>> thank you so much for being with us. msnbc's special election day coverage led by rachel maddow starts right now. ♪♪ ♪♪ >> good evening. >> good evening, everyone. >> the night is finally here. look at our beautiful map. >> the returns are beginning to

come rather fast. >> the electoral votes have been mounting up unbelievably quickly tonight. 64 years of election returns on television. >> oh, i think we can call it a political fire. >> there has never been one quite like this. >> i shouldn't have left. i mean, honestly. >> keep kamala and carry onala. >> tonight, all of the campaigning across all of the battlegrounds come to a close. >> kamala, you're fired! get out. >> and the trash's name is kamala harris. >> can we agree that is weird behavior. >> we are done with that. we're done. >> and on this final day of voting, the people will decide the future of american democracy. >> we will fight, fight, fight, and we will win, win, win. >> do we believe in the promise of america? are we ready to fight for it? [ cheering ] >> full election night coverage with rachel maddow, nicole wallace, joy reid, chris hayes, lawrence o'donnell, ari melber,

jen psaki, stephanie ruhle and steve kornacki at the big board. >> what's going to happen? everyone haze confident prediction. we get to find out. >> msnbc's special coverage of decision 2024 begins now. ♪♪ ♪♪ we made it! you guys, we did it. we got here. this is it. this is the night. settle in! the first polls, the first polls have just closed in kentucky and indiana. we're going to have some results from those states soon. all of the anticipation, all of the excitement and all of the anxiety and all of the doom scrolling and all of the manic refreshing of polling averages and all the work, and all of the contributions, all the volunteering and all of everything anybody could think of to try to achieve their chosen outcome tonight, it has all been leading to this hour, and we know you have every choice in the world for where to spend tonight, so we are really

grateful that you're spending it with us and i hope you will be with us throughout the duration. i am here with my beloved, very calm, very centered colleagues. nicole wall awol as, chris hayes, joy reed, you're leaning. >> we have snacks, we've got water and caffeine and we are read fe we've ever been ready for anything. we have steve kornacki standing by at the big board and many, many more of the msnbc and nbc colleagues from voting locations in key political spots around the country after both candidates held multiple rallies. today was quieter. we saw donald trump and melania voting in palm beach, florida. kamala harris voted by mail. she made an unannounced stop at a phone bank in washington, d.c. she called voters herself, and i

can't believe i'm answering my landline. who is it? this is election night as it always is election night, but this has been a campaign like no other and this is a campaign that overlapped with four criminal indictments of one of the candidates and 34 felony convicts of that candidate for which he is scheduled to be sentenced potentially to jail three weeks from today. this campaign included what may have been the most consequential, presidential debate in american history, back to our founding because that debate led to an unprecedented candidate swap barely 100 days before the elections. shockingly, there were two assassination attempts on one of the candidates. there was another blockbuster debate that went so badly for the republican candidate that he backed out of doing any more. the campaign ended with one

candidate drawing tens of thousands of people to the largest, most rip roaring rally she had over the course of her entire campaign, while the other candidate who throughout his political career has been known for his raucous and huge crowds, at the end of his campaign he was unable it fill arenas in his final week. it has been a strange and in many ways, unprecedented campaign, but now today, american voters will decide whether democratic vice president kamala harris or republican former president donald trump will be the next president of the united states. american voters will be voting on 34 u.s. senate races tonight. 435 house races, 11 governors races. nearly 150 ballot measures and 10 of them alone on the issue of abortion rights. this is the first national election since the overturning of roe versus wade that remains a huge black box in the data. it remains seemingly an

unpollable metric driving a lot of the uncertainty as to what the vote count will show tonight. we will be here all night and beyond bringing in the results as we have them. let's start at temple university at a polling site in philadelphia with our beloved friend nbc's jacob soboroff. what have you been seeing? who have you been talking to? what have they been telling you? >> rachel, it is a sight to behold here at temple university. there are 703 different divisions and they're the same jurisdiction. there were four of them and things are busy inside. they've just added two new polling machines to this location based on the reporting we've been doing here all day. the line at this location, the kids at the front tell me they've been in line for two and a half hours. >> how long have you been in line? >> an hour or now. >> i already voted. >> but you got back in line?

>> i'm just standing with her. >> so i'm not lonely. you're almost there, guys. >> rachel, the whole idea here is with a two and a half hour line, this is not unexpected and this is very much what the harris campaign wants to be seeing and this is a massive crowd on election day. come with me, there were only 200,000, i'm saying only and it sounds like a lot and out of 1.1 million registered voters who returned mail-in ballotses and the city commissioners here will vote on election day. at this location, we are around 700, 800. it will definitely be far more than that by the end of the even. how is everybody doing? first time voting? >> yes. >> how does it feel? >> good. >> how does it feel to wait in line? >> it's been a while. >> i want to reassure you, there are snacks over there if you want them. it will be okay. >> yes, it will.

>> we're doing great! kamala-la-la! because my vote matters? >> first time voting? >> oh, yes, i'm excited! >> congratulation, you guys. you're almost there. >> come on, rachel, all of the way to the back of the line and this is where the harris campaign wants to count up the numbers to counteract the rural votes that the trump campaign is expected to get. the line stretches on and on and on and it's been like this all day long and originally they had ten voting machines. >> and the snacks are here. >> they had ten voting machines in the location and now they're in the 12 and in the process of setting them up right now and less than two hours until the polls close. every single person just showing the snack people. thank you. every person that's in this line will be able to get in at the end of the night. maybe i want to check in with people at the end.

they seem to be having a serious conversation. >> you're at the end of the line. prepared to wait? >> yeah. >> first time voting? >> yeah. >> how do you feel? >> i expect kamala to win. >> it's always exciting to see people exercising their right to vote for the first time, after all of the votes are cast and counted, we don't know what happens and this is an encouraging sign for the harris campaign. >> i have to say it's our job to cover this and we have all sorts of responsibilities. my single favorite thing about election season is myself voting is casting my own vote. my success favorite thing is hearing other people who are about to vote talking about how excited they are to do it. when it's first-time voters it feels like it's turbo charged and the civic jolt you get from it. i imagine you'll be ten feet tall by the time you get out of there tonight. >> every single person i talk to, and you know i love walking. when i see these folks that are

coming, they haven't stopped coming all day long and we're talking about ultimately it will be thousands and thousands of people that come to this polling place alone. as you said, when they're first-time voters there's something special about it. there's a magic to it and earlier tonight they had performances and paul rudd was out here and it was not on my bingo card to say paul rudd was here and he was handing out water and all kinds of things are happening from extraordinary ways in philadelphia in 2024. >> jacob soboroff we'll be back with you, my friend. keep walking and keep talking to people and give me more of the first-time voters and i'm enjoying it by proxy. thank you. let's go to steve kornacki. he's at the big board and we're getting the camera angles because this will be a familiar position for us. steve, before we get in most of the vote, before we get in the first fully closed states, can you tell us what you will be watching and what people at home should be watching for in term

of the first data we'll get? >> the first data we're getting, you do see some votes and this is the national popular vote such as it is right now. the polls closed in a lot of indiana, a county. this is heavily a trump county and not far from terre haute, and outside cincinnati and just a scattering and that's what's going on right now, but the action will start less than an hour from now and it will start in a big way. 7:00, the first poll closing and that's going to be in georgia. this will fill in. let me give you a sense of what we'll be looking for in georgia and beyond. here's what happened in georgia in 2020. i think we all remember. joe biden won the state. first democrat to do it since 1992. he did it by less than 12,000 votes? what are we looking at when georgia closes at 7:00. wooe expectation ton of vote like in the first hour, 7:00 to 8:00 p.m. i call it the blue blob. i'll zoom on it and it's the

immediate atlanta metro areas and these are nine, core counties exploding population and diversifying in terms of demographics. more and more democrats drawing their vote. joe biden got almost 70% of the vote in here in 2020. more than 40% of the votes in georgia will come from this blue block. key question when georgia comes in, is it getting any bigger? see this here? that's fayette koipty and that's the way it will look when the polls closed because this could be an indicator for the rest of the night. fayette county is the tipping point county. is it going to joan that block. more than 30 points republican and this very suburban county has trended back to the republicans, did they flip it tonight.

ifio do, we expect lots of results and lets of places where we can look here. i'll give you one key swing county and it's a smaller one outside the rally here and take a look at nash county. it's pretty racially mixed and 40% black and 50% white. look how close it was and joe biden carried this in 2020. biden carried it in '20. trump carried it in '16. obama carried it in '12. it is not many want tories, this is 25 of them? i don't want to say carolina, north carolina will like them. in pennsylvania, lots of places to look and we'll zook in in lack wanna county, this is where joe biden is from and joe biden won the state of pennsylvania by just over a vote and this is lackawanna used to be a blue

collar democratic county and barack obama won this by 28 points. and joe biden originally of scranton gets it back up to 8.5 points for democrats in 2020. this is a key question tonight because if the trump people think they'll flip pennsylvania northeast pennsylvania and this is the hart of northeast pennsylvania is a key place where they think they're going to do it. is trump back to his 2016 level? >> is he flipping -- are the democrats holding it, and that would be a good seen right there. and we go over to the west in michigan. and they have early in-person voting and we have the pre-processing of a kit kit cal, so biden won this by 2.5 points and we will talk about wayne county in detroit, and i will

look immediately north of wayne county. call it a tale of two counties and the red one is mccomb, this is the big, blue collar suburb and ancestrally the home of the famous reagan democrats and this is oakland conte. this is the more upscale suburb, higher income and higher concentration of college degrees. demographics here and these are the demographics that have been good to democrats and these have been trump friendly. take a look at 16, whether donald trump pulled that off, here's how the two counties went. clinton won big by 53,000 in oakland and in mccomb, trump won by 48,000. basically trump's mccomb cancelled out in trump's oakland number. >> he almost double and the

percentageage, mean wheel, was there a 70 eye,000 vote gap, and advantage trump and we'll be watching that one throughout the night and then let's head to wisconsin and we'll take you through the rest of the stuff later. wisconsin, again, a lot of places we being use here and the word we can use in wisconsin is bow wow, and what i mean by that is we have the three counties in the fox river area, "b," brown county and that's where appleton is and winnebago county and that's where oshkosh is. and the collar county around milwaukee, three core republican counties and that's ozaki county and washington county. wow and bow. you have to go backward to get the bow, but these two

collections of counties will be key to wisconsin. what happened in them is they're very demographically similar and a lot blue collar white and the immediate income about the statewide average in these places and in 2016, trump brought the republican up and that is a big improvement for republicans in 2020. he gave back some of that improvement and that dropped from ten to seven given how narrowly perched he is. the trump campaign wants the bow number back at ten. he wants the wow number has been diminishing for trump came along, you can see almost carried it by 30.

wackashaw county, large concentrations of college degrees and the suburbs and this is an area that's been good to democrats. the suburbs of milwaukee have stayed republican more than other suburbs nationally. can democrats make a big cut? that would be a great night and that would give kamala harris a chance in wisconsin. >> steve kornacki, i know this is the start of a lot of talking you'll be doing tonight and thank you for the outlook on what we'll be looking for and bellwethers that we'll be looking for with the first couple of major poll closing hours. right now it's 17 minutes past the hour and 6:00 p.m. eastern time. lots of poll closings, of course, at 7:00 p.m. we are just getting started right here. we are so glad you're spending election night with us. ahead of this hour before the poll closes at 7:00. we have rafael warnock joining us live from battleground

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have you voted already? >> you did? thank you! [ cheering ] >> vice president kamala harris, the democratic nominee for president, she spent part of her day today calling voters herself at a democratic party phone bank in d.c. i should say she mostly called voters, but at one point she apparently did end up on the phone with an 8-year-old. >> what's your name? sage? >> yeah. >> hi. it's kamala harris. i can't wait for you to grow ten years more. [ laughter ]

>> i mean, every candidate has a choice what to do with their last day on the campaign trail. i feel like showing up and doing some work is a good example to set. i don't know, nicole. how do you feel the way this campaign has closed and brought us to this day? >> i don't think that she could have contrasted herself with any actions more than she did in probably the last two days. i mean, hers has been sort of a case stud ney humility, right? at every big moment she has taken her platform and asked people for their vote and assumed nothing. she's talked about the work and then she goes out and she does the work to the degree that people wondered how comfortable she'd be campaigning alongside a cheney -- zero discomfort. it has been a campaign of an extraordinary contrast where on the other side, and again, we have no idea which one voters will choose. i mean, it's an -- i am always

so cognizant being on the west. it is 3:24 in the west, if you live anywhere in the west, go vote. if you live in nevada, or a battleground, go put us on your ear buds and go vote, but the contrast in the coming days has just been so profound and being willing to do the work herself while republicans and battle grounds don't see evidence of the other work being done. there's a lot of stuff on twitter and not this traditional campaign work of humbly asking people to vote for them, that her campaign will be about her. that's why you're getting the evidence of the republican growth fund game that the democrats are. >> and where there are registered republicans and democrats, harris said no one will know who you vote for and they've asked for those voters, too. we will find out if there is still power in the humility of

asking for people's votes. >> so much of the predictive muscle memory, joy, of these elections is what are democratic voters doing and what are republican voters doing and one of the wild cards in this race is are a lot of republican voters going to be voting for kamala harris? >> also, there are a huge numbers of independent voters who we're not sure where they go. at this point in the campaign, nicole knows this better than i and she's much more of an expert than i am, at this point you're speaking to voters who really don't pay attention to the campaign early on and know the issues necessarily and they're looking in these last couple of weeks for indications of where they should go if they haven't decided already or whether they should get off the couch and vote at all. if this is an audition for managing a complex organization like the united states, kamala harris has passed the audition flawlessly. this has been in many ways a perfect campaign and she had barely any time to put it together and just as a managerial matter, it's been

brilliantly done. she's reached out to every possible constituency and what the campaign is talking about now is the granular get out the vote effort that you just don't see on the other side. on the other side you're seeing charlie kirk to whom the trump campaign outsourced and the parts of the ground game that they didn't give to elon musk begging people to vote. so their growth fund game is to go on twitter and x and whatever they're calling it now whereas the harris campaign's ground game is literally multiple taps at each door and they're going back to people texting, calling, going to the door and do you need a ride? it's like what obama did and it's numerous touches on voters, and that's who it's for. >> that stuff matters. if the polls were different at a different moment in politics and this is not the first thing we would say and it's not that kind of election so far as we know. >> i'm sorry. >> i think we have a lot of clues that the late deciders

really matter and sometimes that's not always the case and sometimes it's close and there are things going on here late deciders matter. some know they're going to the restaurant and they look at the menu in advance online because they're those kind of people. other people never do that. >> how come you never did any research? research? >> when we sit down, everyone just get to the menus. let's be ready. okay? she's going to come out and we're going to be all ready, right? [ laughter ] >> everybody! >> what this has to do with what you care about and what your obligations are and other people are closer to politics or government because it's adjacent to their job or things that i care about or their household or other things in the year. there are last-minute deciders and what did they see if they tuned in the last ten days. they saw donald trump demeaning people, hosting misogynist hate

gatherings talking about murdering innocent americans who happen to be journalists which is his special extra problem, people who can hold him to account and they saw something very different from the closing campaign of harris which is oh, wow. she's with very famous republicans. you don't have to be a political junkie to know that cheneys are famous republicans. so i'm watching late deciders and i'm watching the women's vote and steve kornacki here and he talked about the bow wow counties and i want to know if the ohio rapper lil' bow wow knows about this. >> lil' counties, as well. joining us is georgia u.s. democratic senator rafael warnock. senator warnock, it's an honor to have time with you today. i know today is a full-sprint day for democrats in georgia. thanks for being with us. yes, indeed. welcome again to georgia. >> how are democrats doing in georgia? obviously, democrats have had a lot of practice in very tight,

very consequential races in your state in the last few years. how would you stack up the effort in georgia versus what we've seen in those critical earlier elections that we covered so tightly here? >> we've been through some tight races? in georgia, and i may know a little about those races. today i was in metro, atlanta, and i was in fayette county which all of us will be watching tonight, and i can tell you there is a lot of energy and enthusiasm. we'll see how that turns out tonight. i was also down in fulton conte, just moving around our state. last week or a couple of days ago i was in macon, bib county. there's a lot of energy and excitement on the ground. i was down in my part of the state, liberty county and savannah, georgia. i have to tell you a story and i was visiting my mom and no way i

can go to savannah and not visit my mom. one of the young canvassers knocked on the door and he was looking for my niece who lived there a little while ago when she was in school and he asked was she there, and was she planning to vote, and we went through the whole questionnaire. i think he was so focused on his job it never occurred to him that he was talking to his united states senator. >> i love the debriefing that that canvasser will have at the end of the day. i talked to had guy. his name is rafe -- something warnock? i don't know, he gave me -- i can just imagine the heads exploding. >> just as you described, that is the effort of the harris campaign. literally going out knocking on doors, engaging neighbor to neighbor, and asking people for their vote. this is democracy in progress. >> senator, we've been talking a lot about how there are things about this election and the sort

of modeling that people do in terms of trying to predict what's going to happen in this election that feels harder than usual in part because the 2020 election cycle was so specific and so different because of covid and also because of some other things. fundamentally, what it comes down to and we think about the modeling is getting out base voters and also persuading, persuadable voters in the middle and will maybe persuading voters who are on the other side to cross the line and vote for your candidate. what can you tell us in georgia about the balance of the effort there between the traditional getting out the base vote and the persuasion effort? >> well, you certainly cannot take your base for granted. you have to get out there and you have to ask them for their vote and we saw that from kamala harris. you know, was there concern, right? everyone was talking a few weeks ago about black men and whether they were going to vote for donald trump. we'll see tonight, but i never believed that there would be huge waves of black men voting

for donald trump. our biggest threat was apathy, lack of engagement and not understanding or getting just how serious this is. i think if we turn out our coalition, black men, black women and other people of color and we turn out the students and those independents and even those republicans who are deeply disaffected by what they are witnessing in their own party, that's how it went. i have to tell you, i'm glad to be a part of the party that feels like our outcomes are likely better. our future is an expanding electorate. we want to see more people, not less, show up. we want to see everiel ij american vote, and we want to reassure them in spite of what we are hearing tonight. i need to say that that their vote counts, and the way to respond to these threats and the things that we are hearing and the games that are being played even by some of our foreign adversaries. the way to respond to that is to

show up. it's safe to vote, and we've got more time so georgia, show up and let's do for the country what we did in 2020, 2021 and 2022. >> senator rafael warnock senator of the great swing state of georgia. thank you. i can see the energy and you're exuding this energy that everybody in the country is feeling right now, but to have you for this hour means a lot to us. thank you, sir. >> thank you. keep the faith. >> much appreciated. i will say what he referenced there in terms of foreign adversaries there were false bomb threats that were phoned into a fulton county polling place. both federal and state officials say they ascribe them to russia. of course. they're never going to leave us alone, but do we care? no, we don't care. much more ahead and we'll check in with voters and steve kornacki is watching the votes.

big night. big night.

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worried about it being a very tight race and we won't find out tonight and the anxiety will drag on. so i'm definitely worried about it. >> with trump it seems kind of like doomsday scenario if you vote for him. harris seems like a more normal politician, i guess. i don't know. trump seems off his rocker. like, he's just insane. >> voters in nevada and also in georgia echoing something that a georgia voter just said. we just heard online from former president barack obama. he and his wife former first lady michelle obama have been the most effective campaign surrogates and high-profile endorsers of vice president kamala harris. former president obama just posted this, it took several days to count every ballot in 2020. it's very likely we won't know

the outcome tonight either. so please keep a few things in mind as you make your voice heard today, number one, thousands of election workers around the country are working hard today. respect them. thank them. number two, don't share things before checking your sources and number three, let the process run its course. it takes time to count every ballot. that from former president barack obama today. in contrast, former president trump the republican candidate today sent out an online post that seems like an effort to intimidate philadelphia voters. i'm just going to say it. a lot of talk about massive cheating in philadelphia. law enforcement coming. to which philadelphia district attorney larry krasner responded, he said, quote, the only talk about massive cheating has come from one of the candidates, donald trump. there is no factual basis whatsoever within law enforcement to support this wild allegation. we have invited complaints and allegations of improp righties all day. if donald trump has any packs to

support his wild allegations we want them now. right now. we are not holding our breath. again, that's the district attorney in philadelphia. i will just play -- i want to play you one piece of sound. this is just shy of one minute of sound from that same district attorney larry krasner speaking last night advising anybody who is thinking about committing crimes or threatening violence on donald trump's behalf in this election as to what they can expect from law enforcement in pennsylvania and in philadelphia in particular if they try it. this is strong sound. watch. >> i want people to be reassured that when they get up tomorrow to go vote, if they have not voted already, that everybody in this city is working and has been working for months to make sure that there will be nothing tough about that experience and nothing to fear in that experience, but i also want to be clear. anybody who thinks it's time to play militia, "f" around and

find out. anybody who thinks it's time to insult, to deride, to mistreat, to threaten people "f" around and find out. we do have the cuffs. we do have the jail cells. we do have the philly juries and we have the state prisons. so if you're going to try to turn an election into some form of coercion, and if you'll try to bully voters and try any of that nonsense. we're not playing. "f" around and find out. >> i'm amazed that he said "f" and didn't let that go. this issue has to loom over this election because of what happened when donald trump lost the last election, but i do feel like it's not just one party in that expectation. law enforcement is part of that expectation, too, and they know what the other side is telegraphing in terms of potential crime or violence. >> those are clear messages. the first thing he started with

it's really important is it's safe to vote. one of the concerns that was expressed and one of the things we even wrestled with in our coverage leading up to today is the idea that are the perception of chaos, the perception of menace and threat which is to say people get freaked out and think the polling place is unsafe. we've seen the images from philadelphia and temple university sending that message, it is safe to vote. it is an orderly process, and i will reiterate again what we have reiterated many times in 2020. there are thousands of people, democrat and republican staffing poll sites today doing their job. >> yeah. >> with fidelity to the constitution, with the fidelity to the democratic process at the top of the nomination. there is so many people across the ideological spectrum who are just staffing various centers across this country in every pocket and corner just doing the

right thing today. already on the election and it's an indicator again of why leadership matters so much because the loudest voices at the top not being that way, that's the danger. >> watching just that line from president barack obama saying thank them, respect them and thank them, oh, right, normal leadership that calls on the better angels of nature. i want to jump to steve kornacki for a moment. i understand, we don't expect much that tells us anything from the earliest votes out of indiana and kentucky, but i understand that there might be something interesting that we're seeing out of indiana. >> i've been saying to folks in this hour that we get anything from kentucky that could be useful for later it will be hamilton county. it is blue and directly north of indianapolis. we've got about 60% of the vote in hamilton county. they're going a little bit faster in indiana than we've gone before, and i did not hype this too much because i didn't

think we had numbers. we do. when we believe is the early vote and the mail-in vote and that's going to be the most democratic friendly and now they're getting into the same-day vote, it appears, too, which is the more republican friendly, we expect. you're getting more of a mix in here. now the significance is, and we don't think indiana is up for grabs and harris is leading by 60% and see if you were watching earlier, this might look familiar. look at what is happening in the trump era. i've been using the trump era a lot and 2016 to the present because 2012 is the last pre-trump era presidential election we had. mitt romney was the republican nominee and romney like all republicans before him he used to clean the clocks in hamilton county. this is a big, growing suburban county, bedroom communities and has the highest level of educational attainment meaning the highest concentration of voters with four-year degrees and beyond. we've been talking about

trump-hostile and democratic-friendly voters. romney by 24, and trump only by main in 2016. look how close the democrat that got it down to seven. this might reyou of a -- the question is key and it won't mean anything. we think in indiana, but this county demographically is similar to counties that we'll be in battleground growth fund state, and i caution, it's only 60% and there's still a lot to come and we want to see how that breaks, but the key here is are the democrats making progress,ing for thor progress. trump lost a lot of growth fund in '16 and even more in '20. could they actually flip a county like hamilton? if they do and this may be

overtaken by georgia soon, but we're keeping an eye on it in the next few minutes because this could be a test in other counties. i mentioned fayette county outside atlanta. a lot of similarities between here and there. >> i'll ask you an indiana question, and brush me back if you don't have this, but given that we have a significant vote, do we have anything on the governor's race? >> that's the hamilton county governor's race, not surprisingly. this is the first time i'm seeing it, actually. mike braun, the senator leading the democrat by 15 points and we can compare that to the presidential race. you have 15 there for braun, and he's running about four points behind trump's numbers statewide. given where the expectation are we'll see how it shakes out in indiana, the democrats will need more separation from the trump-harris race if they'll win by four points. >> fantastic. steve, we appreciate it. that indiana governor's race

just one of the potential wild cards that we're watching tonight that's republican u.s. senator mike braun left the senate to run for this governorship. jennifer mccormick, a former republican. she was state school superintendent and she's been running an unexpectedly strong race for governor in indiana in what's considered to be a deep red state and that's one we're keeping an eye on and we're getting indiana in already. votes here already and lots of people to hear from. we'll be right back. o hear from. we'll be right back.

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. what's the biggest issue for you? >> our democracy. i feel his way is going to be really crazy, and i just would fear, not only for my democracy

but i'm old, my children, my grandchildren, my grandchildren's children, and that's how i really looked at it. >> are you comfortable sharing who you voted for? >> i voted for harris. >> i also. >> voters there in pittsburgh, pennsylvania, earlier today. this is a look at a voting line in reno, nevada. if you see washoe county, nevada, that's reno. these are some voters queued up there today in nevada. so much attention to so many of the western swing states, arizona, nevada in particular, and the critical importance of even nonswing states like california and washington, to the ultimate tally in terms of who controls the house of representatives in particular. we won't be getting poll closings in any of those places for quite some time, but we'll have eyes on them throughout the night. i want to bring into the conversation our colleague symone sanders townsend and

michael steele and claire mccaskill. they are our political insiders for the night. among them are our beloved colleague jen psaki standing by. >> this is the point in the evening that every political campaign rat like all of the people at the table and myself are texting everyone they know to see what they can learn. that's exactly what they have been doing. symone was on the phone until about 30 seconds ago, and michael and claire have also been texting everyone they know. so let me start with you, symone, because you have been talking to state party chairs. this is the point of the evening where people are seeing signs of turnout. i have heard the philly turnout is higher than they expected in a good way for the harris team. what are you hearing from the people you talked to, specifically about, say, georgia, which is a poll closing happening soon. >> turnout is high, lines are long, democrats are very encouraged by what they're seeing, specifically from college campuses. in wisconsin especially. there are schools and they sit in the third congressional

district in wisconsin, for example. that's important. those students at those schools, they can flip a congressional district. they could be the difference between the democrat winning that race or the republican. and definitely turnout for vice president kamala harris. folks feel good. i also did get some obviously, i know georgia is closing soon, but in milwaukee, there was that whole thing with the ballots and the milwaukee ballots being recounted. i asked is there a real concern about that? and even the milwaukee county gop chair just noted that even the chair doesn't think they were tampered with, and the democrats and republicans in the state, they just want to insure that all the ballots are counted. they want to be safe. democrats are encouraged. >> abundance of caution. that's okay. keep counting. okay, claire, you grew up in the senate with a lot of people who are up for election this year, who you speak of in, you know, very informal ways the rest of us don't. we call them senator. are you hearing from them? what are they saying about where the races sit in those key senate seats? >> yeah, i'm going to need oven

mitts to handle my phone before the night is over. it is smoking. listen, i think having talked to senator schumer, chuck, earlier today, i think they're cautiously optimistic about a state that i'm going to keep my eyes on, that's texas. keep in mind that there just was the big story about the texan woman who died because of -- and you have a lieutenant governor down there who is trying to get the court to force women to give him their medical records. there's just a lot going on down there around the trump abortion ban, and it's really draconian in texas. and i think that, between that and cancun, ted cruz has his hands full. >> yes. >> the others are close. feel pretty good about bob casey in pennsylvania. sherrod and jon in montana and ohio, they have the toughest road to go. frankly, we have no business even talking about holding the senate based on the map that the

senate had this time, the democrats in the senate had this time. it's a really tough map. >> it is, and just to add to that, what's hard when you run in a presidential year in a red state in the senate, you have to run so far ahead of the person who is at the top of the ticket and rely on the ticket voting which is really challenging to do. okay, michael steele. you're always hearing all sorts of things. what about some of your republican friends and colleagues out there? >> they're all at the bar. >> they're at the bar? >> can we go? >> we can bring the bar here. that's what i'm talking about. >> it's a little early. i'm in the coffee phase of the evening. let me ask you about north carolina. you have been very hot to trot on north carolina. what are you hearing from people on the ground? >> look, there are a couple things i think are really important to stoke here, and north carolina is one of them, as the feeling is she's going to pick up north carolina, which aligns with what i saw six, eight weeks ago. and we talked about it on our

show quite a bit, that there are things on the ground there that were very important to take note of. one of them was the undervote that was happening in states like north carolina. >> the quiet vote. >> the quiet vote, and you know where you saw that play out? iowa. iowa is one big cross tab for this night. and when you go and look at what happened in iowa and start peeling it back and applying it to other states, you begin to see a pattern. when you're starting to look at how this is playing out, north carolina becomes very, very interesting. the reality of it is the gubernatorial candidate there is dragging down the presidential candidate. and that is -- which is amazing given that the presidential candidate is pretty good at doing that on his own. but it speaks to one of the things i keep trying to emphasize and help people understand. elections are not just top down enterprises. it's not just about electing a u.s. senator. it's about electing the state rep or the state senator who's going to help her get her number. because unless she's fan

tabulous and doesn't have to worry about down ballot races, down ballot races play an important role in how top of the line, top of the ticket outcomes manifest. >> such an interesting thing to watch. a big part of the georgia story from 2020 was that. rachel, all of the insiders are texting. everybody is talking. we'll come back with more updates in a bit. >> we'll send over some portable chargers and oven mitts for claire. alex, i'll extend the same question jen gave to the insiders, which is what have you been hearing? sort of a vibes check beyond looking at the data. >> i will say from the raft of undecided voters and people out in the world i talk to in battleground states over the last few weeks, everyone is focused on women. everyone is focused on the gender divide. michael steele mentioned the quiet vote, the notion women are going into the booth and pulling a lever different from the lever their husbands are pulling which was a direct appeal from the harris campaign. also this phenomenon and there's

a great piece in the atlantic today about what wives one and what married women are going to do, because traditionally, married white women have given their votes to trump in the last two election cycles. does abortion change that calculation. are women seeing their fates tied more to women elsewhere? is this a moment, not to be heavy handed, but for sisterhood. it abortion unite women in states where abortion access isn't threatened to the fates and risks threatened in states where their lives are threatened. it's in many ways maybe even going to determine the outcome of the election. how women see each other in each other's shoes. >> if you're already in a state with a ban, that means there is nowhere to go, no escape. this election alert means we're getting to our first big poll closing in about seven seconds at the top of the hour. we have six states closing, and here are our first projections of the results in these states.

starting with georgia. in the great state of georgia, the presidential race in georgia at this hour, nbc news projects it is too early to call, although we do expect we'll get a lot of georgia vote very quickly. moving on to kentucky, where we had some polls close an hour ago. now the state of kentucky is closed. there, nbc news projects donald trump has won the presidential election in kentucky. moving to the northeast, to vermont, nbc news projects that kamala harris has won the presidential race in the great state of vermont. moving now to virginia. nbc news projects that in the state of virginia, the presidential race is too early to call. moving now to south carolina. south carolina polls are closed and nbc news projects that it is too early to call. and finally, our last poll closing of this hour is in indiana. some polls closed an hour ago, now the state of indiana has closed. nbc news projects in indiana,

the race is too early to call. i will say we are expecting quite a lot of vote from georgia and most of florida, even as some of florida voting precincts are not closed. we'll get a lot of that vote soon. right now in terms of the road to 270, we're very early on on that road, donald trump with eight electoral votes. and kamala harris with three. let's take a look at what we've got in the senate race thus far. we have some senate races in states that have just closed virginia, we have democrats incumbent senator tim kaine and hung khao, the republican challenger. nbc news projects the race is too early to call. going now to indiana and the indiana senate race, republican jim banks and democrat valerie mccray. nbc news projects the indiana senate race is too early to call. and up to vermont, where incumbent independent who caucuses with the democrats,

bernie sanders, is facing republican gerald malloy in vermont. the senate race, nbc news projects, is too early to call. let's look at a couple governors races. in indiana, a very closely watched governors race, which itself is interesting given indiana's reputation as a strong red state. mike braun versus democrat jennifer mccormick. the indiana governor's race is too early to call. finally, the vermont governor's race at this hour between republican incumbent phil scott and democrat, challenger esther charleston, the vermont governor's race is too early to call. those are our initial projections for the first big round of poll closings. but there's going to be a whole night full of them. steve, what have we got since we last spoke to you? >> what's about to happen here in georgia is by this new state law, every early vote from every county has to be reported out in the 7:00 to 8:00 hour. the early vote is more than 4 million votes, we know that.

it's about 80% of all the votes. we're just waiting. this could start lighting up any seconds. while we wait for that, i want to show you florida because florida is a state that counts super fast. and while we don't think of florida as that competitive tonight, one that we wanted to look at and i wanted to flag is right here, this is oseola county, a biggy south of orlando. why am i flagging this? because this is one of three hispanic majority counties in florida, and this county has the highest concentration of puerto rican americans in florida. one third in this county is of puerto rican descent. we were interested to see what plays out here. here's the backdrop, donald trump has actually been doing much better in this county than republicans have in the past. donald trump lost this by 25 when he first ran. in 2020, we talked about his hispanic growth. it became a 14-point loss. this was one of his biggest leaps in florida. what you're looking at here is

even closer right now with the vote that we're looking at in oseola. take this one step further. what we get in florida in the initial batches is the early vote. the vote by mail combined with the early in-person vote. usually in florida, this initial number, it's 70% of the vote, is as good as it gets for a democrat in any given county, because then they count the vote that was cast on election day, that's usually more republican. that increases the republican share. if that pattern holds, donald trump in one of the most heavily hispanic counties in florida here is poised to take another big step forward. again, given the events of the last week, the fact that there's a large puerto rican population has made this of particular interest. these patterns we're used to where republicans vote more on election day, maybe that blows up a little bit this year. that's been the pattern. we wanted to keep an eye out for that county. again, all eyes on georgia. i was hoping to see some light up here. what they're doing in georgia,

so you know, i said florida is one of the quickest, most efficient vote counting states in the country, of all the big states, it is the most efficient. what they're doing in georgia is trying to replicate what they do in florida. in florida, the law is half an hour after poll close, all the early vote reported out. in georgia, it's now one hour, all reported out. so you see how fast it starts coming in in florida. that's the aim of this law that the first time it's been in effect here, the aim of this law in georgia tonight. nothing yet, but again, if it goes to plan, we're going to get a lot fast here. >> chris. >> something to keep your eye on in florida tonight. the last "new york times" siena poll had trump up 13 points in florida, which is sort of an outlier. one thing i'm looking at tonight is what you might call the florida heat sync effect. we have the electoral college, a terrible system but that's what we have. from the electoral college, it makes no difference if you win by one point, ten points, or 20 points. there are many maga die-hards

that have moved to florida from colder midwestern states that are in play. there is a possibility that donald trump and republicans end up on the wrong side of that trade. me interrupt you, we have a couple additions calls. innen indiana in the presidential race in indiana, nbc news can now project that donald trump has won in the state of indiana. we have an additional indiana call in the senate race. the indiana senate race, nbc news now projects that republican jim banks has won that race. again, early calls just after poll closings in indiana. there is an additional race in indiana that we are watching that has nationwide eyes on it which is a remarkable thing given republican prospects broadly in indiana, but that governor's race in indiana has been one to watch and so we'll keep eyes there. sorry to interrupt you. >> no, just to finish that point that we know that a lot of conservatives moved to florida. we have seen it in the voter

registration data. we know the state is moving to the right. there's an inefficiency in the electoral college to winning florida by 10 or 13 points. i think we should have a national popular vote. it shouldn't matter if you move from michigan to orlando, how much your vote counts, but it does matter for our purposes. one of the things i'm looking for in that florida margin because it might be much bigger and you might think, wow, that shows strength. that might actually not be the best outcome for republicans in terms of the efficiency of the distribution of their vote. >> one of the calls we just got on the presidential race was the first call for vice president harris. she has been projected by nbc news to be the winner in vermont. and i reiterate that now because interestingly, vermont's governor is a republican, his name is phil scott. there isn't a call yet on the vermont governor's race, still too early to call, but governor phil scott of vermont walked out of his polling place today and said this, quote, i did some

soul searching and thought about a lot of different things and came to the conclusion that i had to put country over party. i voted for kamala harris. the vermont republican governor up for re-election in a very blue state, saying he crossed party lines to vote for the democratic nominee for president. >> and that is also the question that sort of is laying out there. we were talking about florida. i always have to text my florida friends. it's what i do, but the other interesting thing that's happened is you have seen a lot of florida voters migrate, you know, republicans have been winning the voter registration game for a long time in the state of florida. but independents are winning it harder. and so you're starting to see a big part of that electorate in florida be independent and no party affiliated. the turnout, it looks like, and we'll get all the finals numbers when we have the room, but it's looking like it's going to be a quarter independent. that does not mean that donald trump -- obviously, florida is a republican state. but it does throw into kind of the air kind of what happens

with particularly white and latino voters who may have in the last week to your point watched donald trump do some really strange, crude, odd things that i think this vermont republican governor also watched, and the people in the end who decide late going, there are some indications that late breakers are leaning toward harris. >> i think we should watch for that also in states that have a lot more money and ads and energy pouring into them. what was so interesting about iowa and we'll learn how it lands, but iowa was outside of these seven battleground states that really one of the few things the campaigns agree on, both campaigns said it look like these seven, and maybe there's more. so what happens in those final really key ten days and whether places that aren't getting pummeled with ads got news and information and the women's vote, whether that breaks one way or the other is what we're watching for as well. >> also, keep in mind a lot of undecided voters making game-time calls want to vote for a winner. i really think, this is unscientific, but the last week has been a very good close for

kamala harris, not a good close for donald trump. he hasn't been able to fill rallies, it's been a trashy week for donald trump, a very strong week for kamala harris. if you're thinking i want to vote for the person with a "w" at the end of their name when this is over, that's a good thing for kamala harris. >> if you're watching as nicolle said, stay in line. there have been some extended voting hours so i want to say to people, hopefully you're listening to us on sirius xm and not at home, and nbc is a label to report this, cambria county, pennsylvania, extended voting until 10:00 p.m. eastern because there were voting machine outages this morning. this is a court order. if you're in cambria county, pennsylvania, in lucern county, pennsylvania, that's extended to 9:30. there are precincts in cobb county, two in north carolina, wilson county and one in burke, both were extended to 8:00 p.m.

eastern time, and one more, st. clair county, alabama, a judge ruled polling locations affected by ballot printing issues stay open until 9:00. late breakers are election day voters for the most part. don't get out of line and be careful what you're hearing in the lines. we have seen threats and strange rumors. don't spread disinformation on accident. just stay in line and do your thing. >> don't be dissuaded. don't be afraid. don't let anybody talk you out of it. while we're waiting for hot we expect to be a large number of votes reported out of georgia, let's go live to scottsdale, arizona, where liz kreutz has been talking to voters. what have you seen today? >> reporter: hey, rachel. yeah, we're in the critical maricopa county. often people say so goes maricopa county, so goes the state. right now, there's a very long line in this polling location in scottsdale, maybe about 60 or 70

people here in line waiting, and some people saying it's taking utan hour to get inside there. part of that is because of this long two-page ballot in the state. the longest ballot the state has had since 2006. it just takes a long time to fill out. not every polling place has a line this long. there is a republican group here that's been calling, renting out a bus that they're calling the trump train, and they're shuttling people from here to a nearby polling location that doesn't have as long of lines. there's also signs here that say it's fine, stay in line. they're hoping people don't see this and get discouraged. as we talk about turnout, right now, i think republicans are feeling pretty encouraged here at this moment. coming into today in maricopa county, there were more than 1.5 million voters who had cast their ballots. today, maricopa county has seen more than 200,000 people cast their ballots. 40% of those ballots today have been from those independent voters. 39% from republican, 21% from democrat. going into today, republican turnout had been higher, which

is to be expected since voter registration among republicans is higher than democrats here. democrats have been hoping they would see some high turnout today, so they're going to be banking on those independent voters, the other voters to see how they break and go for harris in arizona. >> liz, thank you. liz kreutz in maricopa county. really long ballots in arizona. asked to vote on 79 different items on their ballots. seriously. but while we were checking in with liz, we got the first big batch of votes out of georgia. steve, what do we got? >> as we said, we expect a ton to come in here. and what's supposed to happen is all of the early vote, that includes vote by mail and in-person early voting going on the last few weeks, all of that needs to be reported out by all of these counties in the first hour. what we're seeing so far is it may be in some of these counties they're going to report that incrementally because it's varying what we're getting.

i talked about if you were watching earlier what i call at least the blue blob, which is the immediate atlanta metro area, and two counties there. this is where democrats are just trying to run up the score. two counties here have substantial vote in right now. one of them right here is douglas county. you can see here, this is about three-quarters of the vote. again, that is probably all of the early vote that was cast here. now, to put this in some perspective, harris basically beating trump two to one. this is a county where the population has been growing, it's been diversifying. an emerging suburb, the population is now about half black. a place republicans used to win. harris up two to one here. last time around, biden won this 62/37. he won by 25. currently, harris is about 32.5 up on trump. the key question here, and this is going to be the key question in georgia, as we start to get these big batches around the state. what we expect from the past is that the rest of the vote in douglas county is going to be

more republican friendly. it's going to be the election day vote, the people who went out and voted today. you remember from 2020 that was overwhelmingly republican. we don't think it's going to be anywhere near as overwhelming. we still suspect it will be more republican than democratic but we don't know that. the key here is maybe put a pin in this. three-quarters of the vote in douglas and it's 66/33.6. when this gets up to 100, has this moved, how much has that moved? that's going to be the story. if harris lands somewhere around here in douglas, that's progress for her. that's where the democrats want to be. they want to be squeezing more out of this big population dense immediate atlanta metro area. i'm just showing you how this county has evolved. it was a battleground in 2012. donald trump came along, lost it by ten. biden, 25, now 32 for harris. democrats in all these counties, these nine counties right around atlanta, this is what they want, to keep driving that number up, keep running up the big margins there, because they have been suffering losses elsewhere in

the state. that is douglas county. take a look now. again, this is part of the blue area we're talking about. this is rockdale county. this is small, very population dense here. and again, harris by about a little more than 50. this is all the early vote in rockdale county. put it in some perspective. joe biden won here by 41, harris is leading by 51.5. key question here, as the rest of this comes in, is this number receding back to 2020? that's where republicans want it. is it stabilizing here? is it only falling back a tick? that's what democrats want to have happen. every one of these counties in the core atlanta area, democrats want the harris number to be bigger than the biden number. they need to squeeze as many votes as they can. then, if you were watching at the top of the broadcast this evening, there is one county and it's right here that i singled out. fayette county. this one has remained red, as all these other counties in here have turned blue. it's been getting close. now, this is when i say they may be reporting votes out

incrementally here. we got all the early at once in the other two counties. this is a very small number. we know there were a lot more early votes than this cast in fayette. fayette is the one we want to pay attention to, because again, putting this in perspective, this is a very high income, high college degree concentration suburb, right outside atlanta, exactly the kind of place where democrats have been gaining by leaps and strides in the trump era. again, just to show you the history, this was 12 years ago. core republican bedroom community county. trump comes along, look at that republican margin drop. look at it drop further. democrats want to be flipping this county tonight. we only have 6%, we need a lot more vote here. this one we're going to keep looking at because i think it's a test for how the night might be going for democrats in georgia. we can go to the far north. these are the far north part of the state, the most overwhelmingly republican part of georgia. so the question for trump here,

he's going to be winning these counties with 75, 80% of the vote. trump does not want to have slippage of two, three points even in these plae places from he got in 2020. this is relatively small. okay, trump got 81.3 in 2020. he's at 80.3 right now. this is the early vote from union county. remember, one of these things we saw in georgia was republican voters who were very hesitant to vote early, to vote by mail in 2020, really embraced early voting, especially in georgia just based on the numbers we were seeing from the early vote process. look at all the early vote that came in from union. very different from four years ago. and again, if the remaining 15 or so percent from union is more republican than what's come out, trump would be hitting, could be hitting that number from 2020. again, it's not close here, but every one of these counties, they add up. trump wants to be maintaining the number he got in 2020, because if you multiply this, there's dozens of counties like

this around the state. if trump is losing a point or two in all of them, that does start to add up state-wide. that's what we're looking for in north georgia. okay, gwinnett, let's see what's happening. this is over a million people in gwinnett. this is like the most racially ethnically diverse county in georgia. one of noes in the country. it's only 1,000 votes. i thought i was setting up for a lot more there. but this is what i mean about coming in incrementally. sometimes you swing and you miss. but this is a big one to keep an eye on tonight. fulton is the biggest in this area. gwinnett is right behind it here. rapidly growing. you're talking about a third white, a third hispanic -- excuse me, a quarter hispanic, a quarter black, 15% asian american. very diverse, growing democratic. again, we'll keep an eye here, see what else comes in. >> georgia making good on its promise that it would produce a lot of vote very early. let me just tell you one thing

about georgia. we're looking at georgia vote right now because georgia polled closed at 7:00. as joy was mentioning earlier, there are a number of precincts in georgia where polls are still open because of a variety of reasons. there were a dozen precincts spread across dekalb county, fulton, and gwinnett where precincts were able to extend their hours because there were false bomb threats made in those polling locations. so again, a dozen precincts in dekalb county, six in dekalb, five in fulton, one in gwinnett county. an additional two precincts in cobb county, one in glynn county. those have been allowed to remain open late. even though we're talking about the georgia vote coming in and polls being closed, there are more than a dozen locations state-wide where voting is still happening. if you have within the sound of our voice and you're still in line to vote in georgia, and your voting place is still open,

stay in line. you will be allowed to vote. don't let anybody tell you to get out of line. the other thing i need to tell you is coming up in less than nine minutes is our next big closing of a big important swing state. that is north carolina. we're going to take a break right now. when we come back on the other side of the break, we'll have north carolina's democratic governor with us live. governor . so, what are you thinking? i'm thinking... (speaking to self) about our honeymoon. what about africa? safari? hot air balloon ride? swim with elephants? wait, can we afford a safari? great question. like everything, it takes a little planning.

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we are just moments away from polls closing in the very, very important swing state of north carolina. joining us now is north carolina's democratic governor, roy cooper. governor cooper, a real honor to have you with us. we know this is crunch time. thank you, sir. >> yeah, we have left it all on the field in north carolina. a lot of sunburns. a lot of tired people. but i feel very good about where

we are. that's for sure. >> as we head toward this imminent poll closing in a few minutes, how has election day gone in north carolina? have you had any significant glitchesic anything you didn't foresee, anything to tell voters before the polls close? >> we haven't. we have had safe and secure elections in north carolina for decades. things went smoothly today. we had a lot of people voting. we had very high early voting. and i was particularly impressed with the 55.5% of the early vote being women. and that's compared to 54% in 2020. we know what happened in north carolina with donald trump's overturning of roe v. wade by one vote, the republican legislature overrode my veto of a 12-week abortion ban. i think that's going to play significantly in this race. donald trump has to win north carolina in order to be president.

if kamala harris can pull this off, which i think she can, she will be the next president of the united states. we have seen a lot of donald trump and jd vance in north carolina over the last few weeks. they're clearly worried about winning north carolina. we hope that we can pull this off for vice president harris and a lot of important down ballot races in north carolina, including our next governor. >> i was going to ask you about that, sir. alone among the seven big swing states, you have had a national audience for your down ballot races because you have some very controversial republican candidates running for big jobs. mark robinson, the republican candidate for governor, who has referred to himself reportedly as a nazi. you have a public schools chief candidate on the republican side who has called for -- called for former president obama to be executed on live television. you have some characters down

ballot. what's the relationship between those down ballot races and those really extreme candidates and what's happening at the top of the ticket with the presidential? >> well, it shows you where the republican party is in north carolina. they have nominated the most extreme slate of right-wing candidates in the history of our state, and maybe in the history of the country. in north carolina, it will be so important to make sure that we win these races, and when you have a presidential race and a gubernatorial race, it obscures these down ballot races. and they have a difficult time getting the word out. i do think, however, that these races have become so important with the governor's race with josh stein over mark robinson, with the supeintendent of public instruction, jeff jackson running against dan bishop who is part of the marjorie taylor greene group in congress.

i believe that people going to the polls voting for these democratic candidates will end up helping kamala harris in her presidential race. i think with her ground game that she has had in north carolina, it's the best that i have ever seen here. and with that bottom-up help, you have a top-down and bottom-up converging here. hopefully for our success a little later on tonight. >> north carolina governor roy cooper, about 90 seconds away from poll close in your state. honor to have you with us here tonight, sir. thanks for joining us and we'll check in with you again. >> thanks, rachel. >> while we have been speaking with governor cooper we have a projection to make. nbc news can project in the great state of vermont, vermont senator independent senator caucuses with the democrats, bernie sanders, has been re-elected as vermont's senator. that means nbc news has projected in vermont that kamala harris has won the presidential there and bernie sanders is re-elected there. we're also of course watching the governor's race in vermont.

interestingly, there is an incumbent republican governor in vermont. he said after coming out of his own polling place today that he cast his ballot as a republican governor, he cast his presidential ballot for kamala harris. lawrence, checking in with you before we get to this poll closing. >> just on the senator sanders re-election. it points out the flawlessness with which kamala harris has held together the full range of the democratic coalition. bernie sanders to her left, everyone else in the party, held them all the way. right to the finish line. not an easy thing to do. and something that in the past democrats have really struggled with. bernie sanders enthusiastically out there for kamala harris every step of the way. >> and just as influential as he's ever been in national politics. we're less than ten seconds away from the next poll closing. this includes a big swing state of north carolina. as we hit 7:30 eastern time, nbc

news can project that in the north carolina presidential race, no surprise here, it is too early to call. north carolina, not the only state closing at 7:30. nbc news can also project in the west virginia presidential contest, in west virginia, donald trump is the winner. west virginia's presidential race, nbc news projecting that right now for donald trump, and in ohio, nbc news is projecting that in the presidential race, it's too early to call between kamala harris and donald trump. looking at the road to 270, we are still just barely on our way. 23 electoral votes thus far for donald trump with the west virginia, indiana, and kentucky races called for him, and vermont called for kamala harris. 23-3 in the electoral votes. let's look at senate and governor's races. sorry, let's go back to georgia to the battleground, the presidential race. still too early to call. you see we have about 8% in, but

steve kornacki has been watching the vote come in in georgia. we're expecting to see quite a bit of vote come in in the first hour after poll closings. now, let's go to senate and governor's races. this is the senate race, very closely watched senate race in the great state of ohio, where incumbent democratic senator sherrod brown is facing republican challenger bernie moreno. nbc news projected this is too early to call at this hour. and in west virginia, we have a projection in the senate race there. this is the senate seat that was held by former democrat, now independent joe manchin. this is not a surprise. the republicans have picked up the senate seat in west virginia. nbc news projecting that republican senate candidate jim justice will take that senate seat in west virginia, which of course, is a republican pick-up. that's the one sort of locked down absolute guaranteed republican pick-up in the senate this year.

this is the senate balance at this hour, 29 democrats and 40 republicans. with that seat in west virginia, republicans have one senate pick-up. looking now at the north carolina governor's race. this has been a very, very high profile governor's race in north carolina. in large part because of the controversial nature of the republican nominee, lieutenant governor mark robinson. nbc news projecting at this hour in the north carolina governor's race, too early to call between democrat josh stein and republican mark robinson. and in west virginia, we have a governor's race as well. democrat steve williams against republican patrick more asy. nbc news projecting this is at yet too early to call. over to steve. what are you watching coming in? >> yeah, we're keeping an eye on georgia. you see a lot of the counties lit up right now. in a lot of these, it looks like

they're going to do this early vote incrementally rather than in one big batch. so while you see a lot of counties colored in right here, this is the running total state-wide. again, the democrats, you see harris far back there, but the democrats depend so much on this atlanta metro area, and there's not a ton in from there, especially from fulton county, the biggest. we already shows you gwinnett. democrats are counting on a lot out of there. there's only about 1,000 votes there. where are we seeing substantial vote in georgia now? one place that we just got a lot from is howsen county. this is a place that apparently released all of the early vote at once. this is 80% of all the vote out of that county. this is the midstate region and the kind of county where trump lost some significant ground in 2020. he still won it, but his margin was reduced in 2020. the city of warner robins is there. about a third black. a pretty diverse county. in the earlry vote, you see

trump leading. trump slipped in 2020. he does not want to slip further. in fact, to have a good night in georgia, he wants to go back a ways. this is what happened in 2020 in this county. this is what happened in 2016. trump won it by almost 22 points when he won the georgia and won the presidency. fell all the way to 12 in 2020 and he wants to get this number back up. as we say, we expect the vote you're seeing right now, the early vote, to be the best it is for democrats because it includes that vote by mail. and we expect the remaining vote to be more republican friendly. we don't know if that's going to happen. we have to see these completed counties. if that is the pattern and that holds, that is a positive development for trump in that county. that's something he needs to replicate in a lot of other counties. we also got a big batch here, coney county, this is right outside of athens where the university of georgia is. this is one of the wealthiest counties in georgia. it's heavily white, high concentration of college degrees. still a very republican county, and again, you're looking at all

of the early vote here, and again, the kind of place trump doesn't want to be slipping any more from 2020. so again, he wants that number above 66. so that's only two counties but that's what we're looking for as the trump counties start to come in. let me take a look. i think we might, again, resetting state-wide there, those are the numbers state-wide in georgia right now. for the democrats, so much is going to have to do with that atlanta metro area. starting to get vote in here in north carolina. again, keep in mind, you see a lot of counties, the colors here. you only see about 26,000, 27,000 votes. also going to come in very incrementally here. look where raleigh is, wake county. this is one of the biggest democratic vote producing counties in the state. durham county right next door. something big just came in. orange county. but i'll give you a sense of north carolina. a couple things. we expect what's going to be reported out here in the earliest part of the night is the vote by mail, again, very familiar in a lot of places. vote by mail and early in-person

vote. that's the majority of all the vote in north carolina is going to be those two methods. again, we expect that to be a little bit more democratic friendly on the whole than the same-day vote. we'll see if that's how it plays out. as we get a big batch in these counties we're looking at that pattern there where perhaps the democrats do their best and then trump with the election day vote is trying to come back. just give you a sense here on the political geography of the state we're following tonight. a couple things to keep in mind. there are some big core democratic vote producing areas where the name of the game for democrats is to run up the score. this i mentioned is one of them, the triangle. state capital there, university of north carolina in orange county, durham here, duke university is there. large black population also, a large white population, a lot of concentration of college degrees. we're going to look at mecklenburg county, where charlotte is. democrats got a margin of 200,000 votes just out of mecklenburg county in 2020.

they want to grow that number there. again, they want to run up margins in places like this. a lot of attention on the flooding in the mountains of western north carolina. asheville is the sort of one of two blue counties out in the mountains. it's the much bigger one. and democrats actually depend on a pretty big plurality out of asheville. there wasn't much indication in the early vote, a lot of talk about whether helene was going to drive down turnout. we didn't really see that in the early vote. we want to see if that matches up with the same-day vote. that's another place democrats are depending on for votes. they're also going to depend on it here, cumberland county. so core democratic areas and we're also tonight going to be looking in the eastern part of north carolina. this could be key. these are a lot of rural counties and smaller counties that have substantial black populations. and these are counties a lot of these barack obama either won in 2008 when he became the last democrat to carry north carolina or he came close to winning.

and since then, the numbers have come way down for democrats. they think they can get the turnout up here this year. we're going to be paying attention to those counties. state-wide in north carolina, very early. that's what you see with just over 100,000 votes. we'll just check back in on georgia. and we are still about where we left off there. >> so we just had north carolina, west virginia, and ohio poll closings. we had georgia poll closings at 7:00 and we're watching the vote come in. we have been promised by georgia officials that a lot of it will come in relatively early. that's why we keep checking back. while we have been talking, we have a now projection. in the great state of vermont, the incumbent republican governor of vermont, phil scott, has been re-elected. nbc news can project that phil scott will hold on to his gubernatorial seat in vermont. he's a moderate, an anti-trump republican in vermont, a very blue state with a moderate republican governor.

joining us now from polling location at arizona state university in tempe, arizona, is nbc's gadi schwartz. good to have you with us. what have you been seeing? who have you been talking to? >> reporter: we were just talking to voters here. just wanted to see, how long have you been standing in line? >> ten minutes. >> reporter: this is the back of the line. let's show you what the front of the line looks like. maricopa county, the most populous county here in arizona, also the swingiest county in arizona. the margins the last time around, 2020, were very tight. 10,000 people. asu, the campus we're on right now, asu students, the population is about 74,000, so a lot of people voting here. the line is hundreds, hundreds of people. it goes all the way around, and it's about 70, 80 minutes right now. we'll see how long this line takes to actually get through. that's what the app is saying right now. we have been eavesdropping a lot. you have people out here working on their fitness, eavesdropping

a lot on these conversations, talking to a lot of voters. we have been talking a lot about the gender gap. you have seen a lot of younger women, this is a very weird thing -- you have robots walking around on campus, kind of a surreal sign of the times. but for what's driving a lot of young people out to the polls, other than the pizza, is a lot of the props. and when it comes to a lot of the young women we have been talking to, reproductive rights is huge. a big, big driver. a lot of the conversation that we're hearing when it comes to a lot of the younger men here, we are hearing feelings of attacks on masculine identity. we have heard a lot of talk about the rogan podcast, the joe rogan podcast. a little while ago, we were talking to two guys. one said he was on the fence until he said when kamala did not go on the joe rogan podcast, that was what influenced his vote. he ended up voting for trump. he said he was open to listening to kamala on the podcast, and

when she didn't, again, not necessarily all the issues, but the fact that he said she didn't seem like a real person because she couldn't talk for an extended period of time. so some of the things we're hearing from some of these college students, wrapping around, i promise we're almost to the end of the line here. another thing that is very, very apparent is the organizing. there's been some organizing, it seems like with some of the fraternities and these red hats, the maga hats, a standout and they're being given out left and right here. then you have this battle of these stickers. you have harris/walz campaign people going around giving stickers. it seems like back in the day, you would go to a poll site and you wouldn't necessarily see or know who somebody was voting for before they went into the polls. when we were at another polling site in mesa, arizona, those hats are so, so prevalent here in arizona. so we have been seeing a lot more of this kind of tribalism at the polls heading into the

polls. whether it's any indication as to how things go in arizona, it's too soon to tell, and arizona, again, it could be a very, very tight race here, and if it is a tight race, it could be days before we get a final decision. >> that's all right. we have days. we have weeks. we have as long as it takes. we're tireless, just like you. gadi schwartz, thank you so much. gadi with students at asu, arizona state university, in tempe. let me give you an update. we were talking about some threats that were received at polling places in georgia. we got a little more detail on that out of dekalb county, georgia, which is east of atlanta. it's a very democratic, very deep blue county. officials there that nbc news has spoken to say they have received bomb threats at seven locations in the last hour. including five voting precincts. police evacuated the polling sites, polling sites include churches and community centers. in chamblee and tucker and

lithonia georgia. some of these locations appear to include black churches. so again, we have heard about false threats being phoned in to georgia voting locations. if you are in a place where that has had -- whether it's georgia or anywhere else, if you're in a place that has had its voting hours extended or indeed voting poll closings have not yet arrived in your state, if you are in line, you will be allowed to vote. these places that were just newly threatened are being held open until 8:22, so they're being held open to account for the disruption here caused by these threats. don't let anybody dissuade you from voting. they're trying to create the illusion of chaos as much as they're trying to create chaos itself, but your vote is your voice, your right as an american. don't let anybody push you around. it's getting very close to 8:00 p.m. on the east coast. that is our biggest overall hour for poll closing. that means an avalanche of returns is on the way.

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as we head toward 8:00 p.m. eastern, we know that means the largest single number of poll closings we're going to have at any one time over the whole course of the night. we have more than a dozen states that are going to close at the top of this hour, just a few minutes from now. that's going to include the all-important swing state of pennsylvania, also includes florida, where we know republican presidential candidate donald trump will be watching with his family and his campaign staff tonight. the democratic candidate, vice president kamala harris, will be watching from somewhere else, she'll be watching from her alma mater, and chris hayes has an interview along those lines

right now. >> we want to bring in our nbc colleague, michele norris who is at the harris election night headquarters at howard university. of course, where the vice president graduated from undergrad, i understand you have been talking to them first, before we get to the event this evening, about the gotv effort in pennsylvania specifically philadelphia. what are you hearing? >> reporter: well, what i'm hearing is that the lines are long. i'm here at howard university. i hope you can hear me because it's loud here, as you can see, the deejay is swinning records and there's a dance line going on, line dancing, but the story in many of the precincts around the country are long lines. that's true throughout pennsylvania, including philadelphia, where they put a call out for volunteers tovolun help people, help make sure that people who are in those long lines stay in those long lines and with reports about bomb threats also, to keep people calm. the harris campaign is reporting that long lines are the story

all throughout the country. and they're deploying people, an interesting cadre of celebrities to go out and help entertain people and keep them motivated to stay in those long lines. josh gad is a lehigh university in the lehigh valley, always, always, always important in election years. mark cuban is at unc charlotte. jennifer garner is in villanova. so, they're using a tactic that the obama campaign used in the 2008 election, where they actually deployed djs to go out to certain precincts around historically black colleges in ohio and in cities like miami, but the long lines have been reported in several places, in wisconsin, eight college campuses in wisconsin have one to two-hour lines as of midday. and the campaign is tracking what this means. it they're saying in some of these places, the turnout is already at 100% of what the 2020

numbers are. that means that they're cautiously optimistic. cautiously optimistic. >> michelle, you were there at howard university. it sounds like the party has already started. what's the plan, i think, people have been snake bitten by previous plans for election night activities. and of course, in 2020, it was covid. we're sort of in a new world this year, i think it's fair to say. what is your understanding of the plan for this evening's activities at howard? >> well, it's -- america has seen an african-american get this far in the process, but this is going to be different. and not just because it's a woman, it's going to be different because you're going to see a combination of history and pageantry, and ancestry. i mean, i'm standing to the right of founders' library. earlier tonight, i called it founders hall, mistakenly. and folks from howard said, get that straight, it's actually founders library. let's get that straight now. and it's a place where the ancestors are always watching over you. so tonight, you're going to hear

the negro national anthem, you're going to see several members of the divine nine that are going to be step dancing. you know, it's interesting, because this is a moment of pride in many ways for people who are part of the constellation of students who at one point attended hbcus, but also that huge group of people who are part of the so-called divine nine, the constellation of fraternities and sorority around the country, that number 2.5 million around the world, with most of those here in the u.s. and the high turnout that you've seen in places like georgia, like north carolina, like florida, in some ways can be attributed to the get out the vote effort that the divine nine worked on, in particular. kamala harris is an aka, so you can imagine, if you can see to the right of me, you would see a sea of pink and green, because those are the aka numbers. but the entire group of divine

nine fraternities and sorority showed up strong to support her. . >> michele norris who is there at howard university, thank you so much for being there. i think it's pretty good assignment, if i had to guess. >> pretty good. >> sort of interesting scene here at 30 rock. back to rachel. >> she's just come onboard at msnbc and just got this awesome assignment, i have to say. joining us now from west philly high school is nbc's jacob soboroff. jacob, that looks fun. >> rachel, this is a first for me. i was on my way to the ballot processing center, at west philadelphia high school, we got word that de la sol was giving a concert. it's an honor to be here with you guys. and like i said, this is a first. what brought you guys out to west philadelphia high school to do this election night concert. as people are just wrapping up voting at the polling place here. >> what brought us out was to participate in getting people to vote. and seeing how -- de la brings

joy. so we wanted to bring joy to the polls and get everybody, get out there to vote. >> philadelphia native dj jazzy jeff was also here. what was this like for you? have you ever done a concert with people voting in the background? >> never. it's a first for everything. but it's an honor to be here, man. it's something that's needed. and on each side, wherever your heart lays, wherever your mind lays, your political views, you know, don't complain about it. get out here and vote. >> what's the sense you get about the level of enthusiasm that you're seeing. the idea that you would do a concert tonight in this moment, with minutes to go before the polls close here in pennsylvania, the most consequential state, everybody says, with 19 electoral votes on the line? what's going through your mind? >> for me, it shows how important hip hop is and how far we have come and what we mean to politics. i'm glad to be a part of it in such a strengthening way. >> did you ever think -- did you ever think you would be doing an interview with people dressed like ballot boxes standing behind you? >> not at all.

i thought it was halloween for a second. >> i was trying to top fact that paul rudd was out here giving out water. >> paul rudd was giving out water, but like i said, i've never had a night like this before. gentlemen, it's nice to see you. thank you very much. >> keep doing your best, what you do. you do great at it. you do really great at it. >> thank you very much. all right, boss. thank you very much. rachel, back to you guys. >> oh, my god, the guys from de la sol just complimented you! first of all, you got that interview, jacob, you're great. just retire right now! that's it. >> the paul rudd thing. they were watching msnbc earlier today. what can i say? some great viewers. >> half of my soul is made up of de la soul, so that is absolutely fantastic. got to top that next time we come back to you. good luck, sir. >> i'll see you from the ballot processing center. not going to be as exciting. >> jacob had paul rudd walk up to him when i had him on, so jacob is a bit of a magnet. >> paul rudd, de la soul.

>> my college experience was just on tv. they and tribe called quest, that is me in college. that's my two favorite -- >> we are heading toward 8:00 poll closings. stephanie ruhle has joined us. you have a little bit of reporting out of pennsylvania. >> i'm going to tell you what's next. it's not paul rudd or de la soul, but it is lehigh university, my alma mater in bethlehem, pennsylvania. i saw it on a group text of my friends going, i'm hearing that lehigh might have the longest lines in the country. i called the university president. he is, i'm in line, i have been in line for four and a half hours, and he said, i'm surrounded by students and we're loving it. and he said, there are tons of students here and student volunteers. i spoke to another student. she waited in line five hours, and he said, it is peaceful, it is relaxed, and he said, as long as we got here by 8:00 p.m., and they were all there before 8:00 p.m., their votes are going to get counted. they think they're going to be in line quite a bit longer, but nobody seems to mind. this is democracy in action. i'm impressed. would all of you, if you were 19 or 20 years old and the line was

five-plus hours, would you definitely wait? >> yeah. >> yeah, with probably. >> we're nerds. >> the harris campaign just told us that paul rudd is actually at lehigh, has gone to lehigh university, where those gigantic lines are. >> they've sent him from temple to lehigh, to help persuade people to stay in line. >> not many celebrities go to bethlehem. i talked to mark cuban a few minutes ago. he was face timing with students in line at chapel hill, and he said, i thought i was going to need to keep 'em going, but that's what they're doing. >> the obama campaign would send celebrities, like different hip hop artists and et cetera would show up at the polls and people would -- this is before the time we really were like texting -- was everyone would know that "x" celebrity was at the poll and people would stay. that was a tactic absolutely during the obama campaign and it works. >> it is both an inspiration and also enraging to know that there are five-hour lines to vote in the united states of america. it's awesome. and if you're in line, don't get out. if you're in line, you can vote,

even when your poll is closed in pennsylvania, which happens in two minutes. if you are in line, do not get out. stay there until you are allowed to vote. we should be able to run a voting system that does not have lines this long. >> in the year of our lord, 2024. >> but they're not staying home, and that's the positive. >> yeah, exactly. as we head towards the top of the hour, we do have a few results already. we've got four states called already, for nbc news. projection, kentucky, indiana, and west virginia all projected as donald trump wins. vermont projected thus far as a kamala harris win. and that's it, so far. but we're about to get more poll closings at the top of this hour, than we'll have at any other time of the night, while we're watching the vote inch in in georgia. we're getting to that moment. >> we're getting to the beginning of the beginning. it's stephanie's reporting and jacob's reporting that told the story. and whatever data that comes in, none of it includes the people still standing in line. it requires so much restraint to take in the data. we have the best in -- we had

sort of the standard-bearer in the industry, but this is -- this hour will be the beginning of the beginning of data starting to tell us anything but the electorate. but the fact that it may be hours before votes are cast in these battleground states means it could be a long time before we know the results of anything. >> i think that's the one thing that we're all prepared for at this point, is that it's going to be a long night. i will say, while we are watching these things come in at the presidential level, there are house races that are both of interest in terms of the personalities that are involved. some interesting gubernatorial races this year. the indiana governor's race that i was mentioning, the north carolina governor's race, and some key senate races. we'll be tracking those at the top of the hour when we come back, giving you updates on key races as we've got them. we won't always have them. we won't always have data for you at the top of the hour, but we'll tell you everything we know as soon as we know it. we're less than ten seconds away from 8:00 p.m. eastern poll closings, again, in more than a dozen states. we're going to start in the most closely watched of all of them.

at 8:00 p.m. eastern, nbc news can project in the battleground state of pennsylvania, in the presidential race, it is too early to call. in the state of florida, nbc news can project that there is a winner. nbc news projects at poll closing in the state of florida, that donald trump has won the state of florida. in the state of massachusetts, nbc news projects a winner projects that kamala harris has won the state of massachusetts. in the state of tennessee, nbc projects a winner, projecting donald trump to be the winner in tennessee. in maryland, nbc news projects that there is a winner in the presidential race and it is vice president kamala harris. in the state of missouri, nbc projects a winner, donald trump projected to win the presidential race in the state of missouri. in the state of alabama, nbc news projects the winner of the presidential race is donald trump. in the state of oklahoma, nbc news projects that the winner of

the presidential race is donald trump. in the district of columbia, which for some reason isn't a state, nbc news projects that we have a winner. the winner is vice president kamala harris. in the state of illinois -- in the state of illinois, nbc news projects that it is too early to call. to the northeast, in the state of new jersey, it is too early to call in the presidential race. in the state of connecticut, nbc news projects that it is too early to call. in the state of rhode island, nbc news projects it is too early to call. back to the deep south, in the state of mississippi, nbc news projects it is too early to call. back up again to the far northeast, nbc news projects that in the state of maine, it is too early to call. in the always-interesting state of new hampshire, nbc news projects at this hour that it is too early to call. and finally, in the home state of president joe biden, in

delaware, nbc news projects at this hour, it is too early to call. so now we head to the overall national map, as these candidacy tries to beat each other to the all-important threshold of 270 electoral votes. vice president kamala harris at 27 and donald trump at 90 electoral votes. looking back at some of the battleground states where we're watching the vote continue to come in. in georgia, we've had polls close since 7:00 with some straggling precincts that have been held open for various reasons. still too early to call in the state of georgia with one third of the vote in. also, north carolina, another crucial swing state, polls close there at 7:30 eastern time. we've only got about 5% of the vote in in north carolina. and nbc news projects that it is too early to call. looking at a few key senate race s . pennsylvania senate race, nbc

news projects the pennsylvania senate race is too early to call. in florida, senate race here, nbc news projects that there is a winner. incumbent republican senator rick scott projected to have won, to have won another term for his senate seat in florida. and in maryland, very interesting senate race in maryland, this is an open senate race in maryland. democrat angela alsobrooks against republican former governor larry hogan. again, this is too early to call. the senate race in maryland, too early to call right now as of nbc news' latest projection. the senate at this hour, republicans hold 42 seats. there is one flip thus far. and not a surprising flip, but it is a flip in republicans' favor in the seat that is held in west virginia, previously held by joe manchin, now held by republican jim justice. democrats held 31 seats in the senate at this hour.

steve, in georgia, we have a third of the vote in. >> a third of the vote, you see donald trump up by about 200,000 here. i say there's a few layers. the first i can tell you is one thing we were looking for here, and are looking for in georgia, i was describing it earlier, there's a lot of very small rural counties that are going to be deep, deep red. and one of the questions coming into tonight, would there be any slippage for donald trump in those counties. those core republican trump counties. remember, he's trying to make up a deficit he lost by about 12,000 votes last time. we've got about ten now completed of those rural heavily trump counties. we're talking about places where he's going to get 70, 75, 80% of the vote. in all ten that have now been completed. trump's vote share relative to 2020 has gone up. between one and three points. so, again, there's a lot more rural counties out there, but they start to add up, and when it's 10 for 10 so far, i would

say that's something that the trump campaign in that layer is looking for. now, there are other layers to this. let me take you to another one. we talk about for the democrats, this core blue area in and immediately around atlanta. and we're starting to get a lot more out of here. let's say fulton county, this is the biggest of the big. this is where atlanta is or most of atlanta. it bleeds over into another county. but again, we've got the early vote out of fulton or a lot of it. here's harris. to put this in some perspective, this is how biden did in fulton county in 2020. again, like all of these atlanta metro counties, the story here has been democrats getting bigger and bigger margins election after election. they want that trend to continue tonight. they don't want it to stop. they don't ever want to recede from that number. with some same-day vote to come in fulton, we want to see how this develops. 71 is a very high number and the margin is very big. there's still votes to come, but we're keeping an eye on that.

we've also got here, this is just as core a democratic county as you're going to get. a large historically black county, clayton county. we've got more than two-thirds of the vote in here. and this is customary democratic level here. that's what they want to be seeing in a county like clayton county. take a look again, gwinnett is still pretty empty. another one to update you on, we asked as a key question in this metro area, is this blue zone expanding at all? this is the county we wanted to watch. fayette county, and we've got a lot of fay ette county in right here. take a look. this is what it was in 2020. this would be progress for democrats. there's still more vote to come, though. but democrats want to be flipping this, i think, to have a really good night in georgia. same-day vote, that's the more republican-friendly, still to come here. is this as good as the picture is going to get for democrats in fayette county? i say there's layers to this. that's the core democratic area. we'll see how much they can squeeze out of there. another question here has been in a big one that looms is, when

you get just outside this core atlanta area, there are some rr big counties in sort of the fringes of the atlanta metro. and unlike this area, they're all red. they all got somewhat significantly less red in 2020. it's a huge reason donald trump lost the state. in fact, i can call those counties up here and we'll just show you what they look like. it's sort of, these counties here, there's some socioeconomic differences, but we're keeping a close eye on these to see if they're -- because these are big, heavily populated counties. if there's trump slippage in them. a couple, we want to call your attention to. this is one of the biggest. cherokee county. look at that. more than 80% of the vote, canton, georgia is here. this is getting a little bit more diverse. you know, about two decades ago, it would have been 90% white, now it's about 75% white. the diversification of the atlanta metro area is extending to sort of the ex-urban area. the key here for trump is, this is what he fell to in 2020. this is still a great number. you know, if you just looked at

it, but relative to what republicans are used to in cherokee county, trump took a big step back in 2020. his campaign wanted to claw some of that back. and again, with the same-day vote to be tallied here in cherokee, trump is already almost a point above the 2020 number. and again, they want to see that number get a little bit higher here. but they want to be climbing, not falling back, and climbing a little bit in a place like cherokee county, or next door -- >> steve? >> yeah. >> can i interrupt you. we have a change of the characterization in the race in georgia. it has previously been characterized as too early to call. we're now changing characterization to too close to call. so doesn't mean that we've got -- we're anywhere closer to a result, but i wanted to get that in why you continue your exposition of why we feel that way. >> absolutely. again, want to see, as that trump number comes out, forsythe is another big one. and actually, you know, you can

see here, a little bit less of the vote in. but trump so far a little bit behind that number. that would be good news for democrats in a place like forsythe, trump is falling short of that number. another key here just in georgia, that we're going to be watching, it's slowly taking shape again. i will call these counties up in a group on the screen. so you can see them in sort of south and mid-state georgia. there's a number of counties with large -- they're rural counties with large african-american populations. and this is the kind of -- this is the place where democrats think they can improve the turnout and either get better margins or cut into republican margins in some of these counties. so, again, a lot of incomplete here right now, but a couple with significant vote that i can show you. one would be baldwin county here, and almost all is in in baldwin county. very small, but this is a place, joe biden won it. it's about 40 to 45% black population in baldwin county. joe biden won this won in 2020 with almost all the vote in now. trump, three points ahead of harris here.

it's only one small county. but we're looking to see if there are trends in these types of counties. randolph county, another. about two-thirds in very, very small here. but again, this is what jed joed was able to do here in 2020. these are all counties like those small rural trump ones i was taking you through. these are all counties that add up. so is there a trend? this is only two, but that's a thing we're going to be looking for as the results come in and as this map fills in. is there a trend there? again, 37% of the vote is in right now. that's what it looks like statewide. a big one that's empty here is gwinnett. this is another huge one that's empty. this is dekalb county, right outside of atlanta. in fact, some of it's inside the perimeter here. it's about half black. there's a large college-educated white population, very democratic friendly. huge, huge number, you can expect for democrats out of here. we haven't seen anything from that yet. and i also think we've got some numbers here, yes. in pennsylvania, and i just want to tell you what to expect here in pennsylvania, because you can see a massive harris lead in

more than 300,000 votes. in pennsylvania, there's really only -- you know, we talk about this early in-person voting that millions of people are doing in other states. they don't really have that in pennsylvania. it's pretty much just vote by mail or vote same day. and what's happening in most of pennsylvania tonight is the vote by mail is going to all be reported out first. and then the same day. and we expect a pretty clear division, you know, unlike in some other states, where the vote by mail where we think will be very heavily democratic and the same by will be more heavily republican. that's what we're seeing. the city of philadelphia has released -- and there's more to come. this is a giant batch, all of vote-by-mail from philadelphia here. so that's what -- this will be, you know, it will get a little bit better for trump as more votes come in, but that's what you've got right there. you've got all vote-by-mail in allegheny county or a very good chunk of. it this is where pittsburgh is. the 1.2 million people. the inner suburbs around

pittsburgh, too. heavily democratic. so big, big democratic number there. and al in lancaster county, only about 700 votes there. really, the two big cities in the state have come in. we're getting a little bit more now, butler county and a few others. but you can expect, it's the vote-by-mail first in pennsylvania. you can expect harris to have a pretty substantial lead in these early, you know, in the early hour, hour and a half, whatever it is. and the story in pennsylvania, it's going to be the opposite of the story we followed four years ago. four years ago, the story was, they counted the same-day first, trump had a big lead, and night after night, biden was chipping away with it with the mail vote. tonight, we expect just about all of the mail vote to come in, followed by the same-day. and the question will be on the same-day, can trump catch harris? so, again -- >> steve, can i interrupt you just for one moment? we have a call in a presidential race in the state of south carolina. nbc news now projects that donald trump is the winner of the presidential contest in south carolina. back to you, steve. >> yep. i was just checking in on a

couple of others there. so pennsylvania, again, and i'm just seeing if anything else came in. michigan, by the way, let's take a look at michigan. and we've got -- oh, look at this. two biggies. so this is, we set this up earlier. oakland county. remember, this is gigantic, suburbia, high-income, high concentration of college degrees, right outside detroit. now, what you're getting here again in michigan, they overhauled elections completely this time around. for the first time in michigan, they have early in-person voting. a lot of people taking advantage of that. there's also vote-by-mail. and i think what you're looking at, it's going to vary in michigan tonight, unlike some of these other states, there's not a lot of uniform rules here in terms of what sequence the vote will be reported out. but in oakland, i suspect, just based on this margin, you're looking at a lot of vote-by-mail, early vote. but one of the test will be to

compare oakland county, to its neighbor to the east, mccomb county. a big bad luck suburb, suburbia. in mccomb, white-collar suburbia, in oakland. and the democrats, what they're aiming for here in oakland county, look how big this is. you know, three quarters of a million votes were cast here in 2020. biden won this thing by 14 points. that's what democrats want to be seeing again. this was a big jump for biden over 2016 for clinton. clinton had won it by single digits. biden got it to 14. if harris is in that ball park tonight. if she's in that higher double digit -- >> steve, i'm sorry, i have to interrupt you just one more time. well, presumably, the first of many more times. in north carolina, in the governor's race, nbc has can now project that josh stein will be the democratic governor of north carolina. he was up against the very controversial republican candidate, mark robinson. republicans tried to get mark robinson off the ballot, thinking that he would not only certainly lose this race, but he

might lose it by so much that it might even drag down the prospects for donald trump and j.d. vance in north carolina, as well. but nbc news can now project that in this race, the governor's race, josh stein will be the winner. back to you, steve. >> yeah. just to quickly finish michigan and then we'll check in on north carolina. in michigan, again, 8:00 p.m., almost all the polls close. the reason they don't officially close, there's a few counties, four of them in the far up that are central time zones. we're going to be getting this hour most of the rest of the state to some degree. things quickly, just to keep an eye on it as this map fills in, this is very little vote, but you can see here grand rapids, this area of western michigan that grand rapids is the anchor city of is a traditionally republican region that has moved pretty strongly against trump. this has been a growth area for democrats. this is an area where trump has lost a lot of traditional republican support. so the question in this county, this is kent county. it's a biggy, grand rapids is a city of about 200,000 people.

in 2020, trump lost it by six. democrats would love to get that up to double digits and they would love to make further progress in this region. there's a lot of population here. democrats see a lot of room for growth. also up here, by the way. you can see, that's grand traverse county, where traverse city, michigan is. both parties sent their candidates to traverse county several times. it's very volatile politically. they sort of call this the cherry coast. you know, cherry farming is big up there, there's wine country. this is leland county, one of the wealthiest in the state. these are traditionally republican counties that have given way for trump. and this is one of the counties, you can see just a little bit of the vote is in right there. where traverse city is. that's one to watch if it turns blue. democrats would love to shift that one. michigan, it's early. those are some of the things we'll be looking for, wayne county, detroit, the inner suburbs, cities like dearborn where the gaza situation, we want to see if it has a bearing. all things we'll watch as

michigan comes in and we move to the tarheel state, about 10% in here in north carolina, and you can see here the harris advantage. we'll check in here. i haven't actually seen them, so i'm looking right now. wake county, this is raleigh, state capitol, this is one of the biggest single democratic vote-producing counties in the state. not much in. democrats just want massive margins here, in durham county here, orange county, chapel hill, university of north carolina. also important for democrat, there's not much here right now, but they call it the triad. this is where greensboro is in this county. you go over to forsythe county, this is where winston-salem is, they're red now with almost no votes in, but these are core democratic counties and they should be. i want to draw yard our attentio a county that will be key to telling the story as it unfolds in north carolina, this one right here. don't pay attention, there's almost no vote. but union county is massive. a big bedroom community suburb of charlotte, and it's still a

very core republican county. the banking industry is very big in the charlotte area. sort of a bedroom communities made by the banking industry. maybe think of it that way. just take a look, though, at union county. here's the trend. again, it's slippage for trump. more dramatic than other suburbs around the country. trump won here by more than 30 points in 2016. in 2020, trump still won north carolina, but his margin shrank. it's why democrats think they've got a shot here tonight. this is a big reason why trump's margin shrank in north carolina. he just didn't squeeze as much out of these big core republican suburbs. he won it, but it was 24 instead of 30. and i think that's a very good bellwether gauge tonight, as you see, this county come in, is trump falling short of that number again? democrats would like to chip away. get that down to 60, 59, something like that. there's a number of big suburbs in the state. there are some of them, you know, are outside raleigh, where that's the story.

there's a core republican, but does it get a little bit less so? statewide in north carolina, it's sort of scattered, as you can see in these different counties, but statewide right now, four points. and again, we talk about -- let's just take a look, because we've got some -- i'm just checking these to see, one thing that i'm looking for here. okay, we've got anson county has -- let's take a look and put this in some perspective here. significant black population. it's one of the stories in north carolina, the democrats and counties with large black populations think they can improve the turnout, think they can improve democratic margins in some cases, maybe flip some of them. we do have three quarters. very small, but this is the kind of county we'll be looking at. there's a lot of them in rural eastern north carolina. not much to show you right now, but with large black populations, barack obama us the last democrat to carry north carolina. he carried some of those counties. democrats have kind of fallen off dramatically in them. we want to see it's in this eastern north carolina area here. we want to see as these fils in,

are democrats taking strides forward there? they think they can with kamala harris as nominee, they think they've improved their ground game. that will be a test for it. sitting there at about 9% statewide in north carolina. and returning to georgia where we now have about half of the vote in. and again, just going to take a quick look. i have struck out on this every time, but this is going to be very big when we get votes from gwinnett. we don't have many more from gwinnett. but starting to take shape here again, that's that core democratic area, just seeing if we have anymore from fayette. i'll go back and take a look right here, but again, now almost half the vote in in georgia, and i think starting to see a little bit in the way of patterns, just in terms of the rulers at least in georgia, rachel. >> thank you, steve. we will be checking back in with you. i should also mention, while we're talking about georgia, we should keep an eye on this other story which is false bomb threats that have been called in about georgia. we're now updated from georgia officials, at least 38 different

election-associated locations saw bomb threats today. fulton police chief says 32 bomb threats at different locations in fulton alone. some threats were called in to 911, some were called to the specific location. some were e-mailed. the fulton county chief saying all but two cities in fulton county received bomb threats. they were spread all throughout the county. obviously, this is concerning and disgusting. the intrigue here is that both the fbi and georgia secretary of state brad raffensperger earlier today attributed at least some of these threats to russian origin, which means that an enemy of the united states, a foreign ed adversary, is target american voters in georgia to try to influence our election that way by terrorizing us. you know, this is the sort of thing that is -- that has a functional effect, in terms of how people think about getting out to vote. they're, you know, it will do some of what they wanted to do, but it also has national

security consequences for us a as a country, in terms of how we deal with the people in other countries who are trying to dissuade us from doing what we do as a democracy and are trying to determine the outcome of this election, raises questions on how we're going to contend with that as a nation. all right. we're going tyke a quick break. we'll be right back. stay with us. ake quick break we'll be right back. stay with us and stronger than tylenol rapid release gels. ♪♪ also from advil, advil targeted relief, the only topical with 4 powerful pain fighting ingredients that start working on contact and lasts up to 8 hours. still congested? —nope! —uh oh. new mucinex 2-in-1 saline nasal spray. spray goodbye. aaaaaaahhhhh! new mucinex 2-in-1 saline nasal spray with a gentle mist and innovative power-jet. spray goodbye to congestion. it's comeback season! so, what are you thinking? i'm thinking... (speaking to self) about our honeymoon. what about africa? safari? hot air balloon ride? swim with elephants? wait, can we afford a safari? great question. like everything, it takes a little planning. or, put the money towards a down-payment...

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nbc news can now project at this hour that we have a winner in the rhode island senate race. democratic incumbent senator sheldon whitehouse has been re-elected in the great mighty, mighty state of rhode island. nbc news can also project that there is a winner in the senate race in massachusetts. democratic incumbent senator elizabeth warren will be returning to the senate for another term. nbc news can also make a projection in the connecticut senate race.

democratic incumbent senator chris murphy will be returning to the senate for another term. nbc news can also make a projection in the senate race in tennessee, where incumbent republican senator sha blackburn will be returning to the united states senate. at this hour, this is the standing in the united states senate. 32 democratic-held seats, 42 republican-held seats. that reflects the republicans picking up one seat. they picked up a seat in west virginia, the seat currently held by now-independent, previously-democrat joe manchin. we've also got a look, interestingly, at the indiana's governor's race. this is one to watch. nbc news can now project that the republican candidate for governor in indiana has prevailed over the democratic candidate. this is mike braun, a u.s. senator, who decided not to run for re-election in the senate. to instead run for that governorship in indiana. a strong challenge from the democrat there, although a democrat hasn't held the

governorship in indiana in 20 years, to it would have been a big upset. it is the republican, mike braun, who will hold that seat. looking at a couple of ballot measures now. this is interesting, in florida, one of the statewide ballot measures in florida was an amendment, number three, that would have legalized marijuana. that is now projected to fail. so legalization of marijuana will fail in florida. it has to pass by 60%. so even though there is a 55% margin in favor, that is short of the 60% margin that is needed to pass this amendment. and now looking at the very, very important and very closely watched abortion rights measure on the ballot in florida, again, you need 60% to pass. at this point, there's no projection as to what the result is going to be for this florida abortion rights measure, but the "yes" vote right now with 82% of the vote in, at 57. that is a strong vote in favor of this abortion rights amendment in florida, but 57 is

shy of the 60% needed to get that measure passed. but a lot of controversy in florida, particularly over that one, as, joy, governor ron desantis, the republican governor there, has used the state government, as used state agencies, including state law enforcement to try to tip the balance in those races, sending state police to people's houses because they signed the petition to get the abortion rights amendment on the ballot. sending threatening letters to florida television stations, threatening them with prosecution for airing ads in support of that abortion rights measure. we'll see how that comes out. we don't yet know. >> yeah, ron desantis has put everything on trying to ensure that florida will buck the trend of every other state, including red states, that have passed the right to bodily autonomy. he's put everything on it, including threats, whatever it takes to try to make sure that that amendment fails using the power of government in a way that is, i would say, openly

fascist and determinant and very determined. this is something he wants to be his signature thing. it's the thing he passed thinking that it would allow him to defeat donald trump and move to his right can and make him a national star and potentially the heir to donald trump in the party. but i want to really quickly talk about the other amendment. the marijuana amendment, which i think a lot of people assumed would pass. a good friend down there that is in politics in the state of florida, the advertising against the marijuana amendment was really based on the fact that it would empower two very large marijuana companies that are not small businesses. they are two of the biggest companies that are in the national game in terms of legalized weed. and so this was pushed on the people who were on the "no" side, really do push a campaign saying, this is not a way to legalize marijuana for like the everyday individual person. it would be empowering to big companies. so there was a really strong

pushback against it. >> and desantis also, very strongly, pushing, just as he was pushing against the abortion amendment, also pushing on that one. let me just interject, because we have had a poll closing while we have been talking here, at 8:30 p.m. eastern, polls closed in the great state of arkansas. and at poll closing, nbc news can project that the winner of the presidential contest in arkansas will be donald trump. stephanie ruhle? >> floridians for freedom is the group that worked to get this abortion measure on the ballot. in the last week alone, they have had to upgrade, they have had to get bigger office space, because they've had so many more volunteers. in the last 48 hours, they did a last-minute fundraise, because people came in and said, they want more yard signs. when i heard from one of their backers, i said, why do they need more yard signs with 24 hours to go? they said, it's not about the signs, it's that they're getting this kind of demand in the last week. what's interesting, they got a whole slew of new volunteers right after donald trump's speech at madison square garden.

puerto rican women in the orlando area said, we're about to mobilize, we're going to call our network. that's all in the last week and a half. so they might only be at 57%. but 60% isn't that far away, and they have got some wind in their sail. >> we should also just note, they tried. the republican opponents of abortion rights in ohio tried to maneuver this last summer, where they tried to raise the threshold in another vote to get it 60%, because they knew they would lose. they lost that and lost at the ballot box. if they lose 57, 58, 59, somewhere around there. it still means in a state that donald trump is going to carry by quite a bit, and a state that has been moving to the right, a strong majority. a 14-point majority, a 13-point majority. something like that for abortion rights in a state in which the republican governor is campaigning against it. that 60% threshold is part of florida law. it's not like a funny game they played, but what it means about public opinion is true whether or not it gets over the line.

of course, it matters greatly to the women and families in florida whether it does. >> we have another projection. nbc news has just made a projection in the presidential race in delaware. there is a winner in delaware. the winner is democratic candidate vice president kamala harris. nicole, you were going to jump in there? >> i think we're going to be watching these dynamics and they're not going to fall in the way that we receive data. right? the story that we've all been covering, the thing that we've been talking about, the thing that seven anchors are getting at is really at its core a gender gap on the issue of bodily autonomy. and i think that that is not the thing you're getting in your ear, the calls you have to make, you're not getting a call on the gender gap. and i think the way it's going to play out is going to be very slow and tedious. and i think it means some of the people that used to be republicans are now independents. we're going to be putting people in categories for a long time and not going to know the results -- because to your point, a state that trump wond

handily has 57, maybe get up to 60% of its voters, men and women, young and old, who support abortion rights. >> let me jump in here with another call. in the state of delaware, we just had a presidential call in the state of delaware, but nbc news can now project the senate race in delaware. this is an open seat. the seat that had been held by democrat tom carpenter, it was republican eric hanson versus democrat lisa blunt rochester. nbc news can project that the senate seat in delaware will go to lisa blunt rochester. nbc news can also make a projection in delaware in the governor's race. governor's race in delaware goes to the democratic candidate there, matt meyer. so delaware with the presidential race, the senate race, and the governor's race all going blue. >> and can i just throw in that this also, the abortion question in florida also has impacts across the entire southeast. because florida was the one place that people who were in the south could go to, for reproductive care. and now, all eyes turn back to

north carolina, which will have democratic governor, which will retain a democratic governor. it will be interesting to see if republicans lose their super majority, which they have by one seat, because one democrat switched sides and gave them a super majority. if they lose that super majority, watch for north carolina to try to reestablish the right to abortion. and then that will leave one other place. right now, women in the south have to drive all the way to maryland or virginia. so there's a real issue of women who potentially could lose their lives or become extremely ill because the whole south has become an abortion wasteland. >> lawrence, as you've been watching these couple of hours of results that's come in thus far, what's caught your eye? >> i want to go back to lisa blunt rochester winning that senate seat in delaware. that's a former senate staffer working her way up all the way. it's one of those great stories of this candidate coming in there. and it was ant foregone conclusion. she had to mount a serious campaign to do it.

she had to win a primary. and she made it all the way. as we watch the senate unfold tonight, so far, the democrats have, in effect, lost only one seat. and they had big hopes for florida, which it didn't come true. the other big hope is texas. and so, for the democrats, the possible pickup in texas in the senate is the big thing they're watching. >> and of course, watching the challenged democratic incumbents in ohio. >> and that is a big question. we don't know. >> yeah, absolutely. let's go back to steve, who i know is watching some of the pennsylvania vote coming in. steve, what do we go? >> yeah, again, a little more than 10% statewide. heavily, the vote-by-mail, that's why you see such a massive harris lead. not just heavily vote-by-mail, but heavily pittsburgh and allegheny county. why don't we give you a sense over the next couple of hours, as pennsylvania starts to take shape, what we're going to be

looking at. because this could be absolutely critical, obviously, when we start talking about road to 270 scenario. first of all, for democrats, in philadelphia, it's just a question of margin. harris is going to win this very big, but let me just show you what happened in 2020. this is what it looked like. and this was a margin for democrats. you could see, biden, 603,000, trump, 132,000, that is a margin of about 40,000 votes for democrats out of philadelphia. i think one of the numbers to keep an eye on as philadelphia and pennsylvania comes in is does that get up to -- if that got to 500,000, maybe set that as a bit of a benchmark here. if democrats can get that up to 500,000, i think they'll be feeling very good about what they can do in pennsylvania. can they drive that number up? because while this is a big number for democrats, this 81-18 victory for biden over trump, there was a little bit of slippage there. this is just the city of philadelphia. a little bit of slippage there for democrats. give it relative to what they used to get out of philadelphia.

it's because in 2020, in part, trump made gains with hispanic voters in hispanic precincts and neighborhoods of philadelphia. that's one of the things to watch tonight. democrats are getting a big margin, but how big? is it going north of 470, getting up to 5, or does this tick down another point or two in either direction here? so we're going to be looking at that in philadelphia. the other big thing, look, the collar counties of philadelphia, these four right here. it's delaware county, chester county, montgomery county, and bucks county. take them almost two sections here. take these three together. delaware county, where we have a little bit of -- can show you right now, core democratic county. this is a little bit more racially diverse. you can see biden won this by 26 points. it's just about running up a number for democrats in delaware county, as is the case in chester county. now, chester county, again, this fits that profile we talk about. high concentration of college degrees. you know, higher income. there's no county in

pennsylvania in the trump era that has become more democratic to the degree that chester county has. so, as you start to look at the results come in here tonight, it will be a while, see what biden got here? 58%. maybe set a benchmark in your head of 60%. can harris break 60% in chester? because what's happening in pennsylvania, and this is going to be a theme in the two other northern tier battleground states, what's happening in pennsylvania is, the democratic base is geographically contracting. trump came along in 2016, and he started to run up massive margins in rural areas of the state, rural blue collar areas of the state. and what's happened is, the democratic base has become more geographically concentrated, into cities and metro areas. again, suburbs, places, i keep saying it, but it's what the stats show. high concentrations of college degrees. with the democrats increasingly need to do just focus on running up margins in those places that

can offset the trump gains elsewhere in the state. so that's what these three counties are all about. bucks is a big one, about 450,000 people here. it's a little bit different. this is a true swing county here. how this one goes tonight could tell us a lot about how the state is going. it's more blue collar than these other collar counties. so we'll be watching there. south central, you know, pennsylvania, sort of this region in here, harrisburg, lancaster, york. this is actually an area, there are some republican counties in here, but this is an area where trump had some slippage. cumberland county. this is an area where trump had some slippage in 2020. a potential area of growth here for democrats. we're going to keep an eye on this region. western pennsylvania, you see a lot of blue here again, because it's vote by mail. these are almost all going to be red tonight. and when i say trump has been running up the score, these are the counties where he gets 65, 70, 75% of the vote, all in this part of the state.

and i think where the game may be won or lost in pennsylvania is going to be northeast pennsylvania. i think we showed you at the start of the night, but i'll go back to it again. will be paying a lot of attention to lackawanna county. we have got about a quarter of the vote in here. this is the vote by mail. trump almost won this in 2016. what a shift. democrats jumped up to dloes a ten-point win in 2020. was that because of joe biden and his scranton ties or changing attitudes towards trump? big question here. a lot of counties like this in pennsylvania, michigan, and wisconsin. big question here is can trump get this back to 2016 levels or can he win this county? that's what he wants to be doing. and there are also a lot of these counties in this sort of stretch of the state right here. you've got a lot of counties with substantial hispanic populations.

and that's the other thing that the trump campaign has been talking about. berks is where the city of reading is. reading is about two-thirds hispanic, largest concentration of hispanic voters anywhere in the state. trump actually lost the city of reading. he made gains there in 2020. he made gains in a lot of these small mid-sized cities in pennsylvania. sort of this part of the state right here that have substantial hispanic populations. his campaign is betting a lot on that being a trend that continues this election. and there being improvement for trump in those small mid-sized cities and the counties around them. so we'll be paying attention to that as that comes in. democrats need to get massive margins out of philadelphia, pittsburgh, and the suburbs right around them. and trump needs to get back to his 2016 levels in the blue collar parts of the state. again, it's pretty much vote by mail you're seeing there in pennsylvania, but as this takes shape, that's what we'll be looking for. take a quick look back here at georgia. we've been monitoring everything. i will tell you this, one thing

i've been looking at, and this is the clearest thing yet in terms of completed counties, you're always looking to see, when you have all the vote in a county and you compare it to the last election and you say, is there a trend? so one of the things -- there's like three or four of these can categories we're looking at. but one of them, we've said, is the rural counties in georgia. the heavily republican rural counties. and it's very consistent. we now have 15, maybe 20 of them that are basically complete right now. very small, but in just about all of them, trump is running a point to three points better than he did in 2020. and that was one of our questions in georgia. is trump going to slip a couple of potentially critical points in his core parts of the state. so we are not seeing that there, but there's a lot more, obviously, we're goinging to looking for as georgia continue to come in. >> all right. as we continue to watch that vote come in, as steve continues to parse those results, we're looking ahead toward 9:00 eastern time, just a few minutes from now, polls will be closing in a wave of crucial and

interesting states. we're going to have poll closings in arizona, colorado, iowa, nebraska, wisconsin, michigan, and more. we're going to get to all of it. stay with us. with us thanks to skyrizi i'm playing with clearer skin. 3 out of 4 people achieved 90% clearer skin at 4 months. and skyrizi is just 4 doses a year after 2 starter doses. serious allergic reactions and an increased risk of infections or a lower ability to fight them may occur. tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms, had a vaccine, or plan to. with skyrizi, nothing on my skin means everything! ask your dermatologist about skyrizi. learn how abbvie could help you save. moments make up the story of your life. ask your dermatologist about skyrizi. but, as you get older, you can miss them because of severe flu, covid-19, or rsv. so, get vaccinated,

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included, for only $15 a month. >> as we are heading toward 9:00 eastern, one of the big polls we are going to bother watching is arizona, the secretary of state announced at a news conference that there were four non-credible bomb threats that were directed at navajo county in arizona, again, there are no bombs, just hoax bomb threats that have been phoned into dozens of locations in georgia and now we know two locations in navajo county, again, there didn't appear to be any actual threat, they are just hoax is designed

to dissuade people and to cause chaos, and in some cases to force evacuations, it is in raging, and officials have attributed these things to russian origin. interestingly in arizona they are saying some of these threats came from an email address that somebody can spoof, but it turns out that is going to be a lot of background noise of today's election day in multiple states, our friend jen is here, from what you have seen and all the results thus far, what has caught your eye?>> i just want everybody to take a breath, one is, because of the extension of the pole hours, that is such a big county, we don't know what is going to happen in georgia, i would also reiterate, it is like a baby blue state and it

has not been blue for a long time, it is a hard state for the harris team, the other thing that i think, i'm just going to remind people of, that these college towns voting as people are talking about long lines, that is a huge deal for the harris team because remember over the last couple of months, there has been understandable questions about whether or not young people, college students would turn out, given gaza and protest that were happening on campuses, that is something i've heard from officials in michigan, from officials in pennsylvania that there are long lines, which i don't know that we would have all predicted that months ago. >> the other thing is, we talked about the iowa poll in your interview, that really brought this to bear, the polling young people is impossible, and really nobody gets it right, so we don't have good models for how many of them will turn out, we don't know until the day of how many will

turn out, it depends on their schedules, the weather, their motivation, and we don't have great models for predicting their turnout, and maybe even worse models for predicting how they are going to go. so i keep saying, we might not know until later in the night or even tomorrow. >> and again, we are early in the evening, one of the things that was so striking about the public polling and the public data going into this election is that the public polling said this is the closest race we have ever had, basically. and there was a real question about maybe the public polling is wrong and maybe it is going to miss a few points in one direction or another, we don't know at this point, it is very early. but i would say it is a very close race, and right now it looks like the public polling broadly speaking, that this was a very close race, is broadly, based on the data we have, about what we are seeing so far, signs of a very close race. >> if you're just joining us,

8:52, no surprises, pretty much that is what has happened so far, no surprising result anywhere. and that doesn't mean the no surprise result is going to be very tight, that could be for a very long time.>> and what is so hard to track, there are groups both sides are betting on turning out and we don't know if they will or won't, so if you see a huge number in the state, like michigan, which seems to be higher than they anticipated, is that good for trump or harris, we don't know. and that is the challenge because typically you know if there is bigger turnout in certain areas, if it is good for the democrats or republicans, this year because there is the low propensity on male voters that trump is going after, and the quiet vote on the other side, it is harder to

know what turnout means in some ways, at least since i have been looking at the early information. >> and let's not forget, i have three humans who are grown adult children, you have a lot of young voters who are waiting till the last minute and they are pushed really hard by their families to vote, so you have the youth vote that actually reflects what you are seeing in the grown folks vote, especially when you are talking about black voters. especially the black mamas, my son also, i was literally, i mean it was relentless. i said you have to have an extra, because i have three, i don't like to be outnumbered with odd numbers, we have three, so we add four so we team up and it dissipates their power. always have an extra, we take them on vacation.>> that is very deep insight into your

parenting.>> i would like to issue an apology to all of the states we have not mentioned. it is not our fault, it is the founding fathers, they decided on this thing called the electoral college which interestingly, no other country in the world decided to copy and because of that, in presidential terms, in effect on nights like this, you have a right to think that it feels like no one cares about your vote. if you are in california or new york, and when you think about how enormous a force that can be in voter suppression, there may be nothing quite like it. imagine if california voters ever got to think that their votes for president mattered, there are 7 million people in california who don't vote, they are registered and they don't vote today. and how many of them would turn out, and how many more millions with that ad to kamala harris's total. the state of new york, another 7 million people who don't vote in this election because they

know what the outcome is for their state. most of those, if they voted would add millions to, harris, and this electoral college problem is one that is the devil in the 21st century as it never has been before.>> i will jump over to the insiders, and you have been hearing about the specific swing states that we don't yet have a result in.>> simone, michigan is among the trojan states that are going to be closing poles at 9:00 p.m.>> go to your michigan page. what are you hearing about the vote in michigan? we know it is tight. >> yes, and they don't want to make predictions, but people

are hesitant to say that they are encouraged, they are encouraged by what they are seeing in detroit specifically, even with, and i will just say this, there were some gaps within the detroit operation when it comes to the harris campaign, but even with the gaps, there is encouragement and very encouraged in all of the other battleground states on the college campuses, those cities with large college campuses, the college students, they are in formation. and that is going to matter.>> we have some national, broad national polling about exit polling, about harris's strength among latino men and they seem to be breaking for donald trump which is a very big difference from 2020 when they broke for joe biden by i believe 23 points, they might be breaking for trump by as many as 10 points, again this is early but can you talk to me about your thoughts on those numbers, for a state like

pennsylvania where there is a huge latino population. >> in a lot of these exit polls, it really depends on your precinct, where you are standing, if we look back at 2020, exit polls were wildly off last time, my suspect, it is going to be the same thing. i was in reading, pennsylvania over the weekend knocking on doors and the folks i would talk to, most of them already voted and they voted for harris. when i was talking to catherine clark and her team, they were knocking at 2000 doors in pennsylvania per minute, if you were to ask me in that whole part of pennsylvania, i'm looking at reading because that is a union town and people were very upset, not so much supporting kamala harris but upset at the madison square garden comments, that kept coming out. and something else you mentioned, lehigh university, people have been waiting in line for seven hours,

celebrities are facetiming in pennsylvania from the campaign side to tell people to stay in line. >> if you look at how much the harris campaign spent, close to $4 million just in pennsylvania, they understand that is the holy grail and between the latino vote and the labor vote and the young vote, the young though it is so hard to analyze, some of them could be registered right now, so i think those are going to be across the country, those are going to be the two populations that people will say, what actually happened, we don't know.>> michael steele, let's talk about the senate, we are getting various degrees of bullishness, we were talking about chuck schumer, we know that justice, the senate is officially split, what can you tell us? >> the other race that people were focused on, my home state

of maryland, and larry hogan in my county executive, that race has been called for the democrat, for angela, so in terms of the status quo, that stays in praise -- place. and it does speak to a very fundamental thing, and i think it wraps into the other aspects of what we are talking about, that people need to just calm down. when you are running against history, guess what, that is a hard hill to climb and i think there is a lot more to gain out there, so just relax.>> everybody just simmer down, that is the message from the insiders team to the main studio. >> i should mention, michael steele said the maryland senate race has been called, nbc news has not made a projection in the race at this hour, i will let you know as soon as we do. it is 9:00 on the east coast and let's look at some calls, we have a lot of states

closing. nbc news can project the michigan presidential race that it is too early to call, and just as crucial swing state of wisconsin, nbc news can project that it is too early to call. in the equally crucial swing state of arizona, nbc news projects that the presidential race is too close to call. in the great state of texas, nbc news projects there is a winner, that donald trump has won in texas. nbc news can also project a winner in the presidential race in north dakota, the winner is donald trump, also a winner in the presidential race in south dakota, the winner is donald trump. nbc news also suggests, projects a winner in wyoming, the winner is donald trump, and in the great state of new york, nbc news projects that the presidential race is too early

to call. in the great and now very closely watched state of iowa, nbc news projects that it is too early to call, nbc news projects also in minnesota that it is too early to call, nbc news projects that the presidential race in nebraska is too early to call, nbc news projects that the presidential race in colorado is too early to call, the projection in louisiana is that it is too early to call, and the projection for the kansas presidential race is that it is too early to call. and back to the southwest, in new mexico, nbc news projects that it is too early to call. looking at the road to 70 with those races called thus far, we have got donald trump standing at 154 electoral votes, kamala harris at 30. looking back at the battleground states that have yet to be called, just recapping from earlier poll closings, in georgia we have

just shy of two thirds of the vote, it is too close to call, a difference of just over 200,000 votes between the two candidates, in north carolina we've got less than 40% and that is too early to call. and in the all-important swing state of pennsylvania, not even 20% in yet and it is too early to call in pennsylvania. let's look at some of the senate races starting with the key and very interesting senate race in the great state of texas, again we have a presidential race called in texas but in the senate race between ted cruz and his democratic challenger, colin allred, it is too early to call. let's look at the arizona senate race, this is also too early to call, and in the wisconsin senate race, democratic incumbent, tammy baldwin is facing a republican

challenger, eric hovde, it is too early to call. and the michigan senate race, too early to call. and in the very interesting nebraska senate race, we've got the incumbent republican, deb fischer, and it is too early to call. we've got 42 republicans seated, we've got 33 democrats seated, this reflects one seat gained by the republican party in west virginia, the seat vacated by outgoing independent joe manchin. let's go back down to florida where we have a call in the abortion rights measure, in florida, amendment 4, as you

see here, it has 57% yes and 43% no but 60% is the threshold that the yes side needed in florida for the right to abortion ballot measure, the amendment to florida state constitution, nbc news can project that the abortion rights measure in georgia -- florida will fall short of 60% threshold. finally, let's look at one governors race, we have the governor's race in north dakota and the governor's race in north dakota at this hour is projecting as too early to call. so again, a lot of calls, i think the one, i don't know if it qualifies as a surprise, but one that democrats was hoping was in the reach was that florida abortion rights measure. as you were talking about earlier in detail, again, it looks like it is going to win, by a very large margin but not large enough to put it over 60 points which is what they need to get the yes.>> and this is

the reason the republicans wanted the 60 vote threshold, because as they tried to do in ohio, governor desantis has that his political future on being the champion of denying women the right over their own bodies, he is competing obviously with the governor of texas, he is thinking about a future in which he would like to inherit donald trump's evangelical base and he has decided this is his marker and he is willing to use really the awesome powers of the state to try to intimidate and bully, even television stations in the state against running ads in favor of that protection. so it will defy all of the other states including very red states that have protected women. florida in a lot of ways, it is going to be interesting, when stephanie is back it'll be interesting to talk about what florida's future looks like, as

a place that can attract corporate headquarters and investment in a state where the governor routinely bullies companies, routinely sues companies that displease him, he sued disney, cruise line, bullying schools about mask mandates, bullying tv stations about what adds they can run, it is a peer project 2025 in florida and that kind of extremist right-wing fascist type of government in florida, does that make it a more attractive place or doesn't make it more like some of the other southern states that don't get a lot of investments and interest, particularly international investments. >> florida is trying to be an international business hub, even without everything, they will continue to retain an incredibly draconian six-week abortion then which is going to make it hard to persuade large companies if they should move their female staff there.>> and

what is another triumph of the minority, a minority role in american democracy, in the 21st century, beginning with george w. bush becoming president with less votes than al gore in the country, right through to tonight, 57% in florida loses, that is losing in republican defined minority ruled government, which is intentionally designed and structured to be minority ruled government. >> wait until you hear about the filibuster.>> the motion fails?>> all i can say is, don't lose sight of the number, 57% because if harris's gender gap takes up to 57%, that is all voters in florida who voted for abortion access, that number tells us the story about how people voted in a deep red

state, that wasn't even a toss- up. 57% of florida voting for reproductive health care is an important number to keep an eye on, 55 to 57, that is where harris comes in with men and women, if that question was number one, it might be a long night but it could be a very good night for the harris campaign.>> steve, i can see from your board that you are looking at north carolina numbers.>> we've got some counties that are very significant, we highlighted the night right outside charlotte, union county, it is a core suburban republican county and one of those gigantic, first of all, and second of all, trump won in 2020, but the key question tonight, will he lose ground? we basically got all the vote in union county, you can see trump, that is about 25 1/2

margin, compare that to four years ago, he did not lose ground, he gained back a little bit in union county, that is what his campaign wants to see, they did not want anymore slippage. you can go next-door and you can see another trend that we are starting to see pretty clearly in north carolina, this is just about complete, this is a rural county with a large black population. and one of the concerns for democrats was they believe the turnout in recent elections among african americans in these rural counties is lower than they need. barack obama won in 2008, he won a lot of these counties, the question was, will democrats improve in these candidates, in these counties tonight? so you can see it right here, this county looks like it is going to flip, joe biden won this four years ago, now donald trump is ahead by three, again,

rural large african american population, a lot of counties that are similar to that are in the eastern part of north carolina and we are starting to get most, if not all of the results. vance county, biden won it by 19, harris is winning it by only 12 points right there, next-door in warren county, 26 for biden, i think you are starting to see the pattern. tonight, about 17 points, still a little bit to come, but harris behind the biden number so far, you can look at martin county, again, large black publishing, trump with about 20% more to come, that is the pattern we are seeing in these rural counties with significant african american populations, where support level was a concern for democrats. one thing you have to add is

they may not just be turnout, there's also declining population in a lot of these counties that might be affecting democrats as well. but again, that is a pretty clear pattern, the other pattern in north carolina statewide, we are tracking this, because again, a lot of what comes out first is the early vote, the in person vote, then what is reported after that , we want to see if there are partisan differences between how the votes are going, so far we are finding that trump is doing better with the election day voters than he did with the early voters, so when you get to 80% of the county, generally what is left is going to be that same day vote, we are finding that is a stronger vote for trump. what the democrats are looking for right now, take a look at wade county, this is the biggie, the state capital is here, three quarters of the vote is in, the name of the game for democrats is to drive up the margin as big as they

can. 26.5 points in 2020 for biden, that is a little bit stronger for harris, that is what they want to see, they want to get the number up in wake county, mecklenburg is the other giant one, there's also the question in north carolina about this part of the state, when you get into the blue ridge mountains, it was so affected by the hurricane, so with that, will it affect the results at all? most of this region is republican, most of these counties are rural and heavily republican. and we can just show you, this is tiny but this is what you are seeing in the rural heavily republican mountain counties that are getting close to fully complete, trump hitting that 2020 number, maybe even going a little bit north of it. and the turnout question which everybody had in the wake of the hurricane, 4700 votes, and in 2016, they are a little bit

above 2020 level, i think if you are above 2020, that is an all-time record for turnout. i don't think there is an indication, that is one county but we are seeing a big turnout issue, there are two big blue counties in the mountains, asheville, if this were to hold, democrats would be very happy with what is happening in bunbombe county, so is this going to come down for democrats? they want to be heading north of what biden did, the other is a blue county, where appalachian state university is, watauga county just about in right now and again, biden won by a little over eight points, at about seven right now.

it is not a huge county, but democrats in counties like this, there is a pretty good concentration of students, of college degrees, a lot of these ingredients for democratic success, they want to be driving up the numbers in those places. another place like that is orange county, chapel hill is here, this is basically on par for democrats, even a touch above what they did in 2020, that is what they want to see. one other place that i can flag here, this is carruthers county, this is the one that swung the most to democrats in the last election, again, right outside charlotte, it is growing, it is diversifying quickly. again, you can see democrats want to make further progress, trump won by almost 20 in 2016 and it came down to single digits in 2020, this is another test tonight, this is a place where democrats want to keep that momentum going, but that is what we are keeping an eye

on. again, you can see those trends, trump outside charlotte, i would say he probably passes that test in union county and the democrats so far in these rural counties, not getting what they hoped for, still to come, we want to see how the week finishes, we want to see mecklenburg, the triad, greensboro, forsyth county, winston-salem, so still a bit more to come. trump continuing with an advantage in georgia, about 243,000 votes and we are getting a lot more clarity in the metro atlanta area, a couple things we talked about, democrats wanting to improve margins, that is where they need to do, in cobb county, that is a democrat stronghold, you can see what happened in 2020, biden won by 14 points, currently 78% of the vote is in, harris is winning by 16, the concern for democrats is the remaining vote, we suspect

is that election day vote, a little more republican friendly, 16 would be a good margin for democrats in cobb county but, if that falls below the 2020 level, that is very alarming for democrats, and fulton county again, it looks exactly like it did in 2020, democrats want to grow that a little bit more, again, it is a big blue county but, what is still to come in fulton county is a little less blue and that number slips below 2020, that is the trouble sign for democrats. we flagged fayette county early in the night, with this one flip? if the blue blob was going to expand, this is the place. almost all in right now, you can see trump with a 2.5 point lead. that is progress for democrats, will it be enough? those other giant suburban counties are going to tell that

story. and we have a little bit from gwinnett county, this is enormous, this county has over 1 million people and it has transformed demographically in the last generation, this is one of the most diverse in the country. democrats, you can see biden won by 18 points in 2020, the democratic margin, look at this, 2016, a single-digit race, almost 20 in 2020. let's see, that is a key one because of the size and trajectory. and the fringe atlanta metro counties, the question here is do they become less red? we have almost all of cherokee county, this is one of the wealthiest counties in the state of georgia, take a look, this is what happened in 2020, donald trump won by 39.2 points, and tonight he is winning it, almost by 3/10 of a

point off, the trump campaign, let's see, they don't want big slippage, i think they would like to come back a little bit more here, but they are not losing ground. and looking next-door, forsyth county, this is a very wealthy, you can see in terms of votes, this is where trump lost substantial ground in 2020. a bulk of the vote is in, trump is already over performing a point from where he finished in 2020, that is encouraging for republicans, you can complete this loop quickly, i will show you some of them here, hall county, trump had slippage in 2020, you see he has improved here, not major but this was a state that was decided by a fraction of a point in 2020 so any shift is significant.

barrow county, again, trump had slippage in 2020, a little bit more tonight for trump, you can see harris running a point and a half better than biden, and trump is basically level with 2020, and walton county, this is the early vote, trump had slippage in 2020, 49 points, believe it or not, that was slippage for the republican. tonight, 46, again, same day, does it get back to 50? that is what trump wants, i think we've got just about all of douglas county right now and again, douglas county is one of these fast growing, transforming politically, it is diversifying, and you can see democrats in douglas have achieved what they wanted here, biden won by 25 points in 2020, now harris has it north of 30, that is something democrats want to see so again, if we zoom out statewide, it is a six- point lead right now. and if you want, we can just

check in, we are talking about this in north carolina, and same in georgia, there's a lot of rural counties with large african american populations and the question for democrats, can they improve, they would like to improve turnout wise, relative to last time, so again, baldwin is just about all in, this was a blue county in 2020. it has flipped over the trump. you can see wilkes county just about all the vote is in, trump by 17, trump won by about 30 points and change into 20 so we are seeing a bit of what we saw in north carolina, randolph county, very small but a lot of this is in right now, biden won it by nine in 2020, what is left to be reported in randolph county is going to be the same day vote, it is a bit similar to what we are looking at in north carolina, here's another

one. very small, but again, this is a large black population, 19 points in 2020, tonight at about 16.5 which is just about all the votes, and slight differences in a state like georgia can make all the difference, where all these millions of votes, we expect about 5 million, in 2020 it was separated by about 12,000. if there is any slippage by democrats, that is a very bad sign for them. harris is at 72.6, this is the biggest single county in georgia. if this number starts dropping with the remaining vote, even though that looks like an enormous democratic win, by the numbers it is, it may not be enormous enough, the democrats don't want any slippage, so pay attention to that one as we get more from georgia. >> we've got a few updates since we have last checked in, the nbc news projection in the

state of rhode island, there is a winner in rhode island, kamala harris is projected to win the presidential race in the rhode island. nbc news can also project in mississippi, the winner is donald trump, nbc news can also project in louisiana, that the winner of the presidential contest is donald trump. a couple other interesting updates for you, back to delaware, this is a historic outcome, in a house race, this is the delaware house seat, at- large house seat, this is an open seat because the incumbent was lisa rochester, when she left that seat, the democrat running for it was sarah mcbride and the republican was john whelan. and i mentioned this is a historic win because sarah mcbride will be the first openly transgender member of

congress and she has just won tonight in delaware, congratulations to her. i should also mention, another race that would not necessarily make national news, except for a very important piece of bit that will become immediately clear to you in one moment, which is that our affiliate in georgia, wxia has made its own call in the fulton county district attorneys race. this is the fani willis race, the district attorney of fulton county who brought the rico prosecution against donald trump and a number of co- defendants, fani willis has been re-elected by a considerable margin tonight. one other piece of news to bring you, nbc news can report that the fbi is tracking and

investigating bomb threats attributable to russia in georgia and wisconsin and michigan and arizona, we do also have reports of new bomb threats at polling sites in pennsylvania. governor josh shapiro says there have been multiple bomb threats in philadelphia, multiple voting locations targeted, all of these are non- credible, these are hoax bomb threats, there are no bombs, but threats are being phoned in or otherwise communicated in multiple states, voting hours were extended until 9:00 in clearfield county in pennsylvania, there's the central part of the state because there was a bomb threat in the building where the votes were being counted. nbc news reporting it is not apparent to the fbi that these new bomb threats, these pennsylvania ones are attributable to russia but they are investigating russia

exhibited bomb threats in georgia, wisconsin, michigan and arizona, the fbi also reported they are investigating more threats in other states, so more than we even previously mentioned. let me repeat, there aren't any bombs, there's no real threat, the threat that happened is the calling in of the bomb threat where there is not a bomb in place, specifically to try to create chaos and to disrupt voting patterns.>> and for kids watching for the first time, they should know that we never have bomb threats before donald trump became presidential candidate. >> in reno, nevada we are expecting the polls to be closing this hour. steve patterson, what are you seeing in reno?>> two things that are all the rage, one is ridiculously long lines and deciphering the nonpartisan

vote, we will take you to one of those lines, this is the washington county complex, the basically, the county recorder, which if you've made it to this point, you are 40 minutes from the front of the line, the other thing we should talk about is that nonpartisan vote, it is confounding to decipher what the boat is going to be as we continue to walk the line, this is how long it is but a part of that, it is such a big part of the vote that these aren't necessarily sure how these non-partisans are going to vote, and they are that way because primarily of a law that was instituted in 2020 and said that everybody that gets signed up -- by the way, this snakes past the chamber and goes ridiculously long through this building. eventually you can see the beginning of the line, about one hour to get to this point. but a rule in 2020 that said

essentially anybody that signed up for a drivers license has to be registered as a nonpartisan, you have to essentially assign yourself to republican or democratic party in this state. a lot of people chose not to do that, that is why they're such a large population but i spent about six months here and i have equally seen many people that are probably nonpartisan that don't want to essentially be a part of one of the parties. they want to vote based on how they feel and that is the tough part of deciphering a place like this, within a bellwether where people are trying to read the lead is so difficult to do, but certainly as returns are coming back, about a third of the vote between republicans, democrats and now this third group which we don't know which way it is going to go. everybody seems to think they have a trojan horse in this population, republicans think they are leaning more right while the democrats think this is a younger, more diverse

population and that will turn into a democratic vote. we will see, although we are hearing lines are particularly long also in southern nevada counties, three hours for some lines which could push this into the night.>> steve, thank you so much, fascinating, i love seeing people coming in behind you while you are talking with kids in tow, it is going to be a large night, especially with childcare, why not make it a field trip? we do have a call to make, nbc news can project that the presidential race in new york has a winner, kamala harris has won the presidential race in the great state of new york. two people just spoke to me at once, what did you say? looking at the road to 270 map,

donald trump with 168 electoral votes, and kamala harris at 62, you are looking at pennsylvania question mark>> yes, again, most of the state is going to be democrats putting up giant numbers in these counties and trump with the same day vote trying to chip away at that and rivers it. this one we flagged at the start of the night, lackawanna county, it is not complete yet at one of the most complete we have so far in pennsylvania, about 80% is in, and this is following that pattern, harris had a lead with that and with every update since of the election day vote, trump has been chipping away, and we are at 80%, so more to come and again, this is a key county, once we get the full resorts --

results to understand where we are going. in 2016, this was a huge gain for republicans, they used to get flattened, donald trump only lost by three points and change, and in 2020, joe biden got it all almost up to 10. anything less than that gets very shaky for democrats she's -- so where is this going to land? if you froze it right here, democrats would be thrilled, we want to see with that remaining 20%, if it continues to come down and ends up looking more like this but that is the most complete we have right now of a big substantial county in pennsylvania and that is what we are looking at, and again, just a couple other things to flag, erie county, we will keep an eye on that because there's only two counties in pennsylvania that swung between 16 to 20, erie county is one of

them, basically no vote from there but that is a bellwether county. and the other one is on the eastern side of the state, this is north hampton county, we have about a quarter of the vote, a lot of this you can see, this is the mailing vote, you can see joe biden won narrowly in 2020, this was a flip and again, this is the question, as the remaining vote gets tallied up, can donald trump get beyond that number? these are potentially bellwethers in pennsylvania. by the way, wisconsin, we started to get some results out of wisconsin, and i just wanted to show you, brown county, winnebago county, green bay, appleton, oshkosh, these are areas where donald trump lost some ground in 2020, but wants to win it back, and with washington, waukesha, these are core suburbs where the democrats have been gaining. so we do have nearly 40% of the

voting in the biggest of those counties, this is waukesha county, this puts this into perspective, this was a bad showing for republicans, in 2016, trump won by 27, go back to mitt romney, it was more than 2 to 1 republican. the way the vote is coming out in wisconsin tonight is the absentee vote, we may get that a little bit later from some of these counties, this is done at the municipal level but there could be opportunities for harris to grow the support, this is not like pennsylvania where this is all republican gains later on. we want to keep an eye on this because the democrats want to get harris over 40% in waukesha. so with 40%, you are at about the 2020 level and this is the

other one, ozaukee county, of all the counties in wisconsin, this is the one that has the second highest level of educational attainment, that of people with college degrees. democrats have been doing much better with this demographic, this showing for joe biden, in 2020, this showing for joe biden, he lost by 12 points, that was the best showing since lyndon johnson in 1964. so this is one tonight where you want to see if harris is further improving on this, getting us down into single digits, so far a little bit more than a quarter of the vote, this would be a very good number for democrats out of ozaukee county. the suburbs outside milwaukee use to win wisconsin for republicans, democrats have been eroding that support for republicans, if they can do more that is big for them tonight, then there is this, about a third right now for

dane county, this is the mother load of votes for democrats, it used to be that the democratic coalition was very spread out in this state, democrats could win dozens of rural counties, trump came along and he has gobbled those up, so the democrats are dependent on this massive county. high density suburbs. and here's the thing in dane county, every election this century, democrats have gotten a bigger and bigger margin, this is where it landed in 2020, it's not just the margin, biden winning by more than 50 points, trump, 78,000, that is a margin of nearly 182,000 votes for democrats out of this county. and again, if you go back to the turn-of-the-century, democrats were winning by about 50,000 votes. every year it gets bigger and bigger, democrats want to get even more out of this tonight

because again, they are taking such hits in the rural areas of the state, can they get this up to 190, or 200,000 votes? every time you think they have gotten the most they possibly can, they get more, they are probably going to need more tonight. let's see as it starts to develop, when scott said -- wisconsin, at 13% now.>> thank you, we are going to jacob who is standing by in philly, he is with the philadelphia city commissioner who was in charge of running elections in that city. over to you.>> reporter: that's right, there are three philadelphia city commissioners, all of the responsible for administering elections in the city and county, same jurisdiction, same populace in philadelphia, there are two democrats and one republican, succeeded, al

schmidt who is the secretary of the commonwealth, you were the deputy secretary, the first thing i want to ask you about is former president trump did put out a message on true social, a lot of talk about massive cheating in philadelphia, law enforcement coming. again, a lot of talk about massive cheating in philadelphia, this is from former president trump, your response? >> that is absolutely not true, voting was safe and secure, we worked very closely with the rnc and anybody else throughout the day to address their concerns. we had open lines of communication and voting philadelphia went very well.>> reporter: so, the allegation of cheating is false?>> that is absolutely not true.>> reporter: let's talk about safety and security, this is the main ballot processing center for the entire city and

county for philadelphia, you told me earlier there were some bomb threats in philadelphia at or around the polling places, how many and what is the nature of those threats and did it affect people's ability to cast votes tonight? >> there were concerns at 10 polling places at the end of the day, one location needed to be evacuated for a short period of time, so voting was extended for about 23 minutes.>> and finally, here in philadelphia, the mail-in ballots, you don't process any until 7:00 a.m. this morning, that processing is underway right now behind us, when are we going to have a result in philadelphia?>> in the initial release, we had 115,000 mail ballot results that got posted, over the next couple hours we will have in person results and we will do

another release of the results right before midnight. ultimately when the process is done, it depends on the margin of the election. it could go into tomorrow.>> and finally, i know you had threats against yourself in 2020 at a police detail, what is the nature of that now? >> we are keeping an eye on the threat environment, we don't have anything specific at the moment but it is definitely a possibility.>> reporter: thank you very much, i will let you go back inside, i really appreciate it. that is the city commissioner, this is the ballot processing tabulation center, it will be the one chance we will have a look inside, this is where the votes are tabulated right now in philadelphia and they are going to push us out of here because we are not supposed to go inside. back to you.>> that was very attracted, following toward that slightly open door and getting everything you could from that momentary peak inside. much appreciated.

and good on the commissioner for getting out ahead of this misinformation. we have a couple of updates for you in terms of how things are going, nbc news has made a projection in the presidential race in illinois, democratic candidate, kamala harris has won in illinois, and right now this is the route to 270, trump at 168, and we have a couple of ballot measures, first we can talk about maryland, in maryland, there was a pro- abortion rights measure on ballot question one in maryland, this is the amendment that would guarantee the right to make and effectuate decisions to prevent, continue or end one's own pregnancy, an overwhelming 3 to 1 vote in maryland in favor of abortion

rights, question one will pass in maryland. and also, we've got a result in new york, it isn't specifically on abortion rights amendment per se but it does have an impact on that, this is question one on the new york ballot that would create a full state-level equal rights amendment in new york state, so it is not specifically about abortion but the measure does protect all new york citizens based on pregnancy and pregnancy outcomes and reproductive health care and autonomy so the effect of this measure will be to undergird and cement new york law where abortion is currently legal up to 24 weeks, in new york, this equal rights amendment measure will pass in new york state. coming up on 9:41 on the east coast right now, heading towards 10:00 poll closings. at this point we have no swing states called, we've got trump

doing well in terms of his margins in the two southern swing states, north carolina and georgia, as steve has been portraying. we've got no surprises, really anywhere unless you want to count the florida abortion measure falling short of the 60 -- 60% threshold that it needed. let me ask you, what has caught your eye or what have you been hearing from people on the inside?>> one of the things we talked to david about last time we were gathered here was the way in which these abortion measures might influence the electorate, even though what is really interesting, there were some reports earlier this election cycle, 57% of the state of florida voted to try to enshrine abortion rights into the state's constitution but donald trump and rick scott

also won that race, so there is a fair number of people out there that are saying yes we want to bring it back to the state effectively, but also we are voting for donald trump and rick scott, two people who are very clearly antichoice and one person in particular who could play a hand in outlawing abortion nationwide and one of the phenomena that is distressing for harris and people interested in more broadly in abortion rights are the voters who are saying yes we care about abortion, yes we are going to vote on these referendums across the country in support of choice legislation or choice rights but we are also going to vote for donald trump. it is a real cognitive dissonance, and it suggests that he has a very muddy position on a federal abortion ban , which actually isn't that mysterious.>> arizona is another place where this is extremely interesting to watch, there could be voters who vote

for trump, and the abortion protection ballot initiative, and that bends the mind, there's other ways to describe it but that is the most diplomatic way because how could you vote for trump, gallego and the abortion ballot measure, so this is a very interesting trend. and one of the things that nicole keeps reminding us, you can't actually capture it with the polling, because we know where trump stands on abortion rights and that makes us assume that they would vote against trump and we just don't know that at this time. >> looking at that split ticket voting, depending on what happens in the southern states, we are going to know how important pennsylvania is, and once we know about pennsylvania, we are going to know how important the western states are to the whole thing,

but regardless, we are seeing a splatter painting in terms of the way that voters are plotting the valence of the politics, their ideology and their priorities. >> i have heard from more than one trump voter this phrase, it is not an issue about abortion, which is exactly the feeling donald trump has tried to get across, it's not an issue, it is up to the states, he shuffles the deck and pulls out a different card whenever he wants to and that seems to have succeeded with some voters but, it is also, the trump voters i know who are in fact staunchly antiabortion, also have other thoughts and could very conceivably want to vote for a senator like gallego, vote against that measure, vote for trump, abortion doesn't automatically lineup the vote

all the way up and down the ticket. >> i have to interject with a call, nbc news has projected a winner in the great state of ohio, home state of vice presidential running mate, donald trump is projected to be the winner in the state of ohio. no surprise, ohio used to be the prototypical swing state just like florida, neither of them considered to be a swing state anymore. when the iowa poll came out, i think people thought, if that is the kind of race we are looking at, if iowa is potentially in play for the democratic provincial candidate than a state like kansas could be, too. it looks like again, we are in a realm of no surprises which is where we have been all night.>> and i think we asked about some of these other states and he shut it down, he

said no, no, no. and what you just mentioned, they are watching the blue wall and they are watching it, not anxiously, but eagerly.>> let's just be blunt about this, let's say trump wins georgia and north carolina, also nevada and arizona, if kamala harris wins michigan and wisconsin and pennsylvania, she gets 270, so we were talking about this being a tight race, it isn't just a tight race with these individual swing states, it is a tight race, even once we start to get the first swing state calls. >> and by the way, that is the old-fashioned way, before georgia shocked the world in 2020, the old-fashioned way, the way the democrats won was the blue wall, donald trump shattered the blue wall in

2016, so everybody is waiting on the states, waiting on florida is a waste of time, we understand it is a red state but the old-fashioned way of doing it plus that nebraska special district, that is the way the old-fashioned way democrats win elections. and the one place that at least the folks i'm talking to are looking outside the blue wall and paying close attention to and they will be watching whatever steve does is the georgia suburbs because that is where they are seeing over performance for vice president harris, in the suburbs of georgia and if she over performs, biden in 2020 in the georgia suburbs, that is where they see the one place to do a reach state. because again, georgia is still a reach state. >> we have a change in characterization and a couple of very important states, in the pennsylvania presidential race, the previous characterization had been too early to call, it is now too

close to call in pennsylvania, similarly, in the wisconsin presidential race, previously too early to call in wisconsin, it is now too close to call. we can also change our characterization in a couple of senate races. let's look at the wisconsin senate race, this is democratic incumbent senator, tammy baldwin facing eric hovde, previously described as too early to call , it is now too close to call in the wisconsin senate race. also in the pennsylvania senate race, we have a similar shift, this is incumbent democrat bob casey, he holds the senate seat in pennsylvania right now, his challenger is dave mccormick, and this was previously too early to call, it is now too close to call in the pennsylvania senate race.

an additional change in characterization, this goes back to the presidential level, in michigan, the presidential race had previously been too early, it is now too close to call in the state of michigan. also, let's take a look at michigan senate, a similar pattern, in the michigan senate race, again we have got a democrat versus republican, this is an open seat in michigan, this had previously been too early to call, it too close to call. so just recapping in pennsylvania, and wisconsin and michigan, all of the calls in those three states have moved from too early to to close, that is true for the presidential race and all three of those battleground states. bt s >> nevada is one interesting

state. it is a very diverse state. one thing i have been hearing from democrats is about the nonpartisans that the reporters were talking about. there is a huge amount of nonpartisans since 2020. since 2022. that was the closest senate race in the country. she won the nonpartisans by single digits. yes, you do not exactly know how they are going to vote, but they look at 2022 as a good sign. that is a sign.s that is a state where i will say it i was so far from being won the democrats before there was a change at the top of the ticket. the internal polling numbers were devastating. the senate race, we don't know what will happen. it has massively changed. that is interesting thing for me.

nonpartisans, there are reasons why the democrats feel good about the nonpartisans. >> we have a new call, a projection in the presidential race in kansas. nbc news can project the winner of the presidential race in kansas is donald trump. we are heading towards a 10:00 p.m. poll closing in nevada, utah, montana. we are keeping an eye on a lot of different battleground states. claire, i understand maybe you have intel out of wisconsin? >> yeah. i talked to folks on the ground running the senate campaigns in pennsylvania, michigan and wisconsin. they all feel good about those senate races. the only two out there everyone is still biting their fingernails over are john tester in montana who has to overcome a huge trump margin in montana and

sherrod brown. i know we have called trump for ohio. the rest of them, everybody is feeling good about. people are feeling good about what they are seeing on college campuses. it is going to be big in michigan, pennsylvania and wisconsin. those are the three states we need.at don't have to have georgia or north carolina. we have to have those three. they have been surprised. the campaign has been surprised hby the level of involvement o the college campuses today on election day. they were not expecting the long lines and requiring in some locations they keep them open longer. >> it is our fate as actors in this drama that you have to have the swing states that are absolutely unbelievably crucial

to the outcome of the presidential race and they also have incredibly tight fought senate races at a time when senate control will be very, very important. let's pass it back over to ck steve. steve, i see you have pennsylvania up on the board. what are you watching coming in? >> it is coming in incrementally. there is a big division between the vote by mail and the same day. it is unclear. one county we are getting close and will be a big indicator. we talked about it lackawanna county. we were saying that we expected trump to close to the lead that harris had. it was about six and a half or seven and now at 90%. he cut it a little bit. it is down to five points. remember what we are looking for in lackawanna county.

2016 donald trump got three points behind and won the state of pennsylvania. 2020 democrats with joe biden came in and won it by more than eight. biden won the state. trump wants this number. democrats want that number. right now it is in between at five. there is still same day to come in. the remaining ten%. the same day seems to be favoring trump. how much will it favor trump? will it bring it down back to this level or stabilize? that is the most complete county that we have in pennsylvania. i think we said it at the start of the night it is a key one. the region where scranton is and lackawanna county. this is very contested political terrain. this is also where the city of hazelton is. a majority hispanic city and donald trump won hazelton in

2020. trump campaign thinks they will make more gains with hispanic voters. the same day is what is still to come here. trump is leading by eight points now and won the county by more than 14 in 2020. the trump campaign wants to improve. if the democrats stop them from doing that sit will be a big development for democrats. we want to go back to look at georgia. joy was talking about this, the suburban support for democrats in the atlanta metro area. there are suburban counties here.an call them the emerging suburbs of the atlanta metro area where the growth is the fastest and e the diversification is the mo dramatic. that is where harris is posting improvements. we showed you douglas county. rapid growth here. it is about half black.

2020, 25 points and tonight harris is winning by 32 points. rock rockdale county. biden got 70% and harris pushed it to 73. newton county, the tightest margin of all of the atlanta counties. almost all of the vote is in. harris has improved on it. henry county, almost 80% of the vote is in. biden won it by 20. it is up to 30 or so for harris. the counties i showed you within the atlanta metro region, the lesser populated counties. the huge populations, you start with fulton county. atlanta is here. there are a lot of suburbs within fulton county. this is key for democrats.

a drop of a couple points would offset the gains from the other county. you can see biden 72.6 in 2020. harris has fallen a tick below that. trump, 26.2 in 2020 is a tick above his number. the concern is with only 80% counted there is a significant amount of same-day vote to come in. this has gotten a little bit tighter. democrats dropped since the last time d we looked at this. there is room for her to drop further. that offsets a lot the good democrats might have done themselves in other counties. look at this. cobb county, getting close. take a look at 2020 here.

joe biden won this by 14 points. right now it is a 15-point margin. the margin for democrats was bigger earlier. cobb is a massive, massive county. it is much bigger than any of the others i showed you. 82%. more same day to come. that is concerning for democrats if it starts to drop below that. and then gwinnett county. we are still where we were. there is a division that we are seeing between the suburban and metro counties here. there is clear democratics growth but don't want slippage in the big ones as the remaining vote comes in. we showed you cherokee. these are the fringe atlanta metro counties. here is one forsythe county. trump, a point higher than 2020. you can go over fast growing.

29 points for trump last time and down to 24. a feather in the democrats' cap right there bringing the trump number down further. we close out and we are basically done in fayette county. if democrats were flipping this they are definitely having a good night in georgia but harris has made progress. it is a big suburban county. harris made progress from seven points and sitting at three. is the progress enough for democrats? >> fascinating, and so down to the wire. we are coming up on a poll closing at 10:00 p.m. closings in very interesting states. nbc