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CNN Live Event/Special
Awaiting First Results From GA Senate Runoff Races; Too Early To Call Georgia Senate Runoff Races. Aired 7-8p ET
Aired January 05, 2021 - 19:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: The actual results, that's so significant. We're just moments away now from the end of voting across most of Georgia. Control of the United States Senate is at stake. Democrats hope to flip two seats in tonight's crucial runoffs. Republicans needing to win only one of the two races to maintain their Senate majority.
All right. The first of many key race alerts right now too early to call in both of these Senate contests we're watching very closely. We expect results coming in momentarily. We will share those with you as well.
Take a look at this, in the first Senate runoff in Georgia, Jon Ossoff and David Perdue too early to call. David Perdue, the incumbent senator as well. The other Senate runoff race, Raphael Warnock and Kelly Loeffler, too early to call over there as well. We're watching all of this very closely the balance of power right now.
This is why it is so important, as of right now there are 50 Republicans in the U.S. Senate, 48 Democrats. Two of them independents, but they caucus with the Democrats. If the Democrats win both of the Senate runoff seats in Georgia right now it will be 50-50. The incoming Vice President Kamala Harris is the President of the Senate, the Democrats will have the majority.
That's why the Democrats need to pick up two seats, both of these seats in Georgia tonight in order to be the majority in the U.S. Senate. We shall find out fairly soon. David Chalian, tell us what you're seeing right now.
DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: We have some really fascinating exit poll results now that the polls have closed, Wolf. We can take a look at how some of these voters are splitting between the candidates. Look at voters of color.
Voters of color made up about 38 percent of the electorate. Jon Ossoff in the Ossoff-Perdue race is winning 84 percent of them. That is a slight increase from what he did in November. He won 78 percent of voters of color back in November. They were about the same slice of the electorate, so this is a really good time for Ossoff, Perdue at 16 percent with voters of color.
Take a look at white college educated voters. This has been a real battleground demographic. They make up about 24 percent of the electorate. Perdue wins them here in the runoff, 62 percent to 38 percent. That is a 24-point margin of victory with white college educated voters for Perdue.
Back in November, he only won them by 14 points. So Perdue dramatically increased. He's margin over Ossoff with these critical voters as well, a little something for everyone there on these exit polls, Wolf.
BLITZER: Very interesting indeed. With polls now closed across almost all of the states, we're getting updates on turnout in key counties right now. CNN's Drew Griffin is in Atlanta for us right now.
So what are you hearing about Fulton County where you are, Drew? What's some new information?
DREW GRIFFIN, CNN SENIOR INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: The hard number is going to be around 450,000 people in this county took part in this election, that compares to 528,000 in November, really pretty good for a runoff election. They're going to be starting to release some of those vote counts very soon.
In fact, more than a hundred thousand of the absentee ballots have already been scanned. The early voting numbers we should see those coming in very soon. Richard Barron, the elections director says in minutes we should see those absentee ballots being reported to us. And every hour between now and nine o'clock, he expects all of the 270,000 or so early in-person voting to be tabulated. They'll also then be attacking the vote that was coming in today.
So we're about to see some really hard numbers. The voting was up, but not as many people participated in Fulton County as they did in November. And I want to stress, this is a Democratic county, there were no big lines today in Fulton County in-person voting, Wolf.
BLITZER: Yes. Very, very interesting indeed. Let's see what happens. John, Fulton County, give us a little perspective on what we're about to see because they're about to release a whole bunch of votes.
JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Right. And so we'll see where that turnout is, we'll see if Democrats upped or lost from their early voting advantage in the Presidential election. You see a blank right now. We're going to wait just moments we'll get some votes.
So let's go back. This is the Biden-Trump race. I want to use the Ossoff-Perdue race, the Senate race, because the vote totals were a little different as you look at it right here. This was the clean one- on-one. We're not showing the Warnock-Loeffler race because remember that was the jungle primary. It was crowded. This was a one-on-one so we think it's a better comparison.
Why does Fulton County matter? Well, Fulton County matters, number one, because it's the largest county in the state. The largest population center of that 159 counties in the State of Georgia. Number two, it matters to the Democrats because of this. They tend to have a big lopsided margin there.
I will say though that as David Chalian just noted when you see the exit polls showing Sen. Perdue doing better than he did in November with white college educated voters, that suggests he will do better in the suburbs.
[19:05:04]
And Fulton County, we think about it as Atlanta, the major urban center, but look how big it is. There are suburbs down here. There are suburbs up here. The whole county will be blue at the end of the night, but by how much is critical to how tonight ends up for both Loeffler and Perdue.
So you see 70 to 28 there. This will be critical to watch, not just the turnout but whether Sen. Perdue without Donald Trump on the ballot can do better in the suburbs with those white college educated voters, many of whom who are Republicans, maybe more moderate Republicans who simply don't like the President and don't want to vote Republican when he's on the ballot. That will be one critical thing to watch there.
David also noted that Ossoff's performance among black voters, it seems to be up. In the exit polls, it is up higher than it was in November. That was a key priority for Democrats after November. Yes, Joe Biden carried the state if you come back to the Presidential race, but Democrats frankly said they could have done a better job.
They should have done a better job getting a higher turnout, even though Joe Biden won by percentages lopsided in Atlanta, in Savannah and elsewhere. They wanted to register more black voters and turn out more black voters in that period of time they had between November and now.
So David just went through two of the many pieces of the chess match, tug-of-war, call it what you will tonight. Can Republicans do a better job in the suburbs? Well, those white college educated voters are one indicator of that.
Can Democrats do a better job turning even a better job? Joe Biden won the State. Democrats did an excellent job in November, but they understand without Trump on the ballot, they need to do even more with younger voters and African Americans.
So those exit polls show you, number one, they tell you expect it to be close. And number two, they get at the complexity of coalition building in a state like this. They call it a battleground state for a reason. It's complicated and it's hard.
BLITZER: Take us a little bit through a replay of what happened November 3rd, November 4th, November 5th because early on it looked like Trump was doing great, but then all of a sudden the early votes or the mail-in ballots were counted and things changed relatively quickly.
KING: You're absolutely right. And we may have the flip side of that tonight if the counties now, because of the experience in November, give us early ballots first, absentee ballots or mail-in ballots, as many of the counties say they'll give us first. We may see the flip side of that.
Back in November, almost all of the counties gave us Election Day voting first and Election Day voting benefits Republican. So let's go back in time, I'm on the Presidential race, so let me go there and let's get back to the beginning. This was very early on, the very first votes that came in were some early votes and you saw Joe Biden with an early lead, this is 7:16 on election night, 16 minutes after the polls closed, we got the first results.
And then as we went through the night, by late night, Donald Trump was ahead because why? You see all this red, counties who are reporting Election Day voting, Election Day voting and they were still getting ready to count some of the other votes. So you see Biden up in these Democratic areas, but all the red coming in for Donald Trump. Now, watch this grow.
Right here, it's 7,200 votes at eight o'clock on election night. Well, by the time we get to midnight, as Tuesday is giving way to Wednesday, you see how big the lead is, more than 370,000 votes. It got a little bigger than that just after midnight, but that is about the high watermark for President Trump back.
And we're doing this to remind people, we need to wait for all of the pie. We will get the pie in different order, pieces of the pie in different orders. So Trump ahead as Tuesday gave way to Wednesday. Twenty-four hours later, Trump still ahead but the margin down some 24 hours after that, Tuesday to Wednesday to Thursday.
You see here the Trump lead down to just 1,800 votes. Why? Because counties now are counting the early ballots, the mail-in ballots, the people who voted early. They've already counted the Election Day vote, now they're getting to the early vote and you see that.
And then as you move further, suddenly, bang, on November 6th, the election was on November 3rd, as they counted the ballots as it took time, it was on November 6th that Joe Biden pulled ahead and from there the lead just kept growing to 4,300 there got up to 7,200 there plus and then again they've recounted these votes three times now. Joe Biden won the State despite what you hear from the President and his allies, Joe Biden won the state. They've been recounted three times.
Why did we go through that exercise? Just in moments from now, we're going to start getting votes here. We have the first votes right here. You see the very first votes coming in. They're coming in from over here in Burke County. It's 78. So it's in the middle 78 of 159 counties in the state by population.
You have your first votes in. You have Jon Ossoff up quite considerably over David Perdue. Let's check the other race, about the same margin, when you see there in the Warnock-Loeffler race. So let's just go back and take a look at how this was in 2020.
This is a hard comparison. That's the Presidential race, so look when we're doing the race to race, we're going to use this race more often because there were so many candidates in the Loeffler-Warnock primary here. And so this is a Republican county but just narrowly. You see it's a smaller county population-wise, four-point win there for David Perdue. Those are our first votes here as we come into 2021. Let's see if we're getting any more. This is where it gets interesting when we start to count them. But the
reason we went through that exercise of what happened in the Presidential race is we could see an example of that maybe the flip side. We may see blue in a lot of places that we expect by the end of the night or by tomorrow will be red.
[19:10:04]
We just have to as we get votes from counties, it's critical, and this is why we have a great team on the ground and a great team on our decision desk to explain to you which votes are they, are they votes that were cast today? Are they votes that were mailed in? Are they votes of people who voted early and waited in line? Because those votes we know disproportionately the early vote will be Democratic and we'll just going to take some time to sort through all this.
BLITZER: All right. Let's standby because those numbers are about to come in.
David Chalian, you're getting some more information out of the exit polls.
CHALIAN: Wolf, we're looking at how voters are splitting between Ossoff and Perdue depending on their age. And this is going to be very telling and a really important finding in these exit poll numbers. Look at senior citizens, older voters, 65 years old and older. OK. They make up 26 percent of the electorate. They split for Perdue, 62 percent go to Perdue, 38 percent go to Ossoff. That's a 24-point advantage.
Back in November, Perdue's advantage was more narrow than that with seniors. He won them by 16 points. But here's what's key. They only made up 19 percent of the electorate in November. It's up seven points as a share of the electorate. That is a good sign for Perdue.
Take a look at younger voters. Jon Ossoff performs much better with younger voters this time around than he did in November. He wins them overwhelmingly, 67 percent to 33 percent. That's a 34-point margin. In November, he won them by 11 points.
But here's the problem, there are fewer of them. Back then it was 20 percent of the electorate, 19 percent, now it's 13 percent of the electorate. Look at independents, David Perdue is performing better in the runoff among independents than he did in November. Now he gets 48 percent of them. He got 43 percent back in November, Ossoff about the same at where he was in November with independents, 52 percent.
And suburbanites, as you hear us talk about the suburbs, all the time, Georgia is almost like one big suburb in many respects, 61 percent of the electorate lives in a suburban area. Take a look at how Perdue is doing in the suburbs, 51 percent besting Ossoff who has 49 percent.
Again, back in November that number for David Perdue among suburban voters was at 45 percent. He has improved his performance with independents, with suburbanites, with seniors. That is good news for David Perdue right there, Wolf. BLITZER: Yes. Potentially very, very good news. We got a key race
alert right now.
All right, very, very early but the numbers are beginning to come in. Look at this Jon Ossoff-David Perdue. Right now, Jon Ossoff has a slight, a tiny little lead, 212 votes, 52.1 percent to 47.9 percent. It's very early 2,598 votes for Ossoff, 2,300. It's just changed a little bit, Ossoff's lead has gone up to 310.
But remember, this is extremely early. These are the first official votes coming in from Georgia in that Senate runoff. In the other Senate runoff, Raphael Warnock-Kelly Loeffler. Warnock is ahead right now by almost 300 votes, 3,542 for Warnock, Loeffler 3,243 votes, 52.2 percent, 47.8 percent.
Extremely early right now, but the Democrats have a very slight lead as these first votes are coming in. A ton of more are about to come in. We'll continue our special coverage right after this.
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[19:17:34]
BLITZER: All right. We've got another key race alert very, very early, but right now take a look, the Republicans all of a sudden they've taken a very slight lead over the Democrats, David Perdue. He's got a lead of about 220 votes over Jon Ossoff, 4,747 for Perdue, 4,527 for Ossoff, very, very close but very, very early.
Similar situation in the other Senate runoff, Kelly Loeffler, she's got a lead right now about 200, oh, it just gone up, a bigger lead, a significantly bigger lead, 4,598 vote lead over Raphael Warnock, now it's 4,009 over Raphael Warnock, 62 percent to 38 percent. Let's go over to John King right now. He's taking a closer look at all of this.
It's early, I want to caution everybody, very early. These are going to change. Republicans will be on top, Democrats will be on top, but it's interesting to see what's going on. But I know you're taking a close look at DeKalb County, just outside Atlanta. And before you do that, Nick Valencia is there on the ground for us. He's got some new information. What are you learning, Nick?
NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, DeKalb County very important for Democrats, Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock need this to secure a win here and we just got an update from the county spokesperson who tells me that it's been smooth sailing. Though there was a precinct just northeast of here in the Stone Mountain area of DeKalb County that was court ordered to stay open five minutes later.
At 7:05, they closed their polls there. That's because they got a little bit of a late start, but also an update here on in-person voting today. It is eclipsed, far eclipsed from what we saw in the November election. As of 6:55, this is just about five minutes before polls closed, according to the spokesman here - a spokeswoman here, we had 55,000 in-person votes well eclipsing the totals that we saw in the November election. Today's totals, the spokeswoman says, will likely equal the totals
that we saw for the entire general election in November. I'm here at the DeKalb County Board of Elections were behind me. You may see a lot of activity, people coming in and out. They're starting to scan those votes that were cast today. Earlier they said they had caught up with absentee ballots.
But Wolf, we should remind our viewers that provisional and overseas ballots with military ballots have until Friday to be received so we won't get a final tally here in DeKalb until at least Friday. And just a quick story about the importance here and Georgia voters really understanding the significance.
Earlier tonight, I met 25-year-old Rachel Tropper (ph) who this morning, Wolf, woke up in Virginia. The recent college grad is a Georgia resident. She had received her absentee ballot.
[19:20:00]
So this morning at 11 am, she made the decision to fly down to Atlanta to vote in-person. I asked her how it felt, she said this was for democracy. Just a little bit of a story there, Wolf, about how important it is for these Georgia voters to get their voices heard, Wolf.
BLITZER: Good for her. Very impressive indeed. All right, Nick, standby. We'll get back to you.
DeKalb County outside of Atlanta, very significant county with a lot of folks.
KING: Right. And so you heard Nick talk about, number one, turnout today, Election Day voting higher than it was in a general election. That's extraordinary. That's actually extraordinary. You just see the first results coming in here from Fulton County now, so let me start there. It's the largest county in the State. It's Atlanta and the suburbs to the southwest and up to the north here, Jon Ossoff at 80 percent.
One of the things we're going to watch throughout the night, you have the Ossoff-Perdue race, 80 percent to 20 percent if you round. You come down here, 80 percent, about the same, roughly the same. We're going to watch as this plays out. See, it shouldn't be the case, but it's one candidate - the candidates running parallel with each other, are there any differences. This is the first in Fulton County, so we go back to here.
And Nick is in DeKalb County, these results just came in the first. Again, 435 votes, 278 votes just for a little context. First, let's come back to the Ossoff-Perdue race, 420 to 290. Just for a little context go back in time in the primary, we're expecting a lot more votes. This is the Presidential race, Biden-Trump there. We can look at the Senate race here in 298-61, so we have a long way to go.
But why does it matter? Why does it matter? Well, let's come back to 2021 and remember that the Atlanta area and the suburbs around it not only have to be blue for the Democrats to have a chance, but there are margins in the suburbs have to be quite significant. So as you watch the margins now, again, Jon Ossoff getting 80 percent in Fulton County.
Let's go back to the Presidential race, Joe Biden got 72 percent, if Jon Ossoff can be running 80 percent at the end of the night in Fulton County, the Democrats will be in play.
You move over here to Gwinnett County, you see 58 percent. You come down here to DeKalb, you see 83 percent. This is huge for the Democrats. DeKalb County is absolutely essential to the Democrats. This is the Presidential race. This is the Senate race between Perdue and Ossoff back then.
And again, David Perdue did a little better than Donald Trump in some of the suburbs, but in this one, he got blown out pretty big there and so then you come back and what are we seeing early on? Again, 59 percent, Jon Ossoff has to do a lot better than that in DeKalb County. If Jon Ossoff is not up around close to 80 percent at the end of the night, then he's in trouble.
But again, 423 votes to 290 votes, we are just, Wolf, beginning what will be a long chapter. And you're beginning to see, again, a smattering of votes here and there. Atlanta, the first big population center to come in with a tiny amount of votes, but this will change, especially in the next hour. We were told at the bottom of the hour into the eight o'clock hour here in the East Coast, we'll get more and more votes.
If you're looking at the map now you can make no conclusions, except for the fact that they are starting to give us votes. And again, what I do on a night like this, as it just pop around, you see 1,100 votes, the only thing you would think of is to go back and look. So there's Perdue at 70 percent. Now how did he do in November? That's President Trump at 73 percent, David Perdue at 73 percent.
In the early moments, as we go through this, you're just looking for percentages, does anything seem very different, is turned out up or down, but when you have only a couple thousand votes and only 120,000, 130,000, when you count them up statewide, it's early. We have a lot of county deal with.
BLITZER: But the difference, the big difference between the outcome of the election results that we're about to get tonight is that, as opposed to November 3rd, when the Presidential election took place is that we're going to get a lot of the early voting coming in right away. We're not going to have to wait two, three, four or five days.
KING: We should not have to wait two, three, four or five days. Now, that doesn't mean we won't have to wait until tomorrow or beyond to know a winner, depending on how close it is. And it's possible, if it's very, very close, these one or both of these races that we have to wait till Friday for the military and overseas ballots to come in, we have five o'clock deadline for those.
We do expect, though, you're right, we do expect the one big difference here is because of the experience of November is that most of these counties had the early ballots, whether they're mail-in ballots or whether they're people came in-person to vote early, excuse me, or the mail-in ballots. They had them ready. They had them processed and they start counting immediately at seven o'clock as opposed to back in November.
Most of the counties set those aside so they could deal with the rush of Election Day first. So we do expect to get them sooner, which is again why we might see and we just got some more, I'll go to the second, we might see a lot of blue early on as they start counting these early votes in places that we expect in the end of the day are going to be red. So it's very important that you have patience as you did in November as we go through this.
I just want to go back and look here because we got Gwinnett County votes since we were standing here. Again, 27 percent of the estimated vote. We're not sure you know what exact percentages will be, Ossoff at 70 percent, Raphael Warnock at 71 percent there, tracking roughly. Again, you come back to the 2020 vote, 70 percent for the Democrats there, Biden got 58, Ossoff got 56.
So you're seeing the indication, you're so much higher now than you were the last time around. The indication there is that what you're getting is early votes and as the day of votes come in, it will change a little bit. But again, pull it out, 159 counties, they're starting to trickle in. Most of the early numbers are pretty small. We're getting going.
[19:25:01]
BLITZER: Well, 6 percent of the vote is now in. We have a key race alert. Check it out. And right now the Democrats are ahead with 6 percent of the estimated vote in Georgia. Jon Ossoff, he's ahead now by almost 82,000 votes over a David Perdue, 159,044 for Ossoff, 77,124 for Perdue.
The other Senate race, Raphael Warnock, he's ahead now by almost 85,000 votes, 160,425 for Warnock, 75,693 for Loeffler, 67.9 percent to 32.1 percent, 6 percent of the vote already in.
Drew Griffin is in Fulton County for us watching all of this unfold. You're getting some new information, Drew, what are you learning?
GRIFFIN: Yes. I think the big numbers is just how many people in Fulton County, Atlanta and its suburbs came out to vote in this election, be it absentee, mail-in or in-person today. And according to Richard Barron, the elections director, he's expecting it's going to be about 450,000, that's a rough number. That is 78,000 less than voted in the November election.
So while they're beginning to tally up and we should be getting those numbers spit it out pretty soon here, there is going to be a lot fewer votes counted here in Fulton County, according to the elections director by about 78,000 votes. I can tell you that in-person early voting was around 270,000. The absentee ballots about 108,000 and then in-person today on voting day, they're expecting a total of 72,000 or so, Wolf.
BLITZER: Interesting numbers in Fulton County. John King, what do you think?
KING: Well, number one, we know turnout will be down from the presidential election. But turnout is normally in these runoff elections in Georgia has experienced down dramatically. So Drew is absolutely right in Fulton County, the largest population center, again, known for Atlanta and then the suburbs around it.
The Atlanta airport is actually just to the south in Clayton County, but a predominantly Democratic area. A place where Joe Biden ran it up. A place where Jon Ossoff, the reason there was a runoff is that Jon Ossoff was able to keep David Perdue under 50 percent because of his support in these Democratic areas. We'll see what happens tonight.
In Fulton County, Jon Ossoff has to be at or above and most Democrats would say above 80 percent, keep pushing it up to offset the Republican turnout otherwise. One of the key tests for David Perdue and for Kelly Loeffler for that matter is in the suburbs. Here we think of Atlanta, Fulton County here, but the suburbs here, suburbs here traditionally more Republican in Georgia, anonymous against President Trump, helped Joe Biden in Georgia and across the country.
In the election without Trump on the ballot, does that change? Turnout will be down. I think by the end of the night, Wolf, the question is by how much. Georgia has already shattered turnout records for a runoff. So yes, turnout will be down from the presidential, but it is much higher than any previous runoff. Just the early voting broke the record for a runoff election in Georgia, so it will be down.
The question is when you hear Drew give that evidence in Fulton County, is it down by the same percentages in other places or do we have variants from place to place. And I raised the question, because one of the challenges tonight is can Democrats turnout as many voters as possible in places like DeKalb County, in places like Fulton County, that means Atlanta and the suburbs, and can the President, can Republicans turnout voters in these red areas, these rural areas that tend to be smaller?
We got these votes earlier up in Murray County. And again, you see David Perdue at 81 percent. The President had his rally last night over here in Whitfield County here, because Republicans were concerned they saw early voting evidence that Republicans were not participating and they sent the President in here to try to turnout more votes.
So as we get through the end of the night, what we're hearing from our reporters turnout down in places like Fulton County, by how much, it will be down. It's not a presidential election, but by how much. And you heard Nick Valencia saying actually here in DeKalb County just to the east of Atlanta, a hugely Democratic area, absolutely essential to Jon Ossoff and Pastor Warnock tonight that they turn out the votes right here.
Nick Valencia is saying that Election Day turnout actually surpassed what happened in November. Will total turnout pass? We have to get to the absentee ballots and alike first. But so you're going to see different examples from different counties and the key is putting it all together.
And again, when you pop back out just to see if it changed at all, the Democrats ahead right now. The race is not going to end 62-38. It's not going to end that way with either candidate on top or bottom, it's going to be much closer than that. So that's a good guideline early on.
If you see a giant margin like that, you know votes are coming in, in different orders. Advantage Democrats at the moment, we'll see if it lasts.
BLITZER: Standby. I want to go to David Chalian at the battleground desk for us. He's looking very closely at what's going on right now. David, do we know and since we have a sense of how much of the vote that's come in so far is early voting as opposed to today voting?
CHALIAN: Yes. Almost all of it is early voting. That's why as John was just saying, these are not going to be 25-point margin races. We expect closer races. So why do we see that inflated lead right now for the Democrats?
[19:30:02]
Well, look, overall, you see that we have 7 percent of the vote in. That's our estimate. Right now, we think we got about 7 percent of the vote in. But how much of that that you're seeing is early vote?
Ninety-four percent right now is made up of pre-election day vote. That's early in-person voting, absentee mail voting. As you know, that is happening a lot more frequently in a pandemic.
What do we expect the share of the over all electorate to be early vote? Take a look -- 72 percent. So, that is going to come down as Election Day vote comes in and we know that election day vote tends to favor the Republican. So that'll allow David Perdue to catch up.
You see a similar story, identical really in the Warnock-Loeffler race. Again, overall, Raphael Warnock with 194,000 right now, Kelly Loeffler, 117,000. We got 7 percent is our estimate of the overall vote that's in. Of that, 93 percent of the vote that's in right now is pre-election vote. That is a vote that we know advantages the Democrats, those more than 3 million votes cast before Election Day had a Democratic advantage to them.
What is that going to come down to? That's going to come down, we think, our estimate, 72 percent. When all the votes are counted, we expect about 72 percent to have been pre-election. So, that means a lot of Election Day vote will come in that is going to bring the bar down and could benefit Kelly Loeffler since Republicans tend to show up in greater numbers in person on Election Day, Wolf.
BLITZER: In part, David, because the president kept complaining about all of the early voting that was going on in the presidential contest, he wanted people to show up the day of the election despite the coronavirus.
CHALIAN: There is no doubt he encouraged that in November and since November in Georgia as he has been questioning the result in Georgia and complaining that somehow totally legitimately cast ballots by mail weren't worthy that depressed Republicans using that method of voting so we see more Democrats voting early, voting by mail, right now that's making up the bulk of the vote in Georgia. That's why you see that inflated lead for Democrats.
And as more and more Election Day vote which will favor Republicans we think come in, you'll see the race and the margins get a lot closer, Wolf.
BLITZER: Yeah, I suspect we will.
You know, John, the early voting numbers are very impressive for the Democrats but the today voting is going to probably be very impressive for the Republicans.
KING: Which is why again you pick however you want to describe this we're getting pieces of the pie in different orders. What matters in the end is when you get the total pie. To David's point, again, you see these disproportionate Democratic leads right now, 60/40 if you round up for Senator Perdue, 60/39 in the other race.
It is not going to end up that way. These are going to be relatively close races no matter who wins, they're going to be relatively close race, we don't know the final margin. But just for those of you with us in November, what we are seeing right now in this Democratic lead is remember Joe Biden had a big lead in Ohio? Joe Biden had a big lead in Texas, because those states reported early ballots first. Mail-in ballots furs. Absentee ballots first.
And Joe Biden opened a big lead. Then they counted the Election Day vote and it went away. In Georgia, President Trump opened up a big lead and then they counted the mail-in ballots later and the Democrats came back. What happens in different ways in different states.
Tonight, we're seeing the early votes. I just gave you a couple of examples. In the race right now, this is the Warnock/Loeffler race but it's the same in the Ossoff/Perdue race. Down here in the southern part of the state, Reverend Warnock ahead with 60 percent of the vote.
Well, let's go back to 2020 the presidential race. This is a Republican county. As they count the day of votes the expectation is this will be red. Let's keep an eye on it. It is a small county. It's in the upper half there. We'll keep an eye on that.
Then you come back to this, you come over here and you come south of Augusta, Burke County, you see Ossoff with 74 percent of the vote. Back to 2020 and the Senate race this was carried by David Perdue.
So, what we're seeing right now is not necessarily contextual, Wolf, because it's all early vote.
BLITZER: We're waiting for a lot more votes that are about to come in. Much more, much more of our special coverage right after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:38:14]
BLITZER: Election night America continues. We have a key race alert right now, 10, now 11 percent of the estimated vote is now in. The Democrats still maintain a lead, but their lead has gone down a bit. Jon Ossoff, his lead about 28,000 votes over David Perdue, the Republican, 53.2 percent to 46.8 percent.
Take a look at this, Ossoff has 235,000 votes, Purdue has 207,000 votes. Remember, 11 percent of the vote is.
The other Senate contests, Raphael Warnock, he has a 31,000 vote lead over Kelly Loeffler, 237,000 votes for Warnock, 205,000 votes for Loeffler; 53.5 percent for Warnock, 46.5 percent for Loeffler. Eleven percent of the vote is now.
They're counting the votes relatively quickly, Pamela?
PAMELA BROWN, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, they absolutely are.
And I just got off the phone with a Georgia election official, Gabriel Sterling, who tells me that they are now keeping the state system open, an extra 3 hours. I was supposed to close at 11:00 p.m., and now, it's going to be open until 2:00 a.m.
Here's why this matters. That allows officials in Georgia to tabulate more votes tonight, up until 2 am, with those absentee ballots, because this is the same system they rely on, for signature verification. They initially were going to stop counting those absentee ballots at 11:00 p.m., because they wouldn't have access to that system. That has changed, they have an extra three hours to process and tabulate those absentee ballots, as we know, skew Democratic.
He also tells me that a vast majority of results will be known tonight. Those votes that came in before today, more than 3 million votes, he said, will likely be known tonight. He says that is because officials in Georgia, those election officials, have been staying on top of processing and scanning those absentee ballots, so that all they needed to do when those polls close was to tabulate them.
[19:40:06]
And we're seeing those results come in as we speak, Wolf.
BLITZER: Very interesting indeed, they're doing a very good job so far counting these votes, John. They're going to stay open longer so we'll get more results.
KING: So it is possible, later in the night, we can have a clear picture. I'm not going to be crazy and say we're going to know who wins, especially as we expect these races to be close. But it is possible we'll have a much better sense, because as Pam
noted, this time, it was not optional. It was not optional. They asked the counties to deal with the mail-in ballots, to deal with the absentee ballots, to get them processed, ready to be counted as opposed to back in November because of the pandemic, because of all the concerns and the complexities, a lot of counties had the option to set them aside and deal with them after the polls closed. So, they're much more prepared this time.
Another point, I just want to echo what Pam says -- we do see the Democratic lead here. This is the Ossoff/Perdue race 51 to 48, or 52 to 49 if you want to round up here. You look over the other one, 52 to 48. They are tracking very similar, the Democratic and Republican race, small differences but not significant just yet.
But remember, we're nowhere near where we need to be to understand the dynamics of this race yet. More than 3 million votes were cast early. Not even counting what voted today, 250-234, right? So we're in the ballpark of a half million there. In the ballpark of a half million counted so far, 3 million were cast early.
We expect turnout to be higher, you know, that adding to what happened today, could be 4 million, could be higher. We have a long way to go when you look at 485,000 votes counted there, when you add up the two races. But as you look at them, just come back and look again, going back and forth to see if there is any big difference.
Beginning to see more votes come in from the Metropolitan Atlanta area, critical. Fulton County, the largest, up to 22 percent, 80 percent. That is what a Democrat has to do in Fulton County, Democrats would like it to be a higher percentage. We'll watch what happens.
Again, we did see back in the presidential election in November, David Perdue did better than Donald Trump in Fulton County, the Atlanta suburbs to the south and the north. We'll see if that holds up.
I just want to check to see again, not exact but they're tracking very closely together. You move out here. DeKalb County, 61 percent right now for the Democrat Warnock, 60 percent, 59 percent for Jon Ossoff. That number for the Democrats has to go higher.
DeKalb County is absolutely critical. Democrats want to be. I'll just give you the example back to the presidential race. Joe Biden is getting 83 percent in DeKalb County. Remember, he just barely won the state with 11,000 votes.
So, again, these are early results. Draw no conclusions from where we are. If you are a Democrat looking at the early results, you think, OK, we need to do better than that as more votes come in. But again, look, that is 600, 700 votes as it goes.
So, we have a long way to go in the total count. Just wondering around as they come in, you're moving more away from Atlanta here. Again, 29 percent here. Some of the smaller counties will count faster.
You pull it out just to understand the complexities of battleground Georgia, the Democrats need to run it up here. They need to run it up when you get Columbus, when we get Augusta, when you get Savannah, those have to be not only blue the margins have to be big.
Then one of the big questions, a question with even more emphasis, but especially in the Trump age, this -- go back to the map here -- even when he lost, even when he lost by 11,000 votes look at Pennsylvania, look at Georgia, look at any state in America, look at Texas. The smaller, rural counties, that is Trump country.
One of the big questions tonight, Wolf, is do they turn out? Because yes, they're Republicans but they're Trump Republicans. A lot of them have been programmed by their president to not like the Republican establishment.
Their president has been attacking the Georgia governor, attacking the Georgia secretary of state saying he won this state. He did not. But saying he did.
So do those voters come out? As we watch the map fill in tonight these areas will be red. We know that. One thing we'll look at when we get later in the night is you pull up counties like this and Wilcox county, 132 of 159 in terms of population so a very small population center here. David Perdue is going to win big.
So, you look, 1,100 votes where he is right now. Go back to 2020 and hit the Senate race, it was 2,300 then. That is one of the things we want to see at the end of the night is turn out roughly, it will be down from a presidential election in most places, maybe it will surprise us in some, in most places, it will be down, but is he getting the percentage and is turn out decent? Is it proportionately down? It's down the same as it is in Democratic counties?
That is one thing you look at, at the end of the night, as we try to answer the question of the Trump effect. He is not on the ballot tonight as he was in November. For the most part, Republicans think that is to their advantage because of the suburban revolt against the president, but if his voters don't show up in the rural areas, it could be a disadvantage. That is why the next few hours are going to be fascinating.
BLITZER: Thirteen percent of the estimated vote is now in. Ossoff has almost a 23,000 vote lead over Perdue.
You know, it's so interesting because we've done this at the magic wall over the years. In a state like Georgia, if the Democrat doesn't crush it in the Atlanta area, that Democrat is not going to win just like in Florida. If a Democrat doesn't crush it in Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach County, South Florida, that Democrat is not going to win the state.
[19:45:01]
KING: Right. If you look back to the presidential race, now I pull up to the national map to do it, if you look at it, some of these states you see some of the blue states, take a state like Pennsylvania. There's a whole lot of red, right? Donald Trump runs it up in rural America. He did it in Pennsylvania. He lost the state by a lot. Not by a lot but by more than he won it in 2016, 80,000 votes. Why? Because Joe Biden ran it up in the urban areas and the close-in suburbs.
Pennsylvania, Georgia is different but the basic dynamics are the same. Joe Biden won it why? Because he ran it up where people live, in the urban areas and the close-in suburbs, in Atlanta, in Columbus, in Augusta, in Savannah.
Run it up in the cities, increasingly again the suburbs are critical tonight. Joe Biden benefited. I'm not criticizing him. He had significant support of his own in the suburbs. But there are a lot of moderate Republicans or independents who lean Republican who live in suburban America who just do not like President Trump and cannot vote for President Trump.
And that was a factor in Joe Biden's narrow win here. It was a factor in Joe Biden's narrow win in Arizona. It was a factor in Joe Biden's wins everywhere.
It is the reason Nancy Pelosi is speaker of the house, the suburban revolt against Donald Trump. The Democrats must run it up here. By run it up, Wolf, let's go back again. This is the presidential race but it matters in the Senate race tonight above 70 percent, well above 70 percent in Fulton County is critical, absolutely critical to any Democrats.
I would argue if the Trump voters are coming out, conservatives are coming out for the Senate candidates they might want to be higher than that. You move over to DeKalb as I noted Joe Biden at 83 percent. So, 80 percent or higher is a ballpark.
You get more conservative as you move away. Even though they are Democratic suburbs they are less Democratic as you move away from the urban areas. But again, in Gwinnett County, Joe Biden at 58. Let's see where we are right now in some of the votes coming in here?
Ossoff at 70, the early votes. He is disproportionately lifted higher by early votes. You want to be close to 60. There is no question, no question that the Atlanta area and we have nothing from Columbus yet, nothing from Chatham County here in Savannah. Nothing from Augusta. The Democrats need to run it up. That is one of the questions about turn out. The Democrats do believe they did very well in the early voting, both the in-person and mail-in. The question is did they do well enough?
BLITZER: We're getting more numbers, 14 percent of the estimated vote is now in. Much more special coverage coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:51:33]
BLITZER: Let's get another key race alert right now. Take a look at this, 19 percent of the estimated vote is in, and they are counting the votes in Georgia relatively quickly. The polls have not been closed for an hour. Democrats maintaining a lead. It has grown. 73,000 vote lead by Raphael Warnock over Kelly Loeffler, 438,000 for Warnock, 365,000 for Loeffler, 54.5 percent to 45.5 percent, 19 percent of the vote is now in.
Jon Ossoff has nearly 70,000 votes over David Perdue, the Republican. 54.3 percent to 45.7 percent, 440,000 votes for Ossoff, 371 for Perdue.
So, the Democrats, John King, they're still in the lead. They built that lead a bit. I assume some of the votes were counted in the Atlanta counties.
KING: You are seeing more blue in Atlanta and the suburban collar around. It's been bouncing around while we are in the commercial break. That's the way it will go in the early hours, just the way it will go. You see a lot more red down here, some of these more rural and Republican counties reported, the Republicans jumped up, and the we got some more votes up here, and the Democrats jumped up.
So, we're all going to have just be patient for the next couple of hours, but let's get through it. As you noted, let's start with the largest population center, Fulton County, Atlanta and the surrounding suburbs. Jon Ossoff at 80 percent. That's where a Democrat needs to be. 22 percent, we have a long way to go.
And we did see, margins can matter in a very close race. David Perdue did better than Trump in this county, the biggest county in the state, back in November. We'll watch, and see how it plays out tonight. That is the Ossoff-Perdue race. You flip over to the Warnock-Loeffler race, Warnock actually a little bit higher voter percentage there, or is it, I might have it backwards, 80.2 there to 81 here. This is his home base, Atlanta, Ebenezer Baptist Church, the church of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
African-American turnout absolutely critical, but the suburbs again to the north and south will matter hugely to the Democrats. Can they keep the advantage Joe Biden had in the presidential race? Going to carry over or without the president on the ballot, does this change? We will see.
BLITZER: That's 10 percent, by the way, John. Fulton County is 10 percent of the entire vote, of the entire state, just one county.
KING: That's right. Just Fulton County gives you 10 percent. And again, you come over here, you are talking about the 4th largest county. You come over here, you are talking about the second largest over here. So, the bulk of your vote is in metropolitan Atlanta. But in a close race, votes everywhere count.
As you look at Gwinnett, Democrat Warnock is at 71 percent. The race is tracking closely, Ossoff at 70 percent. Again, very early voting though.
If the number holds and the Democrats are at 70 percent, you come back to the presidential race, Joe Biden won by 58 percent. Some people at home might get annoyed at the repetitive nature of it, for context, though, this is early vote. So, the Democrats are running higher right now than we expect in the end, because the early votes are coming in first.
But we will keep watching. Sometimes we get shocked. You are starting to see that this is where the president was last night, Whitfield County, a small number of votes in so far, only 4 percent. But this is the test. Remember late in the presidential campaign, won a lot of polls showed Biden with a big lead, President Trump hit the road. Those rallies worked.
Trump lost the election, but he made Pennsylvania a lot closer, he made Georgia closer by his rallies. They did turn out people in the late stages. North Carolina is another example.
The president on the road does turn out his base. A big question for this race, does the president on the road turnout his base when he is not on the ballot? So, this is one of the places we'll watch as we get more votes, only at 4 percent right now.
[19:55:03]
But that is why the president went there last night. I know this will be red, but they need higher turnout to offset that Democrat advantage in early voting.
BLITZER: Yeah, 90 percent, almost 20 percent of the vote is now in. I think it is pretty impressive that they have already counted almost 20 percent of the vote in a state like Georgia. The polls haven't even been closed for an hour.
KING: Well, number one, despite everything you have heard from the president, Georgia did a good job. All states did a pretty good job back in November, but Georgia did a very good job, especially given the difficulties of the pandemic, and with turnout up so much. Georgia did a very good, the votes have been recounted three times. Joe Biden won the state.
But even Georgia will tell you, the secretary of state would tell you they also learned lessons from what happened in November, which is why they are processing early ballots earlier this time. They expect turnout to be high and they don't want to wait 4 or 5 days either. They want to count the votes as quickly as possible.
So, you're up to 20 percent, you're right, not that long after the polls had closed. The question will be, do they keep coming in? Every now and then, we've gone through this for many years. Some states have an impressive early count and then you get you a lag, we'll have to see if they can continue the production of this.
But you're starting to see the map fill in, again, one of the things I'm waiting for, Chatham County, Atlanta, and the metro suburbs are foundation number one, foundation number two, and foundation number three for the Democrats. But they need to match it in other places.
Chatham County was absolutely critical to Joe Biden. You see the 58 percent there. And if you went back to 2016, 55 percent for Hillary Clinton in 2016. Biden upped his margins in the places he needed to in the presidential race. And you come back to the Senate race here, Ossoff won with 57.5. The
question is, can he match it? Can he at least match the percentages here?
And again, turnout will be down. The question is, can Democrats keep it from falling too much in the places where they need votes? That's one thing we will be watching as we come back out. See where we are, again, still at 19 percent. Next couple of hours, we're going to bounce around a little bit, but you're right, they are coming in pretty quickly.
BLITZER: Democrats are still ahead right now. Twenty percent of the vote is now, and Ossoff has 47,000 votes lead, Warnock has a 52,000 votes lead. So, the numbers are coming in pretty quickly.
Jake, back to you.
JAKE TAPPER, CNN CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Thanks, Wolf.
And I just want to point to help our viewers understand just how morally and intellectually bankrupt the argument that President Trump and so many congressional Republicans are making, we could stop counting votes right now in Georgia. Let's bring them up. Ossoff is up 52.8 percent to Perdue's 47.2 percent. Warnock up 53.1 percent to Loeffler's 46.9 percent.
We could stop counting right now, and Ossoff and Warnock would win. But we wouldn't do that, because we are still counting ballots.
This is the argument that President Trump, and at least 126 House Republicans, have made, which is that on Tuesday night, when they went to bed, Trump was up in Michigan and Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, and Georgia, and Arizona. But then more votes came in, and suddenly, Joe Biden took the lead.
Yes, more votes came in. That's what happened. And we're going to watch the reverse happen here. I don't know who will win these two Senate races, but they are going to be -- it is going to get a lot closer, and perhaps Perdue and Loeffler will pass Warnock and Ossoff. I don't know. I have no idea what's going to happen.
But we are expecting a lot more Republican-leaning counties and Republican-leaning areas, especially those individuals who voted today, as opposed to the early vote. That's what an election is. You count all the ballots, and sometimes you count places that are Democratically increasing and sometimes you first count places that are Republican -leaning precincts. But you have to count all of them.
One of the main arguments in the Texas attorney general lawsuit that the Supreme Court basically crumpled up and threw out the window is because they argued there is no way that Donald Trump could be up in all of these states, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, it Sarah, there is no way that could happen and then all the votes come in and Joe Biden takes the lead.
But of course there is a way. The way is to count all the ballots, and that tension is one of the reasons why it is so frustrating for election officials, Republican, Democrat, independent, or people who are in the news media, to cover this, because it is so intellectually bankrupt to argue that just because more votes came in for the other candidate as votes were counted in the middle of the night, that that therefore is indication of corruption. It's not, and it's very frustrating to watch this double standard.
On that subject, I want to go to Kaitlan Collins right now, because there is new reporting on the increasingly tense relationship between outgoing President Trump and Vice President Pence ahead of tomorrow's certification of the election results in Congress.
Kaitlan Collins, tell us what you are learning.
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, Jake, earlier, we reported that President Trump and Vice President Pence had a lunch today, it doesn't appear they actually had lunch.
