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CNN Live Event/Special

Voting Underway Across U.S.; Soon: First Exit Poll Results; Voters Race To Cast Ballots; First Polls Close In Just 3 Hours; Final Hours of Voting Underway In Remarkably Close Election; Gov. Chris Sununu (D) New Hampshire Talks About The Election. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired November 05, 2024 - 15:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:00:06]

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Election Day in America is here. All across the country, 10s of millions of Americans, some braving long lines, have been making their voices heard. Not the pollsters anymore, but for real, at the ballot box. And in just three hours, the polls start closing and the counting begins.

ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: Just three hours of a campaign that feels like it's lasted three years. In Pennsylvania, within the last hour, election workers started, they began to open, to process, to scan those mail-in ballots, trying to speed up what was a slow and legally contested process back in 2020. We're hearing from state officials, they anticipate much more efficiency this time. And by and large, with only a few exceptions, including what are being called non-credible bomb threats in the Atlanta area, the voting has gone smoothly.

Heavy turnout in Georgia and Michigan: Secretaries of State there speaking moments ago, Wolf, saying that they're seeing on track, possibly for records there.

BLITZER: And it's encouraging.

We have CNN correspondents across the map. CNN's Brian Todd is in Western Pennsylvania. CNN's Rene Marsh is in Virginia.

Brian, give our viewers a sense of what you're seeing and what you're hearing where you are.

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, a lot of excitement here in Western Pennsylvania, where the lines here at the North Strabane Township Precincts 1 and 2 have been going out the door all day long. I can take you a little bit closer as the lines move in. There are two precincts voting here, again, North Strabane Townships Precincts 1 and 2.

Once you get in here, you have about 10 more minutes to be processed and then to vote. People here are just telling us they're excited to be out here because (INAUDIBLE) really focus on imigrantion (INAUDIBLE) ...

BLITZER: All right, Brian, your mic is breaking up a little bit. I'll get back to you.

Rene Marsh is in Burke, Virginia for us. Give our viewers a sense, Rene, what you're seeing and what you're hearing.

RENE MARSH, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Wolf. We really have seen a steady flow of people coming in to cast their ballots. We were here since early this morning when these polls opened. I had a chance to speak to many of these voters coming out after casting their ballot. I will say the majority of people we've spoken to at this particular site saying that they cast their ballot for Harris, but we still were able to find some Trump supporters who cast their ballot for him.

I spoke in particular to one 21-year-old college student who cast his ballot. He said he voted for Joe Biden the last time around, but this time he's voting for Trump. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALI ISKANDER, VIRGINIA VOTER: The thing that really resonated with me and Trump is the fact that he was able to go on many, many interviews and put himself up front without a script or anything he was supposed to say. He was thinking off the top of his head in every single interview he had.

I'm always on YouTube. There's 10s of hours of Trump podcasts. He's very strong. I sense - I get a sense of strong strength in him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MARSH: All right. And then also we spoke with Harris supporters and, you know, many of them understanding the history here. I spoke with one 93-year-old man. He was involved in the civil rights movement. He remembers the time when he wasn't able to vote. He said he couldn't even own a home here in Fairfax County.

And so this particular moment when he came to cast his ballot, he was filled with emotion. I want you to hear from that voter, Wolf.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MURHL ALEXANDER, VIRGINIA VOTER: I remember back in 1931 when I was born and my grandfather came as a slave, I couldn't vote. In fact, I have lived to see this and I really share tears.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MARSH: As far as color and what we're seeing here, I mean, I have to say it wasn't hard to find Trump supporters here at this Fairfax County polling place. We know Fairfax County usually leaning blue, but there were many who said that they were planning to vote for Trump or they had voted for Trump. However, when it came to sharing their views on camera, they didn't want to. One woman saying that she worked in the army, her coworkers assumed she's voting Democrat. She didn't want to be on television saying that she was voting otherwise. Another woman saying she just didn't want her neighbors and friends to know that she had decided to vote Trump.

So the Trump voters here at this site, a bit camera shy, but they are here, Wolf.

BLITZER: Fairfax County, Virginia, just outside of Washington, D.C., Rene Marsh, thanks very much.

We're getting closer and closer to the polls closing. I want to go back to the magic wall. Phil Mattingly is with us as well.

Give us a sense of how close we are.

[15:05:00]

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CHIEF DOMESTIC CORRESPONDENT & ANCHOR: Yes. Look, voters are voting. That's a good thing. That also means because polls haven't closed, there are no results in here.

In a few hours, you'll see this start to populate with red and blue in terms of where the candidates are actually standing. But right now, this is what we're waiting for. Battleground states in particular, Wolf, we know there are seven. We've been talking about them every single minute of every single day for the better part of the last year.

Georgia is what we're watching first. It closes at 7 PM Eastern, then North Carolina. So we're talking Southeastern Sun Belt states at 7:30. Pennsylvania will close at 8 PM Michigan. The vast majority of the state, closes at 8 PM. At 8 PM, there are parts of the state that are on the Central Time Zone. They go a little bit longer, up to 9 PM. The vast majority of the state at 8 PM. Then Wisconsin at 9 PM and then out west to Arizona and Nevada at 10 PM.

In terms of what we're going to be watching - so this is the map right now, not currently filled in as we're waiting for polls to close. Let's flip back to 2020. And I want to start where we saw Rene. It is the largest county in the state of Virginia. We're not expecting Virginia to be a potential win for Donald Trump. This is something that Joe Biden won handily.

And while Glenn Youngkin won an off-year election and outperformed where Republicans had been, what's interesting about Virginia as we start to see results come in will be Fairfax County is one of those types of counties. It's the largest county in the state of Virginia, where in the early part of the evening, you can start to get a look at how is Kamala Harris matching up to what Joe Biden did in a stronghold county in northern Virginia in a part of that state that will look at least somewhat similar, both on a median income basis and also a demographic basis, to other types of strongholds in those battleground states.

So watch the margin. You saw Joe Biden winning this by 40 - almost 42 points back in 2020. How is Harris doing? And I think the other interesting element here, too, is this. And this is where I actually want to go up to Pennsylvania. Obviously, Joe Biden winning this state, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, by 81,000 votes in 2020. There's a reason why Republicans have been optimistic about where they've been here. That reason is tied to two things in particular. It is the registration gains that they've made. Democrats used to have a significant, significant advantage in registration in this state. Republicans have cut it in half since the 2020 election.

It's also the early vote totals by party. We don't know who people voted for, but Democrats traditionally outvote Republicans in the early vote in mail balloting by a significant margin, 3 to 1 back in 2020. That's been taken down to 2 to 1. Republicans saying that's a great sign. That's telling everything right now, Wolf.

What's going to be interesting is you watch in Philadelphia, in the collar counties, out here in Allegheny County, the in-person vote, the lines we're talking about. What does that actually mean? Because if Democrats are turning out in a major, major way in the in-person, every assumption that the Trump campaign has made or the Republicans have made could be wrong. If they don't, they have problems. That's the reality.

BLITZER: It's going to be exciting to see these votes actually counted and reported. We'll see what happens, Phil. Thank you very, very much.

Erin, over to you.

BURNETT: All right, Wolf. If it is exciting, in part because there's really no model. Nobody knows you can make an argument anyway, and we just don't know until we know.

Those long lines, Matt, let me just start with, you know, we're seeing them. You saw Brian Todd showing them in Pennsylvania, in Michigan, in North Carolina. We're seeing them everywhere.

MATT MOWERS, FORMER TRUMP ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Yes.

BURNETT: Absolutely everywhere. That's a great thing. We could see record turnout in a lot of places.

MOWERS: Yes.

BURNETT: In particular, right now, you are hearing some updates on Maricopa County, which is, of course, the most populous county in Arizona.

MOWERS: Sure. Yes, Maricopa County is about 60 percent of the population of Arizona. No Democrat had won Maricopa County from Bill Clinton in 1996 until Joe Biden won in 2020. So it was one of those counties that flipped.

Right now, Republican turnout on Election Day is two to one over Democratic turnout. Overall, it's about 40 percent. Democratic turnout is about 20 percent. Republicans are saying that's a good sign in Arizona, especially given the fact that Republicans walked into a lead on Election Day with early voting, absentee voting today as well, which isn't as uncommon in Arizona as other states, right? Republicans are conditioned or used to voting early in Arizona. BURNETT: Right.

MOWERS: But the fact that now they're also leading on Election Day turnout, again, you don't know how the independents are definitely voting, but Republican turnout is two to one over Democrats right now.

BURNETT: Karen, just as we look at what that may or may not mean, and we don't know, I know that the Harris campaign had felt very confident because you do know who votes, you don't know how they vote, but you know who votes. So in early voting, they had seen registered Republicans voting.

KAREN FINNEY, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes.

BURNETT: And they said those are Republicans who always vote ...

FINNEY: Yes.

BURNETT: ... high propensity voters. So they felt that perhaps there was a cannibalization happening, right? They're going to vote early. They're not going to vote on Election Day.

FINNEY: Right.

BURNETT: It appears that what Matt is saying in Maricopa County, that may not be the case.

FINNEY: It's true. And this is part of why every campaign always wants to have multiple pathways to 270, because at some point, if that pattern continues, if there's a decision that Arizona is out of reach, you still got plenty of states on the board to play with.

I think one of the things that we should be continuing to look at, Arizona is also one of the states that has an abortion measure on the ballot. We've got 10 states. So how does that impact turnout in those 10 states? And as we've seen, every time it's been on the ballot, turnout has gone up. And those measures have passed or not passed, depending upon what the language of those measures are.

So how that impacts turnout, I think, is really important to continue to watch when we start getting some exit poll data.

[15:10:05]

ADAM KINZINGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: One of the interesting things about Arizona, so it's obviously tough for the Harris campaign of basically almost all the swing states, but they do have a very, very good Republicans for Harris coalition there. Very intense. There's a lot of Mormon vote there that basically has gone Harris. You have all those people that kind of stood in the gap during the whole 2020 election challenge. People like Stephen Richer, like Bill Gates, some of those that stood in the gap. And they have grown a significant amount of these folks for Harris.

So while I don't think the Republican for Harris numbers are going to be like, again, 50 percent of Republicans, you may see more than you see anywhere else even. And so that could be interesting to watch.

BURNETT: Which is fascinating.

I mean, you know, Governor, let me ask you about what we heard from Rene Marsh in Virginia, in Fairfax County, she said she'd spoken to Trump voters and she mentions - happens to mention women in all these cases who didn't want to tell their neighbors, friends or one of them worked in the Army, people she worked with that they were voting for Trump.

Now, is that your stealth voter if there is going to be one? Women who feel that society says you've got to go for Harris and bring your daughter to vote, and if you don't that you're the stealth Trump voter?

TIM PAWLENTY, (R) FORMER MINNESOTA GOVERNOR: I don't think there's any doubt about that, Erin. I know a number of them personally. There are people because of their job, their neighborhood, their profession, their family relations who do not want to admit that they voted for Trump, and it is the Trump stealth voter. And that's why if they don't - these models don't have that measured or assumed correctly, that gives the Trump campaign, I think, room for a lot of growth in these numbers as we see over the next eight hours.

BURNETT: Right. Because there's been, I know you've been looking at the gender gap.

ASHLEY ALLISON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes.

BURNETT: It's generally a good thing for Harris, but do you see that as a risk?

ALLISON: I don't actually think those are stealth voters, because those are the women who voted for Donald Trump in 2016 that were - and those were predominantly 53 percent of the white women who voted. I think what we're seeing is there are a lot of women who voted for Trump and are saying they're voting for Trump and also are going in to vote for Harris, depending on who their friend circle is.

So I do think there's a gender gap. One just other thing on Arizona is that you have the Navajo Nation.

BURNETT: Mm-hmm.

ALLISON: That is a massive voting bloc, and they turned out on record numbers in 2020. You also have - they're having some issues in Apache County right now, like machines were down and a lot of delays, which is that ...

BURNETT: Yes. Yes.

ALLISON: So if that has high turnout, Adam's point on the LDS, it's like almost a half a million people. And then the Latino population. We can't forget about Latinos in Arizona who may have been disgusted if they did not vote early before that Madison Square Garden rally, that it was just a bridge too far. So I think it's going to look different in every state. Arizona, if the two to one ratio holds out, it could fare well for Trump. But there's a lot of different ways to put a coalition together in that state.

MOWERS: They have a big impact down ballot as well. I mean, up until recently, everyone thought Kari Lake was probably dead in the water in Arizona's race. Recent polling has shown her closing that gap to within five. That might be the turnout we're seeing that's driving some of those numbers.

BURNETT: Right. We will see. And you will all be with me. Wolf?

All right. Well, we have to take a quick break, Wolf and I will be back right on the other side of it.

New Hampshire's Republican governor is going to join us, Gov. Sununu, as the Trump campaign tries to turn the Granite State red.

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[15:17:06]

BLITZER: Election Night in America focusing now on New York. Yes, New York. CNN's Jason Carroll is out on Long Island in Nassau County.

Jason, what's the feeling like on the ground where you are?

JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, let me just set the stage for you here. We've seen a steady stream of voters that have come inside this polling place. This is an area. It is the fourth district out on Long Island. We call it one of those swing districts. This is an area where it went for Democrats for years, and then in 2020, 2022, it flipped and went for the Republicans.

And so Democrats are hoping this can be their path to victory, their path to taking over the House again. We've been speaking to voters all morning long, all afternoon long. A number of Republicans, we've seen a great deal of turnout from them, a number of them telling us they feel as though this is once again going to be their year because of the top of the ticket, because of Donald Trump.

But in talking to Democrats, we've also heard from a great deal of enthusiasm because of Harris. They're feeling they can take back the district. They feel as though this will be their path to the House because of Kamala Harris. We're just going to have to see what happens, but it's been very interesting to hear from voters. Both sides are energized.

There's one point, Wolf, where both sides really seem to agree. They want all of this to be over, and they're hoping that when it is over, many of them telling us they're hoping that this is at a point where the country can come back together. Wolf?

BLITZER: All right. Jason Carroll, out on Long Island for us. We'll see what happens in those Republican districts if the Democrats have a chance of capturing those congressional districts, and then we'll see what happens on that front. Very important congressional races coming up.

Erin, over to you.

BURNETT: All right, Wolf. Well, you know, talking about New York, New Hampshire is a state that the Trump campaign tried to put in play late in the race, you know, back before Biden got out. They really felt that was when they had a shot at. JD Vance went stumping for votes there as recently as Sunday.

So joining us now is the state's Republican governor, Chris Sununu. Governor, always great to talk to you. And here we are on Election Day. Obviously, you are supporting Donald Trump. What are you seeing right now on the ground in your state?

GOV. CHRIS SUNUNU (R-NH): Yes. So look, as everyone's been talking about, tons of energy, long lines. The process is working, which is great. I think that's what people are seeing all across the country. Very few issues. I was just in the Secretary of State's office just a couple of minutes ago, very few issues other than maybe some complaints of long lines, but the process is definitely working, given I've been watching CNN this morning, and every once in a while across the country, you're hearing one story or another, but they're all being dealt with ...

BURNETT: Okay.

SUNUNU: ... for the most part.

So, so far everything is very smooth. High voter turnout, as you know, usually favors the challenger. Now who's the challenger in this race is kind of the question. Who's going to be seen as that agent of change? I would argue that that doesn't bode well for the current administration. But we'll see. It's going to be a close race no matter what.

[15:20:02]

BURNETT: So let me ask you, because you just said you stepped out of the Secretary of State's office. We just heard from the Secretary of State in Michigan, Jocelyn Benson, the Secretary of State in Georgia, Brad Raffensperger, both said that as things look now, they are on track for record - a record number of people voting in their states. Obviously, polls haven't closed yet. We'll see if we hit those numbers. But are you seeing the same in New Hampshire or do you think it'll fall short?

SUNUNU: Absolutely. Yes. No, I mean, it'll be at or around a record number. We always have one of the highest voter turnouts in the country. So a record for us is a pretty big deal. But know that we're definitely on track for that on all the early predictions.

Now, again, I think these guys did a great job. They made sure everyone has more than enough ballots. We have same day voter registration here. BURNETT: Yes.

SUNUNU: That process actually works very well. We'll have a high number of folks partaking in that. But again, so far, it all works really, really well.

I do think, you know, you guys really touched upon the hidden voter, the voter that doesn't answer the polls or doesn't answer the polls, you know, correctly, so to say. We look at - we have a lot of that in New Hampshire, right, that live free or die spirit. We're not picking up the phone. We're not answering surveys.

So my sense is and the more we're seeing on the ground here, there's a lot of that that definitely tends towards Trump versus Kamala Harris. You know, Dixville Notch, that's a - you guys talked about it this morning as well.

BURNETT: Right.

SUNUNU: In 2016, Trump loses six to two, in 2020 he loses five zero. It's three to three today. Now, that's not a sample of the country, of course. But there's clearly folks going back to ...

BURNETT: No.

SUNUNU: ... are now voting for Trump who had never done it before. So that's a reality that's coming out of the woodwork.

BURNETT: So let me ask you about Dixville Notch, though, because you mentioned it. And I understand the way that you walked around that statue and looked at it, that's accurate what you said. Another way of looking at it would be to say that in the primary, all of those voters in Dixville Notch voted for Nikki Haley. So now they're splitting half Harris, half Trump.

So maybe half the Haley voters are going for Harris. Obviously, I'm not going to extrapolate to the whole country. I'm just looking at that in that one - through that one lens. Do you see any of that happening?

SUNUNU: No, not really. Look, Nikki Haley went up and talked personally to all those voters and earned all those voters in the primary. She did a great job with that. I think it's more telling to say they all voted for Biden before. They all voted for this administration and half of them said, I guess that was a mistake.

That's just a very telling story of a - very small sample, of course. But that stuff doesn't show up in the polls. And the thing I look at is all these metrics that are not poll metrics. No matter what, like ...

BURNETT: Like what?

SUNUNU: ... what the final numbers are, Trump is going to get a higher number of Latino and African-American voters than any presidential Republican candidate in history, right? That's a real telling sign. When you look at, again, this early voting, which is a fairly new phenomenon in this country, but the early voting margins that folks were expecting in Pennsylvania and otherwise are not materializing for the Democrats as predicted. That doesn't come up in a poll, but that's just the reality of, you know, the actual actions being taken on the ground.

I think Matt Mowers did a great analysis there of, again, what you're seeing in terms of the enthusiasm with that base voter, not just the independents, but the base voter. And the fact that in a place like New Hampshire, as you brought up, JD Vance came here on one of the last days. That means Trump's internal numbers see that they have a shot here.

Kamala kept spending millions and millions and millions of dollars in New Hampshire, which means she knew she didn't have it wrapped up. So those types of things are, I think, really leading more towards a Trump win. But this thing - I think it's going to be contested. I'd be shocked if we had a clear winner tonight. I think there's going to be a lot of ...

BURNETT: All right.

SUNUNU: You don't hire 5,000 lawyers and send them home the same night. They're going to earn their money one way or the other, but we'll get a winner eventually. It'll be a little bit bumpy with some recounts, but we're going to get a winner.

BURNETT: Well, let's see. I mean, it's amazing. You know, you look at what you're talking about, then that poll in Iowa and, hey, people can be forgiven for having whiplash on what the heck is really going on. I guess that's what you like when it's your birthday. Happy birthday there, Governor.

SUNUNU: Thank you. We're not talking about that.

BURNETT: All right.

SUNUNU: At this stage, we just ignore those days. It's Election Day.

BURNETT: All right, thanks.

All right. Let's go to Phil Mattingly at the Magic Wall. Closer look at the Granite State, Phil. You just heard the case made by Chris Sununu, who obviously is voting for Trump. But you know, Dixville Notch is all we've got right now, honestly, for 12 hours. It's like all we've got, six votes.

MATTINGLY: Yes. Look, I get the urge to take any piece of actual real- time data and try and explain what's happening for the rest of the country, and I have a lot of respect for the governor and his understanding of the state. I would caution people, Dixville Notch, not exactly the harbinger of what is going to come, although it is always an interesting color story.

Look, this is the map right now, as it currently stands. As the governor is laying out, three to three, there's going to be a lot more vote. I think the real question right now, and I think a lot of us were thinking this when JD Vance was sent to the state a couple of days ago, was Republicans have long looked at this, particularly back in 2016, and said, this is one of those places that Democrats, with the exception of Governor Sununu, tend to win statewide that we feel like in a presidential year, we've got a real shot at.

[15:25:07]

What happened in 2020, I think, made a lot of people inside the Trump operation say, probably not this year, maybe not this cycle. In 2020, Joe Biden won it by 59,000 votes, won it by a pretty handy margin, by more than seven points, and that was also the same exact year that the individual you were just talking to, Gov. Sununu, absolutely crushed his Democratic opponent in the state.

I think what's interesting, as you kind of tick through here, and actually - if Mowers is sitting up there with you still, he understands the state as well as anybody running Gov. Christie's (ph) operation up there, in the '16 campaign, also running for Congress himself, is what you looked at, what changed in 2020 from 2016, when Hillary Clinton won by a much narrower margin, is where are the counties that Joe Biden did better in?

A lot of these counties, and I know Mowers is going to correct me if you do talk to him, about what we actually call these specific places, but they're not huge vote drivers, right? Barrington, this is a place that, in total, has about 5- 6,000 votes. Donald Trump won it in 2016, Joe Biden flipped it back. If you start adding up, and you see - every county you see blue here was the county that Donald Trump won in 2016, Joe Biden flipped it back in 2020, that adds up to a significant margin.

Now, when you go back to 2016 and take a look at where things stood, this was very close. This was about as close as it gets, by about 2,700 votes. So I think the real question is, this has been on the periphery, does the Vance visit say something or does it mean that they're just playing games and seeing if they can coax something out here. It's an open question right now, but obviously, the governor, very focused on Dixville Notch.

BURNETT: It's all we got. I mean, you know, it's just all we got.

MATTINGLY: I get it. Yes. No, I get it. I get it.

BURNETT: All right. Phil, thank you. So much more ahead, including Philadelphia's district attorney, who had this warning for anybody thinking about interfering with the vote.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LARRY KRASNER, (D) PHILADELPHIA DISTRICT ATTORNEY: If you're going to try to bully people, bully votes or voters, you're going to try to erase votes. You're going to try any of that nonsense, we're not playing. F around and find out.

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