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CNN Live Event/Special
"Election Night in America Continued". Aired on 8-9p ET
Aired November 13, 2018 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[20:00:17] WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: We're live here in Washington, one full week after America voted. The 2018 midterms continue with cliffhanger contests still unfolding and new results about to come in from California.
We want to welcome our viewers here in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer with Jake Tapper. We're here in the CNN Election Center.
Over the last seven days, we've gotten a fuller picture of the first nationwide vote of the Trump presidency, and the historic power shift that's happening right here in Washington. Democrats retaking the House of Representatives by a wider margin than was evident on election fight. They're also doing better in the U.S. Senate than first thought, even as Republicans maintain control there.
This is the state of play in the House. Democrats have a majority right now of 225 seats. Republicans have 200 seats. Ten house races remain undecided. Tonight, Democrats are leading in six of those races. If they win all six, they'll have a pickup of 36 seats, widening what would be their biggest midterm gain since the Watergate era.
In the Senate, this is the current balance of power. Democrats have won 47 seats. Republicans right now have a majority of 51 seats. Two Senate contests still up in the air in Florida and Mississippi.
Jake, Democrats have some final chances to build on their momentum.
JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: And, Wolf, they already scored a substantial pickup in the past 24 hours. Democrat Kyrsten Sinema, the winner of the Arizona U.S. Senate race, Republican Congresswoman Martha McSally conceded a seat previously held by Republicans.
Now, all eyes are on Florida, the state that made recounts infamous, is reviewing votes around the clock, across the state, because of the thin margins in some pivotal races. Florida's high-profile U.S. Senate race is hanging in the balance. Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson has been trailing Republican Rick Scott by about 13,000 votes.
Ballots are also being recounted in the Florida governor's race. Democrat Andrew Gillum who withdrew his concession is running about 34,000 votes behind Republican Congressman Ron DeSantis.
Also undecided tonight, the Mississippi Senate special election. Democrat Mike Espy and Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith set for a runoff two weeks from now.
And in the Georgia governor's race, Democrat Stacey Abrams is fighting on hoping to close the gap with Republican Brian Kemp. A judge has ordered thousands of provisional ballots to be reviewed.
We're tracking all the uncalled races and what happens next. Let's go to Wolf who's with John King at the magic wall -- Wolf.
BLITZER: And it's interesting, Jake. As votes, John, have just come in from California 39. We're getting votes. We're going to track all of these races tonight.
But what are you seeing right now?
JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Not just California 39. I'm laughing because as you got up to walk the six feet, seven feet, whatever that is, another race changed as well. The election is not over though for most people, it was over a week ago. Here's where we are leading the vote, leading the vote. Remember, here's what's -- Wolf just gave you the numbers at the top of the show, 225 for the Democrats, 200 for the Republicans.
But these are the races, ten races still uncalled. If they ended as they are now, this would be your final house. But they're not ending as they are now.
Let's go in, you mentioned the state of California. Let's pop it in here and bring out the map. This is the entire state. Now, we're going to bring up just the races that are not yet called. And you see this red down here? I'll show you this one first. This is the one you just mentioned.
This race, the 39th district, just got closer and closer still. It was 839 votes when we started the show. It was over 1,000 earlier in the day. It is 711 vote-lead now for the Republican candidate in this district.
So, this district's not done. This is a Republican-held seat. It's an open race. But the Democrats hoping this would be another pickup there. We'll see as the count continues. This is the 39th district.
See down here, it's the 45th district. As you were reading the entry to the program, this was red. This was red. Mimi Walters was ahead. Now, Katie Porter as the count continues, 261 votes ahead for the Democrats. So, we're continuing to count these votes.
Two districts there, I just want to show you what that means. You come back out, just in California, five districts uncalled. These are all Republican-held seats. Democrats are leading in four of them. So, the Democrats would stretch their gains if they pick up these four seats.
Now let's come out to the national map, come out of California. Of the ten seats left to be called, you see from Maine, New Jersey, Georgia, New Mexico, Utah, the rest in California, of the ten left to be called, all are Republican seats. Democrats are leading in seven of them.
So, if the vote were to be called now, the Democrats would pick up seven more. We're not there. Some of these races are going to take a few days, maybe even longer.
Maine is testing its new ballot system. That could go on a little bit.
But remember that, Democrats leading in seven of the uncalled races.
[20:05:04] You come out to the full map, it was a blue wave last Tuesday night when Democrats did this and took control of the House. That blue wave getting a little more juice as we move from last Tuesday to the vote count today.
BLITZER: I'm told there's new numbers coming in from California 48 if we want to go back there.
KING: Let's go back into California. See, that's how we go. Let's look through the districts and see what we got. Let's bring it over here.
Let's come down -- these are the districts in this part of the state. That's 49. You see the Democrat ahead there by 21,000 votes. So, if you're the Democrat, you're feeling good about that.
Let's come on up, the 45th I just showed you. Let's come over here to the 48th. This is the Dana Rohrabacher. This is a Republican incumbent who Democrats targeted. Harley Rouda now 10,500 votes ahead. We're not done yet. But, obviously, this lead has grown. This lead has grown as this wave gone, including new votes today.
So, if you're the Democrats, you're looking at California as your place to get, three, four maybe even five more tonight. I want to come back. Four, they're leading. And again, the one district left where the Republicans are leading by 711 votes.
So, if you're Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats or flip it over, if you're the Republicans figuring out how bad is this? You're looking at California, possibly losing four more. That one could come into play. So as many as five. Then you pull out the national map.
I just want to say it, again, the ten left, Democrats are leading in seven. And the Democrats say they think they still have a chance in one or two of those.
BLITZER: So big picture nationwide right now, where do things stand? Just to remind our viewers how close some of these contests are, that these numbers could clearly change.
KING: These numbers could change. As the numbers now change, remember, let's make the distinction. These are called. These are done. This is certain.
The Democrats will have at least 225 seats. The Republicans will have 200. Of those 225 Democratic seats, 33 of them, 33 of those seats, are pickups of Republican districts.
Later in the program, we'll talk more about where they are. The Republicans did pick up three Democratic seats and you see where they are. Mostly in blue-collar areas where the Democrats have a problem. But overall, the Democrats picking up seats, those are in the races that are called.
You look at the races that are ahead, this shows you the Democrat numbers could grow, could grow to 232, could even grow to 233, 234, depending on the ten outstanding races that are all Republican held. Democrats currently leading in seven and not out of the woods in the others, either.
BLITZER: John, stand by. We're going get back to you. Let's go over to Jake.
You know, and our panel over here. I must say, for the Democrats, they seem to be gaining some significant momentum right now. And they certainly look a lot better than they did a week ago.
TAPPER: Yes, they had a good night a week ago. They've had a great week since then. And you just went through some of the numbers with John. At 1:00 a.m. when I left this desk a week ago, we knew Democrats are going to take the House. We don't know it could be by almost 232 seats.
But let's also look at the Senate because when I checked out here at 1:00 a.m. last week, this is what we knew. We knew that Republicans had taken some seats from Democrats. They had taken North Dakota. They had taken Indiana. They had taken Missouri.
And we did not know what was going to go on with these remaining five although we knew that Republicans were ahead, though the voting was still going on, in Florida, Montana, Nevada, and Arizona. Then there's the Mississippi special, of course. Since then, Florida remains a question mark, although likely Republicans will win it.
But there's a recount going on, but since then, Montana, Jon Tester, held on to his seat despite the fact that it took a few days before he even was ahead of his opponent. And Democrats picked up two Republican seats. Nevada, which CNN called early in the morning that night, and Arizona, which we just called a matter of hours ago.
So, the night is much more positive in terms of the final results after all the votes are counted, except for the ones in Mississippi and Florida. The night is much more positive for Democrats than it initially looked a week ago.
BLITZER: And, Dana, the Democrats are pretty happy with the results, even though they don't have the majority in the U.S. senate. It was always an uphill struggle given the nature of who was up for re- election.
DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Exactly. That's why the Democrats are so happy. The map couldn't have been any more unfriendly to the Democrats going into last Tuesday. So many Democrats were up for re-election in very, very red states where the president won by double digits and what's interesting, sort of piggybacking on what you were saying there, Jake, that the president lost three of those states.
Yes, he lost three of those states. You pointed them out. Nevada, Arizona, and Montana. The top two, he didn't campaign in very much, but you have others that you really didn't do well in. Excuse me. I want to say the other way around.
The only won three states, North Dakota, Indiana, and Missouri, but he campaigned in a whole lot of states that he didn't do very well in, and that's very telling.
BLITZER: One of those states, Nia, was West Virginia.
[20:10:02] The president went there several times trying to defeat Joe Manchin and he failed.
NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: Yes, top target for Republicans, top target for this president. You almost felt like the president was taking it personally.
So, he went down there several times. Manchin obviously decided to vote for Kavanaugh because that's the way the state probably wanted him to vote, ended up paying off for him. So that was an interesting.
And then Tester, too, right, in Montana. That was a race also that really the president was focused on. He wanted to see Tester lose, but it ended up Tester ended up pulling it out. We sat here, Dana and I, until 5:00 a.m. on Tuesday. I guess it was Wednesday morning.
And we could sort of see that, you know, things were getting better as the evening wore on and as the morning started to come. But I think when Democrats look at what they were able to do in the House, the Senate, and governors' races as well, they got some good news. They went into the night with 16 governorships and now they got 23. So, they're much more on par with Republicans at this point.
BLITZER: And state legislatures, too, Jake. This has been a sore spot for the Democrats in recent years. But they did well this time.
TAPPER: They did. And we should just remind people that during the Obama era, Democrats lost almost 1,000 state legislative seats. But right now, where we are is Democrats picked up 316 seats. Republicans lost 246 seats. There's still the reason for the discrepancy there as there are still some races that are undecided and undeclared and also independents.
But when you look at that, 3,434 seats versus 3,855 seats, Democrats are headed in the right direction for that party. So, again, Republicans still have an edge here. But Democrats had a good night and they're looking to make up the gains they lost during the Obama era.
BASH: And that matters not just for local and state issues, but it matters a lot for federal issues like when you talk about redistricting. And these legislatures have a big role in h it. The governors obviously as well, which you'll talk about in a little while. But this is a very, very important point for the broader makeup of the United States Congress.
TAPPER: Also --
BASH: Many particular gerrymandering.
TAPPER: Also important when it comes to Obamacare, whether or not you want to expand Medicaid.
BASH: Exactly.
TAPPER: That's important with the governorships you talked about. Also important for the state legislature.
HENDERSON: That's exactly right.
If you think about what we're going to see in Congress in Washington, we're likely going to see gridlock. The policy is going to be happening at the state level on any number of issues and really going to see two Americas. Red states only doing what they want to do in terms of abortion, in terms of Obamacare, as well as in terms of voting rights and have Democrats now who flipped some houses as well in some of the state legislatures. They're going to be doing very different things with those issues.
TAPPER: All right. Let's go to Anderson Cooper with our panel of experts to talk some more.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Yes, Jake, thanks very much.
We want to, given that we've had a week now, I want to get more perspective on what happened on election night, what's still going on, how the Democrats actually built on their gains.
I want to go to CNN's political director David Chalian with that.
So, who voted for the Democrats, David?
DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Yes. So, you're seeing now this is potentially 37, maybe 38 net gained seats here. What was underneath that? What was driving that?
Take a look at some key demographics we have for you from the exit poll. Female voters up first. Take a look how women split in this election. It's a 19-point advantage for the Democrats, 59 percent to 40 percent.
I just want to explain that Hillary Clinton two years ago won women by 13 points. Democrats were able to expand beyond that, beyond the first potential female president.
Take a look at white college graduates. This is a real warning sign for Donald Trump. Look at that, 53 percent of white college graduates went for the Democrat, 45 percent for the Republican. Donald Trump won white college graduates by three points just two
years ago, and four years ago, Republicans won this group by 16 points in the 2014 election. It has swung from a 16-point Republican advantage to now what you see here, an eight-point advantage for the Democrats. That's huge.
Take a look at suburban voters. Split evenly, 49 percent to 49 percent. That's unheard of. This is part of the modern era Republican coalition.
Four years ago, the suburbs were won by Republicans by 12 points. Donald Trump won them by four points. Now it's split evenly. The Democrats have removed the Republican advantage in the suburbs in this one election.
And then finally, among independents, I think we forget, Donald Trump won independents two years ago by a few points. Four points. Look at this. It's a 12-point advantage among independents for the Democrats.
Four years ago in the 2014 midterms, it was a 12-point advantage for the Republicans. It has swung 24 points in these four years. So, Anderson, I think what you are seeing in these results is, you can see from the midterm election four years ago what the Republican Party coalition looked like.
[20:15:07] You then see how Donald Trump fared with some of these groups against an unpopular Hillary Clinton. And now what Donald Trump has done with these groups for the Republican Party which has really damaged the Republican Party brand among --
COOPER: David Urban, as a supporter of the president, how concerned are you by that?
DAVID URBAN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: So, you know, David makes a good point. Look, three groups that -- he kind of talks about generally, college-educated women in the suburbs, millennials, and minorities. We got to figure out a better message, get the message to the folks and win them back for 2020. It's going to be a problem if we don't.
GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: I think it's Trump, isn't it? I mean, it may not be so much message --
URBAN: You know.
BORGER: I think the reaction, women, young people, independents, Latinos, suburbanites, et cetera, if you look at the exit polls and David knows this better than anybody, people were casting their votes about Donald Trump.
URBAN: Right. So that's true, but when there's Donald Trump versus nobody, it's a lot different than Donald Trump versus candidate "X," Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, completely different race.
COOPER: Just in terms of enthusiasm, Abby, just in terms of voter turnout, you're going to have a lot more people turning out in 2020, to David's point, a lot more Trump supporters perhaps coming out.
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, but also a lot more Democrats. I mean, this election saw record turnout in some places in some states. More turnout in a midterm election than we've seen in many of the midterms of recent years. So that, to me, signals that maybe it is Republicans who are energized by this moment but certainly Democrats are, too, and Democrats tend to be more energized in presidential years than midterms.
I think one of the other issues, though, underlying some of these problems is that this election did not end up turning on a lot of the issues that Republicans had, appealed to college-educated voters on. Republicans basically stopped talking about fiscal responsibility. They basically stopped talking about a pocketbook issues because the tax bill wasn't selling as well as they thought they would.
And the election began to turn on the more divisive issues like immigration, like crime, even though crime is at historic lows throughout the country. And I think that becomes a problem because some of these voters are going to be motivated to vote for the Republican Party based on an issue set that they had stood for until President Trump got a lot of Republican voters to come out on some of these gut issues, isolating some of these college-educated voters.
BAKARI SELLERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think it's two things because one of the things that we're overlooking is that some of this vote turnout was Donald Trump. You can't take that away. But on the Democratic side, there was a large group of people, no matter where they were in the country, they came out to support the party of Stacey Abrams, Andrew Gillum and Beto O'Rourke.
There were candidates although we had this emotional attachment, that's part of the problem we had last Tuesday when Democrats were a little sour is because all candidates we had emotional attachments to lost. But they were able to put the wind beneath the sails of others. But to Abby's point, these individuals represented what we believe to be the future of the Democratic Party, the future of this country. I mean, Democrats, we elected the first African-American to Congress in Massachusetts. In Connecticut, you have the first openly gay governor.
I mean, the list goes on and on and on. You can check these things down. But if you look in South Carolina House district 1, for example, right where I'm from, the closing message for Katie Arrington in a seat that Mark Sanford owned that Donald Trump won was MS-13, right? And so that turned away these groups of people that you're talking about. When Joe Cunningham, the opponent, who's now a member of the United States Congress, was talking about those pocketbook issues, was talking about issues that go right to the bailiwick of those white suburban women that the Democrats have to have.
COOPER: Also health care was also something Democrats focused on a lot.
SELLERS: Right. AMANDA CARPENTER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think we have to take a second to realize where -- why we are here now. The reason we're still looking at races is because Democrats are extremely competitive in red and purple states. Donald Trump won Florida and we're still waiting results because it's so darn close. We're awaiting results in Georgia. Arizona was just called today.
And I am -- I think Republicans should really get obsessed about what happened in Arizona. I thought Martha McSally was a great candidate that had the wrong strategy. Kyrsten Sinema was a Code Pink, anti- war, person that traditionally in a Republican campaign you would have been able to sideline her very quickly. But Martha McSally, for whatever reason, decided to wed herself to Trump and that allowed Sinema to run up the middle because she had actually a pretty centrist voting record in the House.
And so that's a warning to Republicans, if you choose to jump on the Trump train in your election, that is a free pass for a Democrat to run right up the center.
URBAN: I'd say also Kyrsten Sinema had great message discipline, right?
CARPENTER: She's a great candidate.
URBAN: They would bang on her and all her past, very sketchy past and she said, what about health care?
[20:20:02] She brought it back to an issue that resonated with voters. She had great message discipline, was a great candidate in that regard, was able --
SELLERS: But the map is changing, too, and this is what Republicans -- this is why Donald Trump doesn't fit this timeframe because where the demographics in this country are changing, in Nevada, in Arizona, in Georgia to a lesser extent, Donald Trump does not fare well in those places.
CARPENTER: Look at Republican governor who won.
URBAN: There's a shift -- used to be a Republican stronghold, right? And kind of the Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigans, Democratic stronghold flipping back --
SELLERS: Well, I don't know about that --
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: The question is, can President Trump -- does he see writing on the wall that worries him about the suburbs, about --
URBAN: You know, to Abby's point, there is extreme, you know, huge turnout in Philadelphia. Huge turnout in, say, you know, in Austin, Texas, huge turnout in every Democratic area. We look at it again, it's all about the electoral map, right? So, that at the end of the day is the issue for 2020. Not 345 different House seats. It's a small handful --
COOPER: But you said Republicans need to get a message that reaches out to those people.
URBAN: You do.
COOPER: Can the president do that?
URBAN: I think the president is capable of doing it. I mean, he did it before. He had an economic populist message. He needs to run on the message.
Listen, I think we need a shining city on the hill moment. I think Republicans desperately need that. That's a message that resonates with folks in the Philly suburb and independents --
(CROSSTALK)
URBAN: It wasn't this time, but he had to motivate the base, remember? The base was not turning -- I submit it would have been a worse loss for Republicans across the board if the president didn't get out and --
COOPER: Gloria --
BORGER: It would have been most if there wouldn't have been gerrymandered districts also and held up a lot of Republican losses. Now that you've got some state legislatures flipping, it's going to trickle down and there's going to be redrawn lines --
COOPER: That won't be until after the 2020 census.
(CROSSTALK)
BORGER: It's going to make a difference --
URBAN: It's already made a difference in Pennsylvania, right? We already got hammered.
COOPER: Coming up in this hour, thousands more votes being reported in California where five House races are still undecided, as we showed you a short time ago. We're going to update you as the numbers come in.
Plus, the Democratic Party chairman on the growing evidence of a blue wave and what it means for 20. He'll join us with Chris Cuomo. We'll have an exclusive interview with the top Florida election official who's been a target of Republican attacks on the integrity of the vote. That's all ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:26:15] BLITZER: We're back with our special coverage, "Election Night in America Continued." We're following more than a dozen high- stakes races that are still undecided. Votes are coming in from California, John, even as we speak right now.
The balance of power that we're seeing, that could clearly change fairly soon.
KING: Right. New votes coming in in the last hour or so all trending toward the Democrats. Take a closer look at the race, just so people don't get confused about the numbers. This is where we know we are, 225 Democrats, 200 Republicans.
These are the called races, projected races. Now the ten uncalled races if they ended right now, as they now stand, Democrats would gain even more to 232, including 40 Republican pickups. That is it. That's an if.
Let's zoom in on the state of California where a lot of this is happening. Let's just switch over to the races that have not been called, where you see people are leading. And you see these five districts, right? This was a Republican-held seat. The Democrat is leading. It's not been called yet.
The movement has been down here. Let's start in the one red district. Young Kim is the Republican candidate. This is an open seat. Gil Cisneros is the Democrat. She was ahead by more than 1,000 votes just a couple hours ago. That has narrowed tonight.
You see the movement as the late votes come in and every one of these districts has been toward the Democrats. The Republicans still ahead here. We haven't projected this race. The lead narrowing so Democrats think maybe we have a chance here.
Let's move next door. When we started the hour, Mimi Walters was ahead. New votes reported. Katie Porter has pulled ahead by 261 votes. We're not done. Still counting votes in California. Another district where as the count continues, it's trended toward the Democrats. The Democrats are ahead here.
This makes Democrats incredibly happy. We've not called this race yet. But this was a top Democratic target of a Republican incumbent, Dana Rohrabacher, been in Congress a long time. He's been criticized even by Republicans for his closeness to Vladimir Putin and the Russians.
The Democrats made a big change here in what's been for a long time a safe Republican district. The Democratic candidate, Harley Rouda, now 10,500 -- almost 11,000 votes ahead. Closing in on that. That's a big lead. We're still counting votes. We're being cautious.
The election was a week ago. Another district, Wolf, as they count them , the trend is toward the Democrats.
I just want to show this other one up here. We haven't focused on this one, the 10th district. This is another Republican incumbent, Jeff Dedham, a moderate. Hillary Clinton carried this in the election. The Democrat pulled ahead here in recent days as well, 3,400, just shy of 3,500 votes. So, it's not done yet. But if you look at the map just in California, five of the ten left
are in the state of California. Democrats are leading in four of them. These are all Republican-held seats. So, these would all be pickups and the one Republican who is leading has a shrinking lead as we go through the day, 711 votes right now. Just pull it back out, put it into national context.
The other race, this is one of the Georgia suburbs. This one outside of the Philadelphia suburbs. We talked about this on election night. This was a top Democratic target. Tom MacArthur, Republican incumbent, was leading all night, election night. Andrew Kim has come back.
You see over this side, this is close to the Philadelphia suburbs, if you will. It's in New Jersey. This part of the district is essentially the Florida suburbs. Tom MacArthur, of course, one of the Republican moderates, key to the Republican repeal Obamacare vote.
That's why Democrats made him a key target. We're not done here yet again, but yet another race that as the days go on and the votes come in has trended blue, not red, which if you pull it back out, just come back to the full map.
Again, the Senate map not as good for Republicans as they thought. The Democrats picking up governorships. Democrats will take back the House.
The only question now is the margin. A lot of people out there who say is this a blue wave? This is a blue wave.
BLITZER: The Democrats started the night leading in six of those ten key races. Now, they're leading in seven based on the numbers that have just come.
KING: Right. You go back to that. You just look at the leading only. It was six when we started the night. One of those California districts flipped.
And again, we'll keep an eye on it throughout the night and the days ahead. There's no expectation these will be settled tonight. Let me zoom it out so you can see. These four are right down here in southern California, again, all held by Republicans right now, Democrats leading in three.
HERE
[20:30:00] JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And in the days ahead, there's no expectation that these will be settled tonight. Let me just zoom it out the four so you can see. These four right down here in Southern California, again, all held by Republicans right now.
Democrats leading in it three, they're not called yet, but three potential pickups here, the one, the Denham district I showed you up there. And if you're the Republicans, you're looking at this one. Sorry, I just lost the district. Let me pull it out for you. You're watching this district here. Again, you're hoping to hold on there. The trend lines have not been good for Republicans. You hope to hold that.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: We'll keep watching these numbers. You know, Jake, Orange County in California as all of us know, that was pretty much traditionally Republican.
JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: Oh, absolutely.
BLITZER: But that seems to be changing tonight.
TAPPER: Absolutely. And one of the other things that's interesting about some of these races is how much a state that was somewhat mixed, like New Jersey is actually one that I'm thinking of right now, is now more Democratic than it has been since, I think since William Howard Taft was president, for like 100 years. New Jersey used to be a mix of blue seats and red seats.
DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: When I was growing up, we had Republican governors.
TAPPER: That's right, who am I to talk about New Jersey --
NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: New Jersey girl.
TAPPER: -- when New Jersey girl number one is right to my left. But I mean -- but it was a mixed state, right, it was a mixed state.
BASH: Yes.
TAPPER: And there were blue-collar areas and country club areas. And now -- and correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the entire state is blue now both in terms of House and Senate and governor, and that's one of the effects that we've seen of this election. California is bluer than it was. Washington State is bluer than it was. New Jersey, Pennsylvania, bluer than they were.
BASH: Yes, exactly. And California is so interesting. The districts that you were talking about with John in Orange County because if you want to find kind of a microcosm of the perfect storm of changing demographics and Trumpism on Republicans, Orange County is the place, because it used to be so reliably red, really, really conservative red, Trumpian, actually.
And because of the changing demographics there, because it has become more suburban than it was in the past, that is kind of, you know, ground zero for the dynamic that we've been talking about across the country in so many of these House districts that Democrats flipped from red to blue. And it is because people are just disgusted with the party that they have grown up with, and they don't necessarily agree with what they're seeing in Washington.
And despite the fact that many people who live in those districts, you know, kind of are simpatico ideologically with the President his tone and tenor have turned many of them off. At least that's, you know, a lot of the reporting that we're seeing out of there. And so that's why it's kind of the perfect storm and a great microcosm for Republicans maybe to go in and say, if we don't want this to happen again in 2020, how do we fix it?
HENDERSON: Yes, and we saw this in unlikely places. And if you're a Democrat, that's what you're looking at. You're looking at places like Georgia, right? Georgia six where Lucy McBath wins over Karen Handel and that Georgia seven race at this point which is still undecided, a pretty tight race there. It's a Republican district and the Democrat seems to be doing pretty well. It hasn't been called yet. We'll have to see what happens. But that's what you're looking at.
But one of the things we saw happen, for instance, on Tuesday was a state like Ohio seems to be getting redder. So if you're a Democrat, are there states that might be like the next Virginia, or are there states that might be the next Colorado? Is it Arizona, for instance? And maybe it's a state like Georgia, so that's one of the things that's interesting. I think also what is going to be fascinating to see is if Mia Love loses that race out in Utah --
BLITZER: In Utah.
HENDERSON: -- the Utah six. She entered the Republican Party. It was a very different Republican Party in 2014 than it is now. It's tough to be a black Republican in the era of Trump and it certainly tough to be a black Republican in Utah in a Trump era.
BASH: And a woman.
HENDERSON: And a woman. And so if she loses, you've got the Democratic Party -- the Republican Party much whiter and more male on the congressional side because she was the only black woman Republican in the House.
TAPPER: Of course, they're still counting ballots there. We don't know what's going to happen.
HENDERSON: Exactly, exactly, exactly. We don't know.
TAPPER: The last I saw she was still slightly ahead --
HENDERSON: Yes, yes. We'll see what happen.
TAPPER: -- but we don't know. Let's go to Chris Cuomo in the election center.
CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: All right, Jake, what a difference a week makes. Since election night, the story of the 2018 midterms has changed. It's only gotten better for Democrats. Apparently at least to this point they're still counting votes. But the way it's trending right now, it's better than expected.
In the last week, they've increased their majority in the House and reduced the situation in the Senate. But there are questions about where they go from here and who better to talk to about that than Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez. Good to see you, Tom. TOM PEREZ, DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: Always good to be with you, Chris.
CUOMO: What a difference a week makes. Who thought that you'd still be counting votes and that there would be this interesting dynamic of late breaking blue votes in these races? Are you surprised?
PEREZ: Well, not in California because we saw the energy out there and the organizing. But as you correctly point out, with every passing day, we really understand how historic this election was.
[20:35:01] The last time we won this many seats in the U.S. House was 1974. The seven governor flips, that hasn't happened in decades, like three or four decades on the Democratic side.
You look at the number of State House seats that were won and seven state legislative chambers were flipped. And by the way, if we can flip 41 seats in 10 chambers in 2020, we flip those chambers, so we have an eye on that.
And so the list continues to move on and you see those races in California. There's a race in Maine tomorrow that is using rank choice voting and my guess tomorrow is that the Democratic candidate is going to pull ahead once they complete the vote count and they've said they'd do that by tomorrow. So, the Democratic Party is back. We're competing everywhere.
Our goal was to increase the electorate, to expand the electorate, to compete in Utah and Oklahoma and South Carolina and Kansas. And lo and behold, we won everywhere because I think the message about health care and protecting people with pre-existing conditions, the message about making sure our kids' education gives them a fair shake, that message resonates in every zip code across America.
CUOMO: Well, but also to be fair, as is often the case in a first- term presidency, you got negative reaction to the sitting president as well and that's certainly part of the calculus right now for voters. You have to believe that a big part of the Democratic turnout were people coming out because they wanted to signal their rejection of the President and his administration.
PEREZ: Well, that was certainly part of it. But what's also interesting is you look at districts like -- take Maricopa County, for instance, which is a metropolitan phoenix. Donald Trump won Maricopa County --
CUOMO: Right.
PEREZ: -- comfortably in 2016 and Kyrsten Sinema won it in 2018. You take Tarrant County in Texas, which Donald Trump won comfortably in 2016, that's the Fort Worth area, and Beto O'Rourke won that in 2018.
What we're seeing is that we can compete everywhere and you're seeing the emergence of not only the industrial Midwest where we fortified that wall in places like Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, but also you're seeing this emergence out in the mountain west of a new blue wall out there between Colorado --
CUOMO: Right.
PEREZ: -- and Nevada and New Mexico and Arizona. Don't forget, Hillary Clinton lost Arizona I think it was by three or four points.
CUOMO: Right.
PEREZ: It was not a blowout by any stretch and now you have Senator- elect Sinema which I love the ring to that.
CUOMO: Well, come on --
PEREZ: And by the way, the Secretary of State who was declared the loser on election night in Arizona looks like she's going to be the winner. She's pulled ahead in that race.
CUOMO: So, look, we're watching all of them and it is interesting to watch it unfold that's why people were so kind of taken aback by the President suggesting all the counting should be done on election night. None of the counting is done on election night. Anybody who knows the system knows that.
But to play with your metaphor about the blue wall in the Midwest and what you're seeing further west than that, any wall is only as good as its foundation, right, to borrow the metaphor about a good House.
Between now and 2020, what do you think Democrats have to do to put themselves in the right position? And by that, I mean, how much deal making versus going after the President in what you call oversight. What do you think the priority has to be? How do you balance those two to set yourself up for 2020?
PEREZ: Well, I think we have to walk and chew gum. I know we're going to focus immediately and energetically on infrastructure because you put good -- you put people to work in well-paying jobs, you're growing the middle class and you're addressing a very, very serious need.
Making sure we protect once and for all people with pre-existing conditions. Take that off the table, there are so many people going to bed at night with a pit in their stomach, expanding our investments in public education, making sure we preserve Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security. You know, we can address the issues of the Dreamers. They deserve a fair shake in this country.
CUOMO: Can you get any through the Senate?
PEREZ: Well, I hope so. I mean, we're going to fight like heck. And, you know, 2013, there was a bipartisan immigration bill that passed the Senate. I think it had, you know, 65, 66 votes. And, you know, we have to address this issue. I think we can be a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants. We've always been that way.
And so we're going to keep fighting for that, but we also need to make sure we have guardrails in Washington. The Republican leadership for the last two years in Washington, Democrats -- the Senate and the House, the Republicans, they've been lap dogs for this President.
And, I mean, the number of scandals that have gone unchecked. I mean in the Obama administration, scandal was when President Obama wore a tan suit one day. And, you know, you look at scandal after scandal, whether it's the interior secretary, HHS, the EPA, the list is long. And we need guardrails because they're wasting taxpayer money.
CUOMO: Right. But it's got to be a balance, though, right, Tom, because isn't there a risk that if you are checking Trump, and I know that there are Democrats, maybe a lot of Democrats, who want exactly that, get after Trump, try to see what you can do, try to hamstring his presidency.
[20:40:07] But are you worried that if you go too far in that direction people will say this is just more of the same and they're not making my life better, they're making life harder for their opponents?
PEREZ: Well, I have great faith in the leadership of the relevant committees. For instance, I'm a Marylander and Elijah Cummings will be heading up the House Oversight Committee. He's a lawyer. He understands that subpoenas shouldn't be handed out like rock candy. He understands the seriousness of the task at hand. And so I'm confident that we have a steady hand at the tiller in the person of Elijah Cummings, same thing with the other committees. And I -- we understand that this is serious business.
Oversight is very critically important because we need that accountability, but at the same time as I said at the outset, this is about delivering results and making people's lives better, making sure they have access to health care, making sure that we, you know, we address the minimum wage. 7.25 is not enough to feed a family.
And making sure that we're providing that quality education for our kids, a brighter future for everyone, shared prosperity, not just prosperity for a few because we are the party that is -- we're fighting for the people, not for the privilege and that's what we're going to continue doing.
CUOMO: Well, you will be judged by what you do, especially once you get power in the House, so we'll see what happens. Tom Perez, thank you very much for coming in and watching this as it continues to play out. Be well.
Still ahead, we're continuing to bring you new vote tallies from California. Five undecided House races, they could go either way. We just got in more votes just moments ago. We're going to bring them to you ahead.
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[20:45:54] BLITZER: Welcome back. We're following some very close House races out in California. John, this could be very, very significant for the Democrats. They have a potential to pick up several more seats. KING: Right. And so these are the races. These are the who's leading right now, leading or ahead. A lot of these races have been called so let's switch the map to show you just the races that are not yet called but where we have candidates leading.
We have a Democrat leading up here in a Republican district. Some votes have been coming in throughout the night. Just in the last few minutes our Chris Cuomo just mentioned this year in California's 49th district where the Democrat is stretching, what is becoming a comfortable lead.
When we started the night, Mike Levin was right around 100,000. He's moved up. Diane Harkey was below 100,000. She's gotten a few more votes as well but you see the stretch right here now, 55 percent to 45 percent, that's gone up to more than 22,000 votes. So it's a net -- again, another one of these districts, it's a Republican incumbent retires, Democratic pickup opportunity in the state of California.
This is one here. Same situation here, that's also a pretty comfortable lead. And this is a Republican incumbent here. Over here, another retiring -- this is a Republican incumbent, Mimi Walters, I'm sorry, Katie Porter now by 261 votes. So just here in Southern California, three potential Democratic pickups to add, to add to their pickups. These are races that are still in play, again, one more there. All the seats you see still in play in California are currently held by Republicans.
This is a Republican incumbent, Jeff Denham, now losing by close to 5,000 votes. And just above right down, to be fair to the Republicans, this is the one district that they are leading in here by 711 votes. And, again, the trend line has been, this lead was bigger to start the day.
As more votes come in, week after the election, California still counting, all the trend lines have been toward the Democrats, including in that 49th where that lead is starting to grow. So if you're the Democrats, you're thinking you can still pick up maybe at least four, maybe five, still add to five. And then again when you bring it out to the national numbers, you see why that matters just keep coming out and take this away.
This is the known math, 225, but if you look at the races that are still in play, Democrats could get to 232. If they flip that red district there, that's 233. If they flip -- let me bring just bring off the map to get to the other (INAUDIBLE), if they flip the one in Maine, the chairman was just talking about this one down here in Georgia. So there are still opportunities the Democrats can get even higher.
BLITZER: Let's not forget 218, that's the magic number for the majority. Democrat is well above that right now. Jake?
TAPPER: Thanks, Wolf. At this hour, election officials are re- counting ballots across the state of Florida in the close and very important races for Senate and governor. It's ground zero in the midterm election drama that's still playing out tonight one week later.
Our correspondents are standing by in the Sunshine State. First to Ryan Nobles in the capital of Tallahassee. Ryan, what's going on tonight?
RYAN NOBLES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jake, we're outside federal court because tomorrow will be the first of four important hearings having to do with lawsuits filed by Democrats that specifically have to do with this big recount here in Florida.
The court tomorrow will be hearing arguments based on the Democrats' challenge of the signature match requirement here in Florida. That is a law that states that your signature on the ballot that you mail in to authorities must match the signature that you had when you registered to vote. Democrats argue that that standard doesn't work and that there are a lot of votes that should be counted that aren't counted as a result.
And, Jake, this is an example of lawsuits that are specifically designed to essentially find more votes for Bill Nelson who currently trails by about 12,000 votes in this race, behind Governor Rick Scott who is the Republican. And this is important because this re-count process is playing out.
As you mentioned, they have to finish this machine recount by Thursday. If the margin remains less than a quarter of a percent, which it is expected to do so, they will then move to a hand re-count of the under-votes and over-votes. This process playing out and it must be all wrapped up and 18th of November and certified by the 20th.
But, Jake, if these lawsuits continue in court rooms like the one behind me, there's a good chance it could play out longer than that and Floridians will have to wait and see who their next senator and governor will be.
TAPPER: All right, Ryan, thanks so much. Now let's check in on the recount in one of Florida's biggest and most important counties in any election, that would be Broward County.
[20:50:02] And CNN's Jessica Dean is live there in Lauderhill, Florida. Jessica, give us an update about what's going on in Broward County.
JESSICA DEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Jake. We are inside the supervisor of elections office here in Broward County, where just to my right they are actually counting the votes as we speak. There are people from the Democratic side, the Republican side, watching every move that's being made in there.
We also have sheriff's deputies in here making sure that everything is secure. The votes are being held in a cage just beyond the camera here. So things are moving forward as the supervisor election's office wants them. Do they feel confident that they're going to make that Thursday deadline that we heard Ryan talk about?
But certainly Broward County and specifically Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes has found itself in the spotlight yet again with everyone from President Trump, to Governor Rick Scott, to even the man who appointed her, then Governor Jeb Bush, suing her or talking about removing her from office.
Jeb Bush wanted her removed from office post-recount. Rick Scott's campaign sued her, took her to court. So there's just a lot of attention on this office and getting the votes counted.
But as I mentioned, there's just a lot of people here monitoring this process. They say they're confident it's playing out the way they wanted to. And again, Jake, everybody now with eyes toward Thursday. But until then, people here working overnight and into the morning.
TAPPER: All right, Jessica Dean in Broward County, Florida.
Let's check back in with Chris Cuomo at the CNN election center.
CUOMO: All right, appreciate it. Now, we're going to be talking in a little bit to that commissioner, the executive in Broward County, Brenda Snipes. She is the one that has all the focus on her about the recount in Broward County down there in Florida. We'll be talking to her.
But look, let's be honest, this isn't the first time we've been there in Florida. There are two reasons for that. One has to be endemic to how they're doing their elections down there. We remember the nightmare from 2000. But there's another reason as well, Florida is now the most populous state, third most populous state, so we look at it more especially now these races matter. They were bellwether races.
So, let's talk a little bit about how much of what we're seeing in Florida is reflective of what could be happening in lots of states all over the county and what it might mean for 2020.
My next guest is not so optimistic, but he knows a lot about this. Rick Hasen is an election law expert. He's a professor of law and political science at the University of Cal, Irvine. It's great to have you, Rick.
RICHARD HASEN, ELECTION LAW EXPERT: Great to be with you.
CUOMO: All right. So again, you know, you've got to look at Florida and say, well, third most populated state now, OK, we care. We're going to look. And if you pull back the covers on any state, you may not like what you see running around underneath the covers. That said, what is your overriding concern over what we're seeing play out in Florida?
HASEN: Well, it's kind of a repeat of what we saw in 2000. You've got a toxic mix of partisan election officials, some incompetent, some bad ballot design. We may have lost 24,000 or more votes in Broward County because of how the ballot was designed.
And added to the kind of technical problems with how the election is being run, you've got very strict deadlines and you've got both parties running to court and it really does seem like a replay of Bush versus Gore, except now it's even worse because you've got the President and the governor of Florida both making completely unsubstantiated claims of the election being stolen and of fraud being committed by election officials. And I think that adds to the kind of toxicity and the volatility of the whole situation.
CUOMO: You don't buy the fraud talk?
HASEN: Well, I can tell you that Scott -- Governor Scott had asked the Florida police to investigate. They said no evidence of fraud. There were monitors in Broward County from his own secretary of state's office. They said there's no evidence of fraud.
A state court judge in a hearing just said, "Cool it with the fraud talk." There's really no credible evidence that's been put forward whatsoever. This seems to be a calculated strategy to try to delegitimate whatever might come in the recounts in the event that Bill Nelson overtakes the lead against Scott.
I mean, the very idea that Scott is weighing in on the contest, where he has control over the secretary of state, who he appoints, where he is a candidate on the ballot, that just shows you how dysfunctional the way this election is being conducted in the state of Florida.
CUOMO: Well, look, he has marginal control over Brenda Snipes, also, the commissioner down there in Broward County, the election official. He could suspend her if he wanted to. She's an elected official, but he could take action. He's not doing that. He's had eight years with her underneath him for him to review the situation. But how much of what you think we're seeing in Broward County is about how Brenda Snipes is doing her job? And how much of it is just about the workload?
HASEN: No, I think a big part of it is how Brenda Snipes is doing her job. You can look at other large jurisdictions. Look at Orange County, which you were talking about earlier, it's got a Republican election official who's got a stellar reputation.
[20:55:04] Look at Los Angeles County, the largest election jurisdiction in the country, Dean Logan, stellar reputation. You can look all over the country. Election administration has generally do a very good job under very tough conditions with a lot of pressure, a lot, a lot of ballots to count, but they don't have the kind of problems that we saw with Snipes. I think she represents an outlier rather than what you typically see with election administrators around the country.
CUOMO: All right. Rick, thank you very much. If people look you up, they'll see you just wrote a piece about your concerns projecting forward to 2020 and how people can use the lack of confidence in this system to really muck up the works, assuming that President Trump wants to do that he'd be a likely candidate to do so. Rick Hasen, thank you very much. Appreciate it. Good to have you with us.
All right, so you just heard us talking about Brenda Snipes. She's got an answer for herself and she wants to take that opportunity to do so. We're going to have the Broward County official. She's going to come on. She's going to talk about the timing, whether or not they can get the count done, and her response to the criticisms of how she's doing her job. Stay with us.
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