0 then we'll start seeing results. these are the very first, just in the last 60 seconds or so, don, starting to come in. we are specifically looking at what is going to be happening in the gop primary for the u.s. senate. it is essentially a two-man race. one of the candidates is the former attorney general who many of the voters we spoke with today at various polling centers said they consider the front-runner. he is the more established candidate, has been in office, a better known quantity. he has donald trump's endorsement. but he has seen a late challenge from a political newcomer, sam brown, an army retired captain, someone who earned the purple heart while he was in afghanistan and was injured. he was seeing grass roots energy, a lot of support, able to buy ad time so a lot of the grass roots republicans say they'll support him so we'll see how that race shapes up because what it is going to do is set the stage for what happens in november, who the republican will be, and challenging the democratic incumbent senator who is defending a seat, a seat in a state where joe biden won by about two percentage points. a nail biter today. >> john king, you are following key races out of south carolina, incumbents, representative nancy mace and representative tom rice, one of the rare republicans to impeach trump after the insurrection. what is the latest there? >> let's move across the country and look at the house. pull up south carolina. votes coming in a little more quickly than nevada but we're several hours in now. this is very interesting here. the seventh district russell frey is donald trump's candidate here, a conservative running against the incumbent. tom rice had that seat since 2012 and won big in the tea party year. he is getting 25% of the vote right now, disappointing for a republican incumbent who represented the district for a decade. 99% of the vote in. we're still tallying the final votes. the 50% plus one you avoid a run-off and he would be the republican nominee in a very republican district. it looks like tom rice will be defeated. he voted to impeach donald trump and republican voters appear ready to punish him. the other grudge match is down in the first district, charleston, and further south along the coast nancy mace the incumbent trump wanted to lose here and endorsed katie arrington, a closer race, 53 to 45 but significantly at the moment nancy mace is still above 50. if we look at the district this way, this is by county in the district. katie arrington's base is down here. only 50% of the vote counted here so if you are in the mace campaign you're looking to see can she make up the ground. if you look over all again we're getting close to 80%. nancy mace has a nearly 5,000-vote lead. we'll count to the end. >> let me ask you. texas tonight there is a special election. >> it is an interesting one as well. this is a democratic seat. the democratic incumbent resigned so they're having a special election. because it is a special election it is a little funky to get to the programming. let's pop down to the end and bring up the state of texas and move it over. the house general election. you see this strangely drawn district. we could have a week long conversation about texas gerrymandering. it is the 34th district. it was represented by a democrat. 97%, still counting but the republican candidate mira flores at 51%. the wall is acting up. if she can hold that and stay above 51% she will be the congresswoman only through january. this will be re-run in november to fill the remainder of the term but democrats have a very narrow majority in the house. if she were to win this seat i believe that would make it 220 to 210 with five vacancies so for the next couple months it would impact the margins in the house. if she stays at 51% she will be congresswoman for the rest of the year. >> thank you very much. i want to bring in cnn's senior political analysts and political commentators. hello one and all. good evening. bakari, you were supposed to be here. what happened? i thought you were going to be sitting on the set with me. i was all excited about it. there you are in your home studio. i don't like it. this is your home state though. what is your reaction to how south carolina, this primary is playing out? >> i think it is what most people thought at the beginning of the day. two candidates, both who opposed donald trump at different times. candidates actually matter. russell frey was a great candidate and pulled off a defeat of tom rice and katie arrington simply is not. >> we have a result in south carolina. we'll get back to john king and then continue our discussion. mr. king, what do you have for us sir? >> just the exclamation point. you can look on the map now to what he was just talking about in the first head-to-head primary match up republicans who voted for donald trump and decided not to run but the first head to head match up somebody who voted to impeach donald trump, tom rice has lost to russell frey. this is the seventh district in south carolina. it's myrtle beach. then it stretches out into this much more rural, conservative area here. i'll just show you quickly how it breaks down by county. if you look at it this way, that tells you the sweep of the victory. russell frey not only won the primary tonight. he won and led and carried every county in the district. this is the victory for russell frey, for donald trump. looks like a split decision if nancy mace holds on but for the congressman who voted yes on impeachment who said he was proud of that vote donald trump is going to say gotcha. >> thank you very much. let's go back to the folks discussing. you want to pick it up from here? >> no. i think what john king said was right. one of the things i wanted to point out is in these races where donald trump is endorsing the quality of candidate matters. in south carolina you saw the dichotomy there but also the districts matter. you know charleston very well. a bluish purplish type of district surrounded by buford and dorchester and berkeley etcetera. that is where nancy mace is running not nearly as conservative as where tom rice who got defeated by russell frey tonight. donald trump is going to claim victory tonight but he was still 50% today. >> are you surprised by this? >> no. rice actually cast two weird votes. he initially sided with trump on rejecting the electoral college in a couple states then voted to impeach trump so if you can get on the wrong side of everybody in a five-minute period he figured out how. mace's transgressions were more rhetorical and she ran a pretty good race. i'm glad mace survived and i agree with bacarri i think candidate quality played a big role. good job for nancy mace and glad she'll likely be going back to congress. >> do you care to comment on this? not a home state. >> i agree with what was just said. mace is in basically a swing district so a very different district and very different kinds of votes. voting to overturn the election is something that can be seen in a way that impeaching donald trump can't be and obviously made rice a real target for voting to impeach. >> i wanted to pick up on the texas race but the texas 34, the district is run under the old lines. biden won by four. republicans will win it tonight. in the fall i think it has been redrawn in a democrat plus. however. 84% hispanic population in that district, hillary clinton won the district huge. broem won the district huge. biden a narrow victory for him. in terms of larger macro political issues right now in this country to me tonight texas 34. the movement of the hispanic voters toward the republican party in that part of texas is one of the biggest stories of the night. it is not quite final but a big deal. >> do you see a trouncing? i think scott is indicating there is going to be a trouncing of democrats come midterms. do you agree with that? >> well, i think that is sort of the expectation and i think if we look at it given historically -- we were all predicting quite sometime ago even before joe biden's approval ratings got to the point that they are that democrats were going to have a hard time because historically that is what happens to the president's party in the first midterm election. i think a lot of things have now come together to make it even tougher terrain for democrats because of what is happening with inflation. you have the cnn polls showing that is the number one issue with voters and they prefer republicans by 20 points on that issue and an issue unfortunately joe biden doesn't have a lot of control over and, so, you know, gas prices are high and very tightly connected to the approval rating of the president. yes, i think the expectation is that democrats are not going to have a great midterm election. >> let's turn to january 6th before we were so not really rudely interrupted but scott took us down another path here. january 6th select committee has been presenting videos of multiple trump insiders saying everyone knew trump's election lie was bogus. will the committee's work have any impact on these races? >> that is a good question. i think that it was just said best. when you think about inflation, gas prices, and the issue she didn't mention which is also very high on voters' minds, and that was crime, and the rise of violent crime. i think those issues while january 6 is going on is going to be difficult to cut through. what you have seen is something i did not think was quite possible which is this committee has put on not just thrilling tv to watch it but they've utilize the words of republicans. this isn't a one sided idea at all, it isn't a one sided committee with one sided testimony. when you look at the spat today between the diet pepsi drink and rudy guiliani versus jason miller and others, you see that this is actually the inner workings of the republican party. will it be a major issue? yes. but i think with three or four other major issues. >> the january 6 committee putting out a video previewing what is to come. let's take a look. >> he started to ask me about something dealing with georgia and preserving something potentially for appeal. i said to him, are you out of your effing mind. he said i only want to hear two words coming out of your mouth, orderly transition. i don't want to hear any other words other than orderly transmission. repeat those words to me. eventually he said orderly transition. i said good john. now i'm going to give you the best free legal advice you're ever getting in your life. get a great -- criminal defense lawyer. you're going to need it. then i hung up on him. >> that is trump white house lawyer eric hershman telling john eastman to lawyer up, scott. i mean, that's pretty significant. >> yeah. donald trump at the end of his political life there in this campaign anyway had two kinds of people in his life. people telling him the truth and then, you know, sort of professional, political people, and seemingly clear eyed about this and then he had people who were bat poop crazy and he chose poorly and drank from the wrong cup. you see what happens here. honestly, it's been quite obvious from this testimony that there were plenty of people saying, look. this is not what you think it is. you've lost. he had the correct advice and he went venue shopping and found people telling him really bad things and now a lot of these people, i don't know if they'll ever nab trump but some of these people feeding him stuff are clearly in trouble. they deserve it. they did a bad thing. i don't feel bad for him at all. >> making the point that he said there were republicans fighting against each other. this is really trump's inner circle, the people closest to him, closest and most trusted advisers actually providing all of the ammo in the testimony to the january 6th committee. this is his white house lawyer. >> right. i've been asked this before about will this affect the midterms and my general feeling has been the same, which is probably not. maybe around the margins. how crazy is that? what you're saying is that this isn't a partisan witch hunt by any standard. this is something that is being, you know, show casing republicans and people who work for donald trump so something about donald trump they liked and felt they had to be there who are saying, telling these stories that are just unbelievable. right? you can't believe this is happening that these conversations are occurring where a white house lawyer is having to tell everybody we're doing an orderly transition. that is just something we take for granted. i think it has been so baked into the cake for some reason that some people have made up their minds. i would love to be wrong about that and if i am wrong i'll be very, very happy but it does seem when it comes to these trump issues people kind of stake out their positions and don't, it is very difficult to shake them from them. >> yes. i think you're right. i think most people probably, i think their positions are they are stilled in their position. people believe what they believe at this point. right? and it is hard to break them away from it. i just find this testimony so compelling that it has to make you at least think even if you are not going to change your position. is that a fair assessment? >> i think so. i think you're highlighting the greater issue we have in politics today that people are entrenched in their positions. if you took 12 independents, and i'm not sure how many independents are watching this and you show them this i do believe this would move them and sway them but just to highlight the depth and seriousness of what we're talking about here not just people in the president's inner circle. i am hard pressed to figure out how rudy guiliani and others have not committed a crime. i guess that is for the doj to figure out later down the road but you even talk about a president of the united states who raised $250 million for something he knew was a fraud, improper. he took advantage of individuals. and when you think about all of these things, not just whether or not there are attempts to overthrow the government and the fraud and deceit coming from the highest levels of government this is something you see only in movies that is really playing out in front of our eyes but at the end of the day we go back to the price of whiting is an extra dollar a pound. to fill up with gas is $5 a gallon. these are real issues and a lot of people are not able to focus on issues of democracy but the pocketbook. >> i got to go, scott, sorry. i'm getting yelled at. >> okay. >> i got the last word over scott. >> it is interesting what people will ignore. >> i'll call you. >> text me. i want to know what you have to say as well. thank you all. appreciate it. the investigation into trump's claim of voter fraud in georgia heating up. now authorities want to speak with a former publicist who -- kanye west. plus record flooding in yellowstone national park collapsing homes and leaving families stranded. so you both stay comfortable and can help you get 30 minutes more restful sleep per night. save 50% on the sleep number 360 limited edition smart bed. plus, 0% interest for 36 months. ends monday