it s so unfortunate that in the 21st century, that s still our problem. the problem of the color line. so what i m trying to do in my campaign is reach across that line and reach across that racials could up racial problem if you will and bring everyone together. joining me is my colleague from mississippi, von hillard. you made it to the finish line, you re almost there. what are you hearing from voters today? good afternoon, katy. two hours until the polls close here in mississippi and the one thing that we ve consistently heard from voters across the border as they walk in the polls is frustration with the perpetuation of the idea that mississippi continues to be a place of racial division. now, to note cindy hyde-smith is the one the republican candidate is the one who put it right back into the conversation here in the state, bringing up images from generations past and
the conversation though turned to what extent, what number of republicans are ultimately going to turn away from cindy hyde-smith and be willing to vote for the democrat in this race, mike espy? there s a lot of young, particularly white republicans we have talked to over the course of the last week that said they re tired of the stereotype and plan to vote for espy. but the question was the older generations. i want to play for you sutton marks. been married for 69 years now. he arrived at the polling place with his wife today. he voted and november 6 for cindy hyde-smith. calls himself a republican. today he walked in and voted for mike espy. this is part of what he told us i think she just indicated that she had some extreme views, which i don t share. and we don t need people like that voting or representing mississippi. we need to get into the mainstream of things.
that s pretty much it. the other voting block, katy, are those 140,000 chris mcdaniel voters. i talked to one gentleman, a cattleman just outside of starkville, just got off the phone with him. we talked to him back before the november 6th race and he said if his candidate did not go forward, he didn t know how he would vote. just a few minutes ago he told me for the first time in his life, he s not going to the polls to vote for either candidate in this race out of frustration with the two candidates. that said, again, this is a tall task for mike espy and whether he s able to even come close in this race is a big question mark going into tonight, katy. let s try to figure out a few more answers to that, vaughn hillyard in mississippi, thank you very much. nbc news international correspondent steve kornacki is at the big board with us. steve, how many i m sorry, sutton marks, the man vaughn
support it. you have leadership elections tomorrow. are you kchd in t confident in the leaders that are the front the runner, pelosis, hoyer, et cetera? nancy pelosi will be chosen as our speaker nominee and that s because she s the most effective leader we have and from now until january 3rd, she will continue to earn the support of members and i expect we will unify on the 3rd and do the work the american people elected us to do. congressman eric swalman, thank you very much for joining us. my pleasure. ahead, election day in mississippi. yes, election day in mississippi. you know what that means, steve kornacki is at the big board. we will get the latest of the senate runoff race we will all be watching tonight. (chime)
the extent there are suburbs in mississippi that have those college educated white voters who nationally have been he s hasn t to go republican, you have to win them over too in record numbers. steve, there are also more democratic pickups across the country. yes, let s see if it will work. let me try the house katy! there it is. i said the magic word. you have to hit it harder. this is where the action is in the house. we re still talking about house races here at the tail end of november. tonight as we look for those results in mississippi, we may also get some critical numbers from the final outstanding house race, 21st district of california basically stretching between fresno and bakersfield. look what happened last night, california, that late vote comes in very slowly, t.j. cox the democrat moved ahead by 436 votes over the republican incumbent david val deo. this is california, very suspenseful. we don t know exactly how many votes are left. we think there s somet