could flip. >> it's certainly someone getting a lot of credit and praise at this hour. thank you all very much for joining us. i know it is a late night, early morning for all of you. we appreciate your time and nowr and in three seconds it will be 3 a.m. in the east and midnight out west. you're watching msnbc's continuing coverage of the 2020 election. i'm katie tur. >> i'm he a men mohyeldin. biden is leading 253 electoral votes to trump's 214. we have been watching results trickle in from battleground states that are too close to call. in pennsylvania joe biden consistently making up ground shrinking that margin between him and president trump. pennsylvania is obviously a must-win for the president at this point. without its 20 electoral votes, president trump cannot reach the

270 threshold to be re-elected, but for joe biden where one state giveth, another state taketh away. we expect to get more results out of arizona's maricopa county around 11 a.m. this morning. as we have been throughout the entire night, good news. there was a moment where we panicked because we thought the big board went out. good news, the big board is back. steve kornacki, did you break the big board? >> it almost broke me, i'll tell ya. >> sheer panic. >> all of the election were billed into these big moments. it goes dark. it comes back to light. >> we can do without the big board. we can't do without you, steve. >> what have you got? >> yes. looking at pennsylvania and looking at pennsylvania at this hour means we're looking at philadelphia because philadelphia is the only place in pennsylvania where they're

counting ballots overnight. we've got i'm going to say an hour ago or so now we got our most recent update from philadelphia and what that update did was it further reduced the lead that donald trump has over joe biden. now -- i did that wrong sits at 18,229. that is trump's lead. it has been coming down every time there has been an update because these are absentee mail ballots. everywhere in the state, literally every single county where there are absentee ballots being recorded out, red or blue overall, biden is winning the absentee vote. every update has been bringing biden closer and closer. there are about 54,000 ballots left in philadelphia. philadelphia has the lions share. 54,000 in philadelphia. they are working through the night.

they have been periodically updating us. we do expect sometime in these wee hours we're going to get another update and we're going to see what it does to the overall advantage donald trump has. the trajectory is clear in this like i said because biden is gaining with every update. biden's winning about 75% of the mail vote in pennsylvania and because we know that overall there's about 160,000 mail ballots left in the entire state, that biden is on course to catch donald trump and to move ahead of donald trump. that's the trajectory. again, every update from philadelphia so far has been bringing biden closer. that's what's going on in pennsylvania. of course, the reason why it's 3 in the morning and we're all so fixated on pennsylvania is if joe biden does win pennsylvania, there it is. 20 electoral votes, he goes over 270. that would make him

president-elect if that happens. the other place where we are watching closely right now you mentioned is to georgia. the margin for trump over biden, just 665 votes now. again, this has also been dwindling, this trump advantage. biden has been doing very well with the absentee vote in georgia. if it's philadelphia up in pennsylvania, in georgia all of the political world's eyes are on clayton county in these overnight hours because clayton county is also staying up overnight to get their ballots reported out. they've been a little bit more frequent with the reporting. we just had one a few minutes ago. overwhelming democratic county. it's been bringing biden closer and closer to the point that if we get another clayton county update, it's very possible that that next clayton county update could actually vault joe biden ahead statewide. could actually erase all of that 665 vote lead that donald trump has. there are still several,000

votes to come in clayton county and biden is winning them very overwhelmingly. the opportunity is to take biden for the lead on those votes. if biden does catch trump or if trump hangs on and finish sz ahead of biden in the counting here. this is well within the range where a losing candidate can request a recount. 0.5%. i wouldn't expect no matter who as this voting finishes here, no matter who finishes on top, i don't know that that call of a winner is going to be immediate. georgia may take some time, whereas, in pennsylvania it's possible we're moving towards a much quicker result. >> steve, here's the question i've been wondering. when new numbers come in, if we get numbers from philadelphia, do you get a little zap? how do you know the numbers have come in? is there somebody that's obsessively clicking refresh on the state election page? is that adam navoa?

>> adam is my producer. he is a few feet behind this board here and he has a program set up where any time -- frankly anywhere in the country that new vote comes in, he gets a quick alert. what county was that vote, how many for biden, how many for trump, what's the new total in that county? he'll say bucks county -- he won't say that overnight because they're not counting overnight. hopefully soon he'll say philadelphia or clayton, i'll go look. he's doing that. the other thing we're doing, honestly, it's been very helpful is these counties themselves have the websites and they have been releasing the vote as it comes along on the website. sometimes we've seen it there first. a few of the counties, they have the cameras set up and you can watch as the tabulation -- i mean, it's not the most riveting television but you can watch and see. they are counting the ballots that will decide the presidency of the united states in the wee hours of the morning.

it's an interesting thing to be able to do. >> i've definitely checked out the live stream from philadelphia. >> not as good as the puppy cam. >> it definitely is a must-watch moment where we are. steve, let me -- >> what you can't see is adam is behind that scene, he has scotch tape holding his eyes open as he's leaning over a computer. >> yes, hats off to adam for sure. we haven't mentioned north carolina, steve. i was just wondering, i know that obviously they have until next week to start giving out some results or at least the final results. just explain to us the lay of land in that state at this hour. >> to set this up, what i would say, nevada, arizona, alaska, georgia, north carolina, pennsylvania. with the exception of alaska, i think the trump campaign feels the best of all of those states about where it stands in north carolina. you see donald trump's lead here is just over 75,000 votes. now north carolina is one of

those states where if the ballots were postmarked before election day and were in the mail on election day, if they were in transit and then they arrived up to a few days after election day, they still count. and the number of ballots that were sent out to voters that as of election day had not yet been returned exceeds this 76,000 number. i believe it's somewhere in the neighborhood of 115, 120,000 votes, something like that. ballots that have been mailed out and not received by election day. theoretically, right, it's possible that those ballots have all come flooding in, you know, on election day, after election day, today and that in those ballots there would be enough of a margin for biden to overtake trump. theoretically possible, but i think it's set up the best for trump in any of these swing states, it's also possible a lot of ballots went to people's homes and they decided not to cast them. just because 120,000 were sent

out doesn't mean they're getting 120,000 back. i think that's been the experience in other states, but you don't know until the state actually tells you, okay, the deadline passed. here's how many got. so north carolina remains uncalled. again, of all of these states here, if you're trump's campaign, this is really the least of your worries right now, what's happening in north carolina. >> all eyes on pennsylvania. >> check on adam. get him some coffey -- >> i offered him some coffey. >> get him a donut. take care of that big board, steve. >> thank you very much. let's go out to nbc's ali vitali standing by at the biden headquarters in wilmington, delaware. we have been hearing from the biden team for days about how confident they are about the results of the election. how confident they are in arizona, nevada, georgia, but most especially in pennsylvania. tell us what numbers they've been looking at that maybe we haven't been privy to.

>> reporter: look, the key here for the biden campaign is they know that pennsylvania is a state that saw a huge number of vote by mail ballots cast this election cycle. we knew that those were the things that were going to take some time as we headed into election night and beyond. now we're certainly living in that reality, and the biden campaign is right there along with the rest of us, just waiting for these ballots to be counted. we're expecting we're going to see more this morning. the reason that's important is vote by mail ballots have been going for biden in huge percentages. a few ballot drops of huge biden margins could be enough to push him over the edge here. that critical number of 20 electors in pennsylvania, that will be enough to push biden to 270. that is why we're hearing so much confidence from the biden team as well as from top pennsylvania democrats on the ground who say they've heard from members of the biden team saying celebrations could be coming soon but the work comes

very soon after. there's also some work though being put in on the ground in wilmington in preparation of this potential getting to 270. the word imminent is the word the campaign is using yesterday. i feel like we're stretching what the word imminent can mean because we're playing the waiting game so long. there are some signs of life in this parking lot in wilmington that we've all just moved into and installed ourselves in. they're clearly preparing for something. when that something comes though, that really is the big question. i think what we've seen from this team is a pretty consistent mood of just projecting confidence, saying that the votes need to be counted, allowing the time for those votes to be counted, but that being said, i feel like they're about to run through the tape but not willing to put two feet over the finish line because yesterday we saw a transition team website go live, but when we started asking them about what those transition efforts look like, what they're doing

behind the scenes jenn o'malley dillon said, i'm just the campaign manager. i'm just looking to get through the campaign. aren't we all? >> let me ask anecdotally. do you have a sense joe biden stays up and watches television. 2:30 in the morning, the president was tweeting about this. give us a sense behaviorally, joe biden, does he stay up late? is he an early reiser? what do you know of the former vice president in terms of his kind of like day-to-day activity. >> you haven't seen the joe biden live web cam? >> is there one? >> i have not seen that. >> just kidding. horrible, horrible thought. >> we should work on that for next time i have to say. in terms of the way joe biden's been looking at results. we know he's been watching, talking to democrats in pennsylvania and across the map, frankly, as they also just try to figure out what this looks like. >> right. >> i will say we know the president is awake because he's on twitter. joe biden has never been one to

live tweet the early morning hours. >> not going to get -- >> we're not going to get a kofeffi, i imagine. i rule nothing out, it's 2020. >> ali -- >> anything is possible. ali vitali. the contrast between these two men could not be more different. >> donald trump is -- >> -- social media use. >> -- one of a kind. thank you from biden headquarters. we're going to sneak in a quick break. afterwards, we're going to get into president trump's legal blitz on the integrity of the voting. don't go anywhere. night three of election coverage continues. inues.

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welcome back, everyone. with the president's path to victory narrowing as the vote counting continues at this hour, his campaign is turning to legal challenges to keep his re-election hopes alive. hoping for more success with the courts than he's had with the voters. so far things have not gone the president's way even with six legal challenges still outstanding. let's go now to paul butler, professor at georgetown law school and nbc news legal analyst. great to have you with us. >> hi. >> if i can, let's begin with the president's tweak. he has invoked the supreme court and the legality of the votes cast. let me get your quick take on it. what do you make of the president invoking the supreme court to help him get re-elected? >> it's an argument of someone who thinks he's going to lose. so there are two ways of challenging an election. you can ask for a recount, and

in states that are very close, there might be a legal right to have that. or you can argue that certain votes should be counted or should not be counted and trump's position is that votes should be counted in jurisdictions like arizona where he thinks he might win and that votes should not be counted in places like pennsylvania where he thinks that he might lose. that's not a legal theory that's going to persuade the supreme court. in fact, if you look at the way that state and federal judges are reacting to this round of litigation, they're highly skeptical. there haven't been any major cases that the president has won. and so to get to the supreme court he'd have to go through state courts and through federal courts, and he's just not having much success. >> let's talk about what they filed in nevada. they're claiming that ballots went out to ineligible voters, people who were no longer residents of the state of nevada, and they sent their ballots in, cast them illegally.

they're talking about -- used the example of one woman who says she went to a polling place and tried to cast her ballot and was told that a mail-in ballot under her name had already been sent in. what does a case like that look like? >> so these are factual issues that a judge would have to determine. the important issue here is that we're talking about a very small number of votes that aren't likely to make a difference in the election. when people think about the supreme court getting involved, of course, everyone remembers bush versus gore. in that case, bush had 271 electoral votes and he won in florida but by only 600 votes. and so far there's not any indication that this is going to be that close. so when we look at what he's doing in places like nevada, it's not enough to shift the election, even if his team is able to get some of the votes thrown out. >> he also wants to stop voting

in a couple of different places, pennsylvania, number one, a and in michigan. the michigan suit was already thrown out. if you were trying to stop a vote from being counted, what sort of evidence would you need to have? what sort of argument would you need to have? does the trump team come close to that argument? >> so, what's giving the trump team room to make this argument is that the pandemic has led states to establish new procedures that make it easier for people to vote, and that's essentially what trump is attacking. and, again, i think courts are going to be sympathetic to the idea that we're in an historic medical emergency that for the first time in our history happens at the same time as a presidential election that states went out of their way to make it easier and safer for people to vote. and so when we look at, again, these kind of petty challenges,

he's winning or has won in simple kind of technical issues like how close observers can stand to where people are counting the votes, but he's simply not making any headway in a way that's going to make a difference for the election itself. >> i'm curious to get your legal thoughts on this. is there a legal case or at least from your opinion an argument to be made for justice amy coney barrett to recuse herself from some of these cases that may, if they do end up at the supreme court, again, not through any fault of her own, but because the president is invoking the supreme court, his -- one of the lawyers that is part of the rnc was on fox business today talking about how they want justice amy coney barrett to get involved and to deliver this for donald trump. is there an argument to be made here that just because the way the president and other allies of the president have spoken about her, that she should

recuse herself? >> you would make a good lawyer. i'm certain that's an argument that democrats will make if it comes to that. it's probably not going to be an argument that persuades the only person it has to persuade, which is justice barrett because the justices themselves get to decide whether to recuse. and it's not uncommon that when a justice has been appointed by a president and then a case comes up that impacts the president, that the justices ask to recuse. they almost never do. in that case it doesn't matter if it's a justice appointed from a democrat or republican. >> in all of the conversations we're having, it doesn't look like it will get there. paul butler, professor at georgetown school of law and nbc news legal analyst. >> i'm going to tell my mom he thinks i should have been a

lawyer. >> my parents thought i should have been a lawyer. they were deeply disappointed when i went into news. >> they must be proud of you. >> 3:30 in the morning. election coverage. >> history. >> they're very excited. it's 3:30. >> halfway through it. >> if you feel a little twitchy that's because who knows when these pennsylvania numbers are going to come out. who knows what they might mean. stay with us. our special coverage of the 2020 election returns after a very quick break.

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welcome back. i jumped the gun there. i'm feeling twitchy. it feels like it's been a couple hours since we last got numbers from philadelphia. steve, want to go back to you at the big board. if we don't have any numbers quite yet, we could be getting them at the moment. let's talk about demographics. there's a lot of talk of what's

going to put joe biden over the edge. who democrats are counting on. a lot of talk about suburban women. what do the exit polls tell us so far? >> let's take a look inside pennsylvania since that's what we're waiting on. let's look at the philadelphia suburbs here. the counties right outside philadelphia. famous quote, i think it was four years ago, when hillary clinton was running against donald trump. chuck schumer, the democratic senate leader was asked about there was polling back then that suggested, hey, donald trump was doing really well in the rural parts of pennsylvania, in western pennsylvania. he said, well, every vote that we lose in western pennsylvania democrats, he would say, we will gain two in the philadelphia suburb. it didn't quite work out that way for democrats in 2016. clinton won but she didn't win by the margins democrats were hoping for. one of the things you see, let's take a look at montgomery county, the philadelphia suburbs, the heart of it.

joe biden leading here by 26 points and you see it is an increase. it was 22, now it's 26. that is the kind of growth democrats were hoping for. look, it was 10 in chester county, now it's 16 1/2 with biden over trump. these are getting closer to the margins the democrats wanted four years ago and they're getting this time. this is the suburbs. part of this, a big key ingredient is women. there is a gender gap here. you're seeing it in the philadelphia suburbs. another place you're seeing it that we are looking at tonight for results is in georgia and in the atlanta metro area in particular. i mean, these nine counties that are blue right inside this ring, this is joe biden collectively winning these nine counties. the last time i looked at it he's leading here collectively by 36 points. the margin in these same nine counties four years ago for hillary clinton was 29 points.

democrats, again, atlanta itself and also the suburbs of atlanta, democrats have been making big gains. joe biden's made significant gains over hillary clinton. a key ingredient to that, female voters. also, in this area of atlanta this is a rapidly diverse -- eam -- ayman was talking about this. there's a lot of diversity here in and around atlanta. talking about nationally being a recipe for success. you're seeing it in georgia. if joe biden goes over the top or at least take the lead in the next few minutes, it will be because of this atlanta metro area. >> steve, in the pennsylvania numbers that we were just looking at a moment ago, i notice that although democrats have widened their margin from 2016 with suburban women and with voters in general, the raw vote count is significantly up

for joe biden but also up for donald trump as well. while he didn't have the same ratio of support that he had in 2016, he was building support. he was gaining more voters. i think that surprised a lot of people. the feeling was donald trump wasn't broadening his message. he wasn't broadening the tent at all and these numbers prove otherwise. donald trump was still quite popular. he expanded his popularity, just not as much as joe biden did or not as much as people frankly did not like donald trump. >> it was interesting. of course, there were no -- the third party candidates didn't really get any traction this time around. gary johnston in 2016, jill stein. four points, three points, two points. you don't see parties getting traction. voters more this time than in '16 did latch on to this as a choice between these two, trump versus biden. the other thing is true, trump as president, he became -- he

did raise his favorable score from when he was a candidate. his unfavorable was and is very high as president. when he got elected four years ago on election day, he was 38% favorable, trump was. 60% unfavorable. that was on election day. he's actually when you looked at the polls this time around, he had gotten that favorable number into the 40s. he had gotten the unfavorable number into the low 50s. that was progress for him. it was still upside down. part of that, too, was people who had had a negative view of trump in 2016 but their politics were generally a lined with his. they were generally on the right side of the spectrum, republicans were over the last four years saying, okay, i'll kind of get on board with trump a little bit. there was some growth there. still, we talk about the suburbs. there was growth outside the suburbs. we saw this in south florida. we saw this along the border in

texas. we saw hispanics report for trump expand in some places as well. >> steve, let me ask you quickly because we've used it and democrats have used it as the gold standard. in talking about their base which is the obama coalition. do you think when this is all said and done, the obama coalition turning states like north carolina or florida, did that show up for donald trump even when we talked about the inroads that trump made with african-americans and latinos? >> let's zoom out when you look at the whole country. parts of the obama coalition are evident here in what biden is pulling off or seems to be on the verge of pulling off, you know? if biden wins, he would have won back wisconsin, michigan and those are states hillary clinton couldn't carry that obama care rid twice. the obama coalition managed to

win ohio two times, managed to win florida two times. first time obama ran he carried indiana. the first time around -- iowa, that's another big one. donald trump, again, won iowa big this week. so barack obama, we saw this, there were counties in 2016, there were a ton of them along the mississippi river and iowa, there were a wisconsin, ohio, pennsylvania, all of these counties that had gone for obama twice and suddenly swung by 20 points and went for donald trump. one of the notable things i think i've seen on the map is they stayed with trump in a lot of cases. if they swung back, they start to move back to the democrats, they move back by a couple of points. they didn't get back anywhere near that level of support that obama was able to generate in them. there's a piece of that

coalition that obama had, frankly democrats had for a long time, like wisconsin, ohio, iowa, there's a piece of that that donald trump took and they have not had much success in bringing it back. >> it speaks to what a force of nature barack obama was in 2008. let's go to nbc's rahama ellis. any idea when we're going to get a new batch of votes? >> reporter: i hope it's any minute inasmuch as we've all been out here for so long. you'd like it to come on your watch, right? if it's going to happen, the numbers are going to come out, it would be nice if it was any minute. i'm wondering to that point that you were just talking about with ayman with steve kornacki, i'm

wondering what do they see in terms of numbers of the african-american and black vote here in philadelphia because there was a lot of concern in 2016 that a lot of african-americans stayed home instead of voting for hillary clinton or donald trump. i'm wondering if they're going to see when this is all over what those numbers look like. there was a huge push, as you know, in this community, even barack obama was here talking about how important it was and it is for african-americans to be engaged in the political process, regardless whether he was in it or not. but steve is taking a break for a moment, i suspect, so i don't know what those numbers are. but regardless of what those numbers are, one thing we do know for certain is that they are furiously counting the numbers here for those mail-in ballots. it's pretty extraordinary.

the mail-in ballot is pretty historic here in pennsylvania because this is the first presidential election for this state that they've used mail-in ballots to this extent. no reason necessary to request one like it was in years before. they really got historic numbers for the state. 430,000 mail-in ballots had been requested. we'll see exactly what that number is of those ballots that were returned. earlier in the week they were looking at upwards of 350,000, 360,000 ballots coming back. as steve has been saying, as you've been pointing out this evening or early this morning, it seems that those are the ballots that are coming in in favor of the democrats in this campaign. >> yeah. >> maybe what pulls joe biden over the top eventually. >> we're going to be watching as you are. ayman, it's hard to under state what it would mean for president

trump, not a good way, if philadelphia -- >> is the city. >> -- that kicks him out of the white house. in 2016 he was sure philadelphia was going to be his biggest roadblock in pennsylvania and says he was campaigning, telling people to watch the polls. he was saying this in 2016 as we were nearing the end of the campaign. he said it again in 2020. i mean, to put it very nicely, there were a lot of racial overtones to what he was accusing philadelphia voters of doing and what he was trying to incite his voters to do in terms of watching over what was happening in pennsylvania. so if that is the city that decides who goes to the white house -- >> quite ironic. >> i imagine donald trump is going to have, gosh, to be a fly on the wall in the oval office or the residence. >> to add to your point really quickly before we take a quick break, i was in philadelphia over the summer covering a lot

of social protests against police brutality in the wake of the killings that we've been seeing, and you could sense that there was just a level of energy that was really bringing out people and you could see just by speaking to those people on the streets that were protesting against police brutality that they drew a connection straight to this election, that this was going to be a priority for them. we've talked about the pandemic, economic issues, all kinds of other issues on the ballot. at the end of the day, there was no doubt a lot of momentum that manifested in those streets of philadelphia that now clearly have translated to the polls. >> we're going to go to steven and talk about that and the exit polling and the turnout among black americans because i know it's pretty crucial in a state like georgia. also crucial in pennsylvania. >> we're going to squeeze in a quick break. >> we'll squeeze in a quick break. more of our special coverage in a moment.

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18,000 votes. we're back with more special election coverage of the 2020 race. the vote continues to come in from pennsylvania and we are expecting more votes any time now. steve is by the big board paying attention. but first let's bring in democratic pollster fernand amande. rod mcleod is a democratic strategist and president of radar strategies and christy setszer. she's also a democratic strategist by working on a number of democratic campaigns. everybody, welcome. >> hey, guys.

>> first of all, it has been a wild three days. susan, i want to start with you on this. the president is tweeting the election's being stolen from him. we are seeing something of a divide amongst some republicans. some republicans have come out and said that this is crazy. adam kinzinger is one of them, representative from illinois. pat toomey, represent cab senator from pennsylvania said the votes should be counted, mitt romney. you're also hearing from republicans that are closely lashed to the president, including lindsey graham, on hannity, ted cruz, saying the election isn't fair. people weren't allowed to watch over the polls when they were. lindsey graham saying that he doesn't trust philadelphia but not saying why. also, not pushing back when hannity kept asking him whether pennsylvania should be able to pick its own electors. yes, these tweets came in the

middle of the night, but the president said something virtually the same a little bit earlier. susan, are we going to see anything more in the coming hours? >> well, i think, actually, as we get closer to a defining moment where biden becomes the president-elect -- >> susan, hold on. we've got numbers out of pennsylvania -- out of philadelphia so give us one second. steve. >> we've got another update from philadelphia. if you've been watching, we get these periodically where we get them from the county website and it's going to take a minute i think to get this into our system. i can just put them up. the ratest batch of votes from philadelphia, 5,073 for joe biden and 726 for donald trump. so it is a margin there for joe biden of 4,347 votes, right? so that knocks down -- we can

just do the math. >> i love that you're doing it old school style. like we're in elementary school. let's pull out our calculator here. my producer, i'm going to listen too if you give me five seconds. go ahead, adam. you don't think that update -- i'm looking on their update seeing 526, 557. okay. could you give me a minute on this? >> absolutely can. >> no worries. take your time. we'll go back -- >> i was going to try to do the math myself. >> that may be risky. >> i'm not going to do it. >> nothing against your math capabilities. >> susan, while steve confers with adam, continue your answer about whether we're going to see more republicans in the next 24 hours. >> well, i think, actually, they're just not going to come out in support so much like

donald trump. this is looking like biden's race. the numbers that came out is what's infuriating donald trump. lying, tweeting, doing what he does frankly every day. at this point republicans are going to start looking really especially foolish questioning democracy, and that's what's happening. to imagine the president of the united states undermining our basic fundamental voting democracy is -- goes beyond the pale and yet i don't expect -- there will always be those republicans that back him up. why? because they are just fans and only exist because of donald trump. i think you'll start to see susan collins looking independent of the president. it's too late. they are what they are. >> you can see steve working this out. look at him. do you have more clarity for us? should we go back to you? >> yeah. >> everyone stay in place. >> let me clear this out.

i am going to -- oh, that goes up. i am going to read for you the numbers we've got here from the philadelphia website, which is showing a gain here for joe biden to 526,557. here's what i want to show you. okay. 526,557 and we're showing a statewide lead of 18,229. there is -- you're going to have to give me five minutes on this. yes, there is -- >> take your time. >> i see what my producer is saying now. >> take your time. reset. no rush. we are here all night. we're not going anywhere. >> no. >> i was going to say, we're not going anywhere. >> we're going to get answers. i'm going to watch steve. >> at the end of the day, that's what everyone is here for, steve and the numbers. >> let's go back to you guys, our panel. fernand, i want to get your

thoughts on this in a moment. as a democratic pollster, we've been trying to make sense of these numbers. and as you probably heard me talk to steve a little bit about the obama coalition in 2008 that turned out. i'm curious of the big picture who turned out? given what we've seen play out in congress as a pure referendum on donald trump and the way he has been as president not about policies or party. >> well, first off, high drama with the pennsylvania interruptus. i thought we might get close to a call. we are waiting desperately for kornacki. that was awesome. to your question, did this turn out as a rejection of a referendum on the trump presidency? of course it did. joe biden is going to win this popular vote by 5, 6, maybe 7 million votes. it looks like with the potential flipping of pennsylvania, also georgia, he's going to have a

potentially 30000 electoral vo win. the most votes ever cast for a democrat in the history of a country. i think the voters have spoken conclusively, and a lot of us who were waiting for this landslide, i think stewart stevens captured it best. democrats should be extraordinarily happy and build on it for the future. it's a very difficult historical president to knock off an incumbent president to the united states, and i think these numbers are clear, definitive. it will make it that much harder for those republicans who continue to stubbornly hold out -- >> right. >> -- especially in the aftermath of that disgusting speech by the president. >> fernand, stay with us. steve is back. >> yeah. this was a false alarm. i want to apologize here. we thought we had seen new vote come in in philadelphia based on their website. i say we have our own system and

sometimes the website for philadelphia is ahead of it. and we thought we were seeing new vote come in on that website but there is not new vote on that website so there has been no new vote in philadelphia. i was giving you figures, actually, from the last update. i was seeing numbers from the last update and i thought -- i was looking at the wrong screen. i thought they were numbers for a new update from philadelphia. they are not. no new update. >> i think the problem is the email came at 3:45 but the email -- >> from 1:21. it is confusing when you send an email at 3:45. >> yes. we're all on the same email chain with somebody who has access to this. i think we thought it was a new email. it's 2 1/2 hours old. >> don't worry. we're going to get some more numbers. >> if this salvages anything, we do have new numbers from georgia. >> sure, please. go ahead. >> absolutely. >> take a look here. again, now you see the trump

lead has been cut to 400 -- >> they really are trickling in. is it still out of clayton county? >> another extremely incremental update. clayton county reporting out i think 300 new votes here. 251 of them for joe biden. 49 of them for donald trump. again, this is a county, there are still more votes to come here. i don't know why. i would be curious to ask them when this is all said and done why they've chosen to do it this way. they've provided us with new numbers. again, 463. we have seen updates from clayton county bigger than 463 votes throughout the course of the night. i'll say again what i said last time. it's possible if we get another update in the overnight hours from clayton county that that would put joe biden in front. >> we came on the air, 1700 at around 2 a.m. eastern. in the hour and a half, 2 hours we've been on the air it has

dropped roughly 1200 or so. so, you know, we've been keeping an eye on pennsylvania but it very well may be that by the time we're off the air at 5 a.m. it is joe biden that is leading the state of georgia. >> yeah. i think, again, clayton county as far as we know is the only -- there are several counties with outstanding vote in georgia, but clayton is the only one that's decided to count these all night. i think if you're going to get any vote in atlanta, it's going to be clayton county. unlike philadelphia and pennsylvania where you're getting these sort of bigger batches every few hours, clayton has given us smaller batches. we're getting them every 20 minutes, 30, 40 minutes. we might get another one or two before 5:00. at this rate, two more updates from clayton would certainly -- not certainly but very likely put biden ahead and one could. >> we're going to keep watching. rod, you raised your hand.

we're going to go to you now. rod, you worked closely with the mark kelly campaign. it's doing well. we haven't called the race. he is doing well against martha mcsally? any lessons democrats are doing in the race? >> arizona is definitely changing. you know, mark has had an incredible life story and emotional story with his wife, gabby giffords, kind of rising star. she has been in arizona politics with the kind of leadership she's shown on so many issues. our campaign, we worked really hard to speak to voter's concerns and what they're concerned about. we got a lot of double talk and deception about protecting people with pre-existing conditions and, you know, just a lot of like political finger pointing. this is a serious year. people are really going through

it and really struggling. they're worried about their jobs. they're worried about their health care. they're worried about the pandemic. i think mark met the moment. >> christi, let's talk a little bit about pennsylvania and what has been the -- excuse me, been the motivating factor for the turnout. because as we've talked through our reporter there on the ground, she said she was curious to know whether the african-american vote turned out in the numbers that we had seen previously. you cover pennsylvania. you know it well. talk to us about what you think has been the decisive factor in getting people out to the vote and whether or not the african-american vote turned out for joe biden. >> so i do believe that. i think what we're going to see when it's all over is joe biden will have brought out more black americans to the polls from philadelphia than either hillary clinton did or even barack obama. that will actually be pretty amazing and obviously decisive factor in his win in the state. i think that one of the bigger

issues in some ways is overlooked is what a good cultural fit joe biden is for pennsylvania. and obviously, right? he was born there. he grew up in a working class catholic neighborhood in a state that is overwhelmed by older catholic working class people and so i think there was a sim pat particul -- sympatico thing they have with the people. this is not a guy going to go to philly and ask for swiss cheese on his cheese steak as john kerry did. he understands the populus. as we're talking about michigan, wisconsin, pennsylvania, we talked about pennsylvania as the state that would be the most difficult for biden but i frankly never saw it that way. it's a state that with the one notable exception of 2016 has, yes, always been seen as a

battleground, but always in the end. >> at least 25 years, comes home for the democrats. >> what is going to be the uniting issue for rural pennsylvania and the urban city centers? >> yeah, again. i think this speaks to the strategy that the biden campaign had. i don't know there is one uniting issue, but i do believe that it speaks to the strategy they had of not just going for, say, cutting the trump edge with -- among non-college white men and not just, you know, expanding their lead among african-americans, but also doing all of the things. you saw that montgomery county, suburb of philadelphia where i actually grew up, that he was able to expand his lead from what hillary clinton did from 22 points to 26. it was basically he's working the margins a among several

different demographics and that has been, you know, sort of the winning coalition. >> thank you for joining us. sorry to hype everyone up and then put everything back on ice for a moment. we are for a moment. we are still watching the numbers in philadelphia. we do expect to get an update at some point. >> in the meantime, let's start again at the top of the hour, 4:00 a.m. in the east, 1:00 out west. you are watching msnbc's continuing coverage of the 2020 election. i'm ayman mohyeldin. >> and i'm katy tur. let's look at the state of the race. this hour, much like the last 24 hours, we are still awaiting final results from five key battleground states -- arizona, nevada, north carolina, georgia, and of course, pennsylvania. you're looking live at the philadelphia ballot facility, still buzzing. there are still people working in there. they are continuing to count those critical votes throu