to our discussion this morning. our two guests will be asking questions. erica warner is the chief producer for associated press. take it from being back at newsmakers. as we start out you gave an interview to political us week. talking about the prospects for keeping the majority. you acknowledged a tough road ahead and said you are going to go out with guns blazing. the more money attached to tight races in a few more days, do you feel differently? >> i think we have a lot of challenges we are pushing through and they have been with us for the last x months. competitiveost titles republicans own 10 of them. it's been like defending our goal at the one yard line. in addition to that we have a ticket that is not totally

unified the way that we typically go into a presidential election year where everyone is galvanized and pushing in the same direction. in many of these races they are tough states. they are states that president obama won and states that hillary clinton is likely to win . >> i mention six and i want to tell audience that these are the ones closest. are you focusing on any in addition to these states? >> we continue to be focused and florida. but was the focus will be very heavily there. i would say a couple of hours ago we heard the senate majority pack was taking a look at wisconsin. least take a look at that race is a what -- as well as everything else we haven't play. >> to what do you attribute

last-minute shifting in the polls? suddenly we're seeing them shifting like an or where kelly i got has fallen behind and missouri where roy blunt is tied up with his democratic challenger. how do you explain these last-minute shift in the polls? >> what makes this cycle interesting is that there is no one-size-fits-all way to look at these races and some of the variations are caused by very unique circumstances. kelly ayotte took a tumble with republican voters when she publicly announced she would no longer be supporting donald trump. stabilize ine will a competitive direction. that was a unique circumstance and roy blunt's race is getting cross pressure from the presidential election and the gubernatorial election in the

state of which are dominated by talk of outsiders. think the democrats have tagged senator blunt is somebody who looks like a washington insider and that has hurt him in that race. >> how would you measure the impact of donald trump on these down ballot races? he is not your typical nominee and now he is having an impact on races such as kelly i got. racesuld argue some other as well where the candidate has revoked the endorsement, maybe in nevada. what has the impact been? >> six months ago democrats predict a senate blowout as we had donald trump at the top of the ticket. republican candidates positioned on donald trump.

whether they are for him or not it has a relatively negligible impact on the senate candidate. there are a quarter of hillary clinton voters who do not like her. they are voting against donald trump. they're going to pick up some independents who are for hillary clinton only because she is not for donald trump. do you anticipate that on november 9 republicans will retain the senate? nowhen i predict anything -- i will not predict anything now. of the competitive seats, we own 10 of them.

you love your candidate or not there is a lot of across the board unity stop voter turnout is being handled by this group. really don't have that. have a lot of division in the ticket. the machinery and the things that need to be done to make sure we can up the vote are less button-down and they typically are. i will say that x months ago democrats thought they were going to win florida and ohio. it's all completely taken off the table. three months ago i thought they would win indiana. these states that hillary clinton is likely to win , all of our candidates are currently running against donald trump. we will see if they are able to outperform him enough to be able to hold those seats. we have a lot to defend.

>> image in florida and that's were senator rubio is running for reelection after mitch mcconnell coached him into reelection. there has been some reporting lately about democratic dissension about the decision to abandon their candidate there. if democrats were able to come up with five or $10 million to put behind tim murphy but with a give senator rubio more of a contest? >> the number one problem that patrick murphy as is somewhat analogous to what carlos had in the primary. murphy is not that well-known. he doesn't have enough resources to fully prosecute the case against rubio. uplos turned up a contract

marco rubio's negatives, could not make himself by. murphy is not that well-known and he has a fairly even favorable and unfavorable rating. int gets hard to push out of the last week of an election. from their vantage point it was the right choice. they would have to spend $5 million to $10 million to make it competitive and even then marco rubio wind. having a slowdown in the final week or two, you guys are living things up and putting more money into the races. cliques typically this time of the election cycle is agonizingly slow because we have everything and

now we just look at the polls. the silver lining of this activity is we're able to thrust ourselves into the work that has to be done over the last several days we have seen democratic money coming in waves of tens of millions of dollars. to theroups have come view that hillary clinton they have won the presidential race and so it is time to focus on down ballot opportunities. that created a huge way to message and balance hurting us in the polls. we felt we have to find a way to overcome this but we were able to raise a significant amount of money within the space of six days and deploy it to even out this way to message this disadvantage our candidates had. i should add to that it's not like we were doing anything prior to that. if you subtract out the 25 man we put in in the last two weeks.

from limited to election day we will have spent $85 million in senate races. it's like we did it last-minute. we were able to extend our buys and do more in print states and do more digital advertising. necessary because of this title wave of spending on the democratic side. let's headed to raise $.5 million in six days? >> we were on the phone a lot. the longer answer is in particular, leader mcconnell at the beginning of the cycle recognize that there needed to be a corollary to what harry reid successfully built the senate majority pack and what both republicans and democrats have done with respective governor association. he encouraged us to brand uniquely -- a unique senate majority and to build a corollary 501(c) four.

the last couple of years he and others have worked really hard to build a national donor network that is really invested in saving that senate majority. i cannot imagine how many files he has logged that he has worked to convince people that this is an important thing to do so we have a lot of buy-in for that. that ended up being critical ,ecause number of our donors typically the donors with had in the past have been kind of discouraged about the presidential race. some of them have checked out and they haven't been that involved. their ability to focus on something achievable which is helping senate candidates do something they feel has a measurable impact enabled us to build that network so in short order, we could send out the alarm and put up the that signal and do everything we needed and a lot of these donors responded

positively. without all of the legwork, it would not have been possible to do that best. think the toprs of the ballot if not somebody i like from my party, and if he drags down lower ballot races -- and that is a big if, in some races, trump is helpnig pe -- helping people. what he said to voters about the disconnect of who they favor as a nominee and the republican senate candidates you are asking them to help salvage? havenumber of our donors supported other candidates in the primary process so they started from a position of disappointment that whoever they did not end up being the nominee but a lot of them had a lot of buy-in the senate majority and what it was doing. elected derisive got that we helped to get a number of people in who a lot of folks

think are the future of the republican party. people like cory gardner and thom tillis and tom cotton them a joni ernst and others who people see as aspiring sharp leaders who are conservative but have a tremendous amount of deal across the board. so convincing them support the farm team in the future of the party is something a lot of our when weravitated to felt like the top of the ticket had not worked out the way it had. >> can you talk about the way the different candidates have handled donald trump differently? we've seen everything from those who have endorsed him early on thattuck that -- those evensed, unendorsed, or re-endorsed. which has been most successful? >> i have a long relationship with senator mcconnell and

sobbing i've admired about him his ability to lock down in a position and stick with it. people stop bothering asking you. if you get the same answer today ago, yougot six month start to get bored and move on. a lot of candidates feel the need to respond every news cycle to everything that trump says. it has caught some of our candidates up. where a candidate is on donald trump has a relatively negligible impact on voters. if they are marginally against him they pick up some hillary clinton who do not like her that much but they may affect some intensity with the republican side. where our candidates have got in the most trouble is this viewpoint where to have taken multiple positions in short order but it makes them look like they are trying to achieve a political advantage.

that is the area some of these candidates have gotten themselves in trouble. does it matter much? it may not matter that much in the end but that is the main risk. mcconnell has locked down his position on trump. he endorsed him but kept relatively quiet on him throughout the campaign. what do you see his role in the next congress if it is a 50-50 senate? he will have potentially a tiebreaker from the white house. what is his role in the minority? do you see him remaining as a republican leader? do you see him moving on? a lot of people are wondering what the future holds. >> i haven't talked to him about that my expectation is that his unique gifts of leadership will be all the more necessary regardless of where they end up if donald trump happens to win the white house or hillary

clinton is president or we are at 50 or 49. senator mcconnell has worked harder than probably any leader in history who is aggressively focused on making sure we did everything that we can. fors a tremendous leader figuring your way through adverse consensus. the other thing you cannot forget is to your pseudo--- from an inverse of be the election this time. versus eightocrats

republicans. >> will happen with november 9 novemberill happen on 9? notdonald trump doesn't win getting behind him or helping a prop up the top of the ticket, what do you foresee in terms of potential backlash post donald trump at the gop establishment who he has along the way had criticism for in terms of whether they did or did not support him? >> some of that is hard to predict. one of the things we have spent a lot of time trying to figure out is whether this particular election or nominate was part of a new direction of the party.

was he someone able to win the nomination because he cobbled together a small but secure part of the republican base while the others attending against them had to divide up some of the pie. consistentairly election after election in nominating mainstream conservative candidates. so how this resolves will essentially be the answer to that question. is the party itself fundamentally changed or was this an anomaly driven by the particular nominating circumstances. >> how does it resolved? >> i think that the republican party still is a mainstream conservative party. that's where we are and end up.

some of it will depend on what trump himself does. does he go away? does he build his next building? is he the wrecking ball to the republican party? you have the freedom caucus, people locked in safe districts who think we ought to be taking on battles that end in box canyon defeats. all of that will get sorted out. the center of gravity in the party is the mainstream conservative hearted. -- party. the center of gravity of the democratic party is a progressive, far left, liberal party. got,how far bernie sanders even though it was motto on mono -- mano a mano with hillary clinton. he came close to knocking her off her perch.

the center for the democrats is farther left then the republican center is right. donald trump did activate a center of the electorate that is not strongly public and but available to the republican party. the republican party has largely ignored them for years. the party has kind of pitched itself more to the main street business constituency which is good. there are a lot of blue-collar soft conservatives. statesly in rust belt don't like the party. it is too liberal for them. that is the big question going forward of whether the party can find a way to appeal to them without necessarily engaging in the rhetorical excess we have seen from donald trump. >> you mentioned 2018 and all of

the red state democrats that will be up for reelection. theking about how republican party will put itself together does that argue for mitch mcconnell who makes deals with hillary clinton in the white house and chuck schumer as the democratic leader or one who tries to oppose them at many turns? >> that is a good question. i like your phrase, how the republican party tries to put itself together. we often do not do that successfully. i think success lies in the direction of finding things to get done that do not compromise our principles and our base. assuming that we hold the house, i do not think the house would any kind ofshift in leftward direction. whether or not we hold the senate -- if we are close in the senate and we hold the house i think it is equally interesting

how hillary clinton relates to that if she is president. my assumption is that there will be a desire to get things done to show or were progress but there could end up being that the white house would like to stay far left and house and the majority of republicans in the senate are not going to want to go in that direction see you could end up two years of stalemate. >> on trump and the rhetoric we have heard from him on the rigged election, is there a concern that diocese the gop that and hurts the down ballot candidates? any evidence in polling data that might take place? >> that is an interesting question about whether that kind of rhetoric can make people think it is all for not. thus far in our polling voter interest and intensity are

notably comparable on the republican and democratic side. hillary clinton has her own base footer mobilization problems but both sides seem motivated to vote based upon our polling. the concern i have is whether the machinery is there is it typically is to make sure that the people who are more episodic voters are nevertheless encouraged to go out and vote. suggest that democrats have an overwhelming advantage compared to past years but there are some signs we are concerned about that in some places the machinery is not delivering the vote in the way that it needs to. in a close race change of a couple percentage points can determine the outcome of a senate election stop >> interesting talking about the future of the party and how the white house and congress may interact.

a couple big topics i've heard talk about include immigration reform that there may be a strong push for immigration reform. in a democratic white house in the early days. what is your sense of -- that is an enormous and divisive issue for the republican party. how do you think that would be handled in the senate, particularly the senate weather is a lot of division and there will be a lot of rusher to try and get something done as it has been lingering around congress for several cycles. partyhink the republican is going to continue on border security is a key deliverable and democrats are very comfortable with that. this issue will be different than it was two or four years ago when thinking of a was working on it. in part because there is a lot

of evidence that illegal border crossings are at record levels. in addition to that you have an overlay and the national security concern. in the past whenever you to think or worry about people coming into the country who might want to do us harm. become this issue has more complicated and i think there is a risk for democrats thinking the immigration issue is the same immigration issue it was two to four years ago. i think republicans have a few more arrows in their quiver then they did before. think it is important for republicans to find a way to deal with immigration so they are not -- so we are not hurting ourselves badly with immigration. it's important we find a way to deal with it but democrats are not without risk and they have

their own division. organized labor is very ambivalent about immigration reform. both parties will have to figure out, is there a way to not just seek partisan advantage but to get enough done that they hold interest in common. >> if hillary clinton wins the white house to you see the majority leader pushing the supreme court nomination? >> i have no idea. it might be a move to get it done. i don't know how the democrats would take it. at this point it is above my pay grade. >> thank you for being with newsmakers this week. >> thank you for having me. >> newsmakers is back after our conversation with stephen law who heads the senate leadership fund and our two reporters. morning, we friday

had the head of the democratic party in ohio who made the comment that election cycle showing why citizens united should be repealed. we've just heard about a lot of money going into the elections. is it clear what the impact of all the money is at this point? >> we should make a point this is going on both sides of the end of the day. when you take everything into account that is the official democratic and republican party senate committees in addition to outside groups that is not going to be a huge amount of difference between how much each side has spent on senate races. the senate leadership fund has been remarkably successful particularly in this last month of october raising some warty $3 million in the course of the month to date. writing big donors checks.

there are those who want the money out of politics. mitch mcconnell is not one of those people. >> both parties are big spenders. these elections have become increasingly expensive. polling,look at public you see it at the bottom of what citizens are concerned about. they don't understand the flow of money between big donors the packs the candidates the lawmakers it's all really confusing even to people who follow it on a daily basis. it's one of the reasons why never moves up on the level of importance for voters. it is talked about every election cycle but it takes a lot to get movement on campaign finance reform. the last time congress did anything about it was years ago. i don't see it happening anytime

soon especially if you have the divided government we are predicting in the fall we have republicans likely holding the house. campaignt to move finance reform there would be impossible. >> that was a good conversation not just on the money and mechanics but what washington looks like on election day. win thethe democrats senate, two years of stalemate. do you agree that stalemate will be the order of the day? coveringou get used to congress it becomes a matter of degrees. i'm thinking they might get an infrastructure bill with international test reform. in our world that would be a big deal but to regular people it is like come a what is congress doing?

the possibility to do something that is landmark legislation in any area is small. it is hard to see a republican-led house siding onto a major immigration reform bill. maybe something around the edges. stalemate is the name of the game. >> it will be hyper political. democrats are divided. you have bernie sanders on the elizabeth warren side of the party putting pressure on hillary clinton to fulfill the promises she made to win over those voters that will push her further to the left. than pushingharder a white house on the left to the right. it is a gap too wide philosophically. paul ryan has a strong desire to

do tax reform and so does charles schumer, a potentially incoming democratic leader. but big ideas, you almost need a unified government -- all democrat or all republican, to get past the partisanship. host: he was willing to tackle the supreme court question, that would both of you give us a sense of what a supreme court nomination looks like with a slim democratic majority or the republicans retaining the majority in a hillary clinton administration? >> that is hard to predict. there has been some rhetoric from republican senators recently suggesting that they will take an obstructionist approach, which could lead to a change in the filibuster rules,