Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Candidates Scramble to Make Final Pitch in Key States; Are Republicans Vowing Total War If Trump Doesn't Win; New Video: Inside Battle for Mosul; Independent Evan McMullin Upsetting Trump Vote in Utah. Aired 3-4p ET

Aired November 05, 2016 - 15:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:00:02] POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Top of the hour. 3:00 p.m. eastern. For the presidential candidate candidates, crisscrossing America, that means it is noon in Reno, Nevada.

I'm Poppy Harlow in New York. So glad you are with us.

Buckle up. It is the final or the finale of the wildest election season perhaps of your lifetime. You have a front-row seat. This hour, we will take you live to the battleground states that will we'll decide who wins the White House.

You are watching CNN's special, election coverage. You are live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

Take a look at this. I want to show you exactly where Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are focusing their efforts today. What a day it is on the campaign trail. Donald Trump is on his way to Nevada and Colorado after stops earlier today in North Carolina and Florida. His surrogates are stumping in New Hampshire, Wisconsin and New Hampshire. The Clinton campaign has heavy focus on Florida and Pennsylvania. Hillary Clinton will rally in Philadelphia and Joe Biden will campaign near Pittsburgh. Also, Clinton surrogates will appear in North Carolina, Iowa and Colorado.

We have our teams of reporters and every single one of those major campaign stops.

We begin first in North Carolina. It is fast becoming a must-win state. One of Trump's biggest female supporters, his wife, Melania, with him. Republican, Mitt Romney, won North Carolina by a slim margin in 2012. It went to Obama in 2008. The latest CNN poll of polls there shows Trump trailing Clinton four points, Clinton at 46, Trump at 42.

Let's go straight to Sunlen Serfaty.

How are they feeling about their chance in North Carolina?

SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I just talked to Donald Trump's campaign director who said they are cautiously optimistic in this state, looking at early voting numbers. He says they're on the right track. They are look at the polls showing Clinton up by a few. It is an essential must-win state for their path to 270. We are seeing such a flood of nearly the full contingent of campaign surrogates and family members into the states. That surprise ad of Melania Trump and tomorrow, they'll have Mike Pence in North Carolina. Monday, Donald Trump himself returns to North Carolina. They are leaving making sure the state is not remaining unattended from now until Election Day. Trump just wrapped up his rally where he went right after Hillary Clinton and Vice President Joe Biden.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: She doesn't have what it takes to do rallies all over the place. She wants to go home and go to sleep. So she has got Biden. He challenged me. He challenged me. I would like to take him behind the gym. I dream of that. I dream.

(LAUGHTER)

Let me just tell you, hey, folks, let me just tell you, if I ever said that, if I ever said that -- they thought it was so cute. Wasn't it wonderful what our vice-president said? If I ever said that, oh, he is a bully. He is a horrible person. He challenged our vice president to a fight. Can you imagine what a bully he is?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SURFATY: Now, that is just like pure meat thrown out by Donald Trump to his supporters here, which is what these last-minute rallies are, not about persuading any new voters. Making sure your supporters are motivated to get out to vote -- Poppy?

HARLOW: Sunlen, thank you so much.

Hillary Clinton campaigning in Florida. A pretty important speech for her. Not exactly in her favor. Three days out from the election, our CNN poll of polls shows the battleground state in a dead heat, each coming in at 45 percent.

CNN's senior Washington correspondent, Jeff Zeleny, joins us.

Clinton wrapped up a rain-soaked speech there a short time ago. What is Clinton's message to the voters? Clearly, Latinos are helping her here a lot in Florida. But he has a lot of help from retirees and seniors.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: No doubt about it, Poppy. Good afternoon from here. The message that Hillary Clinton was giving today, really to this crowd here -- there were some hearty folks out here. Not the biggest crowd ever. But it was a torrential downpour. She was doing stops along the way, in west Miami and Little Haiti, other places, trying to get out the Hispanic vote. That is central to the Clinton campaign strategy here in Florida. There 29 electoral votes in this state. I am here in Broward County, Florida, just north of Miami. Poppy, this is the third time in the last week that Hillary Clinton has campaigned here. This is the heart of Democratic Florida as you know. It is so important to their effort here.

This is what Hillary Clinton had to say a short time ago here at this rally.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[15:05:] HILLARY CLINTON, (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: My friends, you are a hearty bunch standing out here in the rain. I don't think I need to tell you all of the wrong things about Donald Trump. Here is what I want you to remember. I want to be the president for everybody, everybody who agrees with me, people who don't agree with me --

(CHEERING)

CLINTON: -- people that vote for me, people that don't vote for me.

(CHEERING)

CLINTON: So let's get out. Let's vote for the future. Let's vote for what we want for our country and our children and our grandchildren. God bless you.

(CHEERING)

ZELENY: So, Poppy, a little multitasking there in her closing argument. She is still trying to draw a contrast and disqualify Donald Trump. And she is also trying to say she will be the president for everyone. Still trying to get any voter in the middle who has not decided. This weekend is about what is happening behind the scenes. It is about getting their identified supporters out to vote already. Six million, nearly six million people in Florida have already voted. That is about 60 percent of what the projected electorate will be on Election Day -- Poppy?

HARLOW: Jeff, thank you very much, from Florida.

Let's talk more about this with our panel. CNN political commentators, Carl Bernstein is with us, the author of "The Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton. Alex Burns is also with us, a national political reporter for "The New York Times." And Margaret Hoover, a sight in yellow, a Republican consultant. She does not support Donald Trump.

Thank you for being here.

Gents, if you had yellow suits on, I would be complimenting you, too.

Carl --

(CROSSTALK)

(LAUGHTER)

HARLOW: Carl, let me begin with you. You say Hillary Clinton -- and you wrote the book on her -- is best

when she is in warrior mode. Was that warrior mode Clinton? Why is she best like that?

CARL BERNSTEIN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: She gets into a zone in which she knows what she has to do, she is focused, she is calm and she is destructive of the other object of her destruction. I think we've been seeing it the last few years -- the last few days. What we are also seeing, though, is somebody who realizes she is on the edge of becoming the president of the United States. It's within her grasp. The polls that we are going to talk about seem from internal polling by her campaign, by Trump's campaign as well to be accurate and they are really the Trump campaign in a Hail Mary territory, some kind of disruption that might occur, some kind of tote little unforeseen event or people going into the booth and surprising everybody and saying, the hell with it, I want change, even if it is Donald Trump.

HARLOW: Right. And some would say, some told me in these swing states undecided, I'm willing to roll the dice. I want change.

Margaret, to you, when you look at Latino voting, it has been huge, perhaps headed towards record levels in this election. It is really helping her in places like Florida. North Carolina, she is not getting nearly enough African-American voters. The president was pleading with them saying if you come out, she will win this election. Will one offset the other enough?

MARGARET HOOVER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: You have to go state by state. A state like Florida where you have a depression of African- American turnout, especially in the early vote, what you have is almost one for one, new Latino voters showing up in the early polls. You are right about North Carolina. The offset is, what about all those white voters that Trump was going to drum up that didn't necessarily vote every four years. The Republican side, we have talked about it for four years. Where is the missing white voter? Can Trump get them out to the polls? We are seeing equal numbers of white voters showing up in the early turnout. There isn't that sort of one for one in North Carolina. In Nevada, you have incredibly high Latinos there.

(CROSSTALK)

HOOVER: Some political reporters say there's no way Republicans can --

(CROSSTALK)

HARLOW: And Clark County, home of Las Vegas, two-thirds of the votes will come in. They saw record early vote turnout yesterday. We'll have numbers when early voting closes for good today.

Alex, to you.

When you look at -- if there is a Hail Mary going on by the Trump campaign, Mike Pence is going to Minnesota on Monday. And aides to the campaign say, we see this map widening. Minnesota hasn't gone red since '72? Smart?

ALEX BURNS, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: And in down-ballot elections, elections for Senate and governor, Minnesota is such a reliably Democratic state, even when Democrats got shellacked across the country, Minnesota --

(CROSSTALK)

[15:10:04] HARLOW: We elected Jesse Ventura.

BURNS: you certainly did.

HARLOW: I mean, we surprised you with that.

BURNS: I am surprised you bring that up willingly, Poppy.

HARLOW: Yes.

BURNS: Look, this is something we see every four years that a candidate who sees the math kind of closing in around them and their paths are getting cut off one by one. In states like Nevada, start to slip away from someone like Donald Trump the same way it did for Mitt Romney four years ago, it is less that you see the math expanding organically and more that you start battering up against the fence to try to find a weak point. It is why Mike Pence has been spending so much time in Michigan. That's why Donald Trump went to Michigan and New Mexico last week. These are states that have voted almost exclusively for Democrats for president as long as anyone can remember.

HARLOW: Even Romney couldn't win his home state, where his father was governor. So he's trying to put cracks in that blue wall.

Carl, to you.

When you look at the CNN poll of polls today and you look at it pre FBI Director James Comey sending that letter, it's exactly the same. What does that tell us? Was too much made of him doing that?

BERNSTEIN: This election comes down to the character of the two candidates. Even though there is disdain for both among most of the electorate, there is a larger enough of people that have some confidence in the notion that Hillary Clinton could be a competent and able and informed president of the United States where there is real fear of a Trump presidency by the margins we're seeing.

HARLOW: Margaret, are Republicans coming home? You saw Ted Cruz, something --you have seen Marco Rubio out. The only ones that are not behind him now are some of the big names that have felt insulted, Kelly Ayotte, being one.

(CROSSTALK)

HOOVER: You have more than 80 percent of the Republican Party turning out for Donald Trump. We've had higher margins for Mitt Romney and John McCain. But more than 83 percent of that is what it is around right now. That's a significant portion. That's not a divided party. That's a party that's behind its nominee.

HARLOW: That's not a divided party?

(CROSSTALK)

HOOVER: At the popular-vote level.

(CROSSTALK)

HOOVER: Certainly in the leadership level.

(CROSSTALK)

BURNS: -- in the polls, you ask, who are you voting for, you now see Trump getting back to normal levels. How many of those people show up to vote is the question mark. Is there a share of people --

(CROSSTALK)

BERNSTEIN: How craven the leadership of the republic party is to fall in line at the last minute behind Trump the way some of these folks have. I think there will be a big fight in the Republican Party for many years to come as a result of that.

(CROSSTALK)

HARLOW: Like what happened last Tuesday.

I'm out of time, guys. Thank you very much. I appreciate it, Alex, Carl, Margaret. Thank you very much

Margaret and Alex will be back with us.

A lot ahead this hour. To battleground Pennsylvania we go where Clinton leads but Trump is well within striking distance. Why this is such a crucial state for both campaigns.

Plus, the curious case of Utah. How a third-party candidate and the Mormon vote have turned the ruby red state into an outright battleground.

Next, three days out and there is chilling talk about what the Republican Party could do if Donald Trump doesn't win. More on "The Washington Post" piece everyone is talking about.

You are live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:16:52] HARLOW: There are some Republicans vowing total war if Donald Trump doesn't win? The political world today buzzing about a strongly-worded opinion piece in "The Washington Post" by blogger Paul Walman (ph). He writes, "Something truly frightening is happening, something with far-reaching implications for the immediate future of American politics. Republicans, led by Donald Trump, but by no means limited to him, are engaging in kind of a termite-level assault on American democracy, one that looks on the surface as though it's just aimed at Hillary Clinton, but in fact is undermining out entire system."

Let's talk more about it with CNN Politics reporter, M.J. Lee.

M.J., everyone is talking about this today. He points to a number of things, including let's just begin with and largely his argument here of what is going on inside the FBI, post Comey's letter to Congress, etc. What do you make of this?

M.J. LEE, CNN POLITICS REPORTER: This is something Democrats across the board are very concerned about, including Hillary Clinton herself. What they are very worried about, the timing of Comey's letter, and that they perceive it as lacking important information. That's why the Clinton campaign has been so forceful in saying it is time for Comey to release more information so the public can judge whether there should be a continued investigation or and so the public can judge whether this amounts to anything real.

The question for Hillary Clinton is, remember -- FBI directors are appointed for 10 years. The question is whether she can work with someone who she has been so critical of, whose actions she has been so critical of.

HARLOW: They both have been critical of Director Comey at different times.

LEE: This is so remarkably unusual, especially for an agency that historically is known for being politically independent. It does not get into the ins and outs of politics. This is a huge question for a potential Clinton administration. And top aides had a call, and I asked Robby Mook, who was on the call, how do you plan to deal with the fact that you are going to have an FBI director that you have now putted heads with, and the campaign is not commenting on this. They say they are focused on winning.

HARLOW: Let's talk about the opinion piece. He also outlines a few areas where he believes this is -- could be a dragged-out war between parties if she wins. He talked about the Supreme Court, making the argument that if she wins the ninth seat won't be filled until a Republican is in the White House. He goes into WikiLeaks saying it's important to understand that's not normal, this is not just bare- knuckle politics. Something extraordinary is happening. Can you put this all in context for us historically?

LEE: On the Supreme Court nomination, regardless of what happens on Election Day, this is going to be one of the biggest flash points of the Clinton administration, trying to fill that vacancy in the Supreme Court. If you listen to Harry Reid, he has said that he imagines that the judicial filibuster will be reversed if Republicans are in the minority. This is a scenario where Democrats take the Senate, saying Senate Democrats would reverse that in order to allow a Democratic president to fill that vacancy.

[15:20:11] HARLOW: It doesn't seem that different from eight years ago when Mitch McConnell said, our number-one mission is to make President Obama a one-term president. This is politics.

We have to leave it there.

M.J., thank you. We appreciate it.

Coming up, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump both spending a lot of time in Pennsylvania in the final days of this election. The Keystone State is key to both candidates in their live to win the White House. Up next, we're live from Pittsburgh, a huge tonight there for Democrats. A pretty tough state for them to take. We will talk to Miguel Marquez live, next.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I cherish women. I am going to take such good care of women's health care issues, you won't even believe it. I'm surging with women.

CLINTON: Of course, he doesn't think much of equal pay for women because he doesn't think much of women, it turns out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: I know we all want to think that our state is the most important but that's just not the case with the Electoral College. The only states that really matter to the presidential candidate this weekend in the final push are the battleground states. both Trump and Clinton desperately need them. Neither of them has them in the bag. A big one is Pennsylvania, the prize there, 20 electoral votes. Our most recent polling found Trump and Clinton almost tied in Pennsylvania when you factor in the margin of error.

Even people that work closely together, they are split right down the middle.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How are you both registered in.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm a Democrat.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm a Republican.

Last presidency, I've switched. I've always been Democrat.

I'm all for Trump. You have people coming over here that ISIS and it is scary. You don't know when it is going to happen. It is happening all over the country now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What do think happens if Hillary Clinton is elected?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: More refugees will come over.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you feel the same way?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No. I support Hillary. I think it's sad to hear the things he said about women. I mean, Hillary Clinton's ads aren't her saying anything. They are just quotes from him. We are trying so hard to get away from that. I think he would complete would bring us so far backwards. When you say president, I think it is scary.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARLOW: That was in Scranton.

Our Miguel Marquez is in Pittsburgh.

Miguel, she spent nine days campaigning in Pennsylvania since the DNC. It is so important to her that she will be there with Bill Clinton and Chelsea Clinton and with the Obamas on Monday night. How does her camp feel about their ground game and chances there?

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The ground game is enormous. They have 56 offices across the state. They have 50,000 volunteers, hundreds of campaign staffers. They are making a play for everywhere. Pittsburgh in Allegheny County is the Democratic stronghold in the western part of the state. The western part of the state is a Trump stronghold. They have been here. Hillary Clinton was here last night. Joe Biden was here today talking to steel workers in far south Allegheny. Donald Trump will be here tomorrow. It gives you a sense of how important this little area of Pennsylvania is -- Poppy?

HARLOW: You know, I just wonder if there is that hidden Trump vote. It has gone a Democrat for the last six presidential races. Clearly, his team thinks they have a real shot there. Is that what they are banking on, the hidden Trump vote?

MARQUEZ: This is precisely what the Trump campaign has been saying all along, that there is a vote here. In the Rustbelt states, you have miners and ironworkers and others that are upset with Washington, upset with where jobs are right now. If they can peel off places like Pennsylvania and Ohio and Michigan and Wisconsin, they can put together that coalition to put them to the White House. They did not have a huge campaign effort here. It grew over time. They have thousands of volunteers now. They're getting the vote out. The RNC mainly running the Trump campaign in Pennsylvania. They feel comfortable with that. They feel they can get the vote out. One thing they point to is that they have much more enthusiasm than Hillary Clinton. We'll see come Election Day. No early voting here. It is all going to happen on Tuesday. Let's hope the day is as beautiful as this.

HARLOW: Exactly. It's down to Tuesday.

An interesting point, Miguel. Even with her broader ground game, he's only four points behind in the margin of error.

Miguel, thank you. This election could determine -- will determine frankly our strategy in the war against ISIS. Up next, we will take you for an exclusive look inside, live inside Iraq, truly frightening video from our incredibly brave team on the ground there in Mosul, a critical battleground in the fight to take back that area from the terrorist group, ISIS. Arwa Damon, who was trapped for more than 24 hours during an ISIS firefight with Iraqi troops and will join me next.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:32:21] HARLOW: The intense fight to push is out of Iraq's second- largest city and our teams right there in the middle of all of it. Some incredible and frightening pictures that you will only see here on CNN.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(GUNFIRE)

HARLOW: This is Mosul, where Iraqi troops are fighting house to house, push them out. Listen to these words. They are the raw notes from our senior international correspondent, Arwa Damon. She was right in the middle. These are her word: "A massive flash of orange, a massive explosion when we were stopped. My ears are ringing. The door to the MRAP couldn't come up fast enough. Everybody coughing from the dust and the dirt kicked up. Out the back window I saw family running with kid. It was a suicide car bomber, they said. I can't stop thinking about that family and all of the others."

Let's go live to Arwa Damon. Those were her words. She is now safe, just about 55 miles away from all this happened.

Arwa, you and your photographer, 24 hours, you are stuck in the middle of this. I read the entirety of your notes. It's remarkable. Talk to me about living through it. You've covered so many war zones. How is this different?

ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Poppy, our photographer and I were with this unit of Iraqi counterterrorism forces. What happened was ISIS ambushed them in a very complex attack on one of these narrow streets that they were going down and they managed to split the convoy in two. I have to say that this is the most harrowing experience that I have personally been through, despite having covered war zones for more than a decade. Once they managed to split the convoy in two, with gunfire, rocket propelled grenades, they began to systematically take out the convoy's vehicles, Humvees and MRAPs, starting at both ends and forcing the soldiers and eventually us out of our vehicles on to the streets and building, basically putting the troops in more vulnerable positions. Then, the ISIS fighters were moving in and attacking the buildings that the troops were sheltering in. At the end of very long 24 hours, the bottom line is that we were under siege with around 22 wounded soldiers, six who were not wounded. It got so bad at one point in the morning, Poppy. Despite the fact that the unit was repeatedly calling in for backup, none came. They were running out of ammunition.

[15:35:21] This is how close the ISIS fighters were, in the building right behind where all of us had spent the night along with an Iraqi family. An air strike took out the building, the house behind us. We later found out that eight ISIS fighters were there.

At one point, there were ISIS fighters on a roof top right next door, throwing grenades into the courtyard that wounded more of the soldiers we were with. They were screaming for anyone who could walk to come up to the roof and defend this position. The reason why backup couldn't arrive. Based on what we were told, the units that were supposed to be coming as reinforcements also got bogged down because of clashes that they were undergoing with ISIS.

This illustrates the challenges that the Iraqis are going to be facing as they try to clear Iraq's second-largest city.

HARLOW: The family, Arwa, in those notes that you send back in the midst of all this, you talk about the family with their children. Do you know what happened to them?

DAMON: The family we were with that we spent the night with shall they didn't want to be filmed. They were very friendly, welcoming. At the same time, they were terrified. Overnight, we were chatting, laughing, joking. In the morning, when the ISIS counterattack began, they were crying, hiding under the staircase. They were trying to leave the house to go to their neighbors, because they thought they would be safer there. They made a few attempts to run out. The gunfire drove them back. One of the little boys was screaming out, I don't want to die today. Eventually, they did leave their own home running out without their shoes on.

Another family that we did agree to be filmed, we met them early on in the day. One of the daughters, she was just 19 years old. She was shaking. Her body was visibly shaking. Her hands were shaking because of the fear of the fighting that was happening all around her. She was afraid the Iraqi security forces were going to take her father away.

It drives home the reality that Mosul is a city with a population of 1.2 million people. There are civilians living within these homes, civilians that often times their presence is not directly known.

The other concern, Poppy -- this happened on a number of occasions -- sometimes a house will have a white flag outside of it. Sometimes that house will even have a family on the lower floor. As one of the soldiers told us, he went upstairs, five ISIS fighters were hiding in the upstairs room. He threw a grenade. Two were killed. One grabbed for the gun, shot the soldier in the leg. So they're hiding amongst the civilian population and using the civilian population as fighting positions.

HARLOW: What can you tell us, Arwa, about the man, this taxi driver that we are seeing in some of the new video that you have from this harrowing experience? DAMON: That really just illustrates the chaos of the battlefield and

how it is very difficult to discern whether someone is friendly or an enemy and how tense the entire situation is. What happened is that the soldiers asked this man in the taxi to stop. He stops his vehicle. He gets out of it. He begins moving towards him. Remember, their biggest threat in all of this is suicide car bombs. The initial assumption is that he is a suicide car bomber or a suicide bomber himself. He moves towards them. They start shooting. One is screaming at them to come, to go. He ends up on the ground. They drag him away. They try to treat him. He eventually dies of his wounds. They don't know who he is. There's no identification. They still think the vehicle was packed with explosives.

And then there was such an intense firefight that ensued right afterwards that the last I saw his body was on the side of the street wrap in a blanket with pink flowers on it.

These are scenes that aren't unique to our experience, scenes that play out everywhere as these troops move through. Every single unit is coming across similar experiences.

HARLOW: They are unique to us and our viewers.

You see this. You and your team are living this hell frankly. What the one million plus are living. This is the first time they are seeing some of the images like this. It certainly brings it home for people.

Talk to us, Arwa, about how you, your entire team, your photographer, how are you protected when you are in the middle of these streets, when you are in the middle of chaos for 24 hours on end, not knowing get out? How are you protected?

[15:40:26] DAMON: Well, our experience is pretty much very similar to the soldiers' experience. We are traveling in their vehicles and their armor is fairly solid. We carry our own protective gear. We have basic training. But this is a war zone. That experience and the experience of a lot of our correspondents, was among the most intense we have been through. You do really gain this greater appreciation. I have stood in front of the camera on numerous occasions and talked about Iraqi troops being ambushed, being under siege, about rocket propelled grenades flying in. Those words right now carry much more meaning. I know, and through the images, the world knows to a certain degree what it is to actually be in that situation.

For us, we were lucky. We were able to leave and now I'm standing in a fairly safe area reporting back to you on this. Those soldiers are still out there. Those civilians are still out there going through what we have been through on a regular basis.

HARLOW: The children are still stuck helplessly in the middle of it.

Arwa Damon, brave does not begin to do justice to what you and your team have done today. Thank you.

Much more from Arwa inside the war zone on this program tomorrow night.

We return to the campaign trail. Three days to go. We will take you next live to Utah, a traditionally ruby red state, a Republican stronghold. But a third-party candidate has frankly put all of that in jeopardy. We will explain the story of Utah in this election next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:45:54] HARLOW: Ruby Red Utah, maybe not. Independent candidate, Evan McMullin's foray in this presidential race has certainly complicated the victory in Utah for Donald Trump. It's a state Republican presidential candidates have won in every race since 1964,

The latest polling shows Trump ahead of Clinton by six points. What will happen come Election Day? Who knows?

Stephanie Elam has more from Salt Lake City.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Never Hillary and turned off by Trump, voters like Brad Fix are turning deeply red Utah into a battleground state.

BRAD FIX, UTAH VOTER: I'm a conservative.

ELAM: The difference in the Beehive State is Evan McMullin, running as an Independent. The 40-year-old Mormon says he is advocating true conservative values.

Fix, a Mormon who votes Republican, chose McMullin for president.

BRAD FIX: Looking at the two main party candidates, neither one of them really the values I feel and the character that this country needs to represent the United States of America.

ELAM: Of the Republicans in Utah, about 85 percent are Mormon.

GREG FIX, UTAH VOTER: It is pretty surreal this year to see electoral maps that have Utah painted as a battleground state.

ELAM: He said never before has a Republican nominee been so out of sync with traditional values.

GREG FIX: You have Mormons that are siding with Trump, another group who have been waiting for some alternative that they could live with. They couldn't vote for Hillary Clinton. You add on top of that his own personal morality, the reaction to the tape, the way he treats women, the way he lashes out at people.

ELAM: This has made McMullin appealing to many members of the church of latter-day saints in Utah. There are more than 515,000 active registered voters unaffiliated with any part of the state that may bode well for the Independent candidate.

For some, a McMullin victory is ultimately a Clinton victory. LDS member, Maureen Anderson, voted for Trump.

(on camera): You weren't persuaded to vote for Evan McMullin?

MAUREEN ANDERSON, UTAH VOTER: No.

ELAM: Why not?

ELAM (voice-over): It is a two-party system and voting for a third party candidate is not the way the system works and just because he is LDS isn't a reason why I would pick someone to vote for.

BRAD FIX: I think you need to vote your conscience. Vote what you feel is best for us as a country.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARLOW: Stephanie Elam joins me live from Salt Lake City.

Stephanie, good to see you.

Independent Evan McMullin was on the Erin Burnett show. He said, they are not factoring in the lack of excitement they get for Trump in Utah. Is that the sense you get on the ground?

ELAM: There are some people that are excited about Trump. Another poll came out yesterday that was just done. It puts Evan McMullin in second place behind Trump here. Of the people that I talked to, they all said they are not this election. People are not showing up like they thought they would. Usually, if there is a Republican candidate, they run away with it. Some of them supporting him while holding their nose. Others say, I can't do it. I feel better supporting Evan. People I spoke to, who are Mormon, part of the church, are saying they are not the fact that Evan is also Mormon. Something that lined up with their beliefs, but also what they thought was best for the country.

[15:50:07] HARLOW: Stephanie, thank you. We'll see what happens come Tuesday, if we see a first since the 1960s with the Republican candidate not taking the state of Utah.

Thank you.

Coming up, the battleground of North Carolina and also Colorado, a brand new CNN poll of polls shows, folks, this race is getting even closer. We're talking about a three-point race now.

You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:59:23] HARLOW: Here we go. Hour two. I'm Poppy Harlow. So glad you're with us.

This just in to CNN. This is now a three-point race. Buckle up, America. It's the finale of the wildest election season in your lifetime. You have a front-row seat. This hour we'll take you to battlegrounds that will decide who wins the White House.

You're watching special CNN election coverage. You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

Here's where Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are focusing efforts today. Donald Trump appeared in Florida and North Carolina earlier today. Now headed west for rallies if Nevada and Colorado. Trump surrogates are also visiting New Hampshire, Michigan and Wisconsin.

Hillary Clinton cut short a Florida rally today after just seven minutes due to heavy rain there. Later, she will visit Philadelphia. Vice President Joe Biden will campaign for her in the west of the state, in Pittsburgh. Also Clinton surrogates will appear in North Carolina, Iowa and Colorado. We --