closely-watched -- excuse me, iowa and montana have closely-watched senate races in addition to their presidential status. lots coming up. i'm glad you mentioned those closely-watched races and we may not have a whole lot of developing news here at the top of this next hour. exactly to robert gibbs' point, it's early yet, 10:00 p.m. in the east, but those are the states closing at this hour. and so in we go. in iowa, too early to call. in nevada, too early to call. in utah, too early to call. in montana, too early to call. let's go back through some battlegrounds. in florida, too close to call. we have it as a slight trump lead. in texas, too early to call.

pennsylvania, too early to call. let's get comfortable here. in ohio, while we're at it, too early to call. michigan, too early to call. georgia, too early to call. north carolina, too early to call. arizona, too early to call. wisconsin, are you figuring out a trend here? too early to call. minnesota, too early to call. new hampshire, too early, but a biden lead as our decision guest -- desk sees it. here's the map to 270. this is how the colors lay out across the country. you see the outlier colorado. on the senate side, of course, that was a flip on the democrats. let talk about senate races. having just closed, this is a big one. you see how much whopping vote is in there.

obviously too early to call. greenfield/ernst race. in montana, bullock/danes, too early to call. the democrats need three seats to gain control. steve kornacki, do you have any numbers on turnout tonight? >> well, we're looking at numbers, you know, across the board, significantly higher than 2016. we're also just trying to look -- i'm looking as you come to me here at north carolina. and i think you can see -- let me get this off the screen so there's a little more clarity here. we've been watching this joe biden lead in north carolina. and i think if you've been keeping a close eye, it's been dwindling and it continues to dwindle. it's now under 6,000 votes in north carolina. we think about 85% of the vote is counted. what is to come here? you see about 863,000 votes statewide. again, there are a lot of votes in -- and i'm just seeing if

that falls anymore, 5,900. there are a lot of votes to come in places like raleigh, greensboro, charlotte, but they are the same-day votes and we're seeing big differences there. i'm also just checking -- we still don't have votes from union county, which is a big suburban area expected to favor donald trump. so you see biden's lead dwindling there in north carolina. you see biden obviously falling behind in florida earlier and in texas. in georgia, again, biden is going to need -- we got more than half in here. continuing to be a 13-point gap. is going to need monster, monster, monster numbers here from the atlanta metro area. that brings us of those five states we highlighted at the beginning of the night, that brings us to ohio, and there you go, you can now see that donald trump has taken the lead in ohio. 130,000 votes. let me just take a look here at what's left. a little under 2 million. we've got a lot of same-day vote that has come in here. i think there are a lot of

places -- we were just looking at this off air. we are seeing, again, significant gaps in these counties between the votes that were cast ahead of time and the votes that were cast today. i think that there were a lot of votes cast today still to come in. you can see a place like franklin county, look, this is still overwhelmingly biden, but the number is down even here from what we were looking at a little bit earlier because of the same-day vote. here you go, delaware county. this is a good example, too. they're basically all done in delaware county. we highlighted this at the beginning of the night. this is a very good example, i think, because this is sort of suburban, ex-urban. democrats talked about making big gains in a place like this. democrats have made gains here with only about 700 votes left. trump got 56. tonight looks like a little south of 52%. democrats need a little bit more of a gain than this? perhaps that's a question you might ask. you can take a look, lucas county, still a lot to come. i believe they've been stuck there since we started looking.

statewide, trump's lead sitting around 130,000. if you look at the remaining vote, cleveland, columbus, a little bit less, cincinnati. let's check in on cuyahoga county. again, 300,000 votes there. there still are opportunities on this map for joe biden. we've been checking in with mahoning. that biden advantage in mahoning now down to 13 points as more of the same-day vote comes in in mahoning county, so you see trump's numbers moving up a lot of places in ohio with same-day vote. i just want to zoom out because i think it is a good time to check on this. we said at the start of the night that there were five early opportunities here for joe biden in florida, georgia, north carolina, texas and ohio. i think we have to say it is possible that donald trump will do what he needed to do in these states and that he will go 5 for 5. it the possible. er if it's possible. florida, georgia, north carolina, texas and ohio. if we does, where will the action shift? it will shift certainly to arizona.

arizona with 11 electoral votes. and then we're getting votes in in wisconsin, michigan, pennsylvania. we're getting them very slowly, very scattered, but, again, what donald trump will need to do, pennsylvania must-win in that situation, likely arizona would be must-win for him in that situation. we'll keep an eye on nevada as well, but the battleground if trump is able to go 5 for 5 if these states -- that is a big if right now, but if he is able to do that, the battleground will shift. we'll be talking arizona, wisconsin, michigan, and really pennsylvania, the second congressional district in nebraska, which i'm going to try to get a readout on in a minute here. >> steve, before you go to the second congressional district in nebraska, can we go to wisconsin and see what we've got in terms of wisconsin vote so far? >> you got it. let's take a look to live election -- there's ohio -- let's make our way up to wisconsin. here we go. about 30% of the vote is in in wisconsin right now. let's see if we got more in brown county. we're sitting on the same number

in brown county. okay, this is an interesting -- and, again, in witnesconsin, we expecting these votes to be mixed. the wide swings, talking about a lot of mixes probably coming in. sorry, what's that? my producer just -- oh, can i tell you -- let me put a pause on this. >> yeah. >> because we just got the votes from maricopa county, arizona. >> oh. >> and this is a big thing in arizona. when they report them out, they report a ton of them out. here we go. we got over 2 million votes. >> wow. >> in arizona. okay. biden leading here, about 3/4 of the vote in maricopa county. maricopa county is, like, 60% of the population for the entire state of arizona. it's the phoenix metro area. a giant suburb. joe biden leading this 54-45. now, this was -- what you're looking at here are the early votes that were cast up until this weekend. these are going to come -- in arizona we're going to come in sort of three buckets of votes

over the next few hours and maybe into tomorrow. the first things you're going to be see here, they're going to be giant batches of votes like we're looking at here in maricopa county, almost 1.5 million votes. they've been doing early voting for a long time. mail voting for a long time, last couple weeks in arizona. everything that was cast up until about this weekend is what you're looking at right now. okay, in the next batch you're going to get same-day votes, votes that were casted t today, in the third batch, you're going to get the latest arriving mail-in votes. three waves of votes here. this has been expected to be the best wave for democrats. so, again, it's part of that story we're seeing in state after state. this likely to be biden's high watermark in maricopa and in arizona. and, again, as maricopa goes, often so goes arizona, and then the question is going to be the subsequent waves. what does that do? but you're looking at -- this is often the ball game in arizona. you got about 3/4 of it right there. >> all right. let's stick with this arizona news because this is a very big

deal. as you say, steve, this is the population center in arizona. we've got vaughn hill yaiard in chandler, arizona, just south of phoenix. vaughn, we want to give this to you in terms of what you're seeing on the ground, what you're hearing from people in arizona as we've got this first big dump of votes there. >> reporter: exactly. this is what -- when we look at the in-person voters today, and this is where steve said, this first batch that came in, that 75% out of maricopa county was expected to more heavily favor the democrats. in-person voters here. the number of registered republicans to democrats was a 2 to 1 margin, so we should expect republicans to narrow that gap. we've long said whichever way maricopa county goes, the state of arizona goes. there is a little caveat there. folks on both sides, i've been talking to both camps all day. they potentially could lose maricopa county, donald trump, by 2 or 3 percentage points, about 60% of the electoral.

if donald trump is able to juice his turnout in support in the rural parts of the state. you'll recall last week he went up to this town of bullhead city, mojave county, those are the numbers we'll continue to be waiting to see. ultimately how many supporters of his own that did not vote in 2016 showed up to the polls to support him now. the one other number that i think that we were looking at is pima county there, which is the second largest county. that's sort of been the democratic bastion of arizona for a long time. the greater tucson area. hillary clinton won it by 15 percentage points. and these early numbers here with 80% in show joe biden doubling that number. again, in that last 20% batch, i'll let steve take it away a little bit more, but in the last batch we should expect republicans to narrow it. but at the same time, go back to 2016. democrats spent almost no money in arizona. donald trump won it by just 3.5

percentage points. the other part of the electorate that we should be looking at is independent voters. they make up 1/3 of the electorate here. back in 2016, donald trump won them. but what we have seen consistently in polling dating back to march when joe biden became the expected nominee is that donald trump has been losi losing independents binary from 15 to 20 percentage points. if that is the -- in fact the case, particularly in maricopa county suburbs, you are going to see donald trump suffering. and based off of these early numbers here, the first 80% in, it seems like that is the case here in arizona. >> vaughn, let me ask you about a dynamic that i've been sort of acutely interested in as we've settled into the night tonight, and that is what's happening in states that have hotly-contested senate races. in arizona we've got one of the republican senators who democrats are most enthusiastic about their chances about picking off. that's martha mcsally, appointed -- excuse me, appointed republican senator up against democrat mark kelly, who has

been running very strong against her both in the polls and in the fund-raising. we've seen a sort of divergence between mcsally's expected fate and trump's expected fate. has that had -- has that played a role? has there been sort of an up-stream effect from that senate race where democrats think they're going to do so well in terms of making it a little bit of a tougher road for trump in arizona? >> reporter: martha mcsally, you're right, had a two-fold problem. not only did she not have the strong support that donald trump had among the base here in arizona, but also was struggling among those independent voters. you know, back in 2018, martha mcsally took her first crack at the u.s. senate seat and lost to democrat kyrsten sinema by 2 1/2 percentage points. essentially taken the mantel of independents of the likes of john mccain. mark kelly, the former astronaut, the husband of former

congresswoman gaby giffords, run much like sinema did two years ago. that western, independent, moderate voice. whereas mcsally, she was appointed to fill the senate seat of john mccain after her loss in 2018, essentially giving her a second go at this. but you continued to see her align herself closely with president trump. just last week you saw her take the stage and the president in quite a demeaning way essentially said, martha, you only have one minute. nobody wants to hear this. why? because you saw her numbers below where his numbers were at, and based off of some of these early numbers, it appears that donald trump is outperforming her in the state. there is the chance that tonight not only could arizona pick a democrat for the white house, but also hand its second u.s. senate seat to democrats in just two years. >> vaughn, i have one last question for you in arizona, and this may be an unfair one because i know that there's been a lot of changes in the voting processes and specifically in the counting processes in

arizona after they in 2018, for example, had a really long time before they knew who their senate candidate was -- or their senator was going to be. they had sort of a missed call in another statewide race, and i know they've done a lot of work, but we've got about 72% of the vote in in arizona right now. from your reporting there from being there on the ground, can you tell -- do you have any best guess in terms of when we're likely to get the bulk of the remaining vote in arizona? should we expect it to be days down the road or do you think this might be an election night thing in arizona? >> reporter: rachel, per conversations with elections officials, we are expecting upwards of 90% of the vote to come in tonight. back in 2018, kyrsten sinema didn't actually take the lead over martha mcsally until two days later. that is because county officials didn't start counting those ballots until seven days before. well, the state legislature, not wanting that to happen again, moved that counting back for two

weeks early. the only ballots that elections officials are expecting to be outstanding at tonight's close are early ballots that folks didn't mail in but they walked in and hand delivered. again, we expect that to be under 10% of the total vote here. so in the scenario that joe biden has a 1 percentage point lead, the math becomes very difficult for donald trump in that scenario here later tonight. >> vaughn hilliard for us. it looks like it's going to be a fascinating night in arizona as we watch those crucial results come in. vaughn, thank you. we have a call from the southwest. and that is that joe biden has been awarded new mexico and its 5 electoral votes. since -- thanks to vaughn and his good reporting, we've been talking about the southwest. since this puts another blue square on the map west of the mississippi. nicolle wallace, where do you put states like arizona right about now?

>> so, arizona is one of the states that the trump campaign was most concerned about. from their coalition, it was the state that when bill stepien took over from the troubled fellow, i can't remember his name right now, of lincoln ad fame. >> brad parscale. >> when bill stepien took over and he temporarily halted all the advertising and did sort of a deep dive into the polling and looked at where trump was in states that he'd won four years ago, arizona was the state that bill stepien was most concerned about. the diagnosis from the new regime at the trump campaign was that four years of attacking john mccain, both while he was alive and after he was dead, had really hurt trump there. so this is a state that has felt very soft to a normally hubr hubristic trump team. i would also say this is a state that the very sort of humble and low-key and expectation-managing biden team, this is the one state outside the three

midwestern states they've had their sights on, probably for similar reasons, as well as the reasons that rachel keeps talking about, that very competitive democratic race. martha mcsally's polls have her down today three or four points, and i think trump felt he polled to a sort of dead heat there. this is one people are keeping an eye on especially as states of florida slip out of reach. most democrats view that as gone. i know i start to sound like a broken record, but the focus of the biden team, the electoral map, the resources, the travel, the campaigning, the deployment of surrogates really was in those three midwestern states. so we should keep an eye on arizona. i think arizona is still very much in play. those early numbers very good, very competitive looking for joe biden, but in terms of must-win, it is still -- i'm still in the last 20 minutes hearing that the focus is on those three midwestern states. >> let's go back to brian. i believe we've got a characterization change. >> yeah, these are important.

when we feel this way, we say so. so more than just too early to call in arizona, we are saying too early to call, but biden leads. on the senate race there, ffrs we a we are says did totto, too earl call but kelly leads. this is north carolina. too close to call. 15 electoral votes. that is our determination at 10:18 eastern time. and steve kornacki, i am betting you can bear this out. too close to call in north carolina? >> is this for me? okay, i'm sorry, i couldn't hear you there. yes, one of the factors here in north carolina, you can see donald trump is leading this by 26,000 votes right now. there is a lot of vote that is still left to come in wake county. this is where raleigh is. huge county here. i can show you you're still looking at 110,000 votes to come.

now, i've been talking about there are big disparities between the early vote and the same-day vote. that's true. overall statewide, the same-day vote is very lopsidedly going to trump right now. however, in wake county, of the same-day vote that's been tabulated so far, 60% of it's going to biden, 37% of it's going to trump. so there is a giant pool of votes there in wake county that just came down a little bit. so you see that added to biden's total. there is a giant pool of votes in wake county, for instance, where joe biden does figure to actually make gains here, which he needs, but you can just see -- i'll put the bubbles up again. you can see how big wake county looms right now. how large that looms. by far this is your biggest source of outstanding votes in the state. and the other places where you have really substantial outstanding vote. for instance, greensboro, where, again, on the same-day vote here, it was guilford county, but on the same-day vote here, it's better for biden than the statewide trend has been. you know, also next door where

winston-salem is, same thing. and mecklenburg county where charlotte is. biden can pick up some votes here. the biggest source still of outstanding source for trump, the biggest single source on the map is going to be the same-day vote in union county. i mean, if trump is winning the early vote in union county with 60%, you can expect the same-day is going to be much bigger than that for him. but the other wild card in north carolina is they are going to allow -- let me get that back up -- i'm pressing all sorts of buttons here. north carolina is allowing votes that were postmarked by today to be counted if they come within three days. we don't know how many that could be, but there is a bit of a wild card there with potentially ballots arriving tomorrow, for instance, in north carolina. so, again, when you get this close statewide, trump at 30,000, when these democratic areas come in, let's see how much that shaves off. when union county comes in,

let's see how much that adds and let's see what we can find out about how many ballots might be coming in. still to be counted in north carolina. >> we got a call from the south. this is alabama senate. and remember how doug jones shook the political world when he won as a democrat. doug jones has lost tonight. this is a flip to the republicans. tommy tuberville is the new senator-elect. so democrats went one up in colorado. republicans went one up in alabama. i was never good at math, but it seems like we're right back to where we started tonight. unless your name is tuberville or hickenlooper. we're back to four needed to gain, rachel, for the democrats. >> let's talk about what's going on in arizona. brian, you've just changed the characterization, in terms of nbc news's projection in arizona.

in both of those states, arizona -- excuse me, in that state in both of the closely watched races in arizona, nbc news is now projecting a lead for joe biden in the presidential race in arizona and a lead for democrat mark kelly in the senate race. can we talk a little bit about that senate race in arizona? i will foreshadow or i will cheat and tell you that after this i would also like to talk a little bit how that north carolina senate race is going, given the too close to call designation now in the north carolina presidential. but let's start here in arizona in terms of why the democrats are characterized as leading in both the senate and presidential races here. steve? >> yeah, i mean, if you just take a look here in maricopa county and, again, this is basically the early vote cast up until this weekend. this is the bulk of the vote here. biden's advantage, that 54-45, that's significantly more than democrats got in 2016. it was a two-point margin with this same batch of votes in 2016 for hillary clinton. and also i think when you look at the partisan affiliation of

the folks who are going out and voting today, it suggests that may not be enough, even if trump is doing very well with the vote that was cast today. that may not be enough to overcome what biden's putting in the bank here in maricopa county. so, you know, that's significant because just a minute ago we were talking about a possibility that trump actually does run the table in those five states that we said early he was really up against the ropes in. and we said at that point the ac action shifts to arizona. if biden is able to put a win on the board in arizona, that would be a gain of 11 electoral votes. remember, hillary clinton had 232 electoral votes in 2016. if biden holds those clinton 232 and adds arizona, that would put him at 243. and, of course, as we say at that point, if he's not getting anything, we'll still see what happens in north carolina and georgia here, but if he's not getting anything out of the southeast then we will be talking wisconsin, michigan, pennsylvania. >> all right.

>> brian, back to you. sorry. >> two more projections here. nbc news has determined that when all is said and done democrats will retain control of the house of representatives. and that's all we're saying. and in the state of louisiana, we have prepared to make a call when all the votes are counted. as expected, donald trump the projected winner. in the state of louisiana. and as i've been speaking, we have just added kansas, as expected, in the trump column. let's go to the map and see where the colors work out. rachel, back over to you. >> steve, we're looking at senate races and presidential races sort of tracking one another in closely-fought states. we were just talking about that situation in arizona, where both biden and mark kelly are portrayed now as in the lead by

nbc news's calculations in arizona. let's look back at north carolina. we've got too close to call. it was too early to call. now it's too close to call in north carolina. what's happening with cal cunningham and tom tillis in the senate race there? >> let's call that up. you see, again, the numbers a little different here, but 48.4, 47.3, a little larger advantage for tillis. i'll toggle, keeping an eye on the map. this is the presidential -- and this is the senate race. again, trump's lead in the presidential, 39,000. tillis' lead in the senate race, 58,000 over cal cunningham. and i think you've talked about this, 2016 was the first time in american history that every senate race that year on the ballot matched up in any given state with how the presidential race went. there wasn't a single state in the 2016 presidential election that went for a candidate of one party in the presidential race and a candidate of the other party in the senate race. that's how closely these things have aligned. it's very interesting to see

these numbers in north carolina tonight. you know, tillis running a little bit ahead of trump, in fact, tillis in the polling had been running behind trump. that had been one of the themes we'd talked about and we talked about the potential for a disconnect, a divergence between these two races because of the gap we're seeing. now with about 90% in, there is trump leading by 40,000 statewide, little less than a point. there is tillis leading by about 60,000 statewide, little more than a point. there's a little difference between them, but not much, and also not in the direction the polls before this election were suggesting. >> steve, i got one more for you. we have another call. and this is another new england state. and that is new hampshire. and its 4 electoral votes awarded to joe biden. we believe when all the votes are counted. differentiated by about 22,000 votes right now. let's take a look at the map and see where this leaves us as we look nationally.

again, two different trends of blue. southwest, northeast. red from the mississippi valley. the atlantic seaboard all the way up through the middle plains. rachel? >> i would just note, while we are not looking at a lot of flips here in terms of the various states on the map, don't sleep on that new hampshire result. that was a hillary clinton state in 2016, but it was a hillary clinton state, i believe, by 0.37% of the vote. trump got very, very close to beating clinton in new hampshire in 2016. so to see biden now the projected winner in new hampshire, again, that's not a flip, but it is a sigh of relief for democrats who saw how close trump was able to get there. again, one of the states we are watching very, very closely, nicolle wallace might be watchi watching you might say intently is the state of wisconsin, where we have -- where it is too early

to call at this point. we are watching closely, particularly alongside michigan and pennsylvania. these other crucial, crucial states. as you see right now, just over 1/3 of the vote in in wisconsin. very close between them. and we're expecting 3.6 million votes in. we've got about 1.2 million reported thus far. so a long way to go in terms of wisconsin and the eyes of the nation upon wisconsin. once again, our friend charlie sykes is in wisconsin for us tonight watching these results and helping us make sense of them. charlie, when you look at what we've seen thus far out of wisconsin, what do you think? >> well, first of all, everybody take a deep breath. this election is not going to be decided by the s.e.c., it's going to be decided by the big ten, and we haven't gotten all the results here yet. i'm looking at the wisconsin numbers. if there are 3.6 million votes, that is very bad news for donald trump because he won here four years ago by getting fewer votes than mitt romney got against barack obama when he -- when he lost by seven points. and so far i'm looking at some

of the numbers. he's underperforming what he did four years ago in crucial waukesha county. i live in okazaki county which is one of the milwaukee suburbs. donald trump is winning by only eight percentage points, so he's certainly not adding to his margins in crucial republican areas. and as you look at those numbers, remember this, we won't get the final numbers from heavily democratic milwaukee county until 5:00 tomb. tomorrow. and that is going to be the decisive number. so i think that looking at this right now, looking at the demographics that we're seeing in ohio, you're seeing some very, very good news in the upper midwest. i mean, i know that we're disappointed about florida, but this feels a lot like 2018. look at what the margins are -- how they're shifting. how they're shifting among independents. what's happening in the suburbs. you're seeing that in ohio.

my guess is you're going to see that in pennsylvania and you're already seeing that in wisconsin right now. >> charlie, let me ask you about one other wisconsin dynamic, which has loomed so large over the past four years. i feel like it has overshadowed our ability to think rationally about wisconsin, and that is when trump won in 2016, and as you said, he won by less than a point, he has never led in a single poll in wisconsin, not a single public poll, not one, and then he went ahead and won the state. is wisconsin polling, which shows biden broadly ahead, heading into tonight's results, is wisconsin polling any better in 2020 than it was in 2016? >> well, i think so. the market university/law poll which is considered the gold standard has trump up by -- i mean biden up by i think four or five points. it's going to be close. it's going to be single digits.

but i think they have adjusted to the mistakes they made four years ago. but the key thing in wisconsin right now is the question of, you know, will voters in, say, milwaukee county, will african-american voters turn out in wisconsin? because famously four years ago, hillary clinton got 40,000 fewer votes than barack obama got just in milwaukee county. if she had matched barack obama's total in milwaukee county, she would have won the state because trump won by only about 23,000 votes. now, the other big variable is whether there is a big hidden rural, non-college-educated white vote coming from northern and western wisconsin, and i'm not seeing any indications of that. trump seems to be holding his out out state, but the question is will democrats turn out? the indication i have is that there's big numbers out of madison, which is dane county, and big numbers out of milwaukee. and keep in mind that wisconsin

has been hammered by the coronavirus as much as any state in the country. and every single time that donald trump has come here for one of his rallies, he's reminded people of his failure on that issue. so the story of wisconsin is very heavily shadowed by what's happening with covid-19. >> charlie, my colleagues here in the studio are eager to ask you more wisconsin questions. i'm going to hold them back for a second because i think we've got a quick call we've got to do before we rejoin this discussion. >> we do. this is not a flip or a surprise, but we have awarded the state of utah and its 6 electoral votes to the trump column. we'll convert over to the national colorized map and see that this extends past colorado now. the bloc of red that starts in the middle of the country. rachel, back to you. >> interesting, in utah in 2016, of course, we had that interesting dynamic with evan mcmullin taking 20-plus percent

of the vote in utah, which made it such an unusual state. trump did win that. >> he did. >> joy, you wanted to ask charlie something in wisconsin. >> i did. in terms of the angst and anxiety a lot of people are feeling tonight. i think a lot of it was skewed by florida. zero back in for me again on african-american turnout because that was, indeed, the difference for, you know, why hillary clinton didn't do as well there as she could have and lost the state. what is that looking like? what is the state of any sort of disenfranchisement activity? we know that is something that happens a lot in wisconsin. how hope -- how accessible has the vote been and how much turnout have you seen? >> well, we won't know until we get the final results tomorrow morning, but i'm not hearing a lot of complaints about it right now mainly because democrats really over the last four years have really gotten their act together again. remember that supreme court election that we had during the

coronavirus? where people had to stand in line during the height of it and there was a rather surprising result in that election. and i think that's the model that's been used here. so, you know, i'm old enough to remember when republicans absolutely dominated the get out the vote efforts and the early vote efforts here in wisconsin. i remember that very well. i think that script has been flipped here. but, again, the numbers you're seeing out of wisconsin are not -- do not represent all of milwaukee county, and, frankly, that's going to be where the african-american vote is concentrated. milwaukee county, racine county and kenosha county. i would be very surprised if you did not see a substantial increase from four years ago. and if donald trump cannot add to his margins out state and if he is losing votes in the crucial milwaukee suburbs, places like waukesha county, then i think it's going to be very difficult for him to win the state of wisconsin. >> charlie, because it's donald

trump, we know where he's ailing politically because he cries out to them and he cries out to suburban women exactly in the parts of the state that you're talking about. have you seen anything come in in ohio or anywhere else that signals to you the kind of result in some of those counties? >> oh, absolutely. and also in north carolina. now, whether or not joe biden wins in ohio or north carolina, i think that if you see the same kinds of trends there where trump's margins have been cut, you -- and if you see that in places like michigan and wisconsin, you know what the results are going to be. i mean, the margins -- >> right. >> -- in pennsylvania and michigan and wisconsin are like this, right? >> right, right. >> so if, in fact -- look, if you're looking at ohio, ohio trump won by eight points last time. he may win by one point this time. if you see that kind of shift in -- in those demographic groups,

in wisconsin, michigan and pennsylvania, donald trump is going to be in a lot of trouble. it's because the reality is is that if you're in wisconsin, we're not that much different than ohio, pennsylvania and michigan demographically. >> well, i guess that's what people are worried about, right, if you see ohio go in one direction. i guess the other question i have, the kind of paul ryan republican or republicans can hold themselves in a wisconsin, nice kind of state, i mean, just talk about -- wisconsin is -- can land differently. that wisconsin, michigan, pennsylvania slice of it is terrain that the trump campaign saw as slightly more hostile to the trump trajectory, the trump 2020 persona is not as winning in their own view as trump 2016. >> well, you know, think about it, that wisconsin has one of the highest proportions of non-college educated white voters.

so on paper this ought to be one of the most trump friendly states, one of the most difficult states to flip around. so donald trump had to do a lot of work to alienate a state like wisconsin, which i think he's done. and so, yes, you do have the paul ryan republicans, but they're basically an extinct species. >> right. >> they're not here anymore. >> right. >> and the republican party here is, to be quite honest, is in all for donald trump. >> right. >> but in a lot of other states like we've been talking about, because they've become so trumpy, i think they have been more repulsive and more repellant to some key swing voters in the suburban areas that are going to make a difference here when we get the final results. >> charlie, i have one final question. we've framed this all around trump because we've watched the trump result come in in florida. i want to turn it around to the joe biden side. the biden campaign is somewhat disadvantaged by the fact that they felt the states they felt the most bullish and most confident that a joe biden

democrat would appeal in michigan and pennsylvania and wisconsin. it's going to take longer. you're talking about 5:00 a.m. before some of that question will be answerable. >> right. >> can you talk about how it felt for biden? i mean, do you have anecdotal sort of yard sign dating or any polling from the grocery store line or the applebee's to share? >> well, i do think you see this kind of shift here. there is a county just to the north of us where i think donald trump is winning by 40 point. the county i'm in he's winning by eight points. you get to the south and joe biden is winning overwhelmingly. he's alienated so many of the suburban votes. but, again, let's just remind ourselves that we knew this was going to happen, right? we knew in 2018 that the earliest returns that we got from florida and georgia would not necessarily be an indicator of what was going to happen nationally. we knew that there were going to be states like pennsylvania and wisconsin that were going to be

slow in reporting. so i hope that everybody just takes a deep breath and remembers it's the big ten, not the s.e.c. that's going to determine the outcome of this election. >> charlie sykes, well put. >> wonderful reminder. >> thank you very much, my friend. listen, what's going on so far is actually fairly easy to summarize. the democrats picked up one republican seat. the republicans picked up one democratic senate seat. so, so far a wash in terms of the control of the united states senate. nobody has claimed a seat -- nobody has claimed a state from the other party, compared to results from 2016, although there are three of them that we're watching closely. north carolina, where it's too close, arizona where it's too early but biden has a lead and pennsylvania where it's too early. we're going to be clerking in on those after this. nbc has now projected that in the great state of missouri president trump will once again be the winner in missouri. again, that is not a pick-up for

the republicans. missouri has been deep red pup and, in the republican column for some time now, but that missouri call is now official in terms of nbc news's projection. all right. we're going to take a quick break. when we come back, again, we'll be looking at north carolina. right now too close to call. arizona too early to call, but biden characterized as being in the lead. pennsylvania too early to call with not much in the way of clear expectations of what we're going to know. lots more to come tonight. stay with us. we'll be right back. knowing we're prepared for tomorrow. wow, do you think you overdid it maybe? overdid what? well planned, well invested, well protected. voya. be confident to and through retirement. (fisherman vo)ce) how do i register to vote?ential election... hmm!.. hmm!.. hmm!.. (woman on porch vo) can we vote by mail here?

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we are back. you'll note missouri snuck in there before the break. illinois has spoken. neither of these are pick-ups, they're holds. this is joe biden, the projected winner of illinois, and its 20 electoral votes. and senator dick durbin is going to remain in the u.s. senate as well. from the state of illinois, so

too holds for the democrats. and to steve kornacki, can you bring us up to speed on north carolina and arizona, please? >> let's take a look here. a couple of different places. so, again, in north carolina now, the trump advantage has moved up over 50,000 votes. what has he gained to put him there? we were talking about this, union county here, big suburban, ex-urban county outside of charlotte, and basically the vote is in there. trump's going to end up over 60%. again, getting big same-day numbers. we saw that number lagging overall for trump, his percentage in this county. ends up over 60%. gets a lot of votes out of there. statewide that helps him move up. you see close to 60,000 votes statewide. where is the remaining vote in north carolina? still a lot in wake county, where raleigh is. greensboro, winston-salem, there are still some to come in charlotte. there is still a small, small

amounts gathering in smaller republican-friendly areas of the state as well. all told, what you're looking at here is just over 400,000 votes statewide remain to be counted here. 82,000 of them are in wake county. you can see another 50,000 of them are in guilford county, where greensboro is. so there are opportunities here for biden to cut into it, but, again, i think the other thing that comes into play here is just the possibility there will be other ballots that come in in the mail in north carolina after election day. trying to figure out how many that might be, what that could do to the margin here. so let's see where the margin ends up after these votes all get tabulated. then that becomes the question in north carolina. but trump's lead right now sitting at 06,060,000 votes. we take a trip out to arizona, again, not much changing here. getting that big, initial batch of the vote. we're basically going to be sitting here looking at 3/4 of the vote in arizona. then the numbers are going to change. we'll be watching here in the

next few hours to see the numbers change in maricopa county as they count up the same-day vote in maricopa county, how much ground can donald trump make up? he's certainly running from behind based on that initial batch that we got here. let's see what happens here as those votes are counted. so far nothing new there as we got that gigantic initial batch. one other that is potentially becoming significant on this map, and i want to flag this for you, it's not a state, it's a part of a state. it is the second congressional district in nebraska. this is omaha, the omaha area. here is the vote right now in the second district. the reason i'm showing you this is because nebraska and maine give out their electoral votes by congressional district. so the winner of this congressional district that i'm showing you right now, think of it as the smallest state of the union for tonight, at least, because it's worth 1 electoral vote. whoever wins this, trump got this electoral vote in 2016. you see the vote that's in right now, he's clinging to a 600-vote

lead. we're just going and looking so far at what's countdowned in here is the same-day vote up until 2:00 p.m. this afternoon. okay? so there is more same-day vote. the vote that was basically cast this afternoon and evening. and there is still early vote that's also being added here. keep a very close eye on this because the electoral college implications are this. this -- let me paint what right now if you're the biden campaign you're saying, boy, this is the worst-case scenario for us. that would involve, hey, you lose florida, you lose georgia, you lose texas, you lose north carolina, you lose ohio and then you lose pennsylvania. this is your worst-case scenario. if all of that went wrong for biden, the path that they could still take that would get them to 270 would involve michigan, wisconsin, arizona, which we just talked about. those three would get him to 269. and the second congressional district of nebraska, if they

could get it, would be 270. so to keep that in mind because these electoral college scenarios we've been playing around with many of them the last few months. and as donald trump early on has some success in these big states we flagged at the beginning of the night. this is one folks has talked about. is there a scenario, 269-269 comes into focus. we've always talked about what would happen then. or is biden actually able to get that district? and that presents a path for him that wouldn't require him to win pennsylvania. >> that is crazy. i mean, i have done that math myself and i know it's true, but i can't believe we're talking about it as one of the things that might actually happen. steve, before we get too far away from arizona, can i ask you to look at senate in arizona again just for a second? again, nbc news is characterizing in arizona both the presidential race and the senate race as too close to call. excuse me, as too early to call, but in both cases joe biden in the presidential race and mark

kelly, the democrat in the senate race, are characterized as in the lead. can we look at what that means in terms of the kelly/mcsally senate race in arizona? >> yeah, here you go. oh, i think we got something. excuse the interruption. nebraska part of the split inte. nebraska, part of the split electoral vote nebraska, as projected is being projected to donald trump. and we've explained this before. the split congressional district -- this is the western part, the part that has not been striked on our map. rachel, please back to your -- >> it's a very timely call actually given what steve was just explaining about that second congressional district and not one electoral vote in nebraska. arizona senate. >> again, start in the presidential race here in arizona where you see biden right now almost 9 points ahead

and where is the senate race? kelly double digits ahead. we're looking at the same collection of votes right here. this one we're talking in north carolina about how kyle cunningham, the democrat had been running better than joe biden i should say in some of the early polling, but not tonight. this is the opposite. this is what we saw in the polling. we saw mark kelly consistently running better than joe biden, stronger than joe biden in arizona. you're seeing this in the returns here. double digits for kelly, and again if you look at the presidential race and what's been reported so far, 0.5, 2 points difference there. biden leading, kelly leading by even more. they thought on top of other things they might have a bit of a pad right there. >> this arizona race turning out to be fascinating in lots of different ways. let's bring into the conversation lauri roberts. thank you for making time.

arizona is turning out to be a really interesting place to watch tonight. how are you viewing it? what should we know from a national perspective that we might not be able to see from this far-out? >> well, i think if you're markety mcsally you're breaking out the hard liquor about right now. she needed to keep it close in the early vote which is what you're seeing right now. arizona is big early vote state, so roughly 75% of the vote is going to be early vote. and that was going to skew a little bit democratic. but, boy, a 10, 11 point lead that's a tough one to make up with only 25% of the vote left to go. so i think if you're martha mcsally you're not real happy tonight. you look at maricopa county in particular that's the place that matters the most. it's breaking big for joe biden and for mark kelly. >> in terms of the biden race and the kelly race and those

existing in parallel, and we are seeing sort of parallel characterizations right now by nbc, do you see any cross currents between those two? do you think that kelly may have helped biden there or biden may have helped kelly? conversely do you think mcsally or trump might have hurt one anothers campaign as as they both seem to be trailing right now? >> well, mcsally always seemed to run in the polling about 4% to 5% to 6% depending on which poll you looked at behind donald trump. so that tells me a lot of republicans in particular very conservative republicans were not so sure about martha mcsally. conversely a lot of very moderate republicans in the suburbs which you're hearing all over the country were turned off by donald trump and by martha mcsally who really has been portrayed as being in donald trump's pocket for the last two years. she really -- her fate was tied to donald trump's. i'm not sure that donald trump's

fate was necessarily tied to hers. but what we're seeing is both appear to be going down tonight. >> we've had a lot of questions and this is joy, about the hispanic vote or latino vote around the country. i think florida tells one particular story. and i feel like nevada, colorado, and arizona tell a different story. can you talk about that vote which is a largely sort of mexican-american based latinx vote and where is that going and how strong is the turnout? >> it has been extremely strong. and where it was strong was in early balloting. latino women, latino men, latino voters, democratic voters, they came out in huge numbers. republicans have always had a 6 to 7-point advantage going into election day. this year it was more like a 1-point advantage. and the polling -- not the polling but the people you saw out at the polls, huge numbers

of people. and i think the story of this election might in the end be the independents who came out big today. and we were expecting them to break for democrats, and it appears that they did. >> laurie, that is the analysis that i've heard from former mccain advisers. and mccain always counted on those independents coming out for him. can you talk about how trump might have hurt himself with people in the state know how independenterize to their vote. either someone forgot to tell donald trump or he didn't care, but it seems like four years aof attacks against the mccain family may have hurt him with that bloc of independents. >> well, i think it's not just that, but it is -- i don't think that donald trump and martha mcsally ever tried to expand their base. remember that 8 years ago this is state that went by 8 points for mitt romney. this is a state that four years

ago went by 3 points for donald trump. so you can see the numbers changing. he just never tried to broaden his appeal to women. in fact, what did he say when he was in arizona last week? what did he call rhinos? the first human beings ever, the worst human being or something like that. it's offensive and off putting. i think if he loses this election at least it appears in arizona he's going to it's because they never brought along those women who maybe voted for donald trump four years ago but have been turned off in the last four years. and you saw it two years ago with the election of martha mcsally. or with the defeat of martha mcsally where you saw moderate republican and independent women going for our republican governor and for a democrat keirsten cinema. you cannot underestimate how important this is. we don't elect democrats here. we just don't. and so things are changing in a big way.

and they just did not see it coming. >> laurie roberts, columnist with arizona republic joining us tonight from phoenix where again nbc still characterized this race as too early to call. fascinating races tonight in arizona and lot of fascinating politics to come in arizona. i'm going to interrupt myself right now because i believe brian has some calls. >> we have some calls. none of them flips mississippi. the projected winner is donald trump. that's a hold. wyoming the projected winner is donald trump. lindsey graham is headed back to the u.s. senate after we take a look at the road to 270. lindsey graham is headed back to the u.s. senate from south carolina. jamie harrison despite a flood of outside money especially at the end of this thing could not do it, could not convert it in

the state of south carolina. the georgia second race will be indeed a runoff between warnock and lefler. that we've put in the runoff category. it's a lot to balance but, rachel, this is what we do. >> it is a lot. it does mean we're going to have potentially a determinative senate runoff in georgia in january. as we get to the top of the hour here, i do want to just say a moment before we put that south carolina senate race behind us, how much i think the democratic party and south carolina has to be part of in jamie harrison. a protége of jim clyburn, running in a blood red state raising a ton of money running a dignified ins spiring in some ways flawless campaign, and it was not enough to get him to beat lindsey graham who is

contending with his own reputational issues. but jamie harrison i think is a big part of the future of the democratic party in the south. >> and you know, sometimes i think when we look at political races we only look at the win and loss, but there's also party building that happens. when someone runs a really good election, and i think you have to look at the party building that's happened in these southern states including texas where beto o'rourke gets a huge -- a lot of credit for what he's built, and jamie who's an expert politician, very good at what he does, and that state party is now a lot stronger because of jamie harrison. and they'll be able to build on that for other races, and that's very important. and he might have legs for other down ticket races. there's not just that top of the ticket. there's a going on down ticket. >> you use the word dignified and he made the opposite true. lindsey graham became even more undignified begging for money on fox news. >> we're coming up to the top of the hour. we're at the point there's not

many polls closings left, but there are a few particularly as we get to the west coast. >> and boy, does some of the numbers start to add up as we get late in the night. however frustrating this night is for many, many of our viewers. coming up here on 11:00 eastern time, and here we go. the state of california awards 55 electoral votes as is our projection, not a surprise to joe biden. oregon, 7 electoral votes to joe biden. washington, 12 electoral votes to joe biden. idaho, too early to call. we have determined trump leads. here's the graphic to 270. it's 192-114 at this hour. 270 is where you start the conversation. here's back filling some of the

races we're watching. this is florida. too close to call. and we have determined this to be too close to call, though, trump leads. north carolina, too close to call. texas, too early to call. trump leads. pennsylvania, too early to call. ohio, too early to call. trump leads. michigan, too early to call, period. georgia, too early to call. arizona, too early to call. biden leads. wisconsin, too early to call. minnesota, too early to call. iowa, too early to call. nevada, too early to call. what are the odds? let's look at the map. we've been watching the color

coded states get awarded all night. to think that 6:00 eastern time 5 hours ago when we started this it was a blank, gray slate. lo, they have filled in, lo, there's a lot of math to go. steve kornacki, what the interests you that's been popping up on your map in the time it took me to read that? >> quite a bit, brian. let's focus here. what about pennsylvania because we've talked about, this is going to take some time because some of the counties taking a while with the mail-in ballots, but there are some counties in pennsylvania that have counted everything and given us a complete look. and i think this is worth keeping in mind as pennsylvania looms perhaps larger and larger in the hours ahead. one of it reasons donald trump was able to flip pennsylvania in 2016 is he ran up extraordinary margins in rural parts of the state, in western pennsylvania, places are republicans had usually done well, but he did incredibly well in these places.

and one of questions was was he be doing that again, tonight. here's a county we've got just about everything in trump running 72-27. he's actually exceeding right now his 2016 number. this is small but we've talked about this in places like georgia, small counties with enormous margins do add up. next door ear's a place where trump hit 73% in 2016. tiny but he's hitting 73% tonight. i'm seeing this in all sorts of small counties in western pennsylvania. that seems to boo where we're getting most of the reports out of pennsylvania so far. trump is in those small rural counties in some cases exceeding that 2016 number. that is only part of the story in pennsylvania. i flag it because we're getting the full results from those counties. we are not getting the full results from places like pittsburgh, from places like philadelphia, from places like the philadelphia suburbs that are key to democratic hopes especially in philadelphia. that's where you're going to have a lot of lag i think with the mail-in voting.

but i do think that's a piece of it to keep an eye on in pennsylvania if the electoral battle does come down to pennsylvania, worth keeping that in mind. every time we can get one of these counties up to 100%, we're going to measure it up to 2016 and tell you if we're seeing strength or weakness for one candidate. >> in terms of pennsylvania right now, we've been talking about how these three states -- wisconsin, pennsylvania, michigan -- as, nicolle, as you've been putting it are sort of the whole story in terms of what the biden campaign has been aiming at. what does happen if these are the states it's going to hinge and we don't have answers about any of that tonight? >> well, it becomes bill barr as the president's lawyer at the justice department representing the president -- he's made clear whether it's a libel case or ballot issue, he views bill barr as his personal lawyer.

versus the -- you had him on your show last night, mr. bauer. state officials have prepared their constituents and i think the biden campaign has prepared their supporters for a scenario where this doesn't end tonight. you have to think if both campaigns were seeing the same thing in their tracking polls, if both campaigns were talking about these three states, there's not a ton of surprise inside the biden campaign. you also have to look at the fund-raising endeavors that both the trump side and biden campaign have been involved in as of late. they were about a post-election day legal effort. so both campaigns saw this the same way. and the way a staffer sees it is look for the intersections. and both campaigns saw joe biden as having a small edge in these

three states. that means donald trump saw his path as likely involving a legal challenge to pa and that's where he's been folkicusing his effor. >> one source of anxiety is with all that's happened, covid, nearly a quarter of a million people dead, the racism, the cuddling nazis, i think for a lot of people the catharsis of a repudiation by the voters broadly was something they needed. that they needed to know that america fundamentally rejects this man. that is not what we're getting tonight. what we're getting is that people are going to stick to their party lines for the most part. there's some conversion, but as you said, a win is a win. biden gets to 270 he wins and that's it, it doesn't matter. and we'll have to figure out what happens after that. but there is also people have to realize the votes get counted, it takes until tomorrow, and

tomorrow at noon pennsylvania just reports its totals, wisconsin reports its totals and michigan reports its totals and it's totally mundane then there's nothing to go to court over because it's clear. these states are not controlled by republicans. i right now would feel the same anxiety as everyone on my two phones if the states were controlled by republicans, and they're not. >> and trump's not ahead in any of these states. >> the state that used to scare me the most was wisconsin. inperson who's not going to allow donald trump to just walk in there and do what scott walker and his friends would have done. it's not the same wisconsin. it's not the same pennsylvania. the governor there is not going to allow it. it could be we just have to breathe for a night and tomorrow we'll get the results. >> can i tell you what i have in my notes because all i've been

doing -- my notes on each of these three states, wisconsin, state elections commission chief says wisconsin will probably not report unofficial results until wednesday at the earliest. pennsylvania, governor releases tv add warning residents it will take, quote, a few days for the vote to be completed. secretary of state says there's no way now unsing on election night. michigan the count will likely take until friday. so that's wisconsin, pennsylvania and michigan, which is what we are looking at now. heidi presbola is in michigan, in detroit with specifically a look what we can expect with the vote. what are you hearing tonight in michigan? >> i think it was joy who said just breathe, and i can tell you after being on the phone with michigan officials all night, they really endorsed that sentiment. they're looking at these numbers coming in, and they say this is truly an overrepresentation of

the in-person vote here in michigan. they couldn't even start tabulating a lot of these early absentee votes until this morning. and because of the crazy patchwork here of reporting some of the precincts aren't even sending in their av, their absentee votes, so you're getting a very skewed representation, so let me give you an example. trump won there by 10 points in 2016. we're starting to get the early numbers. he's got a wide lead again. you peel that up a little bit and you're starting to see there are some precincts where we have a fueler account of the vote, and we've seen our first red to blue shift in center line where joe biden is outperforming what hillary clinton did. so, again, they're saying breathe. they're still optimistic that in the end joe biden will take the state. and they say what you look at right now instead of this patchwork is the surge pattern in voting because michigan was the place where donald trump had

his smallest margin of victory. and so they say, this is according to the secretary of state who briefed us, tat the places where we're seeing the surges are number, one, detroit. we're not seeing a surge like we saw in 2012, but we're seeing above 2016. we know detroit is reliably blue in that surrounding area. two other places. kalamazoo and ann arbor. michigan changed their rules to allow same day in person voting registration and we're seeing long lines in those areas. so if you look at the surge patterns and where the surge patterns are, michigan officials are still optimistic, but they are cautioning no reading into any of these numbers until we have them all in, and the most recent news from the secretary of state is that we won't have even unofficial results for 24 hours, rachel. >> 24 hours from now they're not expecting any unofficial results until wednesday after 11:00 p.m.

>> that's what she said. >> wow. >> if you're looking at a friday final, right, like for unofficial that would not be unreasonable considering that some of these places like in macone county haven't even registered their early votes. >> thank you so much. and that is a really good reset and reminder. again, we've been talking about it. it's one thing to talk it, it's another thing to actually grasp it and prepare yourself. while we're talk about the upper midwest, we've talked a long time about wisconsin moments ago. we're going to hop over wisconsin and let's talk about iowa and minnesota, a couple of states that we haven't had a ton of focus on yet but are crucial at this point both of which we're watching results closely. iowa and minnesota, your choice to what to look at first. >> let's take a look here. let's call up iowa. there is iowa. so right now biden in what's

been conted in iowa, about a million votes with a six point advantage. we can call up here and see about 800 or so ballots to be counted in iowa. i think the cautionary note on this is take a look at some of these counties biden is doing well right now. let's see if we can call that up. what you're looking at here is early absentee vote, and remember you're always talking about joe biden doing much better with the early vote than the same day vote. this was a trump county. biden would certainly like to flip it. but the test for biden is yet to come in a county like this. the test is going to be the same day vote where trump is expected tado better. i think you've heard this story a number of times in a number of different staetes tonight. what happens when the same day is counted? does it turn into another trump victory and looks like 2016 all over again or represent biden progress when all is said and

done? clinton county is a very good example because i remind you in 2012 the mississippi river included clinton county was obama country, and then it flipped along with the rest of the state. there were more counties in iowa than any other state between 2012 and 2016. they flipped from democrat to republicanb. so democrats have looked at this. look, on paper iowa was a 9 point win for donald trump in 2016. it was also a 6 point win for barack obama in 2012. that's the opportunity democrats have seen here. you see good numbers. i think here's a good example where most of the votes in. democratic territory. biden winning this thing 56.5 to 41. it's different than 2016. but, you know, 52 for clinton, 56 for biden. 56 and change for biden. remember statewide this was a 9 point victory for donald trump in 2016. the improvement here for

democrats is they go from an 11 point victory in this county in 2016 to basically 15.4. that's progress, but they need a lot of progress here to take iowa. so, again, you've got some counties like polk that's a good example. there's a question of the same day and how much it's changed. it has certainly changed other states doont. >> before you go on and talk about minnesota, can we talk about the iowa senate race as well? this is another state where we've got a key senate race. in this case it's a race that democrats see potentially as a pickup along side that hard fought presidential race. and the democrat theresa greenfield has run a well funded campaign against ernst but ernst

has done well in recent polls. >> joe biden leading in the presidential race 51-46. and let's flip it around and show you the senate race. look at that. greenfield leading in our count right now 50.7, 46.5. this is like an eye test. i'm looking for the changes here so i can show you some of these. i saw a good old webster county change. you can see greenfield up by 2 in the senate race. this was a trump county in 2016 obviously. and if you flip over to the presidential race, it's not a huge shift there but it's a shift of a few points. it's a state that could go for obama by 6, go for trump by 9. it's a state that had gone democratic in a lot of elections before donald trump. interesting, though, to be seeing right now at least a split between those two races. >> iowa, gore won it by less than 1%. george w. bush won it by less

than 1% in 2004, and then trump won it by a lot. the idea you'd end up with a hotly contested presidential race there is not far-fetched. but it'll be very interesting to see if that senate -- that senate race drags the presidential race one way or the other and see if jodi ernst gets turfed out of her seat. steve, can we talk minnesota or am i asking too much? >> let's call it up here. let me just get this screen loaded and let's go north. >> for context, clinton only won minnesota in 2016. it was a clinton held state. it was a blue state in 2016 but like 1.5%. it was close just like new hampshire was. >> he was able to flip michigan, able to flip wisconsin, able to flip iowa. and then this was almost a flip. yeah, minnesota the last time it went for a republican presidential candidate was actually 1972. it's been going democratic every

election since then, but trump nearly pulled this off in 2016. i'll take you through here some of the early votes here. you got early this is hennepin county about 45 votes left to go. and biden here overperforming what clinton got in 2016. minnesota is a state, it really has become politically a tale of two states. in places like the twin cities area and hennepin county, it's bindramatical bindramatically moving towards the democrats. minnesota was also the only state in 2018 where republicans were flipping democratic house seats because the rural areas, southern minnesota, the iron range sort of this rural kind of ring that goes around the outer edges of the state incredible, incredible strides for republicans there that trump really drove up in 2016.

so trump was running up the score in these parts of the state while clinton and certainly tonight you're seeing biden running up the score of the twin cities, there's two forces moving in opposite directions in minnesota, and you can see there that's why trump sees a change in the state because blue collar white population, large blue collar white population in those areas i'm talking about. >> minnesota, i don't know much about the way minnesota is counting their vote this year in part because a bunch of round ups are talking about it and they said they're going to be fine, but we don't know what's going to come in, is minnesota one of those states where we have any indication they'll get more likely trump vote or less of those voters in terms of the initial vote count? >> you're getting a mix here, too. this is lot like wisconsin. we're getting up basically close to 100%. trump, you know, this looks very similar to 2016 here. you're going to get a mix here i

think in minnesota. you're going to get a mix i think in wisconsin. we're talking about in michigan seeing a lot of the same day vote. taking sort of preimminence right now. same thing in pennsylvania. pennsylvania and michigan we're looking at a lot of same day vote coming out first. you're seeing a lot of early vote in iowa. that's giving biden that lead right now. minnesota, wisconsin i think you're seeing a bit of a mix. we've got sort of different buckets that are accounting for what you're seeing in different states right now. >> steve, i'm going to be a total jerk and keep going with this. do you have anything on the minnesota senate race? i think it has been a real sleeper. tina smith against a republican challenger named jason lewis. the polling has been quite close there, and it made me wonder if trump has an unexpectedly good showing in minnesota whether tina smith might potentially be in trouble.

>> and in the votes that have been counted she's at 14. in the votes counted there's biden up by 16.5. so you're seeing a 2.5 point lag there. this is case where the democratic senate candidate is lagging behind joe biden by 2.5 points in the margin. you're right, again, the presidential race margin in minnesota in 2016 was a point and a half. we'll see where this one ends up tonight, but if you were to end up in a situation that was similarly close and the democratic senate candidate were running 2.5 points behind, that'd be trouble. democrats might be making gains, but again are those gains going to be balanced out in the rural areas where trump is doing very well in minnesota and elsewhere. >> i think sleeper thing to watch there absolutely in terms of potential interest and potential national impact. let's bring into the conversation our friend chris hayes. as we've seen these 5 1/2 hours

unfold since we've seen poll closings tonight we've seen a lot stayed the same from 2016. some tweaks around the edges, but i feel like we are seeing a lot of continuity both in terms of what's pluand red on the map but also the numbers. >> it's striking. i think it's been striking obviously from 2016 when the president won the electoral college that was an incredibly polarized and divided nation. and the thing i've been obsessed throughout is the president's approval rating. the most stable approval rating in modern history and and we have approval rating data going back a long time. you will see over the course of the last year which has been the most sort of tempestuous, monumental and tragic year of any of our lives he has basically stayed the same. and going into today the number i kept thinking about is that the two big first term losses of incumbents that served full

terms donald trump was just above them. he was a sort of historic no-man's-land in between clear incumbent winners and clear incumbent losers. and taking what we're seeing tonight bears that out. this is remarkable stable base of support the president has had. we're seeing it tonight. he barely eked it out with an inside straight four years ago and we're looking to see what happens here now. but it is striking to imagine what has happened in the last four years, particularly in the last year and see how stru structurely embedded. >> i think people have easily fallen into this idea there was the republican party until trump and now there's trumpism.

if he has an appeal unchanged by all external events, what does that do for other candidates in his party having to decide if they're going to rely on him or not that won't affect the way viewers view him at all? >> it's a great question. no one else can quite pull off what he does. whatever he's doing plitcry, the hold he has on voters politically is different than other members of the republican party. in a lot of places steve kornacki's talking about and looking to is something we've seen across the democratized west breaking towards parties of the right and those in professional classes with post

graduate degrees breaking towards the left. it's happening in france, happening in the u.s. that driving factor has been driving a realignment of the two coalitions. when you look at the suburbs of columbus versus muhone county you're seeing that jump out. when you look at the rio grand valley versus harris county you're watching that reassembling, those forces which are bigger than the u.s. pulling on the american electorate, and trump is a vessel for that more than anything else. >> chris hayes, excellent and fascinating as always. we're going to take a quick break now and when we come back on the other side of this break we're going to be talking about new data we just got in pennsylvania. pennsylvania potentially all important tonight, and the data coming in county by county is wildly different from county to county in term of which part of the vote is coming in first, when counties plan to report the

rest of the vote. as we watch this it is helter-skelter in the keystone state. that's next. helter-skelter in the keystone state. that's next. our retirement plan with voya gives us confidence... ...we can spend a bit now, knowing we're prepared for the future. surprise! we renovated the guest room, so you can live with us. i'm good at my condo. well planned, well invested, well protected. voya. be confident to and through retirement.

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a 4-week trial plus postage and a digital scale go to stamps.com/save and never go to the post office again coming up on 11:30 here in the east. and here is all that we do not know with any certainty. our call on arizona is too early to call. biden leads. then we go to the northeast, pennsylvania. too early to call. 46% of the vote in. then we go to critical michigan. less than half of the vote in. you heard heidi's excellent

reporting on the state of michigan. it's going to be a while. and then wisconsin. you heard charlie psyches, a native of wisconsin talk about how it's going to be a while. we're going to bring mike murphy into our conversation, a veteran republican strategist. and it says a lot about strategists like mike murphy that he is with republican voters against trump. he joins us from los angeles. and mike, stay right there. don't move because i want to bring nicolle wallace into this as well. nicolle, people watching would be forgiven for wondering just what in hell's going on and how long this is going to go. and just the state of the zeitgeist and what both campaigns are saying. so you lead off. >>o i've heard from folks in both camps that no one expects a result tonight. and we've talked a lot about

anxiety as an undercurrent. we've also talked about these three states that everyone is watching, michigan, pennsylvania, wisconsin. and we now have reporting and people in the states explaining why that might be. that neither campaign expects a result tonight. heidi as you said gave us a great reporting about how michigan needs 24 more hours before they can report out their count. pennsylvania's talking about not having those results until another day, not starting with the "t" for tuesday. and the same goes for michigan. so i think the fact both campaigns are expecting this to go on beyond tonight is not cause for alarm. it is part of the conditioning, i think that both sides try to give. it doesn't necessarily mean that this heads down a legal bath. i guess the biden campaign says that is still to be determined. the trump campaign has been more hawkish about legal avenues being pursued. but it does mean this is going

to feel like something that isn't one and done. and i think mike murphy and both have muscle memory, i think a lot of folks do from the florida recount. no one is saying it'll go on that long, but we are looking at something that doesn't end this evening. >> a lot of democrats watching have merely sitting in their homes and watching 2016 in common. mike, which is it? >> well, i -- it's not 2016. i mean, i think when we kind of unwind this, a lot of democrats were looking for a quick knock out in the sun belt where biden would take red states away particularly in florida and that didn't happen. i know florida very well. i biden did well. he flipped jacksonville, did well in tampa bay. he was cooking, but miami-dade alone collapsed and i mean really collapsed. hillary won that county by 29

points, obama by 25 points. it's the biggest swan dive in one county i've ever seen because everything else was working great. so the good news -- the bad news for biden and for, you know, democratic psychology is the easy in florida or georgia or north carolina will look very unlikely, playing on red state turf. there's one red state left in the sun belt that i do think is probably going to flip to joe biden which is arizona. could be the revenge of senator john mccain. that's going to take a while. we need to get more vote in, but it looks very promising for biden. then we're down to the blue wall, and those states because they're not used to the absentee wave we're having this year and their rules are going to take a while maybe even all day tomorrow, maybe even thursday morning before we get full numbers. so i've got a lot of michigan races. i've told everybody to take a breath and understand they're

not going to get instant gratification there because they're not going to be seriously counting the real bulk of the vote until tomorrow. >> mike, down ballot what does your gut tell you about whether mitch mcconnell is going to be majority leader or minority leader? >> boy, it's close. they may be one short on the democratic side of taking it, but i kind of want to see how that iowa race goes, and, you know, and see if tillis holds on in north carolina. but it is not -- it's not as likely as i think conventional wisdom added 24 hours ago that the dems would nearly pick up the senate. but we also need to see montana. >> i think we can be sure win or lose jodi ernst will always hereafter now the break even price on a bushel of beans. nicolle wallace, a special guest to bring into this conversation.

>> are we bringing in -- >> not yet. >> i will turn this car right around. >> i was just following orders. >> steve kornacki, i would like to talk to you about pennsylvania no matter what anybody else wants to talk about. now, how much do we have in statewide, what's going on with the crazy disparities in the counties? >> there are a fair number of counties as i was saying a few minutes ago, smaller counties generally, a lot of them in the western half of the state. it's trump country where you got all the vote reported out so far, where your missing vote is philadelphia first vote. let me show you that. 33% in core democratic -- what is left here is over half a million ballots in philadelphia. again, philadelphia what they are trying to do there tonight is you see they report out the

same day vote, the votes that were cast today in philadelphia. that's part of the reporting that's coming in for tonight. they have also reported out some -- some of the mail ballots. they were processing them today. they were processing as many as they could, and they reported some of those, and they may do some more before the night is over. but that's going to leave them with hundreds of thousands of mail-in ballots that, you know, tomorrow, maybe into thursday that are going to be reported out. again, more than half a million when all is said and done. they're not done for the night right now, but there's going to be a lot left to be done. >> in 2016 what was the margin? >> 83-15. so, again, you've got -- this is very relative here. you've got trump's best ballots in philadelphia. that's why biden's sitting i think at 77% right now. you've got the same day ballots in philadelphia. and again, this is this thing. the votes cast today are the high-water mark for trump for the types of votes cast.

he's probably losing the same day but he's probably not losing it by anywhere near the margin he's going to lose the early votes by. as i say you've got a half million more to come in philadelphia there, and these suburban counties right outside of it like a montgomery county 350,000 to come. what you're actually looking at here, they've processed some of their mail-in ballots. there are some counties in pennsylvania that actually are processing large numbers of ballots. we've got same day vote to come there. chester county, we've got a mix. we've got some mail, some some same day and 168,000 to come. there are a lot of votes to come here in this philadelphia area. you're talking about just these counties right here plus philadelphia. you're talking like a thirty-third of the state right there, so that's i think throwing off a lot of the numbers you see sfat wide. the other thing i can draw your attention to here is some

counties are complete, and this is scranton. joe biden has made scranton just a central part of his campaign, what's happening is biden wins 53.6, 8 point margin. what does that represent for democrats? that's an improvement for four years ago. hillary clinton won this only by three. biden's getting it by 8 right now, but that's also not what democrats had been expecting before 2016 in scranton. obama won this by 27 points in 2012. again, this is one of those places that moved dramatically in trump's direction in 2016. biden made a little step here tonight back toward what democrats used to get but not a huge one. again, in pennsylvania the margin was less than 1 point statewide in 2016. so any improvement democrats can pick up in these counties and if they can get more support, more turnout in the suburban areas to get 0.7 point change, that's

what they're looking for here to win pennsylvania, that might help them. obviously come a long way since 2012 in our politics. can i ask you about armstrong county in pennsylvania? i've been hearing there may be some interesting results out of armstrong. >> let me see what we've got here? well, interesting is one word. i'm not going to put it up because we've had a couple of issues tonight in pennsylvania with counties reporting out numbers that i think we were on lehigh valley earlier and there was something very wrong there and i want to check on that number before i show it. >> thank you for your foresight. >> i wanted to see if steve could do the same thing about michigan that you just did in pennsylvania. because i know it's still early but what if we got for michigan particularly the flint area -- >> and again i think it's getting tricky in michigan because we're trying to figure

out what types of ballots have actually been cast and counted so far in this. so if you're looking at -- let me give you an example here because i think we've gotten a lot of oakland county. i will get to flint, but we're getting a bit of a mix here in oakland county. this is big suburban county outside detroit. this is biden basically hitting the number that hillary clinton hit in 2016. i think this is -- as i say this looks like a pretty decent mix of the two types, and that's what happens. you get a result that makes sense. in a lot of these counties right now, you're basically getting the same day vote. if you were to take a look, saginaw is another good gaegs this is perfect example, actually. this is all same day vote. and here's donald trump at 60%. again, this was dead even in 2016. here's donald trump running at 60% right now, so it's just -- it's very uneven in terms of what we're getting from these counties right now.

so we've got trump at 53, biden at 42, and again, you're basically just getting -- give you an example here in 2016 clinton won this by 9, but you're basically getting just the same day vote right there. so the mix in these states that we're seeing right now is what's making it so complicated to try to figure what exactly is going on. you're seeing it especially in michigan some of these counties it's a very even mix, and some of these counties i think it's very skewed right now. >> we're seeing that in michigan and wisconsin and in pennsylvania which are the path to 270 we've been talking about all night in terms of where these campaigns are going to end up. >> it's also why you're now hearing at 11:41 from both sides a winner will not be determined tonight. >> neither campaign expects a result tonight. >> correct. and i think for more context and to help us sort of put this into a frame that might ease anxiety we have someone joining us from harrisburg, pennsylvania. he's the editor-in-chief of the

pennsylvania capital star. we've talked before, you were ready for this for the nation's eyes, the world's eyes let's face it turning to pennsylvania. i know you've been on the phone tonight. what is your sense of the state of the race in your state? >> yeah, nicolle, i've just been over here doing box breathing for this evening. it's as advertised. we went into tuesday night knowing we weren't going to get a result and sure enough we leave tuesday night knowing we weren't going to get a result. what we didn't know is the magnitude of the count. from the philadelphia inquirer saying 2.2 million mail-in ballots statewide have yet to be counted. that's 87% of the total. those are overwhelmingly democrats, and three of the states largest counties still have a ton of ballots to count.

philadelphia may be doing another count come midnight and then doesn't plan to do another count until 9:00 tomorrow morning. joining seven more counties tomorrow that say they're going to start counting including cumberland which is theome of one of the most closely watched congressional contests in the country. >> what did the state -- i know rachel did a great deep dive on the state last night and the attorney general is ready, the biden campaign is ready. are the citizens of pennsylvania ready? >> you know, they've certainly tried to prepare them. governor tom wolf was, again, he cut that commercial this evening telling everyone to take deep breaths. seeing a bit of it on my twitter feed, some folks were looking at, say, the row office results that state attorney general state treasuring, state auditor general where there's a wide disparity between the two democratic incumbents and the one democratic challenger in the

open seat. i'm predicting republican coattails. i've had to talk a couple of people down off the ledge saying that's not the result, we still have some time left to go yet. >> and with so much i think hyperventilating on really the president threatening to, quote, send his lawyers in after the polls closed tonight i think set a tone that has people on edge. and you're right, box breathing. it's in for five, hold for five, exhale for five -- editor-in-chief of the pennsylvania capital star, thank you so much. >> box breathing, i think it's a military thing. it's in -- >> who are you, what am i talking about? >> you breathe in, you hold, you breathe out, exhale. >> there's another one called i

diaphra diaphra diaphragmatic breathing. >> we're going to take a quick break. >> it's got to be a good idea. >> i do believe in breathing. and just don't understand this. we're going to take a quick break. i'll tell one of the things i don't understand tonight is that in nevada we have zero vote at this point. nevada we've seen arizona declared too close to call with biden in the lead by nbc news. we've seen new mexico call for joe biden by nbc news, but nevada nothing, really? what's going on in nevada? we're going to check in with the gure guru of nevada's political press corp. stay with us. nevada's politicals corp stay with us i'm looking for my client. i'm his accountant. i'm so sorry. [ sighs ] hey! hey man! you're here. you don't trust me here is vegas, do you? well... i thought we had a breakthrough

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arizona and nevada both on your screen right now. i said before the break that nbc news is characterizing as too close to call with biden in the lead. i was wrong in that. it's too early to call as nbc characterization in arizona. i apologize. again, arizona right for you projected by nbc news as too early to call with just over three quarters of the vote in, but biden is characterized as being in the lead. that said, look next door. nevada too early to call. what have we got in? wait, where's all the numbers. where's the numbers in the bottom and little number up in the corner? where is the vote in nevada? what is going on with the nevada count? joining us now in the conversation is the editor of the nevada independent, my friend john raul stn who knows more about nevada politics than anybody alive who's not a currently serving politician, and he knows most of them, too. john what's going on in nevada this evening?

we're wondering when your vote is. >> would you like some numbers, rachel? is that what you're looking for? >> yes, please. >> all i can give you right now is 7. 7 is the number of polling locations in clark county, which is las vegas, the biggest part of the state. they are still open. there are lines outside of them. the polls were supposed to close at 7:00 rachel, but the republicans filed a lawsuit in this upside-down year to try to keep polls open because they've done better in early voting. as soon as those polling lines are done, they are going to start releasing results probably mostly from rural nevada. so let me caution everybody, rachel. the first numbers you may get are going to be overwhelming in favor of donald trump but probably not a large number of

votes coming from the 15 relatively small rural counties. >> now, john, i have been reading at the nevada independent -- i've been reading your prediction columns and your coverage of the early vote every single day. and i know you said overall it's your perception democrats built-up such a lead with early vote in clark county that it was essentially an insour mountable lead for the republicans. in terms of the election day turnout in clark county, though, is it possible that has exceeded expectations enough that the democrats might be keeping nevada in play? >> well, first of all, let me thank you for all the rachel clicks on the nevada independent site. listen, the most surprising thing about the election day turnout, we've been tracking that, rachel, is how small it's been. i expected about 180,000 or so voters to come out in clark county. it's going to end up being about half of that.

the republicans were hoping for a huge turnout to overcome what is clearly a deficit in the early and mail vote. they were about 45, 48,000 ballots behind statewide. but 90,000 plus in clark county. and as you know better than most people, being a student of nevada politics, the democrats always do that. they build up enough votes in the democratic bastion of clark county that the republicans can't overcome them. i think that has happened this time as well. but i can tell you the democrats here are nervous. they're looking at what happened in florida. they're afraid now that maybe the latino vote did not come out for biden the way it did for hillary clinton. you know, people get nervous on election nights, rachel, all the time even without cause, and i don't think nevada's much like any other state, and it's probably more like arizona than it is like florida.

but i've been doing this for a long time as you mentioned, and usually the vote lead that the democrats have is enough to win the state. especially since there was such low turnout today. you know what i love to see, the same thing you'd like to see, some real numbers. >> you described what's going on in terms of those open polling locations, seven open polling locations in clark county, even if the election day voting numbers overall haven't been overwhelming numbers for this day. given that that's the reason for the delay in nevada reporting its vote totals, and given the wrang l wrangling, do you have an estimate as to when those polling location might finally close and we might start getting those first numbers in terms of the timing of the evening? >> we don't, unfortunately, rachel. i think it's going to be relatively soon. i saw some numbers pop up while

you were talking. so it may mean those polling locations are closed. and you might as well call it right now. >> these numbers you're going to see where going to be from rural nevada. i don't know where those are from, rachel. but if you actually have numbers that's either a rural county that has gone rogue and released its numbers before the secretary of state gave the sign-up, which by the way does happen in nevada. and i can see that that's from a very red county in nevada. but this doesn't tell you anything. as you can see it's about 400 votes that have been cast. there's going to be 1.2, 1.25 million votes cast in nevada. i'm hoping we're going to start to get clark county results within the next hour, rachel. but i've been doing this too long. i say there's no reason for them not to release results, and i'm still saying that two hours later. so i don't want to make any predictions on that.

i hope soon. >> john, it's brian. i last time you in a thriving taxi cab line after a delightful meal in las vegas back when meals in las vegas and taxi cab lines were a thing. for all the americans who visit and love las vegas, can you update us on the impact this uncontrolled pandemic has had and when you think the strip will be the strip again and it'll be the economic engine of your state? >> it's a great question, brian. and by the way that wonderful meal that we had together seems like three years ago now, doesn't it? >> yeah, it sure does. >> listen, the pandemic has crushed the economy of nevada because it's essentially so dependent on that road you just talked about, the las vegas strip. and it was shutdown for a few months, and business has still not come back. and there are people much smarter about this stuff than i am who may not be back for a couple of years. the economy here is in big, big

trouble. one impact that has had on the election is an outstanding question. the republicans here have tried to blame the policies of the democratic governor and essentially have tried to make him be the shadow replacement for joe biden on the ballot. steve sisilac, shutdown the state. and the polling grinds are all showing trump is getting the blame and the democrats think they will surrive that part of it. but if trump were to end up winning nevada i would think that play by the republicans might have something to do with it and how bad the economy here really is, and it's bad. >> john, the editor of the nevada independent and the dean of nevada political journalism for life, thank you so much. i have a feeling we may be back with you as we start to get real

numbers out of nevada. let's go back to steve kornacki. oh, sorry, excuse me. >> we've got a big number here. nbc news is projecting ohio will go in the trump column when all the votes are counted. 53-45 race right now. that'll change. that'll fluctuate, but that is our projection. 18 electoral votes, a hugely valuable state in the donald trump column. >> that had previously been characterized as too early to call with trump in the lead. but again, ohio now projecting trump as the winner of ohio. in terms of what remains outstanding in closely watched swing states, in florida right now i should also remind you that that is being characterized as a donald trump lead even though that state has not been called. florida has not been called by nbc news, but nbc is describing it as a trump lead.

in terms of other states that we're watching obviously we're focusing like you can't believe on pennsylvania and arizona and michigan and minnesota and wisconsin. in texas nbc is also characterizing that state as a donald trump lead at this point, but has not yet called it. but one of the states that nbc has not yet characterized a result for calling it still just too aurally to call is the great state of georgia. and polls closed in georgia 7:00 p.m. it's been just about exactly 5 hours since then now. steve, what's going on in georgia? >> we said earlier we thought maybe this atlanta metro area would lag, and that's what happened. you see donald trump with the lead there and overall vote count. the reason for the sort of hovering here waiting for a result, look where the outstanding vote is. if you can see these bubbles, i mean it's the atlanta metro

area. it's the core of democratic strength in georgia, and so there's a question right now of how many votes are democrats going to get out of these counties when they come in. let's take a closer look here and zoom in. let me take the bubbles off and we can zoom in. fulton county, atlanta, it's about half the vote. biden running at 73%. there's 282,000 votes still to come there. if you look at the current pace biden is winning the same day vote in fulton county, he can net another 100,000 votes out of fulton county. if you take a look -- let's see here -- dekalb county, 300,000 votes. overwhelmingly biden here even in the same day vote we're seeing. he's winning the same day we're seeing with 62% of the vote right now. again, he could net a lot here. the problem for biden as i say, though, is overall that same day

trend does end up catching him even in some blue counties. here's a good example. gwinnett county, we think about it was 59-40. the early vote cast in this county again compared to overall biden's running at 57%. what that means is the same day vote that's been cast here even though biden's winning overall sizably, it's about even. trump is even ahead by about a fraction of a point in the count we're seeing right now. it strongly suggests there's a lot of votes to come here 114,000. but unless that trend changes biden may not get much here in terms of the race in plurality. so there are enough votes in this atlanta metro area in particular to really dramaticically tighten the statewide race. and this is what we saw in georgia in 2018 and 2016. the final margin really came in late, late when these counties did. but there is a question here if

that gap between the early and same day might catch biden here. he's got to make up 372,000. again, we'll see. let's see what comes in a place like gwinnett, if there's a surprise there. >> we've just passed midnight here on the east coast. it's a few minutes after 9:00 p.m. out west. here's the way we see it. hawaii where tots turn on a tuesday night in a boarded up manhattan, hawaii 4 electoral votes. too early to call. florida, 29 electoral votes. we have it as too close to call. trump leads. north carolina, too close to call. texas, too early to call. frump leads. pennsylvania, too early to call, period. michigan, same thing. too early to call.

georgia, too early to call. arizona, too early to call. biden leads. wisconsin, too early to call. minnesota, too early to call. iowa, too early to call. nevada, as we have just cataloged, too early to call. here's the map. we have one more. idaho to donald trump. your projected winner. that is no change from the 2016 map. let's go to tonight's map which you'll recall hours ago started in all gray without a single state filled in. that is about mirroring how these states have fallen tonight. we have so many in the margins yet to be decided. all indications are it will be days before we know. i am very eager to get to our next guest. he's been kind enough to be on

our broadcast several of the past nights to talk about tonight. and that's james carville. james, i need not remind you, you predicted this would be -- hang on we've got a call in the commonwealth of virginia. couldn't even introduce james. the projected winner in the commonwealth of virginia is joe biden. so 13 electoral votes in his column, and let's put up where that leaves us on the road to 270 just to remind everybody and then we'll talk to our friend james. 2 206-136 race right now, and there it may remain rather paralyzed. james, you predicted a night long done and dusted before this. how do you view this fight and what's going on? >> first thing is every democrat just put the razor blades and m

ambien back in the medicine cabinet. we're going to be fine. my dear friend said michigan is a red mirage. pennsylvania looks really good. i think a big surprise is georgia. steve kornacki did a really good job telling people what's out. so i -- look, i hoped we would know earlier than we did. i think we're going to be just fine. i'm very optimistic. i've been talking all night. people are rerunning the numbers. and we just have to hang in there, and we're going to win this thing. i promise you. but just, you know, stay up the night, watch the returns. we're doing a good job. i'll be able to crack it open maybe not tonight as i open, but i will crack that little puppy open before this is over. >> i'm staring at the roses, old glory and the bottle and wondering which one is going to take precedence by the time

we're off the air. james, what in your view did happen? you and i talk often on it air. what did happen between your prediction of maybe 10:00 eastern time, 10:30 and where we are now and where we may be thursday the next time we talk? >> well, i think one of the biggest stories was the latino vote in florida. you know, as you look beyond miami-dade we performed well. and if you look at duval, which i think is going to still spev the majority, in every county i see in georgia we're doing a little bit better. i'd be the first to say, look, i was more bullish. i feel that's my -- that's what i do in life. i always think i'm going to win. i never go into any contest with defeat on my mind. i do not have defeat on my mind. i have really good reasons to think that we're going to be fine. i've talked to a lot of people tonight. it might take a bit longer to move on it, but everybody just

hang in there. america's coming back, and i feel good about where we are. of course i wish we were sitting here, you know, cracking open like this great bottle of champagne right now. but i'm going to put it on ice, and i think i'm going to crack it open about friday. and i'm optimistic. i really am. >> i'm duty bound to ask if the bottle behind you started the night full. >> well, no. that's stuff is about $200 an ounce, and i parsed it out pretty good, so i'll be -- uncle pappy he's not coming out until i'm sure, but right now i feel good. we just have to wait, and we're going to support our lawyers out there. we've got some fine attorneys, and we're going to have a good lead going into this. there's more reasons to feel good now, and i've been on the phone with a lot in georgia and

they feel good. a lot of fulton, a lot of cobb is not in. all this stuff favors us. all the stuff i see in pennsylvania feels good. and everybody hang in there. we're just going to be fine. we've got to have the attitude of a winner here, and we're going to be a winner. >> rachel maddow here in new york. i wanted to jump in and ask you about that mention of the lawyers there. do you expect this may be ultimately decided by liars fighting it out rather than just by waiting for the count? >> well, i think a count is going to be good for us. and i think you're going to have trouble -- you know, they'll try. they'll do everything they can. i think when the count comes in pennsylvania i think we'll see a lot of stuff later tonight.

these numbers in montgomery and delaware and chester are just awesome. and we're running them up pretty good. we're going to run them up more. the allegheny numbers look really good. and, you know, we just have to -- we're accustomed to seeing elections where we knew things a lot earlier, and i suspect what we find out is going to be good, and i think the united states of america is really on the road back. i really do. i'm very optimistic. of course i wish we were popping open champagne right now, but i don't mind putting it on ice, but i can wait. i've waited four years for this. i can wait another four days. >> keep that shirt handy, james. james carville our guest tonight. >> i love the united states, brian. >> back at you. i'm right there with you. >> steve kornacki, let me ask you about the one non-state you have covered tonight, this

congressional district in nebraska. now, i believe that we've got a -- well, you talk me through it both the significance of it and the actual numbers. >> yeah, again, think of this sort of as a state for the night just that it represents in electoral vote. you see here biden is leading the second congressional district of nebraska. this is basically a 10 point advantage for joe biden. so what is left to come in right here i can tell you, douglas county which is omaha, there's two counties that make up this district. douglas county, omaha, is the one that's left to come in. what's left to come in according to the county at least is they have the same day vote. some of the same day vote that was cast specifically between the hours of 2:00 p.m. and poll closing time. they've split these up. they've come up with a schedule. according to the schedule they've put out, authorize not any early vote left to come in. so it would be same day that's left here. obviously you'd expect that to favor trump.

in terms of how many votes that is, that's unclear. although i would say that where they are right now in the total number of votes in this district is just about where the final vote count finished in 2016. obviously we've been seeing turnout up considerably over 2016 and in places. so we will see, you know, say 20% above that if what we're seeing elsewhere holds here. but the gap is 30,000 votes right now. biden's advantage here, the significance of this just in the road to 270. we're talking about this, if it comes down to this where trump is able to win in a georgia, a florida, a north carolina, a texas, you already saw ohio, then that path is cut off for biden. and a new one emerges. we've talked all about arizona. talked about wisconsin, michigan. and then if he got that second congressional district and he would have to then hold onto nevada as well. that's the clinton state he has

to hold onto, minnesota still outstanding as well here. as to hold onto those two. but if he can hold to the clinton states then arizona, michigan, wisconsin, plus the second congressional district of nevada would give joe biden exactly 270 electoral votes. so that's the significance of it. if everything i just described happen but he didn't have the second congressional district he'd be under 270. he'd finish at 269. that would setup the tie scenario. that's where it goes to the house of representatives. that's a whole other thing. so it's one lonely electoral vote in nebraska. but given what we've seen happen in these other states tonight and given the narrowing of biden's path that's created, it's crit criminical for him to. >> show us, again, where biden is at in terms of trying to get that? >> again, let's call it up here. his lead is 30,000 votes right

now. 271,000 votes have been cast. in 2016 there were -- let's get this working. there were 280,000 votes -- i don't know if that looks like a 280. there were 280,000 votes cast in this district for president in 2016. so, yeah 271, a little bit short of the 2016 level. obviously we've been seeing elsewhere that the turnout is going well past 2016 level. so there are more votes to come here. and according to the county's website which has put out a reporting schedule here, they indicate the votes still to come were votes cast specifically after 2:00 p.m. today. they split the day in half. we expect that to be a republican vote. trump would obviously need to make up 30,000 in whatever is left to get the district. >> we'll be watching it just as

closely as you are at this point. let's bring in michael steele back into the conversation. we just heard from james carville who said that democrats should crawl off the ledge. he mentioned both ambien and razor blades and i won't go there, and he's thinking he's still going to bring his celebratory hooch just that he won't drink it until friday. >> i'm with my brother, james. y'all got off the ledge, baby. grab yourself a nice little bottle of something, something. relax, relax. it's interesting, rachel, that a lot of folks right now are sort of caught in this florida mind maze. and i've been telling folks i've been talking to this evening just florida, no one ever put that in the biden bank.

no one did. it's an interesting play. florida was not even a place where the vice president really wept and spent a lot of time because of the dynamics there. their strategy was to look elsewhere on the map. remember the goal from the very beginning is to take back the three original bricks, michigan, wisconsin and pennsylvania. and along the way to get those bricks if i could steal in arizona, i could grab, you know, another state that's currently not in play, that's a good thing. what we're seeing out of arizona tonight that steve has put on the table for us is a good thing for biden right now. you bank that 11 -- those 11 electoral votes, and then you swing into the upper midwest with arizona, michigan and wisconsin and slide into pennsylvania, baby, you've got the night. it's going to take a little time. so he's right about the timing because of how those votes are going to get counted in michigan, how they're going to get counted in pennsylvania.

you're seeing the red wall that a lot of folks talked about. don't worry about the red wall. it ain't as high as you think it is. >> michael steele, let me ask you about the strategy on the republican side because we are now hearing that they are already starting to prepare to go to court in pennsylvania. it's these ballots that need curing, issues with the ballots, and they're already trying to throw those ballots out. what is your read on that? is that a sign that they are concerned that the actual, you know, if it's tomorrow this time comes in, that they themselves probably feel that's going to go biden's way? >> yeah, no. that's exactly what you're seeing, rachel -- i'm sorry, joy. it's what you saw earlier on. they sort of telegraphed the move in pennsylvania. they sort of telegraphed the move in a number of other states where they got the lawyers all lined up. look what they tried to do in texas. and i speak of my party in the third party.

i can't believe some of the stuff they're doing to try to keep the ballots from being counted. they tried to throw out 130,000 ballots before they even got counted. so the reality of it is they know where these numbers are headed. they've lined the lawyers up to go in and start attacking the process, the processes of those ballots, to start saying, well, that signature doesn't have an "e" on the end or the "e" doesn't look right, whatever tactic they can take because the numbers are not going to be there. i believe from what i understand the biden team is well prepared for that, the board of elections are prepared for that. they have diligently gone through and tried to avoid a lot of that on the front end particularly because ballots were coming in so fast and furious and early so they could cure as much of that as possible. but that won't stop the litigation. >> and can i ask you also about the party building aspect of this, because we're looking at the potential that, you know, depending on how those midwest

states go biden is going to run up a lot of popular vote in places he isn't necessarily going to win. he comes very close in a state like texas and where he does very well in states like georgia, north carolina, a state where a democrat doesn't normally do that well, he's going to run up a lot of vote. and a lot of these races like jamie harrison's in south carolina, like espy in mississippi are building party infrastructure where democrats frankly haven't had any. even in alabama, doug jones built something there. he wasn't able to win. what would you say to democrats who are despondent there wasn't this blue wave all across the south? >> these women are out there, they're the trail blazers. because if it's not them in this cycle which is not in the case

of someone like jamie harrison, he comes back on the next cycle of the next senatorial race or next gubernatorial race or whatever race he decides, he's built that platform, that infrastructure. how do you think democrats are competitive in texas today? it was because of what they did along the way in dallas, in fort worth and elsewhere around the state where they got voters to sort of rethink how they calculated their vote. rethink how they looked at democratic candidates in a red state. so don't thread on this. look at this as the baseline foundation that these candidates are laying out for future races. this is the warning flag from republicans, that the democrats have figured out how to build their bench. if beto had decided to run in

this cycle off of the foundation he built in '18, you're looking at a different map in texas tonight. because that energy comes -- brings with it all kinds of other good things. it's not just the money. it's how voters begin to look at the race in total and someone like beto in the race right now would help biden pull the numbers up for the top of the ticket as opposed to what a lot of people think conventional to the top of the ticket is helping a down ballot candidate. those of us who know this game is how it really works know what a beto o'rourke and a texas race in 2020 would ook like and texas looks a lot bluer with beto on the ticket than without in 2020. >> former republican party chair, sir, thank you very much for your words of calm and encouragement for all stressed out. >> just a bottle.

>> also you're a good wine model. i'm just going to say it. all right let's get back to brian now. since we've been talking to michael steele, we've learned joe biden is due to be speaking in the next few minutes. >> he is indeed. it's going to be the same venue where we saw him accept the nomination in quotes during the virtual convention. this was planned for. at least the advance crew setup this as a possible on-camera location for tonight. the white house has a room similarly outfitted with a lectern though we've heard nothing about the plans of the president to speak. so we'll hear what joe biden has to say within the next 30 minutes certainly as we keep chasing down and thanks to our friend michael steele for what was really an excellent treatise on the state of the political parties right now these days.

blaine alexander is live for us in atlanta. we keep reading about slow counts especially problems in fulton county. what light can you shed on this? >> reporter: yeah, all night, brian, we've been hearing steve talk about that cluster of counties near metro atlanta democrats really are determining will go blue or relying onto go blue. a big part what they're relying onto get that final count is in that arena behind me. that's also where all the county's absentee ballots are being counted in a room kind up near the suite level of the are arena. well, there are some delays trying to figure exactly when they'll get them counted. they could spend the better part of the next two days making sure they tabulate all these ballots

that come in, but i spoke to other officials who kind of down-played that saying they're aiming to get it down by the end of the day. what does that mean for the state of georgia? it could mean a big delay. it's the home of atlanta of course, so the big question is when can they get this done? and also flies in the face of what the secretary of state told me earlier today that they're hoping to have all these things tabulated across the state by noon tomorrow at the very latest. remember, brian, georgia is facing a lot of eyes and pressure to get this right not just because of its status possibly swinging to blues as democrats hope but because of the fact we saw what we saw back in june, the deb occuacle. so the secretary of state called it a good day in georgia. overall they're hoping to get those numbers done and tabulated as soon as possible. but, again, it could be more than two days at least before we get those absentee ballots counted here in fulton county.

>> blayne, just a personal note it's been a o20 for you guys in atlanta, hasn't it? i'll never forget your reporting the night of the terrible violence. your mayor goes onto become a national political figure, goes onto have coronavirus visit her home and family. it's just -- it's been that kind of a year in atlanta, georgia. >> reporter: you know, you couldn't said it better. i really think this is kind of the cap stone and one of the big pieces we've seen on top all the protests we saw, on top of the cnn center getting blown in and all sorts of destruction there, the june primary. they were so frustrated when you saw people sitting outside for hours some people in the rain waiting to cast a ballot there was frustration but also this sense of determination afterwards to say, look, we're going to figure out something. this can't go on when it comes to november. i do think that's a big part of

the reason why you saw the early voting numbers you saw here. >> thank you very much for that full briefing from atlanta. so steve kornacki, you heard it from blayne. if this were a sitcom i would have interrupted and said i'm sorry, i thought for a second you said the county will take two days. sheeds t she said the county may take two days, and we're hearing that from more than one state. >> again, you can see here what biden and the democrats are trying to make up here, i was just noticing the difference here, trump's lead. it's basically sitting at 300,000. it's come down. we were so focused on the atlanta metro area, we should note makin' city -- the city of

makin' here, bibb county just reported its early absentee vote and biden got a big batch there and that did bring him a bit closer. you're talking about fulton county. let's give you a sense here. 230,000 votes or so estimated, you know, left to be coming in here. and you see the margin biden's running at even with the same day vote, seems to be doing extremely well. and how about this one? next door dekalb county, 277,000 votes to come in. again, this might even be a stronger area for joe biden. so there are still -- it's a half million votes between those two places. you know, when you're looking at about a million left here statewide to come we think there is still some room right there. but, again, we're just trying to get a grip here. exactly how many ballots we're talking about in this area, exactly what that split is still unclear in some places. it's definitely a biden area

here, and it's definitely going to bring this margin significantly closer. but the question is how big is that burst going to be for joe biden here? that's what we're trying to get a grip on. again, this has been and this is the thing. i've got to say all night looking at georgia and every other state it's trying to figure out, trying to determine are we looking at early vote, same day vote because there's been an enormous difference between the two. haven't done an election like this before. >> let me run something by you in terms of what we're expecting of the time horizon. seems to me we don't necessarily have dire or super long-term expectations for arizona, minnesota, nevada, iowa. like it doesn't seem like

there's any reason to expect those will be super long horizons, but we are getting explicit not just warnings but almost promises that it's going to be multiple days before we get results in georgia, michigan, wisconsin and pennsylvania. >> yeah, i mean you just heard the report on georgia. so, you know, there's also i would just say -- i don't want to forget about this one. north carolina remains uncalled. the margin is 76,000 votes for donald trump. remember the ballots that are in the mail right now that were postmarked, they will still be counted. we don't know how many there are, so that's another variable we're trying to figure out how many more ballots are going to come in north carolina. could that still plausibly affect the outcome in north carolina? about a 75,000 vote margin. in wisconsin we are hearing -- i'll show you milwaukee county here, and i think you were talking about this earlier, core democratic area. you see a lot of vote left to come. this happened in the 2018

mid-term election. it was some point we suddenly got from the city of milwaukee, we got their absentee vote and it all changed the race. i think some time i believe i'm hearing about 4:00 in the morning or so i think we're going to get the mail-in vote, all the vote from milwaukee. so i think that could potentially be a very big piece of the puzzle in wisconsin. because if you're just looking at the trump lead over biden here, if you went back to the 2016 level of democratic support even in milwaukee county that would basically erase the trump advantage right now. there are other counties right now trump could still gain some vote in here, but you are seeing a lot of the vote come in. the big wild card in wisconsin, i've got the sheet right here is some of these counties, big cities within the counties like

milwaukee count up their mail-in vote, count up their absentee vote in separate places. these are municipalities, generally larger places that do that sort of separate from the county. and those can come in later in a lot of cases and i think milwaukee's going to be one of them. >> steve kornacki, thank you very much. let's go to our friend claire mccaskill who started off this night quite confident and has retained the same smile and look of confidence over the course of the night as lots of other people who are democrats or rooting for the democrats have been freaking out. claire, where do you stand right now in terms of your expectations? >> let me be honest. obviously this night did not go exactly like many of us hoped it

would. on the oerpn the other hand, there's an easy path for joe biden. and if you look at those states, wisconsin and michigan and pennsylvania, and frankly i think that georgia is now a total jump ball based on what we're seeing out of atlanta and those surrounding counties. so i still say, you know, joe biden's is the the only one who flipped his state so far, and i think there will be other states who will flip and it'll all be fine. i'm kind of with james carville. everybody chill, put away the sharp instruments. we're going to be fine. i am a little -- i'm more worried about the senate although interestingly in montana i just took a look, and steve bullock has the same number of votes as donald trump in montana with half the vote

counted. you know, 6,000 more votes than joe biden. you say 6,000 it's not that much, but this is montana. 6,000 is a lot. so the fact he's running ahead of joe biden by that much may break the streak we've seen where the senate races all fall in line with how people are voting at the top of the ticket. >> claire, first of all, i'm still recovering from my blow against north carolina. and i hope that north carolina ends up being the story of the night. i love north carolina. i really didn't mean to run afoul of anyone in north carolina. but the fact is that the biden campaign is in the exact same sort of place and mood that they were in over the weekend, where their number one path to 270 is to resurrect the blue wall of pennsylvania, michigan, and

wisconsin. that plan not thwarted, not delivering any setback other than needing a little more time. after that it gets a little more murky. you talk about what it could -- and we should say that would be all they need especially if arizona continues to look the way it looks right now. but can you sort of bring it back to the facts, bring it back to the math? >> well, we were giddy because the map felt like it was expanding. and i think we still have a polling problem in this country. we thought they'd made adjustments and the polling was now absolutely correct. based on polling it looked like there were all kinds of different paths we could get there. as it turned out the one true path is the path they were most focused on. give this campaign credit. joe biden didn't go to texas. everyone was screaming joe biden go to texas, joe biden go to texas. they knew they had to keep their eye on the prize which was --

which were those three states. and those three states i believe will deliver the presidency to joe biden just as his campaign planned. >> can i ask you really quickly, claire, about arizona? even though i know it wasn't in the original plan, but it does look like a state very promising for joe biden. and also the senate race where it does look very promising also for mark kelly. in the end i am getting some sort of trump world people who are texting that they already feel like, you know, donald trump is who doomed that state because of his relentless attacks on john mccain. will that be one of the stories donald trump's obsession with the late senator mccain may be actually in the end if it plays out that way gives joe biden that extra -- that extra state that he needs? >> it could be. and obviously all this campaign

was about was flipping states that went for donald trump to joe biden. i believe -- i know other places have already called arizona for joe biden. i believe that will go in his column without a doubt. so that's one. and he needs just a few others to flip, and the ones he's got left are easier than arizona. >> yeah. i need to jump in here for a second. nbc news is going to change slightly the characterization of the race in one state. it relates to the state of minnesota. now, it has been too early to call there. it remains too early to call in the state of minnesota, but nbc is now adding the characterization that joe biden leads in minnesota. again, this would not be a flip for the democrats. hillary clinton very, very, very nar lowly carried minnesota in 2016. but the trump campaign has been gunning for it, and again, the nbc news characterization at this hour is while it's still

too aurally to call with just over three quarters of the vote in, joe biden can be said to be now in the lead in that state. let me ask your reaction to that change in minnesota. >> i'm very confident about minnesota. listen, you know, you talk about knowing minnesota. amy klobuchar knows minnesota. i mean, like she could recite to you every library address in every county of every state. this is someone who's very close to her state. she is very confident about what the results will be in minnesota. and i believe amy. >> in terms of what we're expecting to hear over these next few days, claire, talk to me about the mental health of democrats while the -- sorry, while the michigan, wisconsin and pennsylvania results remain outstanding over a couple of days if that's what happens. and it might not be those states. it might be georgia, north carolina, but talk to me about how democrats and republicans

might approach that kind of delay differently. we're watching here as joe biden's motorcade i believe arrives for his expected are remarks in the next few minutes. >> yeah, i think the mental health will be fine. obviously i think you're going to have some folks that if we do not win the race and we do not pull out then they're going to begin to focus on the runoff in georgia. clearly carrying the senate was a very important thing for the democratic party in this election. and clearly there have been some disappointments in the senate race. so the mental health around that is probably going to be as difficult as -- maybe even more difficult than the reality that we're going to have to just be patient. and i think joe biden will help us be patient. you know, these folks are going to get counted. they've been cast. they're fully protected. we have good lawyers if trump tries to pull tricks. and ultimately the people who voted in those states are going

to decide who the president of the united states is. >> well, we are going to hear from joe bide i think quite shortly. we just saw that motorcade shot in delaware. let me shoot over to brian what we're expecting. >> well, i have a question for our friend squaonly colleague n. it strikes me she's the only persons who's written a statement from what we're about to hear from a nervous politician to a national television audience as we see a kind of drive in vigil outside this same venue where biden accepted the nomination. tell us what your column would say? >> in 2000 and 2004 there was no result, and 2004 was the most similar situation to tonight. mike mccurry who worked on the

curry everates campaign and i were the back channel. we sort of created a dynamic where we talked to both our candidates and no one said anything that night. this is different situation. i would imagine joe biden will-call on his supporters to stay calm, to keep the faith and promise all votes have been counted. >> well, look at this sorry to interrupt, nbc news is projecting donald trump will be the ultimate winner in florida and its 29 electoral votes. running right now 512 to 478 and what has become an influential and for the democrats vexing state. as claire mccaskal and others have pointed out tonight to

soothe the anxieties of her fellow democrats, this was never a projected biden state. it was on the wish list. it was hoped for. you don't send barack obama, but the candidate himself did not make it a personal priority preferring instead to concentrate on that blue wall we've been discussing, the very same blue wall that may take days to determine this election result. but florida where our projection is concerned is done and dusted for this cycle. nicolle, i interrupted. please continue. >> we were talking about what joe biden might say tonight, and i'm thinking of this result in florida as something that might make its way into joe biden's comments. joe biden has constantly sought to convey that if he is elected he will be a president for all americans not just a president

for democrats. and he may actually see to it to say something about the closeness of this night. but i think his real mission will be to tell his supporters to reassure them that their votes will be counted and to call for calm. and i would be surprised if there wasn't some message that came out of the white house. you'd be foolish if you hoped it was that civilized to call for calm. but i think once biden says something it'll be impossible for trump to say nothing. >> wilmington, delaware, is the scene. you see people have been invited to just as we recall when joe and dr. jill biden appeared outside to kind of a drive-in rally, people have been infrastructur instructed to bring their cars. and here comes the former vice president. and we'll all see together what

his message is. >> hello, delaware. good evening. your patience is commendable. we knew this was going to go long, but who knew we were going to go into maybe tomorrow morning, maybe even longer. l but, look, we feel good about where we are. we really do. i am here to tell you tonight we believe we're on track to win this election. we knew because of the

unprecedented early vote and the mail-in vote it was going to take a while. we're going to have to be patient until the hard work of tal tallying votes is finished. and it ain't over until every vote is counted, every ballot is counted. but we're feeling good. we're feeling good about where we are. we believe one has suggested we've already won arizona but we're confident about arizona. that's a turn around. we also just called it for minnesota. and we're still in the game in georgia, although that's not what we expected. and we're feeling real good about wisconsin and michigan. and by the way, it's going to take time to count the votes. we're going to win pennsylvania.

philly, allegheny county, scranton, and they're really encouraged by the turnout and what they see. look, we could know the results as early as tomorrow morning, but it may take a little long. as i've said all along it's not my place or donald trump's place to declare who's won this election. that's the decision of the american people. but i'm optimistic about this outcome. and i want to thank everyone of you who came out and voted in this election. by the way, chris coons and the democrat, congratulations here in delaware. john, the guv, yeah, the whole team you've done a great job. i'm grateful to the poll workers, to the volunteers, our canvas workers, everyone who participated in this process. and i'm grateful to all my supporters here in delaware and all across the nation. thank you, thank you, thank you.

and folks, you heard be say it before. every time i walk out of my grandpa's house up in scranton he'd yell, joey, keep the faith. and my grandma would say joey spread it. keep the faith, guys. we're going to win this. thank you, thank you. your patience is great. >> in an era when car horns are the new applause of 2020 at least at some of the political rallies we've seen, so, joy, nicolle, rachel, how did those remarks measure against what we thought he might say? >> i think unsurprisingly joe biden was optimistic. he was positive. he projected confidence in the result, and he said what nicolle estimated that he would say. that be patient, we're confident

we're going to win. i think that's what the biden, you know, voters needed to hear. i think there is such a deep anxiety out there and a disappointment that we didn't see a huge repudiation of trumpism, but i think he did what he needed to do. he's come back out for an encore. >> i don't know what he just said there. >> there's a steadiness about the biden campaign, and throughout those early primaries, brian, and we were all together on those nights where he had decisive defeat in new hampshire, decisive defeat in the first two caucuses in iowa and nevada. this wasn't a campaign that sort of got rattled, and i think this is where his personal story connected and intersected with his political story. someone who suffered the loss of two children and his first wife, but this was a campaign always to find its footing. and i think i used this earlier in the night.

if there's a tortoise and a hare, i don't know if there's an appropriate animal for the trump campaign. it really was never about the democratic elites. it was never about the media. the media counted him out, the democratic elites counted him out. joe biden has constantly exceeded expectations. this is campaign very low-key. and i recognize this as a former campaign staffer. it has a habit -- you have to imagine there's been some big debates inside this campaign how long to sort of stay off the trail, what the events should look like. and again you can't project this out and say they're going to win because they ran a campaign that didn't leak, but they're all good signals and also bode well. things get dicy when things aren't known on election night. i happen to believe campaigns take on the personalities and

demeanors of the people at the top. joe biden and senator harris have created a climate where they were confident to walk out tonight and say, guys, we've got this. they're optimistic but we need time and patience. >> joe biden tonight saying we feel good about where we are, we're on track to win this election. it ain't over until every vote, every ballot is counted. he said we're still in the game in georgia, and that's not even one we expected. that was kind of interesting. >> he said we couldn't have the results as early as tomorrow morning but it may take longer. it's not my place or trump's place to tell you who won, but we're optimistic. that is a responsible way to approach asking for patience, praising people for being patient, saying i'm not declaring victory here but i'm optimistic and i need everybody to stick with me. just immediately in response to

that donald trump has said he's going to make a statement tonight, and he's already declaring the election a big win for himself. so presumably president trump will come out and declare victory, and as michael beschloss put it, he'll declare himself the king of romania. saying you won isn't the same as winning. >> rachel, three minutes ago there's another one. quote, we're up big but they're trying to steal the election. we'll never let them do it. votes cannot be cast after the polls are closed, and in this case it's capitalized as if someone is closing the pollish people so -- >> and when the polls get closed. >> that's a disservice to us all. let's bring in lawrence

o'donnell to talk about his knowledge of the political process, his knowledge of joe biden having known him way, way back in the u.s. senate. lawrence, what did you make of what just happened and juxtapose it against the event we can only guess about coming up from the president. >> it sounds like the trump event is going to be as crazy as we expected it would be at this point. but the joe biden speech did surprise me because it's the shortest speech that joe biden has ever given. i've been watching him make speeches since the late 1980s on the senate floor and forward. and used to be a joke in the senate when joe biden would get up and ask to speak, the joke used to be joe probably has a good ten minutes and then after that he would keep going because he can just keep going extemporaneously. i was surprised actually rather than just go through exactly

where we are in the election in a kind of pundit way basically echo james carville, which was necessary absolutely necessary for him to say he believes he's going to win pennsylvania, believes he's going to win the election. they still have a chance in georgia. all of those points were necessary. but i thought a couple of paragraphs about what this campaign was about would also have been in order especially for those waiting out there tonight and hoping they were going to be participating in a victory celebration. again, that's a way to remind the country just how different this candidacy is from the trump capped d.c. because there won't be -- i think we can be sure there won't be anything uplifting in what donald trump has to say tonight. it'll just be crazy dictatorial madness about claiming the crown. but i was surprised joe biden

didn't give us a little more about what this campaign is about what will happen when these numbers are resolved by the end of the week. >> we have two bits of news second part refers to your beat tonight. first of all we're projecting the state of iowa will go to donald trump when all the votes are in and counted. and more than that jodi ernst it appears is heading back to the u.s. senate. she was under real and concentrated threat for her seat, had a bad debate appearance days before the calender day of election day, and jodi ernst, u.s. military veteran is going back into the u.s. senate. so, lawrence, what do you make of those twin developments? >> well, so far it's a tough night for chuck schumer. he was hoping by now to have picked up the four seats that he

needs to get the majority in the senate. it is now a real struggle. it is now slipping into what you'd probably call less than likely at this point for the democrats to win back the senate. it isn't over, but it would take some surprises. claire mccaskill pointed out the montana race is running in a way that is surprising people. that was not ranked as likely that bullock would be that strong in montana. but montana has elected democratic senators before. the other senator before ipmontana is a democrat. so there is a way for a democrat to win in montana, but this is one of those situations where there were higher expectations for some of the other candidacies that have not performed as well as bullock has. >> you're saying this is not quite the era of mike mansfield?

>> look, they have john tester now. they had max -- for decades in the senate so montana has always had a democratic inclination towards the senate. it just needs the right candidate, looks like bullock may be the right candidate. >> i want to bring into the conversation now david plouffe, former campaign manager, and as we look forward to what we're all of course predicting to be inspiring levelheaded responsible and civically minded remarks from president trump tonight who has also already advanced told us he's going to claim victory and say democrats are steal ing it which will be cause for national ridicule for everyone who doesn't believe it. >> i thought they were the right remarks, and i think people just want to know who's going to win

the election, so i don't think you want to go and give a version of your stump speech. it urged patience and most importantly he had confidence. he didn't go out there and say, you know, let's just wait until the last vote is counted, we still have a shot, we think we're going to win. there's no doubt texases and floridas and joe biden is leading arizona. joe biden has a significant lead in the second congressional district of nebraska which we should all be talking a lot more about. he's considered i think the favorite by analysts in michigan and wisconsin. and joe biden clearly thinks he's got an edge in pennsylvania. so joe biden is going to go out there with that being the reality, where joe biden right now i think has a credible case that by tomorrow or by friday he'll be elected president of the united states. so the land slides not in the

offering but the path for joe biden remains alive and well. i've seen many people give that speech where not all the votes are in, not everything's been called but you know where it's going and you're much more cautious. i think the fact he's so clear he thought they were going to win means his campaign team likes what they're seeing in the remaining states and that very important congressional district in nebraska. >> in terms of those expected remarks from the president, i think that that the president has undercut the impact of his presumably premature victory declaration by telegraphing it for so long so i think everyone knows to expect it and has sort of braced for the fact that will be a false claim by the president. nevertheless, if he does in fact say that, do you think that may create new cross currents or new dynamics we've never had to deal

with before since we've never had in the modern era presidents claiming victory without the facts being on their side? we've never seen that used as a presidential tactic. nixon wanted to it do it but got talked out of it. >> it's destructive and depressing that a united states president is going to claim in a lie that he's talking about votes being cast after election day. all these votes were cast before election day. in wisconsin, michigan and pennsylvania the vast majority of those votes to be counted were sent in a month ago, two weeks ago. so the problem here is not i think it's going to affect the outcome because these were legally cast votes and they're going to be counted legally. and the winner of those votes is going to win the presidency. you're going to have 45, 46% of the country believing what he's saying. even though they're saying on fox biden won arizona, he should

be considered the leader in wisconsin. so that's what i'm concerned about. i'm less concerned about the outcome. but, you know, this is going to be a really, really ugly 24-72 hours. nothing we've never seen in american history. and i agree with you. it's more bark than bite, but still going to be hard to watch. >> this is joy. and i think that's the anxiety that people feel, right? that we're going to wind up in court in pennsylvania, that we're going to wind up with the trump campaign challenging ballots in arizona or everywhere else, and that, you know, it'll sort of never end, and then it becomes a case of can we trust the courts which have been seated by mitch mcconnell and his senators, some of whom got re-elected tonight as did he. how confident are you that democrats actually can prevail? i know they've got great lawyers, but how confident are you that if this winds up being a huge, messy battle in the

courts that democrats can come out of that on top? >> well, joy, they have great lawyers. and i think to date they've had great success in all the election lawsuits. but, listen, pennsylvania, michigan and wisconsin didn't count the vote ahead of time by state law. these aren't ballots sent in on saturday they're going to receive on thursday. these are all the early vote and mail-in ballots throughout the period, number one. so i feel confident despite the court, despite we're going to have an american president basically saying democracy is over in the united states, it's over. i believe i should stay as president, doesn't matter what the voters said, and i've won the election, so that's going to be ugly and depressing and nerve-wracking, but at the end of the day these votes are going to be counted in north carolina and georgia and in those key

states. following state law, following established practices. >> david plouffe, former obama campaign manager. david, thank you very much for being with us. i have a feeling it's not over for you tonight with us just as it's not over for you at home either as we close in on the top of of the as we close in at 1:00 a.m. eastern. i think i'm handing this to brian at this point? >> yeah. we have the magic sound coming. >> i could make the whoosh. >> there you go. now it's official. rachel, if you wait long enough, you can be awake for polls closing in alaska. it has happened. three electoral votes without consequence. alaska is in our determination too early to call. north carolina was significantly more votes is too close to call. texas, too early. we've determined donald trump leads that race. pennsylvania, too early.

georgia, too early. michigan. too early. arizona. too early. biden leads. wisconsin, too early. minnesota, too early. and nevada, too early. which leads with us an electoral map that looks like this. 205-171. we all know where the states are that will plug in those totals. how are you doing? >> i'm doing good. we're keeping an eye on wisconsin. it looks like about over 70% of the vote has been counted in wisconsin. you see the trump lead is

114,000. a lot of suspense is coming to milwaukee count. you can see only 36% of the vote so far is a big biden county. to give an example. in 2016, in 2016, there were 434,000 votes that were cast in this county. right now they have tabulated just -- excuse me. it went off the screen. they have tabulated just over 200,000. they're basically halfway to what they got in 2016. sow when you see this lead that donald trump has, milwaukee county is a big thing yet to come. we're expecting in a couple of hours, the city of milwaukee itself. some of the cities, municipalities, they count up their absentee ballots separately and then they report that. that's what we're expecting.

i think we're expecting the full vote and that will give us the picture of the race. scott walker, the republican incumbent, led all night. it was very narrow. milwaukee county came in, reported in that late vote and that put evers over the top. we're waiting to see that. we're starting to get close to complete results. they call these the wow counties. right outside milwaukee, to give you a sense. these are big republican counties. trump, most of the vote, just about all the vote in here, trump, a little under his 2016 performance. and then some of the vote over his 2016 performance. democrats were able to squeeze, it looks like more votes out of dane county. this is where madison is, the university of wisconsin.

you can see clinton got 71%. biden doing better. extraordinary turnout there for democrats. conversely, if you took a look in the fox valley, green bay, brown county, donald trump running 15 points ahead of joe biden. there might be some progress. that looks about the same. so this is kind of nip and tuck. the big county gap. a lot of this in wisconsin is coming down to what we find out in the next few hours. >> in terms of when we will find out crucial information, we'll go back to fulton county, georgia, where our reporter blaine alexander has some new reporting on the expectations for that count. what that might mean for the georgia numbers overall.

what do you have? >> we've learned that the counting continues tonight. right here in state farm arena, we've learned there are five people still inside, still working to scan those absentee ballots. we were told everybody went home about 10:30. but i just got off the phone with the county spokesperson who said there are people in there right now, burning the midnight oil, scan go ballot by ballot. we've also learned there are about 100 or so county employees at the county warehouse not too far from where we are now who are working to tabulate the early in-person ballots. so we've got two different operations happening at the same time. what will this mean for when these votes are tabulated? and we don't know the answer to that yet.

she said she's still tabulating over the next two days. she said she's not ready to say this would have an impact on getting this done. it really underscores how crucial fulton county is when it comes to the of georgia. the final piece of this is how long they'll be counting tonight. they couldn't say how long they'll be staying up doing this. she did tell me this. she said it looks like people are in it for the long haul and it doesn't look like they're going home any time soon. >> and specifically, you said five people are inside that building? five? five actual individuals working on all the absentees? just five? >> reporter: i had to clarify that myself, too. we spent time inside that room. when we were there, there were about three dozen or so employees who were kind of working, scanning, opening

different sorts of ballots. i understand most of them left. we saw them leave around 10:30. the ones who remained are the ones scanning the ballots that have already been open. already sorted. so that kind of assembly line work has been done and now they're taking those piles and scanning those in manually. so yes. about five people who are doing that now. we're told the rest of the people will return tomorrow morning and continue this process. >> wow! talk about having the fate of the nation in your be hands. incredible reporting tonight. the nuts and bolts as we await that. that's fascinating. to give you the lay of the land. we are awaiting results. in a few states where nbc has characterized one of the two candidates being in the lead. nbc has characterized trump has

being in the lead in texas, even though texas is not called. nbc news has characterized joe biden being in the lead in both minnesota and arizona, although neither have been called. north carolina, too close to call. in. >> nevada, it is too early to call. in pennsylvania, wisconsin, michigan, georgia, it is too early to call. and part of drama is that we are waiting to find out what's going to happen in terms of the time line for when these states will report. and pass reporting just moments ago from blaine suggests, even that is very much in flux. brian, back to you. >> indeed, we have another state called. one of the states you just ran through. that is texas. it turns out that democrats maybe some of them spotted a blue mirage in some of the early numbers. hope overcame facts.

a red state under donald trump. and 52-46 and change is where we have the percentages right now. here is how it affects road to 270. that's a big hunk of red that now makes a south to north path through the dakotas for president trump. no change here again. but still, a big piece of political real estate. robert gibbs is back with us, wondering how much closer he is to the liquor kabul net. have you changed any of your thoughts? any of the way you view the playing field since last we spoke? >> still no tequila, brian. i'm still very optimistic. i think you've got two big states in the sunbelt that have gotten very, very interesting. let's talk about each of them. one we just talked about which is georgia. i think there's a lot of atlanta votes still out.

fulton, clayton, cobb, those are good counties for joe biden. and then the other big one is arizona. what arizona does, and you've got a pretty nice lead for joe biden. it might be a while for some of the vote to get in. but that plus the one electoral vote in nebraska. all of a sudden, opens up a different path way for joe biden that doesn't necessarily include pennsylvania. so biden started the night with multiple paths. trump started the night basically with one path which was holding everything. and while florida didn't happen and probably north carolina isn't going to happen, ohio and iowa didn't happen. it still could be that by the wee hours, we'll get joe biden with a second path to the white house. that is the optimism i think democrats should have right now. >> we have another call. just since the time you've been talking. another big piece of real estate

on the map. no flip, no change. as expected, donald trump has won the state of montana. with its 3 electoral votes. just under 52-44 for joe biden in maine. too early to call. but biden is leading. remember. there are, there are all kinds of vaguories about the way mainers vote in these elections. the congressional district divide, the ranked voting. you see montana. we just flashed from stripes to solid red. you can see the geographic path. but no changes here. back to the point you were making about arizona. for the folks watching at 1:11 a.m. eastern, it can fairly be asked, where do you put the

timing of certainly knowing more about this? >> well, look. i think you won't get some of these upper midwestern states. i don't think you'll get detroit or milwaukee until maybe 5:00, 6:00, 7:00 in the morning. so i think it will be a while. we've known for a while that the upper midwestern states would have to count legally, count their votes only election day. a couple places in michigan. we've flown that will take a while. we would be thinking about pennsylvania, wisconsin, and michigan. and we knew that would take a while. that looks like where we are right now. >> it's a mighty one and that's rhode island with. its 4 electoral votes. joe biden has been projected the winner of rhode island. and just as regionalisms have

changed and come is that gone and developed over the past few election cycles, the northeast, new england, has become as you can see reflected on the map, dependable, safe blue ground as for right now. maine, of course, as we mentioned, remains a question mark. new york, no question about it. pennsylvania is the next big patch of gray. and robert gibbs was just discuss go, is it not a little optimistic to say tomorrow morning for some of these counts in some of these older cities? >> it could be optimistic. look. i would, if you're focused on politics, i would clear your schedule for tomorrow. or today, i guess. we're here on wednesday. i do think, it will be a while. and some of these states, as we've mentioned, in

pennsylvania, if votes have been post marked but it takes a couple days to get there. we know the postal service has been ordered by a federal judge to find 300,000 ballots they've been tracking. so this is going to take a while. to paraphrase robert frost but not so morbidly, with miles to go before we sleep. >> yep. i think you got that right. however, that frost guy cops up with a good quote. robert gibbs, thank you very much. steve kornacki is at the wall. what state are you looking at now? >> we're looking within the state of nebraska. we've been tracking the story of this one electoral vote that looms very large here. let's take a look if i can call up the second congressional district of nebraska. maybe three times will be the charm. you see, joe biden is leading this 53-45. the margin here for biden is sitting at 23,000 votes. here's what we can tell you. you can see they've added votes since last time.

now more than 300,000 votes that have been recorded here. the county is saying, this is douglas county, nebraska. according to their schedule, they have one more update they'll do for this vote. they will be according to their schedule, more same day votes, votes that were cast this afternoon. i can tell you, since the last time we checked in, there have been a couple of updates including same day vote. the effect has been what had been a 30,000 vote biden lead here, has been trimmed on 23,000. about 30,000 votes have been added to this pile from those two updates. we don't know how many in the last update. if it is like the previous two that we've seen, very hard to see trump overtaking biden there. and again, if that is the last update, we might get some clarity on nebraska, too. if biden hangs on. if donald trump doesn't overtake him, that would be a flip. that would be an electoral vote picked up by joe biden that

hillary clinton did not get in 2016. in fact, if you take a look at the electoral map right here, it would be the first flip. this is what has happened so far tonight. what i'll do here is try to superimpose to give you a sense of it. biden is sitting at 209. trump is sitting at 212. we talked this night. florida, georgia, all these opportunities joe biden had potentially to score a win early that would blow this map open. we're obviously in a different place right now. so let me put up what happened in all of these undded states in 2016. if everything stayed the same. let me see. if everything stayed the same as 2016, i'm pressing the wrong button. if everything stayed the same as 2016, we've had no flips. if nebraska does flip. that's an electoral vote to the democrats. where else would biden be looking? we mentioned, let's see what happened in the atlanta metro

area. that question of the outstanding ballots still in the mail in north carolina. that's an awfully big lead that trump has there. that's arizona. this becomes probably the most direct path for joe biden. if he gets arizona, he had that first batch of early votes that put him ahead. now he's trying to withstand. if biden got this district in nebraska where we all the votes. if he were to get arizona. that would bump him up 244. take look here. wisconsin. we're expecting, right now if you look at the tally in wisconsin,ed about is down. it is close. and let's see what happens in a couple hours. we're expecting milwaukee count. that will have a long way to go in terms of telling us the result here. if biden were to get it. if he were to get over the top in wisconsin. those three, wisconsin plus arizona, plus nebraska. hold on to nevada.

then at 2:54, michigan would be the big one. the most immediate one. michigan has 16. if he got that, if biden could pick off michigan in this scenario, there it would be for him. it would be 270. arizona, hang on to nevada. you pick off that one electoral vote in february february. let's see what happens in milwaukee county in a couple hours. you get a sense of what's going on. the only other state we're not addressing. pennsylvania. but biden now is going to have to take, it looks like some of this midwest path to the white house we were talking about. would it come down to that, it is looking like it might. >> could i ask you about another state that doesn't give all the electoral votes to the winner, and that is main. we now have a characterization

in maine that it is too early to call but biden is in the lead. is it possible that trump could be looking at picking up an electoral vote in that northern congressional vote in maine? >> yeah. technically, he would be holding on. he won in it 2016 as well. let's see. this is the second congressional district of maine. this is the much more rural district of maine. very blue collar. what you're looking at is too early to call. trump won this district by 10 points in 2016. his lead now, over joe biden is sitting at nearly 8 points. there are still some votes to come in here. i would say tonight, when you start looking at the map and the trends that we've been seeing across different states, ohio, iowa, rural areas to the south in particular, it is the blue collar rural areas. white voters, blue collar white voters in particular. trump has really been asserting

strength that he had in 2016. there was a lot of question coming into tonight if there would be slippage there. a lot of places we've seen, there hasn't been much slippage. again, he won there by 10. and it had been a big, big shift. democrats have been winning this every time they had it up for an electoral vote. >> let's go back to arizona and nevada. two interesting cases there in terms of the count. for a long time now. for a considerable amount of the night. the projection has been that it is too early to call but joe biden is in the lead. and you were saying that he took big lead with the early votes and he's trying to withstand the trump onslaught in terms of day

of votes. and then in nevada, we spoke with john ralston about how late the voting, how late the accounts were being reported out of nevada. >> nevada is a lot like arizona. it is very large in terms of land area. so much is clark county where las vegas is, washington county where reno is. the overwhelming majority of the population will be in these two plays. a lot of spaces but not a lot of votes. it is even reported out there. in the same way, we're waiting for maricopa county in arizona. we're all waiting for clark county in nevada. we saw when the initial vote came in. the mail-in vote. as of this past week, all the ballots until this past weekend.

now they're adding to that same day vote. you can see on it this meter here. everything in orange is that initial batch of votes. on this is what is expected to favor trump. the question is, only a very little amount. how much can trump make up? you're talking about almost two-thirds of the population in arizona. almost two-thirds. voters will come out of maricopa county. it is an enormous sprawling suburb. it kind of assess the tone. >> steve kornacki, thank you. we'll take a quick break in part because we are expecting remarks from the president fairly soon. i should tell you that we did hear from joe biden within the

last hour. it ain't over until every ballot is counted. keep the faith. we're going to win this. he said in his remarks this hour. it's not my place or donald trump's to say who won but we're optimistic. joe biden now echoing that in a tweet. he said it is not my place or donald trump's place to declare the winner of this election. it is the voter's place. just posted by joe biden. we're expecting remarks from the president that will probably not echo that sentiment. that will be right on the other side of this break. side of this break - i'm norm.

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our characterization of the race in georgia has flipped from too early to call to too close to call. and if you've been following our correspondent blaine alexander, we could be at too close to call for some time. and we are very happy we detailed the electoral situation in the state of nebraska for those of you with calculators who were paying attention, because we have a call on nebraska, too. steve kornacki, that district with its one electoral vote, where we're reminded, donald trump flew in and did a rally looking for that electoral vote that was the famous evening people had a three-mile walk in the cold. that has been awarded to joe biden. correct? >> yeah. and there it is. we were going through it.

we can call it back up on the screen. this is omaha. omaha metro area. and again, these are the same numbers. there is one update to come here. this is a district democrats felt very comfortable in. we were talking about the growing in suburbs, metropolitan areas. donald trump carried this by 3 points in 2016. democrats were very confident they could get it this time. barack obama, by the way, in 2008 when he beat mccain msnb, goes to biden tonight. democrats get their first electoral vote out of nebraska in a dozen years. how about that? think about that. we're at 1:30 on the east coast. for all of our talk about this and that state to flip, the first flip didn't happen until 1:30 tonight and it is a single

congressional district in nebraska. otherwise, this map is holding to form from what we saw four years ago. >> unbelievable. still no call. we have a characterization on maine. what have you got? >> georgia. we've been monitoring this in the atlanta metro area. a ton the of outstanding votes. we did just get a bunch from gwinnett county. there's not much left to come. we think a little over tem,000 votes. biden will win the county. that will be progress for democrats. this is going to be upwards. what did that do to the tally? trump is still ahead by 206,000 votes. a lot of these late ballots were cast same day. that might have benefited trump a little more because he's doing

better with the same day ballots. so again, 236,000 votes. the big outstanding piece of the puzzle. fulton county and still dekalb county. overwhelmingly biden. and you have a ton of votes there as well. so dekalb, fulton, really becoming the issue. >> the word from the, our white house folks, did white house pool, is that this will be east room. >> didn't we hear in advance of tonight that the president was going to be convening his sort of election night party, his watch party, at the white house in the east room and that it was expected several hundred people indoors in d.c. in the middle of the pandemic, which is troubling because of the pandemic. do we expect him to be speaking in front of a crowded room full

of unmasked people who would be cheering and breathing in each other's faces? >> i think there is every possibility that is the case. from what i understand, it has encompassed parts of the east room and state dining room on the second floor. he's been upstairs in the residence, it is that, watching the returns. so we'll get to see that. >> it should be noted that the president he telegraphed the fact that he would falsely claim victory while there was no responsible way to project the outcome of the race while millions of legitimate votes were still being counted. we haven't heard that explicitly out of the president's mouth, although we're expecting to hear that because of his tweets. the president has already made demonstrably false claims about the election. talking about the fact that, tell his social media followers

that he's up big but the democrats are trying to steal the election. there are that's of legitimate votes still to be counted. it is a false claim that anybody is trying to steal the election. the president making those claims is trying to undermine confidence in the count. and the count will not only continue tonight. it will like i continue for days before we have any projection of what the results will be. this is something the president telegraph that had we knew was coming. therefore, it is not surprising. just not being surprised by it doesn't mean you can't be shocked by it still. this is uncharted territory for an american president and an american democracy to have one of the candidates let alone the president saying the election ought to be over and he ought to be the winner and anybody claiming otherwise is stealing it from him. we expect it because it is donald trump but we do not expect this of our democracy. and we have yet to see how our

democracy willman kind of a destabilizing, dangerous, authoritarian claim from somebody who has a lot of power in terms of his control of the federal government to try to control how this ongoing count is handled in all these states where it still remains to be resolved. >> the front page of the "new york times" was an extraordinary statement along these lines. wasn't the usual, candidates make their final barn storms through the battlegrounds. the bylines about, i think the direct claim was trump saying no path to an electoral win. this being trump, it's not a hidden strategy. it is on his twitter feed. and i think the counter to this is always to sort of stick with reporting that you already definitely bob bauer was waiting for this. he has literally employed thousands of lawyers across the country and they're ready to

deploy, to defend the legality of the vote. the good news is it is not in question that these votes are legal and no doubt they'll be counted. >> forgive us. the state of minnesota has been projected to go in the biden column. it is late at night. but it happened. it got a little wobblier earlier in the evening than a lot of democrats would have preferred. but as claire mccaskill pointed out in her prediction that it would go blue, it went blue. that's the margin that we're working now. 53.5 to 44 and change. here is where the road to 270 is. 220-213 but it's early yet. >> the minnesota result, i should note, it is a sigh of relief for democrats. they did not think that minnesota was their biggest vulnerability in those states. but the fact that it went so early -- >> that's a nice and comfortable

lead. i'm going to go back to something charlie sikes said. the kinds of voters, and ohio didn't go the democrats' way. and again, this came out of donald trump's mouth. we know from donald trump's mouth that he is the leading suburban voter. those are the kinds of voters th that, those are the voters that the biden campaign is thinking about when joe biden comes out and says we've got this. >> and they felt pretty good for ohio. that's a bit of our breakthrough for the ohio sigh. even in ohio if you look at the places where biden ran up votes. it is the same again. not winning ohio is a tragedy but for biden's side, but trump is not winning in the kind of margins where he'll be able to make a dent in the popular vote. part of psychology that we're feeling is about the state count. and treftd map.

part of this is the popular vote. and there is not much that donald trump can do about that. he can't run up a big margin in a state like texas. you're going to see a very different outcome when you add up the popular votes. we don't even have states like california in it yet. we are the only country in the world where joe biden could ultimately win the popular vote by 8%, 9%, and in theory still be a question whether he will be president. >> we just had that call from brian in the minnesota race. the presidential race in minnesota. nbc projecting minnesota as a win for joe biden. we are also looking at the minnesota senate race. this is the incumbent democratic senator tina smith who face ad strong challenge from jason lewis. tina smith has held on to her seat in minnesota. you see the difference there, just under 200,000 votes with

84% of the votes in. she will be returning. we still have a number of senate races outstanding. as well as more states than would you expect at this point. maine, had a by, nevada, arizona, georgia, michigan, pennsylvania, we would love to hear from you. >> we also have a little change of characterization in wisconsin. this is second in the hour to go from too early to now too close. if you think about it, a natural progression for a state that isn't a blowout. we go from not having enough raw information to, we're working raw information. it is just that the margin isn't enough. steve kornacki at the board.

can you call up wisconsin and tell us how they're making up some of the pockets that charlie sikes was talking about? i guess milwaukee will be the driver. >> the story that has emerged as this picture has filled out in wisconsin. let me show you this way. let's go back to 2012. there is a reason. look when barack obama won this state. look at all the blue you saw on this map. barack obama won wisconsin. he won it comfortably in 2012. that's why donald trump's victory in the state in 2016 was so surprising. wasn't thought to be that competitive. look how much of the blue from 2012 turned to red in 2016 with donald trump. okay? he turned a bunch, 20 counties. the question coming in

suggesting that joe biden was making significant inroads with rural white voters. working class white voters in wisconsin. was he going to flip back a good number of these counties that trump had flipped in 2016? see how many counties flipped from red to blue. not many. check this out. biden is leading it by 1.7 points. in 2016. it was basically a dead even tie. that's the closest thing to a big shift we're seeing on this map. democrats are getting more bang for their buck than they got in 2016. you can find places where trump's campaign can say we're running up the score. but i'm looking at this map and seeing a lot of 2016 all over again. that makes this outstanding vote in milwaukee county so crucial here. this is, here's the way to look

at this. where is the outstanding vote in the state? where is the remaining? we have a little in green bay but otherwise, it is hovering over milwaukee. then kenosha, racine. by far, the biggest bubble you're seeing is milwaukee. and again, here's your suspense. of course you'll stay up and see what happens. i think we'll get the milwaukee county vote. and i think that will go a long way to telling us whether joe biden, you see, let's see. i want to get back. joe biden is able to erase the 100,000 vote lead for donald trump statewide. but this was extremely close in 2016 when donald trump won it. he won by .7 of 1 point. he defeated scott walker. that came down to the late, late night vote in milwaukee.

now this is a state where you're not seeing a lot. >> of course they tried like the dickens to have their convention there until the uncontrolled pandemic arrived. >> historian and author jon meacham is part of our coverage at 1:42 a.m. eastern time. i'm sitting here thinking other presidents and other candidates to have gone bed on election notice and said, in effect, wake me when it's over. >> this is not uncommon. will that half the time in the modern era from 1960 into this hour, we have gone, most of the america has gone to bed without knowing. 1960, 1968, 1968, 1976.

this is not an anomaly. we're a ferociously divided country. one of the things of this era is the extent to which americans were willing to change their minds. and the numbers right now suggest that some americans were. perhaps not as many as one might have thought. >> how interesting that twitter was the first in the room to say, no, mr. president, that's not right. and in effect saying, if that's what you plan to say, that is a falsehood, as we've been pointing out. and we plan to say if you hear a falsehood. here is jack dorsey's twitter.

he's not a giant in the world of letters. he may have walt whitman's beard temporarily during covid but he's not a veteran political hand. he's a guy with a successful social media company. but that's what passes for our discourse in 2020. >> well, the marketplace of ideas, the marketplace of technology giveth and taketh away, depending on the half-hour. right? the key thing is, and i think vb biden expressed it well. keep calm. let's count the votes. my view is this is not the else of a tv show. it would have been lovely to have known everything and shut it down in an ordinary programming hour. this is too important. it is a big complicated

disputeatious country. we have a constitution, we have state laws. the president, of course, predictably tried to role a grenade in the midst of it on twitter. and good for twitter for throwing a flag on that play. >> and of course, rachel raised this. the president telegraphs for a reason. maybe what's going on after midnight is pure skull duggery. facing a consuming and

let's just take a deep breath here. there ish nothing outside the american tradition, the ordinary conventions of american history, that says you have to know the winner by midnight on election night. it's just not there, and for many, many times in our history, this has taken some time. and it's the most vital decision we make together as a country. i remember andrew jackson claimed, was the first president really to claim i am the direct representative of the american people. and this is our collective expression of the national will in terms of who should be ultimately in charge of our affairs. isn't that worth a couple of days? >> i'll let that point simmer and percolate and get picked up by our viewers fortunate enough to hear from a pulitzer prize winner at 1:46 a.m.

john thank you. something less than jacksonian to say about steve kornacki concentrating on stnevada, pull the lever and vote returns have come in, is that the case? >> out to the silver state. clark, we can show you like maricopa county, about 3/4 of the vote. absentee invo here. biden, 54% to 44%. and washoe county again, for biden. if you were trying to say where does biden want to be in clark county, compared to 2016, double digits ahead of hillary clinton. here's one where clinton won by a point in 2016. biden, see if it moves but

little bit more comfort a little bit. when you look at what it did to the statewide vote, joe biden up 50,000 votes at this point. would need a significant shift to get trump over the top on him there. one other i was looking at a minute ago, georgia. georgia, we just got a major update. i think you m can see it looking -- >> that's a bunch more votes. >> we were looking at trump up over 300,000. now 118,000. what just happened in georgia, big one came in. get this off the screen as well. lot of outstanding vote in de going for joe biden here, that's why the statewide gap just closed so much. still vote being counted, absentee or same day vote in

deicable county, biden winning with at least 70%. you can expect in what still comes in in dekalb, going to be heavy for biden. net tens of thousands of votes, cut the lead under 100,000 for trump. then looking at fulton county, atlanta, about 150,000 outstanding votes there again. overwhelmingly democratic. opportunity for democrats betweenpo fulton and dekalb to significantly erode the margin. we're so focused on atlanta metro ntarea, there are other outstanding areas. bigger theta circle, more outstanding votes there are. democratic areas in macon,

augusta, and dougherty county, there are a couple of opportunities for democrats to add votes outside of the atlanta metro area. interesting when you look at this, thinking early in the night democrats might have to wait to get core area in, really need to drive up the score here. this is kind ofre thing i can remember late at night in 2018 in the midterm election, this is the map starting to come into focus late at night with stacey abrams in the governor's race. made significant process from hillary clinton, can she get over the top. there are a lot of votes here, are there enough to erase all of that 118,000 vote advantage for donald trump and give this to joe biden? it's a fair question to ask right now. >> this may be a little bit beside the point.

in atlanta area where bulk of the votes are still to come in, and votes geographically are likely democratic, pro-biden votes. is it worth looking at whether outstanding votes are election day votes yet to be tallied or early votes? do we know the split? >> depends by county. dekalb and fulton we think for democrats. rough sense of it. early vote, roughly what we think is happening there. bidenhe 85, trump 14. biden is leading 83%. same day more favorable to trump, less tovo biden. we think that means biden is getting about 70% of it. if he's getting 70% of that pool ofha votes and there's 82,000 lt

there,00 you can see potential there to significantly gain votes. again it'sly a similar dynamic playing out in fulton county right now. >> steve kornacki, thank you very much. we're going to take a quick break. when we comeak back, still watching vote totals come in, night is young. what are you yawning? stop it. we'll be right back. ♪ oh, oh, oh, ozempic®! ♪ (announcer) once-weekly ozempic® is helping many people with type 2 diabetes like emily lower their blood sugar. a majority of adults who took ozempic®

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right now in great state of georgia, 91% of the vote in, see a difference of 118,000 votes or so between trump and biden. just an absolute nail biter in georgia. we're also keeping close eyes on nevada and on arizona.

both of those too early to call right now. nbc characterization of the arizona race is too early to call but biden in the lead. nevada characterized as too early to call, no characterization who is leading. joining us now, maria teresa kumar, looking at some states and demographics and overall expectations, it's great to see you, how have you been reacting watching the returns come in over the course of the night? >> [ inaudible ]. >> maria teresa, we can see you speaking but not hear you. we have technical gremlins there we'll try to get worked out. going to try one more time. we could see you, couldn't hear you. can we hear you?

>> would think after six months of zoom i could figure out mute button. but anyway. >> well done. we're all human. none of us are human anymore, live in tiny digital boxes but happy you're here. >> thanks for having me. came into the night, knew would be two clear scenarios, one was massive blue wave for joe biden or where he could squeak by. able to get district two in nebraska, look strong now in arizona, there is a very strong possibility with the outstanding ballot counts in pennsylvania and wisconsin it's going to favor joe biden. 2.4 million ballots mailed in early in pennsylvania were 2-1 in his favor. that's why we're seeing the president trying to project that the election is stolen because he doesn't want every vote to be counted. we need to look collectively over the hill, understand how he

projects everything and recognize we need to ensure every single vote is counted. on the latino front, exciting for us, seen a surge in young latino voters in texas, georgia and pennsylvania, arizona, and wisconsin. that's because with the exception of wisconsin all other states have had anti-immigrant show me your visa laws when a lot of latinos are aging in. in florida the trump campaign is continuing to communicate with this audience and providing them with disinformation that if you're from colombia, argentina, chile or cuba or venezuela, socialism is very real and biden campaign was not able to make their case why they weren't that socialist piece.

people say latino vote is not monolithic. it is true but show me your paper laws, those states the latino community is coalescing to fight the racism of the republican party. >> way the two campaigns have operated -- two-minute warning of expectation of remarks from the president, we'll have to get to that shortly. biden campaign seemed to realize shortly they weren't doing enough to outreach to latino voters and also be in the game in terms of spanish language media in florida. do democrats have leagues to go what they need to learn? >> recognize that the latino community is so balkanized, trying to find better source of information is biggest challenge right now. we have to figure out how to communicate the conversations. >>