♪♪ good day, everyone. i'm andrea mitchell. we wait for the final vote counts in two big races out west that could decide control of the senate and also whether to see whether democrats can pull the political equivalent of a royal flush in the remaining house

races to keep control of the house. first, the house, where according to the latest projection, republicans have to win just seven out of 31 undecided seats to secure the majority. in the senate, 49 to 48 with a republican edge as we wait for results from out west and that georgia runoff in december. >> here is where things stand in the undecided races. in arizona, more votes overnight. it's too early to call as democratic senator mark kelly holds on to his lead over blake masters. nevada senate is too early to call. republican adam laxalt is holding a narrow lead over incumbent senator cortez masto. among the undecided governors, hobbs holding a lead over lake in arizona.

and steve sisolak is behind joe lombardo. we are getting close to calling the race in oregon. the governor's race there with kotek poised to hold off a strong republican challenge and an independent candidate who grabbed more than 100,000 votes. >> let's talk about what's going down this afternoon. we are here with our special coverage for the next four hours. you will see president biden and vice president kamala harris at a dnc event in d.c., a day after kristin welker asked the president about his clear unpopularity among a lot of midterm voters. >> two-thirds of americans in exit polls say they don't think you should run for re-election. what is your message to them? how does that factor into your final decision about whether or not to run for re-election? >> it doesn't. >> what's your message to them? >> watch me.

>> in mar-a-lago, former president trump today clearly feeling frustrated, aggravated over his losses by his candidates. he is doing this blame game on social media posts. he is pointing to the scoreboard of people who have done well. they are in red states or districts. we talked about where the house stands. we will talk about that in a second. let's talk about the senate. there are three states that will determine control. you know them, georgia, arizona, nevada. let's bring in stephanie gosk, who is in las vegas, vaughan hillyard in phoenix, ellison barber in atlanta and mark murray is our senior political editor. he will hang out with us. a couple of counties counting ballots. we look ahead to a live event that's going to happen this afternoon, 2:30 eastern time. we will get an update from officials there. talk about the latest on the ground. what is the expectation? it doesn't sound like timing as far as results is going to change much. we're still days away from that.

>> reporter: yeah. they are settling into a schedule here. you have your 2:30 eastern press conference followed by where they announce how many votes are going to drop. in the evening, they drop the votes. that's what happened yesterday. there were a little over 14,000 votes. in the press conference, the top election official said that they had 14,000. in the evening, they dropped. they broke heavily for cortez masto. that was the case in washo county. i landed here in las vegas and the difference was 22,000. now it's dropped to 15,000. if those votes -- we think the estimate is that there are over 100,000 ballots to be counted. they continue to break that way, then it could be good news for the democrats. but there's this variable. the variable is the drop box ballot. here in clark county, had you

57,000 drop box ballots on election day. trying to figure out the partisan breakdown of those votes is a little bit trickier than the mail-in ballots which break heavily for democrats. they could break for the republicans. that could be the deciding factor. will she be able to make up those 15,000 votes that separate her from laxalt? >> we will watch for that 2:30 news conference to find out how many votes we will be hearing about. let's go to phoenix and arizona and vaughan hillyard. we got a few more votes, a few more numbers last night from maricopa county. >> reporter: it's what the democrats needed, reexpanded their lead. now you have hobbs up by 13,000 votes, kelly up by 95,000 votes.

they need to do that again tonight. these ballots are the mail ballots received saturday, sunday and monday. the early ballots went democratic. that's why it's a necessity they pad their leads right now. the next batch of votes are going to be the consequential ones. we will get a few of those we are told tonight. then tomorrow is going to be the bigger drop. those are the mail ballots voters received but then hand delivered them to their polling locations. those votes went in the way of sinema in 2018 but then were consequential to donald trump nearly pulling off a victory here in closing the gap against joe biden in 2020. the expectation, to be clear, is that we're going to see these 2022 ballots more reflect the 2020 ones because, especially of the skepticism among voters of voting by mail, we expect those to be heavy republicans. democrats need to expand their lead in order to essentially stave off what is expected,

republicans from the next batch of ballots that could come in tonight as well as tomorrow to close the gap. kari lake and her team are eager to declare victory. the expectation is they will run away with this and the last batch of votes will allow them to have a lead. they are hopeful blake masters will get into a race against mark kelly. mark kelly is up by several percentage points. if lake were to run away with it, it would allow masters to be in running for this u.s. senate race. at the same time, to note, mark kelly's team is feeling good and is optimistic where they are at. katie hobbs' team believes they are in this. at 9:00 p.m. eastern tonight, wait for the ballots to drop. we will have the next conversation about what tomorrow could bring. >> it could not be more exciting in those two races. then you get to georgia and the runoff in december. ellison barber is there.

with that race so hot and the second most expensive senate race in the country, second to pennsylvania, $144 million combined, it's incredible. over $144 million each. that runoff -- ted cruz is coming in for herschel walker. what is warnock doing? what's the shape of the race today? >> reporter: this race is about to get a whole lot more expensive. it is certainly getting busier. we expect walker to be on the campaign trail today, late they are afternoon in canton, georgia. he is going to appear with senator ted cruz. we're told warnock is going to make an appearance in the atlanta area today and speak this afternoon as well. you mentioned the money. this has already been one of the most expensive races in the country. already, you have the campaigns putting out pleas for more money.

the national republican senate committee has a memo out encouraging donors to donate. saying it's crucial for them to be on tv here. warnock's campaign, they have a memo out outlining why they say they feel like they are in a good position for this runoff. one thing they say, look, we have been here before. warnock knows how to run a runoff. they are pointing to numbers. they say, herschel walker underperformed governor kemp. he underperformed a lot of trump's 2020 numbers in rural and urban areas. when you look at the numbers that warnock had, he slightly outperformed president biden's numbers in 2020 in suburban areas. one thing to keep in mind as we move forward is that the rules for the runoff this time around, it's different than what it was last election cycle. brian kemp signed a controversial law here, the time frame for a runoff shortened.

it went from nine weeks to four. another big caveat of those new rules is that voters had to be registered by november 7th in order to participate in the runoff election. speaking with the democratic source yesterday, one of the strategies moving forward is that they're going to have to figure out how to message the people who already voted, people who were split ticket voters or ticket skippers who voted for brian kemp but then either voted libertarian in the senate race or didn't vote in the race at all. >> that's going to be interesting to figure out whether or not those votes fall toward warnock or fall toward walker. i want to put a pin on that. i want to talk about the things we might know sooner, nevada and arizona. how are those two races shaping up according to you? >> stephanie gosk's summary was spot on. we are looking to see the drop boxes and the composition of the ballots in those. when they open them and if we see like yesterday where cortez

masto wins two-thirds, that's good news for her. if they break even, that becomes more difficult for her to make up that 15,000 vote margin. we have to see the composition there. in arizona, vaughan was talking about the back and forth that we saw in 2018. we saw this in 2020. we will see this in 2022. one side will see their surge of votes and then we will see the other side with theirs, depending on the county type, the ballots, what is opened. we will need to be patient. we need to take that over to georgia. as ellison was mentioning, the money situation. we had the firm that helps us with our ad tracking crunch numbers. one-month runoff, how much will we see in tv ads? they estimate $200 million for just this one month between these two candidates. we will need patience getting through these counts and the

one-month runoff. i think voters in georgia will need patience putting up with the ads, back and forth and everything they will see in what was a razor close race and is going to be a razor close runoff. >> it will be hard to watch football down there. >> laying out the lay of the land as far as the senate landscape here. let's talk about -- thank you to ellison, steph and vaughan. let's talk house for a second. i don't think there's any expectation there's a balance of power fall soon. but we may see action on individual races. andrea laid out what that looks like. in the last 45 minutes or so, we saw another call in connecticut. not surprising or shocking. still, notable considering that was one of the races that republicans had maybe been eyeing if there were to be a big republican night. >> we have about 30 uncalled house races left.

republicans need to win just about 25% of them. the bar that they have to actually cross is pretty small. then again, when they only had to pick up five seats at the beginning of election night, that was the smallest bar possible. they weren't able to clear that for a couple of night projection or so. democrats have a larger hurdle. they have to run the table. three-quarters of the remaining races to be able to get to 218. you would rather be republicans than democrats. one important note is that most of the uncalled races that we are seeing is that we end up moving to the west coast. a lot of races in california, races in washington state, races in oregon. democrats have done pretty well statewide in those contests. the thing is, democrats are going to win a lot of those california, oregon and washington contests, we think. we just have to keep on counting.

one important point, we really didn't call the final house races in the 2018 midterms until after thanksgiving. i have a feeling that we're going to have to wait until afterthanksgiving. >> i will do this every day. fine by me. >> absolutely. not thanksgiving day. let's talk about that house race. control of the house likely republican. that's what even the president seemed to be leaning into. talking about how he will work with republicans going forward. this is such a divided house. should we assume kevin mccarthy? we will talk about that in the next block. let's talk about his hopes to be speaker. he needs to get a majority of the house. if it's a slim lead for the republicans, they're going to have to get some democrat votes. >> yeah. a lot of our smart republicans have actually ended up talking

about how -- john boehner had difficulty corralling republicans when he was speaker. paul ryan, the same situation. they actually had strong, healthy majorities. if kevin mccarthy is in a situation where the republicans just have a four or five, six-seat majority, not only when you are speaker is it harder to actually get votes going your way to corral all the votes, herd all the cats, the question is, does he have the votes to become speaker? i think not only do we have uncertainty on who controls the house, but there's uncertainty who the next speaker would be. >> what deals he will have to make to nail it down. mark, we will talk to you later. up next, we are waiting to see which party is going to control the house. more on that and the jock i canning -- jockeying for the top job which has begun. the latest from the hill next. we continue our big coverage of the 2022 midterms, well beyond election day. it's election week or month.

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at this hour, control of the house remains up in the air as votes are still being counted out west. that's not stopping the race for the top leadership post. >> do you have votes for the majority in the speakership? >> yes. >> garrett haake is on capitol hill. garrett, he sounds confident. mitch mcconnell commented to nbc about republicans' performance. what is the outlook there with the house? as well as the senate. mcconnell is facing challenges. >> we will do the senate races first. they are easier. i expect mitch mcconnell and chuck schumer will be back in their posts in the next congress. which one will be the majority and which will be the minority leader remains to be settled.

there's never been as much of a challenge to mcconnell's leadership as some of his enemies have wanted there to be, specifically donald trump. if rick scott was the only name that was talked about, especially if republicans fail to take back the majority, rick scott is the chair of their campaign committee, doesn't have as much of a leg to stand on to challenge mcconnell, even if he wanted to. let's set that aside. kevin mccarthy's panel to speakership is complicated. i think it's more likely that we see mccarthy become speaker and be challenged in that role than to see a big fight over him getting it if republicans take the majority. the simply reason is there's not a consensus challenger to mccarthy at this point. probably the people you think as the two most likely, steve scalise, number two, jim jordan, the leader of the far right faction in the house freedom caucus, have both really stapled themselves to mccarthy. they have run as a group. jim jordan will get what he

wants out of a speaker mccarthy, the gavel. he will be the chair of the judiciary committee. that's what the freedom caucus has signalled they want. they want their folks in powerful positions. if mccarthy can give it to him, he will be the speaker for a short time. republicans have a pretty strong recent history even of throwing their speakers over the side when things get tough. mccarthy might have a harder job holding on to the job. again, if they take the majority, he will be the man who won them the seats. i think he has a good shot of becoming the speaker for republicans early next year. >> on the senate side, mitch mcconnell saying to your colleague that he is waiting on the votes to be counted. we just found out -- i think as you were speaking, which i know is annoying, the dem house leadership elections is november 30th. what's the intrigue there? >> what does nancy pelosi want to do?

pelosi said when she took back the speakership she was only going to do two more terms max in that role. that should be up at the end of this congress. she's not talked about it since. she's wanted to prevent himself from being a lame duck. she has hinted in interviews that she does believe she is a legislative master. that she's a master of counting votes. her role is unique. could it be unique enough that she decides to stay on? she's not saying. even to the point of saying that the attack on her husband, the events of the recent weeks have altered her thinking but not saying what that is. now we have a date, november 30th for elections. she's going to have to say what she plans to do before the next congress. >> all of our answers are coming out after thanksgiving. garrett, thank you very much. let's bring in our panel. susan paige, sam stein, david jolly, no longer affiliated with

the republican party. kevin mccarthy if he gets to be speaker and if republicans take back the house, is going to have a front line congressman issue the same way the democrats did. he is going to have a number of lawmakers who won in districts that joe biden won who will be vulnerable if the house makes a big lurch to the right and focuses a lot on hearings and debating this idea that 2020 was stolen. >> this is where the currency that kevin mccarthy uses to get to the speakership has implications for those front line candidates in '24. i think garrett's analysis is spot on. i would tell you, i don't think kevin mccarthy has the votes to become speaker. >> who does? >> this is a very important nuance. there doesn't have to be somebody else. this is what happened in 2016. kevin mccarthy needs 51% of the republicans to get the nomination of the republican caucus. on the floor, he needs 218

votes. if republicans only have 220 votes, the way we prevented mccarthy in 2015 from becoming speaker, 12 withheld votes. he couldn't get to 218. the reason steve scalise and others have endorsed mccarthy is because they are being gracious knowing when it all implodes, who is the paul ryan that emerges to take over the republican caucus? mccarthy has to promise probably to impeach joe biden. he has to promise marjorie taylor greene a role, jim juror -- jordan a role. i don't know he can hold this. >> he might not have the house. control has shifted slightly. 221 for republicans, 214 for democrats. this is just a projection. i know this graphic can be confusing. you see the red seats over the line. that's just a projection. it's plus or minus seven seats. it could go either way at this point.

i want to throw it over to you guys. >> i will take this one. thanks so much. susan paige, let's talk about that. it's going to be a slim majority. possibly a single digit majority. should the republicans take over, it could be that narrow for them. what does the woman you wrote the biography of do? we saw these fascinating interviews with her after the attack. to me, it was ambiguous. she was expressing her grief, her concern that she had been the target and her husband was the suffering victim, that his head injury was more serious given that he had major surgery on it and they weren't talking to him about the event because it could be too upsetting right now in his recovery. that's is significant. she's overseas doing this work.

she signalled she does think she's the only one. she's the legislative master. does she stay at a minority speaker potentially? >> she's a legislative master. i would be surprised if she chose to run again. she would have to run again with a democratic caucus that is ready to move on to a new generation of leadership and with quiet campaigning having gone on for some time to replace her at this moment. she's left it ambiguous. it's dangerous to predict what someone else is going to do. she did say four years ago that this would -- she would be out at this point. she's never taken that back. i think that commitment probably still stands. it's certainly true that democrats in her caucus who revere her, respect her, who fear her also think, many of them, it's time for someone else. >> no one with her strength and experience. >> she didn't have the

experience when she started out. there's a good chance it's hakeem jeffreys, who is close to her, who has been in the leadership position for some time. i think if i was -- had a farm to bet, i would bet on him. >> do you think we will know much before november 30th what the speaker's decision will be? >> again, dangerous to predict. i think she will give some notice. i don't think you would go into election day not knowing if she's going to run. adam schiff wants to run for the leadership. i think she would want to leave time as a courtesy and for the democrats to figure out where they want to go. i don't think she would wait until the 30th to announce. >> we heard from somebody who used to have this job, paul ryan, in the last little bit. this is coming in from an abc affiliate who caught up with the former house speaker. >> i think we will have to do a lot of soul searching and head scratching and looking to

parsing the numbers why we didn't perform as well as we would have liked to have. >> why do you think it is? >> i think donald trump is a drag on our ticket. he gives us problems politically. we lost the house, the senate and white house in two years when trump was on the ballot or in office. i think we have trump hangover. i think he is a drag on our offices. >> to you on that. >> first of all, he looks relieved not to be in a position that kevin mccarthy is. he speaks from experience. he knows more than many people what a bind it is to be leading the republican party while trump is the head of the republican party. i think kevin mccarthy is in an impossible spot here. he will owe it to trump who backed him. he went to mar-a-lago to resuscitate trump's career after january 6. operating with a three-vote

majority is nearly impossible to get anything done, especially with that caucus. >> this is -- members have to defend a vote for kevin mccarthy in their district. >> the concessions he will have to give to get to that point. putting marjorie taylor greene on committees, putting jim jordan in some leadership post. things that will really alienate a good chunk of the party and make it very difficult to get anything done. one thing on pelosi. the irony of her leaving -- should democrats win a majority somehow, there's no one better suited for that situation. >> sam, you raised something off camera. i want to throw this out. what happens if a speaker -- if there's a slim republican majority and a speaker gets toppled -- the last time that happened was jim wright. a speaker gets toppled and the party changes -- control

changes. is a new speaker elected? do they wait until the change of congress? >> we don't know. in that type of slim majority, when you talk about two or three members there are deaths, retirements, people who defect parties or leave congress. >> there's a way to replace -- >> i'm speaking about the instability of the coalitions. we are going to see so much instability, so much uncertainty over the next few years regard regardless. >> let's talk more about trump and the hangover that paul ryan was referring to. mike lawler said that he thinks it's a good idea for the party to move on. "the wall street journal" has an op-ed saying what will democrats do if they don't have trump to use for their elections, saying trump should move on, he is the biggest

the "new york post" called him humpty dumpty today. pau ryan said it. republicans lost. >> this has been the most predictable chapter that was to come in the trump era. all the republicans say, we're not really with this guy anymore. not because they are rejecting trump. not because they reject everything he did over the last six years. now he is an anchor around them. i will tell you, those who disaffected early and said the party shouldn't go in this direction, the reason many of us left the party is because we could never see ourselves going back to these people that we knew would then turn around and say, everything is bright and sunny now. the reality is, the biggest loser is coming out of election night is donald trump and kevin mccarthy. >> a lot of these republicans who might want to distance themselves from trump

individually, they can't really do it because they're going to get primaried. doesn't it have to be a group effort? how do you get the republican conference to as a group say, we are tired of donald trump? >> you can't eject donald trump. donald trump cannot win. he has proven that in '18 and '20 and '22. republicans can't win without him. this is actually what someone like ron desantis is facing. how do you -- >> you need trump to bow out on his own. >> you have to keep him on the team. right? we will face a microenvironment of this in the georgia runoff. georgia republicans and mitch mcconnell do not want donald trump to be an issue in the georgia runoff. but you can't offend him or he will make himself the issue. republicans got a hard spot on this one. donald trump is an anchor but you can't win by alienating his voters. >> caught between a rock and a hard place. president biden is set to

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we have a couple of projections we want to make here on attorney general races, which attorneys general, i should say, but this year they have taken on

an added significance given election deniers running. one of them is victorious. let's start -- >> a former member of congress. >> you can see the margin there as nbc news makes that projection. let's go to kansas. this is and interesting one. a state with a now projected democratic governor holding on to her seat there. the dynamic at play. we are projecting in wisconsin. we are talking about what's happening in washington, because president biden just down the road from where we are was, i think you can say celebrating, feeling good about the better than expected results.

calling it a good day for democracy. looking ahead to what he is anticipating -- some folks are anticipating to be probably a republican takeover of the house. no projection, no call on that yet. but he is pledging he will work with republicans to get stuff done. he wants republicans to work with him to get stuff done. joining us now is a woman who has a million jobs, kristin welker. we will look for you tomorrow morning. talk us through -- vibe check at the white house. what is it? >> i think you laid it out really well. the fact that they are feeling emboldened in the wake of the better than expected results, the fact that they are also bracing to work with the likelihood of a republican-led house. president biden was pretty defiant on that point yesterday. he said, he is going to work across the aisle, but he thinks voters sent a message to republicans that they have to work across the aisle with him as well. we know that there are going to be a number of sticking points.

republicans want to cut spending. that's not something that president biden wants to do. is there any common ground to be found there? we know republicans want to work on the border. that's another potential one. i actually asked president biden about this yesterday. take a listen. you said you don't need to do anything differently. if republicans control the house, don't you need to recalibrate to some extent to try to work across the aisle with the republican-led house? >> well, let me put it this way. what i meant was, i don't have to change policies i have passed. that's what they said they want to go after. what i have is simple proposition, i can veto. >> there you have it. that's the message as he prepares and as washington prepares for the possibility and likelihood of divided government. it's worth noting that president biden spoke with the top republican in the house, leader mccarthy, overnight.

we haven't gotten a readout. we haven't heard where the potential areas of common ground may be. we are hoping for that when we get to ask the press secretary a few questions. >> i have to correct myself. i have been told that tomorrow is friday and not saturday. i apologize. >> we've been up all night. i want to ask about the question you asked the president about the fact that two-thirds of the people in our exit polls don't want him to seek re-election and his response. >> he was pretty defiant on that point as well. it was really notable. you are right. i asked him about our exit polls which show two-thirds of americans don't want him to seek re-election. a staggering number. includes more than 40% of democrats. the president's response was, he said, watch me. that is the message from the

president. he was asked about his broader thinking. it's the results of the midterms. he reiterated that he does intend to run for re-election. he will make a final decision, he says, early in the new year. as you know, this is a president who likes to consult with and hold family meetings before he makes any final decision. he said he is looking forward to doing that over the holidays. >> he will be out of town for a while, traveling to a number of summits. what about november 15th when we are expecting donald trump to make his announcement, potentially running for president? any expectation on how the current president might handle that while he is overseas? >> you know, it was notable because he was asked if the timing of former president trump's announcement would impact his decision at all. he was very clear. he said, it will not. you are right, this is going to be a stunning split screen if former president trump does go through with it. he says he is going to.

we know some of his advisers are urging him not to because of the runoff in georgia. i do think that president biden is going to try to send the message on the world stage he is resetting these critical relationships between the u.s. and its allies overseas. he will likely use that as a way to try to drive that message home. you are absolutely right, that the split screen is going to be quite notable. former president trump governed with an america first foreign policy approach. these are two very different visions of the world. i anticipate that if we do get an announcement from former president trump, he will lay that out and the current commander will make his vision clear. >> thanks so much to you. joining us now is amy klobuchar of minnesota who is on the judiciary committee, the rules committee. thank you for being with us.

a great day for democracy. democrats are celebrating. so much better than the historic trends for a party in power during a midterm. but if -- despite defying the odds, the tides of history, if the republicans do win the senate, won't that mean no more judges can get confirmed, appointees getting confirmed, the state department is still lacking a lot of confirmed people, wouldn't this redefine the next two years for joe biden and for the democrats? >> that's a lot to unpack. first of all, i love the breaking news that tomorrow is friday. >> i'm sorry. >> we have been going around the clock. >> somebody had to text me. >> we break all the news here. you are here for it. >> i loved it. you were saying we have to clarify. what's just happened? number one, i believe, in answer

to your question, we are going to win the senate. the numbers that came in last night from nevada are very positive. mark kelly is well ahead. then you've got reverend warnock, we are heading to a runoff, he was ahead in his race. i want to make that point. i think we're going to win the senate, which helps with confirmations. they don't go through the house, as you know. secondly, when it comes to working with the house on non-confirmation issues, i think we have dealt with this in the senate. with this president, with president biden, and passed a bunch of bipartisan things. we haven't just talked about it. we have the record. infrastructure was bipartisan, semiconductor bill, gun safety bill. final thing i would add is, these next two months, as you talk about confirmation, senator schumer is ready to go. we're going to be working very hard in the last few months of this year to not just do the budget bill and not just do the

defense bill, which we must get done with everything happening with ukraine and the like, but also getting -- marching through a number of confirmations. it's kind of a -- i believe we're going to win the senate. but we're going to get a lot done in the next few months. then work with whoever is leading the house. which is also unclear, because as you note, we have defied the tides of history of the average of the president's party losing 23 seats. it's going to be a very close house no matter what. that's the virtue of the strength of our candidates and the work that we have done and want to do. >> for everyone's knowledge, tomorrow is friday. it is also a holiday, which might make today feel a bit pore like friday. it's veterans day tomorrow. >> thank you. >> a lot of people will be off. maybe not us but maybe other people will be off tomorrow. what about -- i know you touched on working with the other side. what legislation is going to be on the agenda?

anything that you can say that will be there regardless of who wins control in the senate? >> sure. i do want to point out the next two months, we have the bills i mentioned. we have to get the electoral count act and watch for marriage equality being enshrined into law given what the supreme court did, given baldwin's leadership. i'm looking forward to working on that. next up for next year, we have to do something -- continue our work on bringing costs down. i think we need to make sure we're funding the police in terms of a lot of our local departments need help right now with recruiting police and the like. infrastructure, there's still more work to be done there. we just started on prescription drugs. there are some bipartisan bills, when it comes to patents on prescription drugs and the like, and i think you know, i would like to move on antitrust technology. some of the issues we don't have a privacy bill -- federal

privacy bill for the country. there's some bipartisan support in all of the areas i just mentioned. >> senator, i would like to ask you about a projection nbc news has made in the last couple of minutes. it relates to your state. that is attorney general keith ellison projected to win that race. during this campaign season, ellison was dubbed minnesota's most vulnerable progressive in a race where crime was a big issue from his republican opponent. ellison was targeted on that front. what do you think it says that voters are keeping ellison in office? >> i think there's a bigger story than that. keith had a different view than i did when it came to about measure on de-fund the police. i think what happened in our state was that the strength of his work on consumer issues was really important to people. and then also, he stepped in and took over that george floyd murder case at a time where

democrats, republicans, independents, i don't care where you were politically, people knew that case had to be handled, people knew that cases like that had been lost all over the country. he put together a team of local lawyers who were not known nationally. they made the story not about hot dog lawyering. you probably don't know their names. what they did is made the sory about george floyd and the police witnesses who took on the conduct of chauvin. there were people who despite disagreeing with him on one thing were with him on a number of other issues. that's what happened there. our governor's strong performance. we had a big night in minnesota, including flipping the state senate and keeping the house democratic. a lot of it, again, strength of our candidates. they had an election denier for secretary of state.

we have one of the highest voter turnouts in the country. it's a good bellwether for when you get a lot of people voting, where are they? even people who might not be that involved politically. >> in the exit polls, two-thirds of americans did not think that president biden should run for re-election. i know what he said last night and how confident he seems to be. he indicated he is going to run. is that the best thing for the country right now? >> again, i made very clear that i support the president and support him if he runs. i think that this is a president that has led our nation through one of the most difficult times in history. polls are -- as you have learned from this election, polls -- regardless of what the polls say, american people are going to do what they think is right at the moment. he has led us through a difficult time. he has been able to pass an extraordinary amount of

legislation, finally tackling climate change and the like. i'm sure all of those things are going to be part of his decision making process in the months to come. >> don't rely on them entirely. >> i only can tell you one thing. that is that tomorrow is friday. >> tomorrow is friday. all right. now that we have that settled, senator amy klobuchar, thank you very much for joining us. coming up, there's another major story that we are watching today. you might have heard about it. widespread power outages and dangerous storm surges from hurricane nicole. florida is getting hit again. we are going to go live to that state in just a moment. ate in jt . with up to 50% more lotion, puffs brings soothing relief. a nose in need deserves puffs indeed. america's #1 lotion tissue.

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>> reporter: with the storm surge, the beach erosion is dramatic. you can see that right here in volusia county in a town called wilbur by the sea. it looks like the homes on the cliffs built in california, that's not the case here. that's beach erosion. see this sandy area here, this used to be sand to the level i was standing and beyond that a sea wall protecting the area. and then even beyond that, there was enough sand you could drive your car, that's what people do here, go up and down, as well as having space. you can see what's happened with the storm surge. we're well passed high tide right now. when the storm came in, it took out the sea wall, took out the sand, took out a good portion of the sand that the house was built on and then just washed it all out. so that's the case with this

house. you see the next house. you see further down. if i could point the camera the other direction you see the same thing that direction. the assessment of the damage from what is now a tropical storm will take some time. there are reports of at least two people, katy, who have died in the storm and that's for going out after the storm in orange county and accidentally stepping on a live power line. that's why authorities say don't go out after the storm. we often see as many deaths after the storm as we see during the storm. it'll take a while to assess all of this, but clearly nicole, a category 1 and now a tropical storm, has made a serious mark on this community and this state. >> sometimes the numbers telling you how strong the storm is don't really express how bad it can get and we're seeing a good example of that with kerry sanders. in our next hour of coverage

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we are back. we are glad to have you back here for our special election coverage right here on msnbc.