barack obama had victories there in 2008 and 2012. you can watch the campaign stop with senator vance live here on c-span starting at 1:30 p.m. eastern. and on the fe span now video app or oinat c-span.org. >>nd the house gaveling out, now in recess until 2:00 p.m. eaern time. today law makers are working on legislio that would allow the u.s. army cor oengineers to construct water infrastructure projects and changing the management of royalties from oil and gas leases. later this week members will vote on condemning the attempted -- e, she is going

to get a bit of a honeymoon and a jolt in base enthusiasm from democrats, where there had been basically no energy before, she offers a generational contrast against trump. host: and the age issue now? guest: perhaps they become age questions about donald trump, whose performance at the rnc was a mixed bag. she has the ability to forcefully argue the case against trump, whereas biden was incapable of being that forceful communicator and she is eager to tackle project 2025 as well. she can also pick a running mate who kind of balances out and

moderates her image. those are opportunities for her, but she does carry risk for democrats. she co-owns an unpopular record and in fact her approval rating is not any higher than joe biden's. particularly on inflation and immigration. most americans don't really have a clear idea of what she does as vice president. that will be a challenge for her to define in a positive way and when you drill down on it, voters who are familiar with her portfolio, it is her record as a so-called borders are, the most disastrous issue for the democrats in the polling. she is a candidate from the left coast, from san francisco. she has been to the left of biden on several issues when she was running in 2020, particularly on health care, energy, and immigration. finally, there's the question of

how she ramps up the campaign on her own. does she simply carry over the biden campaign apparatus and make it her own? even though many of the biden strategists were in the denial of the political reality of the last several months and she has a reputation in her own right for high staff turnover. operationally, how is this going to work? it will take some time to figure this out. host: is it a foregone conclusion that it will be kamala harris? guest: she has this air of inevitability about her because we are in the stage of the wrath -- the race where democrats cannot put forward any more chaos than there has already been. we are four months out from election day and for all of the talk that joe manchin would flirt with rejoining the democratic party, that's not based in any reality we have seen in the last less than 24 hours, this huge coalescing of

democrats behind the harris campaign. even swing state democrats were desperate for some kind of order in this race and on their side. host: you mentioned swing states. i know that there is more analysis to be done, but what states were moving off the map that are now moving off the map because joe biden has stepped aside or kamala harris is the inevitable leader as the nominee? guest: what was interesting watching the reactions from prominent democrats yesterday, just about everybody embraced kamala harris, joe biden being the most important endorsement, except for barack obama. it's clear that there are some democrats who would have preferred a more robust primary and had biden withdrawn from the race a year ago or even a month ago, there could have been a window for a primary that really

tested democratic appeal before the democratic convention. now i think that timeline has clearly closed and you will have a simple vote on day one. but it is not clear which states go on or off the map as a result of this. we are still looking at the core states deciding the election. but one key shift i would suspect at this point in time is that kamala harris's path of least resistance to 270 electoral votes will be more evenly distributed across the sunbelt, the rust belt, then joe biden. when we were pulling in the biden versus trump matchup, it was apparent that biden was holding on to more of his support in the rust belt trio. he had lost ground in the sunbelt states of arizona, nevada, in georgia, relative to 2020. what harris does is has the

potential to energize a lot of young, nonwhite voters who cast ballots against trump in 2020 but were never really personally enamored with joe biden. and who had fallen out of the biden coalition in the polling in the first half of the year. so, if she brings those voters back in there is more of a surgeon the ground game for democrats in those states, she has the potential to compete just as closely in those -- in the sunbelt trio states. host: viewers are probably chomping at the bit to chat with you. let me get the phone numbers. democrats, (202) 748-8000. republicans, (202) 748-8001. independents, (202) 748-8002 david wasserman is with us until the top of the hour. we usually do you want to talk house and senate races, the congressional map, but what does

this do for your analysis of all of those races out there that you have been watching and tracking in the cook political report? guest: the relationship between the presidential polling in the down ballot has been unusual this year. it's not that democrats were over performing biden, it's that biden was underperforming democrats. even though we saw doc -- we saw biden standing tall in the last few months, particularly since the debate, we did not see a corresponding downward shift or down ballot democrats. in fact if anything some of the polling show that democratic senators like tammy baldwin in wisconsin, bob casey in pennsylvania, they were opening up considerable margins over republican opponents. it speaks to two factors. one, they are more popular, with better established brands, more independent bipartisan brands

than joe biden, and you cannot find a democrat in a swing state or swing district who is remotely that age. but also, voters were drawn to the idea of a check and a balance in the perception that donald trump has been the favorite in the race might benefit democrats with some swing voters who dislike the options at the top of the ticket who don't want one party or trump to go to fark. i suspect you will see the dynamic continue if kamala harris is the democratic nominee, as we think she will be . and i still think that in some districts you will see democrats have an incentive to break from their party at the top of the ticket to try to win. host: what's more likely, republicans take the senate or democrats take the house? guest: republicans taking the senate is more likely than democrats taking the house by far. the senate has always been republican.

that is an opportunity to hold the lever of power, which has been so difficult for democrats. all that republicans would need to do to win the senate majority would be to flip west virginia, which they are absolutely certain to do, winning the white house, where the republican vice president and j.d. vance, if trump wins, is poised to break the tie in the favor of republicans. the four other seats we have in the tossup column are all held by democrats. you have democratic senators in nevada. jacky rosen, sherrod brown. the michigan open seat that debbie stabenow is leaving behind. also, these seats are at a high level of vulnerability for democrats with an additional three seats democrats occupy in the lien column. leaning democrat.

so, arizona, pennsylvania, wisconsin, it looks like democrats have leads in those races but they will be high dollar affairs. there is virtually no republican vulnerable in senate seats. the closest thing would be ted cruz in texas, but that's a real stretch. the question in the senate is not so much do republicans control it, it's what is the republican margin at the end of the day? if republicans take back the white house, i would argue that 51-49 is not a governing majority for donald trump. keep in mind, there will still be thorns in his side like susan collins and maine, lisa murkowski in alaska and bill cassidy in louisiana or john curtis from utah, they could be moderate counterweights to the white house in that scenario. if republicans get to 53 or 54 seats, that's a different calculus.

and then trump has much more leeway to enact an agenda make people uncomfortable. host: this is kevin, line for democrats. guest: thank you for taking my call -- caller: thank you for taking my call. i listen every single day. i'm happy to speak on this topic. thank you for taking me. kamala is the obvious choice. joe biden is obviously not at full capacity. sorry, are you there? host: we are listening. caller: he obviously couldn't carry it on. kamala is a new generation, first black woman, asian woman. i think it's a good choice. as a black person coming run from, i'm not in agreement with her on a lot of issues, but

honestly i would vote for our rock -- a rock against donald trump. i wanted to know about some of the less in the know callers who call in and call people liars when their candidate, donald trump, is the biggest liar, the only liar in this race. i really want to expound on that . try not to cut people off when they speak the truth about who he is because some of his listeners need to hear it. all they listen to his fox news. he is a rapist, you know what i mean? he's all over the epstein files. why are we not talking about that? talking about joe biden's age, he deserves a lot more respect than what we have given him for his service of the country. i don't agree with him on everything, but he is an obviously better choice than donald trump fear. -- donald trump.

for a party that spewed law in order for years to vote for the cheesiness rapist is ridiculous to me. -- cheesiness rapist is ridiculous -- treasonous rapist is ridiculous to me. host: good morning. caller: can you hear me ok? independent, pennsylvania. but i would love to hear and i think is most important for americas to talk about outcomes. about what real people can feel. traditionally that has been liberalish, but i'm a veteran. i surround myself and my community with conservatives and democrats. what i am getting at is there is an overwhelming sense of uncertainty and fear. americans need to hear about

issues and outcomes they can feel. obviously it's what we are seeing with gun-control and international relationships. this is our future. if democrats were very -- were better able to describe and illustrate real issues real people can feel, i think we would have better outcomes. right now it is a call up for it -- cult of personality race. we need to talk of how we are going to keep americans safe and how we are going to improve american lives in the end. i sent a better summary and an email to your show. host: weighing messages is essentially what the caller was talking about. where does a kamala harris campaign want to focus a message? what issues do they want to focus on? where does trump want to keep the focus? guest: on each other.

kamala harris, democrats hope, will better help their party to move on from the age issue and put the spotlight squarely on the unpopular republican nominee. you will hear that increasingly ramp of rhetoric about what trump would do as president. kamala has made 2025 a centerpiece on the campaign trail. democrats are going to highlight some of those unpopular decisions like letting obamacare expire at the end of 2025, pardoning january 6 rioters. the caller is from one of those competitive districts where democrats are trying to run against scott perry, apologist for january 6 rioters. bookmark that. trump is going to highlight the positions that kamala harris has taken that are to the left of where joe biden is. in the 2020 primary, when harris

was running for the nomination, she raised her hand in support of decriminalizing illegal border crossings. that's going to come up. she was on the record in favor of banning fracking, a step further than biden and most democrats who have been successful in states like pennsylvania. she had a kind of hybrid position in favor of medicare for all that combined the progressive priority with key things, private health insurance to some degree. this is all right for republican attack, that she is even further to the left of where the current administration has been. keep in mind, this is the first time that they can argue a side-by-side comparison of two administrations over four years. host: unless you go back to 1892. guest: well, we have our hands full with the present date -- day. [laughter] host: we could do two hours on

that topic alone. kingsley, independent, new york. caller: good morning, thank you for having me. some of the worst reporting of ever experienced in my life. i love biden. i was absolutely comfortable with his age. i felt he got a lot done. now that he stepped down, i was angry but now i'm really feeling behind kamala. i think he represents the antithesis of everything the democrats have been trying to point out against republicans. she fits the mold perfectly. she can prosecute the case. she doesn't have the baggage of being old. she's not a criminal. she doesn't have these other things that seem to weigh down the republican side. i'm really glad that the infighting is finally over.

glad that it's taken care of and now we can get to the task of beating trump. thank you for having me. host: do you think the infighting is over, david wasserman? guest: on the democratic side of think they are desperate to unite at this point. one issue that kamala harris wants to highlight a lot this fall is abortion. donald trump has been hard to pin down on this issue because he has in fact angered some religious conservatives by posing an -- opposing a national abortion ban. even though this is where democrats have a double-digit trust lead with voters, it has been difficult for democrats so far to make the case that a second trump administration will go further than we already are. for kamala harris, i think it's kind of a two pronged fight here . because she obviously wants to

make that a key focus, but sometimes to win elections, you also have to confront your biggest weaknesses and there is no doubt that the border and immigration have been a big weakness for democrats and for her in particular and i think this has been a missed opportunity for democrats. the president could have been out there every day blasting trumpet republicans for scuttling a senate immigration compromise that would have included a lot more money for immigration judges, border patrol agent's, and so forth, with a legal pathway for recent arrivals to be able to work your really -- legally. host: was that line of attack working? guest: february, there was a special election for george santos on long island where they made that a key focus and he won the race by eight points. the harry truman playbook of running against a do nothing republican congress that is obstructionist, or even bill

clinton running with that playbook back in the 1990's, look, i think the question is can kamala harris address the weakness by trying to convert defense to offense and go on the attack against trump blocking the bill? that would have been a popular bill with swing voters. or is she too fearful of moving the campaign into issue terrain that is unfavorable for democrats at the moment? host: godfrey from toronto, canada, neighbors to the north, calling on the republican line, go ahead. caller: thank you for taking my call. hello, david. i don't think kamala harris can extricate herself from the failures of the jill biden administration. kamala is to the wrath -- the left of joe biden.

can she extricate herself from the cost-of-living in the country or inflation in the country? having given one of the highest costs in the country? the justice department? it's a record number of illegal immigrants. indicating she is not a part of it? we sang she's now going to be the president to go toe to toe with putin, north korea, iran, china? they will be laughing at her. my problem now is that the media is going to do with -- do what they did with obama. they pushed everything around and undermined mccain. that's what will happen.

any legitimate words from donald trump is going to be construed as racism against kamala. pushing out the election, it will be a disastrous administration. guest: david wasserman? host:host: --david wasserman? guest: keep in mind, she co-owns the record by me. even though per approval rating is the same, or disapproval rating is a few points less because voters don't have a whole picture of what she has done in the administration. there are gaps for her to fill in and republicans will try to fill those gaps as well. when i spoke with one of the leading pollsters for trump, they said that in our testing of kamala harris, because they have been preparing for some time now , the one thing that voters know about her is her laugh.

they view it as a lightning rod and as evidence that voters view her as less than serious. she has got to add some policy heft to her image and perhaps moderated relative to what it was when she was running four years ago. one way she could try to address that is not only by laying out her own policy vision as distinct from biden and more forward-looking, but also by picking a running mate that balances her out. we saw trump pick a running mate that doubled down on the appeal of j.d. vance, someone more isolationist than he is for policy and is of that maga view of republicanism.

does she pick from outside of washington? someone like gretchen whitmer, josh shapiro, andy beshear, those are the top three names in circulation right now with mark kelly. host: approval rating, pollsters, fundraising numbers, we will watch them all closely when it comes to kamala harris. reporting yesterday from axios that as of 9 p.m. eastern after the joe biden announcement, the harris for president campaign has raised some 46 point $7 million through various fundraising efforts online. as someone who watches this stuff, what is the most telling metric you will be watching for? guest: keep in mind that the polling gap we saw prior to the biden exit, the backsliding, the fact that biden was downing his key states, it actually

undershot how poorly biden was doing. for the first half of the year, the biden campaign had a serious cash advantage over the trump campaign and had the airwaves to themselves in the swing states. go down the list, democrats had outspent republicans $20 million to $2 million in arizona and the only state where you saw considerable spending from a republican group was in pennsylvania, which of the three northern states also saw the biggest drop off margin between biden and trumper democrats. so, the picture was even worse than it had appeared. kamala harris has received a historic surgeon fundraising during the honeymoon campaign she made for president that will

help with the cash advantage that trump has had in the last few weeks as democratic donors were growing despondent and a huge surge in outpouring of support in the attempt of his life -- on his life. now perhaps they will be closer to parity for the rest of the campaign. host: headline from "the washington post," the biden warchest i know you're not an election lawyer, but any thoughts on those challenges and how hard it will be for her to secure that funding. this is probably -- guest: this is probably the weakest republican argument as to the

harris viability. talking about the viability of switching to her in terms of ballot access and campaign funds. we are watching history unfold. we haven't seen a situation in the modern era where less than four months out there's a change on the top of the ticket on the side of one party. keep in mind that we are one month out from the democratic convention. it's clear that democrats had not nominated their ticket yet. most campaign-finance experts view it as a simpler transition to harris and her eligibility to spend campaign funds in terms of given that her name is on this ticket? will there be challenges legally? i'm sure there will be. the democratic side will be well funded one way or the other

whether they are transferred to the dnc was super pac. there's no obstacle in my view to kamala harris getting on the ballot in all 50 states once she has, as we expect, been formally nominated. host: it's a six-member panel split evenly between the party. sometimes these things end up in court. if you want to read more on the potential legal challenges, you can do that in "the washington post." my free democrats. mitch. caller: maga is nothing but a huge day confederacy.

donald trump called them suckers and losers. host: what did you think of joe biden dropping out? caller: he wanted to help his party win. numbers was down, not looking good. it was a stop sign. two thirds of the country don't like donald trump. project 2025, they gave -- that's about a dictatorship. they are going to take away social security, medicare education.

host: the economy, does that hold true? guest: it's the dominant concern we get in polling nationally in swing states. 2022, they were bracing for losses. the democracy issue costs several republican candidates in those key senate and house races. a big reason was inflation. voters were talking about pocketbook concerns.

lowering the costs of prescription drugs by negotiating it down. voters had been tuning out joe biden. we will see if a new nominee makes a difference in how receptive swing voters are to hearing those messages and believing that the economy is better than they think it is. i think that one of the biggest problems plaguing democrats even as they point to a decline in the inflation rate is high interest rates. if we are poised for a rate cut in the next few months, perhaps it makes voters feel better about their prospects of obtaining a mortgage or a car loan that assists the democratic message a bit. host: walk us through this, you will know this. what happens with the j.d. vance senate in ohio? guest: mike dewine didn't have

the opportunity to name a replacement for j.d. vance. filling out the remainder of that term in 2026, keep in mind that vance was elected in 2022. also regular election in 2028. even though vance is the insurgent and dominant trump wing of the party, mike dewine is a classic, pragmatic republican from another era. even a more moderate congressman, like david joyce, from northeast ohio. that will be interesting to watch.

host: what about someone beaten in a primary race that gets kicked down the road to fill the seat they are running for and lost? guest: it's not often that we have senate vacancies that governors fill. i would really have to go back and look. often times, caretaker senators don't have a great track record of going on to win or serve long-term term in the senate. sherrod brown has 50-50 odds against bernie moreno. host: joe biden had a caretaker from delaware when he was elected vice president, right? guest: ted kaufman, right. but he did not run for another

term. host: cook political report is where you can see the work of david wasserman and his colleagues. joe, republican mine, good morning. caller: thanks for taking my call. i'm definitely disappointed in the way the media has been so incurious about the situation with biden. it's obvious long before his resignation that mr. biden lost many of his physical abilities. the democrats have led the american people on such a miss case of basically, ah,

distorting reality. it's unbelievable. the media has been key in that. they have not led or worked hard to bring other states in for the american people. hopefully the media will hold the democrats accountable. who is running the country? susan rice? ron klain? what cadre have been running the country and allowing the kind of control of the presidency we have had here akin to what you would see in communist countries , where they distort and delude the people of the country? host: any thoughts on the media? guest: some media outlets did focus a lot on his age and ability levels, others that did not. it's a varied landscape. it's not just republican voters that feel that the light hat --

white house has been less than honest about his faculties. when i spoke with congressional democrats over the last month off the record, the term that came up the most was gas lit when it came to their interpretation of what the white house was telling them about biden's capabilities and political standing in the polling data. for the last couple of months the white house was not only shielding voters from the reality of how much that -- biden had been diminished, they were divorced from the political reality of how voters were feeling. it was clear all year that voters had doubts about the biden ability to fulfill his duties for another term.

in may, 66% of voters said it was likely that biden wouldn't be able to finish a second term. first rule of politics is meeting voters where they are and not where they were. now they have to ramp up the campaign on short order because of that. host: the donald trump oppose sarin in c bounce, did it happen this year? guest: the convention bouts these days -- bounce these days, the nominee receives a slight bounce from a convention but i don't think the spotlight is that flattering to major party nominees when they are viewed unfavorably by the majority of voters.

it it did get more favorable coverage. reporters wrote about the contents of the unified message before they watched him deliver it. you won't see much of a change in the polling. kamala harris, given the favorable coverage host: to the democrats in the tossup category of the 2024 category, do they want kamala harris to come campaign with them in their states?

guest: it depends. the down ballot is two pronged. a number of voters even if it's nikki haley voters, even if they had voted for a republican down ballot as a check, it will now be a check on the administration. base enthusiasm, we saw tepid response.