nbc news political reporter vaughn hillyard in phoenix and nbc's morgan radford is in north carolina. vaughn, the lead in arizona remains too close to call. the president wants those outstanding votes to be counted in arizonas, unlike their position for other states. >> reporter: exactly, andrea. right now joe biden holds a 60,000-vote lead here. can he make it up, was our big question heading into last night. was the fact that -- i don't know, andrea, if you can still hear me, but the question was, among those ballots, there is about 150,000 that were processed last night. and among those 150,000, donald trump won about 60% of them. and so the question is can he hold and continue to maintain that sort of a margin over joe biden? because in order to do it, he has to gain exactly 60% of the vote among this land 400,000 batch in order to make up that ground. so far, ever since election night, donald trump has done exactly what he needed to do when it comes to these numbers. what are these numbers? these are numbers from this weekend, early ballots received by the counties, as well as on

. >> we have vaughn hillyard, who gets to report on his home state. he's with us from scottsdale. vaughn, i know you've been following our discussion here. what blanks do you wish to fill in? >> reporter: i enjoyed just watching these numbers break down here and the subtraction. like steve, i've been filling out my own math, and literally the percentage number that i had that donald trump needed to maintain the ability to break even and match who is now a 93,000-vote lead for biden, was 59.16%. and what steve calculations were right there was 59%. now w that stated, we should put into context which early ballots these are. these were early ballots that were received by maricopa county over the weekend. so they are going to begin to process -- these are saturday, sunday early ballots. we saw these numbers next week going in the advantage of donald trump. now the question is as we approach and as we get further into this batch, what do those tuesday early ballots look like? the in-person ballots, brian, have already been counted. and yet by a two to one margin, republican voters came

vaughn hillyard is out in scottsdale for us, another battleground state..e us an update on what's happening. we were talking with rehema, the trends that are emerging and the atmosphere there at this hour. outside there because they're telling me they got reports of threats to their news room that is the scene of the maricopa county recorder's office i think that is important context to what the point you were just sayingk was. here in the state of arizona i was just at a press conference this afternoon with david bossy and kelly ward and i specifically asked them if there is any evidence that warrants concern that would lead to litigation at this time. and neither of them provided any evidence or any details or any allegations that would lead to litigation. there has been no lawsuit filed in the late of arizona. kelly ward the chairwoman made mention of one thing, and that was the placement in the room where party designated observers have to stand inside the office. that was the one grievance. the governor of arizona, republican governor doug ducey said i

sets up the math that is just extremely difficult for donald trump to overcome at this point. >> vaughn hillyardgainst a beautiful camelback mountain backdrop in scottsdale, arizona. thank you, vaughn. >>> joining me now, nbc's white house correspondent and co-host of "weekend today," kristen welker, and another co-host of "weekend today," peter alexander at the white house. kristen, it's taking a while. when do we expect to hear from the candidate himself? >> andrea, i am told that if we hear from former vice president joe biden, it will not be until prime time. so that is what we can anticipate. just to take you inside what is happening with the vice president and with his campaign, we are told that he is watching these returns along with everyone else patiently, clearly feeling quite confident about the returns that he is seeing. but not wanting to get ahead of the vote count, not wanting to get ahead of this race until it is officially called. if and when that might happen. but inside his campaign, andrea, there's more of a sense of ju jubilance, on the morning call of the campaign there was

vaughn hillyard standing by in scottsdale in his home state of arizona to talk about this long day's journey into night after night after night. hey vaughn. >> reporter: we could call this election night number 10, brian. and here in the desert, the 11 electoral votes out of arizona will be going to joe biden with just about 11,000 votes left to be counted here in the state, joe biden holds a lead of about 11,400 votes. and when you're looking at this map here, you've got to put it in perspective about what this message was sent by arizona voters to what this republican party has come. when you look at maricopa county, 89,000 votes shifted away from donald trump to joe biden. back in 2016, trump won this state by 91,000 votes. so, when you look at maricopa county alone, you saw donald trump win it in these greater phoenix suburbs in 2016. i'm going to repeat that. 89,000 votes shifting towards joe biden. you could say this is a push back of what this republican party under donald trump has become. this is the state where barry gold water breeds conservative into this party. this is th

that's where vaughn hillyard is standing by. vaughn has spent the better part of the last few months in the state of arizona talking to voters. vaughn, take us through the count, where things stand right now on the ground in maricopa county. >> reporter: the number we were looking for was 59% of the vote, out of the 62,000-vote batch. donald trump only took in about 52.9%. for example, out of that batch, the advantage he made up was 3,483 votes. he needed to make up more like 13,000 votes. that's a 10,000-vote spread. right now the trump campaign is running out of ballots. we knew that this batch was going to be the best indicator yet of where this race in arizona was going to go because we did not have data about what this batch would look like. these numbers and the remaining 145,000 votes in maricopa, that batch was mail ballots, not mailed in, hand delivered to polling locations in maricopa county. the trump campaign was eager for these numbers because donald trump won more than 60% of voters in maricopa county who walked in

vaughn hillyard on the ground in georgia for us. not arizona and shack brewster in wisconsin.nk you both for your reporting today. >>> up next here, the white house's fight to keep undocumented immigrants out of the census. now it's up to the supreme court to decide. we'll have the latest on today's arguments coming up next. s comit when i was in high school, this was the theater i came to quite often. ♪ the support we've had over the last few months has been amazing. i have a soft spot for local places. it's not just a work environment. everyone here is family. gonna go ahead and support him, get my hair cut, leave a big tip. if we focus on our local communities, we can find a way to get through this together. thank you. ♪ if you are ready to open your heart and your home, check us out. get out and about and support our local community. we thought for sure that we were done. and this town said: not today. ♪ you can crush ice, make nismoothies, and do even more. chop salsas, spoon thick smoothie bowls, even power through dough, and never stall. the ninja foodi power pitcher. r

and vaughn hillyard is in scottsdale. vaughn, you heard all that from steve.eporter: steve is absolutely right, brian, we are going to be getting these results from maricopa county. i just got off the phone with an elections official here in the county. they said that roughly 730,00,0 votes are expected to drop here at the top of this hour. also the new news an additional batch is slated to drop tomorrow morning around 11:00 a.m. eastern, 9:00 a.m. local time here. in the big question that steve just outlined is the trump campaign has consistently hit their marks. with what they have needed to accomplish with the ballots that have come in, they've hit those marks. sem essentially the metaphor we could use, the trump train has moved right along here. as the ballots come down to the tuesday early ballots that have to be processed by the county, will those maintain the pace that the trump kamd pacampaign n here or will democratic and independent voters come in at a higher rate on tuesday and dilute the trump number down from the 59% number that steve just outline

who was dubbed by other republicans, chem trail kelli for her conspiracile thinking, telling vaughn hillyardeverything is on the level is striking. with us now, shannon pettypiece, nbc reporter for nbc news digital. sha sha sh shannon, let me begin with you on this strange interregnum and what it means for the politics of the country at this moment as we inch ever closer to a decision or an announcement of some kind that's distinct from the legal -- you know, what legally happens. what do you see unfolding? >> well, normally you would expect at some point the president to make a concession speech and the typical transition to occur, and you would expect as a white house reporter to maybe have a relatively normal, calm two months ahead of you. that does not necessarily seem to be the expectation. now, will it go differently? i don't know, but nobody is banking on that. we are sort of in this gray zone. obviously the president has talked a number of times about how he might not get behind a peaceful transfer of power when we ask him that, he often says, we'll see. but i will say, you know, wit

we want to turn to arizona, we have our nbc news colleague vaughn hillyard. ughn. >> reporter: ari what we're looking at right now is the next batch from maricopa county that is not slated to be released until 9:00 p.m. eastern, but what the new numbers out of the state here showed this morning was the fact that joe biden essentially was able to dilute the margins that donald trump was gaining in this latest batch, and we expect that the numbers out of this morning should pretty closely reflect the remaining 140,000 ballots that are outstanding in maricopa county. and if, in fact, like the numbers this morning those hold for the remaining 140,000 ballots in maricopa county, that is incredibly difficult here in arizona for donald trump to overcome because there's only 70,000 non-maricopa county ballots outstanding and donald trump would have to win 75% of them. and so far the numbers that have been coming in in recent days from those counties that trump would be relying on haven't hit the mark that it would take in order to make up for those deficits that he is

. >> let's bring in nbc's vaughn hillyard who is in atlanta, georgia, for us. ughn, let me state the obvious. republicans need these two senate seats if they'll hold control. are there concerns where you are that the president's attacks could discourage voters? >> exactly. what's the purpose of president trump coming to georgia this saturday, chris, is the question. this is a president who lost the state of georgia by about 13,000 votes and what we saw was in the primary, in which there are 23,000 voters, republican voters who voted absentee but that did not turn out in november's general election. and it was the republican secretary of state who blamed president trump for his own loss. saying that essentially he scared away these voters who -- by questioning the integrity of the election in georgia. what has he done in the three weeks since the election? he's only gone further. that's why it's so important here in the state of georgia because republicans need these two senate seats to hold onto the republican majority in the u.s. senate. that's -- that runoff e

i want to go first to vaughn hillyard in arizona where the number of early votes cast in 2020 already 2016 count. vaughn, you're in touch with the top biden and trump campaign officials in your state. what are they telling you? >> good morning, stephanie. the big question from both camps is, how many republican voters are going to show up and vote in person today? because when you look at the ballots that have been cast so far, well, it's democrats that are outpacing republicans at a higher rate than back in 2016, which, if you are the joe biden campaign is positive news. but just in, this first hour and a half, we already have data here out of maricopa county which is that longtime bellwether in the greater phoenix area. republican voters over democrats are outperforming here in maricopa county by nearly 3 to 1 margin. that is what republican officials here early this morning are telling me is the encouraging sign. they are calling it the last-minute red wave. but to what extent does that red wave catch up to the levels to be competitive with this democratic party? remember back in 2

we have garrett haake in texas, vaughn hillyard in arizona to cover this for us.our cowboys went into halftime in the lead, which i know is a big deal in your house, tell us about the democrats' effort to turn that big red state a darker shade. >> reporter: brian, record turnout here undersells it. 9.5 million votes cast in texas. 10% of the votes cast anywhere in the country up till now have been cast in texas. and texas is usually one of the bottom five or six states in turnout. that has broken the model for these campaigns. they do not know what the turnout picture here looks like, and it cracks open the possibilities for democrats. the biden campaign has invested relatively little in this state. they've sent their vp nominee and the wife of the candidate to the state, but they're not even spending significant money on tv here. the chance to win in texas is driven by population growth, not just, you know, immigration the way we think of it, from immigration from states like california as the state blows up, the chances for democrats improve. nobody knows what's

vaughn hillyard is our correspondent in scottsdale, arizona, tonight. vaughn, we've been away from arizona for a bit. for our audience just tuning in tonight, update us on the situation in that state. >> to echo you, brian, we trust john and the elections desk when we're talking about these numbers. frankly, is new numbers out of maricopa county tonight don't seal the deal in the state of arizona. that's why the decision has not yet been made out of the desert here. there is an additional batch of about 70,000 ballots that dropped here today. they were under that 59% threshold that we have been saying over the last 24 hours the president needed to hit. but it was at 55%. so i was doing a bit of calculations here. outstanding maricopa county ballots, total is 90 margin points. when you do math, we expect that 90,000 ballots to look a lot like the ballots that dropped here tonight. so then the question comes down to the ballots outside of maricopa county. brian, there are 80,000 non-maricopa ballots in the state of arizona. that will be our focus point fro

in fact ted cruz address the this shift with vaughn hillyard. >> we're seeing nationally two cross cuttingemographic trends. one we're seeing blue collar voters, union households moving right. that is moving midwestern states more republicans. the same time we're seeing suburban voters and women moving left and that is moving big suburban states like arizona, like texas, like georgia are all getting more purple. and so both of those are coming together in this election. >> joining me now from the big board is steve kornacki. great to have you with us. so one day out from election day, i think the question everyone wants to know, what is the state of the race? >> here we go, you know, a little miles an hour 24 hours from now we'll have actual results pup until then, just some final polls for you like this out of pennsylvania. critical pennsylvania. we have joe biden at 51, donald trump at 46. this is a must win state for the president. and you can certainly see it from the attention his campaign has been paying to it and also the biden campaign for that matter. we also have a poll out of ar

we just heard about from steve, stephanie gosk is in philadelphia, vaughn hillyard is in phoenix, blaynelexander is in georgia. blayne, let's start with you here. there are two big questions there in georgia very simply. first, how many votes are left to be counted? second, when can we expect the results of the count? >> reporter: the billion dollar questions, craig. the simple answer for bgt of them is it's a moving target. let's start with the numbers. we just got a briefing from an official with the secretary of state's office. they're estimating about 60,000 ballots still left to be processed across the state of georgia. the reason i say that's a moving target and that's something they said in the briefing is we've seen that number slightly fluctuate throughout the day. earlier we were told about 50,000. so 60,000 or so, ballots, is what they're estimating. as to when they finish, it depends on the counties. they say there are some delays because some counties are doing it in different ways or slower or having more human error than others when it comes to getting it done expeditiousl

vaughn hillyard, one of the fascinating things to the extent stuff is fascinating in arizona, these differenttimes people are voting. there's different ways to vote in arizona. there's a lot of mail vote, in person, and people who mail in their vote, deposit in the last few days. they count in categories in terms of ballots. one of the things we'll find out from maricopa is, what, 75,000 votes that are people that dropped them off on election day. and the hope/bet that the biden folks are making is that that kind of behavioral voter, a drop them off on election day voter, is going to be more democratic than the votes that were mailed in the few days ahead of time because democratic messaging was so intense about don't trust the postal service. did i get that right? is that basically -- >> that's it. if you look at it this way, right, there's two buckets here of the vote that's being tallied since -- in the last couple days in arizona. there's two buckets. all of it you could call the late arriving absentee vote, the late arriving mail vote. the first bucket was the saturday, sunday, and i thi

i want to toss it over to vaughn hillyard who is in the always important maricopa county, arizona. >>ter: wisconsin called and michigan potentially being on the brink of being called. arizona and its 11 electoral votes could seal the deal for joe biden. 12 hours ago, when you and i spoke, the gap between joe biden and donald trump was quite a bit more than it is right now. it is down to just 3.4 percentage points. 3.4 percentae points. back when initial results came in, it was actually double digits. what you have seen since then since results rolled in in the sta state of arizona, that need continues to narrow. the votes that were coming in the last several days, mail-in ballots brought into polling locations and those that were cast in person, in those numbers, quite overwhelmingly trended towards donald trump, making up that gap and that difference. where do we stand right now. there's 600,000, about 600,000 votes still uncounted. the big question mark is when you look at the 93% margin right now that joe biden holds, it's going to take for donald trump about a 58% share of those r

>> no, and we had not been -- that was news from vaughn hillyard. from a vote counting standpoint that was great news. tomorrow morning, i think he said 10:00 a.m. earn, 11:00 a.m. eastern, we'll get another batch. last night they did one at about midnight, 12:30. that's not happening tonight. but early tomorrow morning we will get another one of these batches. >> steve kornacki, thank you very much. exciting to watch the stuff come in. brian. >> thank you. let's bring in former democratic senator from the great state of missouri claire mccaskill. former rnc chairman michael steele, both of them still alert and awake and taking nourishment. so, michael, i'd like to begin with you. we have a lit stage and podium set up in wilmington, delaware. we have vote coming in, in pennsylvania that we are told in its margin favors joe biden. if that one's called, it's ball game. we've got a race in georgia that's under 3,000 votes different now. we have vote coming in, in arizona. we have vote coming in, in nevada. what are you watching? >> i'm watching pennsyl

nbc's priscilla thompson is live in atlanta and vaughn hillyard is here from phoenix.ned to see you're not wearing your turquoise bolo tie. it seems like you might be nearing your last days covering the campaign in arizona. what are we waiting for tonight and what is the expectation? >> reporter: well that is what we thought on sunday, katie, whether we talked. that we were near the end. but here we are. we're still here. and i think we should raise the stakes that if we finish before georgia does, i think priscilla is hosting thanksgiving later this month if i may, because we are getting close. and we should know here in arizona there is just about 24,000 ballots left out standing to be counted and we are expected to get another major drop in just about 12 minutes from now. out of the tucson area, pima county, right now joe biden has a lead of about 11,500 votes and it is hard to make up that margin with just 24,000 votes left to go. and the lawsuit was heard today brought by the trump campaign which would impact 180 ballots here so i think tonight is very telling, no

joining us now, don editor of the nevada independent and nbc news political correspondent vaughn hillyarden called by fox news and ap for joe biden. i'm told anecdotally for republicans, they feel like there is a lot of mcsally trump vote out there. what is going on in arizona, vaughn? >> nicole, there are 600,000, about 600,000 ballots that are still outstanding here in this state and when you look at the margin for joe biden right now, it is just 9300 votes. now, you know, when we were first getting results when we were speaking last night, joe biden had a double digit lead but the expectation was that that margin was going to narrow and right now you're looking at a margin of 3.4% here in the state. that is because in the last several days, the in person voters as well as early ballots being returned were coming in at a striking rate on behalf of republican registered voters and particularly those voting for donald trump and that is why you saw this margin decrease so starkly. the big question is what does this last bach look like here? you know, if you're doing the mat on a scratch pa