It is Election Night in america. Much of america. In new jersey, Chris Christie reelected to a second term as governor. We are awaiting a victory speech from governor christie. Likely within this hour. In virginia, nbc news project, democratic Terry Mcauliffe pulled off a narrow victory. Defeated, Ken Cuccinelli, with 96 of the vote in. Mcauliffe, has 47 . And libertarian candidate, has 7 . Nbc news also projects that Democrat Ralph Northam is winner of the lieutenantgovernor race. Political director, chuck todd is at the headquarters in tysons corner, virginia. Chuck, how did this race find its way to a Terry Mcauliffe victory and rather narrow one . Well, a rather narrow one. I think we can be reminded. Virginia is virginia. A swing state for a reason. This is as virginia goes. So goes the nation. Its ben that wen that way for decade. When you look at the last two weeks. You can on one hand, look at the result tonight. And say the minute, Ken Cuccinelli was nominated. He was going to
0 tonight? at least with these very close results, these too close to call results at this hour, virginia is closer than ever to breaking that streak, and it looks to be largely on the strength of women voters. both republican and democratic candidates in virginia s gubernatorial contest are obviously guys. but leading up to tonight s election, there has been a huge gender gap in the polling in this race. in the last washington post poll for the virginia governor s race. democrat terry mccauliffe was leading ken cuccinelli by 12 points among voters in total. he was leading by 24 points among women. exit polling tonight in that virginia race shows that ken cuccinelli is losing women to democrat terry mccauliffe by 16 points. again, that s according to the exit polls. when virginia voters were asked tonight the single most important issue they took into the volting booth, surprisingly a high number of voters chose abortion as the single highest motivating factor for their vote. 20% of
0 thought. a lot of cuccinelli supporters bitter now looking at the result. thinking what if? what if they had more money? what if the republican establishment helped them? of course, some tea party republicans are going to say, hey, our message is fine. we just didn t have enough money. some establishment republicans to night are probably quietly a little concerned, cuccinelli got so close. it is not, means the tea party might not receive the message, that the establishment in the inside the republican party hoped they would receive after tonight? chuck if you add to cuccinelli s vote, the third party vote for the libertarian. you get a majority vote for conservative, two conservative candidates there in virginia. if you take out the libertarian candidate. does cuccinelli win this race? it s hard to say that. because in our polling. we looked at this very carefully. in the first 5% of the sarvis vote. it looked to us in our polling, it was a protest vote. more than anything else