MAGA’s California fraud lie falls apart instantly

A morning walk, some bird watching. It's another easy Sunday. United Health Group makes these ordinary days possible with partners like the University of Tennessee Health Sciences, helping communities manage their health closer to home. 54% of participants have lowered their blood pressure, meaning fewer heart attacks and more Sundays at the park. This might feel like an ordinary day. To United Health Group, it's the health care system working better for everyone. Learn more at UnitedHealthgroup.com slash commitment. Watch Disclosure Day at Home Now with exclusive bonus features. If you found out, we weren't alone. If someone showed you, proved it to you? Would that frighten you? Well, now the truth belongs to 7 billion people in an original event film directed by Steven Spielberg from a screenplay by David Kep starring Emily Blunt, Josh O'Connor, Colin Firth, Eve Hewson, and Coleman Domingo. Find Disclosure Day on major digital platforms now with no subscription required, also in theaters. Tonight on All In. I do kind of believe that people do get drunk, stupid tattoos. Main voters make their voices heard. All of a sudden, we got a guy who can unseat Susan Collins for the first time and forever, and now we're talking about moral standards. Come on. Tonight, all the election results that are fit to report with the polls now closed in Maine and Ali Velshi at the Big Board. Ben. It's happening right now in California. Right now it's looking, look at what's happening in California. Where's the evidence to that? Republicans revive the animating lie of the January 6th insurrection. Some of these efforts are so diabolical and so far upstream, it is impossible to prove. Plus, new U.S. strikes on Iran 101 days after Trump declared war and new evidence that the manhood argument isn't working in Texas. If you were making a list of a thousand adjectives to describe this guy. masculine would not be one of them. When all ends starts right now.

Good evening from New York. I'm Chris Hayes, and it is election night in America once again. We begin tonight with some results from last week's primaries because the AP is now projecting that Republican Steve Hilton, a former Fox News host, Natch, will advance to the general election to stand before the voters of California this fall. Republicans did not get locked out of that race, as some in the party had feared there won't be a dem-to-tim head. to head matchup. Hilton will face former HSS Secretary and California Attorney General Xavier Becerra. But today, voters are heading to the ballot box in Nevada, South Carolina, North Dakota, and Maine, of course. As of right now, polls have just closed up in Maine, where there has been a ton of national attention, of course, on the Democratic Senate primary. Now, a few weeks ago, this race was looking like a foregone conclusion. It may still prove to be tonight. There is, in this race, only one primitive favorite in the Democratic primary, Oysterman Marine Corps veteran Graham Platner, who seemingly came out of nowhere. His closest opponent, the state's incumbent and outgoing Governor Janet Mills, has suspended campaigning, although she remains on the ballot. Now, Graham Platner has undeniable grassroots momentum. His anti-war stance, in particular, likely resonates with Democratic primary voters as Trump's war with Iran stretches past day 100, and we are still launching strikes against Iran even this very evening. In fact, it appears in just the last few hours. Having said that, Graham Platner is, as you may know, far from a perfect candidate. He has had to weather multiple controversies, including a tattoo on his chest that resembles a Nazi symbol, one that he says he did not know the meaning of until he got into the campaign, learned about it last fall. There's also a history of inflammatory posts on the social media site Reddit, as well as recent reports on his personal conduct, that he sent consensual explicit text messages to other women while married that some of his ex-girlfriends found his behavior unsettling. It was after that last story broke reported in the New York Times that we had Graham Platner on this very program for an exclusive interview where he unequivocally denied the specific allegations in that article as they relate to any physical violence or abuse or rough handling or the knowledge of the tattoo. Throughout this campaign, Graham Platner has offered his story as one of redemption. He says after his multiple combat tours, and he did a number of them, that he returned home with PTSD. He describes a dark period of his life where he self-medicated with alcohol. But Graham Platner says he made it through with the help from his wife, from his community, Maine, and also with the support of the Department of Veterans Affairs. And some of the benefits he got as a veteran from the federal government benefits that he says he wants to see extended more universally and widely. So far, it seems like that story is resonating with many voters, although not all. For all his faults, I mean, we all have faults. He is at least talking about the issues that matter, health care.

there, and now she's back behind him a thousand percent. So there is certainly that grassroots energy. But as you mentioned, we're keeping an eye on what exactly a protest vote might look like tonight. I was speaking with a source close to the Graham Platner campaign just a little bit ago. They are viewing anything exceeding a 60 percent showing for them this evening as a success. That's about in line with what some of the polling had been showing while Mills was still very much a contender in this race before she put her campaign on suspend. The other thing to keep an eye on tonight, provided they get that sort of margin, which they're hoping will kind of put an end to these questions about whether or not Mills or some other person needs to step in, is that the speech tonight, I'm being told, is going to be viewed as a bit of a reset, a chance for them to really move the focus on to Susan Collins and set up that dichotomy. They expect that issues like you were just touching on Chris, like Roe v. Wade being overturned because of Brett Kavanaugh being on the Supreme Court as being something that could... finally undo Susan Collins's hold here. But again, it goes without saying that there is still a plenty of bedwetting here amongst Democrats, not just in Washington, but here as well, who are concerned about those stories that they've seen and that that could have ripple effects as to whether or not Graham Platner will be able to pull this off in November. There are plenty of voters that we have heard from. I should say most of them say they're sticking with Graham Platner, but they have questions about will there be another shoe to drop? What could the impact of that be? And if it's really bad, if it crosses a certain line, would they get to the point where they maybe just don't vote for Senate? They don't like Susan Collins, but they're not comfortable with Graham Platner. That's one of the outstanding questions. All right, Kevin Frye, who's there for us in Blue Hill, Maine on this election day. We've got the polls have closed there. Thank you, Kevin. Let's turn to MSNOW, Chief Data Reporter, Ali, Valshi, at the Big Boar with the latest. Allie, how are you looking at this? Okay, a few things. No numbers in from Maine, but this conversation you've been having is something we're going to watch all night. I'm also going to just give you a quick update. As you know, we advanced in California. Steve Hilton will go to the runoff the election. He'll be facing, I'm not going to runoff. He'll be the candidate in the election in November. against Xavier Becerra, the former Attorney General, Tom Steyer, not going to make it to the finish line. We're 89% of the vote, but the way we're calculating it, Tom Steyer is not going to be able to build it up. Let's go to the primary in South Carolina, where polls have closed right now. This one's really interesting. This is the vote, the primary for governor. 22% of the vote is in right now. Not a ton, but very notable to see what's going on. Pamela, Avet, is in the lead. She's got 28% of that vote right now. Ralph Norman. sitting congressman is in third place right now and uh Nancy Mace is in fifth place right now. And she hasn't moved, by the way, much in her vote since this has been on for a while. So it is a runoff state if you don't get 50% of the vote. But for the moment, the two sitting members of Congress are not there. We're going to keep a very close eye on that. I'm also going to look at the race for Senate in South Carolina. He wouldn't be thinking about this too much, Chris, typically, because Lindsey Graham is running. But look at this with 21% of the vote in, 59%.

Sitting Senator who hasn't crossed Donald Trump. I don't know since 2015 or 2016. Back then, he used to say things about Donald Trump. He hasn't done that in a long time. He's got a challenge from his right. And he's got, look, these numbers may change and we're only 21%. But there's a bit of a story here. Incumbent United States Senator who's sort of velcroed to Donald Trump's hip is under 60% right now. Yeah, that's a really, really good point. We should note that that South Carolina gubernatorial primary was one of these sort of classic like Donald Trump beauty pageants of the Trump era where more or less everyone is auditioning for his. Correct. Because it's a large field. And his endorsement is likely to be dispositive. That not always, but in most cases it has been particularly large field. And she's the one that got it. He's the one that got it. But look at that. The number two guy is not that far behind. What is interesting is Nancy Mace definitely didn't get it. You did make a good point. know what it is with Nancy Mace, but in this particular case, she claims to be the maga-e-est person in the race. But she doesn't like the Epstein files nonsense. And it's separated from Donald Trump on that. And that seems to be showing tonight. Yeah. All right. Allie, we're going to be checking back with you in a little bit because we have votes. The pulling close in Maine, we don't have any vote in, but we will get some. But we'll track it closely. Yeah, throughout this hour. And we'll take a look. All right. Alex Wagner is, of course, an MS now senior political analyst, host of the runaway country podcast from Crooked Media, author of The Substack, How the Hell with Alex Wagner? Claire McCaskill is an eminist now analyst and former down. Democratic Center from Missouri, and they joined me now. Let's start on Maine, Alex, and I'll start with you just in terms of like, that was interesting what Kevin said, about a 60% benchmark. You know, I think, you know, we should say Maine has ranked choice voting. So if you didn't get above 50%, then it would go to those ranked choice. No one's, I think, anticipating it'll be below 50%. But how do you view what we're looking for tonight and what it says about the status of this nominee in this key race? I mean, 60% seems generous. It's not surprising that that's the number they're picking. I know that the great Steve Kornacki, who is not on this network, but who I still look to as an Oracle, in addition to Ali Valshi, has the number pegged at 76% because that's where his polling, that's where his support was before this latest tranche of reporting came out. That's, you know, that's where he was. Can he get close to that? I think you hear it from the voters of Maine, though, Chris. I don't think they're giving up on Graham Platner. I still think they're making the calculation that Graham Platner's worst day in his personal life is still better than Susan Collins' best day in the U.S. Senate in terms of the health of the country. And as you pointed out in the intro, this is the first time people have been able to show Susan Collins what they think of her enabling both the most corrupt. president in American history and also overseeing the the effective destruction of federal protection for reproductive health. And I think those things very much still stick in the minds of Maine voters. And they seem like they're making a calculation that they'd rather take, you know, Graham Platner's complicated, checkered, and allegedly, you know, I would say toxic past over the very real record, not up for debate that Susan Collins has as a senator.

You know, Claire, it's also worth, I think, remembering 2020. There were two dynamics in 2020, just the last time that Susan Collins faced voters. One is that it was a bad polling year with bad polling misses. And for much of that race, the Democratic nominee in that race won by the name of Sarah Gideon, was leading in that race. And then Susan Collins ended up winning. like really like by a lot. I think it was nine point victory, right? So the polling was just a huge miss. But the other thing I would say about that miss was, you know, Sarah Gideon, you know, people were talking about, oh, if we just had this, you know, a scandal-free, generic, democratic, you know, person who been vetted, you know, that is who ran last time, more or less, Sarah Gideon, very clean record, sort of known to some of the voters, like raised a ton of money. That did not work. So it's not like this has not been tried. Susan Collins is formidable. And maybe something different is what the doctor has ordered in the strange times we live in. Well, there's no question that this is a candidate that engendered a lot of passion on the part of the base of the Democratic Party in Maine. And Sarah Gideon never had that. Sarah Gideon was, you know, not somebody who excited people like Graham Platner has excited them. Now, the question is, and the number I think it will be really interesting to look at, these stories really started breaking after the middle of May. Right. It was like, I think the Wall Street Journal was May 24th, 25th, something like that in there. And then obviously just last Friday for the New York Times story. Early voting started in May 11th. So we're going to have a chance to look at his percentage among early voters versus the ones who vote today. And that's the number I want to look for. I want to find out if the enthusiasm of early voters has waned with the ones who are deciding today whether or not they want to personally mark Graham Platner on the ballot. Having said all that, nobody knows better. Susan Collins is formidable than I know how formidable she is. And she works very, very hard, and Maine loves that. I mean, her timing couldn't have been better on her 10,000th vote in the U.S. Senate without ever having missed a vote. Mainers love that stuff. So Graham Platner has a battle in front of them, and no one should kid themselves about that. The other thing that's going to be interesting here, and we'll talk about this later in the program, Chris, will Maine be essential for the Democrats to take to Senate? Are we going to end up with races in Iowa and Texas and Alaska and North Carolina and Ohio that allow a little bit of comfort to Democrats in terms of how many different places we can put together flipping four seats?

Yeah, and I mean, we should also say when we talk about 2020, right, or we talk about 22 or 24, like, The overall political environment, Alex, right now, Donald Trump is, you know, today the latest poll we had on today is 35% approval rating. He's underwater by a lot in Texas. We'll talk about that polling a little bit later. He's lost two-thirds of independence, and this is in one poll. This is reliably time and time and time and time again in poll after poll after poll. So we are just in a different environment than we were in 2020, then we were in 22, than we were in 24. It's just new terrain now. Yeah. Okay. Number one, I just want to say, I think we have 30,000 Mainers that have done early voting to answer Claire's question and usually about a quarter of the state votes early. So that's, you know, not an insignificant study case study in terms of enthusiasm, right? Second, yeah, I believe the scientific term for where Trump is is the toilet bowl. Like it doesn't really get worse because traditionally, you know, the incumbent party sees losses in the midterms. I think that they, I mean, obviously we are in Tara Incognito. We are in the middle of a war with no. end in sight, no actual gains made. We have ongoing fighting, gas prices that are going to continue to rise through the summer, and a president who is so addled and incoherent that he's falling asleep at Nick's Games and unable to state to Kristen Welker who the Supreme Leader of Iran is. I mean, it's a disaster back and forth. So yeah, is it a different political environment than 2020? I would say so. All right, Alex Wagner, Claire McCasker. We're going to check him back with you in a little bit. Don't go anywhere. We're going to keep you updated on all the results as they keep coming in. Meanwhile, Donald Trump ramps up. The Big Lie 2.0. Carol Lennig joins me right here. Next. A morning walk, some bird watching. It's another easy Sunday. United Health Group makes these ordinary days possible with partners like the University of Tennessee Health Sciences, helping communities manage their health closer to home. 54% of participants have lowered their blood pressure, meaning fewer heart attacks and more Sundays at the park. This might feel like an ordinary day. To United Health Group, it's the healthcare system working better for everyone. Learn more at UnitedHealthgroup.com slash commitment. Watch Disclosure Day at home now with exclusive bonus features. If you found out, we weren't alone, if someone showed you, proved it to you? Would that frighten you? While now the truth belongs to 7 billion people in an original event film directed by Steven Spielberg from a screenplay by David Kep starring Emily Blunt, Josh O'Connor, Colin Firth, Eve Hewson, and Coleman Domingo. Find Disclosure Day on major digital platforms now with no subscription required, also in theaters. Nothing beats tradition, like weekly game nights at Mom's House and Tostitos. Crafted with Maza made the traditional way, starting with whole corn kernels, with flavors worth gathering around, like a hint of lime and Mexican street corn, and no artificial colors, flavors, or preservatives. That's the Tostitos way. Bring Tostitos to your next game night, and you'll be winning either way. Tostitos, Tradition Matters.

You might have noticed the big lie is back, although truthfully it never went away. Just five years after the violent capital insurrection, MAGA is pushing another equal parts deranged and idiotic election conspiracy theory, this time centered on California. That's how they cast the votes in California. You know why they're cheating on the election? Do you have evidence to support that? All I have to do is look. They are still counting the votes. Do you trust this election? That seems pretty shady to me. I think California is playing around with us. But what evidence is there to prove that there was a rank? Look, some of these efforts are so diabolical and so far upstream, it is impossible to prove. But I think everybody knows instinctively something is wrong here. No, no, no, no, and not everyone knows it instinctively because there's nothing wrong here with the California's primary. They're counting the votes. They're counting the votes, by the way, as our own Jacob Sobras has shown, in a room with glass panels so you can watch them do it. It's not fraud. The case Republicans are making, it's impossible to prove, so trust their instincts, is manifestly preposterous absurd. But again, so was Trump's big lie in 2020 and 2021, right? I mean, it's essentially identical. And look what happened. Look what that led to on January 6th. And this case looks, to me, like it is setting the table to invalidate midterm results in November if Republicans perform as badly as expected. Yesterday, Trump's first assistant U.S. Attorney for Central California went on Glenn Beck's podcast, of all places, to promise investigations and charges for voter fraud in the state's primary, while also asking listeners to offer evidence of voter fraud, because, of course, he doesn't actually have any. Carolyn is a senior investigative reporter that is now co-author of Injustice, How Politics and Fear Vanquished America's Justice Department, a timely book. As we discussed this, she joins me now. Good to have you here. Great to be here, Chris. So let's just, I mean, first I just want to sort of set for the table that there is, again, we don't have like universal windows into everything that has happened in this election, but there is zero evidence whatsoever. This is an entirely agenda. I also just want to say up front that, like, it doesn't make any sense as an election conspiracy theory. It was clearly the case that Karen Bass wanted to run against a Republican Spencer Pratt in a city that is like 75% Democratic as opposed to a far more threatening challenger. Also, how did they rig it to lock out the Republicans from the mayoral, but not from the state, right? Like, none of this makes sense. What is the role that the Justice Department is now playing in this? Well, I want to say, let me tell you all the ways. Let me count the ways in which the Department of Justice is breaking its own rules, going back for a long, long time. Number one, An acting or de facto U.S. attorney, as Bill Assail is, in the Central District of California, doesn't announce he's going to investigate potential voter fraud. There were strong rules that you don't say you're elect, you're investigating that unless you come up with the evidence and you bring the charges. Because in America, we used to not want to so distrust in voting unless we had the goods. But instead, this person's going to go on Glenn back and say,

We're going to investigate. And then ask people. Number two, interesting norm buster, ask people for evidence. That's also something Department of Justice officials and FBI agents don't do. Crowdsource evidence. On the internet. That's super strange. Third thing in which we are counting the ways that these are a violation of either Department of Justice rules, prosecutor manuals, and norms about protecting our democracy. And that is that the acting, again, de facto U.S. attorney, says he promises there's likely going to be charges. Who does that? How can you do that? It's not like there has to be facts and a crime. You can't say that before you've actually figured it out. Well, when I heard and then reread with my own eyes, the transcript from the Glenn Beck show, it just reminded me as your setup so beautifully described. May of 2020, when Donald Trump is hearing that he's tanking in the polls, that he looks like a shambolic president who can't handle the pandemic, his acting, I'm forgive me, his attorney general Bill Barr says, I'm getting a bad feeling. I think you're going to lose this election if you don't do something different. Donald Trump starts talking about how all this way we count votes, all the way ballots are stored, some are mailed in. It's likely to be fraud. I'm worrying about fraud. And that drumbeat begins as soon as he knows. He's in the basement in terms of popularity. I want to play just to give a taste of this is the sort of first assistant U.S. attorney who's sort of acting as a U.S. attorney, again, because they love actings and they love the Vacancy Reform Act and no one ever gets confirmed and everyone's getting shoved in what position. Bill O'Saley, here he is on Glenn Beck, just to give people a taste of what it sounded like. Take a lesson. I will just say it will be election fraud charges in the next. I hate to put timelines on things, but one or two months, I believe we need some of these results to be certified so we can prove some of the allegations. But we will be charging some people. What we need right now are witnesses. If you saw someone collecting ballots in a suspicious way or doing something odd with ballots, we want to know about that. Again, I mean, you've pointed out, but this is just no one that we have ever covered in our careers or lives have to talk like this from that perch, right? I mean, that's a fair thing to say. It's a totally fair thing to say. It's strange on the three elements that are gross violations. There are many, many others. We won't go into all of them tonight. But, you know, Chris, I'm so glad you're focusing a lens on this because it is part of a broader. thing going on inside the Trump administration that I'm hearing from sources, both investigators and administration officials who are disturbed by this. And that broader plot is anybody who wants to please the king starts parroting that there's fraud. I'm going to open an investigation of fraud. There's likely fraud. This is, forgive me, I just am spilling my tea over here.

So acting U.S. attorneys or de facto ones or ones who want to get the job permanently or, for example, our acting attorney general, begin announcing. I think there's fraud. We should also say, because I started with January 6th, is that one of the crucial parts of the January 6th plot that didn't end up happening was an effort to essentially install a Trump loyalist in the Department of Justice to issue a letter from the Department of Justice, announcing with the official seal of the Department of Justice in Promoter that there was suspicion of fraud in Georgia and other states. We're going to send them out to a bunch of states saying, you're hereby just don't. Your results are essentially not real. And it came this close to them sending it out. And it would have wildly changed things. Totally. If it weren't for people, insiders and Suburban, said, hell no, after, over our dead bodies. There were nine, count them nine, top senior Department of Justice officials who swarmed on a Sunday night to the Oval Office to convince Donald Trump they'd all resign and it passelmore would. And that it would blow up in his face so it's not worth doing. He didn't back off because he thought they were. Right, and he was wrong. It was just that it would be too bad. The Deputy Attorney General said to the person you're referencing Jeff Clark, you know, we're not going to do this. Everyone's going to resign if we do this. And you should go back to what you actually know, which is if there's an oil spill, we'll call you. Exactly. So just a reminder that they tried this play. They didn't have the people in position to be able to pull it off from the head of DOJ. This time around, as we see, you really got to think about what that looks like with this personnel, particularly as we see what's happening in California, Carolynic. Always great to have you here. Thank you. Thank you. Still ahead with just over five months until Election Day. Do Democrats have a real chance of taking back the Senate? That's next.

Can I just quickly say hello to you? For me, being a part of this place has always been about the people, not about the politics. Why are you holding this sign? You ever been to a protest before? Be safe. People that we cover who allow us to enter their lives. How's everybody doing? Everybody doing okay? How long has been in line? I love human beings. To spend time connecting with them is the biggest blessing that I could ask for. From the field to the studio, Jacob is finding the heart of the story. Connect with Jacob Soberoff. Weekends at 10 a.m. Eastern on MS. The reason everyone's so focused on tonight's primary in Maine is that it's part of this broader attempt by Democrats to take back the Senate. And to be clear, about a year ago, Democrats taking the Senate in 2026 looked very unlikely, nearly insurmountable. It now looks extremely possible, not even, not favored, not guaranteed, but like really a real possibility in places like Maine, but not just Maine. We now have new statewide polling for two of the states that are in the kind of hardest-reach tier for Democratic pickups, Texas and Iowa. In Texas, the Democratic candidate is a dead heat with the Republican candidate. In Iowa, Democrats say their polling also shows a dead heat. Now, one could argue that these numbers are part of a larger trend. As you know, the president himself, a guy who got just absolutely thunderingly mercilessly booed. on national television by everyone in the arena at the NBA finals game in New York City last night. The guy who appeared to be, I don't know what you describe it, resting his eyes during the game itself, that guy is pulling at a near record low 35% approval. Claire McCaskill and Alex Wagner are back with us. Claire, you teed this up, right, if we talk about what the kind of... playing field looks like where are the pickup opportunities. Let's talk about the Texas poll today because again, when people are sort of loosey with the football with this and we've, you know, it's been literally decades since any Democrat won any statewide office, including like railroad commissioner or ag commissioner or anything. But this is a high-quality poll. This is a poll that shows, you know, the generic ballot in the state with a Republican lead by six. It shows the Greg Abbott up by five or six points. So sort of consistent with a difficult atmosphere for Republicans, but a dead heat between James Talarico and Brian Kemp-Ken Paxton, what do you think? Well, listen, Ted Cruz and Donald Trump are not the most popular guys in Texas right now. And I got to tell you, let's put Ted out there more campaigning for Ken Paxton because women voters hearing that Calo Rico's problem is he's not masculine enough. I mean, really? That is nuts. I mean, that is just not a way to convince people to vote. for Ken Paxton, who is obviously corruption riddled. So, yeah, listen, we've got Alaska, we've got Texas, we've got Iowa, we've got North Carolina. Sharon Brown is ahead against Husted in Ohio. And the latest bowl, yep. You know, if we hold Michigan and hold Georgia and Aesuff looks, is in a strong position down there right now.

then main if platinum pulls it off would be whipped cream and cherry on top it wouldn't even be part of the ice cream needed for the sunday This is Burgess Everett, Alex. This is Republican senators were presented with tough polling numbers in some key races today at the NRC. Bleak or challenging were some of the descriptions of them afterward. Also, Republicans were giving messaging plan to turn them around. One said afterward they are optimistic. And one of the things that I think is sort of worth talking about here, I mean... You've got a situation where voters are very clear about what their biggest priority is, right? Things are too expensive. They don't like the way the economy is going. They don't like the war particularly. Today, they've managed to pass in the Congress with, again, these sitting senators, like $70 billion more dollars for ICE and DHS, which brings the grand total of money given to those agencies to $240 billion in the last year, a quarter of a trillion dollars. So it's like, whatever you think about the Republican Party, whatever you think about their political challenges, it's very hard to see to me the things they are doing, being responsive at all to like the median swing voter concern that they need to do to get back to par in this environment. It's not even, like it doesn't even qualify as a hat tip towards the concerns of their constituents. I mean, like, I think the voterama reconciliation fiasco of last week is like such a telling episode that the most vulnerable senators on the Republican side of the aisle sort of make this late night attempt to vote their conscience and are given leeway to do so by John Thune all to amount to a hill of beans. I mean, they were tasked. by the American public, by their constituents, with making sure Trump wouldn't set up a $1.8 billion slush fund for January 6 insurrectionists and cop beaters. And they couldn't even do that. They just made these kind of gestures towards not doing that, hoping that that would be enough to carry them over the finish line when it comes to November. I mean, the level of cowardice that they're operating with is almost, it would be comic if it wasn't so pathetic. And then they have in the White House, the leader, the titular leader of their party doesn't care about gas prices, doesn't know what gas prices are, doesn't know who he's fighting in Iran, doesn't know who's negotiating the peace process to end the war that's created the global economic tailspin. I mean, it is. I really don't think we've seen this level of both incompetence and I keep saying the word cowardice.

The combination of the two things is just a powerful aphrodisiac to get people over to the Democratic side of the aisle, which is why you see, yeah, James Talarico is running neck and neck with Ken Paxton. But among independents, he's leading 18 points. He's leading 10 points among Latinos in Texas. The numbers in all those swing states that Claire mentioned, there is, this is, we're talking, we're in June right now, Chris. Gas is going to go up to $6 a gallon. Well, that's the big question, right? I mean, the old quote about, you know, what's the hardest part of governing Claire McCaskill, a British foreign minister once said, events, my dear boy, events. And again, we're out, like I'm talking on the night of the deal that was supposed to happen, we've had now, you know, strikes exchanged between a U.S. Apache helicopter being down and the U.S. with retaliatory strikes. We had strikes exchanging Iran and Israel. You know, I don't think gas. You know, there's a lot of warnings, Claire, out there about how dire the sort of inventory situation is. But the events are going to play a role here, too, more than as much as the campaigns and the fundraising and all that stuff. Yeah, and, you know, you talked about Lindsay earlier. Those votes against Lindsey Graham in that primary are about the war. They are about his position, really Hawka's position, which is so yesterday in the Republican Party. And, you know, I want to point out, sometimes this is painful because a lot of our viewers don't want to hear this. But the states that are in play now, there are not enough Democrats to elect these candidates. Independent voters will decide who controls the United States Senate. It will not be, they're not going to magically grow millions and millions and millions of Democrats between now and November. We are going to have to use our messaging to make sure we are focused not just on the base, which deserves some populism and some progressive stances, but also on independent voters who are sick. of the incompetence because they can't pay their bills. Yeah, I mean, you know, Harris lost Iowa by, I want to say, 14 points. Like, you can't, you got to get you have to win some people. A lot of people. Trust me, I know. Yeah, right, exactly. Well, you know, yes. You're going to have to win a lot of people to vote for Donald Trump. Alex Wagner and Claire McCaskill. We'll stay with us. We're going to check in with Ali Valshi for the latest numbers on this election night in America. Right after this, don't go anywhere.

On this election night, in four states, we're still monitoring Maine's Democratic Senate primary, where votes are starting to trickle in to decide whether Democratic Claren Graham Platner will, in fact, take on incumbent Republican Susan Collins in November. But we also, of course, are still sifting through the results in California. As well, Ali Velci is the big board with updates. What's the latest from Maine? Let's start there, Ali. Let's start with Maine, where we have very little of the vote in right now, less than 1% of the vote in. Graham Platner's leading, but again, the lead is 452 votes. He's got 68%. It's just interesting because Janet Mills was in the race. She made it clear that she's not out of the race. She suspended her campaign, and then has given a few interviews where she said, I'm still in the race, but no one has put any money or any effort into it. So this, we're going to watch very, very closely to see what's going on. in Maine. I want to go to the Senate. I was just telling you about the Senate race in South Carolina. So let me just get to that for a second. We were talking about the fact that Lindsey Graham was in an interesting battle here. He has been advanced, but again, 60%. This is a guy who's been a senator who has done no wrong to Donald Trump challenged by somebody on his right who's got 27. 0.5% of the vote in with 45% of the vote so far. Let's look at the gubernatorial race in South Carolina. Again, Pamela Evatt, the Trump endorsed lieutenant governor at 30% right now. Ralph Norman, a member of the House, at 16.5% and Nancy Mace at 11%. You have to have 50% to win outright. Otherwise, you advance to a primary. So right now, the two members of Congress who are in this race for South Carolina. governor have not advanced yet and may not advance. California, we told you a little earlier in the governor's race. Steve Hilton has advanced to the primary, but I want to show you a couple of house races that are of interest. Kevin Kiley, you'll remember, was the incumbent in California 6. This was redistricted. He suddenly became an independent because he thought that's the only way that he could win. It was primary night in California when we advanced him to be in the runoff. We have now advanced Richard Pan. who, if you can see, these numbers are pretty close with 92% of the vote in. So it is possible that a Democrat will have a chance in that district. I want to move to District 7 in California. This was Doris Matsui, the incumbent, being challenged by Ma Vang, who is, I think 40 years younger than she is. I think it's young versus older competition, 95% of the vote in right now. And Ma Vang, not only... is advancing to the runoff, but is in the lead. She's ahead of Doris Matsui. And I want to go down here to California 40. This young Kim is advancing as well. This is two incumbents now who are going to be in the race, which means District 40 will be a Republican district. This was actually redistricted to be a little more Republican in the way that California was redistricted. You might call it a sacrificial lamb. It was probably expected that this was going to be a Republican in the end. Now it's guaranteed that it'll be a Republican, Chris. And I just want to reiterate it was a week ago that this election took place. We were all here. The votes, there's a bunch of ways you can vote in California. You can vote in person. You can vote by mail. You could mail it on the day of the election, which means there's going to be a little bit of latency. That's why things are trickling in. It's normal. It's a feature. It's not a bug. This nonsense that you very accurately reporting on is just nonsense. Everybody, the whole country knows this. We talked about it. And if you live in California, you know.

very, very well that it is a complex and rich. process to vote in California. Takes time, takes energy, takes intellectual work, but it actually works, and it just takes a few days relaxed. And we should just also just, I want to serve that Kevin Kylie again, because that's an important one. We talked about District 40, which was redrawn to be more Republican. You take two incumbents, you put them in the same district, right? This is one that is drawn to be a Dem pickup. Correct. There was a little bit of worry that may be two Republicans. That's correct. A Republican and an independent and Kevin Kylie would make it through. That's not true. So this will be a Basically, an R versus D, although he calls himself an independent now, but he's been a Republican. That's right. And that is likely to be, that is projected by the... the Democratic Party to be a pickup. Of course, the voters will have the final set. We'll keep on watching that, but that one's basically decided at this point. All right. Let's go back to Maine if we can. I don't know if we have any reason to think that there is more. Let's take a look. We're still under 1%. The lead has increased to 800 votes and the margin has increased. Graham Platner now was 70%, 71% of the vote to Janet Mills, 18.5%. But these are very, very, very small numbers. Yes, tiny. Very small percentage. We are waiting to see. Remember, this part of Maine. which I like to call Canada, is very sparsely populated. Maine's population centers are all along here. Its major cities are all along here. So we're going to wait and see what happens here. But at the moment, Graham Platner enjoying a lead, but less than 1% in. We should also note, because I noted at the top, there is a gubernatorial primary in Maine tonight, and that is to run for governor after Janet Mills. And that's interesting only because you will see Angus King, the third there. That, of course, being the son of Angus King, who is a sitting senator. You will see Hannah Pingree there. That, of course, being the daughter of Shelley Pingree, who is a member of Congress. And you also see Nerov Shah, who is the health public health commissioner in that. It became very well known there, certainly during COVID. And according to approval rating, polling is basically the most popular politician in the state. And the reason I say all that is because those are all people who opted to run for this race. Not. To the Senate race. And not for the Senate race. The point you made is there a lot of very highly qualified Democrats in Maine. They're all in this race. That's right. I just want to show that there because most of them are in this race. Yes. And that will probably, we will go to rank choice voting. And so that's going to take a while there. So Ali Valshi. And again, it might take a while. And that's also normal. Yes, exactly. Because you start hearing somebody complaining about that.

That's the way it goes. All right, Aliosi, great to have you. As always, at the big board. I want to thank you. Also want to thank Alex Wagner and Clara McCaskill for hanging with me through the hour. What a delight to have them both. Be sure, of course, to check out Alex on Crooked on MS Now, weekly series that highlights the best moments of the week from Crooked Media's chart-topping podcasts. That's Saturdays at 9 p.m. Eastern. Stay tuned. In just a few minutes, Jen Saki, we'll speak to Annie Andrews, who's hoping to be the Democrat to take on Lindsey Graham in South Carolina. We'll be right back. That does it for All In. You can catch us every weeknight at 8 o'clock on MS now. Don't forget to like us on Facebook. That's facebook.com slash all on with Chris. Saturday, September 26th, join MS Now Live in Texas for our biggest event yet with Rachel Maddo, Jen Sagi, Michael Steele, and more for a day of powerful conversations and timely insights in a crucial state for the midterms. Democracies heal and advance themselves by engaging everybody where they are. Plus exclusive community experiences. MS now live together in Texas. September 26th, get tickets today at MS. Together.