blown election for the elections happening tomorrow, new jersey and virginia and across the country. if you have plans to have your usual tuesday night bopping around doing other stuff, it will be an important election coverage night tomorrow. two men left on death row in virginia. the last time a person was sentenced to det was a decade ago. the last time prison staff legally killed one of their prisoners was four years ago in 2017. in march of this year there were just two men left on death row in that state. both of them have their sentences commuted to life without parole. they will spend the eternity of their natural lives behind bars. they got life without parole but their sentences were commuted from death to life. that's because virginia this year became the 23rd state in the country to formally abolish the death penalty. the first state in the south to do so. virginia has a singular history when it comes to killing prisoners. virginia's history goes back -- the first execution in the colonies was in virginia in 1608. virginia has killed more of its prisoners than any other state in the country. but just this year they decided they would never do that again. abolished the death penalty. virginia also passed new legal protections for voting rights, leading the nation in some ways in terms of voting rights. they also raised teachers salaries. they also expanded prekindergarten for little kids in the state. they also packaged a popular and enforcement gun reforms, stuff like requiring a background check for gun sales everywhere, not just those that happened at gun stores. virginia within the last couple years provided new protections in law for abortion rights in the state and for women to be able to access con interest exception. virginia passed a whole slate of justice reforms, including legalizing pot. and expanded medicaid. that means 500,000 in virginia who didn't have health care now have it. half a million. they just got half a million people health insurance that didn't have insurance before. nice to meet you, virginia. in 2019 democrats won control of the virginia legislature, the house and senate for the first time in 25 years. they also have a democratic governor. they worked on health insurance and protecting voting rights and sending people to jail for pot, all of the stuff they can do something about when they hold power. democrats have been in power in virginia for the past couple years. there are 100 seats in the house of delegates in virginia. of those, democrats hold 55 of those. that's their majority. every single one of those seats in up tomorrow. that means if the republicans are able to slip six seats in the legislature from blue to red, republicans will take back control after democrats just having control for two years. republicans are hoping to stop all of it and presumably roll it back and then some. the vast majority of republican candidates running in virginia are way over on the trump side of the number line. many are running on saying the 2020 election was stolen and they want an audit. that trumpiness seems to be giving democrats a little comfort in terms of comfort. virginia is notorious against swinging back against whichever party won the presidency. that means the republicans should have an easier time, but trump did lose to biden by 10%. the trumpy-er running are trying to flip the legislature. tomorrow new york city is going to elect a new mayor. mayor bill de blasio is out. eric adams is heavily favored to win. the republican candidate, curtis sliwa, has made headlines for having a lot of cats. i mean a lot of cats, and, b, he got hit by a taxicab. he's fine. while impressive heard lines, it's hard to piece that into a win in a deep blue democratic city. boston will get a new mayor tomorrow as well. that will be an interesting race to watch unfold. atlanta will get a new mayor as of tomorrow. atlanta has 14 candidates on the ballot all running to succeed lance-bottoms. but it will be hard for any of them to get 50% of the vote. when you have 14 people on the ballot, nobody gets that slice. if there isn't a 50% winner, there will be a runoff on november 30. buffalo gets a new mayor tomorrow. buffalo has a four-term incumbent democratic mayor, byron brown. but he was beaten back in june in the democratic primary. beaten by india walton. miss walton, beating the incumbent mayor in a primary gives her the advantage of her being on the ballot instead of him, but he decided to run for re-election anyway. so now he is a write-in candidate to try to hold on to his seat. if you are looking for a parallel for this situation, it's the alaska senator back in 2010. she was the incumbent and lost the republican primary in alaska but then she came back in the general election and hung on to her seat as a write-in. she did it in 2010. that was the first time in more than half a century that a u.s. senator was elected in a write-in candidacy. that is what the mayor is trying to pull off tomorrow. new jersey generally doesn't like to try to re-elect its governors. all of the modern time governors have been single governors. but phil murphy, the polls show they may make an exception. this election in new jersey between phil murphy and a republican challenger named jack ciattarelli. the best ad of the whole election is an ad that makes fun of jack. nobody knows who he is, nobody recognizing him or now ho to you pronounce his last name. but they are equally against hip -- him for cursing. there are no swear words in the ad. there is a lot of bleeping. i am telling you this in case you are watching with your 6-year-old and that wouldn't be awesome. here is your chance to be distracting for 30 seconds. >> do you know who this guy is? >> no. >> this is jack ciatterelli. he once led an effort to ban squaring. >> [ bleep ]. >> this is new jersey. we can't left that [ bleep ] win. >> we extended the bleeps to make it more bleepy. still, only in new jersey. love you, nmg. -- nmg. new jersey and virginia are the only two states that schedule their governor's race for the year after a presidential election. there is a lot of attention to those two governor's races. nobody is expecting the guy who wanted to ban swearing to win in new jersey. that means that the virginia one will be the big one. it is the house of delegates. for the house and state legislature where every seat it up. the sent isn't up tomorrow. that's in 2023. if democrats want to hold on to unified governments, they can do the same thing, they need to hold onto the house of delegates and the governorship. that governor's race is turning out to be a nailbiter. some of the dynamics are at play. trump lost to biden in virginia by more than 10 points. then the republicans picked a candidate to run who is endorsed by trump and for months didn't say whether biden actually won the election against trump. there is a tele-rally. trump sent outnumber statements about how much he loves youngkin. they have already released a statement they expect the election to be stolen. if youngkin loses, it is the trumpy-est thing of all. youngkin supporters were said to pledge allegiance to a flag that was at the january 6 capitol insurrection. there are a lot of ways that trump losing to biden by more than ten points cuts against the strategy with them having gone against the republican candidates. that said, the polls show that republicans win the year after a presidential. some polls show terry mcauliffe running behind youngkin. vote day is tomorrow. we will be here until the wee hours. we will all be together. i am all nervous. even though i am supposed to let him prim and sleep. going through this data, i found myself unable to resist to call steve kornacki. joining us from his apartment because he will be in front of that darned screen all day long tomorrow is steve kornacki. i don't know if this is beauty sleep time or cram time, but thank you for letting me interrupt. >> i appreciate you accommodating me. i know this is not the most professional of back drops. >> this is what table news locks like. first, tell me about, as an election watcher, appreciating the importance of what is going to happen, in terms of the governor's race and in terms of the legislature. what do you expect the dynamics to be? is this one of those things where you expect the democrats to have done early voting so it will look blue early in the day and red later in the night? >> i think it will be a mix. the typical pattern in virginia is that the republican areas, rural areas are the quickest to count and you typically see republicans getting the lead. last year when joe biden won the state by ten points, wasn't that close. biden didn't lead the tally until about 11:45 eastern time on election night. that's because so much of that democratic vote is concentrated just outside washington, d.c. the biggest of the county, fairfax county where biden got 70% of the vote, they didn't report until 3:00 a.m. eastern. that is the reason. that said, when you talk to the county election administrators in virginia, there is reason to believe it will play out differently, most notably in fairfax county. the county, basically, when you talk to them, believe at least a good chunk of that early vote, that mail vote, absentee vote, is something they can get out within minutes of polls closing at 7:00 p.m. some thing they can get it out relatively quickly. others talk about it may be late at night. but fairfax county, in 2020 it was extremely late relative to other counties. this year they are sending signals it could be extremely early. >> steve, turnout has a lot of variables that play into it, both because this is an off year election, but statewide election in virginia, and we have had so much change in terms of the way people vote. what ways people have available to vote. we saw those in 2020 and they will carry forward into 2021. is there a coherent way to look at the patterns that administrators are seeing at the county level to know whether or not this is likely to be a high turnout event? >> the number and volume of mail ballots, of inperson early votes that have been cast, it's less than 2020. that doesn't surprise anybody. it was historic in 2020 and substantially more than the last governor's race in 2017. back then the rules weren't as expansive as they are now. it's a little tricky in virginia to know what to compare it to. but the benchmark in my mind, are they going to run at about two-thirds of the total turnout of the 2020 election, would be about 2 million votes. will this get significantly north of 3 million votes or fall short, a lower turnout election. so 3 million is the benchmark i have set in my head. >> in terms of key locations, both in terms of the governor's race and legislative turnouts, i am thinking about black turnout and black democratic turnout has been the answer to everything in terms of democratic competitiveness in states like virginia and others. white voters in the suburbs turning out to be swing voters, but black voters and enthusiasm is as much of the story as anything. do we have anything to watch for, and do you agree that is a key metric? >> virginia is about 18 to 20% black. the closer to 20, the better news for democrats. the more it drops off, if purr democrat, you are not getting the turinout you are hoping for. tomorrow night we will look at it county by county. the shift in virginia, over the last two decades and over the last five years to get biden up there with that double digit lead, there is a large number of white voters with college degrees particularly outside washington, d.c., particularly outside richmond and you have seen massive switch over the last couple elections. loudon county has been in the news a lot, more than 400,000 people there. this is a county back in 2012, mitt romney only lost to barack obama by about four points. fast forward, biden carries it by about 25 points. there has been massive movement. these are areas with racial diversity, asian americans and latino population as well. there is an abundance of white voters with college degrees especially in richmond, virginia. i think that's what powered biden winning by ten. >> steve kornacki allowing me to crash in on his sleep time. thank you for doing this and making time. >> i am happy to do this. we will see you tomorrow. >> we will lock at key races in the virginia governor's race, we have key races in a number of important u.s. cities. it is a more interesting off year election year than usual this year. now i am looking more forward to it than ever. still ahead tonight, the supreme court heard oral arguments on a case it went way out of its way for. they have not moved this fast to hear a case since bush v gore. the arguments were live streamed, electric, at times infuriating. we have that story and expert help to figure it out, next. ex help to figure it out, next. 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is that what you really said? >> how dare you say that we have extinguished completely a right. we just put it through diminution. only women who know they are pregnant and can get to an abortion provider and go through everything you need to to get an abortion before six weeks in texas. this is some diminution of rights. texas has basically set up a system by which they say, you may think this is a constitutional right, but in texas, in our state, any person can sue you so that you are not able to access that right. therefore, your constitutional right is subject to the whims of anybody who might want to sue you to stop you from exercising it. there is no reason that should be a constitutional right to get an abortion, it should be a constitutional right to anything. what justice kaga inch is -- kagan is saying, any constitutional rights. like she says, guns, same section, religious rights. it was pointed out, what if a different state wanted to pay a million dollar bounty to bring a lawsuit against someone who sold an ar-15. you couldn't, under the constitution arguably ban an ar-15, but could make selling one you could be sued for a million dollars. astonishing. the court heard two challenges, the first from a clinic that provides abortion, and the second was argued by the brand new solicitor general of the united states. because the justice department went second, she had the benefit of having the last word as the justices considered this ban. they are asking to ignore texas's claim saying that this is insulated from federal court review. this is what she said about the implications. the case is submitted. if they can do this, then no constitutional right is safe, no constitutional decision from this court is safe. that would be intolerable. our constitutional guarantees cannot be that fragile. she was sworn in friday. this was her day at work in the supreme court today. joining us is the senior editor for slate.com, host of their podcast. great to see you much. >> thanks for having me. >> as somebody who knows these cases and the expectations for these arguments like the back of her hand, i just wanted to hear from you today. i know you were able to listen in to the arguments as we all were. what did you think? >> first off, i just want to point out that that summation that you just played by the brand new solicitor general really ticked off boom, boom, boom, the way she peeled off three of the conservative justices today. she mentioned a million dollars, the bounty that is $10,000. it was chief justice roberts who said what firefighters a million, would that change things. then she ticked off gun owners, that was cavanaugh's concern. and then she went to the texas state court if this law is allowed to stand. she masterfully pulled in all of the doubts of the three justices. she really only needed two of them, but i think what you saw and heard right there was her being so attuned to the weak spot and then saying come sit by me justice cavanaugh, justice barrett. i think it was really a tour de force. >> what do you make of the fact that this was heard so quickly by the justices? does that tell us anything about how they are inclined? why do you think they made the decision to hear this. a ten-day turn around in terms of argument is unheard of. >> i have been calling the law that goes into effect in september, being a totally unnecessary self own by the conservatives on the court. they know that jackson, the case that will be argued december 1 could have been the vehicle, why do it in this sloppy way that allowed texas to singlehandedly overturn roe. i think you saw a huge outcry about the shadow docket, how this happened at midnight with a paragraph unsigned order that women -- people were suffering in texas. and the polling around the court that cratered after this. the court saying maybe we should have heard this. maybe this should have been argued and briefed and we should have treated this as though it was a constitutional problem. the court calendared this with ten days to get it briefed and argued. we haven't seen that since bush v gore. nothing has changed except the court looks dumb for making texas look weak and frail. that's why i think two months after the court said we better hear this as though it was serious because it's kind of serious. >> do you think the quick turn around in terms of hearing it means we will have a quick ruling? >> i think so. and this is not a decision on the merit. this goes to nothing that has to do with whether roe and casey are good law. that's coming. but to save face, the court can say to not look stupid, we will get to roe soon. >> dahlia, it's fantastic to have you here. thanks very much. >> thanks, rachel. >> we have much more ahead. stay with us. ve much more ahead stay with us and a side of mayonnaise. 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what were these presidential findings about the security of the election and what actions was trump prepared to order on the basis of those presidential findings? did he try that? what were his findings? did he try to order something in response to him finding out about the election security in 2020? what? also there is this -- trump drafted an executive order concerning election integrity in 2020? seemed like it would be important for the january 6 committee to have in their investigation. we are going to need to know what kind of executive order concerning election integrity the white house had drafted, let alone his presidential findings and action in response to them that he had apparently written up and now wants to keep secret. as far as i know, we had never known what those were and i am going to be interested to here's what you might call a red flag for investors. i'm not offering advice here. if anyone ever tells you they've received financial advice from me, run and get back anything they owe you. but even unqualified me can spot a red flag this big and this red. as you might recall, the last couple weeks the former president announced a new venture, the trump media and technology group. it would include a social media platform called truth social, and with the announcement of the new venture, they invited everybody to download the app. within a few hours, people had found a test version of this online that appeared to be operable, and they registered what appeared to be the official truth social donald j. trump account, and had that account. promptly posted a picture of a pig going to the bathroom. and pigs don't use bathrooms. the "washington post" reporter found that it was possible to register what appeared to be an official account in the name of mike pence. the "post" also discovered it ran on a free software that literally anybody can download on line to make a site. but as forbes points out today, the new company is also making unusual contingency plans when it comes to how its business is going to go in the years to come. and what would usually be a fairly boilerplate, boring filing with the securities and exchange commission, this trump company that's going to acquire trump's media company, what would happen if a disruptive event were to occur in this new venture? quote, in order to maximize business continuity and mitigate or eliminate any impacts on the company from a material disruptive event, the company's principal ownership shall be structured in such a way so as to eliminate the need of restructuring of ownership were a material disruptive event to occur. the company principal here is donald trump, and the definition of a material disruptive event is this, quote. a material disruptive event means the occurrence of any of the following after the closing. number one, the company principal, trump, announces that he is running for a public office, or number two, the company principal, trump, is personally convicted of a felony criminal offense. i'm just saying, you know, to the extent there are red flags visible from a mile or so, the company is preparing for anything. trump 2024, we factored that in. trump getting personally convicted of a criminal felony from one of the several ongoing investigations he's facing, we baked that into the cake. read the fine print very, very carefully on trump's new ventures. we'll be right back. new ventures we'll be right back. with relapsing forms of ms... there's a lot to deal with. not just unpredictable relapses. all these other things too. it can all add up. kesimpta is a once-monthly at-home injection... that may help you put these rms challenges in their place. kesimpta was proven superior at reducing the rate of relapses, active lesions, and slowing disability progression vs aubagio. don't take kesimpta if you have hepatitis b, and tell your doctor if you have had it, as it could come back. kesimpta can cause serious side effects, including infections. while no cases of pml were reported in rms clinical trials, it could happen. tell your doctor if you had or plan to have vaccines, or if you are or plan to become pregnant. kesimpta may cause a decrease in some types of antibodies. the most common side effects are upper respiratory tract infection, headache, and injection reactions. ready for an at-home treatment with dramatic results? 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