cleveland's lead political reporter seth richardson. and university professor lauren koplan. watch c-span's washington journal, live at 7:00 eastern, wednesday morning. be sure to join the discussion with your phone calls, facebook comments, text messages and tweets. here is a look at our live coverage wednesday. at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span, twitters of facebook, and google testify at a hearing on post regulations for social media and the tech industry. at 7:00, our 2020 campaign coverage includes a senate debate from georgia between the republican incumbent and his democratic candidate. at 10:30 a.m. eastern, national security advisor robert o'brien speaks with the hudson institute about current threats facing the u.s. that's followed by a discussion

with the political law experts on the upcoming election and the legal implications of expanded mail-in voting. at 1:00 p.m. the aspen institute looks at the development of the coronavirus vaccine, and plans for its distribution. host: we are back with david canon, political science professor at the university of wisconsin madison to continue our conversation on the battleground state of wisconsin. the supreme court decision on absentee ballots, what is your take on it? what type of voter could be impacted by this? guest: it really is an important decision to say that the ballot has to be received by election day, and anything not received by election day will not be counted. where a district court judge ruled you could count the ballots for three days after the election, the way that many other states allow. partiesright now the

are scrambling to get the message out that if you want to vote by mail, you better get your ballot in today or tomorrow, because the mail sometimes takes more than a week to get to the clerk's office. this has thrown a monkeywrench at the last minute into the voting process. and we do have a record number of people voting by mail, already almost half of wisconsin voters have voted by mail, over 1.3 million have already voted early. that is getting close to half of our total for 2016, so this could potentially affect a lot of voters. host: are they able to track their ballot in wisconsin? guest: you can, but you go to the my vote.gov website to track your vote, but the clerks cannot keep up with the huge volume. so in an ideal world, if your vote comes in, it is tallied online and you can see it was

received, but often they are behind a week or 10 days, so at this point you cannot count on that. what people are being urged, if you have not voted by mail already, you should take your ballot to one of the drop off boxes or and deliver it to the clerk's office, to make sure it gets there on time. host: we spoke with you on september 21 about the presidential race, has it changed since then? guest: the polls have moved a little bit in the direction of joe biden, but overall things have been stable. the lead ranges between 6-8 points in most polls for joe biden. the battleground poll conducted by my colleagues here at the university just came out yesterday morning, and that showed a four point jump for joe biden in wisconsin, also in michigan and pennsylvania he showed a four point jump.

one interesting thing about this poll that has not been widely noted in the commentary, is that unlike most other polls this is a panel poll, so they are read interviewing the same people over the series of polls. they have had four of them now, this is the last one before the election, but these are the same people being interviewed. so that is a real 4% change. it is the same sample of people. to me, that shows real movement toward joe biden in wisconsin and the other two battleground states. host: does that mean some of those people have changed their minds? they started out supporting president trump, perhaps a voting for him in 2016, and are now swinging the other way? guest: correct, although it looks like most people are sticking with their initial choice. what is happening is people on the fence are moving to joe biden. and we have also seen in the poll that joe biden is

doing well among the people who did not vote in 2016 at all, new voters. and people who voted for someone else other than clinton or donald trump, they are breaking heavily for joe biden as well. host: how big is that electorate? guest: fairly small. about 15% of the samples. not a huge percentage, but enough to make a difference in a close race. ask, can youto talk about the wow counties and how they are changing? guest: for those who are not in wisconsin, those are the suburbs around milwaukee. washington and waukesha county, and they have been heavily republican, the most important part of the republican suburban vote in the state. that was the core of support for scott walker in his election, for donald trump when he won in 2016.

in 2018, they were still heavily republican, but they moved pretty substantially in the democratic direction. the other thing i have been watching as the early vote numbers, deceit where they are coming -- to see where they are coming in. and they are running much higher than they were in 2016. and will be more than half of the electorate before we reach election day. but there is a higher percentage of people voting by mail, especially in dane county, in madison 63% of the 2016 vote has already voted in wisconsin, compared to washington county is still and so there heavy voting by mail, but not as much as dane county. to me that is more of an energized base on the democratic side to get there early vote out. host: what are the demographics of dane county? guest: it is heavily democratic.

black?terms of white and it's mostly white. the state is 87% white, 6.5% african-american. the heaviest african-american population is in milwaukee, racine. madison does not have as high of an african-american publishing as those cities. so, it is a heavily white population, but college-educated, as we have seen in this election especially, there is a big gap between the white voters with a college degree and those without. dane county has the highest proportion of college degrees of any county in the state. host: let's go to ron and pennsylvania supporting the former vice president. good morning. caller: i have a question pertaining to the ruling by the supreme court on the wisconsin voting. defy the state

ruling because of state's rights? on the abortion thing, for example, if they rule against abortion, some states can still have a law allowing abortion in their state. is that not correct? i am a student of the law, but i am just wondering. it's a question of information. i do not think the ruling is written in stone for every state in the union, is it? guest: well, good question. play inights come into this topic, who controls the election. and when you compare the weekylvania situation a ago, where the supreme court allowed pennsylvania to count votes late, but in wisconsin yesterday they said, no, you cannot do that. the difference was in

pennsylvania, john roberts voted with the three liberals, upholding the lower court decision to say the votes could be counted after election day because they said -- this is a question of state law, being interpreted by the supreme court in the state saying this is allowable -- so, john roberts said, let's stay out of it. but in wisconsin, our state supreme court is a more conservative court and they said that state legislature should be able to decide this, so now roberts has flipped and voted with the conservatives, and said you should not be able to count the votes. on the question of states rights and who gets to decide, roberts said basically that this is the state legislature's fault. they should be able to decide this. and our state legislature did not step into to provide extra time to voters. isin wisconsin the state

saying states should be able to decide, meaning our ballots have to be in by election day and cannot become delete. host: michael in maryland. you are supporting the joe biden/harris ticket? caller: yes. i have a question and a comment. what was the total amount that 2016?beat hillary by in it was like 20,000 or something, right? guest: 27,000. caller: now -- guest: that is out of 3 million votes cast. that is really close. caller: i am a black american and i always looked at the black population up there as the reason that occurred, because they stay-at-home, you know. that small amount made the

difference. and i am wondering if that is going to come out this year. that's my question. -- is comment is, if responded to the guy who had the dream about jesus and of the other responder about abortion. numbers, chapter 11-31, it states that god sanctioned abortion. host: i will leave it there. guest: on the question of the african-american vote and did it help elect donald trump? he is right to say that the drop was, thet in milwaukee african-american turnout, was the margin of difference. the straw to go with that broke the camels back argument, why would those voters

be more important than others who did not turn out, but it is a critical part of support for the democratic party, and there was a substantial drop between 2012-2016 in black turnout. we saw that nationally, where nationally black turnout was down. but in 2012, blacks voted at a higher rate than whites, nationally, and barack obama's second election. that was a critical thing in the 2016 election. the caller's right to point to that as something that people will keep a close eye on next week, to see what the turnout looks like in milwaukee. host: there has also been talk about the battleground within the battleground. where is this located? guest: the fox river valley is to the north, from appleton to green bay, an old industrial

part of the state with a lot of manufacturing and paper mills. that is the part of the state that has been the battleground within the battleground. there have been many elections in the past where that part of wisconsin has the highest ad buys of any media market in the country. this is a heavily fought over area that does a swing in both directions. so that is another part of the state people will be watching. host: we will go to caleb in maryland. you are undecided. caller: hi, my main concern -- as we know, only 1% of the national budget goes to economic development abroad. and given that 95% of u.s. jobs are directly linked to foreign trade, what are the key concerns in terms of foreign policy for wisconsin voters? as a supplemental question,

what could we do more of to make u.s. citizens more interested in international affairs, given the u.s. population is only 4% of the total in the world? right thatcaller is foreign affairs rarely plays a central role in politics. if you look at the most important problems facing the iuntry, the battleground poll mentioned that was released yesterday had a question asking, what are the most important issues facing the country today? it listed 11 different issues and foreign policy hardly registered. covid was the most important issue for democrats, the economy the most important for republicans. and it is something that simply does not register at the top of the list for most. unless it is during a time of war, then clearly those

considerations come into play in a more serious way. in this election in wisconsin, the one foreign policy related topic that does come up, in rural areas especially, is foreign trade. because of the trade war with china, the agricultural sector in wisconsin was hurt hard by the trade war with china. and had the drop in commodity prices, the dairy farmers were really hurt by the lack of demand for many of their dairy products. and so that's something i think probably has hurt donald trump to some extent in the rural parts of the state here, the trade war we have been engaged in. but other than that, i would agree that there is not really as much interest being placed on foreign policy. in terms of answering the question, what can be done to make americans be more interested in foreign policy, i

think that is a tall order. and it is something that we always have been kind of inward looking, as a country, i think. it's something that comes with the territory of being the world's largest economy. and it is a privileged position to be in, do not have to worry about foreign policy as much as smaller countries, if you are one of the leading powers. i, i agree with the caller, also wish we paid more attention to foreign policy, but it is just a reality that we simply do not. host: we told our viewers earlier about the president tweeting out changing their votes, and according to cnn, among the states that allow the voters to change their early ballot after it has been cast are wisconsin, minnesota, michigan, connecticut and mississippi. david, your comments on this? guest: i had a conversation with

our click on this very question a couple weeks ago. me that we used to have a policy that you could walk in your ballot with a different ballot, because the way that they are counted in most precincts in wisconsin, the mail-in ballots are counted in your regular precinct. there are only 39 municipalities, including milwaukee, green bay as well, that come to a central location in the city, but every other of our 2000 minutes apologies will count the mail-in ballots at the polling place where you normally would vote. so i was told that we used to have a rule where you could take your new ballot, say i changed my mind, they would find your old one, rip it up and count your new ballot. now,ll of that is allowed because it got to be too

complicated to do that, especially in the cities where they had the central counting and not at the polling place. it would be impossible to unwind that, the call back your ballot you already cast, so it is possible that in some that.palities they allow that is something that is crazy about wisconsin elections, it is decentralized. we are the only state that has almost 2000 election officials, every other state it's done at the county level. so given that, there is a lot a variation in the practices and how they work, including the process of early voting. so it's possible in some parts of the state that walking in your ballot could still be allowed, may be in a smaller town it could be done, but in madison i was told by the madison clerk that that is not something that is done anymore. host: it sounds like you need to check with your local

authorities. guest: you should check with your local court, because it does -- clerk, because it does vary. host: the president will be holding a rally at the motorsports management company in la crosse, wisconsin today. why there? guest: la crosse is one of those medium-sized cities that tend to be more up for grabs. so, madison, milwaukee, they are heavily democratic, rural areas tend to be more republican. suburban areas are more republican. but it is those medium-sized cities like eau claire, green bay, la crosse, those are the ones up for grabs and that is where president trump sees the greatest potential in swinging some undecided voters perhaps. although, the percent undecided now is really small compared to four years ago. it is down to 3% in most polls, so there are not many people who have not yet made up their

minds. host: jack in davenport, iowa, supporting the president. hi, jack. caller: president trump has come down hard on china. the gigantic chinese trade balance deficit, the chinese military buildup with aircraft carriers and island building, and covid. how is the chinese factor weighing in madison? do you have a lot of chinese students in madison? guest: i do not think that the china question is registering at a very strong level among wisconsin voters. i mentioned it in the context of the trade war, how it has affected rural communities, but that would be about it. it's not one of the central issues. in terms of voters, asian americans statewide is it low single digits, around 4% or something. we do have a fair number -- fa

ir number of foreign students at the university of wisconsin. it is down this semester because of covid. quite a few of them did not end up coming for the fall semester because of covid. so, aagain, it is not -- foreign student cannot vote, so that is not affecting the election results. but in terms of the policy question, do not see china as being one of the central issues, as we talked about with the previous caller, that foreign policy is not up there with the most important issues. host: joe biden will be in georgia today. we will have coverage today at 1:00 p.m. of his campaign event, here on c-span, on c-span.org, or download any of these events and listen with the free c-span radio app. also today, senator kamala harris will be in reno, nevada,

one week before election day. live coverage here at 3:00 p.m. eastern time. vice president mike pence will be in greenville, south carolina, and we will have that live coverage here as well as 3:00 p.m. eastern, online as well. and tonight, the president will hold a rally in omaha, nebraska, and you can watch it live here at 8:30 p.m. eastern time. for all of our coverage, go to c-span.org. tim in luxembourg, wisconsin, you are undecided. part of the very small percentage of undecided voters in wisconsin. why are you undecided? caller: i have always voted democrat, but it will be hard to vote for -- well, if i do vote, democrat,lf voting but i will be actually voting for harris. bidenard to vote for joe

when he voted for the iraq war, libya happened under his watch. but the wisconsin legislature -- i have never seen a legislature like the republican wisconsin legislature that ignored the 2016 referendum that passed overwhelmingly to legalize marijuana. they just did not do anything about that. they just ignored a referendum that passed overwhelmingly. i wonder if the professor knows many cases where they have had referendums like that, where they passed overwhelmingly and were ignored? guest: that was a nonbinding referendum. it did not have the defective law. process, wisconsin's you have a special process for

changing the state constitution that has to pass the legislature. this was not like that. we do not have a direct initiative process that allows the voters to put something on the ballot, that ends up becoming law. was likelike this that the marijuana initiative, was a nonbinding referendum, so the state legislature was not compelled to follow that result. host: what down ballot races are you watching, and are there other referendums that the voters will be deciding in just a few days, and are they also nonbinding? guest: we do not have many competitive down ticket races. we do not have a governor race this year. the congressional seats are all relatively safe, i do not think they are seen as being in the tossup category. even the legislature, which you

think would be more competitive in a battleground state like wisconsin, actually because of redistricting our state was gerrymandered in a very aggressive way, so we do not have many competitive state assembly or state senate seats. so the legislature looks like it is likely to remain in republican hands. tony devers is not up for two years. so there is not much action going on down ticket. there are four or five senate races, a handful of fairly competitive assembly races, but the presidential race is sucking up all the oxygen in the room right now. host: freddie in seabrook, texas. caller: good morning. host: your question or comment? caller: my concern, i am a former educator, retired. what i see president trump as the person who functions on

level of a fourth-grader. when i hear him read, if you ask him, what did you read, what did you say? he does not understand. we have asten --w person who is not a good role model for our young people. we are teaching, saying the way you get out, you have to learn how to read and write, but president trump is a non-reader. if you take his -- all the things, when he is going out and talking, he is just saying the same thing over again. he is a bully. he is not a role model for our young people. host: ok. phil in north carolina, undecided. do you have a question or comment? caller: good, thank you for taking my call. i will agree with the lady that

just spoke. but my question is, vice president biden stated at the last conference that it would come down to credibility as far as the voters go. we have had four years of president trump. he told one story after another one. i did not know about that, then a month later, i knew all about that. i'm undecided because if you listen to the advertisements, the republicans are saying that the democrats are going to eliminate social security and obamacare. and the democrats are saying the republicans are going to do it. now, president trump's credibility in my opinion is shot. joe biden's credibility, eight years as a vice president -- i didn't really see him do

anything that would jump out at you to say that that man lies terribly. so, you have to tell me how you have learned to vote. i have never voted in my life, but i would like to. host: you never voted. how old are you? caller: 69. host: why haven't you voted? caller: i have not believed in a party. in honesty, neither one of them has let me down. they say what they are going to do, they get in and they do nothing. president trump was going to build a wall. and we were not going to spend a dime on it. host: how likely is it that you will vote in seven days? caller: excuse me? host: how likely is that you will vote. caller: i am going to vote. i am going to have to. i will have to learn how. and do not call me stupid. it should be simple. but i have never voted as much

for a county seat. host: ok. guest: one interesting thing he mentioned are these dueling ads, where one side says, joe biden will destroy social security. and they say the same thing about donald trump. what are the voters supposed to believe? one thing that is interesting in the trend of the ads we have seen over the last two months, a project started here at uw in one of our graduate programs, the student continuing the programthere, where they track the ads run on behalf of the two candidates in all the major media markets in the country. they track the tone of the ads and volume. and a really interesting trend has happened since the beginning of september, where the joe biden campaign has moved a a majority of their ads, positive

ads, which is unusual for this time in the campaign. usually they will be earlier in the campaign. so where joe biden has gone from where he was at 5% positive ads in the first couple weeks of september, mostly negative ads then, now he is at 60% positive ads. i have seen them and they tried to be uplifting, bringing healing to the country, bringing the country together, and it does not mention donald trump by name. where trump has gone the other direction, in mid-september 20% negative, then went to 30%, then 35%, now up to 45% negative. so, we have seen a real different strategy here, where the biden camp is trying to appeal to the idea bringing the country together, where the trump campaign is going on the attack.

this is what you often see from the candidate behind in the race, it is often the challenger in that position, but now that incumbent is fighting back by going negative. host: robert, long island, virginia. robert is undecided. tryer: yes, i am calling to to clarify what i believe may be misinformation that both guests have suggested through what i can find -- have suggested. through what i can find, early ballots in wisconsin can be changed. it's not considered cast until election day, at least according to an article on one of the npr sites. it suggests an absentee voter can actually vote three times, to correct an error immediately made at the time of casting the ballot, but they also state it can indeed be used as a technique to change one's vote.

host: what is the date on that article? caller: i am having trouble refinding it, interesting enough. host: it might be an old article. caller: it was a new article, it referenced some of the current candidates, i recall. i am trying to find it again. tot: i think the safe bet is check with your local authorities on this. caller: permission to try to verify this information, i have not been able to get with anybody who can give me an answer. technically, again, a ballot cast in wisconsin is not considered cast until election day, so an absentee ballot, an individual could request at their clerk's office another ballot and cast it at that time at one of the drop or at a or -- in sites

voting location. guest: one thing the caller is correct on is wisconsin is one of the states where no mail-in ballots are processed before election day. that has also been a source of controversy. some people are saying we should start counting them early, otherwise we will have a backlog on election day. but that has also remained unchanged in wisconsin, that we will not start processing ballots until election day. that is why technically it is possible to do what the caller is saying. i know that it used to be the practice, where you could walk in your ballot and basically just cast a new one at your polling place on election day and have the old ballot taken away. but again, based on my conversation with the madison clerk, i believe that they are not encouraging people to do that now. so i would check with your local clerk if you are thinking about

doing that, because you do not want to have illegally voted twice, that is the other thing that could potentially happen if hear first vote is not canceled. it is a felony to do that. host: this is from an article from the new york post. the elections commission noted that many voters had been getting incontact to see how they could revoke, something they could easily do. byoter was not voting absentee ballot or at the polling place, can receive up to three ballots, the first two of them spoiled. the commission saying it has been the law in wisconsin for many years. so it sounds like there is more information that people need to, if they are interested, to seek out. regina and pennsylvania -- in pennsylvania supporting president trump. caller: good morning. situation with the man who called from maryland. i could not see anything when i looked. the children of israel are a

people. i do not know what he was talking about when he said god supported abortion. it's very distasteful and i do not believe it honors god. biden and harris will force us to buy more abortion, which it is not my job to kill more babies. and i find it is very distressful, as the man would be trying to quote god. i see nothing in there about god promoting abortion. when he on the biden, was on the stage with donald said, and a man called and there was not enough about foreign policy, there is. donald trump has done quite a few trade deals. that is foreign policy. he is underwriting part of the wto, which really works against the u.s. and blocks us out. they just became a big behemoth organization that is interfering

with our ability to trade. and as far as the tariffs, joe biden did not know what tariffs were. he thought it was taxpayer dollars. dollars, itxpayer is money that has come from china and the different countries that have been punished because of what they did to us on trade, intellectual property stealing, and they are finally getting a due. the farmers got that money in wisconsin, i am surprised at this man did not mention anything about that. it's obvious he does not want to give donald trump credit for anything. host: let's take that point about the farmers getting money from this administration. did it help? guest: there is no doubt that the payments to farmers did help with some of the losses they had. when they lost other markets because of the sanctions that china put on us, retaliation for the sanctions it we put on them,

the payments to the farmers to make up for the losses did help to close the gap, but the tariffs, just to clarify what excised, tariffs are taxes put on goods when you have trade wars going on. and the costs are actually paid by the consumers, we pay for the higher prices for steel and other commodities and that have the tariffs on. they are not paid by china, they are paid by the consumer. not the taxpayers, but by the consumer. and one other thing to clarify, with the funding of abortions, has been the policy of the country that we do not have money paying for abortions from taxpayers. so that is something also that joe biden has tried to make fairly clear in his campaign. host: we will go to tacoma, washington. gordon is undecided.

caller: good morning. i have a question, also a,. number one is for wisconsin, i am upset. i'm in washington state. i wanted to vote in person and all have got is ballot boxes. i want to know if in wisconsin you can vote personally, or are you stuck with the mailboxes. ? [laughter] guest: we can still vote in person. aree are some states who doing all-male in elections, washington is one of them. they have done all mail elections for the last 10 years and they have found that voter turnout has gone up a little bit. so it seems to work in those states that have done it. but i like voting in person. i like to put my ballot in the machine. and make sure that everything is ok. so, i am old-fashioned that way.

we still have & voting here in wisconsin, although it looks like half of our ballots will be cast before election day. host: mary in las vegas supporting the biden-harris ticket. caller: in history, we had the trail of tears. now we have the trail of germs. it's going to go away, the wuhan virus. it will be like a miracle. it was only one person. on january 3, donald trump was told what was going on. he was told at least a dozen times in january and february. february 24, he was praising xi of china for his transparency. and there's so much. helsinki alone, that by itself, he never has anything bad to say about putin. listen to the other republicans who have come out, listen to the

said,nator, everything he how he makes fun of evangelicals. how he talks about women. just on and on. aide, whopence's own was on the task force, that he thinks it is a good thing that maybe we had the virus, because as a politician you have to shake a lot of hands and i do not want to shake hands with those disgusting people. but those are his supporters. social security, medicare, the health care trump got, the great wonderful care he got out walter reed -- that's socialistic. ok, that is government, doctors, paid for by the taxpayer. mr. trump should be thanking us instead of getting rid of

pre-existing conditions without coming out. for four years he has not come out. if you read bolton's book, he talks a big story. to pick up on your last point, health care your that was a big issue for voters and continues to be so. rate now and what impact could it have? guest: for democrat it comes in second as -- in wisconsin as second after covid. thise are worried about question of pre-existing conditions. they don't want to lose their health insurance coverage if they have a pre-existing condition. that is something that is covered now under obamacare and could potentially go away if the supreme court were to strike down that law. that is definitely something that is on a lot of voters'

minds. you don't want to lose your health insurance in a pandemic. it doesn't rate quite as high as covid or the economy, it is up there as the number two concern for democrats in our state. host: let's end with what you will be watching for on election night. guest: here in wisconsin, i will be looking at what the returns look like from the counties around milwaukee. others still trending more democratic the way they did in the 18? look at the turnout -- did in 2018? nationally, we will have some early indications from a state like florida, which is one of the states that will be reverting -- reporting early. they have to have the election ballots received on election day

so you wont have a carryover of counting for several days without be an early indication of how things are going. host: >> with seven days left until election day on november 3, when voters decide who will control congress and occupy the white with next year, stay c-span. watch campaign 2020 coverage , on demandn c-span c-span.org, or the free c-span radio app. >> c-span's "washington journal" -- every day, we are taking your questions live on the air. coming up wednesday morning, we discussed this year's

presidential campaign in the battleground state of ohio with cleveland.com's lead political .eporter watch c-span's "washington journal" life at 7:00 eastern wednesday morning. be sure to join the conversation with your phone calls, facebook comments, text messages, and tweets. look at our live coverage wednesday. they headsm. c-span, of facebook and google testify on regulations for the tech industry. at 7:00 a.m., our campaign 20/20 coverage includes a senate debate between republican incumbent david perdue and his democratic challenger. 2, the national security advisor speaks with the

hudson institute about current plots facing the u.s. at 1:00 p.m., the aspen institute looks at the development of a coronavirus vaccine and plans for its distribution. former president obama campaigned for joe biden tuesday at a drive-in rally in orlando, florida. this is 40 minutes. ♪ mr. obama: hello, orlando! [cheers and applause]