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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees
Dueling Rallies Tonight in Battleground States; New Polls Show Race Tightening Four Days Before Election; Pres. Obama Campaigns for Clinton in N.C.; Three Key Court Rulings Could Shape Voting; The Obama Effect; Tight Race Like 2012?; Will the Obama Effect Help Clinton?; One of the Undecided Voters; Four Days to Go, Still Undecided. Aired 9-10p ET
Aired November 04, 2016 - 21:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[21:00:35] ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening.
Tonight, topping the hour, both presidential candidates pulling up a stops, trying to establish momentum going to campaign 2016's final weekend. Donald Trump in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, Hillary Clinton in Ohio, alongside Jay Z and Beyonce. Surrogates for both sides dotting the map. The reason, it's clear, polls are tight. Our CNN battlefield map is shifting. Courts are issuing last-minute decisions on voting and that is barely the half of it tonight. We begin all of it this hour with the Trump campaign and CNN's Sara Murray.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER: 2016's toxic presidential contest led by two deeply unpopular candidates is coming to a close in fitting fashion.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hillary Clinton is under FBI investigation again after her e-mails were found on pervert Anthony Weiner's laptop.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How did Hillary end up filthy rich? Pay-to-play politics.
MURRAY: Donald Trump amplifying his latest barrage of negative ads on the campaign trail.
DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think she's unstable. She's trigger happy.
MURRAY: Despite no new information from the FBI, Trump is still tearing into Hillary Clinton over her e-mail server and insisting she'll eventually face criminal charges.
TRUMP: How can Hillary manage this country when she can't even manage her e-mails? Did you ever see -- hey, folks, let's forget all of this stuff. What a mess. All she had to do was follow the rules. Unbelievable. And now she's going to run the country? She'll be under investigation for years. MURRAY: All part of his final push to convince voters he's the fresh face and she's the face of corruption.
TRUMP: She's likely to be under investigation for a long time, concluding in a criminal trial. Our president. America deserves a government that can go to work on day one and get it done.
MURRAY: With the polls tightening, the GOP nominee is campaigning today in Ohio, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania. And aiming to drive up his election day vote in key battlegrounds.
TRUMP: We have so many great polls. But you have to get out and vote on November 8th.
MURRAY: Trump's sprint to the finish still taking shape, but the GOP nominee will campaign this weekend in six battleground states, and is likely to wedge in more along the way. With stops in North Carolina and New Hampshire planned Monday.
This campaign continuing to be a family affair, as Donald Trump Jr. hits the trail today in Arizona and New Hampshire, while Eric Trump barnstorms Michigan.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MURRAY: Now, Trump has already added a seventh state to his plan for the weekend. And a key part of this strategy is to re-visit places like Pennsylvania. This is a state with no early voting, which means when Donald Trump was here tonight, he made a hard pitch for people to show up to vote on November 8th.
His campaign says they see their polls tightening here. And this was a state that appeared very much out of his reach just a couple of weeks ago. But it still going to be an uphill stretching. It's unclear whether he's going to be able to pull together the kind of coalitions he's going to need to flip one of these blue-leaning states to his column. He's certainly hoping to do that.
And tonight here in Pennsylvania, he said he actually believes he's going to do well in Philadelphia. This, of course, is a very Democrat-friendly area, because Trump says he went to school there. So that's why he thinks he'll do well there. Anderson?
COOPER: All right, Sara Murray, thanks very much. We mentioned the polls tightening in key states. Nationally, though, our CNN Poll of Polls showing a five-point Clinton lead. Now whatever the numbers show and whatever each campaigns internal polling says, neither side is certainly slowing down as CNN's Brianna Keilar found out traveling with Hillary Clinton.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Hillary Clinton campaigning with billionaire and Donald Trump critic, Mark Cuban.
MARK CUBAN, CLINTON SUPPORTER/DALLAS MAVERICKS OWNER: This is somebody who, without thinking twice, stole millions of dollars from 38,000 people. Who does that?
KEILAR: Trying to revive some of the momentum she gained after the debates as polls tighten amid her e-mail controversy.
HILLARY CLINTON, (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: When you debate in front of, you know, 60, 70, 80 million plus people, you got to have a sense of preparation, readiness, calmness, composure. And I'll tell you, some of what I heard coming from my opponent it was really hard not to go, what did you say?
KEILAR: Bill Clinton in Colorado playing off of Melanin Trump's speech Thursday, where she vouched for her husband and spoke out against online bullying.
[21:05:04] MELANIA TRUMP, DONALD TRUMP'S WIFE: We have to find a better way to talk to each other, to disagree with each other, to respect each other.
BILL CLINTON, 42ND PRESIDENT OF UNITED STATES: I never felt so bad for anybody in my life as I did for his wife going out, giving a speech saying, oh, cyber bullying was a terrible thing.
I thought, yes, especially if it's done at 3:00 in the morning against a former Miss Universe by a guy running for president.
KEILAR: Hillary Clinton is blanketing battleground states with three stops today, getting assists from her running mate, Tim Kaine, as well as her husband, Bernie Sanders, President Obama, and Vice President Biden, all fanning out across the country.
Clinton will sprint through toss-up states this weekend, her final rally Monday night in Philadelphia, her first campaign event with both the president and first lady, Michelle Obama. Her plan to end on a more positive note, giving way to slamming Donald Trump.
CLINTON: Honestly, I don't know how he lives with himself. Doesn't he see what we see? The millions of moms and dads struggling to make ends meet, balance the demands of work and family, or does he just not care?
KEILAR: President Obama with a repeat stop in North Carolina urging voters there to put Clinton over the top on Tuesday.
PRES. BARACK OBAMA, (D) UNITED STATES: She is my friend. I trust her. She will be an outstanding president. And her name is Hillary Clinton. And I need you to vote for her.
KEILAR: After being interrupted by a protester clutching a Trump sign, the president pleading with the crowd to remain calm and focus on electing Clinton.
OBAMA: Hey, listen up. Hey, I told you to be focused and you're not focused right now. Listen to what I'm saying. Hold up. Everybody sit down and be quiet for a second. Hold up. Hold up. Just relax.
(END VIDEO CLIP) COOPER: That's Brianna Keilar reporting.
President Obama, as you saw, holding two rallies today in another key state, North Carolina. Both aimed at getting people to vote early. So many Democrats believe that they are doing better than the other side. Here's what Hillary Clinton's campaign manager said today about being able to bank the ballot to people who might not be so inclined to turn out either now or on election day.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBBY MOOK, CLINTON CAMPAIGN MANAGER: A quarter of the voters that we have turned out so far in Iowa didn't vote in 2014. By turning these -- by focusing on turning these voters out, first of all, we have more time and can leverage our turn out operation even more during that period and we think that's a strategic advantage that we have over Donald Trump. But simultaneously, we are reducing the number of voters that we need to talk to on Election Day, and the final days to the campaign.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Now, we should be very clear, we do not know who's voting for whom, however, there are some pretty strong indications. CNN's Politics executive editor, Mark Preston, joins us now with those numbers.
So, four days away from the election, Mark, millions of votes have already been cast. What do we know about how it breaks down?
MARK PRESTON, EXECUTIVE EDITOR, CNN POLITICS: Well, Anderson, we know so far, right now, that more than 31 million people or nearly 31 million people have actually cast their ballots in 38 different states across the country.
You're just talking about North Carolina where President Barack Obama is today. Let's take a look at that state right now. A little more than 2 million people have cast ballots in that state since early balloting had started. But who has the lead right now? Well, if you look at these numbers right here, Democrats have a clear lead in the early ballot return by about 243,000 ballots. That's not all good news, because if you go back to 2012, their lead at this same time, Anderson, was 307,000 ballots returned. And as Robby Mook had just said right there, Democrats really do rely on the early vote to help win elections.
Let's go into the racial demographics of who has returned ballot so far. Let's look at too specifically. African-Americans right here, the participation rate is about 22.7 percent, Hispanics, about 1.8 percent. But if you go back and look at 2012, look at the drop-off right there. You have about a 5.3 percent drop-off and African- Americans actually participating in the early vote right now. You've seen a slight uptick right now, Anderson, when it comes to the Hispanic vote. And of course, we see the white vote right now that has jumped up by about 5 percentage points, Anderson.
COOPER: What about Florida where both campaigns are obviously spending a lot of resources?
PRESTON: Well, let's go down south as you speak about Florida. This state right now is the one that has the largest amount of early ballots that have been sent back in, it's a little more than 4.2 million. Who has the lead in Florida right now? Well, if you look at that, Republicans have a very slight lead. That's about 16,000 ballots more than Democrats.
[21:10:01] So good news, but it even gets if you go back to 2008, which is the comparative data we can use in this election with the State of Florida. Democrats at that time had a 73,000-ballot advantage, now they have 16,000 deficit, not necessarily good news for Democrats when it comes to that.
Let's look at the racial demographics, too. Again let's look at the African-American participation rate, 12.3 percent right now, so far to this date and look at the Hispanic participation rate, about 14.1 percent.
Let's go back now to 2008 and look at these numbers. Look at the drop-off, the sharp drop-off by about 3 percent -- 3.2 percent for African-American participation. At the same time, you have Hispanic participation really skyrocketing up by almost about 5 percent.
Now, we should note that Florida, this is a more diverse electorate than we saw back in 2008. And we also know right now that we have seen the white vote drop off a little bit but not necessarily, when it comes to percentages, Anderson.
COOPER: What about party affiliation, how does that break down among white voters?
PRESTON: Well, it's a good question because it's very important. A lot of people think that the Hispanic vote, the increase in the Hispanic vote would help in the decrease in the African-American vote. Fewer African-Americans are voting, yet more Hispanics are voting. Good news for Democrats, at least it's a wash. Except in the white vote, we dug a little bit deeper into the numbers, we found that Republicans returning ballots have a 17-point advantage right now at this point.
So, what Democrats really need to do and quite frankly, Hillary Clinton needs to do, is that they need to get their -- get the vote out operation, continuing to chug along, and that's why we're going to see Barack Obama head into that state on Sunday, Anderson.
COOPER: Mark Preston. Mark, thanks very much.
We are waiting for Hillary Clinton. Now we brought you Donald Trump earlier, waiting for Hillary Clinton to speak at her big event. Jay Z is on stage as well as other rapper. That's actually not Jay Z. That's Big Sean. Big Sean?
DANA BASH, CNN CHIELF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, big Sean.
COOPER: I know, I'm keeping it real. (CROSSTALK)
COOPER: Exactly, better than the cubs. That's right. I know a little bit more about him (inaudible) say hip-hop.
So David ...
BASH: Of course, no.
COOPER: Yeah, no. When you look at these early voting numbers and for all that much -- for all the talk about the ground game, the much vaunted sort of Democrat -- Democratic get out the vote, it looks like in a lot of these places, it's favoring Republicans.
DAVID AXELROD, FORMER OBAMA SENIOR ADVISER: Yeah, well, first of all, there are various factors in each state. You look at Florida, and the thing that intrigues me is the increase in the Hispanic vote and the increase in the percentage of people who didn't have a previous voting record. Because what you've seen are large numbers of Hispanics registering to participate in this election, many of them, Puerto Ricans. And that is something that gives a lot of encouragement to Democrats in Florida and could make a really big difference there.
You know, one of the problems that Donald Trump has is that the Republican Party has said or said after the last election that in order to win, they need to improve their performance among Hispanics, among women, among younger voters. And particularly in the case of Hispanics, they've gone in the other direction here. And in a state like Florida, that could be a decisive difference.
BASH: Yeah, I mean, the Republican National Committee after Mitt Romney did so poorly with Hispanic voters, 27 percent, I think it was in 2012. They went on a mission to have better outreach in the Latino community. For years, they've been doing it. And then Donald Trump came along as their nominee. Now, unclear how that's going to play out, but that is a factor that they definitely did not think about when they were, you know, planning for the presidential nomination. You know, certainly, you know, the appearances that the Latino community will not go for Donald Trump. It's pretty clear.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't know. I don't know.
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: Kayleigh?
KAYLEIGH MCENANY, TRUMP SUPPORTER: Mr. Cortez pointed out, you know, Hispanics are not a monolithic, can just be drop in the Hillary bucket. You know, I'm in Florida every single weekend. I'm a Floridian. I encounter Cuban voters in particular every time I go back to Florida who are voting Trump. Who are excited about it. Who, you know, feel that he is the right person.
COOPER: But that's not a huge surprise, though, and ...
MCENANY: But we don't know ... COOPER: ... but also among Hispanic voters in Florida, and Maria, correct me if I'm wrong. There's been a huge growth of people from South America and other countries ...
MARIA CARDONA, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: So, absolutely. The Hispanic demographic in Florida has completely shifted. The majority of the Hispanic vote in Florida is now made up of South Americans, Puerto Ricans. There's been a huge influx of Puerto Ricans and the Hillary Clinton campaign has been brilliant. And this summer, they had people waiting at the airport, because literally thousands were coming in every day and they were registering them to vote on the spot.
[21:14:59] And the thing about Puerto Ricans is that on the island they have a propensity to vote of like 98 percent. So, if you grab them here, you register them to vote, that's all they need to do. They will most likely come out to vote. And the majority of them are for Hillary.
COOPER: Matt?
MATT SCHLAPP, TRUMP SUPPORTER: But immigration is less of an issue obviously for Puerto Ricans. And a lot of these new immigrants that are coming from South America are fleeing repressive authoritarian governments and they're really -- they really connect to the ideals of the American experience.
And so, I think that this is very interesting. Because here's the one thing, you go through all these demographics, you know, Trump's promise with women, Trump's problems with Hispanics, Trump's problems here, Trump's problems there. The problem is when you start to aggregate, look at the polls, he's still very tight in all of these races.
So this is the thing, this is conundrum for the Clinton crowd, which is, wait a minute, we're doing so well with women, we're doing so well with college-educated women, we're doing well here, we're doing well there, but yet the polls continue to collapse. So what I would say is, this is a point where you look less at. OK. What are we doing with each demographic, right? And you now say, OK, what is the narrative of this campaign and why didn't -- why weren't we able to put it away?
And I think the main issue that she wasn't able to put it away is she's not speaking to why 70 percent of the American people think we're on the wrong track.
COOPER: OK, David ...
AXELROD: So you think -- you feel that these voters have come from places where there was authoritarian regimes and that's driving them into Donald Trump's hands in this campaign?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
SCHLAPP: Yeah, I think that is ...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No that's not true.
SCHLAPP: Well I have a lot ...
(CROSSTALK)
SCHLAPP: I have a lot of experience as well and all I would say is this that there are people that have come here that have seen the fact that they wanted this economic opportunity and they're not seeing it like they would have like to. They wanted the idea that they would be able to provide health care for their families but they're not seeing it with these huge increases. These are real pocketbook issues for people which usually the Democrat does a great job about flanking this on. And then all these speeches I see, I don't see that message there and I think it's a missed opportunity.
COOPER: OK. Angela?
ANGELA RYE, POLITICAL STRATEGIST: So there are few things here. I think that most interesting thing you said, Matt, as you talked about the demographics and why she's not kind of closing in on this especially now that we're seeing some of the early voting numbers come in. And I would point to you one simple thing. It's two words, it's voter suppression. And I think it's something that's very important that we address and deal with.
So Gary, in an earlier segment, talked about the fact that Barack Obama doesn't have to go to North Carolina. And I would argue, actually, he does have to go. In addition to cutting back early voting days, thank you, Governor McCrory ...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is it rigged?
RYE: Just let me get to my point and then you tell me what you think when I'm done.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK.
RYE: So Governor McCrory cuts back early voting days, he signed this bill into law. Then on top of that, you have precincts, the number of precincts go down. As soon as the precinct's doors open up, Anderson, there's a huge boost in African-American participation in early voting.
The last part of point that we have to address is this NAACP lawsuit. They sue because there are three critical counties that are purging the rolls and these counties are -- they're disproportionately African-American. Those are the voters who are being targeted. Barack Obama has to go to North Carolina to say don't lose hope ...
COOPER: So, you -- but do you argue -- are you just arguing that this is all voter suppression and that there isn't a lack of enthusiasm for Hillary Clinton?
RYE: No, not at all. Not at all. What I'm saying is it would be ignorant of us to say this is just about her, not broadening the tent, not asking the policy questions, it's about ... MCENANY: This is just like the ...
RYE: It's about ensuring that we address all of the factors and voter suppression is worth in the factors.
SCHLAPP: All I would say is this. I would like to see us follow the laws. I think if you're supposed to leave polling places up to a certain time, it should be. I think if you're supposed to have these days to early vote, you should be allowed to. The problems with Clinton campaign ...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Depends on the laws.
SCHLAPP: The problem with Clinton -- you shouldn't change. And the problem the Clinton campaign is facing is this that you actually have people who have the ballots, right? This is the problem. You have a lot of African-American voters who have the ballots and they haven't returned them yet. That's their panic inside the campaign, which is hey, our -- I think they have a better machine than us.
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: One at a time.
SCHLAPP: They have asked for the ballot but they're tracking those ballots and they're not returning them, which is what Mark went through with the numbers in as rapid as succession as they would like. And they wonder if on election day can may keep this Obama collation, which Axelrod and everyone did such a great job with, can they keep it together like Obama did? And I think there are concerns certainly on the African-American front that they can't.
CARL BERNSTEIN, AUTHOR, "A WOMAN IN CHARGE; THE LIFE OF HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON: It's using voter suppression. We had the voting rights act to historic monument to opening up our country to one person, one vote. And the Republicans have gone back on that by voter suppression, by intimidation ...
SCHLAPP: No.
BERNSTEIN: ...by intimidation at polling places. It's been going along for 25 years by, instead of trying to open the tent, increase voting hours, Republican ...
SCHLAPP: You think it's rigged?
BERNSTEIN: No, I don't think it's rigged. I do not.
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: All right, let's just ...
BERNSTEIN: It is a strategy of the Republican Party, demonstrably, through the secretaries of state ...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No question about that. BERNSTEIN: ... and Republican states and we have seen it ...
COOPER: OK, David, and then we got to go.
AXELROD: Can we just assert that both things can be true? The fact is, it is nuts to assume that Hillary Clinton is going to get the same level of enthusiasm and turn out as Barack Obama did the first African-American president.
[21:20:10] Its also dishonest to suggest that there hasn't been an effort on the part of the Republican Party in some of these states to try and discourage participation by ...
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: We're about to have more on this -- we're going to have more on this whole voter suppression question. Coming up, a string of court rulings the latest one in North Carolina could alter the turn out there and two other important states. We'll talk about that and we'll show you. Also, we'll dig deeper into the Obama effect on African-American turn out. More on that when we continue.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: We got into a little bit before the break, actually, kind of a lot before the break. Big news in three cases today related to alleged efforts to intimidate, suppress and disenfranchise voters. CNN's senior investigative correspondent Drew Griffin tonight joins us with the latest on all of it.
So explain what these federal rulings mean for voters in Arizona, Ohio, and North Carolina.
DREW GRIFFIN, SENIOR INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: Well, in Arizona, and I think legally speaking, is one of the biggest cases of the three. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals basically put an Arizona state law on hold for this election, very narrow decision, 65. Arizona is already saying it's going to appeal this. But what the law did was end what they call ballot collections.
In Arizona, you can get an early ballot sent to your home and the practice has been that friends, relatives or advocates or activists could go around and collect those ballots from people and actually bring them to the polls. State legislature thought that was an area where fraud could occur. They passed this law banning the practice.
This Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal ruling says no, no, you can't enforce that law for this election. We may see that go to the Supreme Court by Monday, Anderson.
In Ohio, a federal judge basically issued a restraining order against the Trump and the Clinton campaigns, but really it was aimed at the Trump campaign not to intimidate voters. This comes from Democratic lawyers who were trying to get a restraining order against Trump and against Roger Stone, the Republican activist, and their plans to have so-called citizen poll watchers. The judge giving a stern warning there saying we don't want your people intimidating voters, asking questions of poll watchers or getting in the way or interfering with any of the polling that's going to take place.
[21:24:59] Here in North Carolina, Anderson, ruling a federal court, ruling late this afternoon basically granting the NAACP what it wanted which is to put thousands of canceled voter registrations back on the voter rolls. This stems from a citizen movement here in North Carolina where citizens themselves have been using a state law to try to in their words clean up old state voter registration laws that the counties won't clean up.
Well, the judge today said, no, we're going to stop that. All those people who were canceled are going to go back and they will be able to vote, if they weren't going to be able to vote on Tuesday, that didn't sit well with the people who obviously were trying to clean up the voter registration rolls.
We talked to one of them today who's made it his mission he says to clean up voter registration rolls in Fayetteville.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GRIFFIN: Mike Hyers doesn't shy away from the charge. He's trying to purge voter rolls. Basically eliminate registered voters in Cumberland County, North Carolina. The reason is simple. He believes it's his duty.
MICHAEL HYERS, VOTER INTEGRITY PROJECT: And people ask me why I still do this? August 26th, 1974, I raised my right hand and I swore an oath to support and defend the constitution.
GRIFFIN: The air force retiree says he still lives by the oath he took when he enlisted. And he believes the constitution, the nation is under attack from voter fraud.
The system is rigged? The system is broken?
HYERS: The system is broken. And the motor voter law, the way the motor voter law was written it was written by the Democrats in such a way as to keep the rolls bloated so that voter fraud could be done.
GRIFFIN: Motor voter is the law that allows voters to register to vote when they register their cars or driver's licenses. His proof of voter fraud though is sketchy hearsay from friends, reports from questionable news outlets and internet videos form Project Veritas, the discredited conservative web site that specializes in hidden camera exposes.
HYERS: I mean look at all the videos that, what's his name, James O'Keefe, has been putting out from Project Veritas. And I mean they got people from the Democrat Party better left (inaudible) about how they're committing voter fraud.
GRIFFIN: For the records study after study has found no evidence of widespread voter fraud anywhere in the United State, that makes no difference to Hyers. His job, he says, is to clean the rolls of voters who no longer vote. How he does it has becomes part of this federal lawsuit. Hyers pain is takenly calm Cumberland County board of elections records. He looks for the thousands of names and addresses of people he says are inactive, determine not to have voted in two or more federal elections.
Then he sends those people and those addresses this letter. It explains how his group, the Voter Integrity Project has determined they may be inactive urges them to re-register to vote or face possible challenges of their voting status. If the letter comes back like this one, return to sender, he uses it as evidence for the board of elections to begin the county's process of removing that voter from the rolls.
He claims to have successfully struck more than 6,000 inactive voters since he began this project several years ago. 3,000, he says, he's struck just this election cycle. He believes they're mostly dead, mostly moved away or mostly don't care about voting. What he makes sure to say is he's not targeting any specific group. Not Republicans, not Democrats, and most importantly for North Carolina, he says, not blacks.
HYERS: If you target a specific group based on age, race, sex, gender, whatever, that's called caging. And that is against the law.
GRIFFIN: That's not how the local head of the NAACP sees this.
So what is this all about?
JIMMY BUXTON, FAYETTEVILLE, NC NAACP: Voter suppression.
GRIFFIN: No doubt?
BUXTON: No doubt. I mean they have been doing this for some years now.
GRIFFIN: Jimmy Buxton says the Voter Integrity Project may claim this has nothing to do with race but the letters the group sends out he says, just seem to keep showing up in neighborhoods where mostly black people live.
BUXTON: He may not know who lives there but he know in that area where the street that he's challenging that he sends out these mailers and they returned and know where they're coming from. So ...
GRIFFIN: Do you think it's racist?
BUXTON: I'm pretty sure it is.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: So, Drew, with the late ruling today from a federal judge basically reversing the decision to cut all these registered voters from the registration rolls. Is there still a possibility some people define themselves turned away at the polls on Tuesday?
GRIFFIN: There's a possibility of that, Anderson, for two reasons. One the judges ruling today only dealt with those who were canceled within the last 90 days, this has been going on before that, and also because they've got to get all these voters back on the voter registration rolls. That's a monumental task is some of these counties. I mean there's thousands, upwards of 44,500, I believe, voters names will not have to go back on the voter registration rolls.
[21:30:15] It's all going to come down to what happens on Tuesday, but there's so much help at voter registration polling places. I witnessed it today, really, anybody who goes down there and has a legal right to vote, I really believe is going to be able to vote even if it's in a provisional ballot, because the poll workers, the county workers are really bending over backwards just to make sure everybody gets their say in this election.
COOPER: All right, Drew Griffin. Drew, appreciate the reporting. Thanks.
Back with the panel. Kayleigh, should somebody who has been inactive in the last two elections, should they be struck off -- to be allowed to be struck off the rolls?
MCENANY: Well, certainly if they're, you know, a dead person who's on the rolls. We know there's 4 million dead voters on the current voting registration rolls. So this man, I think ...
COOPER: But just if somebody hasn't voted.
MCENANY: Well, if someone hasn't voted, no. I think you need to try to make that distinction and I think, you know, it's going to court, it should be litigated there. And, you know, we'll see. If you're alive and well, you should be able to vote, there's no doubt about it.
But to the Democrats' point that this is voter suppression that's keeping black voters from turning out, it just doesn't bear out in the numbers. Look at Florida where they expanded early voting days, expanded. But despite that, the black vote is still down 10 percent in early voting. That's not North Carolina. There's no suppression effort going on in Florida.
RYE: Oh, there is ...
MCENANY: No, it's not going to on in Florida. So this is an analogous to the claim where in Donald Trump said the election's rigged, we saw the video from James O'Keefe, it's rigged.
You know, you guys said you're just saying that because you're down in the polls. Well, I think you guys are just saying this because you're down in the polls in Florida. It has to be voter suppression.
RYE: Yeah, and what I said earlier, and maybe -- I know we all got passionate. So maybe it was mixed, I said, it is certainly a factor.
Since yesterday, African-American turn out in Florida has actually increased substantially today and they expect those numbers to continue over the weekend. The only other thing that I would say to you is North Carolina is not unique with voter suppression. We saw a massive kind of effort right after Barack Obama won. In 2010, state legislatures all over this country introduced 114 measures to produce voter I.D., to cut back early voting days, to make it harder -- hold on, to make it harder for us to vote absentee. The reality of it is actually is a challenge. It is more of a problem here than voter fraud, which we only see happen 0.0034 percent of the time.
COOPER: Matt?
SCHLAPP: Yeah, state and local levels of government or the ones that, you know, pass laws on elections and they -- there's a hodgepodge of laws out there.
What I heard in your report is that the most liberal circuit, the Ninth Circuit, said that it would be inappropriate for a person who gets to vote early to have to either mail it or turn it in, that no one could come to their house and take their ballot, why? Because the concern is you can have a blank ballot or you could feel pressure because a certain volunteer from a certain campaign came to get the ballot.
This is why states and localities make these determinations, voter rolls. We all know that local election officials have funding issues, and sometimes their rolls aren't in the best of order. In the 34 days I spent in Florida, we saw this firsthand. So, sometimes the federal government tries to help them with resources, but we do have a problem with our data rolls.
And look, I don't want anybody to be suppressed from voting who wants to vote, but in the same token, there has to be integrity to our vote, especially if it's close.
COOPER: Maria?
CARDONA: You know, we do have to acknowledge, to Carl's point that voter suppression and voter I.D. laws are a reality that had been pushed by the Republican Party to suppress the Democratic ...
SCHLAPP: Yes, I think within the voter I.D law.
CARDONA: There is no question about that. In Pennsylvania, in 2012, we heard, there is audio of this, of a legislator in Pennsylvania saying, "This is great, we're passing this voter I.D. law, Mitt Romney will win in Pennsylvania.
(CROSSTALK)
CARDONA: And from the moment that I started politics, I started working for Ron Brown when he was chairman of the Democratic National Committee back in the 1990's. The DNC, Ron Brown, the NAACP, all the civil rights organizations were fighting voter suppression efforts back then ...
SCHLAPP: Voter I.D.
MCENANY: Voter I.D.
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: All right, all right. Let's move away from -- OK, Carl?
(CROSSTALK)
BERNSTEIN: William Rehnquist, before he was the chief justice of the United States ...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I know the story.
BERNSTEIN: ... back to Arizona, was in charged of something called ballot security in Arizona for the Republican Party and it involved challenging black voters on basis of literacy. This is after literacy tests have been deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. There's some controversy over exactly what words Rehnquist used, but it has been a strategy. Since the Nixon's Southern Strategy evolved in the Republican Party, this has been part and parcel of how Republicans have tried to identify their constituencies.
[21:35:00] COOPER: OK. I've -- OK, Matt?
SCHLAPP: I just reject this. It's unfair to call my party a racist party ...
BERNSTEIN: I'm not calling you ...
SCHLAPP: We are the party of Abraham Lincoln ...
BERNSTEIN: That's true.
RYE: You were the party of Abraham Lincoln ...
SCHLAPP: No, that that is not true ...
RYE: You were.
SCHLAPP: It is simply common sense to be able to say -- I spent 34 days in the Florida recount, guess what? There were just as many Republican operatives sent to Florida as there were Democratic operatives. Because when an election is close, every ballot matters. And the fact is this, we ought to have integrity to our list and it's not racist to want to follow ...
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: OK, Angela?
RYE: Wait one second. Shelby versus Holder, vote -- this challenged the Voting Rights Act and got it. Section Five of the Voting Rights Act. What did that do and why does that matter? States that traditionally had to be pre-cleared, had to ensure that their laws were not discriminatory they no longer have to go through that process. What did that result in? States like Alabama closing seven licensing offices where black people go and -- go to get their licenses to follow your voter I.D. law, and now those offices are closed, why? Because those black people voted, majority Democratic ...
COOPER: All right, David and then we got to go.
AXELROD: I'll just going to say, look, court after court around the country have thrown out many of these laws on the basis of the fact that they were discriminatory. I'm not calling your party racist, I'm just ...
SCHLAPP: All right.
AXELROD: ... but that is the fact. And, you know -- yes, the Republican Party was the party of Lincoln. I'm from the land of Lincoln. Jeffrey Lord is right when he said the KKK was more associated with the Democratic Party years ago. But it was the Democratic Party that passed the Voting Rights Act, Civil Rights Act. Because the Republican Party ...
(CROSSTALK)
SCHLAPP: Do you know that there was tons of Republican votes for the ...
AXELROD: There was ...
MCENANY: More than Democrats.
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: Let's just take a break ...
(CROSSTALK)
SCHLAPP: I think we do very well because I'm not in a racist party.
COOPER: As John King said on the air, the program t night where states returning to their DNA and the race perhaps going back to the feature of 2012. Let's take a look at that, the question is does Trump-Clinton resemble Romney-Obama? We'll talk to the good Professor King when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[21:40:24] COOPER: You heard some of our panel members say that it's easy to forget how close Mitt Romney and President Obama were in the polls on the Friday before Election Day in 2012. Closer than Clinton and Trump, the Democrats like to point out though the rough outlines of this race and that one bear a certain resemblance. John King is back to break it down by the numbers.
JOHN KING, CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: So Anderson, this is how the Clinton/Trump race looks heading into the final weekend. 268 electoral votes for Hillary Clinton, just shy of the finish line, 204 for Donald Trump. You see the gold states there are the toss-ups. Donald Trump hopes to turn some blue on red. Clinton advantage, Donald Trump back in the hunt, how does this compare to four years ago when a lot of people forget President Obama and Mitt Romney had a pretty competitive race to the end?
Well, let's take a look. If you look at the national polls, Hillary Clinton up four, 46 to 42, in our national average of the poll of polls heading into the final weekend. That is a much stronger position than President Obama. A lot of people forget, but this race was a dead heat. It was a tie on the weekend before the election, 47 to 47 in 2012.
Hillary Clinton with a four-point advantage now, but what about the key states we'll be looking at Tuesday night? Let's look through the battleground states. In these, she's running just about even with where the president was four years ago. They include Wisconsin and Michigan, two traditionally blue states. Clinton wants to hold them both. Trump is challenging her, but she's in the same position the president was four years ago and he win them both. She's also about the same as the president in New Hampshire, in Arizona, and Nevada. They're all toss-ups for us right now. Obama won New Hampshire, Obama won Nevada, Mitt Romney won Arizona.
But again, heading into the final weekend, Clinton about even with where the president was in all of these states, including the three yellows and the president won two out of three. What about states where she's underperforming the president, where she is weaker heading into the final weekend where than he was in 2012?
Well, significantly, they include Iowa and Ohio. These two Midwestern states that we have leaning Trump's way right now, because Hillary Clinton is doing nowhere near as well as President Obama did four years ago. She's a little bit low where the president was in Pennsylvania. Her lead a little bit smaller than the president's lead was heading into the final weekend. President Obama carried Pennsylvania. Hillary Clinton very much needs to keep it this time.
Significantly, for her, though, there are a few states where she's doing better. She's performing stronger than President Obama heading into this final weekend. They include Colorado by just a little bit over where Obama was in 2012, Virginia where she's a bit ahead of where the president was in 2012.
These two are the most significant. President Obama trailed in North Carolina and in Florida heading into the final weekend back in 2012. He won Florida narrowly, he lost North Carolina. Hillary Clinton leads in both of those states and that's the big difference. Obama was behind in North Carolina and Florida, Clinton leads. And so, let's take a look at how that all plays out.
Again, she's already at 268. Democrats think she's doing very well in the early voting. They think this is enough, right here, to put Hillary Clinton over the top. They think they're going to win Nevada based on the early voting. They think that will do it right there. But can she go higher? Well, she sure can if she can win Florida, North Carolina, and they believe they're in play in New Hampshire. Well, with math look like, that's a big one, that's a medium one, and that's a small one. If Hillary Clinton can win those three, that would get her up to 322.
That's in the ballpark of where the president was four years ago. But was that a guarantee? Absolutely not. Donald Trump thinks he's in play in all of these states, plus out in Arizona. But if you're scoring this just as Clinton now versus Obama then, you would have to say, despite her weaknesses in Iowa and Ohio, she's marginally stronger than the president heading into the final weekend because of her lead in Florida and North Carolina. Anderson?
COOPER: All right, it's going to be an exciting election night. John, thanks.
Whatever people thought of President Obama back then, a majority of Americans think highly of him now. His job approval rating is one measure, another is the reaction he's been getting on the campaign trail, which may be key to soaring up what appears to be lagging early turn out by African-Americans.
Our Gary Tuchman, he is traveling with the president.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRSEPONDENT: The lines are long for this Hillary Clinton rally, except Clinton isn't actually here.
OBAMA: Hello, Charlotte.
TUCHMAN: Instead, it's her surrogate in chief, the nation's first African-American president.
Are you here more to see Barack Obama or more to show your support for Hillary Clinton? Which one?
AVERY MILLER, UNDECIDED VOTER: More for Barack Obama.
TUCHMAN: It's not a big surprise many people say that.
Are you here more to see Barack Obama or to support Hillary Clinton?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: To see Barack Obama.
TUCHMAN: Seeing a president in person is often a once in a lifetime opportunity. But with early voting polling numbers showing African- American votes down in several swing states compared to four years ago, the Clinton team is battling an enthusiasm gap within the African-American community.
TUCHMAN: Are you as enthusiastic for Hillary Clinton as you were for Barack Obama when he ran?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Honestly, I would -- no, I'm going to be honest.
TUCHMAN: Avery Miller voted for Barack Obama twice.
Are you voting for her?
[21:45:00] MILLER: I'm still undecided at this point.
TUCHMAN: Who might you vote for?
MILLER: Really, I just -- I really don't know.
TUCHMAN: Donald Trump?
MILLER: No, definitely not, but I just ...
TUCHMAN: Third party?
MILLER: Maybe.
TUCHMAN: But his indecisiveness does not appear to be the norm here. While many aren't as gang-ho for Clinton as they are for Obama ...
Are you as enthusiastic about Hillary Clinton as you were about voting for Barack Obama?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, not really
TUCHMAN: Almost all of the African-American voters we've talked to said they either already voted or will vote for Hillary Clinton. And some voters ...
Are you here more to see Barack Obama or support Hillary Clinton?
KENYA SMITH, CLINTON SUPPORTER: Support Hillary Clinton.
TUCHMAN: ... are more enthusiastic about 2016 than they were in 2012 or 2008.
SMITH: I'm very excited about a female getting into office. And I think she has a lot to offer, our community, and the nation.
KENNETH FRAZIER, CLINTON SUPPORTER: Well, his term is ending, so he had to sign and I'm like -- I'm very pleased with his time in office and I'm here to support her.
TUCHMAN: Maxine Goodson came to this rally with her grown-up twin daughters only to see the president. Does her enthusiasm for Obama carry over to Clinton?
Are you as enthusiastic about casting your vote for Hillary Clinton, Tuesday, as you were for Barack Obama?
MAXINE GOODSON, CLINTON SUPPORTER: Absolutely, I work for her, every day. Every day I go to the office or give out literature or do something that's going to help her win. I want her to win.
(END VIDEO-CLIP)
COOPER: Gary joins us now from Charlotte. Now that the event is over and I've heard President Obama speak, do the people you spoke to -- I don't know if you had a chance to catch up with them today, feel any differently about Clinton? TUCHMAN: Well, you've got to consider that most people who came here, came here because they like Barack Obama. They like who he is and like how he speaks, so obviously he would be influential.
So we talked to a couple of people, we talk to a woman and her 13-year old daughter. And her 13-year-old daughter was saying she's like Hillary Clinton the whole time. The mother said, I wasn't going to vote for Hillary Clinton, I wasn't going to vote for anybody, just the local and state races, but Barack Obama has convince me to vote for Hillary Clinton.
We talked to another woman who said she was considering Hillary Clinton or Gary Johnson. Listened to Barack Obama behind me a short time ago and says, "Now I'm convinced I'm going to vote for Hillary Clinton." So, no big surprise here, what matters is the big picture, the other African-American throughout the State of North Carolina. The ones who weren't here, the ones who weren't in Fayetteville earlier today, the ones who weren't in Chapel Hill, at the University of North Carolina two days ago. What matters is what they decide to do, and that answer we won't know until Tuesday. Anderson?
COOPER: All right, Gary, thanks very much.
Back with the panel. I mean it is interesting to hear from them -- and who went to the event, but he still says he's undecided for about who he's going to vote where he says he's not going to vote for Trump but maybe a third party candidate.
BASH: Which is why this rally, as Gary pointed it so a well in that piece, are so important for Hillary Clinton. I thought one of the most interesting things that President Obama said in his rally today and he's said before, but it's really struck me the way he said it today was, "I trust her." That it was clearly not an accident. That he went for that particular issue and it said so much. And it said to a lot of the voters that have not decided that Gary talked to, who went to hear him, guys, being -- its OK. She's -- you might not feel that comfortable with her, not the way you did with me, but you should. He used the character witness, but the fact that he used the word "trust," given the fact that is her Achilles heel, says a lot.
COOPER: David, I mean, do you -- surrogates matter, do these big rallies matter? And I asked this both for Donald Trump and for Hillary Clinton. Obviously, Hillary Clinton has a lot of, you know, big-name Democrats out there acting as surrogates for her, but Donald Trump has also had these huge rallies.
AXELROD: Yeah, well, but it is in it because there's only one Donald Trump as he would be the first to say. And he can only make -- he can only do one rally at a time. You can cover a lot more ground when you have these, you know, A, performers who can go out and be surrogates for you. And what the president's doing here for her is very, very valuable.
COOPER: So you think it's not just people who are already going to vote for Hillary Clinton? AXELROD: Well, plainly, not. I mean you saw some people there. But -- and, you know, one thing I will say about Gary's piece is, it is not just the people who show up, because these events get covered widely on local television. So when the president of the United States comes to a market and has a rally like that, it is big news and people hear a lot of that message.
BERNSTEIN: Let's be frank. This is the great sadness of the Clintons and the Clinton campaign, that they have not been able to make as much head win with African-American voters as they believe, to use a bad word, they're entitled to, given their histories, both Bill and Hillary Clinton have been advocates of Civil Rights from -- when they were young people, they have really been in the trenches, it's been the constant of their political lives, it's taken some real courage when and where they did it, and they feel that they haven't been able to succeed this time when in fact they should have been able to.
AXELROD: But she has the same problem with -- let me just say, she has same problem with young African-Americans...
BERNSTEIN: Yes.
AXELFORD: ... as she has with young -- quite, she is an older candidate.
[21:50:00] BERNSTEIN: That's right.
AXELFORD: She doesn't relate particularly well to these younger voters. The president relates better to these voters and they are a particular target.
COOPER: Angela?
RYE: So I was just going to say, I don't know and I hope that it's not an entitlement thing for Hillary and Bill Clinton. I would say that there is a tremendous amount of ground to make up for with millennial black voters. Part of the reason for that is they have experienced the impact of the crime bill, what it's done to families, and thankfully on the trail this year. Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton have covered some ground apologizing for it. What she did that was phenomenal yesterday, I think one of the best things that she could have done was talk about the Central Park Five, was talk about this woman who experienced housing discrimination at the hands of Donald Trump and his father. Those are the kinds of things that they frankly should have been doing a lot sooner but better late.
COOPER: Matt?
SCHLAPP: Going high again. But the only thing I would say is that Donald Trump does not have the A-level surrogates, you're right, but he does have his grown kids and I think that's a -- that they're back on the trail and his wife.
COOPER: Right.
SCHLAPP: I think that's a very big advantage. The other thing about Donald Trump, which I admire, President George W. Bush mostly like to be at home in his bed at the end of the day. Donald Trump has had more of these big rallies. He's into fatigable and the size of the rallies are huge and it's something that we havent seen before and he really is making impact.
MCENANY: Just quickly with the black community, I think Donald Trump has proffered a very interesting case. Yes Hillary, you have been working on civil rights and you have been in government for 30 years but look, are you better off than you were then? No.
(CROSSTALK)
MCENANY: There are more blacks on food stamps, there are more blacks ...
(CROSSTALK)
MCENANY: No, no, no, unemployed and it hasn't improved under President Obama ...
(CROSSTALK)
CARDONA: I think one of the most effective things that President Obama has done is he does his rallies is when he reminds people, especially these days that Donald Trump has stayed on message so much, is that if this is a person who's going to disrespect women before he gets to the White House, he's going to do it in the White House. If this is somebody who is going to disrespect the constitution now, he's going to do it in the White House ...
COOPER: We got to go. Up next, one of the undecided just four days out, some voters do not yet know if they're going to vote for Trump, Clinton or another candidate. Why is that? Some insight in just a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Well, you might think that in these polarizing political times, undecided voters are be as rare as, I don't know, penguins in the dessert or baby pigeons which I've never seen, turns out they are popping up all over the place, voters that is not penguins or baby pigeons. Yesterday, Randi spoke with a woman in Pennsylvania who went to hear Melania Trump's speech hoping to be convinced.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NINA MCMENAMIN, UNDECIDED PENNSYLVANIA VOTER: I guess I wanted to hear something that makes me feel positive about putting Trump into the White House.
RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: What would that be?
MCMENAMIN: I don't -- you know, to be honest, I'm open to anything, I just -- I'm not sure what his policies are yet.
(END VIDEO CLIP) COOPER: Joining me now is that voter, Nina McMenamin. Nina, thank you so much for joining us. We just heard you say you were hoping to hear something from Mrs. Trump yesterday to make you feel positive about putting her husband in the White House, did you hear it?
[21:55:10] MCMENAMIN: I really didn't, not for myself, no, unfortunately.
COOPER: So at this point, are you still completely undecided about how you want to vote?
MCMENAMIN: I am, and it is very disturbing to me that I'm -- four days out from the election and I'm still not sure which way I'm going to go.
COOPER: Is it the kind of situation where you go to sleep one night thinking, you know what, OK, I'm going to go for Donald Trump and then you go to sleep. The next night and you think, no, I'm going to, you know, vote for Hillary Clinton or whomever. I mean, do you go back and forth or have you made a decision and ...
MCMENAMIN: I do.
COOPER: ... you just not been able to?
MCMENAMIN: You know, I have been back and forth. I was originally a Republican and then I was not happy with the way the Republican Party was behaving at the time, and so then I actually switched my party affiliation to Democrat because I felt that they were more unified and that was what I was looking for. And that has -- you know, and I've been fine with that decision, however recently I've been speaking to friends as opposed to just getting information from the media and social media. And speaking to friends has really kind of opened my eyes up to both sides of the argument. I was able to relate more to where they were coming from, so that has actually made it a little bit more confusing for me.
COOPER: I'm wondering how big an impact did the reopening of the e- mail investigation by the FBI just like a week ago now, how big an impact did that have on you in terms of your opinions on Hillary Clinton or I guess conversely, what's preventing you from committing to Donald Trump?
MCMENAMIN: Well, I'm kind of looking at it as a job interview in that do I go with the candidate that has the most experience, but may not be the most honest, or do I go with the candidate that has a fresh approach to things and has some fresher ideas but does not have the experience, and again, is not that honest? So, I'm really torn between the two.
COOPER: I wish you the best of luck in the next couple of days coming up with a solution. I understand the dilemma that you face and well, we'd love to keep in touch with you, and regardless though, are you going to vote? I mean, do you feel like definitely you will make a decision by Election Day? MCMENAMIN: Absolutely. No and I -- yes, absolutely, and I think that's why it's bothering me the most because I have spoken to people who aren't sure which way they're say they're not going to vote but I really want to vote and I really want to vote and I want to make the right decision for myself.
COOPER: Well, Nina, I appreciate talking to you and I really, really, I wish you the best of luck.
MCMENAMIN: Thank you so much.
COOPER: All right, Nina McMenamin. We'll take a break. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:00:14] COOPER: Quick programming note about Tuesday, Election Day, we're going to --
