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Harris Outlines Economic Plans in Final Campaign Speech; Trump Attacks Key Democrats During Michigan Rally; Swing States Expected to be Pivotal to Path to Victory; Harris, Trump Vie for Crucial Latino Voters in Swing States. Aired 4:30-5a ET

Aired November 05, 2024 - 04:30   ET

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

[04:30:00]

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: Half past the hour now, I'm Erica Hill in New York. You are watching CNN's special coverage of Election Day in America.

The polls set to open just a couple of hours from now for millions of Americans, and the presidential candidates wrapping up their final rallies. Among those joining them, Oprah Winfrey, Lady Gaga, Will.i.am there with Kamala Harris for her final campaign event in Philadelphia. The vice president is scheduled to do a series of radio interviews today, before watching the election results from her alma mater, Howard University.

Here's part of her closing argument to voters.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE U.S. (D) AND U.S. PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: We will build an economy where we bring down the cost of living. We will ban corporate price gouging on groceries. We will make housing and childcare more affordable.

We will cut taxes for workers, for middle class families and small businesses. We will lower health care costs, including the cost of home care for seniors. Because on the issue of health care, I absolutely believe access to health care should be a right, and not just a privilege of those who can afford it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HILL: The message from Donald Trump? Starkly different. Speaking into the wee hours of Tuesday morning in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the former president launching into a series of personal attacks against Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: She's a crooked person. She's a bad person. Evil. She's an evil, sick, crazy bitch. Oh no. It starts with a B, but I won't say it. I want to say it. Adam shifty Schiff. I call him pencil neck. He's got the smallest neck

I've ever seen. He's got about a four. And he's got the biggest head. So I don't know how the neck can hold the head. He's an unattractive guy, both inside and out.

She called up and conceded, and then spent seven years on saying how she was a good sport. Oh, she's a wonderful, she's a lovely person, crooked Hillary. But you know what? She's smart.

And but she wasn't like she lied a lot. I mean, but nobody lies like this, Kamala. She's a very low IQ person.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HILL: Pennsylvania, of course, is a key to victory for both candidates. But CNN's John King explains how they can each win the election. There is a way to do it with or without it. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF U.S. NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: There's a reason she is spending her entire day in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The seven battleground states are in yellow on this map. She's at 226 right now.

You've got to get to 270. That's 19. You get those 19, you're well on your way.

And the blue wall states, Michigan and Wisconsin included, have voted together since 1992. Donald Trump won them in 2016. That was the huge surprise that made Donald Trump president.

If the vice president can win those three blue wall states, that's 270 right there. As long as she gets Nebraska's second congressional district. So no path is easy, but that is her easiest path to 270.

And those have been Democratic states with the exception of 2016. So that's where they start. Now, can she get there without that?

Let's come back to where we were. Let's say that Donald Trump, for example, repeated 2016 and that he took all three blue wall states. Can the vice president win then?

She can. It would require a sweep of the Sun Belt. It would require North Carolina. It would require Georgia. It would require Arizona. And it would require Nevada.

[04:35:00]

Now, so there's the blue wall strategy, and there's a Sun Belt path. Both candidates are essentially the same path. Trump would need a little bit more.

Trump can't win with just the blue wall. He would have to pick up something else along the way. The other scenario is, what if there's a mix and match? What if these

three don't stay together? That's when it would get really interesting. If Michigan, say, and Wisconsin went blue and Pennsylvania went red, then you're in a scramble to get to 270 down through the Sun Belt. That's unusual.

It doesn't normally happen. But this has been an unusual year, so we prepare for everything.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HILL: It certainly has been an unusual year. Our political panel is back with us now. As all of that is being gamed out, a couple of the states that we could see some early returns from, Georgia, North Carolina.

Ron, what could those early returns tell us?

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, they'll give us some indications about rural versus urban, some of the demographic considerations. But they are, you know, they're southern states, so the white electorate is more conservative.

You know, it's interesting that so much has changed since Harris replaced Biden as the Democratic nominee. She's certainly running better than he did, particularly among younger voters, Latino voters and Black voters. But in many ways, she's kind of ending up in the same place as he did, as he was, which is that her clearest path, with a big gap, is in sweeping the three states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. You know, I'm the person who coined the phrase the blue wall back in 2009, originally referred to 18 states that voted Democratic from 92 to 2012.

Now, most people think about just those three states, which Trump knocked out of the blue wall in 2016. And those are states where Democrats can run better among white voters than they do in most parts of the country. And that's why, Erica, you know, it is entirely possible that Harris could win those three states and win them the Electoral College, even if she wins the popular vote by only about as much as Clinton did in 2016, which wasn't enough to win those three states.

And the reason is that, like Biden in 2020, she does seem to be running better among white voters and her decline in the popular vote will primarily be among Latino voters who aren't that relevant, as relevant in those states as they are elsewhere. And so you have this possibility, you know, this assumption has been in both parties. Democrats have to win the popular vote by a lot in order to get to 270.

That may be less true this year because of the way each coalition is evolving.

HILL: Maria, there has been such a focus on Latino voters over the last week, of course, on the heels of those comments at the Trump rally last Sunday night. But, you know, to Ron's point, even in some of this most recent polling, we're seeing a little bit of a drop compared to the numbers in 2020 for Biden when it comes to Harris's support among Black and Latino voters in this latest NPR-Marist poll, down eight points among likely Black voters, down about 2 percent from 2020 among likely Latino voters. Is it your sense that the events of the last week have injected a little bit more optimism in either of those voting blocs?

MARIA CARDONA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: An unequivocal C, Erica, it has. And I know this because, as you know well, I work very closely with the Latino community and with a lot of the groups that work with Latinos and with groups that work with Black voters as well.

But specifically among the Latino community, Erica, I spoke to a pollster earlier today who was part of the consortium of pollsters who were doing the exit polls. And what he told me is that the exit polls that they are doing now, which will continue until Election Day is over, but they're doing quite a bit now because of the early vote. Those aren't really polls. They're actually talking to voters who already voted.

They have seen an increase in support for Kamala Harris of 10 points among Latino voters, especially the Puerto Rican voters in Pennsylvania and across the battleground states ever since the Madison Square Garden rally where Donald Trump had his supporters, specifically the comedian, call Puerto Rico an island of trash.

So that really pushed Puerto Rican voters as well as Latino voters who also felt offended to say, you know what, this is absolutely unacceptable. We are going to mobilize. We're going to energize our friends and family to vote against Donald Trump and to go vote for Kamala Harris.

You even had Latino voters who were Donald Trump supporters who flipped on him because they were so pissed off at how he and his allies were treating the Latino community.

So I do believe that at the end of the day, when all the votes are counted, Vice President Harris is going to register at least the same amount, if not more, I believe it will be more of support among the Latino community than Joe Biden had in 2020.

And I believe the same can be also for Black voters, for support among the Latino community than Joe Biden had in 2020. And I believe the same can be also for Black voters for different reasons, but they're coming home. And I've talked to pollsters who also do polling in the Black community and they're saying, look, this whole myth that Harris is bleeding support from Black voters is just that it's a myth.

And so I think at the end of the day, they will come home as well.

HILL: Scott, this race is going to be about turnout, as we know, and part of that turnout is really a focus on getting that face out there because there aren't that many voters left to convince. How concerned are you about Donald Trump's efforts to undermine this election and to sow doubt about the election before it even happens? SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Oh, I'm not concerned about anything yet because I haven't seen any evidence that we're going to have anything other than a free and fair election. And I believe we will have a free and fair election. We'll see what happens after election night.

And everybody should act responsibly today and in the days ahead. Look, we have a beautiful, magical system in this country. It's a diffused system.

You've got all these amazing volunteers, municipal staff, county clerks, secretaries of state. The way we do it protects it. And the way we do it, I think, gives you really good insurance against anything bad happening on a massive scale.

So I'm going to choose to be optimistic about this election, both on the front of we're all going to believe that it's a free and fair election and maybe, just maybe, we'll get results in a timely fashion. So as we sit here at 4:41 a.m. -- by the way, I don't know if any of the rest of you figured out who we made angry at CNN, but if we're at 4:41 a.m., I'm going to have a glass half full view of this whole thing because I believe in the way we do it. I believe in the system and I'm going to keep believing in it until someone proves me otherwise and they never have.

HILL: Listen, as my grandmother would tell you, may she rest in peace. It's always happy hour somewhere. So there you go.

Lulu, how much wiggle room is not the right -- pardon me? I've had a caffeine.

No, I was going to say a lot of caffeine is key. I wanted to ask you about this idea of not only hidden Trump voters, but hidden Harris voters.

How much weight do you put on that idea that they could be out there, these sort of hidden voting blocks that are going to show up tomorrow or today?

LULU GARCIA NAVARRO, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: I am suspicious of this. I think that there isn't, you know, there's been a real appeal by the Harris campaign to do this kind of whisper network. There was a really strong Julia Roberts narrated ad which tells women that they can vote against their husband and you can actually say you're going to do one thing and secretly do another.

And it shows women sort of nodding at each other across the ballot box. You know, we're not in the 1950s. I do think that, you know, if you live in a household where you might disagree with your spouse, I hope that you can feel that you can actually vote your conscience and not have to worry about it.

There was this very funny meme going around, though, that showed Donald Trump looking at Melania Trump's ballot when she was casting her vote, which I have to say went pretty viral because maybe the person who doesn't trust who is voting is Donald Trump with Melania. She's been pretty absent on the campaign trail, as has Ivanka Trump. So maybe the women in his family might vote differently.

But I'm not sure there is going to be a huge hidden vote. I think what you're seeing, though, is that women are coming out very strongly for Harris. Reproductive rights are an enormous issue because in this country, since the fall of Roe, we have seen it affect women.

And, you know, that has become a central issue of this campaign. And Donald Trump, frankly, hasn't done well with women, which is why one of his closing arguments was, you know, to try and appeal to women, a lot of pink signs with women for Trump behind him. But as you heard there, he didn't really stay on message. He went dark. And so we'll have to see. Is it the bros or is it the gals?

HILL: Ah, the bros or the gals? What a match up there.

Ron, I'm going to give you last word here, because I'm just wondering, we were talking a little bit earlier this morning about watching where the campaigns will be moving throughout the day, especially in those few hours before the polls close.

Why is that so important? What can it tell us?

BROWNSTEIN: Well, look, I think you see a lot from where they have been, especially in the last few days. Hillary Clinton in 2016 famously did not go to Michigan and Wisconsin down the stretch. Kamala Harris is not, you know, going to be accused of neglecting the former blue wall states a full day in each Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Maybe the most notable thing about Trump's schedule is how many times he has gone to North Carolina.

[04:45:00]

I mean, Democrats have been nervous that, you know, North Carolina has been heartbreak hill for them for years. They get close but can never get over the top. He's been there a bunch this last week. So obviously they see something that they don't like.

You know, we're used to elections where most of the close states tip the same way in the end. There does seem to be a gap between the Rust Belt options for Harris and the Sun Belt options. We'll see. But certainly there's one scenario in which this ends with her at 270 electoral college votes and him at 268.

And if we think of how much Trump, how much pressure he put on our system in an electoral college vote that was 305 to 233, I think everyone has to buckle up and reinforce the importance of accepting the election results without violence or intimidation. If we end up with something that is as close as it potentially could be. Might open up a little more. But it's a 270 to 268 is not inconceivable.

And people, I think, have to be getting ready for that in power and institutions with influence, defending the idea of respecting election results, because there's no guarantee that if Trump loses, he is going to. HILL: Ron, Lulu, Scott, Maria, great to see all of you. Don't worry, Scott, you did not draw the short straw by being with us this morning. I promise you.

JENNINGS: It was fun.

HILL: Yes, we are. Enjoy your election day, my friends. We will talk to you.

CARDONA: you as well.

HILL: As we have been discussing Kamala Harris and Donald Trump have spent months courting Hispanic voters. So who could perhaps see the payoff there? We're going to check in with one of the hosts of the Latino Vote podcast next.

[04:50:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HILL: Kamala Harris really working overtime to do her best to win the Latino vote in the battleground state of Pennsylvania. Yesterday, she and Congresswoman from New York, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, meeting with voters at a Puerto Rican cafe in Redding, Pennsylvania.

The Latino vote could play a massive role in this election in a number of states. As we know, these numbers are from the final CNN polls in Arizona and Nevada, with likely Latino voters in Arizona. Harris was ahead of Donald Trump by 18 points. In Nevada, though, Harris led by just one point.

For more on this, I'm joined now by Chuck Roche, a Democratic strategist, co-host of the Latino Vote podcast. Joining us now live from Washington. Nice to see you, dark and early, as I like to say this morning.

So as we look at where things stand heading into Election Day, you tell me from your vantage point, where does this race stand?

CHUCK ROCHA, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: You've heard too many people say it's too close to call, but leading into the Latino vote piece, I think the Latino voters, because they're so different from state to state, will probably determine who will be president, who will control the Senate. And what we go underreported way too much is actually who will control congressional majorities in both houses because of where we live.

You talked about the concentration in Pennsylvania. There's 578,000, mainly Puerto Rican and Dominican Latinos, but Mexican-Americans in Arizona and Nevada will have a big impact. And another underreported thing is there's a substantial amount of Mexican-Americans in Milwaukee and over 150,000 Latino voters in Michigan. These voters are all within the difference of what it was in the last election. That's why I think it will be so critical.

HILL: But it's also you make such an important point that I think sometimes gets forgotten in all of this. Trying to throw every Latino voter into one giant voting bloc is like throwing all women into one voting bloc. Right.

It depends -- I mean, it depends on the individual, but it does depend on where you live, what your community is, what your background is. All of that really comes into play in an important, nuanced way.

ROCHA: Erica, it's the thing that consultants get wrong the most, because Latinos are not that -- there's not that many Latinos in the hierarchy of the campaign world. So we're looking towards a lot of well-intentioned white consultants trying to figure out how to reach a Puerto Rican or Dominican.

But if you just show up and look at the voter file in Pennsylvania and say, oh, there's a half a million Latinos here. We should get some sombreros and taco trucks and show up down at Allentown. You're going to be highly embarrassed because in Allentown, Reading, Wilkes-Barre and all these places where you've seen all these candidates on the east side of Pennsylvania are not even immigrants from the island of Puerto Rico. They're mainly Puerto Ricans and Dominicans who've moved there from New York and New Jersey with their own unique culture.

So having cultural competency of understanding how to reach these voters are very, very important.

HILL: Have you seen a change in that to your point? The last thing you need is some white consultant telling you how to reach different demographic groups. Have you started to see a change in that in 2024 among the campaigns?

ROCHA: I have. I think that's why you see Julie Chavez Rodriguez as the manager of the Harris campaign. I think you're seeing a lot more Latinos come of age because our electorate is so much younger.

The average age of a Latino voter is 28. Many times as we cover this vote, we like to compare the Latino vote to the white or the Black vote, the white or the Black vote. In America, the average age is in its 40s.

When you're talking about a voter in its 40s, no matter what the color of their skin or a voter in their 20s, they just show up at different rates. So you have to work way harder to get somebody in their 20s to show up. That's why you always see the Latino turnout number lag behind Black and white voters.

HILL: Where is your focus going to be as you're watching returns come in?

ROCHA: There's a couple of congressional districts I'm really going to be looking at. Sure, we're looking at Pennsylvania, but look at North Carolina. North Carolina is going to be done really early and Georgia is going to be done really early in the night.

There's over one million Latinos in Georgia. In North Carolina, it's the fastest growing Latino state in the country. I'm going to be looking at counties and pockets in those states where the Latino vote is bigger than it is in other parts of the state to see what the performance is, because we'll know that night.

[04:55:00]

And then lastly, the congressional district in eastern Pennsylvania, which is Pennsylvania seven, currently held by Democrat Congresswoman Wild. That will be something I'm watching as well. She won that district by only two points in the last midterm election.

So if she's in trouble on election night with her district being almost 50 percent Puerto Rican and Dominican. Democrats will have a long night.

HILL: Chuck, always great to talk to you. Thank you. Enjoy your election day.

ROCHA: Thank you.

HILL: Before I leave you this hour, I wanted to share this sort of breaking election news with you. Viral Internet sensation, budding political strategist, it turns out, Moo Deng has finally broken her silence on the U.S. election. The baby hippo who has captured the hearts of millions around the world had to choose a fruit basket this morning.

She chose the Donald Trump fruit basket. Predicting a Trump victory. Now, it's important to note here, the two fruit baskets offered to Moo Deng, one was labeled Harris, one was labeled Trump. It turns out we're told the piece of dragon fruit in the Trump basket was bigger, according to the zookeepers. So there are some questions about whether this was rigged, whether the baskets were actually equal. Unclear whether the vote's going to be redone.

But again, at this point, Moo Dung -- and Moo Deng rather and her fruit choices have spoken. She says Donald Trump. We'll let you know if she's right in a couple of days.

Thanks so much for joining me here as we kick off Election Day 2024 at CNN. Be sure to stay with CNN throughout the day for continuing coverage of the presidential election and all those other key races and ballot measures. I'm Erica Hill in New York. Election Day in America continues after this quick break.