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Nail-Biter Election Comes Down to AZ, GA, PA, MI, NV, WI; No Further Information from Nevada as Wait for Votes Continues. Aired 6- 6:30a ET

Aired November 04, 2020 - 06:00   ET

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

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Harry Enten, of course, we didn't see this. The polls, whatever. We're learning things about this country once again. We always do in every election.

[05:59:17]

The idea that they've never had as good a map on the left to take the Senate in recent history. Fair point?

HARRY ENTEN, CNN POLITICS WRITER AND ANALYST: I don't know. I wouldn't necessarily characterize it that way. Certainly, we thought that they were going to do very well in the Senate, right? They were favored to take control, though it was closer than the presidential rate.

The one thing that I will note as Boris was going through that list is how much those Senate races seem to be reflecting the presidential races in those states, right? So like Michigan you see Gary Peters, the Democrat, trailing the same as you see Joe Biden currently in Michigan. We'll have to see what happens when the vote-by-mail comes in. But at this point, we could be heading towards a second consecutive election, at least presidential-year election, in which pretty much all the Senate races went the way the presidential races went.

CUOMO: All right. So, let's keep working on it. Let's keep grinding out what the numbers are here. That's what the system demands. And that's what democracy demands.

Now, as we continue to wait, I want to welcome you to 6 a.m. in the morning here on the East. A lot of you are waking up right now, and a lot has happened overnight. A lot has changed, but we are still in the thick of a very heated contest.

So good morning to you. Hello again on the West Coast. I am Chris Cuomo. You see Don Lemon with me on this Wednesday morning, 6 a.m., 3 a.m. out west.

We do not have a winner yet in this presidential race. But it's a damned good thing we didn't stop counting, because things have changed that benefit this president and that will not benefit this president. All right?

Despite Trump claiming premature victory, which he promised he wouldn't do, we have continued to count, because that's what the democracy demands. The vote is taking shape. The most important part of the picture is still the numbers that we don't see, all right?

So let me take you over to start talking about what we see and what we don't see. And we will begin with the key race alert that we have for you here, all right? Here's where we start this morning.

Nevada, OK? Now, this is the developing story. We just had a tweet put out -- You can find it for yourself if you're online -- from the secretary of state. We're not going to get more information from Nevada. Why? They are waiting. They are one of the two states in play right now, Nevada and Pennsylvania, that have extended deadlines for ballots. They wait until the 10th. The secretary of state said the next update will come on the 5th. That is tomorrow.

But Biden had been presumptively given Nevada by a lot of organizations all night. We hadn't, but we've been doing that in the calculus in terms of the speculation. He had been up by 25,000 plus. Now, 7,600.

But what else did we learn? We learned that they are largely down to mail-in ballot counting in Nevada, and in the biggest county, which is almost a controlling county -- it's over 75 percent of the vote in Nevada -- Clark County, where Vegas is, you have a Democrat advantage there, and mail-in has been breaking towards Democrats. So that may hold. If it doesn't, Biden is in a damned deep hole to the president. No question about it. Keep your eye on it.

Georgia, it's been quiet overnight. We're waiting on them. Sixteen electoral votes. The president is up 100,000 plus, 55.5 to 48.3. Ninety-two percent of the estimated vote is in.

So why are we keeping an eye on it? Well, we have to see everything through. But also, there is significant vote in the Atlanta and outer suburbs there that could fall very heavily Democratic, especially in the mail-in. So we're doing that.

Wisconsin, this has been the big story of the night: 7,300 votes now for Biden, 89 percent of the vote in. The Democrat stronghold has been depleted of votes. We're waiting on mostly mail-in votes, but from other counties that are presumptive for Trump.

So we have also Michigan. We're still waiting on them, 197,000. Now, this has been going down a little bit of a time. It was over 200,000 votes. Now it's just under 200,000 votes. Eighty percent of the vote is in there. A lot of it could come from Democratic strongholds, all right?

Then we have Pennsylvania. Twenty electoral votes. There is 75 percent of the estimated vote there. We have not learned much here. This is the other state. Nevada and Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania has until Friday for mail-in ballots to come in. The lead there is big, 618,000.

Phil Mattingly and I were just going back and forth about where the Democrats can find it. There are big blue spaces yet to count. And North Carolina also has been quiet tonight. Fifteen electoral

votes at play. Ninety-five percent of the vote is in. The president with a 76,000-vote lead, 50.1 to 48.6.

So those are our key race alerts. Arizona is where we will end it. 11 electoral votes. Joe Biden still at 130,000 votes there. Eighty-two percent of the vote is in.

Very interesting contrast play. Maricopa County has wound up being the difference in this state for Joe Biden. Why? The emergence of diversity, of Latinos in that state, in that county.

However, within Latinos, a lesson for the country, not all Latinos are the same. They made a difference for Biden in Arizona, to this point. Hasn't been called yet by this organization. Has been by others. Why? No small irony: all the votes haven't been counted. The president and his team said, Don't call Arizona. Count all the votes, but then he said, But stop counting anywhere where I'm ahead. Come on.

[06:05:02]

However, the Latinos in Florida made all the difference for the president. They broke heavily for him in Miami-Dade, something the Democrats did not see coming and will have to think about going forward.

All right. So there is your state of play. Here is the electoral map, 224 to 213. It's all about the white spaces. You know, Maine, Alaska, not so much. But Nevada and Arizona, of course, and then the other ones on the board will make all the difference.

Now, Phil Mattingly, the secretary of state helped us out in Nevada. We're not going to hear more from him, but he did say a key phrase. They are mostly focused on mail-in ballots remaining, and they have the window until the 10th that they come in, as long as they were postmarked by the election date.

And again, that's not something new. It's not something they did on the fly. It's what they planned for in advance there. This is part of the custom of this state.

So what does that mean, mail-in remaining?

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, the story of this entire night and part of what we've been waiting for, frankly, the story of the entire election, take a look at Ohio early in the night yesterday or some of the other -- North Carolina early in the night, which started out very blue, and then slowly drifted away. It was when they counted, right? It was when they counted.

So if you were reporting mail-in ballots first, likely it skewed heavily Democratic. Democrats got very excited. They thought Ohio was in play. Ohio ended up not being in play at all.

Now we're seeing the reverse of that in a couple of states that I'll get to in a minute.

But why it matters for Nevada is this is close. And this is far closer than Democrats wanted it to be. It's far closer than it has been over the course of the last couple of cycles. However, mail has skewed heavily Democratic. The outstanding vote right now, while they can't quantify it down to the vote, is mail. It's mail, and it's largely probably going to come from Clark County.

Clark County, as you noted, 72 percent of the state right here. This is the Democratic firewall. Democrats usually want this up about 10, 11 percent. Right now, it's not. It's not, but if mail comes in and mail comes in heavily Democratic, they feel like it should be OK.

We will have to wait and see, though. The Trump campaign made clear they thought Nevada was in play.

CUOMO: They were right.

MATTINGLY: They were right. They were right. It is closer than Democrats wanted it to be. It is closer than any Democrat is comfortable with right now. But we'll have to wait and see how that comes in.

As you noted, we're not going to get any new information about Nevada until the 5th. So we'll have to wait and see at that.

That brings me down to Arizona. Arizona right now, Joe Biden, 130,000- vote lead. This would be a big flip for the Biden campaign, so long as they hold onto Nevada.

But this would be a big flip for the Biden campaign, and right now they feel comfortable with the numbers, precisely for the reason you were laying out. Maricopa County, 60 percent of the population here, obviously, a county that has shifted heavily towards Democrats. Suburbs, the demographic shifts, as well, the education level. And right now, Joe Biden with a pretty sizable lead in this county.

And we know Maricopa, right now for the most part, is done counting, with the exception of mail-in ballots. That should be a positive sign for Democrats, as well.

However, only 86 percent reporting. As you noted, the Trump campaign, Martha McSally, the Republican Senate candidate making clear they want people to keep counting. They want to see how this goes. They want to see how this moves around over the course of the results coming in.

But for now, Joe Biden with a pretty substantial lead to flip a state.

So where do we go from there? Let's go to Georgia. You mentioned Georgia. Georgia at various points of the night yesterday seemed like it was pretty heavily headed towards Donald Trump's category. Right now, it's up in the air, 92 percent reporting. Donald Trump with 102,000 votes.

And the reason why -- the reason why is right here. The reason why is the same reason Democrats thought -- thought -- perhaps this was the year that Georgia would head their way. Specifically, Fulton County. Largest county in the state, ten percent of the population, has been stuck at 80 percent reporting for the better part of the last eight or nine hours, if I'm correct. Right now, look at that margin.

CUOMO: But no reports of irregularities.

MATTINGLY: None whatsoever.

CUOMO: No reports of a problem. Nothing about a broken pipe. Nothing about, we can't find the votes. I mean, that's an important distinction.

MATTINGLY: I believe there was actually, a broken pipe.

CUOMO: But earlier in the night. I'm saying there really was. There was a report where they said a room where they were holding ballots had a broken pipe. But that was it. None of the ballots were reported as destroyed or they can't be counted or anything like that. That went away as an issue, as far as we know.

MATTINGLY: Right. And again, to -- we should preface everything with, everything that's happening right now is exactly what happens in every other election. It's just that there's more mail-in ballots, takes longer to count.

Some states weren't allowed to process until later. That's why you've seen some of the Midwest states take so long. They're just counting ballots right now that were done or finished or completed in the right time, based on the election. So --

CUOMO: We've seen nothing -- just -- just to make it clear. Nobody has counted any ballots that were not anticipated being counted in exactly the order that has been done so, right?

Why? Because you have to address what the president said. He put it out into the universe and now, as we see, a lot of his followers are worried. Why? Because you've got a divided country, and it's been a hell of a show of strength by the president and their followers. And fraud, cheating, stealing. We have literally seen none of it.

And there are plenty of Republican officials who could be sounding a clarion call that otherwise is true, and they haven't. Continue.

[06:10:04]

MATTINGLY: So the reason why we're still, obviously, keeping an eye on Georgia, not just because there's still outstanding vote right now -- that's the biggest reason -- but right now the outstanding vote almost entirely, primarily, comes from major Democratic strongholds.

Fulton County, largest county in the state. You look at this margin right here. What was the 2016 margin? Joe Biden is doing better than Hillary Clinton right now in this state. Democrats want to roll up a huge vote in Fulton County. They've still got 20 percent of the vote to do so. You can move over to Dekalb County. Right now, 80 percent reporting in

Dekalb. Look at that margin. That's -- look at that margin. That's Democratic votes.

So we don't know where this is going to end up, but the reason Georgia is where it is right now, 102,000 votes ahead, when your biggest, biggest Democratic strongholds have yet to come into completion, means Georgia right now still up in the air.

Let's move up to North Carolina. North Carolina has felt -- seems more solidly in Donald Trump's camp over the course of the last several hours, but there's still 95 percent reporting, 76,000-vote lead.

Up in the air right now. We haven't called it. I think the big question has always been, look at the biggest counties. These are the Democratic strongholds. Ninety-four percent reporting in Wake County. This is home of Raleigh, the Research Triangle. Heavy education here. Suburbs, as well. Will this kick out more vote? I don't know that there's an expectation it will. You've got about 6 percent left. We'll keep an eye on it as it comes through.

North Carolina right now, Republicans happy with what they see. We'll see how that goes going forward.

Here's where things get really, really interesting. We've been talking about it the last several hours. I'll start with Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania right now, Donald Trump with a 618,000-vote lead. That's dropped a little bit over the course of the last 20 or 30 minutes. Why is that up in the air when you look at 618,000 votes? Well, I'll tell you.

Seven hundred, or 75 percent reporting right now, and it's what's not reporting that is the biggest outstanding issue. Right in here, these are Democratic counties, traditionally. These are Democratic strongholds, traditionally. Even those two red counties right there. Bucks can go back and forth a little bit. We'll see how that goes.

But Philadelphia, only 56 percent reporting right now. Look at the margin. Look at what's happening. Look what happened in 2016. Look at the top line vote: 584,000 votes right now. 350,000. In a record- setting election year, there's a lot more vote to come in. A lot more vote to come in.

CUOMO: About 15 percent has come in overnight, and it hasn't changed the state of play that much.

MATTINGLY: Well, I'll get to -- I'll get to the bigger picture in a second, but the reason -- the reason why people are still looking at Pennsylvania, even though Donald Trump is ahead by 620-some-odd thousand votes, is because these main strongholds haven't come in.

You do Philadelphia. You do the collar counties. You do Pittsburgh and Allegheny, as well. All of those with major outstanding vote.

However -- however Donald Trump has hit margins in the western part of the state exactly like they wanted to. Donald Trump has turned out the voters that people said he couldn't do again back in 2016. Donald Trump is currently up by nearly 620,000 votes in Pennsylvania, 75 percent reporting. We'll see how that comes in over the rest of the night.

Let's move over to Michigan. Another crucial, crucial former blue wall state Donald Trump won by 10,000 votes back in 2016. Now under 200,000 votes in the lead. Eighty percent reporting. You look at this, a state he won by 10,000 votes. You say he's winning by 200,000 votes. Two hundred thousand votes.

CUOMO: That's what he said, by the way. That was a big part of his speech that, like, why aren't they giving me Michigan? So answer the question.

MATTINGLY: We'll get -- we'll explain with more clarity when we get to Wisconsin why there's shifts that are happening.

But when it comes to Detroit, you start right here. Wayne County, largest county in the state, 18 percent of the population. Forty-eight percent reporting. Fifty-two percent of this vote is still outstanding, and you look at the topline numbers right now: 58.6 percent to 39 percent.

CUOMO: It's 250,000 votes, so you've got another half of that, so you have like 225,000 votes or so.

MATTINGLY: Roughly. Give or take. We'll see how turnout comes in. But again, if you want to top line it, look at Hillary Clinton back in 2016, 519,000 votes. That was considered a bad turnout year. Joe Biden well underneath that right now. And what that says is it's not a bad turnout year so much as it is there's a lot of vote to come in.

You can even come up here. Eighty-five percent reporting in Oakland County. You look at the margins here. You look at the margins here. Suburbs moving out, moving out. A big part of what Democrats did in 2018. Can they do it again tonight, today? Whatever day it is?

Move over into Macomb County.

CUOMO: It's Wednesday.

MATTINGLY: A great county.

CUOMO: It's Wednesday. And we're going to be doing this all day long, because they haven't given us any indication about when they're giving us numbers.

MATTINGLY: No. We have not gotten that. Macomb County, you look at the margin, I don't think most Republicans would say that that's a realistic margin, but we'll wait and see. We'll wait and see.

I think the biggest issue right now in Michigan, the biggest issue in Michigan and Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, the biggest variable we still don't have answers to -- we've started to get to some of them in Wisconsin. I'll get to that in a second. Is we know where outstanding vote is. We know the composition of the counties traditionally. We don't know the competition of the outstanding vote in terms of if it's mail -- and a lot of it is mail right now -- because these are -- these are states that were counting mail last, counting those votes last, how heavily Democratic does it lean?

CUOMO: Let's go back to Wisconsin again.

MATTINGLY: OK. We'll go to Wisconsin. Let's show it. Because right now, Joe Biden --

CUOMO: Seven thousand votes.

MATTINGLY: -- 7,000 votes ahead, 49.2 to 49 percent.

CUOMO: Right.

MATTINGLY: We watched over the course of this night as this went from 109,000-vote Donald Trump lead, shifted like that when one county came in, Milwaukee County. All of a sudden, Joe Biden had a lead. We know from talking to the county clerk that this is now all the way in. Big margins for Joe Biden. Big question --

[06:15:15]

CUOMO: Right. But answer the obvious. This is what they're going to say, right? Because we're in the micro. They're coming in right, fresh eyes. But you told me Milwaukee is done, and I'm seeing a lot more red than blue. So why do I think this will hold?

MATTINGLY: We don't know that it's going to hold. We don't know that it's going to hold. And I think that's a key point. We don't know how everything is going to end up. And I'm going to tell you why.

Eighty-nine percent reporting. Let's take it down and show you where there's still outstanding vote. All right. You see one blue county. You see three red counties. You say, all right, well that's going to be good for Donald Trump. Right?

Here is why Democrats believe that they can hold a lead and perhaps expand it.

CUOMO: Green Bay.

MATTINGLY: City of Green Bay. Look, Brown County is a Republican county. Brown County, Donald Trump won back in 2016, won it by nearly 11 points. Where's it at right now? That's a bigger margin. That's a bigger margin. So expect more Democratic vote to come in because of what's outstanding, and because we're waiting for absentee from Green Bay.

And because absentee leans heavily Democratic, vote by mail leans heavily Democratic, Democrats have some confidence that Green Bay, Brown County will actually turn out decently well for them.

And it's a similar story when you move down to Kenosha. Now, Republicans, we'll say this is a Republican county. That's a huge margin, particularly when you go back to 2016. Back in 2016, barely won this, 0.3 points. Look at the margin right now.

Now, we don't know. Maybe that is because of everything that's happened in Kenosha --

CUOMO: Right.

MATTINGLY: -- over the course of the last several weeks. However, 30 percent of the vote is outstanding. The majority of the vote that's outstanding is absentee, vote by mail. Vote by mail and absentee goes heavily Democratic.

The bottom line is, we know all of those variables. We don't know how they plug in specifically to Kenosha. We don't know how they plug in specifically to Brown. We just know that these counties have outstanding vote, and it's largely vote by mail.

CUOMO: And we do know that they had been promising returns, and they delivered in part in Wisconsin. We had the county clerk from Milwaukee talk us through what was going on. That's why we're speaking about it with the confidence we are, even though she did note those were unofficial results.

We did not get any indication about when the rest of the information -- the original notice was by 4 a.m. in the morning or so Eastern. They would have had everything ready. We're now several hours -- a couple of hours past that, and they haven't. So could come anytime.

My brother, thank you very much.

Let's take a quick break. We've now set the table for you about what's happening here. You have key battleground states still up in the air this morning, as expected. We always expected -- we wanted it to be a short night. Why? So the country could get on the same page and move forward. But we're not there and that makes sense; and the counting must continue.

Let's take a quick break. We'll reset for you what we know and what we need to know when CNN's election coverage continues, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:21:37]

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back, everyone. Don Lemon here. The election 2020 count continues this Wednesday morning.

I want to check in now with Kristen Holmes. She's at our voting desk.

Kristen, help us understand where things are in Pennsylvania right now. We had Phil and -- and Chris talking about it. But give us some specifics. Where are we?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, let's just keep this in mind. This has been a record year in Pennsylvania: 2.5 million absentee ballots cast. And we knew that it wasn't going to have results on election night. And that's because they weren't even allowed to start processing these ballots until 7 a.m. on election day.

So right now in Pennsylvania, the latest numbers we have is 44 percent of those absentee ballots have been counted. Meaning, there are about 1.4 million ballots left to be counted. Again, absentee mail-in ballots.

Now, take a look at Philadelphia here. These are the latest numbers we have. And I'm going to want you to ask the official that you have on after me about this. Because we were trying to get new numbers.

Nearly 22 percent of mail-in ballots have been counted, which means that there are nearly 272,000 left to be counted. And we did hear we were going to get an update at 9 a.m., but hopefully, we can get that a little earlier here.

Take a look at Bucks County. Now, this is interesting, too. All of this is adding up. Keep in mind, I want to break this down.

In Pennsylvania, 70 percent of the mail-in ballots that were requested came from registered Democrats. Doesn't mean they're all voting for Joe Biden, no. But we do know that overall, Biden supporters are the ones who prefer mail-in voting, early voting, whereas Trump supporters vote in person.

So here's Bucks County. More than 30 percent of mail-in ballots have been counted. But there's still more than 107,000 left to be counted. So we're talking about big margins here.

When you look over here and you see how much President Trump is leading, it's about 600,000 votes. You talk about, where is that coming from? Well, I'm showing you right now.

Allegheny, that is the Pittsburgh area right here. Still missing a lot of mail-in ballots. We're talking about more than 178,000 that are left to be counted. So it's more than 48 percent have been counted, but we're still waiting on that big margin.

This is what we are looking at, the landscape here. It is likely we will not have results until either the end of the day today, or possibly Friday, because these mail-in ballots are coming in through Friday.

The other thing to note here: nine counties in Pennsylvania decided that they were not going to count any absentee ballots at all until this morning. And roughly most of them were starting in about an hour and a half from now. So they haven't even started yet.

So something else to keep in mind when we're looking at these ballots, we've got to be patient. These election officials are working behind the scenes. In Philadelphia, we were told they were working all night long.

So again, big margins left, huge swaths of votes that still need to be counted, Don. LEMON: All right. Kristen, thank you very much. Kristen, you may want

to pay attention to this, because I'm going to bring in someone who can also help us get into this a little bit further.

A lot hinges on Pennsylvania. We have the man in charge of the count in Philadelphia. The city commissioner Al Schmidt joins us.

Thank you for joining us, Commissioner. Really appreciate that.

So you heard what Kristen said. But give us the latest numbers out of Philadelphia, which is a big Democratic stronghold. How many votes are left to be counted?

AL SCHMIDT, PHILADELPHIA CITY COMMISSIONER: So we've received more than 350,000 mail-in votes in Philadelphia. At 8 p.m. last night, when the polls closed, we reported our first 75,000 votes. And about an hour ago, we reported another 65,000 of those.

[06:25:10]

As you can see behind me, we have a team working just day and night until every vote is counted in Philadelphia. So we have hundreds of thousands of mail-in ballots yet to count.

LEMON: OK. Again, you said 350,000 mail-in ballots, right? Seventy- five you reported last night.

SCHMIDT: yes.

LEMON: Right? And 65 you reported --

SCHMIDT: Right. More --

LEMON: Go on.

SCHMIDT: More than 350,000. So yesterday morning, we started at 350. We had them all coming in from all of our drop boxes. We had them coming in through the mail. So at the end of the day, we'll end up between 350,000 and 400,000, all-in.

We reported 75,000 last night and another 65 a few hours ago.

LEMON: All right, so you've got 210 there.

So the question is, people are wondering, is that enough to make up the rural counties if you are -- if you are on Joe Biden's team, if you are rooting for Joe Biden, right?

SCHMIDT: Well, we're not --

LEMON: Is there enough to make up the rural -- I'm just asking you. I know that you're not -- you're not partisan, but I'm just wondering if there's enough to make up the votes in the rural county.

SCHMIDT: So we're not rooting for anybody, right. We're the umpires.

LEMON: I meant the people watching, Commissioner.

SCHMIDT: We're just calling balls and strikes and -- and just counting the votes. So I don't know what the margin is between candidates. We don't have a view statewide, or commonwealth-wide in Pennsylvania's case. We're focused on Philadelphia, and we're focused on getting every vote counted by every eligible voter.

LEMON: So let me ask you, then, why did -- why did it stop? Why did they stop counting ballots? Is it because -- or why was there at least a break or a lag? Is it because people were tired? Was there -- there were no glitches reported.

SCHMIDT: No, we reported -- as soon as the polls closed at 8 p.m., and then from then until the early morning, we were reporting our results from in-person voting at polling places. Some states have mail-in voting. Some have in-person voting. In Pennsylvania's case, we have both.

So we're really running two sort of election systems at the same time. So we reported a batch of mail-in ballots. Then we pivoted to all of the in-person results from the polling places, and now we're back to mail-in ballots again.

So there was never a break in this process, I can assure you, as can the people behind me.

LEMON: OK. Because we kept getting the same information, which was no movement in Pennsylvania, especially in Philadelphia, for quite some time.

So how long do you think it's going to take to count all the votes, Commissioner?

SCHMIDT: So we're not stopping. We are going to continue. We have hundreds of people working on this effort pulled from city departments all -- all over the city of Philadelphia to get this done.

Our department, temporary employees of the board of elections, it's really just an extraordinary team effort, and everyone is very committed to getting these votes counted.

We are going to continue day and night until we get every one of those votes counted. So with 350,000 or more to count right out of the gate, you know, it will -- it will take some time.

And, you know, it's interesting hearing reporters talk about, Listen, everybody, this is going to take some time, and then the polls close and then it's, Why don't you have the results yet? So everyone needs to recalibrate their expectations.

LEMON: I resemble that remark.

SCHMIDT: It's a difference between -- It's -- it's nothing personal.

LEMON: So let me -- let me ask you this, then, speaking of. That was a good answer. But are you talking hours, are you talking days? And I'm only asking this for -- I'm asking for a friend.

But seriously, I'm asking for the viewers who are watching, because people are -- people are at home; and they're wondering, how long is it going to talk? Pennsylvania is very pivotal. Obviously, within Pennsylvania, Philadelphia is extremely pivotal to this race.

SCHMIDT: So, days and nights are starting to blend together for all of us here, I assure you. So, you know, certainly all through today, certainly through tomorrow. If everything keeps up, we'll have the total results in the next couple of days.

But Pennsylvania allows votes to be received and counted up until Friday, three days after the election. So we can't count what we don't yet have.

So if you've mailed your ballot on or before election day, on Tuesday, and it comes in Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, those votes will be counted.

LEMON: OK, Commissioner, I want -- I want to bring in John Avlon. John Avlon is one of our contributors here. And he analyzes this stuff, and he has a question for you. What do you want to know?

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Hey, Commissioner. So you're making an important point.