>> and they were in the eyes of dead men. this was a terrible thought they had of death all they did to satisfy morbid satisfaction. >> one of most powerful presidents in american history has transformed the country for better or for worse to give up power to search for

peace. on a major step that relates to what? what is the issue? vietnam. . >> 2 liters one in the secular world one of the religious world with parallel interests and just like poland when they were under attack and then to defeat communism

>> thank you very much steve for that nice introduction. i'm very honored to be here with you. i'm going to use -- i'm a little

apprehensive about this i'm going to use a lot of numbers and here i am in front of a group of people that's what you do is numbers. but i that's what you do is numbers but the other thing i was thinking was i lost a little over 100 pounds in the last 17 months. [applause] i told my wife i hope you like me i will be a lot longer than what she bargained for. [laughter] some of you can tell how much longer. here we go 25 billion people have already voted in this election the experts say 61 percent increase at this

.2014 with the last midterm election. we don't know necessarily how to evaluate that because it is the intensity andspec enthusiasm but those that normally vote on election day we don't really know that but to adapt to a number ofhe different realities over the last six months leading into the summer it was looking tougher and tougher for republicans we had the kavanaugh fight and i will get into moreai detail but things in the senate very strongly in favor of republicans and to help republicans a little bit. thatva seemed to be the post kavanaugh effect but now we

try to sort through the events of the last two weeks of the pipe bomber and the tragic shooting of philadelphia does this do anything to change things? is there another shift of momentum? so we see all kindsp of numbers you may have picked up "the washington post" had a survey with 69 competitive districts that the ones that they identified back in august and tracked them three times shows democrats ahead by three percentage points in the most competitive districts that doesn't sound like a whole lot but if you consider that of those 69 most competitive races all but three are them

are in the republican held district that changes things then we work with mass communications on another survey taken was 72 competitive districts that had the margin of 12. so whether three or 12 we will see this a lot of close races and keep in mind if somebody wins by half a point or 20 points, a seat is a seat. there are explosive things there. i started the newsletter back in 1984 so i covered nine midterm elections in presidential elections. i have been involved in politics a dozen years before that but every election that i

ever sa saw, somebody said this is the most important election since "moby dick" was a guppy. [laughter] heck. every other even-numbered year the entire house is up but how often do you see it teetering right on the edge and how often do you have the majority teetering o right on the edge holding by a thread at the same time the senate is split? that is really, really really unusual. we tend to be washingtonnk focused but a lot of people don't realize that three quarters of all of our governorships u are up in the midterm cycle three quarters of the governors for fifth of the state legislative seats

are up. think of the last ten years in the 2010 midterm election with obama's first term republicans scored the party in power to suffered devastating losses democrats had a net loss of six governorships nationwide in over 700 state legislative seats nationwide. four years later republicans picked up two more governorships and over 300 more state legislative seats. the point is to say right now republicans hold more offices than it any time in i the twenties because if you consider washington over the

last 20 or 30 years washington has and unwilling or unable to deal with it it has created a vacuum with governors and legislators to bebl more assertive winning those state legislative seats nationwide many of those embarked on a very aggressive conservative agenda i. right now all of that is up with open governorships that are term limited with 12 republican open governorships. so the stakes are really high as well so whether you look at the u.s. house or senate this

is a hugely important midterm election. what will this be about? i like to think in metaphors and i have two this is a tale elections. one is for the u.s. senate and is fought in an america aware of the 13 most competitive senate races this year ten out of 13 are in states that trump carried those with the slightest bit of doubt 13 out of 17 are states that trump carried. this is the most one-sided

advantaged map we have a seen in modern history and largely fought in states where president trumps approval ratings are higher than the disapproval rating and a spot in one america. and it is fought in suburban congressional districts that our purple. notd read. these are places wherere president trumps numbers are very different from red america and a lot of this is urban suburban with a different venue. two different elections one for the senate and one for everything else. the other metaphor is we have what appears to be a blue democratic tidal wave up

against a red republican seawall there are structures there but it will mitigate a way to a certain extent so what will be stronger? the way for the wall and i will talk about each of those elements. butav t first go back to the wae with the context of this election with a few point us on election night with policy implications midterm elections on the incumbent president and how much this is true we had 38 midterm elections whichever party at the white house you have already computed that a 92 percent. starting at the beginning we

have had 29ct midterm elections whichever party in the white house had a net loss of governorships. twenty-six out of 29? even down at the statete legislative level, 27 out of 29. the party in the white house had an eight loss of state legislative seats an average of 375 legislative seats nationwide so notice i left out the u.s. senate that is a very strong pattern since starting the election after the 17th amendment was passed we had 26 midterm

elections to have a net loss of u.s. senate seats so that is 73 percent why is 73? because the senate with six year terms of one third of the senate.s it matters which third of the seats are up so that's a very important variable so look six years ago what happened when the seats were up that can make a big difference. so it really is a referendum on the incumbent party or the party in the white house. political scientists that the most compelling reason is the presidential election years lots of people vote but in midterm it is about one third

fewer see you ask yourself who votes in midterm elections i will use the phrase people with their noses out of joint people that our angry or afraid that are motivated in midterm elections and there is a certain amount of logic if your party just won the white house two years earlier he may be happy or satisfied or complacent or disappointed but that is the range ofhe emotions. but if the other side one you are angry or afraid of what happen that increases your motivation there is some demographics because the drop

off between the presidential election years and the midterm midterms, to put it differently the people that drop off the least are white voters and older voters disproportionately more that drop-down in the midterm elections so in 2010 and 2014 that democrats were holding the white house they had devastating elections. so in 2006 with george w. bush was up the war in iraq was up the job approval rating dropped to 30 percent. republicans had a horrible midterm election that wasn't enough to save them from the

majorities in the house and in the senate both of those are important to the most famous things said about politics was the late democratic speaker of the house tip o'neill he is famous for saying all politics is local. so to me what he meant was if you want to figure out what's likely to happen in the district first look at the people that live there. look at their demographics and their past voting patterns they look at the candidates and local issues and usually you can figureke t out what is happening but it was a little bit of an exaggeration but once a decade something weird would happen you would have an election where all politics

was not local it's like an invisible hand to push the candidates forwarder up and the others down and back it would be where the state or district normally vote democratic and suddenly they lose or almost forfeit votes republican they lose or almost lose o it weird things happen but only once a decade so no big deal. that changed 1994 clinton midterm election. for 40 years democrats held majorities in the u.s.th house in 20 consecutive elections over the senate democrats had majorities 34 out of 40 years all except the first six years of reagan's term.

so each party to support goes up or down until 1994 and in that election democrats lost 54 seat and control of0 the house, the first time in 40 years and eight senate seats and control the senate. that is a real change. eight years later under george w. t bush republicans had a net loss of 30 seats losing control of the house, six senate seats and control the senate. look at that. then the next midterm election with obama they lost succeeds but managed to hold onto control and then democrats

lost nine more seats losing the majority that is a long way to say that after 40 years of stability and democratic control of the last six midterms four out of six control of the house or the senate or both switched. that is really, really really,e really different so the elections have gotten more explosive. to say i vote the person not the party. that still happens a little but not a m lot. now there is much less ticket splitting very very very little of that and nowow they vote red republican or blue democrat so that is an option

and for the canary in the coal mine will this election fit into the pattern or the exception to the rule? with those diagnostic indicators that i talk about election results or other elections we have seen since november 4 a sign of what might be happening this time i have had to go off on a little bit of a tangent talking about pulling all the polls were wrong. first of all, if we were here five years ago if you asked me about pulling, i would say

look the most rigorous of each party independent the best in the business are not as accurate as they were 40 years ago. the reason is telemarketers messed it up for everybody and now with caller id and c voicemail a lot of people if they don't recognize a phone numberat coming from a friend or relative that they do want to talk to. [laughter] they don't pick it up so it's hard p to get a sample but if they say they were wrong then i say wait what pools are you talking about? what do national polls measure

in a presidential election? the nationalls popular vote. they don't tell you in the individual state so what did theyw show in 2016? if you got up on the morning of the election what you would have found is hillary clinton had a higher percentage points she won the popular vote by two.one percentage points they were off by nine tenths of a point but here is the dirty little secret that is about the close as national polls get that's even closer than in 2012 when polling showed a closer race between obama and mitt romney fan the margin endedy up being. they were off a little bit but

not that much but i know the national popular vote victory and five bucks will get you a cup of coffee at starbucks. [laughter] that's not how we win elections it's by the electoral college. most of the states go the way they t show but there were three epic pool failures insi wisconsin, pennsylvania and michigan. because you are all data people if you looked at the real clear politics and election day morning those that were taken and released in wisconsin august 1st and election day. thirty-two out of 32.

by and a six and a half percentage points but donald trump won by seven tenths of a percentage point. look at that pennsylvania were 38 staples. the average of one.nine percentage points then in michigan there were 26 clinton was ahead 25 out of 263.6 percentt average clinton lead going into election day so three states that were really, really wrong.

but of 32 out of 32 say wisconsin will do one thing what the heck are we supposed to think? we obviously knew popular vote would go one way and electoral college would go one way that happened in 2000 when al gore won by half a percentage point with a popular vote but george bush won the electoral v vote. this was two.one, two.9 million votes and for you data aficionados. i did not say nuts. [laughter] the last time there was this big of a divergence between the popularwe vote and electoral college? 140 years.

1876 we remember fondly winning the popular vote by three b percentage points and rutherford b-letter hayes when 20 of those were contested but wow. so you need to be very careful looking at pulling and with the national polls when you see a national poll and the nbc "wall street journal"" poll done jointly by the top republican in democratic polling firm or abc "washington post" these are six figure very sophisticated national polls not perfect but pretty good. but out in the states some of it is good but a lot are not

very good so you have to be a discriminating consumer and that's why we're being more careful. so look at the polls to see what type of midterm election it will be think about the last eight elections those last eight in the last gallup poll the president of the united states had a job approval rating of over 50 percentr. in each case it was 50 percent or higher you know, the average netn change? no change in the house a net loss of two in the senate but the other for the president had a job approval rating

below 50 percent in each case it was 46 percent with a net loss of 40 seats in the house is seven seats in the senate it's a referenda on the president. sadly in recent history with 46 and 58 there is a limit with what you can do but it is on the incoming president so i will use the gallup poll with those polls that are done everyst single week since the end of world war ii. so back september 10th through the 16th after labor day the job approval rate

disapprove 56 the next week it was 40 then 42 and 43 then 44 and 44 again. we saw this improvement and then we saw it dip down this past week and we have seen some others the president's approval rating is this a statistical anomaly or real? so 89 percent ofb republicans approve of the job the president trump but 91 percent of republicans and 8 percent of democrats approved.

so now let's look at others suggest to be fair in real clear politics it is 42 percent fox had at 47 and with registered voters it was 27 approve that with the president's numbers they were improving butut still down in the place where about - - bad things happen to incumbent presidents to basically be at a point where president clinton was and where obama was before that disaster for democrats and then you say

this is really something. so of all the weeks of the trump administration his highest was 45 percent in the gallup poll the lowest was 35 percent that was for different times but the most recent was last december. that has been a long time his average is 39 but as stock he would have a narrow trading range but he has been moving to the upper end of that range up until one week ago. if you remember the famous james carville line 1992 on the clinton campaign with the blackboard it's the economy stupid.

focus on the economy. but when the economy is bad there's a good chance they will punish the president. if the economy is good they vote on something else. some people will reward a president when the economy does well but not nearly as many that will punish when it doeslyer badly. so gdp is growing at three.5 percent. second quarter was four.2 percent unemployment was three.7 percent this morning. that is fabulous. almost the best in 40 years. that's terrific but job approval rating is not in a good place. y-letter?

i probably should not do this but to use a family example. [laughter] we could have an unemployment rate of zero, we could have gdp twice the rate of what it is my wife and daughter will still really, really dislike trump and hold that against anybody wearing his jersey. it's not always the economy. so the last couple things on pulling thing getting to elections in the wall we look atsi intensity a couple different ways how strongly do they feel this? but some will go a step

farther if you approve they will ask do you strongly disapprove are only somewhat disapprove?y for every one person that strongly approves there are one.four that strongly disapprove and that ratio was true both in the most recent fox and nbc poll. at one point it was two / one this is better but they strongly disapprove that is pretty ugly if you're looking at strong disapproves fox news. nbc, "washington post" these are really big numbers to strongly disapprove.

who is expressing interest in the election? nbc in the "wall street journal" they ask voters on 11 through ten how interested are you in the upcoming election? when they emerged all their data january through august, 63 percent of democrat democrats, but only 51 percent of republicans said it was a nine or attend that is a democratic advantage on that would scare the heck out of you and the republican nationald committee did a national poll it was bad news but they leaked it for a good reason they found most

republicans and conservatives and trump voters did not think their majority was in danger so the president said there was a red wave and then you had the kavanaugh fight in september there is a tendency in the last month with partisans to come home in other words, for democrats who may have strayed or not focused they return to the polls and republicans return so some of this would have happened anyway but kavanaugh had an incredibly galvanizing effect. the fight to me was color

enhancement the reds better and the blues were there wasn't a lot of people switching sides and over in the senate being fought in red america that had really bad consequences for democratic candidates. but over in the house of suburban america where president trump doesn't do so well, it has an effect, but not as much. here is a dirty little secret so democrats never left home. they had been really energized since november 2015. a lot of them never got over it.

so republicans were lethargic but would nbc and the "wall street journal" did their mid-september poll but the republican numbers went from 51 through 61 with a ten-point jump so that 12.democratic advantage is four.and when they do their poll in mid-october and one comes out on sunday it was still four points democrats went up another nine points but republicans went up a to 68. there is still the democratic intensity advantage but it's not what it was pre- kavanaughva at least now we try to figure

out what about pittsburgh? does this have a disproportionate effect? we don't know. we are waiting to see. also the generic ballot test if it was held today though for the democratic republican candidate? or who would you rather see and control? right now democrats are y ahead by seven.five points or eight and a half points there is a general feeling they need to be ahead by six or seven to translate into a majority. that is a rule of thumb that this is not where it was there were times last year it was double digits. so it's not quite as bad as it was but still at a concerning

rate. this blue wave that you hear about is actually pink because it is empowered by women. we have had a gender gap going back to the reagan years. with the last poll among all registered voters 47 approve 49 disapprove but among men president trump had a net approval rating of plus 16 but among women, 50 percent disapprove and only 38 percent approve so that translates down into the congressional vote where republicans were ahead by 14 points democrats

were w 20 and women were ahead by 25 points. if you break it out basically non- college graduate women, but they don't vote that much differently than men. and white women with a four-year college degree that is very real. so with election results what happened since november 2016? with five statewide republicans and some of these i don't think ought to count the alabama senate race was a

referendum on roy moore in the new jersey governor's race last year chris christie's numbers drop to the point where i'm not sure his lieutenant governor had a chance. and then to be that point spread in virginia a good purple state on governor or lieutenant governorr or attorney general with the democratic congressional candidates and those by eight percentage points and democrats only picked up one of them but if they were really republican districts to go into trump's cabinet but the eight-point increase with 44 republican seats only six

seats were republican and finally, who voted in all the 50 state primaries? one.2 million more republicans voted in the primaries in 2014 this time it was two.9 million more democrats. the number of republicans voting in 2018 went up by 27 percent. that's pretty healthy. democrats 91 percent increase. remember the tv show lost in space and that robot?

so now let's talk about the wall. things that help protect the republicanie majority. in the house specifically democrats need add 23 state one - - seat net gain. one protection is where the congressional district boundaries are drawn. once every decade and democrats had that devastating year in 2010. republicans could suddenly draw the states and republicans had the opportunity to do to democrats what they had done for so many decades and they did modernn technologyyo you can now do even better. >> with the democratic with

those friendly boundaries to help protect that majority. so when a party wins a district by one vote every vote above that is complacent. where do democratic voters usually live? in cities and college towns in urbann areas. what do republican voters live? everywhere else in the democratic voters are highly concentrated so between where the lines are drawn in the population patterns so unless it is really, really bad. guess what? it probably is.

so if you let me get away with a ridiculously wide range democrats a 23 it is very likely to pick up between 20 and 50. that now go with a different range 30 or 40? if you construct a bell curve of profitability that would be at the top. so prior to the kavanaugh fight, i would say it's between 25 and 45 i would have

told you the oddsld would be higher o so it was not a bell curve it was asymmetric. then after the kavanaugh fight with that probability house only had a 75 percent chance of democrats in the majority. but the ceiling came down. so the chance of democrats blowing that wide-open came down. a lot of campaigns have stopped pulling so we are looking at sketchy data but post pittsburgh whether the incident or where he has fine qualities sometimes he does

not project that very well. so it looks like there could be a retrenchment if he gets back to an 85 percent chance democrats get a majority but keep in mind democrats need a 46or seat gain and that's not that big of a majority. and having problems getting a lot of things through. so what republicans have now

they get the gavel to have oversight hearings but for a policy standpoint and then to have a majority in the senate and then the white house with the veto pen. the wall mitigates that wave to the point that it is a lot taller wall than the house and the wall is taller than the wave. so that is a ridiculously wide range of outcomes all the way to republicans picking up for

most likely republicans pick up the change and that's in the state where the senate is fought to look at these democrats that have ten senate seats that president trump one only one republican seat it is a state that clinton carried does that sound challenging for democrats? of those seats that our up five or those that trump one by 19.margins or more. if you're from north dakota the state that mitt romney won

by the 20-point margin in trump by 36 points or from west virginia where romney won by 27 or trump and 42 or indiana trump by 19 or from missouri romney by nine. montana. i am not predicting all five of these democrats will lose because i don't think they will but they are in really, really tough places and mentioning to others. one is bill nelson and florida. florida is a state that obama won by one point then trump carried it by one.it is a swing state. butnt his opponent is the governor rick scott the last i heard writing a check for

$48 million personal. after-tax. notd race is really, really really, really close and also menendez from new jersey. the senate races almost always go democratic however if you have been indicted on bribery charges and it's a hung jury that just means they can get the guilty so new jersey is the one senate race where president trump is no influence whatsoever basically al question how do you feel about this?

this is where menendez had a lead but it's very tenuous that we are being cautious. there are seven democratic seats but meanwhile there are five republican seats one is where clinton won by a point to open seats in arizona and tennessee. these are states read republican arizona is trending left it still red but moving purple because jeff flake is retiring tennessee is read republican but democrats have been doing unusually well but now it looks like it has come back after kavanaugh those are two seats that are awfully

close then ted cruz from texas he's on the smartest people i have ever met in my life certainly with politics. but from nursery school through harvard he got straight a's in every single subject except plays well with other kids left half he has an image problem. he is polarizing with sharp elbows and a history so his lead isn't big in this charismatic guy who raised an enormous amount of money is outspending every liberal in america. , it's going to be a pretty close race but cruz has the advantage and i would be very surprised if heha lost also very surprised if we got past noon

on wednesday of mentioning him running for president because he is such a great fundraising list so now i will just stop. there is also a weird special election in mississippi because it is a special election everybody runs on one ballot together no party designation they don't tell you the party if there are two republicans running and one democrat the vote is split and then you have the incumbent there is the old-fashioned trent lott kind of conventional old-fashioned republican and then the state senator who almost knocked out the current senator in 2014 so that splits going to a runoff which my guess former african-american former

secretary of agriculture that will be with the republican they probably fold on but with a freak of nature democrats pick up one seat in the senate is 50/50 with the overtime election in mississippi republicans would have the advantage but that would be interesting. so you smashca this together that it may or may not be wider or about theow same democrats like to getor the house but to me and this is the last thing i will say before we open for questions or comments or accusations from a policy standpoint the states will be a much bigger deal. we look like we will see between a 5 percent increase of governorships these are substantial states like

illinois republican governorship michigan. republican governorship. probably gone. ohio teetering on the edge, florida on the edge. georgia right on the edge all republican governorships. democrats will pick up between five and ten may be between four and 600 state legislative seatsch or chambers like the which given that aggressive policy agenda the last ten years that is a policy implication plus redistricting that was in place where we draw the maps for the next decade so this is a really huge election. so now i will stop and open up for questions or comments.

. >> i want to ask about issues in your district by district analysis any indications on the ground for the next election cycle for the trump people if democrats get a majority they will and preach theou president and try to remove him in the senate but then another part of the republican party they like

what is happening but they don't approve of trump's table manners. and with this group the messaging is more subtle. do you like how the economy is performing? do you like your tax cuts? do you like a more flexible and reasonable regulatory regime? do you like your judicial nominations and supreme court justices? if you do democrats will reverse all of that so protect what's going well it's not really about trump. so that's what republicans are doing. people on tv say democrats havel no message i say no offense to my friends but the election is not about you it's about him i don't think you want to get in the way of

that. [laughter] but to the extent the issues are involved with health car care, saving, pre-existing-e conditions, we have had this environment with the affordable care act one party argues the affordable care act was the most horrific piece of legislation of herrr past by any legislative body in the world. the otherty party seems to pretend it was the product of immaculate conception and should not be tampered with in any way. that is an exaggeration but not so much so democrats say protect pre-existing conditions and not sabotage or repeal the affordable care act but short - - fine tune the shortcomings - but democrats what they ought to d do, if i

was a democratic consultant i would say for god sake do not use the phrase single-payer it's really popular with the democratic base but it freaks out suburban swing voters while the house is determined so don't say that. it's best if you don't say medicaid for all but it's hard to say what that means but that is preferable to single-payer you're much better off to saytt preserving pre-existing conditions to make obama care work. that to the extent they are pushing issues with this up or down referendum at least in the house the governors or legislaturest - - is driven by turnout if democrats come out of the woodwork and college educated women come out of the

woodwork to send a message against trump that will benefit democrats in a lot ofot just not in the read republican senate states. >> i didn't hear you mentioned the word immigration. >> and was waiting for you to ask.k. [laughter] . >> knowing that it is generating fear and anger and hatred it seems to me that the happenings. >> this is a huge issue but not that's turning voters one way or the other president trump is using it as a hot button issue to motivate his base. right now president trump if you look at hisyo schedule he is

going to georgia for the governors race but almost exclusively for the read republican senate states it is as if he is pretending there's no elections of the house because those are not going well he's focused on the senateil and that could be the verdict of his success or failure. he's trying to do everything he can to stoke up his 46 percent that voted for him to get them jacked up and immigration is one of the strongest issues to motivate that base. for a democrat, in 2016, trying to see if i should say this on c-span but thank you f for allowing c-span tovi see this for higher quality than i am but democrats, it's hard to imagine what president

trumpd or what candidate trump could have said prior to the 2016 election to offend latinos more than hein did but you practically need a microscope to see the increase of latino turnout in 2016. there isn't a lot of evidence that they are particularly engaged in most states right now. so for whatever reason it's not n motivating so the clinton campaign they knew that hillary clinton was not going to be able to replicate that turnout of the first african-american president. they knew that. but their assumption was that the first woman nominee? and given the patterns of what donald trump had said with

certain kinds of women that would make up the decline on the african-americann side to be made up on the female side and they thought latinos would react in a way that did not happen so there was a huge influx of small town rural voters rural working-class whites, that is what turbocharged the president up in range of 78000 votes and that's it made the difference. immigration is not an issue that seems to be working well for democrats even though more americans agree with them but

it doesn't seem to be pulling their way so they are steering away. they are hoping about democrats will you shut up about single-payer and abolish ice that may be really popular in some segments of the democratic base but that is horrifying to suburbans they may think wall is a dumb idea and may not approve of president trump that abolishing immigration? they are not exactly on board with that. immigration is really, really important for republicans and democrats would rather people think about health care and pre-existing condition specifically. one more question. >> medicaid expansion any

thoughts on what will drive the turnout and results there? . i learned never take a last question. [laughter] there is always one that you don't want. [laughter] god only gives us a certain number of brain cells and i don't have enough extra to spend on the ballot initiative.y, it is usually important but it is a reasonable assumption to make medicaid is on the ballot. it will create and a lot of times one side or the other will put issues on the ballot they could be worthy and legitimate to be voted on but also it helps people for example, republicans wanted a gasz tax to jazz up conservative turnout. so i will take the fifth on

that i suspect you know, more about that than i do and i would show my ignorance. but i kind of know what you do for a living i don't know exactly you could explain it to me and i still wouldn't know. [laughter] but i hope for all of us tono have insurance this is important i'm glad you do it because i'm not smart enough. thank you very much for having me here at allowing those from c-span. [applause] i never got to election night. oh well. [applause]