shortly. you're watching live coverage from the briefing room. this is a live look inside the white house the brady briefing room expecting the first press briefing that has been held

for severance several weeks. while we wait for the press briefing here at the white house to begin we will take a good look at some of the washington journal. we are joined by professor david schultz. helping us understand minnesota a little bit more. just begin that half of the house races they are extremely competitive the cycle. how unusual is that. it's clearly unusual nationwide. they think of it as being this overwhelmingly democratic state. the last time we voted for republican for president in 1972. but minnesota is changing i

note when breanna was talking about the number of ads and how nasty they are. i said we have turned into ohio. in terms of how competitive and close we are. in the demographic changes in the state both politically and let us say in other ways are clearly making minnesota far more competitive and we saw for example in the last presidential race where donald trump got within 50,000 votes of when he minnesota. clinton still prevailed. there are things that are changing in minnesota. you noted the 2016 results. less than 2%. let us go over the last ten to 15 years.

it was the first democrat to be elected in the minnesota. we have the democrats at state white office state white office holders. clear regions of the state right now and again the patterns that we see the sin my. they are strong in the rural areas. we have the battleground in the the other thing that we see. in terms of minnesota. when hillary clinton won the state by less than 2%. it was more a question of who didn't vote. and we know back in 2016

clinton got about 200,000 fewer votes in minnesota compared to brock obama four years earlier donald trump only got a couple thousand votes more. we sought democrats stayed home on election day in 2016. we saw the exact same thing happening here. we minnesota and a very interesting position. they are both assigned that the state is changing perhaps ready to follow wisconsin, michigan. it's part of what happened in 2016. is that clinton just ran a really bad campaign in the state. so we have lots of evidence going on in a variety of directions. giving the flipping back and forth of control of legislature.

they are representing minneapolis in terms of the fifth congressional district. he saw himself perhaps as been in the minority in the u.s. house of representatives. even though he was certain to win reelection. and decided i think that's one occasion. with somebody like rick nolan for example. there is also some thoughts there that there is some personal problems. and then we have the have the issue of tim walsh. some of it is we do have half

of our congressional delegation really and competitive races. we could even add this up and had more. if we have a couple more open seats here. we clearly had a lot of opportunity. for the two parties to pick up things in terms of flipping seats. it's very possible that they pick up again the eighth and the first. the democrats flipped the second in the third. we have a pattern that were seen nationwide. greater minnesota areas. i want to key in especially as you are talking about in many ways that is sort of a really good micro cosmetic of what's

happening nationwide. it went plus 54,000. paulson won that district by about 17 or 18 points if i remember quick -- correctly two years ago. it is a district where it has a very high percentage of college educated women and as we know the battleground in many ways is where college women in suburbs go not as a race i've been arguing for several weeks that if the democrats can flip the third congressional congressional district they've a very high probability of flipping control of congress in a lot of the forces and trends that are going on in state and national politics. with the 2018 campaign.

this one featuring bigfoot. and then there paulson comes along. tens of thousands of people looking for you all the time and not one of them will find you. i started to wonder did they really exist. where is the proof. i have to come up with a plan. he is a big artist's -- pharmaceutical company. i was prepared to stay there for weeks.

it took seven minutes i was so shocked when i saw him walking by. eric paulson professor david schultz. one of the ads that puts it on the map nationally. that is a very effective ad. they have avoided town halls and that's become an issue like both of locally. one of the things i told my students in talking about this. it is humor and satire. those are hard ads to respond to.

what do you sort of come back in the terms of a counter ad. does become very hard to do. it's a very creative ad. back in the '90s. jesse ventura. did very creative ads and so. statewide these type of ads are very effective. what is interesting about the ads in this race. the ads are quite negative but what i have seen which is really interesting with eric paulson his campaign is actually doing a lot of the attack ads on dean phillips. as we know oftentimes they are done by outside groups. that is probably what they suggest and something internal

pulse. suggesting things are very tight. the other thing i think is interesting about this race. again, go back to years ago. in a district that went plus 50,000. he went quite handily. two years ago, he had difficulties in terms of distancing himself. they have run another very effective ad. they are peddling the same canoe at the same time. he has been trying to distance himself. and his strength. in a district that is trailing overwhelmingly democrat. trying to cast himself as an independent republican i think

the overall national partisanship has hardened the last two years. clearly in this district is making it more difficult for him to distance himself. it's an interesting dimension here. and a fantastic job in cutting taxes. hard-working and very smart. we are spending an hour each morning this week on focusing on some of the key states that will decide control. minnesota is a state you are interested in there is a special line for residents. randall is up first this morning. randall, go ahead.

thank you for taking my call. i had been trying to get into you guys for years. i just wanted to make a statement. the whole thing is all about and what he's doing to this country he is getting away with things that no other president in history would have thunk up. he's getting away with it all. that's all it got i gotta say. it's pathetic. you're just talking a bit ago about the influence of donald trump. do you want to talk about it in some of these other house races. i think it's really an issue.

the eighth district is interesting. it you did use to have the iron range. the northeastern part of minnesota. redistricting has brought it down to the northern suburbs of the twin cities. it's become more conservative. part of the district is very democrat. but for listeners across the country. i would also create -- describe part of that is being a little bit like appalachia. it has shifted. the reason why mention that is it is a district that is always important. for the democratic party. it clearly has shifted started with reagan. and now clearly with trump. it is the last election plus 15. it is one of those few congressional districts over the last ten years that has

actually flipped back and forth partisan control several times and it's a section of the state that i think really is now trailing republican. have the democrat decided to run. so been incredibly popular as he is in that district. both in the northern twin city suburbs. i'm clearly he is been their campaign. we don't know this. but certainly, in the same way that we see a shift occurring north been nebraska's back.

on the issue of immigration in minnesota the cycle. it's interesting. they just did a poll that came out last week and it said that over a majority they oppose the policies on immigration. and i'm not surprised by that. we had head that. the religious groups. they relocate a lot of immigrants here. a very large somalian african population. we have a significant hispanic

population. the immigration you hear is not just driven by issues. on the normal immigration patterns. we've have it religious groups. a lot of different organizations bring people in. and i think the state views immigration a little bit differently. we know that the republicans in the members of congress. in the republican running for governor. on the republican immigration.

because of those unique relocation programs. that have been done oftentimes by religious groups. takes on a different dimension. are there other important demographic changes. as it is a more rapid urbanization that were seen here. it's about 3.8 million people out of a state of about five and half million. they're getting more and more people living in urban areas. those are clearly more trailing towards democrats. we have a large younger population. our younger population oftentimes votes in higher percentages. i think there are two other things that are very important to think about here.

one of them is we have a day day of election registration which means even if they aren't registered to vote they can chop on election day. they are going to register to vote next tuesday. between ten and 15% of the people to vote in minnesota generally register on election day. i think the excitement that were seen for that younger people under 30 along with the day of election registration is critical. if two years ago democrats stayed home in the urban cores indications are that voter registration is at. both of those counties which suggests perhaps a higher turnout for democrats this year than before.

that will help a state wide races. it will help in terms of the governor races. they won't have quite the same impact perhaps in some of those non- urban non- suburban congressional races. our guest for the next 25 minutes as professors scholz. offer -- author of more than 30 books. here to take your calls and questions as we focus on the state of minnesota and on those key house races there that could be the key races for control of the house. tom is in erie pennsylvania. good morning. my dilemma is i was a lifelong republican. until i saw. >> good afternoon. i want to begin today with the