john: i'm john heilemann. mark: and i'm mark halperin. and "with all due respect when it lewandowski, comes to your boss's running mate, remember -- you have options. >> paul o'neill a bianchi's. stand up, paul. paul, you originally come from ohio, right? oh, wow. paul o'neill. >> ♪ mark: happy election day sports fans. voters in west virginia and

nebraska did, in fact, go to the polls today with the republican race. the focus is instead on three general election battlegrounds -- florida, ohio, and pennsylvania. that is because there are new pulls out in those three crucial swing states that run counter to clinton's current lead over trump in many national polls. in pennsylvania, clinton and trump are statistically tied. the same is true in florida, which is a a must win state for almost any future president. and finally in ohio, trump is up 43% to 39%, which is still within the margin of error, but up. there is a lot in here to dig into, but as we know, polls like these do two things -- they reflect reality and they create reality. so mark, let's begin with the

first thing they do -- reflect reality. hello reality do they reflect? mark: let's not react to one set of polls. s are obviously critical to determining which one wins. so let's take at face value that these aren't bad; that all three show the race close suggest something is going on. one of the biggest exultation of why trump is doing better is men. take a look at men. support for trump versus clinton. ohio, florida, huge lead with men, even in florida. what does that tell you? you look at the national polls, men are favoring trump usually by single digits, and some places they are tied. what is empowering trump's lead? or the closeness? largely, it is overwhelming

support for male voters, and there's no doubt that if trump wins an election, he has to dominate men a muchs or more than hillary clinton. john: that is obviously true, in the sense that it is reflected in the numbers -- mark: almost everyone comes from one of those two demographic groups. john: acute observation. another acute observation -- historically speaking, nominees from major parties get a boost when they would mak become presumptive nominees. they tend to get a bump. the romney got one, barack obama -- mitt romney got one, barack obama. they usually get a boost. i think ellie some of what is going on is the basis of historical trend, that trump is getting favorable attention in these days for voters looking at him as the nominee, and they aren't doing that for hillary clinton even though we know she

is just as presumptive. mark: in a world of the normal republican and democratic nominee, you'd say, the base comes home, they get over 90% of the people voting. if trump can consolidate republican support it will be surprising if these background states are not 10, 7 point clinton margins. but again, it all starts with the gender gap. as unpopular as trump is with women, hillary clinton has a man problem. and there is other polling that suggests what you are saying is happening, which is to say although there is a lot of division at the elite ranks of republicans, at the level of republican voters, there is consolidation happening, and that is not happening for hillary clinton. mark: she is still fighting. tonight is the reality of what these polls reflect, below reality -- but what reality are they creating? john: they are certainly helpful

for donald trump. mark: that hasn't happened to trumpet with a long time. john: look, this is a guy who needs to -- who everybody feeds on looking like a winner. but if you are trying to unify the republican party and overcome doubts with people who think he is a sure loser, pointing out that there are battleground states in which he is competitive or ahead, hillary clinton helps to ameliorate those doubts, and it is something you can point to, and baby something possibly true. mark: or are some republicans who say they aren't worried about trump losing, the trump winning. but mostly, you have congressional members, stand up candidates, governors -- trump was going to win -- john: or that he would be competitive -- mark: what they have to start focusing on is how do we make them a better candidate? how do we help get him over the finish line? news, and you said

any candidate needs florida to win. the reality is democrats don't need a, republicans do. there is no map without those two states. pennsylvania would be a bonus. what this does is sets the republicans -- there is a potential path, and it might even include pennsylvania. it might include trump winning an obama state that they have held for many cycles in a row. john: my only point about florida was to say that there are paths for democrats to win without florida, for barack obama won it, george w. bush won ir. correlates. notthing is, trump does need to prove to republicans that he is going to win. but he needs to prove to republicans is that they will not be a massive drag on the ticket, that he's doomed to lose

and lose badly, that as long as he is competitive, they can get their minds around it -- mark: and since trump became the presumptive nominee, he has been acting like trump. this says to them, to other republicans, trump can win by being trump. we don't need to get him to change. if they are banking on him to change -- john: the butcher money on that, no way. -- don't put your money on that come in no way. we'll talk to a master pollster. more about these polls and what they tell us in a moment. the first, more on donald trump's matchup with hillary clinton. the manhattan billionaire plans to travel to cleveland and take a look at the planning underway for the republican party's convention. yesterday, team trump met in tohington with rnc staff discuss a fundraising agreement and how they can work together in the general election. makes his gradual

and presumably inexorable ascent from presumptive to actual teamee, will he allow the to keep their jobs? mark: i think they are so busy, so resistant to giving out power, that i think the trump people are probably willing the short term -- can they let them do this? let them keep doing a lot of the research, and see how they do. once the trump team gets to the convention or past it, if they feel like the rnc is not doing what they need to, they will take it over. my replacing, but have his powers taken away -- not replace him, but have his powers taken away. john: i think they would never take those powers away. just because the money is too bigger problem. "the new york times" has the

figures -- he will have a hard time raising that money. trump was the party's help, he doesn't have the financial infrastructure, the rnc makes itself indispensable on purely financial grounds, which is the biggest security blanket that he has. mark: let's remember that the republican party not just raise money, but have had elections galore. it's reasonable to say, ok, you have helped the party, prove it. doing at the presidential level. john: there are people we have noticed coming into this world, and there are some billionaires, but i don't know where he turns to raise that money if you can't rely on the party. all right. up next, more powerful than the wizard of oz. our pollster shows us what is behind the curtain in the polls

we batted around. we will get to that after these words from our sponsors. ♪

john: joining us now from the great city of des moines, our full search stored in her, anne seltzer. us.k you for joining we are talking about these numbers that show ties between clinton and trump in pennsylvania, ohio, and florida. summer criticizing that the polls in terms of sample --

overall, what are your thoughts and how seriously we should take them? think part ofl, i the criticism probably comes from these polls looking different from national polls. of course, they should. what happens nationally doesn't always play out state-by-state in the same way. the way you win the presidency is by winning the states. i will say these are more important polls to look at than overall national polls, in particular trying to gaz gauge the state of the race today. nit i would pick is that they interview a broader section of people; anybody who says they are registered to vote. that is how they get their samples. there's a smaller universe among that who say they are likely voters. there's a little bit of error that comes in between the people who are registered and people who are not registered. it certainly gives us a baseline going forward about how these

races change in these key swing states. john: we know that sample matters a lot, and the question of how accurately do these polls reflect what will be or what we think will be the composition of the electorate. racial come position, gender composition. when you look at the samples, do you like what you see? >> i do like what i see. basically, it's because they are not deciding ahead of time what that electorate is going to look like. that, to me, is the pollster monthsy figuring out from now what the electorate will look like. what they can do well is tell you what the composition of the electorate looks like today, if the election were held today. there's honestly going to be some shift in what those demographics look like as they get closer. but there are other things that

are going to be far more effective in determining who actually wins than what the polls have measured along the way. john: and there will be some origins, some science in this answer, as is sometimes the case -- is there a way to tell, in general, if you look at registered versus likely, a debate we will have through november, is one or the other screen more likely to favor trump weror clinton? >> what you find is that the difference tends to be in the proportion of people who say they are independent. that is a bigger group among all registered voters than it ends up being alon among likely voters. we always look at the independents as a critical group for what candidate is doing well. so of course we will be paying attention to that. in florida, the race is tied among independents in this poll. in ohio, trump was leading by three points.

in pennsylvania, he is leading by seven points. that group of independents may shrink a bit as we get closer to the election. that they are finding their party, or is it that the independents tend to drop out and were partisans come in? that has yet to be determined. john: and we know these candidates are coming in with high unfavorable ratings by historic standards for presumptive nominees. to talk about whether you see across the three states -- >> well, i think the conventional wisdom going in is these are both candidates who have high unfavorables, and that is true. these data there that out. the conventional wisdom is that donald trump's unfavorables were much higher than hillary clinton's, and in these three states in these polls, that is not the case, to the extent that one of these candidates has

higher unfavorables and that was hillary clinton. john: i don't think i have seen a national or state poll on these where trump was at close so these stand out, in that respect. >> they do stand out in that respect, and i would just reiterate that states like this that will determine who wins the presidency. getting this early read -- and it is early -- on how things are shaking down in swing states is painting a different picture, and an important one. one of the things happening in the democratic race is bernie sanders says he does better head-to-head against donald trump. what do you make of that argument, that sanders offers for why he would be a stronger general election nominee than hillary clinton? >> i think he makes a very fair

point, which is that in these polls, when you do a head-to-head with hillary clinton or bernie sanders versus the field, bernie sanders is uniformly higher. what is that telling us about the electorate? that thisly tells us is an electorate that is in the mood for change, and given the opportunity to vote for a candidate that represents change, they are more likely to support that candidate. i can't tell you that a lot of those bernie sanders supporters, when they are asked what if it is hillary clinton, would say they go for trump because he is the change guy, and that would be interesting to delve into, but it makes sense. the mood of this electorate, which has been the strongest predictor of how these primaries have played out, has landed on bernie sanders and donald trump, two people that a year ago we

would have thought had no chance . but people want a different path. john: a lot of speculation about whether trump will get the psychological boost of being ahead of hillary clinton in a national poll. do you see anything in the data that suggests trump has that potential in the short-term, to pass her? >> i have learned nothing. who knows what the next poll will show? i think what donald trump is in the middle of is figuring out his way forward in terms of messaging, in terms of how it is that he wants to now compete for the presidency as opposed to just the nomination. everything he does, every day between now and the next poll, will influence what the next poll shows. john: ann, thanks very much. coming up, a who's who of donald j. trump's new fundraising team. will have that after this --

we'll have that after this. ♪

john: ou next guestr is a pulitzer prize winner. he is on the campaign-finance be an joins us now to talk about some of the news related to donald trump's operations. what is going on in donald trump's money world? >> so donald trump, during the primary, said he wasn't raising money. people sent him money anyway, but he wasn't making a focus of raising money from the public.

now he has got a general election where he might need to spend $1 billion or more, so he says never mind, now i will raise money. he is starting from zero. last week he announced his new national finance chairman, a guy minutien.ve when yo pro when it comes to republican fund-raising circles. he's not a well-known name. -- we will have to see how trump will do. john: one of the things that has been discussed as a joint fundraising agreement with the rnc. what is the history and the rules of the road? >> a joint fundraising committee would allow donald trump to not only raise money for his own campaign, but to raise money for the rnc at the same time and for many of the state political committees. the way hillary clinton is using it, she has 33 states signed up,

so in one fell swoop, they can get a donor to write a check of $300,000 that goes to all these different places at once, and most of it goes back to help hillary clinton in one way or another. john: why wouldn't that just the automatic? >> well, and can be. -- it can be. that is why they do these agreements. but with a garlic trump, where a lot of the states already voted for somebody -- some states one e went forsomeone fo rubio -- it will be tricky to get those states on board, that they will work for him. john: so he's not someone well-known in the republican fund-raising universe. there have been some couple big names that have come on board in the last couple days. how's it going in terms of trying to get butlers -- people

who have a track record of being able to put together big money for a presidential candidate? how is that going? >> like you said, he has got some well-known fundraisers, like the hedge fund guy in new --k, a walker guy, he's got there are reports that he is meeting with a fundraiser for the rnc. he's a real guy with a lot of connections who is raised a lot people. for but it remains to be seen. if you look at the people who were early behind him, a lot of them are people -- some of them have plenty of money but weren't really part of the network that was behind george w. bush back in the day, or behind romney. these newon is, can faces somehow build a new organization or find people who can build it for him? mark: trump won the nomination on the cheek; he didn't spend the most, and normally it has

gone to the person is spent the most. can he win the general election on the cheap? or could he raise 2:1 and still win? >> in the primary, he took the strategy, as you guys know, of using his celebrity and his ability to say at least interesting things to dominate the news cycle. he didn't need to spend money on advertising the way other people dead. -- did. in some ways, that might be trickier than the general election, where it is not so much a question of just being noticed compared to 17 other candidates; it's a match of him and hillary clinton. on the other hand, he seems to have broken every rule along the way and succeeded in it. i'm not sure anybody can tell you for sure he can't find a totally different way of finding his way. hansjohn: you don't have any dot

that hillary clinton has a huge fundraising advantage in terms of traditional mechanisms? >> traditional mechanisms, absolutely.she is way ahead . john: all right. think you for coming on. we will see more of you. when we come back, the real mark mckenna. he will be here right after this. i hope he has a hat. ♪ . .

mark: hats off to our next guest am a former media adviser to

bush 43 and two john mccain and in our show we do with bloomberg politics. thank you for coming. you have been around candidates of both parties, so let me ask you to look into the soul of donald trump and then hillary clinton. what is your read on how trump is reading this situation? somewhere in your own instincts and got and then you have everyone trying to say you have two pivot, so some people, mostly your family says let donald b donald and then you have other saying you have to evolve and be presidential. i think his reflexes to be donald trump and dance with what brought him here, which is what you will continue to do. but as you have been saying, there are a thousand decisions he's got to make and i think that's the against challenge, almost a logistical one.

you have to get a convention up and going and avp pick. these are things clinton has locked and loaded. i think while the trump family wants to be himself, they have been a leading arguer to say you need to -- what is your read of hillary clinton her frame of mind? guest: the best thing that can .appen is to lose an election you learn more from losing than you do from winning. she understands there's only one way to run, which is to run scared or unopposed. i think she and the whole campaign understand you have to run like you are 10 points behind. obviously a very different sort of thing because there's no playbook, there's no film to watch.

i think they are completely cognizant of that fact. john: we talked earlier in the show about how some of the trump folks are headed to cleveland. you have talked about the fact ant they are promising extravaganza unlike anything in the history of the republican convention. how hard is that to pull off? mark: it's very hard. i've been a republican with a lot of jurisdiction at the conventions, for example taking care of the entertainment. i have then in those discussions where we say it's going to be different and we are going to get out of the box and it's not like anything you have ever seen. and the mechanics get in. donald trump has a background in entertainment and understands how to do things differently. but he's just hired a talent agency to get talent. you are going to have a lot of trouble finding a list entertainment that want to come be featured at a republican convention. i like how you looked

right into the camera to do that. has been able to if not attract a lot of hollywood stars, he's been able to get a lot of sports figures and other figures from popular culture. there's a card he can play. he's not going to get hollywood liberals and rock stars, but a lot of people with cultural significance. guest: i think there is an element of liberty he will bring to the table. i remember those early events he of peoplend a lot were just coming for the celebrity factor, just to say i saw him. there's a lot of that that's a key part to the trump brand. john: how about howard stern? mark: howard stern and an empty chair. dost: i think you will better than the oak ridge boys. mark: give me three factors that you think will be big in

determining who wins in clinton versus trump. guest: an external event. something unknown. a martian invasion, and economic cataclysm of some kind like what happened in 2008. in many cases, we say the vp doesn't matter, but i think in this case, it will make a difference. mark: what about three things they can control. what are other things they can control? guest: the most important thing they can control is the debate. this will be the most watched debate in all of history. theratings will be off chart and people will be watching this around the globe. that is going to be the most important thing in this campaign by far and they can control that. you wrote recently in time magazine about a lot of these

lgbt laws and how the wrong side of these issues. it's interesting to me that trump and where he went on the bathroom law and decided to deviate from republican orthodoxy there. is there a way that trumps cultural liberalism -- trump's liberalism as a cultural might help them? guest: i think it is one of his assets. on issues where republicans need to be more compassionate, he's headed in the right direction. he is headed where society is headed. these laws happening in north weolina, for example, when think about all of the things the republican party has trouble with strategically and what it ought to be spending its time concerned about in terms of policy, lgbt bathroom rights is on nobody's list. even if you had these ridiculous laws, how would you were said? nobody cares about it, it's not

a problem, and you can't enforce it. but it sends the message that republicans have their head in the sand and are back in the century. it sends a bad signal and it's a good turn for trump that he is shying away from them of those. think other republicans have not moved on this issue because they are worried about a backlash from their base? i would never want to exclude the possibility that principle is at stake and that society has gone haywire and there are deeply rooted evangelical christians. but in many cases, there is some element of political calculation and they think they would lose those secure votes by trying to did for voters that are never going to come their way. mark: will the next republican president support legal gay marriage? guest: if it is a republican president, they will have to. john: you don't have any doubt

in his heart of hearts that george w. bush supported gay marriage? guest: i think it was an evolution or him. he came to discover there were a lot of staffers around him and people who worked for him that were gay and he got enlightened about it over time. said the vice president thing matters a lot. if trump says i can get anyone i want to say yes, who should i pick? guest: i think the latest rumor i saw about bob corker is a sensible approach. but he could get anybody. magically, anyone i want will a yes. colin powell. mark: more than condoleezza rice? -- guest: that would be great too. mark: same thing with hillary

clinton, she says i can get whoever i want, whose should she eschew mark -- who should she pick? guest: colin powell. the conventional route is to shore up your week this and do something that gives you geographic and ethnic diversity, ideological diversity, whatever it might be. in trump's case, there is value to the notion that going on conventional, which means going the bill clinton route and finding somebody who is a , ierick and unconventional think there is some value in looking at that, particularly for trump. thank you. coming up, what joe biden about hillary clinton earlier today.

if you are watching us in washington, d.c., you can listen to us anytime you want. we will be right back. ♪

>> we are all anxious to see who she is. >> i feel confident hillary will be the nominee and she will be the next president. joseph haydns junior in an interview that will air tomorrow on "good morning america. we are joined now by our bloomberg colleague, jennifer epstein and jennifer jacobs. to jennifer's here simultaneously in tandem. -- me ask you this question

joe biden has been all over the place in this race. throwing a bone to bernie sanders and then saying nice things about hillary clinton. what do you interpret about this? does he want her to win? what's the deal? jennifer: he has been doing this, saying she in the last couple of months or so. this is his way of doing a little marriage at sanders and to back off and let this primary should playoff, that he not do anything that is going to make the fall harder for the democrats. is hillary clinton worried about her relationship at this point with joe biden? jennifer: i don't think that is at the top of her list. understandy both they need each other. muchampaign is very

looking forward to being able to deploy him to white, working-class places and they will be able to use him in that way when she's reaching out to african-americans. evil, but astype much as there might have been some tension, there was a lot of dying of each other in the fall, that for the least -- for at least the next few months, they will be focused on the objective of winning in november. john: there was a lot of tension. part of what was motivated by that is thought he could beat hillary. we all agree obama's going to be a big part of the clinton campaign. does biden get to be a big part of the campaign? think his speech will knock people's socks off and they will have four people out there -- bill clinton, hillary clinton, the president and vice

president, it will be hard for the trump people to match. about trump and the rnc. is this a normal relationship or are there aspect that are not normal given the phase we are in? jennifer: it is starting to normalize and they are starting to embrace each other. rnc opened up the floodgates to the trump campaign and said whatever resources we have, we will offer it to you. we will help you fix problems and do whatever we can for you. explain a little more what is going on here. mark's question is about normalcy versus non-normalcy. if the trumpet people could snap their fingers, what would they do? do they recognize some utility at least on the fundraising side? recognizea do

utility. if they had their wish, they would like to see their own person in the chairmanship. if they could replace him, i think they would. but they realize that there are options. i talked people in the trump campaign and they say he has the ability, even if there has been some tension, he has the ability to fight with someone on monday and have them the their best friend on tuesday. basie see the utility in keeping him around. he only has his third term. in an -- it expires in january and there's questions about whether he would run for a fourth term. he's been chairman for six years, which is a long time. try toer option is they install someone else who would run day-to-day operations and be

a trump royal -- be a trump loyalist. the third choice is to try to oust him, but donald trump cannot do that on his own. members.to the rnc for the most part, this chairman members, so itnc remains to be seen if they would have enough votes to even try to oust him. trump and clinton have been going at it for about a week now. do you think they are winning or do they feel like they've got the key on how to deal with trump? jennifer: i think they are satisfied to see all these people on the right the reluctant to support trump and when trump says one thing about taxes in one interview and some thing else in the next one, that he is doing his own damage and all they need to do is point that out again and again.

but she still has to campaign in places like kentucky because she still has a primary going on. there's definitely some concern on the democratic side that they cannot fully jump in, but at the republican side, they are jumping in and rick nash and preparing. : there's a database the republican national committee has that's like a treasure trove of video of hillary clinton going back years and years. they are preparing all sorts of oppositional research to do everything they can to attack hillary clinton. if you could have full was ability into the trump campaign and know the answer to a big question you are wondering about, what would it eat question mark jennifer: who does donald trump want as his vice president?

we hear a lot of things about who his aides think and who backers would like, but i would love to know what trump is truly thinking about who he would like to have. i already know the answer to that. it is godzilla. lot ofr: the question a people have been trying to figure out is what bills role is and how much they are talking about political strategy on a daily basis and how much he is trusting -- she is trusting him. how worried is the clinton campaign about philadelphia? today, a lot of things could happen and who knows what happens? jennifer: they still feel like because it is mathematically impossible for him to clinch the nomination without whipping a lot of superdelegates, they just think it's not going to happen.

but they are concerned that there could be big protests, or there could be a wave of the sanders supporters standing up and saying no, we are not ok with this. be.s unclear what that will when clinton was in california, there was so much angst and protest outside her events that clearly the clinton campaign is trying to figure out how they can neutralize that or listen to those concerns and also trying not to listen to them too much because they don't want to be seen as too presumptuous before she actually clinches the nomination. john: jennifer jacobs, jennifer ens that-- two great j are great together. when we come back, we have sports and the great lou leach after this. ♪

mark: political reporters love sports metaphors whether it is out of bounds or a pull cord press. lou leach has been watching politicians for a long time and he has noticed something. when it comes to favorite pastimes, there's a new sport in town. : for reagan, it was chopping wood. clinton job -- jog and obama's

stress relief is testable. game,ys with icons of the on easter and in kuwait. and he made it look. play golf like past presidents and suddenly you are and out of touch elitist. it's a hardwood and you are one of us. the imitation as lottery. hisie sanders showed off solid form waiting for results. >> how is he making every single one? he is a bowler who would like to be in charge. hillary clinton said she loved to play pickup basketball but there's evidence be on that. 1995 served as a joke as a cameraman for nbc.

of course, a pickup game is not with out a risk. one book describes poor michael dukakis after misting shot after shot during a photo shoot, actually being listed by three players to help him dunk like a five-year-old on his daddy's shoulders, so beware, sometimes it's best to stay off the court. mark: we will be right back.

john: time to play one of our most favorite games.

mark: here is my hypothetical. if paul ryan step down or is forced out, who should donald trump select as his replacement? smarticulate, attractive, to a well spoken woman who can speak about america and donald trump with equal measures of passion. i was going to say james addison aker the third. mark: keep your eyes peeled for a video with jeff daniels. we'll have that tomorrow. coming up, emily chang sits down with the mayor of austan. until tomorrow, sayonara. -- mayor of boston.

♪

.ark: i'm mark crumpton you are watching "bloomberg west." brazilians opposed to the impeachment of the president -- president locke wrote today. on monday, the leader of the

country in delegate -- invalidated the decision. opposition activists say at least 10 people are dead and several others wounded following two airstrikes in northwestern syria. the air raids came hours after a cease-fire was extended for another 48 hours. vice president biden has not endorsed either of the democratic candidates but he tells abc news who he thinks will win in november. --we are all anxious to see >> who she is. i feel confident hillary will be the nominee and will be the next president. mark: mr. biden's comments go further down -- further them president obama. donald trump says he has narrowed his list of potential withng mates to about five deep resumes. he says he has not ruled out new jersey governor chris christie, who has been chosen to head