Return to Transcripts main page
American Morning
GOP Captures House But Not Senate
Aired November 03, 2010 - 05:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANNOUNCER: CNN's live coverage from the Election Center in New York continues.
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: It's 5:00 a.m. here on the East Coast. So glad you're still up with us or perhaps just getting up with us on this Wednesday, the day after the elections, November 3rd. I'm Kiran Chetry.
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to you. I'm John Roberts.
Let's get you caught up on where we are because there are still some races undecided this morning.
All right. Let's go to the big board. And first of all, let's go to the state of Florida where all-important gubernatorial race has yet to be decided. And voila, we don't know where it is. So yes -- so, OK. All right. Here's the state of Florida.
Alex Sink, Rick Scott still battling it out, 89 percent of the vote has been counted at this point, but still, that race is too close to call. So, we don't know who's going to be the governor of Florida, yet, tons and tons of money have been dumped into this race, and we still don't know. It's that close.
Let's now take a look at some of the other states that have yet to be decided. Washington State still very close. Patty Murray, Dino Rossi, still battling it out. Sixty-five percent of the vote has been counted, and no winner yet. We don't know when we're going to get a final on this one. State of Colorado, again, the same thing. We're looking at Ken Buck and Michael Bennet. Michael Bennet, of course, the incumbent senator.
He is in the race of his life here with Ken Buck, 86 percent of the votes counted, and they are still within a point or two. And then the state of Alaska, this is an interesting one because this state has been called for the republicans. We just don't know which Republican is going to be the one who takes over. Will it be Joe Miller or will it be Lisa Murkowski? Lisa Murkowski, according to one count at least, is a few points ahead.
Her campaign is suggesting that maybe she has pulled out a win here. However, when our Drew Griffin talked to her just a little while ago, she was being a little more circumspect about the whole thing saying, well, it looks like we're really doing well. We may make history here, but we're not prepared to say that we have. Drew Griffin is with us. He's got the latest on the voting out there in Alaska.
And Drew, what is it looking like at this point because it was about an hour ago that you talked to Lisa Murkowski.
We don't appear to have Drew at this point. Drew, are you hearing us? No, we don't have Drew at this point. But what I can tell you is the last time that Drew talked to Lisa Murkowski, which was in our last hour here, she said that it appears as though they may be making history. Don't forget she was the write-in candidate. She was the one who lost the primary to Joe Miller, the tea party back, Sarah Palin back candidate.
She decided I'm not going to go away quietly. I'm going to put my name as a write-in candidate. There are all of the imaginations (ph) about how voters had to write her name in on the ballot. They had to spell her name correctly or at least very close to correctly. It's been 1954 was the last time a write-in candidate won. Let's play a little bit of the interview that Drew did with Lisa Murkowski. Here's what she said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DREW GRIFFIN, CNN INVESTIGATIVE UNIT CORRESPONDENT: The question is, senator, did you make history tonight? Are you saying that you did this?
SEN. LISA MURKOWSKI, (R) ALASKA: Well, we are in the process of making history, and we started that about 46 days ago when I declared as a write-in candidate for the United States Senate. They said it couldn't be done. They said the last time that anybody who did that was 1954 with Strom Thurmond. It can't be done.
You know, we looked at that and we said, if it can be done anywhere, it can be done in Alaska. And let's prove the rest of the country wrong, and we're doing that tonight.
GRIFFIN: I interviewed you over the weekend. You said something that got you in a little bit of trouble, and your opponent took it run (ph). I asked you if you go back to Washington, are you going back as a Republican, and you said, I've been very liberated not to be running as a Republican, but you are going back as a Republican.
MURKOWSKI: When I filed my notice to run as a write-in candidate, you have to state your party affiliation. On that form, I stated the party affiliation that I have had since I was 18. I've never switched it. And I am a republican. I'm not my party's nominee, but I am a republican.
There's only two conferences, two caucuses in the United States Senate, there are the Democrats and the Republicans. I caucused with the Republicans before. I intend to caucus with the Republicans when I return.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: All right. Drew Griffin, we do have him with us now. And Drew, that was about an hour ago. What's the Murkowski campaign saying now about their chances?
GRIFFIN: Yes, they think it's very good. They were always looking for 40 percent write-in ballots. Now, they're at 40 percent, just a little above 40 percent. So, they feel really good. But, John, the fact is this race will not be decided until at least Thanksgiving. Why? Because they're not going to count these write-in ballots until November 18th.
The Alaska elections director just told me they've got to get all the mail-ins and all the other ballots counted, and then on the 18th is when they will go back and count these votes. The Murkowski camp thinks all those write-in votes are for her, and therefore, she has won this race, and they're just going to sit tight and let that happen.
ROBERTS: Do we know at this point, Drew, what the percentages are? And as you just pointed out, the write-in votes are leading, but we don't know if all of those write-in votes are for Lisa Murkowski. Somebody might have written in ain't Jenny or somebody like that.
GRIFFIN: Yes, that's right. There is the very latest, 87.7 percent of the precincts reporting, the write-in votes are at 40.18. Joe miller, tea party candidate, 34.74 and Scott McAdams, a Democrat, is way down, 24 percent. Joe Miller told his staff to go home, said there's a lot of work to do. I don't know what work there is to do. Either these Murkowski names are on these write-in votes or they're not, and they're going to be counter on November 18th.
ROBERTS: Boy, that would really be something extraordinary if she will pull out a win here. It doesn't matter in terms of the balance of power. So, it's not urgent to look at the race or you have the race decided from that standpoint, but certainly, from an interest standpoint, we're all fascinated to know who is going to pull this one out.
GRIFFIN: And from an internal Alaska Republican drama, that really boils down to a Palin backed candidate going against a Murkowski. Those families have been going at it for many elections now. This is really being looked at as not only the strength or weakness in the tea party up here in Alaska, but also the strength or weakness in Sarah Palin who has had so many victories tonight, John, but just not one here in Alaska. She was backing Joe Miller. That was her guy. And he appears to be going down.
ROBERTS: So, maybe she takes a bit of a hit, Sarah Palin, in Alaska in terms of the power that she has, but across the country, she certainly seems to have demonstrated that she's got the mojo. Drew Griffin for us in Anchorage this morning. Drew, thanks. We'll check back with you.
Right now, let's go over to Kiran.
CHETRY: And if you're just waking up this morning, the headlines in the papers are GOP captures House but not Senate. The Democrats do have something that hanged their hats on this morning. Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, was able to hang on to his job for another term. He knocked off Republican tea party candidate, Sharron Angle.
The final tally, Reid with 50 percent of the vote, Angle with 45 percent of the vote. Jim Acosta is live from Las Vegas this morning. And the majority leader was in trouble up until the last few days. How did he manage to pull this off?
JIM ACOSTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, there is some exit polling data starting to come in, Kiran, and it is showing at this point that Harry Reid did very well among minority voters especially among Hispanic voters. And that is not that big of a surprise when you consider how this race was boiling down in the final days of this campaign. Sharron Angle was running some very tough ads against Harry Reid, slamming him on immigration reform. Those ads showed images of Latino illegal immigrants.
That rubbed Latinos the wrong way in Nevada. And then harry Reid, at the same time, was pushing very hard for that votes. So, that was one of the dynamics that played out in this race. And earlier tonight, Harry Reid, you know, in his typical style, he sort of understated when he gets out on the stump, but he thanked his supporters and said that he's not finished fighting in this state just yet.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. HARRY REID (D) NEVADA: It's always been my honor to represent the state, to serve the state, and to fight for the state and to fight for each of you.
(APPLAUSE)
REID: And, friends, I'm not finished fighting. In fact, tonight, I'm more determined than ever.
(APPLAUSE)
REID: You see, I've been to some pretty tough fights in my day. They've been in the street, then in a boxing ring, and then in the United States Senate. But I have to admit, this has been one of the toughest. But it's nothing compared to the fights families are facing all over Nevada right now. This race has been called, but the fight is far from over. The bell that just rang isn't the end of the fight, it's the start of the next round.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ACOSTA: So, Harry Reid, the former boxer there, now the Senate Majority Leader once again using some of that terminology from inside the ring to explain what happened here in Nevada. We should make one file note here, the tea party express, one of the big tea party movements across this country, had set up a victory party inside the Aria Hotel, the same hotel where Harry Reid was holding his victory party tonight.
Things were not looking so festive inside the tea party express as we have some pictures coming in from that suite as the returns were coming in, and they did not look very happy. Even though, the tea party had a big night across the country, a little bit of a tea party hangover, you could say, here in Nevada, Kiran.
CHETRY: All right. Jim Acosta for us this morning in Las Vegas. Thanks so much. And Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is going to be joining us live from Vegas. 7:50 Eastern Time this morning.
By the way, we're here with a team of experts from both sides of the aisle that'll be weighing in on the significant of the Alaska Senate race. Still no call on who wins in that race as well as two more Senate races and seven governorships. We're going to talk about all of that coming up in just a couple of minutes -- John.
ROBERTS: Those fascinating things about the 2008 election was looking at how people voted, looking at the exit polling that we did which breaks down along demographic lines, religious lines, just so much fascinating information that is contained in the exit polls, and we're presenting it in an extraordinary fashion during this election. Our Christine Romans is here with our exit poll app this morning, and we're looking at the tea party and how people across the country felt about them during election 2010.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: And this is the first time we've had a sense to read, really, and how the influence has played out. So, let's take a look in the nationwide House vote how the tea party played out for folks. They were asked one reason for your vote today was to send a message in favor of the tea party, 23 percent said in favor, against the tea party, 18 percent said against. But most, look at that, 56 percent said not a factor over all, John.
Now, let me ask you about independents. We'll tell you about independents. They were asked how do you feel about the tea party overall. Forty-five percent said that they support the tea party. Twenty-four percent were neutral, 28 percent saying that they opposed the tea party. And finally, in all respondents, do you support the tea party overall for age, breaking down by age. Let me give you this one.
18 to 29-year-olds supported it, 30 to 59-year-olds, 38 percent supported it. And look, John, the older you are, 60 and older, 47 percent supporting the tea party there. So, that's how it broke down. First good read of people who actually voted how they feel about the tea party.
ROBERTS: It's amazing when you look at the country overall, 40 percent of all people who went to the polls say they supported the tea party.
ROMANS: That means it was something that inspired a section of independents and got them out to vote.
ROBERTS: What's really amazing, too, 18 months ago there was no tea party.
ROMANS: I know, right. ROBERTS: And now, 40 percent of people say they support it. That's a political movement.
ROMANS: That is a political movement. And these exit polls a first real look at how that political movement played out actually in the vote.
ROBERTS: I love your app, too.
ROMANS: I know. Isn't it -- it feels like test driving a new car and trying to find out where the windshields are, but it's very fun.
ROBERTS: We'll be using some more. Just don't hit the cruise control.
(LAUGHTER)
ROBERTS: Kiran.
CHETRY: Yes, you mentioned about (ph) the tea party. How about who thought that in the 2010 midterms, everybody here would have an iPad. That's how everyone is getting their information this morning and our panel as well.
Meanwhile, the people have spoken, and it's not what the White House wanted to hear. The president already congratulating Republicans for their gains. We have Ed Henry live in Washington with the next step for Democrats. It's 12 1/2 minutes past the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: It's 5:15 in the morning here in New York, and the balance of power in this country has shifted this morning. The democrats did hang on to the Senate, but barely. They keep 51 seats. But what we do want to take a look at right now is a historic shift in the House of Representatives.
Republicans have taken at least 60 seats. We're going to see it up here in just a second. It is the biggest swing since 1948. And Brianna Keilar has reaction live from Capitol Hill this morning. And first off, Brianna, this was an emotional speech we heard from Minority Leader who will soon to be Majority Leader, John Boehner, tearing up at one point.
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Soon to be the Speaker of the House John Boehner. And Boehner is someone who gets emotional often. I would say that he probably has shed more tears on the House floor certainly in the time I've been here than any other member of Congress I've seen, but he was talking last night in one of the more dramatic moments of the evening.
He was talking about how he came from humble beginnings working in his dad's bar, and that ultimately, why he came to Washington was because he felt that Washington was out of touch with what normal people like in his home state of Ohio were concerned about. And he said that he'd spent his life chasing the American dream, and yes, he got pretty emotional shedding some tears there, Kiran.
CHETRY: Brianna, one of the other things that people are debating this morning and it will be interesting to see how it turns out, total gridlock or a move to consensus where Congress can actually accomplish something especially with some of these big agenda items like extending the middle class tax cuts.
KEILAR: Certainly, the expectation here on Capitol Hill is that there is going to be more gridlock, Kiran. John Boehner has promised that the way Republicans are going to move forward in the new Congress is that they're going pursue more incremental things, that they're going to -- you know, not obviously that wide -- I mean, really wide ranging legislation that Democrats tackled here in the last Congress. He said that there's going to be more input from rank and file Republicans on this.
So, some of the major issues that Republicans campaigned on, for instance, repealing health care reform. It's not that they aren't going to try to do this, they are going to try to do this, but they're going to run smack dab into the reality of the fact that they don't have a filibuster proof majority in the Senate. So, where can there maybe be some movement? I think one of the things that we're hearing a lot about has to do with reducing spending.
Republicans have promised that they're going to reduce $100 billion in spending in the first year, that they're going to be taking weekly votes on cuts to spending. it's actually a drop in the bucket when you think of the $1.3 trillion federal deficit, but at the same time, having voters say that they feel like Washington is out of control on spending. There could be some areas where Democrats and Republicans feel it's politically advantageous for both of them to tackle that, Kiran.
CHETRY: Brianna Keilar for us this morning outside of the Capitol. Thanks so much -- John.
ROBERTS: Well, with Republicans firmly seizing control of the House this morning, President Obama has been busy making congratulatory phone calls, one of them to Ohio Republican, John Boehner, who will likely be the next speaker of the House. Ed Henry is live in Washington for us this morning. How did that phone call go and does this change the way that the president governs moving forward in the next two years?
ED HENRY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, we'll see, John. You won't be surprised to learn that both sides are saying the call went fabulously and that both sides want to work together. President placed his call around midnight to John Boehner to congratulate him. You see the official White House photo, president projecting an image of smiling and the tie loosened, and he's ready to get down to work perhaps.
White House spokesman, Robert Gibbs, saying that on the call, the president made clear both in that call to John Boehner and a subsequent phone call to the Senate Republican Leader, Mitch McConnell, he's ready to get to work. Boehner' aides say he's also ready to sort of meet the president on these issues. But, look, the track record is not good. The fact of the matter is the president has muscled through a lot of his agenda with its health care reform, Wall Street reform with mostly Democratic only votes.
In fairness, the Republicans have mostly said no. So, that's why the president has had to move on his own. They're hoping inside the White House that maybe the silver lining here is that with Republicans now owning at least one chamber, they're going to have to take some responsibility for governing. Maybe, they'll meet them halfway on some of these issues.
They're not going to get a lot of the big issues maybe, but as Brianna was saying, there's some hope inside the White House and maybe they'll pick up a handful of issues and make a little bit of progress, John.
ROBERTS: You can imagine, Ed, that the president might have been watching the returns last night the way Texas Rangers fans were watching the World Series. How closely was he following? Because there's only so much you can take.
HENRY: You know, I spoke to some of his aides who say, look, he's not like Bill Clinton who sort of (INAUDIBLE) political animal who wants every last bit of data, but the president was working the phones, was watching some of the TV coverage, was on the Blackberry. You can even see in that White House photo, in one hand, he had the Blackberry. He was getting data, I'm told, from various staffers, exit polls, et cetera.
David Axelrod, Robert Gibbs and others were working into the wee hours at the White House to get him some of that information, to figure all this out. So, he was watching this very closely. And as you noted, the news wasn't good. I mean, beyond the big picture of the House, even though, he held on to the Senate, he lost the Democrats did his old Senate seat in Illinois. A lot of moments like that were pretty bruising for this White House, John.
ROBERTS: You know, when you look at it, there was a silver lining in that while they may be down to somewhere between 51 and 53 seats in the Senate, these losses go deeper for the president than any in recent memory.
HENRY: Oh, absolutely. I mean, Bill Clinton, I think, it was 52 seats that he lost in the House in 1994. This is clearly going to be above 60. They're still tabulating, obviously, races around the country. And look at the governors, I mean, Ohio is a big one because the president has traveled to Ohio 12 times since being elected. He was trying very hard to get Ted Strickland, Democratic governor reelected. He was there a couple weeks ago for a rally at Ohio State, 35,000 people.
This past Sunday, he was there in Cleveland, 8,000 people at a rally there. Strickland lost. Not only is that bad for Democrats in the short term, but think ahead to 2012. A one big reason why Barack Obama won in 2008, he carried Ohio, the ultimate swing state. Now, you don't have a Democratic governor. By the way, the Senate race went badly against the Democrats. Republican Rob Portman won by a mile there.
So, all the apparatus is heading for the Republicans. President's approval rating is low in Ohio. That's bad news for 2012.
ROBERTS: All right. We're going to see how the next two years ago, and we'll see how the next 12 hours go, as well.
HENRY: That's right.
ROBERTS: Because, Ed, the president's holding a news conference this afternoon 1:00. CNN, of course, will bring you live coverage.
And we'll be talking with the best political team on television about where we go next. Divided government, is it a recipe to actually get something done or is it a recipe for more gridlock? That when we come back. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: That's a very different Washington that we're waking up to this morning. Republicans now control the House of Representatives. The Democrats maintain a slim margin in the Senate. And, of course, President Obama is still president. But is the way that he governs going to change in the next two years? And is government going to work or is it just going to be more gridlock than ever?
Best political team on television is here. Our CNN senior political analyst, Ed Rollins, CNN contributor, Erick Erickson, editor-in-chief of RedState.com, Michael Crowley, Deputy Washington Bureau Chief of "Time" magazine. Welcome, Michael. Thanks for getting up early. Of course, we got Joe Johns with us, Kiki McLean, and Hilary Rosen just -- she doesn't want to go to bed. She's going to stay here through thick and thin.
HILARY ROSEN, CNN POLITICAL CONTRIBUTOR: I do, I do.
ROBERTS: So, let me throw a jump ball out there. Ed, you'll probably grab it because you always do. What happens in the next two years? Does government work for the American people or not?
ED ROLLINS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: It can. It depends on what the agenda is.
ROBERTS: OK. It can, but will.
ROLLINS: Yes. I think if the president is serious about reducing the deficit and wants to reduce the spending, then they can find some common ground. In 1980, when Reagan got elected, we had 192 House seats. We had about the same number of Senates the Democrats are going to have, 52, 53 went back and forth. He wanted to rebuild the defense of the country. He wanted to cut taxes. He wanted to basically make some government cuts.
Democrats cooperated with them throughout his term especially those first couple years. I think if this president can say, all right, it's your game, you're in the room, what do you want, here's what I want, and maybe work some compromise. It's going to be harder on his side to do that, and I think -- but if he doesn't do it, then he's going to become irrelevant.
ROBERTS: Does anybody else expect the things -- what do you think?
KIKI MCLEAN, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Things have to get done. So, if you actually go back and you look at the race, well, we all concede the point. There are big sweeping changes, but there are also a couple of things that say what we talked about yesterday, which is some of the new guys that got elected last night shouldn't expect that it's a walk for them next time. This was not a lottery ticket for life. This is a you better make something happen.
I think that you find a president who is not shy to extend his hand, who is not shy to look up and say, OK, what are the two or three things you guys need at to make this happen. He did it before. He offered it up on health care even though nobody took him up on it. He offered it up in a couple other places. So, there's a record of his willingness to do this.
The question is going to be is the new team in the Republican caucus going to pick it up and go with it.
ROBERTS: Michael, let's bring you in since you're just joining us this hour. The point has been made that being the party of no for the Republicans paid off in ways that they couldn't even imagine six months ago. But can they continue to say no or now that they have responsibility of governing that they have to get something done, otherwise, the same thing may happen to them in two years as happened to the Democrats last night.
MICHAEL CROWLEY, DEP. WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, TIME: That's right. Something I'm very interested to watch is the expectations and the possible deflation of the Republican base in the two years. In the last two election cycles prior to this one, you had a political base on the left that thought they were going to see change overnight. In 2006, liberal activists who helped install Democratic majority thought we were going to be leading a rock within months. Instead, they got the surge.
In 2008, people who are really quite starry-eyed (ph) over Obama felt that assurgency (ph) now may thought things were going to change quickly. I think you probably have a similar dynamic now on the right. And I think there's going to be a lot of pressure not only from activists on the right, however, for this new Republican majority to start accomplishing things, but also for independent voter who say that they are tired of the so-called bickering in Washington.
I don't actually see it happening, however. I don't think that there's a lot of room for common ground between these two sides. I think, most likely, we're going to see a standoff. And so, I think you're going to see quite likely another wave of disillusionment in two more years. We're going to kind of go through a similar cycle again in all likely that I would say. ROBERTS: Joe, you know, we've seen divided government, as Ed was point out, in the early years of the Reagan administration, but that's Congress and the White House being on different sides. If we got Congress on two different sides and then the White House, as well, can that work? For the long time since we've seen this --
JOE JOHNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely right. And yes, it can work. I've seen it work on Capitol Hill before with divided government. But here's the thing. There's a really interesting dynamic here that the Democrats are going to have their own set of sort of (INAUDIBLE) warfare going on here simply because we haven't had the recriminations yet over who messed this election up so bad.
On the Republican side, you have the tea partiers coming in who are going to sort of clash up against the establishment Republicans. And then you have those battles going on at the same time. So, each side is really going to have to work something out before they can come together and really do anything with the White House.
ROBERTS: All right.
ROSEN: And I'm not so sure that it's clear what delivering for the people actually means at this point. You know, we need jobs in this country. And there will be a significant ideological difference about what actually creates jobs. And for the Republicans to propose just simply tax cuts, that's actually spending. It's spending through the tax code, but it's spending and it expands the deficit.
So, that's not going to be the only solution. And you can't make up in spending cuts enough to pay for this. There are three things to make up the federal budget, it's Medicare and Medicaid, Social Security and defense. Those three areas are pretty tough to really cut much more than they've been cut.
ROBERTS: Lots to talk about this morning, but right now, as we're coming to the half hour, here's Kiran.
CHETRY: All right. You're right, crossing the half hour right now, 5:30 here in New York.
California Democrats scoring two victories in two major races. Voters weighing in. Also -- there we see the winners, Barbara Boxer keeping here Senate seat, Jerry Brown, the new governor in California.
Also, a big ballot measure debated: Should marijuana, recreational use of marijuana be legalized? That went down in defeat. We have more details on why and what it could possibly mean for the state, coming up.
Thirty-one minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: Thirty-two minutes past the hour right now. We have more of our special election coverage in just a moment. First, though, we're going to get a check on some of the other stories going on around the country this morning. And for that, we check in with Alina Cho.
Hey, Alina.
ALINA CHO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Kiran. Good morning to you.
Here's a look at this morning's top stories.
We have reports of shots fired again at a military facility in the Washington, D.C. area. Police say a Coast Guard recruiting station in Woodbridge, Virginia was targeted early yesterday morning. It's the fifth shooting in a little more than two weeks. Nobody was injured.
So far, the FBI has linked the first four shootings. No word yet on a motive and there have been no arrests.
Yet another scare involving air cargo this morning. Greece has suspended all air shipments for the next two days after packages containing explosives were found addressed to the leaders of Germany and Italy. The packages were intercepted before there were any problems. They were sent via an air cargo plane from Greece, where there's been a wave of attempted bombings.
Here in the United States, the FBI is opening a criminal investigation after box cutter blades were found on a Delta flight from Tokyo to Portland, Oregon. Nobody was hurt. An FBI spokeswoman says the passengers were all interviewed, sent through Customs, and then released. Authorities are still looking for a suspect.
NASA is delaying the final launch for the Space Shuttle Discovery again this time because of an apparent engine computer controller glitch. The shuttle is now scheduled to blast off tomorrow afternoon, weather permitting, of course. NASA tells CNN that on its 39th mission, the Discovery and its crew will bring more spare parts to the International Space Station.
All right. We want to get a check of this morning's weather headlines. And for that, of course, we go Rob Marciano live in the extreme weather center in Atlanta.
Hey, Rob. Good morning.
ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Good morning, Alina.
We are still looking at a storm that's rolling across parts of the Gulf Coast and that is going to spawn more in the way of rain today. But it's good stuff as far as relieving some of the drought that for a lot of the folks, September and October, incredibly, incredibly dry. So, we'll take some of this rainfall.
Across the Northeast, still for the most part dry, with temperatures that will eventually rebound, but it's another chilly start today. That's for sure.
I do want to talk here some of your high temperatures, near record breaking highs expected across parts of southern California again.
All right, listen, Tropical Storm Tomas now tropical depression with winds only 35 miles an hour. So, this thing has got the guys at the National Hurricane Center scratching their heads for sure. It's expected still to become a category one hurricane and still affect Hispaniola. But there is hope that this thing just completely dies. But none of our computer models are saying that. So, we'll keep you posted on that.
Alina, I'll toss it back up to you.
CHO: It's been a busy season. All right, Rob. Thank you very much.
Our election coverage continues now with John.
ROBERTS: Hey, Alina. Thanks so much.
Up in smoke, California voters reject the measure that would have legalized the recreational use of marijuana. Our Ted Rowlands comes to us live in from Oaksterdam in just a moment.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ANNOUNCER: CNN's live coverage from the election center in New York continues.
ROBERTS: State of California, the most populous in the nation, a big part of election 2010, and Barbara Boxer managing to hang on to her job despite a big charge from ex-Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina. Fifty-two percent for Barbara Boxer with 66 percent of the votes counted, just 43 percent for Carly Fiorina. She had thrown a ton of money at that race.
The race had been closer up until just the last couple of weeks and then, of course, she had that problem where Carly California had to go back into the hospital because she had an infection she need treatment for post-surgical reconstruction after breast cancer surgery.
So, there's the outcome there. As the percentage creeps up in terms of the vote counted, the numbers of votes change, but the overall percentage hasn't.
The other big race in California that we were watching, this was another Republican woman mounting a challenge against a Democrat, millions upon millions of dollars of her money thrown into this race, but Meg Whitman, the ex-eBay CEO comes short by a substantial margin. Jerry Brown pulling out a victory of 13 points, 54 percent to 41 percent.
Our Dan Simon is live for us in Oakland, California, this morning, outside of Brown headquarters.
It's a marvelous night for a moon dance there, Dan.
DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: John, we're at the Fox Theater and Jerry Brown using this place as sort of a metaphor to talk about his own political career. This place that has been shuttered for 30 years and like Jerry Brown, it has been brought back to life -- Jerry Brown going back to Sacramento about 30 years later.
You know, you got to love California politics. We toss out one governor, we recall Gray Davis, and then we send a Hollywood actor to Sacramento. Now, Jerry Brown headed back to Sacramento. And he was first elected in 1975. He was just 36 years old. He talked about the political environment he's walking in to in 2010.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JERRY BROWN (D), CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR-ELECT: I'm hoping and I'm praying that this breakdown that's gone on for so many years in the state capital and we're watching it in Washington, that the breakdown paves the way for a breakthrough. And that's the spirit I want to take back to Sacramento 28 years later -- full of energy, full of creativity and ready to serve you the people of California.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SIMON: Jerry Brown defeating a political novice who basically had unlimited resources, Meg Whitman pouring $140 million or more into her campaign.
Well, the same can be said for Barbara Boxer, also taking on an ex-CEO, Carly Fiorina, from Hewlett-Packard, also somebody who basically had unlimited resources. Boxer beating Carly Fiorina, a very close race. It'd be interesting to see what happened there, how Boxer was able to prevail in that race.
But I think most political analysts say that she had some effective ads basically saying that Fiorina shipped jobs to China during her tenure at HP. A lot of people thought those ads were devastating -- John.
ROBERTS: Dan Simon for us this morning at Jerry Brown headquarters -- Dan, thanks so much. So California remains Democrat, but proves that it's not as liberal as some people might have liked. Proposition 19 that would have legalized the recreational use of marijuana up in smoke.
CNN's Ted Rowlands is at Oaksterdam University for us this morning with details on that.
Good morning, Ted.
TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, John.
A big celebration or what was supposed to an celebration here in downtown Oakland took place overnight as folks were watching the returns come in about -- well, a couple hundred people gathered here in downtown Oakland and a lot of them were partaking, if you will, in the recreational use of marijuana, which was Prop 19. It was on the ballot.
California voters, though, in the end, decided that this state was not ready to legalize marijuana for recreational use. Of course, it is legal for medical use.
Folks here that were hoping to celebrate say that it's not over yet, they plan to put this back on the ballot here and in other states in 2012.
ROBERTS: All right. Ted Rowlands with the very latest on that, and a lot of people who were much happier earlier in the evening probably not so happy now. But I'm sure, Ted, this is probably going to be back at some point. So, we won't let the story behind. Ted, thanks so much.
Kiran?
CHETRY: They'll have medicinal marijuana to look forward to.
All right. Forty-three minutes past the hour.
A big story developing right now in Alaska. Write-in candidate Lisa Murkowski on the verge of probably capturing the state Senate seat after losing the GOP primary. It's a contest that may not be officially declared for weeks. "The Best Political Team on TV" is back with us.
Coming up, we have Ed Rollins, Erick Erickson, Michael Crowley, John Avlon, Kiki McLean and Hilary Rosen.
We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: Welcome back. Forty-six minutes past 5:00 here in New York. But our panel is just kicking. I guess, the second round of coffee kicked in.
We have everybody here to talk a little bit about Alaska. This is exciting. There is still no declarative winner in the Alaska Senate race, three-way race right now. It looks like it's going to Republicans either way, Joe Miller or Lisa Murkowski. But this would be the first write-in candidate if Lisa Murkowski wins.
What is your take on this?
MCLEAN: I got to say one thing on this, for somebody who worked for Al Gore when he lost his home state of Tennessee, I know it's not exactly equivalent, but for Sarah Palin, this -- oh, yes, that's true. It makes us happy. This is a challenge to where her authority is and isn't regardless of whether Murkowski pulls it out at the end.
CHETRY: Is it -- is it Sarah Palin's fault that Joe Miller as a candidate ended up having some pretty high profile --
(CROSSTALK) ROSEN: And in fairness to Lisa Murkowski, she's a really good senator.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She ran a lousy primary.
ROSEN: She ran a lousy primary. I have to say, you know, get this on record, I'm complimenting a Republican, she is -- you know, she's someone who has worked across the aisle frequently.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No more, though.
ROSEN: And when she lost that primary, you know, she was so unceremoniously dumped by the guys in the Senate that I think it made all women rally around here. So, good for her that she's pulling this off. We weren't going to win that seat anyway.
(CROSSTALK)
JOHN AVLON, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Remarkable about this. I mean, you know, not only since the first time since 1954 is there a write-in candidate, but in her not simply accepting the results of that close partisan primary, this low turnout close partisan primary, that ended up being having very undemocratic results. If you care about the general electorate, it's really a question about whether the parties are more important than the people at large.
And Murkowski had the guts to say what Mike Castle didn't for better or worse, and say, you know what, that was not a representative election. I want to put my case in front of all the people of my state and have a general referendum on my career.
(CROSSTALK)
ERICK ERICKSON, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Charlie Crist couldn't win, so he went independent. Arlen Specter couldn't win, so he went independent.
AVLON: And Murkowski pulled it out.
(CROSSTALK)
ERICKSON: The number of Republicans this year who couldn't hack it in the primaries and so they jumped ship, and largely, the guys who are doing that are the people who all of the exit polling and all the polling shows they're not the people --
(CROSSTALK)
ROSEN: Lisa Murkowski seems to have remained a Republican.
ERICKSON: That's true, to her credit. Yes.
AVLON: Let me just respond to that quickly because it's important. Look, it's about what's a better general candidate. Clearly, Marco Rubio is a great general election candidate. Clearly, Joe Miller was not. And the issue for me and for many independents is, if you've got a close partisan primary, that's not representative of the electorate.
CHETRY: However, I will say in Delaware --
(CROSSTALK)
CHETRY: -- the situation in Delaware, there were a lot of people in Delaware who said this is going to be a coronation and we want our vote.
(CROSSTALK)
CHETRY: -- Mike Castle automatically win, that they didn't think the seat was going to go to a Democrat and it ended up going to Chris Coons.
MICHAEL CROWLEY, DEPUTY WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, TIME: Absolutely. And something that was very interesting about this election cycle was the up in of number of instances where the Republican Party establishment machine sort lost control of the process. I mean, I think what's happening in the Republican Party is the authority is kind of breaking down, the people who kind of called the shots from Washington have lost their ability to sort of say, this is how it's going to be, which looking forward from here has very interesting implications for the 2012 presidential primaries.
(CROSSTALK)
ED ROLLINS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: The Senate committee jumped in. The congressional committee did not. They let the primaries take place.
When I ran the political office for Reagan, we never endorsed a candidate ever in his eight years in office. When I ran the congressional committee, we never endorsed a candidate. Let primary -- if you believe in primaries, which we do, that the people who are Republicans or Democrats get to pick who they want to run, they run against each other. What you're advocating is an open primary in which --
AVLON: Absolutely, like New Hampshire. Like New Hampshire has had for a long time and it works pretty well.
ROLLINS: In some places.
MCLEAN: Let me raise one thing here.
(CROSSTALK)
MCLEAN: Tonight, this morning, I'm not sure where the lines are now -- what you see, the trend is that a lot of incumbents are out of office.
CHETRY: Right. MCLEAN: But when you try to draw this big line, you say it is a Tea Party night because of Marco Rubio, but it's not because of Christine O'Donnell.
(CROSSTALK)
MCLEAN: And more importantly, when you dig can down deeper, you can look up and you see the only thing that is a trend was the real incumbency nature of this.
CHETRY: I have a question to Erick Erickson. I just want to ask you about this situation because in some case, what could have been a Republican seat ended up not being a Republican seat, the Delaware Senate race. And it was the stature, I guess, it was the quality of the candidate?
(CROSSTALK)
ERICKSON: There are a vast number of Republicans, me being one of them, who wanted Mike Castle to lose and didn't care whether Chris Coons got elected because this election to a lot of us, looking at these poll numbers, was they ever about moving the Senate to the Republicans, it was about moving the Senate Republicans to the right. And we have succeeded with Ron Johnson and Marco Rubio and all these other guys. Even some of the people like Portman who Mitch McConnell is claiming is going to be one of them.
But, you know, larger picture, John Cornyn, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, started a civil war with the Tea Party movement by endorsing Charlie Crist.
CHETRY: Right.
ERICKSON: None of the rest of this would have ever happened but for him doing that.
(CROSSTALK)
ROLLINS: And Charlie Crist was the biggest loser tonight. He was the guy who got reelected governor, wouldn't have been challenged in the Republican primary, would have won tonight a second term. He chose that he wanted.
ERICKSON: He didn't cry on TV.
ROLLINS: And Rubio went to him and say, what do you want, do you want to be a senator, do you want to be governor? He said I'll be whatever I want to be. So, Rubio says fine.
(CROSSTALK)
CROWLEY: A point about Alaska for our viewers to keep in mind as they watch these returns coming is the high likelihood of a legal challenge if it remains close because these write-in votes could be dodgy. I think there's a very good chance you'll see it wind up --
(CROSSTALK)
CHETRY: All right. We got to leave it there though --
MCLEAN: Pay attention to Ohio and Florida, and the difference in the split between Senate and gubernatorial races. Those are not sweeps.
CHETRY: All right.
Fifty-two minutes past the hour. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: About five minutes to the top of the hour now, getting close to 6:00 a.m. on the East Coast.
And our Tom Foreman is here in the data cove as we like to call it.
And we're looking at the matrix, all these fancy things that we're doing. And we got 100 races in the House that we were looking at.
TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes.
ROBERTS: So far, at least 60 seats are going to Republicans tonight, decimating what was the Democratic majority in the House.
What's been most interesting to you?
FOREMAN: I'll tell you what the most interesting about all of this. If you look at all of the things that were going on -- hold on.
ROBERTS: We have all this technology except the microphone is not turned on.
FOREMAN: That's the technical part.
If you look at all of the technology here and you see what happened yesterday, you know what this looked like yesterday.
ROBERTS: Yes.
FOREMAN: This was all blue, because there were the seats that we thought that might have flipped over and indeed they have. And some of these, I will you tell, John, have concerned people more than others.
If you look at some -- this is what the Democrats were targeting, things like this seat here, if you look at Pennsylvania 03, this was a seat where John McCain and Barack Obama really ran dead even there. John McCain got the nod by a little bit. So, Republicans looked to that and said we can flip this over.
But the ones that really probably bother the White House an awful lot, look at Virginia 02 down there, this district down here was one where they hoped they could pull out because they had pretty good numbers there, but they weren't able to pull out. And even more so, if you look at Virginia district five, this is one where the president went down and campaigned for this guy and said, look, I'm going to get the vote out there and we're going to prove that we can make a stand here and it didn't pay off.
This is somebody who -- this is an area where John McCain won but Barack Obama thought he could hang on. But you're talking about candidate down here who supported health care, he supported the stimulus spending, and they thought they could make it difference but the results didn't and that was the one of the places that flipped.
ROBERTS: Tom Foreman with a look at some of our 100 most interesting House races, we'll look at the Senate coming up as well.
We'll be back in two minutes. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
