"There was a time when people were cheering the [voters] that Bobby Kennedy was going to take off the board to make 47 percent enough [to win], that's not happening now," Scarborough said. "I guess if Harris does win, and she has a four-point lead, like 51 to 47, everybody is going to go, you know, 'Why, of course, you idiots – he was never getting over 47 percent.
"Maybe we'll be saying that, but I still think that's the question. For Donald Trump to win, this isn't even 40 years ago, he needs 48 percent, 49 percent most likely in national polls. For a lot of reasons, demographic shifts we won't waste our viewers' time with, that's where I'm stuck."
"He has a hard ceiling," Scarborough added. "How does he win with 47 percent of the vote nationally, even as you project that toward Electoral College votes?"
Political strategist Jim Messina, who led Barack Obama's re-election campaign in 2012, saw the same limitations.
"You're exactly right," Messina said. "The weird thing is, someone should call his campaign and explain your math to them. They have been stuck at 47, 47.5 for a year, yet what is their closing argument? In a race they desperately need another point, point and a half, maybe two points, the [closing argument] is to ostracize voters, end with anger, end with racism, end with an argument that only their base could appreciate, and not even all their base. Campaigns, you and I talked about this a lot, are contrasts. You can't end this campaign better if you're the Harris campaign. What you want is very clear: optimism, hope, and the future over the anger of the past. Donald Trump is giving you that repeatedly. "
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"Look at the NBC poll, by 10 points, late-breaking voters are moving to her," Messina added. "You can tell why, because she has a message to them. Is it close? Of course, it is. Is it always going to be close? Of course it is. But what you need to do at the end is move your voters to vote and to get the persuadables to move at the end. Right now, it looks like from early vote numbers and from polls, she's doing that."
Messina said polling showed late-breaking voters were moving toward Harris by a substantial margin, and Scarborough questioned why Trump held a rally at Madison Square Garden where speaker after speaker used racist and hateful language.
"I've never understood the anger, the hatred — the whole idea," Scarborough said. "I guess the problem is the party is motivated by a central theme, that is own the libs. But they don't realize when that's their theme, you have conservatives like me, more conservative than anybody that spoke last night — you can say that about Liz Cheney, too, balanced the budget four years in a row, fought for conservative issues, actually believed, unlike J.D. Vance, who push back against Russian aggression. So you want people like me, that even if they're not Republicans anymore, to go, okay, well, that's fine. You want guys in Wisconsin, older guys in Wisconsin and Michigan and Pennsylvania, going, yeah, that makes a lot of sense."
"But last night was as bizarre and confusing as the final weeks have been," he added. "It is optimism versus pessimism, it is joy versus retribution and rage."
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