a final vote is expected this evening at 7:30 p.m.. watch the live coverage on c-span2. you can listen live on the c-span radio app. today, president trump will be in martinsburg, pennsylvania, hosting a rally. you livee bringing coverage. at 4:30 p.m. >> this is an associate political science professor. let's just begin with the importance of winning florida. where does it rate among the states? >> florida is always an extremely important state. obviously because it is particularly close. is particularly

important for donald trump. loveusly, joe biden would to have it. but without florida, i find it extra nearly difficult for donald trump to clear a path to 270 electoral votes. host: why is that. guest: if you look at the states out there that are traditionally , the narrow pass that trump took last time, he inld have won with states the upper midwest. time around he is not going to capture all of those states. one, but theteal odds of him getting those with the polling numbers where they are in the things that have changed, i think florida is a linchpin for him. if the biden team can win florida, that puts the sting out of reach for trump.

wins twothe president of those three, does he still need florida? guest: depends which two he gets. ande gets pennsylvania michigan, he can squeak out without it. now you're looking at north carolina, arizona, maine, a congressional district in nebraska could steal an electoral vote here or there and then we are probably looking at an election that could drag on until the middle of november. as much as i like elections and this is what i study, i am really hopeful we know relatively soon who the victor is in this race. host: michael binder is factory director of the public information research lab at the university of north florida, out with a new poll october 20. this poll finds the former vice president is barely ahead of president trump in florida. break this down for us. guest: our poll came out about a

week ago. we had biden out by a single point. it is florida. it is always going to be close. two points is a landslide in florida. always understand the margins you are working with here. we did a couple of things a little different this time around. we attempted to get voters that were hard to reach. typically speaking for most political polls, if you call somebody up in the lun they don't want to take the poll, you just say thank you, have a nice day and you go on. callers can hear things from the respondent that might give the make limbs as to what the respondent is actually thinking. sometimes they will yell they are voting for democrats, or something of that nature. this time we created dispositions for our interviewers to record that type of information. and then based on the voting

history, we were able to classify them as either likely trump voters are likely biden voters. often times people are willing to take surveys, but because of the private and secret nature of the ballot, they are hesitant to indicate who they are actually voting for. they might refuse to answer the question. but, if you asked them about a job approval, do you strongly approve of the job donald trump is doing, you might get a response. the folks that indicated they were strongly approving of donald trump, and the folks up categorizeving, we those as well. we did that because 95 plus indicatef respondents job performance felt that direction. that actually give trump an extra 1.5% of support. there could be a hint of hidden

trump votes in these polls, but not a big number. which voters are up for grabs? i-4 so few -- guest: so few. [laughter] who are note plugged in as much. on the flipside, those are the folks who are least likely to turn out. while they might be a for grabs, they are also less likely to show up and ultimately cast a ballot. 2016's,ction, unlike there was a greater proportion of indecision later -- leading into that last week or two. 8% or 9%. the bulk of those voters turned toward trump. there were lots of republicans that were wary and a lot of independent, or nonpartisan affiliates, that lean torn -- leaned toward trump as well. showsdo have polling that

these folks trending the same way? have they changed their minds? people howid ask they voted in 2016. we have done this a couple times. 2016, voted for trump in you are 90 plus percent going to vote for him again. that is a wash. there is not a big difference there. the change, and the big change are folks that did not vote in 2016. that includes a lot of people that per maybe 17, not of age. it also includes a number of folks who are maybe just turned off by both candidates. they weren't particularly engaged for a variety of reasons. almost 2:1 four biden. begins to expand, we have had 6 million votes already cast, as the selectric begins to expand, it is going to benefit

the biden team. host: john in wisconsin, supporting biden. we feel the same way in wisconsin that he is talking about. people in florida. wisconsin used to be very democratic as far as madison and milwaukee, but now it is sprinting to kenosha, racine, green day. different areas. host: and what is that? caller: people are turning to the democrats and supporting biden more than they would donald trump. we see a lot of problems with donald trump. host: did these people vote in 2016? caller: yes they did. host: who did they vote for? it, thethe thing about climate was for hillary clinton. hillary screwed up wisconsin. and tooksed wisconsin

it for granted. that foster the vote. host: thoughts? guest: i think with the caller was talking about exists in florida too. i think sometimes people get really concerned about bellwether counties, or areas that might flip. where is the county to watch come over the city to watch good florida is not about margins. -- florida is about margins. the trick is not that biden is going to win counties like sumter, it is can biden trim away the lead trump had there in 2016? not is he going to wincan he reduce the marginst biden gets? that is where the trick in florida is. can you hold down the margins of victory for your opponent in

areas where they are strong, and maybe in wisconsin and those rural excerpts, instead of it being 80-20 trump, you can keep it to 70-30 or 60-40. that will help biden. the same in florida. does biden extend the lead hillary clinton had? can he rack up more votes in orange county and broward county and miami county, or does trump expand on some of the margins he had in some of those rural counties and keep it of -- keep it up above the margin? host: what tactics are the campaigns using to get the desired outcome for them? guest: a couple things. obviously showing up and coming to these areas is great because it energizes the base and gets folks excited. it gives them that extra little juice to make that phone call or knock on that door to try and get a voter to show up. your previous guest discussed it is not changing any buddies but, but -- anybody's mind,

it is energizing the base, and that gets people to show up. the other thing happening in florida and across the country, it is just exacerbated in florida, is the micro-targeting of different individual voters. you will see in the jewish community, the types of ads being shown, particularly on email and internet ads are down in south florida. the jewish community is targeting both the biden history on israel and what trump has done to support moving to jerusalem. host: the embassy. guest: yeah, thank you. it is early in the morning and my brain is not functioning. on the flipside, the biden campaign is highlighting a lot of the support that trump has given with a wink and a nod to right-wing white nationalist groups. if there is any group in the

united states that is sensitive to that issue, it is the jewish community because of their history. those of the things that are happening at the micro level, as well as the in person appearances, to try and mobilize folks. host: let's hear from richard, undecided in philadelphia. thinking don't have one way or another about this, whether i am going to get there or not is a question i am wrestling with. lookingerested in this, at the black male vote, the black male in florida below the there anevel, is increase in turnout. specifically adding to that, those who have been incarcerated. theirre any signs of participation growing? that is a great question.

passed 2018, florida amendment four, which was designed to speed up and ease access to voting for former incarcerated felons. it appears at this point, mostly because of the effort of the desantis administration, it has been a largely unsuccessful implementation of a ballot measure. less than 100,000 felons had been registered after that ballot measure. the impact will be limited from the felon perspective. what happened in the black community? ande see a return to 2008 2012 turnout numbers? -- when andrew gillum was running for governor, or do we see a number that looks more reflective of 2016 amongst the black community? florida was only about a percentage point as far as share

of the electorate goes, but that percentage point is an enormous number in florida and last time, it could have swung the balance. host: our next caller in minneapolis, supporting the biden-harris ticket. caller: good morning. i have been on hold for so long, i almost forgot what i called for. the phone was constantly ringing . then it accepted michael. -- accepted my call. and supporting joe biden his running mate, kamala. i really don't see another choice. everybody is talking about losing their health care. we haveus over 65, medicare, and other plans we can take along with medicare and

they aren't expensive. a lot of them are free. know, -- would you please tell me why someone would call in with an outrageous lie, and you know it is not true? why do you just go along with it? more people listen to you in the morning than any other station or channel on tv. this lady called in from theyornia and said anytime report a covid-19 case, they get almost $400,000. that's not true. i'm retired from the medical field, and i have friends still in the medical field. that is an out and outline. host: there is no way i can be an instant fact checker.

you are more than welcome, when you hear something to research it yourself. what we are doing is getting people's opinions and perspectives, their perceptions of the debates happening in washington and around the country. especially ahead of eight days before the presidential election. michael binder, what will you be watching for, on election night? as we get there, what are your thoughts on early voting? guest: those are two very different questions. early voting, as of this morning, which includes all of yesterday's early votes including in person and vote by mail that have been counted, over 6 million votes have been cast in the state of florida, a state that had 10 million cast in 2016. the early voting turnout is astronomical. the problem is, it is a skewed turnout, heavily democratic at

this point as far as who has actually showed up. at this point, a little over 42% of the votes cast have been by democrats. only 36.5% have been cast by republicans. both 2016state win in and 2018, republicans had a slight turnout advantage and they are down by six points right now. because of efforts by the trump administration and trump himself to downplay and scare folks about vote by mail, these republicans are not showing up. they are much more inclined to show up on election day. what is going to happen on election night, at 7:00 in the east and 8:00 in the west, when we start looking at counting returns. those initial numbers will include a ton of democrats. all of the early in mail and early in person. but those same day votes are going to be heavily republican.

it may be the case that at joe biden -- that joe biden collects anything about the 2016 polls, were they wrong?

was the outcome within the margin of error? explain that. >> the margin of error was a range of uncertainty around all these holes. 14 million registered voters, it is physically impossible. we take a sample from that. even with that example, even if if we get aith -- pure function of the population, just by chance, we might get a few more people more supportive of trump or more supportive of biden. 2016 was twofold. you want to make sure that your sample looks like the true population. as want to make sure that far as divisions of sex, as far as geography goes across the state, all those things are important to make sure you have

a relation of what your population is going to be. the one thing we did not consider in 2016, it had not mattered prior to that is to look at the role that education plays an whether or not somebody has an encompassed degree or not. most reputable posters incorporated that into the methodology. the other problem with 2016 is that we did not address or pay enough attention to to those upper midwest states that wisconsin was talking about. hillary did not just ignore it. all the polling did as well. there were not as many reliable, reputable polls in wisconsin, pennsylvania, toward the end of the race. you missed those late breakers going toward president trump. in 2016 was a week before the election. does people that decided in the final days what do polls do if the voters had not decided, it

was a consistent lean toward trump. the other thing the polls did not do in 2016 that they are doing now is calling all of those battleground states. we are partnered with siena and the new york times and their upshot pulling. we are doing a lot of work with them. we are calling all states across the country with these battleground states. places you would never expect to be close, we are calling like georgia and texas. places like arizona, north carolina, michigan, wisconsin, the list goes on and on. a lot of states are paying much more attention to national level polling. the polls were not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. i don't think we are ready to through the baby out with the bath water.

thank you very much that you are taking my phone call. thank you very much for taking my phone call. i have only one opinion. i watched the debate with president trump and joe biden. i am a strong supporter of president trump, because after that date -- that debate, joe biden denied everything he said, and you have a tape on it. everything he said is on the tape and he denied everything and looks at the american and say it. he lied about the whole thing as a politician. the second thing is, the only solution he has about the coronavirus is put the mask. in france if you don't have a mask, they are going to find

you. and still they are having problems. as you look at the tv and the news, the number of people with this disease is going out, so that is not the solution. opinion,ion is, in my having a vaccine. it is one of those things we have to live with. host: how is the coronavirus pandemic impacting the vote in florida? colored by of it is your partisan lens. you can say a lot of the same things about one candidate as you can the other in terms of how you view them based on whether you support democrats or republicans. that said, coronavirus is clearly the issue in this election. even if people are talking about the economy, it is due to the of thees coming out

shutdown in the spring and summer. this is the overwhelming issue. you can't talk to a friend for 20 minutes without something related to coronavirus coming up , and how you view the handling of that by the trump administration and state governors is going to impact your vote choice. we talk about seniors in florida and their shrinking margins of support for trump when they were so supportive of him in 2016. the other thing people are not taking about is the senior population is changing. as people pass away, it gets repopulated with new 65 and plusers, but those folks who turned 65 in the last four years are more likely to have had a college degree than folks prior to them. you are seeing a greater level of education amongst those retirees and that is contributing to the shift toward biden as well.

there is a lot going on, but obviously the coronavirus is extraordinarily important, the overwhelming issue shaping everything. host: ronald in philadelphia. you are supporting the former vice president. how come? caller: in the first place, i would like to ask two things. the question you asked about some people, like the unemployment rate. maybe the question should be, do you believe the unemployment record? he told so many lies about so many things, what's to believe and what's not? i go around and ask people -- i am a retired steelworker. job, nobody hiring on my job, and i asked people all over. have you all hired a lot of minorities for either one of the positions you have? unemploymentle of

is something that gets a lot of attention depending on the numbers. the unemployment numbers as reported is relatively consistent as far as methodology. is it a perfect reflection of folks who are not working, out of work, or underemployed? absolutely not, but it can be a comparison number. one thing we can see is since the spring, since the shutdown, that number is much higher than it was prior to that. the thing about florida in particular -- and this is reflected in other parts of the country -- because some starts -- some parts of our state are so heavily based on tourism, they have been heavily impacted. orange county and suburban counties that are flooded with disney workers and travel and tourism, they have been hammered and those numbers are much higher as far as unemployment goes. as you are caller referred to,

the racial and ethnic differences in unemployment are absolutely true, and folks in more service based economies as far as their jobs are concerned are much more likely to have been hired back, more likely to be unemployed, and you see that not only in florida but across the country as well. seeingou are not competitive down ballot races in florida. what does that tell you? guest: there is a few. we don't have any senate races or governor race, but there are a few congressional races that are competitive that the democrats have their eye on, but not many. there are a few legislative seats democrats have their eye on and a seat or two republicans want to take back, but part of it is how the lines are drawn. part of it is gerrymandering where those in office draw lines to suit them so their seats are safe.

the other part is we live in clusters of people who are like us for a host of reasons. when you draw these lines and have to respect geographic boundaries, county lines, or city lines, you tend to get districts that are more homogenous than otherwise. there is a little bit of both, reflected not only in florida but across the country, you see a lot of races determined in primaries when turnout is actually low in 20 for this general election. host: tina is next in pennsylvania. caller: hello, how are you? host: doing well. your question or comment on the state of florida. caller: i thought i was just calling to give a comment. i am voting for president trump. host: you can do that, too. caller: i am voting for president trump because four years ago i did not vote, shame

on me, being 64. i had never voted in my life because if someone was bad, i never had a problem with it and if they were good, shame on me, should have voted. i am voting for president trump this year. i am not going to cut down either one, but the only thing i don't understand -- if it wouldn't be for the coronavirus, to be truthful, i don't think biden would be in the picture. that is the main thing going on, the virus and not liking how trump handled it. i don't understand, if biden gets in, do they think he has a magic wand he is going to waive and all this is going to disappear? aret doesn't disappear, we still stuck with the virus and all the things he wants to do, which is twofold worse. we are running around with the virus and everything failing. so what do we do? i don't know.

seriously, he does not have a wand to get rid of this. i don't know what people want from us. host: you have never voted, you are 64-year-old. what made you decide, i am going to bow this time for president as -- president trump? caller: i am calling from pennsylvania. my husband worked in the coal mines, thousands of coal miners in pennsylvania. first four years of obama, it was ok. everybody working. he got in the second four years. about two years after that, he is like, something is coming down. is it really? yeah. all of these regulations are pulling us down. he is like, i worked in the mines, we have to make sure

everything that comes out of clean, beforet, obama ever came in. after that, although bayside and they were down. that goes to show you that why i am voting for trump is i will not vote for biden because we know what he is after. people vote on what hits home to them. hits home toking my son, who is a coalminer, i am not going there. if someone hit something that has nothing to do with coal mines, they are not voting for trump. people vote for what hits their pocketbooks in their life. guest: individual self-interest is a powerful motivator, make no mistake. theou are somebody in current fossil fuel industry, i'm not sure joe biden is your

choice. if you are on the others of that and isn't necessarily working in the industry or whose family isn't in the industry and you are looking at environmental impacts of the current fossil fuel industry, maybe you have a different perspective. certainly individual self-interest matters a great deal, and it can be enough to motivate somebody who has never participated before. i am a firm believer in the more people who get to the polls, the better, so hopefully this turnout early is going to continue to trend and we can get more people into the voting booth. host: michigan, dave. caller: question about florida. , know you touched on the covid but i want to get specific. the fact that the president, in my opinion, betrayed the american people on the seriousness of the pandemic and, in fact, if you look at what the

governor is doing, it looks like a version of herd immunity, which really, at least in my area, seniors, it kind of scares them. the fact that the president wasn't honest -- i think it was one of the biggest betrayals ever by a commander-in-chief. he said he didn't want a panic. but yet he wanted to panic people about caravans. so how do you think the seniors take that betrayal in florida? guest: yeah, if it is viewed as a betrayal, people are viewing islike you, and there certainly a lot of evidence that suggests some -- not all -- there is a great number of seniors in florida that are dyed in the wool republicans and trump supporters and nothing will change their minds. as there are folks who support the democratic party too. but there are some folks who have turned a little bit. all polling suggests that is the case. ultimately we will find out in a week or so once we get some of these turnout numbers and show

how counties are voting. i certainly think that has impacted the senior vote, and i think could very well be a key decider in the state of florida. host: what is it like to live in the state of florida right now, with campaign as there? talk about the spending. guest: hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent on campaign ads. if you live in florida and you have not seen campaign ads, you are either not watching tv, not watching netflix, hulu, or any streaming services, because they are there as well. it is literally everywhere. as somebody who does this for a living, it is somewhat amusing. i really get a kick out of some of the ads. some of them are really creative. not the ones on tv as much. some of the ones that pop up on the web, i have a real appreciation for them, but it is constant and overwhelming. host: patty is in north dakota. caller: good morning. i just had some comments. of course we are on the

pandemic, and i just want to say there is no other president that did more. he stopped the access into the united states. it was ppe equipment, made all here. they worked diligently, day and night, when this came in, and people are saying that the president lied to them. he didn't lie to them. could you imagine, if he went on tv and told people the pandemic? and there wouldn't be chaos? everybody would be calm? said stay calm, there would be chaos. anybody sick wouldn't be able to go to the hospital's. this is just absolutely ridiculous. host: patty's thoughts in north dakota.

now roy, who supports the president, is calling from palm beach, florida. go ahead. caller: longtime listener and first time getting through after five years. i finally got through and i'm going to use this opportunity to speak of the enthusiasm backing donald trump and what is going on with the fake news media and nobody covering all of this information coming out about hunter biden's laptop and why they kept it secret since december 2019. the first thing president trump do when he gets reelected, and he will be reelected, and i hope christopher wray is listening to us -- he's gone. but my main concern is this, of the mainstream media, cnn, msnbc , and all these other fake news stations, why they are not reporting on this i do not understand, but the most important thing of my comments

is, all of a sudden, obama coming out on behalf of joe biden, because he is scared. he knows that if trump gets reelected, the crap is going to hit the fan because he was involved in every bit of this. i am talking all the way back when the president first said he would run for president. immediately, he was being attacked. he wasn't even president yet and they were already doing investigations on him. spying on him. host: michael binder, when you do polling, do you ask about the hunter biden stories, and is that a vulnerability for the former vice president? guest: we haven't asked about it. a couple folks have. it really just mirrors people's already predisposed positions. if you're a trump supporter, you think it is the worst thing on the planet. if you're a biden supporter, you junk and made

up and a russian plant story. it hasn't moved everybody in the middle, what people there are there. i want to add one more thing about early voting in general. there is a lot of vote by mail ballots happening, and there is a real chance that a lot of these ballots are not going to get counted, either because voters don't know how to sign it , they sign it wrong, leave it blank, or mail it after the deadline and it is not counted in florida. even if it is postmarked prior to november 3, it has to get there by november 3. there is a good chance there could be 100,000 or more votes that don't get counted this time around in florida. if they all go one way or the other, that's enough to potentially swing an election in florida. i hope the margins are wide enough and there is enough enthusiasm on both sides, and maybe there is enough enthusiasm from one side that this is a clear, decisive win, because i don't think anybody wants a repeat of 2000. host: michael binder, eight days out, care to make a production? guest: i think it is going to be

really, really close. host: come on. guest: our poll had biden plus one. i am going to be judged on that for the next four years. that's where i am going to lay my claim. host: michael binder, university of north florida professor of political science and also director of the public opinion research lab. we appreciate your insight. thank you. guest: thank you, greta. >> we take you live to a campaign rally with president trump speaking to voters and supporters at this event near altoona, pennsylvania. e'll keep on fighting till the end we are the champions we are the champions no time for losers championsare the