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Early Signs Suggest Young Voter Turnout A Problem For GOP; More Than 22 Million Votes Cast Across U.S. Ahead Of Election Day; Trump DOJ Sues To Block Alaska Senate Results If GOP Incumbent Loses. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired October 23, 2026 - 13:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": That he was struggling with what he had been through. And as we talk to people, they would say, yes, something so terrible was averted. But obviously, these lives are still lost and this school is suffering this incredible tragedy.

LEIGH WALDMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely, you know, I spoke with a man who stopped a shooting years ago in Sutherland Springs, Texas back in 2017 about Caleb's actions last week and he told me that he still deals with the PTSD from that day, the struggle of knowing he wasn't able to save everyone in his community. So his heart was breaking for what Caleb was going through and what he continues to go through.

You know, there's this collective trauma that this community is experiencing, and for Caleb to have to jump in and take the action that he took that day, it's incredible. And his action is actually inspiring. We heard from the Deschutes County Sheriff's Office, the county that covers Bent, Oregon, and they said his actions, what happened that day, there've been over 200 applications for concealed handgun licenses in that community.

So you can just see the ripple effect that this shooting is really having.

KEILAR: It's incredible to hear his story. Leigh Waldman, thank you so much for that.

Still ahead, more than 21 million votes have already been cast in the midterms. And ahead, what the numbers are telling us about who is voting early.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:35:26]

KEILAR: We're 11 days from the midterms, and so far, more than 22 million ballots have been cast nationwide. Five states have already surpassed the million-vote mark. And as for which way voters are leaning, data examined by CNN shows Democrats outpacing Republicans in young voter turnout for some key Senate races.

CNN's Dianne Gallagher is outside a polling place in Charlotte, North Carolina. Dianne, what more do these early results tell us?

DIANNE GALLAGHER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: You know, Brianna, North Carolina has a critical Senate race and several very competitive congressional races. And you can see the stakes here. You can see this enthusiasm from within the state. More than 1,269,000 ballots have already been cast in the state of North Carolina through yesterday.

Both absentee by mail and the overwhelming majority of them early in- person, like you see the people behind me doing here, lining up to cast their ballots. You don't want to extrapolate too much, but when you look at the data, turnout this year is up nearly 37 percent from this same point in 2022. And again, we can't read too much into it right now. They're just numbers.

But there is a pretty obvious trend, and that is that Democrats seem to have an enthusiasm advantage right now. 42 percent of the ballots that have been cast so far come from registered Democrats. They are outpacing their performance at the same point in 2024 and 2022. And if you look, you can also see Republicans are lagging significantly behind, making up only 23 percent of the ballots that have been cast thus far.

Now, GOP numbers, I can tell you, are slightly improving day by day, but just slightly. There is still a pretty substantial gap right now. In talking to Republicans here, they say that most of their voters are going to vote on or at least close to Election Day, and they believe they can bridge that gap. But look, when we spoke to voters here at this polling place in South Charlotte, they were pretty blunt about what they said was driving them to the polls early.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I feel like there is a lot of enthusiasm, especially with younger people now, just seeing how poorly everything's being ran now and people want to make that change.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're starting a family. This is our first baby. You know, she's nine months old and everything has just gotten so wildly expensive. You know, we're feeling it at the grocery store. We're feeling it, you know, everywhere, trying to save for a home. It's just -- something's not working in this government right now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GALLAGHER: So North Carolina is pretty evenly split when it comes to the parties. Republicans and Democrats both make up about 29 percent of the electorate. The largest affiliation is unaffiliated, about 40 percent of voters. They also have seen a substantial increase in turnout so far this election. Brianna, what we should point out is we don't know how people vote. We just know how they're registered.

So early enthusiasm doesn't necessarily equal election results.

KEILAR: Yeah, Dianne, such an important political report. But more importantly, that is the cutest baby ever who was trying to get in that interview. (LAUGH)

KEILAR: Dianne, thank you so much.

GALLAGHER: He was so cute.

KEILAR: He's so cute. All right. So let's talk more now about the early voting so far. We're joined now by Republican Strategist, Melik Abdul and former Deputy Chief of Staff to Senator John Fetterman, Tre Easton, also with us here.

So, Melik, we're looking at the early vote, 22 million ballots already cast. And the CNN analysis finds Republican turnout lagging, particularly among younger voters. They do tend to come in, you know, big surprise, right? They come in a little later in the game. But at the same time, they're lagging. So what do Republicans need to do to try to close that enthusiasm gap?

MELIK ABDUL, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Well, really, for both parties at this point, it's really just to get out to vote operation. You see Donald Trump going to places all around the country to really drive out the vote. And the same thing is happening on the Democratic side. They aren't necessarily driving out Independents. They're driving out the base of their respective parties.

But what I'm actually heartened by, I was looking at the numbers in Texas and surprisingly, in Texas, Republicans are up one point, 46 to 45 percent when it comes to their early vote. Now, of course, in other places like North Carolina, we aren't doing as well.

But over the years, the Republican Party has actually closed the gap on the early vote because it is always something that has always hurt us. This time around, notably, if you remember, Donald Trump actually encouraged people to early vote.

[13:40:00]

So whether that has something to do with it, I don't know.

TRE EASTON, FORMER DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF, SEN. JOHN FETTERMAN: I mean, I just -- Brianna, I just -- I think it's really interesting to talk about where Donald Trump is campaigning. He's campaigning in Kansas. He's campaigning in these deep red areas because as the early vote I think is demonstrating, there's a lot of energy on the Democratic side and Republicans are having to play defense in places where they are not used to having to play defense.

And it's true, yes that you know, there's just get out the vote efforts going on across the country. But there's something clearly happening that's different even than Donald Trump's first midterm. It's there is a desperation almost to it. You see Roger Marshall in Kansas talking about Barack Hussein Obama, again, like the person has not even been on the ballot since 2012.

The Republicans are running scared and I think Democrats are closing strong and that's exactly what they need to be doing right now. KEILAR: So, what do you think about the younger voters that you're seeing here, Tre. A recent Pew Research poll finds men under 30 are now nearly twice as likely to vote for a Democratic candidate than a Republican in November and that's quite the flip-flop because they split their vote almost evenly in 2024. What do you see driving?

EASTON: Yeah, I think you know, it's the thing that's driving everyone. It's high prices the cost of living and trying to actually get rid of this feeling of precarity, what you talk a lot about at Searchlight Institute. It's trying to make sure that there's a future that's guaranteed for everybody and I think, regardless of whether it is young men, older men, older women, younger men, like the demographic doesn't really matter.

There's people who are hurting and are really done and are looking to now Democrats for solutions where they were looking to Republicans for solutions just two years ago.

KEILAR: Melik, I wonder what your reaction is to the Trump administration. We're looking at Alaska now. The Trump administration has preemptively filed this lawsuit that seeks to block certification of Alaska's U.S. Senate election if the Republican incumbent, Dan Sullivan loses. They're alleging that this candidate who's named Daniel J. Sullivan --

ABDUL: Yes.

KEILAR: -- who would have thunk it, right, two Dan Sullivans -- could confuse voters. They want a court to potentially delay the certification of the election if Senator Sullivan loses to Democrat Mary Peltola. Follow all of that? Hopefully, you followed all of that. What do you think about this?

ABDUL: If they were suing irrespective of who won, maybe I would say, yeah, maybe I -- you know, this is OK, but I'm not going to play this game this time around with Trump on this. If he ends up winning, he won't sue. But if he doesn't, then he will sue.

KEILAR: Also, this is before.

ABDUL: Yeah. This is --

(CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: This is pre-emptive, right?

ABDUL: Yeah.

KEILAR: How did you -- do you see that as significantly different than last time?

ABDUL: Well, this is nothing that's helpful much like the ad, you know, doubling down on the Ramaswamy ad. This is nothing that's helpful to the Dan Sullivan in Alaska, much like it's not helpful --

KEILAR: Which Dan Sullivan? (LAUGH)

ABDUL: Which Dan Sullivan, and I will say to think about that.

(CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: Clarify (ph).

ABDUL: Because I imagine that you know, it's a good point that voters may be confused but the important thing to know about that is that the Supreme Court, I believe, was the court that said that he can actually be on the ballot. So irrespective of what Donald Trump says about it, it is the Supreme Court who said he can be on the ballot.

EASTON: And it's not a democratic thing, right? You sort of see like Republicans, love your people, but Republicans are -- it's just desperate. And then you see it being pre-emptive in a way because they know that Mary Peltola is running a campaign in Alaska that has them scared. You see them closing these early voting locations in places like North Carolina, so these students at HBCUs have to literally march to the polls like their forebears did.

ABDUL: No, it's not working in North Carolina because it looks like the Senate candidate is going to win. He is going to win.

(CROSSTALK)

EASTON: It's going to -- exactly, it's going to win, but it's not working. But the fact that they are still trying to do it is the thing that's disconcerting, even in my native of Georgia, where Republicans are still doing, you know, playing shenanigans with like listing the partisan affiliation of certain candidates on the ballot.

Like Republicans have gotten to this habit under the Trump era, where if they don't have elections going their way, they like to switch the rules of the game in the middle of the road. It's just -- it's not going to work. This time, I think, people are fed up and can see right through it.

KEILAR: Friday shenanigans with Tre and Melik.

(LAUGH)

KEILAR: So much fun.

ABDUL: I like that. It's good.

KEILAR: Yeah. Thank you guys so much, really good conversation.

EASTON: Thank you.

KEILAR: Appreciate it. Still ahead, President Trump says he will direct DOJ to settle remaining claims related to water contamination at Camp Lejeune If Republicans win the midterms. We're going to talk to an advocate for Camp Lejeune families next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:48:58]

KEILAR: President Trump using promises and threats to try to get Republican voters to the polls. One of his most controversial tactics suggesting if the midterms do not go in his favor, U.S. veterans sickened by toxic drinking water at Camp Lejeune could see their cases dragged along or possibly, they could not receive compensation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: You have a lot of Congressmen up. You have a lot of Senators up. You have a lot of people involved in that whole situation. So if the Republicans don't do well, I would say that maybe they won't get their money.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: The money the president is referring to is compensation the federal government would pay out under the Camp Lejeune Justice Act, which was signed into law by President Biden in 2022. His DOJ, of course, does currently have some discretion here.

But this would allow certain veterans who served at Camp Lejeune between 1953 and 1987, and their families, to seek damages for illnesses caused by the toxic water.

[13:50:00]

We're talking about veterans who have developed cancer, Parkinson's, kidney disease, other conditions, and in many cases, are dying or have died as a result of living and working on that Marine base. Last month, the Justice Department announced it had paid more than $879 million in settlements so far, but there are hundreds of thousands of claims that are still pending.

Trump also brought up those pending settlements earlier this week while campaigning in North Carolina where Camp Lejeune is located.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: If we win the House and the Senate, I am directing the Department of Justice to settle all remaining legitimate claims as soon as possible and get it off the books and get it finished. So if we don't win, there's no money.

If we do win, you're getting it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: According to DOJ's own data, the current face value of submitted claims, if paid out today, would total more than $335 trillion. Of course, that's not what is expected to be paid out.

Jill Steen Dillgard's father, uncle, and two of her cousins served at Camp Lejeune. She lost all four of them to cancer. She's been advocating for families like hers since 2017 when she first learned about the contamination.

Jill, I understand you have another cousin who is battling cancer who also served at Camp Lejeune. You know about this. What is your reaction to what the president said there?

JILL STEEN DILLGARD, ADVOCATE FOR CAMP LEJEUNE FAMILIES: First of all, my cousin is being monitored for cancer. The diagnosis hasn't been confirmed yet.

KEILAR: OK, I see.

DILLGARD: My reaction is it makes me physically sick. To play political games with somebody's lives, not only did these veterans serve our country, their families were stationed on that base also. And they're suffering.

It's not just one diagnosis and then they get to go on for treatment. It's one diagnosis after another diagnosis after another diagnosis. And most of these cancers or whatever other illness it is, Parkinson's, heart issues, they always seem to be very aggressive and very hard to treat.

And for somebody, I don't care what side of the aisle you're on, whether you're red, blue, or Independent, the comments are gut- wrenching. I advocate for Camp Lejeune victims. I help admin a lot of the Facebook groups that focus on the water contamination there.

And my phone started ringing off the hook early the very next morning after he gave his speech in North Carolina. And it doesn't ring non- stop that early in the morning. And I knew something was going on and I didn't have a good gut feeling.

And everybody was asking, this is fake news, right? This is fake news. And I said, give me some time to check it out. And one news source after another was covering it. And unfortunately, it wasn't fake news. I wish I could have told these victims and their family members it was, but it wasn't.

And it is sickening.

KEILAR: Do they really -- as they talk to you, Jill, did they -- are they really worried -- are they upset by what is being said and they think it's inappropriate? Or are they worried that it is real and that that's how it's going to happen, that that settlement money will be withheld if Republicans don't win?

DILLGARD: Both. Both. They're very upset by the comments, because as everybody knows right now, this administration has control of the House and the Senate. And why did you come out and make this announcement now? Why haven't you done something all along? After all, this is Trump's second term.

And to think somebody has that much control that they're stating, if we don't win the midterms, you won't get any money. And they're both, they're frantic over it. And I try to tell them just focus on what's going on in the courts. It's hard when this has been going on since 1953, the contamination.

KEILAR: Yeah.

DILLGARD: And, you know, the lawsuit was signed into law in 2022. And here we are in 2026 and less than one percent have been paid. And for them to throw them numbers out there like it's phenomenal and, you know, these victims are getting paid and justice is being served is deplorable.

[13:55:00]

Deplorable because it adds up to less than one percent of over 400,000 claims filed.

KEILAR: Talk to us about that, Jill, because we reported about a year after the bill passed that authorized settlement money, about how the lawsuits that were being brought by Lejeune victims were just traveling at this sluggish pace. Increasingly, they were becoming wrongful death claims because, as you know, these were decades after the water contamination and now it's three years later.

What is it like for victims as they are going through this process, waiting to see if they are compensated before they die?

DILLGARD: The majority of them don't think they'll see a penny before they die and that's heartbreaking, very heartbreaking, because we all join together in these groups and advocate and educate each other and let everybody know what's going on, the latest court hearings and the T.V. news and what to expect.

And when you see the majority saying, I'll never see a penny before I die, please make sure it goes to my family. And yet, they've also lost several family members, many of them that was affected by the contamination. And to think they've had to wait this long is inconceivable to me.

KEILAR: What do you want the president to know?

DILLGARD: I want him to know that you can't play political games. And to me, it was nothing but bribery for votes because he's had the opportunity to do something, he's chosen not to do anything. And now we want to throw midterms in it and money.

And if my dad was here today, he would look at it as bribery. You're not going to bribe him for a vote. He served on the dotted line. He was promised he'd be taken care of when he got home and that did not happen because he was one of many that was never even notified he was poisoned.

KEILAR: And there have been claims paid out. I do want to be clear about that. Is your point that it's just a drop in the bucket?

DILLGARD: Again, less than one percent have been paid to date. And that's mainly through the Navy's elective option program that they came out with. It was basically to try and settle claims before they went to court, like an early payout.

And less than 12 percent even qualified to meet their standards to get an early payout.

KEILAR: Yeah, we've heard how frustrating this process is and how stonewalled so many victims feel. Jill Steen Dillgard, thank you so much for being with us. We really appreciate it.

DILLGARD: Thank you very much for getting the word out there. I really appreciate it. And on behalf of every Camp Lejeune victim, it's people like you that tell our stories that makes America aware of what's truly going on, and how our veterans and their families are being treated. And it's unacceptable and deplorable.

KEILAR: Jill, thank you so much for being with us.

And we do right now want to take you to Florida, where the president was just moments ago. Let's listen.

TRUMP: Just get out and vote. If they vote, we're going to win big.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Any thoughts on the Alaska lawsuit?

TRUMP: Well, I'm the one that said do it. They have two guys named Dan Sullivan running. So the Democrats put up a guy never thought of (ph). I don't think you ever voted before. All of a sudden he decides to run for the Senate. And his name is Dan Sullivan.

One is Daniel S. One is Daniel J. The Daniel J. is the fake. And he wants to change his middle initial to Daniel S. But he said this has nothing to do with politics.

GOV. RON DESANTIS, (R-FL): And Daniel J. just so happens to be funded by liberal donors. Imagine that? What a coincidence that is.

TRUMP: By Act Blue. OK, but he has nothing to do with politics. No, it's a disgrace.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Inaudible).

DESANTIS: Well, look, I mean, I think anytime you run as a first-time candidate, it's a big state. You got to get known. That just takes time. But if you look, when I ran eight years ago, we had 300,000 more registered Democrats in this state than Republicans. Today, we have 1.5 million more registered Republicans.

So I think what the president said is right. If people come out, if our people vote, I think we'll win, not just in Florida, but some of these other Senate races that are close. If our people show up, we'll win those Senate races. So it's all about the turnout.