Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Live Event/Special

Nail-Biter Election Comes Down to Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Nevada, Wisconsin. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired November 04, 2020 - 07:00   ET

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

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Prescribed by the system.

[07:00:02]

The president prematurely and, of course, without proof, claimed victory and perfidy, that there was fraud, there was stealing, there was cheating. He said it at about 2:00 A.M. at the White House. And it wasn't anymore true then or more true then than it is now.

The reality is the system is working. It is slow, it is a grind, slow and low, that is the tempo. Millions of votes are still being counted.

Joe Biden is now leading in the critical swing state of Wisconsin, a razor-thin margin. Will it hold? We just got new information. I'll give it to you at the magic wall in just a second.

The president is up narrowly in the battleground of Michigan. There was just a huge shift. He had been up 200,000, then 197,000, now just over 50,000. Why? We'll take you through it. To be sure, anything can happen.

Don is handling perspective on things as the information comes in. We're both processing it. Let's do that right now. It is time for a key race alert.

Okay, let's start with what we're seeing in Michigan. 16 electoral votes, 49.8, 48.5, the margin, 62,000, 84 percent of the estimated vote is in. What does that mean? A lot, okay? There is a lot of vote in population centers that could make a difference. We're going to get new insight on it right after we go through the key race alerts and then we'll go to the wall and figure out what it means.

Let's go to Nevada now. Nevada is a very interesting story that you may have missed overnight. I'll catch you up right now. This had been presumptively offered up to Biden in analyses all night long, was a mistake. Why? Huge shift overnight, now stands at 49.3, 48.7, just six electoral votes, but there's no just anything right now in the mix right now. Every vote counts. 86 percent is in.

What do we know? The secretary of state went online, put out a message, we'll learn no more about this state until tomorrow, the 5th. Why? They have an extended deadline for voting. But they did give us the big clue but they are now focused almost exclusively on mail-in ballots. What have we learned throughout the night and yesterday? Democrats are doing better in mail-in balloting than Republicans, so maybe Biden will hold on. This is a lot tighter than anyone expected.

It takes us to Wisconsin, ten electoral votes. 89 percent of the vote is estimated to have come in. We saw a big shift because of Milwaukee, a big, blue push there put Biden ahead. His lead has shrunk. 7,100 votes separate the two men, 49.2, 49.0. There is a little bit of new information on that state. We'll take you through.

What's next? Pennsylvania, now, this is the largely unsung story of the night, why? A ton of focus, a ton of controversy about them extending through their own state process when they'll take votes that were marked by Election Day. 20 electoral votes up for grabs, 75 percent of the estimated vote is in. And, look, this is the hardest reckoning, and here's why. That is a huge margin. You won't see a bigger one that's in play, 618,000 votes.

So why is it in play? That is a question that the president was asking early this morning. There's good reason for it. There is outstanding vote in areas that could make a tremendous difference, all right? And we will take you through it. 55.0 right now for Trump, 43.6 for Biden.

Georgia, 16 electoral votes, 92 percent of the race is in. The vote is in. It stands at 102,000. Now, once again, 102,000. Why not call it? 92 percent of the vote is in. It gets called with less than that all the time, because of where the vote isn't in. We'll show you on the map just how much there is to come there.

North Carolina, different story there. 76,000 votes are the margin between Trump and Biden, 50. 50.1, 48.6, 95 percent of the vote is in. We're dealing with the research triangle there in Raleigh, and we'll tell you what that means and why, but a different story here.

Arizona, let's take a look at that. 11 electoral votes, this is the one flip on the map so far from something that Trump won, to now Biden is in control of for now, 130,000 race change there. 82 percent of the vote in. The story of that night, the diversifying of America, a change in Maricopa County there to more of a Latino vote that made a difference.

Now, let's see the state of play overall. Arizona has not been called by us, and here is why. The president was right. You've got to count all the votes.

[07:05:00]

You have to know. That's what his campaign said. Don't call the state, count all the votes, take the time you need. But everywhere else, he wanted the voting to stop, meaning that he didn't want any more balloting to occur. That's not how the system works. He doesn't get to make the determination, we do. So 224, 213, that's the state of play. The story is all about the white.

So, let's go to Phil Mattingly at the magic wall, figure out what's going on. Hold on a second. Do you want to look at Wisconsin? Why? All right, so let's take a look at Wisconsin and the wall. What do we see? Ten electoral votes, 11,000 is now the margin there, just changed, 49.3, 49.0. Why did it just change to give Biden a little bit more comfort?

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Brown County. Brown County changed. And what we've been waiting for in Brown County, we're starting a little in the weeds here, so I'll pull out in a second. But, basically, there have been a handful of counties we've been waiting for over the course of the night in the state of Wisconsin, where we have been waiting for the counting of absentee ballots, vote by mail, mail-in votes that we expected to skew Democratic, but some of which came in counties like Brown, which, up to this point, have been led by Donald Trump.

Now, what happened in this county in 2016? Donald Trump won it by almost 11 points. One of the tells about this county over the course of the last several hours is Donald Trump was leading it by about 13 or 14 points. Now look at it, narrowed, 95 percent reporting. And here is why. The majority, if not all, of what was just reported bringing it up to 95 percent came from Green Bay, absentee ballots from Green Bay.

So while this is a county that is red, Donald Trump looks like he will win Brown County once again, this is Democratic vote and absentee and vote by mail, that has skewed heavily Democratic throughout the course of the night. There's a bigger picture to that story and we'll get to it in a minute, but there's a bigger picture for Wisconsin now that this vote has come in. It is one of the handful of counties we have been waiting for, Brown County.

Also still waiting for Kenosha, got Milwaukee a little bit earlier. Where does that leave things, with 91 percent reporting, Joe Biden a 0.3 percent lead, 11,000 votes. And the big question right now is, with Kenosha still outstanding, another red county, what is this vote makeup going to be?

Here is what I'm trying to explain to you right now. This county is a red county. This county is likely, likely at this point in time, going to be either very, very close or Donald Trump will win this county. Back in 2016, Donald Trump won this county very close, 0.3 percentage points.

That is why this margin, as it currently stands with 70 percent reporting, is a little suspect. Not because there's anything wrong with the votes, but because of how things have been reported. Wisconsin was pushing out Election Day vote results first, counting vote by mail later. Vote by mail over the course of the night has skewed heavily towards Democrats.

What we've been waiting for in Kenosha is absentee, vote by mail. Likely, even though this right now is a red county, will be Democratic or at least more Democratic than Republican. That margin should shrink, should it come in Democrat.

Now, the one variable we don't know, it's been the case throughout the course of the night and multiple states we've been talking about it repeatedly, how Democratic? How much is it going to be Democrat? Will it completely shrink this margin? Will it barely shrink this margin? Those are the questions we don't have answers to yet. We'll wait and see how we get it.

But what this does mean, now that we've gotten the outstanding vote from Brown County, 91 percent reporting, Joe Biden adds about 5,000 votes to his lead right now in Wisconsin. That's about as close as it gets right now. But it's been a shift over the course of the last three or four hours, from about 109,000-vote lead for President Trump, now Joe Biden with a narrow lead ahead. We'll see what comes in with Kenosha. Right now Joe Biden with a narrow lead in the state of Wisconsin.

CUOMO: State of play in Michigan.

MATTINGLY: State of play in Michigan, similar type of effect. Look, if you want to kind of go bigger picture, if you were watching the results come in last night, earlier on in the night, we saw Ohio, we saw North Carolina start very, very blue. Democrats looking at that at the map, seeing it on this wall right here, thrilled about the possibility of flipping Ohio back.

Ohio is no longer off the map, like they thought it was after 2016. Guess what? Ohio, we're still off the map. Ohio margin was almost the same. It went from very blue throughout the course of the night to very red with a pretty sizable margin with 90 percent reporting. Ohio has been called for President Trump.

Why do I tell you that? Because of how states like Wisconsin, like Michigan, and like Pennsylvania, have been counting their vote by mail. Ohio was releasing their vote by mail results earlier because of how they were counting things, same with North Carolina.

We saw it in Florida earlier on in the night. Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, they have been counting Election Day vote first, then moving on to vote by mail. So the inverse has occurred, where it started off more red, just a couple of hours ago, Donald Trump was leading this state by more than 200,000 votes. Now, look, just shrunk again. 85 percent reporting, Donald Trump's lead is down to about 46,000 votes.

So the big question right now, mostly vote by mail outstanding, and where is it? Where is it? 85 percent reporting, let's take this down a little bit and you start to see Democratic strongholds.

[07:10:01]

This, right here, Wayne County, largest county in the entire state, 18 percent of the population, 89 percent reporting. You look at that margin, that margin is going to grow likely and so will the Democratic vote.

CUOMO: So, it's 600,000 votes, 10 percent to go, so that's like 60,000 votes. We've got a great opportunity now to advance our understanding. We are joined, Phil and I, by Cathy Garrett, the clerk for Wayne County, which, of course, is home to Detroit, but much more with those other neighborhoods.

First of all, can you hear me, Ms. Garrett?

CATHY GARRETT, WAYNE COUNTY CLERK: I hear you very well.

CUOMO: First of all, thank you so much for you and your team burning the calories you have in the interest of your county, your state and the country, because all eyes are upon you. Thank you for doing the job for us.

GARRETT: How special, I appreciate that.

CUOMO: Big question is, how much more votes are outstanding for you to count?

GARRETT: Well, at this point, the counts are continuing. There's only 55 percent of the unofficial votes that have been counted at this point.

CUOMO: So help me understand what that means, 55 percent of the unofficial count. What does that leave?

GARRETT: Well, let me tell you this way. In Wayne County, there are 1,115 precincts. Currently, out of that 1,115 precincts, only 617 have been counted.

CUOMO: Okay. Now, before the numbers, let's go to the quality. Any irregularities? Is there a reason it's bad that they haven't been counted? Do you have any problems?

GARRETT: We didn't have any problems out of the norm. I mean, and any problems that we had might have been ballot jams, but we had deployed technicians throughout the entire county and those issues were resolved immediately.

CUOMO: So we have you at 64 percent estimated reporting right now. You're saying it's more like 55 percent?

GARRETT: Well, I've been here waiting for you, so last at 6:23, it was 55 percent. So as I've been here waiting for you, they could have uploaded some additional votes.

CUOMO: Okay, great. What's your best sense of when the county will be completed?

GARRETT: Because of how large our county is, I don't want to be boxed in with that, but just know that we're not in the competition. It's just very important that we are accurate and we will be here until the job is done.

CUOMO: You thinking this morning? You thinking today?

GARRETT: I'm thinking some time, hopefully. I don't want to get boxed in, Chris.

CUOMO: Well, you can't get less boxed in than that.

GARRETT: And then you did ask me, why is it taking so long, and I think I heard you in your intro, we're the largest county within the state, 43 municipalities.

CUOMO: Understood. I'm not saying, why is it taking so long as a criticism. I'm just asking for some guidance so we can get people information. I appreciate you doing that for us this morning. I'll let you get back to work. God bless you and the team and thank you for doing the job.

GARRETT: Thank you so much.

CUOMO: All right, thank you.

She got me on that one, some time. All right, so we know it's coming.

MATTINGLY: Kind of froze you.

CUOMO: She did. I didn't know where to go with that. some time is too good an answer.

So when we look at this, we know there's a lot of vote left, okay? It did move while we were speaking, as you told me during the interview, and thank you. We've got about a third of the vote left there to look at. How significant could that be?

MATTINGLY: I mean, it's potentially a couple hundred thousand votes, a couple hundred thousand votes that even in the -- if you look at the current margins, would go 67 percent for Biden. And the expectation, based on what we've seen in other states, given that it's vote by mail, primarily, would probably be at a higher level than that. So, you're talking about Joe Biden running up a pretty significant margin in just the outstanding vote in Wayne.

CUOMO: And Wayne isn't the whole game?

MATTINGLY: Wayne is not the whole game. It's the biggest county in the state. There's a lot of outstanding vote there. We can also go to Ingham County. Ingham County, home of Michigan State, university students to some degree here. Right now, you look at this margin, still 31 percent report outstanding -- 69 percent --

CUOMO: 30 percent outstanding.

MATTINGLY: 30 percent outstanding right now as it currently stands. Joe Biden with a pretty solid margin. And the expectation is what's outstanding will largely come in Democratic as well.

CUOMO: That will be about 30,000 votes that will be split there along advantage margin.

MATTINGLY: Take this out and see what's left over. Now, if you're a Republican, you're looking for the red, right? You're looking around the red counties and say, all right, where can we come in? Kent County, and this is a fascinating question, 2018, we've talked about this a couple of times. Kent County in the governor's race went towards Democrats. House races, part of that swing towards Democrats in this state.

This margin right now back in 2016, Donald Trump won it by just over three points. Right now, he's doing right around there, a little bit better than that, perhaps, a little bit around there.

CUOMO: The question is why. I mean, you and I come at this two different ways throughout the course of the night, which is good, because it gives the viewers a different perspective on it.

[07:15:03]

A lot has happened since 2018, namely the pandemic. And the governor there has received praise but also criticism that the president seized on about the lockdown and how it was handled. Maybe that accounts for the bigger spread.

MATTINGLY: And I think that is a -- it's a way we have to look at this, right, and that there are several unknown variables here, right? This is a Republican county. Maybe all of the outstanding vote, maybe the 18 percent outstanding comes in 51-46.

And Donald Trump picks up a couple thousand votes because of that, maybe even more than that over the course of that. Or because the majority of the vote is outstanding, it's mail, maybe all of it, it comes in like mail has been coming in throughout the course of the night. It skews heavily Democratic. We'll see. And that narrows the margin a little bit more. Maybe Donald Trump still wins the county, but maybe not by much.

The reason why there's value to pointing out what you just pointed out and what I'm trying to say here is there are just a lot of things we don't know right now. We know what's outstanding. We know it's mostly mail. We know mail has gone towards Democrats, but we also know that Donald Trump has had explosive turnout throughout the course of the day and night. So where that leaves us is, if you're a Democrat, you're looking right now at Wayne, you're looking at Ingham is starting to report. I'll pull this back out. Look, Donald Trump just took the lead. Pull back out, Donald Trump now ahead by 26 -- didn't take the lead, sorry --

CUOMO: Yes, I was going to say, it's been a long night.

MATTINGLY: No, the lead narrowed again. And why did it narrow? It narrowed because of Ingham. It narrowed because of Ingham County. Ingham County now at 93 percent.

We were just talking about this. Is the margin going to hold or is it going to grow? The margin just grew, 10,000, 15,000 votes.

CUOMO: A little headline for you, because a lot of numbers come at once. We just had a change in the state of play in Michigan, all right? We can call it a key race alert, if you want.

We just saw in Ingham County, which is, of course, blue. We just saw a little bit more of the vote came in, so right now, they have less than 10 percent additional reporting to do. And what did it do to the overall margin?

MATTINGLY: Overall margin went from in the 60s down to 26,932.

CUOMO: So the president still has a thin lead relative to the number of votes that we're waiting for in the all-important state of Michigan. Throughout the night, it has been eroding because, simply stated, no irregularities, just more votes are being counted. How many more to go? We know there's a block in Wayne County.

And we also just got another update in Wisconsin. Let's go to it and see what that update means.

MATTINGLY: Now, Joe Biden has extended his lead to 20,697, 92 percent reporting. Let's see if Kenosha -- Kenosha came in. Kenosha came in and you saw the margin start to shrink a little bit. So this is -- when you tried to figure out the variables that were outstanding, was it because we was -- Kenosha had just turned sharply away from Democrats and he was going to win it by an even bigger margin than he won it in 2016 or was most of the outstanding vote, vote by mail, that skews heavily Democratic. It turns out, it was the latter.

Now, 95 percent reporting, Joe Biden turned what was a 15-point margin down to about a three-point margin, give or take here. And so Joe Biden has added to his overall lead.

I think this is -- it is a great real-time example, both in Ingham County and in Kenosha, of showing how this has occurred throughout the night. You saw it in the inverse earlier with Ohio and North Carolina. Now you're seeing it in these states where vote by mail is being counted, it was being counted late. It is obviously the day after Election Day now. It is coming in as it's being counted.

And the vote by mail, even in Republican counties or counties that look like they're going Republican, like Kenosha, it is skewing heavily Democratic. And that is adding to Joe Biden's lead in Wisconsin. It is cutting into Donald Trump's lead in the state of Michigan. And if you are a Democrat and you're in Michigan right now, you're looking at Wayne, a stronghold, with still significant vote outstanding.

Move up to Kent or to Oakland County, as well, with significant vote outstanding, and you're saying there are real opportunities in Michigan right now even though you trail by 27,000 votes to take the lead. You have a pathway.

CUOMO: But also, small margins mean that small moves in the different vote differences matter, okay?

So let's get a break in here, give you a chance to catch your breath. We'll keep looking at the map to see where things are changing. We're getting shifts in real-time now this morning, which is kind of what we expected. People are coming back to work, they're continuing to count and we will all continue to grind it out, because that's what we do.

Wisconsin has had a change. Michigan has had a change. We still have a long way to go. Please, stay with CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:20:00]

CUOMO: All right. We have key race alerts in two states to show you, okay? Let's start with Wisconsin. Small moves can mean big differences, okay? We just had a shift in a county that was actually a red county, but it actually almost doubled Biden's margin. 20,000, very thin, but let's keep perspective.

Donald Trump won Wisconsin in 2016. What was the margin then? 22,000 votes, okay? So every little bit matters. This is the latest. There's still about 10 percent of the vote to come in. We will be watching it. It is believed to be mostly mail-in votes. So even in red counties, that means there can be a little bit of advantage for Democrats. You don't really know. You've got to watch.

Michigan, 16 electoral votes, we just saw a shift here, as well. 86 percent of the vote is in. That number, as a metric, is proving to be a little deceptive. It really matters where the vote has to come in, what that area looks like, and that's what we're taking you through.

The president still has a 26,000 vote lead here. It started at over 200,000 overnight and has been moving down steadily. Could it go more? Yes. Will it? We'll see.

Let's discuss how we got here. Ron Brownstein, Lauren Barron-Lopez and David Gregory, thank you, each and all.

David Gregory, what is the headline for the overnight hours?

DAVID GREGORY, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, we're just in an unsettled place, right? We don't know where we're going.

So much of this was expected, that we were in a tight race, that it would take a while for the votes to actually come in and be counted, particularly in the battleground of the upper Midwest, and this is where we are. What feels surprising is there is a lot of money, a lot of energy, and a lot of expectation on the Democratic side, and I would say even in the media, that there was going to be a surge for Biden, that there was going to be a rebuke of Trump, particularly over the virus.

[07:25:10]

And what we're seeing so far is that has not been the case. It's a really tight race. We're even seeing some evidence out of exit polling that a lot of voters out there are saying, hey, it's really important we get this economy open, even if the virus spreads a little bit more. We're also seeing key constituencies for Republicans who stayed steady for the president. And yet, with all of that, the difficult part of this is that we could still be heading toward a Biden victory and the winner controls the narrative. And there's a lot that has changed demographically and where the voting data are leading us, that if Biden prevails, even narrowly, it tells us something significant. But we can't get away from the fact that we are in a extremely tense and divided country still this morning after.

CUOMO: I hear you. You know, it's interesting.

Laura, the president would ordinarily definitely control the narrative, unless the narrative is, no matter who wins, you've got a problem, because there is going to be a very slim mandate delivered to anybody who won, because, certainly, we are a nation divided.

So what is the big takeaway for you to this point and the biggest question you have about how this will wind up?

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes. I mean, similar to David, I think that one of the biggest things is clearly that we just don't know the outcome in a number of states, in the blue wall states. And what ultimately happens there could determine the presidency.

And these are things we did expect all along, as you've talked about tonight, Chris, which is we didn't expect to get votes right off the bat in states like Michigan and Pennsylvania. And so, again, patience is key there for the public. And it's also key there for us, as the press. And I think that Politico, as well as CNN has tried to articulate that to the public, that this is going to take a while and that that's okay.

In terms of the mandate, look, if Biden ultimately pulls this out, yes, it looks like it's going to be slim, we also don't know the outcome of the Senate. There could be divided government there, from the presidency to the Senate to the House.

And so how does that ultimately operate? We've gotten a little taste of that over the last two years, after the House flipped to Democrats. But having a Democratic presidency, potentially a Republican Senate, a Democratic House, those are things that the electorate isn't necessarily used to.

And it just further proves your point, Chris, that if it ends up like that, how divided the country is, and a big question that we'll look at is how exactly we got there if that's how it ended up.

CUOMO: Ron, demographically, who showed up, who didn't?

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I think the story really is the rigidity of our political system at this point. It's not only the division, it's the stability, Chris. I mean, you know, on the one hand, Democrats really did run up the score in a lot of the big metros, places like Franklin County, Ohio, or Oakland County, Michigan, where it's headed, or even the big urban counties in Texas, which they won by substantially more than Hillary Clinton did. Denver and it suburbs, I think they won by over 400,000 votes. You're seeing with this consolidation inside the major metros toward the Democrats, Cobb and Gwinnett, and that's why Georgia is still in play, because it's not only Fulton anymore. Those counties are now decisively Democratic.

On the other hand, Trump's hold Trump country looks utterly unshakable, even with a nominee, Joe Biden, whose calling card was supposed to be his ability to cut into those working class whites, those mid-sized industrial cities and those rural communities. There may be a little gain here and there, but, by and large, not only did Trump dominate those places but Republicans won back a number of the House seats that Democrats had taken in those places in 2018.

And on the other hand, even though Democrats didn't expand their margin in suburbia, they largely defended most of the seats that they won in kind of previously Republican-leaning suburban terrain.

And then on the Senate, 2016 was the first time ever in American history when every Senate race went the same way as the presidential race in that state. We could see that again, except for Maine. And even Maine isn't entirely decided.

And it all adds up to a system in which the country is being partitioned between these two sides, often within a state, but certainly between the states, in a way that makes movement very, very difficult in either direction.

And that, I think is, you know, it's just the reality that we are living in a time where we have this trench between two very different coalitions that want very different things and very different visions of what America is.

CUOMO: David, your point resonates especially -- yes, go ahead and then I have a question for you, please.

[07:30:02]

GREGORY: Well, I just want to add on the rigidity piece, which obviously Ron is so good at describing and sketching out.