>> the competition is on. be a part of this year's cspan's studentcam beat video competit. middle and high school students be the start of a national conversation by making a five to six minute documentary exploring the issues you want the the president and congress to address in 2021. the bold with your documentary, joe supporting and opposing points of view and include c-span video. be a winner. if $100,000 in thousand dollars in total cash prizes including a grand prize of $5000. the deadline to submit videos this january 20, 2021. be informed. you'll find competition rules, tips and more information on how to get started at our website studentcam.org. >> host:hi all this week on "washington journal" we will be focusing on key campaign 2020-pound ground states with political reporters and analysts

on thed g ground, examine what's changed since 2016, or public policy issues are motivating voters this year and take a look at recent political trends that could give us clues on how state might m vote in just a few days. we put the starlet on the buckeye state of ohio. staff registering as a lead political reporter for cleveland.com and joins us now for that conversation. what is the lay of the land, the status applet in the state of ohio today with just six days to go? >> guest: it's fasting here because if you look at the 2016 election, donaldf trump one ste by eight percentageig points, about 450,000 votes and all of the public polling and ten on the grand stuff that you see really does point to this being a close race. i don't know it's necessarily tilting one way or another but maybe a slightot tilt towards trump right now but it really is a massive shift in panoply of the land even from a year ago. from what we were expecting.

using both candidates really investing kind of as of late in the state, the biden campaign, by being here twice over the past month and kamala harris also being here. the trump campaign is ramped up how much are coming to this date as well with vice president mike pence and trump's children of pictures and trump himself appearing outside circleville, outside of columbus last week. campaign is trying to exude confidence and say, "we have the state locked up. joe biden is wasting his time there." yet you keep seeing these indicators that maybe this race is closer than everybody things. levelsoting is at record of turnout. all indications are we might have large turnout come election day as well.

it's been fascinating watching this develop. a year got this time, a lot of democrats had written the state office anything remotely resembling a swing state. host: why is that? guest: when you look at the 2016 total, that trump won by, the blue wave did not come here in 2018. republicans won up and down the ticket statewide for senator sharon brown. the lone democrat with a d after his name to win the statewide office in 2018. when democrats look at the map little more, they thought they paths- there were easier to victory. ohio looked like a state trending little more republican as opposed to more democrat in their favor, so do you go to her to salvage in try ohio or expand the map in somewhere arizona, or georgia even? something like that. is the former vice

president gaining ground in ohio? who might be voting for him? guest: i think you've seen a lot of bleed in the suburbs like everywhere else. suburban women especially seem to be shifting toward the vice president and at a heavy clip. i think that will be a pretty significant factor in the widest races. if you look at the makeup of the states, you have a fairly large black population as well that you kind of assume will support biden at a high clip. i'm interested to see if trump does make inroads with the community. just the kind of voter in ohio as well, the working class, blue-collar type of voter really does align well with who biden is as a candidate, not so much with who hillary clinton was as a candidate. going back to 2018, if you look at the democrats who won statewide, sherrod brown, i

think you can compare sherrod brown and joe biden sort of as candidates. they complement each other pretty well, which i think is a little -- gives a little insight into why joe biden is doing much better than why people -- much better than people anticipated at this point in time. as opposed to hillary clinton, who, whether it is correct or not, came off as an elitist of sorts. kind of like she was gifted the nomination as opposed to getting out there and earning it. the other thing to consider is people are familiar with joe biden in the state because barack obama won the state twice , 2008 in 2012 -- and 2012. joe biden was not just campaigning in cleveland, columbus, cincinnati.

other areas, in the more rural communities, might bewhere that's the most interesting place for the margins when we count the votes, because hillary clinton got blown out of the water in the rural areas. if biden can make up some of that -- if he is not losing these places 70% to 30%, if it's maybe a 60% to 40% race, that shifts dynamics given gains in other parts of the state. host: is it that the former vice president is flipping voters in those rural areas who voted for trump and are convincing them to vote for him, or is it people stayed home because they did not want to vote for hillary clinton, and now they will vote? guest: i think it's probably a makes. we will see high turnout, and part of that will be people who stayed home in 2016 and did not like either candidate and did not want to vote and now they are coming out again.

votewill close the 450,000 margin. --hink part of it is also trump really appeal to a lot of working-class people last time because of what he was talking about, trade, nafta, those things, bringing back manufacturing jobs. messaging this time around has not been as focused on that, as joe biden has been pushing an economic message for the better part of about six months, maybe longer. voters kind of take a look today, you can't ignore that there is a pandemic or recession and protests going on al over the country, not just city problem, something that happens everywhere. these things are happening everywhere. i think that has shifted a lot of the vote over. i think the converted vote is probably more of the suburbs, the more republican areas who

did not like hillary clinton ordered were generally republican or shortly republican. who probably voted for mike dewine, the republican governor in 2018 as may be a comfort food for the kind of politician donald trump is. donald trump and mike dewine don't exactly line up on how they politics of people. i think you're seeing some of the bleed sometime around -- this time around where a lot of suburban voters will go over to biden, feeling like they are fed up with the president's term in office. host: we want to invite our viewers to join this conversation with seth richardson. the focus is ohio. if you are supporting the president, dial in at (202) 748-8001. if you are supporting the former vice president, dial into (202) 748-8000. if you are undecided or you have someone else in mind, (202) 748-8002. ohio voters, we want to hear from you, your line is (202)

748-8003. seth richardson, we have seen 60 million people across america vote early. our ohio residents allowed to vote early? guest: ohio has been voting early for a little more than a couple weeks. the first weekend of early voting, the first weekend early voting was last weekend. you sell really long lines basically outside of just about all of the urban counties, hamilton, cuyahoga, franklin, even montgomery, down in dayton. lives in cincinnati and klamath county and he told me last night that he went to vote and he waited 2.5 hours in line. i was surprised to hear that, because i assumed once you get out into some of the more rural areas, those lines would go down, but people are voting --

people who really want to vote, -- i don't know how that's will -- i think we're online for record turnout. host: when will the early ballots be counted? what is allowed in the state of ohio, and will you know the winner of ohio on election night? guest: we should have at least a good indication, because of the , --ohio does its county counting, right? absentee voting can be counted on election night. we will have the early vote before the other vote in. thank it's counted first. that should give credit where them arounde for here. they are generally pretty good at counting, and i think we will have a good indication of who has won ohio at least on election night. beennk they sort have

planning for this contingency, that there will be a bit of ballots coming in. there is a very realistic chance that the ballots that come in post election day -- because in ohio, you can have your ballot come in after election day, so long it is postmarked the day before -- there might be enough of those outstanding where we don't want -- where we don't have a firm call on that but we should have a good indication of how the state is looking on election night. host: we are talking about the battleground state of ohio, population of 11.7 million, 70% white, 13% -- 78% white, 13% , and -- basil in ohio, how do you tend to vote? guest: donald trump.

my family has been in the construction business all our lives and we fired all times of -- hired all times of people -- types of people and donald trump has done that. he is a working man's president more than the elitist president. this nonsense he doesn't care about the working class is not true. he has brought more working people back to this country than ever before. if nothing else, you should be supporting him for the work ethic he asked people to become involved in rather than the been talkingd has about, people. he happens to be pro-life. i not only voted for trump but the second amendment and the constitution of the united states. i am voting for pre--- i'm voting for free speech, which is why voting for donald trump. host: are you better off than you were four years ago? onst: i just turned 90 monday, i'm not only better off but i to walk in my streets

without feeling like i'm going to be assaulted and stores are going to depart by people that are right. from mariannear in reynoldsburg, ohio. how do you plan to vote? caller: good morning. i am a biden/harris voter, 81 years young, 35 year federal hillary, --k for worked for hillary, and the comments we got on the phone bank were horrible. host: what were people saying then and what are they saying now? are you working the biting campaign? caller: i'm not working for the campaign. we early voted. i was up around springfield and they said horrible thing that i do not care to comment on a national tv station. i am very hopeful and very happy. host: wire you voting for joe

biden? caller: joe biden will bring this country together. all races, aller classes. this country is a class country. we want everyone to get a piece of the pie. host: seth richardson, what do you make of those two voters? guest: i think in a lot of ways they sort of echoed similar concerns they have, differences concerns, they just have different is of a onion on who do solve it. they have working issues, which is key in ohio. houseg at the state in performing right now and how it was performing before, jobs were up. they kind of act slid a little bit in 2019 overall were up. they had not gone up as much as barack obama's second term, but they still had gone up and any

increases good. just about any increase -- any politician in the world will take any reese. one is a matter of policy and one is a matter to campaign on. the issue is, right now, do you look at what donald trump did on jobs before the pandemic, which was around 86,000 in the state, or do you look at where the jobs are now post pandemic, around -- downnd 300,000, around now 300,000? that's not a great number. a lot of people when choosing their support, do they look at the trump presidency as a pre-endemic sort of thing, and the pandemic was something unavoidable, or do they look at the pandemic as the resulting effects -- and the resulting effects as something donald trump is at fault for? that varies between voters. host: bill is an brian, ohio.

where is brian, ohio? caller: the very northwest corner. host: how do you plan to vote? caller: i have already voted. host: do you want to tell us? caller: i went absentee and voted for mr. biden. host: why? caller: honesty, integrity, you name it. i'm just tired of it, i'm tired of it all. i can't believe it. we have all grown up with people, no people's character -- know people's character. you can figure out people. they are so willing to take on his character i can't believe it. i'm ashamed. host: how did you vote in 2016? caller: i voted for hillary. host: what do you do for a living? retired. just october 1 was my first day of retirement. host: congratulations. what did you do? in a factory,ed

an air-conditioned planned. host: do you see those jobs staying in your area? what is happening to manufacturing where you live? caller: right now, i did -- in our area, it seems like nothing has ever happened. like the virus never happens, nothing ever changed. we are drunk country, i accept that. people refuse to wear their masks, and it is contentious around here a lot of the time, but you have to deal with it. guest: have you noticed any softening support for donald trump in your area? seeing a lot more biden signs. i think people were afraid for a while. afraid to show their support, but i think people are realizing now that there is more of us then we thought. host: seth richardson, what do you make of that? guest: sort of reading the tea leaves, it what makes it

difficult -- leaves, what makes it difficult, i'm concerned about these rural areas. northwest ohio is a conservative part of the state, arguably maybe the most conservative. if there is -- we know that donald trump is going to run worse in the suburbs than 2016. we know the cities are probably going to be heavily democratic. that's kind of a given at this point. whether it's enough to put biden over the edge in the state is -- are there enough margins to make up for 450,000 votes? that's a big question. a lot of it will come down to these areas that maybe people don't think of. look at it on election night and see red counties, and again, they are not voting for trump by a 70/30 margin, their voting by a 60/40 or a 55/45 or something like that. that would be a clear indicator of trouble for the president on election night. milton,m in

massachusetts supporting the president. hi, jim. caller: how are you doing? host: good morning. go ahead, jim. caller: are you ready for my question for seth? host: we are. caller: how are you doing? guest: i'm all right. how are you doing? caller: very good, thanks. i was in milton, massachusetts, a liberal town. here, as the lead political reporter for the cleveland paper you guysu guys -- do print about biden? when i hear people talk about their character and i think, recent developments? they are not covering it in the boston globe at all. it's hard to find information. i have a sister-in-law who is 65 years old and i asked her how to vote for biden and she didn't know about what was going on. are you guys printing it? host: jim, you are talking about

hunter biden, right? caller: i'm talking about joe biden. host: what about him? caller: he was involved in the rushing money -- are you people investigating that or is that a nonissue out there? if some of the wants to give me a hard drive to take a look at, i guess i would take a look at it, but without anything to actually look at, i don't really know how i would report on it. i kind of have to rely on the people who do have whatever they say the evidence is, so i guess the answer is no, i have not been covering it because i don't have access to it. host: is the story of hunter biden hurting the president? have you talked to voters about that? let me clarify, hurting the former vice president. guest: i haven't heard a whole

lot about it. politically speaking, i have been kind of wondering if it does make as much of a difference, because you got to look at all of the things that are the top issues, right? that has been the pandemic, the economy, and to a lesser extent, the protests and riots. but still at a pretty high number. i kind of get the sense that people -- i don't want to say it is not an issue, especially amongst more conservative voters, but i don't think -- hillary clinton, when she ran in 2016 came with the whole corruption narrative, whether true or not, baked into her political identity was. she had been described that way since the 90's. it was not anything new. there had been a lot of talk

about it. like a pre-internet conspiracy theory. i guess the internet wants -- was around, but you didn't have social media to spread it. there has always been things about hillary clinton. and the emails or kind of the focus for a while because it took so long and people were like, will this be the smoking gun? it turned out not to be, but it looks bad for a politician who was already kind of characterized by this aura of corruption, whether true or not. i would think joe biden really has that kind of aura -- doesn't really have that kind of aura of corruption. he has always been kind of uncle joe, the affectionate, goofy guy who makes gags. i think some of the messaging has been mixed from the trunk campaign on how they are characterizing joe biden, because on the one hand, he is supposed to be this babbling old

full with dementia who can't form a full sentence or whatever they say, and then on the other hand, he is supposed to be this calculating washington insider who is a part of this vast conspiracy. it's like those two don't seem to match up very well with each other. i think that probably leads -- he confuses me, frankly, as far as the messaging goes. i imagine it computers voters. host: sam in columbus, ohio. supporting the former vice president. caller: how are you doing this morning? host: good morning. caller: i voted for joe biden, -- he'she is about going to bring decency, honesty, and respect back. i am retired law enforcement and i cannot see any law enforcement supporting the sky. it is crazy. host: how did you vote in 2016? caller: i voted for hillary. guest: as far as the law

enforcement support goes, do you think there is not as much law enforcement support for donald trump, because we have seen police unions mostly back in. most notably, the police union in cleveland did not endorse him after endorsing him in 2016, so i don't know if what happened over the summer with the protests, if that made any difference with the people who you possibly know on the force. host: what do you think, sam? caller: it could be. you know, if he didn't stir the pot, all of this writing and stuff going on, he just stars up. up -- stirs that mechanicsville, supporting the president. caller: good morning. maybe this gentleman can tell me what people feel in ohio, when joe biden crosses the stage and

tells a young teenage girl to look into his eyes, he will illuminate fossil fuels, who is he lying to? is he lying to her or lying to us now. vote for they president, i think a lot of people like me are voting against the press. 92% of the coverage on the president is negative. 92%. where are the woodwards and burn stand? [inaudible] find anythingo about this vice president -- former vice president, until someone has the integrity enough to dig into a story. if you don't dig for it, you are not going to find it. have a good day. host: i want to show our viewers president trump in circleville, ohio over the weekend talking about joe biden's comments on fracking. vowed tomp: biden has

abolish fracking, right? he says we will not frack anymore. he has no idea what it means. no fossil fuels, no nothing, we will close down all of our factories and go with wind. wind will be the answer, kills all of our birds, everything else. we will have massive blackouts like california, the whole country. have you ever seen the brownouts? outages, 700er thousand ohio jobs would be destroyed. biden lies about a lot of things. ist: seth richardson, why the president in circleville, ohio days before the election, and why is he hammering on that message? guest: i think he is in circleville because, despite the campaign saying things are wrapped up you don't want to have a repeat of wisconsin in 2016, where hillary thought she had the stay in the bag and it turned out not to be the case,

i'm not totally convinced they do have the state. i think it is close. as far as fracking, fracking is a huge part of the ohio economy. it is something that the campaign is really trying to hamper -- hammer biden on. though they are mincing some words a little bit. part of that is that joe biden -- part of that is joe biden's fault. stage she misspoke, but it is incumbent upon you to articulate your plans appropriately. that's just politics. ban -- "the fracking it has kind of been illuminated that he would end new fracking on federal lands. that does not apply to ohio. only about 1.2% of the state's federal lands. an outright of

fracking ban just doesn't matter that much to ohio. as far as the federal part goes. it's worth pointing out that heen has had multiple times is against an overall outright fracking ban. let's not pretend biden won the primary and let's not pretend that he was the runaway winner of this thing throughout the whole thing. there was a bloody primary where a lot of democrats were frankly reluctant to support biden at the very beginning. that changed as the party coalesced around him, but one of the big sticking point is that onis not as liberal renewable energies and climate change as some would like. as with anything, the truth ends

up resting in the middle. host: a group of republicans who are leading an effort to unseat the president, project lincoln group, has put an ad in ohio, focusing on the economy. take a look. >> there is morning in ohio -- o mourning in ohio. hundreds of thousands of people died from a virus, -- shambles,conomy in people across ohio are still out of work. worst economy in decades. this afternoon, millions of americans will apply for unemployment. with their savings out, many are giving up hope. millions are worried loved ones won't survive covid-19. in ohio, andning under the leadership of donald trump, our country is weaker,

sicker, and poor. now, -- poorer. now, americans are asking, if we have another four years like this, will there even be another america? host: seth richardson, as you know, the president one ohio in 2016. 52/44%. -- 52% to 44%. why do you think they are spending money on that kind of add in ohio? guest: if you look at who the gopident's sort of greatest phone is this kind of anti-trump republican, the kind of to factor leader of sorts has been john kasich, the former governor of ohio. believe -- i think the republican in ohio has generally sort of gotten behind donald

trump. i don't want to overstate any kind of weathering support among the party. i think that is true. as we talked about, in states where a lot of these margins matter, if you do have those voters, you are basically more like the john kasich type republicans. i think it is probably important to know what that ad was referencing. mourning in america, kind of the playoff ronald reagan's ad back in the day. there's a significant number of republicans in the state, talking about the suburbs and where trump will be bleeding support, where they maybe gave the guy a james in 2016 and now they don't like him. that is why they keep making this push in ohio. they dropped a couple ads that have been specifically targeted at that sort of demographic.

i know one they did was after the president called for a good goodyear boycott of and focusing on that summit county area, which again, kind of shifted toward donald trump in 2016. i think what the lincoln project and republican voters against andp, and operation grain the wing of that in ohio, what they are trying to build on to say is they're not going to -- convincerything every republican to vote for joe biden, but if you can convince enough republicans to vote for joe biden this time around, that's enough for a victory. that's all you need at the moment. ohio.tamika in cleveland, supporting joe biden. hi, tamika. caller: good morning. i'm supporting joe biden because he is honest, he will do what he

said he's going to do. i also love kamala harris. donald trump has been nothing but a divider of this country. i hear a lot of senior citizens coming on here and i am clearly not one. they are always talking about joe biden, he is senile. half the time they can't even get their sentences out. my mother, and ours, 82 years sound mind and body. there is no one that can tell -- that cannot tell her she is not in ours. there's a lot of people in-house killed their -- in health care that are sound mind and body. way to say someone is senile, got dementia, or any of those things. donald trump wants nothing but division.

he claims he wants to help the black community, that's a joke. everything he has done has been done previously with the obama administration, but the republican party, they don't want to do nothing, they don't want to do nothing for black folks. wealth white people, who i'm down with as well, they don't want to help those people and they want to keep them down because they are not of donald trump's class. host: let me pick up on that point. 13% of the population is black or african-american. seth richardson, how did they vote in 2016? guest: they heavily supported hillary clinton, but it was a turnout factor, where a lot of black voters did not come out to vote. you have seen a renewed interest on behalf of the democratic party and democratic candidates

to try to bring this really important base back into the fold. but this is sort of one area donald trump has said he wants to make inroads, and he has gotten receipts to show for it. when you talk about the first step back, black unemployment was low and how much of that was because of him and how much was because of continuing economic trends is sort of up for debate. you talk about the funding for historically black colleges and universities, those are tangible things he can show the community as why black voters should consider maybe voting for donald like instead of a democrat they have historically in the past. the other side of the coin is that the president is pretty openly, at the very least empathized, and in some cases

sympathized, with white supremacist and white nationalists groups. you can't really ignore that part either. so really kind of trying to the black vote shakes out is difficult anyway, because, frankly, you can talk to people and that's, but even when you talk about polling as you are looking at in the states, you get into subsets that are so small that the margins of error are huge. when you are talking about does thatiden take 92% or 85, could be a big difference. it could be the determining factor in a win or loss in ohio. the fact of the matter is that there has been kind of a shift votersa lot of black kind of approach elections nowadays, where there did used

to be this kind of royalty to the democratic party because -- loyalty to the democratic party because republicans -- a lot of republican policies and a lot of politicians talk, i think there is more openness now, especially among the younger generation like my age to be more open to may considering an alternative option. in ohio.n and -- john in ohio. who are you supporting? caller: i voted for howie. host: tell us why. caller: it is the first time i ever voted for a third-party candidate. i voted for trump last time and the two times before him i voted for obama. i considered voting for all three of them -- i considered voting for trump just to vote against biden and considered voting for biden just to do it against trump, but i could not bring myself to vote for either

one of them. before i decided between biden and hawkins, one thing that played into it was something a caller mentioned about the hunter biden thing. i do believe that. i don't believe what my neighbors to, they are into that and voted for trump last time and never voted republican before but they are into that qanon thing. it's hard to believe someone would be that brainwashed. i believe that the other thing, , my wife isrson who in the 90's and she voted the same way i i'm losing my train of thought. >> it's okay, what do you make of this voter decided not to go for either and instead support a third-party candidate. >> it is interesting i haven't ran into too many third-party voters, part of that is because i can't be is out and about talking to voters as i have been in the past because of the

pandemic b and whatnot and not that i necessarily would freak people out by what's one anyway it is interesting it's not an overwhelming notion that i've gotten from talking to people, it is not like 2016 where he had joe stein and gary johnson of the world, i think people forget that they got a lot of play over the summer. >> we will take you live to the aspen institute on a discussion on global distribution of the covid-19 vaccine, this is live coverage on c-span2. >> thank you so much for joining us, today the global growth partnership which is a partnership between the aspen institute in inclusive growth is presenting an important