and good day, i'm andrea mitchell at msnbc headquarters in new york. as the election remains undecided, the president is challenging established procedures for counting the remaining ballots on twitter today, which the social media company is flagging as false, building on his claims overnight. >> we were getting ready to win this election. frankly, we did win this election. so we'll be going to the u.s.

supreme court. we want all voting to stop. we don't want them to find any ballots at 4:00 in the morning and add them to the list, okay? >> at this hour the electoral count is now biden 227, donald trump 213. neither reaching the required 270 electoral votes to win the white house. key battleground states that remain undecided include michigan, wisconsin, pennsylvania, nevada, georgia, and arizona. on capitol hill, democrats have a diminishing chance of regaining the senate. they even lost seats in the house. biden has an easier path to get over the top but president trump could still eke out a victory and is threatening legal challenges that could delay a resolution for weeks if not longer. joe biden told supporters he feels good about where things stand and that the decision is up to the american people, not either of the candidates to declare a victory. >> i am here to tell you tonight, we believe we're on

track to win this election. [ cheers and applause ] we're going to have to be patient until we -- the hard work of tallying the votes is finished. and it ain't over 'til every vote is counted, every ballot is counted. >> and more ballots have been counted. nbc news now projects that maine goes to biden, three of maine's electoral votes. that is a split. there are four electoral votes, there is one congressional district that goes to donald trump. msnbc's ali velshi is at the big board with a look at where things stand. ali, maine is the latest. >> good morning, andrea. if donald trump had one of these, he might be a little less enthusiastic about calling it for himself. 228 in the biden column, 213 in the donald trump column. you've just given four of those, three of the congressional votes in maine to donald trump. so this is what we're looking at right now. there are 26 combinations of

these gray states left for joe biden to win the presidency. there are 19 combinations left for donald trump. now, let's take a look at how these are looking right now. we are still looking, you talked about all the states we're looking for. let's talk about the remaining vote in nevada. 86% are in. we're still looking at a very large chunk of votes coming in in the las vegas area, a little bit in reno. in las vegas, there's a difference of 60,000 separate them in clark county. we're still waiting for 16% of the vote to come in. let's take a look at a few other places where the vote is going to be important. in georgia, again, the trump lead there statewide is 101,000 votes. seems like a lot, but let's take a look where the remaining vote is. again, it's in the atlanta area, in cobb county outside atlanta and dekalb county outside of atlanta, not fulton county where atlanta is. but between these two counties, well over 140,000 votes still to

come in and in those, heavily african-american and otherwise more progressive parts of georgia, that could swing toward donald trump. pennsylvania, we've been talking about this for weeks, pittsburgh, allegheny county, has started to give us some more results this morning. but we're still expecting something like 2 million votes in pennsylvania. many of those are mail-in votes. many of those are expected to break for joe biden. look at these counties around philadelphia. you're familiar with them, andrea. you've got montgomery county breaking for joe biden, 60-38. chester county breaking for biden, 53-45, a little closer. you've got delaware county, south of philadelphia, 59-39. you've got philadelphia county itself, take a look at this, that's actually closer than you would expect. 77 for biden, 21 for trump. but 62% are in.

there are so many votes, these are advance votes, mail-in votes that haven't been counted, that you're going to end up with much more of a difference here. take a look at this map, these bubbles, as you know, show what's remaining to be counted. allegheny county, pittsburgh, lots of votes remaining to be counted there. philadelphia county and the collar counties around philadelphia, lots of votes to be counted there. harrisburg, a little smaller. the bottom line, lots to be counted there, and the same story in michigan. we've got votes outstanding in wayne county which is right around detroit. that is, again, an area that is expected to break for joe biden. so with 92% in there, you've got a 31,000-vote lead for joe biden. and that's only expected to increase when these votes come in, andrea. >> ali velshi with the very latest. and with so many states still in play, both sides claim they have the edge. who has the advantage given the outstanding vote? david plouffe ran president

obama's successful 2008 presidential campaign, joins me now. the count, 227 for joe biden, 213 for donald trump. david, a lot has changed since we spoke monday afternoon. what do you expect to see in the coming hours and into the evening of this incredible ongoing saga of our election? >> well, andrea, there's going to be a lot to unpack in the days and weeks ahead about what happened in these states. right now, joe biden is in the lead. donald trump is talking about stopping counting. if the counting stopped, joe biden would be the next president of the united states, and he's going to be. i think we see the lead in michigan growing. expectations are, as we again the count, the mail-in ballots in pennsylvania, again, in pennsylvania, michigan, wisconsin, these are all ballots that were cast in some cases weeks and weeks ago but by state law they were prevented from being counted until today. georgia will be very close. arizona may tighten but i expect joe biden to maintain his lead there. and that second congressional

district of nebraska, certain scenarios are very important. this is now, joe biden is in a commanding position from an electoral college standpoint. i think we just have to wait and see. looks like we'll get most of the vote in georgia today, most of the vote in arizona today. we may not get the whole vote in pennsylvania. joe biden is ahead in the states he needs to be ahead in to get to 270 electoral votes and maybe quite a bit north of that. >> it does seem that joe biden underperformed with some key groups in pennsylvania. i was just talking to a philadelphia elected official or someone working with an elected official there who said that they are still trying to figure out why votes they think exist from philadelphia have not been recorded by the secretary of state's office, that there is a lag, if you will, not sure why that happens, nothing really mysterious about it, it's

between democrats and democrats so there's no conspiracy here, it's just process. but in any case, right now it is clear that right now, it doesn't look as though philadelphia produced any more and perhaps even less of a black vote out of the city of philadelphia than it gave to hillary clinton which we know was not enough to withstand all of the donald trump vote. that is not what we expected. >> well, we'll see, andrea. i mean, this is a tough election to unpack because you have all of the in-person votes. in pennsylvania, that's what we know so far. so even in philadelphia, i would expect those biden margins to expand. trump, you know, got what he got on early vote -- i'm sorry, on election day, in places like milwaukee, in places like philadelphia, but i expect that margin to expand. clearly you saw the turnout in milwaukee was enough. same thing in detroit when we see all that. listen, there was a seven-point swing nationally in suburban counties from '16 to '20 and i

think that's the most important signal component in joe biden's advantage position. the other thing i would point out is, joe biden is going to be our next president, and young people delivered this victory for joe biden. his margin amongst young people, people under 29, is going to be higher than barack obama's in 2012. so i think the reason the race is closer than it looked in polling, and you and i talked about this, i've talked to a lot of your colleagues, a couple of things had to happen to make this a close race. one, the polls had to be off, and they were. in some states like arizona, not terribly off. in others, you might see misses of 5 to 6. but trump needed to get strong election day turnout, which he did. he won wisconsin four years ago. he's going to lose wisconsin, getting over 1,600,000 votes. the trump campaign did a very good job of turning out their voters but joe biden was able to withstand that. >> why didn't the democrats do a good job of turning out their voters?

i'm just -- >> they did, andrea. they were able to get over 1,600,000 votes in wisconsin which is a crap ton of votes. we'll be able to unpack what happened, where turnout was off and where it wasn't. donald trump delivered a big turnout. we'll have the biggest turnout in presidential history in over a hundred years. we shouldn't focus on how this differs from the polls. >> that isn't what i'm asking. i'm asking is there something fundamentally wrong -- there's something fundamentally wrong in our politics in both parties, but arguably donald trump has been breaking all the norms for four years, yet he has higher fafsh favorables in the exit polls than four years ago when he got more votes. is there something wrong with

the messaging, the structure, or the organization of the democratic party, that someone who democrats think is so wrong did so well? >> well, it is sad and distressing to me that this many people look at donald trump and say i want to sign up for a second term. but we are a very divided country. i think, listen, when all the votes are counted, joe biden's likely to have a bigger popular vote win than barack obama had in 2012. yet we had a convincing electoral college victory. i think joe biden is going to win the electoral college but it will be more narrow. so listen, donald trump is a turnout machine in 2020. i think that's what we saw. joe biden was able to withstand that. but yeah, i think when you look at this many people around the country deciding that someone who messed up the pandemic, who has caused a lot of death, crashed the economy, clearly is stoking racial divides, is a misogynist, is a narcissist, i would like to see that person get 35% of the vote, not 47 or

48% of the vote. but this is a closely divided country and there's going to be a lot of lessons going forward about how the democrats can take advantage of some of the positive demographic trends. but you can't just count on that. the good news if you're a democrat, i think, in 2018 and 2020, you were able to win states like wisconsin, michigan, pennsylvania, looks like arizona, perhaps georgia. so there are positive developments out there. >> david plouffe, thanks very much, thanks for engaging, always good to have an after-action report from an expert. thank you. and the biden camp is expressing confidence about michigan and pennsylvania. who has the best shot to carry those states? joining us, congresswoman debbie dingell and congresswoman madeleine dean. welcome, both. we've been talking about pennsylvania, congresswoman dean, let me ask you, you're

from one of the collar counties and we expect they will deliver a lot of this mail-in vote. are you confident, as the biden camp is today, that you'll carry pennsylvania? >> i'm feeling very optimistic. thank you for having me, and hello, debbie, great to see you and the great work you've been doing. i'm feeling confident and optimistic but we have to let people finish the work ahead of us. it's very hard to practice but i've been saying all along, we have to have patience and let the people do the work of counting all the votes. here in montgomery county, as you were pointing out on the board, we still have 60,000 mail-in ballots, a little more than that, to be counted in montgomery county. and joe biden, kamala harris, have a 61-37 point lead. i expect that lead will continue and widen. i'm feeling optimistic. we have to do our due diligence, we have to be patient. this process is working and it is secure and it's interesting that donald trump would like to

stop the count. >> and congresswoman dingell, and i should be congratulating both of you because both of you came through with flying colors, but congresswoman dingell, what about michigan? we're seeing the biden vote coming in throughout the morning. what do you think, when do you think the state can be called? >> i think our secretary of state said it takes until friday. i think we could know as early as late afternoon today. we're waiting for the counts to come in for a number of the larger cities, which just as madeleine said, it's the absentee ballots we're counting, and their split has been almost identical to pennsylvania, 61% for joe biden, 38, 39% for president trump. look, andrea, as you know, i refused to say what was going to happen, what i thought would happen in this election until over the weekend. i have been out there, i've been talking to people, i've been looking at the numbers.

women came out and made a difference, voted in far larger numbers than they did four years ago. and as madeleine said, and i love being with her, love being with you, none of us have been to bed, probably, in two days, but when all the votes are counted, and we all that to every single person across the country, to count them in a methodical, calm, secure way, joe biden's going to win michigan. >> you're waiting on detroit, flint, grand rapids. where do you see it coming down, what's your best estimate now, based on what you know is coming in? >> i think it will be -- i've always said maybe 4%, 5%. i think that it is going to be -- it will be larger than donald trump won michigan four years ago. and it's going to be a clear -- it will be by a large enough amount that it will not get an automatic recount, though we

know the lawyers are there. everybody has to stay calm and let the votes be counted. all of us, republicans and democrats, have to learn how split this country this and why, and we all have a responsibility to try to do something to bring us together when this is done, no matter who is president, though i think it will be joe biden. >> if joe biden is elected, he is going to face the same problem a newly-elected democrat had, he's got mitch mcconnell who will vow from day one to block any of his initiatives. let me ask you, congresswoman dingell. >> well, for starters, that number will be even smaller. i think that many of those senators are going to be looking at elections in two years from now. and this is where i say to the american people, you need to tell the people that represent you, you want action.

i know they want action on a heroes bill. there are people that are republicans and democrats that are hurting from covid right now. they are desperate for the united states congress to stop this partisan bickering and get something done that's going to help them. there are a number of issues that we've got to roll up our sleeves. and people like madeleine and i who are committed to working with our colleagues across the aisle are going to do just that. and that's our job. and i think joe biden will do that. he's said he will be the president of everybody. he has a history of bringing people together. >> thank you both for joining us. i know it's been a long night for everybody. thank you, congresswoman dean and debbie dingell, of course. i want to turn to nbc's blayne alexander in atlanta where we're getting updates from georgia's secretary of state. blayne, what are you hearing? >> reporter: andrea, we just heard from the secretary of state about 30 minutes ago. he told us a number of things. one, that there are about

200,000 outstanding votes still waiting to be counted and tabulated and scanned here and the vast majority of those are absentee ballots and the vast majority of those come from fulton county and dekalb county, counties we're watching very closely. both are in metro atlanta. that's significant because when you look at georgia's map, you usually see a vast majority of red. but you see a blue clump kind of right there in the middle, and that is metro atlanta. and that's the area that gives democrats so much hope for flipping this state blue. it typically breaks democratic. once we get those votes counted from fulton and dekalb counties, of course, it's expected to give at least a moderate boost to the democrats. when we talked to the the secretary of state, he said that he anticipates having all the votes counted by the end of the day. but again, andrea, that all comes down to the counties. that's really what the secretary of state tried to emphasize. we know that both fulton and dekalb counties, speaking with officials there, they're working diligently. fulton county had people counting, scanning all morning

long to get those ballots tabulated but the state can only do as much as the county can do. i asked him, does he believe they're on time. he said, despite what appear to be delays, he does believe their timing is right where he expects it to be and he hopes to have those numbers by the end of the day, andrea. >> blayne alexander, thank you so much. let's go to nbc correspondent peter alexander and kristen welker. the president said in the middle of the night that millions of votes shouldn't be counted, including pennsylvania. is he taking further action today or is he backing off? >> reporter: andrea, in the last 20 minutes on twitter he wrote, they are finding biden votes all over the place in pennsylvania, wisconsin, and michigan. he says, so bad for our country. to be clear, they're not finding biden votes all over the place, they are counting biden votes

and trump votes in many parts of the country right now including those states, as they try to tally up the conclusive numbers from those locations right now. that's just one of what's been a series of sort of points of disinformation from the president as it relates to what he said at 2:30 in the morning in those remarks, again, prematurely and falsely declaring victory. this morning, twitter flagged him with one of those warning labels calling the content of one of his tweets misleading and disputed when he said, among other things, about the numbers that he's seeing right now, he said that his numbers, his lead was, quote, magically disappearing, as he described it, saying surprise ballot dumps were being counted. there is no evidence of anything fraudulent taking place at this time, no surprise ballot dumps as the president likes to describe it. what it does reveal is this need within the trump campaign to find additional votes around the country. one of the paths we're hearing from inside the campaign that they're looking at is to try to win back arizona that's leaning toward biden, win georgia where

they have the advantage right now, and then hold on to that lead in pennsylvania. they believe that may be their best, though challenging, way to get to 270, andrea. >> and kristen welker, we've already heard from the biden campaign this morning. why don't you recap what they're saying, they had a conference call. >> reporter: they did, andrea. you and i were both on it. as you know, they are feeling increasingly confident about their chances to pull out a victory here. and i am told that when vice president biden speaks a little bit later on this afternoon, you're going to hear that confidence in his voice. he's going to express the fact and really double down on what he said last night, that he feels as though he is on a path to victory. why are they feeling so confident inside the biden campaign? i'll tell you, a couple of states they're watching very closely and they like what they see, they like what's happening in wisconsin, in michigan. they say nevada is trending their way. they're also watching arizona quite closely. then of course you have pennsylvania, that all-important

battleground state. president trump made 14 stops to pennsylvania, andrea, more than any other state that he was fighting for, of course it was his home state where he was born, yet it remains very close there. in talking to officials in pennsylvania, and i know you have been as well, they say this is what they expected. they expected president trump to have a lead coming out of election day because what is happening now and what's going to happen over the next several days is that they are counting all of those mail-in ballots. as we have reported, those mail-in ballots, particularly in a state like pennsylvania, trend typically towards democrats. so we still have to count all of them up and see what happens. that is why democrats are not giving up on the state of pennsylvania despite the fact that right now you see president trump with a lead there. now, we also have the campaign firing back at president trump for falsely claiming victory overnight. the campaign manager calling the president's comments outrageous and dangerous. so i wouldn't be surprised if we

heard the vice president echo that as well as he becomes increasingly bullish about his chances to win the white house, andrea. >> kristen welker, peter alexander, what a team you guys are, weekends and weekdays. thank you so much. the u.s. postal service failed to meet a federal judge's deadline to permit a search for 300,000 missing mail ballots at postal facilities in key battleground states including pennsylvania, georgia, wisconsin, and arizona. federal judge emmet sullivan had wanted the search done by election day. the postal service says it was done by last night. but it doesn't say at what time. joining me now, nbc news correspondent geoff bennett who's been tracking all of this. what's the latest? >> reporter: andrea, there is a hearing that's ongoing right now, an emergency hearing, a status conference that judge sullivan set. and he made clear at the start of this hearing that he was not happy with the postal service, telling the lawyer for the u.s. postal service that someone might have to pay for this. what he was talking about was the fact that this agency

disregarded, entirely blew through a court-ordered deadline for postal inspectors to sweep postal facilities in some dozen states for roughly 300,000 ballots that cannot be traced. these are ballots that have scans showing that they were entered into the processing system but there is no scan showing that they were sent out. now, i have asked the postal service where are these ballots, in what states do we know that these 300,000 ballots exist. the spokesperson for the postal service did not answer that question. but we do know, based on information that the postal service has given the court, that there are processing delays that existed on election day across the country and in battleground states, to include states we're watching closely right now like georgia, pennsylvania, north carolina, wisconsin. in central pennsylvania there is a processing score of 61%. what that means is, let's say on election day ten ballots came through, only six of those actually went out. so it's a huge issue.

you have potentially thousands of voters, perhaps unknowingly being disenfranchised. as we've been reporting for two days, this is a tight race and there are any number of ballots that have not been counted because of these delays, andrea. >> geoff bennett, a really serious problem, and it happens to be of course in some of the most heavily contested districts in pennsylvania. joining me now, pennsylvania attorney general josh shapiro. attorney general shapiro, can you give us an update, is there any improvement on the counting of the ballots today? >> the update is the law is being followed in pennsylvania. we've said all along in the months leading you want to election and the litigation we went through, that our goal was to make sure everything was secure, protected, when the votes counted. so we secured and protected the election. now those votes are being counted. andrea, they're being counted by public servants in counties all

across pennsylvania. i think that count is going smoothly. obviously it's taking longer than folks would hope. but i would say in the grand scheme of things, it's better to wait a little bit of time in order to get an accurate, lawful count. that's what we're doing here in pennsylvania. >> peter alexander was just telling us the president had tweeted within the last 20 minutes that ballots for biden are popping up everywhere in pennsylvania and all these other states, what's going on, and it's bad, casting suspicion, throwing shade on the whole process. what's your response to that? >> the only thing that's going on in pennsylvania right now are public servants in our communities are counting legal, eligible votes. and i guess what i would just say, respectfully, to everyone right now is to say, look, let's take down the temperature. the campaigns are over. the candidates made their case. and now all of these legal ballots are being counted. and that's what we need right now. give the public servants the

opportunity to do their job. and what i will tell as you that here in pennsylvania we're going to follow the law and we will respect the will of the people, and a proper victor will be certified based on who got more votes. we just have to take the time to tally up those votes and that's what we're doing right now. >> there are people in philadelphia involved in the process who say that it's taking too long to have the state acknowledge the ballots that have been sent from pennsylvania, that there is a lag time, that there's a process problem. is that the case, do you think? >> look, i don't know, i think that's a question for the department of state. they're the interface with the various counties. there may be, there may not be, andrea, i just don't know. what we're focused on is making sure the laws are followed, that all these eligible votes are counted, and that the will of the people is reflected in the ultimate outcome. >> pennsylvania attorney general josh shapiro, thank you very much. and waiting on wisconsin. the battleground state remaining too close to call.

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i got this mountain bike for only $11. dealdash.com, the fair and honest bidding site. an ipad worth $505, was sold for less than $24; a playstation 4 for less than $16; and a schultz 4k television for less than $2. i won these bluetooth headphones for $20. i got these three suitcases for less than $40. and shipping is always free. go to dealdash.com right now and see how much you can save. and now to another big battleground. we're learning new information from the wisconsin elections commission about the outstanding

vote in that battleground state. nbc political reporter shaq brewster spent plenty of time in wisconsin throughout the campaign season. shaq, we understand there are about 20,000 votes that biden has an edge right now according to the latest count. how much is outstanding, still to be counted? >> reporter: that's right, andrea. we just heard from the wisconsin elections commission, they're having a meeting, a press update right now that just started. but we saw on twitter, they clarified a statement made by the administrator of the state elections official. i'm going to read a little bit of that statement. they just say, to the best of the election commission's knowledge, there are only two small wisconsin towns that have not reported results to their counties. the total number of voters in those towns is around 600. so you see that margin in wisconsin, it's about 20,000 votes separating vice president biden and president trump at this point. the wisconsin elections commission is saying based on what they know, there are two towns with about 600 potential votes that are outstanding at

this point. what we heard from the administrator of the elections commission just about an hour ago was that there were no counties that haven't reported the results. she said that most of the vote totals have been made already, that that has been publicized at that point. but now we're hearing that clarification that there is about 600 votes outstanding, well below that margin we're seeing from the election commission at this point. again, they're having a media update right now. so if there's any new information, we'll be sure to let you know. >> in fact i think we can listen in to a little bit of what they're saying right now, shaq, stand by for a second and let's bring them on in. >> our election was executed with precision. and it's also -- you know, every step of the process is publicly observable. and i think that's really important. every step of the elections process is publicly observable. you can observe election day, voters casting their ballot.

you can observe the votes being tallied at night. the voter registration records are public information. the absentee data is public information. each of the results are posted on the counties' websites. again, our job as election administrators is to follow the law. and what the law says is that on election night, that each municipality submits their unofficial results, unofficial being the keyword, to their county. and the county then posts the unofficial results by reporting unit on their website. there is no certified election night aggregate of results. that is according to state law. that is not a process that we made up or adopted. that is according to state law. and we followed state law. part of democracy is following the laws that have been prescribed by our elected lawmakers and the elected lawmakers have prescribed this

process for canvassing in our jurisdictions. i am incredibly proud of the work done by wisconsin's election officials. and i feel 100% confident in the election that they conducted, and that the laws that were established by our elected lawmakers were followed in yesterday's election. so there's no calling elections at the state level, right? that's called certification. and certification is a very meticulous, careful process that commences with the certification at the state level on december 1. up until that point, there is no statewide aggregate. there is no calling of the election. any of those predictions that you're hearing are predictions by the media and other groups based on unofficial results. and i just think that's so important. i know for so many of us, we've spent the last few months

talking about this, about the mechanics. today it's important to continue to convey that message that we've all been working so hard to understand exactly how the process works and bring those mechanical facts to wisconsin voters. unfortunately earlier this morning i may have misspoken about all of the unofficial results being in from our municipal clerks around the state. again, we have 1,850 municipal clerks around the state. it looks like, looking through all those county websites, that every single one of those jurisdictions has submitted their unofficial results except for one tiny township of less than 300 voters. and they're working to get their ballots finished and counted and posted as we speak. and so beyond that, we have no reason to believe there are any other ballots that have not yet been counted and included as part of those unofficial totals. but again, the canvass process,

so important, right, the canvass process is where the municipal election officials double-check all of the results to make sure that they have the correct number of registrations, to make sure that everything checks out. then the counties, they do the same. so today at 4:00 is actually the deadline for the municipalities to start their canvass process and to then route the materials over to the counties where they start their certification process at the county level. they, again, do those double checks. all this publicly observable. you can go watch in your local communities, if you're skeptical about the process, engage. you can go watch the process in your local community. and so then it goes to the county level. they do their double checks. from there it comes to the state. by state law, on december 1, at the public meeting of the wisconsin elections commission, is when those results are certified. and that's when we will have the official winner. we'll have the official results

of the election at that december 1 meeting as prescribed by state law. >> and that was megan wolf, administrator of the wisconsin elections commission. i want to thank shaq brewster, who has been following this all along, and it looks as though wisconsin, and i leave that of course up to the wizards at the decision desk who make the decisions at nbc news, but it looks as though certainly wisconsin is not very much in play. now we turn to delaware democratic senator chris coons who won reelection last night, congratulations, senator. obviously you've been in close contact with joe biden. how concerned is he about the president's attacks on the process? >> well, andrea, we're very optimistic. given what you just heard from wisconsin, given what we likely will hear today from michigan about joe biden's prospects to be the next president of the united states, to win not just overwhelmingly the popular vote but to also win the electoral

college. and as you heard in that interview you just finished, our state and local election officials are meticulous, are thorough, are detailed. in our country it's voters and then it's state and county commissioners of elections and boards of elections that decide the outcome of elections, not candidates. so for president trump to declare very early this morning, i think it was about 2:00 a.m. this morning, that he had won and he was going to go to court and try and get the counting stopped, was frankly both irrelevant and on some level outrageous. i've spent, as you know, a lot of time in other countries, helping monitor their elections, supervise their progress towards democracy, and you don't get to just stop the counting at the moment when you're ahead. if we were to stop the counting right now, joe biden is ahead. but we want every vote counted. and there are still more than a million votes uncounted across several states. but given the trends and given where the ballots are still being counted, i think it's very

likely that wisconsin, michigan, nevada, arizona, will all go for joe biden. and frankly, ultimately, a few more days from now, pennsylvania. and i think in the end, we will see joe biden win pennsylvania, wisconsin, and michigan by bigger margins than donald trump won them in 2016, making this an historic and important victory for joe biden and kamala harris. >> senator, how disappointing is it that the senate results look as though not only will you not gain control but that you may even have a smaller margin, that this was the best opportunity this year for democrats? in 2022, it's going to be that much harder. >> well, andrea, there are a number of unresolved senate races. it is frustrating that a number of folks came up short. we had great candidates and a lot of resources. but at the end of the day, what matters is getting every vote

counted. and we still have some outstanding races. obviously in georgia there will be a runoff in the first week of january. in north carolina, in maine, in other states there's races not yet concluded. but the larger point is that i've supported joe biden from the outset because i believe he's the candidate and likely next president who can bring us together. if we have divided government, we're going to need leadership from someone who unites us rather than divides us. >> with mitch mcconnell in charge, isn't it inevitably going to be the same result that barack obama faced where he could get nothing done because of the implacable opposition of the republican party? >> we don't yet know, andrea, which party will control the senate. mitch mcconnell's obstructionism while i've been in the senate and he's been majority leader has been maddening and has

prevented a lot of progress. we'll have to find ways to work together no matter which party controls the senate. i think joe biden is exactly the sort of candidate, given his years of experience in the senate, his ability to bring people together, even in this difficult and bitterly divided time. i think that's why a lot of people voted for joe. i think that's why you'll see him get a record number of votes in this election, is that they look for someone who can actually transcend some of these deep divisions. one of the really frustrating and difficult things about president trump's leadership during this pandemic and the recession, this moment of reflection on racial division, is the ways in which when he sees divisions in our country, he makes them greater. when joe sees division in our country, he helps to heal it. >> senator, how frustrating is it, though, that at least 47, 48% of the american people who voted disagree with your vision, with democrats' vision, with joe biden's vision of what the norms

should be for the president of the united states? >> well, andrea, as you know, i pay a lot of attention both to whether we are solving people's problems here in the united states. i'm willing to work across the aisle with virtually any of my colleagues to try to get good things done. but i'm also concerned about how we are seen in the world, and our standing in the world and our ability to be a model democracy. one of the things i will take some encouragement from is that instances of voter intimidation and ballot misfunctions, difficulties, have been far fewer than we might have expected on this election. in the primaries over the last several months, state after state saw very long lines, huge frustration, ballot difficulties. although there is still of course voter suppression and real challenges in terms of opening the right to vote to as many americans as we can, this election mechanically has gone off fairly well. and i do think that helps

strengthen our standing in the world. it is of course challenging to have divided government, if that's where we end up. but that just means we're going to have to work harder to listen to the american people and to address their real needs. that's why i'm confident joe biden and kamala harris will be the best leaders for us for this coming four years. >> congratulations again, newly-reelected senator chris coons of delaware. let's bring in our panel, michael steele, senior adviser at the lincoln project, phil rucker, white house bureau chief for "the washington post," and yamiche alcindor, white house correspondent for "the pbs news hour," welcome all. michael steele, let me ask you about the republican party. where do you go now, where does the republican party go, the people in the lincoln project, never-trumpers, former republicans, all of those, national security and military officials who came out against donald trump? he is the republican party now, isn't he?

[ inaudible ] michael, i'm sorry. we have an audio problem. >> i got it, i got it. >> there you are, it's the mute button, i've done it myself so many times. >> there you go. >> and i thought i was hearing you, that's how tired i am. >> my apologies. very quickly, to catch up, you know, yeah, he's the titular head of the party, has been since 2016, when he received the nomination. >> hasn't he solidified his support? >> more than solidified the support. but the results of the election aren't over. and as we're seeing the evidence come in, as the votes continue to get counted, and every vote will be counted, and a winner will be determined by that, we

believe that donald trump will lose this election. and we believe that joe biden will be elected the next president. and then whatever comes after that for the gop will flow from that. so lincoln project and other republicans and former republicans out there will continue the work of trying to resolve internally and resurrect the party in a way that it can become a governing majority in the future, because those principles, andrea, and those ideals that we espouse, that drew me to the party over 40 years ago, to me still matter. and i'm not walking out the door because donald trump has come in the back door. i'm just not. he's not a conservative. he's not a republican. he's not made a case to the american people for those principles. the party has no platform, so it has no belief system other than what donald trump tells it. that's not viability in the eyes -- for the future of the party, irrespective of what we

see in the vote so far in this election. >> and phil rucker, we just heard from the administrator in wisconsin that there are only some 600 votes out, 300 in one small town, and they believe they're very close to at least certifying their results without the formal official act that takes place on december 1. in any case, bill stepien now says the trump campaign is going to challenge the results, with about a 20,000-vote advantage for joe biden. >> yeah, andrea, the democrats, those on the biden campaign, believe quite confidently they have wisconsin in hand at this hour. but the trump campaign is warning of lawsuits, they're warning of the possibility of a recount, trying to challenge that vote count, that vote total, in particular looking at the mail-in ballots which we know to be legal ballots. but you're going to hear arguments from the trump campaign that somehow those are improperly counted or should not be counted or are illegal

because they came by mail even though that's part of the legal process as we've all been discussing today. and so look for legal skirmishes there. but it's important to keep in mind that the biden campaign, of those three midwestern states, wisconsin, michigan, pennsylvania, as of this hour, they feel quite confident about wisconsin and think the vote totals are very much in biden's favor. >> and yamiche, the nbc news exit poll shows that support for biden reached a new low among black men this year. only 80% of black men supported biden, slightly down from hillary clinton's level of support in 2016, significantly down from obama's level of support from 2012 and in 2008. i understand the vote in philadelphia, they're still counting, but that that's not going to be a great outcome either from philadelphia. >> that's right, and there are differences between black men and black women in terms of how they view this election, in terms of their tolerance,

critics of the president would say, for misogyny, for statements that are at times sexist, again, from critics of the president. that being said, focusing on african-american voters is only one part of this picture. when you see the president being able to run up his numbers with white voters, with noncollege educated white voters, when you look at florida, for instance, and you see the president really being able to find some new voters. the trump campaign had been saying for a long time that even though the president sounded like he was talking to his base, that he was also talking to new voters and those new voters were overwhelmingly white. so i think there will be some soul searching in the democratic party to try to bring in more black men, to try to understand why we're having this close, close election, and why african-american men and latino men tend to, it seems like, be more in favor of president trump than in the past. the president is focused on white voters in a lot of ways, and the trump campaign pushing for the counting to happen,

they're saying in their argument they want the votes to continue but they're really being couly i here, saying we want these votes to be counted but possibly not these votes, meaning democratic votes are problematic for them they feel like their lead will continue to go up in key states. >> yamiche alcindor, michael steele, phil rutger, thank you to you all. i know no one's had any sleep. we should all take care of each other. ahead, will the gop's legal challenges to voting laws make their way to the supreme court. you're watching "andrea mitchell reports" here on msnbc. we made a cloud flexible enough to adapt to any size business. no matter what it does, or how it changes. and we kept going. so you only pay for what you use. because at dell technologies, we stop...at nothing.

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the all new chevy trailblazer. making life's journey, just better. the president is threatening more legal action today for more on where we stand on all things legal, i want to bring in nate pri silly, professor of law at stanford and former research director at the presidential commission on election information. good to see you today. we talked late last night, early this morning, i don't know which it was, following a lot of legal battles in pennsylvania. more to come. a lot of threats from the white house. do they have an effective case to make about the accoucounting these ballots? >> well, we're still in the pre-litigation phase. we still need to count the ballots in order to figure out whether there are problems with them, and so it may be that once the ballot ballot are counted that the margins of victory are

significant enough there's no point in litigation. you may remember 20 years ago, bush versus gore litigation made a lot of sense. right now we're just trying to figure out what those margins are and need to count every vote. >> and by casting so much shade on the whole process, what is the risk there for the public discourse, for people's confidence in the election? >> well, it was already fragile coming into this election, and i think that in some ways the narrative we're seeing now is the continuation of what we had seen before, frankly what we've seen for four years. even after the 2016 election, president trump cast doubt on those results saying that he may have won the popular vote as well. so i think americans were primed for discussions of fraud in the absentee ballots in particular, so this is, i think, a continuation of that narrative. >> and what do you think the next step is going to be with the republicans threatening to take action here, there, and everywhere? >> well, you need a reason to take action. it's not as if you can go to the

supreme court and they have some kind of end the vote count switch that they pull and then everything stops. there has to be some argument as to why ballots that were legally cast can't be counted. and so what i would expect is over the next day we'll get a near full count in these battleground states, and that if there are problems then those doubts will be challenged. we should all hope whoever wins that the margin is big enough so that legal challenges wouldn't prove successful. >> thanks very much, thanks for being with us. and that does it for this very special edition of "andrea mitchell reports." after a quick break ari melber will be in for chuck todd for ""mtp dail "mtp daily" only on msnbc. nbc.♪ uh, you know there's a 30-minute limit, right?

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good day. i'm ari melber anchoring special coverage of this unresolved presidential election. the white house hangs in the balance. the results are still coming in. moments ago the trump campaign just said they will be formally asking for a recount in wisconsin. the time line for these results is all run by state law, and we've known all year this could take days or longer because we know some key states don't start processing ballots until election day, and pandemic voting has changed how votes come in. you are looking at the current nbc news projection, which shows joe biden at