#RolandMartinUnfiltered - 11.6: #Election2019; VA. State gov't flipped Blue; New mayor in Flint; Dem Beshear wins KY Gov. race

Episode Date: November 13, 2019

11.6.19 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: #Election2019 election results; Democrats flip VA. State government in Blue wave; New mayor in Flint, MI; Democrat Andy Beshear wins Kentucky's governor's race; Democrats scramble to lock up the Latino vote; Virginia woman who flipped off Trump and lost her job wins election; Kansas City votes to remove MLK Boulevard. - #RolandMartinUnfiltered partner: Life Luxe Jazz Life Luxe Jazz is the experience of a lifetime, delivering top-notch music in an upscale destination. The weekend-long event is held at the Omnia Dayclub Los Cabos, which is nestled on the Sea of Cortez in the celebrity playground of Los Cabos, Mexico. For more information visit the website at lifeluxejazz.com. Can't make it to Los Cabos for the Life Luxe Jazz Fest? Get your live stream pass at https://gfntv.com/ #RolandMartinUnfiltered partner: Ebony Foundation | Home by the Holiday Home by the Holiday aims to reunite Black and Latino families separated by bail, while challenging racial injustice and mass incarceration. For more info visit https://www.homebytheholiday.com/ Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Have a great show Thank you. Thank you. Martin! Thank you. Thank you. Hey, folks, it is election night, 2018. Black votes matter. Roland Martin unfiltered. We're going to have the blackest show on all of digital, cable, and broadcast. We've got our analysts lined up. We've got four on the set right now. Trust me, I've got about 30 more waiting to come on as well. Tonight, we're going to be hearing from Black Voters Matter, hearing from B-Woke as well,

hearing from Reverend Jesse Jackson Sr., from Rashad Robinson, also Mark Morial, Lawrence Community for Civil Rights Underlaw, Christian Clark, you name it. We're going to have them on the show right here. Jackson Sr from Rashad Robinson. Also Mark Morial Lawyers Committee for civil rights under law. Christian Clark, you name it. We're going to have them on the show right here breaking down this election. Following what's happening in Georgia, will Stacey Abrams win become the first black female governor in American history?

Andrew Gillum will he win in Florida? Been jealous. Could he win in Maryland? You also have African Americans who are running for attorney generals all across the country as well. Plus, the Congressional Black Caucus could very well have 56 members by the end of tonight. What is going on? And of course, you also have black Republicans who are running. Will this be the night where America sends a message to Donald Trump that they are sick and tired of his shenanigans? That could be the case. Democrats, will they take over the House?

Can Republicans hold on to the United States Senate formerly incarcerated folks will get the right to vote in Florida? What about marijuana as on the initiative as well plus those egregious constitutional amendments in North Carolina? Will they put voter suppression

in the state constitution? Folks, we're gonna have a packed five hours. Yes, the next five hours we're going to be here breaking down this election for you in a way nobody else will do. And guess what? Your black networks out there, you know what they're showing? Movies and reality shows. Not here.

That's why Roland Martin Unfiltered matters. And that's why we're here for you tonight. It's time to bring the funk. Let's go. He's got it. Whatever the funk. Let's go. to news to politics with entertainment just for kicks he's rolling it's Uncle Roro y'all it's rolling Martin

rolling with rolling now he's funky, he's fresh he's real the best you know he's fresh, he's real, the best you know, he's Roland Martin. Now. Martin. Welcome to all of our folks in America and across the world who are watching Roland Martin unfiltered.

That's right, we've got fans, of course, in Africa, in Europe, in Canada, and the West Indies, in the Caribbean, watching the show as well. We're going to be breaking down election year 2018, the midterm elections, right here and away. Nobody else is going to, of course, because we understand how important this race is. All today across the country, folks have been going to the polls, some not being able to actually vote. And so we don't know exactly what's happening there, especially in Georgia, but we're going to be breaking that thing down. And so, look, we've got a great show lined up for you folks, all kinds of individuals who are ready to talk about what's happening in this election. But again, let's set the table. What we have tonight, huge implications. Will Democrats take control of the U.S. House?

Will Republicans keep control of the United States Senate? That's the major things that folks are watching. What you also then have, you have your gubernatorial races. Republicans have 33 governors' mansions. They're one away from the record. But tonight, Democrats could very well pick up anywhere from eight to ten gubernatorial victories tonight, Democrats could very well pick up anywhere from eight to ten gubernatorial victories tonight, including three African-Americans who are running in Maryland, who are running in Florida, as well as in Georgia.

But beyond those races, we're also watching a number of other races out there, key congressional races. Lucy McBath, the mother of Jordan Davis, of course it was shot and killed there in Florida by supposedly his music being too loud. She is actually running against Karen Handel in Georgia. You also have a young oppression. She because she could become the first person of color to represent

Massachusetts in the United States Congress. Also, you have Johanna Hayes, who is running in Connecticut as well. And so and Stephen Horsford in Nevada, former congressman who lost his seat, trying to reclaim it out West. And so we're Horsford in Nevada, former congressman who lost his seat trying to reclaim it out west. And so we're watching all of those races in addition to statewide races where African-Americans are running. You've got African-Americans who are running on Republican

and the Democratic side for attorney general in New York, as well as in Illinois. You've got African-American who is running for attorney general in Florida, in Nevada, in Minnesota, in several different places. And so we're watching all of those races, giving you the updates, but also breaking down the analysis in terms of what this means, not only for people of color, for African-Americans, but also for the country. Now, of course, we've been focused this entire season on voter suppression. And what we have seen today has been an absolute abomination all across this country.

We've heard reports in Texas of people showing up and being machines not working What we have seen today has been an absolute abomination all across this country. We've heard reports in Texas of people showing up and then machines not working and hundreds of people actually leaving. We've seen the exact same thing in Georgia, where at one point we saw a video today where people were lined up and they forgot the power cables to the election machines. Here's a video that Scott Dworkin also posted on social media earlier today. Election day started an hour ago in my neighborhood and we don't have cords to plug in the voting machines. We all knew that voting was today.

And only in my neighborhood, people are waiting an hour after the polls open to vote. And they're saying that we don't have power cords. Opportunistic. Everyone in the world knew we were going to vote today. And in my neighborhood, there are no power cords. Building is full of power, no power cords. All these dedicated people waiting to vote.

This is what we call voter suppression. This is what we go through to vote. In case anyone was wondering. As you will see, no one in the voting precinct. No one is voting. Precinct is empty. Now, folks, let me tell you something. My parents have worked polls for a number of years. In fact, they are working the polls as we speak in Dallas County.

I can guarantee you the folks who run the polls doing it do a check 48 hours before an election where they go over ballots. They go over the voting machines. They go over all of those things you needed to open the polls on time at 7AM. This makes no sense whatsoever. That is not the only issue

that we have seen in Georgia. We've seen the exact same thing all across that state. In fact, there was one polling location where they had three booths. Line was out the door. They had three boots. Also, we've had folks have

been posting tweets as well. Well, they took four and a half hours just to vote in Georgia because of the problems and this is again fundamental. Now the folks of the problems. And this is again fundamental. Now the folks at the Lawrence Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. They've been monitoring this. They also want folks to call 1866.

Our vote if you have any issues out there as well, we've seen folks turn away suggesting they didn't have voter ID. And in fact, Brittany Noble is a journalist. She said her grandmother. They said she needed two forms of ID.D. to vote in Illinois. They turned her away and we're going to get her on the phone, talk to her as well to find out what's going on there.

And so and so said again. All right. So so not only that, tell you how bad this is in terms of what's been going on. Greg Palace, we've seen him on our show several different times where he's been outlining the purging of folks from the rolls. This 92-year-old black woman went to vote today, and this woman has not moved, y'all. This black woman has not moved, but her name was purged from the rolls in Georgia. This video was posted. Has this ever happened to you before? Never. How long you been voting?

All my life, ever since I was little girl. But I didn't vote right here. Ever since 1968. And it's just, it's horrible. And I say that because the West End, she's been in this community back when we could, when they were doing sit-ins. She held civil rights meetings in her home. And today to come out and not be able to vote and no one can give you an explanation,

like it's extremely emotional and it bothers me it bothers me to my core like there's actually no record of her whatsoever voting in any election whatsoever and it's ridiculous i'm sorry i want to introduce our panel right now we have a great car of course chair afro-american studies department how have Greg Carr, of course, chair of the Afro-American Studies Department at Howard University. We have, of course, Spencer Overton. He is joint secretary for political and economic studies. We also have, of course, Chris Metzler as well, our conservative analyst. And, of course, we have, of course, leadership strategist Avis Jones-DeWeaver,

how exceptional black women lead. Avis, I'll start with you. When you see that video, again, this whole thing about vote purging is if you miss an election or if you move. That black woman has not missed elections. She has not. She has not. She's fought for this day. And as I sat here and watched that, I was absolutely and still am livid, absolutely livid. This is what happens when you have the fox guarding the hen house. This was not something that was accidental. This was not an oversight. This is blatant voter suppression. This is blatant Jim Crow tactics. This is about stealing an election. And I hope to God he doesn't get away

with it. And Chris, Chris, at the end of the day, how do you not know this day is coming that's first i mean so no power cables running out of ballots three voting booths i mean i i voted a long time i can't tell you last time i went to a popular place and there were three voting booths yeah so here's the problem the problem is you have the secretary of state who is responsible for the execution of elections who now wants to be the governor. Look, I'm sorry, but if you cannot make sure that you have power cords, how can we expect you to run a state? And I am as conservative as they come, but this issue for me is problematic because you want to run the state of Georgia. You understand what's going on,

and you have no power courts? It's just one of those things. Hold tight one second. I'm going to get to Spencer and Greg in just one moment, but I want to go right now to the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, their war room. They've, of course, they've been monitoring these things one of those things hold tight one second i'm gonna get dispenser and greg in just one moment but i want to go right now to the lawless community for civil rights under law their war room they've of course they've been monitoring these things for the past uh several weeks but especially what's been happening today so joining us right now is christian clark of course she

leads the largest community for civil rights under law christian uh welcome to uh our black votes matter 2018 election coverage oh my christian can you hear me? Can you hear him? He's talking to you. Hi, how are you? Christian, all right, glad to have you here. So first off, we just played that video of a 92-year-old black woman in Georgia who's been living in the same place and voting in the same place since 1968. Her name was purged from the rolls. Y'all have been getting phone calls. Give us a sense of the volume of calls that y'all have been receiving there at 1-866-OUR-VOTE. Yeah, as about 5 p.m. today, Roland, we received about 25,000 calls from voters. And these are not one-off complaints. A lot of the complaints that we heard about today were reflecting issues and problems impacting

entire communities. You know, I'm talking about polling sites that opened up several hours late, polling sites with lines that were several hours long because machines were malfunctioning. We found ourselves in a position of having to go to court to try and secure an extension of polling hours. And we've done that with some success in a few places, including most recently in Fulton County, where polling hours have been extended for Pittman Park until 9 p.m. tonight and at two polling sites on Morehouse's campus, which are now open until 10 p.m.

But our office has just been abuzz all day since 6 o'clock this morning, and we're going all night. Our job is to stay here until the polls close and to make sure every voter gets heard today. You can call 866-OUR-VOTE, 866-OUR-VOTE, or text OUR-VOTE to the number 97779, and you will get help. The one thing that I would caution as we move into the latter part of Election Day is if you're standing in line, it doesn't matter how long that line is or what poll workers tell you. If you're in line when the polls close, you have the right to stay in that line until you get to cast your ballot. So we encourage people to hold the line and make sure their voice is heard tonight. Kristen, you talk about, of course, those 25,000 phone calls.

We also have seen examples of what has been happening in Texas. We've seen other examples. I've seen various tweets where people have been turned away at the polls saying that you can't even do a provisional ballot. And the kinds of things that have been thrown out there. It's amazing and just just the different information from one polling booth to the other polling location. I mean, it's just crazy. And what this speaks to is the problem that we have in this country that which people

don't realize we don't have national elections. States run elections and then you have these different counties who have their own rules. And so that's what was one black woman in fact there was a video and we want to show a little bit later where there's one white woman so yelling at this black woman because she was confused because she was registered to vote in williamson county uh outside of austin but she lived in travis county and so all the woman had to tell her was you vote where you live she yelled at her and cursed her out and and threatened to call the cops

on this black woman. She was fired from her job as a polling supervisor. That's the madness that we're seeing. And it's not like we didn't know November 6th was election day. Exactly. I mean, we have so much work to do to improve the way that we run and operate elections in our country, which is why it gets me so frustrated when I hear people talking and pushing voter suppression and talking about vote fraud, which doesn't exist. We have 50 states that, and it's like the wild, wild west, just as you said, 50 states that are all buying their own voting equipment and coming up with their own rules and coming up with their own training requirements. And as a result, it is just a patchwork of chaos around the country.

That said, we're here to fight. We're here to help people overcome the obstacles. And tomorrow we'll catch our breath and start to turn to the important work that we need to do to get ready for future local elections and most importantly for 2020. And again, last question for you. You said, of course, your lawyers are ready. I take it you have lawyers who have been volunteering in every locale. So you have people who are on the ground in those places, not just based here in D.C., correct? That's right. And it's not just the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law that's been leading this operation. We've got about 100 local and state partners that are right now boots on the ground. We've got 100 law firms that have opened up their doors and are

hosting call centers. So it really is an army of an operation. And we've been pushing back against election officials, standing up for voters, going to court if and when we need to. Our job here today is to make sure that every voice is heard, and we're going to keep doing it tomorrow, too. All right. Kristen Clark, Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. They're from the war room there. Again, the number is 1-866-OUR-VOTE, 1-866-OUR-VOTE. our vote. Y'a an amazing job this whole and thank goodness to hav who are there fighting fo Kristen, we appreciate it

so much for having me. Al now I want to go to a Spen what we're seeing is flat And this is just not affe Right. This is affecting out there. There were issues in New York State, which is an overwhelmingly Democratic state, and they have fundamental issues there. There's a problem in this nation when it comes to how we deal with voting.

And, of course, you authored a book on the whole issue of voter suppression and voting rights. Right, that's right. So we've got 3,000, over 3,000 different counties. So basically your right to vote depends on where you live because we've got 3,000 different sets of voting rules here. In a place like Georgia, right, talk about this Fox guarding the hen house, Brian Kemp, Secretary of State administering election, but he's also running for governor, right? So we saw the exact match piece, which was basically rejected by courts. The attempt to hold up voter registrations now is, hey, the Democratic Party is hacking the election system. Really just this incentive to just to

cloud the issues here, take it away from the policy issues, right, and get into this suppression piece. This notion of history, Roland, you know, folks didn't just suppress black voters in the past because they were just racist. They did it to win elections. Right. And the same thing we see happening today. Greg Carr, again, it is stunning to see these videos folks are posting. You see these massive long lines. Anybody with a brain who paid attention could see what was going on. Georgia, 940,000 people voted early in Georgia in 2014.

This year, 2.1 million. In Harris County, where Houston is located, 900,000 plus people voted in the entire 2014 midterms, period. That includes election day. This year, early voting alone exceeded one million. If you're running a polling station, the first thing you say is, hey, y'all, we're going to need more stuff than we normally use because these numbers are big. And in Cobb County in Georgia, they're in Texas.

In other places, they're going, oh, my God, we're being overwhelmed. What the hell do you think if you were paying attention? Well, brother, the beautiful thing about this show and this coverage is that we don't deal in illusions. The aspiration is that America do that. But we know the reality as we've heard and I agree with you, Avis. Brian Kemp, this is all deliberate. Brian Kemp is in the proud tradition of the Talmadge father and son governors of Georgia, Lester Maddox. He is a proud white supremacist. He is, in fact, the Chris Kobach of Georgia.

They are going to try to steal this election because they're not just worried about a blue wave. They're worried about a black, brown, and yellow wave, brother. The Harper's Magazine just published an article where the guy argues that by 2040, 70% of the people who live in this country are going to live in 15 states. They are fighting for their way of life, and they're not going to back up. Now, what are we doing in response? We just saw, Kristen, this thing is not going to be over tonight. There's going to be a lot of

litigation. I mean, these lawyers are out here serious, seriously. Look at North Dakota. They're turning away Native Americans for having Avenue on their ID instead of street. But the beautiful thing is our blood-canned Native American brothers and sisters are set up making IDs on street. Yes, absolutely. Yes, absolutely. That's exactly what's happening. And so, folks, so here's what's going on here. All night, we're going to, of course, be breaking down election results. Results right now are in early when the Associated Press, when they start calling these races, will give it to you as well. But also the reason that we, look, you can easily watch the other cable networks or broadcast networks to get those results.

Why are we doing this? Because our voices also matter. Turn on those networks. You might see one black person. Right. The whole hour. Right. Right. It's five black people right now. Yeah. You're going to see you're going to see by five black people, some of those networks by midnight, 1 a.m., 2 a.m. The reason we're doing this is because, again, we want to get an analysis, but also talk to people who the cable networks and the broadcast networks will not call. Like my next guest.

She's one of the co-founders of Black Voters Matter, Latasha Brown. She's there in Georgia. She is there with Cliff. They have filed a lawsuit against Brian Kemp. They gave us that exclusive about an hour ago latasha and cliff uh give us the details of the lawsuit you filed literally a couple of hours ago against brian kent well i'll talk a little bit about the lawsuit about an hour um a couple of hours ago we found a lawsuit some individuals at the official um we filed a lawsuit against brian kemp because it is a due process issue.

He can't be the, he can't, in the Constitution, it makes a provision, you can't be the judge and the jury. So there, what has happened in this election cycle is the same election cycle that he's actually counted and presided over, he's actually the subject of, and he's at the top of the ticket. So we're asking the court to intervene and do an injunction so that he steps aside and he no longer is presiding over the election process. But beyond that, the reason why that's the case is because we've been all around the state today and we've heard all kinds of stories that Cliff can share about from voters and our groups that we're working with about some of the things that are happening in George. Cliff, go ahead.

Yeah, I mean, we've heard, you know, starting with early today, we heard about polling places where usually there's 30 machines, but this time around there were only 15 machines. We've heard about polling places even right now, you know, at the other end of the time. We're right now at a place where we heard that they were trying to close the doors early and not letting some people who are online be able to go in and vote. And then we've heard all kinds of things in between. But the important thing to remember is everything that we've seen today is just a continuation of the suppression that we've seen coming out of Kemp's office ever since he's been in that position.

Over the past six, seven years, they've purged one and a half billion voters. Right now, they're holding on to 53,000 voter registration forms, 70% of which are black voters. And so we've seen over years, we've seen the closing of polling places. And so everything we've seen today, it's just a continuation of suppression

that we've been seeing for years. And all of that comes during the time where we've got to remember that the Voting Rights Act was gutted by the Supreme Court. Well, and that is critically important, LaTosha and Cliff, because that is what gave DOG the right to look over these states' shoulders. And these states were very afraid to make these type of moves. The moment Shelby B. Holder was decided five to four in the favor of gutting Section 4, every single state that Republicans were in control of, they rushed to implement many of these voter suppression laws. They rushed to implement voter ID. The purging of roles, and that actually happened after a white man in Ohio sued the state for being purged.

That case went all the way to the Supreme Court, and it was Neil Gorsuch, of course, who was placed on the Supreme Court when they held up the position under President Barack Obama to allow Antony Scalia, actually after he died, they held it up. That was a 5-4 decision where they allowed Ohio to purge the rolls. And right now, there are some 30 states. They have laws pending where they want to be able to do the exact same thing to begin to purge the rose. LaTosha, we showed a video earlier of a 92-year-old black woman

who had been voting in the same place since 1968. Her granddaughter was in tears because her name was not on the rose. Her name had been purged. That's right. That's right. We're all kinds of stories. We had a story of a woman who actually voted in the primary and then she showed up to the polls today and said that her name was brought. So how was she brought from the primary to the general election? We've seen all kinds of inconsistencies throughout voting. We've seen polling places. We got a call from a polling place that actually at 12 o'clock

that said at 7 o'clock the machines went down and no one had voted between the hours of 7 and 12. So there are all kinds of shenanigans that are going on. That's why we think that it's really important

that we educate ourselves, that we come out in record numbers, but we recognize that the fight doesn't end today. This is just one portion, but we've got one fight to make sure that the Voting Rights Act is restored. But we also got to reimagine and think, what is it that we need so that we don't keep going through this cycle that is permanent, that protects the interest and the rights of voters to have free and fair access to the ballot. We are not going back and we're not going to continue to fight for something that we got 25 years ago or 50 years ago. It's time for us

to have a new paradigm. It is a new America. This is a new day. We're going to make sure that we have the things in place that we need to make sure that as citizens, our voices are heard. All right, then Latasha Brown, Cliff Albright, co-founders of Black Voters Matter. We certainly appreciate you joining us on Roland Martin Unfiltered, the blackest election night show out here. We appreciate it. Thanks a lot. All right.

Thank you, Roland. We appreciate you, Robin. All right. Thanks a lot. I want to go to our panel here. And, again, folks, do me a favor. If y'all can get Alicia Reese, Ohio State Rep, on the phone, because I want to talk about her Ohio Bill of Rights, where she wants to be able to put that in the state constitution.

So if y'all can get her on the phone, that'd be great. Go to our panel here. Again, what they talked about, and this is the reason why I want to talk to Alicia, because at the end of the day, the only way you change this is if you put the fundamental right to vote in these constitutions, because that's what's going to stop this nonsense from happening. Absolutely. That's the ultimate remedy. The challenge is, as has been alluded to, Dr. Carr was exactly right. You know, the other side, they see. They see that the demographics are changing. The nation is changing. We only have about another generation. In fact, shoot, today, the majority of babies born in America are babies of color, today. And so the clock is ticking in terms of a white majority in this nation. And if you are unwilling then to compete in a fair way, to sit here and lay out your policies to try to earn people's vote,

and if you are unwilling to do that, which obviously many people are, the thing that you do then is you steal the vote. You only allow those people who are like you to vote. And that's what we're seeing right now. And so hopefully that Ohio effort is successful. It's that sort of thing that we'll need to have happen piecemeal by piecemeal all across the country. Chris, the issue for me flat out is very simple. I don't care if you're Republican or Democrat. You should have the fundamental right to vote. You should not be

blocking folks because they're veterans. You should not be blocking people because they are young, because they are old. There should be automatic voter registration. You should not have a situation where folks are being purged from voter rolls. It should be automatic, period. Yeah, well, I agree with you on that. I think it should be a fundamental right. But from many of my Republican colleagues standpoint, in fact, there is nothing wrong with the system. From a number of their perspectives, the issue is, in fact, there is access to the ballot. All you have to do is show your ID and all you have to do is make sure that you're not committing voter fraud. I mean, so from that perspective, I agree with you completely that, in fact, there should be a fundamental right to vote. But looking at it from the Republican perspective, in many cases,

that fundamental right exists. But the Republican perspective is one that talks about limited government. It talks about liberty in government not getting in the way of exercising liberty. The right to vote is one of the most fundamental rights in terms of liberty. Why do conservatives use the state, the power of government, to suppress the liberty of citizens? Well, so, and that's a fair question. But from the standpoint of Republicans and conservatives, I view true conservatives and Republicans as very different. So from a conservative perspective, you're absolutely correct. It is the issue of limited government. From a Republican standpoint, though, that is not the view that many of my, not all, but many of my colleagues have,

is that, hey, you know, this is the right exists. All you have to do is, in fact. And the reason why is because they're not consistent. I mean, it's hypocritical. It's not consistent. If they really believed in limited government, they wouldn't want to have the government in my uterus, for example. How about that? But they want it there, too. Okay. So it's not consistent. It's about twisting your ideology to move forward in terms of your political goals. And the political goal here is to maintain and take power by any means necessary, even if that means trampling over your rights. No, that's right. And then there's a little matter of the 10th Amendment. All powers that are not enumerated by the federal government are reserved to the state.

Correct. What we're about to see is probably an inversion in this country. Stacey Abrams in Georgia, Andrew Gillum in Florida, who will get three Supreme Court picks to the Supreme Court when he's elected. You know, the laboratories of democracies of the states, it's going to be very interesting to watch progressives,

black and brown people and other and white folks who ain't lost their minds begin to argue for states' rights because, you know, Dr. Jones-Weaver is right. You got three states in this country, Oregon, Alabama and West Virginia,

who have anti-abortion measures on the ballot tonight. And, by the way, it looks like they've called the Virginia 10th, I think. So it looks like maybe one of the first blue is coming in. Yeah, I'm going to be giving some of those election results in just a second. I want to go right now, though, to FaceTime where Ohio State Rep Alicia Reese, she joins us. She, of course, has been trying to get this initiative, this Ohio Bill of Rights, on the ballot to allow voters in Ohio to actually put the right to vote in the state constitution. Alicia, how you doing?

I'm doing great. I'm here at the Hamilton County Board of Elections and looking for those results in Ohio. Right now, early voting is coming in and we're looking for good. We could turn Ohio up to a blue state. Hopefully Alicia on this particular issue again this Bill of Rights is critically important because what we're seeing in Georgia, seeing in Florida in Texas at the end of the day,

if you're able to change these state constitutions then put the right to vote in the state constitution, you really are able to thwart a lot of the nonsense and shenanigans that we are seeing all across this country. Absolutely, Roland. You know, after this election, we got all of our pleas to get the voter bill up. We talked about it at the 50th anniversary of our seat.

We've got over 100,000 signatures. We've got to put the language, all those kind of things, in the digital platform. We've just got to get it done. We have to have it done. In Ohio, we had a fund dealing with low-level doctors to make it real, get treatment. And Mark Zuckerberg put up $13 million. It's going to be successful, we think, tonight. Waterville Arise deserves that.

And we need it in Georgia. We need it right now. We're going to see how it goes. Hold tight one second. So we have some audio issues there for folks. So do me a favor. If we can actually get Alicia on the phone, we can actually hear her a lot better. And so we want to do that also, folks. Again, a favor. If you actually get Alicia on the phone, we can actually hear her a lot better. And so we want to do that.

Also, folks, again, what we're seeing right now, we're seeing a number of results come in. Let's talk about in the United States Senate, Bob Menendez. Of course, he had been on trial for corruption. Of course, that was a mistrial in that case. He had been getting nailed by Republicans. He was running against a Republican in that state who poured nearly $40 million of his own money into his campaign. Republicans were really hoping they could pick up that seat. Well, that's not going to happen. They're projecting that Bob Menendez is going to win in New Jersey. And Chris, again, that was one of those seats that Republicans were hopeful

they could grab. That's not the case. Again, it's still going to be very tough for Democrats. They have a very slim path to take control of the United States Senate. Many projections have shown that Republicans may end up 52-48. Right now it's 51-49. We'll see what happens with that. But again, that is critically important because Donald Trump basically campaigns solely to save the Senate because he wants to be able to protect those federal judges. Yeah, and that's absolutely correct. If you look at what he has done in the closing days, it was in fact to save the Senate. You know, as a conservative strategist, I don't understand why they spent that much money in New Jersey.

I get the Menendez stuff, but to me, that's a complete waste of resources because, in fact, he was never going to lose that seat. So it goes to the question of strategy. Well, he had some pretty significant allegations against him. He did. As a criminal defense lawyer, I'll be honest with you. Hold up, hold up, before you jump in there, folks. Joining us now is A. Scott Bode, of course, former head of the D.C. Democratic Party,

a lawyer here in D.C. Greg Carr, of course, from Howard University, will be joining us a little bit later. We've got a number of people going to be in our panel tonight, and so you can expect to see faces coming and going. Now that I've properly introduced him, Scott, go ahead him I can't believe you probably introduced me but I did call you a punk ass capital that's why you dress it like a cute why don't you go ahead finish your point good in every color, my mama told me.

Oh, please, your mama lied to you. In any event, the allegations against Menendez were significant. And while it was a hung jury and eventually the government walked away from it, he was damaged enough, not just the corruption allegations against his friend on the Medicaid reimbursement issue he was helping, but he was also accused of being with young women in foreign countries and that's what the republicans used against him i may not have spent 40 million but that's a vulnerable seat in and of itself whether he gets convicted or not also what we're seeing right now

uh spencer uh we're seeing results again come in uh and beto o'rourke is up in texas 40 percent of the vote is in up in texas uh not I'm going to pull up in a second to see where those votes are coming from. It was massive, massive turnout all across Texas in the major counties. Harris County, where Houston is, Dallas County, where Dallas is, Bayer County, where San Antonio is, Travis County, where Austin is. But historically, what has happened is Democrats got crushed in East Texas, in West Texas, and Latinos did not turn out in big numbers in South Texas. We'll see what happens tonight. I know in Harris County, a huge turnout among Latinos in early voting as well. Everybody's watching that race to see what happens there.

Even I think if Ted Cruz loses, loses tonight, even Republicans won't be sad. Yeah, right, dude. Well, there is that. If someone shot Ted Cruz on the floor of the Senate, they wouldn't be able to convict him in terms of the jury. It was the U.S. senators, right? But, you know, Texas is big because obviously it's a big state. Ted Cruz is, you know, really bright, great debater. But Beto really kind of stepped up to the plate here and had enthusiasm, charisma, and the Democrats need Texas if they're going to try to

get a majority, right? If there are at all. And in fact, let me say this here to all the folks, of course, that they're watching us from Houston and Harris County because of issues there. Harris County, they're keeping nine polling sites open until 8 p.m., nine polling sites open until 8 p.m. There, a state district judge ordered that as a result of a lawsuit filed with the Texas Civil Rights Project and the Texas Organizing Project. They said there were technical issues with voting machines and those polls open late so as a result those nine locations in Harris County will be allowed to stay open until 8 p.m. Central Standard Time the polls close at at 7 p.m. and so the polls have already closed there so that's what you have going on there and we're seeing that also other places across the country. But just a quick message which is there's certainly all these challenges

but we need folks to stay in line. You need to just be patient, stay in line. It may be discouraging in terms of what people are trying to do, but stay in line and vote. That is key. Yeah. Absolutely. One of the challenges we had in Georgia earlier this morning was it was raining in Georgia and there was a call out on the internet I don't know if you all got it to bring ponchos and and other items to keep people dry so to keep them in line it was almost a

desperate call but an important one and so we saw that in Georgia and I got to tell you the the real heroes of this election midterm election are the other thousands of lawyers who volunteered their time all across this country, whether it was the NBA, whether it was the civil rights lawyers, all types of organizations that are going down. The big law firms here in D.C., including Reed Smith, my law firm, had voter protection election folks on the phone, lawyers from across other law firms at Reed Smith and other law firms doing the same thing. They're real heroes these would be fighting voter suppression to the extent they could in this midterm election I want to go back in a second

to Alicia Reese we have her on the phone to find to talk more about the Ohio Bill of Rights folks let me know we actually have her again we're monitoring these various election races all across the country. The biggest issue right now is that folks have been running into serious voting issues. Earlier, we talked to Kristen Clark with Lawrence Community for Civil Rights Under Law. Of course, they are at 1-866-OUR-VOTE. They said they received more than 25,000 phone calls of voting issues around the country since 6 a.m. this morning. They have been taking various folks to court to keep locations open. There were polling sites in Georgia that were opening late, did not have enough ballots,

were running out of paper ballots. Same thing was happening in Arlington, Texas. We've heard some issues in Dallas as well as in Houston and other states. And so we're monitoring all of those. There have been people who have been tweeting these issues and explaining what's going on. And so the reason I wanted to talk to and finish our conversation with Representative Alicia Reese is because she's been working for the past several years on the Ohio Bill of Rights that would make it a constitutionally protected vote. The reality that people don't understand, there actually is no affirmative right to vote in America. In Bush v. Gore, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote that. There's no affirmative right to vote.

Now, if you're a person of color, you cannot be discriminated against in voting. If you're a woman, the same thing. But there is no affirmative right to vote. If you break down our elections, really, this nation was set up for white, rich landowners. They were the ones who wanted to determine who were going to be our political leaders. Electoral College was a slavery compromise. And we know through Bush v. Gore that at the end of the day, the legislature could still determine the electors and who actually wins that particular state. So we do have a representative Alicia Reese back online. Again, Representative Reese, we were talking to you before. And the reason this this bill of rights is critically important because it will put the right to vote in the Constitution. You had a difficult time trying to get progressives to understand this and liberals to understand this. Are we now seeing are we now going to see progressives say, hmm,

we might want to get focused on this and back your initiative so we're not dealing with this crap in 2020? And if you're able to get the 300, first of all, how many signatures do you need? So let's talk about, are you seeing responses from progressives and how many signatures do you need to get it on the ballot? Well, Roland, I haven't seen the response from the progressives in terms of funding yet. All of this that we've done has been, you know, grassroots efforts out of the churches, out of the sororities and fraternities. And, you know, we've done it on our own. And so we've laid the groundwork. But I do think that now that they see what's going on in Georgia, now that they see that Georgia and Ohio both have purged voters,

and it's time to see how critical, and you see the courts are changing with Donald Trump making the appointments to the federal courts, the United States Supreme Court, and they're pushing people back now to state rights. And so therefore, we've got to look at the state constitutions and see what do they actually say as it relates to protecting our vote. And we look at them and find that your vote in these states are not protected like they are not in Ohio. And so if you're going to win states, you've got to win states. You've got to make sure

that the vote is protected before we start talking even about gerrymandering. I mean, if you don't have the right to vote, you don't have to worry about gerrymandering, you won't be able to vote. And so we've got to now protect our votes and have something permanent in the Constitution. So I think now, I hope, I won't say I think, I hope now that we can now move from just the we're upset about it or lip service about it, instead of moving to putting some action and putting these type of things on the ballot, what it is also helping people to go to the polls because we're going to vote for ourselves. We're going for our voting rights. And so I'm hoping that right after this election tonight that we can roll up

our sleeves uh and not wait to come to ohio in 2020 but come to georgia in 2020 or come to florida in 2020 these battleground areas less than right now with the ballot initiative and i know that there's funding out there we have a an initiative dealing with the, you know, folks who are low-level nonviolent drug offenses. We have it in O'Hare right now. Mark Zuckerberg put up $13.1 million for this initiative in Ohio. It's a great initiative. I support it.

But can we get the meetings with Mark Zuckerbergca to start to get our voting rights in the Constitution? So we're going to need a new approach, I think, with progressive groups, where we're going to need celebrities who want to get involved with civic engagement, who have financing. We're going to need the folks in the tech. We're going to need the Silicon Valley folks, all those type of folks. If we're going to really say we're going to take on Donald Trump in 2020, we've got to secure a vote. And we've laid the foundation.

We've done all the steps. We've been all over. We've gotten, you know, all of the steps that need to be taken have been taken. Is it possible, Alicia? It's real financial. Alicia, is it possible, so I understand, is it possible that if you get the signatures, would it go on the ballot next year, or would you have to wait until 2020, which means it wouldn't impact the 2020 presidential election? If we get the signatures, it could go on the in the race uh richard courtrain who worked with tech obama's administration

uh under the consumer protection director he is running for governor and he has said uh you know if elected uh it certainly looks like he can be elected we hope he gets elected that we want to get this on the ballot uh the question because do you do it on a ballot in 19 or do it in 20? 20, our goal is to get the signatures and then make that determination based on research. But the work has to begin now. Now, we're going to need more signatures than we currently need now because it's based on 10% of the turnout in the midterm election. So we'll have a larger turnout this time, and we'll need more signatures. But we'll be able to get those signatures. I'll tell you that with the issue 1 that's on the ballot right now, they're going to

have to put in around 700,000 signatures in a short amount of time because they had the backing and the financing and the support of, you know, from everybody, from John Legend to Mark Zuckerberg, because they were able to get to those meetings. And that's what we want to do. All right. Ohio State Rep Alicia Reese, we certainly appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thank you.

All right. Again, folks, so we are monitoring various races. First of all, not that many folks are in just yet. They're in the state of Georgia. And so it's real early. And so about 9% is in. So we will give you those results a little bit later. We're monitoring what's happening. Guys, you're talking to my ear. I can barely hear you. So just letting you know. And so it is very, very tight in Florida. And so we are waiting to get that information. If you go to my iPad, Henry, you will see this here.

This is from the Miami Herald. A very, very slight, slight lead by Ron DeSantis over Andrew Gillum. A slight lead by Rick Scott over Bill Nelson. 4,438 of the 6,111 precincts are in. We know that Miami-Dade County, those votes are not in. That's a heavily, heavily Democratic area. And so we'll see what happens when those votes come in as well. And so we're following this.

And so also very early in Maryland as well. And so we're watching that. And so the big thing, so again, you have multiple things that are happening. You have your U.S. House races. So the question is, will Democrats gain enough seats to take control of the United States House? That's one of the things that we are watching. Chris, I want to go to you here. We do know that Barbara Comstock, who was very who was in trouble two years ago, but she was able to win as a result of Donald Trump doing better than expected in Virginia. She has lost that seat in Virginia to Democrat Jennifer Wexton. Man, those were the ads that were being run here.

She was running ads calling her Trump stock and was nailing her. In fact, I was watching Greenleaf on the own app. And so they run about six commercial spots during the commercial break. And it was like back to back to back. So like Trump stock, Trump stock, Trump stock. And so clearly targeting women who watch OWN, especially African-Americans, that's one of those seats that Republicans were real concerned about. It's now gone. Yeah, it's not a surprise. I mean, it really, you know, we had talked about this early on in the game,

and we knew that the jig was up there. So that is not really a surprise. Yeah, but I also think Barbara Comstock didn't run a really good race responding to the Democratic attacks on her. So, for example, you had the back-to-back ads calling her Trump stock. At the same time, she was running these really soft ads about how she helped a young woman who was a protege of hers get through a sexual assault or sexual discrimination of some kind. And it was very warming. And it was to attract the women vote in northern Virginia.

But that's a Virginia's a purple state leaning blue right now. And so she needed something, in my opinion, hard-hitting to come back because she was on thin ice simply because of all the Democrats that have inhibited or taken over Virginia, northern Virginia primarily. Yeah, and that's the thing here. I mean, when you're talking about strategy, which is something that I don't think that she got. Okay, I get the warming thing.

Yeah, okay. But you're being punched in the face. And you're sitting there with, you know, wiping tears from your eyes. That doesn't work. Yeah, she was in a tough position from the very beginning. She was. Especially when she won two years ago. Yeah.

It was tough from then on because we knew that Virginia really wasn't a Republican, wasn't a red state. Yeah, no. And you cannot run a campaign like that in a state that is not a red state, you know, and that's the issue. And one of the things that we haven't talked about yet is that if the Democrats take the House, we're talking about five CBC members who become chairs of committees. And that's pretty significant. Well, first of all, those committee chairs.

If Democrats take control of the House, we're going to have a conversation, which is a different one, which is going to be, it's time for a black Speaker of the House. That's the conversation that we're going to have. Or the top tier, three positions. No, I say top tier. Well, you've got to knock well you gotta knock off pelosi first no no no no no no but here's the deal first of all she running okay all all that b is right where she's dancing but that's pelosi's speaker of the house challenging her black and white i understand that but the point we'll begin i'm not gonna have that conversation until after they they

want to knock otherwise it's a wasted conversation. I will say this here. In Illinois, Bruce Rauner, who is the, of course, incumbent Republican, he has lost, conceded to J.D. Pritzker in that race, of course. So that means that Pritzker's running mate is a black woman. So the lieutenant governor in Illinois is going to be a black woman. Of course, you have right now a black lieutenant governor in Maryland who's running with Larry Hogan. We'll see what happens in that race. I believe there's a second one

and I'm looking for it right now, Chris. There's another black... Mr. Governor. Of course, you also have a black woman in... I'm going to pull up in just one second. I think right now you have two or three. Give me one second. Let me find it right here

Dude, first of all, it was a Cuban American woman who's in Illinois Boyd Rutherford was African American governor of Maryland Yeah, I was running with with Larry Hogan. You also have a Janine Hampton who is an African American She is the governor in Kentucky And of course you have Sheila Oliver who's an African AmericanAmerican. She is lieutenant governor in Kentucky. And of course, you have Sheila Oliver, who's an African-American lieutenant governor in New Jersey. And so you're now going to be joined by another African-American that is going to be Representative Juliana Stratton, who's going to be the lieutenant governor there in Illinois as a result of J.B. Pritzker winning that particular race. We're also following the

attorney general's race there as well. Two African-Americans are running for attorney general in Illinois. So we're watching out to see what happens there. When you look at Florida, look, you know, here's the here's the thing that I think for a lot of people. The reality is you've had Democrats who are very much who were excited, who were focused as well. But the end of the day, you also had Trump who was traveling all around. I keep trying to explain to people the reality is we still are a split nation. And so, you know, the thing is, there's this whole idea that you were going to have just Democrats winning. Everything was always just nuts because not only are we still split,

we have to also concede that we have gerrymandered districts absolutely we have very few competitive districts you could have a situation where democrats could win like for instance in wisconsin because of how gerrymandered they are they they broke it down in new york times and they held did analysis last year two years ago well they said if democrats won 55 of the vote in wisconsin they would still be the minority right Because of how gerrymandered these districts are. Supreme Court is going to have to have some guts and rule on this. And I think what is the second most

sickening thing in our politics, next to voter suppression, is political gerrymandering. Because you just don't have enough competitive races because you have parties who want to basically construct districts that are so safe that there's no competition. You know the important part of that is no matter what

happens at the House and Senate level the governorships are super important for the very reason you said because whoever's governor drives the in process. No, no, no, no, no. Except, no, no, no, no. No? Except like in North Carolina when you have a super majority. Here's the deal. In the case of North Carolina, Republicans have a super majority. They have been stripping the governor of power. In fact, in North Carolina, Republicans have put six constitutional amendments on the ballot this year

to strip the power of the governor to control the state board of elections. North Carolina is nuts. No, no, no, no. But Other states as well. So the legislature can overrule the governor. But my point is, that's where gerrymandering comes in. Because if you have a super majority and you control the House and the Senate, it doesn't matter if a Democrat is the governor, because if they control the process, they have a veto-proof number to override anything that the Democrat governor does. But we're worse off if we don't have a Democratic governor. Oh to override anything that we're going to do.

But we're worse off if we don't have a Democratic governor. Oh, no, no, I understand that. You understand? But that's why this election is so important, because whoever wins tonight in terms of governorships, in terms of representation at the state level, when we look at the next census that will be coming out, that's when we'll have the power to set the course of action for the next 10 years. That's why we're still suffering under the ridiculousness of North Carolina

because all that stuff was baked in back in 2000 and what? 2010. And again, this was where, and this is where Democrats don't know how to play long ball. Absolutely. Democrats play the short game.

Republicans said, okay, if we take control in 2010, we control redistricting. We can determine who, and in fact, they don't even need to wait to every 10 years. What Tom DeLay did

when Republicans got control of the legislature in Texas, they did that stuff in mid-census. They were like, damn the rule, damn the tradition. We're going to do it right now.

And this is the thing that I keep saying. Republicans are about naked power. It doesn't matter. Democrats want to play fair. Republicans ain't trying to play fair. They're trying to win, Chris. Yeah, well, so for Republicans, the issue is at the end of the day, do we control? Do we have the power?

Can we make the decisions? The Democrats, on the other hand, want to be apologetic, and they want to do all of those kinds of things. I mean, Democrats— They want to govern. Well— Democrats want policy, and they want to govern. Republicans want power, and they wield it very unfairly and very irresponsibly.

That's how you can have someone who can, you know, get in office one day talking all sorts of lies about having a different government pay for a wall and he's in there a millisecond and all of a sudden we have record deficits from a party that claims to be all about fiscal responsibility. I mean, it's absolutely an examination of having raw power and zero, zero responsibility in terms of what you actually do with that power. Well, but here's the thing. At the end of the day, politics in America, where we are right now, it is about winning

and it is about power. Absolutely. And that is exactly where we are. And so for Republicans, you know, our issue is, OK, if that's the game, we're going to play the game. We'll play the game. Do what we need to do. And that's the so Democrats can talk about.

We want to govern. That's nice. Yeah. Yeah. I agree with you. I don't think that's a winning strategy. I agree with you. The Republicans have set up the game and the rules at the same time.

Exactly. But during Kavanaugh's time, one of the best statements I heard was that that Republicans, But the Republicans have set up the game and the rules at the same time. But during Kavanaugh's time, one of the best statements I heard was that Republicans want to win at all costs. They don't care how they look, right? They want to win the vote. And Democrats want to win the argument. If you think about Kavanaugh, we won the argument, right? But we didn't win the vote, and he's sitting on the Supreme Court right now. And so Democrats have to figure out how to get nasty or nastier. Not inappropriate, not immoral. You got to have some morality to this stuff. But the

Republicans don't care about morality either. And they have the myth and they compromise people where you can convince some people in the South, poor white working class people in the South, to vote for someone who wants to take away your health care, who wants to vote against their interests. I mean, these are some political gangsters that we're up against right now. We need some Democratic gangsters, regardless of what happens tonight. Yeah, but if you talk to the people that you're talking about, they don't believe what you say.

They do not fundamentally believe. They don't believe in objective facts. Well, they really don't. They do not fundamentally believe. They don't believe in objective facts. Well, they really don't. They do not believe that it is against. You take advantage of them because of the Southern strategy. Reverend Barber calls it the myth. Well, convincing them of that. And as someone who has spoken to them through focus groups

throughout this entire thing, they do not believe that the health care is going to be taken away. Oh, they want health care, but they hate Obamacare. And that's the care that they have. Well, but I, you know. What is that? I don't know. Hold tight one second. It's the top of the hour. We're going to do this here. We're going to take a break. When we come back, we'll give you some more election results, what is happening. The Indiana Senate race looks like Republicans are going to take that seat.

We'll also break down what is happening in some of the other races. Again, we're watching very closely in Georgia, Maryland, as well as Florida. Those three African-American governors who are running for governor in those three states will have the information for you as well. Folks, you're watching the blackest coverage of election all across the country. We've got a number of panelists, so we're going to rotate this panel out, bring in our next panel of folks who wait to talk about this election night. And so as you see, they're kicking back, of course, in our room, waiting to come on. And so I'm sure, yeah, with food, with food, with food from a black

caterer. See, that's how we do it, okay? Food from a black caterer. And so that's what to say that that that that's how we do it okay food for a black caterer and so that's why we're all black because the blackest show out here talking about the election folks you're watching Roland Martin unfiltered we'll be back in a moment What people call Chirac which is actually our murder rate is going down by 20% every year I just talk to the superintendent, remember Michael Sachs, that's Rahm's right hand man. So I think it's the bravery that helps you beat this game called life. You know, they tried to scare me to not wear this hat,

my own friends, but this hat, it gives me power in a way. You know, my dad and my mom separated, so I didn't have a lot of male energy in my home. And also, I'm married to a family that, you know, not a lot of male energy going on. It's beautiful, though. But there's times where, you know, it's something about, you know, I love Hillary. I love everyone, right? But the campaign I'm with her just didn't make me feel as a guy that didn't get to see my dad all the time.

Like a guy that could play catch with his son. Stop right there. Something about when I put this hat on and stop right there. All right. So here's the deal. He talked about, of course, what drove the prison population was the mental health cuts that took place in the 80s and 90s. You notice Kanye West made no mention of the devastating impact of crack cocaine and how that was a disparity between crack cocaine and powder cocaine. So if you were white, you use powder cocaine. That was a 100 to 1 difference between the ratio of if you use crack cocaine to powder cocaine. That's what drove the criminal justice system. But here's what Kanye West did not say. He talked about the cuts to mental health.

Who made those cuts? Ronald Wilson Reagan. Those were the massive cuts that were made between 1980 and 1988. So if you're going to make that particular point, then you must do so. What then happened was the cuts took place on the federal level, which then trickled down to the state level, and then down to the county and city levels. And so you had folks who then said, mental illness, we don't care about that. We're going to have drastic cuts. It was Republican Ronald Reagan who drove that. It's very easy to Google something else Kanye did not mention.

All right, folks, welcome back to Roller Martin Unfiltered. This is election night, 2018, Black Votes Matter. And so in a lot of the breaks we're going to be showing you, we're going to be sharing with you some of the best of our previous shows. Of course, that was when I had to deconstruct Kanye West with the nonsense that he was spewing in his meeting with Donald Trump. But that's going to be the last Kanye clip y'all see tonight because I don't want to see that nonsense again.

So if y'all got any more Kanye, delete that shit from the rundown because that was just nonsense we were hearing right there. Yes, I just said that. So, yeah, that's why it's called unfiltered. That's why it's called unfiltered. And so we're talking about, of course, 2018 election. A lot of things are happening. Races are happening left and right. Of course, Henry, go to my iPad in Indianapolis.

It looks like Mike Braun is going to beat Joe Donnelly, who is a Democratic incumbent for the United States Senate seat there in Indiana. And so that is what is going on there. And so we're going to be watching that particular race. We're also going to be watching what is happening in some of the other U.S. Senate races. Again, results are now coming in. Significant results are now coming in, which I think is far more important than some of the other stuff that we've been getting so far. You know, we've been talking about these races and talking about, of course, who's winning, who's losing. Now we get to actually deal with some real numbers, some substantive numbers that are coming in. We're watching a lot of these different races,

especially, of course, what's happening in Georgia, Florida and Maryland with three African Americans are running for governor there. As we see the election results, more numbers are coming in. I'm looking at the Miami Herald website. Henry, go to my iPad, please. We're still seeing there a very slight lead.

One point separates Ron DeSantis and Andrew Gill slight lead one point separates ronda santis and andrew gillum one point separates bill nelson and rick scott uh that's how close uh the races are six thousand but folks look at this here rick scott three million eight hundred and fifty one thousand three hundred and fifty eight votes three million seven hundred ninety eight thousand seven hundred votes for bill nelson folks you're talking about talking about literally in this case, just a handful of votes separating. That's 6,000 votes. That's just 6,000 votes separating them. And if you look at the race over here, look at the Sanders and Andrew Gillum, that's 8,000 votes.

More than 7 million votes cast and 8,000 votes are separating the candidates for U.S. Senate and governor. And so we're waiting to see exactly what is going to be then coming in. And so we're waiting for that. And so also and so they're just telling me that we've been covering, of course, Proposition 4 in Florida that will restore the voting rights to formerly incarcerated folks. It needed 60 percent of the people in Florida to vote for that. Needed 60 percent. And one of the networks, NBC, is saying that it is indeed going to pass. Guys, do me a favor. Get Desmond Meade and Sheena Meade on the phone. They said that we would get the first interview with them to talk about that

particular initiative passing. So I want to pull it up. Also, we have there the one seat in Florida that everybody was really looking at, and that is Donna Shalala, former member, former secretary of HHS under Bill Clinton. Go to my iPad. She defeated Maria Elvira Salazar, a popular television anchor there in the Miami area. That was a seat Republicans held. It is now being flipped to Democrats. Many Democrats were scared to death saying Shalala was not running an inspired campaign. And then that was what was happening there. And so we're watching that. And so what we're also

looking at folks here, again, looking at that, but also looking at proposition four. So if you can get the needs on, that'd be great. Love to talk to them. Let me introduce our panel here. We have Teresa Lundy, founder of TML communications, who joins us right now on the panel. And so certainly glad to have her Malik abdul republican communications a consultant here among monique presley uh principal with the presley law firm and we also of course uh eugene craig eugene craig uh his organization as well republican out of maryland uh and so g i want to start with you again republicans are trying to hold on as much as they can to as many house seats as many senate seats as many governors mansion uh trying to hold on as much as they can to as many House seats, as many Senate seats, as many governor's mansion, trying to avoid what others have calling a blue wave.

Your assessment thus far of what has been happening tonight? It's a knife fight. You know, there were some early wins. Lexington, you know, popped Comstock in Virginia. But, you know, Andy Barr was able to hold off McGrath in Kentucky. We're seeing that it's coming down to literally every last vote in Florida. And it looks like, you know, with the early vote battles up in Texas, it's a good, like, you know, good pull for Democrats there. So it's coming out to a knife fight.

I think we're going to be looking at some of the targeted districts that, you know, both parties are looking at, like, PA1 with Brian Fitzpatrick and New Jersey 11 with Jay Weber, Flushton Hyman's former seat, to see where the rest of the country is. They're going to be bellwethers. There's going to be multiple Ohio's predictors, multiple Ohio's of this election. Malik, I want to go to you as well. Also, hold tight one second. I've got a text message here. NAACP, they won a lawsuit to extend voting hours at three polls in Atlanta,

including one on the Spelman and Morehouse campus until 10 p.m. And so the polling location that's on the campus at Morehouse and Spelman is going to be open until 10 p.m. as a result of the National Coalition of Black Civic Participation and the NAACP winning that lawsuit. Malik. Good news. That's good news. Wasn't sure. It was something that I hadn't read up about.

But then, actually, I think it was a couple of days ago, I saw that this was something that I can't think of. It probably was Abrams or something that I think I heard actually talk about that. But I think any, and I've said on this show before, you know, despite the fact that I am a Republican, I do not support any efforts to suppress the vote. So extending the voting hours, I think that's great. And you're talking about college campuses. I don't know what happened with Texas with the Prairie View case, but, you know, I'm happy to see what's happened here. So it's good news. Teresa, again, we talked in the last hour about voter suppression, about these lawyers who are fighting what's been going on, taking folks to court. We're seeing that different counties, different locations in various states extending time because polls opened late, machines were broke, didn't have power cables to some places. Some of the places actually ran out

of paper ballots and lots of drama. I still don't understand, again, how you know Election Day. This is the Super Bowl of politics. How is it you're not fully prepared on Election Day? How does a polling location open late? Well, going back to non-preparedness, I think that's locally. So locally, I think, you know, some of these counties really need to get shipped into shape. And I think that's locally. So locally, I think, you know, some of these counties really need to get shipped into shape. And I think that's even by some of the leaders that we are electing currently. So if we're not, you know, fully educating them on what the processes are, I know like in Philadelphia and the commissioner's race amongst the race, but we literally have a

county commissioner that is relegated to making sure and ensuring that those processes actually work. So I'm more so interested in, you know, now that the extension is happening and, you know, it's now extended to 10 p.m., it looks good, right? And so I think the results are going to just show for itself. Again, what we we're still waiting to get more of the results in early results out of Georgia are in right now showing Brian Kemp with a lead about 15 percent. And so I don't pay attention to those early results. I wait till it gets to about 60, 65. Right. Then you begin to understand what's actually happening in these places here uh and again uh what one of the things that uh really jumps out i think in a lot of these in a lot of these races you know you know what you're seeing you're seeing tight races money you're seeing tight races and people were expecting

all massive blowouts but again as i said to the last panel gerrymandering plays a role when it comes to these tight races because they are constructed to aid one party or the other. And the fact that Republicans control 30-plus state legislatures, control 33 governor's mansions, they have really focused on gerrymandering many of these seats. Right. And the blowout comes when we actually win. Some people don't understand we have to scratch and scrape and claw for every single race. But a win is a win. I don't care if you win by five votes. You don't have to win by 50,000 votes.

And that's why every single vote matters and why, you know, I was really discouraged and forth with a guy on Instagram because he said, oh, I follow you, but I'm not going to be voting. He said, I respect your position, but I just don't think that it really matters, especially someplace like Ohio. I started screaming and standing on my head. I'm like, Ohio? You think it doesn't matter in Ohio where every single one of the seats is open, you know, and up for grabs where they've got like propositions on the line, you know, where poor Claire McCaskill's holding on for dear life. Well, she's in St. Louis, she's in Missouri.

Missouri. So I started just downloading some facts and what I recognized is that the whole politics is local thing still is getting missed for people of color. We have to understand that district attorney's offices are local.

You know, that if somebody is running for a judge's seat, like I was voting today in Maryland and I abstained from one of those because I was like, I can't bring myself to vote for a Republican, but I know this Democrat hasn't been doing anything right either. So I'm like, okay, hands up. I don't want to have anything to do with this. But yeah, it's close. But I think at the end of the night, we're going to come out on top the way we're supposed to.

But to your point about gerrymandering, I think the one thing that might have been lost in this particular election, among all the noise, is that this election right here is going to determine who draws the lines for the next 10 years. That's right. So if you see a wave of Democrat governors come in with company Democrat legislatures, you can see a House majority drawn for the next 10 years the same way we did in 2010 and held it for the last eight years.

But if you couple that with demographic changes, you could see another cycle where Democrats control the House for another 20, 30-year time span. Right. But you also, with those same governorships, I agree with you. But what we also would see is, wow, wouldn't it have been great if there had been a Democratic governor in Florida when Bush became the president. It would have made all the difference in the world. And so those are the kinds of things for the next presidential cycle that are going to

be very important, depending on what we do here. Folks, of course, in Wisconsin, Republicans were hoping they were going to actually pick up Senator Tammy Baldwin's seat. Ain't going to happen. She's actually won that particular seat there. And so we're following that particular election. Also waiting to get election results in right now from Wisconsin, of course, Scott Walker, a Republican who's running against Democrat Tony Evers.

Democrats desperately want to defeat Scott Walker because of what he has done there when it comes to gerrymandering, when it comes to also labor as well. And so labor union, they've really, really been focused there as well. We also are looking at St. Louis, going to St. Louis today to get a sense of what is happening in the seat for Claire McCaskill, Senator Claire McCaskill, who is the incumbent in Missouri. She's running against Republican Attorney General. We're waiting to see that. We're also waiting to see what happens in Kansas with Chris Kobach, of course, the voter suppressor-in-chief, if you will, of course, who is trying to become governor of Kansas. You would think people would have some common sense and not elect him

because, I mean, you talk about just nuts. I mean, that's what he is. Of all the races that are going on around the country that have third-party candidates, like active third-party candidates, I actually think Orman and Kansas is going to play a spoiler role there. I mean, it's his second run, and he's had significant resources thrown behind him. He has a very competent campaign staff, a good friend that's working that race. I think he's going to actually be a huge spoiler there and probably, you know, slip this from Kovacs grips.

Again, so there are a number of things that we are watching, folks. Obviously, will Democrats take control of the United States House? What is also happening in some of these other races when you talk about the down ballot races that are going on, especially Attorney General's race? And so I'm trying to see what is happening there, especially when it comes to the Attorney General's race in Florida, but also in Indiana. And so trying to get those results for you to give a sense of what is happening.

I'm on the Miami Dade, excuse me, the Miami Herald website. And we were talking about these various amendments and the voter restoration, again 4 853 uh he can go to my ipad henry 4853 uh of the 6105 precincts yes for approval it's at 64.34 percent they needed 60 percent for it to happen as i said nbc says has said that they are going, that is going to pass. And so we have been looking at that, studying that to see what is going to happen there. And so that's certainly one of the most important races that we have been following. And then I'm looking for, let me find the,

let me find the race here for the attorney general. We had, of course, Mr. Shaw on the show here. And so we're trying to find his particular race. Man, better go to the state races. They're like way down on there, all these state representative races. So I'm trying to find that as well. And so those races are critical money. You're an attorney because, again, we're now seeing African-Americans who are, first of all, we've rarely seen African-Americans run for statewide office. We've seen folks on tickets, but running for statewide office is very rare. We're now seeing a lot more of that. And we're seeing people who are going after those critical positions like attorney general. That has become even more important in the age of Donald Trump because

many of these AGs are suing Trump administration and using the power of the state. And now Republicans are hating that, but like, wait a minute, they were the people of the state's rights. But so these Democratic Attorney Generals are using their power. Well and I said probably every time I'm on the show at some point or another, Eugene just loves it, the Republicans are having an identity crisis. Some of the things that we used to expect we can now no longer expect. Yes, states now have kind of become the frontier, the front line where they are fighting some of these

federal strong policies that are coming from where? From a Republican administration. I mean, go figure. But attorney generals, even in places that should be a state but aren't like the District of Columbia, had to file a lawsuit in order to just check this president. And that's why this election is so important. And I believe that that's something that all parties, Republican, Independent, Democrats, should be able to agree on. The checks and balances system still works

when it's actually in place. It does not work when any party that's in power in one branch of government works as a sycophant to whatever the other part of the government is. That just does not function in my opinion. Well, I think it's something—I agree. I definitely agree for the most part. As far as the Republican Party, you know, they're—

Trump is the president of the United States. He's the head of the Republican Party. There are a lot of people in the party, of course, who do not always agree with everything that the president does. He does make it difficult for us at times. But what I'm excited about, just as a Republican, I'm actually excited about the fact that we have a president who is out campaigning, because this is not something that you normally see. We normally don't see. W jumped out there for Volkan 06. I mean, Carver personally called Michael Steele next and we're getting the right camera. Yeah, but this is not in the first midterm though you know

you know to W you know he campaigned very heavily for our team I mean it wasn't an oddly given that what happened with September 11 right and this was right after this was the term right after September 11 but it's not something that you normally see part of President Trump getting out there and saying that Stacey Abrams is not qualified to run for governor were you excited about in his campaign? I don't have to be. Which part of President Trump saying that Andrew Gillum was just not meant for it, not meant for it? Because you can campaign without being a racist. You can campaign without being.

So, I mean, if there had to be a president, gentlemen, because both of you are conservative and you support, I guess, this president. Oh, I do. Hell no. Talking about hell. Well, I do. Okay. So I'm going to turn over here and I'm going to let my friend, my good friend Eugene, off the hook.

There's no word. I'm going to leave you on the show. But I definitely believe you. But I mean, you were hopeful at some point. We had to go through a lot of rounds of you saying that he just was not going to do anything presidential ever for that to happen. Hold on one second. So let me give him Florida. As it stands right now, it is extremely, extremely tight there.

According to the Tallahassee Democrat, 85.3.4% of the vote is in. Rhonda Sanders is up 1%, about 77,000 votes. Not sure what is outstanding in terms of those counties. And so we'll be finding out what's happening there. In Texas, 58% of the vote is in. It is literally a two-point margin between O'Rourke and Ted Cruz there as well. And so, guys, what do you make of, again, polling data was showing that Andrew Gillum could win by 3 to 4 percent. Now we're seeing, of course, it's about 1 percent.

I'm about to reach out to the Gillum campaign and get a sense of what they are hearing. But your thoughts on that? Broward is still out, though. Broward has like 10 percent in right now, and that's a huge number for him that really should change the metric on the numbers that I'm hoping will get us in much better positions. So even with the polling, as much as I am an advocate for polling, we do it a lot, even with some of the organizations and campaigns that I work with, but we all know they're not fully reliable, right?

How many times? So what we're seeing, right, well, down what we're seeing, again, 85.1% of the vote is in. Andrew Gillum, 49.6%. Ron DeSantis, 49.2%. That is what is in. Wow. Much, much, much closer than what a lot of people were. Right. And even what the polls were saying, because you're talking about polls. And so again, I'm talking to someone with the

Gillum campaign and apparently, so this is what I'm getting folks again, directly from the Gillum campaign, that Bill Nelson is outperforming Andrew Gillum, which is a shock to many folks. And they say apparently about 300,000 votes that are outstanding. They're down about 97,000 votes. And so, again, this is the quote I'm seeing here, looks bleak. And so, which is, I mean, this is Gillum. This is from his campaign. This would be a shocker because many folks, again,

looked at what was going on and thought that, I mean, what was happening. That blue wave. What about that? That's not that wave at all. It's the house. Let's have a real discussion here. Go ahead. Are we really shocked that Nelson is outperforming Gillum?

I mean, you know, I would be hard-pressed that that probably shifts between the two, that 100, 200, whatever the vote margin is. It's probably coming in the panhandle, probably coming in the Naples area. It's going to come from your older white, you know, your older white probably lean conservative, but will be open to voting for somebody like Bill Nelson that, you know, is older white you know you're older white probably lean conservative but we'll be open to voting for somebody like Bill Nelson that you know older white so what we're seeing here is that again this is the so folks this is the Miami Herald 5,000 I'm gonna let me pull up on my iPad so we can see here what's going on in Miami. Again, to that particular point.

So Gillum has 3,816,410 votes. Nelson, 3,859,262. And again, many folks thought, frankly, you can pull it up on my iPad, please. You'll see it right there. That's the Miami hero. Again, Bill Nelson was struggling yeah Nelson actually was greatly helped yeah we were Andrew Gillum now lifting pulling him up here's one of the questions that that we're gonna deal with yeah if Bill

Nelson the Democrat gets more votes than Andrew Gillum what does it say about white voters in Florida I I think it's speaking volumes right now. I mean, the thing is this, you know, when you... I mean, Nelson was down. Nelson was getting outspent by Rick Scott. He was getting blown away. He joined... He joined

himself at the hip of Andrew Gillum. And that brought in the black support, that brought in youth support, that brought in Hispanic support. And, you know, you couple it out with the white voters that Nelson was already carrying, that he's carried for the last 30 or so years or whatever, you know, that's helped push him over to outperform.

But nobody knew what, as far as Gillum, no one knew what the outcome would be. You know, it's something kind of new. We saw Mr. Kendrick Meek six years ago. Okay, first of all, it's not new. Hold on, it's not new. Doug Wilder won Virginia and then also devolved Patrick Warren, Massachusetts. So it's not new to have black folks who become governor in the 20th century. What you have here, though, is still you look at terms of what was happening.

Significant momentum was on the side of Andrew Gillum in the last two or three weeks of the campaign he had the media well it was just again you had folks who were coming out african-american vote yeah we had three hundred and forty four thousand folks who voted African Americans who voted in the midterm in 2014 and 2018 this number it exceeded it was about 495,000. This was before, this was before social polls on Sunday. So significant black turnout.

Massive rally last night, concert at midnight with Diddy and others on the campus of Florida A&M. Of course, he's a graduate of Florida A&M University as well. And if Gilliband is unable to win, I mean, look, Democrats desperately wanted the governor's mansion and the Senate seat in Florida. And so the numbers are still out, but we're still analyzing to see what's going on. But go ahead.

It's such a for 2020. The power of the party in power is the party that can build out infrastructure more aggressively, can build out infrastructure more quickly. And the thing is, you take your winning team, you essentially just elevate them to whoever is the presidential nominee in 2020. So Democrats aggressively want this because it takes Florida out of play for Republicans in 2020 if Gillen was able to win this seat, likewise with Georgia. You know, and so, I mean, Donald Trump won Florida in 2016 by 100,000 votes or so. And so, you know, it helps build that momentum. It helps build

that new coalition for 2020 if Gillum is to win this. And it's still early. You know, we don't know. I don't know. No, no. You've got about 85. It's approaching 90% of it.

And again, what I'm getting is that some 300,000 votes are outstanding. But, you know, one of the things that I'm going to be interested in looking at, let's say, if Gillum actually loses, is whether or not, because he took a different approach in running his campaign, because generally when blacks are running for office, especially on a statewide level, you don't see them really hit race as Andrew Gillum did. I mean, he took it head on. I can't remember the phrase that he said at the— Well, first of all, Rhonda Sanders also opened his whole campaign up after Gillum won by saying you can't monkey around.

But we've seen— Monkey it up. Monkey it up. We can disagree about whether or not that was, but the... There's no disagreement about that. It is a disagreement. There's no disagreement. It is a disagreement.

That was the first of many blatant racist statements from Ron DeSantis. Well, I won't say that what he said was racist. I didn't think that he was saying... It's clear cut. Well, no, it's not. It's not clear cut. Black conservative. But they said that it was clear cut.

There's money. We'll just sip some tea. There's a historical connotation. Absolutely. All black people monkeys. There's a historical connotation to a lot of things. Remember the H&M ad. People said that that was racist.

And guess what? My favorite artist of the week has said, hey, cut this shit. But people said that it was racist. We're not with H&M. I can't agree with the fact that it was racist. It was racist. Well, that's your opinion that it was racist. I didn't think that it was racist. It actually was. You can say that it was racist. I didn't agree with the fact that it was racist. It was racist. Well, that's your opinion that it was racist. I didn't think that it was racist.

It actually was. You can say that it was racially insensitive or all of those things, but you don't just have to say that everything that someone does is racist. No, no, no. I'm not saying everything. But that particular statement, I do not agree with that. You're going to monkey it up. That was a racist dog whistle to the voters of Florida.

I don't agree with that. You didn't say that it was a racist dog whistle. Backed up with more blatant racism. And the robocalls. Well, you can't put DeSantis in the robocalls because those were not his robocalls. They may not have been his robocalls, but the thing is this, the folk felt comfortable

putting the robocalls out on his house. They've always felt comfortable. Not necessarily in the Republican Party. They've always felt comfortable in the Republican Party. Where were the robocalls for Mickey Haley when she ran for governor? Where were the Robocalls for Tim Scott when he ran for U.S. Senate? Where were the Robocalls for Marco Rubio when he ran for U.S. Senate? Where were the Robocalls for

Charlie Chris when he ran for governor? Where were the Robocalls for Jeff Bush when he ran for governor? Did they somehow not become the same party when he ran for governor? Is this a different party? What I'm saying is that the races are comfortable with Brian DeSantis being a racist. But have the races been comfortable not with the Republican Party at some point in time?

They've been comfortable since 1960. Okay, so we're not talking about anything new. We are talking about... To attach it to Ron DeSantis. What I'm saying is that... Look at Ron DeSantis and do it. What I'm saying is that Ron DeSantis is the anomaly. Whether it's Ron DeSantis or anybody else, this is the Republican Party history that we're dealing with.

Ron DeSantis is the anomaly. So it's not something new. It's not happening to this group of Republicans that are run from multiple offices. But it's happening to this particular Republican. But it's still a Republican Party, though. That's an anomaly. It's not a different Republican Party. I'm the wrong Republican Party.

This is a much different Republican Party. This is Trumpism. This is a Republican Party. This is not a Goldwater Republican Party. This is so much worse than Goldwater so much worse than going to a Republican party that people are saying we're racist. This is actually the divide. This is the divide. We don't go to the Democratic party. Teresa, stop. Teresa, you got to learn. Don't let it go. What the hell were you thinking?

Teresa, stop. You gotta learn, don't let it go. What the hell were you thinking? I was- What the hell? I thought my foot- Theresa, stop. But this is, my point is, is that it's the same party. You may say that, okay, well, it's DeSantis, or it's Trump, or whatever. These things that have been said about DeSantis, Trump, whomever you wanna say, they've been said about

most Republicans. So let's do this, let's do this. Let's do a comparison and contrast. You have DeSantis and Trump, who racists are comfortable with. Where was this when George W. Bush? Where was this? Where were they?

Were they Democrats? Where was this with Jerry Ford? I'm saying, but they didn't get that vote. Where are the racists taking actual racist comfort in a candidate? We can get a state level. We can go to state level. Where was this? I'll give you an alley-oop. I'll give you an alley-oop. I will give you an alley-oop. candidate. We could get a state level. We could go to state level. Where was this a new?

I'll give you an alley-oop. I will give you an alley-oop. Steve King comes from Iowa. Steve King was elected to Congress at the same time Governor Sununu was. Where were the races supporting Governor Sununu? Same state, same electorate. Same state, same electorate.

You just have to tea party. What I'm saying is that there are anomalies. Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Trump- When it comes to racism, that's a line that should not be crossed. But that's fine to keep it that way. That's a line that should not be crossed. I don't care who, I don't care what the office is. But that's your interpretation of it. That's not an interpretation. That is your interpretation of it.

That is law. That is black law. That's for law. You don't get to decide for me what the things that I consider racist. But that's just the voice of a black man. That's not what it means. We're willing to accept racism. If we're willing to accept racism from political power-

It's not me to accept anything. You are accepting it. You're defending it. I can call out Trump for anything. You just defended it. You just said Harry defended it. When did I defend? When did I defend the racist thing? You literally four seconds ago said, hey, it's the entire party. It's not just my dissent.

It's not Trump. It's the entire party. It is the entire party. Where's the racist support? Are you kidding me? So where are the Democrats? Where are the Democrats supporting Eddie Edwards in New Hampshire? So they just wrote a letter. I'm sorry. You can't support the black Republicans. Hell, even Liz Mottori determined herself to vote for the races. They're not in the fucking room.

Show me support. I'm telling you. Listen, listen, listen. I can go race by race by race and show you where this is an anomaly and it's not the rule. As the former vice chair of an actual state party, this is an anomaly, not the rule.

I understand that. All right. The black conservative on black conservative fight is over. I like it. I'll marry the time out. All right, Jed. Make America great. I had a little nuance for the conversation because what we were talking about is what is happening in Florida that is making the race closer than what we expected.

And what I pointed out when Trump won in 2016 is that we assume because of people of color that they are going to vote for Democrats. And Cubans think that they are white not of color and what we now have is an influx of Puerto Ricans after the hurricane and there were assumptions made about the way they would vote. Alright folks so just a couple of things here we go to my iPad before I go to my next guest I just got this tweet from KHOU out of Houston as of 7 p.m. the total number of votes in Harris County surpassed the 2012 presidential election. If you are O'Rourke, that is a great tweet.

We'll give those results very soon. Let's go right down to Ron Lester. He's at the DNC headquarters, of course. He's one of the top pollsters out there. And, Ron, how you doing? How you doing? How you doing? Folks? Okay, so Ron, first and foremost, can you give us a sense of what is happening in Florida? A lot of folks are shocked and stunned thinking Andrew Gillum was actually going to win by three to four points. I am hearing from the Gillum

campaign that is looking bleak. What is the percent in? What are you seeing happening in Florida? What's going on? Well, it looks like it's about 97 percent in, but part of Dade County is still outstanding and a small portion of Broward County. So that's where the Democratic votes come from. As you remember, with Gore and Bush 2000, it was all about Broward and Dade County and hanging chats, et cetera. So what's the vote separation? So all that good,

but there's still a possibility that the race is going to tighten up and that he could win. How many votes? What's the voter separation as it stands right now the last time we looked here it was it was um gilliam had 48.9 and desantos had 49.9 uh one percentage point between them what was that that we talked about how many votes was that that we talked about? How many votes was that? OK, so it's 50 percent for DeSantos and 48.8 for Gillum. I think that's a close to 100,000 votes. U.S. Senate. Who is Rick Scott up against Bill Nelson? What is that looking like? It was slightly up, but that race is very, very close.

And, you know, many of us had thought Gillum was carrying Scott, but Scott. Looks like we lost Ron there. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You broke up there, Ron. You said, Ron, you broke up there. Hold on one second, Ron. You said we broke up there. Hold on one second, Ron. You said we broke up there.

You said that we thought Gillum was going to carry Nelson, and then you broke up. Go ahead. And it appears that Nelson now has slightly more votes than Gillum. Wow. That is quite interesting there because, again, because, yes, everyone thought Andrew Gillum was going to be carrying Nelson over the line. What else are you seeing? First of all, can you give us an update

on Maryland being jealous against Larry Hogan. I don't have any numbers on Maryland, but it appears that Hogan is comfortably ahead. You know, Roland, I'm at the DCCC, so I'm mostly focused on the Congressionals over here. So let's talk about that. Obviously, Democrats want to take control of the House. Are Democrats leading in more races than Republicans? What is it looking like, the possibility of Democrats seizing control of the U.S. House? So we're leading

in 16 Republican districts, and we've already won three. We've won Virginia 10, which is Fairfax, Washington, D.C., suburban district, Florida 26, and Florida 27, both districts in South Florida. Donna Shalala and Debbie Powell Buscatelle. So we have three in Virginia. We're actually ahead in two others. In Virginia 7, we're ahead by about 1,000 votes. And in Virginia 2, which is Virginia Beach, the Peninsula District, we're ahead by about 5,000 votes. Both of those races are 48.9 to about 40, 48, et cetera.

So they're very close. These races are tight as a bug in a rug right now. But if we could come out of Virginia with three victories, that would be major. As I said, we're leading in 16. We're a part of ours. So if we can pick up these 18 seats in the early part of the night before we go to California, where we have seven very competitive seats, we have a couple of competitive seats in Texas. All right. As you know. So we're having some technical issues there with Ron Lester's feed there, folks. And so we're going to try to get that fixed.

So, Ron Lester, we appreciate it. We'll be checking back with you a little bit later in the night as our coverage continues. Folks, it is 940 p.m. Eastern. That's 940 Eastern on the East Coast. Polls have closed in Central Standard Time Zone. Don't forget, there are some pol still open there in of co in Georgia on the campuses

as Spellman open until 10 State Board of Texas Sta you can go to my ipad ple right now is the number o, this says 5% of the precincts in. We know that more is in, but O'Rourke is actually leading, a slight lead against Ted Cruz. That was, I'm showing some other results. I'm going to go to those, try to find those to get the information. Folks, also in the control room, please, Desmond Meade and Sheena Meade are trying to call us to come on to talk about, of course, the proposition for passing in Florida.

1.4 million people will have the right to vote as a result of what took place tonight. So please, if y'all can get them on the phone line. They have tried to call me twice while Ron was talking. So please let me know when you have them on the lines. Let's go to our panel. Teresa, I want to start with you. The fact that O'Rourke is leading in Texas, it's small. That is still, if it's shocking that Gillum is not winning in Florida,

it is shocking that O'Rourke is leading because, again, going into the final polls, it was anywhere from 3% to 5% that Ted Cruz was up against O'Rourke. Right. So again, I think kind of what we're seeing now is that the blue wave kind of sinking or he's dumb, right? Or, right. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So my way. Yeah. So it's not as impactful as we thought it was going to be. But I'm I'm again, it's it we probably have about what, a few thousand votes that are still out. So I'm kind of waiting to see what it actually looks like holistically before I really just kind of put my. Well, for me, first of all, look, let's look at the United States Senate. First of all, you had Democrats who are running in U.S. Senate positions that were states

Trump won. Okay? So you look at Indiana. Donnelly loses in Indiana. No shock Trump won Indiana by what, 15, 18 points or whatever. Okay? No shock. Blackburn beat Phil Breston.

He was competitive all throughout its Tennessee. At the end of the day, that is still a red state. Trump won. So that's no shock there. Of Florida, Trump won. So that's no shock there. Florida. Trump won Florida. So the fact that Scott Nelson, Scott was two-term Republican governor there as well,

poured millions of his own money into the campaign as well. If Scott pulls that out, that's no shock. Now, from a Democrat, that's switching the seat from a Democrat to a Republican. But that still was a red state. Trump's whole strategy was to only go to those places where Republicans were to maintain control of the Senate. They pretty much said, we're going to lose the House. Because you look at, of course, the tax bill, how it hurt New Jersey, New York State, and California. And so they are scared to death that all Republicans in California might get wiped out on tonight, of course. And then, of course, they thought they were going to pick up the seat of Menendez in New

Jersey. Didn't happen. Timmy Baldwin didn't happen in Wisconsin. So even though Trump barely won Wisconsin, Baldwin is still very popular. And so, again, I think when people talk about this whole idea of a blue wave, the mistake is to think that that was going to be Senate, House, and governors. No, you're seeing it when it comes to on the House side. The Senate side is different because you're dealing with statewide. That's what you're dealing with. Yeah, I agree with you. But also, you know, the assessment of the blue wave, I mean, we are running against

extremely gerrymandered districts. That shows the quality of the candidates and the enthusiasm there. To the Beto point, I think that also underscores how much trash Ted Cruz actually is. Steve Ministeri was chair of the Texas GOP. Well, hold on one second. This is very interesting. Go to my iPad, please. And so I have seen these media folks projecting being jealous, losing to Larry Hogan. This is interesting. The Maryland State Board of Election is delaying the releasing results until everyone is finished voting.

Some are still in line after 9 p.m. So I can give you some quick insight. So I've been sitting here. Part of what I'm doing on my phone is that Maryland hasn't released anything yet, but some of the counties have. And I live particularly in Baltimore County, which is the Ohio of Maryland. So if you're looking at Baltimore County, they released their early voting, which is the 11 precincts. Hogan has about an 18-point margin right now, which is about where he was in 14 and where he needs to be in Baltimore County.

The issue is that the raw vote total there is—the race is going to be won and lost in Montgomery County. You say that was with an early voting total. That's early voting total. So looking at that right now, Hogan has 18, just in Baltimore County, which is the Ohio of Maryland. He has an 18-point margin. But down ballot, we're getting smoked. We're carrying, you know, the state, you know, state legislative six and seven up and down the ballot. But in eight and 42 and all the other state races, we're getting completely smoked.

So I think, you know, that's why I'm interested to see how this comes out, because I don't see a necessary scenario where, you know, we're getting smoked in District 8 with Christian Mealy or District 42 with Tim Robinson who was former Senator Broughton who actually endorsed Hogan. And Hogan, you know, and Baltimore County swings, you know, 20 points for Hogan. Well, as a Texan, I'm back to Beto because I'm like, what Beto O'Rourke has managed to do, even if he doesn't win, is change the metric in Texas. Like going forward, it really is an announcement about what the voting population is in Texas. But for me, if he wins, it's incredible because my political career began sticking yard signs for Ann Richards in yards all throughout my neighborhood in Gallatin, and so I'm dating and aging myself.

But I have, you know, I work for Jack Brooks. I work for Charlie Wilson. I love Texas politics. But people don't even remember now that we were blue, that I grew up in a blue, then purple, now red state. So there's no real Republican who wouldn't be sick, sick, sick if Beto takes this because there is no path to a presidency.

Didn't we talk about that in the back? There's no path to a presidency without Texas for the GOP. Before Roland taught me, I was going to say about this race in particular, it just shows how trash Ted Cruz is. No, Beto. No, no, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you. Beto. Beto's great, but it's a dual.

Nobody's ever liked Ted Cruz. It's a dual equation. Right. I'm going to tell you, Beto's great, but it's a dual equation. But the thing is this, when Steve Minister was still P-chair for two or three terms, and he was chair of the state party down there, Rick Perry carried the Hispanic vote. Cornyn was able to carry the Hispanic vote. Hold on, hold on, hold on. Hold on, hold on.

Let me remind you, they were basically running against nobodies. That's fair. No, no, I understand. But once they compare that to an Hispanic that wants to be a white guy. George W. Bush got 25% of the black vote against Gary Morrow. He sucked. So the problem is when you have a real candidate, it changes the equation. Candid quality matters.

Candid quality matters. All right, folks, hold tight one second. Joining us right now with the CEO of the National Urban League is Mark Morial. Mark, welcome to Rolling Martin Unfiltered. How are you? Mark, when we look at these election results, we're waiting to see what's happening, obviously, out of Florida. Of course, it is very tight. Andrew Gillum is down there, also waiting on results out of Georgia. Your assessment of what has been happening thus far tonight?

Certainly, Florida is a little tighter than I expected, but I'm going to ask people to hold on because Florida is headed for a recount. Those margins are simply too close for there to be a definitive outcome, and we're going to have to demand and insist on a recount. Remember 2000. Remember the chants. Remember all of the things that have occurred in the past. So I still have faith and hope that Florida could, in fact, come through. Obviously, it's a night of energized voters on both sides.

And the big surprise, of course, is what's happening in Texas, your home state, Roland. And I'm looking at the Harris County vote, because if the Harris County vote is substantially still out, then Beto O'Rourke has a good shot to take this race and knock off Ted Cruz. We also are looking at, of course, only 35% of the ballots are in Georgia. Kent with a lead there, but we're still waiting to see. The Atlanta vote in? Do we know if the Atlanta vote is in? That vote is not in, and there are two polling locations on the campus of Morehouses and Spelman that will stay open until 10 p.m., and so that's going to also delay those results as well. We also are looking at some of these other races. And again, I'm studying them in Georgia, if I am correct. I thought I read this

correct where Lucy McBath is actually up by a couple of thousand votes in her race against Handel. And so we're studying that. It's 52-48. But again, I'm waiting to get more information on that as well. So we're looking at a lot of these congressional races. The CBC could very well grow if they win all their races as high as 56 members by the end of the night. A chance to make history. And if Dems take over, we'll have five or six committee chairs. I just have talked to 10 of my local leaders in the last hour and a half, Roland, and they all report very strong turnout, lots of energy at the grassroots level, successful souls to the polls efforts.

I mean, I'm really proud that many people in our community did their own thing. I know the AME Church was making phone calls, Urban Leaguers, NAACP, NAM, Black Women's Roundtable, Deltas, Alphas, Kappas, you name it, were out there doing their thing on their own to turn out the vote. So I think we're going to see a strong turnout in our community, but I also think that this was an energized electorate on both sides, and this will be a record voter turnout for any midterm election. Mark, also, I think you made a point about folks doing their own. The thing is,

these folks are not going away. LaTosha Brown with Black Voters Matter, what she said is that if you're a Democrat, you can't wait until election season. You've got to be focused in off-election years, building up to it. And so what she says, if the Democrats have any sense, they will keep the mobilization going between now all the way up to 2020. It doesn't make sense to wind it down, then restart it up, you know, six months away from the election. Amen, amen, amen, Roland. And that's been the missing element, is you have to have a permanent infrastructure that continues to activate voters educate voters talk to voters uh talk to people in the community continue to register people to vote particularly working with now we have gen z uh my own 16 year old son he'll

be voting for the first time in 2020 we got to start talking to these young people to energize them uh and and activate them and she is absolutely right and so we're gonna be standing together with that message. All right. One other issue here, Mark. In Florida, Proposition 4 looks like it is going to pass restoring the voting rights to formerly incarcerated 1.4 million. What that says is that in 2020 if Donald Trump tries to come to Florida with Mr. B and Mr. Law and Order, that ain is that in 2020, if Donald Trump tries to come to Florida with Mr. Bean, Mr. Law and Order, that ain't going to go over well having a million and 1.4 million people

who will be eligible to vote in the next election. And we've got to go register them. And in addition to that role in that amendment, of course, in Florida, a very important step for criminal justice reform. There's also an amendment in Louisiana that we strongly endorse that would eliminate Louisiana's non-unanimous jury rule. Louisiana is a state where you can convict somebody of a crime with 10 out of 12 on a jury. So there's a constitutional amendment on the ballot in Louisiana to end that, and we were active down there last week campaigning in favor of that. So those would be two important steps on criminal justice reform. And very importantly,

these are measures voting on by the people of these two southern states. All right, then. Mark Morrell, head of the National Urban League, we certainly appreciate it. Thank you so very much. You're welcome. All right, then. Again, folks, we're monitoring what is happening in Texas. I want to to bring one of the da's races you have john cruzo who's running against faith johnson a cruzo democrat faith johnson republican both african-american cruzo is leading in that race we're monitoring some other da races as well we look also watching the attorney general races we're watching those as well and again the u. U.S. Senate race, you have O'Rourke, who is leading Cruz in that race.

It is a slight lead. But again, we're monitoring to see what happens there. Again, as we go from right to left, polls closing on the East Coast, except those that are still remaining open in some places. Then, of course, central time zone. Then once we get to the western time zone, that's what Democrats, as Ron Lester said, hope to really pick up seven seats in California. You have some races out there where you have Duncan Hunter, Republican incumbent, incumbent Eugene Rand, arguably, not arguably, the most racist campaign out of anybody in this election season, calling his opponent,

calling him a Muslim when he's a Christian. He's part Palestinian, and he literally has said, you vote for him, he wins. You have elected a terrorist in the U.S. House. That's how racist Duncan Hunter has been running in California. Yeah, yeah. I mean, there are going to be some losses in California. I mean, Daryl Issa led off this morning by saying that his seat is already gone. Dana Rohrabacher is in some trouble. Duncan Hunter is going to be in some trouble, possibly.

His district is gerrymandered. It's a good part of the Republican party in Orange County is in his district. So we'll have to see what happens there. Well, how many more, though, times do we have to have some Republicans, the overt racists running and them say all manner of evil in order for them to lose their seats. I'm just interested. One of the things that I come back and ask you is. You got a place to defend the racists here.

OK. And see, we're not doing part two. OK. Most of the time. Here's the thing. I was interested in when he said about birtherism, that you accept that this president did that, but you still support the president because he's the president of the United States. Is it that you believe the birther issue was not a valid one, that it's not a racial issue, that it's not racism? I do. I believe that.

OK. But if it's a racist statement by the person who would be leading the free world, then how do we justify any of the other things that are coming out of his mouth or the policies that are coming from his Justice Department? I'm just interested in how anybody can separate the two, because I know certainly I can, and Eugene has proven that he cannot. Yeah, it's a fair question. I don't think that, I think there's a difference between things that are racial and things that are actually racist. And believe it or not, there were things that, you know, as someone who supported Barack Obama in 2008, there were things that the Clintons did that I had convinced myself. I said, oh, that was racist.

Okay, well, we're talking about the President Trump. Let's just focus, because I know the conservative thing is when we talk about Trump, let's give it to the Clintons, because everything is about the Clintons. But if you're going to ask me, but if you're going to ask me how did I, but if you're going to ask me how did I arrive here, then I have to tell you examples like that. The things that were said, not just by the Clintons, but people who supported the Clintons that I said, I said, oh, that was racist. Okay. And then at some point during this presidency, I started to reevaluate the things that I thought that were racist versus things that may be racially motivated. So, for instance, Joe Biden saying something like the GOP wants to put you back in chains, you know, talking to black people. You know, if he were a Republican,

people probably would have thought that that was racist. You know, I thought that it was something racially motivated that he said. So moving on to Trump, I think that there are things that Trump said. And I was on the show just the other day when he, the, um, the ad that he tweeted, I think he retweeted the ad with the Hispanic guy or something like that, the illegal alien or whatever it was, you know, that's not something that I support, you know, and for a lot of people, I understand, you know, it's hard to compartmentalize. It's hard to say, okay, well, I don't support these things that you do, but I overall support some of the other things. But it's not that it's hard to compartmentalize. It's hard to say, OK, well, I don't support these things that you do, but I overall support some of the other things. But it's not that it's hard to compartmentalize.

It's that they refuse to compartmentalize because they don't believe in self-hate and self-loathing. So I don't elect a dog catcher to lead me who hates me. Right. I don't believe that. I don't think racism is hate. And I'm not talking about he hates Malik or he hates Monique. I'm saying that racism, when you take your bigotry and you put power behind it such that you influence outcomes, like when you lead an entire justice department or when you make immigration policy,

what I am saying is that that means that you are activating your hate upon people who you lead. So it's not that I cannot compartmentalize. I know how to walk and chew gum. What I am saying is that I don't know how to support a person who hates everything I am, everything my ancestors are, everything. I mean, I don't believe that. But we did the example. But I don't believe that.

You got to the Gillum example right and and you understood why saying he's just not meant for it and saying that's not qualified or something not qualified right and I mean you but I but I don't think that's racial winky day but I but I don't think that's right about the boy this is the same guy who has said everything about what 15 other 15 other, 15 other candidates. Yeah, so I hear it on both sides, you know. And again, even if I'm looking at the conservative side, yes, I have to think that compartmentalizing some of this thing, some of the rhetoric that's coming out of the Trump administration, like, you just have to in order to stay within your party.

You don't. To stay, you you do you know because and again i hear what monique is saying she's like look racism is hate right and and it's coming in different forms throughout this presidency um and so where's the so for me i'm just kind of listening to where's the the middle line is right so i have a question it's conservative as there's an old conservative ad it's not supposed to be a middle line for racism. I have a question. I have a question for Malik, as a conservative. Yeah. It's conservative as a... There's an old conservative ad.

It's that personnel's policy, right? Mm-hmm. So, if personnel's policy... Let's go through Trump's personnel. Is Steve Bannon a qualified racist? I... Is Sebastian Borja a qualified racist? There...

What does that have to do... Will we look at Jeff's... But what does that have to do with the policy that we're talking about? Will we look at Jeff's... Because he did... Will we look at Jeff's... No, his premise was that personnel is policy. Okay.

So, what he's saying is that this president has put these people in positions... Surrounds himself with racists that impose racist policies. His premise was that personnel is policy. So what he's saying is that this president has put these people in positions of power. Okay, well, I don't know what policy you're referencing. What policy are you referencing? Administration of government. He's the president of the United States. But I'm saying, but what policies are you referencing that have been racist against blacks? You're saying he leads, the personnel leads, right?

I got you. I can give you a direct one. AG Sessions giving every single attorney, every single U.S. attorney in this country the okay to seek the maximum penalty for what are probably minimum qualifications of drug trafficking. And so you think that's racist? That's absolutely racist. I'm going to tell you why. Because it actually will perpetuate Joe Biden republicans are going to put you back in chains via the prison system absolutely and you didn't think that was racist and i do think it's racist i actually think that i should think that policy is racist no i'm saying what joe biden said you don't don't what joe biden said was a fact it's a fact right but that language is not racist

it's a fact it's a fact it's a fact. It's a fact. It's a fact. So that language is, because for two, that was language. Two months into the administration. That was language, so that's not racist. Stephen Miller. Stephen Miller. Okay, so language

is no longer racist. Let me figure out. He's going to have to go down the list of things that aren't racist. He's talking about policies. One second. So here's the deal.

Polls are still open in Iowa, California, Utah, Nevada, Washington, Oregon, Montana, Idaho. And again, which means that if you are in line, stay in line. If you are in line before the polls officially close, you'll still be able to vote. All right, folks, we are at the top of the hour. We're going to take a break right now. When we come back, we're going to talk to Reverend Dr. William Barber.

He has been dealing with voting irregularities in North Carolina all day. And so we will get to him in just one moment. We'll also give you an update on what is happening in Florida, what is happening in Georgia as well. Again, folks, it is a tight election. We are almost we're at 10 p.m. right now. So we'll do a reset. We'll back up, be on back on Roland Martin unfiltered in just a moment. Michael, this is how you had a conversation. Okay, so Michael, this is how you had that conversation. Okay, so I'm going to, again, as a black man who know black people,

who also know white people, let me have this conversation. So this is how you do it. I got a little bit more hair than you do, and I'm a different body frame and everything. Let me help you out. So I'm Michael Avenatti.

Let me go on back over here. So I'm gonna go back to the question. Is there anybody that you like in the Democratic political class? Or do you think the 2020 nominee should be someone outside of politics? I believe Democrats need to elect somebody who is willing to go toe-to-toe with every voter against Donald Trump. That means that nominee should be going after black men, black women, Hispanic men, Hispanic women, white men, white women, rural, city, college, non-college, dropout, GED, everybody, not sacrifice anybody.

That's how you answer that question. The second question is when they said, really? Michael, you should have said, yes, really. You should have said, for instance, if you studied the last election, Hillary Clinton did not aggressively go after white men. She allowed Donald Trump to run up huge numbers with white men, and he also ran up huge numbers in rural America. If you don't compete, you don't win. We need a candidate who is willing to go into rural America and to go into inner city America, who is willing to go into the middle America and go to the coast. That's the candidate Democrats need to elect.

Okay. Next question. So Obama only won because of who he was running against, but a Trump who activates people's racism and sexism, then you come back and say, I am willing to. We coming out of that right now. And so when it get right to election results, we are watching what is happening all across the country. As Democrats want to take control of the United States House, Republicans are trying to hold on the US Senate. We also have some major gubernatorial races, three African

Americans who are running for statewide office been jealous in Maryland, Stacey Abrams in Georgia, Andrew Gillum in Florida. At the outset of the night, many folks thought we would be having at least one of them who will be victorious. As it stands right now. Neither of them are actually winning. We do not have results in Maryland, but some networks are calling the race for Larry Hogan, which, okay, I get their projections, but Maryland, the state, they are not reporting any numbers thus far because they say all polls, they will not report any numbers until all polls across the state are closed. Also in Georgia, we're watching those results as well. I was just on that Georgia page trying to find out what is happening in that particular election. And then also a very, very, very tight race

there in Florida. We're watching that as well. And so where Andrew Gillum is down to Rhonda Sanders to be the next governor of the state of Florida let's go right now to the phone lines remember dr. William barber of course with repairs with the breach also poor people's campaign he is being he is from North Carolina has been being there dealing with voting irregularities last night I was at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta well they had a prayer rally an election election-y prayer rally. He could not be there because of what was happening in North Carolina. Reverend Barber, first of all, glad to have you on Rolling Mark Unfiltered. Always rolling, and thank you for what you're doing. Give us a sense

of what you were seeing today as you were dealing with issues there in the state of North Carolina. You and I were texting, and you were seeing voting irregularities. Well, the first thing we saw here is before I could even come back to Atlanta, we had places where there were polling sites, or supposed to be polling sites, where there were abandoned buildings. And you couldn't even tell. Like, they put the polling place inside an abandoned building, but if you Google it or your GPS took you there, it would show the abandoned part of the building when they could have easily chosen some other sites.

We've had ballots to get to Morse today because of the moisture not being able to feed through the system. Long lines. Earlier this morning, we had a 90-year-old that went to, you know, just anecdotally, went to a polling place, was told it was the wrong polling place. But what she did, interestingly, is got in her car with her daughter and started singing, ain't going to let nobody turn me around until she found where to vote. But she should have never had to do that. You know, this is the first election, Roland, in North Carolina since we fought for six years against racist gerrymandering and voter suppression and won. One of the crazy things, though, today, and I heard your guest talk about racism,

is, you know, racism for me is look at the numbers and the disparate impact and what the law says. And right now, one of the ugly parts of what's going on here is that the constitutional amendment to put the photo ID that was rendered surgical racism by the Supreme Court into our state constitution is winning. It's actually winning tonight. It's winning. It's going to be a great challenge for how we go forward. So, I mean, forward, we do have a couple of potential House seats that may flip in the Democratic side, and we'll have to add to that number to take over the House. But it's been a battle all day. I'm literally just getting in from a five-city radio talk today.

And, Reverend Barber, which constitutional amendment were you saying that is leading right now? There are six constitutional amendments that they're pushing. And one of them was last, two years ago, we beat the extremist Republicans in court. And the courts ruled that their vote, their vote, their monster voting deal was unconstitutional. And one part of it was a strict photo ID. It was ruled unconstitutional. one part of it was a strict photo id it was ruled unconstitutional it was called surgical racism they put it on the ballot as a constitutional amendment and it's

leading now it hasn't this we are at the end of the night but the very fact that people here are willing to vote for the very racism that the court said. And interestingly enough for your panel, the Roberts court said it was political racism. It was so racist that this court had to say it was racism, and now they've placed it on the ballot as a constitutional amendment, and it is leading currently in the poll, in the numbers.

When we look at those amendments, obviously you have folks who are trying their best to change the Constitution in Florida. The amendment to Proposition 4 to give voting rights to formerly incarcerated, that seems to be passing as well. Right. That's a good one, though. But the point there is progressives are going to have to learn to fight for constitutional amendments. That's right. And fight hard and go inside of these state constitutions.

A lot of the things in our constitution have been tested, and I mean tested in a good way. You know, I heard your guest talking about Florida and Georgia and Maryland. What's going to be interesting, Roland, is when we look at these numbers, like, for instance, how many Democrats split ticket? Because in reality, in none of these states, North Carolina, Maryland, should Republicans ever win if Democrats stay pure to their party? Number two, how many Black folks stayed home that were registered that didn't vote? How many people stayed home? I mean, there's a lot of analysis to be done as to what really has gone on in this night,

particularly in Florida and Georgia and Maryland, you know, with the African-Americans running for governor. So on the one hand, you look out in Texas, the white guy, Bork, that's running and running on a fair trade, that thing I saw in one county, he was leading. Now he's still not leading totally, but he's doing much better. But then in these counties, in these other states where you have two to one Democrats in Maryland, two to one in North Carolina, two to one in Georgia, two to one in Florida, it's going to be very interesting to see what happens inside the party, not just from the Republican

output. Also, you have a situation where Democrats want to take control of the U.S. House. How is it looking in North Carolina and some of those crucial races for the House? Well, we've had a massive turnout, and it looks like, for instance, in House Congressional District 4, we may very well pick up that seat and send an African American woman, which would be one of those 20-some seats that are needed. And we're slowly getting reports in. Now, we have not, the proposal closed, but a lot of the lines were so long they had to extend to hours.

So we really don't have true numbers in from North Carolina, but it looks like North Carolina will start trending back. You know, before the racialized gerrymandering, our numbers were seven, six. We had seven Democrats in the House and six Republicans. After the gerrymandering, we went to 10 Republicans in the House and three Democrats because of the way that they abused the Voting Rights Amendment and stacked and packed and bleached black voters all over the state. All of it's not gone yet, Roland. You and I were together in Greensboro, and you know A&T State University was split right down the middle in a House district.

That had never been the case before. Normally that college was in one district. It was split, thereby undermining the ability of the students to have full impact in just one district. So it looks like that we're going to pick up a couple of seats here and send them forward. But, you know, we're still waiting to see. And if I could, Roland, I was listening to y'all's conversation about racism. You know, I really think that we, you know, words are not what words mean when they come.

You and I have this conversation all the time. It's a clause in the law that talks about disparate impact. Because you can actually never say the N-word, never say you don't like black people. You can hold a black baby, do all that kind of stuff. But at the end of the day, look at the policy, whether it's health care, whether it's denying living wages, whether it's even the passing of a $2 trillion tax cut. How do those policies disparately impact black people, minorities. That's what racism really is. And that's the conversation too often people don't want to have about racism.

They think it's just somebody that's openly racist, you know, like Trump and whatnot. I'm more worried about the ones that are not openly racist, that won't get up and call themselves a nationalist, but they will not restore the Voting Rights Act or they'll pass laws that they know are going to have a disparate impact, like denying health care. You know, when you talk about people ending pre-existing conditions, for instance, that is a racist thing. Now, it's not somebody calling you the N-word, but when you look at that, if you deny pre-existing coverage, who's it going to hurt the most in terms of percentages? Black and brown people. It's going to hurt more white people in terms of raw numbers, but it's going to hurt in percentages black and brown people.

That's the definition of a racist policy. I am looking at what is happening in Texas. NBC has just called the Texas race for Ted Cruz. And then they're saying that Republicans will definitely, as a result of this, be in control of the United States Senate. Your thoughts? Well, I pray to God that we get the House. But let me just say, I've been sitting here thinking about this. Anybody that thinks we don't have a real crisis, a moral crisis in this country, this election proves it.

But it's one thing to elect Donald Trump. It is another thing after two years to see all that he's doing and to see the Republicans continue to endorse, enable, and undergird what he's doing. And then those same people can run. And you think, for instance, all of those people in Texas that would have health care if Texas had expanded Medicaid expansion. And many of them tonight still voted for Ted Cruz, voted for his regressivism, that ought to trouble us about America, that you can be this openly xenophobic, racist, mean. You can literally tell people every day, I'm going to take your health care. In other words, I'm going to get rid of what keeps you alive.

And they will still somehow vote for hate and meanness more than they will vote for justice and love. I'm not just talking about party here. We know that wages are down. We know that there are 140 million poor people. We know that the very people that are getting elected are high poverty states, voter suppression states, are states where people need health insurance. And yet, for some reason, people keep voting for the very people that are not going to help them. It again shows the power of race, the power

of hate. And as you said, Roland, if Democrats don't learn to run candidates that can talk to everybody and can expose this hypocrisy and are willing to take it on, then we will continue to see these people escape. He didn't win by much, probably a percentage or two, which is better, but it's still a loss when it comes to politics. And it's still true that 50 percent of the state is willing to vote against their own self-interest. We also are seeing that in Arizona we're getting some results, about 40 percent in, and the Republican is up a couple of points there as well. So we're studying this. Reverend Barber, final comments.

We've got a lot of work to do, and this proves that elections and voting alone are not enough. We have to vote, but we have to build a movement. We have to bring to consciousness, as I keep saying, these 140 million poor people of all different races, colors, creeds, and clergy leaders, and build a movement that votes. We cannot simply wait until in the election time to mobilize people, to organize, to register the vote. Parties better learn that. If they don't, we're going to have to teach them in the movement. We can't just bring out what we call closers in the last two weeks. That is not what it's going to take. It's going to be hard work talking to everybody, going to everybody, putting a face on the pain that these policies create, and creating a real moral challenge in this country where people are going to have to make the decision.

Because I would suspect, Robert, even with all of this activity tonight, millions of people stayed home. Millions of people set out set up and we have got to have a movement that mobilizes those people and it will not happen if we just wait till every election season to organize a mobilize we have to have a movement that's why I'm fully committed to the poor people's campaign and that's the call revival of doing this long-term work that has to be done and I want to thank you for all your help in doing it. I appreciate it. Thank you so very much, sir. Let's introduce our panel.

Returning with us is Michael Brown, of course, former member of the DNC Finance Committee, also joining us here, Spencer Overton, President, Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. We also have, of course, joining us, Barbara Arnwine, President, Transformative Justice Coalition, and also Derek Holley, President, Reaching America. Folks, as I look at election results, again, that are coming in, we're seeing that McCaskill is down slightly in Missouri. You have the Republican who's slightly up in Arizona. You also have Elizabeth Warren, a clear winner there, won her race. And we're looking at, again, a number of these races. It is a narrow, narrow, it is, I mean, very small percentage. Rick Scott is leading Bill Nelson in Florida. Same thing when it comes to DeSantis leading Andrew Gillum. Let's talk about, again, people were talking about a Democratic wave. We are seeing that that was beaten, that looked like this was being beaten back. The question is, what role did the Brett Kavanaugh hearings play in that? How major was that? Was that also one of the reasons why Republicans wanted that to happen before the midterm elections? Spencer, your thoughts?

So that may have stimulated the Republican base, right, in terms of getting votes out. Another interesting point is we said Amendment 4, right, 1.4 million folks having their rights restored, right? Andrew Gillum is within 100,000 points. Senate race is 100,000 votes, right? Senate race is within 100,000 votes, right? That's it right there, right? I mean, if that had been passed four years ago, Andrew Gillum would be the governor. Barbara. Yes, I think that we've always known that this country has two choices. It either moves towards a multiracial, equal society, or it determines that it's going to be an unequal, white-dominated, artificially white-dominated society. I think that it wasn't just Kavanaugh,

but I actually think that Donald Trump knows what he's doing when he calls himself a nationalist, that he knows that that plays with the white base, that they hear that this is about us, that it's about our power, our privilege, our preservation of domination of the society. And so I think that we got to understand what's really going on in the minds of people. I think that we just aren't there, that we want to try to look at this in very, very unrealistic ways

and not really understand what it means to live in a society that is dominated by white structural racism. And that's not just going to go away. We'll also just update here. Colin Allred, former NFL player, has looked, his projected winner has beat Republican Pete Sessions in Dallas. That is a huge, huge win. Democrats are almost halfway home to take control. They need 23

seats to take control of the United States House. They have secured 10 of those victories. A number of races are still very close, but that is a big pickup. Sessions was in the Republican leadership, Derek, and so for him to go down as a changing district there in Dallas County, Democrats have been strong the last several elections in Dallas County and Harris County as well. And so even though Texas is a red state, they've been able to gain a foothold in the two largest counties in the state to see Pete Sessions beaten and also all red African-American. And so that's another African-American who will be joining the Congressional Black Caucus. Excellent. And congratulations to him. However, you know, when I look at what's going on, Roland, you know, I say this all the time. You know, once you get outside of urban areas, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, New York, Chicago,

the thought process is different. People think completely different. And I speak to a lot of people on a daily basis who feel like this administration is doing a great job. And so I think you're seeing that when you look at some of these tight races that people on the Republican side, conservatives, have stepped up just because they believe in the policies of Donald Trump. I won't deny the rhetoric that this man puts out. This is negative. You know, who can buy into that?

But when you start looking at some of the things like the tax credit, people embrace that tax credit. But they're actually buying into both, though. I mean, the reality is they are buying into both. And so, what we have to, and look, I've been saying since 2009 that our politics, I'm working on a book on this very issue,

this is white fear. Agreed. This is white fear. It is a fear that America is becoming more black and brown. And what that translates is becoming more black. No, no, no, no. But that's what white folks are fearful of that. And what that translate into, Michael, it translates into, oh, not just power, but also the worldview, how we view America, how we see America, whether they want to own it or not. America has had white values dominate everything. It's white values when it comes to beauty.

It's white values in terms of how we see the flag. It's white values in terms of how you should think. If you're African-American in America, you have to adjust who you are. Everything about America is we have to adjust who we are to make white folks feel more comfortable. So we have to dress a certain way, talk a certain way for the longest, wear our hair a certain way. If you're a black man, I knew brothers who graduated from Texas A&M who said, oh man, I got to shave my beard and shave my mustache because I'm now applying for jobs after I get it, then I get to grow it back. If you white, hell, you ain't got to do all that sort of stuff.

And so this notion of white fear goes also to that because it comes down to control. And Donald Trump is playing, is pushing all those buttons yes he's pushing the buttons because he understood because he's touching those folks in that way and these are people who don't who are not racist who who don't go to white nationalist meetings but they carry whiteness with him and we get so um wrapped up into the analytical and what's right and what's wrong, and clearly his tweets are wrong. But on a political basis, what he did the last two weeks was political genius. You know I don't want to ever give 45 any credit for anything.

But it was political genius. And frankly, if the former president had done that in the previous election in 16, I'm just talking poor politics, and said, vote for me, for her, like you're voting for me. That's what he said. That's exactly what he said. He put it on the line with his voters, said, I need you to go to polls. I'm not on there, but I need you to pretend I'm on there. If that had happened in 16, and again, analytically, practically, what's right and what's wrong, we all know that. Politically, what he did over the last two weeks, and again, I don't want to give him credit for anything. I don't even call him president. I call

him 45. But what he did was brilliant. I don't think it had anything to do with Kavanaugh. Kavanaugh, no Kavanaugh. He would have done the exact same thing these last three weeks, begging his people to go vote. And frankly, but still, the definition of a blue wave, the House is going to flip. For what it's worth, on Twitter, Fox is already calling the House is going to flip. So that, to me, the blue wave did happen. The question is, what was the definition of the blue wave? And if the House flips, to me, that's enough of a blue wave did happen. The question is, what was the definition of the blue wave? And if

the house flips to me, that's enough of a blue wave to make me happy. So, Roland, you know, when we were here two years ago, I remember it was really a surprise in terms of this thing that jumped out. You know, everybody thought that Hillary Clinton would win. And I think moving into this night, there was maybe a thought of, well, hey, maybe that was an anomaly. Maybe that was kind of an exception. People have seen this issue with Trump and him not being appropriate, et cetera. And I think it's probably deeper than that. One other quick note is if we don't have a black governor win tonight, what does that mean for Kamala Harris? What's that mean for Cory Booker? what's it mean for Deval Patrick what's it mean for Eric

Holder in terms of the Democratic presidential primary I'm getting first of all we still races have not been called in Florida races have not been called there but also as I'm looking at the numbers here in Georgia, 52% of the precincts, and so that 1,364 of the 2,634 precincts. Brian Kemp has 1,244,000 votes, 55% of the vote. Stacey Abrams has 44%. The Libertarian candidate only has 1%. Many people, again, were thinking that this could very well go to a December 4th runoff. But if Brian Kemp is able to win 50 plus 1% of the vote, he is the governor. There is no runoff.

It is there in... Now, this is what I'm getting from folks uh with the andrew gillum campaign who are actually there uh papers in miami are calling it but broward is still out and that their people are still voting in florida and people are still in lines in florida uh we don't know how many are in lines and so for them to be calling the race, others are not. Again, some people are calling. I'm double checking right now to see what they said. Again, the Miami paper, let's see what we have here on their homepage. What they have here is Ron DeSantis at forty nine point nine two percent, three thousand nine hundred and993 votes. Andrew Gillum, 48.86%, a little more than 1%, with 3,908,000 votes.

We're talking about an 87,000-vote difference here in that particular race. In the United Again, Bill, Rick Scott, four thousand four million twenty one thousand seven hundred and eighty three. And then Bill Nelson, three million nine hundred fifty nine thousand. So you're talking about that race there. That is about sixty one thousand votes separating Rick Scott and Bill Nelson. You heard Mark Morial say expect a runoff, excuse me, a recount there in Florida. But again, Gillum folks are saying that it's looking real tight, but there's hope that Dade and Broward can still help Gillum. And so his people are Are holding out hope but they

This one text is very simple we are Effing sick down here stunned rolling You know what I still in trouble by this phenomenon and you and I have talked about this before, on these polling numbers, clearly people tell pollsters one thing and do a whole other thing when they go into the polls. Especially when people of color are on the ballot. When you look at the Nelson and Scott race, the numbers seem to be right on. Maybe one half a percentage point either way, but in the margin of error. In the Gillum race... One second, one second. One second either way, but in the in the margin of error in the Gillum race.

One second, one second. There's one second. I'm getting a text here. So seven precincts in Broward County. This is actually from someone who is there. Seven precincts in Broward County could not submit votes electronically. So they're driving jump drives to the headquarters. And so those counties are outstanding. Again, the Gillum campaign is hoping that there are some 90 or 100,000 votes that are coming out of Broward County. But seven precincts could not submit electronically. So they're actually putting them on jump drives and driving them down to election headquarters. Michael, go ahead. I'm obviously hopeful that the mayor is victorious. But in that election, if you recall, there was one poll had him up, him being Gillum, up by 12. Then another poll had him up by more five or six.

And now he's down one. So clearly that Tom Bradley effect. Well, the poll we talked about yesterday, so Quinnipiac had a poll yesterday. A couple others had a poll yesterday showing Gillum with anywhere for a three to four point lead in the polls. And first of all, again, the thing that I keep telling folks all the time, polls are irrelevant. Yes, they are. I don't understand. At the end of the day, at the end of the day, there's only one poll that matters.

And your job is to get as many of your people out as possible. That's right. And we remember during the primary, he was down seven or eight points in the last week of the campaign. And folks were stunned when he actually won the primary. And so and again, that's what that's what that showed. That's why candidates say, look, Barbara, you run as if you are behind. You don't you don't take it easy and somehow say, okay, I'm going to win. Well, we always have said that this race would come down to the ground game. And nobody thought it would be about anything else

but that everywhere. You know, I think, you know, when I was listening to the comments about Trump, quote, being brilliant, we got to remember Hitler was brilliant. I mean, come on, you guys. He was a brilliant politician. This man has hit, you know, Trump has studied Hitler at length. And we should be very clear that, you know, you can be evilly brilliant. And that does not mean you're good. And that is for the good of the nation. Real quick here. Sorry, Democrats. Sean Shaw, who's running for AG, lost in Florida. Republican Ashley Moody beat him by more than 500,000 votes there. Barbara, so he goes down. I'm trying to see what's happening with the black AG candidates in New York State, in Illinois, but also Minnesota and Nevada.

Barbara, go ahead. Well, we, I mean, Spencer could probably address this better, but we always have known the hardest thing in the world to do in the United States is to be a black and win statewide, win, you know, statewide state elections. One second here, Barbara. One second, one second here. Kwame Raul, a Democrat in Illinois, has beat Erica Harold for attorney general. Democrats win the AG race in Illinois. No shock. Illinois is a blue state. But that was one of the races where you had two African-Americans who were running for attorney general.

So Kwame Raoul, he was a state senator who filled the seat formerly held by President Barack Obama. He is the new attorney general in the state of Illinois. Right. And I do want to put on the table two things that people aren't going to talk about and probably will miss is that one of the interesting theme lines of this election has also been, you know, our democracy. And I do think it's interesting that if the last thing I saw before I sat down was that the Missouri, the ballot initiatives to counteract gerrymandering in Michigan, Colorado, and Missouri were winning. And that's interesting because that means that people are thinking, you know, that regardless of what's going on, that people are worried about a lot of this partisanship, a lot of this rigging and gerrymandering in our democracy.

So I want to, you know, really point that out, because I think that's, you know, one of the things that people won't talk about as much. But it's significant because that plus Pennsylvania, plus the fights that's going on in North Carolina and other states can make a huge difference as we move forward. Democrats have won the governor's mansion in Michigan with Whitmire beating a chouette in that particular race. And so Democrats pick up another governor's mansion, Spencer.

And you'll remember that there is a black lieutenant governor on that ticket. Garland Gilchrist is black, black lieutenant governor on that ticket. Garland Gilchrist is black, black lieutenant governor on that ticket in Michigan. Let's as we look at more of these races, Debbie Stabenow, she is leading against John James, African-American Republican for U.S. Senate. She's up five points against against John James. Their legalization of marijuana in the state of Michigan. Yes, it is at 57.7 percent. No, 42.9 percent. So we're following that particular issue there. Give me one second. When you talked about the proposals for the gerrymandering there in Michigan, folks, blow out those who support it right now they're up 59.5 percent to 40.5 percent also also uh in michigan uh a proposal to allow automatic e-day registration ballot issue

yes 65.9 percent no 34 percent and so to bar Barbara's point, those are some critical ballot initiatives. Again, if you want to change the process, you do what Republicans have always done. You use the ballot process. You don't just hope your person wins a race because the reality is if you change a lot of these ballot initiatives, it's a better chance for your person to actually win because literally how the decks have been stacked. Reverend Barbara was on earlier. We're going going to be, I'm going to get an update on what's happening in Charlotte. They literally are trying to enshrine voter suppression in the state constitution. What's happening there. Derek Dispenser.

I was just going to add, you know, I look at these situations where you talk about gerrymandering and I would say that goes on both sides. It does. And I could point right to Prince George's County, Maryland. But that's why I like what Michigan is doing, where the voters say, look, we're gonna cut this crap out. We're gonna create an independent commission to draw the line.

So we're not dealing with these crazily drawn races. And to me, look, this is the point that I've always said, I think it's idiotic in our politics to have these seats that are hard blue, hard red. Competition is good. To me, if you've got districts that are 55-45, 52-48, 53-47, that might favor one side or the other, or 51-49, it forces you to run a totally different campaign.

I think they all need to run a totally different campaign. Right, but what I'm saying is, but the beauty of Michigan, now by passing the ballot initiative, they now have removed it from the hands of the legislature and from the governor. So it's no longer about who's in charge now. It's now an independent commission that will be able to determine that. Right. And the question I have, though, even with all, you know, everybody's guys up here, Democrat, Democrat.

The question is accountability. What's going to happen once they get into the office? Because once you look at all of the areas that are Democratic-controlled, we can all sit here and agree it's not the most popular place to be. The infrastructure in some of these neighborhoods is the worst. The economy and education is the worst. But here's the reality. I'm just saying accountability. Accountability.

The sickest states in America, where are they? The sickest in the South? Yes, the red states. Right. The red. But look at the different cities. No, no, no. Look at the cities.

Hold up. In the South? Okay. Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana. Within Louisiana. No, no, no. These are the sickest states. But within those states, you have those cities.

Why don't you get outside of those cities, we're talking about the urban cities. Once you get out of the urban cities, there's some sick, broke-ass white people. So here's the deal. I mean, hold on a minute. I mean, fine. I'll get out of Birmingham. There's a whole bunch of sick, broke-ass white people in Alabama. Okay, let me get outside of Jackson.

There's some broke, sick-ass white people in Mississippi. Let me get out of New Orleans. There's a whole bunch of broke, sick-ass white people in Mississippi. Let me get out of New Orleans. There's a whole bunch of broke, sick-ass white people in Louisiana. Let me get out of Little Rock. Some broke, sick-ass white people in Arkansas. Let me get out of Nashville and Memphis. Whole lot of broke, sick-ass white folks in Tennessee. Here's my whole point.

It's some broke, sick-ass white people in the red state. Agreed. But why are we so— No, no, no. They all been on Democrats, though. So what do we say to Republicans who are running those states? What y'all doing?

Well, let's... You got real quiet there, Derek. No, Michael, Michael got real quiet. No, no, no. I'm saying, why don't we sit up here saying that for them, though? That's the whole point. Derek, this is the whole point. Get me warm.

The whole point. You're damn right he got warm. Get me warm here. That's right. But I'm saying, no, it ain't even that wrong. What is it? Derek, because here's what it is. The reality is here.

You have half a nation that's broke as hell. Yeah. Right. Agreed. There you go. Here's the deal. That ain't. So why should we jump on that bandwagon?

That ain't Democrat. No, what it is is, the question is, who is advocating policy? Thank you, please. That's going to have a better impact on folks' lives. Which, again. What policy is a Democrat right now is going to have a better impact right now? That's not true because the current system is breaking the whole country. That's why we had to change Obamacare, because it was breaking the system.

Are you crazy? No, I'm not crazy. Do you know how many more people were covered? No, I'm not crazy. Do you know how many more people were covered as a result of the Affordable Care Act? Do you also know that 65% of Americans who filed for bankruptcy filed... No, hold up. There, there, there.

Let me help you out. No. No, let me help you out. Sixty-five percent of Americans who filed for health care file for bankruptcy file because of health care. I'm not done. Do you know the percentage that it dropped to after the Affordable Care Act? I also know. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Again, let me finish. 65% of all folks who file for bankruptcy file because of health care after the Affordable Care Act, that number dropped to 30%. So you know what that meant?

That meant that people were no longer going broke because of health care because, one, pre-existing conditions were now covered. The Republicans have been lying across this country this campaigning season saying, oh, well, you know what? We're going to protect. No, they're not. They have literally ballot proposals saying we're going to get rid of pre-existing conditions. The bottom line is several states have dropped the systems

because they weren't working, though. The health care systems. And why weren't they working? Because not enough people were signing up for these programs. And when they were trying to actually make fixes. Because there were not enough young people going into the system. When they were trying to make fixes, then what happened? What did the House and the Senate Republicans do?

Easy. They took 60-some-odd votes to completely get rid of it. They didn't want to fix it. They wanted to get rid of it. Trump said, let's get rid of it. I got a better plan. Where is it? Hadn't produced it yet. Okay. Got. I got a better plan. Where is it? And produced it. Yeah, okay got to damn any estate. What's the hell but many?

Here you're the Republican talking points I get it The only reason they wanted to repeal is because a black man created it. That's the one when they went, it was working for poor white people too. One big problem here is this notion that America's problems is this urban pathology of black people is just a problem. But you were the one who said, Hey, let's look at the cities. Like this is the problem. I'm saying there's a different mindset. I said there's a different mindset compared to what people think here compared to outside. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, You have people who are living in places that literally are 90 to 98 percent white. I agree. That's first. They are living in places where they don't see any diversity whatsoever.

Agreed. They're living in places where they are still holding on to old America. Oh, guess what? Manufacturers are going to come back. I don't have to go to college. I can graduate. It is, though. It's not coming back.

Manufacturers are not coming back. Manufacturers are back, y'all. No, it's not coming back. Manufacturing's not coming back? Manufacturing is back, y'all! No, it's not. What are you talking about? I attend meetings every week that talk about how manufacturing is back. Guess what? You know what manufacturing is good that's back? Automation.

Robots. Robots. It's still manufacturing, pure people. MJ. Okay, ask the carrier workers what happened. What carrier workers? The carrier workers what happened. What carrier workers? The carrier workers who Trump said, I'll save your jobs and carry it to the tax rates.

Not even a year later, the carrier said, yo, we're about to move all these jobs. And they were like, damn, what happened? Dude, that's what's happening. Here's what also was happening. In those areas, you are inundated with talk radio, conservative talk radio, 8, 10 stations. They're watching Fox News. They're getting actually one warped view of America and so these are the people going oh my god they're evading our country what is going on when it's going

you do know that white folks still hold power political power you look at the fact how many how many white folks in America control media when you look at terms of the position they hold you look at how many white men are in Congress we have a hundred and fourteen Supreme Court justices in American history and 108 have been white men. You look at the Fortune 500 companies in this country. You look at the folks who have hedge funds. When you look at all that, I mean, I can just go down the line. It is as if they swear that, and again, our history shows us this.

When people of color have gotten just a little bit, just a little bit, it's like, oh, my God, they're taking everything. What is going on? That is the difference between rural America, that's white America, and inner cities where you have diverse folks, diverse thought, and diverse people. That's the difference. And that is the divide. And Donald Trump, there's a reason he won't do a rally with diverse folks. There's a reason he's like, let me go push them white buttons. There's a reason when he goes to places and he's got 10, 12, 15,000 white folks out there.

There's a reason why he only talks to Fox News. There's a reason why he's got 10, 12, 15,000 white folks out there. That's a reason why he only talks to Fox News. That's a reason why he's doing it. Donald Trump is appealing to whiteness. The problem is, and again, all you got to do is go read Dr. King's book, Chaos or Community. Chaos or Community, where do you go from here? He said, our issue is not going to be with those who are burning flags and wearing hoods. It is going to be with the moderate white. That's what Dr. King said. Michael. And what Dr. King said is exactly right. Going back to what we were talking about earlier, about kind of these early polling numbers don't seem to be accurate. They don't seem to stand up,

even in the 2016 presidential race with Donald Trump. Hillary Clinton was obviously, I think everyone thought that she was going to win. The polls clearly thought that. But either people are not telling pollsters the truth or the right people aren't being polled. Either way. And I thought in this case, things were going to be different because I thought they're going to be a lot of first time voters that weren't getting calls from pollsters because they'd never been on the voting. Wow. First of all, huge, huge, huge out of Ohio. DeWine beats Cordray for governor. That is huge. All the polls were showing that Cordray was going to win there. That was one of the places where Donald Trump also went. Remember, he beat Hillary Clinton by 450,000 votes in Ohio. Losing Ohio is that I mean, that is that is a huge cordray cordray,

of course, who led the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Democrats will hopefully we're going to pick that governor's mansion up to lose that. That's that's big, Spencer. Yeah, that is big. And it's also big in terms of 2020 when you think about the presidential election and the swing state. Yes. I wonder, Derek, this is what you were just saying. Hold on, hold on, hold on, Barbara. Derek, Republican, you're conservative. DeWine winning there again. And you're talking about about 250,000 votes. That wasn't close. No. And I think that Donald Trump and some of his rhetoric obviously is having an impact on some of these elections. But I want to go back to what you were talking just a few minutes ago about him in terms of his audience. One of my biggest disappointments with Donald

Trump is the fact that he has not spoken to any black media. And he won't. He has not addressed any black newspapers. He won't. And there's a complete disconnect from this White House and its administration compared to what they think is going on in the black community and what they put out. Barbara. Well, I just want to just make one other point. I mean, in addition, you know, I don't want to talk about this other stuff. What I want to

talk about is that if we're going to really make, you know, our democracy effective, one of the things that we have to do is fix this bad boy. Because the fact that people are standing in two and three hour lines, if they want to try to vote, and that people are running out of ballots like they ran out in Maryland, like they run out across this country, is just destructive to any kind of real democracy. I just think that we can't keep talking angry at people about not voting when we have a system that doesn't really function well. But Barbara, Barbara, Barbara, Barbara, Barbara, Barbara, Barbara, Barbara, Barbara, Barbara,

this is the problem. As long as progressives and liberals keep waiting on the political office to change, you have to do what they just didn't afford, what they're doing in Michigan. You have to say, you know what, We're going to have to invest significant dollars to put it on the ballot. Conservatives in Florida, conservatives supported restoring the voting rights of the formerly incarcerated.

So, I don't know if a Republican runs against guaranteeing the right to vote in a state constitution, they're going to look at them like they're crazy. The reality is, if you're going to deal with that, as long as we keep going, well, let's file a lawsuit, let's hope, no, you have to change the structure. And I believe 103,000% that what we have to do is to change the entire structure and that we got to build.

But if you don't change this permanent, let me finish, please. If we don't build this permanent, you know, if we don't feel this permanent voting rights, you know, permanent voting infrastructure where we do this bad boy 365 days a year. And not just, not just on an election cycle, that we really start just building a whole new kind of like voting infrastructure. But again, but again, those fencers, this is the point. If they won't even support what Alicia Reese is doing in Ohio, you ain't going to see that. You got to start somewhere.

Right now you've got politicians choosing voters rather than voters choosing politicians. That's wrong. And that's because politicians determine the rules. Florida, the difference is 138,000 votes between Rick Scott and Bill Nelson. Keep going. By basically going around the legislature and saying, hey, we're going to do this by ballot initiative, that in and of itself allows for some straight rules that politicians don't control. Even progressive politicians would

say, hey, I was elected and therefore the rules must be good because they must be legitimate. You need to go to the people in terms of redistricting, as well as automatic registration and other things. We all voted right here. I want to just ask a question. We all voted. Do we have problems? Real quick, real quick. In Arizona, there's a difference of 9,800 votes.

There's a difference of 9,800 votes between Martha McSally and Kyrsten Sinema in Arizona also. So that's what you have there. The issue, Derek, is not did we have a hold up. So she has to be able to vote. Yes. Okay. I submitted my information for absentee ballot.

It didn't come. I had to hit Dallas County like, yo, where's my dog absentee ballot? Okay. And then one was immediately sent out. But it was like yo tuesday last tuesday i'm going up where is it we're seeing in texas and other places where people are actually voting turned away 92 year old black woman uh who was turned away uh who is voting in the same precinct first of all guys pull that video up guys pull that video up i played it in the first hour uh i want derrick see this. I saw it. It's a 4,100 vote difference for the governor of Wisconsin, the Democrat, and a slight lady.

Perfect example. She's been voting in the same place since 1968. She's 92. She goes there. Her name's not there. She's like, I haven't moved. So how does a woman who votes in every election get purged? I was going to ask.

I voted earlier today in Maryland. 79, get purged. I was going to ask, here's the thing. I voted earlier today in Maryland. 79,000 vote difference. 79,303 vote difference between Rhonda Santich and Andrew Gillum. That's the difference there. And again, I'm getting text messages from there. Let's see. Broward got a significant number of absentee ballots at the last minute that have yet to be counted as well. And so, quote, we're in for a long night.

So we're just monitoring what's happening there in Florida, the gubernatorial race. So that thing is definitely going to go down to the wire there. And there's a one percent difference right now between DeSantis and Gillum. 83, 83, 83 percent in Georgia. Kemp, 1.5 million votes. And Abrams, 1.2 million, 55, 44. Go ahead. So this is not just about did you happen to have a problem or did I happen to have a problem? This is about can politicians shave off a percentage here and a percentage there enough to win an election?

I was agreeing with you. That was a point I was about to make. In Maryland, I thought it was very interesting because I hadn't paid any attention to it until recently. But in Maryland, I thought it was very interesting because they just asked me my address. That's right. They didn't ask for the year, just the month and day. Hand asked me my address and my they didn't ask for the year just a month and month and day handed me my information but there were some other people who it's the same thing and they said they had already voted lacey i hadn't been here right that happened a lot in

maryland also in maryland right now i see that yeah and in maryland right now we have people who are still voting because they ran out of ballots at three o'clock at polling places. I mean, that kind of incompetence. That's that's incompetent. I can't wait. I can't wait to run a campaign in in Prince George's against this kind of incompetence in our ministry. One second. Let's of course, we are we're seeing Democrats are the best news for them tonight is going to be whether or not they take control of the House. And so let's go to Ron Lester right now. He's at the deep. He's at the DCCC as we speak. Ron Lester, give us a sense of what is it looking like right now for Democrats taking control of the House? Hey, Roland. So the House looks very good, but before I get into that,

I just want to say perhaps the biggest news of the night is that Laura Kelly beat Chris Kobach in Kansas for the governor's race. Yeah, of course, that was Mr. Voter Suppression right there. Yes. Yeah, definitely, definitely. So in the House now, we have won 14 seats. We picked up a net 14

from the Republicans, and we're leading in another 27 Republican districts. So if we win just a third, we'll be at 23. We're probably going to win more than half, maybe 60 to 70%. So it looks like we may get a net gain of somewhere around 35 points.

Of the 14 districts we won, 10 are women, six are veterans, one African-American, Lauren Underwood from Illinois, two Latino, and one Native American, Sherry Davids from Kansas. So the House looks very good. We have seven competitive districts in California. We have four in Orange County, all in the margin of error there. So we're likely to pick some up there. So she's smalls. It's likely to win in New Mexico. She's had a pretty strong lead there, although the vote is just beginning to come in. So it looks like we're on track to win perhaps 35 seats in the House. You said you're on track to win 35. You need 23 to take control of the U.S. House, correct? That's correct. You've already got 14. You already got 14. You need 23. And

obviously, uh, your goal is really to pick those seats up, uh, in California. No, there, there are many seats out on the East coast. This does not include Pennsylvania. There are five seats in Pennsylvania that are outstanding. There are a couple in New Jersey. So it's possible that we can pick most of these seats up, that we can reach 22, basically on the East Coast and in the Midwest. But what I'm saying is that we're likely to pick up, of the seven that are competitive in California, we're likely to pick up another four out there, one in New Mexico. So we're well on our way we're leading in 27 districts right now in addition to the 14 that we have won all right then uh well that uh that

is certainly uh interesting uh news there uh we're also looking at uh what's happening uh and uh some some some key races taking place all over when it comes to gubernatorial races. It looks like DeWine is going to beat Cordray. That is a shock there. Democrats thought they were definitely going to pick up the governor's mansion in Ohio. That is not going to happen. DeWine is being projected to be the winner there. Still too close to call in Florida. And so we're seeing that a Democrat did pick up the Guglatorra mansion in Michigan. So that goes back in the Democratic hands, out of the Republican hands. And the projections are that Ben Jealous will lose in Maryland, even though Maryland will not release any numbers

until all the polls are closed. Some were still open there. And so good news, bad news for Democrats. Republicans can definitely say that they averted a blue wave when everybody was predicting it's not happening. Folks were saying it was going to happen across the board, Ron. Certainly the House is different, but they were thinking between the House, the Senate, and the governor's mansions, it was going to be that kind of blue wave when we're not actually seeing that. I think the story of the night is going to be that the Democrats win Congress, the House of Representatives, with a fairly decent margin. I mean, I've seen is really good work for the night. The average is twenty nine.

We still have an opportunity to get to 40. So if we get up to 40, that's 11 points above the average. So the House is looking very well. We're going to lose a couple of seats in the Senate. We lost Indiana, and we lost North Dakota already. So, you know, the bad news about that is that Trump gets to continue to appoint all of these federal court judges.

So that's not good news. So, but overall, things look good. We really couldn't ask for more than we see in the House. You know, most of these districts, there's a pattern to these wins. They're mostly in suburban areas or urban areas. But the Republicans have done a good job of getting their rural vote out. One of the things that I heard tonight is that part of the problem with Gillum in Florida is that right now he does not have as many votes as Hillary got. He's still running behind Hillary in Dade County, just in that one county, and that's really where a Democrat wins elections in Florida, by running up the votes there in Dade County. And he's slightly behind where Hillary was.

So that's not a good sign. But the good news about Florida is that if he comes within 1 percent, 1 percent or less, it's an automatic recount. So, you know, that could work in his favor. OK. You know, there were these districts in Broward that are on their way in now. So there's a lot of stuff going on down there. And in Georgia, because of all the problems with the polls in the Atlanta area, it kept the polls open late. Got it. So some of the polls there don't close till 11 o'clock. So the Atlanta Metro seven county area has not reported yet. OK, and they report when they report that race is going to get a lot closer than it is now.

Right now, Brian Kemp is up by 10 points, but it's going to get much closer. All right, Ron, I appreciate it, man. Thanks as much. We'll check with you a little bit later. Folks, this could be another black member of Congress. Antonio Delgado is one in the New York 19th congressional district beating John Faso, the Republican with you a little bit later. Folks, this could be another black member of Congress, Antonio Delgado, has won in the New York 19th Congressional District, beating John Faso, the Republican, 53.7 to 44.1. Republicans, of course, were saying they were attacking him for being a rapper. He was barely a rapper, but looks like that didn't do it for them. He won. Let's go right now. Let's go right now to Florida. On the line is Des is desmond meade of course he's been 10 years he's been working on this proposition in florida to restore the voting rights to

formerly incarcerated uh it has won in state of florida desmond congratulations thank you so much mr martin this has been definitely an historic moment um you can tell my voice is a little gone we've been doing a lot of shouting and a lot of dancing down here in Florida because I think we've accomplished something that's great. And we're really hopeful that we have sent a very loud and clear message to not only the folks in Florida but folks throughout the country that we can move important issues by organizing around the lines of humanity and elevating our campaigns

above hate and above fear and above all the partisan bickering. And we organized around love. And tonight we got over 5 million votes of love that now created a more inclusive democracy in Florida. What was the percentage of the vote there? Because you needed 60%. What was the percentage? I think we settled in on, I believe, a little over 65%

of the votes came in at the yes for us. And so we led from the very beginning all the way through. We were never in any doubt and never in any jeopardy. It was just solid across the board. And when you look at the different counties, we see that we got the majority in every single county except maybe three or four. And so we got great votes in even conservative counties where we were getting over 60 percent of the vote. So this is a real testament to what happens when people from all walks of life, from all political persuasions and racial backgrounds come together along the lines of humanity. I'm very excited.

Now, obviously, by this passing, does that mean that they immediately get the right to vote? And then for you, what's the next step? Because, look, 1.4 million, now you've got to register them. Yeah, so what this means now is that, and I'm not, like, entirely clear on the process right now. Actually, Desmond, hold on one second. Guys in the control room, if you can go to my computer, please. Andrew Gillum is speaking in Florida.

Can you please go to my computer? He's conceding. Andrew Gillum is speaking in Florida. Can you please go to my computer? Okay, so do this here, guys. If y'all can pull up the video in there in the control, go to Andrew Gillum's Facebook page. Andrew Gillum is conceding to Ron DeSantis, conceding to Ron DeSantis. Now, remember, you just heard Ron Lester say that if Andrew Gillum was within 1 percentage point, within one percent in Florida,

that would automatically trigger a recount. Again, I was getting text messages. Folks were saying that they were waiting to see what would happen with Broward. But what you have now is Andrew. So, Desmond, please hold on one second. Guys, do we have the Facebook page up? Okay. So if we can get that up, we're going to then have

Andrew Gillum again, as we see, is speaking right now, conceding the gubernatorial race to Ron DeSantis. I am trying to, I'll try to pull up myself, but this is, this is surprising that that is happening. Again, many people thought this was going to be a victorious night uh for andrew gillum that of the three races of running for governor that he is that his race was going to be the one uh where there was going to be uh a actually a victory henry please go to my ipad right now please we're going to keep working we're going to keep believing and in all of that i believe that ultimately we will be victorious we will be victorious so i want you to know on behalf of our families that we're so so so so appreciative and thankful for you. And we want prayer. We're going to lift our great nation

in prayer. And we believe at the end of the day that we, not us, but we will still have the victory. God bless you. God keep you. And God bless the state of Florida and this great country that we get to call home.

Take care, everybody. Thank you. that we get to call home. Take care everybody. We're going to actually, folks, pull that up a little bit so you can play all of it. But I want to go back to Desmond Meade. Desmond, I obviously want to get your reaction. Again, many folks thought this was going to be at least pick up one black governor tonight across the country. And it looks like where it currently stands, all three are going to go down to defeat. Wow. You know, and I know this might be hard to believe, but we have been like laser, laser focused.

I knew that there were so many folks that was focusing on on these gubernatorial races more than enough people were focusing on it and i knew that my job um was to be focusing on the vision that god gave me and that's what you know that's what i looked at throughout the entire process i didn't care about who was running what i cared about was those 1.4 million coridians who paid their debt and they deserved all my attention and that's what we did. And it's allowed us really to just organize in a special way, a different way. And I think that that's what got us over the hump. So the question for you is what's next? Because you got to register folks. You got 2020 coming up. I know you want to breathe. I know you want to rest a little bit.

But that ain't going to happen. So, Desmond, what's next? Well, listen, I think one of the first things I think is that I think that we really promote and continue on with the way how we organize our campaign, how we won, just really emphasizing how we can move major issues along the lines of humanity and and and organized around love and and and not hate or fear i think that is something that we can definitely uh move forward with and around this country and and have great results the other thing is is that uh part now that we have given the ability to

over 1.4 million people to have their voice heard, I think it's very important for us to really start now shifting a narrative and really talking about how people, formerly incarcerated people, formerly convicted people, can now be assets in our community, how we are really committed to making our community safer, and that because we're closest to the pain, we're also closest to the solution. And so I see that now that we have a voice in Florida, we can now be an even stronger, a greater part of the solution to fixing the issues that's plagued us. And, Desmond, obviously it has to feel great for you because now that you have the right to vote, you now can become a practicing lawyer. What? Man, listen, there's just so many

endless possibilities there. You know, my wife, Sheena, ran for office a couple of election cycles ago, and I couldn't vote for her. And let me tell you, she's a dynamic woman that I know will make a great stage woman. And now, guess what? I can vote for my wife if she decides to run. And I hope you help me convince her to run. I can now vote for my wife. And there's so many people, you know, rolling today. I don't know. Remember when you've seen the documentary, Let My People Vote? Yep. And that elderly gentleman, Mr. Shackleford, he came tonight to that celebration tonight, and we got to embrace

again. And the one thing that he told me is that, bro, I'm not going to die before I be able to vote again. He's able to vote now. And that to me, it speaks to what this campaign is all about, man. It's giving people opportunity to be a part of this country, to be a part

of this democracy, to feel like a citizen again. And then it's not, it's happening. It's happening. Desmond May, first of all, brother, congratulations to you. This has been a decade. You've been working on this for quite some time. As a result of Proposition 4 passing tonight in Florida, 1.4 million people formerly incarcerated now will have the right to vote. Roland, let me say this. I hate to cut you off, but I got to say this, man. Let me tell you, Roland, you played a major role in this.

I don't want that to be lost in all of the chatter that's going around. It's people like you, my brother, that have stood up on righteousness and seen the righteousness in this fight and said that I wanted to be a part of this and I wanted to help that has helped us get across this hump and I don't want that lost in

anything bro because that's what it takes it takes people in in in in the industry to really step up and help support these causes and there's so much that we can do and so I want to just tell you from the depths of my heart and on behalf of 1.4 million people, thank you for your efforts in helping us get our voice back. I certainly appreciate that. And, look, it was the right thing to do. And I'm glad to see when the call went out, when we met at Melanie Campbell's office and I met with you and Sheena and we were sitting there. And while folks were talking about, well, I'm going to try this person, that person, while we were sitting there, I was texting entertainers while we were sitting there, and while folks were talking about, well, I'm going to try this person, that person, while we were sitting there, I was texting entertainers while we were sitting there.

And then, of course, at the meeting, so just so you all know, we were sitting in the meeting, and Desmond was like, man, it would be real great if we can get Jesse Williams. I'm like, I already texted him. And then, of course, the rapper Boosie and so many others, Master P and so many others. And so it was a collaborative effort. And so again, man, congratulations. Huge, huge, huge props to you because you've been, again, carrying this thing,

carrying this baby for 10 years. And finally, it was born tonight. And so folks should thank you. And so, man, get some rest. Enjoy this. Let the record reflect. I didn't want to talk to any news agency until I talked to you. And so, man, get some rest and enjoy this. Let the record reflect. I didn't want to talk to any news agency until I talked to you. I wanted you to be the first one that I spoke to.

And so that just shows the level of appreciation I have for you as a human being, as a man, as a brother, as a journalist. I appreciate you, brother. Brother, I appreciate it. Thanks a bunch. And tell Sheena congratulations as well because she's been battling health issues for the past year. And y'all been tag-teaming it. So, congratulations.

Yeah, thank you so much. As a matter of fact, I'm just going to let Sheena say hello to you. Go ahead. Go ahead. All right. Hey, Rollin. You obviously are feeling good tonight. Yes.

We started from the bottom, now we're here. This has to be amazing because, again, you watched Desmond not being able to practice as a lawyer after getting his law degree because in Florida they prevented folks who were formerly incarcerated from even getting licenses to get jobs there. Again, going around, trying to get this on the ballot, getting those signatures. And for folks who don't know, how many signatures did y'all have to get for this to even get on the ballot? It was a little bit over 700,000 or 800,000, and exceeded it by one like 1.2 million signatures and uh we're just so excited tonight and not only couldn't Desmond go before the bar Desmond couldn't vote for me in 2016 when I ran for uh a house district here in Orlando so that was a slap in the face so that

just gave us more fuel to our fire to just push forward because my husband should never have any silence from you know participating in this um and, you know, voting for his wife. So tonight I'm really excited. I believe this was one of the most important things that was on the ballot because this is going to erase past generational curses and it's going to change generations to come. All right then. Well, Sheena, we appreciate it.

Both of y'all get some rest. Take care of yourselves. And I'll let y'all celebrate 48 hours, and then we've got to focus on registering those 1.4 million. I know that's right, Warren. Thank you for everything, for lifting this issue up and being there for us, making this national news. So we love you. Thank you. I appreciate it.

Thanks a bunch, y'all. Take care. All right, folks, let's do a reset. Of course, this is Roland Martin Unfiltered. This is our election night coverage. I told y'all this was going to be the blackest of the black. And so we've had many of our analysts with a new panel sitting with us now in this hour. We'll be talking with Rashad Robinson, of course, with Color of Change. They played a crucial role of what happened

there in Florida. Again, this particular reset in Texas, Beto O'Rourke goes down to Ted Cruz, a valued fight, but he loses. Ted Cruz has given his acceptance speech, but waiting to hear from O'Rourke to speak. The question then becomes, how can Democrats seize upon the excitement that he brought to somehow rebuild the state party there in Texas? Democrats have not had a single person elected statewide since 1994 in the state of Texas in Florida. Andrew Gillum, many folks thought this was going to be a victorious night for the first black governor of Florida. He barely loses less than 100,000 votes to Ron DeSantis in Florida.

Moments ago, Andrew Gillum gave his concession speech there in Florida. We are waiting to get information here in what's happening in Georgia. They have had some huge voting issues in Georgia, and there are problems with voting all day, and that's been one of the problems there in Georgia. And so we are looking at that right now. It's 55-44. Many thought that if Stacey Abrams could at least get this race to a runoff, it would be a restart December 4th. The person who wins 50 plus 1 percent wins tonight. The

Libertarian candidate initial polling showed that person was going to get anywhere from three to six percent. The person has only received 1 percent of the vote tonight. And so we're still monitoring what's happening there. Atlanta has not come in. That could cause a shift. But again, you're seeing those large numbers there. The brother who's running for attorney general in Florida, Sean Shaw, he's lost that particular race. We're also, Kwame Raul. He won in the state of Illinois.

You also have a sister who's now a lieutenant governor in Illinois as a Pritzker beat runner, and he picked her to be a running mate. I'm also checking to see what's happening in the state of Minnesota with Keith Ellison, and also, of course, what is happening in New York state, where you had two African Americans who were running for attorney general in that state as well in Maryland. What they did there, they were chose not to release any numbers because some polling places were open. But as it stands, they have released those numbers now. And if I'm going to have them go to my computer in just one second. So if you go to, let's see here.

Henry, you should be able to see my computer now. Folks, here on the homepage of the Baltimore Sun, it says Governor Hogan wins re-election. Larry Hogan with 56.6% of the vote. Vote being jealous with 42.3% of the vote as it stands right now. But it says Dems sweep suburbs. Now, that says a whole lot again that Maryland is a Democ blue state. They could win those suburban positions but not win the governor's mansion. And that's largely because in many ways Larry Hogan, even though he's a Republican, he is not governed as a Trump Republican.

Also, go back to the screen, please. In the race for Attorney General, Brian Frosch, the Democrat, he is winning 63% of the vote. Craig Wolf, 36%. Both of them were on our show talking about their races there and specifically how this would impact HBCUs and so trust me we're gonna be holding them accountable to be sure that we get equal funding for HBCUs in Maryland. You just heard me talking to Desmond Meade and Sheena Meade. Proposition 4 in Florida has passed with 65% of the vote, which means that formerly incarcerated

in the state of Florida now will be able to vote. That's 1.4 million people. Folks, that is gonna have a huge impact on the 2020 presidential election and the future races in that particular state as well. We're also monitoring the constitutional amendments that's taking place in the state of North Carolina. Republicans have been trying to, they want to, remember their voter ID law was struck down by a federal court as a throwback to Jim Crow.

And so what the Republicans there do, they went ahead and forced through the language to put it on the state constitution. And it was winning earlier. I'm going to try to get the latest results in just one second. Right now, let me do this here. I want to introduce our panel. We have Brandon Cooper, chair of Prince George's County Republican Party. Also joining us is Melanie Campbell. She, of course, is the president of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation.

Also with us is Cleo Monago, social political analyst and activist, and also Lauren Victoria Burke, writer with National Newspaper Publishers Association. As I said, folks, a moment ago, Andrew Gillum, he conceded in the race for governor of Florida.

Here is that that particular speech. Kristen, my wife, RJ, our families, we could not be prouder of the way that we ran this race. We couldn't be prouder. We could not be more thankful for the support that was shown by each and every one of you all the way along this path. We recognize that, you know, we didn't win it tonight. We didn't win this transaction. But I want you all to know that is just it, a transaction.

That what we believe in still holds true today. I gotta tell you as I stand here on the highest of seven hills in Tallahassee, Florida, the campus that gave so much to me and to my wife RJ, Many a days for those students who around when we were here as students we marched plenty of times from this very set up to the Capitol. We let our voices be heard. We didn't shrink from the challenges. We didn't shrink from power. We spoke truth to power and just because we didn't always come out victorious, we didn't retreat. We stood up, we stood strong. We spoke out because we recognize that we have power to earlier this evening. I called Mr Ron DeSantis and

congratulated him on what we expect will be him as the next governor of the great state of Florida. But I want you to know, I want you to know, I want you to know that in spite of our congratulating him on his victory this evening, nothing that we believe in is compromised. I still believe that we ought to pay teachers what they're worth. I still believe that. I still believe that we ought to clean up our environment, our air, our water quality, our beaches, our shores. I still believe that we ought to have the kind of economy where people are able to work one job instead of two and three jobs

in order to make ends meet. I'm extremely proud that this evening the voters of the state of Florida decided to pass Amendment 4. Proud about that. That is just one step closer to getting us where it is that we need to be as a state. Y'all, I want to encourage you not to give up. I want to encourage you to stick to the fight. I want you to know that every step of this way, even though I won't have the blessing of serving as the next governor of the state of Florida, I still plan to be on the front lines right alongside every single one of you when it comes to standing up for

what it is that we believe in. As I said all along the campaign trail, power sees nothing without a demand. It never has and it never will. We still have to be willing to show up every single day and demand our seat at the table. We gotta be willing inside of elections and outside of elections to say that our voices still matter, that we still have relevance. I still believe and I still trust the voters. We may not have all shown up in the way that we thought and hope that we would, but I still believe that there are still more of us who

believe in what is common and what is decent and what is right. And I believe in the long run, good always wins out over evil. I still believe that. Many of you are along the trail heard me talk rather repeatedly about my grandma. All right, folks, that was, of course, Andrew Gillum earlier conceding tonight there in the state of Florida. Also, right now, all of the different networks are now projecting that Democrats will take control of the United States House. Let's go to our panel. Now, Lauren, I've been refusing to talk about this. I don't believe it. To me, it's a waste of breath talking about what happens. Democrats now control the United States House. Of course, you're going to have African Americans going to be chairs of at least five committees. The question now becomes, will the CBC say it's time for a black speaker of the House? Who knows? I mean, I think that Pelosi

is going to win. Bottom line, there isn't anybody that can replace her that has the votes. There's a lot of talk, but they don't have the votes and they sure can replace her that has the votes. There's a lot of talk, but they don't have the votes and they sure as hell don't have the fundraising. And frankly, the four or five black new chairs, Elijah Cummings and Benny Thompson and Eddie Bernice Johnson and Bobby Scott, there's no reason for them to vote against Nancy Pelosi because Pelosi has supported black members of Congress to be chairs of committees. So there's no reason for anybody to say, OK, well, let's have her out of here. She's raising money for everybody, hand over fist.

And I don't know why that would change. Now, you're going to have like five or six new members of the CBC. I don't think any of them have said anything about not voting for Nancy Pelosi. I don't think Antonio Delgado cared one way or the other in his race about voting against Nancy Pelosi. We'll see about what Lucy McBath has to say, should she win. It's close, but she hasn't been declared yet. But I can't remember whether or not the fellow in Colorado, Joe Neguse or Johanna Hayes or any of those candidates talked about Pelosi. Some people make Pelosi an issue, but when they get in there and find out that she controls the committee assignments,

all that gets a little bit quiet. But here's the thing that we've got to deal with, Melanie, that I think is worthy. Nancy Pelosi, 78 years old. Steny Hoyer is 79 years old. You have Jim

Clyburn, I think 78 as well. The top leadership of the Democratic Party, damn near 80. If you look on the Republican side, they have younger folks who are in leadership. So here you've got the Democrats, young folks out here who are voting in record in huge numbers. You've got the likes of Ocasio-Cortez, youngest woman ever elected to Congress coming in. You've got the first Somali-American elected there in Minnesota. You've got new blood coming in. Question is, do Democrats need to have a change in leadership in the House that can offer a different voice, a different messaging in order to compete in 2020?

Well, I know that Congresswoman Barbara Lee is running. Who's 71. Well, let me say this. She's running for a leadership. No, no, no. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you, no. Follow me. I'm with you. I'm going to say this. One, a lot of those folks got elected and they already were older. So part of the challenge that we have to face is how much longer it takes for us to get in some of these positions.

And so they're not walking in there when they were in their 30s, most of them, and have been in there for 40 years. But you also have a lot of long-standing Republicans. But, again, Republicans have— Well, you had Republicans who stayed in there until they were 100. This is going to be one of the issues that's going to be raised by boots on the ground. Can you have, if you're trying to have a new Democratic party, if you want to use that phrase, can you do that? Well, you have to be the congressperson. But, Roland, you have to be elected to be in a position to be. Oh, no, I understand that. So the leadership, I go to one election at a time.

So we have an election that's gone through tonight. And so the opportunity for Congressional Black Caucus members to be in leadership, whether that be Nancy Pelosi, I'm like this. All bets are off is what I'm hearing. So in some corners and in some corners I'm hearing other things. I think that if someone in the Congressional Black Caucus wants to run, as a black woman, understanding that the Democrats would even be in a position in a lot of these places, had it not been for black women, that you should be able to run for leadership. Five names that we've heard. Congresswoman Barbara Lee, Congresswoman Karen Bass, both of California.

Congressman Hakeem Jeffries of New York and Congressman Jim Clyburn of South Carolina. Those are four names. Those are four of the names that we've heard. And Clyburn is the only one that can raise any money. See, people like Ocasio-Cortez and these younger members, they can't raise $83 million. That's nice that you're young and you're energetic, but let's see you raise $83 million for these members to win. They just flipped the house.

Right. She's going to take credit for that, and she's partially going to be right. The only person that has the fundraising prowess close to her, you know, underreported is Clyburn. Cleo. Yes. Time for a question. Time? No.

Question. Look, you're unimpressedly one tonight in Massachusetts. I'm about to check on Lucy McBath. I'm about to check on Johanna Hayes as well. Johanna Hayes is in. And so you look at a lot of these races, you're going to have, for the first time in history, more than 50 black members of the caucus. And already, the Congressional Black Caucus is the largest voting bloc among House Democrats. But they don't block their votes, so it doesn't matter.

So, you know, it splits just like anything else. They're just like any... The question is how do you use it, Cleo? Well, I must admit, you know, I haven't been getting deep. Super black. You look blacker to me tonight, but anyway. That's true. I wore all black on purpose.

Oh, okay. Anyway, getting back to the point, the points that are important to me is I have not done any digging in terms of Pelosi and all this stuff, as you all have. What's entering my mind right now is something I said on the last time I was on your show, which mentioned the polls that were projecting that Gillum would win in Florida. And I mentioned to you that a lot of white people don't like the idea of being called racist, even when they're racist.

They consider it to be something that's shaming, regardless of their mental state. And as I said on the last show, I think there's people who are a part of those polls where they projected that Gillum would win, who said they supported Gillum, but supported who they really want to support, as they really have an agenda for the white power agenda in this country. So I just want to repeat that. I also want to advise black folks that are watching this to understand that regardless of what happens tonight, we're in the midst of history. This is not a static moment.

These things that are happening right now could actually change in the future if we are as focused as white supremacists. One second. Lucy McBath is down by about 8,000 votes to Karen Handel for the congressional seat there in Georgia. Cleo, go ahead. What's happening in Georgia right now? Stacey Abrams, Brian Kemp, 1.68 million. Stacey Abrams has 1.42 million. And so you're talking about their give me a second here. Again, he's still around 55%. So you're talking about he's up by about 250,000 votes. Go ahead. Well, I don't have much to say except for the fact that I think that black people need to focus on dealing with black demoralization

and black disinterest in the voting process. Today, every place I went, and I traveled all over different parts of the country today, I spoke to people in the airports, et cetera, and a lot of black males in particular were saying things to me like, well, that's not my business. Voting is not really relevant to me. I think there's no way we could win something as powerful as the government's seat if we have black people who feel disconnected and demoralized and feel like this whole process is irrelevant to them. But we didn't have that.

No, Brandon, hold on. Here's the thing, Brandon. I have seen significant focus and attention, and rightfully so, on black women who have been on the ground. Right. This is what I have not seen. Now, there are folks like Cliff Albright who's with Black Votes Matter with those initiatives. the past six months that there and there there's there has to be a specific initiative that is specifically targeting black men 2009 2012 there was a nine-point difference between black men and black women for Obama versus Mitt Romney there was a nine- point difference between black men and black women between Hillary Clinton and Trump. Yeah. And so there's a ton of focus and energy on black women targeting black women makes total sense and also targeted folks in general.

But what but what I have not seen is a specific initiative that targets black men. And to Cleo's point, that's an issue if brothers are checking out of this process. There's a lot of issues in this issue, this talking point. One thing I say all the time is that I admit the Republican Party often ignores the interest of the black community as a fight we have internally. But a fight that I don't see a lot of Democrats having some do is the fact that the Democrat Party takes for granted the black vote. I know you have activists in here, like Dr. Avis Wheeler, who went to the DNC recently after the election to demand some more attention to the issues going on in the black community. But talking about the size of the caucuses, you're right. The Congressional Black Caucus is the largest caucus, 55 members. On the flip side, the Freedom Caucus

on the Republican side has 33 members. But they're able to get through so much through the majority by wielding the power of their 33 members. If the black caucus was able to do that with their 55 members, I wouldn't think we'd be having the question about when is the next black chair or the Speaker of the House coming. It would be it's coming next year. You have the votes right now to do it if they want to force it, but they're not going to force it. Going back to what happened

to Clyburn when he was next in line number two in the House. I remember that was a long conversation. They had to make a spot for Clyburn, this new imaginary position just to placate him. In fact, in fact, the position that was created when there was issues

with terms of people were saying we need a younger member, Nancy Pelosi actually floated remove removing Clyburn from that position and the Black Caucus revolted and that's why I stayed the same but return on his deal and that's what my point which is the conversation that we need to be having it was why we're having it which is why we want to have a black discussion the reality the question is this here. If the Congressional Black Caucus has the largest caucus, and to your point, how the Freedom Caucus, how they operate, the question is, will the Black Caucus be a unifying force and say, no, the time is up.

We want either a black speaker or we want the majority leader. Well, that's, you know, we know the answer to that. I mean, they split their votes like any other caucus. Hold up. They split their votes like any other caucus. So you're saying it's not going to happen? I'm saying that they split their votes like any other caucus. They're not monolithic.

The Freedom Caucus is. So you get your new members. And by the way, Lauren Underwood won in Illinois 14. And I'm very happy about that because I talked to her throughout. So you have like about six or seven brand new black caucus members, and I suspect that they will respect the seniority process one way or the other just like everybody else. It's not about age. It's about effective leadership. And the real truth of it is Pelosi and these people are older, but older leaders a lot of times are very effective.

Pelosi single-handedly got health care in, and these people campaigned on healthcare, and then turned around and criticized Nancy Pelosi. That's a hard position to be taking. But this is where, to me, where the black caucus has to say, look, what greater time do we have to flex our muscle? I'm there. I'm there. This is, I mean, look, I get the whole deal was split.

They're going to have 53, 54 votes. I get where you have, Pelosi, where you have black women in the caucus who are going to appeal to Pelosi. But I'm sorry. This, look, look. Brandon just said it.

They're going to have 54. I actually think the bigger piece in this discussion is not really about the black caucus. It's sort of something I think that I heard someone else say. I can't remember who it was. It was Cleo.

We've got to have an analysis of white women after this election with regard to Florida and Georgia and what they voted and what happened. I think that's what you were saying about the polling. Like, we need an analysis of white women voters. I mean, if something happens. I need an analysis of that right now. If something happened with the polls in Florida, and you've got to assume that if Andrew is down, Stacey's going to be down. But we need an analysis of black male non-voters.

Georgia's a much tougher state than Florida, so that's bad news. We need an analysis of black male disassociation and alienation from this whole process. One of the things that I found interesting about Desmond, the brother that's connected to the Proposition 4 thing, he said, we weren't tripping off the governor. And he still basically applied, that was somewhere else. I was focused on this. Right. Yet, Rowland kept mentioning, well, you know, you're going to get them people to vote? Are we going to work on the vote issue?

And he kind of said, yeah, we're going to do that. But he represents a mostly male population, including himself, who had a pretty relaxed response to this brother losing this. But the loss of those three Democrats, Beto O'Rourke, Stacey and, of course, Andrew Gill. Is that about what you just said? I don't know that that's true. I don't know. I'm not sure at all about what I'm saying. We saw lines around the block today, and they still lost. So we got to react. I started there because Desmond—

Texas is a majority minority. Desmond demonstrated my point, right, in front of all of us, when he was like, OK, the governor's race is over there somewhere. I'm not saying that it's relevant completely. No, no, I'm going to disagree with you because I've been working with that process, and I know Desmond, and we were on the ground. Disagreeing with what in particular? That he was lackadaisical.

I think the reality is because I know what he went through and what he was going through, he was focusing in. Sure. That's how you win, by focusing. You had to focus in on that. It does not mean that he was disconnected to what happened with Andrew Gillum. I just left Florida yesterday, right, and been on the ground. One of the things, we don't respectfully disagree,

but the reality is that when it comes to the initiatives, Roland, you're right. I'm saying you're right. There needs to be a more focused. We've had that conversation a number of times, and I know a number of folks who've made attempts, the 100 black men. I remember in 2000, I think it was 2012, there was a real men, there was a black men vote. Right.

100 has been trying with the real men vote. And I say to brother, you got to come together around that issue. And people came out. At the same time, when it comes to the issue of white, of what happened. Yeah. same time when it comes to the issue of white of what happened yeah i can tell you when the been in this long enough to know when the onion is peeled you're going to look and see that when white women went into florida and they voted they voted for if you got 65 percent for amendment four but yet andrew did not win thank you that means right you bifurcated your vote right and you said this i'm gonna get because the 1.4 million that's going to get the right to vote, those are not majority black people.

That's my home state. It's a majority white people. Let me finish my thought. So you got 1.4 million that went in there. So you went in there, my white sister, and you went in there and you decided this. I'm going to vote for 1.4 million because that's going to get my husband, my son, the right to vote. But I'm not going to vote for 1.4 million, because that's going to get my husband, my son the right to vote. But I'm not going to vote for this black man.

So here we are right back to that 53 percent, and I'm using that as an analogy, that they still will decide race over gender. When you go and look, and I know Stacey, and I know Andrew, he was the most qualified. And they did all kinds of other racist things down there for you. And the same thing when you go look at them numbers in Georgia. It of other race and the same thing when you go look at them numbers in Georgia it's gonna be the same thing let me read this here because to the points these are the these are so in that particular race, so yes on Proposition 4, the vote totals is 64.41%. It passed, no, go to my laptop. Let me try to increase this here if I can.

I know I'm on my computer, so I, hold on one second. I know, I know. Let me see if I can zoom in. Find the Hispanic numbers for me. Let me go. So here's the deal. 5,040,817 voted yes. Mm-hmm.

2,078,000, 2,785,478, they voted no. So y'all just bear with me. So let me go ahead and do a little math right here. So because this actually I think is going to prove Melanie's point. So in this race, it is a total of 7.8 million votes were cast just on this ballot. Now let me go to the top. Let me go. Let me go out of here. And I'm going to go back to the...

So, Ron DeSantis, Andrew Gillum. If you add... So right now we're seeing here 4,015,176 for DeSantis. So 4,015,176 plus 3,938,349 at 7.95 million voted in this race. Now, this initiative was polling at 88% among Democrats, 59% among Republicans. Now, which means that Republicans also were voting for this particular amendment. But to see that number, 65 percent vote for Proposition 4, and then you look at this here, about the same number, 7.9 million voted. So, it's— So, the analysis has to be on what you just said, which was perfect, right? White female voters and the other one would be Latino voters.

Because you're not going to tell me that in Texas and in Florida, Andrew Gillum and Beto O'Rourke run a progressive campaign and lose. And you've got Beto sitting there with $30 million that he made in two weeks and lose the election. What is that? And all we talk about is Latino registration and turnout, and it never happens. We do it every two years. And where is it? Where is it? It's 45% white. So 55% of Texas is non-white. And to your point, Beto had the, not just in Texas, in the history of this country, the most raised congressional campaign ever. Right. But here's the deal. You here's the deal is it white women that texas texas being 55 texas being 55 45 is irrelevant just right now you're talking about white women no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no

no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no the register there. Hold up, Brandon. I hear you. Listen. Brandon, listen. Stop talking. Stop talking. Answer my question. Stop talking. You will listen to the answer. All right, I'll dance around. Stop talking. This is the answer. You got two million eligible but unregistered Latinos.

What I have long said, in fact, guys, do me a favor. One second. They're unregistered. They talk about. One second. They're unregistered. They talk about this every time. Wait a minute. Wait a minute.

I'm talking to the control room. Do me a favor and get Alex Cristobal on the phone with Latino vote. Here's the difference. The fundamental issue in Texas is that, and I said this to Chris Van Hollen when he was in the house, they won't put the money in off years to move people in there. They wait six months out and say we're going to register. No. You have to do what SNCC and CORE did in the 60s.

You have to literally move 500, 1,000 people into South Texas, into West Texas, meet with people, talking with them, going to meetings, because many of them are the same way what you said about black men. I don't see it. I don't see the value of it. And so what I say to Latinos, having demographic numbers is irrelevant if you don't maximize your political power. It means absolutely nothing. Hold on one second.

Rashad Robertson is with us with a color change pack. Rashad, are you there? Well, Mark Morial's here. Who is it? Say it again. Mark? Roland, Mark Morial's here. Say it again? Mark Morial. Mark Morial's here. Mark Morial's there. Guys, where's Rashad Robinson? Mark, hold on one second. Rashad, are you there?

Okay, y'all told me Rashad is there, so please get him on the phone. Mark, real quick. I agree with you 100%, Roland. What you said is if you don't activate in the off year, you won't get the benefits in the election year. You've got to invest in the infrastructure. That's been the failure.

That's been the weakness. And now we've got in Florida, we're going to have over a million formerly incarcerated individuals who are now eligible to vote. There's got to be groundwork done in 2019 if there's going to be opportunities in 2020. Again, Lauren, at the end of the day, if you don't invest, and I'm talking about not $3 million, I'm talking about they literally are going to have to move 500,000 people and pay them full salaries to live in those communities. I'm just telling you.

How much money can you spend? They don't want $60 million. No, you are missing it. You can't have a campaign do it. We talk about this every two years. No, Lauren. We talk about this every two years. Just don't money it, Lauren.

A campaign can't do it. Let me say this. Look, because of this. When we do it with our voters, it works. No. When we do it with our voters, our works. When we do it with our voters, our voters turn out. Black voters turn out.

At the end of the day, this is a challenge to the party. I'm tired of y'all making excuses for this group. It's not about excuses. I think it is about excuses. It's about knowing when we're in a position to win. Hispanic voters. It's not about what's happening.

I know you got to go before Rashad as well. Again, Latino voters. Hispanic voters. It's not about what just happened. It's not about what just happened. One second, Mark. I'm going to ask you a fine question. I know you've got to go before Rashad as well. Again, at the end of the day, if you only do it during an election season, Beto can raise all the money he wants to, but that is a political campaign. I couldn't agree with you more. A dedicated... the 1960s, and you go back to the post-voting rights times, the Urban League, the NAACP, Korsnick, you name it, had civic engagement activations underway to try to register people who had previously not been registered and to help them understand the value and the proposition of voting.

This is about building. Beto O'Rourke ran a good campaign. It was foundational. Andrew Gillum ran a good campaign. It was foundational. Andrew Gillum ran a great campaign. It was foundational. They ran campaigns that are foundational. They may have lost, but they built for the future. We've got to understand,

don't look at where the turnout was, what they activated. In Texas, Beto O'Rourke's campaign flipped some seats. I understand it may flip as many as 10 seats in the Texas House of Representatives. So this is foundational. These sorts of changes are going to take a continuing effort. So people shouldn't say, oh, God, it didn't work. We can't, you know, it was all for naught.

No, it was not for naught. It was important. And I think when we look at the turnout and we look at the activation, I think the point is, is that the other side and the red side, the Republican side and the Trump voters were activated, too. And that's why 2020 is going to be so important. The work towards 2020 has to start tomorrow. Got it. Mark O'Reilly, National Urban League, we appreciate it. Thanks a lot, folks. Let me know when Rashawn Robinson with Color Change is on the line. The reason I'm talking about this idea of in terms of a non-election year effort,

the reason Stacey Abrams even had a shot was because of the New Georgia Voter Project. That was the only reason. And guess what? Progressive groups did not want to properly fund that. They didn't, Melanie. They didn't want to put—there were 800,000 eligible but unregistered people in Georgia. New Georgia Voter Project registered 300,000 of them. Because what they discovered is that Democrats were losing in Georgia by about 200 or 250,000 votes. And they said he got to... It's long grinding work. And I can remember, I'm old enough to remember,

when there was infrastructure on the ground. It has not been in place since the Democratic Party started the 17th Battleground Strategy first. And then the reality of having not having a infrastructure in place I lived in Georgia I know what it was like when we were working 24-7 not just for voting but leveraging that vote was it so the This is pre-Obama. It wasn't in place when Obama ran, but people turned out, right? Hold on. There's one there, but people turned out.

Can I finish? I got it, guys. I got it. No, we're not. It's there. Just hold on. Here's the deal. You can anecdotally win.

Obama running. You're going to build power. Obama running. It takes investment. It takes long-term. It takes grinding work. Obama was an example of a singular person winning. OK, but what wasn't behind Obama running was an infrastructure, which why Dems lost a thousand people turned out over eight years.

No, no, no, no, no. Because it was one person. I want to go to Rashad Robinson with color change. We're looking at the first of all, guys in the control room. I got this. Rashad Robinson is over color of change. They also have a political action committee, which he's a spokesperson of. I got it, okay? So here's the deal. Rashad, we're talking about building.

We're talking about infrastructure, how you build color of change. When you look at tonight, when you look at the results tonight, when you look at some, when you look at the results tonight, when you look at some wins, some losses, when you look at Gillum losing in Florida, Abrams is losing in Georgia, Jealous loses in Maryland. Then, of course, you look at Cruz beating O'Rourke there. The thing that I still keep saying is that when you look at the demographic changes in America, the 2016 election, it was about 71 or 72 percent white voters in the presidential election. The next presidential election, like it'll be the first

year, first time in American history, less than 70 percent of the electorate will be less than not white. But if you still are going to have 68, 69 percent of the electorate being white voters, that means you have to absolutely maximize your votes among African-Americans, Latinos, Asians, Native Americans. And what we're seeing is that if you do not have a strong ground game, and when I mean ground game, meaning you actually construct it in a non-election year, then you're going to have a harder problem trying to win in the election year. Absolutely. You can't set up boom and bust coalitions, which the left does so often. We boom in presidential years sometimes, and we bust in off years,

because there's a deep underinvestment that has been consistent in black communities and now in brown communities and other communities. I mean, Ferguson is a perfect example where, you know, when the uprising happened four years ago and no one could get Jay Nixon, the governor, who was a Democratic governor, to do anything about criminal justice reform in the state of Missouri. And we know that Missouri doesn't end up with a governor who's a Democrat without Black people actually turning out in votes. So our votes become deeply present, but our power to actually force real change isn't there because the infrastructure has been underfunded. Over the last several years, we've been really working

to try to build a new type of infrastructure, an independent infrastructure that's very much in line with the other guests. And I come out of being in Black Youth Vote, and I'm so glad to hear Melanie's voice and others, but trying to figure out how do we take the technology and the tools and force a new level of funding for the infrastructure. And we've been able to see a lot of successes at the local level with district attorney races around the country and really winning those. And the fact that these exceptional candidates like Stacey and Andrew in particular and Ben were able to make it through the primaries and win those primaries speaks to the sort of growing infrastructure.

But it also, tonight, also shows how far we still have to go. You know, Andrew's loss, I think, will be felt by Floridians across the state. And the way in which the DeSantis was able to win also speaks not just to an underfunding of black infrastructure, but also the sort of white power brokers in the Democratic Party that haven't been able to figure out how to deal with, talk to, engage white people. If Melanie and myself and all of us were so inept at understanding black people, we wouldn't get any funding. But white organizations can continue to show up, continue to any funding. But white organizations can continue to show up, continue to raise large sums of money, and continue to be completely unsuccessful. The

fact that 58% of white women voted for Ted Cruz, who wouldn't even defend his white wife against Donald Trump's attacks, speaks to how much we actually have to lean on white folks who lead and fund and engage this movement about what they are doing to engage white infrastructure. I know that some of these victories oftentimes, the thing that gets pointed at black folks when Democrats lose, but I also think there's a point to be made about what white institutions or what white leaders are doing to also move their institutions along to engage white organizations. And I do want to say, finally, because there's a lot to be upset about, there's also Amendment 4, which I think is just tremendous and incredible, and I'm so proud of the work of Desmond Meade and that campaign.

I'm so proud of the work that Color of Change PAC did in alliance with that. There's so much to be also pointing to in terms of who should be driving and setting the agenda for the board. Rashad Robinson, Color of Change, I certainly appreciate it, bro. Thank you so very much. Go back to our panel here. I'm going to go Cleo first, then Lauren, and then Brandon and Melanie. Cleo. One thing that I think is unarguable is that Trump and company have been a perpetual motivator of whiteness. There's been no downtime. There's been no lull. It's been consistent and alive the whole time. We cannot afford to not have lows. We cannot afford to not be as consistent

and as awake and as present in terms of the importance of us having power in this country. But we've got to not be distracted. For example, and I don't mean to press no buttons here, but you were talking about the white sisters and the white sisters that keep voting and standing by their man, because that's what they're doing. Trump is their man. Whatever his name is who ran against Gillum in Florida is their man. How are you going to do anything about white women standing by their man? I'm not going to do anything about white women.

Okay, because I— We're clear. Okay, cool. We don't know each other, obviously. Okay, because you kept talking about the white white sisters which I think are a distraction. We need to talk about black... What we have to do when it comes to that is get real.

If you knew me, then you would know that that's not what I was thinking. I've been out there challenging the Democratic Party for years, and especially in the last couple of years, really challenging my... And I say, well, I call everybody sister and brother because, you know, we all go, we all

live and we all die, so whatever color we come in. But at the end of the day, we got to deal with that issue. And that issue is invest in those who support you. The bigger piece. I'm not talking about white women.

The bigger piece is how black candidates weren't statewide in the south and whether or not progressive campaigns can be successful i think because quite frankly uh both andrew and stacy ran very progressive campaigns they both lost and now we have to re-question the the blue dog question which is do you run more middle of the road in the South? Because frankly, I'm kind of surprised that Andrew lost. I'm very surprised he lost. And he ran a very progressive campaign. He went all in. What does progressive mean? So did Beto. What does that mean?

Don't sidetrack me now. I don't know what that means. It's some psycho analytical thing right now. I'm just walking. I'm just doing straight politics, just straight progressive politics. Beto and Stacey Abrams and Andrew Gillum ran progressive campaigns and lost. And Ben Jealous ran it. Back to what I think Mr. Young said,

the color of change, the white power structure in the Democrat Party. We talk about it a lot in the Republican Party, which we talk about a lot. But in the Democrat Party, I want to point out, Spencer Overton, he had on the show earlier, he called out the fact that we give 90% of the vote to the Democrat Party, but they can't seem to find qualified blacks to hire.

One second, one second. Stop right there. Oh, no. Okay. No, no, no, no. Let you finish your point. Okay. We don't give 90% of vote to the Democratic Party.

Black people make conscious decisions based upon who is running. Roland, okay. I got that. So as long as, no, no. So the day Republicans actually to compete for black votes and actually come talk to black people, it is different. I got your point. I got your point.

But go ahead. I respectfully disagree, and I'm going to show you why. Again, when the return on investment we're talking about right now, asking how the black caucus, as you mentioned, the largest caucus in Congress, is going to ask the white power structure in the Democrat Party to give them some leadership positions, I'm asking you, how can that be finished? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, reality is this. If you want to make a comparison, African-Americans actually do receive in terms of a return on investment. But follow me here. But if I'm getting 30 cents on the dollar over here.

Right. And I'm getting negative 10. Now, hold up. I'm not saying vote. See, there you go. No, no, no. I never said vote. You didn't let me finish. You didn't let me finish. You know what I'm not trying to show a conversation about Democrats.

Listen. I'm listening to you. Listen. And deflecting Democrat. Listen. I'm listening, Roland. If you stop talking, you can listen. I'm listening to you deflect.

Stop talking. Listen. I got you. The return on investment is that on one hand how black folks vote is based upon Who is speaking to them in their interest, right? I never thought about that, but you say I'm not done. You're not just my question. I'm not done I'm asking a question, but you just listen I got you man black people are making electoral decisions and that's based upon who they want to support now

I'm not saying after will you please stop? After the election is over, it is a different conversation among the black politicians in terms of what happens with power. The problem is, the problem is black politicians are making independent personal calculations based upon their power. Just like what I am saying is what they should be doing is when they walk in that room representing black interest, their constituents, and not, well, this person or that person. What I'm saying is they should be operating as a block saying, this is the number, these are the numbers that we have, this is what we want,

and if you don't give it to us, there's going to be hell to pay. But you linked both together. I'm not linking both together. They're separate. The election's over, Roland, right? The election happened, it closed down a couple hours ago. The election's over. So, like, to your point, I am talking about what now you got

This is why we're sitting Okay, okay, okay. They got five years of committee. Again, again, let me say it again. They got five years of committee. You're gonna have committees and subcommittees. Again, I'm not trying to do a comparison. I like you guys wanna do that. I admit it, the issues on that side. I'm talking about the Democrat Party here, and you're saying again, when Spencer Olsen started his analysis of staff in Congress, was it not,

again, when you first started it, was it not more senior on the Republican side? Okay, yes. Brandon, Brandon, we're talking on this show. I got you, so again, once you shot Lama, they started to fix it. Now you're regarding it again today. I'll got you. So, again, once you're shot live, they start to fix it. I'll tell you one second. I'll tell you one second.

I'm going to go live to Baylor O'Rourke, who is also now speaking in Texas. Real quick, before you guys flip it, Facebook folks, they limit us to four consecutive hours of live streaming. So if they turn the Facebook live streaming off and we turn it back on, YouTube and Periscope, you're fine. That's only on Facebook. Guys, go to the O'Rourke speech right now. Once he goes to the stage, we'll actually

take his speech there. We'll take his actually speech live. Let me go over, first of all, the top of the hour. We're at midnight Eastern. Polls have obviously closed in Eastern, in Central. The polls are closing on the West Coast. Democrats will take control of the United States House. Republicans will keep control of the United States Senate. Republicans will keep control of the United States Senate. Those are the two biggest issues. The question now, will the Democrats pick up additional seats in California to expand their majority in the United States House? Let's now get to statewide races. I would argue that it was a shocking upset in Florida where Andrew Gillum, Democrat, loses to Ron DeSantis for governor of Florida.

We are looking at they have not called the race. They have not called the race for the United States Senate in Florida, but Rick Scott has a slight lead against incumbent Senator Bill Nelson there in Florida. In Maryland, Larry Hogan, Republican incumbent, beats Ben Jealous. He loses in Maryland. Right now, Stacey Abrams is down more than 200, beats Ben Jealous. He loses in Maryland. Right now, Stacey Abrams is down more than 200,000 votes in Georgia. To Brian Kemp, he has about 55% of the vote, which means that if he gets 50 plus 1%, there will be actually no runoff there as well. As we look at some of the other statewide offices, Sean Shaw was running for attorney general in Florida.

He lost by about 500,000 votes. But in Illinois, Kwame Raul beat Eric Arnold. He becomes the new Attorney General in the state of Illinois, the second African-American, Roland Burris. He was the first. We also, we're looking at what is happening in New York State. I'm trying to pull it up as we speak to African Americans who were running there as well for that particular position. I'm trying to go to the New York Times website to pull up exactly where that race stands. Also, and there will be a runoff in the state of Mississippi. Mike Espy, he won the Democratic, he won that particular position.

So the top two, that will take place there as well. So we're monitoring what that looks like. Let me go through here again. Let's see here. Republicans, they flipped three seats in Indiana, Missouri, and North Dakota as well. Those were red states. Donald Trump won. Senator Heidi Heitkamp, she lost in North Dakota. Again, Ted Cruz beat Beto O'Rourke. Phil Breston, the former governor of Tennessee, lost to Marsha Blackburn in Tennessee. Incumbent Joe Donnelly, the Democrat,

lost in Indiana to Mike Braun. Democraty, the Democrat, lost in Indiana, to Mike Braun, Democrat incumbent Robert Menendez, won in New Jersey. And then also in Missouri, Democrat Claire McCaskill, defeated by Josh Hawley, the state attorney general in Missouri. But Chris Kobach, secretary of state, he lost his bid to become governor there in the state of Kansas. In Mississippi, it's going to be a runoff between Cindy Hyde-Smith, a Republican, and Mike Espy. That will take place, that runoff, on November 27th. And that's where we stand right there. Democrats have picked up gubernatorial spots in Michigan, in Illinois as well.

They held on to the governor's mansions in Pennsylvania and New York. Let's go to Texas, where Beto O'Rourke is now speaking. El Paso has produced some really great teams over the years and I am very lucky that I got to be part of one that came out of this community. And for the last 22 months, I've been traveling every single county of Texas, being there to listen to and show up for every single one of us. I'm as inspired, I'm as hopeful as I have ever been in my life. And tonight's loss does nothing to diminish the way that I feel about Texas or this country. Getting to be with and to see all of you tonight reminds me why we set out to do this in the first place.

We're not about being against anybody, not about being against another political party, we're not going to define ourselves by who or what we are against or afraid of or scared of. We are a great people, ambitious, defined by our aspirations, the hard work that we are willing to commit in order to achieve them. Every single one of us, Republicans, Democrats, Independents, from the biggest of cities, from the smallest of towns, the people of Texas want to do and will do the great work of this country. I just now had the opportunity to talk to Senator Cruz and to congratulate him to congratulate him on his victory and to wish him well going forward.

And what I said and what I pledge on behalf of all of us is that at this time of division, the country's been as polarized as I can remember it in my life. All this bitterness that defines so much of the national conversation today, if there's anything that we can do to help him in his position of public trust to ensure that Texas helps to lead this country in a way that brings us back together around the big things that we want to achieve. Whether that's making sure we face any threats or aid against this country, whether that

means we are there for every single one of us who needs a helping hand so that we can live to our full potential. The ability to see a doctor, go to the hospital, receive the medication that you need to be alive. I want to work with him and I want to work with anyone to make sure that we can lean on that. You amazing, you amazing public school educators who work so hard and do so much for so many of us. I work with him, I work with anyone, anytime,

anywhere to make sure in the same way that you've been there for us that now we can be there for you. Not as Democrats, not as Republicans, but as Texans, as Americans. I want to make sure, especially, that this community that raised me, made me who I am. Where Amy and I are so lucky and fortunate enough to be raising our kids, Ulysses and Molly and Henry, who are here with us tonight,

that we offer our experience and our perspective and our courage and our confidence on the issues that we know best as one half of the largest bi-national community anywhere in the Americas joined with Ciudad Juarez to form something powerful, magical, and nothing to be afraid of or walled off or to apologize for. We want to make sure that this proud community offers all it has to give to this country and to our future to ensuring that our greatest days are still ahead, and that the policy that we craft and the laws that we write and the way in which we treat each other comes not out of fear, it comes out of confidence and strength in this kind heart that I've always known El Paso to have. I am so...

I don't know any way to say this other than, El Paso, I love you so much. I am so proud of you and this city and this community and what you mean to the rest of this country and what you have achieved tonight along with so many other amazing people. Mark unfiltered, that is Beto O'Rourke. You can go to his Facebook page where he is giving his concession speech there in Texas, alluding to Senator Ted Cruz there in the Lone Star State. I want to give you some results from across the country. In New York State, Letitia James, she wins the New York Attorney General race. So she was running against an African-American Republican. And so another African-American wins Attorney General.

In Minnesota, Keith Ellison, 72% of the votes in. He is leading with 50% of the vote to 44% against his Republican challenger. And so we are looking at that as well. In a moment, I'm going to be pulling up to see how Aaron Ford is doing in Nevada. He also is running there and for attorney general as well. Plus, you also have Stephen Horsford. He is trying to return to Congress. He's also running in Nevada. And so we are monitoring what is happening there as well. It has been a very, very, very busy night thus far. I'm looking at the Las Vegas Review-Journal. They don't have any numbers that are in thus far, so we'll keep monitoring that. And so, again, so right now, let's do a reset. Here's our panel right now. We have, of course, Eugene Craig returns, Avis Jones-DeWeaver, Chris Metzler. And joining us is Dr. Julian Malveaux, economist, president emerita for Bennett College.

And so tonight, if you look at across the board, if you Democrats, glass half full, glass half empty. This is one of those nights where, frankly, both parties got lots to cheer about. And also folks in both parties can not feeling so good all at the same time. I would argue, though, that if I had to look at this overall, Republicans did better tonight than Democrats. Yeah, I would agree. And it's, you know, like I've been saying for quite a while about the whole polling thing. Polling, as we know it, is dead. The data that's coming in, the people who are polled, it's just simply not accurate.

The models, particularly when you have so many people turning out, they're not reaching the people. So as a result of that, people were kind of stuck in this blue wave discussion. Well, there was no blue wave tonight. Well, there wasn't a red wave discussion. Well, there was no blue wave tonight. Well, there wasn't a red wave either. Democrat, while Republicans may have done OK and they did what they said they were going to, they kept the Senate. Then Democrats did take the House. It does mean a power shift. No matter what there's some losses, there's some heartbreaking losses. I mean, I could cry over both the Gillum loss and we don't know what's happening with Stacey,

but she is down by 200,000 votes. So that does not bode well. At the same time, the fact that Democrats have taken the House of Representatives represents a sea change in the way that politics has been done in this town for the past two years. Now you have the possibility of checks and balances. Now you have Elijah Cummings, who will head government oversight, which means he could subpoena what? Everything. Now you have Maxine Waters, financial services, who can what? Start dealing with some of these issues of somebody's

tax returns. Now you go down the list, you look at the change in the foreign policy committee. If you look at the House foreign policy committee, The Democrats on that House Foreign Policy Committee look like a rainbow coalition. You have about a third of them are women. You've got brown folks. You've got black folks. The Republican Foreign Policy Committee, Ileana Ross-Nathan, who's leaving, one other woman, no people of color, just white folks, all white men. So the way that we begin to approach foreign policy, you're not going to be hearing any s-hole countries coming with a foreign policy committee that looks very diverse that includes a karen bass and some things like that so you know you simmer in your little whatever you have simmer in it and enjoy it but the fact is that there has been a

sea change things will be done differently and that's what that's about well there may be a sea change but there's also going to be um grid. What's going to get done? Well that's going to that's going to depend on whether you people that's going to depend on whether you people are able to understand that y'all not got. If Nancy Pelosi one of the most skilled human beings in terms of politics out there if she maneuvers the way that McConnell has if, if y'all don't want anything to happen, it won't happen. But if you believe in a nation, if you believe in compromise, and Nancy is able to work her magic, I should say Congresswoman Pelosi, you know, Roland, I lived in D.C. for 24 years,

but always a California girl. And she was my congresswoman when I lived in San Francisco. And if she does what I know she's going to do, there will be some movement. And certainly, guess what? Subpoena power is subpoena power. So I will watch Brother Cummings put y'all's chestnuts in an open fire. But here's the reality, Avis. Here's the reality, Avis, when you talk about raw power that exists.

And here's what is going to happen. Now that, first of all, there was a 51-49 Republican majority in the US Senate. After tonight, it could be 52-48, 53-47. The bottom line is that hurts Democrats. Absolutely. That means now you can't have a situation where you hope two Republicans cross the aisle, frankly, which they never did,

even though in the case of healthcare where John McCain voted no. And of course, you also had another vote. But at the end of the day, this is what we're going to see because Republicans now control the Senate. You're going to see them try to confirm even more federal judges. I think this is where now there was a deal that was cut right before the election to allow 14 judges through. This is this is what was a deal that was cut right before the election to allow 14 judges through.

This is what's going to happen. You're going to see far more pressure put on Chuck Grassley. Excuse me. Not to put on Chuck Schumer. To make no deals. Yeah. Whatsoever. To tell Democrats, even though their numbers are going down, to actually get a spine.

Because Republicans are going to say, look, we got two more years. We don't know what's going to happen in 2020, but we're going to try to get through. Their focus is going to be on the federal bench. Of course. Because Dems not control the House. They know you can't pass stuff in the House and get something passed in the Senate unless you make some compromises. But they're going to be focused on that federal bench.

And exactly. And the Dems need a spine because that needs to be stopped. I will say that the Republicans are very strategic. As you mentioned, they play chess. And oftentimes the Democrats play checkers and that they are very forward thinking. Always at the forefront of their electoral ambitions is the Supreme Court and the federal judiciary. And the reason why this is especially important, I think tonight is a good lesson in that, because I will be the first to say if someone else hasn't already said it, Georgia was stolen, okay?

Oh, yeah. Georgia was stolen. We started this broadcast tonight talking about all the shenanigans that were going on in Florida. I'm sorry, in Georgia, a 92-year-old woman who has voted consistently since 1968, all of a sudden, poof, disappeared from the rolls. We know that over a million names were purged from the rolls prior to this election, even beyond the 53,000 everybody's been talking about that's been getting all the media attention. This was stolen. The only check that we have on those sorts of acts of tyranny

is being able to have court cases go to the federal judiciary to say, no, you cannot do this. And what they are engaged in right now is a court packing scheme. They know, once again, that they will not have the majority in this nation that much longer. And so they are figuring out ways to maintain power without holding majority. Having control over the courts means that you can have tyranny of the minority. And that's exactly what they're setting up right now. And so, yes, I sure hope Chuck Grassley, I sure hope he grows a spine. JUDY WOODRUFF, You mean Schumer. NANCY CORDES, Schumer, I'm sorry.

I'm sure I sure hope Schumer grows a spine because he needs one. The Democrats needs one. I hope nothing gets through the damn Senate for the next two years. I sure hope so, because one thing I can tell you about what we've seen from what's happened in these first two years is that whatever moves forward is going to be destructive for African-Americans specifically and more speaking, for the American people in general. NG NGUYEN NGUYEN, Former U.S. Secretary of State for the United States of America, So, I actually want to disagree with the panel a little bit here. I actually think this is a big win for Democrats. The analogy that I would use is 2010, when Republicans took the House of Representatives. What we look and see here is that, on the Senate side, much really hasn't changed.

Three seats gained is not going to change, change a huge dynamic in the Senate. You know, as you said earlier, you know, folk were hoping that, you know, two votes would flip and, you know, join the Democrats on certain things, but it never really materialized. It's always a pipe dream. So if we look at the Senate, you know, not much has changed. But when you look at the House, you have a dramatic change. You have a whole switch and flip of power. And if you look back at 2010, Republicans were in this exact same predicament where, you know, we were shooting for taking over both the House and the Senate. We fell short in the House in 2010, 2012, finally, I mean, fell short in the Senate in 2010, 2012, finally got in

2014. But the House was flipped and there was a power dynamic shift. I mean, one of the most iconic portraits of Congress, of Congress in action, is the exchange of power between Pelosi and Boehner. And Boehner, you know, with the super huge gavel. I mean, this is real life. This is real life. And so if I'm looking at this from a, hey, you know, what do you look at going forward, I think this is a big win for the Democrats. You know, you have control of, you know, 19 or so committees now. I mean, subpoena, every chairman has subpoena power. And I wouldn't be shocked if that subpoena power was given to

subcommittee chairman to further open up to further lead investigations. But if I'm Black America right now, and I'm looking at, you know, what happened in Georgia, what happened in Florida, and, you know, what happened to some of the House races that, you know, weren't necessarily going in Dems' way, I'm, weren't necessarily going in them's way. I'm turning my entire attention down to Mississippi. I'm turning my entire attention down to Mike Espy's campaign, who, you know, who came in first in this race and now is going to a runoff. You know, I'm reaching out to Team Beto and saying, listen, lend us your fundraising team. You know, I'm reaching out to Collective Pack and saying, listen, we got three weeks to get this done.

Get your boots on the ground down here. That's a winnable race. I mean, you know, you grab 41 percent, you only got to close this gap by 10 points. It's doable. I mean, so if I'm, if the message, we're talking to black America from this message, I think the message is, hey, we have an opportunity, we might have lost Georgia, we might have lost Florida, you know, like Jealousy, Team Hogan, Jealousy didn't have a shot there, to be honest about it. But you have an opportunity to elect another black U.S. senator that can carry black issues in the U.S. Senate. Let me go one second, one second, one second.

First of all, again, out of Florida, Senator Bill Nelson has conceded to Governor Rick Scott. Rick Scott will be the next U.S. senator from Florida. So he wins that particular position. Democrats, excuse me, Republicans are going to increase their lead in the United States Senate. And so also out of Texas, this just in, a big win for Democrats again in the House. Lizzie Fletcher, Democrat, has defeated incumbent Republican John Culberson in the Texas 7th Congressional District. That is also a big victory there. That means two powerful Republicans, that is John Culberson and Pete Sessions, both have lost tonight, one to a woman, one to an African-American. As I said, Colin Allred, former NFL player, beat Pete Sessions there in Texas.

And so that is certainly good news there. As I said earlier in the show, in Missouri, the projections are that Josh Hawley is going to beat Clare McCaskill to be the next U.S. Senator from Missouri. And so we are following that as well. And so I'm going to pull up some other races there. Let me set this, and I want the pound to react. Because the reason we focused on doing five hours of coverage tonight is because, look, I spent six years at CNN. I guarantee you right now, the whole conversation on MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News,

and every other network is all about Donald Trump and the Republicans and his rallies and things along those lines. So we purposely say we have a black conversation here. But let me also say before I'm about to make this comment, and I have no problem with saying this, I think it is offensive that we have black cable networks who tonight are showing movies and reality shows. I would think, I would think that we have a national election every two years. The least you can do is do at least an hour or two to talk to black people about these critically important

issues. I personally think black people can do without watching a movie or reality show for one night out of two years. I'm just saying. But that's why we created this, why we created Roland Martin Unfiltered. It's why we need you to support us by going to RolandMartinUnfiltered.com, joining our fan club, because none of this stuff is free. But bottom line is we've got to have our voices. So the reason we want to do this here, because if we actually look at this thing in its totality, first and foremost, there have been very few African Americans elected statewide in America. I talked about it. You looked at Doug Wilder, governor of Virginia, the first African American since Reconstruction. You had Deval Patrick, two terms in Massachusetts. Then, of course, you had the statewide position.

You had Roland Burrs, of course, who was elected there in Illinois. You had, of course, an African American elected secretary of state who was still in the position. Then, of course, you also have other folks who actually run. But I dare say, even with the losses of Andrew Gillum, of Stacey Abrams, and Ben Jealous. You have not had this many African Americans elected to statewide positions in one year. To have an African American become the Attorney General in Illinois, an African American to become the Attorney General in Minnesota,

an African American to become the Attorney General in New York State, we'll see what's gonna happen in the state of Nevada. That's four African-Americans elected. And the reason I don't count lieutenant governors who are elected on the ticket is because, frankly, they haven't run as individuals. And so certainly there's a sister who is a lieutenant governor now in Illinois. But Pritzker was running against Rahner. She wasn't running independently.

The same way I don't, frankly, count the brother who was in Maryland or the sister who was in Kentucky or the sister who was in New Jersey because frankly they haven't run as individuals. So I think as we begin to analyze this election, we have to then begin to say what does black politics looks like? You got a brother who wins in Dallas. You got Johanna Hayes, who's now the first black woman, the first woman of color out of state of Connecticut. You got Ayanna Pressley, who's in Massachusetts. All of them are now going to Congress. You've got Antonio Delgado,

who's coming out of New York, who is also now going to Congress. That means you've got now four new African Americans who are going. You already have 49 of them there, so now you're going to look at 53. We're still following Lucy McBath. Last I checked, she was down about 10,000 votes to Karen Handel in Georgia, likely not going to win there. And so when you begin to assess, and everybody kept asking me, well, you know, after Obama, you know, my God, who do we have? Look, you still have Senator Kamala Harris, Senator Cory Booker, who are Democrats, got your Republican Senator Tim Scott.

You got African-Americans. Now you have a bench of black politicians who now will go to the next level. Justin Fairfax was elected lieutenant governor in Virginia independently. He will be Virginia governor, only gets to serve one term. He will be the prohibitive favorite to be the Democratic nominee for governor of Virginia. The point there is, from black folks standpoint, don't freak out and get so caught up in Gillum, Abrams, and Jealous losing. We now have a deeper, stronger black bench that now, over the next four to eight years can be elevated. Ava, I want to start with you.

Yeah, that's true. However, I also think we need to look at it like this. We are a very sort of leader-focused people. Yes. And I think that that is not the best strategy. Okay, when you say leader-focused people, what do you mean? I mean, we get so caught up in individual candidates that we don't invest long

term into building black power no matter who the candidate is and that is so frustrating to me that you just said that there were five million eligible african-americans no no no no no no five million no no no not african-americans Oh five million there were 13 million people who were eligible to vote in Florida. 8 million voted. So 5 million Floridians did not vote. We don't know the numbers of how many African-Americans did not vote in Florida. Okay. I'm going to look into that because I can pretty much tell you that there were probably, I wouldn't be surprised if it was a hundred, more than enough to have won this election. We do know for a fact that African-Americans, 344,000 voted early in 2014, and then more

than 500,000 voted early this year. So you're talking about an increase of about 150,000 African-Americans. I get it. We overperformed. I get it. Everybody overperformed this year. The point, the larger point is, generally speaking, we tend to be very candidate-focused. We need to be focused around this idea of accumulating black power and being ready to will that power in any and every situation.

I agree, but the reason we can't run past that, Julian, is because of this. People need to see success. Yes. One of the things Dr. King always talked about, he says we have to constantly show our supporters where we're winning because that gives folks hope. I guarantee you tonight, I could go to my YouTube channel. We've got nearly 2,000 continuous folks all night on YouTube. We've got 500-plus on Periscope. We've got close to 1, thousand, I guess, on Facebook.

People are I guarantee you that black people are watching this and they're going, Jesus, you know, we lost the government. But if you only focus on that and don't focus on what you did when you're overlooking what's critically important. And the thing about it, Roland, that's so beautiful in terms of the victory is that Chucklehead, also known as the president of the United States, said that he was going to come back from these elections and he was going to do all these tax cuts for the wealthy, more tax cuts. He also, he and McConnell have talked about going after so-called entitlement reform. Now, they can't do that without Maxine. They can't do that with these democrats and so

what they've talked about social security is that entitlement c i don't mind to pat the telephone set up sixty five years old i want my stuff that you know i want my social security don't be messing with my money and that's what i have what's brother man said he was the cut social security cut other entitlements now this has to go through and and a black sizeable proportion of African

American women rely solely on social security for survival. So this is an attack on our communities that 45 said he was going to cut. The fact that we got this house means that this is going to be slowed. So you're right to talk about the bench being deeper and also these younger people like Ayanna, these folks raising the issues. The attorney general. I got to go real quick. I got to go to Chris and then go to Eugene. Again, I got about two minutes total. The reason I want us to, again, I'm going to keep hammering why you got to focus on success.

Because the other success is even with the losses of Gillum, of Abrams, and Jealous. You've seen black institutions fundraise independently, create the things you're talking about, Avis. And so now folks are saying, okay, yeah, it didn't happen, but Gillum lost less than 80,000 votes. We don't know what the total is going to be in Georgia. Those groups are going, okay, guess what? We're going to sit here and salve our wounds, but we're coming harder in 2020.

Chris, Eugene, then I've got to go to break. Yeah, that's absolutely right. And again, from a Republican's perspective, I'm going to tell you, we are not going to be focusing on what we lost. We're going to be focusing on what we lost. We're going to be focusing on what we won, how do we best take advantage of that, and how do we go gangster in 2020. That's what we're going to do. I agree 100% with both Chris and Roland. We're going to,

Republicans, we're going to, yeah, listen, we're partying up for Team Hogan in Maryland, but I agree 100% Roland. There's a big takeaway out of this is that, you know, we can independently fund races. We can fill candidates. And I think that that helps the black community on both sides. All right, then I want to thank this panel. Thank you so very much again, folks. We've got about 30 more minutes of our coverage here. We've got a final panel is going to come in. I'm going to go to a break right now. We come back. We're going to do a recap again of these critical races to give you a sense of exactly who won, who lost, and what it looks like. We'll also hopefully we'll have an idea of what is happening in the state of Nevada,

where you have Stephen Horsford, who is trying to return to Congress after previously serving there, and also a brother, Aaron Ford, who is running for attorney general of the state of Nevada. You're watching Roller Mart Unfiltered, our election night coverage, the blackest election night anywhere. There's a reason for that because that's how we do it. So we'll be back in a moment. Oh, yeah. By the way, before I go, let me go ahead and tell y'all this here. So, you know, look, Candace Owens and Turning Point USA. Don't do it. They got their little conference going on starting with black conservatives tomorrow. Well, we asked for media credentials to go cover their conference.

And then they told us we were approved. Then they hit us back and they said we were not approved to cover their conference. Now, this is the only daily show that covers black people. And they got a Young Black Conservative Summit that won't let us actually go cover it. Ain't that funny? I've interviewed every major black Republican in the last 25 years. Colin Powell, Michael Steele, Allen West, J.C. Watts, Tim Scott, K. James.

Y'all, I can do a whole roll call. But Candace and Charlie Kirk, they little group, oh, no, we can't cover them. But you know what? Hell, I've interviewed some non-black Republicans. You want to hear their names? President George H.W. Bush, President George W. Bush, Senator Lindsey Graham, Congressman Bill Flores, Congressman Pete Olson, Congressman Tim Price, Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez. I go on and on and on. See, let me help y'all out, Charlie and Candace.

Y'all got a fake-ass organization. Because the reality is, you figure because you got 400 young black conservatives coming into D.C. that somehow y'all are doing something. Let me help y'all out. We've known black conservatives all our lives. And it's the black conservatives who got better credentials than y'all who know what's going on And every single one of those black conservatives. Guess what Candace if I walk into a room They're gonna talk to me boy. Talk to your little young ass

So maybe what y'all should do It's not been afraid of black media and actually come sit down and talk to black people who know what the hell they talking about But see y'all think y'all cute because white mainstream media has done stories on you. NBC News and also USA Today and thank you all that. But Candace, I'm telling you right now, see, you don't have to come to your conference. But guess what? Y'all don't control

the media credentialing at the White House. So guess what I got right before we came on air? We got credentials to y'all to get together with Trump tomorrow morning in the White House at 1130. All right, folks, welcome back to Roland Martin Unfiltered. We were able to show you some previous clips, of course, during this election season. This is election night, Black Votes Matter 2018. We've been here since 8 p.m. giving you analysis and breakdown of what has taken place. We also, of course, had an opportunity to talk to many of the black folks

who have been very much involved in our politics. Of course, we had Reverend William Dr. Barber on. We had Rashad Robinson on the show. Also, Desmond Meade and Sheena Meade called a celebrating proposition for passing in Florida that will provide voting rights to near upwards of 1.4 million folks formerly incarcerated in that state. That is a positive thing that happened in the state of Florida tonight. We also are covering some of the other ballot initiatives in Michigan, the ballot initiatives that will allow a commission to draw lines in that state overwhelmingly passed.

Also, same-day registration, automatic registration also is now happening in Michigan. Those ballot initiatives are critically, critically important. Also, legalizing marijuana in Michigan also has passed. We're also waiting to see in North Carolina what happened with one of their constitutional amendments, specifically as it relates to uh putting in their state constitution the requiring of a voter id that was a very constant uh controversial um one uh let me see here uh i am on the give me one second please just give me one second let me get rid of some of this clutter of these ads and everything on here this is from the charlotte observer proposed constitutional amendments

that would limit the governor's power over state appointments have failed republicans tried to limit that they wanted to restructure the state elections board and limit the governor's power to appoint its members, as well as another that would give the legislature a significant role in who is picked to fill judicial vacancies. Both lost by a large, large motion. But the one that we are most concerned about, folks, that one passed. North Carolina voters were in favor of adding a requirement for voters to show full identification to the state constitution. And that was according to the early unofficial election returns. And we're going to wait to pull up the actual voting numbers.

I actually want to see what that looks like. And that's one of the things I actually want to see what that looks like and that's one of the things that that I want to see About seven point seven million was spent to stop those constitutional amendments earlier Hey, we're ever in bar on he talked about how they fought that the NAACP fought That beat them in court But again what Republicans did by having the supermajority use the power in the legislature to pass it ram it through Put it on the ballot. Voters actually went for it in North Carolina. Let's reintroduce my panel here. Spencer Overton,

Michael Brown, Monique Presley, and Greg Carr. Folks, the reason, and again, I guarantee you the cable networks are ignoring these, but these ballot initiatives are critically important because it speaks to democracy and how we achieve it. Spencer, I want to start with you. To now have a state commission draw lines in Michigan is critically important. If I'm progressive groups, I'm paying attention to that and I'm sitting here saying, okay, guess what? I'm now going to target the exact same thing in Ohio, in North Carolina, in Texas, in Florida.

Again, you use the power. Republicans have always understood the power of constitutional amendments and ballot initiatives. To me, progressives had better say, wait a minute. We got those things passed in Michigan. We lost this with North Carolina. We won one in Florida. This is a future path forward. That's right.

And not every state has a ballot initiative process, but a lot do, right? And as you know, we're going to do redistricting in 2021, right after the next census. And as a result, getting this passed now in places like Michigan and getting it on the ballot in 2020 seems to be pretty important in terms of redistricting and shaping the future house in terms of the U.S. House as well as the state house. Michael? I think that's accurate except for I don't think we can count on the GOP just to lay down because of what these initiatives did in these particular states. Because clearly over at the RNC right now, they're thinking, okay, we just lost Florida,

possibly for the presidential, not assuming that all 1.5 million people are going to vote for Democrats, but a lot of those votes are going to be Democratic. So they're going to try to figure out how to stop those initiatives from even getting on the ballot. And in some states, there are mechanisms to keep things off of the referendum ballot. Hold tight one second, folks. In Georgia, things have obviously tightened. Brian Kemp's lead over Stacey Abrams is now down to about 100,000 votes. They're still waiting to see what then fully comes in from the Atlanta suburbs. But 89% of the vote is in. This is according to the Atlanta Journal of Constitution's live blog. This was posted. And so I'm trying to actually get the

latest on that here. That's one of the things that I'm looking for. So I'm trying to get that when this was posted. So this was posted 39 minutes ago on their live blog. And so his lead is down to roughly 100,000 votes as we speak. Mike, go ahead. Interesting conversation you were having in the last segment, too, Roland, about the politics of the leadership of the Democratic Party now that the House has flipped to the party that I care about the most. And for those who, and whatever folks think about the dynamics,

a lot has to do with who has the power base to raise money in these particular congressional districts. Whatever you think, now I can call her Speaker Pelosi again, whatever you think of the Speaker, she raised $100 million. So if there's somebody else that can do just that or close to that, they're going to be in leadership. That's what leadership is all about. It's not just about policy. It's also about raising money to help other Democrats get elected. She has done that. She has flipped the house. You don't have to like her, but that's what she did. And so I think it's going to be interesting to see who the number two, I think the contest is really for number two.

And that's where I think the Congressional Black Caucus, the Hispanic Caucus can really yield what their power to figure out who that number two should be or shouldn't be. But Nancy Pelosi is going to be speaker. People, I think, have to kind of deal with that reality. And again, folks, one of the issues when it comes to these votes and things along those lines, it's like numbers all over the place. According to WSB TV, Henry, go to my iPad, please. Go to my computer. 94% reporting 2,469 of the 2,634 precincts. They have it as Brian Kent, 1.84 million votes. Stacey Abrams, 1.62 million, 53% to percent. And so we're just trying

again. These things are going back and forth. And the slowest actually is it was I don't quite understand the Georgia Board of Elections. I mean, you go to their website and they like got it at 50 percent. So I don't understand how slow these folks are again. So Monique and Greg, I do want the both of you to just speak on what I just said with the previous panel and that is I know how folk I know how black folks are gonna react now I want you to speak to young black people are going, I think, to be upset, ticked off, mad, devastated by Gillum narrowly losing and Abrams looks like she's losing. But the thing I think that generation has to understand is that yes they came of age when Obama shut up like a rocket

won the U.S. Senate wins the Democratic nomination wins the presidency but losing is a reality somebody will win somebody will lose but if you check out of the process because somebody lost, then you are actually doing something where the ancestors will be embarrassed by it. This is a night where I still believe black folks should say, wait a minute. That black person won. That sister in Connecticut. That sister in Massachusetts. That sister in Illinois.

That brother in Dallas. I got to find out how the 19 sisters are running in judicial races in Harris County, attorney generals in these states. Again, you have to focus on wins and not get totally despondent by losses. That's absolutely right, Roland. You know, John Henry Clark, the historian, used to say this about white supremacy. He would say, at crunch time, blood calls blood, and somehow blood always answers. These white men lined up with their husbands. You had in California, Duncan Hunter is leading out there.

This is a man who threw his wife under the bus and bezzled money and then ran an anti-Muslim campaign against a man who is not a Muslim. You've got Ron DeSantis in Florida, who is a clown. Had his infant building walls on commercials. And of course, in Georgia, you have an open white supremacist in Brian Campbell. And then, of course, you had, as we expected, white folks in Iowa sin and avowed a clear, undeniable white supremacist. No question.

Back to Congress. No question. So young people are sitting there, and I think this is a moment when they should be celebrating. Why? Because in spite of all that, in spite of massive voter suppression, in spite of all that, what do we have? You've got new African people coming into the United States Congress and a whole lot of women. Looks like me. Oh, I'm sorry.

What do you got? I'm sorry. Steve King. I'm going back in here. Let's see. I'm trying to look at the numbers here. I'm looking at how far, because there was one headline that was wrong. They said King lost when he actually won, but he narrowly won.

So a few more white folks were perturbed by Steve King. Priscilla Nuff still sent him back. In fact, there was a video earlier today of Senator Chuck Grassley explaining why he is in support of Steve King. And I said, y'all, this is also white supremacy. Oh, no question. Where, oh yeah, I know, but he does good for the farmers, he does good for this. He made all these excuses why Steve King should get reelected.

That's being comfortable with white supremacy. These open white supremacists, man. These guys are white supremacists. And I respect that because their world is coming apart. So this is their last play. This is it. And so what I would tell young people and what I will tell young people tomorrow in class and from now on is celebrate the fact that they have to work overtime now to beat you. Celebrate the fact that the five-year-olds and younger in this country are majority non-white.

Celebrate the fact that the five-year-olds and younger in this country are majority non-white. Celebrate the fact that you have local control. Yes, Alabama may be red, but Terry Sewell got re-elected today, and young Randall Wolfman is the mayor of Birmingham, Alabama. And you got Chokeway Lumumba in Jackson, Mississippi. And out there on the West Coast, you got a multicultural flood. And California is the engine of the economy that Donald Trump is running around bragging about. Understand, finally, that even in North Carolina, this white woman, Anita Earles, who was leading the Southern Coalition for Justice dealing with this question of voter suppression, she just got elected to the North Carolina Supreme Court.

And three of the court appeals are being led by Democrats at this moment. In other words, we have to look at the local level. The only other thing I would say is, you know, if states are truly the laboratory of democracy, we're going to find out if these white supremacists believe in federalism. Monique, Chris Collins, under indictment for insider trading, re-elected. Yes. Duncan Hunter, Republican, who ran

flat out the most racist campaign, re-elected. Under indictment. Him and his wife, hundreds of thousands of dollars, used a person to use ah we're good we're good right but al franken doesn't have a job listen and i and and that is my point right because i believe that um there are things to be learned from the conservative playbook. There are things to be learned from the Trump playbook.

And we have to be able to, as people would say, you know, grab the meat, throw out the bones. We have to eat that meat and understand that sometimes whatever it is you believe about yourself is reality. if you can give it to enough people and they can buy it. Now, on our side, we use that for good. I see a president who used it for hate, for fear, for fear-mongering, et cetera, et cetera. I'm sick of talking about him. But I want us to take the lesson. And you know what, Dr. Gregg, I feel like not just that we won places. Can your students concentrate on? Look at how we lost. You know, Gillum lost in a race he never should have been able to run. How about that?

I want to give attention to the first black male nominee for governor for a major party in Florida. That's right. Is that not worth something? Shout out Florida A&M. That's right. The closeness of the race. No question. The fact that this is really the last time that we're going to be in minority and have to do that race.

That's right. Hello, Beto. It's unheard of. That's right. And so for me, I had a college professor who said, take a small win. She said, you'll never appreciate a big win until you take a small win. And I see wins everywhere tonight. And to me, any person who's a visionary in politics, a visionary in the spirit realm, look, if you can see, period, if you're not blind, then it's obvious that we have found a pathway forward.

Of course. That to me, and I don't, you know, I mean, I know there's a lot of gloom and doom from a lot of other people. But for me, I'm looking at it and Stacey Abrams as a black woman and sitting here, I'm the last black woman sitting apparently around. Girl, child ain't safe. I mean, I'm with all these men. You're safe in this one. You're safe. You know what?

But we haven't been. And that's the point. Oh, no. You've always been safe. We're not going real. We're just not going real. We haven't had safety always. And for her to step out there and for her to have the kind of race that she had,

and no matter how it is that turns out, and even if they tried to steal it from her, what we knew for sure is that she ran a race of integrity. She outclassed that man at every turn. She was not just smarter. She used her smarts for good. She had harnessed power. And so that's the answer to all these people who say return nasty for nasty and ugly for ugly and kick for kick. No.

We don't have to do that. Spencer, I talked about, especially Mike, I talked about this here. I talked about what's next. Democrats not controlling the House. Right. I do fundamentally believe, and this is what the Congressional Black Caucus needs to get behind closed doors and say, damn it, we're going to stand as one on this.

And look, it's going to be Speaker of the House, it's going to be Majority Leader. Because the reality is, when you look at a lot of these races, the enthusiasm, what black folks have meant, that's first. But the second thing is this here, and again, I look for a return on investment. You're going to have, now that you're going to have African Americans running committees, I don't want to hear any excuses from Democrats about the hiring of more white folks. Right, right, right. Now, that's absolutely right.

So we talk about the staff. You know Democrats in the House have a problem in terms of the staff. Once you get outside of the CBC, it's very white. So, for example, you look at the white Democratic members. Their districts are 37% people of color, but only 8% of their top staff are people of color. Only 2% of their top staff are black, right? And so this shift in terms of committees, in terms of leadership, it means that Democrats are going to get a whole, like hundreds of new staff positions, right? Councils, other things that are substantive, right, on these committees.

And there is an opportunity to fix or move a long way toward fixing this diversity problem by consciously hiring a large number of top staffers of color, right? And that's the next 60 days these spots are going to be gone they're going to be people who jump on them unless there's a concerted effort to say hey we want people of color in these spots michael first thing back to the last thing you talked about roland when you were talking about um people taking their ball and going home clearly in our hearts we're disappointed about what happened in Florida, Georgia, and Maryland. But Obama lost a race, too.

Yes. A lot of people don't know he lost a race to Bobby Rush. He got crushed. And you know what? He lost a couple of times. He didn't take his ball and go home. He got crushed. He ran again and became president of the United States.

So to your point that young folks have to understand, in politics you lose sometimes. And that's not okay. You don't have to like it, but you don't run away. On the point related to the politics on the Hill, and I know a lot of us make our living on the Hill, I think you have seniority to deal with. You have budgets to deal with. And, yes, I think, as I mentioned before, I think Speaker Pelosi is going to deal with. You have budgets to deal with. And yes, I think, as I mentioned before, I think Speaker Pelosi is going to be Speaker. The question is, does Clyburn get leapfrogged

by a younger person of color in the caucus, or does he move up to majority leader? That's the only question that's going to come behind those closed doors. And again, I have no idea what's going to happen, but it's either going to be Clyburn as number two or he's going to get leapfrogged by one of those younger members. But how about Steny Hoyer? Will Steny Hoyer be number two? Well, I don't know. Well, that's the conversation we're having.

Should the caucus say, we love Steny, but we have to have a person of color in the leadership. No, no, no, no, no, no. Not a person of color. Black. Black person. no, no, no, no, no. Not a person of color. Black. Black person. Black leader. Fair enough.

Because I'm just trying to figure out what you're saying. No, what I'm saying is very simple. No, no, what I'm saying is very simple. Is it that they're the most qualified person or we just owe it for the culture? Oh, hell no. You're damn right we owe it for the culture, and we qualify it. The reality is this. No, no, no, let me break it down.

There are going to be four top positions now. It's going to be House Speaker of the House, it's going to be Majority Leader, it's going to be Whip, and then it's going to be Head of the Conference, or whatever they call it. Okay. My point is here, I ain't trying to be number four. What I'm saying, here's the deal. We've had Black Whip.

We've been there. The reality is this here. This party does not exist without black people. And Clyburn knows how to raise money. Hold up, wait a minute. One name that we have not put out there,

I ain't got no problem putting it out there because she's going to be chair of House Financial Services Committee. That's right. Congresswoman Maxine Waters. No question. Hold up. That's a ton of money. Look, she can raise money as well, but again, the issue for me, and

I got to say this here, the issue for House leadership is not just about who can raise money. It's also who the hell can message. It's also who can craft a position to lead their people in order to do battle. And I think the fundamental problem for Democrats has been, and again, Nancy Pelosi is an amazing tactician. Steny Hoyer as well. But I think there's the weakness

of the Democratic House leadership. They are weak at messaging. They are weak at connecting with people. Money is one thing, but it's one thing that we have seen with O'Rourke, we saw with Bernie Sanders, we've seen it with others. And that is, you can go raise corporate money,

but you can also raise money for regular, ordinary people. But they also need messaging. It's not just money. You yourself have said Pelosi deserves credit for the Affordable Care Act. Stop, stop, stop.

When did they get passed? 2009. The OC deserves credit for the Affordable Care Act. Hold up. Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. When did they get passed? 2009. Yeah. It's 2018. I understand. So here's the deal. Well.

Hold on. I'm going to give you credit for nine years ago. But I need to see some new stuff. And so the thing is, I ain't going to keep riding. You can't keep riding what you used to do. But I'm just saying they're not just fundraisers. I understand that. But what I'm saying is the issue still also is messaging. And frankly, they have been awful at being able to craft a message.

I think a couple of things you raised from the previous segment, the deep bench, the deepening and widening of the Democratic bench. In 700 days of some change, there's going to be a presidential election. Let's say President Warren or whoever becomes president, Democrats win. I think you've got two master messengers. You really do. And the candidate for Florida governor and the candidate for Georgia governor. Let's say that they've lost those two elections.

Over the next 700 days and some change, they need to continue to be prominent in the party. Those are two cabinet appointees. Because they still have jobs. No question. They both still have jobs. No question. I mean, is Stacey Abrams the secretary of Congress? They are still in office.

That's true. But Roland's getting to the point that within a month we've got a vote on leadership. No, no, no. I'm not overlooking that. What I'm saying is that what we have to do is keep in front of us in the context of this, this leadership change in the next month. This idea that this momentum is coming from someplace other than looking for the next white savior. I'll do respect to Beto O'Rourke and his coattails. We have to let these young black leaders who have come in this deepening bench be recognized as a new boy. And I'm not

talking about Hakeem Jeffries. I'm talking about, yeah, Clyburn should be the guy or Maxine Waters, but understand that if you don't make this choice in a month, we're just going to run over you. And let me be real clear. Let me be real clear. I don't want Clyburn and the others to go, well, let's see what y'all do. No.

No. This is where they come out up front and make it perfectly clear and send the signal to Democrats, we are not playing. You're not going to do what you just did where you created the assistant position because you didn't have, because there was no room, because when you lost the House, there was no room for Clyburn, so he got the number, you got a made-up position you created.

That's right. No, no. This is you created. That's right. No, no. This is about power. That's right. And it's also about leverage. It's also about recognizing who also drives politics in this party. And so that's the issue. 30 seconds each.

Michael, go. Well, I would love to, you know, I love the fraternity that Mr. Clyburn belongs to. So from my standpoint, I just don't know how politically he has the seniority, he has the fundraising ability, he has the power on policy. He clearly knows how to message. Frankly, I'd love to see more black folks on the Sunday morning talk shows. Love to see that. That's part of the messaging that you're talking about. And I just think that's what I think that's the leadership I'd like to see. Speaker Pelosi,

Clyburn, and then 2020 Biden-Harris. Spencer. Fast court press right now. Next month, black folks in leadership in the House, black folks as chairs in the House of both committees and subcommittees, and black folks in staff positions. That's the focus for the next month. Monique? Tonight was a good night. If anybody wants to look at it as a loss, they shouldn't. There was great work done and we got a great result from it and we will get more after this.

I don't want anybody to end up discouraged. This is just the beginning. I'm not going to give the arc of the universe. Everybody knows that. What I'm saying is it's long game. So let's just stay the course. The United States is not the shining city on the hill, brother. What you raised about the judiciary is very real.

This is the Republican long game. They're going to try to make the judiciary their final stand against the future of America. And they're going a long way towards success. What we have to always remember, however, is that if we just embrace our humanity and fight these people the way they've been fighting us,

we can win. And tonight proved that we can win when we work hard. Roland, I'm sorry. One thing we all said to do as Democrats, and the Republicans have done very well, and you talked about taking a page out of their book. They talk about winning first, consequences later. Absolutely. They'll deal with the fallout after all that.

I don't care about getting called a racist. They don't care. I want to win first. I'll deal with the consequences later. We have to have the same mentality. And frankly, win first. I'll deal with the consequences later. We have to have the same mentality. And frankly, when my father was chair, that was the mentality. That's true. Final comments. 1968, Maynard Jackson ran for the United States Senate, knowing full well he had no shot at winning. But in running for the U.S. Senate in 1968,

he was able to see the landscape and saw that with a number of black votes, he could actually become the mayor of Atlanta. Election rolled around. He chose to run for the number two position. Yet when 72 rolled around, he said it's time to run for mayor. People said that he should have waited his turn, that he had a Jewish mayor, that he was a good guy. But Mayor Jackson said, no, now it's time for black folks to run. Tonight, Andrew Gillum lost by less than 100,000 votes in Florida. Stacey Abrams is likely going to lose by around between 100,000 and 200,000 votes in Georgia. Ben Jealous lost in the state of Maryland.

Those were clearly high-profile losses. But Letitia James is the new attorney general in New York. Kwame Raul is a new attorney general in the state of Illinois. You also have Keith Ellison, the attorney general in the state of Minnesota. There are other races that we're looking at. You have black women, Ayanna Pressley, who is now the member of Congress from Massachusetts. You have, of course, Johanna Hayes, former teacher of the year, who is now the member of Congress from Connecticut. You have Colin Allred, now a member of Congress from Connecticut. You have Colin Allred, now a member of Congress from Dallas. You have these elections. You have Lauren Underwood, who is now a member of

Congress from the state, from Illinois. These are victories that took place tonight. But we also saw in this election, you saw those voices. You heard Cliff Albright. You heard LaTosha Brown, the Black Votes Matter. You heard DeJuanna Watson, of course, with BeWoke. Of course, you heard the Color of Change PAC with Rashad Robinson and others. Adrian Shropshire and L. Joy Williams and the Collective PAC with Stephanie Brown and James and Quentin James. You also had black corporate leaders who created their own political action committee. The brother who was the mayor of Birmingham created his own political action committee

as well. What you have seen are African Americans in this election cycle make it perfectly clear that they're going to take their own destiny in their hands. They're not going to wait for the DNC, the DCCC, the DSCC, the Democratic Government Association, or any of these progressive or liberal groups. What they said is we are going to put the money in our community where we know it is best because we know how to reach our people. So what is next? This election is over. We'll wait to see what happens in California. Democrats control the

House. Republicans control the United States Senate. Democrats picked up more governor matches than they started the night with. We also have those constitutional amendments so we've been asking this i always told you that the election is the end of one process in the beginning of another and so it's 1 a.m on eastern standard time which means it is officially november 7th which means the election is over now what what does it mean in florida that means there should be a strong initiative put in place to register those 1.4 million people who are formerly incarcerated who now have the right to vote. What that means is if you are Republican and running in Florida or even you're a conservative Democrat, I dare you to run on a law and order platform and see how well that does in the next election. What it means is those people, that 1.4 million, could literally be the tipping point and flip Florida in the 2020 presidential election. But they have to be reached, they have to be registered, and then they have to vote.

Same applies for Latinos. You can have great demographic numbers. You can have huge numbers in Texas, but it means nothing if you don't vote. It doesn't mean that you saw an increase? The question is, are you going to have in 2020 two million eligible for unregistered Latinos in the state of Texas? What does it mean for black people? What it means is if you're black and you set your ass at home, you're an absolute disgrace to the race. Yeah, I said it.

Tariq Nasheed, you are a disgrace. Jason Whitlock, same for you. Two black men who actually publicly said they don't vote. Now, of course, we can fall for this nonsense about, well, you know, I don't agree with this person, that person, but you cannot tell me if you are black and you are voting and there was nothing on the ballot you could have voted for. Not the person who's running for U.S. Senate or Congress or governor or lieutenant governor or state rep or state senate or county government or DA or judge or clerk or constitutional amendment or ballot initiative. There is something you could have

voted for. But to sit at home and do nothing, to sit at home and whine and bitch about what is going on in this country. And when you actually have the power in your hand, as Maynard Jackson said, his grandfather taught him the three B's, the ballot, the book, and the buck. Those were the three B's that was put into his head. How is Atlanta the black mecca today? It is because Maynard Jackson used the ballot to transform political office, which also caused him to drop economic development, which meant the buck. The reason Atlanta has the number of black millionaires

it has today is because of electoral politics. When he was elected in 1973, black folks got .0012% of all city contracts in Atlanta. You go there now, black folks built the skyline of Atlanta. When you go to Atlanta right now, they got the Olympics because of black folks. When you look at what is happening, what they're doing all across the busiest airport in the world, it is because of what black folks were able to contribute. We are in a country that's becoming more black and brown. What we cannot do is sit on our collective asses and do nothing and allow our power to go unused. So I don't care whether you're in North Carolina or South Carolina or Mississippi or Alabama.

I don't care if you're in a state where everybody who's elected is Republican. You still have the right to stand up and use your power and not allow it to go unused and untapped. Any of us could have said, well, we have no shot. But Maynard Jackson ran. Marion Barry ran in D.C. Coleman Young ran in Detroit. The Stokes ran in Cleveland. Hatcher ran in Gary, Indiana.

Dinkins ran in New York. And so now we have a new generation of folks who are running. We have folks who are also winning. They actually chose to get in the game by running and put themselves out there. They knew very well they could have lost. But the reality is they also could have won. But, damn it, you can't win if you don't run. And also, it means you can't change nothing if you don't vote. You're concerned about criminal justice reform? Well, guess what? You can't serve on a jury unless you're registered. You can't say, I voted because

Trayvon Martin can't. I voted because Ayanna Jones can't. I didn't vote. Rekia Boyd can't. Eric Garner can't. Michael Brown can't. Freddie Gray can't. And the list goes on and on and on. How dare you call yourself a conscious person and that you don't understand the history of black folks when it comes to the power of voting. You are a disgrace to the black folks who gave their lives, literally had their churches bombed, houses destroyed, forced to move out of the South, giving up hundreds of acres of land their families had because white folks ran them out because they had the audacity, the unmitigated gall to say that they wanted to register black folks to vote. We are living in a world where we're 25 years away from America being a nation that's majority

people of color. That means by 2043, 53% of America will be black or brown. That's right. 47% will be white. And I'm telling you right now, we're living in the age of white fear where white voters are scared about what is happening. And so they're looking at the caravan and saying, oh my God, they're going to invade us. They're looking at black candidates saying, oh my God, they're taking over. Well, guess what? You damn right. We expect to take over. I guess what you're supposed to do when you have the demographic numbers, but see, the takeover cannot happen if folks dare sit at home. The takeover cannot happen if you say, oh, I'm so powerless, I can't affect

change. When 19 black women run for judge in Harris County, that means change. When a young brother runs for prosecutor in St. Louis and upsets Bob McCullough in the primary, that's change. When Kim Foxx runs in Chicago and primary, that's changed. When Kim Foxx runs in Chicago and wins, that's changed. When Aramis Ayala runs for state's attorney in Florida and wins, that's changed. When Marilyn Mosby runs in Baltimore, that is changed. When black folks are running for DAs and judges and clerks and attorney general, that is changed. It doesn't mean you're always going to win the presidency. It doesn't mean you're always going to win the governor. What it means is we got more folks in the game who now have the capacity, the ability

to be able to create change. The election is over. November 7th is here. Now it's the time to stay mobilized and stay organized to demand power, to say to Congress, you are going to hire more black folks on staff, to say to Democrats, you're going to spend money while black folks are, to say you're going to spend money while black folks are to say you're going to have used black consultants and black posters and use African-Americans in those critical positions because the days of smart ass white boys running everything in America is over. The time for you to use your power is right now, which means that

if you came out and voted, I expect you to be at city council meetings, at school board meetings, at county commissioner meetings, at the legislature, and in Congress. Even if your candidate did not win, you are still a constituent. So Ron DeSantis, he owes black people because he is going to be the governor. And you damn right, we're going to hold him accountable. And you damn right, Brian Kipp is going to be held accountable. And you damn right, the Democrats who won in Maryland are going to be held accountable for funding our HBCUs. What I'm trying to let you know is, to all you folks who are Democrats and Republicans, the black folks who care, we are not going anywhere.

We haven't gone anywhere in 399 years. We haven't gone anywhere since we arrived here in August of 1619. And you can damn well bet we're going to be on the battlefield and we're going to fight. And as Bertner Woodson Tandy said, my Alfred brother, we will fight until hell freezes over and then we will fight on the ice. I want to thank all the folks participating on our panel today. We had, of course,

the Blackest Show out here for a reason because we wanted you to get a perspective from us. It probably would take the other networks at least three weeks to have this many Black people combined, but we did it all in one night. Big shout out to our staff for making this possible. Five hours of coverage. Thank you for everybody for being here as well. I can go down the names. So shout out to Malik, A. Scott Bolden, Barbara

Arnwine, of course, Brandon Cooper, Cleo Monago, Greg Carbo, Nick Presley, Melanie Campbell, Julianne Malveaux, LaVittoria Burke, Reverend William Barber, Rashad Robinson, Mark Morial. I want to thank also Latasha Brown and Cliff Albright, Desmond Meade, Sheena Meade, Chris Metzler, Avis Jones DeWeaver, Michael Brown, Eugene Craig, Teresa Lunde, Spencer Overton, Derek Holley, and so Ron Lester as well. I also want to thank the Lawrence Community for Civil Rights Under Law and Kristen Clark for doing their part as well. Folks, it's all about us. That's what it is matters. And just to show you what happens when black folks do something, just get a text message.

The 19th Sisters of Ramp for Judge in Harris County in Houston, all 19-1. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Here comes the judge. All 19-1. And so, of course, I campaigned with them on Saturday. And so the campaign manager said, they see your name on the stage. It doesn't matter. It wasn't about having the name said on stage. But again, that's 19 black women who are not going to be judged in Harris County. That's how you impact criminal justice reform. And that's a great way to end this, folks. You have to support Roland Martin on the filter because that's the only way this will happen.

If we're not having corporate funding, clearly mainstream media will pay no attention to us. But we've had thousands of folks who have been watching our live stream who chose to watch us. We want you to go to RolandMartinUnfiltered.com. Join our Bring the Funk fan club. Every dollar you give goes directly to this show. To pay for lights, for cameras, for travel, to pay for cars, to get all of them here because we've got to have our news from our perspective. And I've always said we got to fund our freedom because we can't expect somebody else to fund it for us. I'm going to be on the

Tom Joyner Morning Show a couple times tomorrow beginning at 7 15 Eastern. I've got about 10 radio interviews lined up as well. So look for our Twitter feed as well for that. And I will see you guys tomorrow, 6 p.m., right here on Roller Mountain Unfiltered. Y'all have a great night, morning, whatever you want to call it. Holla! Thank you. this is an iHeart podcast