housekeeping. >> it's like the accountants. i've got to talk about them. ohio and north carolina, closing. a lot of florida is closing in five seconds. and so we've seen states before that have stradled time zones, i'm trying to make it sexier. >> that was a good one. >> you may see some raw vote on the screen from florida. we are not recognizing. >> naked vote. >> the florida poll closing until an hour from now at 8:00 eastern. wow. when we will also have illinois and missouri, but everything that's going to happen, at least all of the exciting poll closings, are going to happen between now and an hour from now. >> that's right. we obviously don't know what's going to happen until it happens. we're led to believe by the polling, the data we've seen, we may have bunch of close races tonight. poll closing perhaps well before

we're going to have a called winner in some of the races. but the florida and ohio results in particular are going to be more important than your usual state. not just because they're winner take all, and big piles of delegates, but they could spell an choice. watching the numbers, heavily relying on the correspondents to be talking to the campaigns about what they're really planning on doing. kasich has been overt about it. if he loses ohio, he is out. rubio has not been overt in that same way, but a lot of people are watching them closely working their sources, and find out if he will quit if he doesn't win tonight in florida. this is a night where important information is going to come from a number of different sources. >> ohio, critical state tonight, as it is of course, in the general election for a host of reasons. chris matthews, standing by in cleveland, where last hour, they were serving up grilled gop chairman. that was an interesting

conversation. i was thinking of the drink. any way, cool aid. you and rachel have been talking about it. we've had two passionate groups in the field. passionate bernie people, feel the bern and the trump people. we may see emerging in ohio tonight and the polling that comes out of this is that new passionate group, the anti-trump people. people that go to the polls, switch parties, whatever, from independent or democratic to republican, within the republican party, feeling very passionate about stopping trump. after what we've watched on television and they've all watched on television this horrendous racial. nobody likes to see people fighting racially in the united states. nobody likes to see the sight of that. we've been watching a lot of it. so i think it's going to come down to tonight, here we are in march, march 15th tonight, we'll have results tonight. even if kasich wins tonight, pul pulls it out, who will be the face on the banners of the anti-trump people when the republicans meet here in july.

who is that face going to be? we don't have one face yet. that's why trump still looks like the front-runner, because it's cruz or it's kasich, it probably won't be rubio. but unless it's one person, it's hard to see how you lead a stop trump movement without a face. kasich may become the face, but cruz i don't think will let him. this will be a fight over who the banner held high over trump. until they clarify that sort of inner murial trump people. >> try telling all the people who voted for donald trump by the time cleveland rolls around, your choice of candidates doesn't matter. that's going to be tough for the republican party. the state of ohio has given us eight u.s. presidents and chris jansing, standing by in cleveland suburb. hey, chris. >> reporter: very random. thank you very much, brian. two stories here about the numbers.

i don't know why rachel is laughing so much about that comparison, however, two big sets of numbers here. number one, highland heights, suburban cleveland, getting more people than they thought they would. they would normally be cleaned out at 7:00 at night. from 4:00 to 6:00, this place was insane. here is the real number. almost since midday, they've been tracking such high crossover numbers, they would expect about 2-1 republican voters over democratic voters. it's still close to 3-1, many of them crossovers, democrats who again, we have no idea who they're crossing over to. we only know the people we've talked to as they're leaving. almost everyone of them told us it was a protest vote against donald trump. almost all of them said that they were voting for john kasich. what does this mean in this county overall? well we talked to the folks there, they say they're on track for about the normal number of what they would expect, 41-42%

turning out. they're hearing anecdotally, but in no way able to say it's actually happening. who might this impact? i just got an e-mail from someone who was on the ground in michigan with the bernie sanders campaign, when they scored that upset. i asked are you worried about whether our not your voters are the ones going over. this is her analysis. she says in fact, she thinks that if they're going to kasich, which is what we're hearing, again, anecdotally, she thinks they're more moderate voters, and that hurts hillary clinton. but everyone i talk to is fascinated by this. >> chris jansing, thanks. let's go to the youngstown, ohio, area. tony spent the day there in a polling place there. tony. >> reporter: hey, brian, the evening rush is upon us. in about 30 minutes, these machines, they're going to spit out some data and other

acquaint, old ohio law, the information will be posted publicly. the crossover phenomena, we're going to get some hard data to see who it is helping. you heard chris say where she is in cleveland, the ones crossing over from democratic to republican. they seem to be kasich voters hoping to lift kasich. we're seeing the opposite here. old factory town, blue collar, hard-working, a lot of people who used to vote democratic, fed up, person after person telling us they're going to the trump side. now, one woman, anita, never voted republican in her life. she is old school italian, italian women's club. she said her father would be rolling over in his grave if he knew she was voting for a republican this time, and she voted for trump. another guy said are you a democratic. he said not any more. now, some of the neighbors around here are really appalled that their friends and family are going to the trump side. one man we spoke to said if he becomes president, i'm

considering finland as my new home, possibly costa rica. >> people take their politics seriously. what happened to youngstown, ohio, the steel business was so serious, made its way into a bruce springsteen song and it's been trying to bounce back ever since. you see there on your screen, peter alexander. he is in baria, ohio, waiting for the appearance of john kasich, and the question is, will he be a victorial candidate, having won his home state? >> well, the band is just taking a break, which either indicates they're expecting a long night of celebrating or a long night until they get an answer to that question. i just hung up with some of john kasich's top aids, and they tell me they're extraordinarily confident tonight. they believe that that vote is strongly in favor of the home state governor. democrats largely from the labor

community coming to support governor kasich here and in many ways, to vote against donald trump. this is a governor who was undefeated in this state. won all 12 elections, both local and statewide here, dating back to 1979. approval rating approaching 80% here. will that translate? he seems to be comfortable with the way things are going today. he spent last night, after dressing up to be with mitt romney, dressing down in shorts and shirt, a governor who doesn't live in the governor's mansion, still lives in the same house along his two 16-year-old daughters. ugly ads touting donald trump's vulgarity. he said going forward, he'll hit trump on it. we'll find out if he gets the opportunity. >> all right, peter. >> interesting turn for the kasich campaign if he does that one thing that has set governor kasich aside, he has done zero

negative campaigning at all, including not criticizing trump. he said after tonight, he'll take that turn. we heard peter explain how the kasich is excited to hear about the crossover votes. democrats not voting in the droo democratic, but crossing over to vote on the republican side. some of them will be donald trump votes from people who are otherwise democrats, but the kasich campaign thinks a lot of them will be anti-donald trump pro john kasich votes. you have to wonder what this is going to do in the democratic primary, though, in ohio and in other states. for information on that, we go to kristin welker, who is in west palm beach, with the clinton campaign. kristin, has the clinton campaign said anything how they feel about this crossover vote, whether it's good or bad for them? >> i've been talking to a number of officials, and apologies, it just got loud here. there is a lot of hand ringing going on inside the clinton campaign, concerns that this is

going to hurt her in critical states like ohio, illinois. where they say we're seeing this crossover rate, at a higher rate than it happened back in 2008. democrats voting against donald trump. still, the clinton campaign feeling confident she can expand her delegate lead tonight if she wins a state like florida and north carolina. and the reality of the math, if senator sanders wants to cut into her lead, he has to win some states, but by large margins. >> kristin welker, thank you very much. it's interesting that the clinton campaign, the candidate herself is going to be in florida, if the polls are right tonight, that's always a question, that's obviously the state, according to polling, where secretary clinton has the best chance of a big win tonight. bernie sanders, on the other hand, is not going to be in any of the states that are voting today. he's going to be in arizona. because arizona is one of the states that votes next

signalling, no matter what happens tonight, he is moving on. that means at the chicago field office, for bernie sanders in illinois tonight, we've got our own chris hayes, and chris is there with bernie sanders' workers, but they're not expecting to see their own candidate. >> no, i was talking to the state director here, and some high turn out. suburbs around, they ran out of ballots. they want to go through a judge to keep the polls open an extra two hours. they can't get a judge on call in that county right now. they've also had some similar reports in downstate candidates. this is probably the best shot based on the sentiment on the ground, organized that has happened in chicago and cook county and the polling averages for bernie sanders to get an outright win tonight. and what steve was saying before about that discrepancy between the percentage of voters that are african-american and the projections in the polls has a lot do with how this campaign

has campaigned here in cook county, using rahm emanuel as a foil who has had political problems with black voters. >> nice mural on the wall behind you. how it could have changed new york harbor forever. >> even just the glasses. even if he had the same one, but with the glasses. >> also a heartbeat going through it. that's art. that's all we need to say. we're coming up about 15 minutes to go before our first poll closing. our live coverage continues on the other side.

let's look at the board and more of that sexy housekeeping and math. two poll closing, illinois and north carolina, but here is florida. we're calling your attention to it, because those are raw votes. much of florida, the polls are closed. because of the eastern time

zone. because of the portion of the florida panhandle that comes into the central time zone, we're not recognizing poll closing until 8:00. we're not going to characterize the vote until 8:00. that cannot stop, however, the raw vote totals from coming in on the republican side, and glad you asked, on the democratic side, where the raw vote shows a substantial hillary clinton lead with, as you see there, upper left, 16% of the vote in. there you have the picture right now. >> 16% on the democratic side, but as brian said, again, we'll not have poll closing until all the polls are closed, which will be the top of the next hour. we're going to go now to democratic senator brown. it's great to see you tonight. >> thank you, rachel. thank you, brian. >> we've endorsed secretary clinton in the polls. she is leading bernie sanders by sort of a slim margin, not by a

huge numbers. what do you make tonight of these reports that we're getting from all over the state of ohio that democratic voters are electing to poll a republican ballot and vote in the republican primary instead, either because they like donald trump or because they really don't like donald trump. democrats wanting to weigh in on that contest instead. >> well, first of all, one of your reporters said a number of labor people will cross over to vote for kasich. i think that considering what john kasich tried to do to the labor movement in ohio, that's not going to happen. too, what is interesting to ohioans watching this, john kasich has had virtually no criticism in this race. no talk of his for profit charter school scandal. he has last 22 or 23 races in a row, and then wins his home state. he is the save savior of the republican party. i'm appreciative of the way he has run his race. i'm appreciative of what he did with medicaid.

i don't seed large numbers crossing over for him. perhaps they crossed over to vote against trump. perhaps some cross over for trump. just like those debates have been more interesting. watching donald trump speak or watching the debates is like driving up i-71 and you see a car accident and everybody wants to watch it. i suppose that's sort of bled into voter turnout on the republican side i assume. >> what i sort of hear you saying about governor kasich, if he does do well in ohio tonight, there will be a lot more attention to him in the race, particularly in marco rubio has to drop out because he does poorly in florida. what i sort of, i think hear you saying is that once the spotlight gets a lot hotter on him, john kasich may have a tougher time than people are guessing he would, given how not much criticism has been directed his way thus far. >> the auto rescue turned the state's economy around, but since governor kasich took office, job growth has lagged behind the national average in

ohio, and the border states of indiana, kentucky and michigan have had stronger per capita or percentage job growth. i mean, ohio is a bigger state, so raw numbers don't tell the whole story, but the miracle of ohio that he talks about, i'm not here to criticize my state. i love what so much about my state, but i think the leadership and the legislature and governor's office has been wanting in terms of everything from some of the most -- of everything from guns to choice to the economy to balancing the budget at the expense of ohio cities. they've taken hundreds of millions of dollars that used to go to urban areas and used a lot of that for a tax cut for upper income people. sort of the typical republican modus operandi, let the media talk about our candidate, one of our favorite sons comes out and makes claims about our great

state. >> you're going to hate me for asking this, but the last time me and my colleagues were all at this desk, a week ago tonight and there ways conversation that i'm sure sounded quite, i'll say not resonant in your household about the prospect of you being hillary clinton's pick for vice-president, if she gets the democratic nomination. i know you told the toledo blade today, i do not want to be vice-president. i feel lucky to be the senator and working for our state is the only job i want. does that mean if she asked you, that you would say no. >> i would say no. i love -- i said again, i love this job. but i appreciate it during that, of course, i heard about that segment. connie was watching it live. >> she was mad. >> i heard about it five minutes later. i appreciate your kind comments, especially about my wife, rachel. you've seen her and know how good she is. i see all that. but i just love this job, as i said. i don't have ambition to be

vice-president. i don't look in the mirror like many of my colleagues and i think could be president. or as connie said, can you imagine that you're living with someone that he thinks he is important enough to be leader of the free world. i'm flattered that you or brian or chuck todd would say that, and i'm flattered , of course, but i can't believe i get to do this job. i get to talk to you on tv. how cool is that? >> you've settled it, connie schultz for vice-president. >> thank you for mentioning our dog, too. i appreciate that. >> well done. >> senator brown, democratic of ohio. thank you very much. thank you. >> we'll take a break here, because at the bottom of the hour, we're going to have the first poll closings of the night, and the first characterizations of the vote. in north carolina and the critical state of ohio. please stay with our live coverage.

we're back. our two big first closings are in five minutes. first to the big board, we explain how raw vote is coming in. even though we don't declare poll closing in florida until the top of the hour, at 8:00 eastern, but we've got a third of it in. donald trump 45%, marco rubio 27%. let's pan right, and move over to the democratic party.

hillary clinton, 66-32% lead with a third of the raw vote in in florida. >> again, that's only a third of the vote in. 2-1 advantage is striking there. looking ahead at bernie sanders' prospects, steve has been looking at what a best case scenario might be. >> it gets complicated and comes with a catch because of what we've seen in the democratic race. think back to bernie sanders winning michigan last week. remember, he actually lost ground in the all important delegate race to hillary clinton that night, because he was simultaneously traunounched. you see the results in florida, we'll see what happens, but realistically coming into tonight, these are the three target states to win. they were hoping to get delegates in north carolina, not necessarily win there, and just contain the damage from florida. but again, think about this. if bernie sanders were to win narrowly in ohio, win narrowly

in illinois, win narrowly in missouri, three big wins, he wins them all, but narrowly, if he gets blown out in florida and gets blown out in north carolina, once again, hillary clinton would build her delegate leads. so from bernie sanders' standpoint, he is looking for momentum tonight, because the next set of states do set up more favorably for him. in terms of delegates, even if he has his best case night, he may still lose ground. >> thank you, steve. >> at the big board from the dems to the republicans, a plot line developing tonight, we'll want to flesh out as the hours grow later, but we've yet to check in with the cruz campaign tonight. home base for this evening is back home in texas, specifically houston. hallie jackson covering for us. hallie? >> hey, brian, texas not voting today, obviously. but north carolina, illinois and missouri sure are. that's where ted cruz wants to be a major factor.

setting expectations they don't necessarily need to win any states tonight. instead, for them, it's all about the delegate math. here is the number you need to remember. 250. that's what a campaign aide tells me is the goal. they would like to be within the goal, by tomorrow morning essentially, if they're there. if it turns out they can make the case, two man race. that will be a win for them heading into tomorrow. >> hallie jackson in the ballroom, in houston texas. >> such an interesting prospect. heading into tonight, donald trump is about 95 delegates ahead of ted cruz. ted cruz is hoping tonight that he is going to -- we just heard from hallie, less than 250 delegates behind. that would be the big victory to show he'll be the nominee. that's nuts. >> this whole stop trump thing isn't working out for the republicans yet. they really, if they're going to do it, they need to get it together and they need to get it a bit more organized than it is now. >> carly fiorina, who is a cruz supporter now, made the point

that the only place to stop trump is at the ballot box. agree with her. it's very difficult for them to do that. the cruz camp took a page from the rubio expectations game. we sat here at the iowa caucuses and rubio had even us almost convinced his finish was impressive. >> his third place victory speech. >> right. cruz is running the best campaign full stop. he is just learned all the right lessons from the best republican campaign, obama improved bon up it. ted cruz has learned all the right lessons from winning campaigns, targeting voters, and racking up delegates. >> even particularly caucuses states where you can turn it out without spending a lot of money, but if you do know how to expend the right amount of effort. he is within 95 delegates tonight. >> here we are, coming up on 7:30. eastern time, and the first two poll closings of the night, and

thus, our first two characterizations of the evening. let's roll the animation as they like to say. poll closings now in the states of north carolina and ohio, it is 7:30 eastern time, and we can report in the ohio republican race, too early to call. with -- we have actually kasich leading, 0%, but our characterization is too early to call with kasich leading. ohio, for the democrats, too early to call with clinton leading, even though the raw numbers on your screen show zeros. north carolina, the gop primary, too close to call. trump and cruz vying for one and two. rubio and kasich, far behind.

north carolina, democrats, too early to call. clinton leads. again, even though just zeros reflected on the boards. and everyone should keep in mind, the difference between our characterizations, common sense dictates too early to call, as opposed to too close to call. >> no reason to extrapolate from these characterizations of the lead to a winner. we will know who the winner is soon enough. the clinton campaign has to be happy with the cleharacterizati in florida. they expect to win in florida by a large enough margin as steve was explaining, it may help them win in delegates with a big win in florida, even if they lose in some other states. but the polling has been close in ohio, and bernie sanders has been saying on the stump, we will win ohio. he has been predicting a win. so for nbc news to be characterizing hillary clinton in the lead, that's got to be very good news to the clinton

campaign tonight. >> we've been saying all day, this could be another big night for donald trump. we don't know. katy tur, covering at march mar-a-lago, southern base of political operations. katy, how did he spend today? >> well, i just spoke to the campaign, they say he is feeling good. he spent a good portion of the day on the golf course. they're obviously feeling confident about florida. that's why you saw them abruptly change schedule yesterday to hold a campaign rally in ohio, instead of florida. this state has been in their words, in the bag for them for quite sometime. that's because they've been hitting marco rubiory lengthlesslengthles -- marco rubio relentlessly, he couldn't win a dogcatcher race in the race. dt donald trump has gone after him for the gang of eight. that sort of thing.

remember, $10 million was spent in negative attack ads in this state alone. if donald trump wins florida, that's a good indication that those attack ads just do not work, period. the big question, what is going to happen in ohio if he does not win in ohio, and the campaign has admitted that john kasich looks like he is doing well in ohio. if he does not win there, he'll need 59% of the delegates going forward and that's a pretty tough slog. it ensures a contested convention. one thing is in his favor in florida and ohio, high numbers of white voters without a college degree. historically, donald trump has done well with those voters. a high level of tournourn out. he has done well with that. we'll see. he is confident at least about florida. >> katy tur at trump headquarters, as regal of setting as could be arranged in the united states. >> that's a lot of gild, without

a u. >> let's go back to steve kornacki, intriguing story lines of the nights. democrats walking into polling places and not picking up a democratic ballot, instead, voting in the republican primary for one reason or another. insight as to who they're voting for. >> we can tell you what the numbers say in ohio. anecdotal reports all day, independents and democrats taking part in the republican. this is it. two-thirds in the ohio calling themselves republicans, kasich is winning them over donald trump by 7 points. here is where it gets interesting. democrats, this is a large number here, a larger than usual number, the democrats more than half of them in ohio, going for john kasich. their state's governor, trump 12 points behind. north dako independents, trump doing better with them, closer race, but kasich leading among

independents. that's the crossover story. on the democratic side, interesting story that may be revealing. we want to show you the vote by race that we're seeing, again, this is in ohio. this is a very contested state. you see among white voters, sanders leading 51-49 over clinton. the interesting thing, ohio was a very ripe target for sanders, because it's demographically similar to michigan. here's the key. bernie sanders did a lot better than this among white voters, barely in ohio, he won by double digits with them in michigan. that's potentially important, because among black voters, we're basically seeing the same result we saw in michigan. michigan, sanders was able to get 28% of the black vote. we had him getting 26% in ohio. we talked about being so similar demographically. but we're seeing a difference in results. it favors hillary clinton. >> all right, steve kornacki.

>> thank you. >> the big board. thanks to cleveland we go, chris matthews, who among all of us, is very anxious to see what kind of story we're covering in ohio tonight, chris. >> thank you, brian. we've got chrissy thompson who writes about politics. thank you for joining us. if these early numbers, they're just early, way too early to use them. if hillary clinton wins, but the other way around, how would you explain it? >> well, ohio is always been a clinton state. it's been a state that hassle vated centrist democrats. she is expected to win here, because this is a state where she has done well. she won here over barack obama in 2008. however, we do have a fair amount of democrats in the state who have been voicing dissatisfaction with the lack of progressive momentum in their party. so there are many people who are hoping that bernie sanders can perform as well as he did in michigan here. it will be very close i think. >> the same pattern of bernie support, college kids, young

people across the board, and older white people that don't have a college degree? is it the same bernie sanders vote? >> yeah, i think that's probably true. we're also seeing, though, some progressives who are very well educated, cincinnati and columbus, there are some very -- >> philosophical. >> exactly. people are saying they're disappointed in hillary clinton in being more of a centrist democratic, a more progressive voice in the party. >> give me a sense of the region. ohio is a lake state, lake erie, illinois, lake michigan, voting today. give me a regional sense from here. >> yeah, so in ohio, we have some very kind of centrist republicans and democrats in the columbus area. in southwest ohio, a strong tea party pocket. and we have some very strong african-american population that would support hillary clinton.

>> up here. >> but some in southwest ohio, and in cincinnati, and also some progressives, and then in cleveland, we have a lot of blue collar republicans and democrats. and so that's a population that john kasich has been able to draw on in past years, but the question is whether those voters go over to donald trump this year and then cleveland, i think we see strong support generally speaking for hillary clinton, because of the african-american population. >> why do you think cleveland, the state of ohio, has been the bellwether for the country. putting it altogether, why is it america? it seems to be the bellwether of america. if it goes republican. >> the other two pockets we haven't talked about are northwest ohio, which is a combination of rural and blue collar. auto manufacturer oing that is close to -- >> peoria. >> toledo. >> that's right. also, we have southeast ohio, which is rural ohio, and we have a lot of democrats down there

that are in appellation, which are your clinton democrats. >> fascinating state. if you had time, brian and rachel to go one state of the union, spend sometime there, get a sense of the country's difficulty, ethnically, the appellation piece of it, it's all here. this is why it's a great state to watch for november as well. >> we didn't even mention lebron james and the rock and roll hall of fame. >> the calls are out, guys. the calls are out to lebron. we've been trying to reach him. if he is watching, i'll get out of the way. >> i'm on it. >> another break for us, we're of course, counting down to the top of the 8:00 hour here, east coast. to our next three closings. these are the results posted so far. we don't have much to show for a day of voting. we'll get there.

let's take a look at the big board at this hour. 7:43 eastern, gop, note the difference in the upper left. too close to call. there are your raw numbers. let's see. we'll pan right, north carolina,

democrats, too early to call. there a difference. there are the raw numbers. down to florida, we go, we have not officially observed poll closing there. because the part of the panhandle in central time, this is raw vote. over 60% now in on the republican side. and let's go next door to the democratic race. that's a big number in, 66%, two-thirds of the vote in, hillary clinton with a 2-1 lead. let's go to tony outside of youngstown, ohio. polling place. tony. >> reporter: hey, brian. we're in struthers, ohio, somewhat falling industrial city. the doors are shut. the voting is over and the counting has begun. you've got zero on the big board there. that will not be for long, because these women here are making the count happen as we

speak. they're printing out the totals here for this county, and when they have the results, printed there, they'll take a little disk out of the side of the machine, a little digital record of all that, a memory stick, it goes into a canvas bag and a lock goes on the bag, to make sure there is no tampering. there are five or six machines in the room. there will be a little disk. someone from the board of elections in the county will come around to every precinct, pick up the little disk, and take it to a central location where the official count will be figured out. and the ballots, if you see, they actually end up in those blue containers there on the floor. those are the paper records of everything that's happened today here in struthers, and as we've been following all day long, an immense amount of crossover voting happening. more than 40% of the people who walked through the door here voted on the republican ticket.

up seven times the expected turnout this is not kasich country. these are not people going against trump for kasich. almost everyone we've talked to who switched over who crossed over, they said trump, trump, trump. they want a change. they're tired of politics as usual, brian. >> tony, something tells me you're on top of a big story outside of youngstown, ohio, as they print out those eight foot wall greens receipts. kate snow said they were running out of ballots. kate. >> reporter: yeah, brian. i just got off the phone with the illinois state board of elections, so here is the situation. here, where i'm standing, in springfield, illinois, they're now going to extend voting time until 8:30 local time. that's 9:30 eastern. >> wow. >> reporter: check out all the people behind me. they've literally run out of ballots. if i walk over here, i can show

you. they've run out of republican ballots, but you still have democratic ballots. they're hoping to get everybody in, 8:30 local time, 9:30 eastern. i should tell you mchenry county, northwest of chicago has had some issues, they're staying open late and four precincts in cook county, the chicago area. it could be a late night here. it matters in this county where i am, brian, this is a heavily republican county. ted cruz made a big play here, wanted to beat donald trump here. so if it turns out that we're getting results in much later for this county, it could actually depending on how tight things are in the state of illinois, could make a difference, brian. >> you hear cook county, you light up a little bit. >> well, what she gave us is big news. they're going to be at least in some places. >> open late. >> holding those polls open for an extra hour and a half. 9:30 eastern.

>> mayor daley would be proud. you can't help it. it's illinois. >> characterization of the republican side right now, that's ohio, where it's too early to call. nbc news says john kasich leads in ohio. north carolina, republican race, too close to call with trump and cruz in the lead. rubio and kasich well behind. and in terms of those two races, though, we want to take a little look inside that vote. one of the most interesting things, particularly in ted cruz's prospects, how well he has done with the evangelical vote. for ohio and north carolina, steve kornacki has a look at the evangelical vote in those states. steve. >> let's look how it is breaking down. we'll start in ohio. a little different than what we've seen nationally. it's kasich's home state. you're not going to see any other state where john kasich is tied for the lead. we haven't seen it so far, but tonight, john kasich tying for the lead. this is about half the

electorate in ohio, among non-evangelica non-evangelicals, kasich doing better. you talk about ted cruz, the states that ted cruz has won, where he has defeated donald trump. he has won the white evangelical vote, and he has won it solidly. so if he is going to pull an upset in north carolina tonight, that's key. so with that in mind, how did the white evangelicals vote in north carolina tonight. well, cruz, it looks like at least according to the exit poll data we have got close to donald trump, but donald trump still leading in north carolina by a point among white evangelical voters, make up 60% of the republican electorate there. that's interesting to keep an eye on. >> steve kornacki at the big board. thanks. our final break here, because when we return, we'll bridge the top of the next hour, big closings ahead. illinois, missouri, and the critical winner take all, florida primary, we'll have our first characterizations of all of those races. that and more, on the other side

of this break.

we are six minutes away from our next poll closings and our next characterizations, florida, illinois, missouri. let's check in with a couple of the major cam pains, republican side first, katie turr is at the

massive ballroom which will be tonight, trump, they hope victory headquarters in florida, katie? >> at 9:00 is when we believe trump will come out here and talk to his supporters and take questions from the press. they're feeling very good about florida, they actually spent a while on the golf course, right on the campaign trail, they spent last night in ohio, a quick change from their intended change in florida. going to ohio, he has the most zell gats to award.

saying he couldn't get elected dogcatcher here, also his stance on immigration, including his finances, basically accusing him of being a fraud, we'll find out in just a few minutes if that worked, but the campaign is feeling good right now, donald trump spend the day on the golf course, which is an indication that he is feeling at least confident about this state. >> katie turr in palm beach, florida, not far away in west palm, the clinton part of the campaign effort, kristen welker there for us. >> hillary clinton camp is feeling confident. the clinton campaign was hoping to win florida and north carolina, if they could add ohio

to that, that could almost put this out of reach mathematically, she's actually moved up the time that we're expecting her to speak. we thought she was going to -- she is setting her sights on arizona which votes next week, and she's released her first ad there in spanish, it draws a contrast with trump, sheriff joe arpio. >> sooner or later that vote is coming in, whether or not we recognize poll closing time or not. >> we're about 3 1/2 minutes from the official poll closing in florida. but we can all see those numbers rolling in. the clinton campaign has to be excited about that margin, with the votes they have got in, a margin of 2:1. there's no official

characterization of this race until those polls close all the way across florida. >> and chuck todd, what do you have? fresh from the engine room. >> there's a couple of things to think about when it comes to florida and the democratic side, what we're seeing in the vote totals. that is a recipe for hillary clinton being able to guaranty she gets enough delegates. throw in north carolina with her lead there, and you can picture that joe's two states alone, which we thought could happen, when she wins by a large enough margin, but we're able to say that she's leading in ohio, that's the icing on the cake, there is something else that i think is worth pointing out. i think we're seeing some evidence that ted cruz could become a consolidated anti-trump candidate, he won late deciders, this is the first time we have seen this. he won late deciders in three of the five states. he won the late despiciders in o

and illinois, the nonstate contested thing. that could be the inching sign that you could see that anti trump republicans are realizing that their only choice might be cruz. >> it's inconceivable, i can see nit story line that you're talking about, but it's just inconceivable. >> not by a lot. and this is where i understand the cruz campaign just re-- tru campaign i think cruz's best position to win a contested nomination. but they are stubborn on this and certainly believe that kasich and rubio are in their way. >> do the cruz folks legitimately feel they could lock up the nomination before cleveland? >> they believe it. i think their better argument is they believe in a contested

convention area. >> he doesn't get there, but they believe they have the math. >> they think there's a plausible way, i don't. i don't think it's plausible. >> there's a huge percentage. >> they do have a plausible idea. >> there's a chance they could be the leading delegate candidate going into cleveland. they'll be short, but there's a more realistic goal for them. have more delegate than trump. >> we'll see that answer in 45 seconds because one of those places that cruz has the best chance for upset tonight is in missouri. it can't always be in the future, at some point it has to start happening now. >> the future is now for the cruz campaign. >> all right, that brings it down to, we're 25 seconds away from the top of the hour, we have poll closings here in all of florida now, having watched the raw vote for an hour, illinois, and missouri.

this is the serious, this business end of this tuesday we have been talking about for some time. so we'll show you the three states where we are covering the poll closing in five seconds. florida, illinois, and missouri. it's now 8:00 p.m. on the east coast. and we begin with an out and out victory projection in florida. donald trump will have cruz to what we -- this is another call, the projected winner, hillary clinton in the florida primary. in illinois, on the gop side, too early to call. in illinois, for the democrats. note the distinction. too close to call in the race there.