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CNN Live Event/Special
Biden Nearing Victory?; Biden Closes to Victory, But Counts Continue in Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania; Biden Closes In On Presidency As Lead in Pennsylvania Grows to 17K. Aired 6-7p ET
Aired November 06, 2020 - 18:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[18:00:21]
WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: We're standing by for new vote totals that may decide the presidential race.
I'm Wolf Blitzer in the CNN Election Center.
The nation and the world are waiting to find out if former Vice President Joe Biden locks in a victory over President Trump tonight. It could come down to the vote count in Pennsylvania, where Biden's lead has been widening.
We expect to learn the results of thousands of ballots in the Pittsburgh area this hour. We are also expecting new results out of Georgia, where Biden's advantage grew a short while ago in a close race that may go to a recount.
We're watching Pennsylvania and Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada. All are too early to call. All important as this election winds down, Biden looking for a win or wins that would push him over the 270 electoral votes needed for victory. He is very close at 253, while Trump is behind with 213 and seeing his options fade away.
Now a key race alert.
Let's start in Pennsylvania with 20 electoral votes, Biden's lead now 14,541, 49.5 percent over Trump's 49.3 percent; 96 percent of the estimated vote is in, Pennsylvania critical right now. Georgia, with 16 electoral votes, Biden's lead has just increased to 4,185, 49.4 percent to 49.3 percent; 99 percent of the estimated vote is in. Could be a recount in Georgia.
In Arizona right now, 11 electoral votes, Biden's lead remains up there at 39,400. It is a bit lower than it was a while ago, 49.9 percent to 48.6 percent. In Nevada, 92 percent of the vote is in, six electoral votes. Biden maintains his lead of 20,137, 49.7 percent to 48.1 percent.
Let's go over to John King and discuss what's going on.
John, I also want to bring in David Chalian, our CNN political director.
He and his team, they're coming and they're trying to determine at what point CNN will be able to make a projection who is going to win this presidential contest.
And, David Chalian, tell us what you're learning and how your team is working. Take us behind the scenes.
DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Well, the first thing you should understand, Wolf, is that it's not us, you, me, John King in the studio talking about projections here. That's not how it works.
As you noted, there is a team of dedicated statistical analysts, data scientists on a different floor of this building who all they do is every single time vote comes in from one of these states, they plug it into their models and their formulas, and they're trying to ascertain a very high level of confidence that whoever is number two in the contest -- and, by the way, in all four of these states, that person is Donald Trump right now -- does not have a real possibility with all the vote that is remaining out there to overtake the number one person in these contests.
Right now, that's Joe Biden across these four states. So it is that calculating that is going on in a room with statisticians. And I'm just presenting what they do for you all here, so that everyone can understand sort of what's happening, because I think the question we're all getting is -- John and Wolf, you guys are talking all the time at the wall, and you're saying, what is this march Joe Biden is on.
And a lot of people are just sort of like, well, why can't it be projected? It is because of that. It is because of the math and getting to the highest level of confidence before any projection is made.
BLITZER: It's about, John King, as major a decision as a news organization can make when we project who will be the next president of the United States.
JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Right.
It is something of which you need to be. You don't just want to be. You need to be certain. And so you need to get -- to David's point, we have excellent people, the people
The people you don't see on television are working just as hard as the people you do see on television. We want to know just as much as you want to know. And we know you're frustrated. You see some people out there saying the TV networks are holding onto this. We're not holding onto this.
We love you. We want you to stay. We hope you come back after we call this. But that's not why we're doing this. We're doing this because it's critical. This is the presidency of the United States. The world is watching this decision.
And, again, we're getting, when you call into these states, and you tell the people in Pennsylvania, well, how many ballots are left and how many are provisional, and when will you have them done? We're getting sometimes conflicting information from them. And that's not because they're getting anything wrong. They're overwhelmed too.
We have an incredibly high-turnout election. They have things called provisional ballots. Those are ones they have to go double-check the work. Does the person have the right address? Were they supposed to vote at that polling place? They also requested a mail-in ballot and they showed up to vote in person. Did they actually mail that ballot in? Are they trying to vote twice? Normally, not the case.
[18:05:07]
People just -- you know, people are trying to vote this pandemic. And so it's an unprecedented election in the middle of a pandemic, three different ways to vote in most states, early, in person, Election Day, show up, vote by mail. So it is confusing.
And the end result is the most consequential thing we do. We pick a president.
CHALIAN: And, John...
KING: Go ahead, David.
CHALIAN: No, I was just going to say, what you're talking about, provisional ballots, I think is really important.
Normally, we don't pay a ton of attention to them. Right? But because what you're saying, it's the pandemic election, right, and, so, so many people are voting by mail. Millions and millions of Americans voted by mail. And they had never voted that way before.
And so one of the things that happened is that some folks didn't get their ballot in the mail in time. And so they went to go drop it off on Election Day, right, drop it off. That can then be treated as a provisional ballot at that point. So, what we're seeing is, even provisional ballots are not the same as they have been in past elections.
And so we have to learn sort of about each of the universes of outstanding votes, understand, what is the potential breakdown of those votes, where they're coming from geographically, the method of the voting, all of that, and that's all new this cycle that feeds into these calculations.
KING: Right.
And a provisional ballot could be a number of things. But in this case, most people, what we're told is -- let's imagine you live -- let's imagine you live out here, you live in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. You asked the state of Pennsylvania to mail you a ballot because you wanted to vote by mail because you were concerned about COVID.
For whatever reason -- maybe it came late. Actually, in this county, the county made some mistakes and sent people the wrong ballot. But, for whatever reason, you didn't drop it in the mail, and it was a week ago, and then you're hearing on the news, don't drop it in the mail, because it won't get. There are all these postal delays. So you make a choice. You could fill it out, go to a drop box, or you
can say, you know what, forget about it. I'm going to leave it at home, and I'm going to go show up on Election Day. Well, the records show that you have a mail-in ballot, that you asked for.
So, they might say, sir, we thought you were supposed to vote by mail. Here. Here's a provisional ballot. And then we're going to go check just to make sure that your ballot didn't come in, in the mail so that you're not trying to vote twice. Very few people try to vote twice. We're not suggesting there's any nefarious activity.
We're just suggesting that, in these counties, they have to be extra careful. So it takes a little bit longer to count, because, should I count this? Let me check first to make sure this person hasn't already voted. It takes time.
BLITZER: We're going to get thousands of votes, we're told, this hour in Pennsylvania.
So, given all this, what's the state of play in Pennsylvania right now?
KING: The state of play in Pennsylvania right now -- let me come out of Allegheny County and go statewide -- is that Joe Biden has a nearly 15,000-vote lead, 14,541. That lead has been growing steadily in small bunches of votes have come in.
And the math tells you Joe Biden is on a path. However, you see a 14,000-vote lead with 3.3 million for him and 3.3 million for him, 14,000. It's sizable in some states. It's not so sizable in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, which is so big.
And so we just want to wait and see a little bit more. The trajectory has been clear. There is zero evidence that that lead is going to shrink. However, ballots are out there. And the reason our team takes it so seriously, and we take it so seriously, is, if I come over here and do this, and tell you that is certain, not just a hypothetical -- we're just going through the scenario -- that makes Joe Biden the president-elect of the United States, that one state.
You could do it in another way, even if we don't have Pennsylvania just yet. And we decide we have -- oh, well, we're waiting on Pennsylvania, we're counting those ballots, but we're pretty sure about Arizona and Nevada. That would make Joe Biden the president- elect of the United States.
The stakes here are enormous. Now, again, all of our -- all of the math we do see and all of the data we see and all the calls into states tell us that there's a -- we have seen what has played out over the last 24, now 36 hours. Things have shifted in Biden's favor, although, to the president's -- in the president's defense, in the state of Arizona, for example, the lead has come down a little bit.
Joe Biden is still in the lead. But the president has made up a little bit of ground there. So you see a little bit of movement there, a little bit of movement there. We're going to be cautious, because the absolute imperative is to get it right.
BLITZER: So, David, what's still out there in Pennsylvania? Tell us what you're seeing, what you're hearing from our folks on the ground?
CHALIAN: Well, this is a perfect example of what we're talking about as they're trying to make projections.
There's not one consistent number either, right? So we have reporters all across the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. And we think maybe there's a universe of 180,000, 185,000 outstanding ballots, perhaps, in Pennsylvania.
But we're also checking in with campaigns, in addition to our reporters on the ground, with state officials, and not everybody has the exact same number, because it's not an exact science. And so these are estimates. That also adds to the taking the time to do the right calculations, because since it's not an exact science, if you don't know exactly how many ballots, you need to make some estimates.
And when you're dealing with estimates, and, like John just said, with the stakes so high, you want to make sure then, when those estimates lead up to a projection, that you are as near certain as you can possibly be that that is not a projection you would have to pull back.
[18:10:05]
That's where we're in right now. And so what we have learned about the outstanding ballots in Pennsylvania is that the vast majority of them are mail ballots. There is a potential universe of an additional 100,000 provisional ballots that I'm treating separately at the moment here.
Just talking about the universe that is some -- mostly mail ballots. We know a lot of them are from Democratic areas. And this is what we have been explaining for the last several days. As the mail ballots get counted, we see Joe Biden so overperforming what his current tally is statewide, because that's how Joe Biden's voters voted.
And a lot of what is out there is from Democratic areas. So, those two factors combined suggest this trajectory is going to continue and Joe Biden's going to add to his lead. As he does, Wolf, we will get to a confidence level of that near certainty that it can't be reversed.
BLITZER: Let us know when we get to that confidence level.
KING: Yes.
BLITZER: John, we're talking about Pennsylvania right now. And we're about to get this hour a whole bunch of votes from the Pittsburgh area.
Allegheny County, we're told they will release 7,000 ballots, approximately 3,200 damaged ballots, 3,800 overseas and military ballots. And then, in the southeast -- that's Pittsburgh -- in the Philadelphia area, we're going to get a whole bunch of results as well. KING: So, think about what you just said. Let's break that down into
groups. And this is where we're talking about Allegheny County.
We have been told now for a day-and-a-half or so there's the ballpark, 40,000 ballots to be counted out there. So what's one question we ask?
The Trump campaign -- look, both campaigns are actively trying to work the refs here too. Let's be honest about it, right? The Biden campaign says the math is going our way, you guys should feel more comfortable. The Trump campaign says, oh, no, we're going to mount a comeback.
We need to listen to them. That doesn't mean -- that doesn't mean everything they're telling us is true, but they're advocating for their candidate.
So, one thing you hear from the Trump people is, when these overseas military ballots come in, whether it's Pennsylvania or Georgia, we think they're going to go our way.
Now, we don't know that. Members of the military are as diverse as the electorate home here in the United States. Who knows how they will vote? But let's see. Let's get a sample size, right? So they're going to count some military ballots. Let's find out. Let's get it on the record. Let's look and see what happens.
You mentioned the damaged ballots. Again, people -- that is, you use your pen or your pencil, you didn't quite fill out the circle. Or when it was in the mail, it got wrinkled, and they can't put it into the scanner. There are any number of reasons. That doesn't mean there's something wrong with. It just happened.
Just think about the mail you get in your house over the course of a week. Some of it is a little roughed up. So we're going to get these ballots. This is about 10 percent of the statewide population in Pennsylvania.
You see Joe Biden winning nearly 60 percent of the vote here. As David just note -- and this is something that our data team takes a look at -- consistently, Joe Biden comes in above this number when we see just the mail-in ballots counted, because this number are all the ballots.
And if you pull out, you just see, again, the president United States, he's losing in Pennsylvania right now, but he's getting more votes than he did four years ago. This was a high-turnout election across the country, but including in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and you see all that red.
These aren't big population centers, most of them. A lot of them are small rural counties, but the president's very popular. So, as we watch the votes here, this is one of the places where he runs OK. Joe Biden's running better.
I want to go back in time just to see. Here is something else you factor in. It's about the same. His 39 percent, it's ballpark of where we were four years ago. So, you're looking for things that change the dynamic, right? Is this a consistent path? Is it consistent with last time?
So we watch these votes. We're going to get them. And if Joe Biden's percentage in those mail-in ballots is above that, if it's 70 percent or more, well, we know that this is the western part of the state. Those are Democrats. There's a very different kind of Democrat here.
And these are the suburbs and the city of Philadelphia. We have seen that happen here. If you get a pattern, you start to feel a little bit more comfortable.
One of the other factors here, Wolf, I just want to say, is, remember, the president carried this state four years ago, so it's close. It's not outside of the realm of possibility that he -- we know he has strong support in Pennsylvania. So, you want to be more careful.
It's much easier to make this decision when you're talking about a state like this. And even Ohio had us on our heels a little bit or had us in pause on election night, because Joe Biden opened a big lead.
But once the president started roaring back, once they started counting the Election Day, OK, he won the state by comfortably last time, he's roaring back, we know where these votes are coming from. It lines up. When it all lines up, then you can make a call even before you're done.
In this case, because they count the votes in a different way, and because it's closer, just -- caution is just smart. We're going to get to the end. It might take us a little longer than we thought. We know it's taking a little longer than many of you would like, but we're going to get there. We're going to get there.
BLITZER: We just got a whole bunch of votes coming in from Arizona. Let's go to Arizona right now.
KING: You bet.
BLITZER: I'm going to tell you what just came in, about 4,700, 4,800 votes or so, Yuma County in Arizona right now.
And look at this. Biden got....
KING: Let me move this up, so I can say -- so you can bring in the county out for you. My apologies for that. Sorry, my friend. Go.
BLITZER: All right, Biden got 2,361 votes. Trump got 2,337 votes, about 50/50 right in Yuma County.
[18:15:00]
KING: Right. So, again -- right.
So, again, here's Yuma County. Let me turn this off. I'm going to bring up just the county, right?
First, let's look at the statewide vote. So, you're looking at a Joe Biden lead of about 39,000, a little more than 39,000, If you go back to late Wednesday night into Thursday, it was twice that, right?
So you're seeing a trend toward the president, Joe Biden protecting that lead, but the president -- it's now the president has cut it in half in the last 24 -- I'd have to do the exact math -- but 24 to 30 hours. The president has cut that in half.
So now you're saying, OK, slow down, right? You have got a little back and forth going on in Arizona. Let's watch votes. That doesn't help much, right? It doesn't help much, except one reason -- it does help a little bit, if you think of it this way.
You think of it this way. This is a conservative county, Yuma County. Overall, Joe Biden's getting 46, the president getting 52. If you did that, well, you're pretty close to that, right? You're 50/50. So at least it's consistent, as you're not doing your modeling, about, can we make a projection?
So, in this county, 52/46, that's a pretty even split, you might -- Joe Biden is probably a little above 46. I'm not doing the percentages in my head, but it's about what you're getting there. So you're taking votes off the board too. That's also important. How many votes are out there?
The more you take off the board, the more comfortable you can be with a statistical analysis. But, again, when you know, when you come back to statewide, that the president -- Joe Biden is still ahead in Arizona. His team thinks he's going to win it. But the president has cut that lead in half from late Wednesday night, early Thursday morning.
So -- and now he's pulling -- I know, he's just -- they're pulling about even as these votes come in. You think, let's just wait. Let's get some more. And, as we do that, let me roll this off the screen for you here.
Yes, we do know those -- every vote counts. This is your biggest pocket of vote. Maricopa County will give you 60 percent. And, again, it's blue right now. But remember four years ago. This is -- again, if you're on the decision desk, and you're saying, should we call this, well, the president carried this county four years ago.
It's pretty evenly divided. It's trending toward the Democrats, without a doubt. That's why you go from red in 2016 to blue in 2020, but not by a ton, 51 to 48, if you round up there.
So you want to see, number one, votes in Phoenix. We show you the county here, Phoenix, and there's all these suburbs. As you move more west and you get out here, guess what? It's more conservative. It's more rural. Republicans come in. So we get these votes. And we figure out, where did they come from? What's the split?
Is Joe Biden overperforming or underperforming? And you take your time, because there's -- again, we know everybody wants to know. We want to know. But we want to be right. We will be right.
BLITZER: Yes, it's interesting. The secretary of state of Arizona, Katie Hobbs, told us that there are
still an estimated 250,000 to 270,000 uncounted outstanding ballots in Arizona.
KING: Right.
BLITZER: That's about 6 percent statewide. So they're at, what, 94 percent estimated reporting. So, 6 percent of the vote remains outstanding, which is a significant number in a tight race like this in Arizona.
KING: And we expect them, I'm told, a lot of those votes to come in about 9:00.
And so again, you get more votes, you look at them, are there trend lines. Does something emerge? Does it get you close enough to the finish line?
But you mentioned, that many votes with the lead that size, you would be in haste. If you tried to rush it now, you might get it right. You might get it right. You can run it through models. I'm not criticizing anyone who's done it another way. There are people who've decided. There are others who have decided they can call this.
But that lead has been cut in half in the last 30 hours. I think the safe watchword here, we're talking about the presidency of the United States. But even if it was a race for governor, even a statewide race, it's important. It's important to the people who live here.
And now it's important to the people who live in the entire country.
BLITZER: Hold on one second. This is Allegheny County. Let's listen in.
(JOINED IN PROGRESS)
DAVID VOYE, ALLEGHENY COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA, ELECTION DIVISION MANAGER: we are approximately two-thirds of the way done with the military. And we're starting to transition into counting the 29,000 ballots that people received the wrong ones.
The first section of that will be the people that returned both the incorrect ballot and the correct ballot. We have married the two together, and we're going to set aside the original ballot and count the orange one.
And part of that is people that only sent back the second corrected ballot. We're going to start opening and counting those. I can't estimate how long this process is going to take.
I mean, it's the same process we have been doing. You got to open the outer envelope, extract the secrecy envelope, then open the secrecy envelope, extract the ballot, scan them.
But, as of now, I believe we're going to generate some reports and issue new results between 6:30 and 7:00. So that's to the point where we are now. That will include the damaged and the first two-thirds of the military.
That's all I have. I'm sorry.
QUESTION: And how many damaged ballots in total?
VOYE: Between 28 and 3,000, I believe.
QUESTION: David, what is the exact review board's role in these 29,000
VOYE: I'm sorry. Can you repeat?
QUESTION: What is the exact role the review board plays in these 29,000, how they're evaluated?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Return Board?
QUESTION: Sorry, Return Board.
VOYE: So, what we did is we sorted these ballots alphabetically. And, like I said, we married the two.
If Jane Doe returned two, we put them both together. That way, we could decide which ballot should be counted. And we're going to segregate and not count the wrong ballot and make sure we count our corrected ballot.
QUESTION: David, how time-consuming is this process compared to what you were doing earlier this week with the processing and what have you?
[18:20:00]
VOYE: So, these folks -- some of these folks were working on alphabetizing and marrying these ballots since 9:00 this morning.
So, we're just now getting to the point where we can decide which is counted or which is not.
QUESTION: How long do you expect this to take?
VOYE: I will keep you posted. I don't know. I don't want to guess.
QUESTION: What is the exact way that you all know that somebody voted in person that got sent one of these incorrect ballots?
VOYE: If somebody would have voted in person, the poll book at the polling location would have been updated as far as that they returned the mail-in ballot, and those voters would have been given a provisional.
And provisional ballots have not been counted yet. So, that prohibits people from voting twice.
QUESTION: What about the postmarked -- the ones that have come in the last three days?
VOYE: They are currently segregated.
BLITZER: All right, we're going to continue to watch that.
But we're getting two numbers from Nevada right now. Take a look at this. Biden maintains his lead, 22,657, 49.8 percent to 48 percent. That lead has gone up for Biden in Nevada. He's expanded his lead right now, once again, 22,657; 93 percent of the estimated vote is in Clark County, Nevada.
Let's go out to Clark County, Nevada. That's the biggest county out there.
KING: All right, so there's your statewide total, Joe Biden plus 22,657. Again, just like Maricopa in Arizona, in Clark County, it's even bigger. About 72, 73 percent of the vote is going to come out of here.
And, Wolf, let me show you just what we just have right now. Again, you're looking for trends, right? Is Joe Biden building or shrinking his lead, especially in Clark County? I'm sorry, Vegas in the suburbs here.
Here's what just came in 5,454 to 2,934. So, Joe Biden gets 62 percent. David Chalian was talking earlier about one of the things you're doing if you're behind the scenes. You're trying to say, is this moving in a direction? Is it close enough to call it? It's a narrow lead, so we want to go -- I want to come back out to the statewide, just so you can see what I'm trying to say here.
Number one, 62 percent in this batch of votes, that's above -- it's almost 10 points above, eight points above what Joe Biden is doing in the county overall. So it's a good report for Joe Biden in that sense. Then you pop out to the statewide numbers, and he's at 50 percent, if you round up there.
And he's getting 62 percent in this batch of votes. Now, this is just one batch of counted votes. So you watch the next one. And you're consistently seeing this coming from the same area. That helps you advance the ball, if you will.
But this is good news for the former vice president, because you see, A, it grows your lead. Anything -- if you're winning, you want to add points to the board right there. And we get more votes off the board, which helps you get closer to making a decision.
But we also saw earlier today, if you were with us, the voting officials, the election officials in Clark County were saying they're going to take their time here. And they still have some ballots that they're going to count. In some scenarios, they say it could take through the weekend. So they're going to take their time.
The question is, do we see a consistent pattern of reports that get you close enough to say, OK, this train has left the station and it has no other destination? That's what you're looking for.
BLITZER: Twenty-two thousand, six hundred and fifty-seven-lead for Biden over Trump in Nevada. It's an impressive lead, but there's still 7 percent of the vote outstanding. So that's a lot of votes that potentially could change that lead.
KING: It is a lot of votes. And we have seen from time to time small batches in where the president has come in ahead.
Again, this became hotly contested. You think about Nevada. It was a Clinton state. So, that, again, in your -- when you're looking about how you could put together a decision, I was talking earlier about Ohio.
When the president roared back in Ohio, it was a state he won four years ago. It's usually a red state in presidential politics. That gives you more of a comfort zone, if you will, in making a projection. So here's Nevada, Clark County, a Clinton state, but narrowly, narrowly.
Let's go back in time. This is going to -- you're going to see just Clark County first. Now let me pull out to the state. This is 48 to 46, when you round up. So this was a very competitive state four years ago, which means, if you're making the decisions about, can we call this state, you just have to remember the history.
You also have to remember that this is one of the states, especially here in Clark County. The Trump campaign late in the campaign was looking at the map, saying, we might lose Wisconsin, we might lose Michigan. Where can we make that up? And Nevada was one of the places they targeted with a pretty strong economic message here.
Some of it was distortions of what Joe Biden says. But the president was out here saying, Joe Biden's going to lock you down. Imagine the economic impact, Las Vegas, Reno, the tourism and travel industry. They have been devastated by the coronavirus.
Much of the economy has been, but it's especially personal here. So that was one of the questions. Can the president perform better than he might have performed here because of that argument? And that's why we have some caution as we count these votes. But, again, that last batch we just showed you shows that former Vice President Joe Biden getting 62 percent of those votes in Clark County.
That shows you, at least for now, that he's building. And that's what you want to watch as you get more votes. Is he building? Is he shrinking? And, sometimes, you get a roller coaster. The president goes up with one batch. The former vice president goes up with another. You are looking for consistency.
And, again, there's a train on the tracks. Is it going to -- can it only get to one destination or is it possible still? And that's what you're asking.
(CROSSTALK)
BLITZER: There's still a lot of votes in Clark County outstanding; 88 percent of the vote in Clark County is in. So there's 12 percent outstanding. And that's, what, 70, 75 percent of the vote in the state of Nevada.
[18:25:04]
KING: Right.
And so those tens of thousands of votes, if you have got one batch that came in overwhelmingly for one candidate -- we have not seen that. But that's one of the things you're thinking about.
So, consistency, as I said. The last batch was 62 percent for Joe Biden. When we get an roughly equal number of votes in a batch later today, if it's 62 percent or ballpark of that again for Joe Biden, then you can start to draw conclusions.
BLITZER: We're about to get more votes coming in from Pittsburgh, Allegheny County in Pennsylvania, a key state right now, also more votes coming in from Arizona.
We have a lot going on right now. We will be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BLITZER: All right, we got a key race alert in Pennsylvania, 20 electoral votes.
[18:30:00]
Biden's lead has just gone up a bit. He's ahead of Trump now by 14,923, almost 15,000 votes. 49.5 percent, 49.3 percent. 96 percent of the estimated vote in Pennsylvania is in right now. 4 percent outstanding votes just came in. We got the numbers, John, from Mercer County in Pennsylvania.
KING: Right. And so in a state where, again, 3.3 million, 3.3 million, the former vice president's lead just went up by 300 and change. You see all those votes and you think, well, that is not a lot. It is a lot. That matters. Every vote matters. So let show you where they came in. And this is even more significant because of where they came from.
Mercer County, look how President Trump is doing here, 62 percent, 63 percent if you want to round up, 36 percent for the former vice president. So you hear new votes for Mercer County, your instinct would be the president is going to get more votes but the mail-in votes are going disproportionately Democratic. And that's one of the things we look at as we try to decide, can you call this race, can you project a winner.
Well, here's what we just got, the president of the United States in this new ballot count here, these are mail-in ballots, that they're taking their time to count, 645. The former vice president, the Democratic nominee, Joe Biden, gets 1,027. So he gets 60 percent of this batch of votes as they're counted. So, again, if you're trying to figure out which way are we headed, 60 percent in a county where he is only getting 36 percent. The mail-in ballots are disproportionately cast by Democrats. So let me move this up a little bit. This is you see, this is ruby red. This is Trump country in Western Pennsylvania. 62 percent, 63 percent if you want to round it up, 60 percent four years ago. This is the area where Donald Trump stunned, frankly, Pennsylvania Democrats by not only winning these counties but by turning people out, by getting people to come out of the woodwork to support him, 31,000 votes and change four years ago.
Look at that. The president -- more voters. This is not a low turnout election. This is not people changing minds. This is more voters coming out. Joe Biden is losing this county and losing it convincingly, but the Democrats who live there made the choice in these COVID times to vote by mail. And so we're seeing this consistently across the state.
If you move over to the blue counties, especially in Philadelphia and the suburbs, this number is up around 80 percent. But even in these conservative counties, Trump country in Pennsylvania, Joe Biden is winning in the mail-in ballots because Democrats decided that is how they wanted to vote.
TRUMP: And remind our viewers why. Why are the Biden voters doing so much better with the mail-in ballots as opposed to Trump voters even in Republican Trump counties?
KING: Right. So Democrats live here too, just like Republicans live in the blue areas. And Democrats had a decided strategy. The Biden campaign encouraged it. Remember the Democratic Convention, make a plan, vote early, COVID security issues. Most Democrats -- many Democrats and most in this state decided it was safer or they just decided they're more comfortable. It was easier and more convenient, a combination of those things, access to early balloting.
Pennsylvania had never done anything like this before, essentially, wide open, early balloting. Pennsylvania, four years ago, didn't really even have much early voting. And so you have a chance to do something new. You can do it early. You can stay safe. And it's more convenient for you. And we see participation is up because of it. That will be one of the elections -- once we're done with this one that will be one of the conversations when we're past COVID, hopefully, sooner rather than later, should you keep these provisions in place, because, hey, look, more people are voting.
But this is solid Republican county. And so as you're trying to figure out is Joe Biden on an irreversible course to a Pennsylvania victory, this is one of the things you look for. You're starting to get votes from places the president will win in the end but among the -- this is all that's left to count are these mail-in-ballots, a few provisional ballots, a few extras. But the overwhelming bulk of the votes still being counted are mail-in ballots.
And we know and we are seeing the proof of it, every time we get these results, they are overwhelmingly cast by Democrats, even Democrats who live -- there could be Republicans who decided to get a mail-in vote for Joe Biden. But these are mostly Democrats who live in these communities. I just want to come back out to show this significance here. If you remember the Democratic Convention, after that, Joe Biden did a train trip. He started in Cleveland and came down and he came right into this part. And through Ohio, that is Youngstown, Ohio. And he came down and went right into this part of Pennsylvania. He decided, maybe I'm not going to win over Trump voters. I'm going to try, but I'm going to try to get Democrats who maybe didn't turn out four years ago to come vote for me.
And as you see this here again the president will win this county and win it convincingly but Joe Biden is getting in the end here more votes than him at a time he needs more votes than him.
BLITZER: And in part, Trump has himself to blame for the fact that the Democrats voted in big numbers with the mail-in ballots. The Republicans didn't because the president kept saying, don't do that. It's dangerous, they're illegal and all that kind of stuff, which isn't true, of course, and the Democrats went and did the mail-in ballots. The Republicans said we'll wait and we'll vote in person.
KING: There were two 180 degrees apart, two starkly different strategies. The president said, vote on Election Day. I don't trust mail-in balloting. I think it is rigged. I think it's fraud. There's no evidence it is any of those things. But, again, the president did not suffer in terms of his vote in Pennsylvania, did not drop, his vote in Pennsylvania. Look at that, 3.3 million now. He won the state four years ago with 2.9. So the president turned out his voters.
This is not an issue of turnout fell off because President Trump miscalculated and said don't vote by mail. He did a whole bunch of rallies here.
[18:35:00]
And his people came out, they came out and most of them voted on Election Day. You can call that a win. You increased your total from four years ago. Normally, a politician would be has happy as can be. I won four years ago. I got even more votes this time. However, the story right now is that the Democrats turned out even more voters from four years ago.
And so in essence both strategies worked, if you will. He increased his turnout doing it his way, he increased vote count doing it his way. But look what the Democrats are doing. And, again, you're just watching to see if that continues to build, almost 15,000 votes. That is not a huge lead when you have 3.3 and 3.3 million votes cast but it is a steady progress. Just I want to look at my notes, at 9:00 this morning, Joe Biden was 5,587 votes ahead. So you can see, it's building. That's not giant, but if you're Joe Biden, it is heading in the right direction.
BLITZER: It's almost 15,000. And turnout, voter turnout whether by mail, early, absentee, the same day, take a look at the national turnout right now. It's grown amazingly even though there is a coronavirus pandemic going on. People wanted different ways to be able to vote in a safe way, especially older Americans, people with underlying health conditions. On Election Day, they didn't want to wait in long lines and take that risk.
KING: Right. So this will be and should be a conversation in all 50 states. United States of America, each state has its own rules. States administer elections. This absolutely should be and will be a conversation in every state because you're absolutely right. People back a few months but what with a question? Will we have as many votes? Will people be afraid? Rightly so, you come out and vote.
How well this -- you know as state adopted, each state did it a little differently, mail-in balloting, in-person early voting, should be able to be safe. But you saw the lines. A lot of people think, they went to in-person early voting thinking there would be nobody there and had to wait hours in line
So it is a good thing in a democracy when you have more participation. That's the goal, right? In this case Joe Biden is leading. And look at that. Look at that, that's more votes than any candidate for president in the United States has ever received and it is going to grow. It's just growing as I am standing here, 4.1 million vote advantage over Donald Trump. 74 million votes could get to 75 million votes as we continue to count votes out on the west coast and across the country but a lot of votes still on the west coast.
And, again, to the point you're making earlier, the president's strategy was different. Look at that, he may get -- his, on the cusp of getting 70 million votes. 69.998. 62, 62. The president is getting more votes too. It is a good thing in a democracy when more people vote. In this case right now there is no question Joe Biden is going to have a big advantage in the popular vote. Hillary Clinton had a sizable advantage in the popular vote four years ago. The difference this time is that when you look at this map, we pick presidents, that is an important statement for the Democrats and Joe Biden. This is how you pick a president state by state.
And right now what we're waiting for tonight, it is Friday, I know the election was Tuesday, this one is going to a recount. But if it stays blue -- well, if that one stays blue alone, Joe Biden is the next president of the United States. And, again, we're still counting votes out here. We're going to do some serious business as these votes come in the hours ahead tonight.
Joe Biden right now, that would be a flip from a Clinton state. That was a Trump state four years ago. It will be a flip, that would be flip, as would that be. So if you're looking at the map right now as we count these final votes advantage Biden, all he has to do is win that, that, and that. You can do this way, either those two. Joe Biden still has many options to get to 270. He is at 253. We're getting closer. We'll see.
BLITZER: Pennsylvania, one of those blue wall states. Let's not forget he also won Michigan and Wisconsin, which Hilary Clinton lost four years ago.
KING: This was the question coming into the election. Forgive me, I said this before the three most spoken words in presidential politics last four years have been Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin because, that's how Donald Trump became president, not since 1992. These have been in Democratic hands, those three, since 1992.
Donald Trump is in the White House because he flipped them by a very small margin of votes in each of them, 10,000 here, 40,000 there. These were very close, 70,000 votes between the three states, flipped them. But Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, red four years ago, the legacy of the 2020 campaign will be blue, blue, and at the moment, not quite to the finish line, blue as well.
BLITZER: And if Biden wins the presidency is going to be, in large part, because he managed to win those three states.
KING: Yes, it will be. And then the question is that gets Joe Biden in the White House. Rebuilding the blue wall, if you will, gets Joe Biden back in the White House. The question then is can he crack the Trump coalition by taking away two states in the Sun Belt.
As America changes demographically, this is the challenge again, our immediate challenge is to figure out who wins the 2020 election and is the next president of the United States. But in terms of American political future, here and here, growing states, more diverse states, the Sun Belt states, that is the big demographic challenge for both parties, and at the moment advantage Biden.
BLITZER: And all eyes on Pennsylvania right now.
We're getting new information about what is also going on inside the White House tonight, President Trump's new thinking on where the race stands. Stick around. Our special coverage continues right after this.
[18:40:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BLITZER: Let's take look at a key race alert. Biden's lead in Pennsylvania increasing right now, more votes just coming in. Take a look at this. Biden now has a 17,012 lead over Donald Trump, 17,012 votes ahead, 49.5 percent to 49.2 percent. 96 percent of the estimated vote in Pennsylvania is now in.
[18:45:01]
That means 4 percent still outstanding. Twenty electoral votes in Pennsylvania.
Let's go over to John King.
I think where we started earlier today, 7:00 a.m. We were on the air. What, Biden took the lead in Pennsylvania but it was what, a thousand votes or something like that. It's now up to 17,000.
KING: Right, when the sun rose, it was around a thousand. At 9:00 a.m., it was 5,500. Now, you see it 17,000, and again, we're talking about this methodical building as these mail-in ballots come in.
And let's show you three places where we just got some ballots. Philadelphia County, you see they're up to 95 percent now. You also see Joe Biden is getting 80 percent of the vote, 81 percent.
Let's pull up the note board again and go through this map. We'll start in Philadelphia. This latest batch of votes came in and it was 1,880 for the Democratic nominee Joe Biden, 384 for the president of the United States.
So, again, you're looking at 82 percent, right? Eighty-two percent, it tracks what you're doing there. So, number one, Joe Biden is getting more votes, and he's stretching his lead. And number two, it matches what you're seeing, so you're not seeing any disruption in the force, if you will. But this is progressing as you go.
So, more important votes for Joe Biden out of Philadelphia. That's one, right? So, let's move this up here and let's move this out, and we'll come up here.
So, Philadelphia, more votes for Joe Biden. Just as important up here, we're going to move up to Northampton County. This was a county that voted twice for Barack Obama then flipped and voted for Donald Trump. So, it's one of the places, I say, pivot counties we call them, 200 across the country. A place that twice voted for Obama/Biden then decided to flip for Donald Trump.
Right now, look at it, 50-49. Still incredibly competitive, right? So, we get some mail-in ballots in Northampton. What do we get there? Again, 744 to 282.
So, again, in a place that is very competitive when it comes to these late mail-in ballots that they're counting now, the mail-in ballots, they counted the Election Day vote and Donald Trump pulls ahead. As they count the mail-in ballots, Joe Biden again 71 percent. He is getting 50 percent.
So, the mail-in ballots are disproportionately Democratic when you see the pattern that reinforces what's happening because they are more -- the only thing left to count some provisionals but the bulk these mail-in ballots. So, once again, in a place that is evenly matched, you count the mail-in ballots, Joe Biden has a significant advantage. But you look at that and you think again in a state where each candidate has more than 3.3 million votes, you say, well, that's not a lot. It's a gain, number one, and a continuation of the pattern which is important as you're looking at the, statistically, at what you can do.
So, that's over here. First, Philadelphia, then to the north in Northampton. Now let's go over here. We're going to come over here to Washington County, right? You look at Washington County, and again, mail-in ballots. Your first look at that, the president is getting 71 percent.
You would think if Donald Trump is going to mount a comeback, it is going to be as they count votes in places like this. Yet again mail-in ballots being cast disproportionately by Democrats. So you come in here and you look at this.
This is Washington County -- 334 to 203. Not as big as it is for Joe Biden but he is getting 61 percent in this batch of votes as they count them -- sixty-one percent in a county where he is running below 40 percent. And again, I don't mean to be a broken record but it reinforces the pattern which is what you are trying to do when trying to figure out, is this inevitable, or do we have an inevitable build as we get these new votes, 61 percent in a county where you're getting countywide less than 40 percent? Because again, we make a distinction because it's important.
Election Day votes, the president runs it up. The mail-in ballots cast disproportionately by Democrats and you see more evidence right there. So, in big city Philadelphia, Northampton County, more to the north. In eastern Pennsylvania, conservative Washington County in western Pennsylvania, you get more votes, you add them up. A lead that was 5,500 votes at 9:00 a.m. this morning is now 17,000 votes.
Every time we get new votes, you're watching this at home, the numbers matter because they build the lead, the pattern, the direction, the consistency also matter as we decide, is Joe Biden going to win these 20 electoral votes? And if he does, he is the next president.
BLITZER: He is ahead now by 17,012 votes. Almost every hour, he goes ahead by at least a thousand votes or so in Pennsylvania. It looks like it is going to continue for a while.
KING: As you see -- as you see again, while we're watching this, look what happened just right there. He just went down a little tiny bit. He lost some votes as we get more votes. That is what we're going to watch.
We talked at the top of the hour about why we're being cautious, right? This is going to happen every now and then when the small counties report votes especially in the most Republican places in the state, so I talked about the consistency of it.
When you get a pullback, it is a very modest number. We know these are small Republican counties. They don't have anywhere near the votes as they have down here or what we're waiting soon to get out in Allegheny County, but it's just one of the things that makes you think, let's just keep counting until we get on a consistent track.
So, it was 17,000. It comes down a couple hundred votes. We keep counting.
BLITZER: I love the fact you can do that with your fingers now. Remember the old days we had chalk boards. I wonder if people still remember what those are.
KING: Abacus.
[18:50:01]
Slide the little beads across on the abacus.
BLITZER: We're getting new information about what is going on inside the White House tonight, and President Trump's new thinking on where the race stands. Our special coverage will continue.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BLITZER: All right. Take a look at this. Arizona right now, 11 electoral votes, 94 percent of the vote is in, meaning 6 percent still outstanding.
Biden maintains his lead. It's 38,455. He has 49.9 percent. Trump has 48.6 percent.
[18:55:03]
Biden maintains his lead in Arizona, once again, 11 electoral votes.
Let's bring in the Arizona secretary of state, Katie Hobbs, who is joining us right now.
Secretary Hobbs, thanks so much for joining us.
How many outstanding ballots are there in Arizona right now? How many of those are in Maricopa County right now, the largest county there?
KATIE HOBBS, ARIZONA SECRETARY OF STATE: So, we're looking at about 235,000 outstanding ballots. About 135,000 of those are in Maricopa County and we're about two hours away from their next update of the votes they've tabulated today.
BLITZER: And how many do you think we're going to get in the next two hours?
HOBBS: The updates have been between 60,000 and 70,000 votes. And so, we're expecting the same amount this time somewhere in that amount, which will bring them down to below 100,000.
BLITZER: That's a significant number.
(CROSSTALK)
HOBBS: We don't know how many of those are --
(CROSSTALK)
BLITZER: Go ahead, I'm sorry.
HOBBS: I was going to say, we're not sure how many of those are provisional, but, of the regular ballots, they anticipate being done this weekend, as well as -- I mean, most of the rest of state and we'll just be looking at provisional which are a smaller portion of that entire amount.
KING: Madam Secretary, it's John King. Thank you for your time. I know you're very busy. And we appreciate the transparency in the process.
You say this weekend. We had this conversation before. I know you understand the stakes. But the American people are waiting to know who their president is, and they had an election on Tuesday. Now, we get the extraordinary times because of COVID, because of the different ways people voted this year.
But when you say this weekend, I know you're the secretary of state and these counties have to do it on their own.
But what message have you delivered to them to do this, get it right, but do it as quickly as possible?
HOBBS: Just exactly that. You know, they are doing -- they're doing their jobs. Maricopa County has been counting around the clock, and in Arizona, counties have five days, five business days after the election to resolve provisional ballots. And so, any of those ballots that are provisional, they won't be able to count until Wednesday.
And so, we just -- I don't know how much of the Maricopa ballots are provisional ballots. It's a small number, I'm sure. But there is that issue as well.
BLITZER: About how many do you anticipate we'll see?
HOBBS: So, yes. So, Pima County has 18,000. And we don't know -- the rest of the state is pretty small numbers. I don't know, Maricopa haven't told us how many are provisional yet.
BLITZER: Is that part of the 235,000 ballots or is on top of the 235,000?
HOBBS: Part of the 235,000.
BLITZER: It is part of that. Go ahead, John.
KING: I was just going to say, I don't think this is the case in your state, but the president of the United States just a short time ago, again, you know, tweeting to the effect that he would be fine if people would just count the election ballots and stop counting.
Now, in your state, he's narrowed the lead. So, again, I've used the term, to be blunt about it, intellectual inconsistency, with saying, I don't like what's happening in Pennsylvania and Georgia. But in your state, the president has narrowed the lead. Joe Biden's lead this morning was about 47,000 votes. Now, it's down to about 38,000 votes.
Just in terms of the count, I just -- could you just -- I know this is a redundant question but with people stirring up questions about what's going on? Why is it taking so long? Why is it Friday night and we're waiting to know how the American people voted on Tuesday? Can you just explain in these rooms, how many eyes are on people as they count these ballots?
Do both campaigns have people within proximity? So, if there's any question, somebody could raise their hand and say, can you show me that? Can I make sure that ballot is correct?
HOBBS: Absolutely, 100 percent. Both parties are allowed to have observers in the room. And then the other thing going on is that adjudication boards. I know
you had footage of the tabulation room up on your -- on your -- on your site. You can see that adjudication board is working. They are checking the ballots that the tabulator couldn't read.
And those boards are one person from each party. There's an inspector that oversees them and there are so many eyes on the process to ensure the fairness of the process.
KING: Let me follow up, Secretary Hobbs, because the president, as you know, he's continuing to allege on Twitter, fraud. His campaign is filing several lawsuits around the country.
To be clear to our viewers and all Americans and indeed people watching us around the world, are you, as the secretary of state in Arizona, aware of any fraud or irregularities in your state?
HOBBS: There are absolutely no irregularities happening in this process whatsoever and anyone making claims to the contrary, absolutely just has no idea what they're talking about.
KING: Have you received any legal challenges at all from the president or his campaign or his supporters?
HOBBS: To my knowledge, they did move to intervene in the lawsuit.
