Democrats Win First Big Battlegrounds of Night, Lead in Key Races

0:00Let's go over here to the desk. Let's go to David Axelrod and Katie. So, look, Anderson, at this point in the night, obviously, we're still being conservative with our decision desk. But all of the both Republicans and Democrats I'm talking to are looking across the map and they are saying the same thing, that this night is shaping up to be a blue tsunami. Just to use kind of the word that we have been wondering about the Senate races right now. Now, Tallarico's numbers are he is outperforming where they need to be. The Gina Hinojosa campaign, the gubernatorial race there, they think they're outperforming their numbers right now.

0:37That's going to be much closer. Then you've got Ohio and Kansas. Republicans are saying they think those are likely. They're telling me those are likely going to be gone, too. I mean, this is at a level that honestly was the greatest fear for Republicans. And it was something that Democrats didn't dare to hope for. Well, this is a repudiation that is absolutely broad. And the through line is Donald Trump. And the through line is Trump's policies. He is on the ballot, whether you're a Republican or a Democrat. He begged to be on the ballot. And he is on the ballot. And the verdict is very, very negative.

1:11And it's very broad across this big, diverse country. And it took us years to get there, too. Jake, back to you. All right. Thanks so much. I'm here at the Magic Wall with John King. And again, I told you at the beginning of the night, Democrats needed to flip three House seats currently held by Republicans. That number is now two because we called that seat in North Carolina's 11th congressional district. And right now, Democrats are leading in 60. That's six zero Republican districts, 60. They only need to pick up two more. They're leading in 60. Republicans are leading in three Democratic districts.

1:47Yeah. You were joking earlier. You weren't very good at math, but you don't have to be good at math to get that right. You don't have to be. I know that you are good at that, too. You are good. I know that you are good. You are good at math. I know you were just joking, but I mean, you don't like like that's kindergarten stuff. Sixty and three. Sixty is a lot bigger. And so where is it? It's everywhere. It's everywhere. I'm just going to pick a state. I'm going to go to Ohio. Right. You know, there's one. The Republicans are leading here. You know, 30 percent of the vote. And this is a district.

2:14Republicans are trying to flip for some time trying to be fair. They are leading in this one, which would be a potential flip. But then you come down here. This is a Republican-held district. 36 percent of the vote in. The Democrat is leading. You move over here. This is another Republican-held district. The Democrat with 44 percent is leading. It's just leading. It's just leading. But I was just in Ohio, and I can tell you Republicans out there are apoplectic. And that's a polite word about Vivek Ramaswamy and the ad he ran late in the campaign about the childhood trauma of Amy Acton because they said the floor just fell out in the state of Ohio when that ad went up.

2:50And so they're trailing in the governor's race. They're trailing in the Senate race. But back to your point about the House. Just come over here. If you see white around the candidate, that's a flip, right? So you have right now the former governor of Maine is leading in the second congressional district in Maine. That would be good news for the Republicans to pick up a seat that the conservative Democrat Jared Golden has held. He decided not to run for reelection. This margin will also factor into the Senate race. But look how close it is. Look how close it is. It's a pretty Trumpy district, the second district of Maine.

3:18LePage, at the moment, there's just a trickle of results in Maine. They're very, very early coming in in Maine. But look at this. That would be a Democratic flip if it holds up. That would be a Democratic flip. See all the blue with the white around it? All of those blue with the white around it are Democrats who would be flipping seats, including, remember we were talking about that one earlier. Zach Dembo. Zach Dembo. It's in the middle of Kentucky, around the Lexington area. A district Donald Trump won by 15 or 16 points just two years ago. So and that's it's again. And the vote counts are moving up.

3:46We haven't called these races. One of the you've mentioned earlier, our decision desk is conservative for a point. So especially in a place that Trump won by 15, 16, 17, 18 points, you're going to be conservative and get as close to the finish line as you can. But your eyes don't lie is the point I'm trying to make at home. We can't project this yet. We just can't. Blue wave, blue NAMI, epic reckoning. Call it what you will. Your eyes don't lie. We're not there yet. But but. But that's just a whole lot of blue, including in places. Just one quick one before Abigail's telling me I need to wrap here.

4:16This is one of the ones I'm looking at. Bob Harvey and Brian Fitzpatrick. It's only 26 percent of the vote. All right. If Fitzpatrick falls down, wham. We're closing in on the second busiest hour of the night. Polls are closing in 14 states with a slew of high-profile races. And we can now make some projections in Colorado. CNN is projecting that incumbent Democratic Senator John Hickenlooper will be reelected. In New Mexico, CNN can now project that incumbent Democratic Senator Ben Ray Lujan will also be reelected. There are two other seats that we can make projections in. In Wyoming, this is also a Republican hold, but it is a new congresswoman.

4:55Harriet Hageman gets the promotion from House to Senate. She will hold the Wyoming Senate seat in Republican hands. And in West Virginia, incumbent Republican Senator Shelley Moore Capito also will be re-elected. So that's two Democratic holds in the Senate and two Republican holds in the Senate. It is too close to call or too early to call, I should say, to make a call in Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Texas. These are 9 p.m. East Coast time poll closings that we are saying we can't make a projection just yet. They just closed. Let's take a look at the balance of power in the U.S.

5:33Senate. Currently, 45 Democrats have U.S. Senate seats. There has been one pickup, Roy Cooper in North Carolina. 34 Republicans have Senate seats. There are 21 seats remaining at the beginning of the night. I told you Democrats needed to flip four Republican seats. Now it's three because of Roy Cooper in North Carolina. So in the outstanding seats where we're just taking votes in. How are Democrats doing in Republican seats? Well, Democrats are leading in seven Republican seats right now. Seven. What about Republicans in Democratic seats? Well, that number is a little smaller. It's zero. Dana Bash, let's take a look at some of the actual votes coming in from these key states, especially the ones where the polls just closed.

6:16Yes. So you mentioned seven. Let's go through the seven. And we're going to start with a couple that we haven't seen yet. Maine. We're just starting to get votes in Maine. Troy Jackson, the Democratic challenger, is up 57.2 percent of the vote. The longtime incumbent Republican Susan Collins, who is the only Republican incumbent running in a Kamala Harris one state, she is trailing by 42.7 percent. It is very, very early, only four percent of the vote in. And now let's look at another red state that we haven't seen votes in yet, and that is Mississippi. In Mississippi, the Democratic challenger, Scott Colom, is ahead by 51.2 percent.

6:57The incumbent Republican, Cindy Hyde-Smith, is trailing by 46.5 percent. Again, it is extremely early. We're just starting to get these votes in. Only 4 percent of the estimated vote in. And let's go back to South Carolina, because this is a Republican, a ruby red Republican seat that the Democrat, Annie Andrews, continues to hold a lead in. It's a lead of a little more than 100 ,000 votes. She's at 53.4 percent. Darlene Graham, the Republican who Donald Trump encouraged to run. She had a tough primary. She won that. Now she's running in the general. 44.8 percent of the vote. she has 44.8 percent.

7:3966 percent of the estimated vote are in. Now let's look at Texas. James Tallarico, since we have started getting votes in, he has maintained a lead. He is a Democrat trying to turn this red state blue for the first time since 1988. He's at 59 percent of the vote. Ken Paxson, the Republican, is at 39.5 percent, with 39 percent of the vote in. Let's look at another Republican state the Democrats are trying to turn blue, and that is Ohio. Sherrod Brown, another situation where the Democrat is up and has been up since we started getting the votes in. He's got about a 200 ,000 vote lead, 52.8 percent.

8:24John Husted, the incumbent Republican, is at 43.2 percent, 45 percent of the estimated vote in. Now let's look back at Kansas. The Democrat is still in the lead. Adam Hamilton is up by over 100 ,000 votes, 62.5 percent. Roger Marshall, the incumbent Republican, at 35 percent, only 36 percent of the vote in. So we're still waiting for about two-thirds of the votes in Kansas to come back in. Now, Michigan, this is an open blue seat when the Democrats are trying to hold. And Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic candidate, is up by 55 percent to Mike Rogers, the challenger, at 43.4 percent, only 14 percent of the vote in.

9:08I'm told we just got votes in from Nebraska, so let's check it out. The independent, Dan Osborne, he's at 58.2%. The incumbent Republican, Pete Ricketts, is trailing right now by 36.7%. It's 16 % of the vote in another state where it's very, very early. Jake, this is one of those states where an incumbent, excuse me, an independent is running. Democrat, the Republicans say he's not really an independent. They accuse him of being a Democrat. But this has been another hard-fought race that Pete Ricketts is trying to hold on to and keep in GOP territory. Yeah, and before we look at the House, I just want to go through this map here of what just Dana talked about just to summarize.

9:51These are the states that are Republican states, but right now non-Republicans, mostly Democrats, are in the lead. Ohio, South Carolina, Maine, Texas, Nebraska, where there's an independent candidate, as Dana just told you about, Kansas and Iowa. That is why Democrats still have decent chances. Let's talk about the House now. Democrats needed to flip three seats. It's now two because of the pickup in North Carolina. How are Democrats doing in the Republican seats that we have not called yet? Well, Democrats are leading in 62 of them, 61 of them now. And what about Republicans in Democratic seats?

10:32Republicans are leading in six Democratic districts. So that is right now where the House race stands. Boris, you have some projections for us on the governor front. Yeah, Jake, a handful of projections to bring you, including three Democratic holds, beginning with the state of New York. Their incumbent Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul seeking her second full term. She will defeat the Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman to win another term in Albany. Let's get you now an update from Rhode Island. True brute Rhode Island. The real drama here was in the primary where incumbent Democratic Governor Dan McKee was defeated by Helena Folks, a former CEO of CBS Pharmacy.

11:07She defeats Ken Block, an independent software engineer. An update now from Colorado. They're running to replace term limited Democratic Governor Jared Polis. is Phil Weiser, the state's attorney general. He has sued the Trump administration and big tech as well. He defeats a Republican evangelical leader, Victor Marks, who's made all sorts of outlandish claims, including that he's met Satan in person, that he has a demon sniffing dog, that he can sort of perform exorcisms over the phone. Let's focus now still out west in Wyoming. There, a Republican hold running to replace term limited. Republican Governor Mark Gordon is Eric Barlow, a state senator, former speaker of the state house.

11:42He defeats Kenneth Kastner, a Vietnam veteran. Let's get you some numbers of votes coming in, beginning with the Peach State of Georgia. There, the former mayor of Atlanta, Keisha Lance Bottoms, 369 ,000 votes of billionaire Rick Jackson, 71 % of the vote in there. A healthy lead for Bottoms ahead of Jackson right now, with most of the vote in in Georgia. Let's look at Texas now. Look at that, Jake. Unexpected. Who knew that a Democrat would be leading an incumbent Republican governor at this stage of the night. Greg Abbott seeking his fourth term, but Gina Hinojosa, the Democrat, stands in the way right now.

12:15632 ,000 votes ahead of Abbott with 41 % of the vote in in the Lone Star State. Let's take a look at Ohio. Another state, a reliably Republican state, that Donald Trump won three consecutive times. No Democrat has won the governorship there in 20 years, but right now Amy Acton is ahead, and it just updated. She's ahead of Vivek Ramaswamy, 235 ,000 votes, another substantial lead for a Democrat in a state that reliably over the last few cycles has gone, read 48 % of the vote in the Buckeye State. One more update to bring you on a state that has gone back and forth all night. Right now, Congressman Byron Donalds having a 101 ,832 vote lead over David Jolly, former Republican congressman turned Democrat, 98 % of the vote there.

13:03Really, Donalds edging over Jolly after a very, very competitive race that we've been watching flip both sides throughout the night, Jake. All right. Fascinating stuff, Boris. And just looking at this board here, all the eight races, Anderson, there are eight Senate races that are Republican seats where seven Democrats and one independent are now leading. Anderson? Yeah, I want to check in in South Carolina. Diane Gallagher is at Andy Andrews headquarters. How are they feeling right now in the race? You know, Anderson, I think the word of the night for everybody in the Democratic camp has been cautiously optimistic.

13:43This room has erupted every time this race has gone up on the screen, watching their candidate ahead still at this point. I just spoke with Jamie Harrison, the former DNC chair who ran for this seat against the late Lindsey Graham back in 2020. He told me he was cautiously optimistic, but then he said what he is seeing, the overperformance from Annie Andrews right now in the returns, especially in rural counties, is giving him the feeling that South Carolina could turn blue in a U.S. Senate race for the first time since 1998. Now, look, there are still some very large counties, both Democratic and Republican heavy counties that are out right now.

14:26So they don't want to get ahead of themselves. But they are seeing numbers right now that they were only hoping that they would see this early in the night. All right, Diane Gallagher, thanks very much. I want to take everybody into the decision room at the decision desk to try to get a sense of when we may know which way South Carolina is going for sure. Want to see when the decision desk might be able to kind of make that call. Jenna Jesta is here. What are you looking at in South Carolina right now? So what we're seeing in South Carolina at the moment when we run our models here, it's landing in this favors D category with a whole slew of other Senate races at the moment.

15:08And if we dive into South Carolina, almost all of our sub-indicators here are pointing toward Annie Andrews. They are leaning Democratic or even strongly Democratic. You talk about sub-indicators, what are those? Yes. So those are our five measures of what we see within the race. So when we look at the outstanding vote, for example, where it's coming from and what the candidates need is, nearly two-thirds of the counties that are, or the vote that's out is in Republican counties. So this is, this, ah, struggling. The majority of outstanding votes. The majority of votes in places that will wind up being, I'm sorry, I said this backwards, that will be great for Andrews.

15:52So that is a factor that we're looking at here. When we look at the comparison to pass, this is one that is very notable. When we look at counties that have reported nearly all of their votes so far, those counties are shifting significantly Democratic compared to what we saw in the 2024 presidential result. At this point in the count, when we were roughly around 70 percent reported, Donald Trump was ahead by 20 points in the 2024 presidential race. That's not what we're seeing tonight. The one place that could turn out to still be good for for Darlene Graham is really the vote by method reporting.

16:31The amount of vote that she needs to win is pretty similar to the amount of vote that she's getting in what we've seen so far of the Election Day vote. and that is the bulk of what's out. So depending on... Any idea how close you are to making a call? I think we do need to see a little bit more of that election day vote to sort of nail down where those shifts are going to land because a lot of what we've seen there is the stuff that's from the Republican counties. So the election day vote, what's the vote? That's going to be our key here. All right, Jenna Jesser, thanks. Thank you, Anderson. Let's go back to you.

17:01So Anderson, let's follow up on the point you were just making there at the South Carolina Senate race and how it plays into a giant dynamic of the night. Democrats are already poised. We're not quite there to project it. You see their leads in the races enough to take the House. Can they get the twofer, the biggest prize they want, and also take the Senate? They need a net gain of four. At the moment, Democrats are leading in seven Republican-held seats. Democrats are leading in seven Republican-held seats. Republicans are leading in zero Democrat-held seats. So where are they? Let's go through some of them.

17:31Number one, the Democrat seats. New Hampshire leading in Michigan. We've already projected New Hampshire and Georgia. Michigan is still close. But that's a Republican health seat. That's a Republican health seat with an independent candidate. That's a Republican health seat. That's a Republican health seat. We've already called this one as a pickup and you were just in South Carolina. So there's the possibilities. I want to stress possibilities. So let's start right here. Again, South Carolina. We're talking about it. And the Democrat is ahead. And as Jen just showed you on our sightline model, the Democrat is the race is leaning the Democrats way.

18:04Why? Well, you're up to 75 percent of the vote. Look at the math right there. The first thing that matters is where the people live. Greenville County is by far the most populous county in the state. It's about 10 percent, a little more of the population. Democrat leading quite convincingly here. Then you come down to the middle of the state, Columbia. It's Richland County is the capital and the suburbs around it. This is where you do have Democrats in South Carolina. Look at that. 80 percent. Run it up where you have a base. Annie Andrews is doing that there. Then you come all the way across the coast here to Charleston County along the coast here.

18:37Donald Trump won this. Democrats win this county. Donald Trump was much more competitive. Donald Trump lost this county by five, five and a half points four years ago. That's 30 plus. That's 30 plus. Here's another way to look at this. So we can show you this across the night as we go through this. Here's South Carolina tonight. Darlene Graham was Donald Trump's handpicked candidate after her brother passed away. Right. With Donald Trump's help. Where in South Carolina is Darlene Graham running as strong as Donald Trump? Where? Nowhere. Nowhere. Across the entire Republican state. Nowhere. She is not she's doing nothing anywhere near the level of Donald Trump in her state two years ago.

19:17And that is why you have this race right now leaning Democratic. And if it's happening in South Carolina, so where else? Let's check in on the race in Ohio. This has gotten closer, right? As these Republican counties come in, it's gotten closer. But you still have a significant lead for the Democrat in a place where it's essentially been off the map for the last decade. 50 percent of the vote counted. So we have a way to go still. Jen was just talking to Anderson about in South Carolina. The reason we lean at Democrat is because we know where the outstanding vote is in Democratic areas. So let's take a look at where it is in Ohio.

19:49You come in here and you look the larger the circle, the more outstanding votes. The color inside the circle is where those votes have been coming in, who they're favoring so far tonight. Look at all these big circles in Democratic areas. So your eyes tell you. Advantage Democrats right now, that's six points. A lot of votes still out. We're not there yet, but this is where you get later in the night and you're trying to figure that out. So where's another big Senate race we're looking at? Number one, I just want to look here. Iowa was very early last time I looked and it still is. So Iowa, the Democrat, has a slight lead.

20:22But let's be careful. It has a big lead, excuse me. But let's be careful. Those are all the votes. They're coming in from here. Polk County, the largest county in the state. Des Moines in the suburbs. Democratic. This one, we got a long way to go. Don't get ahead of it. And, Jake, you look at the others. You see, I just want to show you. If we haven't had purple up tonight, let's just show it in Nebraska. Dan Osborne, the Independent, about 23 percent leading at the moment. At the moment. And hold that thought, John, because we have some major projections for CNN right now. In the state of Georgia, CNN can project that former Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms will become the governor.

21:01This is a huge victory for Democrats. And Keisha Lance Bottoms, we should note, is not only becoming the first woman governor of Georgia ever, the first black governor of Georgia ever, the first Atlanta mayor governor of Georgia ever, she is also becoming the very first black woman governor anywhere in the United States. So history being made in Georgia tonight. CNN can also make another projection in the state of Florida, another history-making election. CNN projects that Byron Donalds, the former congressman from Florida, will become the next governor of Florida. This is a Republican hold, but Byron Donalds will become the very first black governor in the history of Florida.

21:50So two big history-making elections happening right now. Now, Ryan Young is in Atlanta, Georgia, at the Bottoms campaign headquarters. Big, big race. And I have to say, a lot of Democrats, even a lot of prognosticators, didn't necessarily think she was going to win. And she pulled it off. Well, you know what? If you could feel the energy in this room, this is almost unbelievable to describe at this point. I've been covering races in the state of Georgia for over 20 years, and I can tell you when this projection came out, the crowd here was going crazy. It's part concert, part revival. Talking to people who know Keisha Lance Bottoms for quite some time, they say they didn't believe the poll numbers because if you look at what she did early on when she ran to be the nominee, she crushed it.

22:41And they were thinking that the pollsters weren't giving her the full credit that she should. This is someone who loves the state of Georgia. I've talked to Keisha Lance Bottoms in the last month, And she really felt she felt that people were really connecting with what her message was. And as we were talking to voters today, they really were talking about some of the same subjects. They were concerned about health care. They were worried about paying their bills. And now you can feel this energy in this crowd as obviously people are excited about this history moment that happened here in the state of Georgia.

23:10All right. Ryan Young at Keisha Lance Bottoms headquarters, Governor-elect Keisha Lance Bottoms headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. And Anderson, two southern states, two southern states electing their very first African-American governors ever. Yep. Van Jones. Hey, you know, it's an extraordinary moment. You know, Atlanta has a special place of pride for black folks. You think about somebody like an Andrew Young who's still with us, Dr. King's lieutenant, who helped to turn that city into a powerhouse. Keisha Lancebombs is special. and she is building on a tradition. She'll tell you, she's standing on the shoulders of an Andrew Young.

23:55She's standing on the shoulders of a Stacey Abrams, who built all that infrastructure for grassroots organizing. She's standing on the shoulders of people, Black Voters Matter, Fair Fight Georgia, Georgia Stand Up, People's Agenda, Faith and Works. She's a part of a movement, and she's made history because she didn't give up. Black women got punched in the face in the past two years. Black women are only 13 percent of the women in the workforce. Fifty two percent of the women who lost their jobs with the DEI cutbacks, the Doge cutbacks, and they kept fighting. They kept in the fight. And this represents a tremendous breakthrough.

24:31If you bet on black women, if you bet on black women organizers, you can have real change. So it's a huge moment. People had counted her out. I was talking to people all week that you're going to wake up with Keisha Lance Bottoms as a governor. of the state of Georgia. Think about Georgia. Think about the lynchings. Think about what we went through. You now have a black female governor of Georgia. History tonight. Yeah, she's a friend of mine. She serves on the board of my Institute of Politics at the University of Chicago. And she always had confidence that she could build that movement, even when many people said that was a faint dream.

25:14And she's a very pragmatic person. She's a very down-to-earth person. And I think people responded to that. She's very Georgia. Let's not lose sight of how critical this is going to be looking forward as we head toward 2028 as well, because for Georgia to have a Democratic governor making a decision about who's going to go to the U.S. Senate if one of their two U.S. senators lands on the Democratic ticket is huge. Gives us off. You know, this would have been a problem, actually, if either of those senators wanted to run for president because she would the governor would replace them temporarily with her as governor.

25:56That gives them a little more latitude. Also, frankly, if either of them want to run, she's going to be a really good surrogate for them. And they are dancing in the headquarters. I can see their dancing headquarters tonight. Well, you know, in Florida, congratulations to Byron Donalds and congratulations to Keisha Lance Bottoms, our former colleague here, by the way. I know we all know and like over in Florida. You know, obviously, this is shaping up to be a pretty rough night nationally for Republicans. But that also happened in 2022 in Florida. It turned out to be a bright spot that night. It's turning out to be, at least for Byron Donalds, a good night for him.

26:30I remember right after he won the primary, there were some conversations going on and off the air among political operatives about whether Byron Donalds could get elected governor of Florida because he was African-American. And to see him win this race, to gut it out, to run a really good campaign, you know, he's a good guy. And the Donalds family worked extremely hard to win this race. There was a whole thing saying Florida will never, ever, ever elect a black guy. This is going to be one of those situations where the Republicans nominate a black guy and then he loses. You'd have that happen before.

27:05Didn't happen. Didn't happen. Yeah, absolutely. Big night. Yeah, it's a good night for him. There's been a lot of close races in Florida. And the Republicans lost some of these congressional seats in Florida that they had redistricted and tried to win. So Donald's overcoming all of that across the state. I think on a night, David, where you're not going to have too many bright spots for the Republicans. Byron is going to be certainly one of the big stars. Yeah, look, I think both parties are going to take something away from this because the Democratic Party is suddenly competitive in Florida again, which had, you know, four years ago when we were sitting together here in light of DeSantis' landslide.

27:40That didn't seem that seemed like a distant kind of possibility. So just shows the cyclical nature of our politics. Can I say something about Angie Nixon, though? Angie Nixon put up an incredible fight. She got no money. She ran no ads on social media. I got to go to Jake for some projections. Jake? Thanks, Anderson. Yeah, we have two projections to make. CNN can project that in the state of Kentucky, Congressman Andy Barr will indeed become Senator Andy Barr, defeating Charles Booker. Andy Barr will be the next senator from Kentucky. This is Mitch McConnell's old seat. In the state of Oklahoma, Kevin Hearn will become the next senator from Oklahoma.

28:24So these are two Republican polls. CNN projecting Senator Hearn and Senator Barr will be sworn in next year. Two Republican holds. The balance of power right now. Where are we in the night in terms of the balance of power? Well, Democrats have 45 Senate seats, including one pickup, Roy Cooper in North Carolina. 36 Republicans have Senate seats. We are still waiting for 19 Senate seats remaining. I told you at the beginning of the night Democrats needed to flip four Senate seats. Right now, because of that North Carolina seat that was flipped, Democrats have to pick up three Republican seats. Where are they in that task as the votes come in from various states?

29:05Right now, Democrats are leading in six Republican seats. And in addition, Republicans are leading in one Democratic seat. So that is five seats. Oh, we should also note, of course, that Osborne is leading. He's an independent. He's leading Pete Ricketts in the state of Nebraska. So that's where we are right now. Democrats leading in six Republican seats, Republicans leading in one Democratic seat, independents leading in one Republican seat. That would be seven defeats for Republicans if that were to hold. Dana, tell us more about some of the votes coming in. And I'm glad you're on South Carolina because what is going on in South Carolina?

29:45What is going on in the Palmetto State? And what's going on is not good for Republicans because they're looking at Annie Andrews with the lead the entire night. She's ahead right now by 52 percent of the vote. Darlene Graham, the incumbent Republican who was appointed when her late brother Lindsey Graham passed away and is now running to try to keep this seat in Republican hands at 45.9 percent. This is giving Republicans heartburn, not only in South Carolina, but nationally. I had a Republican earlier tonight tell me that if they lose South Carolina, it just tells you that this is a blowout potentially for Republicans across the board.

30:28And we're going to continue to watch that 78 percent of the vote in. That is why Republicans are nervous. Now let's look at Iowa, another state where Republicans are a bit nervous. It is early, but Josh Turek, the Democrat, is at 62.2%. Ashley Hinson, the Republican, trying to keep this red state in GOP hands. She's trying to take over for Joni Ernst, the retiring Republican senator. She's at 35.4%, only 16 % of the vote, and we're going to continue to watch this. Now let's look at Maine. Troy Jackson is still ahead with 51.3 % of the vote. The incumbent Susan Collins is trailing by 48.7 percent.

31:12It is very early. We're going to continue to watch this to see if Democrats can turn this blue state, blue on the Senate level for the first time in the three decades that Susan Collins has been in the Senate. Now let's look at the state of Ohio. Ohio, another red state Democrats are trying to pick up. And again, all night long, Sherrod Brown, the Democrat, is ahead and has been. He's at 111 ,000 votes. His lead is a little bit smaller. It's shrunk a bit, 49.8%. John Husted, the incumbent Republican, is at 45.7%, 56 % of the vote in. We'll see what happens with that. And then Texas. Texas is another red state where the Democrat has been ahead the entire night.

31:59And look at this. This is a big lead. He has a lead of over a million votes right now at 59.7 percent. Ken Paxton, the Republican, at 38.8 percent. Remember, Ken Paxton won the Republican primary over the objections of most Republicans in Texas. He beat John Cornyn, and he did that because he got the endorsement of Donald Trump. So let's see how this shakes out. Now let's go to Kansas. The Democrat Adam Hamilton, he is a pastor. He has the largest Methodist church in the country. He is ahead by 60.1%. Roger Marshall, the incumbent Republican, has been trailing all night. He still is 37.7%, 42 % of the vote in.

32:48These are all red seats where Democrats are ahead. This is a blue seat now, Michigan. A retiring Democratic senator left it open. Abdul Al-Sayed is trying to keep it in the blue column. He is at 54.6%. Mike Rogers, who ran for Senate two years ago and lost just by maybe 0.1%, if that. He's at 43.8%, another state where it's very, very early, 16 % of the vote in. Now let's look at Nebraska. Again, we're looking at, for the most part, very red territory. And the non-Republican here, the Independent, is ahead. His name is Dan Osborne. He's at 57.3%. The incumbent, Pete Ricketts, is at 37.7%, 24 % of the vote in.

33:38Jake, we'll see what happens with Nebraska. If this goes to the Independent, and Dan Osborne has not said if he would caucus with Democrats and Republicans, that would be another sign that it is a—I mean, we already see that it's a sign. Yeah. After sign after sign of a bad night for Republicans. This would be very unexpected. Yeah, indeed. And here we have the Tallarico race. Tallarico up 20 percentage points with 52 percent of the vote in. So it's not over yet. But let's check in with Aaron Burnett, who is at Tallarico campaign headquarters in Austin, Texas. Aaron. All right, Jake, and we just have a big development here in Austin, Tallarico headquarters, and that is that we've just gotten our first votes in from Harris County, the most populous county here in Texas, home to Houston.

34:31It's a blue county. This is the early vote. And we're all here. Jeff Zeleny, though, when you look at those Harris County numbers just in, a lot of them are in, and obviously it is a big, big lead for Tallarico. It is. I mean, we heard Dana talking about that million-vote lead. Harris County, Houston, the largest county, those numbers coming in really adds to that. It is a blue county. There's no doubt about it. These numbers coming in now, 66 for Tallarico, 32 % with the numbers coming in about 80 % or so. We also have San Antonio in Bexar County, another blue county, but we add these up. But what I'm looking at right now is Cameron County, one of the counties in the Rio Grande Valley.

35:09This is a Donald Trump one county. James Tallarico is leading in that county. The others down in the valley are not yet in. But that could make the difference here. I mean, Donald Trump won 14 of the 18 counties that are within 20 miles of the border. That will likely not be the case tonight. But again, we talked about Dallas earlier. It is still about Dallas, the northern suburbs of Dallas, Collin County, Denton County. Actually, Ken Paxton used to live in Collin County, and then he moves to Denton County. He is not faring well in those counties tonight. But again, the differences we were talking about, Beto O 'Rourke and James Tallarico in those counties.

35:52And really important. And Lulu Garcia Navarro, when we look at this, right now you see the first votes coming in in Houston. And if anyone's looking at the past to say, okay, well, is James Tallarico going to make history? You look at Beto O 'Rourke who lost to Ted Cruz by two and a half points. Harris County right now with the early vote coming in, Beto O 'Rourke, James Tallarico running about the same. Not all the votes are in. But it is in Dallas where you see James Tallarico outperforming history and right now doing significantly, obviously, well ahead of Ken Paxton. If James Tallarico makes history tonight and wins, it will be because of a few things.

36:31It will be the revenge of the Latino vote. They will have come out. They will have come out strong in places where they went for Donald Trump, and they will have flipped back to Democrats because of key issues like immigration enforcement and how ICE dealt with the population in this state. Beyond that, you also have other issues here, data centers in rural counties. This is the second largest amount of data centers that you have after Virginia. So this is another key thing. You also have the issue of how schools have been managed in this state. So there are a number of issues that are particular to Texas that I think will perhaps, perhaps, it's too early to say, but perhaps lead for this.

37:19And there are two other things, Jonah, just looking at this when you look at you've got, obviously, a governor's race here with Gina Hanahosa and Greg Abbott, the incumbent. And then you have, of course, the Senate race with Paxson and Tallarico. Early. This is early. Right. So we'll see if this holds up. But right now you do see Hinojosa is ahead where we are in the count of Greg Abbott. But she is underperforming James Tallarico at this point. Okay, that's important to note. And then also when we talk about splitting the ticket and where there are going to be people who voted for Tallarico and voted for Greg Abbott.

37:53And we are seeing Ken Paxton underperforming in the areas coming in versus the other Republican on the ticket, Greg Abbott. So we are seeing both of those things. For sure. Look, I know a lot of Dallas Republicans who I've talked to said they're just not going to vote for Paxton or Beau French or Beau Vichy French. And so that would explain some of it. It's a consistent underperformance that you're seeing as the new numbers come in. I want to say I agree with Lulu about everything that she says about these factors. It's also just worth remembering there have only been four midterm elections since the end of the Civil War where the president in power didn't lose seats.

38:31The difference here is that, you know, think about it this way. Before Liberation Day tariffs, before the Iran war, Democrats were already racking up special election wins, referenda on abortions, all sorts of others, you know, off-year elections. And so the way, in a lot of ways, I think in retrospect, is going to be a lot more obvious. I mean, the New York Times stand-up poll, which everyone was poo-pooing this week is like way overhand. it looked like it was going to have Democrats winning in Canada. Now it looks like it's on track. So we're 25 minutes away from when the Tallarico campaign told me earlier tonight they thought the earliest a call would be made.

39:11Obviously, that was their rosy view of things, Jeff. Now they had said between 9 and 10 local time. Now we'll see if that happens. We'll see if that happens and if it is indeed for Tallarico. But let's just talk about the math here. when you look at this and obviously tell the Tallarico race and the Hinojosa governor race with Greg Abbott are two separate things. But where does Ken Paxton, where does Greg Abbott need to get the math? Where's the math left here? I mean, the math left is from the 230 counties in Texas that we're not talking about. Four counties in Texas than any other state. And any other state, 254.

39:49However, obviously, the vast majority of the population is in about 20 to 25 counties. But the challenge here, and we talked to that Republican strategist earlier in the day, he said the math is a problem. And that's because of the early votes. So again, we have to see how the rest of these votes are coming. As we look here, these Dallas suburbs, which are so key, still only have 80 % reporting. So, I mean, we are not protecting this race. But what we see here is excitement and the fact that there may be some underperformance on Election Day voting, which was the key. Which was absolutely the key.

40:22All right, Jake, we're going to send it back to you. Thanks, Aaron. Thanks to all the team there in Austin, Texas. And let's talk about Texas here with John King at the Magic Wall, because, I mean, what's going on in Texas tonight? We'll start with the Senate race. I mean, again, John, math, not my strong suit. Fifty three percent of the vote is in. There's still a lot of votes to count. but the Democrat is up more than a million votes right now. The Democrat is up more than a million votes. So this has not happened. A Democrat winning a Senate seat in Texas in 38 years. I'll come back to this in a second.

40:55That's older than my entire staff. I just want to reinforce the point. This has not happened in 36 years. 38 years in the Senate, 36 years for governor. Just about half, it's a little sigh of that, half of the people alive in Texas today were not alive when Ann Richards won the race for governor or when Lloyd Benson won the race for senator. That's how big of a deal this is if it holds up. You want to say we're having this debate. Is it a blue night? Is it a blue wave? Is it a blue NAMI? Is it a reckoning? This would be wow history. And it would be. Who picked him? President Trump picked Ken Paxton and chased out the incumbent Republican Senator John Cornyn, who was well-respected and would have at least been more competitive than this.

41:43Who picked Arlene Graham in South Carolina? Trump. Who picked Michael Watley in North Carolina? Trump. Who picked Mike Collins in Georgia? Trump. Who picked Vivek Ramaswamy in a governor's race in Ohio? Trump. Welcome to the night. Also, may I just also add, who chased away Tom Tillis in North Carolina, which is now a Democratic seat, and who whose team alienated Joni Ernst in Iowa. Right. And she decided to retire. Now that seats up for grabs. Yeah. And so let's come back here. So you're looking at this and you're thinking, really, really? It's been 38 years. There must be some way for Ken Paxton to come back.

42:17Yeah, there's a lot of rural counties here. But let's first look at the live outstanding vote. What are we missing again? So when you see these circles, right, the larger the circle means we're waiting for more votes in the ones with the larger circles. The color within the circles tells you how the votes have been coming in that area so far tonight. So we're missing a lot of votes. See, the gray means we have no votes. So we're missing a lot of votes down here in the Austin area. That's Travis County and around it. That's a blue area. We don't have any votes yet, so it's not blue. Look around Dallas and the suburbs around it.

42:46We're still waiting for votes there. Houston, Harris County is what made both of these races. Senate and governor lopsided because Harris County is number one in the state. So, yes, Paxton can get some votes back in these rural areas. But I just want to make this point again. Again, we're waiting for a lot of counties. Texas has 254 counties. We're still waiting on our votes, obviously. Look at them all. In an overwhelming majority. But so far, as you watch this come out, just a couple of things I want to do here to show you. Are Republicans overperforming Trump anywhere? This is Ken Paxton's own state.

43:13He's the attorney general. Nowhere so far in any county we've reported is he running as strong or a little better than Donald Trump the last time he was in Texas. That's one way to look at this. Another way to look at this. Lulu was just mentioned this a moment ago. The Latino population, Donald Trump's support among Latinos, especially in Texas from 2016 to 2020 to 2024, went like that and went up. Right. So here's where they live everywhere in Texas. Right. In the shading here, this is where the population is higher. Well, that also happens to be where Gina Hinojosa is from. So we come back to the map here.

43:45Let me let me come back out of this and come back to the state. So remember the areas inside that circle. We're going to close this down. I've got to turn that off first and close this down. So you look so far, not many votes have come in there. Right. So I just said a lot of these great counties, maybe Ken Paxton can come back. But look at the ones we have so far. Right. This is Nueces County. This is Corpus Christi. It's heavily Latino. Look at the margin right there. Again, Donald Trump won this county by 11 points. James Tallarico is winning it in the race for governor. Donald Trump won Kleberg County.

44:15I've been down here several times as part of all over the map. Conservative Christian towns. Donald Trump won it by 13 points. James Tallarico is winning it by nearly 20. Then you come down to Cameron County. This is the bottom of the border, Brownsville. This is where Gina Hinojosa is from. Tallarico is getting 70 percent. You look at the governor's race. She's getting just shy of 70 percent. So the math so far bodes incredibly well for Democrats. And that would be history. Thank you so much, Don. We have some projections for you. Let's walk over here. We've been talking about this race all night.

44:48CNN can now project that Zach Dembo will be the new congressman from Kentucky's 6th congressional district. This is a pickup. President Trump won this congressional district by 15 points just two years ago. But Zach Dembo is going to defeat Republican Ralph Alvarado. They competed for this seat. It's currently held by Congressman Andy Barr, who ran for Senate this year. And we projected that he will win that Senate race. In addition, in the great commonwealth of Pennsylvania, here's another pickup. CNN is projecting that Paige Cognetti will defeat incumbent Republican Congressman Rob Bresnahan.

45:26This is another pickup for Democrats. This is in the Pennsylvania House District, the 8th Congressional District. Let us talk again about what Democrats need to do. I told you they needed to flip three Republican seats. They don't have to pick up any more Republican seats. They have accomplished the task. And as long as I mean, we still have a lot of races to call. But as of right now, Democrats have done what they needed to do to flip three seats. Let's look at the outstanding seats. Where are Democrats in all the outstanding seats? Currently, Democrats are leading in 58 congressional districts, 58 of them, 58 districts.

46:05Where currently they are represented by Democrats. I mean, by Republicans. Democrats are leading in 58 of them. Republicans are leading in four Democratic districts. So that is quite an accomplishment. Manu Raju is with House Democratic leader. He would theoretically be the first black speaker of the House ever. He is with Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader in the House. I think they're in Washington, D.C. Manu, they've got to be pretty psyched. Yeah, they are. I can barely hear you, Dave, because this crowd is raucous right now. Roughly about 100 and so supporters here in this room. And Hakeem Jeffries is nearby because they are sensing that they are on the path to taking back the House.

46:57In fact, Democratic sources that I am talking to believe that they are well within, they'll easily reach, in their view, 230 seats, which is more than the current Republican majority, this razor-thin Republican majority that they have currently in the House. They think they could actually be in the high 230s and maybe even up to 240 seats. And if it's a 240-seat Democratic majority, that is an absolute tsunami. There's a real fear in the Republican circle that they can't hold off this Democratic wave that is coming. They are watching two seats in particular, in Indiana, Victoria Stark. He is the incumbent Republican congressman who is on track to lose right now.

47:38He's here to lose that race. In another race, Donald Trump won by double digits in Florida. The Democratic congressman, Darren Soto, if he were to hold on, those two seats go the Democrats' race. Both sides see this as an almost certain Democratic victory and a potentially huge one at that as the news continues to get better for their party as the race goes on, as this race, as everything goes, shifts to the West. But right now, as we see in the East Coast and in the Midwest, things go very much going the Democrats way. All right, Manu, those Democrats are really excited to see you on TV. I hope they don't realize that you're just a few feet away from them.

48:15We're getting even more results in some of tonight's key races, including in the high stakes Senate races in Texas and Ohio and Iowa. Plus, we're counting down to the next round of poll closings in three more states at 10 p.m. Eastern. We'll have all of those results. Stick with us.

48:37I'm Adi Cornish. I'm Ari Shapiro, and it's Engagement Party. It's Engagement Party. And we get to talk about what we're obsessed with, what we're engaged with, what we need to process with a friend. Her name is Amy O'Dell. She is a fashion writer, blogger. But the thing is, she's a journalist who's written about the sacred cows of fashion. And yes, I mean, Gwyneth Paltrow and Anna Wintour. She has done biographies of both. And she is also the sort of rare fashion writer who, at this point, kind of outside the system. And so the question that we're going to try to tackle is... Is fashion terrible now?

49:08Well, no, I mean, I would phrase it as how do you develop a personal style in the age of AI slop? You know, on social media, like, creators have to try a whole bunch of different things and see what catches. And then they make it over and over and over again. The same thing happens with clothing. So they're sort of seeding the market, seeding the internet with all of these different ideas. And then they can see what sells and then they can just make them really fast. Follow Engagement Party. Wherever you get your podcasts.