In the Virginia Statehouse and senate on the ballot. You might remember in 2017, so two years ago, right, the last year we had a big offyear election in virginia, there was a huge blue wave in virginia. Remember that . The Democratic Candidates running for statehouse in virginia two years ago got more than 200,000 more votes than their republican opponents who they were running against. But it was a fascinating thing to watch Election Results two years ago in virginia. Because getting the most votes didnt translate into democrats getting the most seats in the Virginia House that year. Because the republicans had gerrymandered the state so badly to make it easier for them to win more seats even when they didnt have more votes, when the results came in virginia two years ago tonight, republicans even though theyd had 200,000 fewer votes than the democrats, they had won 50 seats in the statehouse while democrats had only won 49. It was nuts. It was like a perfect distillation of how gerrymandering works. Get all the votes you want, were still taking all the seats. In the Virginia House a couple years ago there was one race outstanding that actually took weeks to call. The winner of that last race ultimately decided who got to take control of the statehouse. That last race in Virginia State in 2017 came down to a literal tie. Each candidate had received the exact same number of votes. And so to break the tie which ultimately decided who got that seat which decided partisan control of the house, they ended up writing the candidates names on pieces of paper and they slipped them into film canisters, they drew the winner out of the blue ceramic bowl. It was the republican candidate who ended up with control of the statehouse even though therapy wildly outvoted by the democrats in 2017. That was virginia last time. Thats the crazy way the balance of power then statehouse of virginia got decided two years ago. Democrats winning more votes, democrats not therefore getting more seats and ult matimately t whole thing being decided by scraps of paper and a bowl. And now two years later its election day again. Among other places in virginia every single seat on the virginia legislator is on the ballot. And this time for the First Time Since the drawing names outof a bowl election, virginia voters will head to the poles in a state that has been unjerry un mandered. If democrats again win tons more votes on their republican opponents those votes have a much better shot of actually translating into democrats taking seats in the legislator and thereby taking control of the State Government. To win democratic control in virginia democrats would have to flip just two seats in the statehouse tonight and just one seat in the state senate. If they pull that off tonight democrats would be ultimately taking full control of virginias State Government for the first time in about a quarter of a century. So offyear elections are always interesting. They tend to be sort of be bellwethers. People tend to extrapolate on them a lot. For states all over the country having elections right now tonight is turning out to be a very intriguing evening. For example, were keeping an eye on two big governors races tonight. One in mississippi. And as of right now that is too close to call. Its only 4 in, so dont get yourself too excited there. But the difference there is less than 300 votes between the two of them. Again wildly too early to call with only 4 in the republican candidate there tate reaves. And also watching the race in kentucky. This one is so interesting its got me worried about Steve Kornackis blood pressure. Matt bevan has been the governor of kentucky since 2016. In theory on paper it shouldnt be an open question whether a republican governor can get reelected in a deep red state like kentucky. But matt bevan is a special kind of guy, a special kind of republican governor in the sense that people dont seem to like him very much as governor. He has pushed hard to claw back Medicaid Expansion in his state, and that may sound like a wonky issue if its not something you are up on. But at the bottom line what he has been trying to do with Medicaid Expansion would throw hundreds of thousands of kentuckiens off their health insurance, and the governor has championed that. Hes also picked aggressive fights, sometimes dirty fightwifights with the public schoolteachers and also with the Law Enforcement community. When you pick fights with those kind of folks who tend to be heroes with most regular americans you end up as matt bevan is being pretty wildly unpopular as an incumbent sitting governor. Hes one of the most unpopular governors in the entire country. So there have been sort of lowkey rumblings for several weeks that governor matt bevan of kentucky might be in trouble as he tries to hold onto the governors mansion. Last night President Trump held a rally in kentucky to try to give matt bevan a boost. President trump of course won in deep red kentucky by 30 points. This was the map of his electoral victory, right, just a beat red swath in kentucky from november 2016. President trump himself last night basically warned matt bevan that he shouldnt blow the enormous builtin advantage that trump was throwing his way in this plus30 trump state. If you lose theyre going to say trump suffered the greatest defeat in the history of the world. This was the greatest. You cant let that happen to me. The president schlepping to kentucky to support republican governor matt bevan last night, again a state trump won by 30 points. It would have been a huge push to get matt bevan over the finish line. Not to mention the fact its a red state, not to mention the fact hes an incumbent. It may not have been enough, though. This is what were watching. Right now the kentucky governors race is too close to call. And 99 of the vote in. With 99 of the vote in, it is the democrat whos in the lead. Its a slim lead, less than 10,000 votes. Hes the attorney general right now of kentucky. Kentucky is as red a state as they come. But kentucky has had a democratic governor before and not that long ago. The last democratic governor also happened to be named beshear because it was his dad. It looks like tonight they might make him their next governor. They may have him ousting the states incumbent republican. Again, too close to call at this hour. Joining us to make sense of all of this is Steve Kornacki, our elections wizard. What can you tell us . To put this in some perspective here, you say 99 , we can show you exactly what the margin is, not sure why the pen is green, but well go with that, 9,947. And there are two pieces of gray on your screen. Theres no vote here. Now, this is republican county. Heres what i can tell you, we can do a bit of a math here and figure out where this may be going. In 2015 he won grayson county, his margin here was about 1,500 votes. Weve been seeing much higher turn out across kentucky today. Weve been seeing bevan do well. So his margin we can expect will be significantly higher. Lets say it was 2,500, okay . Lets say she got a 2,500 or so. Remember that number because the other big county left is ballard, the other outstanding piece of real estate. And here his margin was 322 votes in 2015, a small county. Again, lets say higher turn out, lets say he got that to 600. So remember the numbers i gave you were 2,500 and 600. What does that add up to . That would add to up about 3,100. Hed get a 3,100 vote plurality. That would eat about a third of beshears margin. You look at those counties and you say if you are the Beshear Campaign you like where you are. Theres a scattering of about a dozen other precincts left throughout the state. I just checked, theyre basically all in republican counties. These precincts are producing about 350 votes each give or take. So theyre very small pieces of real estate. So it is i know our decision desk has not called this. They want to make sure theres no big surprise out of Ballard County. They want to make sure theres no big surprise out of grayson county, out of any of these other precincts. But if you look at the math and just extrapolate for Everything Else were seeing tonight theres a reason why democrats are feeling better than republicans about where this may be going. When you talk about those dozen precincts yet to come in, and those being largely republican precincts, just sort of enveloping the math here in terms of what you just said about the total number of votes that would be, seems to me what youre saying about what you expect in grayson and ballard evenae even in a good scenario for matt bevan, even if he sort of cleaned up in those outstanding republican precincts, he still wouldnt be in beshears lead. If you want to be sure about this from the standpoint of certainly nbc and calling this race, you want to make sure when the precincts dont start reporting there isnt some major surprise, something totally unforeseen. For you just extrapolate from everything we had, bevan will get closer, he will eat into this. And the other thing is when it gets this close, everyone starts asking you within 1 is there going to be a recount . Kentucky law on this is theres no automatic trigger for a recount. Any losing candidate can request a recount. They have to go to court for it, they have to go to a judge for it. A judge would then decide if there was going to be a recount. In terms of how these things ultimately get shook out, is there anything we should know in terms of fighting over the actual mechanics of voting . Election board politicization, these sorts of fights potentially have an impact if this does become a knockdowndragout, particularly if it becomes a court battle. Theres nothing thats jumped out today, and if bevan were to fall short, lets say if he were to fall short and decide to challenge this, its unclear what the grounds would be he would cite. I havent seen anything today that would obviously jump out. Obviously lawyers are paid to come out, but i havent seen anything tonight that jumps out in that regard. This is an extremely high turn out. Look at the numbers. If it ends up 1. 4 million give or take the last Gubernatorial Election in kentucky 2015, 973,000. In the 2016 president ial election, 1. 9 million. So youre right in between, president ial election and sort of offyear Gubernatorial Election, thats extremely high turn out. And weve been seeing that across the state today. If beshear does end up pulling out, a higher turn out gives as you asked that question grayson almost entirely came in. Bevan 96 in. Lets do the path that 2,698. We said 15, 14 was his margin in 2015. He could probably get that up to 2,800, 2,900. You see what that did to the overall lead statewide. 72 , 49 . One more will come out of grayson and then well get ballard where it was 322 votes last night. As all eyes are on Ballard County and watching that last precinct let me ask you while ive got you about virginia tonight. Last year they had a fascinating thing happen in terms of their state legislative races. What should we be watching for in virginia or what are you expressing . Im going to press this graphic and see if it works. There was a vacancy, a democratic vacancy. It was essentially 5149 in the house of delegates. Either party doesnt want a tie. Democrats needed to get a two seat gain out of the house of delegates. Nbc news is not characterizing individual state legislative races. Were sort of deferring to the Associated Press. The Associated Press right now with more to come has called one flip, one republican seat in the house of delegates going to the democrats. Democrats need to end up with two. According to the Associated Press at this hour they have one on the state senate side. Again, its a 40 seat body. Its a republican vacancy so its really 2119. Here the democrats just need a net gain of one. A lieutenant democrat would break the tie, sort of like the u. S. Senate. And right now the Associated Press has called one flip republican to democrat. So right now democrats are where they need to be on the state senate side. Although with the state senate in virginia theres always craziness. So in terms of people declaring themselves independents, well have to watch that closely. Steve, i know youve got more math to do. Right now i actually want to stick with this drama in kentucky tonight. Vaughn hilliard, the political reporter for nbc news and right now hes at andy beshear headquarters in kentucky. I know it is a bustling room behind you. What can you tell us about the mood there and what youre hearing from beshears folk snz. Good evening, rachel. As this evening is going on, youve got two different time zones. Folks are watching the polls close one hour and seeing more results come in that next hour. And slowly over this while the room has been bubbling here. 99 of the precincts coming in. Ive been talking with the campaign this evening has been going on. The area reporting there as steve was talking about was kentucky. This Democratic Party used to rein in kentucky and there was one name steve beshear, that would be the father of andy beshear. What you see in those numbers so far vaughn, i never like to interrupt anybody for any reason, but we have a collin this race that Andy Beshear Andy Beshear according to nbc news is the apparent winner in kentucky. That is brand new declaration with 99 of the vote in, and a difference of 6,251 votes between the two candidates. Vaughn, again i apologize to you for interrupting to you while you were talking to us but as this news filters out to people there i imagine things may go a little nuts. Reporter well, also we havent got that announcement on stage yet, but i think this is going to spawn the conversation about this Republican Party today, rachel. Earlier today i had the chance to talk with matt bevan. For anyone who listened to his Campaign Speeches or listened to his tv speeches here its been about donald trump, impeachment and donald trump. Essentially hes tried to nationalize this race. As you look at andy beshear he talked about education, health care, and jobs. He went with that approach basically separating himself. There were no national damns that came to this state to campaign for andy beshear, rachel. But matt bevan earlier when i asked him why did you nationalize this race, and he said did you just come out of a rock, and i said youre not running for the house of representatives for the senate, sir. And he said the people here care about donald trump. He is going to campaign and talk about donald trump. And what youre seeing here is essentially a 30 point swing, rachel. This is place donald trump won in 2016 by 30 percentage points. To put that in perspective go back to the midterms. If you look through some of that voter data there, essentially 5 of voters that voted in the 2018 election, about 5 as trump voters as you would call them ended up voting for house democrats. In kentucky, a state where Mitch Mcconnell was on the ballot last year, and youre talking about a 30 point swing, this is enormous. And i mention Mitch Mcconnell because theres a lot of talk about democrats here about what this election would mean. And Mitch Mcconnells approval numbers were about the same level as matt bevan here. Matt bevan is somebody who as i mentioned tied himself to donald trump, speaks like donald trump. I just want to mention one conversation. In with suzy campbell, i talked to her last year. Shes a grain farmer out in spencer county. I called her up. She voted for donald trump in 2016 merchandise she also voted for matt bevan in 2015. I called her up and said what are you going to do tomorrow . And she said im going to go to the polls and vote for democrats. She said andy beshear had tied himself too much to the president and said he was a bully, hes not talking about issues. And when youre looking at across the state here the Northern Kentucky area, those suburbs around cincinnati where you saw 10 point swings and not only 10point swings but also voter turn out about 150 from what they were back in those 2015 numbers, rachel. Those turn out numbers are going to be a huge part of the story. Also those dynamics in terms of the National Things at play or not at play. Great reporting, political reporter at andy beshear headquarters. Ycht to reiterate we have just had a collin this race. Nbc news is declaring the apparent winner of the kentucky governors race is the democrat in the race, andy beshear, upsetting matt bevan, the incumbent republican governor of kentucky. The thing to keep in mind about kentucky not just it is a red state but a state that went for donald trump by 30 points. President trump in kentucky as recently as last night throwing the full weight of his presidency behind incumbent republican governor matt bevan who appears today to have been ousted. Again, nbc declaring andy beshear the democrat to be the apparent winner of the governors race. Tell us what else we have learned. We said we were waiting on those two counties. This is what finally triggered the call, i believe. Ballard the final outstanding county came in. You see bevan wins and wins it by about a thousand votes. Obviously nowhere near what he needed to turn this around. About a 6,200 vote margin here for beshear. One point i want to emphasize because i think to me in addition to the high turn out its the story of the night, its sort of an extension of the National Story weve been telling. We certainly saw this in 2018 in the midterm elections, the suburbs the suburbs moving away from the party of donald trump towards the Democratic Party. Yes, thats a story in kentucky as well, and its a story right here. These three counties in Northern Kentucky, you see