Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Live Event/Special

Razor-Thin Margins Separate Biden, Trump in Uncalled States; Nevada Expected to Update Vote Total Soon. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired November 05, 2020 - 10:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:00:00]

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: The final votes in the final states are being counted as we speak in Atlanta, where they've been at it nonstop all night, those ballots and others are all that stand between Joe Biden, President Trump and the White House, and we could have answers very soon.

And hello again. Thanks for joining us. Get ready. The biggest county in what the Biden campaign is hoping will be the biggest and most unexpected prize for them is wrapping up its count. We're talking about Fulton County, Georgia. That's the Atlanta area. We are expecting to hear from officials shortly. We'll obviously bring that to you live.

Erin Burnett is with me as well today. Erin?

ERIN BURNETT, CNN ANCHOR: All right, Anderson. And everybody was waiting, waiting, waiting. And now, maybe Fulton County, some answers, Nevada, soon, some more information. Votes coming in from Arizona and Pennsylvania, where hundreds of thousands of ballots still remain.

And the big question, of course, is will this be enough as these numbers come in to put Biden ahead and over that key 270 mark, and Nevada, I mentioned as well, Anderson, obviously, the Biden margin is slim and shrinking, but we do expect an update on that in the next few hours.

COOPER: Yes. And there's new reporting on the mood at the White House. We'll be hearing live from our correspondents.

We also expect to hear from a number of key newsmakers, a big morning, perhaps a decisive one. We'll know from Georgia momentarily.

Before we go any further, I want to quickly show you just how razor thin the margins now are in the remaining key states. What a race this has been. Let's take a look.

Nevada, Joe Biden is ahead but only by 7,647. That's really unchanged. That's the numbers we saw yesterday as well. Nevada, unclear exactly when we'll be getting new numbers from them. Yesterday, they indicated that, as a state, they would report numbers at 7:00 P.M. on each successive night. We are waiting to hear if we're going to get new numbers before then tonight, but that is a very slim lead for Joe Biden.

Georgia, President Trump is ahead, but that lead has been shrinking. He's ahead by 18,586 votes. As I said, we're expecting to hear more from Georgia officials with new numbers very shortly.

Arizona, Vice President Biden ahead with 36,390. All during last night, new numbers -- as new numbers were coming in, Biden's lead shrinking somewhat in Arizona but still a lead of 68,390.

North Carolina, President Trump ahead 76,737 votes. And Pennsylvania, this is just a fascinating race to watch in Pennsylvania. President Trump is still ahead with 135,072 votes, but a lot of votes still to be counted, a lot of votes still to be processed.

And his lead has been shrinking, even today throughout the morning. We've been seeing the president's lead come down little by little, 5,000 votes here, 6,000 votes there. We'll see how many votes have left to be counted. We'll see who wins the all-important state of Pennsylvania.

If Vice President Biden wins Pennsylvania, that could be it. That is the shape of the battlefield right now. And remember, it is changing by the moment.

John King is here to walk us through all of it.

So, John, the race tightening in these three crucial states, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Arizona. Take us through it.

JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And let's walk through it, Anderson, with just -- as you just noted, today could be the decisive day. Joe Biden at 253 Electoral College votes, he needs to get to 270 to win the presidency. That's why I'm going to start in Pennsylvania, because Pennsylvania alone would do it if Joe Biden can overtake the president.

The president had a much bigger lead, if we rewind the tape, go back to midnight, Tuesday night, it was giant. Go to yesterday, it was still significant. Now, is that big enough is the question. 135,702 votes lead the president of the United States in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. But Joe Biden has been gaining as these blue county, Allegheny in the west, Philadelphia in the suburbs around in the east have been counting votes. So let's take a peek.

Philadelphia is the largest. The city of Philadelphia now up to 81 percent. That tells you a lot of votes still out in a place that is voting overwhelmingly for Joe Biden. These are the mail-in ballots. Democrats we know, disproportionately voted by mail, Joe Biden has been winning. Percentages like that, above 70 percent in all these counties in Southeastern Pennsylvania. And so the mat is still possible. And that's why you look at it there.

[10:05:01] This is Philadelphia. I just want to move over to Montgomery County. They're up to 95 percent. You come up to Bucks County, look at this, 49.9 to 48.9. That's the most conservative of the Philadelphia suburbs, a very competitive battle there. They're up to 89 percent. I just want to dip down here and look at Chester County as well, up to 95 percent.

So, what we're waiting for most is right here, the city of Philadelphia. Joe Biden is getting just about 80 percent of the vote and they still have votes to count. So, a big basket of votes potential for Joe Biden. And, again, if you're at 253, Pennsylvania is 20, it would put you over the top. So we'll watch that one as the count continues there.

If Joe Biden can't get Pennsylvania, he would need two. And one of them we're watching is Georgia. Again, late on election night, Tuesday night, Donald Trump was pulling out to what we thought was an impressive lead there. But as they count these mail-in ballots, especially, you see a lot of red. The president runs it up in rural Georgia as he does in many states across America.

But where you see cities and suburbs in the Atlanta metro area is a textbook case, Fulton County now up to 95 percent. This has been part of Joe Biden's narrowing of the lead. As they count the votes in Fulton County, as you noted, Anderson, more votes to come from here. They could come any minute. You see 72.5 percent in Fulton County.

That is what Joe Biden is doing, he's winning seven and ten, sometimes eight and ten depending on the county of these mail-in ballots. And so the president's lead, which once looked insurmountable, has been shrinking as we go.

Now, the place to look, you move over here to DeKalb County. This county here, look at Joe Biden getting 83 percent of the vote. That's been a big driver as they count these mail-in ballots of Joe Biden narrowing in the gap. And so the question is, when you look at it now, 49.6 to 49.2, 18,586 votes, can Joe Biden make that up --

COOPER: Hey, John, do we know how many votes are outstanding in Georgia?

KING: The number has been trailing because they've actually been moving and making progress. So we were told this morning -- we're going to hear from the secretary of state, I believe, in about 30 minutes or so. He has a count. And we're going to hear from Fulton County a little bit after that. I think by the end of the hour, Anderson, we'll get that cleared up. Because you hear 50,000 here, then you hear 20,000, so different counties are giving you different numbers. But they are moving along in Georgia, which is why, I think, today could very well be decisive day. And, again, we'll hear pretty soon.

And so then you move west, right? Again, Pennsylvania would put Joe Biden over the top. If he didn't get that, but he could somehow come back in Georgia, then you move out here to Arizona where Biden is leading, it's the flipside of the same dynamic there. Donald Trump had a big lead in Pennsylvania, it has been. shrinking. The president had a big lead in Georgia, it has been shrinking.

Joe Biden had a significant lead here in Arizona and it's the flipside here, it has been shrinking, as Maricopa County --

COOPER: John, I'm sorry. Kate Bolduan apparently has some new information about voting in Philadelphia. Let's just go to her.

Kate, what have you learned?

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Hey, Anderson. More of an update. We're getting a sense of really how many ballots are outstanding, and that's the name of the game at this point, really. Here in Philadelphia, they updated some more numbers. So, last time I came out this morning, they were at about 140,000 outstanding votes, ballots that had not been counted. They're now back at 120,000 votes that have not been counted. This is a combination of --

COOPER: Are you talking statewide or just for Philadelphia?

BOLDUAN: Philadelphia, I'm so sorry. This is in Philadelphia. No, that would be wonderful if it was statewide. We'd be really crunching those numbers down. But outstanding, we're talking about, that's Philadelphia right now.

COOPER: So that's a lot of votes.

BOLDUAN: And it's a combination of mail-in ballots and some in-person voting on Election Day. Some precincts still haven't actually reported them to the county. That's in Philadelphia.

It seems unlikely that they are going to be able to finish it up today, just as I have been watching this process play out for days. It's a long, arduous process. It's labor-intensive. I've been inside through the cavernous space where they're going through and scanning these ballots, it takes a long time and they have it broken down into specific tasks so there is no margin for error. That's Philadelphia.

We're also getting a sense, Anderson, from Bucks County, that very important, and John can talk about it as well, he has been -- very competitive suburban county outside Philadelphia, they are reporting this morning, they still have 28,000 mail-in ballots to go through. But they are very confident that they're going to be able to wrap it up today.

So there is a sense, while there are definitely outstanding ballots for sure, that there are counties throughout the commonwealth that either wrapped up their counts late last night into this morning or are confident they will be able to wrap it up. Philadelphia is the biggest county, it's taking time, that's for sure. But they're getting a sense that there are other counties throughout the commonwealth that they're going to be wrapping it up.

So there could be some clarity, if not, finality. And I don't even want to prognosticate that they would be able to do that, but some clarity on what direction this is all headed today.

COOPER: Hey, Kate, so it's 150,000 votes still outstanding in Philadelphia.

[10:10:01]

Do we know, in terms of, you know, statewide in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania how many votes are still outstanding?

BOLDUAN: I just looked. So the number of mail-ins that are still outstanding throughout the state, it has now gone under 1 million. And that was kind of a marker that we were all waiting for. Because we had learned from the secretary of state that they have had such a huge turnout in terms of mail-in voting this time, they were looking at 2.5 million mail-in ballots returned, which was a huge number. It's ten times as many as they've had in previous elections.

And, overnight, they have gone down, I believe at the moment, it's in the 700,000 --

COOPER: Wow, that's still so many though. That's incredible.

BOLDUAN: It's still so many, yes. It's still so many. That's true.

I've been pushing and asking what is -- what's going on in the process that takes time. They're not reporting problems, Anderson. There is not hiccups at all that they're concerned about at all. It's the volume, for one. It's the fact that, by state law, they could not start processing, even pre-canvassing, which is a terminology of getting these ballots out of the envelopes. They couldn't start doing that until Election Day, at 7:00 A.M. and it just takes time.

There's also one step of the process in all of this that seems to be the most labor-intensive that I finally kind of learned a little bit more about, which is there are these several thousand -- and I'll talk just about Philadelphia specifically -- several thousand poll books, where people go into the polling station. Then they sign their name to vote in person, that needs to be checked against the database of mail- in ballots that are coming in to make sure that nothing is counted twice, that everything is accurate.

That process of checking through the poll books, checking the mail-in database that is a labor-intensive part of the process. It's just kind of illustrative of where we are right now, that that's going on, we're still two days after Election Day and it's not yet over.

COOPER: I don't think anybody will take issue with them being accurate, and that's the most important thing. So, if it takes time, it takes time, as long as the votes are counted. Kate Bolduan, great information, thank you so much.

John, let's look at Pennsylvania, there you got it, Bucks County, I knew you would.

KING: So think about what Kate just said. So, Bucks County, she said 20,000 ballots, I think, still outstanding, somewhere in that ballpark. The candidates are splitting the ballots in the overall count in Bucks County. We do know that is Philadelphia -- is Pennsylvania, not just Philadelphia, has counted these mail-in ballots. Joe Biden has been winning disproportionately so on the statewide count.

But let's assume even they just split the ballots here, right? The evidence is that Joe Biden is coming out on top on these mail-in ballots, but they're splitting the overall vote here. But then, think about the significance of what Kate just said about Philadelphia, right? She said 120,000 mail-in ballots just to be counted.

We know Joe Biden is getting 80 percent of the vote in Philadelphia right now. So, imagine that, 120,000 ballots, right, that's more than 90,000 votes for Joe Biden if these ratios keep up, right? It's higher than that. But just think ballpark, 90,000-plus votes for Joe Biden, net, right? Trump gets his share, Joe Biden is getting at least a net of -- he gets 90,000 votes out of there. And you add that into that, right, 135,000 ahead.

So, Joe Biden could cut significantly into the president's lead just with what we're going to get later out of Philadelphia. Now, how quickly are we going to get it, that's the question Kate keeps asking every 15 minutes or so. That's why we have to watch this throughout the day.

We know, disproportionately, in these mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania, Joe Biden is winning by a big margin. That doesn't that will continue when they count them. there are smaller counties up here, Luznerne County, you see the president getting 56 --

COOPER: John, Kate is saying that it is about 700,000 votes outstanding in the commonwealth. So, I mean, if 120,000 or 150,000 of them are in Philadelphia, where are all the others, Bucks County, where else?

KING: You still have a number in the suburbs here. These are the most populous suburbs, but they are spread out. And so you see all these red. And so if you're a Trump supporter or if you're a Biden supporter thinking, here we come, we're roaring back, this is why we need to finish the count.

What we do know, Anderson, even in a lot of conservative places, I'm just going to pull one of them up, Jefferson County, they're at 95 percent right now, you see it's not a lot of votes, 17,440. Every vote counts when it's close. But we know, even in many of these conservative counties, there might not be as many Democrats who live there or not as many people who are going to vote for Joe Biden, but the people who are voting for Joe Biden did so by mail. That was a big piece of the Democratic early turnout.

So even in the smaller places when they count the mail-in ballots, Joe Biden is doing better in the mail-in ballots than he does, say, when you look at the overall count. So that's why we have to be patient and pull this out.

But the key for Joe Biden where you see blue on this map, which would be Harrisburg, Philadelphia and the suburbs here in Southeast Pennsylvania, up in Scranton and out in Allegheny, which they did a good job in Allegheny, but they're still not to the finish line, 94 percent. Where you see blue on the map? We know Joe Biden is getting a disproportionate share of these mail-in ballots.

[10:15:02]

He needs to run it up. But to Kate's point, some of these smaller counties didn't even start until yesterday. It's going to be a very interesting day.

But you see that and you think it's insurmountable when you think 600,000 ballots and a couple of hundred thousand of them at least down here in Southeast Pennsylvania, it's not insurmountable.

COOPER: And, John, we just got new information out of Georgia. The secretary of state said that they have a little more than 61,000 outstanding votes left to count in Georgia.

KING: And so, again, you do the math at home. 61,000, you look at 18,586 is your lead. And you think, well, is that big enough to withstand that? It really depends on where all those ballots are coming from, Anderson. Because, again, you see a lot of red in the smaller rural counties in Georgia, even in those places, there might be fewer Democrats but a lot of those Democrats voted absentee and by mail because of COVID concerns. We know, disproportionately, Democrats decided to vote early by mail or sometimes in line voting early, and Republicans like to show up on Election Day. We just know that.

Now, we have to take that anecdotal evidence and now count votes. Which is why when you come into here, we focus a lot on metro Atlanta, but look at this, in Chatham County, Savannah, Joe Biden getting about 57, 58 percent of the vote. They still have 13 percent of the vote to count. Are they splitting it at this ratio, like the full count, or are those mail-in ballots disproportionately Biden, as we have seen in other places? That's why you have to finish the count.

So, you're getting down, you're in the 60,000 ballpark now. That makes it dicey for Biden in the sense that there's almost a 20,000 vote lead, so you understand the math. Joe Biden has to win the overwhelming number of those ballots. But, again, when you wander around the state, 86 percent, Richmond County, Joe Biden is getting 68 percent of the vote. Mail-in ballots tend to be a little higher than the overall percentage he gets. So we have to watch this and count it.

Again, most of our attention is going to be here in metro Atlanta. I just want to see if anything has been updated. DeKalb at 95, Gwinnett at 95, Fulton at 95. I want to drop down. Clayton, this is a place I didn't mention it enough yesterday and I should have. We mentioned Fulton, Atlanta, Gwinnet and DeKalb, the larger counties right around it.

But look at Clayton, suburban Atlanta. Here is Atlanta, you come through the south, they're only at 84 percent count, Anderson. And, look, Joe Biden is getting 85 percent of the vote. You're counting mail-in ballots, Joe Biden is getting 85 percent. Even though we're down to 60,000, that lead is not untouchable. That's why we count them. COOPER: If someone is writing this as a screen play, the notes would be, you know what, you're dragging this out too long, nobody is going to believe it if it goes on. It's fascinating. You just have got to count the votes. That's where it boils down to.

KING: And it's important we make that point, because the president tweeting, stop the count. That's not what we do here. And we're in the middle of a pandemic. And, look, close elections always take time. This is my ninth presidential cycle. I've covered all the governor's races and midterm elections in between. Some elections take time.

This one is extraordinary because of the triple voting patterns, if you will, some people by mail, some people in person early, some people Election Day. The people doing this counting, the secretary of state in Georgia, I believe, is a Republican, right? Some of these county officials are Democrats. Who cares? Right now, they're Americans and they're counting votes. Let's let them finish.

COOPER: Also, we should just point out, these are not new votes, as some have been saying. These are votes that have been cast. They just have to be counted, and that's called an election.

John, we're going to check back in with you, because, obviously, there's a lot going on in Nevada, Arizona that we're watching closely. So we'll come in, we'll get the update from you on that. But we're getting an update on the status of votes in Nevada, waiting to hear from officials in Georgia as well. All that, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:20:00]

BURNETT: And so here we are still waiting and still four uncalled states will decide the presidency. One of them is Nevada, and there is breaking news there. So I want to go to Las Vegas where Sara Sidner is.

Sara, we look at the gap as of now, 7,647 votes Biden between Trump, Biden slightly ahead. But so many questions in Nevada of how many votes are even left to count.

SARA SIDNER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. You know, we're all trying to figure out who is going to get these six electoral votes that Nevada has up for grabs. One of the issues is the mail-in ballots. What they did this year due, in part, to coronavirus, is they sent out ballots to everyone who was an eligible voter

The reason why they don't know just how many people are going to vote is because they don't know how many people are going to send those ballots back in and they did not have to get those ballots on November 3rd. In fact, they have until November 10th to actually get all the ballots, as long as people have them postmarked on Election Day or before.

And so that is what is causing some of the confusion here is to, you know, they have to wait until they get every single ballot in. And as long as it comes in before the 10th, and it was postmarked on or before the third, that ballot has to be counted.

That being said, we are expecting to get new numbers finally from here in Nevada. In about an hour-and-a-half, we're going to hear from the secretary of state. And then an hour after that, we are expecting to hear from Clark County officials as to what's happening here and why that is significant is about 70 percent of the voting population lives here in Clark County, the home of Las Vegas. Erin?

BURNETT: All right. And, of course, now, all eyes are going to on that update. As Sara said, we're expecting that in about 90 minutes time, see what we get, see what happens. I mean, it doesn't get more razor thin than that battle in Nevada.

[10:25:00]

And, Anderson, amazing that they don't know how many are outstanding, right? I mean, you keep getting those numbers. We know what they are now in places like Georgia, even Pennsylvania, where they had some lead time in terms of when ballots had to arrive but still that unknown in Nevada.

COOPER: Yes. And the numbers have remained the same since the last time I was on the air. I don't even remember what time it was, but last night, the numbers that lead of Joe Biden's is very small in Nevada. We'll be watching that closely. Erin, thanks very much.

So let's go to John King.

John, let's take a look, a deeper dive in Nevada.

KING: You don't remember the last time you left the air last night? You don't remember? Day 47. Look, we'll get through this. I'm making jokes about it but we need to applaud these people. I love Sara Sidner's finally, we get some information from the secretary of state in Clark County, because, look, again, Joe Biden is at 253.

So if you're a Democrat, you think, my guy is knocking at the door. If you're a Republican, you think, how do we stop him? He's knocking at the door. So everybody wants these numbers, and we get that. We want these numbers, the American people want these numbers. The world is watching this election. The world wants to know.

And so you look at Nevada and you say, as you noted, Anderson, at the top of the hour, 7,647 votes, that's a very narrow lead for Joe Biden and it has been the same all day. We got nothing new out of Nevada yesterday, which is very frustrating, obviously, because we want to move this race along and figure out what's the finish line.

However, again, coronavirus, as Sara noted, all these mail-in ballots, so we're going to wait today, we will hear information from the secretary of state in Clark County.

So what are we looking for? Number one, more votes, count, more of a count to see if Joe Biden holds that narrow lead or if it starts to shrink for the president. The other thing is do they have a better sense now of the universe of ballots, so then we know how many have they counted today and how many do you have outstanding. Meaning, yes, they can count ballots that would come in for five more days. Do they think -- how big is that universe? Meaning, can we call it when we the numbers the rest of today or do we have to wait because they still think a sizeable number of ballots are still coming?

73, as Sara just noted, more than seven in ten, close to 75 percent of the votes are going to come right here in Clark County. And Joe Biden there, 53 to 45 in what we have so far. But we don't know how much is left in Clark County. That's why the word we get today could be -- it is incredibly important. This is could be the decisive day but only if we continue the metrics in Nevada, in Arizona, in Pennsylvania and in Georgia.

So where else are you looking here? You see all of these red, again, 7,647 votes, that's a Biden lead in a Clinton state. But the president is in play here. We've seen the president's comeback. Joe Biden's lead shrink in Arizona. Out here in the southwest, where the Democrats think they can clinch the presidency, it's actually very close, we're going to have to watch it.

The other place we saw, as Clark County, to watch for the most votes, Anderson, is up here in Washoe County. Now, they say that's 78 percent of the estimated vote, but we still need to understand the universe potentially of mail-in ballots.

Reno is the population center here as you move to the north. This corner of the state is very conservative and the president has a lot of support. So, again --

COOPER: So, also, John, it's interesting. I think it was Rick Santorum last night and Gloria Borger also who was talking about how in places like Reno, in Las Vegas, obviously, tourism is incredibly important, they have been really hurting with coronavirus, and the question is how does that play among voters who want to see businesses come back, who want to see tourism come back. Does that mean they don't favor Joe Biden's more conservative approach to dealing with the pandemic or more aggressive approach or do they favor President Trump's approach?

KING: Well, I think you're making one of the critical points, because we talk about the national campaign we have all the time, right? The coronavirus is the biggest issue in the country. The president was having rallies at the end. Joe Biden was saying that was reckless. And the national dynamic, the numbers told us, most voters thought Biden's responsible way of doing it was preferable to the president's way of doing it. That's a national look.

But you're so smart to say, let's look more locally and state by state. In South Florida, for example, the attacks on socialism motivated a lot of Latino voters in South Florida. So, some of these targeted attacks, you think might not work nationally, do work in certain places. And right here, to your point, the economic argument, the Trump campaign's advertising. The Trump campaign messaging was Joe Biden wants to lockdown the country, keep it locked down. Now, that's a distortion of Biden's views but welcome to politics. And we will see. This will be interesting to watch. Again, 53 to 45, you go back four years ago -- this is a preliminary count. We don't know if that's going to change when we get more ballots. You go back before, it's pretty consistent, right? Vegas has been growing. The Latino vote is critical to Democrats.

But you also have, if you've been to Vegas over the last 25 years, the explosion of the suburbs around Los Angeles, once Republican territory, more becoming Democratic territory. But it's a simple -- it's a cliche but it's true. All politics is local, this area has been devastated because of the economic fallout, the impact on tourism.

And so I think you're raising a fascinating question. And that's why when we get more results from Clark County today, we're going to get to answer this. We mostly have a national election dynamic, but in some places, there are local issues at play, and that's one of the very important ones.

COOPER: Yes. We're hoping to hear very quickly, very soon from Georgia officials. John, thanks. We'll check in also with you about Arizona, coming up next. But let's go back to Erin.

[10:30:00]

BURNETT: All right. So, Anderson, you mentioned Georgia. So, right now, here is how many ballots we understand are outstanding, 61,367. We are specific all the way ones place.