'm looking at of course the three industrial states that we talked about. i mean, if you look at the difference in the election in

2016 to 2020, it really was about, especially in wisconsin and michigan, about black voter turnout in detroit and in milwaukee. so democrats have to do everything possible to get those numbers up and to make certain that they turn out their base of voters. and then i'm going to start looking southward at states in the south to see where it is that biden and harris are going to make the most improvement or that trump is going to falter. >> michael steel, how about you? >> well, as an old county chairman and state chairman, i kind of have the pleasure of kind of enjoying both of my colleagues here and their comments because they hit it in the sweet spot. and that is turnout. it is ground game. at this stage, i can tell you what's happening in counties around the country and state parties around the country right now. there are lists being formed. voters are being identified,

who's voted, who hasn't, all of that information, all that intel is getting gathered and it's going to be processed over the next week. that's going to lead to friday, saturday and sunday. those days, actually saturday, sunday and monday. that time frame is that get out the vote period where you hit that weekend, you check where your vote is. it is essential. for trump, it's especially important particularly in a state like florida where the republicans have had a great deal of success and really out registering democrats in some areas of florida. they've got to make sure that vote shows up. it's one thing to register people to vote. it's a whole other thing to get them actually to the polls, particularly new voters who sometimes can fall off the map. this point of the stretch is so important for both campaigns, to

donna's point, about identifying what their vote is, turning the corner and heading into those states where you need to lock it down. for both candidates, pennsylvania is the cornerstone of that. right now the advantage, trump. >> add to that, you know, one of the contrasts between these candidates and the campaign and there are many, many of them obviously, but one that we focused on election night and afterwards is this big contrast where the biden campaign has dominated the air waves, very traditional, running lots of tv ads. if that's all that matters, he can get over the top. but the trump campaign is making a bet it's the door knocking, it's voter outreach. it's not necessarily the air waves that matter this time because trump is so known already. people already have judgments, most of them about him one way or the other. so they're doing the ground game in a different way. it will be interesting to see which of those ends up being more powerful.

>> there's also this question, donna edwards, of the coronavirus. we've got the cases rising again here. we had the news here involving folks who had been around the vice president, staff members. you'vethe polling certainly on the president's handling of this. does this have the potential to change any votes in this race? >> no. but i think it does have the potential to, especially this focus on vice president pence, is to really encourage more people to show up and vote and vote their health care and vote coronaviruses. i mean, i think, you know, you can't get away from this when people are voting early vote and vote by mail in heavy numbers because of the coronavirus and they're standing in line en mass six feet apart because of coronavirus. it's on every voters' mind even as they're going to the polls. i don't think this is something the president is going to escape, and it may be the one

thing that causes the tipping point in states like florida and those mid western states that are now seeing increased spikes in their coronavirus cases. >> quickly, the senate looks like it's going to vote on amy coney barrett tomorrow. i remember about a month ago when this nomination was put forward, we thought this was going to be huge campaign-changing event. this is now kind of happening on a much sort of lower scale in terms of the electricity. why hasn't this generated the kind of apparent energy that we thought it would? >> because i think largely because democrats refocused their energy onto other things. why stir up a hornet's nest when you don't have the votes and you have no way or means to stop the vote? so okay, you're going to go ahead and get the process through, you're going to get your nominee through. that's fine. we'll see you on the other side of the ballot. we're going to fight this and

just remind our voters that, you know, this is part of why you need to make the change in the senate because of things like this. they decided to back off, from the folks i talked to, weren't to change the needle that much in the main so focus the energy on other things. health care and coronavirus was it. >> all right. >> and to donna's point, it's still an advantage there for the vice president. >> all right. michael steele, donna edwards, rich lowery, thanks to all of you for being with us. we are heading to the battleground state of arizona. we were talking about its 11 electoral votes a minute ago. 1996 the last time it went for a democrat. joe biden's campaign thinks they can turn it blue again this year. are they right? or is it a mirage? more right after this. [ sneeze ] skip to cold relief fast with alka seltzer plus severe powerfast fizz. dissolves quickly. instantly ready to start working.

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♪ ♪ the expertise that helps keep hospitals clean, is helping keep businesses clean too. look for the ecolab science certified seal. being mb maub have being mb maub been more americans who voted early in this election than voted early for the entire 2016 process. there are nearly 55 million ballots that have been cast in this presidential election so far. and that number continues to rise. by the day. with nearly 1.5 million ballots so far, alone, cast in the state of arizona. we were just talking about how important that state is to the electoral college map and how important maricopa county, arizona, is, to the results in that state. nbc's vaughn hillyard is the

site of a biden campaign event in phoenix, the heart of maricopa county. i am told, vaughn, that cher of moon struck fame is performing there. tell us what you're seeing on the ground out there in arizona. >> reporter: yeah, good evening, steve. i think this event speaks to kind of the absurdity of this entire election, but more so what we should expect over the course of this next week. the contrast between the two campaigns. cher is expected to take the stage at any moment. this a socially distant, 50 folks here who are gathered. a couple days ahead of a new announcement from the trump campaign that the president is going to hold a rally in the rural part of the state, bull head city, in mojave county. that's a county we should note in 2016 he won by 50 percentage points over hillary clinton. so while joe biden is trying to win maricopa wtcounty, we long said wherever maricopa county goes the state goes, the president is trying to make up

for potential deficits here. i also spent this weekend in people ma coun pima county, a third place we're going to look at on election night. pima county, tucson, the greater tucson area, the bright blue part of the state looking to ju their turnout numbers there as well to offset what the trump campaign is looking to do in the more rural parts of the state. if those two offset each other, it comes down here to maricopa county. we should note, we're approaching 8:00 on the west coast and 8:00 p.m. on election night is when the poll results will be coming in so just eight days from now i think we'll be talking about results here, steve, out of arizona. >> yeah, that's right, vaughn. as you well know, it's the first few minutes after they're allowed to release the vote, we get a ton from arizona so we're looking forward to seeing what those numbers have to say and tell us about where the election is going. vaughn hillyard in phoenix, thank you for that. really appreciate that. that's going to wrap up this special hour. nine days and counting. thank you for watching at home and i'll see you all day tomorrow on msnbc as we continue

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and, of course, i mean the end of the presidential race. not like the end.