♪♪ good morning and welcome to msnbc's continuing coverage of decision 2022. i'm chris jansing along with jose diaz-balart. this midterm election has been stress-inducingly tight throughout and even on this day after the election, it still is for both parties. >> despite a much better than expected night for democrats and an unexpectedly disappointing one for republicans, control of the house and control of the senate could go either way. it could be days before we get a resolution, or it could even take much longer, chris. >> we're going to start this hour with some breaking news, that shocker out of new york, the chairman of the dccc sean

patrick maloney conceded to michael lawler. over in the senate, control hinges on four key races. in arizona, you have mark kelly with the lead, but that's too early to call. same story in nevada, too early to call. but the republican adam laxalt is ahead. in wisconsin it's too close to call. ron johnson holding a slight lead over mandela barnes and in georgia, the race between warnock and walker is so close it could end up as a runoff. >> control of the house is also up in the air. neither side has reached the magic number, which, as you can see, is 218. and it's just as tight in the governor's races. less than an hour ago, nbc news called the kansas race for the democrat laura kelly. both parties have won 16 of the governorships that were

contested, four races are yet to be called. >> steve kornacki is tracking all of this and will join us in just a minute. florida's republican governor ron desantis, one of the biggest wins of the night. >> you want to be ron desantis. this is a huge win for him. does it change trump's decision-making? no. but does it change the allies and the energy behind donald trump? yeah, and probably rightly so. >> desantis winning re-election in a landslide while donald trump's handpicked candidates mostly underperformed. it was shaking up a race that hasn't started. >> i want to go right to nbc national political correspondent steve kornacki at the big board. we've had action just since we talked to you 40 minutes ago. >> you mentioned at the top the biggest single piece of news is

the concession from sean patrick maloney, the chair of the dccc. the irony is unbelievable here. we're talking about democrats have vastly exceeded their expectations in the house last night and actually have a chance still of controlling the house and yet the chairman of the committee that's responsible for the strategy, for the money and recruitment, is going to lose apparently in his own district. let's tell you where the battle for the house stands right now. this is the nbc news estimate. remember, you need 218 seats to have majority in the house. our estimates have republicans landing at 220, but critically, keep in mind, that is plus or minus 10 seats. the republicans could certainly get a majority, could certainly move into the 220s, but there remains a possibility that the democrats could get to that 218 number themselves. could retain control of the house. there are still a number of outstanding races. as you see, just in that new york race, that might be a good place to look here.

in terms of the math of the house right now, there are two states that have the most outstanding congressional seats. it's new york on the east coast and california on the west coast. if you're a democrat and you're trying to keep control of the house at this point, new york is your biggest single threat on the map right now. let's just dive in and take a look. here is the -- sorry. here is the sean patrick maloney race where he's now conceded. you can see how close it is. more than 3,000 votes behind his republican opponent. there's also already a democratic loss on long island, the third district of long island. robert zimmerman has been defeated by george santos. in district four, the republican is leading by 10,000 votes. but this would be a republican pickup. also look at this in the 18th district, pat ryan clinging to a

686-vote advantage against schmitt, the republican. take a look at the 19th district. just about all the vote tallied in. the republican leading by more than 6,000. if that holds, that would be a republican pickup. there's the possibility that in new york state republicans end up picking up one, two, three, four, five seats. and then there's one endangered republican seat here in the 22nd district. this is a republican-held seat right now where the incumbent is retiring. most of the vote, still more to come, it's been trending in the republican direction to hold on to it. we talk about kathy hochul getting re-elected, she did, she defeats lee zeldin, the republican, but what happened in new york is that zeldin ran up some monster numbers on long island and he did really well up state, southern tier where all of these competitive

congressional districts are that democrats were trying to hang on to. lee zeldin did really well and kathy hochul generally did really poorly. that's what you're seeing in new york. kathy hochul gets re-elected. it looks like democrats are losing potentially, potentially they could lose up to five seats out of new york. that would make holding on to the house that much more difficult for them. but as i say, the other major outstanding source of house seats is california. there are six, six republican-held seats in california that democrats are targeting that they think they have a shot at. all would be flips. california takes weeks to count its vote. there are still other districts around the country that are uncalled. democrats are hoping they can find a way to hang on to a couple of those new york districts and hoping pretty much to run the table in california. that's the kind of scenario, plus some luck in between that can allow them to still control the house. the fact that we're having this

conversation the morning after the election about whether democrats could still stitch together a bare majority in the house, that was not on anybody's radar yesterday morning. >> when you look at this -- and i know you haven't had five seconds frankly to sit back and -- >> to breathe. >> breathe, is there any kind of through line that you're seeing? >> everywhere you look on here, michigan is a good example, democrats doing better than, you know, expectations. i'll show you a race here. slotkin was thought -- it was a close race. she wins by five. a lot of folks had her loosing. the third district of michigan. it's a district under this configuration that biden won in 2020. but the margin here that the

democrat wins this thing is bigger than expected. the -- trying to get to this uncalled seat. this is the one -- the biggest piece in michigan, john james the republican, this is technically a democratic-held district, the lines were redrawn. look, it's down to 1600 votes with still some more to be counted here. a lot of folks thought john james had a clear advantage in this race. this would be a republican pickup. this is one with 95% and the democrats still have a chance of hanging on to. so states like michigan, pennsylvania, it looks like all the endangered democrats in pennsylvania at least in this moment have a real chance of surviving. we're seeing that in state after state and then you get to new york and you just see that dynamic i described. if democrats were on track to hold on to four or five of those seats, that could end up making the difference between controlling the house and losing

it narrowly. >> steve, i want to take you to south texas, those three races. 15, 28 and 34. there's been a lot of talk in the past about possible latino -- peeling votes away from democrats to republicans in the rio grande valley river. how did those three districts end up? >> here they are. this is the south texas region that moved dramatically from the democrats towards the republicans in 2020. you see the democrats are going to go two for three. there is some context here. henry cuellar gets re-elected here. a democrat. note that cuellar may be the most conservative democrat in the house. twice in 2020 and in 2022 progressives came after henry cuellar in the primary and they came this close to knocking him off in the primary twice. to the extent that the 28th district has been moving in the republican direction on issue

likes border security, immigration, cuellar has been on the conservative side of that debate. the territory that republicans are trying to seize. it's possible, you know, with -- while this is a democratic victory in the 28th district of texas, it's owed to the fact that cuellar is to the right of his party nationally. that might be a fact there. there's the 15th district in between. this was one that was redrawn and in redistricting by republicans in texas. this is the one they thought they had the best chance of picking up a victory in. it was redrawn to be a district that trump would have carried in 2020 and indeed, monica de la cruz wins this one. and then a bit of a surprise here in the 34th district, a complicated sort of set of circumstances here. there was a special election this summer, mayra flores won the special election. she's the incumbent in this district. vicente gonzalez, he had

represented the 15th district. when that redraw of the 15th district took place, he moved over to the 34th district and while he was an incumbent for the accounting purposes of the house, he was the challenger in this race. so this is a democratic pickup here. but, again, republicans get one, a conservative democrat gets one, and then an incumbent democrat holds on -- this is the most democratic friendly of the three districts. i think it's a complicated picture in south texas. i don't think it moves the overall conversation about the politics of south texas and the changes we saw in 2020. i don't think it moves it in a dramatically different direction seeing these results. and cuellar's career has been winning by squeakers, by one point or two points, both in primaries and general elections. thank you so much. >> is there a district anywhere that he doesn't know, it's insane. we have an update on the tight race in wisconsin where ron johnson holds a slight lead

over democratic challenger mandela barnes. he said the race is, quote, over. nbc reports that race is still close to call. joining me live from milwaukee, wisconsin, shaquille brewster. shaq, what else is johnson's campaign saying this morning? >> reporter: well, you heard that language and the statement from senator johnson saying that this race is over. let's be clear and transparent for folks right now, nbc news has not called this race. our decision desk saying they want to make sure that there's no more outstanding vote in those high population areas. we're talking about areas like dane county and milwaukee county where i am now. i did speak to clerks from both of those areas, milwaukee county clerk saying that 100% of the vote is in. telling me that in the past couple of minutes. and dane county's clerk telling me earlier today that 100% of that vote is in as well. so with that information, that's

what johnson's campaign is also hearing. that is the basis of the statement. i want you to see a little bit more of that statement that we got from senator ron johnson declaring victory before any -- before at least our network has done so. you see, he says, there's no path mathematically for lieutenant governor barnes to overcome his 27,000 vote deficit. this race is over. one thing to point out here, guys is how much the trajectory of this race shifted since the beginning of this campaign. at the start of the general election, after the democratic primary field essentially cleared for lieutenant governor mandela barnes, he was ahead in the polls. but then we saw the flood of money come into the state of wisconsin, the flood of campaign ads tying barnes to the issue of crime, saying he wanted to defund the police, something he said he didn't want to do. saying he was too extreme for the state of wisconsin. at one point in the month of september, being outspent by

republican outside groups by a three to one margin. that is when you saw the race flip in the polls and senator johnson maintained a consistent lead, a narrow but consistent lead as we headed into election day. one thing we continue to hear from the candidates in these closing days and final days is that this is going to be a tight race and even as we still wait for the race to be officially called, that margin is still very close. >> shaquille brewster in milwaukee, thank you so much. meanwhile, thousands of mail-in ballots could take several days to count in nevada with the races of governor and senate still razor-tight. it's an intense race. >> gaud venegas is live in the ballot processing center. last night election officials said poll workers were behind on the count of those mail-in ballots. what are you hearing this morning? >> chris, jose, we know that they were going to count these

mail-in ballots after they counted the early vote and is the people who voted in person yesterday. we did reach out to clarke county to speak with an official about the number of people that they had working and whether they didn't have enough people. we were told by the official that the people that they had is what -- is part of the plan that was in place. it was expected, as we were told here in clarke county, they expected the votes to take days because of the large amount of people who mail in their votes or drop them in the drop boxes. that's the way it works in nevada is what we were told by officials. where we're at now, coming into this morning, you see the lead here, lombardo has a large lead. this is the other race for the senate, laxalt, that's about a

22,000-vote lead. what happens going to happen? >> we're going to move on to see what happens with these mail-in ballots. depending on the number of mail-in ballots still being counted. >> i want to bring in david plouffe and founder of the group country over party matthew dowd. thanks for being with us. matt you said yesterday you believed forecasters were underestimating democratic support and overestimating republican support. that appears to be what happened. what did you see in the mood of the electorate and the data that led you to that? >> well, thank you. i mean, i had been looking at the data all year and it's been showing this pattern all year which is that this idea that everybody said the historical numbers, talking about biden's job approval, if it's an approval like this, it's going

to be an overcoming red wave. but when you looked at it, that wasn't correct. joe biden last night won those -- i mean, the democrats won those people last night by four percentage point. barack obama lost those people by 40%. by 40%. and the other part of the data is independents were not swinging overwhelming to the party out of power. democrats last night won independents by two points. that's highly unusual. normally the out of party power wins them by double digits. we're in a special circumstance. i said from early on, i saw no red wave and i saw no blue wave, that this would be a very mixed election unlike midterms we've seen before. the data seemed to indicate that. i think what happened for many people and many forecasters,

they bought into this historic idea without looking at the circumstances we were presently in, in my view this was about the best result the democrats could hope for when they're going up against such headwinds that they had. >> jen psaki said the folks at the white house were giddy about the results. it seems like joe biden's fortunes have shifted quickly. he was on the phone most of the night calling democrats and saying, congratulations. >> yeah, it's a lot better than calling those that lost and consoling them from the white house which i've witnessed. obviously i agree with matthew. just given the fact that inflation, economic concerns, this is a remarkable result. and i think that in addition to the point that i think people are overlearning history, thing because there had been so many polling misses recently, people just assumed that maybe the republicans would do better than

some of the polling averages. but i think what's fascinating, those independent voters, it's worth reminding people, in every swing state and every swing district, there are more conservatives than liberals. the math is clear. democrats have to do their job on turnout but they have to win the middle of the electorate. and that's what propelled joe biden to the presidency and that's what they were able to do last night. >> you're sticking around. we have a lot more to talk about. coming up, more results from key races across the country and much more from our expert team of reporters who are on the ground. >> and a big night for election deniers. over a 100 winning their races. what consequences could follow when they get to congress? ow when they get to congress? put i, a once-daily pill. when uc got unpredictable,... i got rapid symptom relief with rinvoq. check. when uc held me back... i got lasting, steroid-free remission with rinvoq. check. and when uc got the upper hand...

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we have breaking news for you in the wisconsin race for senate. you remember this is mandela barnes, ron johnson. ron johnson put out a statement saying it was over. let's go to steve kornacki. is it? >> here we go. nbc news now declaring that ron johnson, two-term republican, has been elected to a third term representing wisconsin in the united states senate narrowly defeating his democratic challenger mandela barnes. we've been waiting to make sure there was no extra vote remaining in milwaukee, in madison. you heard that report from shaq brewster. shaq had it nailed. our decision desk has confirmed the information that shaq was reporting.

our decision desk is comfortable putting that checkmark next to johnson's name. many believed he was the most vulnerable republican running for re-election. he's survived against the odds in 2016. he won his seat originally in 2010. he wins it again in 2022. what does this mean for the senate with republicans holding wisconsin now. there's been one change, it's the democrats have picked up pennsylvania. and so the battleground really comes into focus right now. had johnson lost that race, that really would have been curtains for the republicans and any hopes they have of controlling the senate. as it now stands, they hold on to wisconsin and they need to gain two democratic-held seats. there are three democratic-held seats that right now are uncalled. they are georgia, arizona, and they are nevada. again, georgia, the secretary of state has already said they expect that race between herschel walker and raphael

warnock to go to a runoff. neither at 50%. and then you have arizona and nevada. we're going to get clarity, i believe, tonight in arizona, at least some potential clarity when there's a batch of votes released. and in nevada there's a 22,000-vote lead for the republican adam laxalt over cortez masto, but there are lots of mail-in ballots to count. so the bottom line is this, if democrats can win both nevada and arizona, that will be it. they'll control the senate. if republicans can pick up one of these two seats, then very likely what we would be looking at is georgia in a december 6th runoff being the state and being the contest that decides which party controls the senate. republicans got to take one of these two and then they would need to get georgia in that

runoff. if democrats can sweep both of these two, that would do it. >> steve, thank you for that. again, ron johnson officially now, david plouffe, beating mandela barnes. >> i'm more confident in arizona. i think, nevada, once you count all the ballots that are out, cortez masto should be able to narrow that lead, but i think it's going to be superclose. i think democrats should prepare for two scenarios, they eke out nevada and you don't need georgia, but then all hands on deck for a runoff. what's interesting about that, donald trump is saying he may announce a run for president next week. i'm sure most republican strategists are unhappy about that and it's all the marbles. which party could turn out more voters than they just did yesterday in georgia? i think it's the democratic party. >> matthew, how do you see it?

>> i agree with that. i think there's fairly high degree of competence that the democrats are going to win arizona from all the data and the numbers i've looked at out there. i think there's a relatively good chance that the democrat comes back in the ballots that come. but i agree with david ploufe that this is -- they better plan on two scenario, fighting it all out in georgia or being happy that they won the two in those two states. but this is another example, republicans had talked about coming into election day being at 54 seats this morning. that's what they talked about, being at 54 seats. best-case scenario for the republicans, winning all of those is 51. >> if it does -- first of all, it's going to go to a runoff. i think that's pretty much what everybody is saying, right? what does that even look like? this race was already the most expensive or the second most expensive in the country.

let's say it wasn't the friendliest of races, matthew. what does it look like between now and december 6th? >> well, we've had some experience with two special elections in georgia recently. we know how it goes. it's going to be exceedingly tight. it's going to be decided by a point or two. i think walker has to walk a tight rope much harder because now we know there's this sort of growing sense that donald trump hurt the party last night. what does walker do with somebody like that? the course of this? i think the entire democratic party in its entirety will unite around warnock. it's going to go down to one or two points just like the last two special elections we saw in georgia. >> david, i want your thoughts on this. when races are one or two points apart, we have to always kind of focus on the importance of the latino vote, right? 32.5 million eligible latino voters in this race, 15% of the

electorate. obama was able to get 77% of the latino vote his second time around. george w. bush got 44%. in this environment, the importance of the latino vote, it can't be taken for granted and there is no latino vote, there's just latino voters. >> exactly. and there's a lot of understanding of florida. and i think the exit polls, they showed the hispanic vote about 60/39. democrats won it. but i think as a democrat you like to see that more in the mid-60s which is kind of the way you put together 50% of the vote. the asian american vote, hispanic vote, it's going to be massive. the interesting thing about georgia, let's say the republicans win the house very narrowly, the warnock campaign is going to be able to say, they control one chairman, if you give them the senate, there's definitely going to be a ban on abortion nationwide. there's going to be further

threats to democracy. it makes some of the arguments real. walker on the other hand will try and say, well, this will give extreme chuck schumer the control. it's mitigated a little bit because the republicans might control the house. what this will come down to is, who can exceed their turnout from last night? who can get it more like a presidential year turnout? and i think the democrats have a -- superhard to execute. volunteers are going to be exhausted down there. campaign staff are going to be exhausted. but the truth is, that work has to begin right now. >> sure, and are there two parts to it? one, obviously, is, how do you get folks to come out yet again, right? you're into the holiday season, you're after thanksgiving, you're before the december holidays. and you also -- my guess could argue you have a little bit of an advantage because you have the exit polls, you have an understanding of what that electorate looked like, what they responded to. but how do you strategize on either candidate's part right

now? >> i think, you take a breather -- >> no one is going to do that, matthew. >> you don't just jump in and say i have a plan today and we're set. you take a breather, watch the stuff unfold and i think then you plan it out. i think the democrats have more assets available, i agree with david. how do you exam those assets? barack obama is an exceedingly popular figure in the general electorate, especially in georgia. republicans don't have a popular figure. donald trump is not a popular figure in georgia. you plan out those assets, but you look at the strategy. if i were warnock, i would be looking at what could i have done better? not do the same thing again. what could i have done better? is there a better way to nuance the message, is there a better way to motivate people? is there a better way to do things. if i were warnock and his campaign, i wouldn't be rubbing my hands together and say let's do the same things.

i would say what are the three things we didn't do well and do differently. walker has to do the same. walker is such a flawed figure in that state that i think he has a much more difficult hill to climb. he can climb it, but it's much more difficult. >> matthew and david, stick around. one of the night's big winners was governor ron desantis of florida. we're going to do a deep dive into that next. into that next ♪♪ we all have a purpose in life - a “why.” maybe it's perfecting that special place that you want to keep in the family... ...or passing down the family business... ...or giving back to the places that inspire you. no matter your purpose, at pnc private bank, we will work with you every step of the way to help you achieve it. so let us focus on the how. just tell us - what's your why? ♪♪

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and ron desantis tonight, you want to be ron desantis. this is a huge win for him. >> let's bring in ali vitali and ryan nobles both in florida today and david plouffe and matthew dowd continue with us this morning. ali, you're in tampa. the nbc news exit poll, 53% do not support a 2024 run. how is the team addressing that. >> reporter: well, they're pretty mum about anything going on in the future. if you can't tell by the wins around me, they're preparing to do their day job of being the governor of florida. what happens here when a storm is bearing down on the state. that's their focus. frankly, they don't need to be saying anything right now because it's clear that other people are saying it for them. mick mulvaney is echoing text messages that i have been getting from republican operatives since yesterday all talking about the fact that this

is, in fact, the ideal springboard for ron desantis to launch a presidential bid. trump is already talking about this. he's in the mind-set of giving out nicknames. the nicknames don't matter as much as what they show. this schism that i've been hearing about from my sources between desantis and trump is real and palpable and it's starting to spill over. the other thing too that i would mention, jose, you pull out that exit polls that shows there's a substantial amount of support for a potential desantis presidential run but also some reticence around that. part of the explanation is because voters don't want to lose their governor prematurely, but, b, they don't want to have to make a choice between a popular republican governor and the other most popular resident of florida which is donald trump. i met so many voters over the course of the last two weeks that i've been down here who have been wearing desantis shirts and maga hats. many of them saying they hope

that trump can run in 2024 and maybe desantis will wait until 2028. i don't like counting that far in advance. it's almost painful to talk about presidentials even know. but voters are already trying to parse through that in their minds shows that this is a collision course that the base is ready for, but they're not necessarily excited about. >> i would argue it's not almost painful for people to be talking about the presidential right now, it is simply painful. ryan, you're in west palm beach and that same exit poll estimates only a third of florida voters want to see trump run again in 2024. i'm looking at the most recent national poll. 68% of voters don't want rump to run for another term. what are you hearing from team trump today? >> not a lot, chris. surprisingly, maybe not. surprisingly quiet this morning. and it was interesting to see how the night progressed last night. i was at mar-a-lago for an election night party that was

kind of thrown together by team trump at the last minute. and donald trump came out and spoke to reporters at the beginning of the night and had all kinds of confidence, was predicting maybe 52, 53 republican seats in the united states senate. he was already starting to criticize mitch mcconnell the republican leader suggesting that someone like rick scott might want to challenge him. he was asked whether or not ron desantis should run for president, he said he didn't think he was going to run for president. the mood changed over the course of the night. trump gave a speech where he really kind of focused on this long list of endorsements and what you would really describe as noncompetitive races where he was successful, where his endorsed candidates were successful and didn't talk at all about some of these really competitive races where his hand-picked candidates did not do as well. the best example, of course, being in pennsylvania where mehmet oz who was on track to lose the republican primary squeaked out a victory basically propelled by the endorsement of

donald trump. today his team is being very quiet. i reached out to a lot of people to ask them, do you have some sort of spin for what happened last night and that there's still a lot of confidence in donald trump, and of course, we cannot ignore, this is less than a week the former president promising a major announcement which could be the beginning of his 2024 campaign. >> i guess, matthew, you can make the argument that trump was already spinning last night. i want to play what he said before the votes were coming in. >> well, i think if they win, i should get all the credit. and if they lose, i should not be blamed at all. >> david plouffe is laughing here, if you can't see it. matthew, are even republicans buying that? there's that maga base that will follow trump, vote for trump, whenever, wherever. is anybody buying that this morning? >> here's the problem for republicans in this moment, the problem is is they let all the

guardrails of the party be completely obliterated. now the conversation is, what do we do about donald trump after we took all the guardrails down and we, not just donald trump, but we the republican establishment, allowed all of this to happen in many different ways, whether it's pennsylvania, michigan, the wisconsin governor's race, multiple places across the country that the republicans allowed crazies to become the nominee of the party. and so can they rebuild the guardrails in this moment in order to put it back together and say, we want to nominate someone who is halfway sane and we want to be in this position? that's an unknown question. right now, donald trump has an 80% approval rating among republicans and there's no guardrails. the voters are in charge. and so who are the republicans that can get together in a room and say, maybe it wasn't a good idea that we knocked down all the guardrails or didn't try to keep them up while donald trump

was president in the aftermath of that. that's the problem. the fraternity is in charge of campus right now and what do they do? >> david, nbc news national political reporter is mr. florida said, i want to put this up, desantis is sitting on a staggering 19 percentage point lead. historic for florida. in 2018, he won by less than half a point. 2018 turnout, 63%. this year turnout looks to be 53%. not only did republican voters swamp the polls, a huge number of democrats stayed home. is it a state with two stories, desantis and democrats each acting differently? >> no question. florida has changed as dramatically as any state we've seen in american political history, from an absolute battleground state to these kind of margins. >> just miami-dade. >> not a big county like that. it's unheard of. that being said, the story -- i

agree with matthew completely and i think the guardrails are going to have to be put back not by the establishment, but by voters. the story desantis can tell, particularly given what happened outside of florida, look what happens in the rest of the country. we maybe won the house, maybe we didn't. we underperformed expect here. what i did in florida i can bring elsewhere. the test for anybody who wants to run against trump is can you stay in the ring with a bully and i think all desantis has to say, the media is against him so i think that there's kind of a strategy here for these nontrumpers to say nice things about him, but say he can't win. but the desantis story that he can tell to the rest of the

party is incredibly compelling. he can say, i can do this in nevada and arizona with hispanics. look what i did with the puerto rico community. it wasn't just the cuban vote. i think a lot of that is not going to translate outside of florida. but i think he's got such a valuable currency right now -- >> what about the story that the democrat party needs to tell the democratic national party about what happened in florida? >> we've got to rebuild in florida. and that's going to take a lot of time. you've got to do the hard work in texas and other places to get the big states back in competitive places. >> i thank you so much for being with us. moments ago sean patrick maloney, the campaign chief for house democrats, publicly conceded his own race and telling reporters his opponent won fair and square. nbc news has not called that race yet. let's bring in lindsey reiser who is in new york. tell us what's going on. >> good to be with both of you.

this is symbol, the head of the dccc who is in charge of making sure that democrats can hold on to the house is losing his own seat. when i smoke to maloney's camp yesterday, they said he's had to fight every two years for this seat but today his camp telling me they knew it was going to be tight. it was tight. one reason here is some redistricting. democrats have tried to create new favorable district lines for them, a court said no, redrew the lines. so maloney had to introduce himself to a lot of the constituency here. let's listen to some of his concession speech. >> i don't like to lose, but my opponent won this race and he won it fair and square. and that means something. and so i'm going to step aside. i'm going to do this the right way and the right thing to do is to say the other guy won, to wish him well and to pledge my

support and that's what i'm doing. >> reporter: so big picture, democrats have been a better than expected night last night but here in new york it's a slightly different story and it appear that is the tightening of the gubernatorial race, even though hochul is projected to be the winner there, did lead to some of these possible new york house pickups for the republican side. >> thank you so much. coming up, more than 100 election deniers who won, they were on the ballot and they won. that includes jd vance in ohio. what happens when they take office? we'll talk about that next.

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and pick a plan that's right for you and let's make healthier happen, together. ♪♪ this... is the planning effect. this is how it feels to know you have a wealth plan that covers everything that's important to you. this is what it's like to have a dedicated fidelity advisor looking at your full financial picture. making sure you have the right balance of risk and reward. and helping you plan for future generations. this is "the planning effect" from fidelity. as someone who is the democratic have the privilege to concede this race to jd vance, because the way this country operates is that when you lose an election, you

concede. [ applause ] and you respect -- [ applause ] you respect the will of the people. >> that was democrat tim ryan after losing to election denier jd vance in the ohio senate rate. contrast that with the way kari lake was talking about her race last night, a race nbc news says is too early to call. lake called out, quote, cheaters and crooks, fake media, propagandists. she still expects to win in spite of that. if she does, lake would join more than 150 election deniers nationwide who will take power, governors, senators, members of congress, even attorneys general. >> let's bring in ben collins who covers disinformation and the dark web. bring back david pluff and matthew dowd. >> when you listen to the contrast between kari lake --

like you -- maybe not like you. i have been in a lot of rooms where people had to concede. it's very hard to get applause when you mention the other candidate. but he did. i wonder if you look at this big picture -- we will talk about the election deniers specifically. in a way, did democracy win last night when you look at what he said and we see now today so many people coming out quickly and conceding races? >> yeah. democracy took a long step forward in terms of securing. but we're still at risk. the other thing, most republican candidates accepted the election results, whether they conceded or not. kari lake is -- it's possible that kari lake could win. quite possible that lombardo wins in nevada. two critical battleground states. we look at what happens in washington over the next few weeks, our eyes are on georgia, the electoral count act passing, which mcconnell and -- that has to happen, because there's a lot

of people throughout that clearly do not want to accept election results. we should be positive, even optimistic, that it was a more normal election in terms of the response of losers in both parties. that ryan thing is wild to see something like that remarked upon, because it is something we are used to. we should feel good about that. most republicans -- they weren't -- they accepted the results. >> what about among the deniers? >> i want to say, it's been this weird shift in the far right faces, far right podcasts and shows happening last night. they weren't naming names. they weren't saying dominion did this. this is the best guess i have for this. there were consequences. fox news got sued by dominion. so did all these other places. alex jones had a really rough

past couple of months for trying to defame private consequences. i think we're in the consequences part of this. in part, that's how democracy is supposed to work. if you lie about people for years and years and you defame them in order to win elections, maybe the public will turn on you and your pocketbook will hurt. >> are you saying -- you are seeing a change of semantics. what is it that they are -- how are they explaining and justifying? >> there's a brief schism. some people are doubling down. some people are saying, look, donald trump couldn't be at fault. there's something happening in arizona. there's voter fraud or all this stuff. not true, by the way. some people are, is this really what we want to be? do we want to be the party where every time there's an election we lose, we complain about it? is there a path forward that has nothing to do with donald trump?

you can see this a little bit in the breitbart spaces who are now kind of separated from steve bannon a little bit, separated from the real trump world. i think they want to see -- they want the culture war to continue. they want to have these internet theme fights about trans rights and things like that, but they don't want to do it under the guise of donald trump. >> we have a minute left. can we talk about what didn't happen last night? there were big disruptions at polling places. there was a massive turnout. young people in a lot of places actually turned out. people were not disengaged. they were thoughtful. they went out and they voted. democracy did what it was supposed to do, matthew. >> yeah. i think today is a day to celebrate democracy and the fact that we had enough leaders out there that did the job. 99.9% of the interactions

yesterday and the last month of people voting and engaging was safe, secure and easy for people. 99.9% of the people. there's things to fix. but this is a day i think we celebrate the idea that democracy right now -- i agree with david. it's on an edge. it works right now and it held in the course of this. the other thing is, voters are always demonstrating, they are more nuances than many people give them credit for. everybody wants to put them in a box. they didn't allow themselves to be put in a box. they cared about inflation. but they cared about choice abortion and democracy. they voted for republicans in certain races, but then they voted for democrats in others. i think it's a great day in many ways for democracy. it just has to keep going until the next election. >> i keep thinking of the folks in south florida and this country that came from cuba and haiti and so many countries where voting is non-existent and

waiting in line can cause your life. to recognize the importance and the beauty of american democracy is just so important. thank you so much for being here. >> that's going to do it for us this hour. >> thank you for joining us for this special election coverage. >> our coverage will pick up next. remember this? but i spoke to our advisor, and our vanguard investments are on track. “we got this, babe.” so go do what you love. thanks for being our superhero. only at vanguard, you're more than just an investor—you're an owner. giving you flexibility to follow your dreams. that's the value of ownership.