>> c-span is your unfiltered you of government we are hundred by these television companies and more including midco. ♪ >> midco sport c-span as a public service along with these other television providers giving you a front row seat to cracy. >> with the midterm electis now just six days away you have re live debate coverage for you. tomorrow democratic governor getting the k a his republican cllger debate in the rhode island governor's race. friday is a debate for south dakota's u.s. s seat.

that is at 9 p.m. easteso on c-span, free mobile video app c-span now or online at c-span.org. >> this election day november 8 the control of power in congress is at stake, were republicans retake the house, can democrats retain control of the senate? from now until election night, follow our coverage. events as they happen on tv and the c-span now app on demand at our website and our data rich election page at c-span.org /campaign2022. eground week on the washington journal. we are focusing on key states in the midterm electn. today, we had to wisconsin.

our is the associated press stacy -- state house correspondent in madison. let's start at the top of the ticket. tony beaver's is being challenged by republican tim michael's in wisconsin. tony evers, the governor trying to win election -- reelection. a close race according to polls. the question, why? guest: wisconsin has a history of close elections. people call it a purple state. i would call it a red and blue state. that is a microcosm of the country right now. urban areas, heavily democratic rural areas, heavily republican. the governor's race is an example of that dynamic right now. you have a race that polls show is within the margin of error. both sides seem to think it could go half point, one point, either way. remember watch wrote years ago

when tony evers, the democratic -- four years ago, tony beaver's beat scott walker by i believe one percentage point here and we are use to close elections four of the last six presidential elections were decided by a few points. host: who is to michael? -- tim michaels? guest: he owns a family run business, they employed abo ut 8000 people across the country. he dabbled in politics before. he ran for state legislature in the early 2000's. he ran for the u.s. senate and was the republican nominee in 2004, losing to russ feingold. he hasn't lost since then. -- ran it since then. he has kept a low, public

political profile until relatively late this year he jumped into the republican race. he got the endorsement of donald trump. he won a hotly contested republican primary in august and is running neck and neck with the incumbent democratic governor. host: what is his message to voters? guest: the themes we are seeing in wisconsin are similar to what we are seeing across the country. tim michael's is talking about crime, the economy, inflation, and were specifically to governor ebert, he is hitting him on school performance in the state. governor eve's was the former state education secretary. he spent his career in public education. tim michael's has been talking a lot about that, he has been talking about the governor's reaction to covid in 2020, saying the governor was not

quick enough in reopening businesses and did not do enough to get the state back open. governor evers says he was following science and saved lives. those are the themes. democrat, talking a lot about abortion and other things, trying to make this race a referendum on that. also talking a lot about elections and tim michael's plans to transform the way elections are run in the state. host: dig down on that, that last topic. guest: in wisconsin, the secretary of state is not in charge of elections. we are one of the few states that is not the case. elections are overseen by a bipartisan commission created by republicans called wisconsin elections commission. tim michaels once to create a new entity. he has said he would sign into law a number of bills that governor evers vetoed from republican legislature that would make it more difficult to vote absentee, would ban private

money like we saw from the mark zuckerberg funded groups, ban that from coming into the state. those sorts of things. democrats say what the intention is is to make it possible for republicans to exert more control over elections. that, combined with the trump endorsement and michaels has been -- he said he was open to the certifying -- decertifying the 2020 outcome. democrats have tried to capitalize on that. host: scott bauer, our guest talking about the badger state, the other big race at the top of the ticket and the senate race and ron johnson trying to win reelection. mandela barnes is his opponent this cycle. are we seeing the same issues

set you talked about in the gubernatorial race for this senate race? guest: we are seeing a lot of the same thing. senator johnson and his allies are hitting mandela barnes on crime. the ads on that have been unrelenting for a long time. mandela barnes has tried to distance himself from the defund the police forces, the abolish ice people, senator johnson has tried to tie into that and say he would be soft on crime. and that he is not a good candidate in this environment. mandela barnes is african-american and is trying to become the first black u.s. senator from wisconsin. he is currently lieutenant governor from a walkie, he has tried to also talk about abortion but also talk about senator johnson's record, his

role in downplaying the january 6 riots at the capitol, he had wanted a slate of fake republican electors for the vice president on that day. these are things mandela barnes is talking about on the state -- around the state. he is trained to bring in democratic voters in milwaukee which is the largest democratic voting hub in the state, that is where mandela barnes is from, focusing on that, and cutting into the republican advantage in rule areas and doing work out there. a tight race, polls show not as tight as the governor race, they show jobs with a slight advantage so we will see how that shakes out. earlier in the program we showed viewers the latest from the campaign trail. yesterday the big names are brought out. president biden in florida, former president obama in nevada, vice president mike pence georgia, what big names

are being brought into wisconsin for this senate race? >> some of the same -- guest: some of the same names. former president obama was a milwaukee saturday with both carnes and eve are -- evers rallying for them. friday, bernie sanders be in wisconsin, friday and saturday, making a number of stops by himself. the one notable thing we have not seen is donald trump. he did come in before the republican primary after he endorsed to michael's and held a rally for him -- to michael's and held a rally for him. it was a typical trump rally but ever since michaels won the primary, trump has been absent from the race, he has been quiet. michael's doesn't talk about his trump endorsement as much because as we said at the top, we are purple/red blue state and he is trying to win over that small sliver of voters who call themselves independent and

trying not to lose voters -- republican voters who might be more turned off by the trump endorsement. host: on the other side of the coin, how much is tony evers and mundell a barn talking about joe biden on the campaign trail? guest: not a lot. you don't hear a lot about joe biden, you have not seen joe biden, so barack obama welcomes with open arms, joe biden has not been here. i cannot remember the last time he was here, certainly not for a campaign event for the democrat. there has been a number of other sarah gets who have come in, pete buttigieg who was here, cory booker going around the state area did there are number of surrogates in the republican side, ron desantis was here, glenn youngkin, it has been a parade of folks but the biggest ones as we have talked about, biden and trump, have not been here. host: let me invite the viewers to join in on the discussion as we focus on the badger state of wisconsin. part of our battleground series, we focused already this week on

pennsylvania and georgia. today, the focus is on wisconsin. here's how you can join the conversation, democrats (202) 748-8000, republicans, (202) 748-8001, independents, (202) 748-8002. and as we have been doing all week long, a special line for the state we are focusing on, wisconsin residents call in at (202) 748-8003. scott bauer, the associate press, with us for the next 15 to 20 minutes on the "washington journal." as folks are calling in, we focus so much on the governor and the senate races around the country when we do these series. what are the down ballot races that are most important getting attention in a state that we may not be talking about as much in d.c.? guest: there is one congressional district open with the retirement of democrat ron kind. western discounts and district

borders with minnesota, a di training republican. donald trump won it the past two elections and ron kind was able to ove that fairly a reelection. ron kind is retiring in that race. looks like the republican, dare and horton, who ran and narrowly lost last time is running strong this time around against the democrat. that is a district republicans are up to mystic they will be able to flip this year -- are optimistic they will be able to flip. host: what does redistricting mean for wisconsin this year? guest: really the biggest thing, that district came or republican but it really had more of an impact on the state legislative districts, where through a series of court rulings, the wisconsin supreme court said the districts to be drawn this year need to be as close as possible to the existing districts and

those districts were drawn by republicans in 2010, favorable republican districts, so the republicans are in a position potentially to win enough seats this year to have a super majority, which would mean they would override any veto from the governor, so the democrats have kind of a two front battle here. they are trying to get governor eve is reelected and are also trying to fend off republican gains in the legislature because an eve or's when with a -- evers wind would be a hollow victory. host: other statewide races in wisconsin, that we should be paying attention to, what is on the ballot this year? guest: there's another interesting race. the attorney general race, democratic incumbent attorney general facing a challenge from a republican d.a., eric tony, and the secretary of state's race, which normally gets almost no attention because in

wisconsin the secretary of state has nothing to do with elections, duties, but this year, the longtime incumbent who has been in office since 1983 and who served a term prior to that is secretary of state facing a challenge from a republican who wants to work with the legislature to transfer some election duties to that office and it raises a lot of alarms with democrats who fear republican takeover of elections. so that is another race everyone has their eye on. host: let's take some calls here for a few minutes. it is (2

>> has vastly doubled almost as he became a senator he is not a senator for the people. i think mr. barnes, is good for the state, i hope he is successful, i think of all your inputs sir, has been educational. >> mr.