you can't always get what you want ♪ >> later today, ohio senator sherrod brown will debate republican representative. c-span, at c-span.org, and our radio app. c-span, your primary source for campaign 2018. on monday, david brett will debate abigail span berger in virginia seventh district, live at 6:30 p.m. eastern. later, the senate race in arizona. kiersten cinema debates martha mcsorley for the seat of check flight -- of jeff flake. >> anarchist on newsmakers this week is -- our guest on

newsmakers this week is the founder of emily's list, which strives to elect pro-choice, democratic women to office. it is the fourth biggest spending super pac. she is a former state legislator in maine, 10 years in the legislature there. elected first at 25, the youngest main house mentor -- house minority leader. thank you for being with us. emily: i am thrilled to be here. susan: let me introduce the reporters asking question. amy is a reporter for the washington post. for the wallrted street journal. get started with questions, i want to tell the audience a little bit about the statistics going into this year's election. in the primaries, 235 women have won major party nominations.

22 women have major senate nominations. 16 are vying for governor slots. a big year for women, and we will learn more about what that means. any, you are up first. amy: i wonder if you could start out with talking about what we are going to see in the next four weeks, the final stretch of the midterms, where the hottest race is, where our surprises, and how do you think the drama of the brett kavanaugh affectedion process what we will see in the last few weeks? emily: let me put in the context where we are headed in the next 3.5 weeks. it starts with the fact that we have a record number of women running for office. we have endorsed more women this cycle than we ever have in a single cycle in our history. we have endorsed 70 women for the u.s. house.

53 in seeds that could and likely will flip from red to blue. we are endorsed in 12 u.s. senate races, a governor's races, and 550 state and local races. as we head into the home stretch, we have women on the ballots and women engaged at levels we have never seen before.

>> just to switch over and talk about money. a lot of women running this year and women engaged in different ways. something i have watched is women giving in politics. traditionally, they have not given at levels that men have. there are not the mega downers out there. have you seen anything change in terms of enthusiasm at the donor level? emily: emily's list and our and our name stands for "early our name stands for "early money is like yeast." we are engaging women donors at all levels to help build support

for those campaigns. we have seen that grow exponentially this year. we have more than 5 million members across the country. the day after the hearing with dr. ford, we had our single best fundraising day. in our history. this is primarily driven by women small dollar donors. and our candidates are raising record amounts of money. we had multiple candidates raise more than $3 million in the third quarter. that is driven largely by women donors and also by the fact that they are not getting thousands of dollars at a time. they are getting small dollar donations driving the numbers up. >> nonetheless, some women candidates this year have said they did not expect the

intensity of the structural barriers that they encountered when they chose to run for office. i remember a story earlier from california where some women did not win. and men won and some of the women candidates spoke quite openly about the difficulty of raising money and the differential in networks between men that have had 20 or 30 year careers and women that have had interrupted careers. the structural challenge. what other structural challenges has emily's list learned about? what is that doing to inform how you approach your mission going forward? emily: with more women running it is a good thing. we think it is amazing the fact that we have had so many multiple women primaries around the country. more diversity than ever before.

that is a good sign of where we are headed as a country and for us as an organization. in our 33 year history, this is no surprise to us. we were founded to try to break down some of those structural barriers that women face whether it is in fundraising or in the ways that the media covers them. women are still getting covered for their tone of voice or their attire and the way they wear their hair. that will only change for good when more women are elected. this is no surprise to us, the structural sexism. this is why we are so happy to have an opportunity to take that next leap. after the anita hill hearings, we saw a record number of women elected in 1992. and a lot changed. there were four women sitting on

the judiciary committee during the kavanaugh hearings. this is a measure of progress. that is going to be -- it will be that times a million not just in congress but also at the state legislature level. >> do you think that this seems like a one off cycle? there is enthusiasm here for a lot of different reasons. donald trump's election inspired more women to get involved in elections. and now the brett kavanaugh hearings. is this just a special and different kind of election? do you think that this enthusiasm and momentum that we are seeing from women will continue beyond? emily: i am 100% confident that the women that are here, are here to stay and there will be more in the future. this is more than just donald

trump and brett kavanaugh. we have been recruiting women to run for office for 33 years. it is not normal that women would have contacted us. with hillary clinton on the ballot, we had 920 women reach out to us saying they wanted to run for office. as of today, we have had more than 42,000 women reach out to us directly since november 2016 saying they wanted to make a plan to run for office. this is a sea change. i believe that will have ripple effects in the communities into businesses and schools and into how little boys and girls are raised to think about leadership. this is a transformative moment. the ripple effect will not just be a ripple. it will be permanent. i think we will see that in a big way after this election. it will grow.

we have trained more than 5000 women. that is a record for us in an election cycle. it is also about the way the trump administration operates. the sexist comments about women that come almost daily. these are not single men women and families. >> does any of that give emily's list -- correct me if i'm wrong -- the policy of not contesting where there is more than one woman. something you will encounter more often if your prediction about this being a permanent change is accurate. we can already see how this might keep you on the sidelines. emily: emily's list does not sit on the sidelines for primaries.

our mission is to elect pro-choice democratic women. sometimes, when there are multiple women running as a pro-choice democratic candidate -- sometimes, we do not endorse. sometimes we work with one woman or multiple women in a primary. if we are confident that one will win, there is less reason for us -- there is an equal chance that a pro-democratic woman will win, there is no reason for us to weigh in there. in other cases in a large field, and you have seen this this year. we take every endorsement seriously. we typically work with candidates for 3-6 months before they earn our endorsement. it depends on the dynamic of the race. we are being challenged to grow as an organization in real time this cycle.

we will have a great opportunity as we see women get elected this fall. as many as possible. to take a look back and say -- how can we do better? we do get involved in some cases in multi-women primaries. >> what states do you look to and say, they are doing really well with women politicians? there is a woman at the top. a woman governor. the legislature filled with women. can you give us examples? emily: one example i will give you -- the presidential election was put up and we stopped talking about what would happen next. in nevada, the first latina ever was elected into the u.s. senate. and jacky rosen will be the next u.s. senator from nevada i believe. it was the strength of women

that helped flip legislative chambers in nevada. i will also -- if you look around the country, we have two outstanding pro-choice democratic governors right now. in my home state of maine, we have janet mills who is on track to win the governor's race as well as shelley pingree in the first district. we have a woman in the house. it is really when you look up and down the ballot is when you start to see the difference being made across the country. >> a follow-up, governors races -- there has been less success for women candidates. fewer women have advanced from the primary level to the nomination and the general election in governors races than in house and senate races.

to what do you attribute that? emily: we're doing a lot of soul-searching at emily's list on that as well. going back to our earlier conversation about structural ideas and about what leaders look like -- that executive leadership role is a tougher not to crack. we are working desperately to change that idea. we are currently in eight governor races. in places like kansas. we believe we can win in the fall. i don't think it will change until we make a change. we will continue to play heavily in those gubernatorial primaries in future cycles. this does not scare us off. it only makes us think how can we do it better? host: talking about states, you mentioned that you are endorsing 550 races. this year, there are 3370 women nominees in the state legislatures.

you are also focusing on flipping the legislatures in 13 states. where does that show the most promise? emily: one certainly is my home state of maine where we are working to flip the state senate. we are focused on states where legislatures play a big role in redistricting. michigan for example. we have already broken super majorities in places like georgia. that is a lens which we apply. where does legislature play the biggest role? similarly in governors races. and also down ballot state wide races like ohio. where we have endorsed kathleen. she has a big role to play with redistricting. >> i have been struck by how much health care issues are playing in races across the country. we just did a story this week

about 50% of the democratic advertising in house and senate races involved health care. can you talk a little bit about why that issue is so resonant right now in this particular race? emily: health care is a resonant issue because everyone has a health care issue. they have been impacted themselves by the cost of paying bills, navigating the complex insurance environment, or been personally affected by a pre-existing condition. it is not something we could have necessarily anticipated. we could not have known that health care would be such a dominant force. it is both because so many americans are affected by this particularly women and our women candidates are shining examples of candidates running on health care issues. one of the first things our republican congress did was to

undo the affordable care act. that is playing out in a huge way in the missouri senate race. josh holly has been on the wrong side of the missouri people. we have seen candidates get into races because of health care. lauren underwood running in illinois 14. she is a nurse. she has a pre-existing health care condition. her member of congress took away pre-existing conditions. she is in a position now where she can win. it resonates because american people are affected by it every day. republicans from day one made it their priority to take away those protections. that sets up an undeniable difference. >> even republicans are now running advertisements about pre-existing conditions. in missouri, it has been quite

something to see. emily: his repeated attacks on health care. claire mccaskill will hold him accountable. >> we talked before taping about our shared maine ties. susan collins, -- is she in trouble? she voted in favor of confirming justice brett kavanaugh. emily: i am 100% focused on this november. november of 2018 and electing a record number of women in maine and across the country. after that, our sights will shift.

and myself and some incredible people across the state of maine will have those conversations and take another look at 2020. until then, 100% focused on 2018. host: senator grassley has promised he would help raise $3 million for susan collins to stave off any challengers. he has described her harsher critics as radical. what is your reaction? emily: they are trying to reframe passionate, particularly women, but women and men across the country speaking out against -- speaking out with their anger, sadness, and frustration. that language is nothing more than an attempt to distract. there are a lot of americans that are scared right now. millions of americans are survivors of sexual assault and

sexual violence. the kavanaugh hearings are not going to go away. the congress will be a elected this fall. i believe democrats will be in the majority. and the kavanaugh hearings are not going to go away. whether you see that play out in maine, south carolina, iowa. >> we cannot not talk about nancy pelosi and how she fits in in to races going on right now. what are your thoughts about nancy pelosi returning as a speaker? are there other candidates that should think about getting into the mix? emily: at emily's list, we are focused on putting the congress in a position where we can have a conversation about getting the gavel back as speaker. i believe that we are thinking

about making sure that democrats are in the majority. we have to give credit to nancy pelosi for her time as speaker and for being an incredible leader. and it will be up to the new congress as to the next steps for leadership. host: candidates are being asked if they will support her in that position. emily: that is no surprise. it is a natural question for candidates to get. what i know is they are all answering and the best way that is best for them and their race and district. it is reflective of conversations they are having with real voters from their community about the kind of leadership they want to have in congress. >> there have been a lot of reports recently about potential barriers to voting, particularly among minority communities. there is a story in georgia

about 50,000 voters, mostly african-americans, whose voter applications have been denied. is minority recruitment a policy priority for emily's list? how does minority recruitment fit into your overall strategy of electing women? is voter suppression and voting rights --are those priorities for you this year? emily: starting in georgia, stacey abrams -- it is no accident that suddenly we are having this conversation about held up registrations for african-american voters as we look to elect the first african-american governor in the history of our country. she is tied in those polls in georgia. no one ever thought that would be possible. i have known her for a lot of

years. she is a friend of mine. i know that she knows what is going on in georgia. this is completely ridiculous and not an accident. not only stacey and her team but also nonpartisan sources are getting involved saying it is wrong and we have to take action. when you think about the importance of diversity in our elected office, 40% of the women we have helped to elect have been women of color. we know we need to do more. we are on track this election cycle to elect not one but two of the first native american women never to be elected to the u.s. congress. you may not know this but texas has never sent to a latina to congress and we will send two at least this year. this is a result of deliberate recruitment efforts by emily's list and other partner organizations to get these women in these races early. that will continue to be a priority for us.

i believe that is what the american people should want and expect. host: one last question. >> i have to ask about 2020 again. are there candidates -- we hear about a lot of potential democratic candidates. are there a couple of people you think would really get women excited and engaged in the election? emily: four women come up a lot. senators warren, harris, and two others. it is amazing and exciting to us at emily's list to think that there could be multiple pro-choice democratic women launching serious campaigns for president. i am sure there will be a large umber of great men that will run as well. we are lucky as democrats to have such a broad and diverse group of people taking a look at taking on donald trump in 2020. but it is only a brief conversation happening right now. we cannot get to that

conversation the way we want to unless we have a big win this fall. host: where will you be on election night? emily: i think i will be here. my travel schedule is changing by the day. we have staff are all over the country. i think i will be here in d.c. and i have my list ready to check off all the wins as they come in. host: thank you for being here on "newsmakers." host: "newsmakers" is back. we just talked to emily cain of emily's list and she talked about the kavanaugh hearings as being the motivating force. but in fact, republicans are saying the same thing. and mitch mcconnell right after the vote said that the hearings did more to galvanize their base then anything the party operatives have been able to do. >> i think there is a little

truth in both. we have published a poll this week that has shown there is more momentum on the democratic side but not by a huge margin as a result of the confirmation hearings and the result of the vote. i do hear a little bit of wishful thinking in what senator mcconnell says about the anger. certainly, there was anger during the process but does it last now that kavanaugh has been confirmed? that is a big question. it is an issue that very depending on the race. emily mentioned how different candidates are messaging differently depending on their race. there is no question that the top democratic incumbent senators in republican states that president trump won are having to navigate a more difficult half on the kavanaugh vote then someone running in a blue district or state.

the majority of voters in heidi's state supported brett kavanaugh's nomination and she voted against it. that will be tricky for her. host: what about the amount of money going into the cycle? >> it is breaking all types of records. just today, o'rourke who is running an amazingly well-funded campaign in texas to unseat senator ted cruz announced he had raised $38 million. a record smashing amount. numbers coming in from races across the country are setting the bar higher and higher. as emily was saying, it is fueled by a lot of small donors. people more comfortable giving online. that is transferring into politics and you have great

services particularly on the democratic side that have been around for a long time like act blue. you're seeing the power of small donors in this cycle. small donor giving on the democratic side is the take away money story of 2018. host: talking big picture, could you explain how early voting is impacting how people are campaigning? it seems to gain more traction each cycle. people are already casting their ballots and we have three weeks to go. how does that affect people with jobs like emily to get people to the polls? >> i think it makes it much more difficult. the field operations are having to tear up earlier and earlier. i read a statistic this month that in north carolina as an example, 50%, something close to

50% of voters cast absentee or early ballots which is an astonishing figure. it means that the result is set before election day. the campaigns have to be messaging and doing voter turnout efforts and month ahead which is remarkable. host: what about the question you asked about voter suppression? states are saying that they are cleaning up there voting rolls. what is your reporting showing about what is going on? >> amy coming you have done more reporting than i have but in general, i think you are seeing groups get involved in litigation and engaging in more public relations effort to get the word out that this might be happening. in georgia for example, it is a

big story. a couple of cycles ago it might've been going on but not gaining traction. and now it is front and center. >> it began with president trump claiming that 3 million people had voted illegally in 2016. there is no evidence about that. there is some evidence that he was sore about losing the popular vote that there is no evidence that anything approaching that level of the legal voter fraud occurred. and there is little evidence of widescale voter fraud anywhere in the country. but you do see mistakes. california for instance is dealing with a problem right now where their new program where you automatically register to vote when you go to the dmv is improperly registering people not eligible including undocumented immigrants who are not citizens. and that fuels fears among people who are suspicious of immigrants.

and it gives an opportunity for politicians to gin up those fears. host: a quick question for both of you. emily cain will be on the road a lot in the next few weeks. what do the next few weeks look like for you? >> i am looking for last-minute spending. you can often tell when the parties are feeling secure about certain races that were supposed to be a lot closer. sometimes, you see people walking away from ones where the parties have given up. how the money shifts around. i am really interested in senator manchin and in particular that race and how it plays out. the kavanaugh affect in west virginia is a really interesting dynamic. and how he responds to that in the next couple of weeks will be

really interesting. >> i will be focusing some portion of my time on voting rights and voting issues and voter suppression versus voter fraud. some of these races will be close. this is a more competitive landscape and we have seen that in many cycles. close races across the country could mean questions about voter access. and seeing what those parties and what those governments, state and federal, do to protect the integrity of the vote will be an important story for the next few weeks. host: thank you to both of you for being here this week. >> campaign 2018 coverage continues now with an ohio race democrat senator sherrod brown running for third republican congress jim renacci? with to