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CNN Live Event/Special

Americans Voting in Historic Presidential Election; Two GA Polling Locations Reopen; Americans Head to Polls to Decide Next President. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired November 05, 2024 - 10:30   ET

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

[10:30:00]

SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R-FL), FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE AND APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE: -- network that basically just label anything he says as violent rhetoric, including jokes, including things that are clearly off the cuff, but he has a unique communication style and he's not going to change the day before, but this is a guy that's been subjected to relentless and ruthless attacks against this character or against everything you can imagine. Yes, he's going to punch back. There's no doubt about it. That's going to happen.

So, to argue that in the last 24 hours, Kamala Harris hasn't mentioned his name, after you got Oprah Winfrey last night, I don't really care. Look, celebrities can endorse whoever they want. But last night she said something at a rally about if you don't vote today, you may never get a chance to vote again. Really? I mean, come on. This is silly stuff. Yes, there's going to be some punch backs.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: You do know that your candidate has been saying that for weeks now, about it's the end of America, it's the last election. I mean, this is the rhetoric he's been using. I get it, you're saying Oprah said it. I mean -- and it was J. D. Vance who called him America's Hitler.

RUBIO: Well, J. D. Vance has already addressed that, you know, and he addressed that in the past as far as he changed his mind and he feels very differently about Donald Trump today. He's his running mate and he's a strong supporter. And so, that's the -- look, there are a lot of people that are going to vote for Donald Trump today that didn't vote for him in 2020, that didn't vote for him in 2016, but you know what they're saying to themselves? When Donald Trump was president, life was more affordable, our country was safer, and it was stronger and more respected in the world.

And ultimately, that's what's going to matter. When people go put gas in their car, when people have to pay their bills at the end of the month, they believe they're going to be better off under Donald Trump than they do under a Kamala Harris presidency, and that's what's going to matter on a daily basis. It's going to matter for the future of our country.

There is no doubt, both sides are saying, that this is a definitional election that's going to determine the future of our country. I agree, that's one thing we can all agree on. And so, let's go out and vote today. And make our choice. We're blessed to be able to make that choice at the ballot box. And I strongly believe that our country is going to be better off, not just over the next four years, but for future American generations if Donald Trump is elected the 47th president of the United States.

COOPER: Senator Marco Rubio, I appreciate your time. Thank you.

RUBIO: All right. Thank you.

COOPER: All right. Stay with CNN. Our special coverage of Election Day in America continues after this short break.

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[10:35:00]

COOPER: Welcome back to CNN's special coverage of Election Day in America. Right now, voters across the nation heading to the polls to make their voices heard. The race for the White House and control of Congress on the line.

Sixteen electoral votes are up for grabs in the critical battleground State of Georgia. CNN's Nick Valencia is live from a polling place in Lawrenceville. What's the turnout like, Nick?

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Hey, good morning, Anderson. We're here at the registrar's office. This is where the votes will be tallied up. And we wanted to pull the curtain back a little bit and show you the life of a ballot.

Since October 21st, pre-processing of absentee by mail ballots has been happening here. That's under state law, but what you're seeing happen here in the corner is unique to this morning. At 9:00 a.m. tabulation could officially start, and that means these rows of machines that you're looking at here that were used in early voting are being physically shut down by these volunteers who are going to be sequestered later.

The votes that are -- data will be ripped from memory cards. Those memory cards will then be transferred down about 90 yards behind the camera there into a tabulation room. They will be adjudicated and then they're going to wait till 7:00 p.m. at which point they could officially start uploading those memory cards and those official results to the secretary of state's office.

The election supervisor here, Anderson, tells us that by 8:00 p.m. we'll see about 60 to 65 percent of the vote, and that's going to be fascinating to watch. Fulton County, DeKalb County, Metro Atlanta areas that's likely to go Democrat, but it's the surrounding counties in the suburbs that both campaigns are going to be watching very, very closely. Anderson.

COOPER: So, Nick, can you just repeat that? So, when polls close in Georgia, they're going to be able to have what percentage of votes? VALENCIA: So, in Gwinnett County, they'll see about 60 to 65 percent of the votes that have already been cast statewide. According to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, we'll see about 70 percent by 8:00 p.m. So, a large bulk of those votes that have already been cast we'll see early in the evening. Anderson.

COOPER: All right. Some numbers coming in fast. Nick Valencia, great. Thanks very much. And at a swing state, Donald Trump won in 2016 and 2020 North Carolina, 16 electoral votes on the line. Miguel Marquez is at a polling site in Wilmington, North Carolina. What are you seeing there?

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Giant lines. And Democrats here have hope from 2020 because the Democratic governor won that year. I want to show you we're at a Moose Lodge in Wilmington, North Carolina. This is New Hanover County. It's a purple county in a purple state. Democrats keeping hope alive here.

We spoke to a mother and her daughter who were here at the polls very early this morning. Here's what they had to say about why they were out so early.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NICHOLE MARTIN, NORTH CAROLINA VOTER: I love Election Day. I love to be out here to vote and it was really important that I brought her with me. So, she kind of understands the importance of it and why we get up and do this every day.

MARQUEZ: Is this your first time voting?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm not allowed to vote.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MARQUEZ: She was very tough. She also does karate and almost threatened to do some karate on me. But look, even in the parking lot, you have the Democratic tent, the Republican tent, lots of energy out here. There was a lull for about an hour between 9:00 and 10:00 where there were very few voters, but all day long, at least 40, 50 people online and the officials inside expected to be busy until polls close at 7 30. Back to you.

COOPER: All right. Miguel Marquez, thanks very much. Just in two polling locations in Fulton County, Georgia, Fulton County are back open after briefly closing due to non-credible bomb threats. Sara Murray is following those developments for us. What do we know, Sara?

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Anderson. We just heard from Nadine Williams, who's the election director here in Fulton County, who confirmed that this morning there were five non-credible bomb threats reported. It caused the temporary closure of two polling locations here in Fulton County for about 30 minutes while security officers swept and confirmed that these were not credible bomb threats. Again, these locations are now up and running again. And the county says they're going to seek a court order to try to keep both locations open a little bit later this evening to allow any voters who may have been disrupted to cast their ballots.

You know, Fulton County is an overwhelmingly Democratic County. A lot of voters of color here. I was talking to some voting rights activists, including the president of the Southern Poverty Law Center, who said, we really don't want this to dissuade anyone from voting. We want people to understand that voting is safe and secure, they should still show up and cast their ballots.

[10:40:00]

And, Anderson, in Fulton County, this was already planned. There is a security officer at every single one of these precincts. So, when a threat does get reported, they have a security officer, a police officer on site to check this out. That's what happened in this case. Again, a small disruption in voting. Hopefully, not something we'll continue to see today.

COOPER: All right. Sara Murray, thanks very much for that. Coming up next, sources inside the Trump campaign tell us there's no one thing that will make or break the former president's chances. Stay with CNN. Our special coverage of Election Day in America continues after this short break.

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RENE MARSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Rene Marsh in Burt, Virginia, where voting is underway. We're seeing a steady flow of voters walking in through those doors, casting their ballots. We know in this county, Fairfax County, where I am 52 percent of the electorate in this county have already cast their ballot. The majority of those early votes.

We also are seeing lots of energy out here. Intensity, stress levels extremely high. We've spoken to Harris voters. We've spoken to Trump voters. You see that red tent there. That is the Republicans from Fairfax County. And then over to the right here, you have your Democrats of Fairfax County.

[10:45:00]

We're seeing the majority of the voters coming in and out here. They all say they're casting their ballot for Harris. However, I have spoken to several other voters who say they are casting their ballot for Trump. Those who say they're casting their ballot for Trump they say the reason is the economy and immigration. The Harris voters saying abortion and democracy are the top issues at the top of mind. Anderson.

COOPER: All right. Rene Marsh in Virginia, thanks very much. We'll check in with you. Top Trump advisers tell CNN they are cautiously optimistic and believe that a win or loss boils down to one issue, voter turnout. One senior adviser is saying, quote, "If the people who we think are going to turn out for President Trump turn out, then he ought to win."

Let's go over to Phil Mattingly at the Magic Wall. So, what are the voting blocks to watch, Phil?

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF DOMESTIC CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Anderson, as much as I desperately want to mock the most tired cliche and politics of it all comes out to turn out, they're not wrong here. Look, this is the map right now as things currently stand, it will start to fill in red and blue over the course of the coming hours this evening.

But let's flash back a little bit and try and get at what that trump adviser who's talking to Alayna Treene is saying here. We'll start in Pennsylvania. Obviously, it is kind of the most critical state based on visits to candidates, based on spending by candidates, based on pathways to 270. What they're talking about is this, it's not just how they do in their strongholds for the Trump campaign or for the Biden campaign. It's also if they're able to keep the margins down in the places where their opponent is going to win.

And what I mean by that is this. If you're the Trump campaign and you watch what happened in Montgomery County, one of the critical collar counties outside of Philadelphia back in 2020, you know that margin and Joe Biden's ability to run up more than 319,000 votes was a borderline kill shot when it came to how they're pulling votes together in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and that carried throughout the collar counties.

Can Donald Trump keep that margin down? Back in 2016 in these suburban areas, Hillary Clinton won 58.9 percent. So, the Trump campaign right now is trying to hold some of those collar counties down in terms of their overall output. They're also looking at Philadelphia County, obviously, where they believe they have made some inroads. They believe there's some softness, particularly with black male voters.

But the interesting thing for the Biden administration campaign back in 2020 is when you actually look at the results. Yes, they ran up huge vote in the color counties. Yes, they did very well in Philadelphia County. Yes, they did very well in Allegheny County as well. But if you actually track through this part of the state here, as well as Scranton -- the Scranton area where Joe Biden is from, what the campaign was able to do was actually hold down Trump's margins in these Republican counties compared to 2016. The story wasn't just the color counties, it was their ability or Joe Biden's ability to hold down margins there.

Two things I want to quickly get to, which is population shifts over the course of the last several years. This is the Atlanta Metro area. This is, yes, the critical driver of Joe Biden's victory here back in 2020, but also pushing out into a couple of Republican counties. There's been 136,000 new people that have moved in to this area, the Atlanta Metro region.

White voters down population wise, 63,000 individuals. Hispanic, Asian, black, huge influx and surge of new more diverse electorate in that area. What's that going to mean? I think we know there's a realignment. Will the realignment continue along the trend that we've seen over the course of the last couple of cycles or will there be some surprises? There likely will be some surprises.

And then here, Maricopa County and Pinal County, total population, it has been a surge down here in Arizona, 219,000 people across the demographic groups. There's been thousands of people added over the course of the last several years. What does that mean going forward? Joe Biden was able to flip Maricopa County back in 2020, the first time in generations that Democrat was able to do that. That drove his ability to flip Arizona to the blue column for the first time since 1996. Can he do that again? The answer will likely lie within that population surge. There's new voters in that critical county. Anderson.

COOPER: All right. Phil Mattingly. Thanks very much. My team is here with me. Jonah Goldberg expectations. What -- where's your head at today?

JONAH GOLDBERG, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR AND EDITOR IN CHIEF, THE DISPATCH: Well, it's funny with like listening to the quote from the Trump people. Like O. J. Simpson was a bad football announcer because he would say things like, look, I think at the end of the game, it's going to come down to who gets more points, right? And like, this is the problem with Election Day is like, you're stuck with these platitudes because we don't know anything and we're -- all of us and we start diving into the data.

And what was it? Friedrich Nietzsche said, you know, he who looks into the crosstabs will look into you. You start becoming like this crazy data person and --

COOPER: Nietzsche had an incredible magical wall.

GOLDBERG: He really did. He was an underrated psychologist. Anyway. So, I think everyone is just in this crazy holding pattern, flying over the airport --

COOPER: With a crazy holding pattern, quoting Nietzsche.

GOLDBERG: It works. It's all grand. And --

COOPER: No, I love it.

KATE BEDINGFIELD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR AND FORMER BIDEN WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: And it's only 10:00 in the morning.

COOPER: I know.

GOLDBERG: And so, the problem I think people have handling is that a probabilistic tie doesn't mean the tie and result, right. So, 50/50 in the polls does not mean it's going to come down to like razor thin margins. It could be -- you can say two football teams are equally bound -- you know, have equal odds, it doesn't mean that one isn't going to way outscore the other.

[10:50:00] Do you realize that making football team analogies with Anderson Cooper is a complete waste of your time?

COOPER: I've been trying -- I've been doing an intensive course in sports analogies to get a better as an anchor. Shermichael, what do you -- I mean, are there places you -- obviously, Pennsylvania, Marco Rubio was obviously in Pennsylvania. Are there places you are looking early on as the votes start to come in that you think will give an indication.

SHERMICHAEL SINGLETON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR AND REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: I think it's Pennsylvania for Trump. If he wins North Carolina, he can regain Georgia. Pennsylvania gets him to 270. I'm looking at two groups in particular. The Trump campaign and outside groups spent a lot of money targeting older Jewish women and also suburban moms on the educational issue, not with the objective of winning a substantial number of them but just on the margins, 2, 3, 4 percent, which could make a difference in a very close state that the former -- that the current president won by, what, 80,000 votes I believe in 2020.

I'm also looking at younger men, those low propensity voters. Can the Trump campaign effectively target and mobilize them? If they can, then it's going to be a good night for the former president. If they can't, it's a significant vulnerability that will likely cause him the state.

And I would also add quickly not utilizing Nikki Haley may also reveal itself to be a mistake. Now, I know the former president views her as rather perfidious. He doesn't like disloyal people. I get it. But in electoral politics is about addition, not subtraction. There are substantial number of Republican voters out there who really do like Nikki Haley and her style of politics. It would have been smart to utilize her.

COOPER: Yes, disloyal because she wanted to run against him. She's clearly, you know, offered her services. They have not been of interest to the campaign. Shermichael was talking about getting out low propensity voters. You raised that last night, whether that strategy of reaching out to, you know, guys -- younger guys who don't necessarily go out and vote much. A, is it effective? And B, do you have the ground game to get them actually to the polls?

BEDINGFIELD: Right. It's risky. I mean, if you're basing your electoral strategy on a cohort of voters who do not traditionally come out and vote, that is inherently a risky plan. And the Trump campaign has kind of done a very non-traditional thing in outsourcing a lot of its ground game to outside groups, which just means, you know, the campaign has less synthesized data to work with, they can't -- you know, campaigns are looking on Election Day as that is coming in. They're checking people off the voter rolls and saying, OK, that vote's taken care of. That vote's taken care of. And narrowing their resources to get people out to the polls as we get closer to polls closing.

And if the Trump campaign doesn't have total visibility into all of that data, if they can't necessarily trust the fidelity of the data that's coming from outside groups, they're at a disadvantage.

COOPER: So, I think a lot of people maybe at home don't realize the extent to which a campaign can track. Can you just talk about that a little bit? So, on -- this -- because I think it's news to a lot of people, candidate -- like a well-organized ground game means that they know, OK, well, this particular person has come out, they came to the polls at 9:00 and voted.

BEDINGFIELD: Campaigns -- and campaigns have -- well-organized campaigns have poll watchers in each district, in each precinct watching as data comes in and reporting. So, data is getting reported officially to the secretary of state, to the county, but the campaign is also able to see, OK, you know, 30,000 votes have come in from this area, 100,000 votes have come in from that area. Lines are long. I mean, they are gauging and able to see that data in real-time as it goes.

And the campaign see poll watcher who's there is reporting that information back to what's called the boiler room, where the campaign leadership, where all of the data gurus are sitting, they're synthesizing that data, analyzing it, and redirecting resources based on that information.

ANA NAVARRO, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, CO-HOST, "THE VIEW" AND KAMALA HARRIS SUPPORTER: And a lot of those rallies and the concerts that you've seen, it's about that, because in order to attend a concert, in order to attend a rally, you have to register. And so, you know that this is a voter that is highly invested in this campaign, and you can track whether that voter has already turned in their ballot or not yet to vote. And you can micro target that voter.

I can assure you that if there were voters in that Philadelphia concert last night that had not yet voted, they're getting calls this morning being reminded to go vote.

COOPER: Hey, we threw you a party, you now need to come out.

NAVARRO: Right. It wasn't a free concert. You know, I'm looking at the -- in Pennsylvania, I'm looking very focused on the Lehigh Valley. It is the third largest Puerto Rican community in the country. And boy, did they pick on the wrong community at that Madison Square Garden rally. I think it's going to mean a five plus change for Kamala Harris.

COOPER: You think rally really made a --

NAVARRO: Oh, listen --

COOPER: -- will make a difference?

NAVARRO: Yes. Look, they picked on Haitians, but there happened to be no Haitians that have huge numbers in swing states. With Puerto Ricans, they made a major, major mistake. Yesterday, Ricky Martin flew across the world. Fat Joe flew across the world to go be at that rally and said to Puerto Ricans, where is your pride? I think it's -- it was like a -- you remember Moonstruck? It was like that scene where Cher slapped Nick Cage and said, snap out of it, for Puerto Ricans.

[10:55:00]

COOPER: Now, I understand the Cher reference. I will -- I know sometimes -- yes, I do get a Cher reference.

SINGLETON: I want to add quickly to something Kate was talking about when she was breaking this down for the audience to understand, synthesizing that data.

So, usually months before Election Day, and Kate, you know this very well, when you're targeted and engaging specifically microtargeting low propensity voters, you need to engage with them around seven to eight times. And so, you need to be able to have the infrastructure in place to know, OK, we've hit four or five counties. We've targeted 30,000 people in those counties. We know the addresses. We know who lives in the home. We know if they've ever voted, if they're even registered to vote, because that sets a whole another set of barriers. You got engaged in the register them.

So, having that in place makes a huge difference. When you're seeding that infrastructure to outside groups, it does beg the question, how effective are they? How experienced are they? Are they giving that data back to the campaign? So, then the campaign can say, all right. we've hit several counties here. We can X off of our list, reshuffle dollars to the other side of the state.

COOPER: Jonah, I mean, do you think that's a potential weakness?

GOLDBERG: I think it's a potential huge weakness. I mean, I know some people -- some politicos in Wisconsin was saying that the ground game , from the Republican side, is just an embarrassment and a real -- they don't know the names of counties. They don't know what they're doing. Some of them are just making up numbers. And particularly in a state like Wisconsin, where is notoriously difficult to pull and you also are kind of blind on the ground, you could see a big swing there.

COOPER: All right. Everyone, thanks. Stay with CNN. Our special coverage of Election Day in America, continues after the short break.

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