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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees
CNN Poll: Harris And Trump Locked In An Exceedingly Close Presidential Race, Trump To Women: "I Will Be Your Protector"; Harris' Georgia Challenge: Reassembling Biden's Diverse 2020 Coalition; Helene Expected To Become A Major Hurricane, Strike FL's Gulf Coast. Aired: 8-9p ET
Aired September 24, 2024 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: And even on the east coast, there could be surged because the winds will be blowing into Savannah, into Tybee, into Charleston. places that certainly don't need any water in the streets and 100, 115 miles per hour, not out of the question. All the way to the Georgia-Florida Line.
Here's the rainfall and this is another big, big problem. There will be places from Asheville to Atlanta that will have rainfall of 10 inches or more, widespread flash flooding -- Erin.
ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: Just in areas that have just received so much rain, Chad, thank you very much for that breaking news that lead us to update from the hurricane center. Thanks to all of you for being with us.
Anderson starts now.
[20:00:42]
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, "ANDERSON COOPER: 360": Tonight on 360, the former president campaigns on the economy, but once again ends up questioning the future of democracy if he loses, as new CNN polling shows his strength and weakness just six weeks out from election day.
Also, what that new polling says about Vice President Harris and the economy. CNN's John King breaks it down for us and his report from battleground, Georgia on how communities of color see the vice president and how they plan to vote.
Good evening, thanks for joining us.
Six-weeks out from the presidential election. New CNN polling says, it is close and what people told the pollsters about the economy and other issues could say more than that.
Vice President Harris was not on the campaign trail today or yesterday, her opponent was, talking today in Georgia about his plans for the economy, but also throwing out lots of red meat including this about Haitians living in Springfield, Ohio.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R) FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You have to move the people back to the country from which they came. You have to.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Haitians are by-in-large in Springfield lawfully and as Gary Tuchman reported last night, many now say they are afraid.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Do you feel safe for your family and this community?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Absolutely not, nobody knows what's going to happen later.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: When Gary's report aired last night, the former president was actually speaking at a rally in Western Pennsylvania where he said this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Do you think Springfield will ever be the same? I don't think -- the fact is and I'll say it now, you have to get them the hell out you have to get them out.
I'm sorry, get them out. Can't have it. Can't have it. They've destroyed it.
(PEOPLE CHANTING "Send them back!")
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: "Send them back" they are chanting. The former president has also been talking too are about women and not surprisingly, perhaps some of it has been just kind of odd.
Last night, for instance, he told women, this is what would happen if he's elected.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: You will no longer be abandoned, lonely, or scared. You will no longer be in danger. You're not going to be in danger any longer.
You will no longer have anxiety from all of the problems our country has today. You will be protected and I will be your protector.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: Women will be happy, healthy, confident, and free.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: You will no longer be thinking about abortion.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Donald Trump found liable by a federal jury for sexually abusing women will be the protector of all women and they will no longer be thinking about abortion. Even perhaps the childless ones with cats.
Despite criticism from Trump about Kamala Harris calling Trump a threat parts of democracy, last night and again today, he once again said she is probably going to end our democracy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: You know, somebody said the other day, if she won, you literally may never have another election. This could be your last election.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: By the way, the somebody he's talking about is I think himself, I think he's quoting himself because he's repeatedly said we won't have a country anymore if he isn't elected. So, he's saying somebody said that, it was him.
I know you've heard all this before because he said it all before and perhaps it loses its strangeness. But it does have an impact. The repetition, it sticks and lies about the 2020 election are impacting this one.
House Speaker Mike Johnson today, with just six weeks left to election day, said this when asked whether he'd certify a Kamala Harris victory, should she win.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): Well of course, if we have a free, fair and safe election, were going to follow the Constitution absolutely. Yes, absolutely.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Yes, absolutely, but also a big 'if'. Because the last election was free, fair, and safe, and there's an awful lot of Republicans who don't believe that so why would they believe this one will be as well.
Joining us now, two former Trump administration officials Matt Mowers and CNN political commentator Alyssa Farah Griffin, also, CNN political commentators, Jamal Simmons and David Axelrod.
Does the stuff about women is, I mean, does it strike you as odd?
ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I started laughing and thinking he was creepy, but then thinking more about it, it is very infantilizing, talking about women as though we're weak, we're meek, we need a protector, we need a defender and we just sit around thinking about abortions all day. [20:05:10]
It just underscores a fundamental lack of understanding for why a demographic that represents half of the country is one that he is struggling so profoundly with.
I think Donald Trump, if he loses this election is going to look back and think that one of the worst decisions he made was not having a female on the ticket who actually knows how to speak to living, breathing, normal women about issues that matter to them.
And I would just finally say, yes, reproductive rights do matter. Access to IVF, to the whole suite of care that women care about, whether it be abortion or so on. But economics, national security are also women's issues and just the way he is talking about them is not the way to sway voters in the middle.
COOPER: David Axelrod, I mean, in past races, candidates generally as sort of the election gets closer, maybe they tack more to the center of trying to appeal to as many people as possible. That's clearly not the strategy Trump is doing.
Although, I mean, he does seem to be sort of like trying to kind of tick certain groups, like saying he's going to reverse himself on the TikTok thing is going to save that or vaping or certainly even on an IVF, he seems to suddenly you kind of reverse himself.
Maybe that's his version of attacking, but does it strike you? I mean, does this make sense what he's doing to you?
DAVID AXELROD, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, plus giving away the tariff money about 17 million different ways. But look, I think if you're his strategist you're really deeply worried because they had a strategy and the strategy was to try and depict Kamala Harris as an exemplar of the incumbent policies and to make her the incumbent responsible for the economy, responsible for the border.
And every time he goes out there, no matter what, he has in front of him, he does these kinds of things we are talking about that. Now, maybe that's what he thinks will win the election but I don't think it's the strategy that his campaign in their ads and such have employed and by the way, Alyssa said, he would've been better off to have a woman on his ticket.
How about a woman on his staff who can write a speech that in which he's going to address women because that clearly wasn't written by a woman. I mean he is not, this is not a campaign in sync right now and it's a close campaign, anyone can win, but he seems sort of panicked and unleashed in a way that could actually lose him the election.
COOPER: Matt, I mean, does it seem like a panicked or unleash, I mean, what would you make of the campaign?
MATT MOWERS, FORMER TRUMP ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I don't think so. I think we're looking at a couple of different things. You talk about undecided persuadable voters, one, I believe the poll that you just referencing, there's two percent who are undecided right now. And I guarantee though, half of them just aren't going to vote. So really, you're probably looking at one percent of the electorate doesn't know who they're voting for right now.
This election is going to come down to who is able to get their voters out, who is going to energize their voters to show up and get more than two percent --
COOPER: That's what he is trying to do.
MOWERS: I think that's number one. Number two, the gender gap is working both ways right now. We are seeing a historic gender gap in this campaign. And yes, it's among women voters with Kamala Harris in the lead.
But you also have historic gender gap among men, right now. And you're seeing both campaigns in different ways, begin to try to address that deficiency.
And so, whether it is Donald Trump adding some language in about reaching out to women voters, whether you've got Kamala Harris now saying she's going to take out her gun and shoot anyone who's coming into our house. Both are adjusting their rhetoric because what you're seeing right now is that they've been trying to max out their strengths with types of voters and they're actually hitting the ceiling right now.
They're trying to see if maybe they can actually get a few people switch teams. And I think that's why you're seeing both campaigns act where they are.
COOPER: Jamal, do you think that's true?
JAMAL SIMMONS, FORMER COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR FOR KAMALA HARRIS: Maybe. Here's what I think is happening, in 2016, Donald Trump ran for president and he was the new shiny thing and perhaps he could be a little erratic and he could say things people didn't like, but there was a very known quantity on the other side, Hillary Clinton and people decided to take a gamble on Donald Trump.
Since then, people have learned that the gamble didn't really pay off. There are a lot of things that they didn't like about him, he kept showing up in the same way which was sometimes embarrassing, sometimes offensive -- all those things.
Now, he's facing a candidate who is the new shiny thing, and people are sort of maybe willing to take a gamble on her. And he can't quite find a way to go after her.
And as a portion of this electorate, since Dobbs, women in the electorate have shown that they're really interested in abortion. This is a very important issue for them. And he's the one responsible for taking away the right to abortion for American women, and I think he knows it's just very hard for him to get around that issue, which is why if he's trying to make this case, the case is, you've got to stop thinking about abortion because he knows if they're thinking about abortion, they're not voting for him.
COOPER: His continued focus on Springfield. I mean, Alyssa, they clearly must feel this is working for them, whether it's to energize the base they already have, to get people fired up, or is it not so -- am I --
[20:10:00]
GRIFFIN: Oh, I think they may think it's working for them and I think he lives for the applause to quote Lady Gaga, when he speaks to these crowds and they like it, the crowd that he's speaking to enjoys it.
You saw the folks behind clapping and chanting. But there is a disconnect and Axel has spoken about this before.
The ads that Trump is running, look very different than what Donald Trump is saying. They're much more disciplined, they're much more focused on growing the economy, rebuilding the middle-class, and securing the border. He's not talking about taking legal Haitians out of the country and sending them back to their country.
So, there is -- there is this question: Are voters going to see the campaign that is being run kind of behind his back and on the airwaves, or are they paying attention to what the principle is actually saying?
Because I don't know even most Republicans who are really happy that he's making -- still making this case about Springfield.
COOPER: David, do you think people listen to those ads or listen to what he says at rallies?
AXELROD: Listen, I think the thing that differentiates presidential campaigns from other campaigns is that candidates are covered intensively. Everything they say and do is covered intensively, particularly at this stage in the campaign.
So, yes, the ads have some impact. But if the candidate is not amplifying and what's in the ads and is pursuing a different strategy, people default to what they see and so I think it makes the ads less effective and it raises the saliency of the things that he's saying on the platform.
I mean, we're probably not the only ones tonight talking about the things that he's saying. Because of the things he's saying are so provocative and meant to be that you forget about the sort of basic issues that he was there ostensibly to talk about.
I agree with Matt that he may think this energizes his base and at the end of the day, turnouts is going to be very important. This is close election, but in fact, in the CNN poll and other polls, there are voters who are still saying that they are willing to reconsider their decision. There's still voters who are on the bubble. There are voters who are voting for Donald Trump who don't like Donald Trump. They don't like the way he behaves. They don't like this, and they're voting for him because they think that on issues that are important to him, to them, that he may help them. But if he continues to behave this way, he can tip them over in a different direction here. I really, I think there's great risk to it.
COOPER: Jamal, Johnson's free -- you know, if it's free and fair comment concern you?
SIMMONS: They have spent a lot of time in this election building up to the point of a skirmish in overtime, right? They're not really trying to win this game in the first four quarters. They really want to go into overtime where the election is going to be decided by some referees they helped pick, some judges that are going to maybe in a cloud of dust, makes some right calls for him that get him to the House of Representatives on January 6th, at which point the Republicans can do their work and he can get returned to office.
That's what this is about. That's what the 150 lawyers in 15 battleground states who are challenging ballots on the day of, challenging ballots in the election commissions. And then collecting evidence for lawsuits. That's what that's all about. It's not about winning this election fair and square.
COOPER: I mean, Matt, in the election in 2020, which was free and fair, it was incredibly close. Wisconsin like 20,000 votes and a court case in Wisconsin on a conservative court could have gone another way. And those votes could have been tossed out.
MOWERS: Yes and look, I believe the 2020 election should've been certified, right, as it was. I don't put too much stock in what the Speaker was saying. Though I think the likelihood is that he's going to certify any election and he's just giving the caveat that he needs to give politically and, you know, if we take a step back and you take out the context of 2020, most Americans would agree with what he said, right? That would seem like a very reasonable thing to go out there and say.
COOPER: Although, a lot of Republicans --
GRIFFIN: If you --
MOWERS: But he said, he is going to certify it, yes.
GRIFFIN: Just recalling though that Mike Johnson before he was Speaker in January of 2021, led the Amicus Brief to challenge the 2020 results.
So this is someone with a bit of a track record of even when it's a free and fair election thing. Let's go ahead and challenge it anyway.
COOPER: Yes. We're going to take a break.
The National Hurricane Center's new advisory is just out on Helene which is expected to become a major hurricane within hours and threaten Florida's West Coast. We will bring you a report on that coming up.
Also, more on the new CNN polling, namely what it says about the one issue that traditionally drives elections, the economy, how voters are seeing it and which candidate they think handles it best.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:18:46]
COOPER: Before returning to politics and breaking news, we've just gotten a new update on Tropical Storm Helene, which is gaining strength, expect to become a dangerous Category Three hurricane before making landfall later this week on Florida's Gulf Coast.
Hurricane watches, warnings already in effect along with mandatory evacuations in some areas, already at Tampa General Hospital special fencing which can withstand up to 15 feet of storm surge going up to protect what could be a vital facility during and after a storm.
CNN's meteorologist, Chad Myers joins us now with the latest forecast. So how soon could this make landfall?
CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: It looks like about 10 o'clock on Thursday night. But now, if it turns to the right or stays on the right side of the cone, that'll be much sooner, maybe even like six o'clock on Thursday. I'll talk about that in a second.
Because you and I were both there, Hurricane Charlie in '04, we were on the ground and that storm stayed on the right side of the cone the entire time and made landfall south of us where we weren't really expecting it.
Here's the storm right now, 35 miles per hour at five o'clock this morning, it is now 60. So that thing has gone up now 25 miles per hour, just in the past 15 hours and I want you to look at the cone.
Remember, we always tried to look at the middle, but the cone is still in play here. And look who would be in play with that cone as a Cat. 3 hurricane on the West Coast of Florida, not in the arm here of Florida.
So, we have to watch this. Hurricane warnings are already posted. This will likely be a major hurricane with storm surge of 15 feet in some places. The models have been very pretty good agreement all along.
[20:20:19]
The American model has been stronger. The European model has been weaker, but still at 110 to 115 miles per hour all the way to the Georgia-Florida Line. We're going to have millions of people I think without power and it's going to rain.
And Anderson, it is going to rain 10 inches from Atlanta all the way to Asheville. In the Carolina Mountains, put 10inches of rain on top of Appalachian Mountain, you're going to get flash flooding and that is going to be likely as the storm moves farther and farther to the north.
Now, the people here, Debbie, right through the same area in the middle of the cone. That's already happened to the ground is saturated, 110 to 115 mile per hour winds on saturated ground with trees are just sitting there in mud, what's going to happen? We've seen it before.
COOPER: All right, Chad, we'll follow. Thanks very much.
Back to politics, new CNN polling. Here's the headline number, Harris 48, Trump 47, the margin of error three points, meaning no clear leader. But as it often is, the more interesting figures are found beyond the headline which is where CNN's John King comes in.
So, what's your biggest take away from this new poll, John?
JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: So Anderson, you showed the national numbers horse race, even. This is our battleground state map, just about even a slight advantage when it comes to the path to 270 for the vice president at the moment.
So, what's the biggest take away from this poll? I would pause it. Forgive me for turning my back. I want to stretch this out. That it is this, we know from our poll the number one issue for voters is the economy. Look at this. Donald Trump has an 11-point lead over the vice president United States on the issue of the economy.
Now, the economy to many people means inflation, it means cost of living, it means housing affordability, but an 11-point lead. So take the glass half empty approach to that. You're the vice president, six weeks from tonight we count votes, you think, oh my God, that's a deep deficit.
Now, let's take the glass half full approach. How is she still competitive when she's down 11 points on the number one issue? That tells you as, David Axelrod, said in the last segment, there are a lot of voters out there who might think Trump is better on the economy, but who don't really want to vote for him.
So, this is the fight in the final six weeks of the campaign. Unlikely she could overcome that gap, but can she narrow it? If she does, she greatly strengthens her position in the race, which right now is still even.
COOPER: John stay there. I want to bring back the panel. And, David, I want to start with you since you just got name checked. Do you think Harris can overcome weak economic numbers like that?
AXELROD: Look, I think that she has been narrowing the gap in a lot of the polling and in other parts of this CNN poll, people impute to her personal qualities about advocacy for people like them, about her personal background, and so on, that are but more positive than Trump's and I think it reflects the campaigning she has been doing. But she has to close the deal on the economy. You know, she's very, very passionate on issues like abortion rights, just riveting when she talks about it. It isn't as natural for her when she's talking about the economy. Sometimes, it sounds like something that's sprung from a policy paper or a poll.
She needs to make a stronger case that she feels this and not just the particulars of the policy. I think that'll be important.
COOPER: Jamal, I mean, you worked for a long time her. Can she do that?
SIMMONS: Well, I think we've already seen her do it. She already is closing that gap, right? She doesn't have to beat down Trump on the economy. She just has to be in the range.
She's got to show people that she cares about it, she shares her concerns, and then I will tell you, there are a lot of voters out there.
We saw this -- presidential election is different than a congressional election, but we saw this in 2020 where there's a lot of discussion about the economy and it turned out voters -- the voters that Democrats needed to vote for them were equally concerned about abortion and about democracy and the challenge to democracy.
I think the campaign knows if they could be credible on the economy, credible on so many other social issues they are hearing about and then they can tip the scales on the issues that people that they need to vote for like abortion and democracy, they can tip the scales on those issues and win this election.
COOPER: Matt, do you think that's true? That they just need to get closer?
MOWERS: I don't think this would be enough. I mean, look, I grew up in Jersey politics. I'll use a saying that's pretty common there. These will be the political cement shoes for the Harris campaign if on election night she doesn't win.
And I think if you go back to that very first question that's asked on the debate between her and Donald Trump. She was asked, are you better off than you were four years ago? What answer do you give the American people who are asking that? And she couldn't answer directly. And that was a problem. And it's the first answer right off the gate and it's very vague and it didn't really address a true concern.
If she had said in what it's been tough, but we got to make some changes. We've been working hard and we're trying to get better at least she would have shown she cared and it could sense the economic pain voters are feeling overwhelmingly.
You ask voters, especially in these key swing states, are you better off now financially than you were four years ago? They say no, they believe that they're spending more and more time and working harder and get ahead. As long as that's the case, if she can't give a good answer to those voters. That's going to be the undoing of her campaign. That's going to be the reason she can't get those final couple of percent she needs in all those key swing states.
[20:25:12]
SIMMONS: Here's the part that's maddening, four years ago, we were in the middle of a pandemic and nobody talks about it anymore, right?
COOPER: Right. Yes.
GRIFFIN: Yes, it was four-and-a-half years ago, right.
COOPER: Including her by the way at the debate.
SIMMONS: I know, it's something that --
COOPER: Like, that was the easy part of the answer. Like, well, yes, we inherited this, you know.
GRIFFIN: We were hoarding toilet paper four years ago.
SIMMONS: Yes, four years ago, we were scrubbing our groceries at the door, it didn't matter, but we were doing it.
GRIFFIN: To this polling, this race is statistically deadlocked and it does feel like the momentum Kamala Harris had has stagnated and it's slowed down. And something I consistently hear from voters is I don't like Donald Trump. I kind of think he's a jerk, but I do feel like I was better off with him.
There's a very real scenario that in five weeks were going to have President-elect Donald Trump simply because people are like we're willing to deal with the personality, but we think he's better on this issue.
What she has to do is she has to go for broke. She can't play it too cautious. She needs to be out there in front of people doing interviews, talking to voters and actually laying out an economic agenda.
SIMMONS: And I think that's the secret behind and why they're asking for another debate. Obviously, most people would probably say you won the first debate, take the money and run. There's no reason to do another one. But if you think you need one more chance to get in front of voters, let them get a chance to get the measure of you.
That might be a moment where people do it. I don't know if Donald Trump will actually do it, but they've been calling him a chicken for a few days that might not -- that might move --
COOPER: Matt, do you think Trump has any motivation to do a second debate?
MOWERS: I don't think so. I mean, look at recent polling right now. If you look at some of the polling, the last few days, he's ahead in most of the sunbelt states, most polling, especially private polling that I've seen and heard about shows him up a bit by about a point or so in Pennsylvania.
So if that's the case, all he needs to do is just try to run through the clock through election day, right? If you're up, you want to have a election day today and based upon recent polling, he's up in most of the states, they need to be up in right now.
Now, you know, three weeks maybe that's a little bit different, but I think they're recognizing the fact that there is an immovable object to this campaign, which is how voters feel about the economy, about immigration. They're the top two issues they've been the top two issues for over a year now and they still are trusting Donald Trump over Kamala Harris on those issues and that is the problem she's going to run into.
So when structurally the campaign is on Donald Trump's side, I don't know why they'd want to go into another debate. It only opens up some X factors that could come into play.
COOPER: John, what else stands out in the CNN new poll?
KING: Anderson, I'll call it, and it touches on the conversations you just had. The tale of two presidencies. Let me bring you up this again. Forgive me for turning my back, but I want to bring up these two graphics right here.
So, what do voters think of the Biden presidency and the Trump presidency? Let's start with President Biden, 37 percent of success, 63 percent of failure, right? Elections are about change. Donald Trump is not disciplined. You touched on that the first segment, there's no debate about that, but his advertising has been, about 90 percent of it, a great analysis by our David Wright today, about 90 percent of it negative ads.
What a lot of those ads do? Tie Kamala Harris to this, the American people think the Biden presidency six in ten do, more than that is a failure.
So let's look at the Trump presidency. It's a split verdict, but it's a little bit better, right, 51 success, 49 percent failure. So, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are in an election where voters want change. Donald Trump is trying to say this wasn't so bad. That's bad. And she's part of it. That's part of the dynamics she needs to wrestle.
It's hard. She's an incumbent vice president. It's hard to win the presidency when you're the incumbent vice president.
Al Gore won the popular vote, lost; George HW Bush did win. It's a very hard challenge, but I'd call it the tale of two presidencies. Right now, if Trump can continue to link her to that, it's a problem.
COOPER: I think you guys anybody have any question?
GRIFFIN: I did have one. John, I wanted to ask, obviously the CNN data showed the Kamala Harris is performing better with young voters. But there's been a lot of you know, sort of discussion over whether you can truly poll you young people correctly. Most of them don't have landlines. We consume information, receive it differently. How much can we really trust those numbers?
KING: Well, I would take the numbers and say if you look at the new Harvard poll, that's what you're talking about out today. That actually show her quite competitive. I'm going to change maps as we do this.
Quite competitive numbers, as good as Biden's, maybe even a little better than Biden's with young voters. Voters age 18 to 29. That's good news for the vice president because of all the protests we have seen. But that's a national polling number. I'm getting on a plane at seven o'clock in the morning to go here to Michigan, to visit for a third time college students on campus who a lot of Democrats in places like this, Washtenaw County, this is where the University of Michigan, as you come over here to Wayne County, this is where Wayne State is a large Arab-American population, including young people.
So, the polling says she's competitive. My question about any national poll now, the CNN poll, or that poll of youth voters is then apply it to the battleground states. Because even if there's a tiny little shift that can make the difference.
COOPER: David Axelrod.
AXELROD: Yes, John, you know the interesting in the internals of this poll, what they show is that she's actually holding her own with White voters, that she's getting about the same number that Joe Biden did four years ago. She's not and that's partly because she's doing not as well with White non-college voters, but she is doing better with White college voters.
But the real kind of thing that caught my attention was Black voters. And she's not -- she's doing very well among African-Americans, but not as well as Joe Biden and that seems like a fairly important challenge for the campaign.
KING: So, let me show you this graphic here. This is Harris versus Biden among Black voters. These are the 2020 exit polls. This is what actually happened on election day.
Joe Biden got 87 percent, Donald Trump got 12. Kamala Harris right now is getting 79 percent to 16 percent for Donald Trump.
Now, smaller subgroup. So, there's a large margin of error in this polling, a larger margin of error. So, this might not be an exact number, but we've seen another data as well that you are correct.
She's running a little bit below, maybe modest, maybe it's a little smaller than this, but a little bit below Biden's number. And why does that matter or where does that matter? We'll, it's going to matter in Georgia, it's going to matter in Philadelphia, it's going to matter in Detroit, it's going to matter in Milwaukee. So, that is an issue in the final weeks of the campaign.
It's not much, but again, think about 2016 and think about 2020, you know, somewhere between 45,000 and 100,000 votes in four states decide who was president. So everything matters on the margins. And so, when you look at the polling, you're right, she's actually doing better than you might expect among some constituencies, among the constituency Black voters, where you might think by reflex, shed be higher, especially among Black men. She needs to do better and that circles back to one issue, the economy.
[20:31:22]
COOPER: Yes. John, stay with us. Everybody else, thank you for being with us.
Coming up, to touch on something that John and David just mentioned, can Kamala Harris attract the same diverse group of voters that Biden did four years ago to win, particularly the battleground state of Georgia? John recently spoke with voters there as part of his All Over the Map series. He's going to share what voters in Georgia told him next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:36:01]
COOPER: ?The former president's rally in Savannah, Georgia today comes as the latest poll of likely voters there shows a tight race. He leads 47 percent to 44 percent according to the New York Times and Siena College. That lead falls within the poll's margin of error, meaning no clear leader.
In 2020, President Biden won the state by less than 12,000 votes. Vice President Harris needs to energized the same diverse coalition if she's going to turn Georgia blue for only the third time since 1992. John King recently revisited Georgia as part of his All Over the Map series, which tracks the election through the experience of key blocks of voters in battleground states.
Here's what he found.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
KING (voice-over): The Ponce City Market, Atlanta's historic Old Fourth Ward, once an old Sears warehouse near the birthplace of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
LAKEYSHA HALLMON, GEORGIA VOTER: Everything started here.
KING (voice-over): Now a community anchor that includes Village Retail, a showcase for black entrepreneurs. Its motto, a message.
HALLMON: Support is a verb, tells people to do something. That if you love something, it should be action behind it. Support is a verb has told people the way that they can be a part of change.
KING (voice-over): Lakeysha Hallmon started the village in 2016 as a pop-up market. The retail shop opened in 2020. More proof Atlanta is a beacon of black economic and political power. And now a crucial test of whether Kamala Harris can build a coalition to keep Georgia blue.
HALLMON: We need to feel that things can change in our lifetime. That we're not always waiting on this fictional place where things get better in America. How about we start to do that now?
KING (voice-over): Loyalty to President Biden runs deep in the black community, but the switch to Harris flipped the 2024 vibe here.
HALLMON: It doesn't feel so doomsday anymore. It actually feels hopeful and there's excitement.
KING (voice-over): Four in 10 Georgia voters in 2020 were people of color, and Biden won 80 percent of them en route to his razor thin win here. Harris needs to match that, maybe more. Beginning with giant black turnout.
HALLMON: Support is a verb. It really takes us to do something. That means if it rains, get out and vote. That means if you have a car and your neighbor doesn't have a car, take them to the polls with you.
KING (voice-over): Chanta Villano-Willis isn't sold. Isn't sure the Vice President is up to the top job.
CHANTA VILLANO-WILLIS, GEORGIA VOTER: I've been a Democrat my entire adult life. This has actually been the first year where I was considering voting Republican.
KING (voice-over): Her mother isn't happy.
VILLANO-WILLIS: Never thought she'd see a black person president in her life. She did. Now, Kamala Harris is for president. My mother says she don't care what she does, let's just get her in there. And I simply don't feel the same.
KING (voice-over): Villano-Willis works a mix of gig jobs so she can care for her mother and a son with special needs. She likes when Donald Trump promises more oil drilling and to promote cryptocurrencies. But she sides with Harris on abortion rights and says Trump often talks down to blacks.
VILLANO-WILLIS: Go black in, honey.
Oh, and his favorite color is black. Boy, please. I -- no. We don't have the choices, period.
KING: Will you vote or are there circumstances where you might skip it?
VILLANO-WILLIS: I'm going to vote because that's my civic American duty. Too many people fought for me to vote.
KING (voice-over): Suresh Sharma worked at NASA and GE before starting his own business to support manufacturing startups.
SURESH SHARMA, GEORGIA VOTER: Strategically, in a long term, economy is in a very good shape. KING (voice-over): Sharma lives in suburban Cobb County, calls himself a textbook independent, has a three-step test to pick a president. The ability to govern is step one. Sharma says Harris is a blank slate, and he calls Trump a failure because he didn't keep big promises like replacing Obamacare and shrinking the debt.
Ability to manage large projects is test two. And Sharma says neither candidate has done that. He leans Harris because of test three.
SHARMA: Remember, president is a role model. Therefore, morals matter. And what you say and what you do has a real-life implication. I can't tell my son that, hey, would you like to be president like him?
KING (voice-over): Rebel Teahouse is in Decatur, part of DeKalb County in the critical Atlanta suburbs.
[20:40:04]
The Harris literature here is proof of a big change. Owner Christine Nguyen was undecided and unhappy when we first met in April. She sat out 2020 because she had no interest in Biden or Trump and dreaded the idea of a rematch.
KING: Where are you now?
CHRISTINE NGUYEN, GEORGIA VOTER: Knowing the background that she came from, knowing the culture that she has to bring, as well as her values and beliefs, I'm proud to say that there is somebody who is able to, like, voice the things that we, as a people, have been shouting for like the past four years.
KING (voice-over): Nguyen says the Harris small business plan meshes with her goal of opening a second location and she lists reproductive rights and climate change as top issues.
NGUYEN: We deserve more than, you know, the two candidates that were there before who didn't understand us.
KING (voice-over): Debates about whether Trump or Harris are better for business are common and close to home.
NGUYEN: That comes up very often. I hear a lot, like even in my family of entrepreneurs, it comes up every now and then, right, that Trump just knows business better. But I think at the end of the day, it's what you value and like what your beliefs are in terms of your ethics.
KING (voice-over): Four years after sitting out, Nguyen is excited to vote early. Plus, she's hosting a voter registration event at the tea house just before the Georgia deadline.
NGUYEN: My fingers are crossed and I will make sure to do my best to get my whole community to the polls.
KING (voice-over): Excited for the big event, well aware the numbers and organization are critical.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
COOPER: John, given how close it was at the end for Biden in 2020, what did the numbers look like for him in Georgia?
KING: All right, so Georgia is just a fascinating laboratory. Did it flip last time just because of the pandemic or will it stay? You mentioned it's 11,000 votes last time. How did Biden win, Anderson? I did it right here. Metro Atlanta, you see all that blue Atlanta in the suburbs, that's more than 6 in 10 votes statewide, come from the Atlanta metro area. So if you can run it up there, you offset all this Trump red in the rural areas.
Georgia's just a fascinating state when you come to the demographics. Let me just bring this out here and stretch it out for you here. White voters are about half of the electorate, a little bit more than that. But 31 percent, that's a high percentage, one of the highest in the country. Black voters, Joe Biden won more than 8 in 10 of those, close to 9 in 10 of those. Harris has to do that.
Latino votes, about 10 percent of the population. Joe Biden won two- thirds of those. Harris has to do that. And I would keep an eye on this, not just in Georgia, but in some of the other battleground states. The Asian population in the United States is growing, and it's growing in influence as a political force and swing voters.
And you see there in Georgia as well, Harris trending well there at the moment. We'll see where we end up six weeks from tonight.
COOPER: All right. John King, stay with us. We want to keep the conversation going.
New CNN polling shows Vice President Harris not doing as well as President Biden did in 2020 in communities of color. The question is why? That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:47:14]
COOPER: New CNN polling out today demonstrates Vice President Harris appeal among black and Latino voters, but also suggests that she's lagging behind the level of support that helped put President Biden in the White House.
Back with us is John King. Joining us are CNN political commentators Van Jones and David Urban. John, we talked about this before, but just in general, how is Harris performing relative to Biden in 2020?
KING: So let's lay it out. I'll show you both black voters and Latino voters. We'll bring it up. We'll start with black voters. And we showed this a bit earlier because of David Axelrod's question, but it's worth drawing on.
Again, the margin of error when you poll smaller subgroups, you know, in the electorate, there's a bigger margin of error. So don't take these numbers as Bible or as gospel. But we've seen this in other data as well. Biden got 87 percent of the black vote in 2020 in the exit polls. Harris is getting 79 percent. So that's not way below, but in a close battleground, like a Pennsylvania, like a Michigan, like a Georgia, it could be absolutely critical.
So let me slide this over and let's just pop-up Latino votes, and we'll look at this and then we can start the conversation. Among Latino voters, it's quite similar. Kamala Harris at 59 percent right now in our national poll. Again, give or take with the margin of error. Joe Biden got 65 percent on election day. Donald Trump got 32 percent.
This is actually a more important number from my perspective. Donald Trump got 32 percent nationally among Latino voters in 2020. He's around 40 percent in our poll. Again, have a little give and take for the margin of error, but he is performing better. So among black voters, again, you know, that's Philadelphia, that's Detroit, that's Milwaukee, that's Atlanta and the suburbs around them.
Among Latino voters, that's where particularly, other battleground states too, but particularly Arizona and Nevada. So with six weeks in, look, the campaigns have all this data. They know where the tug of war is.
COOPER: Van, I mean, why do you think she's not doing as well as Biden among some black voters and Latino voters?
VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I think that there's been a really concerted effort on the part of conservatives to go after black voters, especially African American men. And there is some disappointment among black men with the Biden administration. When you talk about there was no George Floyd police reform bill, there was no equal act, which is a criminal justice measure that didn't get through, and also there was no voting rights.
And so you do have -- when you're in the barber shops, you're talking to African Americans on the WhatsApp group, you do hear just a frustration that some needs weren't met. And then I do think that the masculinist campaign of Donald Trump to put it kindly does also have some appeal.
But I got to say something. Like, the expectation that African Americans are going to maintain almost North Korea level voting, 90 percent, 92 percent, 93 percent, forever is probably, you know, just -- it's not realistic. Black men will outvote every constituency. We'll outvote white women, we'll outvote Latinos, we'll outvote everybody for Kamala Harris. It just may be a little bit less than before.
[20:50:02]
COOPER: David, I mean, do you think Harris has a chance to regain some, or close some of the gaps with Trump when it comes to black voters?
DAVID URBAN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, Anderson, far be it for me to speak for the African American community. I would just say this, my observation is the following. She's not out there. She's not talking. She's not giving interviews. She's not telling anybody.
My sense is this this, this move comes because two issues. One, immigration. People in the African American community, in the cities, I see and hear and read. You know, the immigrants who are coming across the border are being basically dumped in the cities and taking, you know, they're closing down, you know, community centers and they're getting benefits and members of the African American communities think that's unfair. Same with the Hispanic community.
And I think the second is economics. You know, people want better jobs, they want the economy to go better, and they perceive that things are doing much better under former President Trump than they are in this current administration. You know, again, she is part of the current administration, she's hooked her wagon, for better or for worse, to Joe Biden.
And since she's not been out there talking, Anderson, she's not been out there explaining her plan in any detail, whatsoever, people are left to kind of wonder how their lives are going to be better. When she was asked in a canned interview with Oprah, she knew the question was coming. What are you going to do to make the economy better? That young couple asked her. She couldn't provide a concise answer.
Well, here are the three bullet points. She kind of wandered around. And so, I think, you know, these -- you know, groups aren't monolithic. Whether they're African American or white men or Hispanic families, people want answers from her and they're not getting them.
COOPER: Van, on the immigration issue, you know, David raises the point that in cities, you know, it can be hurting black voters there, how do you see it? You've spoken about immigration in the black community before.
JONES: Yes, sure. I mean, I think the black community should be applauded for being a staunch ally of the Latin community in particular and being as pro-immigration as we have been given the fact that there is real economic competition, especially in the service sector and other places between immigrant labor and black labor. And I think the black community should be applauded.
Listen, I -- Kamala Harris still has a lot of room to grow even with the black vote. She really does because, remember, she's only been running for president for a few weeks here, and she's been able to consolidate this party and she's been able to move forward.
And so I agree with David. The more people hear from Kamala Harris, the more they like her. I would love to see her do a barbershop tour and just listen to African American men and respond in real time to the concerns that are raised. She has good answers. And the thing about Kamala Harris is the more people see her, the more they like her.
I say free Kamala Harris. Let her do barbershop tours. Let her do living room tours. Let her get knee to knee with actual voters, including voters of color. And I think those numbers will continue to move in the right direction as they have been. COOPER: David, I mean, Harris has a path to victory without Georgia, go through the so-called blue wall of states, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin. The flip side is Georgia must win for former President Trump?
URBAN: Yes, listen, I think there's paths without Georgia. Obviously, it makes it a lot more comfortable. I was just spent the day with the former president in Pennsylvania campaigning kind of wall to wall, four counties over 100 miles traveled. You know, the enthusiasm there is incredible.
You know, I like our chances in Pennsylvania more than I did in '20. I think it's a very, you know, 2016 vibe there. I think we're going to do very well. I do predict that President Trump is going to win. I mean, we'll put it down early. I'm going early, not way before the election.
But, look, Georgia's a tough one for, you know, it's a very purple state. It's just as purple as Pennsylvania, but they don't have a David Urban in Georgia.
COOPER: All right, David Urban, Van Jones, John King, thanks very much.
More on our breaking news, part of Florida on alert for what's expected to be a major hurricane. We'll check back with Chad Myers next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:58:40]
COOPER: ?Back to our breaking news, hurricane warnings in effect for parts of Florida's Gulf Coast tonight. As we mentioned earlier, tropical storm Helene is intensifying. Expected to strike land as a dangerous storm. Already evacuation orders in effect for some areas.
I want to go back to Chad Myers in the CNN Weather Center. So, let's take a look at the storm's current path.
CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Right. The storm now is getting convection, getting thunderstorms around the center. Hasn't had that all day. So that's how we know the storm is getting stronger. And the pressure is going down. How do we know that? Because there's an airplane flying through it right now.
I don't want to be on that plane with all of that turbulence, but it's there, and it's helping us make a better forecast. The water is in the upper 90s. That's big-time fuel for this storm. Couple big takeaways. We still need to focus on the cones. We can't focus on the fact that the middle of the cone takes it up here to the Big Bend of Florida because the right side of the cone takes it very, very close to very big cities.
And in those big cities, let's talk about Tampa, the water could be blown into Tampa Bay with a storm surge there. Also, it could still see some time at 115 in the water before it actually does make landfall and there'll be winds in Georgia of 70 miles per hour bringing down trees, bringing down power lines and significant damage going on there, also with very heavy rainfall surge could be 15 feet.
A lot of homes aren't built that high. And then storm surge still will push that water on up toward Apalachicola This is kind of like a big catcher's mitt. I was right there. You were on your way over to Pensacola. I was in St. Mark's for hurricane Ivan. Ivan the water came up 15 feet.
And then we're talking about this, how much rainfall could come down, 10 inches everywhere That's purple.
COOPER: Wow.
MYERS: Anderson, this could be a flood maker, a salt water flood maker, and obviously wind damage maker as well.
COOPER: Yes. Chad Myers, thank you. We'll continue to follow it.
The news continues. The Source with Kaitlan Collins starts now. See you tomorrow.
