Weve still got 11 days to go and election day, and one county in texas, hayes county is close to being the first county in america to completely surpass its entire vote from 2016. Every single day, millions of people are voting, the window is of course closing for undecided voters and for the campaign. Last night, we saw the final set piece of the campaign, meaning there are no more built in planned inflection points for an incumbent president who is trailing badly, and his desperation to pull out some magic trick was evident last night. President trumps approach to the campaign has been precisely the same as his approach to the coronavirus, and it is why he is 10 points down in the polls with eleven days to go, and it is why we are setting new records for covid cases today. According to the covid tracking projec project, there were a record 83,000 cases in the United States today. That means more cases today than any other single day during any of the eight months of the pandemic. It is raging out of control. Eight months in, right now, eleven days before election day, and from the beginning of the first outbreak, watt problhat tm needed was sustained attention, will, judgment, collective problem solving, difficult hard work and study, and what trump brought to it was magical thinking and bouncing from one Silver Bullet idea to the next, wishing some fairy tale solution would make the problem go away. Remember, he said the virus would just disappear, the cases would go down to zero, and the warm weather was going to solve it. Then it was hiydroxychloroquine everyone take the malaria magic drug, the malaria magic drug will get rid of it. And a vaccine is just around the corner, lying on stage to hundreds of Senior Citizens at the villages in florida. Most memorably was trumps Wishful Thinking which peaked in this ridiculous display exactly six months ago, as a countries suffered through the worst catastrop catastrophe since the great depression, the president six months ago, during another peak was in front of cameras, desperately brainstorming ways to get sunlight, beach inside of people to clear the virus. Dr. Deborah birx, the Coronavirus Response coordinator to the white house sat to the side. Supposedly we hit the body with a tremendous, whether its ult ultraviolet or just very powerful light, and i think you said that hasnt been checked but youre going to test it, and i said supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way, and i think you said youre going to test that, too, sounds interesting, and then i see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute, one minute. And is there a way we can do Something Like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning, because you see it gets in the lungs and does a tremendous number on the lungs. It would be interesting to check that. Yeah, she cant watch in the end. She puts her face down. This is why we are where we are. Trump refused to take the virus seriously and do the hard work. He searched around for a magic solution that of course never came. And he has approached his Reelection Campaign in precisely the same manner, it is why the twin disaster and the substantiative human disaster of the coronavirus are both peaking at exactly the same moment. You might remember it was just a few weeks ago, trump has found his Campaign Version of hydroxychloroquine, law and order. He was going to destroy joe biden with law and order, dialing up the racism to eleven, praising white people who either brandished their guns at protesters or actually shot and killed them. Stoking as much hatred and Racial Division as he could, randomly tweeting videos of a black person attacking a white person, winking and nodding at white nationalists and that was it. That was the plan. That was going to turn the campaign around, the magic solution, the cure, guess what, it didnt work. And then trump was going to come out and bully joe biden in the first debate and show him whos boss, and that didnt work. It was a disaster. His poll numbers sunk even farther. And then he was going to push some impossible to follow extremely sketchily sourced vague allegation of business impropriety at biden. Trump and Rudy Giuliani spent so much time building it up, and then that just sputtered into nothing. Theres nothing there. That is why we are where we are. I mean, the irony here is the most straightforward path that President Trump had to reelection was to do a good job battling the coronavirus. And more broadly to do a good job as president , but hes not capable of that, obviously. And so he is now facing an election where he is losing with eleven days to go and over 50 million votes cast and the only possibility he has is an increasingly desperate barrage of smears, and lies and disinformation, and wild accusations and sudden tone shifts and lawsuits in the courts to stop people from voting, praying for a miracle with the Supreme Court they are rushing to pack right now, and if this was any other candidate, people would just be talking about how this is a flailing and desperate campaign, how pathetic it looks, particularly at that performance last night, it would have been like whoa, whats going on here because trump briefly playing by the rules is not an example of newfound discipline, it shows how terrified he is of losing, that he is losing. And trump can swing wildly for a new distraction, but has it happened, with the coronavirus, it looks like reality will win out. And in the new voting reality, we all need to stop thinking of the election as a day, more of an election season with tens of millions of votes cast, eleven days until the final vote no november 3rd, this weird and hard fought election, i want to begin in wisconsin where a million voters have returned their ballots, a third of the total turnout in 2016 when donald trump won the state by 23,000 votes. Wisconsin, however is also facing a really bad surge in coronavirus cases. Part of an alarming outbreak in the upper midwest. Nbc news political report, Shaquille Brewster is in milwaukee where early turn out is 2 1 2 times compared to 2016. How are things looking there . Reporter youre really seeing national threads colliding in the state of wisconsin. Today was another day where you had new cases, exkuding 4,000, after a week where each day seemed to bring a Record Number of cases or deaths of hospitalizations. Talking to voters here not only in milwaukee, but here in the milwaukee suburbs, that is what has been driving people to the polls, the concern over the coronavirus and how the president has been handling it. And to that point, when you look at the early voting numbers here across the state of wisconsin, youre seeing that more than 1. 2 Million People have already cast a ballot by mail or going and voting early in person. If you compare that to what we saw in 2016, thats about 40 of the total vote just four years ago. Its the coronavirus driving many people to the polls and to go ahead and vote early. Chris. Shaquille brewster in wisconsin. Of course had that awful election for a state Supreme Court seat in april where people had to congresswomme out in the a bad pandemic. And people are taking precautions to get the votes in early. Shaquille brewster, thank you for that. I want to turn to georgia, a state democrats have long dreamed of flipping blue. A new poll shows the president leading there 49 to 45 . The difference is within the polls margin of error. There was another poll, 4945 for joe biden on the same day. Msnbc Senior National correspondent Chris Jansing is in alabama, where voters are weighing not just the president ial race but two senate races as well. How do things look in georgia, chris . Well, early voting records are being smashed, by dekalb county, chris, where you have a majority africanamerican population but they have already cast more ballots in the first eleven days of early voting than all of early voting in 2016. Having said that, when i talked to Voting Rights advocates, theyre very nervous the problems we have seen so far are a presur scursor for election d technology problems, and also systemic approximate. We have a million more registered than we did in 2016, and they cut 200 polling sites, most in africanamerican areas. So the concern is will they get out to vote. Its why Kamala Harris was here today, among the places she went to, morehouse college, trying to push to get out the vote, and another push, the naacp and other organizations have an ambitious agenda to get 100,000 voters out. Because listen to this statistic. In 2016, chris, only 48 of black males eligible to vote in georgia actually went to the polls. As one expert put it to me, if you dont think your vote is going to be counted, why would you take the time, and thats what theyre trying to fight against as they see this opportunity. At least five polls in the last couple of days show this race as a toss up, chris. Yeah, chris, its a great point. I think part of what were seeing in georgia and in texas, particularly, and were looking at these early vote numbers, these are two states that are not used to being toss up states or swing states that now look like they are, and that, i think, is having some effect on turnout on both sides for supporters of both candidates, Chris Jansing in atlanta, thank you for that report. Pennsylvania helped propel donald trump to the presidency in 2016, and he won it by just over 44,000 votes. This year it has been the site of hotly contested legal battles, over mailin ballots among other things. The state Supreme Court rejected an attempt by Pennsylvania Republicans to toss ballots due to signature mismatches. Dasha burns is in beaver, pennsylvania, outside pittsburgh. Whats the latest from pennsylvania . Reporter well, this is pennsylvanias first president ial election with no excuse absentee voting. About 3 million absentee ballots have been mailed out. About half of those have already been returned, but remember, it could be days if not longer before we get results from the state because Election Officials here cant begin to start opening those millions of envelopes until election day. Still, chris, many are planning to go to the polls in person on november 3rd, including some of the folks i have been talking to here today to get their reaction to that final president ial debate, and one of the big moments that is hitting home for people here is that conversation on energy bind ehind me here, shell cracker plant bringing thousands of jobs to the area and there are a lot of voters in western p. A. Who have some connection to the industry. The response is that joe biden muddled his response, he needs to take a clearer stance on fracking. That could be important here because donald trump did win this county by 19 points in 2016. Very unlikely its going blue this time around, chris. But joe biden needs to eat into those margins to help him win this state, chris. All right, thanks for that report from pennsylvania. Finally, to florida, florida, of course, is unlike georgia and texas, always a toss up. Donald trump, of course, is now registered to vote there. He beat Hillary Clinton by just over 1 point or about 113,000 votes in 2016, but in the latest morning console poll, joe biden leads 52 to 45 in florida. Lets just be clear that florida will obviously be extremely close because it just always is. That polling and the polling thats been coming out of the state is pushing the president to hold not one but two rallies in that state today as he tries to make up that gap in the last 11 days. Allison barber is in Miami Gardens, florida, near where former president barack obama will hold a drivein rally for joe biden tomorrow, and what do things look like in florida in terms of the voting situation down there . Hey, chris, well, i mean, for starters if you are in florida anytime soon, there is a very good chance you could see a candidate or surrogate in your neighborhood. They are absolutely fighting for every single vote in this state right now. It is essentially going to be a battle of the president s in south florida tomorrow with President Trump expected to vote in west palm beach, and then former president barack obama having that drivein rally for former Vice President joe biden in miami. We are starting to see some of the early voting numbers come back in florida. It just started this week, and the numbers here, they are strong, especially among black voters and were also seeing what could be a bit of a pattern here of where you have people who supported president obama in 2008 and 2012, but then sat out in 2016 come back and vote. I want to run through numbers that we have for you from our nbc news decision desk. Across florida, close to 78,000 black voters who voted in 2008 and twooef2012 sat out in 2016,s of thursday night, according to data from our nbc news decision desk, 13 of those voters have already come back and voted absentee or early. Miamidade is an incredibly important county. Thats fascinating. Reporter its very diverse and has a very large hispanic population, but the Hispanic Community here, theyre not homogenous, mexican americans, cuban americans, el salvador americans, you have seen both campaigns target the subgroups. Cuban americans have historically leaned right, overwhelmingly supported donald trump in 2016. As we are talking to voters here, young cuban americans, there were a lot of them saying they are not lining up with their parents policies and say they are leaning towards and looking towards joe biden. Could be a promising sign, because if hes going to win the state, he could use the help of young latino voters. Chris. Allison barber in Miami Gardens florida. Thank you very much. Theres only one person who can help us make sense ouch the early voting numbers we are seeing, which i find equal points fascinating and bewildering, Steve Kornacki joins me at the big board. We saw each other in person which was a nice treat the other night. Its really hard, right, like we knew that this would be different than other elections both because we knew turnout would be very high, and the pandemic, its hard to get your head around what do these numbers mean, walk us through it. Theyre certainly suggesting, give you the bottom line, 47 million ballots cast in this election, thats a third of what was cast in 2016 total. The pace here of early voting compared to 2016 is staggering. It speaks to high energy level. It speaks to the possibility here of turnout thats up at like 150, 155 million, when all is said and done. That would be 20 million more than 2016. The cautionary note on all of these numbers, you start seeing, though, is this. This is our nbc wall street journal poll from a week ago when we asked folks are you planning to vote early or are you planning to vote on election day, and this has become a partisan question in our politics this year because among folks who say they want to vote early, this is what we found. Biden by nearly 40 points, early voters, folks who say no, im going to wait until election day to cast my ballot, a mirror image, trump, 65. Biden 31, the president has been encouraging supporters to vote on election day. Democrats have had a much more concerted effort to get folks to vote early, and it reflects itself in these numbers. It becomes a cautionary note when you get these reports of, you know, democratic registered voters, turning out in Record Numbers. Not is much the republicans. The question becomes how many republicans are waiting until election day, and by the way, small scale, that was 2016 in florida. Clinton won the early voting. Trump won the election day vote. Trump won the state by a point. Yeah, its a really great point because i think it really is hard to read in a specific partisan gains in these early numbers particularly because of that confounding polarization around this, although i will also say that the polarization around this and people going into election day, were eleven days out, we set record cases at 80,000. I dont know where the pandemic is going. Its not head instead a good direction. We are staring at a real Public Health problem, you know, as we bear down towards election day, and thats been part of the messaging from democrats the whole way through is precisely because we dont know what election day is going to look like, you should vote early. And its really, we have had early voting as an increasing presence in our elections for a while. We have never had it during a pandemic. What does that do in terms of folks who maybe now say they are going to turn out on election day. Do they actually . Does that play a factor in the decision . Only way to know is to get the results in on Election Night. Thats sort of the numbers about early voting. You know, take us through where the sort of chess board of the electoral college, a preposterous institution, if i may editorialize for a moment. Where the path to 270 is. This was 2016, trump is playing defense here. Trump is behind in a lot of battleground states. He got 306 electoral votes in 2016 the question is can he hold on to 270 electoral votes this time around lets lo. Lets look at it this way. These are all battle groground states. Again, if he started out at 306, his 2016 number, what could he afford to lose here. Supposed to stay on the screen. What could he afford to lose here and still win the presidency. Michigan, hes down nearly 8 on average. Thats the worst battleground state number for trump right now. If he does not win michigan, loses those electoral votes, 306 comes down to 290. Wisconsin, thats his second worst one. 6 1 2, a little bit better than 6 1 2 point deficit, if he misses wisconsin, 280. Nebraska, 2, remember, they do it by Congressional District in nebraska, thats the