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2020 Early Vote Now Half Of Total 2016 Turnout; U.S. Now Averaging Nearly 72,000 COVID-19 Cases Per Day; Cash-Strapped Trump Pulls Back Advertising In Florida. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired October 28, 2020 - 11:00   ET

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

[11:00:00]

JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everybody. I'm John King in Washington. Thank you so much for sharing another very busy news day with us.

6 days to go. And a few massive election milestones. This is a simply, wow, number. The 2020 early vote total is now half the entire 2016 turnout. There are still several days to return your mail-in ballots. But Democrats now worried about postal delays and are urging voters still holding mail ballots, find an election drop box. The coronavirus hangs heavy on this election and on how you vote.

The president misleads on the pandemic every day now. Right now, an official White House document takes credit for, quote, "ending the pandemic." That is both ludicrous and it is cruel.

Look at the map. Very little is going right, right now. This coronavirus is not ending. Cases going up in 40 states. Only one moving the COVID-19 needle in the right direction right now. 73,000 new cases on Tuesday. Nearly 72,000 cases per day now is the climbing average.

The president tells his campaign rallies all is well, those case numbers a mirage, he says. Born simply of more testing. But listen here, his own testing czar says, plainly, the president is wrong.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ADM. BRETT GIROIR, ASSISTANT SECRETARY, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES: We do believe in the data showed that the cases are going up. It's not just a function of testing. Yes, we're getting more cases identified but the cases are actually going up. And we know that too because hospitalizations are going up. I just want everybody to know nobody's wearing -- waving the white flag.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: The 50-state pain of this pandemic is reshaping the campaign math and the campaign map. The president is trailing, and the virus spike is complicating his goal of mounting a repeat of his late days 2016 surge to the finish.

The president wakes up today in Nevada before heading to Arizona. He trails in both states. Vice President Pence stopping in Wisconsin and Michigan, both leaning blue right now. Joe Biden spends the day in Delaware, holding a coronavirus briefing with the experts before outlining how he would do things differently. Senator Kamala Harris is in Arizona, where the Democrats hope to make a map-changing statement.

Our CNN correspondents are deployed across the country in the critical battleground states for these critical final days. Let's begin with Kyung Lah in one of America's most important suburbs this year, Scottsdale, Arizona. Kyung?

KYUNG LAH, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And it is in Maricopa County, the most populous county as far as growth. How rapidly it is growing here compared to every other county in America. That's the emphasis of the Harris and Biden campaign. Kamala Harris focusing on the cities in this populous county, stopping in Phoenix. And then she will also hit Tucson.

President Trump when he's here later today is going to focus on the rule turnout, hitting rule cities. But the fact that they're even here in Arizona really underscores the battleground nature and how close Arizona is.

All of this happening as the early vote is underway as a tabulation of that early vote is underway and that is only going to grow because here in Maricopa County, the number of early voting sites is expected to grow today to 90, 90 early voting sites. As far as the number of ballots that are currently being counted, Maricopa County, again, the most populous county here in the state of Arizona, 2.1 million mail-in ballots have been requested. More than half of them, according to the election departments here, have already been signature verified and counted.

Now to look at the situation in another battleground state, our Miguel Marquez is in Detroit, Michigan. Miguel?

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hey there, Kyung. Unlike you guys in Arizona where they are doing early balloting in polling places, here in Michigan, most of those ballots are being dropped off in drop boxes like this. It's a massive, massive mail-in process here.

The secretary of state expects some 5 million Michiganders to cast votes in this election. They expect by Election Day about two-thirds of those votes will be in. Keep in mind, the president won Michigan in 2016 by 10,704 votes. Both sides working very hard for the state.

The president will be here twice this week. The vice president -- Vice President Biden will be here, Vice President Pence will be here. Joe Biden will also be here. All in just this week.

One other issue here in Michigan, guns. Guns at the polls. The state's secretary of state tried to limit that. A judge undid that yesterday saying that in places like churches and schools where guns are already not allowed, they cannot come in, but any other place, open carry here in Michigan, they can come in.

Now over to Florida, where our colleague Drew Griffin is keeping track of things there. Drew? DREW GRIFFIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Miguel. Election officials cautiously optimistic. All of their planning is going just perfectly right now. 6.9 million Floridians have already voted. That's nearly half of all registered voters. The voting continues. There are 2 million of those requested mail-in ballots that need to be brought in over the next coming days.

[11:05:05]

And the secretary of state is urging those people who have them out there to drop them off right here in drop boxes like they have in Leon County instead of putting them in the mail to make sure that they get registered. But like in other states, those ballots will only count if they are in election supervisor's hands by the close of business on Election Day. That's why it's so important to drop them off.

But, John, right now Florida voting really is going very smoothly. We know from experience that this state is going to be very, very narrow in the vote count, but at least they will have a pretty strong vote count when it's time to do that voting. John?

KING: Drew Griffin on the ground for us. We thank all of our correspondents and will be checking in with them throughout these final days across the country. As all of them noted and as those numbers on the screen tell you, the massive scale of the early vote makes 2020 such a very different election.

Let's look at some of the numbers now just to see how different and get a sense of where the contest stands six days out. These numbers come from Catalist, the company that provides data analytics. Now, the services to Democrats, Academics, a nonprofit issue advocacy group.

Let's go through. Just imagine, just look at this number, 72 million votes already cast. There are more votes being cast as I speak with you right now. 72 million votes already cast. About 129 million votes cast for Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, never mind the third-party candidates, just the two major party candidates.

Look at that number. Before, 6 days to Election Day, 72 million votes already cast and counting. The top states so far, more than 8 million in Texas, 7.6 California, 6.9 -- so 7 million votes in Florida, 3.6 million votes and counting in North Carolina. 3.2 million when you round up there in Georgia. All of these except for California, key battleground states. Texas, maybe, maybe not. We will see.

But look at the vote counts in these big states as we go through it. One question is, who's voting? Do we have a partisan breakdown of this? We do.

In the 28 states reporting this data, 46 percent of the ballots cast already are by Democrats. Doesn't mean all of those Democrats voted for Joe Biden, but we know from polling, the overwhelming majority of them did. Some polls say 90 percent of them would have. So, you see the Democratic advantage, 30 percent Republicans, 46 percent. So, safe to say Democrats have a pretty big advantage here nationally when you look at the 28 states reporting this data. So, what about in states we know that will have a large role in just determining who's president? Key battleground states, this is Florida, North Carolina and Georgia. You see it's a bit more narrow there. 41 percent ballots returned by Democrats. 35 percent returned by Republicans. So, bit more narrow there.

The question is if you're a Democrat and you think that's an advantage, is it enough, right? If you expect more Republicans to come out on Election Day itself, is that enough? That is one of the challenges going forward.

Another challenge is so many of these early ballots are coming in by mail. Drew Griffin just said Florida thinks it can count most of them on Election Day. Some states, that's not the case. Pennsylvania says it might take a few days. Michigan says it might take a few days.

There are other states like that. That is how it works. That's fine. It takes a while sometimes to count the votes. It's fine. Except the president of the United States thinks it's wrong.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think we're doing very well. We're going to have an exciting night. It would be very, very proper and very nice if a winner were declared on November 3rd instead of counting ballots for two weeks, which is totally inappropriate, and I don't believe that that's by our laws. I don't believe that. So, we'll see what happens.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Joining our conversation is "ProPublica" reporter and CNN Analyst Jessica Huseman.

Jessica, it's good to see you.

I just want to start right there. The president is trying to lay the predicate for the idea that OK, it's midnight on Tuesday, we're done. We're done. This should be the results, where we are now. That's simply not the way it works, right?

JESSICA HUSEMAN, CNN ANALYST: I think there are election reporters across the country wishing that were the way it works but it is not true. The first state to certify its election results is Delaware and that doesn't happen until two days after the election. So, we've actually never known that the results of Election Night on Election Day and this year won't be any different.

KING: Right. Won't be any different, except some states do think, Pennsylvania one of them, thinks it might take us a couple of days, right? Because we're going to have this - we're going to be inundated with these mail-in ballots. We want to make sure Election Day itself goes well. You might have high turnout then as well.

You have pandemic safety concerns. So, some counts in Pennsylvania said they won't even start counting those extra ballots until after the polls close in interesting strategic shift by the Democrats in the final days of the campaign. Remember the Democratic convention, make a plan, vote. If you can, request a mail-in ballot.

Listen to the governor of Pennsylvania now, he says six days out, don't put it in a mailbox, put it in a drop box.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. TOM WOLF (D-PA): Over 3 million Pennsylvanians applied for an absentee ballot, for a mail-in ballot. And so, if you still have your -- to the folks in Pennsylvania, if you still have the mail-in ballot, fill it out now and don't wait. Hand deliver your vote down at a secure box drop or at the county board of elections. That would be my recommendation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[11:10:05]

KING: Jess, you see the strategy across the country. We can show you some of the headlines.

"Politico:" Dems urge voters to avoid mailing ballots in final week.

"Washington Post:" Wisconsin officials stress need for quick return of mail ballots.

"The New York Times:" A Week Before the Election, Time is Running Out to Vote by Mail.

Six days would seem, especially if you're mailing a ballot within your state enough, but because of concerns about the postal service, because of concerns about ballots being challenged, Democrats are saying listen, if you can, walk to that county office, wherever it is, put it in a drop box.

HUSEMAN: Yes. And I think that the USPS has been warning states about slow mail times for quite some time. These are not new warnings, to states who have done mail balloting for quite a while. We're just putting additional strain on a system that's already extremely strained.

So, yes, I agree, if you've not yet mailed in your ballot, you need to drop it off or you can also pay additional money for it to guarantee two-day delivery. I know a lot of people can't do that. But generally, you can drop your ballot off in most municipal offices or find a drop box location.

KING: And so, we're all waiting for Tuesday night and perhaps we will know. Perhaps because Florida does a pretty good job, North Carolina seems confident it would do a good job. If Joe Biden wins one or both of those states, then we would have probably sense even if we didn't have anybody at 270. We would have a pretty good sense of the race.

But if we have a very competitive race, it is possible that it will take a few days, as I note from the top. This is from our reporting about the commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

"Unlike most states, Pennsylvania law does not allow officials to start processing early ballots until 7:00 a.m. on Election Day. Philadelphia and others plan to start work on their mail-in ballots 7:00 a.m. Philadelphia and other areas plan to start work on their mail-in votes at 7:00 a.m. But swing counties like Erie and Cumberland are intending to wait until after the polls close or even until the next morning to begin."

From all of your reporting on this, Pennsylvania is one, what other states would you say, look, it's possible -- I know that it's not certified for some time but at least to have enough results to make a projection, it's possible Pennsylvania and Wisconsin maybe? What else that we might have to wait, maybe Wednesday, Thursday, possibly Friday?

HUSEMAN: I think Wisconsin is likely to be one of those states. You know I think another state that we won't know results for, for quite a while is California but that's not new for California. California has always taken a couple of days to announce its official results. Their final certification date actually isn't until the second week of December. So certainly, we will be waiting for them.

KING: Jessica, grateful for your important insights on this. I know you spent months studying this issue. We're lucky to have you in the final days of the campaign to walk through all of this.

Up next for us, President Obama said to join Joe Biden on the campaign trail this weekend. But first, in these final days, want to bring you a few flashbacks. Here's one. The final days of 2000 race.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm running against somebody who is full of confidence, so confident he announced that he invented the Internet. But here's our response, if you're so smart, how come every Internet address begins with W?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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[11:17:24]

KING: A campaign in the middle of a pandemic means a lot is different. But not everything. Both candidates are winning, just ask them.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Florida is looking great. Now Nebraska we know is looking great, OK.

(APPLAUSE)

I mean, in theory I didn't really have to be here but it's nice to be with your friends, too. JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: There aren't a lot of pundits who would have guessed four years ago that the Democratic candidate for president of 2020 would be campaigning in Georgia on the final week of the election.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Joining me now to discuss the state of the race, White House reporter for "The Washington Post" Seung Min Kim, CNN senior Washington correspondent Jeff Zeleny, who is most definitely not in Washington. He's out in battleground Iowa today.

So, let's start there, Jeff. The fact that where you are in the campaign. I want to just put up our battleground map right now, our route to 270-path. You're in Iowa. We call it a tossup. Ohio is a tossup, Michigan and Wisconsin, states that went for Trump four years ago are leaning blue, as in Pennsylvania.

We talked about this being a very different campaign. One of the big differences is this industrial and Midwest states predominantly white states that went for Trump now are either leading blue or you're in Iowa and it's a tossup. How much of this is COVID?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: John, so much of it is COVID. Certainly, that's the underlying, you know, really factor of what is on people's minds. This has been the soundtrack of this campaign. Every place the president goes, part of the story line is how COVID is being handled there, the number of cases, et cetera. So, this is something that's affecting how people are feeling, their mood and their view of the president and if he deserves a second four years or not.

But here in Iowa, they've seen a record number of cases. Some 11 times this month of October alone, they've hit new records in terms of numbers of cases. That is happening all over. So, this is something that is certainly impacting the bottom line.

Is it going to change the outcome? We're not sure. We will find out next week.

But John, it reminds me this is averting much more to where we left the map before 2016, where we left the map before Hillary Clinton was the Democratic nominee. This is much more like states that are potentially in play are places where Joe Biden already won when he was the running mate for Barack Obama. So, of course, he won Iowa, he won Ohio and those other states.

So, everything is very, very close on the margins here. If you talk to Republicans and Democratic strategists, neither side will say with all honesty who is going to win. They believe the race is so close on the margins, that's why Joe Biden is coming here to Iowa tomorrow and Donald Trump said he's coming back before next Tuesday.

[11:20:05]

KING: So Seung Min, you get it, a lot of Democrats are nervous. They see a Biden lead and they have 2016 Deja vu or they are haunted. A lot of political reporters who follow the numbers in 2016 say, well can I trust these?

So, let's move away from the horse race numbers and you look deeper into the bones of polling. And Gallup had a great display today. We're going to show you just a piece of it. Look, politics in the end is about math. The demographics is your destiny, people vote and their votes are counted.

Look at these numbers. The president's started at the right of your screen here. The president - this is among residents of the southwest region. Why is Texas in play? The president's approval rating was at 53 percent earlier this year. It is down to 44 percent now.

Look at the Rocky Mountain area. Why is Arizona in play? Why is Colorado probably out of reach? Why is Nevada, New Mexico probably out of reach for the president? Started the year at 53 percent, dropped down to 45 percent.

Suburban men, 50 percent earlier this year, 42 percent now. Suburban women, 38 percent lousy earlier this year. Horrible now, 30 percent. Moderate independents, the kind of voters Trump needs, plus his Republican base. 36 percent earlier this year approval rating, 28 percent now.

You look deep into the numbers. I keep scribing them every day looking where is the evidence of a Trump comeback? If I missed it four years ago, where is it now? You simply don't see it.

SEUNG MIN KIM, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: It's hard to see within the actual raw numbers where that Trump comeback could happen. And I think those numbers really reflect how -- when a presidential campaign, it is usually a very dueling campaign of two visions for America. The Democratic vision and the Republican vision.

But because of the pandemic this year, it really has been a referendum on the president, on the president's handling of the coronavirus pandemic. You know within his own White House, throughout the country and Jeff touched on it very well.

That with the coronavirus is really what is driving so many states that should be in the bag for Trump and the Republicans into that tossup column. I also want to point to new reporting or new polling from The Post/ABC this morning, that shows the vice president or the former vice president leading significantly in both Wisconsin and Michigan.

And a lot of that is being driven by Biden's strength with female voters. If you look down into the - away from the top lines of that polling, you see that Biden in Wisconsin is leading female voters by 30 percent, according to our polling and in Michigan 24 percent. If you think about women who have been disproportionately harmed by the pandemic in terms of you know women in the workplace, having to do extra care for kids at home, you see how -- you see how Biden's strength and why Biden's strength does appear to be very enduring right now. KING: Right. And so, one of the things you watch late in the campaign is how the campaigns try to adjust. Late in 2016 the Trump campaign took a risk. It pulled money out of states it just banked on going Republican like North Carolina and put the money into Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin and it turned out to be a smart play.

Jeff, we've learned in the last 24 hours, this is a little confusing to watch, we will put a graphic up on the screen for you here. The Trump campaign is short money. It simply is. Biden has more money. So, the Trump campaign pulled down some ads and they have some new ads that are now being paid from a joint committee. It's the Republican National Committee and Trump campaign.

The net result is they're spending $2 million less in Florida, nearly $2 million less in New Hampshire, $1.4 million less in Minnesota, down $1 million in Iowa, down in Ohio, down in Nevada. Now they are increasing in places like Maine, North Carolina, Arizona, Pennsylvania. But when you see the shifting at the end, you follow the money and you follow the candidates in the final week, that tells you how they see their strengths and, in this case, their weaknesses.

ZELENY: It absolutely does. And there's a mixed bag in there in terms of explaining all of those rationales. In Minnesota for example. The Trump campaign once thought that they could make Minnesota one of their own. They narrowly lost it four years ago. They are essentially writing that off or at least it's certainly is not a priority.

So, in other places, they believe that North Carolina and Pennsylvania, for example, are critical to the president's path for 270. It's hard for them to imagine a scenario without that. So, there's a lot of shifting going around from the Trump victory fund. Some of that money was used for a ground game effort early on.

But what does this really saying is as we end this campaign, it is not how this campaign began. The Trump campaign promised to work to expand their map, to expand into Minnesota and into New Hampshire and places he narrowly lost four years ago. They are defending their own ground now, John, and that's what is so extraordinary about this.

Joe Biden has so many paths here and a financial advantage no one could have imagined. But as for that Wisconsin poll, I think the margin, we're going to see a lot of polls over the next several days. Focus not necessarily via the margin between the candidates but where the president is himself.

He's still around 43 percent or 44 percent. That is extraordinarily low when we don't think there are going to be as much of a strong vote for the third-party candidate here. So, that is what worries Republicans in Wisconsin, not necessarily the margin but where the president is on the ballot.

KING: And one of the fascinating dynamics, Seung Min, is we just you know Jeff Zeleny's reporting, Barack Obama and Joe Biden are going to campaign together.

[11:25:03] Role reversal, I guess. Joe Biden will be at the top of the ticket, if you will, Barack Obama is there as a surrogate when he goes out. But you also have you know Bernie Sanders doing things for Joe Biden. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez doing things to make sure Democrats vote. The Democrats have made a decision, yes, the liberals -- we have some policy differences with Joe Biden, but Trump is the larger foe.

We're going to save those policy differences for after the election. We're going to turn people out. We're not going to have a family feud that might drive down turnout. Listen to how Congresswoman Ocasio- Cortez described it last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ (D-NY): Let's say the most favorable outcome possible happens, we win the House, we win the Senate, we win the presidency, we're still not going to get what we're fighting for unless we work for it. They're not policies that are going to substantively change a lot of people's lives.

Now does that mean that we throw it all out the window? Absolutely not. What it means is that November 4th is the day that we start bringing the ruckus on the Democratic Party.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: It is a strategic decision, and it is a fascinating one and she says it plainly, unify now, elect Joe Biden and then we'll fight, sure, but let's win the election first.

KIM: Exactly. And I think we can certainly expect an internal ruckus within the Democratic Party if they are successful at next week's election. And look, you saw a little bit of hint of that from congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez earlier this week when she spoke to Jake Tapper and she was asked about how the Biden campaign and the former vice president had fumbled the fracking issue. And she kind of deftly stepped around it and said, look, you know we're working to elect Joe Biden. Now she will lobby a Biden administration on that issue if he's elected.

So, I think you're going to see a lot of these internal policy divisions come out into the open. And remember, Chuck Schumer, in line to be majority leader if Democrats win control of the Senate. He himself is up for reelection in 2022. Democratic sources telling me he's already watching over his shoulder for a potential AOC primary challenge and that could dictate a lot of his actions as majority leader should that happen next week.

KING: That looking over the shoulder thing can cause a lot of issues in politics. We will see how that one plays out, if it plays out. Seung Min Kim, Jeff Zeleny, grateful for the reporting and the insights.

Up next, back to the coronavirus and the administration's testing czar contradicts the boss.

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