republican kingmaker and the most person in the republican party. and how these players are going to position themselves in that, i think they're all trying to figure that out right now. >> ben rhodes and shannon pettypiece, thank you for making time. thank you at home for joining us tonight. one thing before we go. if you're out celebrating, should you have occasion to celebrate this weekend, the country is in the midst of a pandemic raging out of control. if you celebrate, please do outside and as safely as possible. we set a new record for cases today. please, please, please be careful. msnbc's coverage continues now with nicolle wallace. good evening, nicolle. >> thank you, chris. great show. thanks to all of you at home. we're so -- it's night four of our ongoing election coverage. i'm nicolle wallace in for rachel. if you didn't see rachel's twitter feed, you might not know that she had a close contact test positive for covid. she's tested negative.

she's fine so far. but she's quarantining at home until she gets the all-clear and know that it's safe for her to be back here at work. we're thinking of her and missing her tonight. at this hour, we've got lots of updates. we're awaiting new votes we expect to be released in arizona any minute. they could bring joe biden one step closer to officially becoming president-elect joe biden. joe biden within striking distance of 270 electoral votes. all eyes are on the handful of battleground states that could get him all the way there officially. starting with arizona, again, we're expecting that new vote count any minute. a short time ago we got new numbers out of nevada, where joe biden's lead has grown to more than 22,000 votes. biden's lead is also continuing to grow in pennsylvania. now, pennsylvania alone being called would put joe biden over the finish line. then there's georgia, where joe biden's razor-thin lead has doubled throughout the day to more than 4,000 votes there. officials there have said that there will be a recount.

and at some point tonight we're expecting for vice president biden to speak live. we'll be keeping an eye out for that. we'll go to it, of course, as soon as it gets under way. let's go straight now to that arizona vote and steve kornacki back at the big board for us. steve. >> hi, nicolle. i'm just literally hitting -- if you can just bear with me. >> this is what everybody loves the most, you, the calculator. >> we just got new vote in maricopa county. okay. i need to figure out -- >> you want us to give you a minute? >> i'm literally six seconds away. 69,821. >> we'll be quiet. >> the number is 54.9%. okay. that is a significant number, and let me explain why. we just got a big update here from maricopa county, the biggest county in arizona, the biggest source of outstanding vote. they reported about 70,000 new votes, okay? donald trump did get more votes here in this new update that

just came in. donald trump got 38,388 votes. joe biden got 31,433. so the good news for donald trump is with that addition to the vote, he gains on joe biden statewide. but we keep saying this every time we get one of these updates. we know that trump is going to close ground with biden. is he going to close enough ground to overtake him statewide? to do that, he's got to be getting about 60% of the outstanding votes because i mean this is a big chunk of what's left to come. we just got 70,000 votes reported out here. trump got 54.9% of the votes that were just counted out. that's good, but that is not the good pace that he needs. that's not good enough for trump from a pace standpoint if that makes sense. it's a 29,861-vote lead that joe biden has statewide in arizona

right now. of all the remaining votes, we say trump coming into tonight needed to be winning on average 60% of them. so the question when we got this update from maricopa, this giant update that just came in a minute ago, was trump getting 60% or more? if so, okay, maybe he's got a decent chance there of erasing that lead. but he only got 54.9%. so that cuts into biden's lead, but it doesn't cut in quite as significantly as the trump folks were hoping for. so believe it or not, even though donald trump just got more votes in this update than joe biden out of maricopa county, that's actually probably good news there for the biden campaign, that number that just came in, nicolle. >> and steve kornacki, i think i have watched your hits every hour tonight, and i saw you put that number, 59%, up. that's the pace or the rate that donald trump has to sort of have the remaining vote in arizona be

to overtake joe biden or just to get sort of draw to a tie? >> yeah. basically i'm saying it's about 60%. now, it had been, i would say, 59%. there was an update this morning where trump failed to hit that number, came in significantly under it. so i say maybe now he needs 60%. i'd say if he's hitting 60%, he's in the ballpark. maybe he would just get over. maybe he'd be a few points short, a few votes short, but it would be right in that range where he could overtake him. but if he's five points short of that, he's not going to quite get there if that's the new pace. he's had two updates today. we've had two major updates from maricopa county. over 100,000 new votes released today in maricopa county. both of those updates, trump missed that target. he missed it significantly in both updates, by five and by seven points. >> you've used this key to helping us understand what is

outstanding in terms of votes to be counted in pennsylvania as well. can you talk about the formulas there that you understand will shape the outstanding votes in pennsylvania? >> in pennsylvania, yeah. obviously pennsylvania, you know, biden, if he wins the state and he now leads by more than 20,000 votes in the count, this state would make him president-elect. so, yes, we are waiting on, first of all, mail ballots, absentee ballots, and there are a couple major sources of this in pennsylvania left. one of them right here, allegheny county, where pittsburgh is. now, remember, if you do, there was this court issue that prohibited the officials in allegheny county from going over. they have about 35,000. they came in today with about 35,000 mail-in ballots. they couldn't touch them yesterday, and they couldn't touch most of them under this court ruling until 5:00 p.m. today. so most of the 35,000, they are just getting to in the last few hours. there was a slice, though, that they were able to report out tonight.

and joe biden got in excess of 70% of them. so again, just that story we keep telling of wherever there is mail ballot vote being reported in pennsylvania, joe biden is gaining considerable ground because he is winning the overwhelming share of it. he's winning 75% of it statewide. he got more than 70% of it in this update from allegheny county. so that's one of the reasons why he built on his lead tonight. we also just in the last couple minutes got a much smaller update, but we got it from delaware county outside of philadelphia. and, again, joe biden added a couple thousand votes to his lead. we're also waiting in philadelphia itself on, they say, about 20,000 more mail ballots. biden's been winning the mail ballots in philadelphia. he's been winning -- he's been getting like 90% of them. >> wow. >> so, again, you could just see between allegheny, philadelphia, places like delaware county where you might still have some vote, and even just small counties sort of in the middle of pennsylvania here that look red on the map, whethn they rept

out this mail vote, it ends up favoring biden. he's doing that well in the mail ballot. the long and short of it is when you get all of the mail ballots tabulated here in pennsylvania -- and they still have tens of thousands of these to go -- you can expect that this biden lead, which has been growing -- i've been here now -- got back from my nap about an hour ago, and it's grown 10,000 since then. >> wow. >> so this will continue to grow. now, wherever it lands exactly, it will grow by tens of thousands, i think. the one variable left after that will be provisional ballots. the big variable after that will be provisional ballots. we're not sure the exact number, but we think there could be around 100,000 provisional ballots in the state of pennsylvania. now, traditionally provisional ballots in pennsylvania and elsewhere, that's a very democratic skewing group of votes. so if an election comes down to the provisionals, that's always

good news for democrats. it's a little more complicated here because the nature of the mail-in covid election, you know, there are republican voters, it seems, in some republican counties who got mail-in ballots, but then they showed up at the polls on election day, and they either wanted to drop off their ballot or they wanted to just vote. if they didn't have their mail-in ballot with them or they didn't have everything that was included in the mail-in ballot with them when they showed up at the polls, they had to cast provisional ballots. what it means is this pool of provisional ballot voters is larger than we've seen usually and probably contains more republican voters who wouldn't normally be casting provisional ballots. so i don't think this pool -- there's reason to believe this pool is not going to be as overwhelmingly democratic as it typically is. but there are also indications when you just look by county at where the provisional ballots are, there are also indications here that there are a lot of democrats or democratic-leaning

voters or voters, i should say, from heavy democratic-friendly areas, who make up a significant chunk of this pool of provisional voters. in other words, what the pool of provisional voters probably looks like is something that is less democratic and more republican-leaning than a typical pool of provisional voters, but not nearly as republican-leaning as donald trump would need to overcome the kind of statewide lead that joe biden is building with all of the mail-in and absentee votes that continue to be added up. biden, again, is going to increase this lead significantly. then trump's only recourse here in terms of the ballots is going to be to try to erode biden's lead with the provisionals. that means trump can't hold his own in the provisionals. it's not about fighting biden to a draw. it would be about dominating in the provisional ballots, trump winning them, you know, by 40

points, something like that. that is what is shaping up here because, again, biden's now got this lead up to 21,000, and it continues to grow. wherever it lands, wherever this biden lead lands when all of these mail-in ballots are finally tabulated, donald trump has to use this provisional ballot pool to erase all of that lead if he wants to win pennsylvania, and that means he's got to win a very, very, very, very high percentage of them. and, again, they seem to include a fair number of voters from democratic heavy areas. >> and it's the same dynamic that you're articulating about arizona. because joe biden as these sizeable leads and because we know -- we know more than nothing. you seem to know a lot about the vote that is outstanding. donald trump is behind, so he has to be outperforming joe biden in everything outstanding. let me ask you one last question. is there any chance he would outperform in anything

outstanding in pennsylvania? >> not in the mail ballots, no. i mean we just haven't seen it in the mail ballots. you know, i think there is -- the provisional is an interesting wild card here, you know, because, again, that is a lot more. the raw number of provisional votes is much higher than you usually see. and you can see a scenario like, why would there be suddenly a lot more republicans in the provisional ballot pool than usual? let me give you an example. i'm a republican voter. i live in rural pennsylvania or i live in the philadelphia suburbs, and over the summer, the state mailed me an application for a mail-in ballot, and i figured, why not? and i said, sure, send me the ballot, and they sent me the ballot. then a couple weeks later, the whole issue of mail-in ballots got politicized, and donald trump said, never vote by mail. only vote on election day. and the democrats said, no, please vote by mail. and me, republican, trump-supporting, you know,

suburban philadelphia dweller said, okay, forget this mail-in ballot that i now have in my house. i'm going to go to the polls and i'm going to vote on election day. well, if that person showed up at the polls on election day and they didn't bring their ballot with them, they have to vote provisionally. so that's the pathway that could exist to get more republican voters, more trump-friendly voters into a provisional ballot pool than you would normally have. but i think the key here is there could be a lot of those in this pool. there are also indications just when you look at where the most heavy numbers of provisional ballots are, of outstanding provisional ballots are, you probably have a lot of the traditional democratic-favoring constituency in there too. >> right. >> so is it more of just a wash? and if it's a wash, given what biden is building here in the mail-in ballots, that's advantage biden. >> steve kornacki, you have an answer for everything. thank you so much, my friend. we'll be back with you soon. joining us now from phoenix,

arizona, outside the center where the maricopa county vote is being tabulated is nbc's gadi schwartz. gadi, what can you tell us? >> reporter: nicolle, i can't describe what it's like listening to you guys and then listening to the crowd behind me. everybody needs to have kornacki in their ear tabulating. so as soon as you guys doing that, i started refreshing the secretary of state's website. i saw the numbers hit the secretary of state's website from maricopa county, and right before that happened, we also saw another jump from some other counties. we don't know where they were coming in, but it looks like we've got a total of about 29,000 votes. so what that means is that lead that we saw joe biden have over president trump has shrank a little bit more. it's down to about 29,000. remember, a couple of days ago it was at 69,000. now it's down to about 29,000. there is still a lot of vote

counting to do. here in maricopa county, we understand that there's about 70,000 early votes that they want to tabulate. then after that, they've got to get to the provisional ballots, which is another 20,000. so we're looking at almost 100,000 votes that they have to tabulate. i'm going to take a walk over here. i'm having trouble keeping all these numbers together. so let's go over here where it's a little bit quieter. actually let me show you what's going on right now. the crowd has thinned out a little bit. we've got the street today because the sheriff's department has blocked off the street. so the sheriff department's taken over this whole intersection right here, and they've allowed people to basically congregate in the street. we've seen this crowd expand out, and we've seen this crowd contract in. so the reason it was so loud over there is because there was just a lot of commotion. nicolle, i don't know how in depth you want me to get, but there was something that was really interesting that happened

with alex jones. he's a conspiracy theorist who came out here and was talking to the crowd. and there was almost two different competing leaders on the bullhorn. one was alex jones, and he was over by the doors there. he was leading them in chants. people were chanting alongside him. and then we had -- this guy's -- thanks, man. we're talking about it right now. so a lot of people were here. yeah, he's left for now, but we don't know where he's at. people are looking for alex jones. and then right after that and right before that, you had another man who was speaking to the crowd, and he said he did not want to listen to anything about conspiracy theories. he didn't want to be taken not seriously by the rest of the country, and he wanted people to focus on the vote. so he led them in prayer. he led them in the pledge of allegiance. but you see these two competing leadership styles here, and they take the crowd, and the crowd

gathers around them, and it's really interesting to watch. nicolle. >> alex jones, of course, a newtown sandy hook truther. i'm not sure we'd call him a leader but i guess he's a leader of something. gadi, thank you very much, my friend. joe biden, as we've said, 17 electoral college votes away from being declared the winner of this race. but he has been inching closer and closer to victory in each of the key battleground states or in the key battleground states of pennsylvania, nevada, and georgia. joining us now for more on how this campaign is responding tonight is nbc news correspondent mike memoli in wilmington, delaware. mike, we have had this conversation day after day, now hour after hour, about this campaign steadiness. but i sensed a little of what you alluded to in the 5:00 hour. they're getting a little impatient. they see in most places margins for joe biden that in their view is wide enough for calls.

i wouldn't say they're bordering on frustrated, but they're certainly eager for some of these calls to be made. is that your sense tonight? >> reporter: that's absolutely right, nicolle. i mean it's frustrating for everybody who's watching. it's certainly frustrating for the biden campaign as they look at these numbers. they're so confident in where it's heading, and the factor that is standing in the way of joe biden coming here tonight and giving a victory speech is having a projection that shows him over 270 electoral votes, and that just hasn't happened yet. you know, the posture of us at nbc news is we'd rather get it right than just be first. so it's important for us all to be responsible here. and the biden campaign posture as far as the remarks he would give is also to be responsible. you only get to deliver one victory speech as a victorious presidential candidate. and so what we're hearing from biden campaign advisers at this hour is that he is going to be coming here. in fact, a protective pool that

accompanies in the vice president in his movements just left a few moments ago to meet up with him at his home to then come back to this location. the remarks he will give are what advisers are describiing a a progress update. remarks expressing confidence certainly in the direction this is heading. talking about the importance of patience, yes, and counting all those votes, but stopping short of a victory. and for any presidential candidate and certainly one in as chaotic and difficult a political climate as the one we're in, you have to make sure this is seen as both the end of the campaign but the beginning of governing. and it's so important from biden campaign advisers that he set the right tone and only give that victory speech when they know it's been independently corroborated as well. >> mike memoli, i'm going to ask you to stick around for this conversation unless you get pulled into something that's happening behind you, and then we'll understand if you leave without saying good-bye. but i want to bring into our

conversation former missouri senator and our colleague here, current msnbc political analyst claire mccaskill, and the reverend al sharpton, host of "politics nation" on msnbc. you two have often played the roles over the decades of sort of being the ones to call for calm and to call for more patience. joe biden has co-joined that effort. but what i see more than anything is this almost, you know, delayed relief, delayed jubilation. and without knowing the result officially and for sure, that, claire, as much as anything, seems to be creating a really complicated sort of emotional experience for the biden campaign and his supporters. >> well, the interesting thing about this is that joe biden has already slipped into the role of being very presidential. he is the one that is hollywoodihollywooding back his campaign in terms of his patience.

he is the one saying, there's no hurry here. we've got to make sure every vote is counted. we've got to give all these people time to count these votes. we need to be respectful of the fact that some of these votes are tough because of all the mail-in ballots that they're not used to dealing with. mean while a lot of people on the campaign are just champing at the bit to say nothing of the millions of people across the country that are really anxious for it to become official. so he's the one to set the tone that we all need to take a deep breath and let these hardworking public servants do their jobs. >> and, rev, that's exactly -- i mean this is playing out exactly as joe biden needed it to play out. he was not the one trying to, you know, sweep 49 states. he was trying to get to 270, and he saw his most direct path to be to rebuild the blue wall to carry wisconsin and pennsylvania, and they competed in ohio. they won decisively in michigan.

he has at every juncture executed his plan, and now he really needs all these mail-in votes and absentee votes to be counted. so in many ways, it may be a hard thing to wait for, but this is still playing out on joe biden's terms much more than donald trump's. >> it plays out much more to his benefit politically, but it also plays out to the benefit of the country to have an adult in the room that is saying, yes, we need to heal the country, but we do not need to make preemptive strikes calling for victory, saying things before they're solid, not respecting every vote. you can't on one hand say count every vote, but you're not going to wait on the count before you claim victory. and i think what joe biden is doing is going into governing mode as opposed to just a political player here, and that is contrasted with the

president, who was declaring victory last night when he's losing. if you just compare what biden is doing now when he's clearly ahead and clearly will probably win with the president who was clearly behind and clearly going to lose, it will bring a healing effect as he tries to come forward and give a healing message to the country and, at the same time, stand up for those that have stood with him during the campaign. i think he's doing this masterfully. >> you know, claire, even some of the outside advisers to donald trump see very clearly how this ends. one of them said this to me today. quote, everyone knows it's going to end with biden winning. the best thing biden can do is to paint trump into a corner. we all know there is no path to 270 for donald trump. do you think joe biden has that in mind, that the best thing he can do is wait this process out so as not to give donald trump -- not that donald trump

needs any ammunition, but so as not to arm donald trump with anything to say that he rushed a result? >> well, you know, donald trump the narcissist doesn't want to ever lose. but i'll tell you what he wants even less. he wants not to be totally embarrassed. and if joe biden puts one foot in front of the other and starts putting together his cabinet and starts taking a leadership role in terms of talking to members of congress and preparing for the transition, every cog of the government will respond to that. and trump will become more and more isolated. and he will -- there will come a day that he will have to decide, am i going to be embarrassed to be walked out of here with some kind of uniforms, or am i going to say, you know, to hell with this mess? i'm going to attack the swamp from mar-a-lago on my new tv network. i think he does the latter. >> rev, this outside adviser

said for donald trump, attention is oxygen. the most painful thing for donald trump in what is an apparent defeat so far based on all the information we have tonight is this fear that he won't be relevant. to claire a point, just pick up that thread. do you see him sort of conducting himself without any care for the country he ostensibly leads but with an eye toward his next act? >> i think he is definitely trying to be relevant. he needs his next to be relevant. but someone needs to tell him the show is over. i think the contrast that biden is showing is that we're going from showmanship to government, and i think that that is what the american people need, particularly in the middle of a pandemic and other crises. >> my thanks to senator claire mccaskill and the reverend al sharpton as well as my colleague, mike memoli. mike memoli, if anything pops in the next 35 minutes, share it

with all of us. up next for us, an important late-breaking update from the united states supreme court over the legal fight in pennsylvania. we'll speak to the pennsylvania attorney general next. stay with us. ♪ limu emu & doug you know limu, after all these years it's the ones that got away that haunt me the most. [ squawks ] 'cause you're not like everybody else. that's why liberty mutual customizes your car insurance, so you only pay for what you need. what? oh, i said... uh, this is my floor. nooo! only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

right now, the trump campaign is actively involved in five lawsuits over the counting

of ballots in pennsylvania alone. one of those lawsuits involves a specific subset of ballots. right now pennsylvania can accept ballots that were received as late as 5:00 p.m. today as long as they were postmarked by election day. but republicans and the trump campaign don't like that. they're trying to have those late ballots thrown out. today pennsylvania republicans asked the supreme court to stop the counting of all those ballots received after election day. and just tonight we got a late-breaking response from the high court. we want to bring into our conversation josh shapiro. he is the attorney general of pennsylvania who is representing the commonwealth on the other side of this legal dispute. mr. shapiro, can you explain to us what you understand the court's position to be on these ballots? and, again, this is in a national climate where the post office's delivery was slowed and very much called into question. >> right. >> these were ballots that were postmarked by election day, which seems like voters holding

up their haneda of tend of the . do you understand what happened today to be the final word, or does this still feel like an open question to you, what happens to these ballots? >> so let me break down what actually happened, nicolle. you laid it out really well. our supreme court ruled here in pennsylvania that balloted postmarked by election day could be received up until friday, today, at 5:00 p.m. three separate times, this issue went up to the united states supreme court, today being the third. and each of those times, the supreme court of the united states declined to intervene. now, what was interesting about the order that just came down a bit ago is just alito directed each of our 67 county boards of elections to follow our secretary of state's guidance. what was that guidance? the guidance was to actually segregate the ballots and count the ballots. so this attempt by donald trump

and, you know, those aligned with him to get those ballots thrown out and run to the supreme court as they've indicated, clearly that's fail the. they've refused to intervene and ultimately those ballots are going to be counted. >> do you have a sense that there is any legal philosophy behind this, that there is a legal argument that would appeal to some sort of higher court wanting to get involved because the cases, depending on where trump stands from state to state, are totally different. he wants voting to go on and on in arizona until he makes up ground. he wants it to stop in pennsylvania where he sees a lot of the mail-in vote is for joe biden, mostly because he maligned the very act of voting by mail for many months. but is there a legal argument here, or is it simply the act that he's trying to stop, that you count these votes? >> yeah, i'm smiling because you used the word legal philosophy. i have not seen that. what i have seen is a pattern of

behavior, and this is exactly how it goes. and we've been dealing with this for months now in pennsylvania. typically it starts with a presidential tweet asserting something. it then gets amplified either by a spokesperson or even, in many cases, by the white house. sometimes, not every time, but sometimes a lawsuit follows. and then every time what happens is they either lose, or the suit is dismissed. they haven't won a single one of these. nicolle, i realize there's been a lot of noise, but there has been literally zero impact on the counting of ballots. these ballots are being counted. they're being tallied, as they should be because these are legal votes. and here in pennsylvania we're going to respect the will of the people, however that turns out. we want to make sure that every single ballot is counted and that's what's happening now. and no matter how many times they assert through presidential tweet or even a lawsuit that that should stop, it hasn't. the count has continued.

>> well, it's so interesting. we're obviously all focused on the election, but what you articulated is how he sues everybody whether he's mad at a news organization or a person he thinks as betrayed him. michael cohen suggests that's how he functioned in business as well. my last question for you is i think you're on day whatever it is, four, people are looking for reassurance. are you confident that every vote, every legal vote in the commonwealth will be counted? >> oh, absolutely. and, look, i recognize that this is frustrating. it's taking a long time. my kids keep asking me, you know, when is this going to be over? and honestly i'm going to give you the same answer i've given them. it's going to take as long as it takes to make sure every legal vote is counted. i wish that we could have started the process earlier so that we could have told you, like florida and some of these other states did on election night what the outcome was. you know, states that are heavily reliant on vote by mail. but that wasn't possible here in

pennsylvania. what is possible, though, is to make sure we get an accurate count. and we are. and we thank the clerks and those working around the clock across the commonwealth of pennsylvania to do this work. they're going to keep doing it, and i'm going to make sure the laws are protected and these legal votes are counted. >> i think we are all grateful for them. those are the real heroes here. pennsylvania attorney general josh shapiro, thank you very much for spending some time with us tonight. we're grateful. >> great to be with you. thank you. still ahead for us, we've got some news out of nevada. we'll get over to the big board with steve kornacki next. don't go anywhere. (avo) what kind of value are you looking for with your next new vehicle? with subaru, you get kelley blue book's 2020 best resale value brand, 2020 lowest 5-year cost to own brand, and most trusted brand for six consecutive years. no wonder kelley blue book also picked subaru as their 2020 best overall brand. a trusted brand and a proven value.

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all right, folks. i told you lots of things were happening tonight. now we've got new numbers coming out of allegheny county in pennsylvania. steve, what have you got? >> yeah. so, nicolle, this is one of those situations where i'm waiting for our program, our

system to update, and we are keeping tabs here on the county website, the allegheny county website, which has just reported out a new batch of votes. remember this is probably the biggest single source of outstanding mail and absentee ballots in pennsylvania right now, allegheny county where pittsburgh is. they did just release on their website a new batch of them. in this new batch, joe biden won 7,300 new votes, and donald trump won 1,875. that's the new -- there it is. okay. there it is although the difference in the screen -- i'm going to talk to my producer right now because the difference in the screen went down. now it went to where it should go. i think they initially entered it wrong in the system because i was about to tell you that joe biden's statewide lead had gone up to 27,000. that is where it should be because of what just happened

here in allegheny county. again, biden just got 7,300 new votes. trump got 1,875, so that is a difference of 5,425. joe biden in other words just increased his lead over donald trump by 5,425 votes, meaning it as now moved north of 27,000. joe biden now leads in the state of pennsylvania by more than 27,000 votes. this new batch from allegheny county that just came in for biden, biden winning 79% of that new release of votes. so, again, the story remains consistent. every time we get new batches of mail-in votes, biden is adding to his lead. he's padding his lead. again right there, i'm just trying to figure out here, you know, allegheny had 35,000 uncounted mail ballots. they've done two updates. no, they still have a ways to go. there should be more vote to come from allegheny county

still. we probably have about half of allegheny county's vote out, if that, right now. so there is more to come from allegheny county. >> can i ask you a question about this batch, steve? i'm so bad at math that i cheat when my third grader has me help him on math. but it seems like the story here is this constant ratio, 7,300 to 1,800. >> yep. >> and that if any projection is ever able to be made, it would be when there is an absence of anything that deviates from that ratio. is that another significant point to this dump? >> yeah. no, it is. i think this is what makes it, you know -- i try to keep this as out of the weeds as possible. >> but that's an important -- explain that. >> it's just -- it's baked in, i think, to anybody watching this now. it's baked in that every time you come to me, and i say, allegheny came in with something or bucks came in with something or, you know, carbon county came in with something, it's going to be far more votes for biden than it is for trump.

that is basically the case across the board in pennsylvania. we have now had dozens of these incremental updates, probably hundreds of these incremental updates from different counties around pennsylvania where they're giving you, here's 1,200 more of our mail votes. here's 2,000 more of our mail votes. and it's just basically constant and basically endless and that is because the overall story is all of the mail votes, vote by mail ballots that have now been processed and reported out in pennsylvania, biden is winning overall, if you just put them in one pool, he's winning 76% of them. >> that's amazing. >> so every little update that i'm giving you is from this much bigger pool that overall biden is winning 76% of. so, again, when i tell you we've still got a fair number of votes out despite this update, we've still got some to come from allegheny county, we've still got some to come from philadelphia, from a number of other counties around the state, i think, yeah, you can basically assume at this point that biden's going to win something

like 76% of them. you know, maybe more depending on where you are. maybe a little bit less depending on where you are. but that's why i say it with such confidence that that biden lead is going to continue to increase. you know, that is an update. that's less than 10,000 votes that we just got added in from that update, and what did it do? biden's lead over trump grew by more than 5,000. >> yeah. >> i mean he's winning these things so overwhelmingly. so, again, what this is creating a situation where when you finally exhaust all of the uncounted mail ballots in allegheny and philadelphia and all these other places, this number is going to be pretty high. and then you say trump's only chance is to get something that deviates from the pattern. i don't think we're getting that. there's just no reason to think anything that comes in is going to deviate from that pattern in any meaningful way. so trump's only chance just mathematically is, okay, this number is going to keep rising. the next update will probably bring it over 30,000, then

33,000, 36,000, and we'll see where it lands. but it's going to get higher. it's going to get significantly higher, and trump's only chance mathematically of eroding it is this whole complicated provisional ballot situation i talked about. but, again, if there's 100,000 provisional ballots and biden builds a lead here of, i don't know, 40,000, 50,000, then, you know, trump's got to be winning like 85% of these things, an absurdly high number. >> right. >> that's the situation we're in right now. >> which nobody ever does on provisionals. >> if somebody does usually, nicolle, it's the democrats. that's the thing. >> exactly. steve, what's happening in nevada? >> so let's take a look out in nevada and go out there. it was about two hours ago now, i think, where we got an update from nevada. we got some more votes in from clark county, and i got some data i can share with you here from out there. we are sitting -- so biden leads this thing by 22,657 votes statewide. that's almost two points at this point. that lead for biden went up a

little bit because clark county, which is sitting on the overwhelming share of the remaining ballots in nevada, clark county, las vegas, it's the huge population center of nevada. they released a small number about two hours ago, and once again of that small number of ballots, this is kind of like pennsylvania, biden won them two to one. >> wow. >> and the trend is established here. i think it's close to 60,000 mail-in ballots that are left to be counted here in clark county. and biden is pretty clearly, i think, winning them something on the order of two to one. so we've had a number of updates from there in the last couple days. so, again, the expectation here in nevada is as clark county reports these mail-in ballots out -- and they are doing it slowly. as they report them out, you can expect this lead to grow. >> yeah. >> for joe biden. now, there are some rural areas in nevada, some trump-friendly areas. the population, though, is so small in those areas, it could

put a very small dent -- there are very few votes left there. it could put a very small dent in biden's lead. with the mail-in ballots here, this is a bit like pennsylvania. this is going to grow. this is going to grow significantly, and then the thing that's going to be left in nevada and the chance for trump mathematically, the chance for trump is going to be 60,000 provisional ballots from clark county. okay? but it's going to be the same situation. biden is going to have a substantial lead, and trump's going to need some overwhelming share of these provisional votes. and i just got some data. you know, jon ralston, who is the dean of nevada political journalists, has been talking about this. i was able to get the data. the provisional ballots, a lot of those provisional ballots that were cast in clark county, what they are, are people -- nevada is a same-day registration state. >> yeah. >> you can walk in and say, i'm not registered. i choose to do it on election

day, and i choose the democratic party, i choose the republican party. well, the same-day registrations for clark county for this election were more democratic than republican and were 47,000 of them. this is either new voters or people showing up and changing their party registration. they're all in that pool of same-day registrations. they're more democratic than republican. and this is a pool -- once you get through the mail-in ballots -- go ahead. >> no, no. keep going. that wasn't me. >> oh, i thought there was some news there. sorry. i heard somebody. no, but once you get through that mail-in, you know -- once you get through that mail-in pile in clark county, trump's got to make a huge score with provisional ballots, and he's going to be trying to do it with a group of voters that have an awful lot of democrats in them. >> steve, i will confess what i do in the commercials. i watch leslie jones pine for you when our dear colleague ali velshi fills in.

that's what i've been doing on the breaks. steve kornacki, thank you so much, my friend. up next for us, a dispatch from someone who spent some time around the biden campaign headquarters today. we'll check in with our friend john heilemann next. stay with us. nd. and now your co-pilot. still a father. but now a friend. still an electric car. just more electrifying. still a night out. but everything fits in. still hard work. just a little easier. still a legend. just more legendary. chevrolet. making life's journey, just better. my husband would have been on the sidelines. but not anymore!

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we're expecting to hear from joe biden at some point tonight. the biden campaign has taken a cautious approach as it waits for the ballots to be counted. but from the looks of things, there's a sense of growing optimism that joe biden will emerge a clear and decisive winner. joining us now is john heilemann, executive editor of the recount, cohost and executive producer of "the circus." you've been hanging out down there. what's going on? this is a perfect way to end my week. it's friday, right? >> yes, yes, it is friday, to

the best of of my acknowledge. so you know, everybody here -- i would say that optimism has been order of the day for some time in biden world. they have felt like, you know, like they had -- they were going to get to 270 for at least the last 48 hours. >> yeah. >> with increasing degree of certainty and confidence. i think, actually, today the mood here has shifted away from optimism and confidence to a bit of frustration. they would like to have gone out tonight and been on this outdoor stage that's right behind me rather than that indoor stage and did the big speech that you've been talking about over the course of the evening. that's what they wanted to do tonight. i think they're a little frustrated they haven't been able to do it. it is the case i think now that they really believe -- and i think they're right -- that joe biden is going to end up not just with pennsylvania, but also with nevada and arizona, and they're going to head into a runoff in georgia with the most votes. what we know, nicolle, you and i, very rarely does a recount

change the outcome. if you go into a recount with the most votes, you almost always come out with the most votes in the recount too. that would bring joe biden up to 206 electoral votes. donald trump also had that and it was a landslide. >> chris christie on abc made a point tonight basically saying that this legal period may be intense, but it's going to say end in a way that basically is exactly as you just articulated. there's a sense that some people around donald trump, and "the washington post" has reporting, trying to inch him that in all these states where there are giant leads and growing, and steve kornacki's ratio of explanation explains why even when trump picks up vote, biden jumps ahead even further. let's live in a fantasy land for four seconds. say donald trump's legal efforts are wise and they work. even if he won them all, he

wouldn't change the outcome in a single battleground state. >> that's right. and i think, you know, look, nicolle, the reality is that, first of all you said a number of things. i'll address them all. one is that there is definitely a split in trump world between those who are trying to get donald trump to accept this reality, and if not, concede gracefully, at least to eventually get to a place of acquiescence. chris christie's the most notable among people who are directed advisers to donald trump who have also seen it like mitch mcconnell. there's also the chief of staff like mark meadows, lindsey graham, like ted cruz who seem to be ready at the urging of the president's children to indulge the president's fantasies that somehow by playing some combination of a legal and extralegal game that they can stretch this thing out, create some kind of a broad grassroots movement that believes in the fantasy that this is all a con job, that's all been a stolen

election, and that somehow through the state legislatures and through the seating of alternative slates of electors to the electoral college, that somehow they can pull off some way that donald trump could win this thing. i think that's split between the president's advisers, those two camps, it's very important. and right now the ones who are fueling his fantasy have the upper hand because that's what donald trump wants to hear. that's a very dangerous road for him to go down for the country. >> it sure is. john heilemann, perfect way to end my week. executive editor of the recount, cohost and executive producer of "the circus." thank you so much, my friend. our special coverage continues tonight. my friend and colleague brian williams, hi there -- oh, after a break. a break.

see yourself. welcome back to the mirror. and know you're not alone because this. come on jessie one more. is the reflection of an unstoppable community in the mirror.

life doesn't stop for a cold. [man] honey... [woman] honey that's why there's new dayquil severe honey. it's maximum strength cold and flu medicine with soothing honey-licious taste. dayquil honey. the daytime coughing, aching, stuffy head, fever, power through your day medicine. good evening once again and we'll be with you for these next two hours, which will include a kind of status report from joe bid biden, that now familiar stage in wilmington, delaware, was designed for an acceptance speech which joe biden may end up giving, but not until some of these states gets called, not until