Global News Podcast - US Election Special: What we know so far

Episode Date: November 6, 2024

US Election Special: What we know so far. Donald Trump is projected to have won Georgia and North Carolina - two of the seven swing seats that will determine the outcome of the US presidential election.

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This is an extra edition of the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Jackie Leonard and at 5 o'clock GMT on Wednesday the 6th of November, this is what we can tell you so far about the US election. As votes are counted, Donald Trump is projected to win North Carolina in the first result from one of the seven key battleground states. Another swing state, Georgia, also appears to be leaning his way. It narrows Kamala Harris' chances of victory. With control of both Houses of Congress also at stake, the Republicans are projected to

have flipped two crucial Senate seats in West Virginia and Ohio. We'll look at the projections, the role of social media and the impacts of the result beyond US borders. The magic number is 270, the number of electoral college votes needed to win the US presidential election. As we record this podcast it is still not at all clear whether the next occupant of the White House will be Donald Trump or Kamala Harris. The main news at this point, Donald Trump, former president and Republican presidential candidate, is projected to win North Carolina. That's the first result from one of the seven key battleground states.

It looks like Georgia, another key swing state, is also leaning towards Mr Trump. Anxiety is reported to be rising at the headquarters of Kamala Harris's campaign. All the other swing states remain too close to call. Of the key states projected so far, the Vice President is on course to take California and New York as expected, while Donald Trump is on course to take California and New York as expected, while Donald Trump is on target to win in Texas and Florida. The chair of the Harris campaign has emailed staff insisting that the margins remain razor thin and that she still has a clear path to victory through the blue-walled states of

Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. Turnout appears to be high and might end up even eclipsing the 65.9% mark set in 2020. Both Trump and Harris have repeatedly said that the stakes in this election are high. The American public seems to have heeded that call. Let's hear first of all from Helena Humphrey at the key count in North Carolina. Just to give you a brief look at those expected tallies that we've got right now, 48% for Kamala Harris, Donald Trump taking 50.8%, just doing that kind of quick sketch out maths, we're seeing a difference there of about 2.8%. The reason I point that out is because in 2020 we were seeing a difference of 1.3%. That would suggest Donald Trump and his campaign gaining ground. But of

course, just to give you some more context into the importance of North Carolina, of course, of all those Sun Belt states, it is significant when you have 16 electoral college votes here up for grabs for Kamala Harris. If she is to see any kind of hole in her blue wall, it is then that she pivots to the Sun Belt strategy to try and pick up some votes there. And for Donald Trump, of course, this is a must-win state. And so therefore, I think he will be feeling reassured, his campaign will be feeling reassured, knowing

that that path to the presidency isn't quite as shaky as it could have looked without North Carolina but certainly what we're seeing is that it seems that all those rallies all that footfall from the Trump campaign in North Carolina especially in the past five days appears to have paid off. That was Helena Humphrey in North Carolina. Well our senior North America editor Sarah Smith is with the Harris Campaign outside Howard University in Washington DC. There was absolute silence when North Carolina was called. You can hear probably behind me now that the music is quite loud, that ETA is pumping it up and up.

The more the anxiety builds here, so does the music get louder and louder. But I have to say, nobody's dancing, nobody's celebrating here in any way at all they stood silently rather aghast at that call from North Carolina and reassurances are coming out from the Harris campaign telling people not to panic that it is still early that they always said this race would go to the early hours of the morning, if not into the coming days, but it's very difficult to quell people's trepidation here at the moment, as they see the path to the White House narrowing, that Harris is not ahead in the states that she would need to win to do that, and really no matter how hard they try and boost the atmosphere here either with

reassurances or with the tunes, you get the odd cheer when that will be one of the House or Senate seats that the Democrats have kept. That's the odd little bit of good news that keeps the Democrats going but as they're watching that road to the White House they are getting more and more worried. Meanwhile the BBC's Gary O'Donoghue is in West Palm Beach, near Mr Trump's private residence of Mar-a-Lago. A lot of excitement in the room here, actually, when the crowd are starting to see some of the numbers on the screen. They're very excited about the numbers in Virginia in particular,

where the race could be closer than it was last time when it went for Joe Biden. They were cheering a lot when they saw the recent vote count numbers for North Carolina and there's some big cheers obviously earlier in the evening when Fox particularly predicted Florida for Donald Trump and indeed Texas. So some big excitement in the room. I was speaking to some people, some of the special guests here who were out down the back of the room drinking wine and beer. There was a group of bikers for Trump. They were looking forward to the night. There was a group of women in this sparkly jackets who said that Donald Trump was going to make America sparkle again and they were treating this like their Christmas, they said. So a lot

of great excitement, some children here too. There was a chap with a young child, Noel, 15 months old, running around, having a lot of excitement, even someone with a baby in a stroller. So a lot of atmosphere growing here, as you can expect. Well, that was Gary O'Donoghue in Florida. So how do exit polls work in the US? What can they tell observers about voters, the

issues that motivate them and what it could mean for the final result? Joe Lensky, Executive Vice President of Edison Research, explains how they work. An exit poll is a survey of voters after they voted, whether that's in person on election day, in person at early voting stations around the country or by mail voters who they vote before election day. And we contact nearly 100,000 voters randomly selected around the country to ask them questions about who they are, why they voted the way they voted, what issues were important to them. And that information is compiled so that news organizations can analyze that data to make profiles of voters, see the trends

over the decades in which we've been conducting exit polls and to project outcomes of races around the country. Now, we've talked about the magic threshold of 270 electoral college votes to win outright, but as we keep saying, it is a very tight race. So what if it comes down to 269 each? A question for Anthony Zirka. You know, that is a scenario that we could see play out if Kamala Harris does win those blue wall battleground states and loses all the other swing states and loses one congressional district in Nebraska that Joe Biden won in 2020. That would be a 269-269 tie, which would mean that this election would

be called a contingent election. It would go to the U.S. House of Representatives to pick the president, and each state, the congressional delegation in each state would get together and decide who their state votes for. Right now, there are more congressional delegations controlled by Republicans than by Democrats, but it would come down to what the congressional makeup is in the new Congress. So the results tonight would dictate who the next president is for four years. We haven't had that happen since the 1820, I think it was, John Quincy

Adams. So it's unlikely, but here we are. This could be a new scenario in an election that has already been historic in so many ways. Anthony Zirka. So control of both chambers of Congress is also at stake in the election. Around a third of the seats are being contested in the Senate, which is currently controlled by the Democrats. In the House of Representatives, where the Republicans currently have a majority, all 435 seats are up for grabs. Oliver Conway is across what's happening. Ollie? Yes Jackie, the president is pretty powerful but needs cooperation from Congress to get things done, passing laws and confirming appointments like Supreme Court justices. Well the Republicans are projected to retake the

Senate from the Democrats. They only needed to flip two seats. West Virginia was a slam dunk for them. Once the Democrat turned independent, Senator Joe Manchin decided to stand down and their Republican governor, Jim Justice, is projected to win the Senate. A more difficult contest for the Republicans described as the most expensive congressional race ever at a cost of $425 million was in Ohio. And now it's being projected that the Republican challenger, Bernie Moreno, has beaten Democratic incumbent Sherrod Brown. And that despite him saying in September, Bernie Moreno, that is that it's a little crazy for older women to vote according

to abortion rights, but that didn't derail his campaign. He was born in Bogota in Colombia and his family brought him to the US at the age of five. He became a citizen at the age of 18. Donald Trump has called him a MAGA fighter. And what about the House? Yeah, the House of Representatives is also important. It initiates revenue bills. It can impeach officials. The Speaker of the House is third in line for succession in the presidency and if the Democrats can take it from the Republicans, Hakeem Jeffries would the Speaker of the House is third in line for succession in the presidency. And if the Democrats can take it from the Republicans,

Hakeem Jeffries would be the first Black House Speaker. Well, the Democrats need to pick up four districts to take the House. At the moment, they are down one. The Republicans have picked up three in North Carolina. The Democrats have one in Alabama, where they benefited from redistricting, and also one in New York which is a democratic pick up for them. And what about ballot measures?

Yeah, across 41 states there were 150 so-called ballot measures where citizens get to vote on a variety of things. Spending on that was $400 million. Abortion was a key one. It was on the ballot in 10 states. Voters in Arizona voted to approve a measure enshrining abortion rights in the state constitution overturning a 15-week ban. But in Florida they needed a 60% vote for yes, it got less than that which means a six-week ban on abortion stays

in place. Ollie, thank you. Still to come. This can undermine people's faith in democracy and whether their vote counts and how that system works. We'll look at the impact of misinformation on voters. My talent as an athlete is swimming long halls over the curvature of the earth. Lives Less Ordinary is the podcast with astonishing personal stories from across the globe. My past is very bad and I survived it. You have to tell the story.

Expect the unexpected. All of a sudden the car exploded. While you have to tell the story. Expect the unexpected. All of a sudden the car exploded. Lives less ordinary from the BBC World Service. Here's a thing that happened to me. Find it wherever you get your BBC podcasts. Polling was extended in some areas linked to hoax bomb threats directed at polling stations in the battleground states of Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin. Security officials said that

they were likely to be part of a foreign attempt to disrupt the election. There has been some anxiety about violence linked to the results. The first exit poll found that 70% of those questioned said they expected trouble. There could be rioting in the streets. I'm afraid of what could be. There's going to probably be some kind of violence from a fringe group of Americans, regardless of the outcome. But we can't stop progress simply because we're afraid something bad might happen. Jim Nochte met voters in Virginia and found that the capital riot of January the 6th after the 2020 vote still weighs heavily.

Our country looks different to January 6th. They say how we're the laughing stock of the, or Biden's the laughing stock. I don't think so. I think January 6th is the laughing stock. Do you think the image of January the 6th sticks in people's minds? If it doesn't, I don't know what does. So to me, that's the most humiliating day that I've ever been an American.

People that did that should be in jail for a long time. Well, as Olly mentioned earlier, 10 US states also held ballots on abortion rights, with voters deciding on whether to preserve, extend or restrict access to terminations. Florida narrowly retained the current ban after six weeks of pregnancy. New York, Maryland and Arizona appear to have voted to enshrine reproductive rights in their state constitutions. The early exit polls found that abortion wasn't the most important issue in the presidential campaign.

The state of democracy and the economy were at the top of voters' concerns. But those polls do appear to show a gender gap in voter interests. They suggest 55% of women saying that they'd voted for Kamala Harris, with only 43% supporting Donald Trump. But among men, 53% said they'd voted for Mr Trump and 44% said they'd chosen Ms Harris. Before the election this is what Donald Trump had to say. And my people told me about four weeks ago I would say no I want to protect the

people I want to protect the women of our country I want to protect the women sir please don't say that why they said we think it's we think it's very inappropriate for you to say. I said why? I'm president. I want to protect the women of our country. They said well I'm going to do it whether the women like it or not. I'm going to protect them. Kamala Harris insisted only the Democrats were prepared to protect women's rights. He does not believe women should have the agency and authority to make decisions about their own bodies.

This is the same man who said women should be punished for their choices. He simply does not respect the freedom of women or the intelligence of women to know what's in their own best interests and make decisions accordingly. But we trust women." So what a women voters been saying. We heard from Christina Melisaris Elia and Zina Alplanalp at a Republican watch party in the swing state of North Carolina. For me it's very personal. I'm a mom, I raise five daughters and when we sit around the kitchen table we talk about what affects us daily. We're looking at high gas prices, groceries,

daycare, safety. Safety is a very big issue. We're looking at the border that's not secure. So all of these issues really hit all of the women in our family. And we're not a one-issue monolith. Women have a lot of issues on their mind, and so we are really looking forward to Trump helping us with all of that. Women lead the household. So they decide what bills to pay, so extracurricular activities, tutoring, you know, that all goes sideways because now they can't afford simple things like gas prices or rent.

So every issue is a woman's issue. We're the ones dealing with all the impacts of this current economy. So I think that's why a lot of women are going out to vote. We're not single issue voters. I think that's very important for people to know. So how important to this election result might abortion end up being? A question for Celynda Lake, one of the Democratic Party's leading political strategists. Huge. It's been a sea change and we've seen tremendous impact. All of the states are about ten points more pro-abortion now than they were.

All of the initiatives have been passing in every state, and of course, Nevada and Arizona have initiatives. It's increased registration among younger women at astronomical rates. Younger women are now turning out at higher rates than any group of men. So it's very, very persuasive, very persuasive to suburban women who do not want to live in a world where our daughters and our granddaughters have fewer rights than we do. There are ballot measures relating to abortion in 10 states across the United States tonight, but you know some people talk about a split ticket in the sense you may have a Republican woman who is voting for Donald Trump at the top of the ticket, but for an abortion

measure to give more access to abortion at the bottom of the ballot, but for an abortion measure to give more access to abortion at the bottom of the ballot. Can you see that happening? There is some of that for sure. And what we've tried to make the point is this is a real clear distinction. And Donald Trump has tried to hide his position. He's tried to say, I'll pay for IVF. He's tried to say, I'm not going to do birth control. He says, I'm going to stay, leave it up to the states. But the states have turned crazy. Like Arizona went back to an 1864 law, and the Arizona initiative is going

to pass tonight for sure. So I think the campaigns have worked hard to connect this to the candidates and say, you can't on the one hand vote for a candidate who's against the initiative when you're voting for the initiative. I've heard this term often. it might be the Rose versus the Bros and some saying that Kamala Harris has not done enough with younger men to

get them to turn out, has kind of left that particular demographic to Donald Trump. Do you think that's a fair characterization? I don't think it's a fair characterization. She's worked very hard on young men but younger men are pretty Republican and younger men are pretty Republican. And younger men right now are voting, particularly blue collar men, are voting the politics of resentment, the politics of being left behind economically. And right now the gender gap between non-college educated men and college educated women is 43 points.

That's a gender chasm. That's not just a gender gap. That was Celynda Lake, a Democratic Party political strategist on how the vote lines up on gender lines. Well, let's hear about the part race is playing in this election. Here's Azadeh Mosheiri. Let's look at a battleground state because voting has closed in Georgia. So we can look at a detailed breakdown of how different groups have voted. And what we're seeing is a stark difference, a division amongst racial lines. Now you'll see that about seven in 10 white voters voted for Donald Trump. Whereas when you look at who voted for Kamala Harris, it's very different.

About eight out of 10 black voters have voted for Kamala Harris. Now both those figures are about on par with 2020, though when it comes to black voters it's maybe just a little less for Kamala Harris than it was for Joe Biden in 2020. We also see that more black women voted for Kamala Harris than black men, though again that's the same as in 2020 for Joe Biden. So overall, you're seeing that black voters are driving the vote for the Democrats as they did in 2016 for Hillary Clinton, as they did in 2020 for Joe Biden, and as they're doing now for Kamala Harris in 2024. And when it comes to Trump, white voters, particularly white voters without college

degrees, are holding steady for Donald Trump. Now if you look at the Hispanic Latino voters, Kamala Harris is in the lead, though that number is still slightly less than it was in 2020. Now battleground state numbers, exit poll data is particularly interesting because this election is won state by state and this is how different groups are voting so far. Azadeh Mosheili. The decision made by American voters will obviously have repercussions far beyond US borders. The BBC international editor Jeremy Bowen has been talking to Clive Meyre about what it might mean, starting with Israel's wars against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

No matter who is in the White House, support for Israel in America is a given. That is going to continue. The question is whether there are conditions attached to it. Israel would not have been able to do what it's done in the last more than a year now without the help and support of Joe Biden in terms of weapons deliveries and diplomatic support. So while Biden has had some doubts and concerns about the way that Israel has been fighting its war, he's continued with those arms deliveries. So the big question is, the new president, whoever that person is, would those deliveries

continue? Quite likely. Would there be more pressure on the Israelis to do the kinds of things Biden has wanted them to do in terms of not killing as many civilians, for example, if the war is still going on by then? Kamala Harris's rhetoric has been a little bit different. I think Donald Trump, though, his impact on this would be in terms of more pressure on Iran. When he was president before, that was one of his big focuses. And I think that the Israelis have got eyes on trying to do more against Iran. If Iran hits them again, hitting their nuclear facilities, perhaps, hitting their oil industry, that's something Biden didn't want them to do.

If Donald Trump's in the White House, that might happen. For many countries in the West, international security has been underpinned by NATO. Donald Trump has suggested he might pull America out of NATO. I mean, one, is that a likelihood? But two, what would that mean? Yeah, well, I think when he was president, he talked like that, people somewhat discounted it. However, he's said many times he feels that a lot of people in Europe, a lot of countries

have been basically freeloading off America. And I think he's probably correct in that, because they've allowed their defense budgets in some cases to dwindle right away, relying on this American protection. And he's been saying to them, and I think that message has got through, and not just when he was president but also under the Biden presidency, that they have to spend more. And that's what they're doing, because of course there is concern about the war in Ukraine, the Russia-Ukraine war, and the way that that's going. I think one thing that is going to be really important is if he says anything about the Article 5 obligations

in the North Atlantic Treaty. That's the mutual defense. You attack one, you attack all. If he even slightly stepped back from that, you'd find countries in the front line against Russia, the Baltic Republics, Poland, they would be deeply, deeply concerned. Jeremy Bowen.

The FBI has warned that bad actors have been using its name and insignia to spread false blog posts and films about the election. And social media have played a big part in the campaigning. Our disinformation correspondent is Marianna Spring. I've been looking for quite a while now, not just today, but over several weeks at the allegations of voter fraud, often that are spreading on social media.

Some of these have been unfounded, and actually one that's been shared this evening has been posted by Donald Trump, where he suggested that there was massive cheating in Philadelphia. He didn't give any more specifics. He suggested that law enforcement were getting involved. That's been rebutted, including by the district attorney in Philadelphia, Larry Krasner, who said there's no factual basis to this, and he invited Donald Trump to share some evidence to support this idea. And this isn't the only thing we've been

seeing. There have been some real examples of where there have been problems or errors. For example, in Cambria County, there were some issues with voting machines that led to an extension for the time that people were able to vote. But some of this stuff then plays into more unfounded allegations of voter fraud, which have spread not just on Truth Social, that post I mentioned for Donald Trump was shared there, but also on X, which we used to call Twitter. A lot of these have been pushed and shared by supporters of Donald Trump, but some of them have also been promoted by supporters of Kamala Harris in some instances. They play into existing concerns

around voting machines or that there have been irregularities in some way, often without evidence to support that idea. This matters because this can undermine people's faith in democracy and whether their vote counts and how that system works. It also can have an impact for some of the people on the front lines here, election workers who are trying to ensure that they can kind of keep democracy on the road, but have found themselves certainly some of who I've spoken to in recent weeks under threat, receiving a huge amount of abuse and really not very nice stuff.

That was Marianna Spring. And that's it from this extra edition of the Global News podcast. As I speak, the time is 5.22 GMT. The count is well underway and there will be another edition in a few hours as we get more of an idea of how the count in the US is going. If you want to get in touch our email address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk. You can also find us on X at Global News Pod. This edition was mixed by Caroline Driscoll. The producer was Anna Murphy. Our editor is Karen Martin.

I'm Jackie Leonard. And until next time, goodbye. I'm Krassi Twigg from the Global Jigsaw Podcast from the BBC World Service, where we are examining what one official called Russia's special demographic operation. The country's population is shrinking fast and its leaders have come up with a range of measures to reverse the decline. Will the plan work? The Global Jigsaw looks at the world through the lens of its media.

Find us wherever you get your BBC podcasts.