Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Key Races to Watch; Most Expensive Midterm in History; Tracking Voting Irregularities

Aired November 02, 2010 - 14:00   ET

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

ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Ali Velshi. I'm with you for the next hour. Here's what we've got "On the Rundown" this Election Day.

After months of listening to the pundits and politicians, you finally have your day to say what you want to say. "The Best Political Team on Television" is spread across the country chasing the hot races, tracking the billions of dollars being spent to influence them.

We're on the lookout for all sorts of things, including reasons for you to get out and vote. If you don't have a good enough reason, we'll give you several of them.

Today, your future is in your hands. Right now it's all about turnout. After months of speeches, rallies, television ads, candidates are concentrating on getting their supporters to the polls.

Republicans are expected to win control of the House of Representatives. The big question, will they take over the Senate too?

Here are some key states to watch for the answer, close contests where Republicans could take Democratic seats in the Senate.

In Nevada, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid fighting for his political life in a brutal contest with Tea Party-backed Republican Sharron Angle.

In Pennsylvania, Republican Pat Toomey hopes to defeat Democrat Joe Sestak. He's a member of the House of Representatives in a state for the seat that is currently held by Republican-turned-Democrat Arlen Specter, who was not able to keep that party's nomination to run as a Democrat.

Next door, West Virginia, Democrat Joe Manchin is in a close race with the Republican, John Raese, for the seat formerly held by the late Senator Robert Byrd. Governor Joe Manchin is running for the Senate seat for the Democrats.

In Illinois, Democrat Alexi Giannoulias is battling Republican Mark Kirk for the Senate seat that was once held by President Obama.

In Colorado, Republican Ken Buck has a good chance of unseating Democrat Senator Michael Bennet.

In California, incumbent Democrat Senator Barbara Boxer battling a challenge from Republican Carly Fiorina, former head of HP.

Another contest that's getting a lot of attention is the three- way race for the Senate in Florida.

David Mattingly is at a polling station in Plantation, Florida.

What's the latest there, David?

DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Ali, it's going to be a lot of political theater ending tonight thanks to this race. We've been watching the past couple of days. The leading man in this drama in every sense of the word, Marco Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants here in Florida, a popular politician, the Speaker of the House in Florida.

He's been running very strong, has a double-digit lead going into today's election. But he has been the target of some dealings -- apparent dealings that have been going on, and it has to do with the other two candidates.

The Independent candidate, Charlie Crist, the governor of Florida, is way behind there. He is a Republican, a moderate Republican running as an Independent.

And then there's Kendrick Meek, the Democratic nominee. The question is, did the Democrats actually try to get their own candidate to drop out so that Crist could stand a chance to beat Rubio?

Well, last night there was a big deal in Orlando, where Bill Clinton showed up to campaign with Meek, to show that there was solidarity in the Democratic ranks, that Meek was their man. But at this point, Rubio holding a double-digit lead over his other two opponents as they go into this poll, and it's looking like he is the very strong favorite to come out a victor tonight -- Ali.

VELSHI: Let's talk about the governor's race, also a tight race in Florida.

MATTINGLY: Well, if that race goes as it looks right now, that is the one that's going to be keeping us up late tonight, Rick Scott, the Republican, against Alex Sink. She is the nominee for the Democrats.

A very tough campaign. Lots of attack ads back and forth. But what we're seeing here is that the Republican, like in so many races across the country, has gotten a lot of traction with the issues not just campaigning against his candidate, but campaigning against Barack Obama and trying to link the two.

That's because here in Florida, the unemployment rate is very high, 11.9 percent. The state is also the second highest rate for foreclosures. So there's a great deal of economic uncertainty here.

Any sort of recovery that might be going on has not come to Florida yet. So this area, full of voter dissatisfaction. Republicans making the absolute most of it, and this particular race for governor sort of epitomizes that. We're going to be watching into the late hours probably to see if we have a clear winner -- Ali.

VELSHI: David, yes, you're absolutely right. Somehow we think that even though Washington State is going to keep us up late, Alaska might take a few days, I think there's a lot of people in America who would bet we'll be spending a lot of hours waiting on some kind of decision out of Florida, because that's just kind of the way it goes.

David, we'll be seeing you later on today.

David Mattingly in Plantation, Florida.

Let's bring -- are we bringing in Paul Steinhauser again? Is Paul -- there you go, Paul.

This is going to be how it is every day. Every seven minutes someone is going to be coming to you to find out the latest on polling.

What have you got for us? And you know what? What a day for Mark to decide to get laryngitis, because you are going to be twice as busy now.

PAUL STEINHAUSER, CNN DEPUTY POLITICAL DIRECTOR: He's killing me. He's killing me. I hope his voice gets better.

But, Ali, let's talk -- you just mentioned -- let's talk about Nevada. This is probably the most high profile of all those Senate races. It is the perfect storm.

Why? A couple of reasons. You mentioned it.

It's Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, the top Democrat in the Senate. It's Sharron Angle, the Republican challenger, who is backed by the Tea Party movement. And there are so many crucial issues here, including illegal immigration.

This race is fascinating. Just a few minutes ago, I spoke to reporters out there, including our own national political correspondent, Jessica Yellin. And you'll see her live starting later today.

And he told her he thinks he'll be able to pull it off there in Nevada. He's confident he'll be able to squeak out a victory.

He knows about that. He's done it before. In 1998, he won a very, very close re-election. So that's why we're keeping so much of our attention focusing on Nevada.

We not only have Jessica Yellin out there, we have another correspondent as well, Jim Acosta. That's how important this race is. We sent two correspondents, Ali, not just one.

VELSHI: And you and I were both together in Nevada the last time around. The fact is this does come down not only to how voters feel in a state like Nevada, but it's a good microcosm for what this election is about. It will be a combination of how voters feel and getting those voters to the polls.

Jim Acosta was saying Sharron Angle criticizing Harry Reid for mobilizing the unions to get their voters out, but that's what it's going to come down to in Nevada.

STEINHAUSER: That's part of the game, GOTV, get-out-the-vote efforts. And, of course, Nevada, another reason why we're watching it, the highest unemployment state rate in the nation, an extremely high home foreclosure rate as well. It is truly the perfect storm of elections.

VELSHI: All right, Paul. We will continue to check in with you regularly.

Paul Steinhauser, our deputy political director.

And, by the way, Paul, in a little while, when I finish this show, I'm going to come up and see you. You're right upstairs, one floor up from me.

Paul, I'll see you in a little bit.

Paul Steinhauser.

STEINHAUSER: You got it, man.

VELSHI: Boy, a lot of money being spent on this election, $3.5 billion and counting so far. That's how much has been spent, making this the most expensive off-year election on record. We break it down with our senior political analyst, Gloria Borger, as soon as we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: So much money has been spent on this election, it boggles the mind. We're talking about more than $3.5 billion. It is still flowing as voters go to the polls, making this midterm election the most expensive on record.

We've broken down some of the numbers for you. I want you to look at this.

Look at this first one. It shows the three general tides of money flowing this election, House and Senate candidates themselves who have reported raising $1.7 billion. Then there are the political parties, raising $1.1 billion. And outside interest groups who have hauled in at least $400 million.

Now, let me show you the second one, spending by outside groups, which also break down into three categories. This is where the money comes in that pays for those robo phone calls, television and other ads, and brochures that pop up in your mailbox. Some of that is paid for by candidates, but a lot of these are issue-oriented -- $115 million we're looking at outside spending, $31 million in independent expenditures, $82 million for electioneering communications, $1.6 million for other communication costs.

And this final one shows you the top five races that received the most outside spending. Arkansas, the Senate race there, $12.6 million; Colorado, $9.7 million; the California Senate race, $6.3 million. That's Barbara Boxer and Carly Fiorina. Massachusetts, the Senate race there, $5.8 million; and the Nevada Senate race, $4.5 million.

There a whole bunch of gubernatorial races, by the way, that are also attracting a lot of very, very big money.

Let's bring in Gloria Borger to give us a sense of --

GLORIA BORGER, CNN SR. POLITICAL ANALYST: Recession?

VELSHI: Yes. I mean, well, there are a number of people who have said, really? Could this money not have been spent? If people are concerned about these issues, couldn't they spend it somewhere else?

BORGER: Yes.

VELSHI: It starts -- I mean, I certainly see on Facebook and Twitter, people commenting on the fact that it almost feels offensive.

BORGER: Yes, it sort of is getting up to that line. Obviously, Ali, you know that there was a Supreme Court decision, Citizens United.

VELSHI: Right. You have the right to do it.

BORGER: Right, you have the right to do it anonymously if you're a corporation. So that's added a lot of money, particularly on the Republican side. OK?

VELSHI: Right.

BORGER: And the Democrats now, in order to avoid recriminations if they lose a lot of seats tonight, they're going to say, look, this really widened the playing field for us, gave us a distinct disadvantage, and the special interests bought the Congress they wanted. So they're getting ready with that line.

VELSHI: Which is an interesting argument. There's a little flaw with that argument.

BORGER: I think there is, because when you have an election wave, when you have a bad year, you're going have a bad year. Also, quite honestly, the Democrats have raised just as much money through their own political committees as the Republicans have, if not more.

The Democrats also have labor spending an awful lot of money for their campaigns. We were just talking about Harry Reid, get out the vote, very important in the state of Nevada, running ads all over the country. VELSHI: So it's a weaker argument than the president and Democrats are making, but there is something to be said for the fact that with labor, you kind of know exactly where that money is coming from. It's coming from the members --

BORGER: Right.

VELSHI: -- whereas with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, for instance --

BORGER: Well, that's right. The thing is, you can give money anonymously now as a corporation, fund these things. And these groups have sort of sprung up out of nowhere with these ambiguous names.

VELSHI: Right.

BORGER: The interesting thing, Ali, is going to be 2012. What do the Democrats do in 2012?

VELSHI: Right, because you can only complain about this so long. At some point, if this is the law of the land -- President Obama, in his "State of the Union," commented that he thought it was a bad judgment by the Supreme Court --

BORGER: He's saying so.

VELSHI: -- and you saw the Supreme Court justices nodding their head. It was a tense moment, but it is the law of the land.

BORGER: It is the law of the land. Now, Democrats have said that they want to reverse this law.

VELSHI: Right.

BORGER: If Democrats no longer control the House, for example --

VELSHI: They may not be able to reverse it.

BORGER: -- they may not be able to reverse it, which is where the decision comes in. Do the Democrats unilaterally disarm in 2012, or do they actually start spending the way the Republicans are spending, trying to get that corporate money on their side?

VELSHI: Well, what's the thinking then, that if you had to disclose it, if it wasn't anonymous, then certain companies or certain groups may not be willing to give so much money --

BORGER: Right. Sure.

VELSHI: -- if they're associated with what appears to be buying a candidate or backing an issue?

BORGER: Exactly. That's it. You know, anonymity is much wanted by lots of corporate contributors, and they would rather it were that way. And -- however -- so they're largely contributing to the Republican side. If things change and they don't like the way things are going in a couple of years, well, maybe they'll start giving it to the Democrats. But if the Democrats make this an ethical issue and say we are opposed to it --

VELSHI: Then you have got to decide you're not taking that money.

BORGER: -- do you -- what do you do?

VELSHI: Right.

BORGER: And, you know --

VELSHI: And we heard Jim Acosta talking about those ads in Nevada. We have heard in California that pretty much, that's all that's on TV, is political ads.

BORGER: Yes.

VELSHI: I mean, so if you're not going to be in that game we know that these ads do influence voters. I mean, Nancy Pelosi, her favorability rating at 26 percent. Much of that is because the Republicans decided they were going to put a face on this Democratic Congress that everybody is mad at.

BORGER: And, of course, Nancy Pelosi is the easy face, because Barack Obama, people still give him a little bit of the benefit of the doubt. They don't think he drove the economy into a ditch. They blame him for everything else, but they actually don't blame him for the economy.

Nancy Pelosi has very few defenders, particularly among those Independent voters. I mean, the most effective ad Republicans tell me they can run is Congressman X voted with Nancy Pelosi 80 percent of the time. That's a killer.

VELSHI: Right. And now you have Democratic congressmen saying, if I get elected and if the Democrats take the House, I'm not voting for Nancy Pelosi as Speaker.

BORGER: And you know what? I asked her that question. I said, "How does that make you feel? You're Speaker of the House, these are your people." And she said, "You know what? I told them to go for it."

VELSHI: Do what you've got to do to win.

BORGER: Do what you've got to do to win. And she, by the way, is complaining about the so-called secret money. She said publicly things were going great for us, and then all of a sudden this secret money from God knows where, as she put it.

But when you look back on it, they may use it as a way to prevent recrimination within their own party, but a wave is a wave is a wave, Ali. And there's not much you can do to prevent it if it happens.

VELSHI: All right. We're going to be talking a lot about these issues all through the evening, you and I together. We'll be working on this election. We've got some great technology to show you.

BORGER: Get that coffee ready.

VELSHI: Oh yes. It's going to be flowing.

Hey, there have been some reports of voting irregularities in a few spots around the country. We're going to find those hot spots and explain what's going on when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: CNN's Josh Levs has been tracking some of the hot spots around the country where voting irregularities are being reported, including new reports of voter intimidation in Kansas.

There he is.

Josh, what have you got?

JOSH LEVS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. You know, Ali, we're all keeping our eyes on the horse races and the balance of power, but of course none of that matters unless votes are actually counted. So we at the voting irregularity desk have been following reports all day long. I want to tell you now what you're talking about here, this news that's come in from Kansas, where the attorney general has actually opened an investigation now into an allegation of possible voter intimidation.

What's happened is that several people around the state have reported receiving calls with false or misleading information about what you're supposed to do in order to vote. They say they were told to bring a special voter I.D. card.

One woman I just spoke with named Kelly Cook (ph), she said she got a call telling her to show up tomorrow, November 3rd, and to bring proof that she owns a home, which is obviously not correct. She supports Democratic candidates.

And this complaint was filed by the Kansas Democratic Party. They provided a list of people who they say received these calls. Some say the calls were live, others say they were robo calls.

We also reached out to the Kansas Republican Party, the executive director there. Ashley McMillan tells us, you know what? There's no sign, there's no recording of any of these calls. And she said, "It's a claim by a desperate party that's run out of stories and frankly run out of time."

So, Ali, that's the kind of thing we're looking into today, that allegation. But I'll tell you, in general, big picture in this country today, everything else is a lot smaller. We haven't been hearing about a lot. VELSHI: Well, once you've had Florida and hanging chads and things like that, it does seem a little bit smaller.

Also, claims of irregularities are -- they fall into different categories. There's this intimidation category. There's this misinformation category. There's technical things going wrong. I remember doing this a few years ago where places lost power.

We have fewer people going out to voted today. Midterms don't press the system as much as general elections.

LEVS: Yes. And actually, you know, we've had pretty much everything you just talked about. We have had reports from some people saying, hey, power went out. We had reports of some machine problems. Earlier, we had reports from our affiliate in Utah, KSTU, saying that the polling machines there weren't working at 250 locations.

But what keeps happening is we find out about this, we make calls to the officials. They say yes, that did happen a few hours ago in a couple of instances and we've gone and fixed it. We've had instances in North Carolina, a whole bunch of states around the country.

And that's in general the kind of thing that we've been seeing today, that there are problems once in a while, and then as a rule, you have officials that are running to take care of it. And you're not finding a lot of people at this point saying that they feel they've been disenfranchised, that their vote has been in any way erased, that their vote isn't going to count.

And we are keeping an eye out for that. We're being really vigilant about this here at CNN.

I have a big team of people, here about 10 of us, 12 of us, right now who are following this, because we want to make sure that every vote in this country is counted. Now, when these results come in tonight, we as a nation can support them and understand that it is indeed the result of counting votes -- Ali.

VELSHI: Yes. Well, I'm glad you're on it, Josh, because, yes, there are -- we're not expecting a ton of them, but we want to make sure that if somebody calls in, by reporting it we can get this fixed, possibly faster than somebody can on their own. So thanks very much for that, Josh, and to you and your team.

LEVS: You got it.

VELSHI: Josh Levs checking out our voter irregularities and making sure things are going smoothly.

(NEWSBREAK)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: Time to go "Off the Radar." I don't know what the weather is like across the country. I haven't even left this place because I've been working so hard on the elections, and I'm not going to get out anytime soon. It felt a little autumn-like in the Northeast.

So, A, Chad, you can tell us what it looks like. But more importantly, how does the weather affect voter turnout?

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: You know, you would think a lot of things. And I went back and I found an amazing investigation by the University of Georgia in 2007 about old elections and how they may have been changed by the weather, or how weather could have changed the election, but especially the electoral college.

What we have found -- and here's the rain today, rainy in Dallas and rainy in New Orleans, and almost raining in Atlanta -- is that the midterm elections are affected more by the weather than the presidential elections. If you're going to vote for the president, you're going out whether it's raining or not because it's the big one.

But it's the midterms, it's the little ones. Also, even worse are the primaries. That's what really gets dinged by the weather, where it's like, yes, OK, I just don't care so much about this one.

So how much effort are you willing to put into your vote to get out there and vote if the weather is bad? It's an inch of rain or more. That's the big cutoff. An inch of rain or more could change the election in some spots.

Raining in Mississippi, almost down to Alabama. Very heavy rainfall right now over New Orleans. And still, that backlash cold rain coming down in Dallas.

So let's get right to it. We'll get to the voter registration and the weather.

How did it affect the elections? Well, we went back and we took a look at the numbers you see here.

How many people didn't show up by this 2007 investigation? So somewhere around 300,000 people didn't show up for the election in 1972. In 2000, didn't show up in the year 2000.

You remember who won those?

VELSHI: Yes. I mean, that's interesting. And this is -- what do you use as their baseline for this, not knowing --

MYERS: They took every county by county over the entire United States and they said, did it get an inch of rain or more? Because if it got an inch of rain or more, that would affect voter turnout by about one percent.

VELSHI: I got it. It's a mathematical look at it.

MYERS: It's kind of random, because it skews to the Republican favor in the rain or in the snow, because they say the Democrats just stay home by a 2.5 percent gain one way or the other, whether it's raining or not. So the model here is good.

But here's some of the very big ones that I think -- in 1960, Richard Nixon would have received -- had it been a very rainy year, he would have received another 106 votes, electoral college votes, putting him well over what he needed to win and beat JFK. He would have won Delaware, Illinois, Michigan, Maine, New Jersey, New Mexico and Pennsylvania had those states been raining.

VELSHI: Why are Republicans scared of the rain?

MYERS: No, no, Republicans go out in the rain.

VELSHI: Republicans go out more if it's rain --

MYERS: Democrats, according to this 2007 investigation, the Democrats stay home if it rains.

VELSHI: Why are Democrats scared of the rain?

(LAUGHTER)

MYERS: I don't -- they didn't say why. They just told me the numbers.

And then this one, this is another big one. If Florida had been dry in 2000, there's no question that Al Gore would have received another 500 votes to win Florida, and in 2000 win the White House.

VELSHI: Notwithstanding those pregnant chads and all that kind of stuff. Very interesting.

MYERS: Right. And they also went to say that had it rained more, then there would have been even less problem with swinging chads because Bush would have --

(CROSSTALK)

VELSHI: Is there anywhere that it's raining a lot today?

MYERS: Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana.

VELSHI: I saw that. I saw your map up there. You had a whole bunch of --

MYERS: Yes, this is it. This is the only bad spot in the entire country where things could change.

Biggest city? Dallas. Another very big city, New Orleans. We're going back up here into all of Mississippi, and you really can't tell --

(CROSSTALK)

VELSHI: This is going to go down -- I've got to tell you -- we'll look at the stats, you and me together at some point, but I think this is going to go down as the worst year for Dallas in weather in a long time.

MYERS: Absolutely.

VELSHI: They got everything. They got everything that there was to get, and they're still getting it.

All right, Chad. Good to see you, my friend.

MYERS: Good to see you, Ali.

VELSHI: "Off the Radar" with Chad. We'll check in with Chad a little bit later.

Hey, a manhunt is under way in Yemen for an al Qaeda bombmaker believed to be behind the cargo bomb plot we were telling you all about on Friday and over the weekend.

Details coming up next in "Globe Trekking."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: Time now for "Globe Trekking." In Yemen, a manhunt for an al Qaeda bombmaker accused of being behind that failed airplane cargo bomb plot. Saudi national Ibrahim Al-Asiri is believed to be in Yemen. Officials say he probably made the two bombs discovered in two separate cargo planes on Friday. Asiri is also believed to have made the device by the so-called underpants bomber who failed in blowing up a jetliner as it landed in Detroit on Christmas Day last year.

Officials now say the bomb seen in these pictures were probably designed to explode while planes why in flight, perhaps triggered by a cell phone as they were landing entering cell service areas. In a new development, U.S. official say suspect packages from Yemen were intercepted in September in what may have been a dry run for last week's bomb plot.

In a related move, Yemen today began the trial in absentia of the American-born radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki. Officials also believe he had a role in the failed Christmas Day attack. He's also linked to the Fort Hood shootings last year. Yemen charges him with indictment -- incitement to kill foreigners, and he's wanted by the U.S. government for links to al Qaeda.

Also today, suspected al Qaeda militants blew up an oil pipeline in southern Yemen operated by a South Korean company. No injuries or deaths have been reported.

Maybe you're just too tired or you've given up, but we have got some big questions and reasons why you should vote. Just how important a midterm election can be. "Mission Possible" up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: Bring you up to speed with some of the top stories we're following here at CNN.

A wave of bombings, 14 blasts in all killed at least 50 in Baghdad today. They happened in various places throughout the capital. A U.S. military spokesman says the bombings are typical of al Qaeda attacks.

A federal appeals court says the Pentagon's rules against gays serving openly in the military will remain in effect for the time being. A federal judge previously ruled "don't ask, don't tell" is unconstitutional, but the rule is enforced pending appeals.

Voters are now casting ballots in all 50 states. Republicans are widely expected to win a majority in the House of Representatives, but control of the Senate appears to be up for grabs with the latest polling indicating that the Democrats may continue to hold control of the Senate. Joining The Best Political Team on Television for the vote count beginning at 7:00 p.m.. I'll be there all night long right here on CNN.

In today's "Mission Possible," we're all about rocking the vote. Sure, you've seen the high-stakes races from the political team, and you know we care a lot about the issues out there because well, we hear from you every day. On the economy, health care, taxes, war.

Now, sometimes it's easy to say I'm just not political or I don't have time or my vote doesn't matter. But your vote is truly your chance to effect change. And you have midterm elections to thank for a lot of the rights that you enjoy today. A midterm Congress voted for -- is responsible for women's suffrage, pay for -- push for equal pay and equal rights for all. There were all sorts of things that were passed by midterm Congresses. That's why that is your opportunity to vote.

Go out there and vote. I'll have more to say about this in my "XYZ" later on in the show.

It looks like it's going to be a long day for President Obama and for CNN's Ed Henry, who's pulling an all-nighter to watch the returns come in. You better start drinking your coffee and your Red Bull and whatever else you drink, Ed.

We'll check in with him in a minute.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: All right. Time now to go what we do every day. Our senior White House correspondent, Ed Henry, and "The Stakeout."

Ed, this is a big day. The president is not on the ballot, but the president and the folks at the White House are going to be watching very closely every single thing that happens tonight and trying to figure out how to spin it and/or how to interpret it.

ED HENRY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Oh, yeah, you're right. His name is not on the ballot but essentially his agenda is. And the agenda for the next two years. If the Republicans take over the House, as is expected, and at least make substantial gains in the Senate -- look how difficult it was for Senate Democratic leaders to get what they've already accomplished done when they had 60 and then 59 Senate Democrats. If you knock it down -- if they keep the majority and knock it down to 53, 52 Senate Democrats, it's going to be very, very tough to get very much done.

I think the other thing to pay attention to is what the president does in the immediate aftermath. That's really what the White House is doing. He made the final case this past week. They've been doing a lot of meetings yesterday and today to sort of figure out what do they do in the post-game. One thing they've just announced is he's going to have a news conference, as you know, tomorrow at 1:00 in the East Room. He had one in the East Room was in September, obviously, a few weeks before the election.

This is a big moment. You'll remember president George W. Bush 2006 after the midterm election came out in a similar news conference and said, I took a thumping. Bill Clinton, all eyes on him after the '94 elections. He had a big news conference and his big statement was, the president is still relevant. It was pretty remarkable that he had to say that after losing both chambers. But in fact, he was quite relevant for next two years and won re-election.

VELSHI: In fact, there's some history of the fact of getting thumped in a midterm doesn't actually correlate to what's going to happen to you if you run again for reelection as a president. There's not a tight correlation that if you have lose the midterms, you don't win the presidency again.

HENRY: Absolutely. And most important part is, what do you do after you get thumped? And so, he's got the news conference on the books already. The chance for the president to take some questions. Undoubtedly going to get a lot of tough questions about what kind of message is here.

But what I'm starting to pick up from Democrats as well is to look for the president on Thursday to make another sort of statement probably at the White House where he's really going to focus on bipartisanship, may even talk about something that's been percolating at the White House, which is some sort of a summit. Maybe at Camp David. The location is really not important. That's been out there as a possibility. But get the Republicans behind closed door. And maybe Thursday he sort of offers the olive branch.

In the news conference, he'll sort of talk about what message he sees out of these results. His chance to sort of spin things. But Thursday's statement look for him to kind of push forward, offer an olive branch. Democrats close to the White House saying they hear he's going to do something like this, make a gesture to the Republicans.

And look, there is an opportunity for him here to kind of force the Republicans' hand and say, OK, for the last two years, you've said no to just about everything. Now if you have the House and maybe the Senate, too, or at least almost have the Senate majority, you have some responsibility to govern. So, there are a lot of -- it's probably going to be a tough night for the president. But if he plays this right tomorrow and beyond, it could be a great opportunity for him as well.

VELSHI: Hey, Ed, Gloria was mentioning earlier there's often a mistake made when one party wins something to suggest that the vote was for them as opposed to against the other people. I guess my point is at what point from the White House -- what point does the sort of spin stop and the recognition that, wow, this has been a rebuke, if that's what it turns out to be tonight, of some of the things that we've done?

HENRY: I think as Gloria knows better than anyone, the message as well seems to be perhaps that the American people are angry about a lot of things, but one-party rule is one of them and maybe is feeding into some of this anger. Because if you look come 2000, 2001, there are a lot of people in our business saying Karl Rove and these guys are geniuses. The Republicans are going to rule for the next 40 years. That turned out to be wrong by 2006.

Then after the 2008 election, there was all this talk about the messiah and oh, my God, the Democrats will be in charge for the next 40 years. Here we are, not four years later, not six years later -- two years later and it may be shifting yet again. So, I think the broader message may be for each party to not read too much into the mandate.

And I think some of the signals that John Boehner and Mitch McConnell have been sending and Dana Bash reporting about this how tonight they're not planning to have some big party or big celebration. They realize unemployment is 9.6 percent. And the also realize if they don't get things done in the next two years, it's very possible they're going to be out of power as well. Barack Obama could be reelected and maybe Democrats will go back into power on the Hill. We have a lot that has to play out here, but bottom line you can't over-read your mandate.

VELSHI: Ed, you and I are both having busy nights this evening. We're in different places but we will be in constant contact through the course of the night. I'll be doing those exit polls with fancy new technology.

HENRY: You know what's a good thing is that I sort of feel at home alone here because Steinhauser and Preston aren't here. And I've been talking to their colleagues who shall remain nameless. They said that it's sort of like this, you know, this heckle Jekyll routine when they're on your show together. And they're loud. It's sort of in stereo.

And I found the secret to Paul Steinhauser's energy. There are some 5-hour energy drinks underneath the desk. I'll going to use them tonight.

VELSHI: Oh, that's what he does.

All right, well, we'll be seeing you lots and lots. Ed and I will be on TV until it's all done. Ed, thanks for bringing us the steakhouse - steakhouse -

HENRY: Steakhouse?

VELSHI: You see where my mind is going? The steakhouse.

(LAUGHTER)

VELSHI: "The Stakeout."

Paul Steinhauser is in the building with me. He's right upstairs. He's the deputy political director. Tom Foreman is our fantastic correspondent. What are you guys hamming it up about?

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Oh, you know, Ed. He's being all goofy here, making fun of Paul. It's no good.

PAUL STEINHAUSER, CNN DEPUTY POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Thank you for stepping up.

FOREMAN: You leave Ed home alone, and look what happens.

(LAUGHTER)

STEINHAUSER: Hey, Ali. Seriously, though, people are asking if there is a Republican wave tonight, where is it going to start? So, we got a little viewer's guide. Check out this map we made up for you here. These are the states where final polls close at 7:00 and 7:30.

Take a look at Georgia. Representative Jim Marshall. If he goes down, that could be trouble. The sign of a wave. Ben Chandler, another Democratic congressman of Kentucky. Joe Donnelly in Indiana. Jerry Connelly in Virginia. And Donnelly in Indiana. If these gentlemen go down, it could be the sign, Tom, of a wave forming for the Republicans.

FOREMAN: Yes, yes, yes. You know, the East and the West, Ali, don't always behave the same as South. Don't behave the same. But the simple matter is this. You want a simple equation? Look at places where even if it's tight, the Democrats should have held on, but they didn't. If you see that early on, then it's a landslide night shaping up there.

STEINHAUSER: Ali, one other thing and this is from Mark Preston. Mark is back there. He's not on air right now because he lost his voice, as we know -

FOREMAN: So he says.

STEINHAUSER: -- but he gave this to me. The Republican Governors Association, Ali, reporting today just out a few minutes ago. Didn't even put it up on the Ticker yet that they spent $102 million on the election cycle this year. That is a lot of money and probably a lot more than their Democratic counterpart has spent. And it's a fascinating number. Also remember that the governorships are pretty important, and that Haley Barbour, the Mississippi governor who is the chairman of the Republican Governors' Association, he may run for president.

FOREMAN: yes, yes. This is one of those interesting little chess moves, Ali, that political people like Mark and Paul get so excited about. But it really is a great move.

The truth is what you see happening is Haley Barbour steps in because remember Mark "I'm hiking the Appalachian Trail" Sanford? When he got pushed out as the head of this organization -- he's still governor in South Carolina -- but when he stepped out, Haley Barbour stepped in. And just this week, Haley Barbour has been saying I don't want to jump ahead with the decision to run for presidency, but Wednesday I'll be looking at it.

(LAUGHTER)

So, the simple truth is what a great position.

VELSHI: Let's not get ahead of ourselves.

FOREMAN: What a great position to be in! Oh, my gosh! You roll this out and set up a bunch of governors around the country and help control how areas are redistricted -

VELSHI: Sure!

FOREMAN: -- and the change in the census. And, oh, by the way -- oh, by the way, if you have a very tight Senate, look, there are a lot of senators who are, to be very frank about it, quite older folks. And if any go away and you have Republican governors in position to hand power over, boy does this make Haley Barbour look like a wise man.

VELSHI: Lots to talk about tonight, guys. And lots of reasons to go out and vote because it's going to influence things for many years to come.

Guys, good to see you as always. As soon as I'm finished with this in about ten minutes, I'll come upstairs and we'll crack open the first Red Bull or whatever it is we're going to be using --

FOREMAN: We can go tease Mark Preston about how he can't talk.

VELSHI: We will definitely go tease Mark Preston. Good to see you guys! Tom Foreman, Paul Steinhauser, we will all be together tonight.

Hey, listen, I have breaking news that I need to take you to Berlin for. Diana Magnay is there. About a suspicious package that was sent to the German chanceloor. Diana, what have you got?

DIANA MAGNAY, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Ali. Well, yes, at about 1:00 so, eight hours ago now, a suspicious package was sent, as you say, found by postal workers at the German chancellor's office. And I've just been to a press conference at the interior ministry. And he said that it did contain explosives. He couldn't say how dangerous or what kind of explosives they were, but explosive experts have done a controlled explosion on that packet, thus rendering it defunct.

He said we have to look at this packet in the same context as this series of letter bombs that have been targeting foreign embassies in Athens and Greece over the last couple of days. And he said that this was probably sent by a left-wing militant group who have been well-known as carrying out kind of explosives attacks in Greece over the last couple of years.

But this is the first instance that they have chosen to attack targets outside of Greece. He said that it was addressed to the chancellor, that it was sent two days ago from Greece by freight cargo, but that it probably did not have any connection as far as he could see at the moment to those packages from Yemen that were obviously such a high issue last week, Ali.

VELSHI: All right. So, at the moment, we're still -- there's no sense of where these came from? Or this package came from?

MAGNAY: Well, we do know that they -- this package is supposed to have come from Greece, from this left-wing militant group. And in Athens today, arrests were made of two people, one of whom in his possession had a letter bomb that was addressed to the French president, to his residents in Paris. And so there does seem to be a connection. And that was certainly a reference that the interior minister was making to this left-wing militant group in Greece who have been sending out these targeted letter bombs at various embassies there and the bomb that arrived in the chancellor's office just down the road today in Berlin, Ali.

VELSHI: All right, Diana. Thanks very much. We'll stay on top of this. Diana Magnay live for us in Berlin.

Today's "Wordplay" all about changing the political landscape that could give one party a huge advantage for at least the next decade.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: Time for some election day "Wordplay." Today's term crosses all kinds of boundaries. We're talking about redistricting. Look in the dictionary. It's kind of a duh moment. The official definition "to divide anew into districts as for administrative or electoral purposes."

There in black and white, it's pretty boring. Takes on a huge meaning when you're talking about red and blue. Redistricting is written into the Constitution. Article 1, Section 2 says members of the House of Representatives will be apportioned according to state populations. It requires those numbers to be updated every ten years by the census. In most states, the party that controls the state legislature gets to redraw congressional districts every ten years, and they often try to do it to their advantage. That's why state races are so hard-fought.

You still need a good reason to go to vote? In case that wasn't enough for you, I'll give you a few more when we come back in my "XYZ," next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: Time now for the "XYZ." Today is another big day for American democracy, a day when you have the chanCE to exercise your constitutional right to vote for leaders who best represent your interests. Now, since the mid-1970s voter turnout for midterms has hovered around 40 percent mark. Compared to my home country, Canada, where turnout in the last election was only 60 percent, and you get the picture of just how low voter turnout is in this country.

More Americans should get out and vote today primarily because you have the express right to do so as citizens, a right that this country's forefathers fought and died for in the American Revolution. A right only extended to women and minorities after great struggle. Neglecting to vote neglects our best interests as a democratic society. In a representative system, it is citizens who pick their leaders, so what right do we have complain about how politicians lead this country when some 60 percent of eligible voters don't even bother to make their voices count.

Whether you support the Democrats or Republicans, whether you're an independent tired of the bipartisan - or the partisan -- bickering, someone is going to win in your congressional district, in your state. And they still represent you.

Most importantly, the way you vote today and in all elections affects the way we live going forward. Just take a look at what some of our elected lawmakers in Congress have enacted over the last few years. Health care reform, financial reform, the American Patriot Act. Whether you support it or opposed any of those pieces of legislation, who doubts the profound impact they've had on us and will have on us for years to come? In America today, the one sure way to make your voice heard on issues that matter to your livelihood is to get out and vote.

So what are you waiting for? That's my "XYZ." Brooke Baldwin takes it from here.