♪ mark: welcome to this edition of "the best of with all due respect." 'twas week before the election. all of the surrogates were spinning. comey's latest allegations on an millionaire amid allegations from the gop the media is unfair. with all due respect, the campaigns of clinton and trump, and we begin the wrapup up with an 11th hour polling bump. there is only one thing anyone cares about right now. does hillary clinton have an impregnable lead or does donald trump have a credible path to the white house?

there were few credible polls, but a handful of surveys look pretty positive for the republican nominee. first, the national surveys. the new york times has clinton up just by three, 47% to 44%. that same poll had clinton with a nine-point lead a week ago. and a bunch of staples. this new hampshire survey from "the boston globe" and suffolk university showed them tied. the granite state has been up until recently people thought , clinton pulled ahead, will -- and a new poll from the university of denver, another place where clinton was presumed to have the electoral votes locked down. a new nbc news-wall street journal-marist poll show clinton -- trump with a comfortable lead in texas. if those should be believed. so much for clinton making inroads there. and finally up in utah, where the independent candidate has fallen back to third.

so, john, we will talk about the polls that are good for hillary clinton, but what do you see in the surveys that are positive for trump? john: welcome, look, the main thing is you start to get an incontrovertible sense that the race has tightened in this last period before election day. if the colorado poll were true, best news of the group, because that would suggest that what hillary clinton has relied on as being in the bag basically was not only competitive, but trump is ahead. if you look into that poll more it is onlyu will see showing 9% of hispanics, which will not be at all what the numbers are like -- i think it was 14% in 2012. that poll may be under representing a key demographic in that state. but if that is true or even close to true, it says something

important about what is going on in this race. important. mark: trump has shown movement over the last two weeks. is he still moving, or has he topped out? has the clinton campaign hit -- what back or has trump hit a , natural ceiling? he is lower than 50%, for sure. i believe this data is suggesting he may well still be moving and he may well be moving in a number of places in a positive direction in those red states where clinton was thinking about challenging and a positive way for him in the blue states. he is still not there yet, but these polls suggest, i think now it is the third day in a row where the data suggests trump movement up and clinton in most of these places well below 50. the trump campaign has got to hope, as they have all along, a lot of the undecided voters break his way because she is the quasi-incumbent. john: right, the question is , and i raised this question yesterday what is the , relationship between what is going on this week and what happened in the early vote. we have mixed evidence of the

early vote. in some places people in the , democratic side are very confident. places like nevada -- [bell rings] john: democrats are confident they have a huge lead in the early vote. a lot happening in the course of the last month. the interplay will matter a lot in terms of what the outcome is. ok. so, hillary clinton, by contrast, had a few positive poll numbers that came out yesterday. she had a better day, i would say in the polling than donald trump did. but today there were two polls we could cite where clinton would be smiling. there is a poll in georgia that shows trump leading clinton by 1%. 47% to 46%. this would be a huge deal if hillary clinton were to win the peach state, as deep red as it is, and then there is a florida poll by a local fox poll has the nominee of by four percentage

points in the sunshine state. that is, again if true, a big , deal. donald trump cannot win the presidency without florida. two polls here are goodness -- good news for hillary clinton. are they significant enough that they might offset the good news on the trump side in terms of the clinton psyche? mark: they don't fully offset it, but she is still ahead. and she's still has, if you do the stupid thing and took the latest polls in every battleground state, she would still win. so the bottom has not come out. trump has not broken through in enough places to say he is at parity with her in terms of his chances to win and i know people think we get paid to be definitive and decisive. i still believe all of these states could break one direction or another and she may end up winning a state like georgia. i think she could end up winning a state like arizona. but she could also end up starting to lose. and i will just say momentum matters at the end. she is holding on.

she is not collapsing. but it is hard to say she has momentum compared to trump. you see that in the polling data. john: i agree with that. the question is if she doesn't , have a lot of forward momentum -- and i think you are right, she does not have a lot of forward momentum -- if you are in the lead and you just told serve you and winning. ,-- end up winning. i think the florida poll -- the two campaigns give privately different assessments of where things are. that florida poll we just put up is what i think most democrats now think is the case, and so if that poll captures reality and hillary clinton is going to win florida, that is as consequential as any other single thing in this race. [bell rings] mark: game, set, sunshine match. if she can. we talk a lot here, as people do on other programs about the , states that trump would need to win to get there. we want to flip things around to

show you why to hillary clinton still very much has the upper hand in this race, because her journey to 270 is relatively simple. you start with the solid blues , places like california, new york, hawaii rhode island. then you look at the states that have 59 electoral votes. those are ones leaning their way where she has big leads in the , public polling, averaging five or more. if she wins those, she is 16 electoral votes away, and you can see that final list, where she needs to get 16 -- florida or ohio alone would do it, otherwise some combination of those. you go back to be leaning list, and again, trump is challenging and in every of those with the one possible exception of virginia. can trump take any of those away? maybe. but you can see under current , public polling, hillary clinton is just 16 electoral votes away with relative ease. if trump starts to dig into that

list on leaning, we deal with a different situation. john: yeah, the thing about this as i am looking at the list here and trying to get my head around it the thing about the leaners, , right, at this moment, pennsylvania, virginia, michigan, wisconsin, and new mexico, all leaning democratic. of those states, four, excluding virginia, those states are states that democrats have one -- one consistently at the presidential level cycle after cycle. you have to go back to the 1990's to find any one of the states going republican, i believe. and virginia was a closer battleground. but she has been comfortably ahead there for a long time. i would be shocked -- shocked -- if any of the states ended up in donald trump's column. if you look at those, it is not possible. i know donald trump is contesting them, but i think she

will win those. mark: you use the word shocked. if you wake up tomorrow and it is showed trump moving nationally or ahead in those states, i do not think at this point people should they they are shocked. that is not to predict it is going to happen. she is still bedeviled by wikileaks. i'm still hearing from a lot of republican operatives working on other candidates, down ballot races, particularly senate races, the affordable care act thing is in the minds of a lot of voters. it is certainly bringing republicans home, and republicans believe in a lot of these contested races is going to really help, and again, you can put the list of states back, people have to remember a lot of these states are contested senate races, and in those contested senate races with one or two exceptions, the republican candidate continues to do quite well, and it ticket splitting is minimize, that can make a big difference. not the solid list. we want to go over to the list of the leaning. you have a race in pennsylvania. you have the one in wisconsin, and on the tossups ohio, north

, carolina, nevada -- all of those states, new hampshire. all of those states have the contested senate races. and, again, republicans are in better shape than most people thought they would be. [bell rings] john: i will say, just to go back to my shocked comment if , donald trump wins two of those six leaning states, i think that will mean he will win in every one of the tossup states. i don't think that will happen. mark: nothing is impossible, but it would mean trump has got a big, big wave, a bigger waves that he has come close to writing in the campaign to date. ♪ mark: after a quick break, nbc news katy tur joins us to talk about this final week on the campaign trail. stay tuned. ♪

♪ mark: with us now from north carolina where donald trump is speaking tonight, nbc news correspondent katy tur covers the campaign. it is fascinating watching trump in his speeches these days toggle between more uplifting, optimistic rhetoric than he is used to make a vain and still -- in the campaign and still being quite negative going after hillary clinton. is there some balance they are trying to strike? or is it haphazard? katy: all campaigns want to end their campaign on a positive note. certainly hillary clinton did. she is not able to at the moment. but donald trump campaign is no different. at the same time, his campaign has very much been defined by attacks, oftentimes personal attacks on other people online, social media, or at rallies or in interviews, but also attacks against the establishment, attacks against the hillary clinton, attacks against the idea that the whole system is

rigged, not just against donald trump necessarily, but the american people. it makes sense for him to continue on during this next five days. but also, he needs to distract from his onslaught of negative headlines we have been talking about now for 16, 17 months. this is his chance to focus on hillary clinton entirely, to get out of the way and let her wallow in a slew of bad headlines of her own. this is a calculated move by the campaign, one that they think will help them regain some ground, one that republican operatives think will help them regain some ground as long as trump stays on that message. john: katy, the question we were just discussing on the program about melania trump. she is out there today. she has not been doing much politically. why now? and do they have regrets about not using her more? katy: let's look where she was. today she was in the suburbs of philadelphia. mainline philadelphia.

this is where donald trump needs to pick up republican women in this area and get them to vote for him. melania was deployed there very strategically. she is trying to show the softer side of not only donald trump, but their family. so this is a message they need to use for the next five days because he does not have the support of women that other past republican candidates have had, certainly not what mitt romney during 2012, and he can still have a fighting chance, they need to find a way to stem the bleeding with republican women. do they wish that she had come out on the campaign trail more? they are not saying that to me in conversations, but i went be -- would be surprised if they did not think they could have used her more. she has not been so apparent on the campaign trail. she had that speech at the republican national convention, but we have not seen her much on the trail, even by donald trump's side. it has been very much focused on trump as a personality rather

than his family life. we have seen more of his kids on the trail than melania. what i found so interesting about her speech today, and i am sure you did as well, she was talking about what she would be like as first lady and what she would focus on, specifically bullying on social media and how she said the rhetoric in this country has gotten to mean. and we need to find a better way to communicate. and that's raising a lot of eyebrows today because donald trump built the campaign on name-calling and insulting and undercutting his opponents any way he can and does social media following that goes after critics of him with ferocity. that was eyebrow raising. again, if they would like to have her on the trail more i , would assume they did, even though they are not saying it. mark: earlier in the show, i said that trump was the country's biggest cyber bully. the remarks seem ironic if

nothing else. we have about a minute left, at 30,000 feet here, it was not that long ago kellyanne conway was acknowledging trump was the underdog. trump always says he is the favorite, but in my conversations with campaign aides, they are suggesting the race is tied or they may be the favorite at this point. what is your sense of his staff , there posture about where they stand? katy: the staff is extraordinarily confident. they were handed a gift last friday with the revival of the fbi investigation and another gift with obama care premiums rising, and another one with the cnn allegations about donna brazile giving hillary clinton questions before a debate. so they have a lot to feel positive about. they said that their internal polling is showing they are gaining ground in a lot of the states. they even claim that they are gaining ground in a pretty blue state like new mexico. if you talk to people outside the campaign one step removed, they will say that it will be very tough to win.

but what they are most hopeful about right now, is the movement in polls. they say it is not necessarily he is going to win, but the down ballot races are in a better position than they were last week. ♪ mark: next up, talking about the state of the race in the final days before election day after these words from our sponsors. ♪

>> the decades of lies, coverups, and scandals have caught up with hillary clinton. hillary clinton is under fbi investigation again. mr. trump: when mexico sends its people, they are not sending their best. they are sending rapists. i would like to punch him in the face. i tell you. get him out of here. john: those are excerpts from the latest ads. from the trump and clinton campaigns. .e are joined now

sarah, adge, strategist and former deputy campaign manager for carly fiorina's run. tracy and sarah, and let me start asking you the same questions we're asking everybody when we start out these blocks right now. where do you see the race? >> first of all, i am in chicago and i see the race and frankly i see everything through the lens of last night's huge win. so forgive me for the euphoria that is still extending here. but as far as the race goes, i think we are in a good place. got going foras her continues to be one of her advantages, and that is her ground game. what is happening in the states all of these factors are very , much in her favor and i'm feeling confident about tuesday night. john: tracy, congratulations on your cubs. i should have said that in the introduction.

sarah, sorry about that. you were waiting a long time for that. congratulations. i believe we have you in the right place. where do you think about where the race stands right now? look, i would have agreed that hillary has this much vaunted ground game, but it has not been turning out. you look at the early vote numbers in florida, north the clintond campaign should be extraordinarily nervous. at this point, you have new hampshire tied and nevada closing in. i am going to keep watching those nevada numbers move. i think that's what is coming down to a florida and north carolina get away from her. mark: sarah, give me an anecdote. tell me about someone who was not for trump before but now is. >> i do not think it is changing their minds. i think what we saw a week and a half ago, enthusiasm numbers changed.

from cindy's as a numbers are higher than hillary's. what happened with the comey e-mails, those numbers changed again. when you have two such unlikable candidates -- i think we can see showed, the as you just whereas 2012, the republicans were down in the early vote count. they are up, and by a real margin. in north carolina, the turnout operation is not working. so either hillary clinton's campaign is intentionally not turning early voters out and they were lying that that was their strategy or things are not going the way they thought they would. mark: tracy, when you look at the new clinton ad and the continued attempts to define donald trump as unacceptable is , that working or is that not working? >> what i think is masterful about the approach is all of these ads are just donald

himself, footage of him talking, the things he has said, the things he has done. it is really a sort of hands off , you could say for the hillary , campaign. he just makes the case for himself through his ridiculousness and the lying and the dangerous and the divisive things that he says. i think the fact that all you have to do is play the tape of him tells the story and tells it extraordinarily well, especially when you think about the negative ads he is running about hillary are largely based on a innuendo as opposed to video clips of hillary herself talking. he is giving the campaign a gift in this regard and i think the clinton campaign is smart to be utilizing it the way they have. john: tracy, let me just push back a little bit. as i looked at those ads, what struck me. in addition to the clinton ad being beautifully reduced in the trump one looks like a tabloid,

more garish, the argument the clinton campaign ad, those are arguments she has been making for months and months and the ads are the style of ads we have been seeing for months and months. the trump ad is injecting fresh information and controversy into the race. it seems to me that that is more eye-catching and has a greater possibility for impact in this late stage because it is new. it has the feel of something new. does that not concern you or do you not see that at all when you compare them side by side? >> what i do know is how many people are going to make their decisions -- assuming they have not voted yet, they will make their decisions based on their friends and colleagues and neighbors. i do not see where a tv ad is an ultimate deciding factor. in that regard, five days out, i am not concerned. i think you are right, there is a garish, tabloid quality. to what that trump campaign is doing. i can tell you that last night

during the series when one of those ads came on, the place erupted into boos. it is not a welcome sight right now. john: sarah we were talking , before about paths to the 270, we put up a list of leaning states trump is spending time in. places like new mexico. wisconsin. from a strategic standpoint does , it make sense to spend these precious days in states that have been blue for so long? >> no, i would be locking down florida, north carolina, and then battling in nevada, new hampshire, and pennsylvania. what i do think is stunning is that the hillary campaign is sending hillary to michigan tomorrow. nothing shows me the internal panic of a campaign as much as the candidate schedule and going to a state that does not have a senate race -- nothing explains that except they think michigan is on the map. and if michigan is on the map, then this thing is slipping away pretty quickly. i think it is stunning that a

democrat would say tv ads do not matter when clinton has so wildly outspent trump on tv and they are saying that part does not matter. i think there's a lot of panic going on in hillary's campaign right now. i think it is warranted, and i think that moving for they will -- forward they will have to do some soul-searching about what the message will be on sunday and monday. to turn their voters out. election day has traditionally been a republican day. john: tracy, are you panicked? >> opposite of, opposite of. i appreciate sarah's point, although i think she is misconstruing what i said. it's not that ads do not matter. what i am saying is the cumulative process of this campaign, and, yes, the millions and millions of dollars spent on tv ads have made the case. one ad now in the last five days will not make or break. it is the sum total we are talking about here. mark: more on "the best of with all due respect" after these words from our sponsors. ♪

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show me house of cards. finally, you can now find all of netflix in the same place as all your other entertainment. on xfinity x1. ♪ john: joining us now is trump's senior adviser. hi, guys. so tell me where you think the race is right now. you're representing the trump campaign. >> it is slightly in mr. trump's favor. we saw a huge swing. that is an understatement with the abc poll where we were down by 13 points a few weeks ago. third in swing states, it is a dead heat. she is losing her lead in virginia. this is not looking good for hillary clinton. john: harold, what you think about that? >> no doubt the numbers have tightened. we remain confident in all the battlegrounds. there is a lot of trump to overcome in these last few days.

the facts of the race don't change in the position she has taken a mr. trump has taken, none of that has changed. if on tuesday or wednesday last week you thought that hillary was best to lead us making us more prosperous, nothing has changed to cause any voter to say i don't believe that she is not capable of doing that. john: some stories related to his taxes and russia, what would you want to focus among those stories to drive the narrative over the last six or seven days? >> i think the fact that mr. trump refuses to release tax returns, the fact that mr. trump has had business dealings who did not feel like they were treated fairly by them, i would focus there.

i would take the last few days laying out where i want to take the country. the mandate she is going to have is going to be predicated on how unfit donald trump is. i think that narrative on our site has been put out there. for her to have a mandate when she is elected, she has to remind people about her infrastructure spending and raising wages. she has to remind middle-class families. this is about empowering you making health care more affordable, more education options. i would get back to saying that i am ready to be president and ready to grow this economy to build on the successes of the last eight years. john: aj, do you want to respond? >> i have to disagree with that, harold. with all due respect, no pun intended, i do think the last two days have changed things for voters. meanwhile we have hundreds of thousands of emails that have ended up on anthony weiner's laptop.

how can this person be elected to serve at the highest levels of office? at the highest levels of handling classified information? she has already shown herself of not being able to do that, and this just proves it. mr. trump has been traveling across the country and laying out specific plans. even plans as detailed as combating the heroine epidemic. i don't see hillary clinton do that. i remember reading an article that said hillary was a great candidate, but a policy-free one. i thought that was just an astute observation. she likes to speak on these platitudes, raising wages and all these things she promises, but it's policy specific-free. john: she has about 800 pages of policy on her website, compared to about 100 on yours. >> on her website?

her immigration policy is frightening to any american voter that is concerned about immigration and security at the border. >> we can say a lot of things about hillary clinton, she has probably been to specific at times. >> obamacare, do you take credit for obamacare that has been proven to be a disaster. >> it has not proven to be a disaster. it needs to be fixed. she has indicated that she is ready to fix it. >> she said, she said -- let's be fair -- she recently tweeted before they called it obamacare that it was called hillarycare. so she owned it. >> there needs to be a fix going forward, and hillary clinton is committed to doing that.

mark, i did not mean to cut you off. john: here comes mark. mark: that's ok. harold, is there any way to look at bill clinton will cut colorado? is there any way to read that except concern from the clinton campaign that trump will be threatening in those states? >> they understand that turnout and every vote matters. you can read what you want to read into it, but the race has tightened. if you were to ask clinton operatives and those close to the campaign day to day if they were surprised by this, most would say no. they were surprised last week with the way mr. comey decided to inform congress and voters as to what he was doing and the way he described it. i don't think anyone should be surprised that our top operatives and best campaign principles are out in the most competitive of states. so i read it as we need to win those states and send our best people there. mark: ok. aj, i know you have been asked

this before, mr. trump does not want to release his tax returns because he is under audit. why can't he release for every year his income, federal tax rate and deduction amounts? >> that is intertwined with the audit. and with all due respect -- again, i keep saying that phrase -- the only returns that matter are my own and those of my friends and family. donald trump has a plan to put more money back into our pockets and create more jobs. that is not a big issue for the american public, but for the media who is intent on bringing down mr. trump. we are too busy taking care of our own tax returns to worry about that. mark: releasing those numbers have nothing to do with the audit. i urge you to ask him to release that. >> as an attorney myself, i would never suggest someone released that. i can't believe were discussing

that rather than the 650,000 e-mails. mark: we will return right after this. ♪

♪ mark: joining us now jason miller, the senior communications advisor to donald trump's presidential campaign. he is in gotham city. jason, you have gotten a boost from what director comey did. do you have any empirical data? are you in the field and will you represent the impact in battleground states or too soon? >> the number started moving this past week with news of the

obamacare premium increases. that is what got the numbers moving in a big way. beyond that, the clinton leaked e-mails and came out where there was this memo about how they would use the clinton foundation as a $66 million or profit operation. then of course the big bombshell on friday with the news about anthony weiner's laptop and the 650,000 emails. we have seen the numbers moving in our direction. that is why you saw mr. trump in new mexico yesterday. he is in michigan today. tomorrow morning he will be in pennsylvania, then wisconsin. these are all states which are blue or purple. we are on offense. we talk florida, ohio. mr. trump is looking very well. mark: i know you and others say the number started moving because of those other developments. i will ask you again, were you

in the field saturday and into today and did you see the change in the data after friday's announcement? >> the numbers seem since the announcement have all shown positive movement in our direction, but i don't know how much that is attributable to the fact of republicans coming home and coalescing around donald trump. the one thing mark that you would agree on this, it brings everything back up, all the clinton drama, all the questions of what the heck were they doing with the server? it reminds people about all the reasons why there frustrated with secretary clinton and d.c. insider establishment in the first place. john: let me ask you this question. if we went back to last friday, so dial back the clock and wake up on friday and learned the news in the afternoon the james comey sent a letter to congress saying that the fbi is opening an investigation into the

connection between vladimir putin, russian hackers, and the trump campaign. you would say a 11 days before the reaction -- -- your reaction would have been want? >> that is a silly hypothetical to go and throw out. john: i don't think there is anything silly about it. she raised exactly this type of hypothetical over the weekend. >> there is zero basis of truth. let's talk about why we are here. hillary clinton -- john: >> let's stay with my question. it is not a crazy hypothetical. if it happened, would your reaction be that it is perfectly proper? forget about the russian hackers. if he was investigating in the trump campaign and sent a memo to congress, revealing that on friday, you would have thought that was fine 11 days before the election or thought that was an

improper use of power? >> we wish the fbi had done a job properly early in the summer. i don't think there is any way to look at this and not say the outside server setup and the reasons that it was set up and why we had classified information being routed around it, and again, tying it back into the clinton foundation which is this whole incestuous mix going on, we wish they had pushed forward and done the right thing earlier. the timing of which --look, i will leave it to pete williams and you guys and everyone else. the important thing is clearly they found something. what did they find? 650,000 emails they got to go through. how many thousands are between clinton and huma abedin? >> with all due respect, you just did not answer my question remotely. >> it is a nonsensical question that does not apply to the campaign. john: ok.

mark: jason, let's talk about the electoral college. rank the states from best to worst. florida, ohio, and north carolina? >> as we look at florida, it is tough because some of them are on percentages and some are on actual ballot returns. so let's take florida. you have had two polls in the last several days that showed mr. trump is leading by four points, which is great. the two things as far as ballots being returned, both the absentee ballots and early vote, republican returns are 7% higher than four years ago. democrat returns are 10% lower. and so usually republican start of going into election day with a deficit. we are 100,000 those closer to democrats than mitt romney was at this point four years ago, so we feel very good about the progress we made in florida. in north carolina, the

republican return is 35,000 higher. democrat ballots down by 7000. so that is net 42,000 both being closer, so that is good. and in ohio, some of it is trickier. can't quite counted quite the same inept city voters, but things look very good there. mark: is that the order you are feeling good about? feeling best about florida. >> i will punt on this because i love all three states. i think mr. trump is going to win all three on november 8. john: we're discussing a bunch of very blue states. what is the evidence that you are operating on that makes you think those states are close to winnable. >> john, i'm glad you brought this up. when i woke up last friday, the first thing we take a look at this what is moving in the polls.

this is before we got the news from director james comey. we showed it effectively a dead heat in both new mexico and in michigan. at that point, we had things that we had talked about, but we decided we had to get new mexico on the books. mr. trump went there yesterday. michigan, mr. trump is doing two events there today. these are races, part of the thing given so much hope in this races is secretary clinton is continually around 41%, 42%. maybe in a good call, she could get 43%. there is a certain ceiling issues where she is bumping up again and what we are seeing is the makeups of the undecideds that break favorably for republicans. they show upwards of a 20 point advantage on a generic ballot.

we are confident that people will break our way. we have also seen it, in colorado, we have seen not just internal numbers showing a dead heat, but there is a survey that showed a dead heat as well. this is the first cycle where it is a full-on vote by mail in colorado. we look at these pickup opportunities. these are great opportunities. clearly secretary clinton has base issues. she's not getting the african-american support that president obama did. she is not getting millennial support like president obama did, so there are definite areas for pickup. the map looks different than it does in 2004, 2008, and 2012. we are going to wake up on november 9 and we will see there are going to be a couple of states mr. trump is going to win.

mitt romney had no chance, mccain had no chance, bush had no chance. the way trump is changing the electorate and turning people out, we are seeing something different in the model. you just saw where secretary clinton went on tv in wisconsin on friday. they are not doing that unless they are worried about losing the state. john: josh green and sasha eisenberg wrote a piece in bloomberg businessweek about operations. they quoted a trump officials saying you had three separate voter suppression strategies to the campaign was pursuing. it went into something about what they were. for a lot of people, it is a very disturbing prospect. what you have to say about that? >> one a few things happen -- one of two things happened. the either misspoke, or they fundamentally have no clue what mr. trump is doing with the

campaign. we are eight days out and mr. trump is going into communities. he spoke out in length in michigan on redoing urban centers and helping the black community in a way the democrats haven't cycle after cycle. mr. trump will be president for all americans and he made this a big cornerstone of his campaign. he got a lot of praise for it. it is remarkable a republican working this hard to bring in different groups. and so, any of that type of language -- someone was just way off with their description of what is going on. you have certain aspects of contrast messaging where you say here is why secretary clinton has failed the community and this is where donald trump has presented policy specifics from taxes, school choice. any of his other language, i have no idea. mark: the jason miller speaking

of momentum and everything else, thanks very much. coming up, john ralston of the ralston report comes on to talk swing state stand, and will be here right after this. ♪

♪ mark: back in wisconsin and time for our very own customized ralston report. with those from vegas, john ralston, the editor of the economist. a contributing editor at the politico. john, welcome. what is going on in the u.s. senate race for harry reid's seat and how is that impacting potential the presidential race? john: yeah, it is a very good question. i have to tell you that this is the most amazing senate race i have covered. i have covered everyone since 1986.

it will be a $100 million race and more outside spending that i have ever seen. i really think it could go either way still. it essentially has boiled down joe heck versus harry reid. harry reid has been all over this race in the background on one side and in the foreground on the republican side. while the early voting numbers don't look good for the republicans, remember what happened in 2012? obama won the state by almost seven and dean keller pulled out of the senate race by 12,000 votes. mark: john, is the fact that the senate race is competitive and the kind of coalition the two senate candidates are trying to put together, does that advantage either presidential candidates? john: it is interesting, mark, because they are totally divorced from each other in several ways. heck divorced himself from trump.

the coordinated campaigns between the hillary clinton campaign and the harry reid democratic machine has been so focused on getting out the democratic base, which is going 90% for clinton, and from what i understand heck is mirroring trump, which is a problem for him. the entire heck strategy is knowing they will lose early voting comments are hoped to minimize the loss, and then when on election day. little margin for error there. john: john, i want to step back and get a little more altitude on the discussion. somehow nevada has become one of the key states for donald trump. if you look at barack obama's victories in 2008 and 2012 and the democratic composition of

your state, you would not have thought that nevada would be up there with places like iowa and ohio. you didn't think that it would be one of the keys and trump winning, and yet he is competitive there. explain to me, why? john: it is a very good question. if you competitive here? i always thought that the state leans towards clinton for the reasons you mentioned. the fact that the hispanic vote will be about 20%, but i always go back to what trump said on the night that he won the caucus when he looked at the exit polling and was almost surprised and said, look how i did among the poorly educated. i love the poorly educated. nevada has a lot of poorly educated folks. there is no doubt about it. but i don't think there is a path for trump unless there is a total implosion in the early voting numbers in the last four days. they must have polling that shows that because trump was

here and because they are continuing to campaign hard with surrogates including the great jon voight appearance tomorrow. john: you are looking forward to that i'm sure. the reality is they are not only spending time there, but the polling has been seesawing back-and-forth. what explains the fact that it is even in play? i thought this would be put away for hillary clinton in the way that colorado, for instance, has been put away months ago? john: that is a reasonable assumption. let's assume the polls are right, which i don't think is a good assumption. we talked about polling in nevada for years. it is not good here. it is very difficult to poll here. here is what is going on here and you will get sophisticated democrats to a knowledge this. hillary clinton is not barack obama. there is real excitement and enthusiasm to vote for barack

obama in 2008 and 2012. there is much more dragging out of homes, having to bus people and doing things they did not have to do before. there are a lot of groups on the ground on the democratic side then there ever have been. and, there is another phenomenon here that is going on elsewhere in early voting, young african-americans are not getting out to vote in the numbers they did in 2008 and 2012. mark: the great john ralston. thank you. thank you for watching this edition of best of "with all due respect." remember, if you are watching this program in washington d.c., you can check this out on radio. check out bloombergpolitics.com for all of our election coverage. we will see you monday and you can join us for a special election night of this program. until then, sayonara. ♪

♪ emily: he got his start at microsoft as employee number 30, personally recruited and hired by bill gates. in over three decades, he went from top lieutenant to microsoft's cdo and is perhaps best known for bringing light to software conferences that will never be seen again. in 2014, steve ballmer left microsoft, bringing his trademark energy and enthusiasm from the boardroom to the basketball court with a $2 billion deal to buy the l.a. clippers. joining me today on bloomberg