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Swing-State Election Officials Guard Against Repeat Of 2020 Disruptions; Harris Launches New Ads In Arizona As Polls Show Her Trailing; New Arizona Poll: Trump Leads Harris By Six Points. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired October 14, 2024 - 12:30   ET

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

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[12:32:49]

DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: Swing state election officials are moving aggressively to head off disruptions at the polls and avoid a repeat of some of what we saw in 2020. But with so many Americans buying into Donald Trump's election lies, it's going to be tougher than ever. According to one analysis, since 2020, 35 local officials have refused or threatened to refuse to certify their election results.

So what exactly are state officials doing to safeguard this election? CNN's Sara Murray is here to explain as part of our regular check in about election threats, which is getting even more important because we're getting even closer.

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: It is. And, you know, I think that one of the big changes this time around is we have so many more elections skeptics who are going to be a part of this process in a way that they weren't necessarily in previous presidential elections.

And so when you look across the battleground states, whether it's Michigan, Arizona, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, you see these instances where there were officials who refused to certify the results and believed in some cases there was voter fraud, problems with the machine, that kind of thing.

And our colleague, Fredreka Schouten, has some really interesting examples of that in our digital story on CNN.com. And I think that what election officials are doing is they're trying to be really aggressive to head off these threats this time around. So that means going to judges in their communities and explaining if you have an election challenge like this, we need you to take it up quickly. We need to be decided quickly.

We have deadlines where we need to certify local results, state results where it needs to go on to Congress. So we need fast movement. And also honestly warning these local election officials that they have a duty to certify these results. And that if they fail to do so in many of these cases, state officials are going to take them to court. They're going to sue them. They're going to potentially face criminal charges. And so they're trying to be very aggressive in getting that message out ahead of voting.

BASH: Yes. And the challenge is going to be what happens when the state officials are not going to challenge it. I mean, I learned a lot about this and this book I did about the election of 1872 --

MURRAY: Yes.

BASH: -- where it wasn't just about voting, it was about the certifying of the vote. And here we are again in 2024. Let's hope it doesn't end the same way.

Sara, thank you so much as always. We'll see you soon with more of your reporting.

Up next, Joe Biden was the first Democrat to win Arizona in a quarter century. Can Kamala Harris keep that state blue? We'll talk about that with our reporters who have all been to Arizona.

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[12:39:42]

BASH: The Harris campaign is amping up its efforts to win over moderate Republicans in the vital swing state of Arizona. Watch this new ad featuring the GOP mayor of Mesa, Arizona.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR JOHN GILES (R), MESA, ARIZONA: I'm a lifelong Republican, but I've always put country over party. And I know Donald Trump's second term would be all about himself. That's why, like so many other Republicans, I cannot support Donald Trump.

Kamala Harris and I may not agree on everything, but I do know that she will always put country first.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[12:40:11]

BASH: A New York Times poll out Saturday showed Trump building on his lead in the Grand Canyon State. A month ago, he was up by five points in that poll, now it's six. So, very close.

All four of my excellent reporters here. You've all been to Arizona, like, in the past week. Jasmine, I want to start with you, and I want to read a quote from your story, and this is a Democratic strategist, Stacy Pearson, who told you, "The enthusiasm is as high as it could possibly be for Harris, but there is a numbers problem in Arizona. There is just a mathematical complication in Arizona that other states don't have. None of the other swing states have lost Dems the way Arizona has."

Which is really interesting. We're talking about voter registration.

JASMINE WRIGHT, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes, it's honestly going to come down to the numbers. And that is why we see the Harris campaign reaching out to Republicans, are reaching out to Independents, not because it's a virtuous thing, but because in Arizona.

It is a necessity, particularly because we know 100,000 registered Democrats have left the state since 2020, which puts Democrats at a deficit, not just with Republicans by over 200,000 registered voters, but for the first time since 2020, also with Independents. Meaning that they have to get their numbers from somewhere.

Now, to be very clear, 140,000 Republicans voted for Nikki Haley after it was very clear that she was not going to win the Republican primary, right? That kind of gives the Harris campaign and folks who are aligned with Democrats hope because it provides a new pool of potential Republican voters who are kind of created in the image of John McCain.

But they're very clear that not all those 140,000 Republicans are going to vote for a Democrat. And that is kind of the uphill climb that they have in the state.

BASH: Which is why we saw I think it was the last time Harris went to Arizona telling the story of being in the Senate when John McCain came in and did the thumbs down on repealing Obamacare. You spoke with Candy Purdue, an Arizona Trump voter. Let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CANDY PURDUE, ARIZONA TRUMP VOTER: I think the economy, but I think immigration is going to weigh that out.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: So Trump versus Harris, what do you -- are you nervous at all about the election? What do you think?

PURDUE: No, I think my man's going to win. I think Vance is going to smooth him right over the edge. You know, everybody gets, well, I don't really like the man. Well, you know what? So what?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: What a character.

ZELENY: Candy was a character, and Candy was also, is also voting for abortion rights. That's why Arizona is --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

ZELENY: -- such a scrambled picture.

BASH: Interesting.

ZELENY: Proposition 139, also on the ballot there. A central question I walked away from my Arizona time is, is abortion rights going to pull Harris over the finish line? There is no doubt there's wide support for Proposition 139. It's called, it's to enshrine abortion rights in the state's constitution.

There were some 800,000 signatures from all over the state collected. 500,000 were accepted. In that number, though, there are some Trump supporters, and we found one, Candy Purdue. She believes a woman should have the right to choose. She supports that and voting for Donald Trump.

So, the question, abortion is literally on the ballot. Immigration, there's a measure there as well. But the Harris campaign knows that not all the supporters for the abortion measure support them. And she's an example of that.

BASH: And that's something you looked at in Arizona.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes. And for every Candy voter, there may also be a voter like Crystal Price (ph), which was a woman that I spoke to. She was a Trump voter in 2020. She's voting for more abortion access and she's going to vote for Kamala Harris. So this is one of those voters where abortion was so important to her.

She had an abortion pre-Dobbs years ago. And she's really concerned that women are now going to be facing a landscape where they wouldn't even be able to have an abortion like her, which was medically necessary because she thinks that she would have died if she had not had that abortion.

And, you know, it's not necessarily something that totally aligns fully with her faith. She doesn't agree with abortion in a lot of circumstances, but it's something that is clearly compelling her to support Harris. And there are a number of voters potentially like that in Arizona that Harris is trying to get to her side.

BASH: And you were in Arizona looking at the Senate race, which is very competitive.

DAVE WEIGEL, POLITICS REPOTET, SEMAFOR: Right. And you could see there that candidates who don't have Donald Trump's branding, and specifically the rose colored glasses people have put on about the Trump years, the idea that things were better, border was closed, economy was better, et cetera.

Kari Lake and a couple of the congressional candidates don't have that same flexibility. And Kari Lake opened up her debate with Ruben Gallego, the Democrat, saying it's country over party. That's pretty new for her. That she was betting more on the Trump base carrying her, and it's clear.

Trump has some appeal, and this has been true when Biden was leading the ticket, especially when he was leading the ticket, that doesn't stretch down to other Republicans. So there are some Republicans running behind Trump with that same messaging.

And a lot of them, they were on the record for very strict abortion policies just two years ago, and they're struggling to update, just saying, vote your own way on the abortion issue, don't consider it in my race.

BASH: Fascinating. Absolutely fascinating.

Thank you for sharing all of your reporting with us.

ZELENY: Those 11 electoral votes are key.

BASH: Very key.

[12:45:07]

Coming up, 312 days that changed American politics forever. Chris Wallace will be here to talk about his brand new book and what it means for this election, just 22 days from now.

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BASH: 2020 was not the first time a Republican candidate for president made allegations about voter fraud after a contentious election season. CNN's Chris Wallace has a new terrific book out, "Countdown 1960: The Behind-The-Scenes Story Of The 312 Days That Changed America's Politics Forever".

[12:50:04]

It takes a close look at the matchup between Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy. And specifically, the results in two states where Republicans alleged fraud, Illinois and Texas.

Chris is here now. This is the book. If you guys can see it here, there you go. So many parallels between 1960 and 2020. One of the parallels that is most fascinating is about January 6, 2021. And that is, there could have been a lot of discontent when the election certification happened, particularly because it was Richard Nixon who had to preside over the certification of his loss over JFK's win.

We actually have some video of this. And in the book, you say -- or you quote Nixon saying, "I don't think we can have a more striking and eloquent example of the stability of our constitutional system and of the proud tradition of the American people of developing and respecting and honoring institutions of self-government". That sounds just like Donald Trump.

CHRIS WALLACE, CNN HOST, THE CHRIS WALLACE SHOW: And Mike Pence.

BASH: Yes.

WALLACE: No.

BASH: No.

WALLACE: It couldn't be, with one of the reasons. First of all, it's a great story. You've got Nixon, Kennedy. I think it's the first modern election, first televised debates, first election of a Catholic as president. But one of the things that struck me was how relevant it is to what's happening now, because 60 basically takes what's happened the last four years and stands on its head.

Because in 1960, there really was serious evidence of voter fraud, particularly in two key states, Texas and Illinois. And if just those two states had flipped, Dana, Nixon's the president.

BASH: Illinois, specifically Chicago.

WALLACE: Yes, absolutely. But that's part of Illinois.

BASH: Yes, I know.

WALLACE: But the other thing was that Nixon, under a lot of pressure, and I think with a lot of suspicions himself, that the election was stolen. He conceded. He met with Kennedy six days after the election. And then, yes, as you say, as the vice president, he had to preside over the counting of the electoral vote and the certification of John Kennedy as the winner. And he, Nixon, as the loser and he did it all very graciously.

And what a huge difference from 2020 and what we've been living through the last --

BASH: Yes.

WALLACE: -- four years, this fever dream for a president who refuses to accept the fact that he lost in 2020 and refuses to say now. He'll accept the results of the 2024 election, whatever they are.

BASH: Yes. I mean, just that quote about how important, I mean, these are my words, not him -- his, but how important the peaceful transition of power, even though --

WALLACE: Right.

BASH: -- he didn't feel like it was a free and fair election for him. And you're saying there was evidence he was right. We saw a little bit of a glimpse of that famous 1960 debate between Richard Nixon and Kennedy. You know something about presidential debates. That was the first that was televised.

Why do you think doing the research that you did that of all of the craziness that went on during the 1960 election between these two men, that is kind of the moment that is remembered first and foremost in history. Is it just as simple as it was televised?

WALLACE: Yes, but I think it also probably shifted the whole course of the election. They were very close in age. Kennedy was 42, everybody thinks how young he was. Nixon was only 47. But Nixon had been vice president for eight years. There was a stature gap, there was a sense that he was a heavyweight and that Kennedy was, you know, too good looking, too rich, too inexperienced.

And when the two of them got up on that stage together and Kennedy, who was very smart, he had gotten a tan, he wore a dark blue suit against the gray background.

BASH: And he rested ahead of time.

WALLACE: Yes.

BASH: He slept (ph).

WALLACE: And Nixon was exhausted. He was still sick from a flu and a bad staph infection. He wore a gray suit against a gray backdrop. You can see there how he almost fades into the background. And Nixon, who had a serious 5:00 shadow, refused to do make up because Kennedy refused to do make up. The difference was Kennedy had the tan, Nixon had this 5:00 shadow.

And both on substance and on style, I think that it just completely changed the dynamic that of that election and the whole momentum. And Kennedy, although it was still razor thin, went on to win.

BASH: I mean, it's so interesting. We have like just 15 seconds, but I just -- I don't want to lose sight of the dirty tricks. And this was the first election that you really saw it in a very brazen way. Not that it hadn't happened since like the beginning of time in the U.S., but Nixon took it to the next level.

WALLACE: Well, and not so much in this election. He took dirty tricks in general --

BASH: Yes.

WALLACE: -- to that as he was known as tricky Dick.

[12:55:00]

I think one of his problems was, this is the point he suddenly decides, I'm going to be a statesman. But if you haven't gotten this in the book yet, it's got the mob involved in it. It's got mistresses involved in it. It is a great story with, again, I say, tremendous relevance and resonance to 2020 and where we are right now.

BASH: I encourage people to get this book because it is absolutely fascinating. You see it on the screen. We have it here. Thank you. I got my own book from Chris Wallace ahead of time.

WALLACE: Yes, personally inscribed.

BASH: Yes, I know. Lucky me. Thank you for being here.

WALLACE: Thank you.

BASH: Thank you so much for joining Inside Politics. CNN News Central starts after the break.

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