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CNN Live Event/Special
Margins Tighten in Georgia, Pennsylvania; Dems Have Narrow Chance to Win the Senate; Georgia Senate Candidate John Ossoff (D) is Interviewed about Election. Aired 12-1a ET
Aired November 06, 2020 - 00:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back to CNN's breaking news coverage. "ELECTION NIGHT IN AMERICA" continues. I'm Chris Cuomo, along with Don Lemon, and this is it.
[00:00:41]
DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: This is it.
CUOMO: This is the time that matters most. The margins have gotten very small. Votes are coming in and what have developed into key states, right? Georgia, and Pennsylvania. And we are watching them, literally, by the minute.
LEMON: Yes. I'm surprised you didn't say, "We are back," because here we are for another long stretch. We're going to be here with you throughout the evening and throughout the morning, until this gets done.
What a nail-biter, Chris. I mean, this really is a nail-biter. You mentioned Georgia. You mentioned Pennsylvania. Georgia is really on a brink. Pennsylvania is on the brink. We have to keep watching the numbers. The final votes, tens of thousands of mail-in ballots, are being counted in both states right now. And you know what? It's not a done deal yet, but Joe Biden is closing in on the presidency.
CUOMO: And look, President Trump tried today to turn what really has been a hall of fame performance by the electorate into a hall of shame.
LEMON: Right.
CUOMO: We'll deal with him later.
Again, we have to ignore the noise right now. If you have proof of allegations, go to court.
LEMON: Sure, yes.
CUOMO: Anything else is B.S.
What is the truth in action are the counts as they are taken in real time. So let's do that together. We'll be doing it, as Don said, as long as they'll let us.
So here is our first key race alert. All right. These are the two big ones. Pennsylvania, and Georgia.
Again, let's start at the bottom this time. All right? Ninety-nine percent of the estimated vote in Georgia, 95 in Pennsylvania. Those two numbers are the most deceptive, because in this particular race, for various reasons, small margins can make big differences, especially when we're as close as we are in both.
Pennsylvania, 22,000 votes separate the men right now. You see that. They're basically within their recount territory in both races. Certainly in Georgia, it's a dead tie.
So we expect votes in both of them, specifically, Pennsylvania. Around that Philadelphia area, there's still a lot of votes that haven't been counted, or at least announced. That's what Joe Biden is banking on.
Remember, Pennsylvania, because, if Biden wins Pennsylvania, he becomes the next president of the United States, period.
Now, in Georgia, that is not true, but it really starts closing doors. So Joe Biden, very close there, 1,805 votes separate the two men. Donald Trump needs it. That has not been trending well for him. Each dump that comes, that margin closes.
However, that's not the end of the state of play. So let's get over to the Magic Wall and Phil Mattingly.
Good to see you once again. Pennsylvania, Georgia, why in the context of how you get to the 270?
PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Because, for President Trump, Pennsylvania and Georgia are everything. Let's look at the map right now.
As it currently stands, as you noted, 253 electoral votes for Joe Biden, 213 for President Trump. This is what's in, and what's outstanding. If it's colored in red, that means it's been called for President Trump. If it's blue, that is now in Joe Biden's column.
What we are waiting for right now, a couple states that, just for the sake of gaming this out, we'll go ahead, and give to President Trump. As it currently stands, North Dakota -- North Carolina has been fairly static over the course of the last 48 hours. President Trump, about a 79,000 vote lead. We'll say, for the sake of doing this, that North Carolina goes in his column.
We'll do the same for Alaska. Usually, it takes a couple weeks to count. Expected to go Republican.
So where does that leave things as it currently stands? Well, as you know, paying attention to Pennsylvania, paying attention to Georgia. Get out west in a second.
Why does this matter? Well, President -- if Vice President Biden wins Pennsylvania, it's pretty simple. It's the ball game. It's all over. It's all over. So, as we watch it tighten, and we've watched it tighten over the course of the last day or so, that's why everybody's so keen on it.
CUOMO: And the quick reminder, because sometimes we forget what we learned in the beginning: 538 electoral votes. That's what there is. So there is no scenario of, Well, what if he gets over 270, and so does he? Can't happen.
What you can have is 269-269. If we're anywhere close to, we'll start discussing the intricacies of it. The Constitution lays out a plan.
So, that's what we're looking for. Who gets to 270, and then it's done. Continue, my friend.
MATTINGLY: If it's 269-269, I think people curl in a fetal position, first. And then we start talking about it.
CUOMO: Not you, though. You'll go long and strong to the end.
MATTINGLY: That -- that's the absolute truth.
But it's not just Pennsylvania. So President Trump has to win Pennsylvania. Let's go ahead and put Pennsylvania in President Trump's column. Now, say, President Trump goes ahead and goes out west and wins Arizona, right? Now, Joe Biden is leading in Arizona. That's closed over the course of the last 24 hours. We're still waiting for those returns to come in. Should see a little bit more later tonight or this morning.
[00:05:05]
But say Donald Trump overtakes Joe Biden. That gets him to 262.
Now, take a look at Nevada. Right now, Vice President Biden with a lead in Nevada, added a little bit more over the course of the day, as Clark County came in. More will be coming in, in a couple of hours. What if President Trump wins the state of Nevada? That gets him to 268.
What's left outstanding? Maine 3, it is a single electoral vote. Basically, it's Georgia. If Joe Biden wins Georgia, or Pennsylvania, there is no path to 270 electoral votes for President Trump, period, end of story.
So when we focus on these throughout the course of this night, that is why. President Trump cannot afford to lose Pennsylvania or Georgia. If he loses one, there's no path to 270.
CUOMO: There's another reason that we're focusing on them. You don't need one. They're dispositive in the race. Phil laid that out perfectly.
However, we're also expecting change of play in both of those states on our watch. So it's not that Nevada and Arizona don't matter. It's that we have not been alerted to any significant dumps of ballots there. If there's a change, of course, we'll be on it.
So now, we look internally. Thank you, you're right, we do have to remember this. So, what do we know?
Already, Joe Biden has received more votes than anybody else ever for president of the United States. Why? Because this is a national change moment that is going on. On both sides. We have not seen passions like this, a sense of purpose like this, money like this, organization like this, structure like this. So you've got the most out of it.
The biggest reason has to be you, your friends, your family, the people in your communities. You came out in a way that certainly defied my expectations and many of the experts. You blew away turnout models. Amazing. Huge rejection for Donald Trump. Nobody has ever gotten the spanking that he is getting in the general right now.
So, let's now get interior into the race. Pennsylvania and Georgia. Let's do the story of each, to how we got here. Start which whichever you like.
MATTINGLY: We'll start with Pennsylvania, just because it's been so dramatic over the course of the last 24 hours.
Pull this up. Go into here, get Pennsylvania. What this tool is, I'm just pulling out right now, our team put this together, and it's brilliant. We've been using it for the last couple of days.
Take a look at the clock right here. Wednesday at midnight, this is where things stood. Look at the lead, President Trump 15 percentage- point lead, 548,000 vote lead.
CUOMO: And why?
MATTINGLY: Why? Well, we've been talking about this, as well And you need to keep this in mind as we go through this.
On election night, you saw certain states counted in-person election day vote first. That trended heavily towards Republicans. Why? Well, President Trump, one, his turnout operation was outstanding. You talked about who's gotten the most votes for president in the history of United States? Right now, it's Joe Biden. Who's gotten the second most?
CUOMO: Donald Trump.
MATTINGLY: It's Donald Trump, this year round. Still, Joe Biden with a 4 million vote lead.
But mail-in ballots went heavily, heavily, towards Democrats, particularly in these Midwest [SIC] states. These Midwest states from Pennsylvania -- but not a Midwest state, the commonwealth. I'll let you guys know. But Michigan, Wisconsin, they have similar rules in the sense that they count in-person first, and they count mail-in later.
Therefore, President Trump ran up huge leads early in the night. He did it in all of the states, in all of the Midwest states and Pennsylvania. And you saw, over the course of the next couple of days, Joe Biden starts reeling it in, reeling it in. Starts to catch up. Starts to catch up.
CUOMO: It's what people, some explained early on as a red or blue mirage. Where, because of the waves of votes that is a little uncharacteristic. We've always had absentee, mail-in ballots, but not at this volume level. So the red mirage, if you want to call it that. I just like to look at it as waves and types of vote. But, you know, he had the first run in this game. And now, it's about Joe Biden's run.
MATTINGLY: Right. And what's important to point out about that, this was not a surprise. We knew this was coming. We talked about this beforehand. And it's because of how each state's rules lay out how they count -- how they count ballots.
So Pennsylvania, Wednesday, midnight, 548,000 vote lead for President Trump. Now let's start moving along.
All of the sudden, Wednesday, 10 a.m., 589,000 votes. Wednesday, 3 p.m., you start to see Joe Biden catch up as the mail-in vote starts to be counted: 435,000 votes. Wednesday, 11 p.m., 182,000 votes.
Thursday, 9:05 a.m. 146,000 votes. Thursday, 3 p.m., 108,000 votes. Keep moving along, Thursday, 6:30 p.m., now you're under 100,000: 73,609-vote lead for President Trump. Thursday, 8 p.m., 63,725 votes.
Where is it right now? Tight: 22,576 votes. That is a current lead. That is the state of play.
Here is the reality on the ground right now as votes are continuing to be counted. And we are seeing this -- these votes come out, and they're reported pretty regularly.
Why has Joe Biden cut into a 500,000-plus vote lead and brought it to this level? And is it going to continue? The answer to the latter is yes, right now, it looks like it's going to continue.
Why? Where the vote is outstanding. Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, it's really just the city of Philadelphia, 91 percent reporting. There's 9 percent outstanding. We know these are tens of thousands of ballots that are being counted right now and will be reported.
[00:10:11]
Look at the margin here: 80.4 percent to 18.7 percent. The expectation, based on what we've seen over the course of the night, is the outstanding ballots will actually come in at a higher margin for Joe Biden. We've seen this as they've come out in batches over the course of the night in Philadelphia.
But it's not just Philadelphia. It's not just Philadelphia. Move over into Delaware County. Again, Joe Biden, strong performance in Delaware County. This is a collar county, as you push out into the suburbs of Philadelphia. This is where Democrats have really kind of locked into a stronghold the last several years. Ninety-one percent reporting, still vote outstanding here.
This vote will come in heavy for Joe Biden, as well. You can move up and down the collar counties. Where you see blue, there is more vote to come in. Still about 29,000 votes out in Allegheny County, as well. That is likely to go heavy Biden.
Now, here's the reality. We don't know how the vote is exactly going to come in. We don't know. Perhaps, a batch will contain more Republican vote than we've seen over the last couple of batches. Shoot.
CUOMO: I can help with that.
MATTINGLY: Do it.
CUOMO: We have a guest right now who can help us understand the flow, specifically where you're talking about right now, Allegheny County. OK. We have Bethany Hallam, county cinewoman (ph) -- councilwoman, sorry, in Allegheny County, where there is a pause on counting ballots until 5 p.m.
Thank you very much for joining us.
BETHANY HALLAM, COUNCILWOMAN IN ALLEGHENY COUNTY: I'm glad to be here. Thanks for having me.
CUOMO: So let's start at the beginning. Why is the counting on hold right now?
HALLAM: So a little over a month ago, there were -- there was a third- party mailing company that we used to send out our mail-in ballots in this election cycle. And they sent out 29,000 incorrect ballots to voters.
So, because of that, we agreed to wait until 5 p.m. on Friday, which is the deadline for the receipt of mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania, to make sure that we had received all of the corrected ballots for those incorrect ballots, to make sure that only one vote was counted for each person.
On top of that, tomorrow -- tomorrow morning is the day for the return board process. That's where the additional votes, around 6 to 7000 votes on top of that 29,000, will start to be processed. Those are the ones that weren't able to be scanned, there were a variety of issues with, to make sure that every single eligible vote is counted in this election.
CUOMO: OK. So I am assuming, by your answer, that this didn't catch you by surprise. You had been planning for this stoppage all along. Is that a yes?
HALLAM: Yes. I mean, we knew, all along that all eyes were going to be on Pennsylvania. We were very fortunate that, by Wednesday night, we had all of the non-issue mail-in ballot counted, and all of the in- person boats counted by the time we all went to bed on Wednesday night. CUOMO: OK.
HALLAM: Today was used for administrative work, and tomorrow, the process will begin again.
CUOMO: All right. I just -- you know, to kind of disrupt the idea that you must have had a big problem. You stopped in the middle of everything. This is irregularity, this is intrigue. I want to dispel that if it's not factual.
Second, can you help us with --
HALLAM: Correct.
CUOMO: Can you help us with numbers? How many votes about, do you believe, are still yet to be counted? And what have you seen in terms of the most recent sense of percentage breakdown between Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump?
HALLAM: So we have a little over 35,000 mail-in votes that are yet to be counted, and that's including those 29,000 fixed ballots on top of the ballots that had any issues that were unable to be scanned.
In addition to that, we have somewhere in the area of 10 to 15,000 provisional ballots. Won't know a final number on that until tomorrow. But those will begin to be counted after all of the mail-in ballots are resolved.
So we're pushing somewhere close to 50,000 votes in Allegheny County, still outstanding.
CUOMO: OK. So let's just deal with those 35 or so. We'll leave the provisionals to the side. Every state has them. That is more protracted process.
What have you seen in terms of breakdown of how Biden and Trump are doing by percentage?
HALLAM: Biden is pulling in around 78 percent of mail-in votes.
CUOMO: Does that square with what you were figuring? I'm here with Phil Mattingly, by the way, Councilwoman. He, obviously, is running the Magic Wall. Is that a percentage?
MATTINGLY: So how we've been kind of breaking this down is you want to see, based on what's -- I'll pull out of Allegheny County real quick, just to give a sense of things.
If Joe Biden, right now is trailing by about 22,000 votes, and given the vote kind of pool that we believe is outstanding right now, what is the margin he needs to hit to surpass Donald Trump when it all -- President Trump when it all comes in?
And right now, we've been looking somewhere between 60 and 62 percent, maybe a little bit north of that.
And so Councilwoman, just can you repeat again? You said 76 percent?
HALLAM: Seventy-eight percent.
MATTINGLY: Seventy-eight percent.
HALLAM: That's on average.
CUOMO: Is there -- is there anything else that you want the audience to know, Councilwoman? Anything that is material information, or about the status of what's happening in Pennsylvania?
HALLAM: Jus that it's so important that folks are patient. We knew we weren't going to have results on election night. We knew that in- person votes, which were going to be reported first, were going to heavily favor the Republican candidates. And we knew that the mail-in votes that were going to come in in the days after were going to heavily favor the Democratic candidates.
[00:15:06]
This is all something that we were preparing for, all what we were trying to make sure everybody was patient with all the results, because it's important that no races are called until every single eligible vote is counted.
There are down-ballot races that are often decided by a couple dozen, or even 100 votes. And so it's not just the presidency, but all of those down-ballot races instead that we're all following very closely at this point.
CUOMO: Absolutely. Any suggestion as to when you will be reporting the count?
HALLAM: The final count? I think your guess is as good as mine. We're just asking everybody to be patient, because at the end of the day, it is so much more -- more important that we have accurate, secure election results that are beyond reproach than that we have quick election results.
CUOMO: Agreed.
HALLAM: So let's be patient and see how the votes tally.
CUOMO: Agreed 100 percent. Are you talking about the overall state or your county? Do you think your county is still an unknown at this point, or do you think there's a deliverable date of tomorrow, the next day?
HALLAM: I would love to be able to give you that date. But your guess is as good as mine. Again, it depends how the return board process goes. It depends if we're coming down to provisional ballots that would be counted at a later date.
There's so much in the air at this point. So we're just diligently working to make sure every single eligible vote's counted. CUOMO: Thank you for the time, especially during this kind of crunch
time. So I appreciate it. Good luck to you. I wish you much accuracy. Thank you very much, Councilwoman.
HALLAM: Thank you.
CUOMO: OK. Interesting. Let's bring in Harry here. Harry Enten, analyst par excellence.
What you were told -- first of all, they don't know when they're going to deliver it. That's OK. All right? It's going to not help with the anxiety level in the country, but that's all right. The anxiety won't be helped by inaccuracy, either.
What did you make of those findings?
HARRY ENTEN, CNN POLITICS WRITER AND ANALYST: I mean, look, there's a lot of different counts that are in there, right? But if you just use that 35,000, right, and you were essentially going to have a little bit more than a 50 point margin if Biden is winning 78 percent of them.
You get, probably, Trump's margins statewide to be cut down by a little less than 20,000 votes. And obviously, he leads by a little bit more than that so far in the state. But it would significantly cut down his margin.
Again, lots of different counts in there, but using that 35K number, you get pretty much down to a very, very close race.
CUOMO: Your take?
MATTINGLY: Yes, so I'm just kind of doing the math in my head based on what Harry was saying. He said 35, 36. So if you take -- if Joe Biden were to sit at that 75, 76 percent level, at 36,000, that would essentially net out to about 28,000 votes for Joe Biden. If he were to win 75, 76 percent of where that stands right now. And I think the point, when you do the math, sorry for my bad handwriting. It's a little weird on the wall.
CUOMO: You didn't go to Catholic school, I take it?
MATTINGLY: No, I did, but I used my pencils and pens, not a finger and a Magic Wall.
CUOMO: Unacceptable. Continue.
MATTINGLY: But the point being here, is we're talking about Allegheny, which is not the biggest batch of votes that's still outstanding.
CUOMO: Right.
MATTINGLY: That's not Philly. It's not southeast Pennsylvania down here generally. And if Allegheny County, home of Pittsburgh, comes in with 36,000 votes, comes in at 75 percent, what the councilwoman was saying has been the margin up to this point, that nets 28,000 -- roughly 28,000 votes. That alone, that alone makes up the margin right now that President Trump currently holds.
And so I think what this --
CUOMO: Go ahead, Harry.
ENTEN: I was just going to say don't forget to add in Trump's percentage of the vote, as well. Right?
MATTINGLY: Right, right, right.
ENTEN: So that essentially, it would get -- if it were just 28,000 for Biden, that would close the deficit, but remember --
MATTINGLY: It would actually put it -- it would almost put it even.
ENTEN: That's right. It would basically close it. Maybe Biden would be down by a few thousand.
CUOMO: Right. Because you have the other 7,000 that makes up the 35,000 or 36. And that would set it off.
But the point is it's very close, and Allegheny isn't the big dump we're waiting for.
All right. So let's do this. Very helpful and appreciate it. Let's take a break and come back and do the same thing with Georgia. How did we get here? What are we waiting on? The counting has stopped there, but that doesn't mean that we're not going to get more information.
Stay with CNN.
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[06:22:29]
CUOMO: A key race alert. The margin in Georgia's, razor-thin. So let's take a look.
Here it is: 16 electoral votes, very important. The president must win Georgia. The spacing there between the two candidate stands at 1,805 votes. It has been going down in big chunks throughout the day. We will take you through it in a few moments.
You see, the tale of the tape is right there. It's a dead heat: 49.4 percent each. One percent of the vote outstanding, but that is deceptive. When you look at some of the big population centers that tend to break blue, there is more than enough vote to change this state, and for good. Will it happen? We will see.
Right now, over to you, Don Lemon, on the Senate side.
LEMON: We've got to talk about Georgia. As we've been saying, razor, razor-thin. These are really close. Thank you, Chris.
The Democrats, their hope for taking the Senate really, really slim. But there is a narrow pathway, and it runs right through Georgia, of course.
Let's get to Boris Sanchez. Boris, good evening, or good morning to you, and give us the numbers. What do they tell us?
BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Don.
Let's go and take a look at the balance of power to really illustrate the needle that Democrats have to thread to take control of the U.S. Senate.
As you look at the balance of power, effectively, a stalemate: 47 seats for Democrats, one pick-up in Colorado. Forty-seven seats for Republicans, one pick-up in Alabama. Six races to be decided.
Overall, a disappointing election for Democrats, in terms of Senate races. They didn't really win in as many races as they felt they could compete in.
One they are doing well in, that may go their direction, Arizona. Let's go and take a look. The former astronaut, Mark Kelly, with a comfortable lead over Martha McSally, the Republican incumbent. He's got about 103,000-vote advantage, with 89 percent of the vote in.
She has yet to concede. CNN is inching closer and closer to calling this race. But we're not there just yet. Still, a lot of votes to be counted, as you know, Don, in Arizona.
This is where Georgia comes in. If Democrats are able to pick up that seat -- let's go ahead and take a look. David Perdue right now, 101,000 votes ahead of John Ossoff. He has about a 2.1 percent advantage.
But here's the deal with Georgia. Unless you get a majority of votes, it goes to a runoff. And he is 0.1 percent shy of that majority. So, this race could, potentially, lead to a runoff if the 10,000 or so votes that are still outstanding in Georgia hold this position.
I know you're going to talk to the former journalist, John Ossoff, in just a moment. An important conversation to have with him, not just about this race, but the other special Senate election happening in Georgia, as well.
There, the Rev. Raphael Warnock, he's about 329,000 votes ahead of incumbent Kelly Loeffler. But again, nobody's close to 50 percent. This one definitely will get to a run-off on January 5.
So let's put all of this into context. Right now, with Arizona, there is one Democrat leading in a race held by an incumbent Republican. The magic number for Democrats to take control of the U.S. Senate, at this point, is four.
Again, the needle that Democrats have to thread. If Joe Biden is elected president, that means that Kamala Harris, as vice president, would then hold the tie-breaking vote in the Senate. So that number, four, would go down to 3. You have Arizona, and these two special elections in Georgia that could very much change the dynamic and allow Democrats to hold control of the U.S. Senate -- Don.
LEMON: And Boris, of course, because 2020, this is where we are. Everything is hanging in the balance.
All right. Boris, we'll get back to you. Thank you so much, sir. Appreciate it.
As you mentioned, let's bring in John Ossoff. He joins me now.
John, hello to you. Every time I speak to you, there is some twist, some turn. I don't know how you really have the stomach for this, you guys who run for office, but listen, more power to you, brother.
Before we get -- Good morning, excuse me. But before we get to this race, your race, give me a reaction to the presidential race in Georgia. What do you think?
JON OSSOFF (D), GEORGIA SENATORIAL CANDIDATE: Well, last I checked, it's within a couple of thousand votes. I think that the outstanding ballots yet to be reported have a real prospect of pushing Vice President Biden over the edge.
Regardless, it's clear that Georgia is the most competitive state in the country. These kinds of margins. And now, will host two U.S. Senate runoffs. Remember, it's not just me. It's also Reverend Warnock in the other Senate race. And that will determine the balance of power in the U.S. Senate.
So, Georgia is the top battleground state in the country. And what we've seen here, in Georgia, is just an absolutely unprecedented turnout from voters of all races, and backgrounds, and age groups, who are fed up with the mismanagement of this pandemic, who are fed up with politicians trying to take their health care away, and are standing up and demanding change.
LEMON: Yes. So listen, as we have those numbers up for the presidential race here, it is 49.4. You're at 49.9. I hate to keep saying this is at a razor's edge, but it really is a razor's edge at this point.
If the numbers hold, John, you are heading to a runoff. How are you feeling? How do you plan on getting it done this time if this does happen?
OSSOFF: Well, I feel a little bit low on sleep but full of hope and optimism for what's possible in Georgia this year.
I mean, really, one of the most inspiring things I've ever seen. The determination and tenacity with which Georgians withstood long lines to get out and cast their ballots and demand better.
And, you know, what I humbly offer to people of this state is leadership in a pandemic, informed by medical science and epidemiological expertise. Representation guided by the needs of working families and small businesses, and not just corporate lobbyists in Washington. We're building a multi-generational, multi-racial coalition in this
state, building on the work that Stacey Abrams and others have done over the last ten years to register and organize the voters.
And I believe that history, right now, is unfolding in Georgia with two Senate races, two Senate runoffs in a single state, and as you have pulled up on the screen, the presidential hanging in the balance here, as well.
LEMON: Do you think that not having -- if it indeed goes that way -- not having an incumbent president on the ticket, do you think that that would be helpful in a runoff situation, on a runoff ballot?
OSSOFF: Well, I think that what Georgia voters have demonstrated, in, again, unprecedented numbers, is that the failure of our present leadership to deliver timely economic relief to working families and small businesses; to deliver a response to this pandemic that's rooted in science and which is honest with the American people about threats to our health, is totally unacceptable.
And my opponent, Senator David Perdue, opposed a single first round of $1,200 stimulus checks to workers here in Georgia. He led the fight to cut unemployment insurance when millions of Georgians had filed jobless claims in this pandemic. He told us COVID-19 was no deadlier than the ordinary flu, all the while buying he's medical and vaccine stocks.
[00:30:03]
LEMON: John, let me jump in here --
OSSOFF: So he is on the ballot.
LEMON: -- before we run out of time.
OSSOFF: It's his -- it's his representation that will be repudiated.
LEMON: I get what you're saying, but if you put up his numbers, I mean, he's at 49.9, which means he's ahead of you. You're at 47.8. My point is, is that many times, probably most of the time, when people go in and if they're Republican or Democrat, they vote the top of the ticket, and they do it all the way across.
So my question is, do you think it will be helpful to you in a runoff if the incumbent is not on the ticket? Because then people may not feel obligated to vote party? Maybe they'll vote more for principle or for more of what you stand for, rather than just voting for party.
OSSOFF: I don't think Georgia voters ever just vote the party line. I think Georgia voters will judge us as individuals. And Senator Purdue's totally failed leadership and his corrupt representation is why it appears a majority of Georgia voters have rejected his request for a second term. And we'll turn those voters out again and even greater numbers on January 5 to end his political career and send some ethical and decent representation with integrity to Washington. LEMON: All right. John Ossoff joining us from Georgia. John, listen, I
know it's a tough time for everyone, but you're actually in this fight. So stay strong. We appreciate you joining us.
OSSOFF: I appreciate it, Don. Thank you.
LEMON: All right. Much more of our coverage straight ahead. We are counting. We are watching, especially in Georgia. We're watching Georgia. We're watching Arizona. We're watching Pennsylvania. We may get some numbers in just a short while here. And we'll have them for you.
There you go: 253 electoral votes for the former vice president, current president, 213, at this moment. We're keeping our eye on a lot of places in this country. Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back.
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[00:36:09]
CUOMO: We expected changes on our watch, and they are occurring. Votes changing in real time. So time for a key race alert.
Pennsylvania, 20 electoral votes, 49.5 to 49.2. This is a story about a dwindling lead, now down to 22,576 votes, Trump over Biden. Five percent of the vote still out. That is a low estimate, and there are more than enough votes to make a difference in this race.
Georgia, 16 electoral votes, a dead heat there. So recount could be likely, depending on the outcome of the election.
Eighteen hundred votes separate the two men. And as we were discussing earlier in the show with a local official, there are a lot of votes yet to come.
Now, Arizona, 11 electoral votes, OK? Forty-seven thousand vote spread for Joe Biden. He is now in the Trump position, which is he's in the lead, but it has been dropping steadily. Still a lot of votes to come in Arizona. Ten percent of the vote is still outstanding.
And the president just picked up some votes. We're going to go to the Magic Wall. I'm sorry, the vice president, former Vice President Joe Biden, just picked up a few votes. We're going to take you to the Magic Wall and show you what just happened in the state of play.
But first, Nevada, six electoral votes, 89 percent of the vote, so a lot of votes coming in there. Not expected to get any new information. Joe Biden actually got a few more votes to pad a very slim lead.
The electoral map, 253 to 213. Obviously, the states that are not colored in are everything, especially Nevada, Arizona, and really, Georgia, and of course, Pennsylvania.
So let's go to Phil Mattingly over at the Magic Wall and talk to him about Arizona. OK? So Biden got a couple of votes here. Something just changed. Let's take a look. MATTINGLY: I think big picture first, and you made a key point here.
As we've been watching in Pennsylvania and Georgia, as the vice president has just slowly caught up to President Trump in both of those states over the course of the last 24 hours. The inverse has been occurring down in Arizona.
And I think the reason why is it's more of how the vote comes in, what the vote is, what the composition of that vote is.
And Arizona is a little bit different, because mail-in ballots in Arizona, depending on when they were sent in, when they were dropped off, have a different composition than what we've been seeing up in Pennsylvania and the Midwest, which has been leaning so heavily Democratic. That hasn't necessarily been the case, depending on when they came in here in Arizona.
So what I want to take you through right now is Joe Biden now up by 47,000 votes. That has dropped pretty substantially over the course of the last 24 hours.
What our eyes are mostly on remains Pima County. Sixty percent of the voting population -- sorry, Maricopa County. Sixty percent of the voting population here. This is kind of the be-all, end-all that we've been paying attention to. We know there's a couple hundred thousand votes that are still outstanding in Pima County, perhaps even a little bit more than that.
And over the course of the last 24 hours, President Trump, in every batch of votes that has dropped, has gained a couple thousand, in some cases a couple more than that, on Vice President Biden in Pima County.
Now, why is this important? Let's flash back to 2016. Donald Trump won Pima County, won Pima County. Largest county in the state. This is the central portion of the state. You win this county, you're in pretty good shape for the state. Doesn't guarantee it. You're in pretty good shape.
CUOMO: Maricopa County.
MATTINGLY: Maricopa County, yes. Why do I keep saying Pima?
CUOMO: I don't know.
MATTINGLY: We'll get to Pima.
CUOMO: We have to now.
MATTINGLY: But the point being here is we're expecting a lot more vote to come in here.
CUOMO: Right.
MATTINGLY: And how this vote comes through is going to be very interesting.
The expectation from the Biden campaign is that President Trump was going to have decent margins in the first couple of batches that came through. They have already come through, and from there on out, it would be fairly even. And Joe Biden would be able to hang onto this lead. That, so far, we haven't seen.
So we're going to have to wait and see about the composition of what comes through in Maricopa County.
The other county to keep an eye on -- and this could be potentially problematic, but again, it's about the composition of what we're seeing come in.
Pima is more of a Democratic stronghold, home of Tucson, university students here. This traditionally goes Democratic. Back in 2016, went Democratic for Hillary Clinton. She won it by about 14 points.
[00:40:08]
Joe Biden with a comfortable margin here, but we've seen a couple drops from Pima, where President Trump has picked up vote. Has picked up vote. And again, it's not unlike what we've seen in other states where, say, in Pennsylvania, in a red county that President Trump is winning very handily, if a certain kind of vote comes in and if vote by mail comes in, even in that county, and that vote by mail is leaning heavily Democratic, just because it's a Republican county doesn't mean that Joe Biden can't pick up votes there.
Same with Pima. Just because it looks like it's a Democratic county and Joe Biden will win this county, doesn't mean that there aren't Republicans there voting. And over the course of the last couple of batches between Pima and between Maricopa, Donald Trump has picked up tens of thousands of votes.
The big question remains for the state of Arizona, which is the big reason why this state hasn't been called by CNN. Is what's coming in? What's the composition of what's coming in? And when is it coming in?
Right now, there is a pathway for President Trump, depending on the composition of what's coming in. The Biden campaign says they think they'll be fine. We'll have to wait and see.
CUOMO: Now, what just happened here?
MATTINGLY: What we saw was I believe we had a drop in Pima. Sorry, say it again? Oh, Flagstaff came in. So Flagstaff a bit more of a Democratic county. Not as big a county as Pima or as Maricopa, but Democratic county. Joe Biden, 61 percent, Donald Trump 36 percent. You've got about five percent outstanding here.
I think one of the things we want to keep an eye on, we talk a lot about Maricopa for good reason. It's where the most outstanding vote is. It's the largest population center. But if you tick around, there's still some vote outstanding.
CUOMO: Right.
MATTINGLY: Mohave County, obviously a much smaller county, but there's vote outstanding in various parts of this state right now.
CUOMO: What did the vote in Flagstaff do to the overall?
MATTINGLY: Vote in Flagstaff, I believe it took it up for Joe. No, it took it down for Joe Biden by about 1,000 votes.
CUOMO: OK, so -- so it remains consistent, that the last few dumps in Arizona have helped President Trump.
MATTINGLY: Even beyond just Maricopa, even in Democratic strongholds, which again, underscores the point that the composition of what's coming in is far more important right now then which county it's coming in.
And we talked about this a lot, I guess, early this morning. I think this is important to know. The campaigns know what's out there. They have a sense of the universe. They know where the vote is. They're matching them up with the registration in their voter files. They have a sense of what's out there.
The Trump campaign has maintained they have a pathway. The Biden campaign has maintained they believe they will be OK in the state of Arizona. We're just going to have to watch this play out as the results come in.
CUOMO: It was actually yesterday that we were talking about it, because today is really tomorrow. You know? That's how it works in our reality right now.
MATTINGLY: That's right.
CUOMO: I'll figure it out to you in the break.
The -- in Nevada, one of the frequently-asked questions is how come we haven't heard more about this state? Their secretary of state promised -- he was one of the only state officials that come out and said, this is when you'll learn more, but then it didn't really happen. What's the state of play there?
MATTINGLY: So Clark County did report. They reported this morning, and it actually gave Joe Biden good news.
CUOMO: Right. But it wasn't its full --
MATTINGLY: It wasn't its full batch. And I think -- look, you can take it up with the secretary of state in terms of how they're reporting.
CUOMO: Get him on the horn.
MATTINGLY: Different states work differently. Like, we've seen this in Georgia where last night, Fulton County decided they were going to go all the way through, and they were going to keep going. We've been talking about it. A couple of counties in Georgia right now that are still counting. They're going all the way through.
The secretary of state in Georgia says they're not going to report officially again until tomorrow morning, but various counties are going to still be working.
In Nevada, they have made clear they are going to report on a schedule. Maricopa has been reporting on a schedule. So it just depends. It depends on counties; it depends on the states.
CUOMO: Who wins this state is a coefficient of what? So Clark County is going to decide this.
MATTINGLY: So let's take a look at Clark County, obviously, home of Las Vegas, biggest county in the state. Seventy-two percent of the voters are here.
This, as we've talked about repeatedly, Democratic stronghold, and this is where Democrats try and set up a fire wall. They know if you pull out the rest of the state, look at all this red. All this red in Washoe, which is a little bit of a swing county here. Kind of goes back and forth.
They know when the rural counties come in, they're going to come in heavily Republican. So Democrats try and build a cushion here, enough of a cushion to withstand any rush from up here. They want that cushion, generally, to be about 10 percent.
CUOMO: Right.
MATTINGLY: Right now it's not there. However, this was down to about -- the top line was down to about 7,000 yesterday when we were looking through this. The new batch of votes got Joe Biden up to about 11,000.
Keep an eye on Clark. That's where the vast majority of the outstanding vote is. It's vote by mail. We'll see how it comes in. Again, Biden campaign feels like they're going to be OK here. We'll see.
CUOMO: All right. Thank you very much my friend.
All right. Let's go to the panel. We have Nia-Malika Henderson, Harry Enten, and Mark Preston.
So let's start with the easy part. Nia, starting with you, do you believe that what we're seeing up here is highly suggestive that Joe Biden is going to find his way to 270 first?
NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I mean, I think that has been where this thing is headed. If we look at what's happening in Georgia, his ability to shrink this vote, to what is it now? It's like 1,000 votes or so? And more to come in --
CUOMO: Georgia you're talking about.
HENDERSON: Yes, Georgia.
CUOMO: By the way, while you've been answering the question, Joe Biden just picked up 96 votes in Georgia. That's how small the increments are getting of each batch, but every little bit matters.
HENDERSON: Exactly.
CUOMO: Ninety-six more votes. So that is now under 1,000 votes.
HENDERSON: Yes, and this would -- this is the dream that Democrats have had for decades now, turning a state like Georgia blue.
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In 2018, it had something like 30 percent African-American electorate, and we know that those are the votes that are coming in, those mail-in ballots in cities like Atlanta and those collar counties, as well, which are very diverse.
So it does look like Biden is doing what he was hired to do, which is keep part of the Obama coalition with African-Americans, younger voters, Latinos, even though there's some fraying there. And then expand a bit more to white voters in some rural counties. You see him doing a little better in states like Pennsylvania. And then get those suburban voters, as well.
So I think we're probably looking at a scenario where he's the next president.
CUOMO: This has become a profound study in contrasts, this election. Because just as you're about to say, Joe Biden, look at the coalition he put together. Seventy-three million votes. We've never seen anything like it. It's the most votes ever for a president in an American election.
Yes. Second place is Donald Trump in this election right now, who really blossomed his own coalition, 69 million plus votes at this count. Obviously going to go up. How do you explain it?
ENTEN: I mean, Donald Trump is a very polarizing figure. You either love him or you hate him. And that drove the turnout in this particular election. It just so happens that there are a few million more people who really don't like Donald Trump then do really like him.
But you know, you asked the question to Nia whether -- what direction is this heading? And I think it's fairly clear, to be perfectly honest with you. Obviously, we need to count all the votes. But Joe Biden has gained in every single batch that's come in from Pennsylvania. We know it's the mail vote that's out. We know he's doing extraordinarily well in that mail vote, even in the red counties.
And there's still a lot of mail vote to go in Philadelphia and a lot in Delaware County right now right -- right to the west of it. And so to me, it's just a matter of counting the votes, and I think it's just pretty clear where this is going.
CUOMO: What was the net effect of the president's slander of our democracy today? Do you think it slowed states down? Do you think it had his friend in Georgia have to slow the count down there? Does this set up that it's not over, even once we get a dispositive, you know, presumptive vote of 270 votes for his opponent? MARK PRESTON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: I think it had -- I think
it had two effects. One effect was I think that the courts saw what he did, and the judges are seeing what he did and the recklessness. And the courts -- he's losing right now in -- in these -- these cases that he has across the country. They've won some concessions, where they can get a little bit closer, but it's really -- they're losing.
CUOMO: You're talking about with observers and monitors.
PRESTON: A hundred percent.
CUOMO: And they were litigating. It's not hard to -- I don't know why they had to get a court.
By the way, if they had handled it differently, the inside is that they would have gotten settlements where they could have had more monitors anyway.
PRESTON: But they wanted the courts.
CUOMO: They wanted the court to make it seem more nefarious.
PRESTON: Right.
CUOMO: That's the suggestion. It's so wrong we had to go to court.
People who don't know Donald Trump as a man before he was president, he sees litigation as a tactic. His percentage of winning lawsuits is very, very small. His percentage of getting sued is a lot higher than his own rate of successful lawsuits. You can look that up.
But the effect that he had today was, even though people expected it, now, he did it. And he set the table that he will not accept anything other than victory.
PRESTON: But this is problem. And this is something that I have -- I've grown accustomed to with Donald Trump.
I no longer become outraged by -- by what he does, because everything he does now has -- it can put you in a foul mood, and you can just become very angry.
What is upsetting is when you see others who know better, who are agreeing with him and just fanning the flames. We saw the likes of Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham, even Nikki Haley came out. This is all a 2024 play on their part. This isn't for what's best for the country. This is what's best for them. And I think that's --
CUOMO: Hold on a second. You think that Lindsey Graham and Nikki Haley saying anything supportive of that slander from the president today is going to help them once he's out?
HENDERSON: I think they think somebody is going to inherit Donald Trump's coalition of voters. I think they will be surprised to find that Donald Trump isn't going to cede that to anyone other than maybe someone else named Trump. So yes, I mean, I think there's all this vying for Donald Trump's
coalition, whether it's these folks like Nikki Haley, Pompeo, Tom Cotton. All these people have a vision for 2024. But I think they're going to find out that Donald Trump himself, at least, will flirt with the idea of running. And he wants to keep, you know, his arms around that coalition.
I will say to his -- his rhetoric today, immoral, incredibly anti- democratic and incredibly dangerous. He is inciting violence, possibly, among his followers, who look to him for what they should say and what they should do.
This idea that they should, you know, converge on these cities, which again, he's pointing to black cities. It's sort of racially inflammatory, too. Incredibly dangerous. And I hope law enforcement is looking at the possibility of violence in some of these cities, because that's certainly what he's queuing up.
[00:50:05]
CUOMO: Absolutely. All right. Because of what we're discussing right now, let's bring in Rick Hasen, CNN legal analyst.
In terms of what you've see, Counselor, with the types of lawsuits that are coming out and what the president even nakedly suggested -- ordinarily, you show me proof and then you bring an allegation, and then we test it.
Here you did the opposite. Now we have politicians looking around for a crime to fit, what you know, he said he wanted to see in this election.
But what we've seen so far and what we believe he could support his allegations with, where does that leave us?
RICK HASEN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, most of what he's asking for, as you said, is trying to get more observers. He's trying to make small changes to the process.
There are a couple of suits where there's allegations of fraud. There was one in Georgia where the judge threw it out and said, You've given me no proof.
There's now a new lawsuit in Nevada where the claim is that there were 3,000 people that illegally voted, but again, no proof.
And so everything seems to be kind of just an effort to throw it against the wall and see what sticks. There's no -- there's not a single suit I have seen that has even the potential to change the outcome of the election, which is what I think most people care about right now.
CUOMO: Well, it seems his goal is to somehow invalidate email ballot -- mail-in ballots unless they're for him, which is, of course, preposterous. But he keeps mentioning SCOTUS, the Supreme Court. What would it take? What kind of an issue would it have to be for them to grant certiorari, or an immediate review right now?
HASEN: Well, there's one case that's been up to the Supreme Court twice. It involves ballots that are arriving in Pennsylvania between November 3 and November 6. Pennsylvania's Supreme Court said they could be accepted. The U.S. Supreme Court hinted that maybe they shouldn't be. It sounds like it's not a very large number of ballots.
So even if he went to the Supreme Court and he won on that issue, it wouldn't likely be enough ballots to make a difference in Pennsylvania.
And if he's behind in the counts in Pennsylvania when all the ballots are counted, which is certainly possible the way things are going, he may want those ballots counted. Everything else that he's trying would have to go through the normal process, in starting in a federal or state court and work its way up. Very, very unlikely that something like that is going to happen. Because there are no -- he's presented no significant issues of fraud or anything else that would likely invalidate the election.
It's really hard to overturn the results of an election in court, for very good reason. We want the voters, not the courts, to be deciding who our leaders are.
CUOMO: You know, the CNN audience is unusually savvy when it comes to following litigation. It is not too much in the weeds for them to take another step or two down the road of what's happening in Pennsylvania. So it went out for review twice.
The basic issue, to set the table for you, Rick, is that the Republicans are saying the legislature in Pennsylvania didn't make up this rule for the three extra days. A court did. So it's not really fair. If it's not coming through the legislature, then this is judicial activism, and it makes it different than all the other states that have extended periods for different types of mail-in allocation.
So what could be the different variables that could change the state of play in Pennsylvania?
HASEN: Well, I don't think that one would change the state of play, because there's not enough ballots at stake. And there really is nothing else.
All of the other lawsuits were about, you know, small issues, about can you get more observers in. Which seem to be more about delaying the count, trying to delay an announcement that Biden has potentially won the state.
I really don't see anything that could potentially change the outcome in Pennsylvania, at least from what's been filed in court so far.
CUOMO: But what would be the Supreme Court finding? They invalidated Minnesota from having an extended period, Wisconsin from having an extended period. What would be the rationale in Pennsylvania?
HASEN: Well, when the cases were coming up out of federal court, those cases were where the Supreme Court was saying federal courts don't have the power to change state rules, even in the midst of a pandemic. It's really up to the states to decide how to balance the risks of -- to health and voting and all of that.
The one coming out of Pennsylvania and the one coming out of North Carolina, which came up right after Pennsylvania, got less attention, it's this idea that the state legislature gets to set the rules for conducting federal elections, and when the state Supreme Court or state agency steps in and makes changes to those rules, it's usurping the power of the legislature.
It's a theory that three justices in Bush v. Gore 20 years ago embraced.
CUOMO: Right.
HASEN: The whole Supreme Court has not embraced it. So it's -- it's not the kind of thing that's going to be easy, even at the Supreme Court, because all these people have already voted.
And if you say that the rule is like this now after the Supreme Court had two opportunities to overturn this, you really would be disenfranchising whichever voters relied on what the Supreme Court did earlier.
CUOMO: Rick, thank you very much. I appreciate it and stand by. If something comes up, I'll come right to you.
Harry, you were, like, waving your arms around.
ENTEN: I was just going to say, I completely agree with Rick. If you listen to the secretary of state there, some of the counties are receiving zero ballots that came in after election day in Pennsylvania. Even some of the large ones are only receiving about 500 per day, based upon the math that I'm looking at.
[00:55:13]
Now, obviously, there's still ballots to be counted, right? But Joe Biden is, in my opinion, is probably going to be up tens of thousands of votes by the end of all of this. There's just not going to be enough ballots --
CUOMO: Right.
ENTEN: -- for Donald Trump at the end of this coming in after election day to win balloting.
CUOMO: Right. The sad truth is this whole issue was unnecessary. If these legislatures had worked and thought about what they were doing, they would have equipped their states and their systems to count the votes early, and they would have never had to worry about this. They didn't prepare, and now we've got a problem.
However, we have good news, as well. Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, things are changing on our watch. Let's get after it. Stay with CNN. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
