your boss about income inequality, saying this is a driving issue in this campaign. we track the races and debates, it has not been a leading issue, why? >> that is a good question. i think what he said in that essay was it is really the fact of income inequality, not the .dea of income inequality the driving issue in this

election should be the economic well-being of working people and most peopleon that are facing in their wages and the difficulty making ends meet is a very real issue. it sometimes gets talked about abstractly but it is not really the abstract idea. it is the fact that you have the economy improving, but not for but for thele wealthy ceos and corporations. arer the candidates you supporting talking about this issue at the right to level? >> we believe the issue should .e driven home harder that is the stark contrast between democrats and republicans this year in the candidates we are supporting. work it is all most exclusively what we focus election means for

the economic prospects of working people. >> you recently compared the message that democrats and asublicans are conveying they mobilize their base. you did say democrats need to do a better job. if you could give him a grade a, what would it be and why? >> it is a great question. was --was talking about of course anything like this is going to be a generalization as candidates take different approaches. the republicans from the outset

have had a strategy that has used their advertising to really motivate their base. and to aim at inciting people to ant to vote in this election lot of the work that democrats have done in the selection has been aimed at persuading undecided voters. that has been on one issue here, another issue there. up to ast have added appeal to thea base of the democratic party. that, especially as we go into this last month of the election, we would hope they would make that contrast more fully. >> i just want to follow on what you are saying, the contrast is

important for these candidates to make. keepf the things they emphasizing is the electorate is about where washington gridlock has taken american politics, that the kind they may be that supporting could actually deliver in washington. do you find that in the pulling you are doing, the candidates are having trouble conveying that and there might be solutions in washington? i think what we find is that there are a whole host of issues that have credibility. it may not be happening in federal gridlock but it is happening around the country.

there are actions that are going to be taken that can improve their lives. the contrast we are talking about is for working people to that there is one side that is basically about attacking their standard of and another about defending and improving their standard of living. that contrast is really what we are talking about. that you are talking about is very real. it's out there and if it weren't out there i think you would see result for thet election right now. >> if you are seeing the

electorate -- if you are saying the electorate can see the change at the state level, have amoving behind or head already. how did the candidates who are trying to come back to washington, how did they say the gridlock was going to be changed? that gridlock is going to return in january. >> what we do is convey that the agenda that the republicans have ,hown that they want to advance it will be extremely harmful for working people. the kind of gridlock we see is nothing compared to what we are going to see if you have an entirely republican congress

that has been going after social security and medicare. it really will injure working people versus what we have now. >> i want to follow-up on something you said. you supporting republican candidates? if so, where? at higher levels the candidates that we support -- we are talking about senate and governor democrats. -- i can'tl level speak to the names of them. that both the is , weral and state governors

see a hard turn to the right by the republican party. end on opposing policies such as minimum wage, that will hurtes working people and instead are about protecting tax breaks and privileges of the wealthy. >> at that level u.s. senate and house races, it's democrat. >> following up on the point about gridlock and the fact you think it would be worse. is that a motivating factor for voters? >> it is not a gridlock but the

agenda that the republicans want to bring some washington. you are going to see the policy if republicans are unsuccessful in taking the senate. >> you said recently that did not seem to be the prospect of the gop controlled senate. >> it is isolation in washington speak.

we are obviously not making the argument about republican therol as we are about individual -- about what the individual candidates stand for. m a at the white house one of the things we see a lot with president obama is his effort to raise money. the candidates may have reservations about having him campaign in october with them in some of these key states. this a deficit for the party or from the afl perspective that they head of the party is perhaps unwelcome or there is reservation about having him on the campaign trail with some of these candidates to help get that message out? >> sure. i think one of the things that was known going into this race was that when we are talking

,bout the senate playing field that it was heavily toted away from states where president obama was popular. that was not a surprising result. every president has had -- has been in the same kind of position in the sixth year of their administration. i think the candidates are all very close right now. across any can get economic message they have a good chance of winning. >> the senate is in play, agree or disagree? >> agree. mi is there any scenario where democrats can recapture the

house? i don't think that is impossible. i think that right now the attention is on the senate. >> melanie. >> i want to move to the politics and have you talk about the states that labor is focusing on, the battleground states and what some of the issues are in the states. >> we are almost exclusively focused on grassroots activism. and person-to-person contact and

building on the labor movement that exists in each place and each location. we are obviously going to be putting more effort -- able to states likeort in michigan, alaska, iowa, colorado , then in some of the other states. thatwe are seeing is economic issues have played a really important role. thehave a senate race that republicans would have hoped would be closer than it is. gary peters is doing really well in this environment. where itvernor's race, was -- the campaign was seen as

a long shot. he was pulled within a couple of points of schneider, even though he is vastly outspent. i think it is remarkable that is still very close in such a red state. he has done it in part by owning the economic message we are talking about. >> let me turn to alexis of "real clear politics are co--- of "real clear politics." talked about his hope that the president would move ahead on executive action with immigration reform. how is this going to affect the

change the president made in his decision-making? how will he get latinos interested? african-americans might not turn out in the numbers that democrats hope to see. >> i think it is a real good and often asked question. i think two things. , the latino community is not and to simplify the question into will one action by itself mobilize or ignores thehat base the same latino voters

have the same concerns about their economic well-being or having just as hard a time making ends meet. to -- itn the appealed could have the same economic states. the republican party has done itself no favors in this regard in such a hostile way against immigration reform. that's not lost in the latino community.

even more importantly, they afl cio has been for comprehensive immigration reform for a while. we are going to continue to fight that fight. it's going to go on. these are people's lives and just speculating on political implications can up secure the fact that this is something that and doesn'tmatter disappear the day after the election. >> can you describe what afl is doing to reach out to latino voters? to you have spanish advertising? have you adjusted the message after the presidents decision to defer in the way you just described?

>> we are finding that that has residents. if we are focused on those is a way of meeting people where they are. >> how do you know when your message is impacting voters? is resonating with voters? what works and what doesn't? of pullinggreat deal -- of polling. know it is very data driven. thes extremely sensitive to

different ways of monitoring is pullingether it -- whether it is polling or text media.s of the social and we're able to construct a pretty robust feedback system that gets us information about whether or not our messages are moving people or not. most of the things that we do -- obviously in a different position from campaigns. we are anon is organization of working people, advancing working families

issues. what we are testing is whether or not those issues are resonating with people. >> we have about five minutes left. afl-ciof the things the is testing is this new campaign by the coke sisters -- by the ko ch sisters, who are not really sisters. it is a way for the labor to to fight back. can you explain who these women are and what they are trying to convey? >> what they are chine to convey is that -- what they are trying to convey is that the koch brothers are playing an outside

really tilting the playing field in politics this year, as they did in 2012. we just thought given the profile that they have developed sisters who are emblematic of the people who are hurt by the koch brothers policies and who have very , very different mainstream values, was a way of holding up a light to the differences between the world the koch brothers want us to live in and the one most of the rest of america want. >> and reaching out to women. can you describe how important women will be? >> i think they will be very

important to all elections. we hope they will make their decisions about whether to turn out and vote based on economic issues. >> i wanted to ask you what are the names on the potential chatter list is the current labor secretary. in the context of seeing the labor secretary and the issues -- what is the reaction to the potential change? >> we have a great deal of respect for secretary perez. i think he is doing a terrific job. they would obviously think highly of him.

>> can't have a political conversation without talking about money. i got you to say that labor -- organized labor will likely spend more than $300 million on the midterm election. trueou see that as being -- you you see that as being true and how your resources compared to the other side? if you go to the many sites that monitor political spending, that is what the sunlight foundation had said in 2012. because of how decentralized we thei can tell you what amount of money is going to be for this year.

whatever the amount of money is if you go to the center for responsive politics website, you see that we are outspent 15 to going to wine and becauseork hard we are having person-to-person conversations and not winning the tv ad award. will the afl-cio endorse a democratic candidates in the 2016 primary? >> may be. would that be unusual? >> it would not be unusual at all. >> thank you for being with us.

we continue the conversation with melanie trautman of the wall street journal and alexis from real clear politics. just how influential will specificallyor be in this midterm election? >> they are very influential. they do help get out the vote for democrats. without them democrats would be in more of a bind. -- theyy are strong at have incorporated technology, social media. 2012 was the first time that campaign finance allowed them to knock on doors of people who worked -- who weren't there members. they work with their unions.

they also work with unions like the f eia you -- like the feiu. democrats need them and they need them at kratz to accomplish what they are chine to accomplish. them at despite the fact that their membership is declining. >> what they are doing now is workers orngage people outside of the labor movement. it is not about us, it is about working people. these people aren't union members. they want a union and they are fighting for wages. they are still struggling and in a bind and meeting very much for

this election to turn out the way they wanted to. >> finish the sentence, the state of the midterm elections for the democrats and for organized labor is what? them incredibly tight. it is in favor of republicans at this point. are of the analysts it isting, even though still really tight, republicans seem to be doing better with the surging and the polling. they are making gains. democratic candidates have not dropped but they have not seen taking gains. if the momentum is going to republicans way in the end, we will know that within a few weeks.

if republicans are getting a surge among undecided then that democrats are not going to see the gains they have hoped. it was not the data driven guy telling you great things in the data. it gives you a sense of how difficult it is. >> what was your takeaway? --might take away was that -- races races than that are closer than they thought they would be. that is not ideal for organized labor and democrats. it is not as bad as they thought. i do think there is concern among labor officials that them at kratz aren't hitting home this economic message. the message is not resonating

with voters. >> the candidates themselves are having trouble getting traction with the american public. >> alexis, on the white house team for real clear politics and melanie trautman, both of you, we appreciate your time today. >> thank you. c-span's 2015 student canada competition is underway. -- student cam competition is underway. create a five to seven minutes documentary on the topic, the three branches and you. needs to include c-span programming, show varying point of view, and must be some minute 20, 2015.

>> ahead of the centers for of the control -- a head centers for disease control provided a discussion for the ebola outbreak. this is an hour and a half. >> thank you, haley and thank , senatornator koonce flake, and the senate foreign relations subcommittee on african affairs for cohosting this event with us today. welcome to our distinguished and thank you all for joining us today for this very important discussion. we are very glad to have c-span here as well so others can take part in this. center -- we are a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting pe'