♪ ♪ ♪ >> from msnbc, decision 2022, live from democracy plaza.

>> back together again, over caffeinated, under slept, plus all the weird eating you do when you had too much caffeine and no sleep. we already, we are not at all a mess, none of us, right? we're all fine. welcome back to our special 2022 election coverage, night two. i am rachel maddow joined once more by my colleagues, honestly, it feels like we never left. i'm not sure what all of us did. chris hayes, alex wagner, joy reid, lawrence o'donnell. great to be with you guys. our friends steve kornacki is at the big board. i have to tell you, this is what he trains for, he's fine. you can stop sending him care packages for him. he's great, look at him. he's been here since yesterday. any minute, we're expecting a big chunk of results out of

maricopa county in arizona, one of the two outstanding u. s. senate races there are still waiting on. we'll go to steven we get that data in. but, of course, here's the bottom line at this hour, we still do not know which party will control the united states senate, nor do we know which party will control the u.s. house. just the fact that there's even a chance that democrats could hold the house is so ahistorical, it almost does not compute. the president's party always gets shellacked in the first midterm after he takes office. the presidents parties losses are usually measured and dozens of seats. that is not what has happened here to joe biden's party. he and the democrats have defied history. this afternoon, a noticeably buoyant president biden held a press conference. he called yesterday a good day for democracy. joining us now at the great big board is steve kornacki. steve, am i right that we just got some new data in from maricopa county, or is that a

promise left unfulfilled? >> it is an unfulfilled promise , but could change any minute. that is why i am eyeing this right here, because what we are expecting any second is from maricopa county, the largest county in the state so far, 60% of all votes in arizona come out of maricopa county. this is what happens, around this time every night, in the days following the election, they report big chunks of vote. so what is left to come here in maricopa county, what we're expecting in the next few minutes's votes that were basically returned, ballots that were returned friday, saturday and sunday, right? so basically over the weekend , ballots returned over the weekend plus some ballots that were returned on monday of this week. they were all brought in, they have not been added into the count yet. this total pool, the weekend ballots plus the monday bouts ballots is 136,000 votes. now the hope of democrats and

the expectations of democrats, frankly, is that this pool of votes, and we don't expect that all of this 136,000 will be recorded, but we do expect a significant chunk of it will be reported out. the hope of democrats is that this is a democratic friendly batch of votes, and they hope that because generally, it's early vote. it came in a few days before the election or a day before the election. certainly, we saw that trend last night in arizona. if you're watching last, night you saw that big initial reports put kelly ahead by like 20 points in the senate race. that was early vote all getting reported out quickly. then what happened in the overnight hours is they added up all of the same-day vote, and the same-day vote is what brought masters closer in the senate race. it's what brought kari lake close in the governor's race. democrats are hoping that this batch of votes, this sort of late arriving early votes, that it favors them and gives kelly a path in the senate race and it boosts is hubs in the

governor's race, as well. i mentioned the governors races close. we're expecting to get a big chunk of this any minute now but then, once all that is added in, the one other major outstanding piece of business in maricopa county, and this is a biggie, will be 275,000 votes that were delivered by voters to the polls on election day in person. and this is the wild card, and it may end up being the ultimate wild card, because there are good theories from each party on how to interpret how this will look. republicans look at that and say, that vote, the vote that was delivered in person on election day 2020, that was a pro trump vote. that's why if you remember in 2020, as the week went along, biden's lead got shorter and shorter, and he ended up winning the state by less than 9,700 votes. that was these ballots being counted up election week 2020.

democrats counted in the last midterm election of 2018, it was this same group of votes, the votes delivered on election day, that lifted democrat kristen sinema to victory in the race for the u.s. senate. we have seen this batch of votes behave two different ways in the past two elections, so it looms as the ultimate wildcard, but i think what democrats are hoping here is, on the assumption or the possibility that this is a republican friendly group of votes, they see in the votes that you will get reported out , we think tonight, in the next few days, i keep looking over here, they see an opportunity to try to pad mark kelly's lead. >> steve, i will tell you that i will give you a second to wait for those votes to expect any minute to come in. we will pause you for a second, if you don't mind. we'll speak with bryce house chief of staff ron klain. welcome back to you, expecting the votes are here.

joining us now is white house chief of staff ron mcclain, thank you for making time. >> thanks for having me. >> first, let me start by apologizing for treating you like an interruption to steve kornacki, as white house chief of staff, i know that this is a conflict here and i apologize, but also -- >> it's an honor to go on before or after steve kornacki , as he counts votes, it's a rare honor, either way. >> we all feel the exact same way, but we don't work in the white house. i wanted to ask you what it has been like today at the white house? how the president views these results. obviously, we saw him speak on his own behalf today at today's press conference, but i wanted to ask how you are feeling, what the mood is in the white house, and whether this is as much as a surprise to you as it was to so many of us in the media world and the pundits beer? >> if we entered the election with confidence, we've got the president and vice presidents had gone around the country and

lay down a strong message about what we had done the past two years, what was at stake in the election. we felt very confident in that. but of course, you never know until you know. the results certainly have been strong. we are within reach of holding the senate and possibly extending our majority in the senate. the house president achieved a result in the house that has not matched in 40 years , it result of the governorship , has not been matched in over 60 years. what you have is one of these kind of historic triumphs, even though again, we certainly lost some races that we wanted to win, but overall , a very, very, very strong outcome for the president and his agenda. >> it is, as we have all been talking about, it is and a historical all come down the presidents party do so well in a first midterm election. the practical impact of that , and we'll see it in stark relief, as we start to get the results of the last remaining results. but the practical impact is likely to be very, very closely divided power inside the u.s. congress. this president and you and a

white house, you are not strangers to have to do with deal with that, that has been the circumstance for these first two years of your term. do you feel like you have had , you have learned lessons, tried things that did not work that you would not try again, or are there things that you learned might work with closely divided power in congress, in terms of how you will treat the next two years for governing. >> i think the president laid that out today, rachel. he made clear of the. he has tried to and has successfully on occasion work with republicans to reform our infrastructure, get roads and bridges bill to pass the chips bill, which will make america a world leader and advanced manufacturing, bring so many jobs and spur our tech manufacturing industries. to do stuff for veterans, the pact act, to take care of veterans -- we've proven that we can make this work with republicans in the house and senate. obviously, we will have to find ways to do the same. the president has also proven

that he is going to stand his ground, and he was very clear on that today. if you wind up with a republican majority in the house, we're going to try to find areas of common ground to work with, and the president is not going to agree to cut social security and medicare. he would obviously veto any efforts to ban abortion or anything like that. we're going to try to work with him where we can. we'll draw the lines or the lines seem to be drawn. >> ron, it's chris hayes here , and i wanted to ask you a question specifically about the over performance of democratic incumbent members of the house in frontline districts. if you look at how democrats overperformed the fundamentals , that was really where they were very strong, a bunch of them. it struck me that they were not getting hammered over voting for key items at the presidents agenda in the way that you saw frontline members getting hammered for the vote in 2010. how much did that go into the thinking around the legislative agenda? how central was that do you think to last night's results ? >> chris, i think you are spot

on and perhaps, more importantly, the president called winners last night, one by one, they said exactly that to him. they said, mister president, i was able to win because iran on your infrastructure bill. mister president, i was able to win because i talked about with the rescue plan had delivered from a district. mister president, i was able to win because of what the chips bill delivered for my district. we put together a historic agenda to recover from the pandemic, to recover our economy from the pandemic, to make the economy strong and create jobs. the democrats of the house and senate voted for that agenda, and they ran on the agenda. this is not a mid term where endangered members of the house and senate ran away from what the president had done. this is a mid term where they ran on with the president on. we gave them a substantial record, to use that record, i think that's why we won a lot

of these closing incumbent races in both the house and senate. >> ron, it's alex wagner, congratulations on what is a seemingly victory for the president, even though the outcome is not finalized, but i know the feeling is good. i do wonder, the president said today, after he gets back from the asia trip, he will be inviting republican and democratic leaders to the white house to talk about the road ahead. who specifically in the republican party does the president feel he can speak with and work with on an agenda. >> look, he has worked with senator mcconnell on issues. obviously, there are white differences. senator mcconnell worked hard against things, but senator mcconnell did help us pass the infrastructure bill. he did provide his vote for the chips act. he provided republican votes for the veterans legislation, and we will try to find more partners in the house. we did have a number of house republicans vote with us on key legislation, so, we've been through this for two years, there is no one here that is naive about the challenges of divided government or closely

divided government, or 50/50 government in the senate. we've been through it. but we have been able to deliver results. those results are making the country and the economy stronger. we will try to keep that up in the next two years. >> ron, are there plans for the white house to try to help raphael warnock over the finish line and what we now know will be a december six runoff between him in herschel worker ? >> rachel, we'll do whatever senator warnock wants us to do in terms of events or fund raising. we'll deploy all resources down there. i feel optimistic about that runoff. i think senator warnock has done an incredible job. he has a great record to talk about. the comparison with herschel walker is a stark comparison, and i think -- i believe that senator warnock has done a great job a senator, and i look forward to that runoff. >> ron klain, white house chief of staff, we appreciate you being with us tonight. we know that you guys have not

slept either. thank you for being here. >> thanks for having me. while we have been speaking with the white house chief of staff, again, i don't mean to characterize it as a place holder function, but steve kornacki was working in that time, and i understand we have a little more vote in the midterm. >> we're been teeing up maricopa county, which is the biggie here. i'm being told that there is a slight delay in getting the maricopa county number, but if you watch closely here in the time you are doing that interview, mark kelly's lead statewide did ticfk up over blake masters. that's because the other big county in arizona, the one near the size of maricopa, peña county, where tucson is in, it's a similar situation to what i was describing about those early votes that came in late in the process, right before election day, they put them aside and counted them out and really seemed in tonight. they released 13,440 of them just a few minutes ago. kelly won them by a margin of

4937 votes, basically, kelly beat masters a little better than 2 to 1 with a new batch of votes that was reported out of pima county. what that did again, it extended kelly's lead statewide, sitting close to 88,000. there are more votes like that. it that's not all that is arriving late from pima county. it's about 30,000 more to come from that county that may well look just like that. you can see from democrats, it's an opportunity to pat the lead statewide that kelly has. again, as a saying, the hope for maricopa, from whatever comes out tonight, would be similar to what happened in pima county, this sort of character from that late arriving early vote is more democratic friendly. it's on a much bigger scale potentially. we'll be getting a report from maricopa, and democrats are hoping that can push kelly's number up there significantly.

the keep in mind here, this governor's race, the gap between kelly and hobbs, it's about 80,000 votes here. katie hobbs, the democrat, is barely ahead of kari lake. in fact, the update from pima county more than doubled katie hobbs advantage over kari lake. this governor's race is razor thin right now. we talk about control of the senate, for democrats, from their standpoint, it's crucial to get mark kelly the victory here , to pad his lead as much as they can, because again, that last big batch from maricopa could be republican friendly. but in terms of the governor 's race for democrats, it's even more important that they get big numbers out of maricopa tonight because hobbs needs all the pads she can get, given how close kari lake is in the race. again, i will hit the refresher to make sure, we are told about maybe a ten minute delay snow, nothing new there from maricopa. i will shout it out as soon as we have it. the other thing we're waiting on at some point tonight, that maybe later tonight, is an update from nevada. the outstanding vote, you see

catherine cortez masto, who is trailing by 20,000 votes, the core of the outstanding vote is in the two big counties, washoe and clark where las vegas is combined 90% of the state, the biggie's car county. basically, in clark county, there's about 15,000 votes we might get reported out tonight , and then on top of the, there is still another 70,000 or so yet to be reported. there's probably a total of 85,000 outstanding votes in clark county. what they mainly are about ballots that were put in drop boxes on election day, nearly 60,000 total, where votes in ballots taken from drop boxes on election day. we will get an update, we expect tonight, it won't be anything near that 85,000. the number in washoe county's is 61,000. and about two thirds of the, again, this is mail in vote basically, about two thirds of the arrive before election day and about one third of that

came in on election day, we do know based on the partisan composition of the ballots, the vote that came in before -- the vote that came on election day, there are more republican ballots there than democratic bouts. it's a bit of a mix here in terms of what to expect with these votes, but between what is left in washoe and clark county, we will see how does numbers are breaking. there certainly are enough ballots, directly, four for cortez masto to catch laxalt statewide, but she is the one by big margin. when we do get updates, really crucial to see what the -- cortez masto has to be leading them, and it's crucial to see what the margin is. she's got to be leading by a significant amount to overtake laxalt statewide. that may come later in the night, but again, i don't mean to tease this and not follow through, but usually, my experience with maricopa has been that they have these updates, and they're usually pretty quick. it's 8:18, and we still don't

have this vote tally, this release. as soon as we get it, i'll let you know. >> can i ask you a clarifying question. you explained it, but i want to make sure to i am getting it. i feel fuzzy on this. it seems to me, the way that you are describing the outstanding votes, the votes still to be counted in nevada and arizona is that in nevada, they may be more predictable in terms of their partisan camps, whereas in arizona, it's a little bit more of a jump ball in terms of what the likely partisan character at those votes is, is that fair? >> the reason is that in washington county, where reno is, they actually gave a burqa of those votes that arrived on election day. they actually told you how many of them were by republicans, how many were by democrats. the number who wererepublican outnumbered the democrats. we know that overall in the early vote in washoe county, there were more democrats than republicans who are voting, so it's a reversal from that turned. in arizona, and a maricopa, we don't know.

what we know is that in 2020, that big, big final batch was republican, and in 2018, it was democratic. there's real suspense around it. >> yes, legit. we have much more to come tonight, we'll go back to steve as soon as we get those new votes in. we'll go live to arizona, we got a lot to get to. this election is still going with all the more important questions still unanswered. stay with us. before we begin, i'd like to thank our sponsor, liberty mutual. they customize your car insurance, so you only pay for what you need. and by switching, you could even save $652. thank you, liberty mutual. now, contestants ready? go! why? why? only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty.♪

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in pennsylvania, or democrat shapiro has won the governor's race by a double digit margin, his republican opponent, fervent election denier, doug mastriano, has still not conceded the race. in fact, since mr. mastriano dance a little bit to the rocky song and made a brief statement to supporters last night, he is not set anything since. over in michigan, the losing republican secretary of state candidate there has not been shy. christina karamo, accused one city clerk -- clerk in the city of ann arbor , michigan of engaging in mass election crimes. just like that mastriano, kristina karamo has not conceded the race she lost to incumbent democrat joscelyn benson, despite the fact that she chose by 14 points. then there is arizona.

in arizona, the big ticket race that remains to close -- excuse me, too early to call. steve kornacki has been telling us. votes are still being counted. we're watching for votes to come in tonight that could potentially be determinative. we shall see, the race is very close. that, of course, is why late last night, republican candidate kari lake told her supporters to be calm and patient and wait for democracy to run its course. obviously, i am kidding. of course, she did not say anything like that, at all. >> we had a big day today, and don't let those cheaters and crooks think anything different. i want you to know that we will monitor the ballots. the system we have right now does not work. when we win, and i think it will be within hours, i think it will be within hours, we will declare victory, and we will get to work turning this around. no more incompetency, and no more corruption in arizona elections.

>> those cheaters and crooks, that speech came after a whole day of kari lake and online maga universe, promoting conspiracy theories about ballot counting machines in maricopa county -- stealing the votes or something. arizona is a place where the far-right pro trump movement went through a very recent period of radicalization around the results of the 2020 election. it was not just the cyber ninjas forensic audit fiasco. there was the armed protest around maricopa county center -- there was another armed protests at the state capital on january six at the same time that the u.s. capitol was being attacked. this year, people with guns, armed vigilantes, stalked ballot drop boxes in arizona. now law enforcement officials have erected barriers around the maricopa counting center this week. sheriff's deputies are

stationed on the other side of the big fence they put up around the center. maricopa county police know exactly how bad things can get once election deniers start whipping up their supporters. but frankly, sodas kari lake. as the arizona election stretches into what may be an extended period of counting in these close races, is the reason to worry about what might be being stirred up in the state? let's bring into the conversation, nbc news correspondent, van halyard, standing by at the maricopa tabulation center in phoenix. vaughn, thank you for being with us tonight. i know you're able to hear me setting the groundwork there for this discussion, a little bit. let me ask you if any of that strikes you as wrong or sort of not the right context to be looking at this in, given what you are seeing there now? >> no, in fact, we could've had this conversation a year and a half ago. i remember the first rally i went to, it was in church

town in glendale, arizona and kari lake was talking about the arrest, prosecution of election officials. we should note that carry like to this day has still never named who these election officials are. you've heard in her primary, when she suggested there were irregularities and fraud that she never provided any actual evidence of allegations of evidence or fraud, but yet she , continue to perpetuate that. that's what you heard last night, the crooks and the cheaters. kari lake has never provided any evidence of who these individuals are. instead, she is directed ire , essentially retribution against individuals that don't take action, whether it be arizona governor doug doocy, or mark burnevitch, the attorney general, who worked his tail off the check to find some sort of fraud here in the state of arizona and yet failed to. it is not until a 60 minute interview earlier this month, when he used an expletive to describe kari lake and the allegations of fraud that they suggest.

but it gets down to an even more baseline level. we talk about maricopa county folks. -- maricopa county board of supervisors. earlier this month, an iowan man was arrested for threatening to hang clint pittman. he owns the local egg industry here, before he ran as a conservative republican who voted for donald trump to serve on the maricopa court of supervisors. katie hobbs, she faced this last year, threats of being blown up, a massachusetts man arrested here, and yet this has not stopped these individuals. mark finchem, the secretary of state candidate, he was at the capitol on january 6th on the premise there. anthony kern, an individual who took part in that so-called audit here, he was at the capitol on january six. the last thing, when we talk about what control -- potential governor kari lake with a supermajority is in the house and the center could mean , it was just a few months ago that the arizona republican legislator in one vote shy, in voting to arrest at the maricopa county a supervisors for refusing to turn over the maricopa county ballots from

the 2020 election for their so-called audit, one vote away from calling for the arrest of these individuals. these individuals have targets on their back, and that's why you see here tonight, not only barbed wire but fencing, deputy drones in the, air to ensure that this area as protected. as you can see, we talked about thousands of votes separating these contested races. nbc's vaughan hillyard in phoenix tonight. thank you very much for the, it's really helpful to have you there, but it's also helpful to have that context. thank you. alex, you're talking about this last night, that we are entering and two -- that could be a dangerous period. with so much attention focused on arizona, with so many important races, the senate race, the governor's race, that secretary of state race, mark finchem, who is there, with the attack on the capitol on january six, could be the new secretary of state. those are the results right now, but it's too early to call. arizona becoming the crucible here. it feels like a place that is particularly ill suited to handle the pressure will.

>> yes, i think we also need to listen to what kari lake is saying. this is a woman who knows that she may will be installed as the governor. she might actually win this thing. she is focusing her commentary on the system. the system, the corrupt system needs to be fixed. we should pay attention to that because if she wins, that's what she is going to do. she is going to make sure, at least if we are listening to what she is saying, she won't say the governor's race is fraudulent, because she won it. but as governor, you can bet that you'll want to install loyalists or some kind of operatives that she feels will be maleable to republican wins, at least that is what i am cleaning from that. the fact that she is focusing on the corruption of the system and not the vote in in of itself. >> i think we need to think about, the reason we talked about kari lake and had this conversation on our team -- why do we keep talking about trump, can't we let it go? we don't want to talk about it anymore. the reason we need to talk

about people who are dangerous to system is that their core danger in their ability to gather around them a sort of cult following. that is why trump is dangerous. he's not particularly good at being president -- but he gathered around him a cold. kari lake is dangerous because she is actually really good as a presenter. she looks like she always has a snapchat filter on. she never is seen without complete filtration. she also knows how to communicate, she used to be a journalist. he is a local news anchor. she knows that the present the information that she was giving in a communicative way. it's pretty dangerous. if she were to become the governor and the state, arizona is already the heart of crazy town when it comes to these lack of belief in the system, not believing that elections matter. remember the cyber ninjas? that is where they were. she was leading that state. i think that would be incredibly dangerous. there are a number of different levels to think about. this one, if elected governor , one is what happens if she loses the governor's race?

one is the very immediate concern of what happens right now, while we are waiting, with this kind of rhetoric holding the day in arizona. >> kari lake was one of the people joe biden had in mind when he said democracy is on the ballot. he meant in that particular bell choice of that name and mastriano and others. the key races, on the bell, our governor and secretary of state and attorney general, but certainly governor. that is exactly what he was worried about in that speech, and you know what is so interesting about the moment we're in now, which is the day after, is that kari lake is one of those people who has been suggesting for a while that you really should not be counting any ballots at the midnight. you shouldn't do that. those are all the fake ballots. >> she said it as soon as today. she said it as soon as the day , it upset the maricopa county reporter so much, -- the recorder put out a statement explaining the process to people, working with the supervisor of elections, talking about this is how the votes will be counted.

i think we have to give credit to the local election officials who are republicans, who have stood up in the face of what is truly nasty business happening in arizona. >> i think actually one of the heartening things of last night , as we look at these races, particularly the hardest core election deniers, the michigan secretary of state candidate loses by 14 points, finchem now running far behind. that race is too early to call , but a bunch of them going down in those contested races. again, is it like the play from biden is that there is a pro democracy majority in america, and it includes members of the republican party , as you see in the testimony of rusty bowers, when he came before the january sixth committee and said i refuse to defy my oath to god and the constitution, to hand over the election against the will of the people. the genuinely creatures work being done by republican officials in the maricopa

county board, who stood up against this and on the right thing. that has been the bulwark in many cases. >> we honor their heroism and bravery and standing up against it and also rue the fact that it should take physical courage to work in american elections. >> panic buttons. >> that's right, that's right. we're still waiting on that new vote from maricopa county that steve has been setting up for. that's maricopa county, arizona, where we have outstanding races for senate and governor and secretary of state. lots to come, stay with us. my most important kitchen tool? my brain. so i choose neuriva plus. unlike some others, neuriva plus is a multitasker supporting 6 key indicators of brain health. to help keep me sharp. neuriva: think bigger. [coughing] hi, susan. honey. yeah. i respect that. but that cough looks pretty bad. try this robitussin honey. the real honey you love, plus the powerful cough relief you need. mind if i root through your trash? robitussin.

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welcome back to day two of our coverage of this wild election , with so many races still undecided, with a lot of votes expected to come in in the course of this next hour. while we have been waiting to find out who ultimately will control congress and the u.s. senate, one of the things that has flown more under the radar is that democrats are having a phenomenally good election at the state level, and state legislators around the country. in pennsylvania, democrats think they've done it there. they think they have gained control of the house in pennsylvania for the first time in more than a decade. if that holds up, pennsylvania democrats will have much more leverage when it comes to enacting the policy agenda of incoming governor there, josh shapiro. in michigan, it's more stark

than the. this was the first election in michigan since the districts there were drawn up by a bipartisan citizens commission instead of a partisan scrum. look what happened. michigan democrats flipped the state house and they flipped the state senate for the first time in 40 years, and because michigan democrats also kept the governorship, when gretchen whitmer was reelected , that means they will have a governing trifecta. democrats will be in charge in michigan for a change. they'll have all statewide offices and the state legislator in both houses. also in minnesota, democrats in minnesota, kept their majority in the state house, and they flip the state senate away from the republicans, because in minnesota, they also kept the governorship, democrats will also be in charge in minnesota as well, fully in charge of the state government. when i say democrats at the state level have been having a really good election, i don't just mean where they have been on offense like in those states i just described. also, it's true, in places where they were playing defense, frankly, check out what

happened in wisconsin, where republican lawmakers have been kept in check, just barely. this time around, wisconsin republicans set their sights on trying to get a veto proof supermajority in the state legislature, which would essentially render the democratic governor there irrelevant. they did not get their supermajority in wisconsin, despite the fact that that state is gerrymandered beyond the point of living democracy. they fell short by two seats thanks to excellent defense played by the democrats in wisconsin. it was even closer in north carolina. republican lawmakers there thought they would also get a veto proof supermajority, which again, would render the democratic governor there effectively irrelevant. north carolina republicans did get that in the state senate, but they were stopped in the state house. republicans fell short in the state house by one vote, by the slimmest of margins, north carolina democrats were able to

hold the line there. that is why if we say you have to watch every race, you really do mean every race. >> i want to talk about michigan for a second, because last night, the first thing that happened. i think florida's early count has a weird effect on election night. >> it's like a joke. >> it comes back early, we get results early, and it's been turning republican. last night, if there was a florida at the democrats -- if there is a governor like ron desantis for democrats in terms of -- its gretchen whitmer. there are a lot of things that were into, not just whitmer. this is a tight state. this is a swing state. whitmer wins by ten, 11 points, it looks like. they sweep the statewide offices, they win both houses. this is a governor in gretchen whitmer that was targeted by the right from day one. she had donald trump looking at her. she had a plot busted by the fbi to literally kidnap her. they had armed people showing up at the state house, at her house, and she stuck to her guns.

she never lost sight of where the electorate was. she has governed in a progressive fashioned has also been a broadly appealing figure despite how they tried to pull her out. i just think the performance for michigan democrats and whitmer in particular last night, securing the trifecta, was one of the most impressive. >> thank you for saying that. we said this in the court today, for the show, that i agree with you, she has been eclipse. they want to talk about this at this, but i consider her the big winner last night. she now should be in the presidential conversation, if biden does not run. big gretch, as they call her down there. -- she's emerged as a popular governor, as a woman, as somebody who i think should be national figure. much more in the conversation that we're generally tending to have.

>> simone, i see you nodding there. as someone who's recently being playing a role in national politics, what is the view of democrats running the table in a state like michigan ? what is the view of the importance, not just of the policy stuff they can happen with those legislative controls , but what that means in terms of politics. >> investment is key here, and you can't underestimate the effect of roe, the number of, events these t-shirts, she wore a roe-vember t-shirt. she was a governor that planned on the issue of abortion, and the democratic governors association will tell you that they spend over $20 million on abortion this cycle, which made a difference. i also think that we have to make some democratic legislative campaign committee , which is usually getting no money, and they didn't get any this cycle from the dnc, even though that they got money elsewhere. they don't get it from the dnc , but they raised their own funds, they were facing headwinds, in colorado, maine , vermont, you name it. they held the line, and that is a testament to the laser focus of her team on the state side.

>> we should also say and just to that point in michigan specifically, there was a ballot measure on abortion , which was to in shrine abortion rights in the state constitution while democrats reign the table in michigan, that abortion measure also went in a landslide, 14 points. >> we also need to note and understand the big picture of what is happening after 2010 , republican set their sights on state legislatures. they focused on down ballot races, becaue they understand that states are the laboratories of democracy. we are finally at the point where democrats equally understand that message, and the new york times is writing cover stories about wisconsin being a super majority in the state legislature. we are now all very awoke to this. voters understand it in a way that they have to. >> i think it's talked about the mission media, and at some point -- >> democratic party operative has to come up and figure out what you have to do more than just talk about it. you have to put money,

infrastructure around it. you have to knock doors specifically. >> by the, way ironically, the republicans do things like culture war over critical race theory, or whether kids be taught about lgbt in school. all of that culture where stuff is hyper focused for a lot of democrats in states, and how important it is to go and vote all the way down the ballot. and honestly, to come back to row, we really came to and understand this simple lesson that now your state essentially controls whether you have freedom, whether you have bodily autonomy depends on who runs your state, that means you're, your chief lawmakers in your office, the prosecutors in your office, it goes to the state legislature in the state representatives. you need to control who is there. >> until republicans get total control in washington. >> when i think -- >> the constitutional thing that happen in california, it made a difference. >> the last point we raised in wisconsin, he's going to win

that race by about two and a half points. the state voted for the democratic committee by about two and a half points. they almost got super majority in both houses, think about that gerrymandering. there were two -- >> but they didn't. >> the democratic governor -- >> the people of wisconsin came out and say, who do we want to govern this state? by two points, the people in wisconsin said that we would like the democrat to govern our state. when those votes were fed into the maps, the republicans themselves had written, when it's spat out was near super majorities in both the house and senate. for the republicans with the same votes that got tony ever 's elected by a slight margin. >> we have raised -- it is the most gerrymandered state in the country. >> it is. >> in states where the gerrymandering process has been undone so that it does not advantage either party, that is what happened michigan.

>> democrats running the table with fund gerrymandering. it turned out the people in michigan wanted democrats to run the country. and when asked to do so in a fair process, a transparent, nonpartisan process, that was the result. that's what republicans were so afraid of when it comes to giving up on gerrymandering. now, i have to tell you, i don't have anything definitive to tell, you but i do have to tell you a bunch of votes that just came in. you see how steve is hunched over, that's steve receiving numbers. >> how much we love the kornacki camp? >> do you see the tail feathers go up like that. you know it's going to pop out , he's gonna give you that information. >> and so any second now we're going to see this populate in the board, you certainly should. but this maricopa county vote batch that i've been talking about, we did just get 62,000 more votes out of maricopa county. i have to tell you how they broke, mark kelly, the democrat gets 33,842 of them. blake masters, the republican

gets 26,521 of them. it breaks this update here. that is 55% of the new batch is democratic vote, and 43% of this new batch is republican vote. again, just waiting to see this populate in our screen, but with that will essentially do is it will add to mark kelly's lead, about 7,321 votes that will add to his lead in maricopa county and statewide, we're just waiting to see if anything kicks in here. this is maricopa county, this source that i'm using for this so that we can really get into their. it should come into our system , but the significance of the -- okay, here we see the new total, and it is 92,000 vote plus in maricopa county, what does that do to the statewide numbers? when we came on the air an hour ago, now it's back into the mid 90s, 95,000 from that county.

for mark kelly. take a look at the governor's race as, well it's similar, waiting for the update there as well. in the senate race, 95,318 votes, that is now mark kelly 's lead. the significance of this vote was that the democrats were hoping that this would be a democratic vote that would allow kelly to pad his lead. remember, the total number from this kind of pool that we just got votes from, it's 136, 000, that's what county officials told us. 136,000 ballots they were being returned, friday, saturday, sunday, or monday. and again, what we are seeing reported out here is that we have 62,000. it would appear that it is not the entirety of that weekend slash monday vote. it appears that there is more from that to go, and if the rest of that bucket breaks the same way, again, that is a more ground that kelly can gain

there in terms of padding the lead. we'll see what that looks like with this new update. statewide, katie hobbs at the start of this hour, if it was this hour that we started with a lead of about 3,000 statewide. that goes up to 13,000. and so again, from hobbs standpoint, she would love to get more from the same bucket. as i said, there could be 60,000-plus from the same bucket based on what county officials have told us. i think the name of the game for democrats is just to get as much as they can out of that bucket. the folks that came in friday , saturday, sunday, monday, and once those are all added in -- and we just got a big chunk, about half of them. once they're all added in, the big number in maricopa county is going to be 275,000. again, that is 275,000 votes that were brought in on election day. if they are republican as they were in 2020, and the

democrats are hoping that mark kelly's lead is big enough to withstand the republican bent of those votes. if they are democratic like they were in 2018, then kelly would be fine, and the governor's race certainly katie hobbs with that narrow lead right now that would be key to her as well. given that she's running 80,000 votes behind my kelly, she probably needs this last batch of votes to give her a lot more like 2018, when it was democratic friendly, and 2020 when it was republican firmly. democrats do add -- carl kelly has added about 10,000 votes to his margin statewide over the last hour. again, this is the update, and now maricopa update. this is probably -- will see if i can find this, but the way that they do this is an update for the night for maricopa county. tomorrow, we'll be seeing if we can get that. >> steve let me just ask you, in terms of what you did just see come in, and we understand that it's only a portion of what remains, was the partisan

split on that vote that we did just get the kind of partisan split the democrats were hoping for, or was it an underwhelming number in terms of 55% roughly democrat vote? >> i think it's helpful, you use it as a point of reference in 2020 when donald trump used that final batch of votes here that i was telling you about to nearly erase joe biden's lead , let's bring it down from 90,000 to about 9700. that's the ground the republicans can really make up with that in 2020. i think if the democrats can get the lead, in the senate race over 100,000 votes, again it is a very wild card here. we've seen that late arriving, you see that final patch and two completely different characteristics from the partisan standpoint in the last two elections.

and so if it ends up being --sorry what's that? we may have some new nevada vote, we can take a look at it. it's a big variable with that final vote is going to look like. certainly, kelly with much more of a pad, you can see him withstand the late republican advance and hobbs has in the governor's race. in nevada, we do have a new vote just came in, i think this was from clark county, let me just check. it was from clark county. okay. we were expecting about 14 to 15,000 votes, something along those lines in clark county. that's what we just got recorded out here. cortez masto picks up 9150 votes. it looks like she adds 9,158

from where she was. and laxalt adds 4,269 votes from where he was. better than 2 to 1 advantage in these votes that we are just reporting. again, i think this was a combination of mail it had arrived on monday, and drop box ballots in clark county that had arrived on monday. this is an encouraging sign for democrats who are counting on dropbox ballots being a disproportionately democratic from this pool here, a little under 14,000 votes. they're getting a better than 2 to 1 advantage for democrats. again, what that does in clark county is statewide, adding that up, it will be about a 22 or 23,000 vote deficit for cortez masto. it gets down to 2700. the number of outstanding votes in clark county at the start of the evening was approximately 85,000. , 70,000 that are left.

it's going to be 70,000 that are left, and we still have 61,000 mail ballots in washoe county. there will be an update tonight, but they don't expect a big or significant update tonight. what democrats are hoping for is that there are 56,000 ballots in clark county that were dropped off in the drop boxes on election day. they are uncounted, and certainly they're hoping that there will be anything like we just showed you in that sample of 15,000 or so. that could be a very significant gain for cortez masto in terms of trying to catch laxalt. >> i want to ask you a process question, because i know you are also asking general election officials in terms of when it votes are expected, and of what kind. in your experience doing this , is there anything that seems to be strange or off, or a typical, or wearing it all in terms of the way the votes are being processed, and the pace at which the vote is happening. i only ask this because they're still conspiracy rising on the right that there may be something wrong with this vote

coming in in the way that it is. does it seem like a fairly typical process to you? >> i know it's frustrating. it's frustrating for me. that it comes in so slowly. i know this gets all twisted up in politics, and in conspiracy theories, i do wonder if there's a discussion to be had both parties could talk to each other and put aside all of their differences and just talk rationally about what the common sense election procedures are they can go state to state. we do see states like florida for instance, it's a huge state, they have tons of early votes, they have tons of mail vote, tens of same-day vote. they managed to get it all reported out in the same night. there are some things that are done in florida that has been done under democrats and republicans in that state to have an election crisis in

florida in 2000. the presidential election was such a disaster in terms of election administration that would florida is the state has done in the two decades since then has produced -- we have watched every two years, we have watched the votes come through in florida. very efficient, very digestible way. maybe there are some lessons there that could be learned by other states, but i'm probably just thinking in too idealistically here. >> technocratic steve is my favorite steve. i have to say. i've no complaints about you explaining that, what might be rational in terms of the progress. coming up at 9:00 on the east coast right now, we are watching these results come in in arizona, and in nevada, obviously the georgia race, georgia senate race, we know it's going to be a runoff. for the purposes of us having a digestible amount of information to handle, that's handy. that's going to be a runoff, we can think of that after. just as a reminder, i think there are three senate races that can't be called. one of them is in alaska, the reason it does not being described as part of the