developed world. the approach we were taking is how do we find a manufacturing partner that could build a capacity that is needed and that partner in the south in india that has the largest vaccine manufacturers in the world and could do it at a much lower cost. we had discussions with manufacturers in indiana and if we had the ip for the candidate we would like to partner with them and through all the various support organizations that exist, anxiously awaiting an effective hiv vaccine that is included in the program to bring to the poorest companies. >> the resource tracking data i expect a $20 million annually. and industry involvement, and a 30 million, in the private

sector. they are actively engaged in the process and the follow-on when you talk about a prime boost and the major vaccine, the boost being of follow-on in other large pharma companies but they invested time and resources and opportunity. and that vaccine shows efficacy. and very much the public sector, and very clear this was public good. and the polio vaccines, certainly we expect the lion's share of product development costs by public sectors that would be an equitable one. >> it comes through investment,

engage in the product prices. >> we get into licensing agreements that is part of the licensing agreement. >> a point about the recent successes of got the, they have brought out rotavirus vaccine and h p the vaccine, prices under $5 a dose, h p vaccine under $3 per dose for a rotavirus vaccine and additional modeling work we would be bringing offline to put on the web site as soon as we finalize a little bit more. we looked at the cost per regimen in that range including implementation of $30 per regimen. we looked at whether that would hit the bars that policymakers would consider cost-effective in middle-income countries and if we are able to hit that bar we

had a very cost-effective regimen and those of accosts we model and we need the right licensing agreements of for profit companies that get involved but like the strategy i put in place at merck and other vaccines, and no profit pricing strategy and i'm proud to say being under $5 was because of that. other companies don't use that terminology but the lowest price, lowest income countries, pretty close if to covering manufacturing costs and if there is an arrangement or licensing deal with the manufacturer you expect they would be setting-tiered pricing and in order for them to take up the program to bring it into the world's poorest countries it has to hit that bar, and it

negotiates very hard to get those as low as possible. >> thank you very much. i have two quick questions, and africa leading away in the future so you can share your vision of a little bit about how iavi has and will engage africa. these broadly neutralizing antibodies will be used to the potential experiments having to do with passive antibody transfer. >> passive antibody transfer is being done as proof of concept to determine what the level and breath to induce it. we know an animal model if you passively transfer, you not only

treat the prevent infection. we take antibodies to take a bunch of them and confuse them to prevent them from getting infected, or is it to treat? isn't a particularly good approach to its treatment but we have one pillar of three drugs that can do it much better than an antibody can do it. to be considered in clinical trials for prevention, mainly that you can get long-lasting antibodies and once every three or four months, you could have good protection but the studies that are ongoing right now by trying to determine what level of antibody you need to take protection, you could gauge to induce with your vaccine breadth, depth and durability. >> is there any discussion on the level of an antibody to prevent infection?

i was reading through the lines of your slides and didn't seem much on protection. >> as far as anybody goes the goal is to prevent, not to control. t cells control antibodies. >> to answer your question i did refer a little bit in my talk that we have been involved in africa for 11 or 12 years now and we have seen tremendous growth in the intellectual capacity of contributing to the science, we are really trying to build upon that momentum that has been established and our principal investigators that each of the sites we are involved in with in africa are well indicated and well-trained professionals and not just a receptacle to a vaccine coming out of the u.s. or europe, tested in their population. they have a lot of insights and capabilities that they can

contribute towards identifying the essential components of the vaccine. some of this work had been done on a smaller scale. the epidemiology work, monitoring the course of an acute infection, identifying the immune components, how does the response very depending on the rate of the fires they are exposed to, we have a program going on which is consultation with many of these investigators in africa and other partners that we have around the world where we are looking to build further on that, looking to place even more studies in these sites to increase learning, as well as to increase training and not by building a new training program, we have trained a lot un good clinical practice, laboratory practices, hundreds of employees throughout africa and our sites and other sites that have been trained, mitchell at the organization has been

very involved in a participatory practices and clinical trials but looking to take that further, how can we help with the postgraduate education? we won't set up a program but through the universities that set up the programs, how could we do that so that we can further involve the scientific career and keep them very importantly within africa. the last area i will mention for these investigators to submit proposals that there will be a scientific review board that will pick the most compelling proposal and additional scientific experiments that should be done what they do with in their centers and so that program is being launched this year as well. >> you work a lot to develop partnerships with institutions that are in africana and asia, try to build some skill sets and involved in some of this work. what you doing to build the

engagement of researchers and the critically impacted by that? >> as part of our funding strategy we always add a degree of building sustainable infrastructure. we started a trial work expands political trial networks to south africa or new gondola or southeast asia. we always do it with the intent that they are going to do it themselves. we have been doing that for some years now. we have clinical trial networks, vaccine prevention and others, is totally international now in southeast asia, southern africa, south america, the caribbean. >> that is one statistic. at the end of the cape town meeting, five days of intense

scientific presentations lose someone stood up and said the 30% of the presenters were from africa. tony talked about what we are doing, all of that is contributing to building that expertise. >> you worked to make sure civil society in these countries is fully engage in support and holding to account the research going on. >> it is going well. it is hard stuff. it is not easy. not for the faint of heart with the un investigator or supporting the research. one of the most exciting parts of the meeting, what took place in south africa, first time ever at the combined meeting and that was strategically because the prevention research outside of the u.s. the infrastructure and the leadership in south africa is unparalleled and that has shown through quite a lot.

the community is deeply engaged and that isn't surprising given when you looked back in the history of the epidemic through the action campaign, the access perspective we are beginning to see in our partnership the same access. what is interesting is everyone wants and aids vaccine. that is the easy part. the challenge is how to make sure there's a responsiveness in what is happening scientifically on the ground. people want an aids vaccine and they know the research is happening but what about the trials in south africa? where is the access or the trials in south africa? really is a question of how do you inspire and develop trust in the research enterprise, but how do you really build that relationship so the community supports science and has expectations, reasonable expectations of what science should be able to deliver.

>> this touches on what you were saying. what do you think is the threshold for efficacy for vaccine? are we going to be looking at the silver bullet or a 50% efficacious vaccine that combined with male circumcision gets us to that hundred% and how the communicate effectively within a community that year's vaccine and things is the 100% effective silver bullet? >> i will ask you, several of you touched on the fact that this is about combination prevention. clinical research where you have all these other interventions which either individually or together start to result in a pretty high level of preventive benefits. how do you find 50% or 60% effective vaccine? does it get hidden behind these interventions? >> i would love to see the search for a silver bullet or magic bullet stopped. if we are searching for a silver

bullet we should focus on something else. i don't think there will be one. i don't get to decide levels of efficacy the regulators do but we do know the 31% efficacy, regulators in thailand where the trial took place were clear that wasn't good enough. the number often bandit about is 50% but every regulatory agency would make a decision based on risk and benefit but we use that some what as the lowest level and i think this issue of combination plays out in two ways. the future clinical trials will be complicated, we hope are complicated by the fact that this other background and prevention would reduce the level of incidence of infection so we have to work harder but may not have to work -- doesn't have to be perfect because the number of infectious cause to prevent it is lower. the other interesting thing, there was a presentation in cape town about all trial looking at a combination of microbe that

scene -- faxing, there two injections, from a couple of mondays -- monkeys. we are not here to prevent an infection in monkeys. we are here to stop infection in humans but in this small monkey trial a combination of microbe -- microbicides shows to be much more effective than the vaccine alone. it doesn't tell us -- we have assumed just as a combination treatment being the most effective treatment, combination prevention is what we will look for. licensed by the combination or whether it is 50% effective vaccine when the rest of the prevention package has risen up. we do not have to be perfect to be good enough. that is the take home from my perspective. >> 31 is not good enough. we will never get 95, it will be

somewhere between the two. i agree with mitchell. i will take 50. i would like to see 60. i don't think there will be any trouble in proving a vaccine because even though we know we have combination prevention, the issue of human nature and lack of adherence to that so we have to pick up a highly accurate population. you have the ethical obligations who offers them things like microbicides, etc. etc. at the end of the day human nature can win over and people will get affected and hopefully you will get enough people to show that a vaccine works. >> a little controversial from my background introducing other vaccines and looking at the barriers to vaccine adoptions so i introduced 100% efficacy against four strains that were included but most commonly the

common strains out there and i was able with in the united states and insured population, was covered for insurance programs to only get uptake of the 3 jo's regimen in less than 40% of teenage girls. a lot of barriers, we know about anti vaccine groups, more than issue in developed countries but we will see some of it in developing countries as well. i really think we need to strive for 65%, 70%. i would hate to go to the market with a vaccine that is 50% effective. he will have all sorts of barriers put up not the least of which is cost-effectiveness. we have scenarios on that when i talk about hitting that cost-effective barrier or target that you need to reach. if you lower the efficacy, anything below 60%, you lost cost-effectiveness so your

policymakers and payers there might be exceptions or a high risk populations that when you immunize that population maybe 50% is good enough and combined with other approaches but to really get global uptick of a vaccine, widespread acceptance of a vaccine we need to push the envelope. maybe we come out with something, we keep working at it to get to that 75% barrier. >> let me tell you a population of 550% vaccine would met vaccinate the mall in a microsecond. good to thedistrict of south africa and look at pregnant women between the ages of 23 conlan and 25, they have a 44% prevalence of hiv infection. i will take that 50% vaccine and give it so fast your eyes will

turn. >> i will agree with you. >> the region of south africa together. one of the questions that will come out of this is who pays for all this? the global fund went for replenishment lot -- not long ago and got 12 billion. they have not seen the increase of factors and increases recently and if you start secreting these things, or do we do what marty says which is focus on at least the money to go back up. and these kinds of interventions that make more sense at the same time. >> i disagree. if we get a vaccine i agree with margie mcglynn that 50% is good fornot for vaccinating everybody who test them. but if we get a vaccine, 60%

effective. i don't think we will have a problem in getting that paid for to be quite honest with you because the cost-effectiveness of preventing an infection versus lifelong anti rival stat -- anti-viral therapies huge. you get world bank, and aids foundation, u.s. government, a lot of groups that will take to that. a lot of things keep me up at night. >> combination prevention is a lovely term like many terms in public health. it is not throwing this everybody all the time. what we are looking at is your point, a lot of talk about hot spots and go where the epidemic is and we are getting hopeful and smarter in the community to figure out where we need to be within interventional and it will be different. we need to be clear about that because we are going to see flat

lines and that is the noon normal. let's hope it doesn't go the other way. and the delivery expenditure. even in the coming years how do we take the tools we have and ensure they are reaching the right people at the right time and not throwing things? that is not an efficient combination of prevention. >> this may be a sneak preview for your neck stop, anthony fauci, but how has the re-emergence of ebola and its attendant hysteria in this country if i may characterize it, how does it compare with the early hiv scare in haiti, san francisco, and central africa when there wasn't even a name at it.

how are you competing with the ball on funding? talk about the funding levels. and economies of scale in the field for public awareness campaigns. or conditions. >> i will take the first one. if we go back to the early 80s, you have the evolution of what turned out to be an incredibly historic epidemics, pandemic, and relatively few people paid attention to it. now you have two americans have been infected with ebola, both of whom directly and deliberately in a self sacrificing way cared for an ebola patient. those the the only two people who have gotten infected in the united states and we have this

overwhelming attention and fear to it. it would have been nice retrospectively if back in the 1980s when i was saying we have a real problem here, probably more infections than you can imagine. we would have had as much concern in the 1980s for hiv as we are having for ebola. [applause] >> larry altman is semi retired and done a lot of reporting on hiv, an epidemic of misinformation. you can get ebola from a policy or a sneeze, if someone has something in their hands and picks up a plate it has a negative deja vu all over again feel to hiv in the early days. information is powerful. is there an opportunity to take the attention being paid to ebola and leverage that to try to regain the attention on the

investments the need to be made. we did some work on the global security agenda and we gotta live response, why don't we have a global health emergency response? is there a leveraging? >> i tried to limit, interesting numbers out, there have been 4950 one that state for a while, 5,000 people who have died from ebola. probably more. among for so ago. when i explain the magnitude of the problem yesterday, people die of aids, 5700 people were infected with aids, would they?

compare that to what is going on right now with ebola and the amount of attention and concern. i am not downplay or denigrating at all the concern you have about serious disease. ebola is a serious disease but when the public gets in un to that, every single stay, 4100 people die of aids, every single day. it is not the thing that is getting people excited. you try when you want to put attention on things that need more attention, take a look at this, look at malaria, tuberculosis, i use the attention we're getting with ebola, get all this attention, the same sustained attention for other great killers. >> there was another part to the question which is the ability to

sort of do public information campaigns, economies of scale were able to lead some terms of basic capacity building, state practices and hospitals, and to leverage will be a doing on information around ebola to help with hiv risk? >> geographically remember where ebola or hiv, countries affected by ebola -- i was struck and you know better than i by the nigerian response that described the building on platforms. aids investments in nigeria at. allowed nigeria to quickly get on top of this epidemic and that could have been an epidemic and an ebola epidemic in nigeria made things more dramatic in

terms of numbers. it tells me something separate from the vaccine, we know that, functioning health systems work and prouder now over the last couple months and never thought i would be to watch the clinic in omaha. health systems matter and we have underinvested and will make a big difference when we have a vaccine. a health system that can deliver what is critical and one of the reasons the leveraging for me is still not the we are not going to invest in tesla because we have an ebola outbreak. we should be doubling down because it has not been the single best investment, of global public health so we need to be seen in that regard. >> paul? >> you give fleece to an important, and, defense against ebola in nigeria could have been

explosive. are funded labs and some of this. for your information we here in formally is the administration -- we are not sure, we put money into ebola in the coming year. especially -- members of congress are talking a lot right now about an emergency supplemental which has not been seen for global public health for years and years but the department of defense freed up $1 billion to do important work. this is the lord's work, it is good to instruct clinics and so forth. it is not a shortage of funding at the moment and sustained

members of congress doing year long grind for $300,000, after $600 million, that is not a question that we can continue. >> washington question. >> there's a lot of momentum around health systems and that is important to capture. >> to get an hiv vaccine, you make this case because as confident as you are, if you are around long enough is easy to start trading one thing the for another and what i hear you saying is we need to add on top of what we are already doing the cost of getting hiv vaccine will mean an increment more in terms of financing so that case has to be made. one of of the reasons we want to

do this is people like heidi who go back to the hill and explain these things to offer great opportunity especially in combination with other things. it is not in the short term going to -- we have to invest to achieve those savings. that is a hard argument to make when it comes to foreign aid. final questions and we will close out for the day. great. i want to thank the panelists for coming here. thanks for a meeting of the series, thrilled to have you here as always. thanks for your work on this. get back to the other virus. thank you very much for coming and sharing, thank you, margie mcglynn on behalf of iavi. all of us have some work to do. we're looking for feedback and future events the. we have ideas around this technology thing we're happy to hear them. some e-mails from you and great

suggestions. thank you for coming. have a good afternoon and don't forget to vote. [applause] ..

>> and we're live this morning for a conference examining the results of the midterm elections. for the next few hours a look at the result, transit seen on election night, and what the results mean for the next congress. stuart rothenberg, tom davis and former governor ted strickland and john engler of michigan. we will also hear from members of the cq roll call staff and the number of cq reporters. this is live coverage you on c-span2. coverage here on c-span2. it's expected to start in just a few moments. [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

>> we are waiting for the start of this postelection analysis, a conference hosted by cq roll call. it's expected to illustrate couple of hours. house speaker john boehner will be addressing the media. is holding a briefing this afternoon at about 1:15 p.m. eastern. we plan to have that for you on c-span records. remarks and house speaker john boehner about post-midterm election priority for the republican agenda. this is back from in september. we will show you as much as we can to kill this conference gets under way. >> you've all heard a lot lately about corporate conversions, their religious symptoms, visible symptoms of a much deeper problem. our tax code is terrible. nobody understands it. not even the irs.

people that becomes hundreds of dollars so they can try to lower their taxes. they come over the years thousands of change has been made to this tax code. and mostly for the benefit of those who are well-connected. so all this talk but conversion is making the problem smaller. it's like fussing over at david when the road is littered with potholes. let's fix the whole, corporate and personal. make it pro-growth, profamily and bring down the rates for every american, clear out the loopholes come allow people to do taxes onto sheets of paper. 95% of the american people could do their taxes on two sheets of paper. i know i can feel the blood pressure going down in the room already. so we do this, we get one of the biggest reasons that jobs are moving overseas. we make it easy for families to

do everything from build a house to say for the college cost for their kids. secondly, we've got to solve a spending problem. or 53 of the less excuse was that more than what we brought him. this is where people get on me about comparing apples to oranges, but hear me out. would you do this in your own home? of course you wouldn't. he would never get by with a. could anybody one of business this way? absolutely not. guess what? we can't do it as a country either because it's bad for our economy. it's stealing from her kids and grandkids, robbing them of the benefits they will never see and leaving them with her goods that are nearly impossible to repaint. the question isn't what's driving this debt, it's too. baby boomers like me retiring at the rate of 10,000 a day, 70,000 this week, 3.5 million this year and this will go on for another 20 years.

our entitlement programs weren't designed for almost all of us retiring at the same time, and they certainly weren't designed for the fact that most of us will live well beyond 80. these programs are important to tens of millions of americans. you can't throw them out. you don't want to throw them out. but they need to be fixed and put on a sustainable path, and we can, in fact, do that. thirdly, we have to reform our legal system. we let anybody in america sued anybody in favor any damn reason they won't. it's crazy. we all pay for it and everything that we buy. listen, the costs are staggering but we spend more per person on litigation like to .5 times more than the average international competitor we have around the world. they don't show up with higher premiums but they show up as literally the cost of everything

we buy. it's inefficient, makes america less competitive. there's got to be a better way. i'm all for taking care of people who have been injured that may just access to the system but there ought to be reasonable standards and reasonable limits on compensation. fourthly, our regulatory system. the way the federal government hands down regulations, it's coercive, combative and, frankly, very expensive. take the dodd-frank laws as an example with its 849 pages and $21.8 billion worth of compliance cost. the interesting thing is that dodd-frank was passed to end the bailouts and get rid of too big to fail. not only has it failed to do that, the compliance costs are indiscriminately hitting small community banks and credit unions. for those small banks and credit unions, their bread and butter

our small business loans and family loves. and now you've got more uncertainty, more money going into compliance. what happens? the cost of borrowing goes up and access to credit goes down. it's the last thing main street needs right now. other countries have a more collaborative process for deciding what is a problem, and more collaborative process for how to address that problem. the result is that you have fewer regulations, that the one she do have are more meaningful and don't unnecessarily drive up the cost of doing business in that country. but even if we did these four things, i don't think we are going to maximize our potential out of this energy boom. so that the issue is real simple. we've got to find a way to educate more of america's kids. aside from arthur brooks you're not going to me and more glass half-full guy than me. but some of these figures are really rather depressing.

last year, one out of every five high school students get -- didn't graduate with their peers. one out of five. among those who did graduate, one in five need remedial education before they can start college. that's because according to the nation's report card, only 38% of 12th graders performed at or above proficiency in reading. only 26% performed at or above proficient in math. we are simply not educating enough of america's kids. now, one thing no child left behind would require every state to adopt standards and make assessments of progress. likely especially contract with the kids on the that's the good news. the bad news is that too many children still are learning. ninny aren't learning because they are sentenced to attend a struggling school. that's why one of the things

we've done was to create the first federally funded private school choice initiative in america, the d.c. opportunity scholarship program. i'll tell you what. it's succeeding beyond anyone's highest expectations. 97% of these kids are graduating from high school. 92% approval rating from parents. so why would we go ahead and start expanding this program to the rest of the country? let's get more poor kids and the parents the chance to fund their schools that they deserve. there are other things we can do. we are going have a growing economy, we will need workers. we can't have workers who don't get the basics of a decent -- >> thank you so much for coming, cq roll call's election impact conference to my name is beth abroad or at on the publisher and we appreciate everybody's making it out on this not so beautiful morning -- beth bronder -- here's some of the

important results from tuesday and hear from our experts. this event caps off a whirlwind election season for our newsroom, and it's a chance every two years for us to sure what we learned on the campaign trail, what we learn on election day, and what we foresee for the new congress. so it's a great chance for me as a publisher to get to show off all of the talent in our newsroom. and a little tighter this morning on the coffee break you will have a chance to meet some of the editors and ask some of those questions that may be are just too specific to your world that you don't want ask in a room like this. so i will be a little bit more about the logistics for that. i do want to do a big shout out to our friends here from business roundtable for sponsoring this important event. without them it would not have been possible at this grand scale, and we certainly appreciate their support the

governor engler will offer some remarks in just a second bite i need to go through some housekeeping items. so if you bear with me here and pay attention i would appreciate it. i want to thank our business partners who also helped us produce and promote this event. they are fc w., government, "national review," the senior executive association. 720 strategies. the center for american progress and the young government leaders organization. now, let's really get into housekeeping. the wireless code, which everybody will no doubt need at some point today is the security code is cqrc2014. cqrc2014. now, you will need that if you haven't downloaded the app for

the program for today. so if you haven't done that i encourage you to do it now. it just takes a few seconds. and if you go to your store either for apple or for android, go to guidebook, download the guide book at and once you're in guidebook simply type in cq roll call and immediately it will populate and bring up the program for the conference and you click on it. and not only would have today's program, any specific information about what goes on today, that there will also be a list of all the new members as well as five key issues by policy area that our editors have determined to be important. so there's a lot of good information on there. encourage you to do that sometime this morning if you haven't already.

now, about the coffee break at 10:45 a.m., we will have room set up for our editors will be conducting informal discussion groups. so that wil with you the chanceo gravitate to the issue area that you care about most, i know some of you identified those when you registered. but they will be clearly marked and my colleague will clearly lay out where they are and direct you to them at the 10:45 a.m. coffee break. do not forget to take your coffee with you too can feel free to move around each one different groups come and please, don't be shy about that. so when you go to a national scheme, the people who work there have the ask me cite on the back of their jerseys. our version of ask me this this little yellow ribbon. so if you have any needs today, if you don't know which breakout session you want to go to, just find somebody with this yellow

ribbon on their name tag and they can help you. we have a couple dozen staffers throughout the room and at the registration table who will be more than happy to help you. and then last housekeeping item is to make sure you pick up your guide to the new congress. they are out on the tables, and there are plenty of extras if you'd like to take one back to a colleague. so that is it would housekeeping. now i am very honored to be introducing our sponsor representative become john engler is president of the business roundtable, which has most of you know is an association of chief executive officers. and their member companies produce $7.4 trillion in annual revenues and employment within 15 million people. john is a former three-term governor of michigan. he assumed the leadership business roundtable and

january 2011 and prior to that was president and ceo of the national association of manufacturers for six years. throughout his leadership both in the private sector and public sector he's been engaged in education, and workforce issues, specific identifying the shortage of skilled workers and their growing threat that poses to american competitiveness in the global economy. and as business roundtable president and former public official, john will bring a very unique perspective to us today and certainly knows a lot about elections. john? [applause] >> thank you, beth, good morning. it will be a very brief perspective, a couple of comments because i stand in way of stuart coming up and really beginning to write important information. we are just thrilled about david, the business roundtable

is excited to be a sponsor of today's conference. there's a lot of impact to be talking about today but the two publications that are putting this on really have just an unbelievable wealth of journalistic experience to draw on. and today we have included this program for everyone's benefit top experts in the political world. we get rob and god after from the committees. i was looking at the front page of roll call, actually -- guy. rob collins, we get a morning with him so that's a pretty good deal for us. not a whole day but a lot of insight coming our way in a few moments. i also appreciate the fact that the theme that we're focusing on today, what happened, which going to happen, that sort of gets right to the point because that's what washington wants to know. that's what america is very interested in. the business roundtable, we represent more than 200 ceos, and have a big, global

footprint, probably 16 or so employers, 40 million injured lives so to big impact in that respect as well. so no surprise to anyone that the roundtable is invested in elections. when you look at the 2014 elections certainly think you're dominated by voter concerns about the economy. this is an economically driven election in many respects, and we'll get into a lot of the permutations but i think we think about economy, it's too slow in terms of its growth and its recovery coming out of the deepest recession back in '08, '09, 10 2.5% gdp growth. too many people under employed in the work force. it just tells us we have to be doing better. may be leading a global economic recovery. as we think four and 5% growth ought to be the target.

this week is recovery ought to be the first topic on the agenda. -- weakest. the hiring has been substandard. we've added jobs but i think the people were reacting on tuesday in part to there since, yeah, it's not just quite right. it's not the way it ought to be. you see that i think pretty much every family in the country has somehow been touched by economic conditions in the last few years, and there's this sense we can and must do better, whether it's somebody in your family or a friend, somebody you know. there's been a lot of struggling going on out there and i think that all shows up in the right track wrong track direction that we are hanging over this election, if you will. so what should come now that the election is over we should be thinking about? in 2015, congress would have to dedicate itself i think to the proposition that there are

things that can be done again encourage economic growth in the united states you and so we are hoping that tax reform goes right up at the top of that list. there's an area where there is bipartisan support today. there will be more we think in the next congress. it's an area were even the president yesterday in his news conference put tax reform or kept tax reform on the list. he has said this is something he is for. so we think that's one of those achievable goals, it is something we are optimistic about in 2015. some other key areas are also prime for action. in the trade area, no question that there's hope that some of the international grievance in asia and europe might be finalized, but precondition i have to give the president what he's asked for in terms of trade promotion authority so his negotiators can do their job. so current congress has got to wrap up. at a few things they need to finish up on.

that lame-duck sessions has got to kind of finish the budget, take care some these expired tax provisions that if they're not dealt with we could give everyone a little christmas surprise with a tax hike. that's probably not a very good idea so does work like that to be done, and tpi to be on the list and we can get busy. we will hear in a moment about what this new congress is going to be like. but we think the agenda ought to begin answer we continue with the growth for much of the start of 2015. and that's where we think we can see the parties across the country come together, the house and senate can come together and we think there's plenty of room for the president to work with congress. so we think it's achievable and we're excited about it and excited about today's opportunity to have a discussion about some of the new personnel is a new direction we'll be seeing in washington. so great agenda, a lot of explanation of what did happen, pretty significant prognostication about what will happen.

so we set start and continued with economy and now it's my pleasure to turn the program i think over, right back to beth. should make the introductions. thank you very much, and we're delighted to be a part of this. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, governor. and thank you again to the business roundtable the we really appreciate your support as we do the support of our other business partners. and again i want to thank everybody here in the audience for making this a part of your warning and a part of your educational programs that you do throughout the year. with that i'm going to turn of the program to our vice president of news, david ellis, and he's going to get into the nitty-gritty. are you? [applause] >> good morning, everybody, and welcome. as that said my name is david ellis, i'm vp of news which is just a fancy way of saying i run the newsroom at cq with our 100 reporters and editors.

i just wanted to a little bit about cq. it started as "congressional quarterly" and it was started by nelson poynter in 1945 to provide an explanatory service to his newspaper chain on the workings of congress. its mission as he put it was simple. the federal government will never set up an adequate agency to put a check on itself, and the foundation is too timid for the. so has to be a private enterprise, beholden to its clients. now "congressional quarterly" was so popular it was a quarterly for just a year, and today it's a daily news service offering the latest information on the workings of congress, schedules and hallway power brokering. so we've been around nearly 70 years, and quarterly for one. for most of its history seek he was owned by the saint petersburg times which was associate with the poynter family. and in turn was won by the poynter institute set up by nelson poynter to train

journalists. five years ago safety was bought by the economist group, the british company that you own to "the economist" magazine. what you may not know is that "the economist" magazine is referred to within the group as a newspaper and has been since 1843. the economist group at that time already owned what americans call a newspaper, roll call, which was started nearly 60 years ago. roll call is not as the newspaper of congress and to providing news and information that is considered indispensable for members of congress and their staff. so next year, cq celebrates its 70th anniversary and roll call its 60th so we are looking forward to quite a busy off year when it comes to politics. that powerful combination we have today which is roll call is the public face in publication that tracks of people pursue and gain power, and cq is the policy

analysis organization that covers every legislative action in congress with the breaking news and bill tracking and member profiles and much more. so roll call is about gaining power and cq is about the exercise of power, and that's who we are here about today. we are going to talk in depth about the new group of people who exercise that power in congress over the next tw two years. there will be a lot of new faces in the 114th congress. at last count, 56 in the house and 11 in the senate, seven of whom were house members who gained a promotion. all of you -- beth mentioned it, but we stayed late last night putting together this new members guide which has the latest information on the openings on committees, the new faces. this is an invaluable guide. i urge you to take a few copies and share them and take them away. the other thing would also have for those of you who are not

compliant is this guide to the breakout session which will happen a little while the a's are the five issues to watch on budget, energy, technology, defense, health care and transportation. we will offer you access to experts in each of those areas, in depth discussions. now, there's been a lot of talk about political partnership being the norm and perhaps as not unrelated note, there's been a big uptick in examples of weight elections over the last few years. cincy to start this postelection conference in 1980 the bit about six ways elections we see both changes in both the house and senate makeup. that trend is accelerating. we've had three consecutive midterm ways elections and four of the last five national votes, if you exclude the 2012 reelection of president obama. i know all this because i listen

to and pay attention closely to the analysis of wisdom of our next speaker. stu rothenberg who is the editor and publisher of the rothenberg political report. it's a nonpartisan newsletter covering u.s. senate and gubernatorial campaigns, presidential politics and all sorts of political development. he has got a twice weekly column at roll call and he offers the kind of context and perspective that is worth coming here to listen to. so without further ado i headed over to stu rothenberg. [applause] >> good morning, david. good morning, everybody. how are you? let's show some life, please. [laughter] i've got to feed off you. it's a pleasure to be here. welcome again to it should be a really interesting day. you see an old got up there with a microphone, and i see a lounge

innocent so tell in 1955 and is part of the rat pac. that's what i'm using -- [laughter] i don't have a lot of time at have lots to cover. are a lot of interesting people after me who you want to hear some going to run through what happened, why, and go for. soft touch on two or three things, groups that folks live in they were going to more detail on. what happened actually we had a way the election but by what if i had to you going to credit me with the statistics i would've checked to see if they were right. i just figured what the heck. you are right. what happened? we had a wave election. senate will be nine senate seats i believe at the end of the day after the louisiana runoff, probably nine senate seats will flip to the republicans taking them from 45 to 54.

the last house numbers suggest a somewhat in the mid-teams, a whole bunch of recounts, some races are too close, too close to call for weeks probably but somewhere i don't know, you want to say between 13 and 17. that's probably somewhere in there. a handful of governorships all went to the republicans. so it's a terrific night. now, there were plenty of surprises. or with one or two races -- i'm still stunned by them, but the overall outcome should not a shock to you, stunned you, left you, your mouth open in unbelieving. a very smart person who i sometimes don't, don't always but sometimes agree rose this in september, september 8, september 8. i'm not expecting a substantial republican weight in november with a net gain of at least

seven seats but it wouldn't be shocked by a large again. the combination of a piper present any midterm election can produce disasters results for the president's party. given the president stand, the public's disappointment with the direction of the courage, the makeup of the midterm electorate and the 2014 senate map i'm expecting a strong breeze to the backs of the gop and, and if there's a strong breeze most of the race is now regarded as competitive will fall one way, toward republicans. this doesn't happen all the time but it's far from unusual. right now the cycle looks much like 2010 when democrats with reasonable profiles got crushed in republican leaning in swing states. with the president looking weaker, the news getting worse, democratic candidates and difficult and competitive states are likely to have a truly are in some albatross around their necks but that was written in september 8 by someone i often,

not always, agree with. me. [laughter] now, if i could see that on the horizon, i think most people could see it on the horizon. it's not like i call to sure it's not like i've superduper insights that other people don't have. thank you. what we saw was why did this happen? mood. most midterm elections are about mood. it's different from presidential elections which are much more about the two individuals running for office. their qualities, their backgrounds, they're prepared is, their agendas. midterm elections tend to be referenda on the sitting president, not on congress which is why we people look at the congressional job approval and said congress is a popular and republicans control the house so maybe election will be about the house. well maybe, but no. it's never about that. i'm not saying the next election couldn't be that way but, you

know, this is the black swan very. we don't have those kind of elections. midterms tend to be about the president and when voters are angry, disappointed, frustrated, uncomfortable, worried, anxious, nervous. those elections tend to send that message to the president's party. that's exactly what happened. so we had the senate states that were up. republican recruiting was quite good. they had strong candidates this time, and turnout but it's a midterm election to its fundamentally different from a presidential year. different people vote. i looked at the house national exit poll the other day. i made this point on the "newshour" but i will make it again. comparing the 2014 electorate to the 20 to electorate. is elected the turnout tuesday, i know this comes as a shock but not everybody votes, and what's important to me as a handicapper is who votes. not with the national public

opinion is. so i compared 2014 to 2012. the 2014 electorate was more male, older, less liberal, more republican, wealthier, and more than said that the country is headed off on the wrong track than the right direction. probably shouldn't surprise you that those voters then voted more republican. but there's even more than that. in 2012 the exit polls and do you approve or disapprove of the job barack obama is doing as president? the exit polls, presidential exit poll in 2012 was approved 53, disapprove 46 to shock a lot of us that the national posted not show an obama job approval rating in the low '50s. it showed him in the mid-to upper '40s but when people voted that's who voted. this time you approve or disapprove? 44% approve, 55% disapprove in a different electorate with a different mood and get delivered a different opinion about the

president of the united states. so patty wave election because they can't you want to change, that everybody wanted change. there are people in who think the president is doing a great job, the country is headed in the right direction? this doesn't make you wrong. they just make you different. and the people who voted. okay? it's simply a matter of opinion. but it's important who votes the what their opinions are. so what does it mean now going forward? can't have much time. i think of already over but i started lay. what does it mean going forward? well, i have rarely found a politician who won an election who didn't think that was some kind of mandate or affirmation of that person's agenda or priorities. i've heard so much cockamamie

analysis in the last -- not analysis. i get press releases from every group claiming that they are the reason why either the republicans won, or very creative press releases, or why they're the reason that democrats didn't do even worse, okay? and it's rare you get a politician who says, you know, this wasn't about as at all. is just about the president because would have a mandate to do anything to what to expect? i expect coming out of this election republicans will over read the quote-unquote mandate. now, not all republicans will do that. many including many in the leadership understand that their mandate is more like a negative mandate. don't do what the president wants. do something else. i think the house and senate republican leaders are still going to have problems with the

rank-and-file. now, the republican majority in the house is bigger and that may give speaker boehner more freedom, but don't kid yourself. i know all of us talk about how the senate, the establishment guys won the primary, so mcconnell knocked off the tea party guide. thad cochran won in knocking off, defeating chris mcdaniel. lamar alexander defeated a tea party guy. pat roberts defeated a tea party guy. so yes the establishment one, but in the house the chamber and the republican establishment didn't fight as much in these individual braces, and the electorates are different in house races than in senate races. so yeah, paul brown is leaving from georgia, a very libertari libertarian, antiestablishment, anti-his own party establishment, republican congressman from georgia these been replaced with larry loudermilk in georgia. michele bachman is leaving but

tom amer, an male version of michele bachman is coming in in minnesota. [laughter] so there's still this problem and john boehner love to tread very carefully. over in the senate i have three big question marks, and their names are canceled than in alaska, ben sasse of nebraska and tom cotton in arkansas. they are all smart and personable an interesting and thoughtful but i'm not exactly sure where they fit in this question of what is your role as a legislator. this is increase at an important question, to put on republican side. how do these people were elected officials see their role? is this to come here and part of a diverse institution and, therefore, we need to compromise and compromise could? or is a we've been compromising the last 50 years, conservative republicans, we elect presidents, even our own party,

they tell us they will shrink government and instead it gets bigger and we get medicare part d and wicked federalization of education and we are tired so are not compromising. what our cotton, says and sold in going to do. the reason i picked those three is all three were endorsed by the club for growth, economic leverage in the the club is enthusiastic and the club intends to support candidates who view principle over pragmatism. i met with all three. i could see them going either way. i don't know how they're going to behave. it will be interesting but if they joined a ted cruz, mike lee, let's call them, this is a neutral term i've just come up with in the last eight seconds, let's call them again totally neutral, the troublemaker caucus in the senate. let's call them that. that would make things very difficult for mitch mcconnell. so i think there's still lots of

questions but i'm rather skeptical that the republicans that now, they will be able to get on the same page. they will on the something certainly and the we interesting to see the relationship with the president. finally, and then i will stop, did the president get the message? probably not. you know, there are some, bill clinton got the message after 94 i think and he made it abundantly clear that he was upset that people didn't like it and he wanted to be where people were. i think this president is very confident that he knows where the country should go, moscow, and he is right about that, and just the koch brothers spent a lot of money and a lot of people didn't vote. so i don't expect a lot more flexibility out of the white house. i think congress will continue to be, i think washington will just continue to be the place where it's difficult to get things done. some stuff will get done.

lord knows we have got a lot of stuff done by the economy has come out, it's not growing fast enough, i agree, governor, but it has improved from a couple of years ago but is so going to take a lot of effort to get things done, a lot of energy, a lot of enthusiasm and a lot of goodwill. and it just going to sit let's keep our fingers crossed the thanks, now i turn this over to you, david? all right. now here comes david. thanks. [applause] >> thank you, stu. you know, he was talking about the spin we get. this is for the government because i know he will appreciate this as an old pro. yesterday we got something from the democratic congressional campaign committee press release, which was the subject line was on a tough guy, pccc limited republicans opportunity to take advantage of wave.

[laughter] so congratulations. that was the best spent on the democratic side i could think of. we are going to have a really great discussion coming up here now, led by christina bellantoni, editor in chief editor of roll call. christina that established job on election night guiding her team on a digital webcast which followed minute by minute election results, and it was terrific. she's joined by two great guests which she will introduce but i will just take a little bit about her. she joined as editor-in-chief of roll call in january 2014 and has really led the newspapers of digital as well as online initiatives, and she before that worked at the "newshour," and before that was at roll call. so she came home, and we're happy to have her and we're delighted to introduce her and

have her do this panel. so it's been about 20. [applause] -- christina bellantoni. >> good morning, everybody. is this okay? you should be here. hi, everyone. good morning. thanks for that nice nice introduction, dividends. and thanks for being here. we are excited about this. you may notice the cameras. this will be on c-span2, so we're pretty excited about that and excited to both guy cecil and rob collins, who are well respected in their respective fields and, obviously, very important to both cqm roll call. i will keep the introductions brief because will get right into the meat of our

conversation, and i will start with rob it was a veteran strategist, executive director of the national republican senatorial campaign to end has been a purple strategies before that. he created the successful hispanic leadership network. he worked for senator chuck hagel and he's a veteran. guy cecil is correct executive director for the democratic senator campaign committee. he was chief of staff to senator michael bennet of colorado he was the chairman of this year, and he is been the national political and field director for the hillary clinton campaign for president 2007-2008. he led a successful team of 2005-2007 as political director and chairman of the board in my old neighborhood, very important and the former minister which might have come in handy over the last few days. [laughter] so thank you both for being a but i'm going to start with the

news because we as a student rounded up we have two outstanding senate races and i'm curious what you were hearing from both -- start with alaska. >> alaska is a state -- has at least 14 days to get to five counting centers around alaska. and accounting center centers dt meet everyday. pages meet everyday. pages meet when the kind of hit a threshold number of ballots in their possession and they meet and they kept them. senator stevens went up over 3000 votes and lost the race by 3000 votes. 6000 votes came in after that. so we knew the polling was kind of bouncing all over the place, and so we pre-positioned legal teams sunday before the election with a theory that it's hard to get into alaska, easier to get out of south dakota, colorado,

you know. so it's better to be there and pay an extra night of hotel rooms and extra expenses to make sure you have your teams on the ground. we have folks who help out on the recount, or whatever that's called. senator murkowski and some really smart legal minds are up to making sure every thing is kind of where it is. i think we're up by significant enough margin that we should win. but we are going to see how the process kind of plays itself out. our candidate is feeling good about their position to make such an aggressive ground game on both sides, a lot of absentees got turned in early. a lot of early voting occurred. so wasn't like there was a big bold of -- bolt of the boats, like the ted stevens campaign

but also, sullivan rent a much more moderate campaign in compared to the stevens campaign. so a more active ground game means there should be a richer mix of republicans and democrats votes as opposed to 2008, senator begich got 60 plus percent of the votes taking after election day. so we feel pretty good and are positioned. >> and virginia, mark warner was up by about 16,727 votes with most of the precincts reporting there. so what are you expecting in virginia? >> i think as the remaining votes come in and that's the canvas to start to happen in counties, i think most of the canvassing will be complete today. we expect senator warner to hold the lead but it's very difficult to turn 16,000 votes into a win for the other side, and we fully expect over the course of the

next couple of days ahead will realize the same thing and not opt for a recount spent is that what you're hearing from mr. gillespie? >> is our candidate driven events, and whatever ed once we will back 100% both politically and financially to make sure that if after the re- canvas they do, they want to take a ke a step forwae >> you might've heard stu rothenberg predict he thinks republicans will ultimately of 90s because he thinks louisiana runoff will go towards bill cassidy. how did each of you do that louisiana race right now? >> i will go first. i think mary landrieu got her vote out, early vote wasn't what it was in the previous election, and it just wasn't there for her. baton rouge is a good place to be from if you're bill cassidy, and he has deep roots in the

committee. i think he's runnin run a good campaign, and he has the resources and also he didn't come out of the primary really beat up on the republican side. i don't think we had a lot of triage as we've seen in previous runoff with mary landrieu. mary landrieu is an extremely tough politician. susi tirrell was up significantly and mary landrieu stormed back the last month to win. so i mean, i think if the republicans think this is a long, gentle slide into a victory, they are going to fool themselves. if they don't start budgeting right now for a series contest, we could wake up december 7 and said we just blew a u.s. senate seat. >> unlike a lot of states in louisiana has a very active history of runoff elections but, in fact, usually there are runoff elections after every general election in the state added to thank 2000 is a great

example of what can happen, which is that as late as a week before the runoff, susi terrel was up against mary landrieu. the other dynamic i think this will put different and can do most of the conventional wisdom is that the african-american registration level at louisiana is as high as it's ever been. including pre-katrina. we are now over nine to 20,000 registered african-americans comments are challenge over the course of the next several weeks is to do everything we can to inspire our base, african-americans, young voters, women to turn and the runoff election. and it's one thing we can agree on is mary landrieu is an acrylic tenacious and tough politician but i think she's going to give it everything she has over the course of the next few weeks. >> we have a photo spread showing a roll call on the road project if we sent reporters and photographers out all year and with so many photos of mary

landrieu and she's in her element when she's home campaigning. a lot of these candidates you see that and they don't always -- she is super vibrant and happy. >> there are not many candidates were doing texas line dances. louisiana is its own magical, wonderful place. and she fits right in. >> from a philosophical point of view do you think voters look at this as well, the republicans have already won the majority can sew will turn up the issue next i do think republicans will have his bigger majority speak with you can look and make that argument and said the democrat base was depressed, it's going to be more depressed. i think we have to run our own races but i think the make committee perspective our ground game is going to be the number one thing we focus on, and other folks hopefully will cover the tv and all the other stuff that goes into the mass communication. but focusing on the ground game, educating. we call it a runoff but it's a

brand-new election, general election now. we have to have the mentality that just because they showed up six weeks ago doesn't mean they will show a. if they did show up six weeks ago, let's find out why and get them to vote. this is important but it's not for the majority anymore like we were kind of champion to our grassroots, but a senate seat as a terrible thing to waste that we have a shot right now so let's go get it. it's ours and power and money to get there. >> i think that means your jobs continue on for little while and we'll talk about the cycle in general but i am choose what election night was for you. we would talk about how you of each been on the losing side previously. i will start with you, guy, because democrats did lose senate majority. did you have a sense going into it that was how is going to play out, or with did you hear tom cotton wins in arkansas and you realize it's going to be a tough that? >> i was at the committee in 2006 when we reclaimed the

majority, running against an unpopular president nationalizing the election. and a 2008 i was there for the first out of the '08 cycle. and then, of course, the last cycle. there are two things that are true. winning is better than losing. that is still true. but the second thing is we knew really going into the election weekend that over the course of the previous week the numbers were marginally moving against us, in a uniform fashion. we do about five and it is not in every state tracking every race and it became very clear that in particular undecided voters and independent voters that had not made a decision. even with $120 million of ads in north carolina, our $100 million in colorado or 60 million in alaska, you still had undecided voters are making an assessment about the election and it became

clear that they were moving in one direction over the course of the week. so i think we obviously hope that we could stem the tide, but it became clear to us as time went on that that was going to be difficult to do. >> so rob, -- declared the winner basically the second the polls were closed over alison grimes. intimate and give a speech, a victory speech biggie didn't come out and what do you guys had the majority. how does that play out and we are confident you're going to get it? were using the same things in your weekend polling? >> yeah, i don't think i would put it through the prism of when mcconnell spoke. i think when you have a room full of volunteers who want to see you, you want to respond to them. they just spent a day, a week, a year working hard for you. at that, i mean, you want to be considerate to them. so i wouldn't frame it up was

mcconnell confident we would not get there. but i think it was more just he was in front of his team and he wanted to thank them. i think, you know, we felt good but we weren't sure. kentucky moved quick and then new hampshire moved bizarrely very quick. i don't know why it moved that quicker it should have been called so quickly i think. regardless of the outcome that was a tight race all night. we started to say what kind of that are we going to have? but, you know, the 5:00 exit polls plus the information we're getting across the country from our teams in the field, we felt like we are having a good night. kansas about 2:00 we felt real good about where we were and that was big. that was a big pivot point that we said okay, kansas is good. colorado we thought that going into the day. kind of information we're getting all day long. i will, north carolina we felt really good. the way the state was shaping

up. and in georgia the polling have bounced all over the place and we weren't sure exactly where we were. we knew we were close to 50 but we weren't sure if are going to get there and then we started to see the turnout. and we said i think we're going to be okay. we are goin going to have a good night. >> is that what you were saying during the day? you know a lot about colorado. were you seeing troubling signs of? >> one of the interesting things and it's important as a democrat that we take time to make sure we're analyzing the election, and that we are not over learning lessons or we are learning the wrong lessons. and one of the dynamics that is interesting about this election is the election wasn't won or lost based on turnout. and i think stu's comments about the wave election on the most telling in that regard, because in colorado, for example, contrary to i think what most people would think there was a

smaller gap, a better gap between republican ballots returned and democratic ballots returned than in 2010 when we won the election almost a point. there were 70,000 more voters between 18-34 that returned ballots. in north carolina, democratic counties turned out nine points higher than republican counties. we increased the african-american percentage of the population of the vote from 19% to 21%, a two-point increase in african-american turnout from 2010. and, in fact, the two largest democratic counties would increase turnout by 16%. the challenge is it doesn't matter anyway the election. there will be lots written about technology, about fields. republicans could have carried a commodore 64 on the why behind and going door-to-door. it wasn't going to change -- was going to change the fundamental dynamic of the election, and so we made a decision early on to

invest on the ground. in instances was not going to be a wave election and i think what's important for me taking make it to democrats is we shouldn't walk away from that commitment, that this is step one in changing the dynamic of the midterm election, not final step. and it's important for us to continue to invest in midterm elections. because every midterm will not be a wave election. and we need to continue to build the groundwork, especially in states where we are not engaged in the presidential election. but ultimately while we increased turnout, in fact if you look, i think of the 13 states that increased turnout, even though nationally to decrease, 10 of those were senate races. as i think it's just important for us to cause, to assess, and ultimately to make decisions about how we continue to build background game for future

elections. >> and, of course, the 26 landscape looks a little bit better for democrats. you guys will have 24 seats the republicans are defending in their states basically for the democrats. >> sure. look, of the 10 races we most wriggly talk about, the president lost 10 of those races -- most frequently talk about. in nine he was defeated by double digits in the five of those races he lost by 20 or more points. so this is not a national electorate. it is not an electorate for 2016 where we are talking about a lot of other states. and i think, look, when you lose the governor's race in maryland by 10 points, one of the blue states in the country, by a smaller margin than you lost purple states that are competitive, it reveals that there's something larger going on than simply whether your technology was good on whether you knocked on $10.2 million or $10.3 million. that's what i think it's

important for us that we don't give up on the door knocking, the phone banking, the voter registration but because ultimate in a close election that focus will pay off. but i think, you know, we getting to make sure we're analyzing everything and not coming to a rash determination about what worked, what didn't work and what we should do in the future. ..

>> there are two bars we had to get over. the low bar was could we avoid saying super-alienating things that scared the voters from us. [laughter] but the high bar was could we outdebate them, outargue them and present a legitimate case to change horses? and, you know, north carolina, thom tillis gets an hour of free debate time because kay havening didn't want to show -- kay hagan didn't want to show up. i think if he had a weaker candidate and, you know, other states you saw the republicans just saying let's talk more, let's debate these issues. a, the national environment favored them but, also, it was our feeling that we had trained them up, and we'd invested a lot of time. i think there's been a cultural change that started in '12 which i hope will continue which is we invest heavily in the grass

roots, invest in the technology behind the door knock, but invest in the door knock. you know, we stole a page out of their playbook. now, we're still learning, and thank you to your team for continuing to grant interviews to the press to tell us how to be better. [laughter] not to bs, i'm saying the democratic movement writ large. but, you know, that was a huge sea change that i've seen, you know, as you said, a bunch of campaigns, and it felt like every election cycle we got further and further away from grassroots and said we'll put it more tv. and i think in '12 led by the rnc and all the work they did postanalysis and the our campaigns and state parties said, you know, let's get back to what we do best which is talking to voters and mobilizing our teams. i think that's what worked. and i think our candidates were very nimble on the issues. so when, you know, foreign policy kind of jumped to the

fore of the american people's minds september, october, a, we were pleased and blessed to have so many ex-military and current military candidates who were comfortable explaining the benefits of american national security and projection of force overseas. but also, you know, we -- with ebola, the veterans crisis, they quickly adapted these issues and said i'm going to put this right into my stump speech. and i think the campaigns in the past that i've worked on are democratic campaigns that create a plan in april, and that's what they execute on. i think you can really miss opportunities, and i think our campaigns were very nimble on that front. so we were very pleased with that. >> you look excited to jump in on that. >> no, look, i think that part of the challenge in this election is that there were multiple periods of time where republicans were able to easily

nationalize the election. and i think from the crisis over the children at the border to the veterans administration to ebola to isil there were multiple times where it was much easier for them to nationalize the election, to continue making it personal to the president which, again, in a lot of states didn't work. i mean, the reality is that the states where this battle was played out or were largely red states and a couple of purple states. unlike governors' races where you were looking at illinois, massachusetts, maryland. i mean, these are deep blue states. the reality is that places like minnesota, oregon where it could have easily become races ended up not being raced. and when you look at new

hampshire, the fundamental change in new hampshire -- if you look at the exit polls -- is that in 2010 the electorate in new hampshire was republican by three points. in this election the electorate was democratic by one point. the entire change in the election is that jeanne shaheen and her ground operation made the electorate four points more democratic than republicans. if it had been a 2010 electorate, if republicans had been successful at maintaining the 2010 electorate, senator shaheen would have been defeated by one to two points. and so i think the fact that we avoided minnesota where al franken, i think, it was ten months before he was sworn in in the last election, the fact that we avoided oregon, the fact that we changed the electorate in new hampshire demonstrates in those states it didn't work, but certainly in the red states continuing to talk about nationalizing the election not

on the economy -- which we would have loved to have had a debate about -- but on isil, ebola, immigration, the v.a., the health care web site ultimately became too much for us to overcome. >> now, rob, i wallet to get -- i want to get back to something you said about the candidates and the recruitment. they don't materialize out of thin air. there is a real primary issue for the republican party, and stu mentioned the troublemaker caucus with ted cruz being a part of that. he was on the nrsv team, definitely sort of didn't get as involved in primaries as he could have, but how much is that a factor for you guys looking ahead, or how worried are you about that for republican recruitment in the future? >> worried about whatsome. >> primaries and particularly people that are encouraging primaries from the right, you know, for some of your strong senators or others. an interesting example. >> i think when you talk to recruit -- i would imagine it's on both sides concern the first

thing a recruit says can i make a difference? coi step away if -- do i step away from, if you're talking about running away from the u.s. senate, they're probably successful in some other venture in their life. can i make a difference? so when you tick through i the questions, family impact and other stuff, one of the questions is what does a primary look like? you know, i sometimes bush i could spend more -- wish i could spend more time worrying about what the democrats were doing in '13 and half of '14 because we spent a lot of energy just kind of getting our class through the process. be it the incumbents or the recruits. and a lot of money and just a lot of brain power. i think it made us tougher as a committee so when we did go into full-blown general election mode, we were definitely hardened by the process in a professional sense, not by an

ideological sense, but in a professional sense. but i think, you know, primary does bring out some good. i think i can point to campaigns that were better, definitely better post-primary. they were tougher, they had gone through the -- >> which ones? >> had to get out the vote. but the problem is when you have kind of fringey candidated who set aside their ideology who would be easily picked apart by the democrats, and you have to spend hundreds if not millions of dollars beating them. it's very frustrating. and, you know, we had folks, i mean, you can go back and check the news. i don't want to bring them all back up, but who were significantly flawed candidated. set aside ideology. guy was probably chomping at the bit every primary night saying, oh, i can't wait to get that guy because we're going to pull his arms off and beat him over the head with them, politically speaking. [laughter] >> no one does that -- >> but in '8 and '10, that was

how they won. some of our candidates, they were too conservative for this state or too liberal. it had nothing to do wit. these are bad people. it's how they were characterized. i'm not a referee in politics, we just play the game as it's played. and, you know, that's a big issue. so stepping forward we have to look and analyze and say, you know, as a committee we pushed and pulled and did certain things to get people across, was that successful, should we continue it? should we, you know, go back to kind of a more laissez-faire attitude on primaries? and those are choices other people are going to have to make. i would make a recommendation that you don't, we never apply an ideological scale to anybody we met with, and we met with all the candidates. in our training sessions, we invited everyone in the primaries to come up. everyone was invited because we figured better candidates. now, some folks chose not to come because they didn't want to be with the establishment or

whatever their rationale was, so there was no litmus test on ideology, but there was a litmus test on could he win a general. i think that was important, i think that's what i would invest in. and with regards to recruiting, it was always an evolving process. we started in the red states, but by the end you saw blue chip candidates in blue states, and i think that's what allowed us to be successful. i mean, you know, is it a wave? yeah, probably historically speaking it'll be argued this was a wave election, but it was a very, very good cay when joni ernst won that primary for us, a very good day when scott brown got in, thom tillis winning in that primary and not having to go to a runoff in a purple state, you know, that's a good day for us. ed gillespie getting in is a good day for us. and we were able to spread outside of our six bright red states that obama got 42% or less, and we were able to field

these candidates primarily based on a sense that the primary process was more under control than less under control. and also that as a committee we were going to stand behind them and train them and help them get the funds they need to run a world class campaign. >> so when you look at the 2016 field, you might have a rematch in pennsylvania, pat toomey with joe sestak. what are some of the reasons you might be excited about it, were you to have this job in that cycle? >> neither one of us is going to have this job. [laughter] >> but you know you're still -- >> look, i think one of the interesting dynamics of the next election cycle is that it is the inverse in terms of the math. there are, i believe, seven republican-held seats in states that the president won. and that those states will be played out in an electorate that looks a lot different than a midterm election. so when you look at ron johnson, for example, i think he will have a very competitive election, and i think he starts out as underdog.

when you look at pennsylvania, i mean, there will be several races played out in states that the democratic presidential candidate is likely to win, and there will be a small handful of races in places where it will be a competitive race. and it's just a fundamentally -- every senate map is not created equally. when you look at the three senate classes, different batch every two years, in two of the senate classes the president won the election. unfortunately, it wasn't this senate class. in this senate class the president lost the election amongst the aggregate of all of the states which are -- which has to do with the map, not the president. it just has to do with the make up of this particular set of states. i think one of the interesting things about this election is that there were a number of blue states that went south in 2010 and didn't in this election. the good state of michigan, for example, where we eventually pulled out about $3 million

because their candidate was the, i believe, fifth or sixth choice to run. if they had had a better candidate in michigan, the race would have been fundamentally different. it would have been much more competitive. we would have had to have invested significantly more resources there. i think oregon another example of a state where other races on the ballot were much closer than the senate race in part because the candidate there was subpar. and so the key for us by the time we were going into the last two, three weeks of the election, the last two or three months of the election, was not to let what was happening in the red states and in a couple of purple states spread to the michigans, the oregons, the minnesotas and, from our perspective, the new hampshires. the reality is our polling in the last three to four weeks of the election consistently had scott brown within two to four

points of senator shaheen. the problem was that in every one of those polls shaheen was a 50. there was a very hard core 49.85% of the voters that were voting for jeanne shaheen regardless because they liked jeanne shaheen. and so is i think for us it was about preventing the spread, you know, making sure the wave was not a tsunami that capsized, you know, races that in a normal election cycle we would win, but in a 2010 election cycle, for example, in michigan where democrats lost everything, we ended up winning by with double digits. >> rob, were there any surprises for you where you were, you know, we didn't think we would get that close in this race or races where they ended up turning in your favor at the last minute? >> yeah. i mean, i think you want to start and say where were we in february, january 2013. and where did we end up.

i mean, competitive and winning big in colorado, iowa, north carolina a tighter race but still, states that are purple if not blue. and, you know, yeah, the cotton race opening up by that many points, i think, caught everyone off guard: and you look and say is, wow, what happened there? but also, you know, the fact that we did so well in the blue and purple states as opposed to the red states makes us feel like, you know, what we were doing, the investments we made made a lot of sense. the biggest surprise, i think everyone would agree, is virginia. i think ed, a+ campaign across the board. in your publication today there's a comment i made we always just wished an outside group believed what we believed. we were so stretched and kind of following the science behind our campaigns and where we made our investment because they raised a lot more money than we do.

a lot of our money was just bridge money to try and hold over the summer the line, and we -- while they were on the offensive and outspending us two to one, three to one and just kind of pounding away at our candidates and jacking up the negatives. we had to keep moving money away from the fall because we came from a fundamental position that either it was going to be decided in june or it was going to be decided in october, and when it wasn't decided in june, we were trying to save our money, as much as we could, for the back end. a lot of folks see labor day is when people start paying attention to elections, but it felt like columbus day when people were really starting to focus. they were spending so much, plus harry reid's super pac that it forced us to move more money, more money. so that was, you know, that was a challenge that, you know, kind of left us covered there for when these other states were breaking late.

and we had indications that it was a double digit for warner and single doubling psychiatries the last couple weeks, and we were able to put a small investment investment in there, but we just never had the raw dollars that we wanted to. and we had to move some dollars into some states that were pretty bright red for some folks. we just had to make sure we were safe. but that was a surprise. and if there's somebody who you look and say ran, you know, pitched a perfect game as a candidate, it was ed. i mean, ed ran an unbelievable campaign. >> and looking at 2016, how do you view that map? >> you know, '16, you know, it depends on how you rook ate. look at it. instability is one word because you have some uncredibly talented politicians who will win the senate seat if they are in the senate seat. there's some folks talking about doing over things when they grow up -- doing can other things when they grow up. [laughter] if you read the papers, there are some folks in key states saying they may run for

president. so that's the one thing i would have a question about. but, you know, you look at the places where we're going to have to compete, and i'll tell you, we have great candidates. rob portman in ohio, if i was a democrat, i wouldn't want to go against that. toomey in pennsylvania, rubio, ayotte in new hampshire, ron johnson, you know, mark kirk in illinois, people who really fit their states at the top of their game. and run really good operations. i can already tell you that at the nrsc we've already met with that class, those incumbents, and we've already started putting together their battle plan, and we they were very interested in how we set up our incumbents and also our challengers' budgets. and we had a long session where they said, wow, you guys are investing that much on ground games, wow. we'll be curious to see if you think those are good investments. oh, you're putting -- in talking to your am pains if the tv -- campaigns you're really mandates

they put this much into digital. huh, we'll be curious to see if that works. so we're already having those conversations. you can say tough states, but you can't look at one of them and say we can't do it. >> is that earlier? >> i'm not sure. this was months ago. >> i think they happen pretty early on both sides. >> are you worried about primaries in any of those cases? >> i think anyone who thinks a republican primary's going to be a coronation is looking for trouble. if you're not ready, and, you know, candidly, i looked at all those ppp polls that came out the weekend before the election, and if you looked under the head to head, there was all these messaging questions. if i was a democrat incumbent, i'd get ready for a primary because in this campaign finance system a very dedicated liberal or conservative can spend a few million dollars into a primary and create absolute havoc. and when you have the white house, you do have a little more control over the process. but i saw a, i saw a movement

that's getting restless when i see the weekend before a whole battery of message questions. you know, i wonder if they're saying, boy, we weren't liberal or liberal enough. and so we'll see. and that's not a reflection on the dn, i'm just saying there's a restlessness in the wings of the party, and now they can be funded. >> as a journalist, i'm pro-havoc. [laughter] guy, do you see any of your democratic senators having primary challenges? >> well, look, you never take anything for granted. this is my fourth out of my fourth cycle recruiting candidates. we've mostly avoided divisive primaries. we certainly have avoided primaries that cost us in the general election. so you never take anything for granted, but i think there might be some wishful thinking on the other side about pat leahy or patty murray getting challenged because they are not progressive enough. if you look at the class itself, because there are so few

democratic seats -- remember, this is the flipside of 2010 that's coming in. so if you survived in 2010, which was a pretty tough election year for democrats, it's because you have strong operations, you're in touch with your state. i wouldn't predict that there are going to be too many primaries on that side. going into the election. >> do you regret coming back to the ds after this cycle? it's a tough time for you. you said it's always better to win than lose. >> no. i mean, i didn't take the job because it was a sure thing we were going to win, i took the job because there was a reasonable chance we weren't. and i think that anybody that is in this profession that's only doing it because you want to be assured success probably is in the wrong line of business. my disappointment is not personal, although i would rather win. my disappointment is for the 21-year-old organizer who is knocking on doors for the first time in mountain hope, arkansas.

my disappointment is for the people that care fervently and believe strongly in our party. my disappointment is that the race wasn't close enough at the end because of the wave for success stories that i think will be told over the course of the next year to -- maybe this is my ministerial structure riding through, but, no. i am very happy that i stayed. i'm unhappy about the outcome. but, you know, our senior staff will be over to my house for chinese and beer tonight, and i couldn't have asked for a better group of people to work with, i couldn't have asked for a better slate of candidates to work for, and i have no regrets about coming back. >> now, i'm going to save the questions for what you're doing next for the very end. so, rob, i'm curious, we haven't

talked that much about president obama, and we know that that was an enormous influence on this electorate. it was a nationalized electorate. you've followed politics for a long time. i remember covering him in 2008 where you had every mayoral candidate and county supervisor candidate and dogcatcher candidate wanting to be one to introduce him at the rally wherever you were across america because they knew that he would help them, ultimately, on the ballot, and this ended up being the complete opposite effect six years later. was that turn around surprising to you, or was this inevitable january '13? >> no. i was here in '06, and you saw the same thing with bush. and some of the comments, whether purposeful or not, i mean, i'll let the reporters figure that out, but it struck me that, you know, they weren't helpful to guy's cause, i would argue. i'm not putting guy on the spot, but i would say it helped us a little more. and you wonder how these things, bringing up gitmo in october

when you have two super maxes in colorado and kansas? i mean, that's just -- what are we doing here? and, you know, you challenge, and i said at a previous session that our best surrogate was president obama, reminding folks of what they didn't like about this administration. i think simple things they could have done to get in front of some of these stories, they didn't. and so that helped us. and, you know, set aside my opinions, i just say statistically poll wise, you know, the president in october you saw his approval just dip just enough that it made us feel good that, you know, this midterm was going to be about the president and that our messaging that we'd set up concern which wasn't, it's bumper sticker-ized in the coverage by saying it was just against the president or we just used these voting stats. the voting stats were also tied with and this is how it impacts you. it wasn't just a lonely stat that says this candidate or this

incumbent. i mean, that's really, really hard to do. but those incumbents were tied to that number not because it was a number, it was because and this is what's happened to you if you want to talk about obamacare, you want to talk about the economy, debt and spending, foreign policy, whatever. so that was always the prism that we put these campaigns and this messaging through. and, you know, i think that was an important factor in this campaign. now, i would say it wasn't the only thing because if you look at our campaigns, we actually -- our candidates and how we coordinated was to talk about what our candidates would do. corey gardener talking about domestic energy production from wind power to natural gas to kind of all of the above. thom tillis talking about teacher pay, talking about increasing teacher salaries. that's how we spent our money. tom cotton talking about the federal issue of social security and joni ernst talking about social security, but it wasn't in everyone's mind.

it wasn't a national debate point at the time saying how they were going to honor the commitment to the seniors. so we were finding issues that were local and very timely and relevant to the people in those states and talking about them meanwhile, there was this overarching national conversation going on about isis and other things that helped feed into the election results. >> is that what you guys saw? >> well, i think i have probably a slightly different perspective on the advertising itself. over two-thirds of all senate ads that the republican ran were about -- republicans ran were about the president which is a pretty remarkable statistic when you think about the fact that hundreds of millions of dollars were spent on this election. and when you're doing that in states in this map, it certainly has an outsized effect. it didn't have an effect in minnesota or oregon. it didn't have an effect in michigan, it didn't have an effect in new hampshire. it had an effect in large

part -- not singularly, but in large part -- in red states that the president lost by double digits. the president did everything we asked of him. you know, we dropped, i think, 2.4 million letters from the president to obama voters in the last week of the election. we did radio scripts, we did robocalls, we did mail, we tried to efficiently utilize what the white house was offering, and i have no qualms with what the president did for us. he traveled around the country, they raised about $25 million for senate democrats which was a historic number for the committee. they made voter lists available, they made data available. but the reality is the map is the map is the map is the map. and it's not the sexiest part of the election because it's a story that's been told for two

years. i think the other thing that often is discussed is about the president's travels. and the reality is that an election is not going to be won or lost on whether or not the president visited a hotel ballroom in the denver media market. that's not the way that elections work when you're spending $100 million on television. and i think for us, you know, in june and july we polled in colorado, and, you know, i think this is probably one of more important points that rob has made, people assume, i think, in washington that it's impossible for someone to be undecided in october to. in october. the thing you always hear is how the hell is somebody undecided in october, right? but the reality is people are living their lives, right? single moms are taking their kids to school, parents are taking care of their children and their parents. people are worried about making the doctor's appointment,

getting their kid to little league. they're worried about getting to work on time and fighting traffic. everybody is not as -- america's not coming to a ballroom at the liaison hotel at eight a.m. to listen to two guys talk about elections. [laughter] that's not the way -- >> or watching on c-span. >> or watching on -- hello, c-span. that's not the way most of america processes information. there are an enormous number of undecided voters who decided the election, and this is the important point that i want to make. first, in colorado in july when we polled amongst undecided voters, the people that were going to decide the election in colorado, the president's favorability rating was -40. so we are constantly striking the balance of how do we efficiently use it. it's not reflective, and i think this is the thing, it's not reflective personally of the president. it's reflective of a midterm electorate.

it's reflective of a map that is dotted by arkansas and louisiana and alaska. these are not democratic bastions. remember, in a good number of states besides the democratic senator, there is no statewide democrat on the ballot. there's been no infrastructure built. we are dealing with a very lopsided map. and i think keeping that in mind is important. and the second thing is, again, going back to turnout, whether you're looking at colorado, iowa or healthcare -- which is where -- or north carolina, which is where i think a lot of our time was spent over the course of the last three weeks, the electorate got more democratic in party registration from 2010. think about that. it got more democratic in 2010. and in north carolina in 2010 democrats lost everything. it was historic losses in the state legislature for the first time going republican in decades, a republican governor was elected in a race that was