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Key Race Alert from Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, North Carolina; Race for the White House Narrows as Votes are Counted. Aired 4-4:30a ET

Aired November 05, 2020 - 04:00   ET

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

[04:00:00]

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Eastern election night in American continues. I'm Chris Cuomo with the man, Don Lemon. Winner yet? Nope, but people are counting all over the country and we're getting closer my brother.

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: We certainly are, and you know things are serious, Chris, when you hear that theme music. It means it's going down, and we have new results that have come in from the battleground of Arizona, from the most populous County there with Maricopa County we're talking about. Biden's lead has narrowed by just over 10,000 votes. Trump making gains though, but Biden still holding on. So, Chris, you never know what can happen.

CUOMO: It matters so much but we have to enjoy the process. We had beautiful turnout, congratulations to us for wanting a hand in our future. You remember the XTC song, one, two, three, four, five, census working overtime.

LEMON: No, don't know.

CUOMO: You missed a good one.

LEMON: I know 1,2,3,4,5, come on baby, say you love me. That's about as much as I know.

CUOMO: But that song is in your head 24/7. You don't even know who sang it. So, we're watching five states here. OK. And some of them we're looking at specific action, Georgia and Arizona, we've gotten number changes for. We'll take you through it. So, let's do the key race alerts and show you where the five key races stand right now. OK.

So, let's take a look as they come up. Got a little electoral map action there. Now we'll go. Pennsylvania, 20 electoral votes, very important. We were just told before the break, hundreds of thousands of votes in some key counties that could play to Biden's advantage still to come in. The tail of this tape here is there are the votes outstanding for Joe Biden to meet or beat Donald Trump in Pennsylvania despite the yawning lead that he once had there.

Remember, Trump used Pennsylvania as proof positive that this election should be over. Imagine if he were to get caught there. 50.7 to 48.1 right now, 164,000 votes is the margin, 89 percent of the estimated vote, just an estimate, often a misleading number because it's also about where that vote comes from. OK.

Next state, Georgia, 16 electoral votes, 95 percent of the vote estimated in there. Same caveat, 23,009 votes is the spread, 49.6 to 49.1. One thing you may look forward here, depending on what happens with the overall election, is a recount request there because of the small margin. Still vote outstanding in places that could play for Biden. A little bit different picture than Pennsylvania.

Next. Arizona, very big. Watching tonight, new numbers, Trump is chasing down Joe Biden here. He is over performing, Donald Trump, in a way that he needs to in the all-important Maricopa County. That lead now, 68,390. We have watched it get cut on our watch, 11 big electoral votes. If Donald Trump is able to win Arizona, things start to change for him, and quickly.

Next, Nevada, 6 electoral votes, 7,647 votes. This is the easiest part of my job, why, no information coming until tomorrow morning. Why? Because they're counting and this is the way they do it in Nevada. Every state gets to pick its own rules. That's why legal challenges are tricky. As long as the state legislates its own rule, you don't get to jump to federal court and say you don't like it. They want all the results in before they offer any of them. So, we're supposed to get them later this morning. That's Nevada.

Next, North Carolina, now, 15 electoral votes, 50.1 to 48.6, again, 5 to 7 percent of the vote still to come in there. Where, we're not exactly sure. The margins, 76,000 has held steady for President Trump. That race will probably be called as one of the sooner ones.

Now, what is outstanding in these places? How does it play to each candidate's advantage? That's a tricky analysis. We have someone dedicated exactly to it. Kristen Holmes at the voting desk. You're looking at outstanding vote in these key states and mapping out what each needs to do to get the math to make it home. What do you see?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Chris. So, let's start in Arizona here, and this is one of the most interesting cases because it is done a little bit differently when it comes to voting. What we've been watching this entire time is mail-in versus in-person voting, and the reason being because we saw unprecedented amounts of mail-in voting. It really impacted how the election results came in. It also impacted who was voting for what and how we can actually see that.

What I mean by that is that we have learned since the beginning of the pandemic that the majority of Biden supporters, they like mail-in voting, whereas Trump supporters like voting in person on election day. So, it comes to Arizona. What's left for mail-in ball ballots? About 450,000 uncounted mail-in ballots.

[04:05:00]

How do these candidates need to fair within these ballots in order to win the state? Joe Biden would have to 40 to 42 percent of those ballots to take the state. Tougher climb here for President Trump. He'd have to have 56 to 58 percent. Now if this was yesterday, I would tell you that this would be smooth

sailing for Joe Biden. But as we have seen, those margins have gotten tighter. Now Harry told you that he believes the next batch that's coming in is going to be more Biden, Democratic friendly than what we have seen in the last two batches which have skewed more Republican. We'll have to wait and see and hold his feet to the fire on that.

Now, let's talk about Georgia. This is an interesting case because we have 90,000 outstanding mail-in ballots, but this number here came from the Secretary of State and hasn't really moved in about a day, and we know that they are counting ballots there. We have seen Nick Valencia in Georgia. They've been going ballot by ballot. Hundreds of ballots have been counted but they haven't updated this number for us. So, we're kind of working off this number from the Secretary of State but unsure if it's gone down from there.

How much would each candidate need to win of that to win the state in general? OK, so Biden, you have 60 to 63 percent, Trump, 35 to 35. So obviously, in Georgia it's a heavier lift for Joe Biden. But as we have talked about. A lot of ballots are coming in from Democratic strongholds. And again, these are mail-in ballots in a traditional state we have been looking at. In the sense that it skews Democratic. We know that mostly Biden supporters have been voting mail-in ballots here. So, that is something we are watching very carefully. It's why we haven't called the race, and we have seen that margin tightening.

Last one, Nevada, you said this yourself, no answers until tomorrow. But here's where it stands right now, 200,000 uncounted mail-in ballots. Who needs what to win? Biden would have to get 46 to 48 percent of that vote in order to take the state. Trump heavier lift, 50 percent to 52 percent. And as you said, we saw this tightening margin there, and Trump has been doing better so it's not out of the realm of possibility. This is a state Democrats have counted on. They thought it would have been called last night. But of course, here we are today in this tight state.

Now the last one, of course, it's not on my tablet, but we are talking a lot about it is Pennsylvania. And the interesting thing there is that we also have questions about the number of outstanding ballots. They have not been updating their web site on Pennsylvania. So, they've been telling us basically for a day, that there are 760 some- odd mail-in ballots that haven't been counted. But we know 7 counties have come in. So, we're trying to get answers for you so we can get a more accurate read of what this vote is going to look like coming in -- Chris.

CUOMO: Very well laid out. And thank you, Ms. Holmes. We'll be back to you. If you have anything that you're hearing, if there's a calculation that would be helpful, let me know, we'll come right back to you.

So, how does that help?

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: So, let's go through the states and I'll try and work through Kristen's numbers and tell you what we're looking for. So, we'll start with Nevada, we haven't talked a ton about it. You

laid out why. We're not going to get new information until this morning in a couple of hours. What we're looking for, Kristen said there's about 200,000 votes outstanding. They are mostly vote by mail if not all, and Donald Trump needs to win between 50 and 52 percent of what comes in.

This has narrowed. It narrowed over the course of the day down to 7,647 votes, threatening a Democratic stronghold or at least a Democratic hold. Hillary Clinton won this state. Here's what we're watching when the data comes in tomorrow morning. We're watching Clark County. It is the crucial County in the state. 72 percent of the population is here. This is traditionally a Democratic stronghold, and if you are a Democrat, you look right now at this margin and you say that's not good.

Right now, Democrats usually want this to be somewhere around 10 or 11 percent. As you see, it has shrunk down. And so, that's the question of the 200,000 ballots that are coming in. If Clark County is a Democratic stronghold, if Clark County is leaning Biden, does President Trump in those 200,000 votes actually even have an opportunity to hit 50 or 52 percent, that threshold.

CUOMO: That seems to be his magic number almost everywhere, that the President needs to split. You know, he has to get 50 percent or better everywhere that she just went through it make a mark.

MATTINGLY: A little bit north. A little bit north. Right? I would think given the makeup of the outstanding mail-in ballots kind of across the country, and given the makeup of Clark, 52 percent is probably a little bit more likely than 50 in terms of what he's going to have to hit. So, we'll have to see what he does there. But this is what we're going to be watching. We'll be watching Clark County tomorrow morning when those results comes in.

I want to tick down to Arizona. Kristen was laying out that here President Trump needs to do somewhere between 56 and 58 percent. So, do even better. But we've seen over the course of the last couple of batches that margin narrow down to 68,000 votes. We're obviously, keeping the closest eye on Maricopa County. Largest county in the state, 60 percent of the population. You have seen this narrow a little bit over the course of the last several hours.

However, keep in mind, back in 2016, this was a county that Donald Trump won. Why is it narrowing? Just because Democrats are leading in this county right now, does not mean it is a purely Democratic County.

[04:10:00]

It is pretty evenly split right now. It has moved towards Democrats. There are Republican voters in here. What we have been trying to figure out is what the actual makeup of this outstanding vote is in this state. Can President Trump hit 56 to 58 percent? He has hit that in the last two batches. There is some thought right now that what's going to be coming in because of how it was cast is going to be a little bit more favorable to Biden, not that he's going to win the vote but be even and will be able to hold on to the margin both in Maricopa and overall.

But now we know that President Trump needs somewhere between 56 and 58 percent in the 400,000 votes that are still outstanding.

Let's move over to Georgia. Because this is fascinating because of how little vote is out there and how close this is right now. 95 percent reporting. We've been talking about Fulton County. Nick Valencia has been giving great reports from there all night. Right now, down to about 13,000 ballots here. This is going to break 80/20. What did Joe Biden need? 62 percent. He's going to get it with what's left in Fulton County. The question, the question is when you look at the top line margin right now, the 23,000 votes ahead, so maybe that nets him 10, 11,000 votes.

What does he get from what's left outstanding in DeKalb? Only 5 percent left. What does he get -- if you move up here to Gwinnett, only 5 percent left? What does he get in you come down here into Savannah? There's a lot left in Savannah right now. A little bit closer margins than they're seeing in the Atlanta metro area. What does he get with what's outstanding there? Not that can he hit 80 percent, that would be great, I think the Biden campaign would be thrilled if he could hit 80 across the board. But can on net he hit 62/63 percent in what's outstanding? The answer based on where the vote is outstanding is there's a pathway there.

The question is how much Republican vote is outstanding to weigh that out as we look at what's coming in. And I think the final question, Kristen made clear, we're trying to get a better sense, you, Harry, me have been trying to talk through what's outstanding in Pennsylvania right now. We know it's hundreds of thousands of votes. We know there's plenty of votes for Joe Biden to make up the 164,000 votes that he's trailing President Trump by right now. We know that Democratic strongholds like Philadelphia County over here, still 30 percent outstanding, huge margin, huge vote left outstanding right now. But that's going to come in and it's going to come in heavily Democrat.

The question is, when is it going to come in? What's the composition of it and how much more beyond Philadelphia County we're waiting for? We had Alexandra Field walk through the Pittsburgh area, Allegheny County, another Democratic stronghold.

CUOMO: She said there are 300,000 plus.

MATTINGLY: That are in. They're in. So, that's what we're waiting for right now. And so, I think we've gone through this the last couple of hours, there's a lot of outstanding questions right now. But I think the value of what Kristen just gave us is you know what targets are. You know what targets are. She didn't give a target for Pennsylvania. I think for a lot of the day, we're thinking probably 62, 63 percent is what Joe Biden was going to hit. He has been hitting that. We haven't gotten a new vote in a while. He's been hitting that and there's every possibility he will certainly hit it here in Philadelphia County, which will be a couple 100,000 -- maybe 100,000 votes, 120,000 votes. So, the opportunity is there. The pathway is there. We'll see if they hit the margins when the vote actually starts to come in.

CUOMO: Now let's offer our hourly public service announcement.

We started off on the wrong foot with our collective -- well not our, but the audience understanding of why the flow of votes was going the way it has been going in this race. Now a big reason for that was the President at a minimum was misleading and wanted to the picture that I was winning. I'm up 600,000 and they just stopped. That is not true. OK. There is nothing going wrong. We have had no reports with material problems with processes anywhere. There are monitors all over the place. There are legal teams all over the place. OK. And any legit challenges will be put in, measured by the court, and covered by us for your consumption.

Here's what you have to understand, the way it worked was all of these states that are in play counted day of votes first, correct?

MATTINGLY: For the most part, yes.

CUOMO: So, you saw those votes come in. Donald Trump did very well. Mail-in votes or drop off votes are every bit as legal and legitimate. We have a lot more of them than we ever anticipated. Why? There was a formative method of activism. It was pushed very hard by the Democrats. It was actually discounted very heavily by President Trump. He discouraged people from doing it, and we're in the middle of a pandemic. I know we don't like to talk about it. I know we want to pitch the idea that it's going away if you're a Trump supporter but that's a lie. And that's what this has been.

So, yes, he wanted to end the race when it looked good for him. But that was about convenience, not conscience. It wasn't about an certitude. This was always going to happen in terms of the process of vote counting. Now the question is, not really a lot of time.

[04:15:00]

I mean, you know, this count is going quickly to be honest. Even by 2016 standards. We had problems in Arizona -- not problems, it took time. Michigan took weeks for the Senate race when we were there in 2018 and in 2016, it took us days to deliver Michigan for President Trump.

So, here, it's not wrong that this count is going the way it is. It's not wrong that he started off high. It was a different metric. They did day of voting first. So, the question is are there enough votes for Joe Biden to catch Donald Trump if it breaks in his own range of vote of somewhere around, what, 70 percent?

MATTINGLY: You can go lower, probably 62 percent, somewhere around there.

CUOMO: And the answer to that question is yes.

MATTINGLY: Without question.

CUOMO: There are enough votes. Can he win at that percentage, and there are different variables? All right. We just want to present this to you every hour, because this misconception that there's something wrong about this. Why don't they know that? Nothing wrong with that. It always never goes this way. We've never had these kinds of ballots. And by the way, it's a blessing. Because it showed a rate of participation that we never imagined. Or at least I didn't. I never thought people would step up the way they did in this election. I thought there was too much disillusionment, too much disenfranchisement and a pandemic. But you know what? We met and beat our own expectations. And now we got to count them. That's what we're doing. Thank you for listening. Thank you for listening.

Let's take a break, but now you understand. This is not a problem. This is part of our democracy. We'll be right back.

[04:20:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOE BIDEN, U.S. DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: What brings us together as Americans is so much stronger than anything that can tear us apart. So, let me be clear. We are campaigning as Democrat, but I will govern as an American President. The presidency itself is not a partisan institution. It's the one office in this nation that represents everyone. And it demands a duty of care for all Americans. That is precisely what I will do. I will work as hard for those who didn't vote for me as I will for those who did vote for me.

Now, every vote must be counted. No one is going to take our democracy away from us. Not now, not ever. American has come too far. America has fought too many battles. America has endured too much to ever let that happen.

We the people will not be silenced. We the people will not be bullied. We the people will not surrender. My friends, I'm confident we'll emerge victorious. But this will not be my victory alone or our victory alone. It will be a victory for the American people, for our democracy, for America, and there will be no blue states and red states when we win, just the United States of America.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CUOMO: Joe Biden today or yesterday giving those words in a time of uncertainty as we watch the votes getting counted here. We the people, that's where we are on one hand, and then you have Donald Trump's message of us versus them. Let me be your champion in the great fight.

Let's put the state of play to some better minds. Nia-Malika Henderson, Harry Enten and John Harwood joining us now. It good to have John, thank you for joining the panel. Nia-Malika, so in terms of how this period of uncertainty as democracy grinds along, how is it being handled by both?

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: Well I think you described it there. There is one campaign and one candidate, the President, Donald Trump, stoking ideas about conspiracy theories. Stoking this idea that somehow ballots are being tossed out or planted in certain precincts. Stoking this idea that certain precincts, particularly in urban areas like Philly, maybe Detroit, should not be trusted and should not be counted. There's that side

And then there is Joe Biden who is making that call for unity, and using the language of Barack Obama, this idea that there's no blue or red America. They're the United States of America. I'm skeptical of Biden's, you know, ability to actually do that. I think Obama thought he could do that, and Obama was in many ways, much more eloquent, and in some ways had a bigger base of support than Joe Biden does. So, we'll see what he's able to do.

But it is true that people who voted for him thought that bringing the country together in unity was something that they wanted to see, working across the aisle. You know, how that's going to work practically in a divided government, in a divided country, it's hard to see him making much progress. I hate to sound so pessimistic, but I think it's the reality. We're a divided county. There are policy differences that are real and can't necessarily be bridged by rhetoric or a person.

CUOMO: Well, your perspective is defensible from the context of the challenge. Biden has a tougher challenge because, Harry, Donald Trump's game is tear it down. It all stinks, they all cheat. They're all bad. The institutions suck. They should all go. Let's fight them together. Doing that, the tear it down strategy, is an easier challenge for him than Joe Biden's of, hey, I'm going to bring everybody back together. The President is not going to do that. He wants to win and to the extent that he's not winning right now is because he's being cheated and it's a fraud. And so, it's easier for him right now to negotiate this period, isn't it?

HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL WRITER AND ANALYST: Yes, I think it is. I mean, look, I should point out, though, that Joe Biden at this point has more votes than Donald Trump nationally, so there is certainly a majority of folks who agree with him and the country, but it's a narrow majority.

[04:25:00]

And it's a narrow majority and you can see that in electoral college. Right? No man has hit 270 votes even at this late hour. We're already Thursday, the election was held on Tuesday. We might not have a winner maybe until the end of the day, maybe it's Friday. We don't even know yet.

So, to me, Joe Biden does have a challenge with him. He has a Republican Senate that he's likely going to face. We don't know that for sure yet. His Democratic house, the majority, looks like it's going to be slimmed. So, the message that Biden brought and the message that the Democrats brought while it had a majority of support, at least in the presidential level in terms of votes, it was a very narrow majority.

CUOMO: Hey, John, tough question for you. You've been part of a lot of this coverage. You've been listening to the lot of it. It gets sane, the sense of saneness. What do you think is being missed right now that should matter to the American people who are watching this go on really in their place?

JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOURS CORRESPONDENT: Well, a couple of things, Chris. One of them is the strength and resilience of Joe Biden. As Harry indicated, it's a narrow majority, but he's getting more than 50 percent of the vote. He's actually on track to get a larger share of the national vote than Ronald Reagan got in 1980 when he turned out Jimmy Carter from the White House in a landslide.

Now obviously, it's not a landslide. Ronald Reagan won 44 states. He had the benefit of or the detriment perhaps of John Anderson taking away a chunk of vote. Nevertheless, Joe Biden is going to get more votes.

Secondly, I think Nia is exactly right to be skeptical. On the other hand, if you're Joe Biden and you're looking at the probability at this point of a Republican Senate, you don't have any choice but to offer a unifying message. That's his instinct anyway but that's what you've got to do. Because he's only going to get anything done with some measure of acquiescence from some share of the Republican Party.

The third thing I think that is being overlooked is the dog that's not barking right now. We had all been concerned, and that concern was made manifest if you looked at American city and saw people boarding up store fronts, at the idea of civil unrest. We're not done with this process. But this has been an orderly process, generally speaking. There are people with very strong feelings on both sides. There have been some protests, but none of it has been of terrific consequence, notwithstanding what the President has said.

That is something to celebrate for a democracy. You know, we've talked for a long time about the centrality of peaceful transfer of power in the American experiment, and so far, we have seen that play out. Now, we haven't had a transfer of power, but people have been observing this process with a measure of calmness that I think some people did not expect.

CUOMO: Those are good points, John, thank you very much. So, Nia, let's play on the heels of that. You think the hardest days are to come?

HENDERSON: That's the big question because there hasn't been a winner who's declared at this point. The President has been tweeting. His folks have been dispatched to Pennsylvania; I think Corey Lewandowsky is there and Rudy Giuliani, I think Lara Trump is there as well. So, I think there are possibly tougher days to come if this doesn't go Donald Trump's way because he has so sown this idea that if he doesn't win, it's been stolen by the left, stolen by Democrats, stolen by folks in cities.

And we saw some of this flare up already in Arizona with those armed folks who are outside the facility where people were counting ballots. And we also just don't know what Donald Trump is going to do. He's very unpredictable. We don't know what he's going to do if he loses in a lame duck, So, I like John's optimism that nothing's happened in these two days, and that's great.

CUOMO: The only thing we've seen is the Trump folk at the Maricopa County place which just doesn't -- I don't know why they were there. They need Arizona. They may win Arizona. They need the count to go as well as it can. Why intimidate the people inside doing what you want them to be doing.

Harry, the idea of, well, it'll be OK because the result will stand for itself. It's hard for a thin margin to stand in an environment of uncertainty, right? People have a lot of misgivings about the way our elections work to start with.

ENTEN: Sure, although I will point out that four years ago, you had a thinner margin, even thinner margin. It may end up being than the one we have this year, and the country did stand, right. There were obviously protests that took place after Donald Trump was inaugurated as President of the United States but there wasn't like civil unrest to such a great degree that there was violence in the streets and stuff like that.

Although I will point out that now we have the background of a global pandemic. Right? That adds an extra variable to this, and now we have Donald Trump who is obviously prone to volatile statements on Twitter to say the least who may be burning the flames, a little bit. We'll have to wait and see on that. Wait and see what the ultimate result is.