♪ ♪ the expertise that helps keep hospitals clean, is helping keep businesses clean too. look for the ecolab science certified seal. ♪ good evening from new york. i'm chris hayes. i want to start with a change in the characterization in pennsylvania, the commonwealth as the folks there like to say. we had that race as too early to call. we've changed the

characterization of that race to too close to call. it's now too close to call. i want to go to steve kornacki to figure out what that means. we should put a pin in the pennsylvania situation. what is happening here, let's go to steve right now. >> we're looking at two different scenarios. in pennsylvania, you're looking at what had been, just when you looked at the vote tabulation for donald trump, sizable leads that have continued to shrink. as the lead has continued to shrink that donald trump has had in the total vote in has gone up and up, it's become clearer that the final result here, however exactly it lands, is going to land in a very -- is going to land in a very tight range. it gets that designation of too

close to call. >> got you. >> and if you go out to arizona, where it is now too early to call, again, it's a situation here where we are waiting about an hour from now, we're expecting to get another batch of votes, we're waiting on those to give us a little clearer sense of exactly how much ground donald trump is trying to make up here. and exactly his capability of doing it. >> let's just stay here on where we are. let's go back to pennsylvania and talk pennsylvania. >> yup. >> so, you know, we all know pennsylvania is infamously part of the blue wall, 20 electoral votes. we knew what would happen, the vote would come in, the same-day vote, and then it was going to be the biden leading vote coming in, and all of that has been happening. where are we, and what trajectory is that count on?

>> look, biden is winning, let's see if i can call this up here. biden is winning the early absentee vote, where it's been tabulated. this is a little skewed, because we have some problems in a few counties. but he's been overwhelmingly winning the male vote in the counties where we've been able to track that to. some of that is philadelphia, which i think is skewing that a little high. excuse me, chris. but he's been overwhelmingly winning the male vote, and even winning it in republican counties. >> right. >> if you're looking at the ocean of red, we have male vote coming in, every update we've gotten from pennsylvania, biden has been getting closer and closer. >> i want to zoom in on the moth. when we see 89% in, and that lead for the president right now at about 164,000 votes, that

seems like a lot of votes, and like a lot of the vote is in. but if biden is winning large pools of the votes, there is lots of vote that he's been clawing back, getting -- it's not back, it all happened at the same time. that's what we've been seeing fairly reliably over the last day or so. >> right. and the pace biden has needed to be on here with this mail-in voting has been about 65%. he's needed to win it by, like, 65%. and in philadelphia or pittsburgh, the male vote in these places, in some places you're seeing 85%, 90% for him. then in some of the republican areas, you might see 53%, 56%. but when you average it together, he's been above 65% so far. so we have to see as the final vote comes in, does he stay above that, does he come in just

a little bit below it at the end? but you look at the number of votes, the pace he's been on, you look at the gap and you say it's certainly possible that he could get over that. >> it's useful here, but let's just indulge it, someone said it's like someone writing down ever basket in a basketball game, and telling them to you out of order. what we're seeing in pennsylvania is the opposite of what we saw in ohio, on election night, when at the beginning of the night, huge gains for the democrats in ohio, that was the early vote. then the same day vote came in, and it was about equivalent to 2016. so things can change considerably as all the votes are counted. >> that's been the story of the election. the pandemic nature of it, the rise of early voting, and different states having

radically different systems. florida, north carolina, ohio, texas, states when you were watching the first part of the vote come in, joe biden seemed to be doing very well. and he would reach a high water mark, then the same-day vote would come in and erase it all. you saw that play out in a number of states. and a state like pennsylvania, it was going to be the opposite, or michigan. michigan has already played out, donald trump opened up what looked like a considerable lead, if you just look at the statewide total. then the mail votes came in. and where are they most overwhelmed with the mail ballots, it's in the big cities with tens of thousands of ballots they have to individually process. that's where you're seeing the backlo backlogs. that was michigan, wayne county, detroit, biden suddenly getting mail-in votes from there that came in late relative to everything else. once he took the lead, he built

the lead from there, and that was that. >> that's a great point. can i keep you for one more state? arizona, it's been a strange situation. there are two news outlets that have called arizona, the a.p. and fox, and they did it somewhat early. in arizona, there are protests, people yelling at fox news. what is your read on it? i know basically, what is the batch of votes we're getting now, and what do they mean in terms of counting this and getting that result? >> arizona is interesting. they all have their different twists on this. arizona, they gather the votes into groups, and the groups are based on when the ballots were cast. then they go through them, count up this group, then that group, then that group. tonight, they're starting to release the votes from the final group of ballots. the absentee vote, the mail vote

that was returned right up until election day, folks bringing their ballot into a place on election day. they consider that a group of votes. this is like the third group. the first was the early vote. we knew that would be democratic. we got the report from that. the second group was the same-day election day voters. we knew that would be a trump group. we got that last night. the anticipation was the third group, and the question was, would they be republican or democratic ballots? there were arguments, people would say, they would be democratic because they were technically early votes. and republicans saying they would be republican ballots, because they're bringing them in close to election day. and what we finally got was the first batch of this last installment of votes in maricopa county, the phoenix area. we got the first batch, and we got a pretty powerful clue. donald trump got 59% of the new

batch of votes. so basically, it suggests there will be a couple of hundred thousand more to come from maricopa county and from the other areas around the state, and that establishes, if you do the math, trump needs to be getting somewhere around 60% of all the outstanding votes in arizona if he's going to erase the 79,000-vote lead that joe biden has. and maybe he could do that. >> again, we're flying blind in terms of our extrapolation of this. it could go below or above that. but it means there's a plausible benchmark and mathematical story to tell about trump evening this, coming very close. the other place where we've seen something similar is georgia. let's go there, and i will let you take a break for a second.

but georgia dynamics have been somewhat similar, and as they've come in from the democratic metro areas, the trump lead has been shrinking remarkably quickly throughout today. >> yes. when you were working on election night, trump was up 14, 15 votes in georgia. all of that is not covid specific in georgia, because we've always known the atlanta metro area would be late to report. and you see the nine blue counties, more than 40% of the vote for the entire state of georgia comes out of those nine counties alone. we always knew the democratic vote would be late, then the mail ballot dynamic, the mail votes, the most democratic votes from the most democratic

counties that will come in the latest in georgia. it just kind of exaggerated something that has always been a trend. we came on the air tonight, i think at 7:00 p.m., 8:00 p.m., whenever it was, it was over 100,000. just as we've started the various specials, it's down to 31,000, trump's lead over joe biden. i think -- let me just check in on fulton county, and see where we stand. i think there are a few more to come in. it's very plausible here that biden could overtake trump. it looks very close, and it sort of is anyone's guess here. and we should say, this is now a 0.6 of a point margin. then the loser has a right to a recount. >> right. and in terms of the path to 270, you have arizona, georgia, and pennsylvania. and nevada, we're going to get tomorrow. those are the four big outstanding ones.

north carolina, i think is in a little bit of a different category. what has to happen for one of these candidates to get over that number? >> yeah. the easiest way at least, for biden, look, the easiest thing is win pennsylvania. he's at 253, that's 20 electoral votes, and he's got it. the question is, how long will it take to get the vote from pennsylvania? one other possibility that emerges for biden is arizona, we say he's got the lead there in arizona right now. if he can hold on to that lead and get arizona, then there's nevada, nevada, where he leads, it's narrow right now. he leads, we've been told, about noon tomorrow, we'll get a report. if that's favorable to biden, if he moves into a position where he can win the state, then arizona and nevada give joe biden 270 electoral votes.

he's got a number of paths. but donald trump, he has one path. he has to win arizona, that's an absolute must-win for him. he's then got to hang on in georgia. we showed you the situation there. he has to hang on in north carolina. that's plausible, for a complicated reason. and he's got to hang on in pennsylvania, to get over 270. >> pennsylvania, we've known this, in the many elections we've covered, pennsylvania has loomed large in precisely this way. but pennsylvania seems make or break on its own in terms of the math. steve, that was incredibly edifying. thank you so much and go attata break. let's go to georgia, to

priscilla thompson. what is going on there? >> we're heading into the 16th hour of ballot counting in fulton county. i want to walk you through what this process actually looks like. the folks are having to get those envelopes, open them up, and open up another envelope in order to get to that ballot and pull it out, flatten it, so that it can be scanned. and once it's scanned, there will be a computer chip sent to a warehouse, that's where the vote is counted and tabulated. right now, they're getting through about 2,000 to 3,000 of these ballots per hour. we're told at this point, they're hoping to continue going until they have them all done. likely to be another couple of hours, we're looking at tomorrow morning, possibly, before they have this done here.

this is happening across the state. fulton county is the largest, p but not the only one trying to get the ballots counted. the latest number is about 90,000 ballots that we're waiting to have counted in order to get a clearer picture of what the race looks like here in georgia. chris? >> that's really helpful. i just want to say, god bless all the people behind you who are doing that work right now, and doing it transparently and diligently. thank you for that report. okay, as we mentioned, arizona is expected to report out a new round of ballots in just a few minutes. joining us now, vaughn hilliard in scottsdale, arizona. what are we looking at from arizona? >> reporter: we're looking at the 75,000 batch that steve was laying out, and which donald

trump took about 60% of the share. if he wants to break even, that's the amount donald trump has to hit. among the 475,000 uncounted ballots across the state. it's unclear how many we'll get over the next hour. but talking with both the trump and biden camp, looking at this, democrats believe that on tuesday, just yesterday, yes, in person voters went by a nearly 2-1 margin for donald trump over joe biden in maricopa county. but when it comes to voters who hand-delivered their ballot at the polling location yesterday, they believe that is a greater share of democratic and independent voters. why? because they have the permanent early voting lists in arizona. when you sign up to get an early ballot in years past, that comes to your doorstep.

and democrats were the ones urging folks not to mail their ballots out in the week before election day. instead, turn it in, in person. that's where a biden official tells me that they hope that number is brought down, and you don't see the 60% number on the back half of the ballots here that are being counted. and tomorrow morning, nevada making their announcement about the uncounted ballots. if arizona were to make the call, they would clinch it. >> and we have opposite dynamics right now in the state of georgia and arizona, where a candidate is up, and there's outstanding votes, and it may break heavily enough for the candidate who is behind to overcome. and the obvious solution is just to count all the votes. we will find out at a certain point, whatever modeling everyone is doing, that's the

way forward here, and that is what will happen. >> reporter: exactly. i keep getting pushback from both sides here. we can map out all the reasons as to why it will go in donald trump's favor, and why democrats have a history. in 2018, mcsally had a lead, but then the voters that hand-delivered their ballots on election day, they went to sinema. we can look at it all we want, but the reality is there is 475,000 outstanding ballots in arizona. >> we're now looking at the features of the person that hands the mail-in ballot in, what their political sensibili y sensibilities are. scott, thank you. joining me now, david

plouffe, and where do you feel about where the race stands? >> not as literate as kornacki, but listen, we'll know more about arizona imminently. my view is, it's going to be hard for trump to get 60% of the remaining ballots. we may see some continuing tightening. but my sense is it could end up with a 20,000, 30,000-vote lead. i feel very confident about nevada. and pennsylvania, i think at the end of the day, if you look at what is out, and the trajectory of the vote that has come in today, you know, this could be more like michigan than wisconsin. this could be something that, you know, biden wins by some margin. and i think georgia literally could come down to 5,000 votes. if you're biden, you have

multiple pathways to the presidency. you went through this with steve. there's only one pathway for trump. and again, even though biden didn't have the landslide that some people wanted, texas and florida and ohio, what he still has now is multiple pathways to the presidency. and if you're running a presidential campaign, that's where you want to be. >> and let's focus on pennsylvania for a moment. because your point about michigan is, we don't know the future, but at a certain point, michigan did move as votes came in from specific areas, like wayne county, around detroit. unlike us trying to model the voting behavior of the people who hand in their ballots in the last four days, as we're thinking about georgia, it became pretty clear what the margins will look like. and we're seeing similar margins

from people running the campaigns in battleground states. >> right. and obviously the biggest margins in terms of biden's vote yields have come from philadelphia. but as you look at the york counties of the world, the dauphin counties, erie county, where the biden margin is improving. he's doing what he needs to do. this isn't just about the city of philadelphia. and pennsylvania is interesting, in a lot of the smaller counties in the center of the state, and farther outside of pittsburgh, trump did maintain his margins and got strong turnout. but in the blue collar counties, biden has performed better. and did what he needed to do in the suburban counties outside of philadelphia. it's not just philadelphia county and the city. what you're seeing is the vohigy

encouraging. >> and the reason we have the math to 270 and the maps and all of this insanity right now, it's because of the electoral college. it is what it is. joe biden, there are two things that are striking to me. joe biden is winning the popular vote by a little north of 2%. he'll probably be in the 3% or 4% range in the end. and you may have said this to me, the first day of campaign school is, 50% plus one wins any election mathematically. you can win with 46%, with 45%, or 48%, if you win 50% plus one, you have won an election. and it's striking that a majority of voters will have voted for joe biden when it's all said and done.

>> well, sure. so, chris, what i'd say is, number one, let's look at what has changed in the last eight years. when barack obama won re-election against mitt romney, we won the national popular vote by three points. but we had 282 electoral votes, and none of them were particularly close. i think joe biden will have a bigger lead nationally than barack obama did, but it will be more narrow. donald trump sent out a tweet on election day, 2012, saying you can't have a democracy if you have an electoral college. there's always a tweet for everything with him. but what is the pathway, over a number of years or decades to turn this into a national popular vote system, that's what we need to do. but until we do that, you had better feel comfortable that you have a path. >> correct.

>> and that's not just having a superhero candidate running a perfect race. there's work to be done in texas, georgia, and arizona. so, yeah, let's move to the popular vote system, but we need to strengthen our electoral college system in every presidential cycle. >> very wise words, david. you at home, don't go anywhere. where are you going to go? we're going to philadelphia, and nevada, do not go anywhere, stay with us. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

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we don't settle elections on a tv schedule, despite what the president said in the middle of the night. so the question before us, if the lawful election process goes forward, is, will the president's supporters accept the lawful result even if he's encouraging them not to? it is officially two days of election day of the east coast. we do not yet know the winner of the presidential election. and that's in part because of the expected record surge in

early and mail-in voting during the pandemic that is raging out of control across the country. how out of control? well, today according to the covid tracking project, there were 103,000 new cases. the highest daily case count to date. we set a new record today. that's that red chart you see shooting up there. the blue chart next to it, with those two waves and a third that is forming, those are the total number of hospitalized people in america from covid. we're up to 52,000. you can see the eerie similarity between waves one and two and now three that we're in, hospitalization is an incredibly reliable metric. it doesn't depend on testing as cases come. that is profoundly worrying. we also today lost 1,100 of our

fellow americans. and deaths are trending up, they will follow cases as surely as night follows day. this horrifying situation has not led to an electoral college blowout by joe biden. right now, it's 253 electoral college votes to 214. this race has been close. there are still six states yet to be called. a flailing donald trump tried to claim victory in several states where his lead has slipped away. while trump supporters have gathered in protest to demand election officials either stop the count or count the ballots depending on whether it helps the president. >> stop the count! stop the count! stop the count!

>> that's the folks in maricopa county, arizona, chanting count the vote. and they're right. pennsylvania is the state with the most electoral votes still undecided in the race. nbc news characterizing the race as too close to call. the president's lead has been steadily tightening. without pennsylvania, president trump has one less path to re-election. with it, joe biden would become the president-elect. how do thinks look in pennsylvania? >> they're busy here. it's interesting that you're talking about the horrible numbers around covid, because the concern people had about the coronavirus led to an historic number of mail-in ballots being cast in this state. tonight, on rachel's show, the

secretary of state who handles elections told rachel that an overwhelming majority of mail-in ballots will be in on thursday. that's big news, because they were thinking they would need at least until friday to get them in. at this point, they're saying statewide, they have about 736,000 mail ballots to count. and here in philadelphia, it's about 120,000 to count from a democratic stronghold. the biden campaign hopes it will shrink donald trump's lead. an interesting thing about it all is that on wednesday, earlier this evening, the trump campaign send in surrogates, eric trump as well as rudy giuliani, the personal attorney for the president, came in here and filed a lawsuit claiming they needed to shut down the

counting of the ballots. the claim was that democrat election officials are hiding the ballot count from republican poll watchers. the governor of the state is a democrat, and he emphatically denies that anything like that is going on. and that there's great transparency. they have a camera streaming so you can see what people are doing. and they say they have certified democrat and republican poll watchers who can see what is going on. so they say, bring the lawsuit on. in the interim, they're going to keep counting votes, all night long. chris? >> that was great. thank you very much. votes are still being counted in nevada. i want to talk to john rolston, i love your state.

we all love vegas. there's two things associated with vegas, counting and staying up all night. yet somehow we find ourselves in a situation in which everyone went to bed, and there's no counting. what gives? >> well, chris, your impatience coincides with my impatience and that of millions of americans. they're wondering what is going on in nevada. there's been a very different election, with mail balloting and how it's been implemented. they did that here. we've never had substantial mail balloting. it's been less than 10%. suddenly, hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of mail ballots. and they weren't as prepared for it as they should be. and to their credit, they're trying to do it right. it's frustrating because of the mixed messages about when the

counts will be done, when they're going to show up. but i have to believe, when they start to announce the numbers, we hope starting at 9:00 a.m. tomorrow morning, that will be forgotten and we can focus on the results. >> we're expecting them at 9:00 a.m. tomorrow morning, accuracy over speed, i agree 100%. and people should be patient. right now, joe biden has an 8,000-vote margin in that state. where are the votes, what is your anticipation of what the contours of that look like? >> i've been trying to figure that out, chris, for the last however long i've been up. i can't even remember how many hours. the bottom line is, we know most of them are in clark county, in las vegas, where two-thirds to three-quarters of the votes usually are. there are probably about 100,000, 120,000 ballots, maybe a little more, in clark county to be counted. let's talk about what is going

on with the mail ballots. they've gone more than 2-1 for the democrats so far. >> right. >> a substantial portion of those ballots are also what are known as provisional ballots. they implemented same-day registration here, so people got a provisional ballot when they registered and voted. those have split fairly evenly between the democrats and republicans. but if the pattern holds, and let's wait for the numbers, but if it holds, the democrats will have a huge advantage in the mail-in ballots. and in washoe county, where reno is, joe biden has a relatively small lead, but it's unlikely that he will lose much of that in washoe county. and probably about 10% of the votes are in rural nevada, going

largely for donald trump. but the margin is unlikely to make up for what he's going to lose for what happens in clark county, if the pattern before election day holds. >> that's a very clear read on the situation. we see joe biden is leading in that state, and it would be crazy for the trump lawyers to stay stop the count, and they haven't for a good reason, because that's the only way they can win. we got two key calls in battleground states. really striking ones. nbc news predicts joe biden as the winner in michigan. nbc news projects biden has won

the race, but the results are close enough. it may depend on a recount. ben wickler is the chair of the democratic party of wisconsin. i got to say, when were you elected chair? >> i was elected in june of 2019. so about a year and a half and quite a year and a half it's been. >> from the beginning, you moved back to your home state to do this. you have been laser focused on producing the organization and the party infrastructure and mobilization to win this state in other things as well, but it worked, it looks like. why? >> so the thing about this election, it's the fourth out of the last six presidential elections in which wisconsin has come down to less than one

percentage point. and in this state, people mobilize year-round. they've been organizing in communities in every part of the state. and we jumped our turnout up 18%. trump almost won because he jumped his turnout up 15%. this is an every vote counts situation. for us, it meant working across race and language. we had spanish language phone banks, women leading the charge across communities in our state. we've been building neighborhood teams. thousands of people making phone calls, tens of thousands in the last month. it's all hands on deck, every square inch of wisconsin. and by a hair's breadth, it w k worked. and it's a voter uprising. >> the turnout is striking. i was particularly struck in the margins and turnout in dane

county, which is a county i worked as a field organizer in, in 2004. so i know a little bit about it. and in dane county, you had bonkers turnout there, and something like a 75/25 margin that produced a huge chunk of what you needed. >> absolutely. the thing is, we fought everywhere. democratic turnout was up in every part of the state. it's not red places getting redder, blue places getting bluer. there were more democrats in every community in our state. it's just that with the republican operation, trump fired up a lot of people who were not showing up in polls. the polling error was similar to 2016. we've been saying you have to fight as though you're two points behind even if the polls show you're six points up. thank goodness they did, because

every piece made a difference. >> you and i have spoken, and you've always had the kind of hunted look, and temperament of someone who thinks they're in a 20,000-vote margin kind of race. >> that, you know, we had to keep telling each other to ignore the polls. there was one poll that said we were 17 points up, and you had to crumple that up and keep fighting. people have not slept much. they've been calling their friends and recruiting them to join these text banking and kno phone banking shifts. and thank you to everyone who did, they made the difference and wisconsin this year went from red to blue.

>> ben wickler, doing remarkable work in that state, and not just him, everyone in fellowship with ben, thank you so much. >> thank you. i'm joined by garland gilchrist, lieutenant governor of michigan. another state that caught people by surprise in 2016, and there were the trump obama voters in your state, and there was dropoff among a lot of core democratic constituencies. what happened this time around, in a win that looks to be a sizable 2% win? >> thank you for having me on to talk about this. this has been a big win for democrats, showing that organizing works and showing that if you invest across the state of michigan, if you invest in turning out people of color, black voters, black men specifically, something i've

been focusing on. if you focus on the rapidly diversifying suburbs of our state, and saying those coalitions are the ones that will deliver for democrats if you have conversations with them, that's how you win. and that's how we won in michigan for the vice president and up and down the ticket. >> that senate race was really, really close. you just mentioned a black man, one of the stori stories borneb the data, how did democrats in your state approach that? >> conversation and engagement. i made this my mission to make sure that black men showed up at the polls. it was the basic organizing fundamentals. i led marches of people to the polls. 200-plus people in detroit, a few weekends before november 3rd, we had folks making calls

and text messages specifically to black residents. but also again, the rapidly diversifying suburbs. i want people to understand, the story of the suburbs in this election is a story about how white women were trending more democratic, but our suburbs are not from the '60s. we knew that all types of people live in the suburbs. we have immigrants, the indian-american community, latinos who really stepped up. when we engaged them, they were ready to vote for a democrat. if we keep that diverse coalition, we'll be able to keep delivering for people. >> this was a state that was a sort of solidly democratic state. it's been a site for so many different sociological trends, pushed in different directions, in terms of voters, a strong

union presence that had drifted away from the democratic party, diversifying suburbs. where does your state stand now politically? >> i think between 2016 or since 2016, you've seen the democrats really come home. so that was emphatic in 2018 when the governor and i won by 400,000 votes in michigan. this state that donald trump won by 10,704 votes. we won by ten percentage points. we recognized that people were tired of donald trump. he was the wrong person to be the president. and 2020 showed that in a big way. the labor movement will always be strong in our state, and they came out in big numbers and delivered. i think we're a blue state, period. and this election confirms that. >> thank you so enough for

making time for us tonight. much more to get to tonight. we'll talk about what to make on the president's remaining lawsuits. we'll bring you any updates we get. stick around. around

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now, after a long night of counting, it's clear that we're winning enough states to reach 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency. i'm not here to declare that we've won. but i am here to report when the count is finished, we believe we will be the winners. >> former vice president biden speaking milike a man approachi 270 votes.

meanwhile, the trump campaign asked for the count to be paused in michigan and pennsylvania. and earlier this evening, the campaign was in georgia, where the president was ahead by less than a point, about 25,000 votes. they're asking a judge to remind election workers that under state law, late ballots are not to be counted. amber, i saw someone the other day saying that if you don't have a legal or factual basis for claims, a lawsuit is just a tweet with a filing fee. and some people seemed to think that's sort of an accurate characterization, at least the pennsylvania lawsuit. what is your sense at these attempts at legal intervention?

>> look, poll watching and observation has a legal and fundamental process in place in every state. so the lawsuits popping up at the last minute, i've looked at a few of them, are alleging a few things that are a bit frivolous and seem out of place within the process we're in right now. and given that poll watchers have had access in all the states where it's alleged they haven't. i think it's just an attempt to interfere with the process. we need to make sure the laws are being followed in every state, and the safety for the watchers and also the election workers in the counting facilities are observed and followed correctly. >> ned, i had you on my podcast, and we had a long conversation laying out some of these

scenarios. and i took away your confidence, trump has bragged that the courts will be there for him when he needs them. and has telegraphed that he's depending on them, quite frankly, to deliver him a victory. and your confidence that essentially meritless claims are not an avenue that anyone can litigate to a victory. do you still feel that way? >> yes, i do. judges follow the rule of law, and i think facts and evidence will ultimately prevail. a lot of the lawsuits are motivated by an effort to try to change the narrative and the terra terrain. but it doesn't mean it will be successful. >> one of the other things that strikes me as important is just the fact that the margins matter a lot. we think about the nightmare scenario of 2000 in florida, with a margin of 537 votes.

you know, you can't -- if there's a 50,000-vote margin, it's hard to litigate your way out of a 50,000-vote defeat, correct? >> that's right. and that's what history shows. that's one reason why nixon in 1960 did not try to litigate in texas, because he was behind by 50,000 votes and thought it was insurmountable. he looked at illinois and texas, he would have had to change the outcome in both places, and couldn't do it mostly by looking at texas and the 50,000-vote gap that he couldn't make up. >> and we've seen in maricopa county in arizona tonight, my great colleague has been there. a groupasemia assembled outside

it's an open carry state, so there's a different flavor to a first amendment gathering when there's a gun. do you have concerns about these sorts of gatherings? >> it can certainly be intimidating for election officials that have been in there working long hours and trying to count every vote. and the process is pretty simple. voters vote, and election officials count every vote. that is what is happening right now in every state around the country, according to the laws in every state. the process is coming to a close, and we need to give election officials the space and patience to finish this process. it can be very intimidating for some of the assemblies to be happening. hopefully they remain peaceful, and everyone continues to

encourage the peaceful demonstrations on both sides of the aisle, that folks have a right to do them. but it can be very, very intimidating, especially in a stressful environment like election officials are facing. >> final question for you, ned. lawyers get to argue in the alternative, even if normal people find that bizarre. and you don't need logical consistency, but it's striking that the pattern is calls to count votes in states where they need more, and to stop in states where they're afraid they'll fall behind. >> you saw that in minnesota in 2008, and the lawyers on both sides flipped their positions as soon as the count flipped. the basic rule in these lawsuits is, if you're behind, you argue one thing. and if you're ahead, you argue

another. we're seeing it play out at the same time in different states. that's why you're seeing that kind of inconsistency. but democracy requires consistency in all states. >> valid votes must be counted. thank you to you both. we're coming up on 1:00 a.m. for everyone on the east coast. we're expecting to get some updated vote counts in the next hour in arizona. do not go anywhere. our coverage continues right after this. but not anymore! an alternative to pills voltaren is the first full prescription strength non-steroidal anti-inflammatory gel to target pain directly at the source for powerful arthritis pain relief. voltaren. the joy of movement.

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