thanks for joining us. live from right near our msnbc election headquarter. we're tracking these results from primary elections in five states across the country. some calls are here now. in pennsylvania, the projected winner is doug mastriano. the republican nominee, another key race, is now also a january

6th rally attendee. he was at the u.s. capitol on january 6th. in the general he faces the relatively popular pennsylvania attorney general shapiro. we can also tell you the state's republican senate primary remains too close to call. tv dr. mehmet oz is neck in neck with dave mccormick. kathy bar net is trailing in third. many touting the primary win by the number two official in that state john fetterman defeating congressman conor lamb. he is currently recovering from a stroke in the hospital. he is expected to make a full recovery. then there's a call in a

giant upset and loss for republican incumbent, madison cawthorn, now as you see on your screen and may have heard, officially a one termer. losing his seat to chuck edwards. he made a call to concede. the entry in that race has layers we'll get into in our coverage later tonight. trump endorsed congressman ted bud won senate in north carolina. but he's facing off sherry beasley, the democrat. we also have, well, of course we do, kornacki at the big board where he's tracking the open races right now which include idaho. polls closing last hour. the republican governor there faces a primary challenge from his own lieutenant, a trump endorsee who may move that party further to the right even in the very red state. the race too early to call. a nail biter in a democratic primary for open house seat in pennsylvania where the margin now is just over a minuscule 500

votes that separate liberal community organizer summer lee and lawyer steve irwin. we made a promise and we intend to deliver on it. right now you know it's election night in america when you have our friend and colleague steve kornacki at the big board. he's been following all of these races and will give us the latest now. >> yeah. let's start with the closest one. it's been the closest all night, the pennsylvania republican senate primary. you see david mccormick with the lead over oz. let me take you through where the outstanding votes are because there's a couple of pieces to this right now. just moments ago mccormick got a very good piece of news for his campaign. we have been talking about these counties right outside of the philadelphia, these suburban collar counties outside of philadelphia, voter rich, about a quarter of all votes will come out of them. they've been slow to report, some of them have. one of the big outstanding ones is delaware county. we finally got a big batch of

votes from delaware county. and it was a good batch of votes for mccormick. he leads in that batch over oz. that helped to push david mcmore mccormick's lead up. we'll start in montgomery county, still a lot to come in montgomery county. it is barnette's home county. listed on the ballot as her home county and mehmet oz listed as his home county as well. interestingly our system, we receive votes from -- where we receive votes from is not necessarily plugged into the website of the county. and we were just looking at the website of the county. the website of the county is reporting out a few more votes than we have so far recorded in our system. the upshot of it is, according to the website for montgomery county, oz could be due to net in the next few minutes, to net

about 1,600 votes. this writing thing isn't working well. 1,600 is what i'm trying to tell you. if it does get added into the system, what montgomery is showing on its website, then that statewide lead of about 2,600 for mccormick would come down to 1,000. another county just reported votes out as well. we're getting little bits and pieces from around the state. there's an opportunity in oz's home county of montgomery for him to narrow, significantly narrow that gap with mccormick and leave one other major piece of unsettled business in the philadelphia area, it's right here. it's bucks county. you can see a lot of votes still to come in bucks county. this is going to have an awful lot to say about where this statewide result finally lands tonight between mccormick and oz. it's a nail biter between mccormick and oz. the philadelphia suburbs the biggest piece of outstanding vote. you see what's going on in those places. two things to keep in mind, number one, wherever this lands

tonight, the final margin is critical because pennsylvania state law is automatic recount if the margin is less than or equal to half a percent, 0.5. you can see right now it's 0.2. it's .2 separating these candidates. so the prospect of a recount looms as a significant possibility at this point. and the other thing to keep in mind is they counted a few more in the last few minutes. we're saying now there are about 30,000 mail-in ballots that haven't been counted. some counties are going to count them up at the very end of tonight, but there are a number of counties in pennsylvania that are not going to touch their mail-in ballots until tomorrow. so there's the prospect that a significant chunk of these 30,000 or so mail ballots will not be counted until tomorrow. so again, you can do the math. mccormick and oz have been within a couple thousand votes of each other.

this thing could land within a couple thousand votes either way when the night is over and could be sitting at a pool of mail-in ballots to be opened tomorrow in counties across the state that could decide this thing. the one thing i can tell you about the mail-in ballots is those that have been counted so far, mccormick has been leading oz by nine points among them. this is a trend we have seen in republican primaries across the country so far this spring. oz has the trump endorsement. the candidates backed by trump, the candidates backed by the trump-aligned groups have tended to do worse with the mail-in votes and better on the same-day vote. if there is an untapped pool of mail-in votes at the end of the night that could decide the election, there might be some cause for optimism for the mccormick camp on that front. that's one other thing to keep in mind in pennsylvania. again, potential for a recount. potential for some -- for thousands of mail-in ballots to be counted tomorrow and still a ton of votes to be counted particularly in the philadelphia

area tonight. >> steve, we're following pennsylvania there, listening to your breakdown and then we have just gotten a projection here, official projection of brad little winning in idaho. steve, that's from our election desk. walk us through the call. >> i think the numbers there -- maybe the easiest way is to go across the country -- no. what a big country. >> steve, you take your time. you need to travel all the way to the west coast or there about, you get over there. take your time. >> there it is. you can narrow it down. there we go. this is the senate race here. let's get to the governor's race. you can see brad little -- this got attention because the trump endorsement of the lieutenant governor, very unusual relationship. she would overrule his executive orders when he left the state, particularly on covid measures, but you can see it's pretty much a thorough victory for brad little, the incumbent governor. the other race in idaho that i think is -- was worth looking at coming into tonight, we take a

look here, mike simpson, incumbent republican, he was getting a challenge from the right. mike simpson is one of about three dozen republicans who voted for the creation of the independent january 6th commission. so there was some chatter that simpson might find himself in trouble in this primary. but no signs of trouble so far for simpson getting a challenge. there's two of them here. one main challenge here from brian smith on the right. these two idaho races i think folks were looking at and saying, there's seeds of interest here. it looks like the results are actually going to be pretty lopsided. >> fantastic. well, look, steve, that's fascinating because we're getting calls. we're getting your breakdown. you're staying at the board for us obviously as we keep an eye on all of this. given everything we have been hearing out of pennsylvania, we'll go back there directly where nbc von hilliard has been at dr. oz's headquarters. he just addressed the crowd. tell us what happened here. >> oz just told the crowd here

to get some rest, that there are days ahead here. i think it's important to note exactly where we're standing and why we're standing here. we are in bucks county, which is one of those very counties that steve was just laying out. this is a more affluent suburb, north about 45, 50 minutes of philadelphia here. this is where a great part of the vote share is outstanding. this is the very area where mehmet oz was relying on having a great share of the vote here. the county right next door to us, montgomery county, exactly where mehmet oz held his campaign rally with hundreds of folks and essentially trying to galvanize support in these areas. now, why are we -- why are these counties so important for mehmet oz beyond the obvious need to garner some votes here? it's important because kathy barnette became a factor here. we may talk about the way she impacted this race here.

look at montgomery county, which is also her home county. right now from the results that have come in, she is leading oz by about 7 percentage points in montgomery county. you look here in bucks county, oz sleeding here, but she has about 24% of the share here. i was talking just earlier to an adviser of barnette acknowledged to me they felt they were able to take quite a dent of oz's support here, sort of that light, soft support that oz was facing among a lot of people who were skeptical of him despite that trump endorsement. and she really ran her candidacy around this idea that she was the most maga candidate and that maga expanded beyond donald trump. that's where we're talking about the reshaping of this republican party in 2022. ultimately, trump is going to walk away with a lot of wins, adding a lot of these loyalists to his stable here. at the same time, he may find other individuals. i don't think a david mccormick

a couple years ago is the same we'll see in the campaign trails in the months ahead. it's montgomery county, bucks county exact where we are going to be waking up tomorrow morning as these results come in. >> thank you. you mentioned montgomery county as one of the three to watch as well as where oz finished up yesterday. steve, i'm hearing that we have new votes, new data out of montgomery county. take it away. >> the montgomery county website was showing results that hadn't yet registered in our system that looked like they were favorable results for oz. barnette is going to win her county. pennsylvania ballots list candidate's home counties on them. montgomery county voter you saw barnette listed as home county candidate and oz listed as home county candidate. they ran one-two here. mccormick is listed as allegheny county, western pennsylvania. the upshot is we just got a big batch of votes now from the website recorded into our

system. barnette will win the county but oz's next votes on mccormick, look what that does. it brings the mccormick lead statewide to 1,200 votes it's now 1,004 votes. it's one tenth of 1% separating oz from mccormick. now we're getting significant vote from these philadelphia suburban counties. it makes bucks loom large. we have a lot of vote to come in in bucks. oz at least early could be encouraged by what he's seeing out of bucks. the philadelphia area here, the opportunity -- it's delaware actually we're close to all in in delaware. bucks looms particularly large now as an opportunity for oz to further erode that mccormick lead and try to overtake mccormick. again, there are counties all across the state where we have

scatterings of votes coming in as well. anything significant we see we'll let you know. the biggest single one we're keeping an eye on is that one, bucks county. >> a real nail biter in pennsylvania. steve tracking that. given that we are watching this, i want to go -- before we bring back michael steele, watching all this tonight, we go on the ground to whyy in philadelphia, katie meyer, political reporter there. thank you for joining us. what do you make of it at this hour given what we're learning and just how tight it is? >> yeah. it's very tight. this is a race where both of the candidates who are now competing for these votes coming in the suburbs don't have extremely tight ties to pennsylvania or to the areas where they live. so, yeah. oz has montgomery county listed as his hometown on the ballot but he doesn't have a deep history there and a political history there. that does matter in this race where you really can't tell how the votes are going to split in these again really important,

populous suburban counties around philadelphia. same for dave mccormick. he did well around allegheny county. he hasn't lived there in many years. so that's a factor in this. >> when you look at barnette slipping, she was sort of complicated because of the comments she made including attacking minorities. do you have a sense at this hour how that is playing? is she underperforming what some called surge for the self described super maga candidate? >> yeah. it was always really difficult to tell what that surge was going to be because it was so last minute and it was happening when she hadn't been scrutinized very much and she was constantly being buffetted by negative ads. the oz campaign had a pac that supported oz that funded an ad that said that barnette accused

her of saying white people can be racist. these are coming from a confused set of angles from republicans taken aback by her rise. the fact that it was difficult to interpret what that meant. i was born out here, where this was this dissatisfaction with oz and mccormick as gop candidates as sufficiently close to donald trump. but at the end of the day, it was tough for her to make up that ground. >> then as for fetterman clinching this on the democratic side, we mentioned he's still recovering. did you get any way of -- sense of whether voters had concerns about that? or they had gotten enough information out that people didn't see it as an issue? >> you hear that anecdotally, absolutely, from some voters. i will say people had already been voting for weeks before fetterman became ill. so i think at this point it's difficult to know how it played into the final vote and how much voters are actually going to care about that. i think it will be much more of a factor in the general as we

see him recover, if we see him get back on the campaign trail, how long that takes. but, yeah. at this point, it was really difficult to tell what kind of an impact that had on the primary vote. >> all right, thank you, katie meyer reporting for us on more than one race as everyone stays up late. i think we'll fit in a break before we get back to michael steele, who is here to discuss not only pennsylvania that we have such an eye on with the too close to call in the oz race but as well what the republican party is going to do tonight with some of these returns coming in. michael steele, kornacki at the big board, much more after this. e big board, much more after this. supplement our income. if you have $100,000 or more of life insurance, you may qualify to sell your policy. don't cancel or let your policy lapse without finding out what it's worth. visit coventrydirect.com to find

out if your policy qualifies. or call the number on your screen. coventry direct, redefining insurance.

(woman) oh. oh! hi there. you're jonathan, right? the 995 plan! yes, from colonial penn. your 995 plan fits my budget just right. excuse me? aren't you jonathan from tv, that 995 plan? yes, from colonial penn. i love your lifetime rate lock. that's what sold me. she thinks you're jonathan, with the 995 plan. -are you? -yes, from colonial penn. we were concerned we couldn't get coverage, but it was easy with the 995 plan. -thank you. -you're welcome. i'm jonathan for colonial penn life insurance company. this guaranteed acceptance whole life insurance plan is our #1 most popular plan. it's loaded with guarantees. if you're age 50 to 85, $9.95 a month buys whole life insurance with guaranteed acceptance. you cannot be turned down for any health reason.

there are no health questions and no medical exam. and here's another guarantee you can count on: guaranteed lifetime coverage. your insurance can never be cancelled. just pay your premiums. guaranteed lifetime rate lock. your rate can never increase. pardon me, i'm curious. how can i learn more about this popular 995 plan? it's easy. just call the toll-free number for free information. (soft music) ♪ another crazy day? of course—you're a cio in 2022. but you're ready. because you've got the next generation in global secure networking from comcast business, with fully integrated security solutions all in one place. so you're covered. on-premise and in the cloud. you can run things the way you want—your team, ours or a mix of both. with the nation's largest ip network. from the most innovative company.

bring on today with unbeatable business solutions from comcast business. powering possibilities™. there are lots of choices when it comes to your internet and technology needs. but when you choose comcast business internet, you choose the largest, fastest reliable network. you choose advanced security. and you choose fiber solutions with speeds up to 10 gigs available to more small businesses than any other provider. the choice is clear: get unbeatable business solutions from the most innovative company. get a great deal on this limited time price with internet and voice for just $49.99 a month for 24 months with a 2-year price guarantee. call today. welcome back to our special msnbc election coverage. sometimes staying up late is worth it. we just got news out of this big pennsylvania senate race. i'm going to pass it right to steve kornacki. >> look at this statewide leader board and this republican senate primary. for the first time all night it is not david mccormick who leads

it, it is mehmet oz. the margin now 714 points. it is less than one tenth of 1%, but oz just leads statewide. we said we were waiting on bucks county, right outside of philadelphia. we think we just got a big chunk of what was left in bucks. and oz, you can see, leading the way over mccormick overall. his margin in the county is a little bit over 3,000 votes. the votes that were added in that recent drop from bucks, enough to put oz ahead statewide right now. now, where is the remaining vote. if you were watching a couple minutes ago, there was a little confusion about one of the other counties, one of the other philadelphia suburban counties. that is delaware county. delaware county does have more votes to come. significantly more votes to be counted here. so, now we still have some to come in bucks. we have most in montgomery, most in chester, delaware, the

picture cut shifts outside philadelphia to delaware county. we think a significant number of votes are left here. you can see so far mccormick is leading oz with the votes that have been counted so far. so the opportunity exists here in delaware county for mccormick to get back what he just lost, the hit he just took in bucks county. but for the moment, at least, oz has taken the lead statewide. now delaware county, small geographically but big mathematically at this late hour, delaware county looms large. there's a scattering of other precincts throughout the state that are going to be coming in as well. if anything substantial comes in there and it wouldn't take anything that substantial to swing this back to mccormick, we'll keep an eye on that and let you know, too. like i keep saying, we're not sure on the exact number, but there are uncounted mail-in ballots because there are a number of counties that preemptively announced before today that they were not going

to open their mail ballots until tomorrow, until after the election. some said they would do it late at the end of tonight so the number of uncounted mail ballots has come down a little bit as the night has gone along. there are counties that said they're not going to touch them until tomorrow. there will be a certain number of mail ballots probably tomorrow that will loom large. like we said, mccormick so far has been leading oz by nine points on those mail ballots. so, one of the questions now may be, is oz able to do well in the remaining votes in delaware, in some of the remaining precincts around the state and pad this lead at all? is he going to need to pad the lead to with stand what could still be there in terms of mail-in ballots? that's one of the questions that's posed. but this is a very significant development because all night we have been watching this. oz has been down 8,000 votes, 2,000 votes, 1,000 votes.

for the first time we have seen mehmet oz take the lead statewide in this republican senate primary. >> major development as you say. steve kornacki, thank you. steve is at the big board. he will be there for us. i will cut in at any time we get new data or new votes. now as promised we bring in former chairman of the republican national committee, michael steele. good to have you, michael. >> good to see you. >> what's going on? what do you see in both oz taking the lead and more extremist in mastriano winning big on the gop side? >> yeah. it's kind of a bifurcated message from the gop base. in one sense that i think you look at the mccormick race. what mccormick's race tells me is that they did a good job of pulling out more of -- the larger portion of the republican base that typically stays home.

you got the hard edge right that will go and play in primaries. mccormick looks like he was able to sort of mitigate against that a bit. particularly given he had barnette further to the right. to be this competitive at this stage is incredibly good for him and says a lot about what he was able to do. when you look, though, at the other race, the governor's race, you see something a little bit different in that that seems to play more to the narrative of the hard right base sort of pulling the lever there. it's an interesting dynamic. it's going to set up a very, very dynamic fall campaign regardless if it's mccormick or oz going into the fall with the republican nomination in their

sales. >> in the governor's race, here is a little bit of how the republican mastriano who did win the nomination how he sounds. >> on day one, any mandates are gone. on day one, any jab for job requirements are gone. on day one, crt is over. we're going to exactly do that and follow the science, right? so, that means only biological females can play on biological female teams. on day one, you can only use the bathroom that your biology anatomy says. god uses the he uses people like you and me to change history. they like to call people who stand on the constitution far right and extreme. i repudiate that. their party the media stands for and advocates for, they've gone

extreme. >> take your pick. >> well, i ain't picking from that box of crazy, no. that's going to be the channel going into the fall against shapiro, how do you now take that narrative into some core areas of the state where that's going to fall flat with a lot of voters. and let's be clear, with a lot of center right, center left voters who may otherwise be available to you. it is not smart politics, but you know, he's talking to a room full of people will cheer those narratives. it becomes a very different campaign when you're running statewide. not just the core group in the corner yelling your name for the last six months or a year. now the entire state comes into play and it looks very dynamic. unless you're telling me that, you know, pennsylvania and i

know pennsylvania pretty well having spent a lot of time there, suddenly now is going to use this culture war litmus test as the guide post for who they're going to support. i think, you know, mastriano is setting up a very difficult campaign, not just for him but for other republicans who are going to be running down ballot as well. and that may have impact on how those other races play out. >> then while i have you, i want to turn to madison cawthorn, one of the most well known freshman members of congress but won't be anything other than a freshman member. losing tonight in a primary. incumbents don't typically lose their primaries. people know that there in north carolina. how do you interpret this quick rise and fall for a very controversial far right republican? >> well, couple of things. one, i remember the tweet he put out in may of 2021 in which he

tweeted hey hey, good-bye liz cheney. tonight mr. cawthorn realizes political karma is a bitch. the reality for him is that he's now the former congressman from his congressional district. that's one. two, it also shows you, ari, that the republican party, if they put their mind to it, if they want to, can push back on the deniers and the liars, the fake, the wanna bes, the true rhinos in the republican party like cawthorn and others, but they don't want to. and the other reason they did here was because he struck a little close to their political vain. they had to take him out. they made that very clear early on that that was going to be the plan. you talk about cocaine parties

and orgies. we're done. that may show up in my twitter feed and i don't need to deal with that. so this race now sort of resets the playing field for how the party is going to respond and sends out a message that we're going to draw that line. if you cross it, we'll take you out. but that line won't include the big lie, january 6th, et cetera. >> all well put. michael steele, proving among other things that he either keeps close watch on mr. cawthorn's tweets or knows how to search twitter, one or the other. >> i like to keep at least one eye on crazy just so i know how crazy it is. >> respect. one eye open, one eye up. michael steele, good to see you. we go from someone who is experienced at the upper echelons of the republican national party someone upper echelons of the other party,

symone sanders, senior adviser to the biden campaign in 2020, worked for vice president harris but now recently left government and joins us here at msnbc where she anchors. thanks for making time tonight. >> absolutely, ari. i enjoyed your conversation with the chairman. he always has great insights. >> respect. so we actually the way it's gone with some of the races and the numbers come in we spent the first half hour here closing down on midnight on the east coast, more on the republican side. i'm just curious from your experience and vantage point now as more independent analyst but knowing a lot of these players, what do you see on the democratic side and what do you see in potential opportunities going up against some candidates, p.a. is a state biden won, candidates that look pretty extreme. >> well, ari, i want to talk a little bit about how this -- how what is happening in the republican primaries in

pennsylvania specifically how that can play in a general election. i think the counties that steve has been talking about, talk about bucks county, chester, montgomery county, these are all counties that president biden won in 2020. and counties that were critical, frankly, to his overall win in pennsylvania. and when you see the numbers, i've been watching them all evening, tallies coming in, one it's important to caution people, might not know tonight. two, this is a primary in a general election, some of those same voters are going back to the polls. they are -- these are -- in these swing counties, if you will, these are not people who are ied owe logs for either of the political parties and folks who are not very interested, if you will, in some of this extreme conversation. talking about, you know, criminalizing abortion, jailing women or doctors, no exceptions for rape and incest when it

comes to abortion. this ugly racist underbelly that, you know, has been rearing its ugly head. so these i think it's important to watch how those counties shake out because it will be a tall tell. on the democratic side, i think there was a robust primary when it came to the senate for the democratic race. i think that john fetterman, we saw that democrats were running president biden's agenda. the question is can john fetterman inspire a base of the democratic party? can he speak to voters, yes, in western pennsylvania but inspire people to vote for him in philly? and there are a lot of people who are concerned if he can get that done. what will be helpful is josh shapiro, very popular, democratic candidate for governor, twice elected. and someone who has been going around the state. i think there's a lot of energy

for josh particularly because who he will be facing in november. >> yeah. well, you look at all that and then you look at we were discussing about cawthorn, discussing the energy in the republican party, which seems very mobilized and also asserting their loyalty test or whatever you want to call it. how does that play against the mobilization that might come if anything like this draft alito opinion overruling roe comes out? it's very hard to know but i'm curious our view someone who has been a communicator and worked on campaigns? does something like that matter on democratic turnout in these primaries when it's all in this weird conditional mode, it's a leak but nothing happened yet and in that leak turns into a ruling, do you think that affects democratic turnout or mobilization in the general? >> yes, i this i that leak is turning into a ruling. the leaked draft from justice alito said the justices had voted.

i'm hard pressed to believe enough folks changed their minds for roe v. wade not to be overturned. from my vantage point, it's not a question of if, it is a question of when. i do think it matters how candidates, democrats talk about the issue. if the rhetoric is going out there saying all republicans are radical, all republicans are this, if folks are painting with a broad stroke brush i don't think they will see success. instead, the way folks can triangulate around the draft eventual decision of roe v. wade being overturned, talk about what that means. criminalization of women, doctors potentially being jailed. we are talking about the republican candidate for governor in pennsylvania, he doesn't believe in exceptions for rape or incest, okay, for abortion. he believes that women should be forced to have those babies. i think folks have to talk about how this is also talking about

rights to privacy. those are conversations and rhetoric frankly that cuts across parties. when you just talk to people and voters, again, people don't want extremes. people don't want -- some of these things people just heard me say, oh, that sounds like something out of the handmaid's tale. those are a lot of the things that republicans across the country, even folks in pennsylvania are talking about. >> yeah. symone sanders, staying up late with us. thank you. appreciate your time. up next, new numbers from kornacki at the big board and dave pluff is here. you're watching msnbc. msnbc.

at xfinity, we're constantly innovating. and we're working 24/7 to connect you to more of what you love. we're bringing you the nation's largest gig speed network. available to more homes than anyone else. and with xfi complete, get 10x faster upload speeds. tech upgrades for your changing wifi needs. and advanced security at home and on the go to block millions of threats. only from us... xfinity.

♪♪ it's election night in america, and we are tracking all the results with msnbc's steve kornacki at the big board. steve, what is the latest? 637 votes is mehmet oz's lead over mccormick. where is the outstanding vote? where are the biggest bachs of vote left? the biggest is in delaware county right outside of philadelphia. you see how delaware is looking right now. the second biggest batch of outstanding votes, bucks county. the county where oz got a big boost recently that put him ahead statewide. the third biggest batch of outstanding votes is around the

state capital, dolphin county, where harrisburg is. the fourth biggest batch is in lancaster county. a lot of these are mail-in ballots. they had some mechanical, technical issues, processing issues with mail ballots in this county. a lot of these will be mail ballots in the other large batch of outstanding votes, it's in cumberland county where carlisle is. these are your five biggest sources of outstanding votes here. again, with mehmet oz leading by 637 votes statewide. where do we expect things to go from here. again, in all of these counties and some others, they are going to continue to count up the same-day vote. the election day vote. the vote cast by people who went to the polls today. we'll see how that ends up affecting all these different numbers. different counties are handling the mail-in ballots differently. some counties have counted them all. some counties say they're going to count them all tonight. other counties say they're going to get to what they can tonight, do the rest tomorrow.

there are even some counties that say we're not touching mail ballots at all until tomorrow. we don't know when this night ends exactly what the number will be, but there will be a significant batch of uncounted mail-in ballots, even after they get through counting up the same day vote in all these different counties. right now, the number of uncounted mail ballots we think is down to about 29,000, as i say, a lot of these counties -- this thing really doesn't want to write. it's down to about 29,000 right now is what it's down to. again, some of these counties are knocking them off as the night ends. so that number will come down a bit tonight. but there will be mail-in ballots left in a number of counties to be opened, to be processed, to be counted tomorrow. again, just looking at the lay of the land here. there are counties where mccormick is doing better than oz. counties where oz is doing better than mccormick. the possibility looms that we get through all of the same day votes, that the margin between

these candidates is razor thin and we're looking at a batch of mail-in ballots tomorrow that is big enough to decide this race. the potential certainly exists for that. as i said on top of all that, there is the state law, there is the recount. if you're within half a point, certainly right now within half a point. >> yeah. really striking, which speaks to why oz, steve, may have emphasized his supporters, keep your powder dry, stay rested. if we go back look, steve, on camera here. i was going to say you deserve a better marker. the precision that you bring to the numbers. >> thank you. oh my goodness. >> this is what i'm saying. >> there it works m.-ari, you asked. >> those are discernible numbers, steve. >> 29,000 is all i was trying to write right there. >> there it is. i see it. we all better see it and keep an eye is within that potentially recount margin. steve stays with us. we turn now as promised to david

bluff, former obama campaign manager and msnbc analyst. i'm curious your view of how you go at someone like mastriano. we showed some of his remarks earlier, almost sounds like a grab bag of trumpy, elon musk trolling tweets. will he have the general election to boot? >> well, ari, there's a lot of story lines tonight. his nomination, what that would mean if he won the general election to me is the biggest story where you have an insurrectionist at the top of the ticket, core battleground state no matter how '24 unfolds. josh shapiro, quite popular. what's interesting if you look at whether it's oz or mccormick who comes through the primary, you've got shapiro and fetterman clearly democrats have an edge in candidate quality but it will

be a tough political environment. are they enough quality, i think there's a gap between them and think about pennsylvania, the kind of candidates who have been successful there before, you spent a lot of time with steve talking about the suburbs. i think mastriano will struggle there in the general election. that's a wild card. roe v. wade gets overturned is a wild card and mastriano is not mouthing the words, playing along with trump. he was leading the fight. and is that something that can help democrats, shapiro specifically, the democrats generally down the ballot in pennsylvania? and i think it might. so, it will be interesting to see whether mastriano decides at all to moderate at all. my guess would be not. then i think he's a big target from that standpoint if you're josh shapiro. >> now we're seeing the proof in the pudding with some of these races, are you surprised by how many republicans are focussed, as you mentioned, on insurrection, big lie, january 6th issues as well as kind of

codry of other attempts at social division rather than say inflation and areas where you can argue that the biden administration either didn't inherit the economic environment that it wanted or isn't doing enough on it that republicans would argue? >> well, listen, ari, you know, you have to win the conference finals to get to the championship. and so, for these republicans who are running in states and districts where they have to win a tough primary, you know, they can't look out the windshield towards the general election. there won't be a general election if they don't win the primary. madison cawthorn, good for the republican he lost, he still got 31% of the vote. so there's a lot of vote in crazyland. you know, you look -- if you add oz, that will be north of 60%. so, that's why i think they still have to appeal.

now, somebody like mccormick who, you know, inauthentically tried to be maga and a bunch of things he's not, but when the crazies cut up two or three ways, somebody like that can shoot through the middle. glenn youngkin didn't have to win a primary. that's why you still see that. the question is when they make the turn to the general election, some of them will try to put some distance between themselves and some of the crazier stuff and some won't. i think mastriano will not. i think he'll run proudly as someone who is a proponent that the election get overturned. i think in pennsylvania statewide, in harrisburg suburbs, in the suburbs of pittsburgh, those big vote-producing counties outside of philadelphia, i think it will hurt not just him but the entire ticket. >> yeah. david bluff with your analysis tonight. thank you. we have a lot more coming up, including new numbers we're awaiting on in pennsylvania. kornacki at the big board. we will be right back. will.

since i left for college, my dad has gotten back into some of his old hobbies. and now he's taking trulicity, and it looks like he's gotten into some new healthier habits, too. what changes are you making for your type 2 diabetes? maybe it's time to try trulicity. it's proven to help lower a1c. it can help you lose up to 10 pounds. and it's only taken once a week, so it can fit into your busy life. trulicity is for type 2 diabetes. it isn't for people with type 1 diabetes. it's not approved for use in children. don't take trulicity if you're allergic to it, you or your family have medullary thyroid cancer,

or have multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2. stop trulicity and call your doctor right away if you have an allergic reaction, a lump or swelling in your neck, severe stomach pain, changes in vision, or diabetic retinopathy. serious side effects may include pancreatitis. taking trulicity with sulfonylurea or insulin raises low blood sugar risk. side effects include nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea, which can lead to dehydration, and may worsen kidney problems. the choices you make can help control your a1c. ask your doctor about once-weekly trulicity. younchts know what i'll tell you, there's been a coordinated strike. it's really something that i think is a loser's mentality. they realize the direction the country is going on, the direction the population is going on. and if they want to pay off people from my past, feel free to let them do that. the american people will see through that. >> madison cawthorn argued

people would see through it, but he did just lose his seat here by losing the primary to chuck edwards in north carolina. and we are joined now by a veteran of several presidential campaigns including the obama campaign. thanks for joining. what do you see as the reason for this loss? >> look, madison cawthorn broke what the mafia called code of silence. he attacked his own caucus. and i think it's very important for us to draw the distinction between madison cawthorn and matt gaetz. the scandal he's been involved with, i would argue are far worse than what madison cawthorn has been involved with and accused of. the problem is that there is no significant, serious primary challenger to matt gaetz. there was to madison cawthorn. what was the difference? madison cawthorn attacked his own party. you simply cannot do that. >> yeah. so you're saying that while

cawthorn had all these other issues, we see here him losing this primary tonight, including what he alluded there, embarrassments from his past, these very grandiose and odd behavior patterns as well as being a right wing extremist, you're saying it came down to loyalty as none other than kendrick lamar might say, who are you loyal to when your lights get dark, is your loyalty coming from the heart? your view is this is much more about republicans demanding partisan loyalty than the other substantive issues with this incumbent candidate? >> absolutely. and in terms of madison cawthorn's heart, as far as house republicans are concerned, senate republicans are concerned, your heart needs to belong to kevin mccarthy and mitch mcconnell. the fact that his heart belonged to donald trump was simply not enough. it was interesting that donald trump did try and say, hey, this kid needs a second chance. help him out, et cetera. and had no impact on -- in terms

of this because the gop wanted to oust him because what he did was so unacceptable. he went at them. that's something you're not allowed to do even if you have trump's back. >> right. and i think you're drawing distinction there that is important that he yolked himself to trump, as you say. he made himself sort of a smash mouth maga type of political entertainment. but he upset the top and they made their voices heard today. jake, thanks for joining our coverage which continues in a moment. stay with us. you're watching msnbc election coverage. watching msnbc electin watching msnbc electin coverage because candice has poise, poise under pressure and poise in her pants. it takes poise.

♪♪ so, we're not going to have a result tonight. when all the votes are tallied, i am confident we will win. >> we're not going to have resolution tonight, but we can see the path ahead. we can see victory ahead. >> pennsylvania's republican primary for the u.s. senate still too close to call. trump-backed dr. oz leads his opponent dave mccormick by a tiny sliver, just under 2,600 votes separate the two. we will have more on that race and the democrat who will face one ofhe