[song changes] about 15 minutes, peter buttigieg is expected to begin his get out the vote event in nashua, new hampshire. this comes today is before the state primary. while we wait, here is a preview of the new hampshire primary from today's "washington journal." levesque, director of the new hampshire institute of politics at saint anselm college. good morning. guest: good morning. host: what are your takeaways from last night's democratic dinner and friday's debate? who came out on top? who lost ground? guest: at last night's dinner, there was a lot of energy in the room. that is a big arena. a lot of people there. mayor pete came out first.

i think that was pretty good for his advantage. yes -- an x tempering extemporaneous speech, did not miss a beat. i thought it was good. klobuchar that amy had a great speech as well. she seems to have momentum, as does mayor pete. i think she is capitalizing on it. thatr as the debate goes, was hosted at saint and some college. the interesting thing -- at saint anselm college. thatnteresting thing about , genuinely, the gloves have not come off this primary much. contrasting.polite is the person who starkeate some more

contrast was amy klobuchar, who came out ahead in that debate. i think some of the polling is indicating she has done well since then. the other thing on that debate was that joe biden said in the middle of the debate, basically conceded he is probably not going to win new hampshire. i think that was interesting thing to have happen several days before the first ballot is even cast. host: neil, how much is the race changing in new hampshire this week? do we expect to see any swings or shifts over the next couple days? it seems like everything has been going crazy over the last few months in new hampshire. guest: absolutely. new hampshire voters, a lot of times they will fall in love with the candidate through the summer and fall. as we get into this final week, they will get married to the candidate they think should go on to the nomination. a lot of times that is big

swings during this period. that can be affected by the many appearances going on in the state, the debate, and some of the questions they are taking. hillary clinton had some moments here in 2008 where she cried. in those final hours of the primary, she ended up overcoming barack obama in the final hours. there was an upset there. there have been more upsets through new hampshire history at this primary. i would not be surprised if we see some of the national pundits and press be a little bit surprised by the results on tuesday evening. guest: you brought -- host: you brought up the hillary clinton barack obama primary in new hampshire. is there anything different in this cycle than in previous cycles? or are we seeing the same story,

the same actions but democrats in new hampshire that we saw in previous years? guest: there are some big differences from now and previous primaries. first, we started off with 26 and 29 major candidates for this office, all running through the state. some have dropped out of the race. some are still on the ballot. we certainly have quite a few. we also had impeachment in the middle of this, which is an unusual situation. several of the u.s. senators running for president had to come off the campaign trail to be in washington, d.c. we also had some stark contrast with front running candidates. you take 78-year-old bernie bidens, elizabeth warren, , they are in their 70's. then you have 38-year-old pete buttigieg musso certainly some buttigieg, so --

certainly some major contrast. this is very different. as far as campaigning goes, years ago, what would happen is you would find a supporter and have a house party and they would invite their family and friends to the house party. perhaps half of them were republicans and half did not vote or a certain percent did not vote. your target audience was slim. now what campaigns do is they find a location, a house party or other location, and they do the inviting through some of the data points and try to identify potential voters so when the candidate walks into a room to make the pitch to voters, it is a voter rich target. there is a lot more people that could potentially vote for them of the primary. --e of the major changes

slightly less television ads than in previous years. anda lot more youtube ads targeting the phone, targeting big data and looking at potential voters and micro-targeting them. to ourefore we get back next question, our viewers can take part in this conversation. we are going to open our regular phone lines. republicans, you call (202) 748-8001. .emocrats, (202) 748-8000 , (202) 748-8002. you can text us at (202) 748-8003. we are always reading on social media on twitter @cspanwj and on facebook at facebook.com/c-span. you guys have been polling in new hampshire for a year. what have you seen as far as

spikes for candidates going up and down? do you think we will see another pole from you before tuesday's primary? guest: we are not going to release a paul before tuesday primary. we had one that came out there and we were in the field during the i will caucus period. sanderswed biden and tied. one of the interesting things about that is that is what the other polling showed. bernie sanders and biden have been strong. however, we did show that pete buttigieg was leading in new s.mpshire for two poll we were the first to show that in new hampshire. that created a controversy. it was a shock to national pundits that here's a 38-year-old mayor of indianapolis -- i am sorry aaron south bend -- i am sorry. south bend. i gave him a drop motion there

-- job promotion there. would candidates like pete buttigieg are on the ground, you see what their message is up close and personal. voters of new hampshire have taken great interest in the mayor. not is something that is being seen in national polls and something that i think is going to show up on tuesday when new hampshire citizens vote. host: we know about all of the problems they had with the counting the votes in the iowa caucus. one of our social media followers is asking now, in new hampshire, who will be counting the votes? this is an important question and the election process is at stake. problems int any new hampshire like we saw in iowa? who is counting the votes? guest: this is a great question. we have apshire,

complete lead different system. election state run that is taking place tuesday. we have never had a problem and we do not anticipate we will have any problems tuesday. our secretary of state runs this election. it is private, meaning you cannot even take a picture of your ballot when you're in the ballot booth. it is private. it is a state run election. it is not run by the party. there are no apps. there is a paper ballot. if for some reason someone feels there should be a recount, we have paper ballots and we can conduct a recount, as we have many times for state and local races. this is a different system here. we do it very well. we get criticized -- our secretary of state, bill gardner, get criticized often because he is not employing

apps and different ways of counting votes and giving different people victories. .e have one victorious count there will be one election result tuesday night. our viewers join in on this conversation. iswill start with david, who calling in from southampton, new york on the democratic line. caller: i like all of the candidates for the democratic party, but i do not think anybody is currently going to be able to beat bush -- i mean trump. essentially, the economy is good. at least, the stock market is up. there is a message i think the democratic party is conveying that is exclusionary to the base

of the majority of the people that vote. i feel like there is a lot of discussion about hispanic voters, about black voters. i feel like they are losing white people, their votes, as a result. is. is where trump's base i feel like the democrats are losing it. the focus is on the minority votes. i think they are losing the weight votes -- white votes because they do not feel like they are getting hurt. that is a problem. they need to address the needs for all americans. host: go ahead and respond. guest: one thing with politics is that it is a numbers game. you are trying to always get to 51, if you will, increase who is going to vote for you and do so by different means, including

talking to different groups of people across the country. the president of the united states is obviously a skilled opponent for the democrats. he has won a strong republican primary as it really to this coming election, so expanding the amount of people you are talking to, the president himself has tried to reach out to african-americans and different groups in the country to try to expand his base.

so i would expect immigrants will do that as well. been polling have in new hampshire for a year. what issues are the new hampshire voters talking about? is it economy, health care, china? what are the issues new hampshire voters are voting on in this primary? guest: those are all issues the democrats here care about. voters in general. health care being top of the issues list. if you boil it down, democrats independence are focused on who can beat donald trump. they want to beat the president of the united states so they are trying to pick a candidate that can do that. thepolling at least up into iowa caucuses, the candidate they came out on top that was strongest in that category was former vice president joe biden.

so we had that advantage. a pretty good advantage to have as you go into this final week between iowa and new hampshire because if voters view you as the person most likely to be donald trump and that is on their minds, they may turn the knob for you on voting day and you may come out the victor based on that one issue. there are many issues and candidates across new hampshire have really covered them. issues like the opioid addiction problem that plagues new hampshire but also other states across the country and we find issues like that, candidates come into new hampshire, they start hearing from moms and dads and grandmothers and grandfathers who have lost members of their family from all economic backgrounds from the opioid addiction crisis and all of a sudden that's an issue up front and center with them in their campaigns.

that's another great thing about the new hampshire primary, candidates are up close and personal with us, the voters so they get to feel and hear from them on all different issues, particularly the opioid crisis was one that really has come out as a major problem in this country, one that the candidates are focusing on in this election. mark who's go to calling from huntsville, alabama on the independent line. good morning. caller: this is probably a little bit off the topic. i was talking to the strainer and one thing is that's one thing i never understood, why all the millions of dollars these candidates are spending to go state to state to state and basically say -- they put their points out on the issues and everywhere they go they say the same thing.

at the very beginning they had 17 or 18 candidates and that first debate was on tv, and they all make their points on other issues and where they stand. wastingever understood the millions of dollars spent to go all over the country and say the same thing when everybody can go home after work and watch it on tv. it will be on cnn, c-span, local tv. i never understood that. if you could help me, i would appreciate it. guest: that's a great question. i get that question all the time because there's a lot of frustration about the fact that candidates raise all kinds of money to be viable candidates and spend that money. the point is, a lot of times ,here putting these into ads whether on youtube or the regular television station and

people get frustrated with that. they doon -- the reason it, 32nd ads work. people are busy with their lives. they may be not have time to watch a debate or focus too much on the news because there tried to get their kids off to school and cook dinner, and they are doing other things so they turn on the tv and in the background, the ad runs and people tune into it. if americans spent more time on civics, there would be less of an influence of advertising in politics and thus on money in politics, but because they're such a need to do this, candidates have to go out and raise this money. u.s. senate candidates, if they run for u.s. senate, they have to raise thousands and thousands of dollars every single day just to be a viable candidate. forget about running for

president. that's in the millions of dollars. we have a candidate, michael bloomberg, who is skipping the first four states and is basically running television ads , up to $250 million so far, and has pledged to double that. so you could get up to $1 billion out of his own pocket spent and not necessarily campaigning. so the new hampshire campaigning of going door-to-door, going into diners, going into house parties, having town halls, answering questions, taking follow-up questions, doing selfies with people, which seems ridiculous but it's actually a great way to talk to voters, you do a selfie and they put it on social media. the point is, that candidate, michael bloomberg, is not doing these things. the jury is out as to whether that will be effective strategy. i believe in the new hampshire

primary and the way we campaign here and i think it's good for the country to have a candidate who gets into the overall -- into the oval office taken a lot of questions from a lot of regular people in the state and shaking a lot of hands and heard from people directly about their concerns. theynk in that oval office make better presidents having done so. michael bloomberg has a different approach. the jury is out as to whether or not that be ineffective strategy going forward in the 2020 election. host: a lot of conversation was had during the last election about the viability of polling, viability of exit polling. the saint haslam college survey center at the new hampshire institute of politics was created following mixed result prior to the 2016 presidential

election. are you doing anything differently with polling this time around? we have one social media follower who wants me to ask about exit polls in new hampshire. will there be exit polls following the primary? more information about how people voted and why? guest: that's the question i get asked most when i go out and give speeches to different i'll answer polling the last part first, exit polling will be going on on tuesday here new hampshire and they have hired a lot of saint anselm college students to help with that and it's being conducted i believe across the state. a lot of times they pick certain locations to get a test sample of what is going on at the polling site. ,t's not always a true test because a lot of the times you may come out of the polling spot, late for work where you

just don't want to talk to the person with the clipboard on a walk right byou and don't give any answers to as farit hole, however as our polling goals, we call cell phones as well as land lines. we do test sampling on that, and we believe we have an accurate system. sometimes people don't answer accurately. in the 2016 election, some people we think they did not want to admit they were voting for donald trump for whatever that missed the polling. we are hoping that is something that has been overcome. one thing to keep in mind, you will see as we move forward, all these different polls were new hampshire and you will see one candidate is in the lead and then a different candidate is in a lead for different pole.

you say how can this be. the data is there but allow times the pollster will weigh the different age groups differently. is oneo 29-year-old group so that's the young people. posters have different theories about how much that group will vote so that is sort of the gas into the future, compared to how they have voted in the past. we saw in iowa that the boat , ands were much like 2016 not like 2008 when they were much higher. it's a hard gas and statisticians spend a lot of time on this. but you will see different polls showing different results in the next few days and it frustrates voters and i understand that frustration. so the real test will be on tuesday here new hampshire.

when polls closed. most polls close at 7:00 p.m. on tuesday and then 8:00 p.m. the rest of them. so you probably will see some 9:00.s starting about and probably have a result before mid night for sure. ron who'ss talk to calling from orford, new hampshire on the independent line. have you made up your mind about who you're going to vote for in the first of the nation primary? caller: yes i have. you talk about electability and when a pole is done with a actually asked voters, not just democrats, but all voters, who you would vote for in a general election, trump or candidate acts, and you ask them that exact question, you know who comes out on top? .ndrew yang andrew yang is the top in

electability when you actually ask the voters, trunk or yanks, trump or buttigieg -- trump or org, trump or buttigieg whatever. the reason he is so popular, he has this plan agrees going to give $1000 a month to every person in the country. that will bring everyone up, all the disenfranchised people, people of color, it will bring them all up so that they will have a chance to compete. they will be able to donate money to campaigns, do all these things. that's why he's so popular. the reason he's not showing up high on the polls, the guy you had ahead of this guy from coal,, that boston globe they did not even ask yang's name. old media hates yang because he is into new media. the old media is really against him.

that's why he's doing so bad in the polls. i think we will see huge surprise with yang. guest: thanks for the question. hampshire, home of one of our former governors, the late mel thompson. andrew yang campaign has been out campaigning pretty hard. he was at the dinner last night with all the democrats and he was on the debate stage at saint anselm college on friday night. he has a real following out there. you will see their signs and hats and lapel stickers all say math because he is fond of doing math equations as he did last night at this dinner. sort of figuring things out across the country. he is a definite following here in new hampshire amongst the andp and they will pull him he will probably finish

respectively on tuesday. no predictions other than that but he has been out and about and has a following. host: let's talk to terry whose calling from colorado on the republican line. go ahead, terry. guest: -- caller: i just wonder if there come -- if they're going to come off without a hitch in new hampshire. they had such a problem in iowa i'm wondering how they're going to count the votes. as i going to be the same are democrats still using their shadow product? i'm curious about that. guest: that's a great question. out go back to what i said earlier, the fact that we are completely the opposite of what happens in iowa caucus or caucuses.

we don't have first place, third-place who brings the most people to the polls to begin with and who exits with the most. there's not a trophy for everybody. ande's a statewide election its conducted by our secretary of state and each town, we have a paper ballot so if you need to have a recount, there is and we don't have any apps or high technology involved. it's old school. and we get criticized for it. secretary of state gets criticized for this all the time. i think he's been proven correct in his decision-making and keeping it the way it's been done for many years. so i believe we are going to tuesdayolid product on and i think the rest of the country will see what our results are and will confident that it was done correctly and credibly. host: there has been a lot of

talk among democratic circles about getting, moving iowa and new hampshire out of their first of the nation status. what would be your opinion on whether iowa and new hampshire, or an iowa or new hampshire should be moved out of their first of the nation spots? guest: i can speak for new hampshire in the fact that i think this state really kicks the tires for candidates and tests them in a way that cannot be done in other states. it's a small place, 1.3 million people, fairly compact. you can get around as a candidate. we have the highest voter turnout's over and over again in the state of new hampshire. some people say it's our state sport, politics. i agree with that in the fact that we really take civics very seriously. you can't just come into new hampshire and spent all kinds of money on television advertising and when this election.

you need to go out there and meet and greet candidates, meet and greet voters and candidates need to take the questions from voters and take follow-up questions. that's good for our democracy. we don't pick a candidate and say everyone else has to do what we do. and we get criticized. we have been criticized by candidates who don't perform here very well. but they don't perform well in their on states. i when i first got to nashua met with people who had not heard of pete before. looking at where we are today, we have come so far. we owe all of that doozy is amend excitement and momentum to our amazing