lead. 16% of the vote is now in. conor lamb has 58.7%. rick saccone the republican has 40%. conor lamb ahead by more than 5,000 votes. let's go over to john king who is watching all these counties in pennsylvania very, very closely right now. the president as i lying to say, he was just there over the weekend campaigning for rick saccone. >> if you're in saccone headquarters, you're getting a bit nervous. you don't need to panic yet. 16% reporting. if you round that up to 41%, that is throughout the district about two-thirds of the vote counted so far. the most democratic area of the district. in that county the piece of the county that's in the district stretches way up here. but in the slice of it that's in the 18th congressional district, conor lamb running up a pretty impressive margin. his campaign thinks if they keep that above 55 they're in play to win the district . so far he's doing what he needs to do. it's the biggest slice of the voters. if you're in the lamb campaign, that's your most important number. this if you're in the saccone campaign is troublesome. this should be r

the suburbs south of pittsburgh and the challenge for rick saccone. we will start counting votes any second. >> moments away from polls closing. tonight will be an important test for the president of the united states. >> first key race alert of the night. too early to call, the polls have just closed clearly in pennsylvania. too early to call between conor lamb the democrat and rick saccone, the republican. let's go to anderson. >> thanks very much. more reaction now from our panels, do you know the stakes, what are you expecting? >> i am looking for margin, i don't know if it matters all that much if it ends up being a squeaker which side prevails. so whether it is saccone by two or conor lamb by two matters less than it is a four point margin or whatever it ends up. >> even if the democrats looses, if it is close, the democrats are going to claim it is a sign. >> difficult for them to claim it is a success story even if saccone victory. >> psychologically, there is a different impact especially for republican members. tomorrow morning if the republicans were to gather for thei

slight read over the republican, rick saccone. lamb has declared victory. gary tuchman went searching for voters on the day after. >> reporter: we're here at carnegie coffee. all of you voted for donald trump for president? >> yes. >> how many of you did what donald trump wanted you to do when he spoke here over the weekend and vote for the republican candidate for congress? and how many of you switched and voted for the democrat? what made you decide not to vote for the republican candidate? you're a lifelong republican, voted for donald trump. why did you switch? >> i made the decision very early on in the campaign. i thought that conor lamb was the best candidate based on his priorities and his background, and i think we needed some new blood in congress. >> steve, you're a registered democrat, but you switched and voted for donald trump for president. >> yes. >> because you wanted change? >> yes. >> and donald trump said, okay. vote for saccone if you continue to watch change. did you not believe in that message? >> i stopped believing in donald trump six months ago. >>

it's this close, 20 points. tonight's race between democrat conor lamb and republican rick saccone is about as close as can be. john king posted at the magic wall all evening, he has the information for us, gary tuchman at the county election head years in allegheny county. good evening or good morning depending where you are in the country. john, incredibly tight race, too close to call. break down the numbers for us. >> incredibly tight. let's go through where we are. by our count as we speak, 579 vote lead for the democrat conor lamb. nail biter to say the least. 49.8, 49.6. what's outstanding? i'm told we believe that these are the final numbers in westmoreland county, including absentee ballots. we'll double-check that but that's what we're told. if that's the case, in westmoreland county, then we go to washington county, a republican county that rick saccone won with 53% of the vote, outstanding there, 1195 absentee ballots here. 203 absentee ballots here. the question is, can rick saccone -- bringing that back up full size -- can saccone win those absentee ballots by enough of

ahead, likely to prevail over republican rick saccone in what was less than two years ago trump country. joining us now, jeff zeleny. >> reporter: the white house quickly moved to distance itself from what appears to be a loss there. i mean the president of course was in pennsylvania over the weekend talking about the fact that he won the district by some 20 points. even as he was doing that, we were told he had a sense that it was not going in the right direction. now, they were afraid in the -- you know, about 24 hours ago of getting blown out there. so they believe, you know, that his visit may have tightened it. but the reality here is the white house not surprisingly blaming it on saccone, saying he was not a good candidate for this moment here, not taking any responsibility, though, for the fact that the president -- he may have helped drive some turnout at the end, but his policies over the last year certainly excited democrats far more. >> jeff, even as the president was campaigning in pennsylvania last weekend for saccone, the white house had already started to try to distance

come out and declared victory. rick saccone says this race is not over, they believe once you will those final absentee ballots are counted things will end up weighing in the saccone camp, in the saccone corner. but as for now conor lamb saying the time now has come for democrats to regain their voice. they've been able to do some of that tonight. don? >> jason carroll at lamb headquarters. van jones, lamb basically ran as a republican light. there's not much daylight on policies even though is one a democrat and one is a republican. what is the lesson for democrats here? >> i think democrats have to release a certain kind of ideological stranglehold on people who want to run in districts that are not like the districts in new york and california. new york and california, i've got roots in both places, love them to death but i also grew up in the rural south in a red state and you just can't have the same kind of litmus test in birmingham that you have in berkeley and you've got to be willing to back and to support candidates who can actually win in parts of the country. listen, it

points in the 2016 election. the republican, rick saccone, and the democrat, conor lamb, are actually locked in a pretty tight race. here's the president saying he needs the republican to win. >> we need our congressman, saccone. we have to have him. we have to have him. nancy pelosi, maxine waters, the only chance she's got to become speaker is electing democrats. and, you know, we don't have a big margin. it's just very small. i mean if you -- they're doing a number in your state. you see what they're doing with the congressional districts. >> as i said, it's been a reliable republican district for a while. things might be changing, though. gary tuchman takes a look. >> reporter: mary ellen, a lifelong pennsylvanian is a proud registered republican. she voted for donald trump for president. very volunteered on rick santorum's first campaign for congress. >> i'm calling from the conor lamb for congress campaign. how are you this morning? >> reporter: but conor lamb is a democrat, running for congress in pennsylvania's 18th district, which donald trump won by almost 20 percentage poin

still above water there. he couldn't save rick saccone. if you are a congressional republican, even in a district like this which is 94% white, and three out of five of those white people have only a high school education. and president trump couldn't save him there. >> a will tlot of republicans lt said after trump spoke, saccones numbers went up. >> i don't know if he saved him. >> i would be in a race. >> i think what we learned from last night, tip o'neill taught us that all politics is local. and what we also saw on the democrat side is that conor lamb is a far better politician than hillary clinton was. likeable, moderate. and i will be the first to say, am i worry about the fall? of course i am. and you know why, history. history says that is extremely likely. >> we heard a lot from the white house today saying the reason lamb won is because he essentially is donald trump light. he embraced the president. >> that is so dumb. what steve is saying, is really smart. >> i mean, rand said he didn't support nancy pelosi. he wasn't out there talking about climate change. >> there ar