demand at c-span.org or listen on the c-span radio app. your place for unfiltered view of politics. ♪ the president, available in paperback, hardcover and e-book from public affairs present biographies of every president inspired by conversation with noted historians about the leadership skills that make for a successful presidency. as americans go to the polls next month to decide who should lead our country. this collection offers perspectives into the lives and events that forged each presidential leadership style. to learn more about the the president and the books featured historians visit c-span.org/thepresidents and order your copy today, wherever books are sold. >> we are back with david canon threats of political science at

university of wisconsin-madison to continue our conversation on the battleground state of wisconsin. mr. can become let'son begin wih the news from washington. the supreme court decision on absentee ballots. what is your take on it? what type of voter could be impacted by this? >> really is an important decision by the supreme court to say that the bow has to be received by election day. in cnet received by election day willec not be counted, whereas e district court judge had ruled you could count the ballots for three days after the election the way many of the states allow. supreme court said that can't happen and so right now the parties are scrambling to get the message out if you want to vote by mail you better get your ballot in late today or tomorrow at the latest because the mail sometimes takes more than a week to get to the clerk's office. this really has put a very last-minute monkeywrench into the voting process for a lot of voters.

we do have a record number of people voting by mail in this election. already almost half of wisconsin voters have voted by mail, over 1.3 million have voted early and that's getting close to half of our totals in 2016. this could potentially affect a lot of wisconsin voters. >> host: are voters in wisconsin to track the ballot? >> guest: yet she can't but the problem is you go to my boat.gov website to track your boat but the problem is the clerks can't keep up. in the ideal world when the vote comes in it is tightly online, you can see your vote has been received but often there behind like a week, ten days. you really can't count on that. what people are being urged come if you have voted by mail already and planning on doing that you should take your ballot to one of the drop boxes or hand deliver it tot the clerk's offe to make sure it gets there on time. >> host: we spoke to you on

september 21 about the presidential race in wisconsin. what has changed since then?en >> guest: the pulse of new kilobit in bidens direction buts overall things have been white stable. the bidens had a lead the range between six and eight points for in most polls. the battleground poll those conducted by my colleagues here at the research center at your voice and was caught morning and showed a four-point choate for joe biden in wisconsin, also in michigan and pennsylvania.a. biden also showed a jump in those states. one interesting thing about this poll that hasn't been widely noted in the media commentary t i've seen so far is this unlike most of the polls is a pampa which means they are re-interviewing the same people over the susa polls. it has four polls. this is the last one before the election and so these are the

same people being interviewed. that shift is a real change. such is a different sample. if the same sample of people. to me that shows a real movement towards biden in wisconsin and those other battleground states. >> host: does that mean some people change their mind, started at supporting president trump or perhaps voted for him in 2016 and swing the other way? >> guest: correct. although it looks like most people are sticking with the initial choice and what's happening is people who on the fence are moving to biden. also the other thing the polls showed was biden is doing really well among people who did not vote in 2016 at all. new voters. and also people voted for someone else other than trump or clinton. they are breaking heavily for joe biden. >> host: how big is that electric? >> guest: it's a fairly small, about 15% of the sample so not a

huge percentage put enough to difference in a close race like this. >> host: rust in st. paul, minnesota, neighboring state texts to ask, can you talk about the wow counties and now that is changing? >> guest: really good question. for those of you not in wisconsin, those are the ring suburbs around milwaukee. they're called the wild counties, washington, or socket and -- they have been heavily republican, the most important part of republican suburban vote in theur state of wisconsin. that was the core support for scott walker, for donald trump in 2016. in 20 again they are still heavily republican but8, they moved substantially in the democratic direction. the other thing i would be keeping an eyeye on all the eary vote numbers to see where are the early votes coming in. the early votes again as a mentor before a running much higher than they were in 2016

and will be more than half of the electorate by the time we get to election day. there's a higher percentage of people voting by mail especially in dane county, in madison. 63% of the 2016 vote as only voted by mail in wisconsin. compared to the wow counties, only 49% in washington county can fit through% in waukesha and 55% in our donkey. they are still heavy voting by mail but not as much as dane county. that shows to be more of an energized base in democratic side to get the early vote out. >> host: what are the demographics of dane county? >> guest: dane county is heavily democratic. demographic in terms of white, black, racial? it's mostly white. the state overall is 87% white, 6.5% african-americans. the heaviest african-american population is in milwaukee, racing. madison doesn't have as high a

percent of african-american population as those cities. it's a heavily white population but it's also highly college educated. as we've seen in polling in this election especially there's a big gap between the white voters with a college degree and those without, and dane county has the highest proportion of college degrees of any countys in the state. >> host:f let's go to rot in johnstown, pennsylvania, supporting the former vice president. good morning. >> caller: i have a question pertaining to the ruling by the supreme court on the wisconsin voting. can't the state of wisconsin defied that rolling because of states' rights? for example, on the abortion thing, if they rule against abortion, roe v. wade come some states can still have law allowing abortion in their state. is that not correct?

i'm not a student of the law but i just wondering. this is a question of information. i don't think a ruling by the supreme court is written in stone for every state in union, isry it? >> guest: good question, and states' rights to come into play in this very topic, like who controls the election. when you compare the pennsylvania decision which was about a week ago where the supreme court did allow pennsylvania to count votes late after they come in after election day, but in wisconsin yesterday they said sorry, you can't do that. the difference was in pennsylvania john roberts photo with the three liberals to split the vote upholding the lower court decision saying the vote could be counted after election day because they said this is a question of state law and is being interpreted by the state supreme court to say this is allowable. john roberts and we should stay

out of this but the states do their things. but in wisconsin are state under state supreme court as a more conservative court said the state legislature should be able to decide this. roberts flipped and voted with the conservatives on this, 53 in favor send you should be able to count the votes but on the question then of states' rights and who gets to decide, robert said basically this is the state legislatures call. the state legislature should be able to decidee this. our state legislature did not step in to provide extra time to voters. in wisconsin this dates rights position is think state should get to decide, means our ballots have to be in by election day and cannot be counted late. >> host: michael in silver spring, maryland. yourla supporting the biden-hars ticket. >> caller: i have a question and the comment. what was the total amount that

trump be hillary by in 16? it was like 20,000 something, right? >> guest: 27,000. >> caller: now -- tractor that's out of almost 3,000,000 votes cast. that is really, really close. >> caller: yes. i'm a black american and i always looked at the black population of their as the reason why that occurred. because they stayed at home and that small amount made the difference, you know, and i'm wondering if that is going to come out this year. that's my question. and my comment is, it's responding to the guy that had the dream about jesus in the

other responder about abortion. if you go to numbers chapter five verse 11:31 it states that god sanctioned abortion and what i'm going to leave it there. >> guest: on the question of the african-american vote and did that help elect donald trump in wisconsin, he is right to the extent that the drop in turnout in milwaukee was, african-american turnout, was a margin of difference. i always hesitate to go with the straw that broke the camel's back argument, but that is a critical base support for the democratic party no doubt and there it was substantial drop between 2012-2016 and black turnout. we saw that nationally, where nationally in 2016 black turnout was down about 6% whereas in

2012 lacks 2012 black stored at higher rates than whites nationally. barack obama's second election. that was a critical thing in the 2016 election. the caller is right to point to that of something that a lot of people would be keeping a close eye on on tuesday night nextee week to see what the turnout looks like in milwaukee. >> host: a lot of talk also about wisconsin's fox river valley, the battleground within the battleground. where is this located? >> guest: the fox river valley is just north of -- ransom appleton up to green bay. it's an old industrial part of the state with a lot of paper mills, a lot of manufacturing and that's a part of the state that has been the battleground within the battleground is a a good way to put it. there had been many elections in the past with that part of his cotton has a highest ad buys per capita of any media market in

the country. this is a heavily fought over a that does swing both directions. that's another part of the state people are going to be keeping a close eye on. >> host: caleb, rockville, maryland. you are undecided. >> caller: my main concern, as an only, only like 1% of the national budget goes to the mith and economic development of broad. and given like 95% of u.s. jobs are directly linked to foreign trade, what are the key concerns in terms of foreign policy for wisconsin voters? as a supplemental question, what could we do more to make u.s. citizens were interested in international affairs, given the u.s. population is only 4% of the total in the world? >> guest: the caller is right that foreign affairs rarely plays a central role in

presidential politics. that if you look at the most important problems facing the country questions always asked the polls, that battleground poll admitted that was released yesterday had a question asking what are the most important issues facing the country today, it was the lever given issues and foreign policy hardly registered. covid was the most important issue for democrats. the economy was most important issue for republicans. it's something that simply does not register at the top of the list for most voters in less it's during a a time of war and thin clearly foreign policy considerations do come into play in a more serious way. in this election in wisconsin the one foreign policy related topic that does come up in rural areas the special is foreign trade. because of the trade war with china, agricultural sector in wisconsin was hurt pretty hard

by the trade war with china, and you have the drop in commodity prices, , the dairy farmers reay hurt by the lack of demand for many of their dairy products. and so that's something i think probably has hurt donald trump to some extent in the rural parts of the state here was, as a trade war we've been engaged in. but other than that i would have to agree with the caller there's really not as much interest being placed on foreign policy. in terms of answering his question what cane be done to make americans more interest in foreign policy, i think that's a it's something we always have been kind of inward looking country i think, something that becomes -- comes with the territory of being the world's largest economy and a discount of a privilege decision to be and to not have to worry

about foreign policy as much as some smaller countries, if you are one of the leading powers. so i agree with the caller. i also wish we paid more attention to foreign policy, but it is just a reality that we simply do not. our viewers earlier about the president tweeting out changing their votes, and according to cnn, among the states that allow the voters to change their early ballot after it has been cast are wisconsin, minnesota, michigan, connecticut and mississippi. david, your comments on this? guest: i had a conversation with our click on this very question a couple weeks ago. me that we used to have a policy that you could walk in your ballot with a different ballot, because the way that they are counted in most precincts in wisconsin, the

mail-in ballots are counted in your regular precinct. there are only 39 municipalities, including milwaukee, green bay as well, that come to a central location in the city, but every other of our 2000 minutes apologies will count the mail-in ballots at the polling place where you normally would vote. so i was told that we used to have a rule where you could take your new ballot, say i changed my mind, they would find your old one, rip it up and count your new ballot. now,ll of that is allowed because it got to be too complicated to do that, especially in the cities where they had the central counting and not at the polling place. it would be impossible to unwind that, the call back your ballot you already cast, so it is possible that in some that.palities they allow

that is something that is crazy about wisconsin elections, it is decentralized. we are the only state that has almost 2000 election officials, every other state it's done at the county level. so given that, there is a lot a variation in the practices and how they work, including the process of early voting. so it's possible in some parts of the state that walking in your ballot could still be allowed, may be in a smaller town it could be done, but in madison i was told by the madison clerk that that is not something that is done anymore. host: it sounds like you need to check with your local authorities. guest: you should check with your local court, because it does -- clerk, because it does vary. host: the president will be holding a rally at the motorsports management company in la crosse, wisconsin today. why there? guest: la crosse is one of those

medium-sized cities that tend to be more up for grabs. so, madison, milwaukee, they are heavily democratic, rural areas tend to be more republican. suburban areas are more republican. but it is those medium-sized cities like eau claire, green bay, la crosse, those are the ones up for grabs and that is where president trump sees the greatest potential in swinging some undecided voters perhaps. although, the percent undecided now is really small compared to four years ago. it is down to 3% in most polls, so there are not many people who have not yet made up their minds. host: jack in davenport, iowa, supporting the president. hi, jack. caller: president trump has come down hard on china. the gigantic chinese trade balance deficit, the chinese military buildup with aircraft carriers and island building,

and covid. how is the chinese factor weighing in madison? do you have a lot of chinese students in madison? guest: i do not think that the china question is registering at a very strong level among wisconsin voters. i mentioned it in the context of the trade war, how it has affected rural communities, but that would be about it. it's not one of the central issues. in terms of voters, asian americans statewide is it low single digits, around 4% or something. we do have a fair number -- fa ir number of foreign students at the university of wisconsin. it is down this semester because of covid. quite a few of them did not end up coming for the fall semester because of covid. so, aagain, it is not -- foreign student cannot vote, so

that is not affecting the election results. but in terms of the policy question, do not see china as being one of the central issues, as we talked about with the previous caller, that foreign policy is not up there with the most important issues. host: joe biden will be in georgia today. we will have coverage today at 1:00 p.m. of his campaign event, here on c-span, on c-span.org, or download any of these events and listen with the free c-span radio app. also today, senator kamala harris will be in reno, nevada, one week before election day. live coverage here at 3:00 p.m. eastern time. vice president mike pence will be in greenville, south carolina, and we will have that live coverage here as well as 3:00 p.m. eastern, online as well. and tonight, the president will hold a rally in omaha, nebraska,

and you can watch it live here at 8:30 p.m. eastern time. for all of our coverage, go to c-span.org. tim in luxembourg, wisconsin, you are undecided. part of the very small percentage of undecided voters in wisconsin. why are you undecided? caller: i have always voted democrat, but it will be hard to vote for -- well, if i do vote, democrat,lf voting but i will be actually voting for harris. bidenard to vote for joe when he voted for the iraq war, libya happened under his watch. but the wisconsin legislature -- i have never seen a legislature like the republican wisconsin legislature that ignored the 2016 referendum that

passed overwhelmingly to legalize marijuana. they just did not do anything about that. they just ignored a referendum that passed overwhelmingly. i wonder if the professor knows many cases where they have had referendums like that, where they passed overwhelmingly and were ignored? guest: that was a nonbinding referendum. it did not have the defective law. process, wisconsin's you have a special process for changing the state constitution that has to pass the legislature. this was not like that. we do not have a direct initiative process that allows the voters to put something on the ballot, that ends up becoming law. was likelike this that the marijuana initiative, was a nonbinding referendum, so the

state legislature was not compelled to follow that result. host: what down ballot races are you watching, and are there other referendums that the voters will be deciding in just a few days, and are they also nonbinding? guest: we do not have many competitive down ticket races. we do not have a governor race this year. the congressional seats are all relatively safe, i do not think they are seen as being in the tossup category. even the legislature, which you think would be more competitive in a battleground state like wisconsin, actually because of redistricting our state was gerrymandered in a very aggressive way, so we do not have many competitive state assembly or state senate seats. so the legislature looks like it is likely to remain in republican hands. tony devers is not up for two

years. so there is not much action going on down ticket. there are four or five senate races, a handful of fairly competitive assembly races, but the presidential race is sucking up all the oxygen in the room right now. host: freddie in seabrook, texas. caller: good morning. host: your question or comment? caller: my concern, i am a former educator, retired. what i see president trump as the person who functions on donald trump has a person who functions on the level of a fourth grader. when i hear him read he doesn't understand, if you ask him what did you read, what did you just say, he doesn't understand and if you listen, we have a person

who is not a good role model for our young people we are teaching, trying to say the way you get out is you've got to learn to read and write, donald trump is a non-reader. if you take all of the things, when he is going out and talking he is just saying the same thing over again. he is a boule. he's not a role model for our young people. >> host: bill in marion, undecided. ? comment? >> caller: thank you for taking my call. i will agree with the lady who just spoke for a little bit but my question, vice president biden stated at the last conference but it would come down to credibility as far as voters go.

we've had four years of donald trump telling one story, he didn't know this and then a month later i knew all about that, or he did that. i am undecided because here, if you listen to the advertisements the republicans are saying democrats will eliminate social security and obamacare and democrats are saying the republicans are going to do it. donald trump's credibility in my opinion is shot. joe biden's credibility, eight years as a vice president, didn't see him do anything, you can't tell me how you learn to vote, never voted in my life but i would like to. >> how old are you?

and >> neither of them let me down that yet. they all say what they are going to do and they do nothing. donald trump will make the case in a while. >> host: how likely is it that you will a vote in we 7 days? >> caller: excuse me? >> host: how likely is it you will vote in 7 days? >> guest: i'm going to vote. i am going to have you but learn how. i have never done it. should be simple but i never voted for as much of the county seat. >> guest: david cannon. the one thing phil mentioned are these dueling ads where one side says he will destroy

social security, trump says biden will, same thing about trump. what are voters supposed to believe? one thing that is interesting in the trend as we have seen over the last two months, starting at uw, they track the ads run by campaigns on behalf of the two presidential candidates in major media market in the country and attract the tone of the ads. an interesting trend has happened since the beginning of september where the biden campaign has moved almost entirely but a majority of their ads positive ads which is really unusual for this time of the campaign. 5% positive in the first two weeks of september, mostly

negative ads, biden is at 60%, i have seen some of these ads and they really are, they try to be uplifting, bringing healing to the country, doesn't mention trump by name at all but quite positive, trump is gone the other direction. his supporters have gone from mid-september 20th% negative, 30% vote next week, 35% the next week, and another chunk of them contracted it. we have seen a different strategy where the biden camp is trying to appeal to raising the country to gather, the trump campaign is on this ad. we do see from the candidates, in that position, by going negative. >> host: robert, undecided.

>> caller: calling to i hope potentially clarify what i believe may be some information both your guests have suggested through what i can find, early ballots in wisconsin can be changed. a ballot, mail in ballot, is not considered cast until election day, at least in article on one of the npr sites, suggests an absentee voter can vote three times, made at the time of casting a ballot but they also state they can indeed be used as a technique to change one's vote. >> host: what is the date on that article? >> caller: i'm having trouble finding it. this is actually new article. some of the current candidates.

i'm trying to find that article. >> but with your local authorities on this. >> it has not gotten up with anybody who can give me an answer. at ballot cast in wisconsin, and absentee ballots an individual can request the clerk's office, another ballot cast at that time at one of the drop insights, or directly ahead a ballot or voting location. >> guest: wisconsin is one of the states where no early mail in ballots are processed before election day and that's another source of controversy.

the huge volume of mail ballots, start counting them early otherwise a backlog on election day but that too has remained unchanged in wisconsin, i do know for a fact this used to be the practice in the state walking the ballot, cast a new one or polling place on election day and have the ballot taken away. based on the conversation of madison clerk, that is something they are not encouraging people to do now. check with your local clerk if you're thinking of doing that. don't want to be in position of illegally voting twice, if the first ballot is not canceled.

>> host: in a recent update, many voters have been getting in contact to see how they can revoke their initial absentee ballot, something they can easily do, whether voting by absentee ballot in the clerk's office, and the first few are spoiled. has been allowed in wisconsin for many years. they need to seek it out. regina in pennsylvania. >> caller: the situation with the man who called from maryland about numbers 5. i looked at numbers 5 and couldn't see anything. the children of israel are a people. don't know what he was talking about, god supporting abortion. very distasteful and i don't believe that honors god. with biden and harris they are going to force us to buy more abortion which is not my job to pay for people's abortions and

kill more babies and i find this very distressful this man would be trying to quote god. everybody, i see nothing in there about god promoting abortion and also on the biden, when he was on stage with trump and a man called in and said there is not enough about foreign policy, yes there is. mister trump has done at least quite a few or been involved with quite a few trade deals, that is foreign-policy, part of the wto goes against the united states. a big behemoth organization that is interfered with our ability to trade. as far as the tariffs biden didn't even know what tariffs were. he forest taxpayer dollars was how could you vote for somebody like that. it is not taxpayer dollars which it is money that came from china. a different country.

that have been punished, intellectual property stealing and finally getting do, the farmers by the money wisconsin. i'm surprised this man didn't mention anything about that. he doesn't want to give trump credit for anything. >> host: let's take the point about farmers in wisconsin getting the money from this administration. did help? >> guest: no doubt the payments to farmers did help with some of the losses because of trade wars. because of the sanctions china put on us in retaliation, those, to make up with those, helps close the gap, the income they lost. the excise taxes, with trade

wars going on and tariffs paid by the consumer. we are the ones that pay for steel, aluminum and other commodities, not paid by china, paid by the consumer. it's not paid by taxpayers but by the consumer. one thing to clarify taxpayer-funded abortion, it's the policy of this country for decade going back to the hyde amendment, from taxpayers. that is something biden tried to make clear. >> host: gordon, undecided. >> caller: i do have a question and a comment. number one, 4 wisconsin i am upset. i'm in washington state and wanted to vote in person and i'm finding out all i got is ballot boxes.

i would like to know in wisconsin if you can vote personally or are you stuck with these mailboxes? >> guest: we still can vote in person in wisconsin. there are five states that are doing all mail elections, washington is one of them. at least 10 years or so they found most voters like it, up a little bit but it works pretty well, i believe with the caller, i like voting in person. i like to stick my ballot in the machine, make sure everything is okay so i am old-fashioned that way but we have in person voting in wisconsin, before election day. >> host: supporting the biden harris ticket. >> caller: in history we had a trail of tears, now we have a trail of germs.

it's going to go away, it was going to be like a miracle. only one person. january 3rd trump was told by intelligence what was going on. he was told at least a dozen times in january and february. january 20 fourth he was praising xi of china for his transparency. there is so much. helsinki alone by itself, he never has anything bad to say about putin. listen to the other republicans who have come out, listen to the one senator, sass, he makes fun of evangelicals, how he talks about women, listen to

pens's aid on the task force. it is a good thing we had the virus because as a politician you have to shake a lot of hands and i don't want to shake and with disgusting people. those disgusting people are his supporters. social security, medicare, the great wonderful healthcare he got at walter reed, socialistic, that is what those are, not socialism, socialistic. government run hospital, doctors, paid for by the taxpayer. mister trump should be thinking us instead of getting rid of preexisting conditions. for four years he hasn't come out with a plan. if you read bolton's book he talks a big story. >> host: healthcare was a big

issue for voters in 2016-18. what are voters, where is the rate now and what impacts could it have? >> guest: if it comes out in wisconsin, among republicans, people are worried about this question, they don't want to lose their health insurance coverage, something that is covered under obamacare and could go away if they strike down that law. that is something on a lot of voters minds especially during the covid-19 pandemic. you don't want to lose your health insurance. that issue, doesn't rate as high as covid-19 or the economy, it is the number 2 concern for democrats. >> what will you be watching

for an election night? >> in wisconsin, i will looking at what the returns look like from milwaukee. are they still trending the way they did in 2018, look at the turn out levels in madison and milwaukee, the high levels we saw in the midterm election or is it dropping off? nationally, in florida, one of the big states, on election day, in wisconsin you won't have a carryover, that is an indication how things are going. >> host: david cannon at the university of wisconsin madison, thank you. amy coney barrett was sworn in last night at