nbc bay area political analyst larry gerston joins us. hi, larry. as always, great to see you. good morning to you. >> good morning. >> i think i just hinted at it, but can you explain why this is such a big deal? >> you've heard the term all the marbles, all the marbles are at stake. that's all. democrats have a smaller majority, still a majority, under nancy pelosi in the house. the republicans have the senate with 50 members, two of whom are up for re-election. now here is the story. if these two republicans win, then mitch mcconnell has 52 members and a nice majority to work with. on the other hand if the two democrats can somehow win, it's tied 50/50 and the new vp, democrat kamala harris, runs the show in terms of breaking ties. they have to pick up those two seats. otherwise the republicans are in a great position to play havoc with the biden administration. >> with so much riding on both of these contests it sort of has the makings of a national referendum in a sense, doesn't it? you may have heard we had an interview from georgia where voters were saying we don't accep

nbc bay area political analyst larry gerston joins us. hi, larry.o see you as always. >> good morning. >> i have two dear friends who recently left. has california lost its luster? >> california still ranks low in terms of departures but still the fact is we're not used to it. we're not used to people leaving and over the last decade we've averaged 80,000 to 100,000 people a year who have actually left the state. the population has been plaflat because of births and immigrants from other countries. it's happening. >> and why is it happening? is it the new work from home model? if you can work from home why not work somewhere where it's more affordable? >> that may turn out to be the case downstream for some, but for now the legislative analysts went out and conducted a survey to ask these ex-pats, if you will, why they left. three reasons. the biggest, it should not be a surprise, kira, housing. homes in california are 88% above the national average even if you want to rent in the state it's about 55% above the national average. in the bay area thos

nbc bay area political analyst larry gerston joins us with a look ahead of tomorrow's electoral collegerry. as always, thank you for joining us. good to see you. >> good morning. >> as of friday's decision and tomorrow's pending decision, is the presidential election finally over? >> almost. almost, kira. tomorrow all the states meet. it's a ritual type of a thing. every state's electors will gather up and say how the state voted. of course in california it will be 55 electors who go for biden. texas, for example, will be 38 who go for trump. they'll send the results in to the vice president mike pence who serves, by the way, as president of the senate, and that will be his job to deal with these things on january 6th. note i said january 6th, so, no, we're not over yet. >> is that because january 5th the georgia run-off election -- >> no, actually it has nothing to do with that. that just happens to be a coincidence. on january 6th congress meets. the vice president then opens up all the various envelopes from the various states and at that point, at that point if one member of each ch

time to bring in political analyst larry gerston. hoping you and your gorgeous grandbabies had a merry christmas and a happy hanukkah. thanks for joining us. could you break down these two issues for us, both of these bills? >> what a mess. what a mess. what a way to start a new year. the first one is compact. you started it off really well. $740 million defense spending bill. the president vetoed it for a number of reasons, most of which don't make sense because he knew it was in the bill to begin with. okay, put that aside. congress can overturn this. it takes a two-thirds vote in each chamber. it would be the first veto that is overturned and it's likely it will be. it's serious, it's for defense, it's for the rest of the year. it looks like it will be contained and done. >> oh, okay. that's good news. what about the second bill that deals with operating the government as well as covid aid so many millions of americans have been waiting for? >> yeah. now you're talking about heartache. this is a real problem. the first part of thi