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Trump Speaking In Rally At Salem, Virginia; Pro-Harris Ad: What Happens In The Booth, Stays In The Booth; Georgia Judge Rejects GOP Lawsuit Over Hand-Returned Ballots; Future Of Abortion Access On The Line In 10 States; Detroit's Plan To Prevent Repeat Of 2020 Election Chaos; Presidential Race Running Tight With Three Days to Go. Aired 6- 7p ET

Aired November 02, 2024 - 18:00   ET

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

[18:01:06]

JESSICA DEAN, CNN HOST: You are in the CNN NEWSROOM and I am Jessica Dean in New York.

Former President Trump speaking right now in Salem, Virginia declaring he will win that state despite the fact that Virginians have voted to put Democrats in the White House for the past four elections.

CNN's Steve Contorno is there and he is joining us with the latest from the rally. Steve, what is the former president saying to Virginians there tonight?

STEVE CONTORNO, CNN REPORTER: He is delivering his closing message to the state and really, to many voters who have yet to cast their ballot saying "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?"

And when you talk to Republicans and operatives in his party, they say that is the message they wish this campaign had focused on more in the closing weeks of this race. Instead, there have been so many other controversies and issues that have distracted from that message being the focal point of this campaign.

If you remember, we spent several days talking about a comedian suggesting Puerto Rico was an island of garbage. There was his suggestion that he put RFK, Jr. in charge of women's health and healthcare in this country. There was a spat with Liz Cheney. All of these elements have distracted from Donald Trump focusing in this final week about the economy.

And one of the reasons why he has had such difficulty focusing on the economy as a top issue is because he does not really believe it is the number one issue in this election. He believes it is immigration and the US southern border. He says that quite often when he is at these rallies.

He tells it to the media and he says it in his appearances. It is the number one issue to him is immigration, and that is largely because that is the issue that he won on in 2016. He laments that he could not campaign on it in 2020. And so, here he is four years later making that a focal point of the closing stretch. Now, we should point out the rally in Virginia is sandwiched in between two stops in North Carolina, a state he will also be in tomorrow and on Monday as well. That is not a battleground they expected to spend this much time in however, clearly showing how important it is for them to hold North Carolina in these final days.

DEAN: Certainly, all right, Steve Contorno for us there in Virginia. Thank you very much for that.

After stopping today in Georgia, Vice President Kamala Harris traveled to North Carolina. In her final days on the campaign trail, she will also make stops in Michigan and Pennsylvania.

CNN's Priscilla Alvarez is live in Charlotte.

Priscilla, North Carolina has voted Republican in the past three presidential elections. Democrats tend to get their hearts broken there. They get really excited about it, but it was not worth for them in the last three presidential elections. How is the Harris campaign working to change the script here, flip the state?

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, I have been speaking to senior campaign officials over the course of the election cycle and what they have repeatedly said is that they were going to stay bullish on North Carolina, because in 2020, former President Donald Trump did win this state, but he won by a slim margin, so they are hoping they can turn the state this time around.

And the vice president's message here in North Carolina today was one, intended to reach those swing voters who have not decided who they will vote for yet. The vice president continuing to stress her theme of unity and also, casting former President Donald Trump as consumed with revenge and saying that he is "increasingly unstable." Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAMALA HARRIS (D), VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, CURRENT PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: This is not someone who is thinking about how to make your life better. This is someone who is increasingly unstable, obsessed with revenge, consumed with grievance and the man is out for unchecked power.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[18:05:04]

ALVAREZ: Now, that line is one that she has repeated multiple times on the campaign trail over the last few days. It was part of her closing argument on Tuesday, as again, she tries to have voters visualize who could be in the Oval Office next year.

Now, the campaign is also using their closing ad to touch on this theme of unity. It is an ad that is going to be running during NFL games today. It is going to bookend that $370 million paid ad buy that we have talked about before and again, this is because senior campaign officials are projecting a degree of optimism when it comes to reaching those undecided voters, those voters who are fatigued by former President Donald Trump.

So, they are hoping that in the closing days of the election, they can bring them over to the vice president, so that they can support her, and of course, all of these events and the lead up to election day are intended to mobilize voters. Of course, it was a star-studded event here in North Carolina intentionally so because the campaign is trying to gin up that enthusiasm hoping that they can also capitalize on early voting ahead of Tuesday -- Jessica.

DEAN: All right, Priscilla Alvarez on the trail in Charlotte, North Carolina tonight. Thank you for that reporting.

And joining us now, CNN senior political commentator and former senior adviser to President Barack Obama, David Axelrod.

David, good to see you.

DAVID AXELROD, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Good to see you.

DEAN: I also need to congratulate you because you just released the 600th episode -- which is incredible -- of your amazing, and I always learning something -- the podcast the AXE Files, so congratulations on that.

AXELROD: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

DEAN: Yes, so here we are. We are three days out. I just want to get your 30,000-foot view of where you think we are right now.

AXELROD: Close. Very, very close.

I mean, this is a race in which the battleground states are all separated by very, very -- all within the margin of error, many within a point, fractions of a point and everyone is scrapping for an advantage.

And what is interesting to me is all of this attention on North Carolina, because earlier in the week, the Harris campaign had actually cut its television buy in North Carolina, and late in the week, it came back and restored the buy, and now, she is going there.

Now, Trump is going there four times, it makes you feel like both campaigns feel like the state is in play.

But you know, I also think that if you are Kamala Harris, you want an insurance policy in case some chip -- there is some chip in the blue while you are counting on.

North Carolina, 16 electoral votes. Georgia, where she was today, 16 electoral votes. That is an insurance policy. I expect that she will spend most of the next 48 hours concentrating on those three blue wall states, but it just gives you a sense of how close this race is.

DEAN: It is really incredible. AXELROD: And one thing, Jessica --

DEAN: I mean, go ahead, yes.

AXELROD: Can I just say one other thing, I was so interested in the two reports from Steve and Priscilla because Steve said a lot of Republicans are frustrated because Trump keeps getting off message and they would like him to be on the same message that his campaign is communicating on television in its advertising that has a lot to do with the economy.

And Priscilla showed the vice president talking about how unhinged and vengeful and so on Trump is, and you know, you've got this -- he is actually abetting her message in the final week and that has got to make Republicans uncomfortable.

I am sure they would love him to stay tethered to that prompter a little bit more and deliver the message that they think will help him win this election, but he is not closing well . She is closing a much more disciplined way.

I said earlier today that she has been criticized for being too cautious. But being disciplined in these final 72 hours is really an advantage if you are on message; being undisciplined can be very damaging, and so, we will see how that all works out.

DEAN: So that dovetails really nicely into the other thing I wanted to ask you about on this specific thing, which is the Harris campaign said this week that they believe these voters that are making up their minds as we speak, late-breaking voters, are breaking their way, that they feel pretty confident in what the trends that they are seeing.

What do you think about that? And do you think it is true?

AXELROD: Well, I mean, all I can do is look at the data that I can get my hands on.

DEAN: Yes.

AXELROD: And I -- you know, I think there may be something to that. It would dovetail with what I perceive to be the case, which is that she has been, on a, for the last 10 days or more, she has been on a pretty consistent message and you heard it summarized at that speech at the mall the other day, on Tuesday.

[18:10:10]

She has been repeating it around the country: I am focused on your problems and he is focused on his problems, and I think it rings true with a lot of voters.

There is something, Jessica, holding voters back from committing to Donald Trump. If you just look -- if you just looked at the right track number in the country, 28 percent, the president's approval rating flirting with 40, and some of the economic numbers -- not the numbers of the economy, but the numbers of how people feel. DEAN: How they feel about it.

AXELROD: A measure of the feel of the economy, you would say the incumbent party would lose that election, and yet, they are in the position to potentially win this election and a lot of it has to do with these deep reservations about Donald Trump, what his -- about his motivations and about his self-control, about whether he can be relied on to fight for middle-class families or whether he is just going to be focused on himself and Elon Musk and others.

And they have really seized that message in the last 10 days and they are driving it, and would not surprise me if these cross-pressured voters, the ones that are left, are considering this very deeply right now and some of them may be flipping her way.

DEAN: I want to ask you about this Harris ad that has gotten a lot of attention about women who are going to vote and maybe not tell their partners, their spouses. It is narrated by Julia Roberts. I want to play a quick clip of it. Let's watch.

AXELROD: Yes, sure.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JULIA ROBERTS, ACTRESS (voice over): In the one place in America where women still the right to choose , you can vote anyway you want and no one will ever know.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you make the right choice?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Sure did, honey.

ROBERTS (voice over): Remember, what happens in the booth stays in the booth.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: And David, some on the right have been pretty outraged by this. They've compared it to an affair, Trump told Fox News it is a sign of a bad relationship.

What do you think about this particular ad, that messaging? We are kind of seeing this -- I have seen things online with women posting notes in bathrooms -- women's bathrooms.

AXELROD: Yes.

DEAN: What do you think about all of this.

AXELROD: Well, look, you may be more qualified than I to judge that. I do not know how everyone is going to receive that ad, you know, but I will tell you this, I think one of the great mysteries that is going to be unlocked, one of the theories that is going to be tested when we start looking at these votes is, are there Republican women crossing over? We know Republican women in the suburbs for example, have been voting heavily in places like the suburbs of Atlanta, are they coming out to vote for Donald Trump, or is some portion of them coming out to vote for Kamala Harris?

We know that there are non-college White women who could be a poll of support for Kamala Harris, and you know, I do not know whether they feel uncomfortable talking with people about their vote or not. But clearly, we are not seeing that showing up in the numbers particularly, but -- and you know, we will see what happens on Tuesday.

That is one of the things I am going to be looking for. The other would be is, is there going to be a surge of Trump voters that have been not captured by the pollsters for a third straight election. There are a lot of theories about the fact that pollsters are now over-correcting and they are actually accounted for in these polls. We do not know the answer to that either.

I mean, we are in the position of having to watch this election in the old-fashioned way and wait for the votes to be counted.

DEAN: Do you think that's why so many -- look, the Democrats have certainly been very anxious about this, very nervous, and there has been a lot of anxiety, listen, throughout the country on both sides. This is a high-stakes election that means a lot to Americans and it just brings so much emotion to all of this.

AXELROD: Yes, look, I think that there is no doubt that many, many Americans are feeling the stakes. Donald Trump obviously has stakes that surpass anyone else who has ever run for president, because , in a sense, his own future outside of politics is going to be determined by this election if he has to stand trial and loses especially, he has made it clear he will not stand trial, if he does, because he is going to fire the special counsel who brought the indictment.

So there is a lot surging around this election, concerns about democracy.

[18:15:05]

And let's be clear, to a lot of Americans, it is a fundamental question. Americans who do not have the luxury to be consumed by the impact on democracy because they are worried about how to pay the bills, and they are asking, who is going to actually fight for me? Who might help me a little bit?

Now, do they say, I felt better under Trump, that I did better under Trump? Or, are they going to say, he is off on his own thing here and we do not need that kind of chaos and we don't need that kind of vengefulness. I would rather take a chance on someone who has some good ideas that might help me.

That is what the Harris campaign is counting on, but yes, this is a high-stakes affair and I don't know how times I walk on the street and I don't know how many times I get stopped every day and people say, well, just between us, who is going to win? It beats the hell out of me. I just do not know.

DEAN: Yes, we don't know.

AXELROD: Yes, and I don't think anybody does.

DEAN: That's right. We are just going to have to wait and let the people say.

David Axelrod, as always, thank you again and congratulations on 600 episodes of the AXE Files.

AXELROD: Great to see you. Thank you.

A lot of good conversations, thank you.

DEAN: Yes. Thanks.

With about 60 hours until voters head to the polls on Election Day, courts across the nation are busy dealing with legal issues ahead of the vote count. We are going to break that down, next.

Plus, a CNN exclusive, we get an inside look into the Detroit's vote counting plans. The 2020 count turned a little chaotic. What will 2024 look like? You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:21:16]

DEAN: While the candidates fight it out on the campaign trail, the election is playing out in court. Just moments ago, a judge in Georgia dismissing a Republican lawsuit that aimed to block county election offices from opening this weekend to let voters hand-deliver their mail ballots. The lawsuit only named one county, the Democratic stronghold of Fulton County, which includes a lot of Atlanta.

And in another significant ruling, the Supreme Court leaving in place a Pennsylvania court ruling that backup ballots can be counted if initial mail-in ballots are rejected for technical reasons.

Joining us now is CNN contributor and conservative election lawyer, Ben Ginsberg.

Ben, good to have you here.

BEN GINSBERG, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Thanks. Thanks for having me.

DEAN: I want to start with the ruling I just was talking about coming out of Pennsylvania. How significant is the Supreme Court's ruling in that case?

GINSBERG: Well, in terms of Pennsylvania, it will be thousands of ballots. Obviously, not know yet, 6.8 million votes in Pennsylvania, so if it is a really, really close election, it will matter.

But it also matters for sort of the message that it sends, that the Supreme Court is not going to jump in to stop votes from being counted in a situation like this.

DEAN: And so for somebody like you observing that information, that is a good thing that votes will be counted, right?

GINSBERG: Yes. I mean, you know, there was some skepticism about which way the Supreme Court was going to go because of their Virginia ruling earlier this week on allowing non-citizens to be taken off the rolls, but here, the Supreme Court is allowing more ballots to be counted and rejecting a very strict interpretation Republicans asked for to reduce the number of ballots.

DEAN: And then, let's talk about this Georgia case, this brand new decision just out of Georgia, a judge dismissing a Republican lawsuit that aimed to block county election offices from opening this weekend to let voters hand-deliver their mail-in ballots and it was one county, Fulton County, a Democratic stronghold there in Georgia.

GINSBERG: I suspect that was not an accident, because there are other counties in Georgia that do allow ballots to be brought in over the weekend.

I mean, again, it talks about a legal philosophy that the Republican Party is doing in an attempt to throw up barriers to people voting and ballots to be counted. It is an odd strategy for my party to be taking, given that President Trump has said his goal is to get low propensity male voters off the couch and into the polling place , yet, the message from the Republican Party is to throw up barriers.

DEAN: Yes, I want to ask you, because we are seeing a wave of election litigation kind of zooming out. It looks -- it is starting to look like the 2020 election with Trump and his allies. They lost nearly every case, but one. Why do you think they are doubling down on this approach? And, what do you think people -- how should people kind of think about and process, as we see more litigation happening as we get closer to Election Day, and very likely beyond Election Day as well?

GINSBERG: Well, I think it is pretty obvious. It is an approach being pushed by the ultimate kind by Donald Trump. He has talked about elections being rigged. He talked about it nonstop in 2020, but even more so in the intervening years.

And what you pointed out about 2020 is really important. We have seen this playbook run before. In 64 court cases, that they had every right to bring, they were nonetheless unable to produce any evidence of fraud or regularities that would have changed the outcome of the case.

[18:25:12]

So now, you are seeing that same playbook run in 2024, and I think it is important for consumers, in other words, voters, to realize that past performance is indicative of future results in this case and there was no evidence to back up the charges last time. You are getting the same charges.

They should be taken with less credibility because of the failed but similar record of 2020. DEAN: You're saying make sure to think of it with a high bar.

Ben Ginsberg, as always, thank you so much --

GINSBERG: Trust, but verify.

DEAN: That's right. Yes, that's right. Thank you so much. We really appreciate it.

GINSBERG: Thank you.

DEAN: Abortion is expected to be a big focus this election cycle. It is directly on the ballot in a number of states. We are going to break down what voters will decide. That's coming up in the CNN NEWSROOM.

COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:30:27]

DEAN: On Tuesday, in 10 states, voters are not just voting for who to put in the White House, they're also voting directly on whether to restore access to abortion or limit access where they live. CNN Correspondent Julia Vargas Jones is joining us now from Los Angeles.

Julia, what are some of the key states to watch and what exactly will they be voting on?

JULIA VARGAS JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, voters in these 10 states, Jessica, will be deciding whether they want to amend their state constitutions to include the right to abortion up to viability. That's usually between 22 and 24 weeks. One of the states that is key to watch is Florida, and that's just because it's one of the ones that serve the most people. Since the six-week abortion ban went into place in May, nationwide, that led to a 7 percent dip in abortions. That's - 30 percent of abortions in Florida were cut and that led to a dip across the nation.

That's because about 1 in 10 abortions that happen in the United States happen in Florida. Just at the beginning of the year, we had about 8,000 abortions a month in the state, but in May, in June, that number went down to 5,400. So that is a pretty big drop there.

In 2023, about 9,000 people traveled to Florida to receive an abortion, and that's because they were coming from mostly states like Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama that are more restrictive. Another state to watch, Missouri, that was the first state to actually implement an abortion ban after Roe v. Wade was revoked.

And that is also one of the most restrictive states in terms of what those abortion laws mean. So no exceptions for survivors of rape or incest. Providers are at risk of legal viability and then there are exceptions for medical emergencies, but that doesn't apply to a lot of other pregnancy complications like malformation or other complications that can come up in pregnancy.

What's interesting also is Nebraska, where there are not one but two measures on the ballot that have to do with abortion rights. One of them would actually preserve a 12-week ban that is in place right now, and another would do as the other measures in the other nine states, which would be to enshrine abortion rights into the state constitution.

And Jessica, of course, we are hearing so much about this issue nationwide. There are high-profile celebrities and figures kind of lending their voice to this issue, starting with Beyonce last week at the rally in Houston with Kamala Harris, making it very clear where she stands on the issue, talking about the importance of reproductive rights.

And Chrissy Teigen this week in Arizona, speaking about her own experience of needing a late-term abortion, when she was pregnant, and showing up at one of these events in Arizona. Now, regardless of how the election goes on Tuesday and who becomes president, these states and these ballot measures will have a profound effect, Jessica, on what abortion looks like in the country.

DEAN: It certainly will. Julia Vargas Jones, thank you so much for that.

Up next, a CNN exclusive, it's an inside look at how Detroit hopes to avoid the chaos with its vote counting next week. You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:38:35]

DEAN: Four years ago, chaos erupted at a Detroit counting center after President Biden overtook Trump. Trump supporters pounded on boarded up windows which were blocking the view of vote counting in the city. You see it there. So how do you avoid that mayhem this time around and get faster results?

Detroit now has expedited signature verification for mail ballots and new million dollar machinery. CNN's Marshall Cohen got an exclusive look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARSHALL COHEN, CNN REPORTER (voice over): What if I told you this could help prevent this?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CROWD: Stop the count. Stop the count.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The scene here is incredibly tense.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COHEN (voice over): For election officials in Detroit, that's the hope.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JANICE WINFREY, (D) DETROIT CITY CLERK: Laws have changed. We have pre-processing now. That's helpful.

COHEN (on camera): That could speed up the results.

WINFREY: That certainly will speed up the results.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: It's election night in America continued ...

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COHEN (voice over): In 2020, vote counting dragged on past election night as Joe Biden overtook Donald Trump on his way to winning Michigan, chaos erupted at the convention center where they were tallying mail ballots.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They're trying to steal the election.

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: In Detroit, there were hours of unexplained delay in delivering ...

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COHEN (voice over): This year, Michigan's new election laws could help avoid a repeat of the chaos.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COHEN (on camera): We have been granted exclusive access to the election center in Detroit where today right behind me, they are processing about 10,000 mail ballots, so the ballots in this room very wealth, could decide the election.

[18:40:08]

DANIEL BAXTER, DETROIT ELECTIONS CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER: So today after we received the ballots, my staff go through all of the mail.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COHEN (voice over): Signed ballots and envelopes are fed into a new million dollars sorting machine that Detroit bought after 2020.

It snaps a picture of each document so clerks can compare the signatures to those on file.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COHEN (on camera): Can't get counted without a signature.

BAXTER: Can't get counted without a signature.

COHEN: Now why does that signature important? BAXTER: The signature authenticates the actual ballot.

COHEN: When people out there say there's no verification, your response to that?

BAXTER: They're wrong.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COHEN (voice over): CNN blurred personal information for the sake of privacy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANTHONY MILLER, DETROIT ELECTIONS SPECIAL PROJECTS MANAGER: This part is the most human part of the process. Now this one --

COHEN (on camera): This one looks pretty different.

MILLER: Pretty different. This one is a full name and this one is to initials.

COHEN: So what happens here?

MILLER: So at this point, returned ballot is rejected for further review.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COHEN: But even with these safeguards and reforms, some Michigan Republicans still don't have faith in the process like here in neighboring Macomb County, which Trump carried twice.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

So, you're no fan of vote by mail.

MARK FORTON, MACOMB COUNTY GOP CHAIRMAN: No, I hate it.

The drop boxes are terrible because people just stuffed anything of the drop boxes. I voted by mail last time ...

COHEN (off camera): Yes.

FORTON: ... because I had a big family thing going on. So ...

COHEN: You voted by mail?

FORTON: Once.

COHEN: You've just told me ...

FORTON: (INAUDIBLE) ballot.

COHEN: I thought you said you don't trust it. FORTON: But I took it to the township - I don't. I took it to the township and put it inside the building at the clerk's office right to the box.

COHEN: You saw it going.

FORTON: I saw it going.

CROWD: Stop the count. Stop the count.

COHEN: Four years ago, this was a very hotspot.

BAXTER: Yes, it was. Someone posted on social media asking for every Republican in the state of Michigan. They've come to Detroit. It was so crowded to the point where we had to stop people from coming in.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COHEN (voice over): Federal prosecutors recently suggested that Trump campaign tried to incite a riot that day.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BAXTER: All of a sudden, we heard the walls and the windows rattling, and then people began to chant "stop the count, stop the count" and --

COHEN (on camera): Did you stop the count?

BAXTER: Absolutely not.

SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS HOST: Look at your screen, at one site, workers put cardboard over the windows of a vote counting station, so no one can see in.

BAXTER: These three windows were boarded up.

COHEN: Yes, that's it right there.

BAXTER: And they were trying to board these up. But before they could, that's when I came over and I said take all those cardboards down. I hated this.

COHEN: (INAUDIBLE) ...

BAXTER: I hate it when that happened.

COHEN: Why?

BAXTER: Why?

COHEN: Why?

BAXTER: Because this is all designed for transparency. This is democracy.

COHEN: Do you regret that those papers were put up on the window? WINFREY: I don't. I don't regret anything we did to keep our poll workers focus and feeling safe. And if that's what it took for that to happen, I'll do it again.

You know, I'm a government employee, you know? I signed my name for a living and swear people in. That's what it used to be. But now I've truly feel like the protector of democracy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DEAN: Marshall Cohen is joining us now.

Marshall, that's such an important, great report there. Walk us through what the biggest fears for election officials are in Detroit.

COHEN (on camera): You know, Jessica, it's got to be disinformation. That's kind of the name of the game right now. You just saw one of the top officials there, Daniel Baxter, explain how things really got out of hand four years ago after a rallying cry went out on social media among Trump allies and Republicans claiming, falsely, that the steal was on in Detroit and you better get down there to stop the steal. And that's what led to all that chaos.

But, you know, it's not just Detroit. It's throughout all of Michigan. The Secretary of State in Michigan, Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, she's been in a war of words these past few weeks with Elon Musk, of all people, the richest man in the world, the owner of Twitter slash X, because he's been peddling all kinds of nonsense about the voter rolls in Michigan.

So this is a local, state, and national issue, the disinformation. But the folks down there are optimistic that they'll be able to have a better outcome this year because they learned the hard lessons from 2020. Yes, and we talked to the Secretary of State, Jocelyn Benson, earlier in our show talking about the security that they've put in place to protect election workers. What can you tell us about that?

COHEN: Well, in Detroit specifically, there's going to be more police on hand. The officials told me there's going to be more police nearby just in case anything goes awry. This year, the vote counting is going to be in a room with no windows, Jessica.

There will be plenty of poll watchers from both parties, Democrats and Republicans, inside there to keep an eye on it. But no windows this time, so nobody can bang on those windows from the outside, which caused a lot of fears and intimidation for the poll workers there just trying to do their jobs and count the votes.

DEAN: And did election officials give you any idea when they might be finished with the ballot counting?

COHEN: Yes, that's the big question.

DEAN: Yes. COHEN: Four years ago, we projected Joe Biden's victory at around 4.15 PM the next day, Wednesday.

[18:45:05]

Everyone that I've spoken to thinks that the results are going to come in faster this time around. The city clerk that you just saw, Janice Winfrey, said that she is hoping to have all of the votes reported out of Detroit by midnight on election night.

One of the reasons why it took us until Wednesday afternoon to project was because we were waiting on some big vote drops from Detroit. So if that comes faster, a projection could come faster and, you know, that's, of course, what we all want to see.

DEAN: Yes. All right, Marshall Cohen, as always, thanks so much.

And from the first votes to the critical count, no one covers election night in America like CNN. We have special live coverage starting Tuesday at 4 PM Eastern. It is only on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:50:25]

DEAN: This presidential race is so neck and neck that few respectable pollsters are willing to stick their necks out to predict who's going to win. Earlier I spoke with CNN's Senior Data Reporter, Harry Enten, for his thoughts.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: Harry, let's just - let's run it back. How close is this race? I feel like I ask you this every weekend.

HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA REPORTER: You ask me it every weekend ...

DEAN: I do.

ENTEN: ... and every weekend I feel like I have to get out my thesaurus to try and find out another way to put that this race is way too close to call. Like I'm studying for my SATs.

Look, we got three days left to go, and I put it right here. This race is way, way too close to call. Why is it? Well, let's take a look at the polling aggregates across those seven key battlegrounds that we've been talking about, right?

In your Sun Belt, you see a little bit more red than blue. In fact, there is no blue in the Sun Belt. But again, it's way too close to call. Trump by three in Arizona, two in Georgia, one in North Carolina, a tie in Nevada. Come over to those Great Lakes, and a little bit more blue here. But look at this, just a point in Michigan, less than a point - when you're breaking out this symbol, Jessica, the less than, you know how close the race is. And then, of course, in Pennsylvania, all important Pennsylvania, tied, T-I-E-D, that's the bottom line of this election. Way too close to call at this point. All of the key states within a couple of points, and arguably the most important one, Pennsylvania, T-I-E-D.

DEAN: Just tied. Put that in terms of the electoral map for us, how does that bear out?

ENTEN: Yes, how does the electoral map bear out?

Well, if the results match the polling averages, guess what? Neither candidate gets to 270 electoral votes. I don't even know what other way to put it, because Pennsylvania becomes the all-important key state. Whoever wins Pennsylvania wins the election. We've been talking about it week after week after week.

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, just to the southwest of me here in New York City, becomes the all-important state. If you can figure out who wins Pennsylvania, you probably know who's going to win the election. Because at this point, the polls can only tell you that both candidates are short of the 270 electoral votes needed to win. That is, of course, if the polls are actually right on the money, which they probably won't be.

DEAN: Okay, explain that to us, because they're not perfect.

ENTEN: No, they are not perfect. So, you know, let's go through history, right? Let's go back since 1972 and look at the key battleground states and say, how off were the polling averages.

The polls aren't perfect. They are a tool. They give - get you in the neighborhood, but when the race is this close, when all the key battleground states are within three percentage points, that's within the average error band. The average error band for state polling averages since 1972 is, get this, 3.4 points, 3.4 points.

And then if you talk about a margin of error, right? Like a 95 percent confidence interval, we're talking about more like plus or minus nine points. All of the key battleground states are within this error band, and they're actually within the average error band as well. So let's kind of talk about what happens if you have an average error and apply it to the electoral map, right?

Well, if we have an average error and Donald Trump benefits from the average error, guess what? He gets way past 270 electoral votes. He gets to 312. Why? He carries all the Great Lake battleground states. He carries the southeast battleground states in North Carolina and Georgia. And he carries Nevada and Arizona out west.

But, of course, Jessica, there's no guarantee that the polls being off would necessarily benefit Donald Trump, even though they did both in 2016 and 2020. Because they could, in fact, the polling miss could benefit Kamala Harris like it did the Democrats back in 2022. If there was, in fact, a polling miss that benefited Kamala Harris, an average polling miss, she'd get north of 300 electoral votes. Look at that. She'd get to 319. Why? She'd carry the Great Lake battleground states, right? She'd carry Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania. She'd carry the southeast battleground states, Georgia, North Carolina and she'd carry the southwest battleground states of Nevada and Arizona. So the bottom line is this. The polls at this point to a race that's way too close to call. But an average miss in either direction could turn this into an Electoral College blowout. We just don't know at this point.

DEAN: That's kind of the interesting thing. It could be one on the margins, but look like Electoral College blowout if it went one way or the other.

ENTEN: Correct.

DEAN: Okay, so I think this is the question I get the most. When will we know who actually won?

ENTEN: When will we know who actually won?

Well, if you recall last time around in 2020, we didn't call Pennsylvania until Saturday morning. I went back, found the exact time.

[18:55:03]

It was 11:24 AM when Wolf Blitzer came out and we projected that, in fact, Joe Biden was going to win the 2020 Election. So that, I think, is probably the worst case. Now, obviously, if the race is even closer, it could go beyond that. Remember Florida back in 2000, what was that? Thirty-seven days.

But there is the chance that if the election ends up being a little bit wider, you go back to 2022 in Pennsylvania. That Senate race was called at 1:12 AM on Wednesday. Now, of course, the key thing to point out there was the Senate margin in 2022 was five points versus the presidential margin being a point back in 2020.

But with fewer mail ballots, a better chance of counting those mail ballots, people are more used to it and a couple of states, not Pennsylvania, have changed their laws, like Michigan, to make it easier to count those mail ballots before the election actually is completed on Tuesday. You could, in fact, get a closer calling time to when the polls actually close and not actually have to wait all the way until Saturday.

But at this point, Jessica, all I can say is, who knows?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: Who knows? Harry Enten, as always, thank you.

Three days before the election, there is a new poll you'll want to hear about. It's coming up next here in the CNN NEWSROOM.