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CNN Live Event/Special

Voters Casting Ballots in Battleground Pennsylvania; Harris Speaking at DNC Headquarters; Philly DA: No Arrests, Seeing a Bit More Aggressive Behavior; Nevada Releases First Numbers on Election Day Voting; Final Hours of Voting Underway. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired November 05, 2024 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00]

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Election Day in America. Less than three hours to go until polls start closing in parts of Indiana and Kentucky. And turnout so far very, very strong, as millions of Americans cast their ballots.

We've been seeing long lines in key battleground states in Tempe, Arizona. Folks started lining up early this morning. And in Atlanta, Georgia, they're seeing very heavy turnout.

And this is the scene in Warren, Michigan, which is just outside Detroit. And here are the lines in Philadelphia and Pennsylvania, to be clear.

And we now have fixed our technical difficulties with CNN's Brian Todd. He's joining us from Pennsylvania right now. We're just moments ago. The state's governor said he expects the vote counting to go faster than it did back in 2020.

Brian, update our viewers.

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, they do expect it to go faster than in 2020. And there's a real sense of exhilaration here in Western Pennsylvania. Why?

Because it is finally the voters day. After all the buildup, all the hype, it is the day that the voters can finally have their say in who wins. And in here in Western Pennsylvania, throughout the state of Pennsylvania, voters that we talked to here are just jacked because they know that this is a battleground state. They know that they are going to have a real say in who wins this election.

I've got two people who just voted here in North Strabane Township Precincts, one and two, Reba and Sean Douglas. Reba, first of all, what are the issues that really brought you out here? What do you care about the most?

REBA DOUGLAS, PENNSYLVANIA VOTER: I think it came to women's rights for me and just morale in general. Between the two candidates, that was my decision.

[Speaker 16] TODD: OK, Sean, what about you? What are the issues that really drove you out here?

SEAN DOUGLAS: My main concern is the economy and putting the United States first above really any other country. So that's what brought me out is to voice my opinion and do what I think's best for the economy and the United States.

TODD: And the process. Now, the process here, don't be fooled by no line here, folks, by the way, because this line has gone out the door and down to the corner for much of the day. How did the process here go for you? Fairly smoothly?

R. DOUGLAS: It was smooth in and out within five minutes for me.

TODD: Sean, how about you?

S. DOUGLAS: Yes, very smooth. I'd stopped by this morning at seven and the line was around the building, but so came back later and it was a little more reasonable, but still a good process, smooth process.

TODD: All right, thank you guys very much for talking to us. Good luck and thanks for coming out.

So guys, also just kind of a reflection here of the importance of the battleground, you know, the battleground vibe here in Pennsylvania. We had voters, at least three of them tell us that they may not have come out here and voted if they didn't know that this state was so critical, a battleground state, and that they would make a difference. Wolf, back to you.

BLITZER: All right, Brian Todd reporting in Pennsylvania for us. Thank you very much.

So the Vice President Kamala Harris is speaking right now over at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington. I want to listen in, listen to this.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh my God! Hi! How are you?

KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE U.S. (D) AND U.S. PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I am well. I just came by. This is the most incredible people from every background who are all here volunteering to make calls to reach out to our fellow Americans to remind us how we can vote. How are you doing?

HARRIS: Have you voted already?

HARRIS: You did? Thank you.

(CHEERING)

HARRIS: Thank you so very much. You know, it's so important that everybody participates and I thank you, because I'm sure you've got a lot of other things you could be doing, taking the time to vote, really does make a difference. So thank you for that. And you enjoy your day, OK?

CROWD: Woo-hoo! Woo-hoo!

[15:35:00]

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Madame President.

(CHEERING)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All right, this is a real phone bank. Get back to making calls. Please, please, please, we've got voters to still get out.

HARRIS: Jennifer, it's Kamala Harris, how are you? I am well. I just wanted to call to check in to make sure to know if you can go vote today.

Have you voted yet?

Oh, thank you. Thank you so very much. And thank you for just being active and participating in this very, very important process. It's found it's important for us that we can't do it without people like you.

Knowing that, well. Oh, good. What's your name?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you so much for joining us.

HARRIS: Sage? Hi, it's Kamala Harris. I can't wait for you to grow 10 years more.

But (INAUDIBLE) so we really appreciate what you're doing. Oh, you know what?

This is so important. We got so much work to do to just keep reinforcing the Department of Education and get all the resources there. And Sage, I can tell you're really smart, and you're working really hard, and I'm counting on you, OK? Because you are still a leader at every age that you are. Eight years old, that's a serious leadership. So you're in third grade?

Yes? Second grade?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All right, hey, that's all good news for me, I'll take it. That sounds great.

HARRIS: And thank you, thanks for the time, and please take care, OK?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, you're the Grim Reaper, that's good.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Woo!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, that's right, go blue, go blue, all right.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK, go ahead.

HARRIS: Hi. How are you doing?

That's right, that's right. That's very, very kind and thoughtful, I appreciate that. Thank you, thank you, thank you, my dear, that's very, I appreciate that.

Thank you, Sally. Very much, and we are all doing this together, that's right, we are all doing this together. Thank you, thank you, I thank you.

You too, you too. All of us. OK.

Oh, I'm so excited about that. Oh, you are! Oh, I'm so excited.

Well, you know, and I just actually did some Milwaukee radio interviews this morning, and the Milwaukee small business, the community, it's just thriving. So I'm looking forward to paying attention to your work and supporting you. And thank you, thank you for all of it. Thank you.

BLITZER: All right, we're going to continue to monitor what's going on over at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington, D.C., the Vice President, there you can see, on the phone, speaking with potential voters, urging them to go out and vote, even at this very, very late stage. We'll continue to monitor this, see if there's any more developments unfolding. We'll get back to it if yes, the answer.

Meanwhile, other important aspects of what's going on, just yesterday, the Philadelphia District Attorney, Larry Krasner, had this warning for anyone planning to interfere with voting there, listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LARRY KRASNER, (D) PHILADELPHIA DISTRICT ATTORNEY: Anybody who thinks it's time to play militia, F around and find out.

[15:40:00]

Anybody who thinks it's time to insult, to deride, to mistreat, to threaten people, F around and find out. We do have the cuffs, we do have the jail cells, we do have the Philly juries, and we have the state prisons.

If you're going to try to bully people, bully votes or voters, you're going to try to erase votes, you're going to try any of that nonsense, we're not playing, F around and find out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: His message, don't F around by any means. The District Attorney, Larry Krasner, is joining us right now. District Attorney, thanks so much for joining us.

Leading up to today's election, what kind of threats were you actually hearing about that made you come out with this very, very strong warning? KRASNER (on camera): Well, we had all kinds of information from different sources. We have good partners with the FBI and other federal agencies as well as the Philadelphia Police Department. But the good news is it's actually been very smooth today.

It's been a little bit more aggressive, but we do not have a single arrest today in relation to the election itself. We have been dispatching lawyers and police officers and detectives all day to make sure everything was smooth. And it has been, in this cycle just as in the last cycle, pretty smooth.

High turnout, no big problems. We are hoping that will continue with this evening's rush.

BLITZER: Polls have been open in your state since 7 a.m. this morning, and you've got several more hours to go until the polls close, especially in Philadelphia. Is your warning, do you think, being heard?

KRASNER: Well, it seems to me that a whole lot of work has been done by a lot of people, and they found out. You know, maybe they found out in advance, but that's the way you want it. We don't want the problems, we just want a fair, free, final election. And it looks like so far that's exactly what we have.

BLITZER: I know you've set up a District Attorney and Election Task Force hotline so that voters can report any concerns or possible irregularities. What kind of calls have you received so far?

KRASNER: We've received a lot of calls that are pretty similar to what we get basically every election cycle. But to me, maybe the most important point is we have almost no calls whatsoever that are claiming actual voter fraud. We have probably about five calls of that nature.

Three of them look like they're not even worthy of additional investigation. It's just sort of a misunderstanding of the rules, that sort of thing. A couple of them require a little bit more work.

But look, this is a city of 1.6 million people. This is, unless I'm mistaken, the largest city among the swing states, or at least the second largest. And what we are seeing in general is smooth sailing when it comes to this election. Nothing that so far has been worthy even of an arrest.

BLITZER: Smooth sailing is good. Larry Krasner, the District Attorney of Philadelphia, thanks so much for joining us. Good luck to you and to all your folks over there as well.

There's a lot more news we're following on this historic day right now. New voting turnout numbers just in from Nevada. Stay with us.

[15:45:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BLITZER: As Election Day in America evolves, we've seen officials in several key states reporting especially heavy turnout right now. And we're watching all of this unfold. I want to go back to CNN's Paula Reid over at the voting desk.

Update our viewers, Paula.

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, the Nevada Secretary of State, has released the first numbers on in-person Election Day voting. Revealing that 57,000 people have already turned up to the polls. And it's interesting the breakdown.

They report 20,905 registered Republicans, 16,799 registered Democrats, and then 19,154 people listed as other have voted in the first three hours since polls were opened. And these figures will be updated as the day goes on. Now, the Secretary is also busy texting voters who need to cure their ballots.

Meaning they need to verify their signatures before they can be counted by the November 12 deadline. Now, according to these new numbers, as of today, 13,906 ballots still need to be cured. 12,939 ballots have already been successfully fixed.

But the bulk of the outstanding ballots that need to be cured are in this little county down here, Clark County. That is where Las Vegas and its suburbs are located. And where Democrats really need to drive turnout if they want to carry the state.

Now, historically, it's been older voters who often have problems with their mail-in ballots, with their signatures or the dates. But Nevada says it is seeing a trend of younger voters who need to fix their ballots. And they also say those younger voters don't tend to answer their phones when the Secretary of State calls.

But they have until November 12 to fix those ballots if they want them to be counted -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Let's hope that happens. All right, Paula Reid, thank you very much.

Take a look at the lines in just some of the battleground states that the campaigns have spent a lot of time and money in.

I want to go straight to CNN Political Director David Chalian. David, what are the campaigns paying the most attention to as we get closer and closer to the first polls actually closing?

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Well, Wolf, one of the things that the campaigns are doing today is figure out who else is left to turn out. Because there is a big turnout in pre-election vote. Take a look at all the votes cast thus far before we got to Election Day today, 83.7 million. And by the way, it's probably going to go higher than that once all the mail ballots that were cast get tabulated. So that would be more than half of the total turnout in 2020. So what does that leave today for campaigns? Well, what they're doing is they're looking precinct by precinct at their targets in these battleground states about what they need, since they have a lot of information about those early voters. What do they need to turn out on Election Day? And are they meeting those targets?

[15:50:00]

And if they're below, you're going to see a surge of resources to get out the vote. You're going to hear candidates go on radio or do tele rallies at the last minute, try to make sure they surge with campaign resources to get their target made. If they are meeting their target, you'll see those resources deployed elsewhere.

So it's a constant tracking of Election Day turnout, knowing everything they know about who already cast their ballots -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Yes, it's critically important. All right, David Chalian, thank you very, very much.

Up next, a closer look at how voting is going on in California as we wait for those first exit polls. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Welcome back to our special coverage of Election Day in America. We're just about an hour away from the first exit polls, which will give us a glimpse, a glimpse into who voted and for which candidate they voted and why.

I want to go live right now to CNN's Veronica Miracle. She's joining us from Santa Ana, California. What are the voters telling you over there, Veronica?

[15:55:00]

VERONICA MIRACLE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, we've heard from a lot of voters today. In fact, you can see just how long the lines are right now. I has been -- we've seen a steady stream of voters since we got here at 8 this morning, and not only have we seen voters who wanted to vote in person, we've seen a steady stream of cars, of people dropping off ballots at the ballot box.

Three voters that we spoke to all said they voted for former President Donald Trump. They said that economy -- the economy was the most important issue for them, and that during former President Donald Trump's presidency, they felt that the economy was at its best, and that's why they decided to come and vote for him today.

But one man said, although he voted for the former president, he doesn't think he's going to win. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL CARROLL, TRUMP VOTER: It's just an intuitive feeling, you know? I don't think he had the best debate performance. Basically, the reason I think he's going to lose is because of the 2022 elections and all the pro-Trump candidates lost, with the exception of J.D. Vance.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MIRACLE: All voters that we've spoken to, they all say that this process has been seamless, so they've had to wait in line. They do feel like it's been transparent. Everybody's been happy with how the voting has gone today.

Back to you, Wolf.

BLITZER: All right, Veronica Miracle, thank you very, very much. We're going to get back to my excellent panel. And, Manu, as you know, the Trump campaign's ground game operation basically has been outsourced to other groups, including Charlie Kirk's Turning Point action.

Charlie Kirk tweeted this earlier today. Let me put it up on the screen. Turnout is mixed and not where we want it to be. We need more people to vote. We can't let turnout flatline. Text everyone you know. Make more noise. We need more, end quote.

What do you make of that?

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I mean, look, he could just be trying to encourage his voters to get out the poll, but maybe he's seeing something that is drawing concern. Wolf, I am very eager to see these first exit polling information that we're going to get here in a matter of minutes here. Look, we could learn about the nature of this electorate.

Isn't the people in the Trump campaign have been trying to get out to the poll? Non-college educated voters, in particular male voters, trying to make up the deficit that they're going to have with women voters. Virtually, as we've seen, some of the early voting numbers come in, In some of the states, early women outpacing men. They know they have to make up the ground. They're given the gender gap that's going to exist here.

And what are the issues that are driving the voters to the polls today? The economy always number one, but what is right underneath it? Is it the border? The issues that the Trump campaign has been hammering on? Is it issues like democracy that could be more favorable to Democrats or abortion? That was so critical as we weighed those numbers to determine what are those campaigns have effectively got their voters to the polls.

BLITZER: As you know, Jamie, as a result of the polls, all the polls, especially in the battleground states, being so close, very tight, it's produced a lot of anxiety, high anxiety on both sides right now.

JAMIE GANGEL, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT: And soon we will know the answer, but I asked one Democratic strategist who has a lot of insight into the polls. I said, what do you know? And he said to me, do you want me to answer with my brain, my heart, or my PTSD trauma from 2016?

He said, we really don't know yet. I think this is the time for Dan Rather. Tight as a tick was one, and then one source sent me this.

We are nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. We will know in a couple of hours.

BLITZER: A lot of people are nervous right now. And, Nia, let me get to you because, as you know, we're watching all of this unfold, but we don't really know who's going to win right now, do we?

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: No, we have no idea. I mean, this is one of the closest elections we've seen. You've seen these polls be tight as a tick down to the wire in the seven battleground states.

What's interesting is these candidates couldn't be more different. They closed in very different ways. Kamala Harris closed with an upbeat vision, and you had Donald Trump all about grievance and sort of talking down to Americans, being racist and sexist.

And we'll see. I mean, I think one of the things that will be interesting when we see these exit polls is the late deciders, right? Did they break for Donald Trump or did they break for Kamala Harris?

We had some insight from the Kamala Harris campaign saying that they were breaking the late deciders for Kamala Harris. What did the MSG rally have to do with that? So that'll be something we'll learn, I think, from these exit polls coming up.

BLITZER: Manu, what are you hearing from the hidden Trump voter and the hidden Harris voter?

RAJU: Yes, look, I mean, Trump has underperformed in public polling versus the actual outcome that we saw in 2016 and 2020. But the question is going to be tonight is about whether or not Democrats are the under polling of the abortion voters. Since the Dobbs decision, Democrats have been out seeding expectations in the midterms and other special elections.

[16:00:00]

Will that be the case tonight? Will that outpace the hidden Trump vote?

BLITZER: All right, guys. Thank you very, very much. It's been a pleasure working with all of you all day. Appreciate it very much.

And again, we're just about an hour away from the first exit poll data and two hours from the first poll closing. CNN's Election Night in America gets underway right now.