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U.S. Election Results and Key Race Alerts; Trump Falsely Claims Victory Despite Several States Still to be Called. Nail-Biter Election Come down to Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin. Aired 4-4:30a ET

Aired November 04, 2020 - 04:00   ET

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


[04:00:00]

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: That is a surprise. In fact, nothing happening right now is a surprise. Except this, millions more of you came out than anybody ever anticipated. And yes, it's making the job harder, but that's a blessing. There's more counting to be done and we're doing it right now. We are just minutes away from what we believe will be a big set of new information and numbers from Wisconsin.

I'm Chris Cuomo along with Don Lemon. Welcome back to CNN's continuing breaking news coverage. Again, we are standing by for a news conference at the Milwaukee board of elections. Right now, let's go to a key race alert, OK.

We start with Pennsylvania. 20 electoral votes, 74 percent of the estimated vote is in. Just an estimate. What has to happen? The President has a big, fat lead, 677,000 votes, 55.7 to 42.9. Where are the remaining votes? When do they come in? How many days left is there of potential counting? We have all of that for you, but that is the key race alert on that.

Next, Michigan has 16 electoral votes. Again, we're waiting on information from this state, 74 percent of the estimated vote. A lot of mail-in ballots still to be processed. The President has a 240,000 vote lead but there aren't a lot of votes in there in big areas that matter. We'll take you through it in a minute, 52.0 to 46.3.

Wisconsin, now this is the state to watch for Donald Trump, 10 electoral votes. He's up 108,000 right now. 83 percent of the estimated vote is still in, 50.9 to 47.3 for Biden. We are waiting on this press conference. This state will be active in the smallest window of time. We're going to get new information here in just moments.

Next, Georgia 16 electoral votes. Now this is a big question mark. Why? Tell you in a second. Donald Trump up 102,000 votes, 50.5 to 48.3 -- 92 percent of the estimated vote. So, why the big question mark on this? Because the remaining areas that we are waiting for vote counts could be very high and rich in Democrat votes. So, we'll take you there. Big lift but big question mark as well. Next, North Carolina 15 electoral votes. The President up 76,000

there. Less of a story evolving in this state, 50.1, 48.6 -- 95 percent of the estimated vote is there. So that is the set of key race alerts that we have right now. Let's check in with the campaigns.

We have Ryan Nobles dealing with what's happening in and around the White House. The President came out, obviously said what he said he would not say about declaring a winner before we knew, but he did it anyway. What's the buzz?

RYAN NOBLES, CNN WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Chris, the next stage for Republicans and President Trump is the legal battle that is set to take place in all of these states that are still being contested right now. You heard the President elude to that in his statement a couple of hours ago where he suggested he was prepared to go all the way to the Supreme Court to prevent some of these ballots from being counted.

Well tonight, the Trump campaign not providing too many specifics as to exactly what the President is talking about. How he would offer up the legal challenge and what path it would take to ultimately get to the Supreme Court. But we do know that the Republican National Committee and the Trump Victory Group already have lawyers on the ground in all of these battleground states.

A RNC spokesperson telling me tonight, that not only do they have a whole bunch of volunteer lawyers that are prepared to wage this legal battle if and when it comes to that, they also have a number of high profile law firms in many of these states on retainer and ready to go.

And the other thing that Republicans are talking about here tonight, Chris, is the ground game that the Republican National Committee and the Trump Victory organization put into place shortly after President Trump was inaugurated. This was an effort that cost $300 million. It put boots on the ground in many of these states and it never slowed down despite the coronavirus pandemic. And in the closing days of the campaign I had a number of Trump officials tell me that despite what the polls were saying that they firmly believe that that ground game was going to be a big part in narrowing the gap in many of these key states. And they're now saying that we're seeing that play out in real time as these votes come in -- Chris.

CUOMO: All right, Ryan, really interesting change in the state of play there. you have the President always calling himself a populist. Now saying he's saying he wants lawyers and judges to decide this election at least when it comes to the count.

But just know this, threatening a lawsuit works in a lot of contests. It does not work in election law. You'd have to show that there's proof of an irregularity. The President may feel it's irregular because he wants it to end right now because he's comfortable with the state of play.

[04:05:00]

But it's not how our democracy works. The counting and the rules that the states are following right now, have been in place for a long time. Some of them have already been litigated, some of them are old, some of them are already anticipated. So, where are the irregularities? The President suggests them. Doesn't mean they exist. So, let's get reaction to what he put out into the universe tonight about how this is a fraud on the American people from the Biden campaign. That takes us to MJ Lee in Wilmington. MJ, what's the response?

MJ LEE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Chris, we have just gotten an official response from the Biden campaign to the President's speech prematurely declaring victory and casting doubt on the Democratic process. So, let me just read a part of that statement. This is from the campaign manager Jenn O'Malley Dillon. She says --

The President's statement tonight about trying to shut down the counting of duly cast ballots was outrageous, unprecedented, and incorrect. It was outrageous because it is a naked effort to take away the Democratic rights of American citizens.

She goes on to say that the country simply will not stop -- the counting, rather, simply will not stop. So, what the President is suggesting that the counting now needs to stop because it's no longer election day, obviously, the Biden campaign is dismissing that.

I just want to point out that the amazing thing is that the Biden campaign actually exactly predicted this kind of scenario, that this kind of speech very well might come from the President on election night. They have been predicting for days that the President might get on stage on election night and prematurely declare victory. That he might be casting doubt on certain kinds of votes or certain kinds of vote counting. And they have been saying essentially, we are going to be prepared for it.

We heard Biden's top lawyer, Bob Bauer, telling the media, telling the public earlier this week that we are going to be ready for all different kinds of legal hijinks. And so, this is a scenario, again, amazingly that the Biden campaign has been prepared for to come from the President.

And I just want to also just give you a quick outlook from the Biden campaign. Obviously, we've heard from the former Vice President himself earlier this evening. He basically said I feel pretty good about where things stand right now. That really wasn't spin. When you talk to Biden advisors, people close to the former Vice President, they are cautiously optimistic right now.

Look, this was not the big sweep that some had hoped for. This was not the sort of early victory or even an election night victory that some had even fantasized about. Obviously, they don't have Florida, they don't have Ohio, they don't have Texas. Those states are gone. All three of those states I just mentioned are states that the Biden campaign has made a last-minute push for even though they knew those states were neither competitive or would be (INAUDIBLE).

However, we've heard Biden himself say he thinks he's going to win Pennsylvania. And he feels like, and the Biden campaign feels like, that the Blue Wall states are going to come for them in the end. So, the bottom line is that right now obviously a lot more counting to be done. However, the Biden campaign basically feels like they are going to be able to pull through. That they do think they have a better path to 270 than the President does right now -- Chris.

CUOMO: MJ, appreciate it. Ryan Nobles thank you very much. Let us know if there are any updates.

So, let's get a better sense of the state of play. They have feeling, let's deal with the facts of what we know. Phil Mattingly over at the magic wall. Let's stick with Wisconsin, although I like this that you have the popular vote out. Why? Because it's a reminder of what we're still waiting for waiting. Right? 66 and 64 million, last race was about 120, 130 million. We were expecting at least 150, maybe 160 million. What does that tell you? A lot of millions of votes outstanding. Wisconsin, we're waiting on the press conference. They'll be in Milwaukee. Take us through the plus/minus and what we're waiting to hear.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, you talk about the outstanding vote, right now in this moment in time, there is no more important outstanding vote than in Wisconsin. We should get some answers soon. I believe Milwaukee County is kind of the biggest outstanding vote right now. And we're just waiting for the city of Milwaukee to report and should start to get some results there. Let me topline it first.

Right now, Donald Trump state of Wisconsin ahead by 107,431, 84 percent reporting. It's all about what's outstanding. Democrats have been pointing, as they often do, to Milwaukee County. It's the largest county in the state, 16 1/2 percent of the population here. And look down here, only 49 percent reporting. It is expected to come in heavily Democratic. Right now, its 60 percent Biden, 38 percent Trump. There will be a lot of vote there. How much vote? Well, Joe Biden right now, 174,000 votes. Flashback to 2016. Hillary Clinton got 110, 115,000 more. And there's expected to be higher turnout over the course of the night. That's something the Biden campaign is looking for.

CUOMO: Is it enough to offset all of the red boxes?

MATTINGLY: This is the question, right. So, let's go back to 2020 where we actually are. I wanted to take this down a little bit.

[04:10:00]

Because I pointed this out the last time we talked. And just take it down to 91 percent. And you look and you see Milwaukee County. You see another blue county up here. How much is going to be coming from Portage? Not a huge amount, not a huge amount with 91 percent left. But it's the red counties that I think are the biggest unknown right now. And the red counties that some Democrats are actually pointing to and saying, look, Brown county right now, home of Green Bay. If you look at the margin, Donald Trump up 54,000 and 40,000 votes. Just because the outstanding vote here, only 66 percent reporting, that means there's a sizeable chunk of vote here. Just because it's from a red county doesn't mean it's going to come in heavily Republican. CUOMO: Why do we think a blue county comes in heavily Democratic?

MATTINGLY: Absentees. Absentee ballots vote by mail. Vote by mail went heavily Democratic across the country, it went heavily Democratic in the state of Wisconsin. And one of the outstanding areas right now in terms of absentees, my understanding is, is Green Bay. And Green Bay leads a little more -- although maybe the rest of the county is pretty firmly red.

Here's what you want to look at. You look at the margin right now. Look what happened in 2016. In 2016 Donald Trump won by about 10 points. Won by about 10 point. Obviously, had a lot more vote back in 2016 than he has right now. Because there's so much left outstanding. Right now, that margin is higher. That margin is higher, Democrats expect that margin to narrow.

Which means they believe, they believe -- and this is what they believe, that a lot of the outstanding vote will skew towards them even though it's in a red county. Now how much is that going to continue amongst other counties. Take a look down here. In Kenosha, President Trump was just in Kenosha. And if we run up margin Kenosha because Kenosha was very narrow. Very narrow back in 2016. Less than half a point separated Donald Trump from Hillary Clinton.

Look at the margin right now. Look at the margin right now. That's a huge margin. Maybe that's because President Trump came to Kenosha. Maybe that's because what occurred in Kenosha. In the unrest in Kenosha. Some of the things we in Kenosha. Or maybe it's because with 70 percent reporting the Democratic vote went heavily mail and that's what's outstanding right now.

So, when you're looking for how does Joe Biden not just get 107,000 votes but make up 107,000 votes without losing a significant amount to Donald Trump when a lot of the outstanding counties right now are red. It's the hope on the Democratic side that the outstand vote even in those red counties belongs predominantly to Democratic via absentee mail.

CUOMO: Let's see if we can get some context on what we're waiting for on Milwaukee. Obviously, the control room is going to let us know as soon as the press conference is in effect in Milwaukee and we'll bring you that. We're waiting on it. Because it's the only one that's reported results any time soon. While we wait, Kristen Holmes, all right, is looking at absentee ballots and what's still out there. Kristin, do I have you?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes.

CUOMO: What do we know about what Wisconsin is getting ready to tell us about? What kind of numbers are in the mix?

HOLMES: OK. So, this is going to piggyback off of what Phillip just said. The big thing that we're waiting on right now is Milwaukee, right? So, last time they gave us an update there was still an outstanding 169,341 early and mail-in ballots that had not yet been counted. So that is what we are waiting for, to see how those numbers go. And as they have talked about all night, it's been clear since the beginning of the pandemic that generally Biden supporters are much more in favor of mail-in and early absentee voting. Trump supporters are much more in favor of voting in person on election day.

The other thing to watch is Brown County. So, here's what's interesting here. They have 66 percent of the vote in. This is a mixed bag. These results are coming in altogether. So, it's unclear how exactly this is going to shift or change because they're not differentiating where exactly each group comes from the way they do in Milwaukee, for example. And now this is Waukesha here --

CUOMO: Kristin, let me -- I'm a good test case for you in terms of how people are processing this at home. I just have had a lot more caffeine than most of them hopefully. They're waiting to fall asleep. I'm going to be up as long as this takes. 169,000 in Milwaukee, OK. Then does specificity drop off after that in terms of what kinds of numbers are in any of those red boxes?

HOLMES: Yes, I mean look, when we go through the red boxes, this is the thing about Wisconsin. It is incredibly complicated when it comes to how exactly the mail-in and absentee votes are counted. So, each precinct, each county does it differently. And even within the county they do it differently. So, I'm not going to bore everyone with all of the logistics.

But the big outstanding thing that they're waiting for right now is Milwaukee. That is the one that is coming in separately, that we know that there is a big chunk of those absentee ballots. That only happens in about a handful of these Wisconsin counties. I mean, it's probably like 30 if I went back and checked. But the rest of them come in together. So, that's why we're keeping an eye on Brown but also, again, really this is going to tell us a lot. Once we see these numbers come in.

[04:15:00]

And remember, we're supposed to hear about Brown County, too. They said 3 or 4 a.m. It's 4:15. So, we're missing those numbers and we're waiting for Milwaukee. But I think that is going to really tell us where this race stands once those numbers come into Milwaukee.

CUOMO: Yes, and look, we're focusing on this not just because they're the first ones up. Obviously, the recency of when we get the numbers dictates our attention. But this is the toughest haul for Biden. So, we need to know this. Even that 169,000 number -- it's a big number. Obviously, it's going to matter. You know, because you're at 107,000 plus for the President here. But what percentage of that is Biden and what about all of the other little pieces that they're looking for? There's a lot of wood to chop in Wisconsin especially if Biden is going to have any chance there. And if he doesn't, the window gets really small, really fast. All right, thank you very much, appreciate that.

So, we're waiting on Wisconsin to give us this press conference. And once we have those numbers, now we'll know, OK, so here's all the counting they've done. What do they have left? If there is nothing really left, then you you're going to start seeing whether or not they are in the realm of projection where you'll be able to start tabulating it and saying, all right, it's time to move this state on way or the other. We'll understand why. And then the picture here starts to get a lot more definite a lot more quickly.

Let's go back, expand out to where Phil is here. And let's talk about why. If there aren't enough votes and percentage of the take of those votes to bring Biden even with and ahead of Trump. And this goes to Trump. Now we have a much shorter story. Wisconsin goes to Trump.

MATTINGLY: Wisconsin goes to Trump and you're looking right here.

CUOMO: And we're looking at Michigan.

MATTINGLY: We're looking at the state of Michigan.

CUOMO: He has to win Michigan. Biden for just to continue in any kind of plausible way.

MATTINGLY: He would have to win a couple more states, but Michigan would absolutely have to be one of them.

CUOMO: Absolutely.

And on of the primary reasons why is because Democrats feel like Michigan despite right now being down 238,000 votes to President Trump. Michigan is of the three -- Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin -- seem like the best bet for them at this point in time. It is not a bet of hope to get one of three, you absolutely have to have one of three. This one in Michigan would be the one that they're pointing to right now.

So, let's take a look at Michigan. Kind of in a similar dive as Wisconsin. Right now, Michigan, 76 percent reporting. Donald Trump, a significant 238,000 vote lead. However, it looks less significant when you look here. This is Wayne County. This is the home of Detroit. This is a Democratic stronghold. It presses the Detroit out to the suburbs. A little bit more up here as well. And if you look at the top line vote count, you understand just and if how much is outstanding. Only 43 percent reporting. Now it's not rare that Wayne County goes slow.

CUOMO: Why?

MATTINGLY: They often go slow. It's Wayne County. Wayne County, sometimes Detroit in pushing out, maybe they don't count as fast as you want. And there was talk that Wayne County might set -- turns out records today. And here's why that matters. If that's true. And we don't know yet, we're still trying to gauge where things stand.

In 2016 -- I want to flip back to 2016 -- look at the top margin in 2016, Hillary Clinton crushed President Trump in Wayne County. That's expected. Hillary Clinton lost Michigan by 10,000 votes. Hillary Clinton had 76,000 fewer votes than President Obama back in 2016. Turnout fell off the map in Wayne County particularly among African- Americans. So, if 519,000 votes, that is when the turn off fell off the map.

Right now, Joe Biden is only at 240,000. Now he's also got less major margin right now. They want to push that up. But what that tells you is there's major vote outstanding. That vote will almost certainly skew heavily Democratic. And we're waiting for it to come in. So, 43 percent there, add another 240,000 votes give or take here or there. Where does that him? Now if it was just 240,000 votes net, well, he'd be above.

But we're not talking about net here. It's just like Wisconsin. We're taking a look at what's outstanding in the state of Michigan. You see a lot of red here. And this again comes to the biggest question. We talked about this a couple of minutes ago. I want to bring it back up again. Kent County was a county that went Democratic in the 2018 governor's race. It was a county that Democrats felt like they were starting to gain a foothold in after the 2018 midterms. Donald Trump with a margin right now of just shy of 10 points. Donald Trump in 2016 before the county started to move away from him in the midterm elections, won this county but only won it by 3 points. The Democrats feel like even if they lose Kent County, that margin has got to narrower. They expected the margin to be narrower. And maybe it's not.

CUOMO: Maybe they're just wrong.

MATTINGLY: Maybe they're wrong. I mean, President Trump has been to Grand Rapids. President Trump focused on the state. How many times did he visit Michigan over the last two weeks?

CUOMO: The pandemic, the lockdown, the acrimony that the President became a player in and fanning the flames of people discontent. Maybe that won him some favor.

MATTINGLY: Entirely possible. But as things currently stand right now, there's still 29 percent of the vote outstanding. Donald Trump has 53/44 percent lead. And Democrats believe that much of the outstanding vote will skew their way. Because much of outstanding vote is mail, and mail skews Democratic. We're going to go through this in every single state we go through. And that is what's different about this election. The outstanding vote isn't necessarily going to track with whatever the margin is. Republican are going to get X, Democrats are going to get Y.

[04:20:00]

Because the unanswered question that we're waiting to find out, is how much of it is mail -- and we think a lot of it is. We know a lot of it is. And what's the composition of that mail? We know it's going to be heavily Democratic. How heavily Democratic as you move through the red counties right now that still have significant number of outstanding votes?

CUOMO: Gotcha.

All right, so, let's go back to Wisconsin for a second. OK. Ryan Young is where? Green Bay? Milwaukee. All right, Ryan Young is in Milwaukee. There has been a dump of new information from the authorities there in Wisconsin. What do we understand, my friend?

RYAN YOUNG, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Chris. How are you doing?

CUOMO: Good to see you.

YOUNG: We've been all been this one. We just watch -- good to see you as well. We've been watching them actually walk in the hard drives that they're going to use to upload to the system. So, we're told in about a half hour we will get more information in terms of how this count will play out. So, there was a police escort to get to this point. The votes got brought over from Milwaukee. They will put them into the system. They're actually loading them in fact right now. They'll stick them into the computer and all of those votes will start to load -- Chris.

CUOMO: Did you get anything? Did you get a taste? You're supposed to be a jujitsu specialist. You can wrestle anything out of anybody the whole time they're walking by with all of that information?

YOUNG: Well, you know, when they have those three officers walking with them, you understand the importance of this. Look, we're in a room where actually the numbers are being updated the whole time. So, you look back at the screen here and watching the screens as the numbers update. And then they even bring out forms where they show how each county has sort of played a role in this.

Look, there are no speed bumps here at all. The election went really smoothly. In fact, so many people voted early that yesterday it was almost a snooze fest at some of the locations when it came to voting. The polling location I was at, over 500 people voted but the biggest issue was everybody was worried about social distancing and COVID-19. This vote process has gone very smoothly so far.

CUOMO: So, let me ask you something. The room that you're in right now, is that a press room? You said this is where they're doing the counting. Is that actually a tabulation area? How's it working?

YOUNG: So great question. So, we're in the courthouse. And we had to go through several checks to get to this point right here. They're letting the media sit in this area. And what they do is, you look back in this direction. They have several screens like this posted. And every time they get another number, a tabulation, you see the numbers update automatically.

The press secretary comes out and gives us a heads up when somethings going to happens. So, we're all sitting here sort of waiting for this Milwaukee dump to happen. And they walked through the door and they gave us an update that in about 35 minutes we'll have the new information about this election and all of the votes that are still outstanding.

CUOMO: Does 35 minutes sound right to you? Does it sound like a real time window? Have they given you any in the past?

YOUNG: You know, everything they've given us so far since we've been here since last Friday, has been dead on. CUOMO: So, 35 minutes.

YOUNG: We've gotten access to everything about this.

CUOMO: All right, so 35 minutes. Do me a favor. Stand by. Let me ask you something else. So, you see these numbers flashing up on the screen, have you figured anything out? Have you seen anything that we don't know already?

YOUNG: You know, everything seems to be going -- you know what, the one thing that was kind of confusing at one point, we saw the numbers spike for a second and then we saw half the numbers disappear. What we're told is they do some checks and balances here. So, when they were able to see some of the numbers matching up in a certain way, they were able to pull some of the numbers back based upon the initial tabulation. But those are the smaller counties. So, none of those issues that we heard about earlier throughout the state have sort of shown themselves here at all. That's the good news. Chris, there's been no sort of hiccups so to speak. So, we're just waiting for the big dump that's happening right now.

CUOMO: Irregularities, that's the ugly word that we try to avoid in these situations. I don't want to hear about irregularities. So, what is the expectation? When they give us this briefing in 35 minutes, is that it for them? Do they believe this is going to be their final assessment?

YOUNG: You know, that would probably be the best question so far in terms of what will happen next. I'll tell you one thing, every time they step to the mike so far, there's a certain level of certainty that they have. They always give us context for the information they are providing us. So, there's never that third or fourth question that we have to ask about how this is working.

Because pretty much they told us how this was going to work. They couldn't start counting until 7 a.m. yesterday. That's when they started counting. They had that whole system and whole flow worked out. We haven't heard about any massive rejections of ballots or anything like that. We didn't hear any phone calls about people not being able to vote yesterday. This is a state that you can show up on the last day and register to vote and vote the same day. So, there weren't just those complaints that you heard in other places, so far so good.

CUOMO: Good, I love it. You and I are hooked up so when they're coming, just get in my ear. We'll come right back to you. OK? Thank you very much. Very nice sharing history with you, my brother. It's good to see you.

[04:25:00]

MATTINGLY: All right, so 35 minutes.

CUOMO: Finally, a little bit of shape to our night here. So, they've been doing it on a micro level. They're coming out now. They didn't tell Ryan that this is all we'll be able to tell but it's better than where we are right now, given what they have. So, what do you think will be the two, three things we're hoping to get out of it?

MATTINGLY: Well, it's going to be Milwaukee County. Right? And so, it's going to be everything from Milwaukee County. I don't know if this is the final thing that they give from Milwaukee County, but the way Ryan is describing it, it's Milwaukee County. Now Milwaukee County is not the only thing we're waiting for. It's by far the biggest thing we're waiting for if you look at what's outstanding, 49 percent is in right now. Still waiting, 51 percent of the vote. And it's the city of Milwaukee and everything in its outskirts in this kind of blue area right here that we're waiting for.

I think the other big question Kristin kind of eluded to it, we're expecting Brown County as some point as well. They're not all going to come at the same time. So, Milwaukee County. What Milwaukee County will give us and what we'll be looking for is kind of the partisan breakdown. The partisan breakdown, it seems very obvious here. But the partisan breakdown and then the topline numbers. What is the turnout in Milwaukee County? Does it start matching up with a pathway for Joe Biden or does it fall short? And when you start doing matchup for the rest of the counties with Donald Trump, all of a sudden it becomes clear that Trump has the path.

CUOMO: Right, that's the trick here is that there are enough votes in Milwaukee and the surrounding areas for the 107,000 vote lead to disappear. However, are there enough to hold off the rest of the ratio and all the places that are assumed to go for the President? They are red. What's the trick on that? Should the answer be as simple as, well it's red, Trump wins? No, because these are requested absentee ballots and we know from the research that there is a party bias within that request, so that more of the requests even in red areas were from Democrats than Republicans, we just don't know the ratio.

MATTINGLY: Right. So, let me -- they just gave us, I'm going to now.

CUOMO: How was that: Was that, right? A few hours in?

MATTINGLY: Yes.

CUOMO: I can do a little bit of the wall. I'm not magic. I can do a little bit.

MATTINGLY: Don't you dare touch it.

CUOMO: I won't. It actually scares me. Go ahead.

MATTINGLY: All right. Obviously very serious. So, you take a look at what we're talking about here. As we've been talking about Milwaukee county. We know that the blue County. Everything else that's 86 percent reporting or less which means there's a decent sum of outstanding vote here, is in a red county. And what you were eluding to -- and I think which is important to know -- we'll you start with Brown County, only 66 percent reporting.

If it's just Green Bay that's outstanding right now, and it's just Green Bay mail that's outstanding right now, then that should likely skew heavily Democratic. Heavily Democratic or skew Democratic. So, that margin isn't necessarily going to match up with whatever comes in, it's 56 percent Trump, 41 percent Biden.

CUOMO: Mail -- M, A, I, L.

MATTINGLY: Yes, OK.

And so, I think that's the big thing we don't have answers to right now and why this information is so important. Because you look around and you say, well, that's red, that's red, that's red, that's red. So, what if he makes up 107,000 votes in Milwaukee county, but these are all Republican counties. Again, it's the composition of what's left outstanding right now. And we know that composition largely skews Democrat. The biggest question, is it enough when you add it all together? And it's not just Milwaukee. We're dealing with this in the state of Michigan. We don't exactly know the timeline when Michigan is coming in. We're obviously still waiting here, 76 percent outstanding. Take it down here. Let's look at where the big outstanding counties are. Take it down to 80 percent, 79 percent.

CUOMO: Now explain why are we taking it down to 79 or 80 percent.

MATTINGLY: So, this tells you where the most outstanding vote is. All right. So, if I have this all the way up, it's every county that's reporting. Even those that have recorded is where the most outstanding votes are. If I have this all the way up, it's every county reporting. Even those that have reporting 100 percent. That we know we're done. Right? Hands are done, their county officials are going home. They're very, very happy, everything is signed off on. You start taking this down. You get a better sense of what's outstanding in the state.

Obviously, we've been talking about Detroit. We've been talking about Wayne County. We know that's outstanding and we know there's a huge amount of vote that's outstanding there. We've been talking about Kent County. Let's also talk about Kalamazoo County. It's generally skews Democratic. It's the nineth largest county in the state, about 2.5 percent of the population here, 80 percent reporting. So, there's about 20 percent of the vote here. Joe Biden with a about a 9-point lead.

What happened in 2016? We can use that to inform us as well. Hillary Clinton had a bigger margin. Hillary Clinton had a bigger margin. So, does that mean right now that Joe Biden's more outstanding votes than just a nine-point lead? And so, that's kind of the math we're trying to do in our heads. And it's the big unknown variable as we go through all these states.

CUOMO: All right. So, what is our moos right now? Our mood is about expecting more information. A little bit of levity, why? Because my faith is in the process not the outcome. Why? Because no matter what the outcome, is we got to find a better way forward together, right? The real challenge is for us and what we all have to do right now is wait for the vote. It's going to be coming in in Wisconsin just a few moments from now. We will have it for you live, so please stay with CNN.