>> coming up on c-span's "washington journal" this morning, we take your calls and comments live. then, a discussion on battleground sta georgia, first with wabe political reporter rahul bali, then with university of gegia professor charles bullock. later, we talk with emory university professor alan abramowitz. "washington journal" starts now. join the conversation. ♪ host: this is the "washington journal" for october 21. with 15 days to election day, both vice president harris and

former president trump are encouraging their voters to vote. new statistics show many registered voters have either taken part in early voting, a voted by mail, with some still saying they plan to vote on election day. to start the program, tell us about your plans evoke, whether you have done it already, whether you plan to do it early, or are waiting until election day, and tell us why you chose that route. (202) 748-8001 for republicans. (202) 748-8000 for democrats. independents, (202) 748-8002. if you want to share your plan for voting on text, you can do that at (202) 748-8003. you can post on facebook at facebook.com/cspan. as always, you can post on x, at @cspanwj. axios takes a look at the trend of early voting and how it is changing voting overall when it comes to the days leading up to this election day.

you can find it online. they write this -- the popularity and prevalence of early voting has rendered election day an outdated concept . for much of the country, the 2024 race countdown would be better described as election month. according to the center for election innovation and research, from the year 2000, only 24 states offered citizens the ability to vote before election day. in 2024, 47 states do so. this story adding that early in person voting is underway in nearly two dozen states, and more than two dozen others will begin casting ballots over the next two weeks. if you go to nbc, they have hired an outside firm technically how many people have already participated in early voting. this is what they are showing so far. when it comes to mail-in and early in-person votes cast

nationally, 30 million plus, almost 14 million mail-in and early in-person votes cast. 36% of those saying republicans, 17% saying others. they also count the mail-in and early person votes requested, inflating the number to 43 million plus. as far as those who make a plan to do that either early or in person, then they say that is 46% of those were democrats choosing that route, 22% republicans, 25% others. when it comes to the plan to vote, election day, maybe you have already voted because your state already offers early voting, maybe you are waiting for election day. if you want to tell us about the plan, why you chose that plan, feel free to do so. (202) 748-8001 for republicans.

(202) 748-8000 for democrats. independents, (202) 748-8002. texting is, you can do that at (202) 748-8003. then there is the social media sites there. some of you already posting on our facebook page, where we posted this question earlier today. this is erin in fairbanks, saying when it comes to the plan he has, it is voting in person on election day. i have that morning off work thanks to a new company policy. he writes. suzanne says it is the first ever early voting in florida. she is planning on participating that way. steve martin from facebook as well, saying mailed in one ballot, that "one" in all caps. if you have chosen either of those routes and want to let us know about it, do so on the phone lines.

you can do so on facebook as well. doug in florida, democrats line, about this plan for voting. caller: hi. i will be voting in-person. always do. it feels patriotic. i'm an old man, and that is a way i like it. there is no way i will vote for traitorous trump, the super coward. if trump wins, you have two choices, either lock and -- host: hold on p let's stick to the question. why not go the early route? caller: because i always vote on election day. that is just the way i am. host: ok. steve in sun city, california, republican line, on this plan to vote. caller: i will vote on election day as well. i like to do it in person, just like the other callers said. it is kind of personal. this year is very important.

what excited me, to be honest with you, because sometimes i vote and i do not always vote, but what i heard from kamala harris of the other day in one of her speeches, when somebody said jesus is lord, and she remarked back, you got the wrong campaign, that one's down the street. that really insulted me as a christian, to be honest with you, and i do not know how any christian can vote for someone who has that sort of perspective. host: when you say you go on election day itself, do you feel that is a more secure process for you rather than going early or mailing it in? can you elaborate on that? caller: i just feel it is more validated, that -- i just feel more reassured in doing it that way, that it will be counted. that is just the way i feel about it. host: that is steve in california come about the plan to vote on election day itself.

him and the previous caller, too. if that is your plan, you can tell us why. if you want to participate, if you plan on participating in early voting, you can do that, too. some of the states the already started their early voting process showing impressive numbers when it comes to turnout. when it comes to wral news out of north carolina, they are reporting -- that is the georgia when you are seeing. georgette passing its first million mark in that first week of early voting. we will talk about that as we talk about georgia as a battleground state as we go throughout the morning. thenwral in north carolina, that one million mark past, too. when it comes to those participating in early voting, saying the state board of elections reported sunday it is the fourth in day person of that early voting, more than a million voters in north carolina pat -- casting their ballot. we are hearing from you when it comes to this idea of how you

plan to vote and if you have already participated in the process. north carolina, which we just highlighted that story, this is roy in greensboro, democrats line. caller: pedro, you do such a good job. i love voting on the day, november 5. it is kind of like a party atmosphere. some of the candidates are there. the partisans are there. also, i get information. because i am not sure about a few of the smaller races, like judge or commissioners. so i kind of make a few late decisions right there. and you were talking about turnout there. that is the most important thing. if there is a big turnout, that almost always shows the democrats are going to win. that is what happened in 2020.

there were two thirds of the possible electorate voted. it was a record, both for percentage and absolute numbers. a lot of elections, there is barely 50% turnout. this could be another record. host: when you see the headline i just showed about one million of your fellow north carolinians already participating in the process, what do you think of the number? caller: i think that is just amazing. it goes to show how motivated people are. i think it is on both sides, but when there is a large turnout, it is almost always advantage democrats. and the people i see in line, and my kids, the people i know -- of course, they will be democrats, but i think it is amazing. people are making sure their vote gets counted is why we are having this amazing early voter

turnout. host: ok. roy in north carolina, one of those enjoying the million plus people already participating. georgia was on that list as well. today, in our battleground series, we will talk about the state of georgia as a battleground state. harry in virginia, republican line. hi. caller: good morning. longtime time listener, first time caller. host: you are on. what is your plan to vote this year? caller: i will vote on election day. i feel like we shouldn't have no early voting. none. no early voting, other than military. why have election day if you got early voting? that is just like changing christmas. host: do you think early voting gives more people a chance to participate, if they cannot make it out on the day itself?

caller: no -- you got election day. vote on election day. other than the military. i think it is ridiculous, early voting. host: why do you think you make a charade out of it if you do it earlier than election day? caller: there could be a whole lot of stuff going on, like -- hey, i tell you. i'm a broadcaster myself. i've broadcast over 40 years. this early voting, come on. i hope they change it. host: that's harry in virginia. this is carl in west virgini saying he is planning on voting for four president trump at the

earliest time possible, because he is 86 years old, and if he dies before election day, he wants his kids to know he was thinking of their future. a reason there. maybe there are other reasons why you vote on election day itself or go the mail-in route. post on social media if you like or texas if you wish pay let us know what your plan is when it comes to early voting or otherwise. in massachusetts, independent line. carol, hello. caller: thanks for having me on c-span. i will vote on election day. i think the biggest problem with voting early is that people have not heard enough from each candidate and their positions and what they are going to do when they are president and other things that come up during that period of time. when people vote early, they may have voted for a candidate that

then other things, out about the other candidate, whatever, information they did not know about. when people are voting early, they are ignorant about a lot of facts and information that they are missing when their voting early. i think it is a mistake to not have people vote on election day. they started doing that i think during the pandemic. i think it was the wrong way to go. host: have you ever changed your mind on election day itself? caller: no. no, i wait until election day. because a lot of things come out about the candidates. even locally and worldwide, there is information. if you are voting a month ahead of time that you are missing. they are voting in ignorance.

they are voting without all the information you could collect or know, the knowledge you should have about each candidate. thanks, every day. host: ok. carol in massachusetts. nbc did some polling earlier, taking this idea of a voting plan for october of this year. they asked, 52% said they voted early or plan to vote early. 44% saying they plan to vote on election day. go back in time four years to early october of 2020. back then, it was 59% saying they plan to vote early, then only 37% saying planning to vote on election day. of course, covid being a thing about time and was probably impacting that pair then go back in time even further, 2016 election. 41% saying they planned to vote

early or voted early. 32% saying they planned to vote on election day. several people already calling him, saying election day will be the day they cast their votes. you can tell us the best option for you on the phone lines. you can also text us. you can also post on our social media sites, too. this is kendra texting us from virginia, saying i am an independent. i voted by mail three weeks ago. since 2021, i made mail-in vong a wreath -- permanent option. i checked online to verify my ballot was received. that's the process kendra has chosen for herself. another virginia, this is pedro in virginia, democrats line. your next up on this plan for voting. go ahead. caller: yeah, the republican caller called a few minutes ago and said a heckler in columbus

said something about jesus. well, she did not say anything like that. she said you are looking for the smaller crowd down the street, and he left out "smaller crowd" on purpose. he would not vote for kamala if he was jesus himself. host: what is your plan for voting? caller: what is my plan? i am voting for kamala. host: no, as far as whether you will vote on election day or -- caller: i have already voted. host: why did you choose that route? caller: i always do that. i do it early. host: a lot of virginians calling in. republican line, hello. caller: donald trump, because harris, she said she will change the page, but she can do it now, because she is the vice president. she can close the border now.

but she just keeps on talking, doing nothing. host: as far as your exact land on voting, do you plan to do it on election day or will you do it earlier? caller: i've already done it. host: why did you choose that route? caller: because i want to get it in. host: ok. donald there in virginia. it was the vice president herself speaking to constituents in georgia over the weekend. part of that speech she made to her constituents was this idea of participating in early voting and encouraging her supporters to do so. here is part of the vice president's comments. [video clip] >> and the extraordinary, great congressman john lewis reminded us that democracy is not a state, it is an act. it is an act. so, georgia, now is our time to act. the baton is in our hands.

election day is in 17 days, and early voting has already started. [cheers] you guys are setting some records, by the way. and so, now is the time to make your plan to vote. make your plan. go to iwillvote.com and get all the information you need. if you have received your ballot in the mail, please do not wait. fill it out and return it right away. and you know, georgia's own president, jimmy carter, voted early. [cheers] bless him. just days after his 100th birthday. if jimmy carter voted early, you can, too. [laughter]

the election is here. and i need you to continue to do what you do so well. let's continue to energize, let's continue to organize, let's continue to mobilize. and let's remind folks your vote is your voice, and your voice is your power. and so, georgia, i ask you, are you ready to make your voices heard? host: again, the vice president, from over the weekend, planning to be in pennsylvania today. a lot of stops by her or former president donald trump, and you can always follow along on our website at c-span.org. the latest stops on this two weeks plus two election day to see what the candidates are saying. up until that, we are asking about your voting plan give this time around, how you plan to te sandy and indiana shares that.

while i traditionally vote on eleconay, this year, i voted earlpe i wanted to make certain nothing sps me. unfortunately, because i live in a red state, my vote for presidenis renderedoot, but it is my civic duty. ray in colorado saying i ll be voting in-person today after work. there is a sen of nostalgia that comes from being around other people at a polling place. some of you already stressing that sentiment. again, whatever the plan is for voting, whether you have already done it, maybe you plan to mail it in, or maybe you want to wait until election day, tell us about the plan you have and why you chose this on the phone lines. (202) 748-8001 for republicans. (202) 748-8000 for democrats. independents, (202) 748-8002. this is lou in new jersey, independent line. caller: good morning, how are you today? host: i'm fine, thank you.

go ahead. caller: i plan to vote on election day, as i do every election. it does not matter what type of election it is. i believe everybody should be voting on election day, the reason being, what if something happens to change your mind between now and election day? what if -- whatever it may be -- happens that changes your mind who you vote for? i also believe, like florida, all states should have their voting done by midnight on election day. none of this wait and stop voting. four democratic counties stopped voting 2020. it should not happen. it should not happen. all votes should be counted on that day. but that is about it. thank you. host: ok.

lou there in new jersey. rose in queens, new york, democrats line. caller: yes, good morning. i would be voting in new york city, and i will be voting for kamala. but i have a question to ask you. i saw you just showed that piece of kamala harris over the weekend. whycan't you show that tape with donald trump on, i think it was saturday, when he looked into that cameron told women to go out and vote for him, and told the fat pig husband to get off the couch and go vote. think about that. and the other joke -- i don't

know if it's ajoke when that guy said it. why don't you show those clips? those are important clips -- host: back to your original thoughts on election day itself. why vote on election day and not earlier or by mail or that route? caller: i vote on election day because i vote around 10:00 or 11:00, and the lines are not that long. if i vote before -- i voted before sometime back, but the lines were too long, and i had to go so far to vote. so, on election day, it is closer to my house. that's why i vote. but i will be voting for kamala, and i urge everyone to vote for her. this man is a mess. host: ok. she segues to comments made by

the former presidents over the weekend. rose set it up for us, so here are the comments from former president trump. [video clip] >> we will not be invaded. we will not be occupied. we will not be conquered. and we will be a strong, proud, and free nation once again. we will defend our civilization, reclaim our sovereignty. and i will give you back your freedom, your future, and your life. everyone will prosper. every family will thrive. every day will be filled with opportunity and hope. but for that to happen, we must defeat kamala harris and stop her radical left agenda once and for all. we want a landslide, and it looks like that could be happening. too big to risk. [cheers] early voting is underway, so get

everyone you know, and get out and vote. go tomorrow. it's just starting. go and vote. make sure you vote and bring all our friends who want to vote for us, tell them, jill, get your fat husband off the couch. [laughter] get that fat pig off the couch. tell him and go to vote for trump, he is going to save our country. get that guy the hell off there. get him up, slap him around. get him up. we want him off the couch to get out and vote. bring your friends and get them out the vote. after all we have been through together, we stand at the verge. we're on the verge of the four greatest years in the history of our country. [cheers] with your help, from now until election day, we are talking about 19 days. 19. we will redeem america's

promise, and we will take back that we love. we have to take it back, because we've lost it. we've lost it. nothing will sway us, nothing will slow us, and no one will stop us. we will press forward to our magnificent american destiny, and, together, we will fight, fight, fight and vote, vote, vote. and we will win, win, win. host: again, if you want to see more of those comments, go to our website at c-span.org. maybe it is election day you will vote. maybe you participated early, or plan to. maybe you have mailed in your vote. let us know what your plan is. (202) 748-8001 for republicans. (202) 748-8000 for democrats. independents, (202) 748-8002.

vincenza in new york, republican line. caller: yes, good morning. i voted by mail, i voted already. because i am 84 years old, and i wanted to make sure that trump will get my vote. i love him, because he has got to close our border. you know, i came from italy in 1953. my mother was born here, and she had to wait 10 years, an american citizen, 10 years to come here. my father died, i was 10 months old, and my mother couldn't feed us. she was trying to come here, and she had to wait 10 years to get here. that's why i vote early. i make sure trump got my vote -- host: let me ask you about that. you said you decided to mail-in

your vote. how do you make sure your vote was counted? is there a way to follow-up and make sure they received that information? caller: well, we are going to try and follow it up, yes. host: ok. vincenza in new york, giving her thoughts. this is from anne, also in new york, democrats line. go ahead. caller: hello, good morning. a few years ago, here in new york, we were finally able to vote early. i plan to vote this sunday. unlike some of these red states down south, we can vote on sunday. why don't some red states allow votes on sunday? because they do not want african-americans going right to the polls from church, like they used to. also, at that rally, harris said trump put supreme court justices

on to revoke roe v. wade, and those people who were protesting yelled "lie" -- they didn't yell anything about christ. she rightly told them to go down the street. host: so tell us why you came to the conclusion about the sunday churches? caller: because i was seeing come about other states that have early voting, and it was really remarkable to me that some of these states -- i want to say maybe georgia, maybe north -- i do not know. they were definitely southern states. they had no voting on sunday, not at all. i do not think that is a coincidence. host: ok. when it comes to how people vote, particularly taking a look from the partisan lines, nbc asking on its poll conducted from october 4 through eighth of this year, about 1000 registered voters, saying those deciding to

vote early, 40% of those labeled themselves a supporter of the former president, 67 percent of those saying they are a supporter of the current vice president. when it comes to total early voting by mail, 32% of trump supporter saying that, 66 percent of harris voters saying that when it comes to total voting early in-person, that is when the ratios get closer. 40% of those supporting former president trump saying they will do that in person, voting early. 51% saying it is -- total voting on election day, 58% of cell borders -- supporters of the former president saying that is their plan. amy's up next. amy is up next, plan for voting.

republican line, ohio, hello. caller: hello. host: hi, you are on. caller: i'm voting for trump and i will be voting in person. host: why in person? caller: i feel like my vote will count and i know it goes to the right place and i don't have to worry about it in the mail, getting lost. and i don't vote early because it is too far away. host: what do you mean by too far away, if i may ask? caller: i think it's like eight miles away, not like where it's around the corner on voting day. you don't have to travel nowhere. if you want. host: i guess interpreting this,

you get a better sense of security when you vote in person on that day? what about voting and those other ways, early or whatever? caller: i feel like when i can put my own bat bat -- my own ballot in the machine are right there and watch it go in, i'm definitely not doing it by mail. that's the real thing. that's one of those getting there or not. that's why i vote in person. host: ok. that was amy saying that when it comes to election day, it's in person. we've got another ohio and in miami on the democratic line. william, hello. caller: this is the old 89-year-old hillbilly. i wasn't going to, because i feel that when you've got your

vote, it don't count, anyway, but i'm definitely going to go in person. it will not see for psycho don. we cannot take another four years of his expanding. we can hardly pay our debts on interest only, now he's planning to put another 8 trillion on? thanks but no thanks. i had enough of him when i lived in west palm. host: why election day itself? why not another route? host: i don't think -- it's just a shame that we have let our political system get the way it is. but when you have crooks, politicians, you are creating illness. crooks are the lobbyist who

lined the lobby -- politicians pockets. look at elon musk. look at how many trillions he's contributing to the psycho. it's a shame, pedro. i feel so sorry for my great grandkids. host: william in ohio talking about his plan to vote. "the washington times" takes a look at the early states and play, sing that early voting has begun in five swing states. voters can start casting early ballots on tuesday and saturday. nationally democrats have the edge over republicans in early voting. of the 12.5 billion cast early, 52% are from democratic voters and 4.9 million are from republican voters. as of sunday, according to data analyzed by target smart, it again highlights the georgia

participation that we have shown you, those headlines, saturday, 4.3 million votes cast in georgia, accounting for almost 20% of that state's voters. stay with us throughout the morning, particularly if you are a georgian or in battleground states. we are launching a series taking a look at all the battleground states this week, one per day when it comes to their dynamics, each day, why they are in play. georgia will be the focus today. going throughout the week, arizona on tuesday, wisconsin on wednesday. thursday, nevada as well. friday we have a look at pennsylvania. and then north carolina, focus on that on saturday. if you are interested in seeing how the battleground dynamics play out, we have reporters, political scientists, people who study politics in their state to give perspective. stay with us throughout the

week. diane, republican line, you have a plan to vote? you are in kansas, hello. caller: i live in a county of 700,000 people on the kansas side. we have had a really interesting kind of terrible thing happened in kansas. our mail delivery is so terrible in the state of kansas, there are large articles in the kansas city star, online you will find it everywhere, you cannot rely on the post office. because of the delivery problems. people are being urged to vote in person early, which i'm going to do, but i will be going out of town on election day. i have no choice. i have to vote early. it's quite a situation here. widely represented in the news, i would hate to have my ballot lost in the mail. host: diane, how easy would you

say it is, once you decide to cast early or whatever route, other than election day, to follow up and make sure that your vote was counted? how easy is it in that state there? caller: i think you can, i think there is a tracking system where you can check if your ballot was received or not. i'm not sure about that. here, like, like i said, i live in a pretty heavy populated area in kansas city on the kansas side, but i have to drive to the next town, 20 miles away, 20 minutes away, at the earliest, to even vote. i can't even vote in my own city. it's a small small town. so, we have issues here that are different than may be other places. host: thanks for sharing that, diane, kansas, giving us her perspective. if you want to put your state dynamics in there, how it plays on how you will vote on election day, feel free to do that, too.

this is frank,yland, texting us, saying he needs to arrange transportation to the polls and that he has committed himself to voting early and that more important, hartford county has new machines that makeg by low vision or blind people a breeze. s carol in boston, saying at i'm voting on election we are all aware of the october surprise element that can turn ction upside down, not to mention candidates becoming ill or otherwise, like in the presidential primary, where all of the cast votes for him were given an alternate candidate in the vice president, kamala harris. text us, (202) 748-8003, if you want to choose that route. willie, democratic line. caller: good morning.

host: good morning, go ahead. caller: i like to vote early, soon as i get my mail-in voting. i don't like standing in the long line. and they notify you when they get your vote and let you know if it's good or not. caller: how many years have you done that? host: since they started. since they started mail-in voting, i've been doing it. i used to go stand in line, which i really don't like. host: in your memory, in terms of accuracy you not worried about your vote being counted when you go that route? caller: no, never no word about it. once you make a mistake, you get up early. it's also been good in pennsylvania. host: all right. let's hear from ronald in new

jersey, east orange, independent line. caller: good morning, pedro. i get my ballot in early. the dropbox, i drop it in. you can track it here in the state of new jersey and it's very easy. i'm 68 years old. i have arthritis and i don't like to stand in long lines, it's an easy process. host: how long have you taken advantage of that process? caller: the last four years, i find it simple and easy. i do my research early. i know who i'm going to vote for. host: ok. that was ronald in new jersey, sharing how he's going to vote. some of you also texting us this morning saying that -- this is mark in california saying voted by mail for many cycles.

at the phoenix raceway we usually mp out at the track on election day. that's hierspective. this is from stephen florida. says that he votes by mail, refencg the former president. discussing that we should have a federal photo id with sia security information, electronic voting securely like banking. that's the way he would want to see things change when it comes to voting. you might want to share a thought as far as changes being muted to the process. you can do that if you talk about your plan for voting here in woodbridge, virginia. joe, good morning. caller: i plan on voting early of my job allows it. if not, i usually vote early election day morning, before, you know, i report to work.

that's been my standing policy on voting for basically my whole life. host: when it comes to voting on election day, why do you prefer that? caller: it's just always, you know, i normally work six days a week, blue-collar job. so, a lot of times i will work my six-day for overtime. i will usually get up early election day morning. and i will vote. then i will come into work. i think it's more my habit than anything else? you know, the thing i wanted to say about me voting for donald trump is, you know, i hope my fellow americans will just remember the most important thing. don't vote on personality or race or gender. vote on policy, you know cut, you are not voting for the

person, you are voting for the policies the person in party are going to set in motion. i've concluded that donald trump's policies are better for my children, my family, my country, and the world. we are much better off under the policy, not the personality, but the policies of donald trump. host: plan for voting, silver spring, maryland? caller: i voted two weeks ago. people are much too -- my son came in the other day and asked why that filthy, greasy piece of trash always talks about penises-- host: ok, caller. john, independent line, texas, hello. caller: good morning.

good morning. host: you are on, go ahead. caller: anyway, going to be voting today. host: ok, john. tell us why. caller: going to be voting today. host: john, i think we have an issue with delays. we got your thought as far as voting today. you might decide that you want to vote or tell us about voting early. you have already participated, if your state allows, maybe that is your plan. does your state allow that? maybe election day? the day you decide you're going to vote for yourself. on that day, you can do that and let us know what you think. independents, (202) 748-8002.

pick the phone line that best represents you. if you hold off from today, we would appreciate that. while you are on hold, if you wouldn't mind muting or turning down your television or whatever you have to do. if you decide to listen to your voice on television, it might cause a delay in the conversation. as you wait, you can do all of those things and we might appreciate it. nicholas, minnesota, hello. caller: good morning. host: you are next up. your plan for voting, what is it? caller: because of january 6, two thousand 20, i'm kind of depressed that donald trump hasn't been hung for treason yet. host: ok, rachel, maine, your plan for voting, go ahead. caller: i have my ballot here. i'm 92 years old.

pedro, i have never missed a vote, but i have always done it in person until two years ago. i would also ask you to play the crypt -- the clip of kamala harris, when that person yelled out that jesus is king, she said that you are at the wrong rally. she was waving them goodbye. host: going back to why you called, you said that you like to vote in person but that early voting is how you decided to do it. how comfortable are you with it and mark -- with it? caller: i live in a small town,

but i always loved, i couldn't be wait -- i couldn't wait to be old enough to vote. i loved politics since i was 15 years old. i remember the night of truman's election. i was sitting in the dark by a little radio. just waiting until the returns came in. i was working full-time. i was so sad, truman had lost. i went to work in the morning, working at a bakery. the packers that were working next to me said that he had one. well, i was jumping for joy. [laughter] i was a democrat all my life, practically.

really, i voted for clinton the first time. but the second time, when he vetoed -- that banning partial-birth abortions, when he vetoed that, i said never again. host: ok. calvin, illinois, democratic line, good morning. caller: i already voted for harris. the trump resume, he couldn't even be a greeter at walmart. host: why did you choose that route? caller: i'm a senior in illinois , democrats always vote for president. host: what about your confidence in it? caller: i'm confident it will

get to the right place. i'm able to make sure, check that it got in the mail, to city hall, to the right place. man, president trump is the worst president ever and with his resume, i couldn't even greet you at walmart. host: robert is next, north carolina, independent line, go ahead. caller: this will be my first time voting. i never voted before. i'm though to me because of the tight race. host: go on. you are on. caller: if the democrats stop

giving to the 20 something-year-old non-working mothers, they could turn this around. but if they keep giving money to the non-working in this country, that's the problem. that's what the problem is. that's why it's a tight race. they keep giving money to people that's not working. host: do you plan to vote on election day, early, what's your plan? caller: this will be my first time voting, so yeah, the race is so tight, it's my first time voting. host: on election day, how are you planning to vote? caller: i will be voting soon, voting real soon. host: you said you never voted before, why is that? caller: because the country is in chaos, it's a mess. it's a mess right now. democrats are giving to the poor. republicans want you to get out and work like normal people, to

have something to work for, something to strive for. then you got people taking your money and giving it away. i'm not saying, i'm not trying to say who's the best and who's the worst, i'm just trying to say that people are worried about where their money is going. host: ok. north carolina is one of those battleground states we will look at this week. maybe your state is joining that club. many of you participated this morning saying that on election dayt's how you plan to do it. this isichael, facebook, saying that he's in washington state and that 100% he is going to vote by mail because it works beautifully. got a text thaballot was mailed and the vot pamphlets were already the and my ballot is signe sealed, and delivered to theox at my local city hall. the ballot, processed and

counted, adding that washington state does a fantastic job administering elections. so, the mail system is maybe the way you are going to do it, too. let us know what you think as far as the plan you have and why you chose it. maryland, this is in hyattsville, republican line. peter, a plan for voting, go ahead. peter, maryland, hello. if you are from hyattsville, go ahead. host: good morning -- caller: good morning. i'm going to election day. i work for an electrical company. i have seen storerooms where male never gets delivered. i don't trust the mail-in ballots. tons of mail just sitting there that never gets to where it's going. i think it is our duty to do it on election day, like i said,

unless it's for a military reason or maybe the elderly. i think it should be done on that day. the other thing i wanted to add was -- please, check. especially if you are hispanic. most of the time they assume you don't know how to read and i told them clearly, i'm a republican and i want my republican ballot. i'm looking at this ballot and i'm like none of my candidates are here. i went back and told them, they apologized. but i think i thought it was done on purpose. i'm hoping that i wasn't, -- they thought i wasn't able to read. check your ballot, make sure it's correct so that your vote counts. host: ok, that was peter in maryland. randy, texas, democratic line. >> me and my wife will both be voting early.

these machines are not online. nobody can hack. i'm from texas. for some reason, they have made it harder to vote they had to buy a good in the state, kind of unbelievable. the rules that they make, they have taken drop boxes, you know, out of use. i think there is one dropbox left. everything they do, they used to have multiple voters where you got your license registered to vote. every american should vote, you know? what's making it harder is that big lie, it was all a lie. host: so, where's is marble falls located? caller: it's about 60 miles west

of austin, it's a rural county. host: early voting, is it convenient for you there? caller: i live out in the country. i've got to drive five or six miles to my polling place, but yeah, it's -- i'm fortunate enough to be able to get around. for some people who are taking polling places out of universities in the state of texas, you know, people in nursing homes, they used to be able to vote. i think there's a nursing home, but that ended in the state of texas. i just don't understand why they would want to do that. everybody should vote. it should be easier to vote than not. host: ok.

th was randy in marble falls. chris, not specifying where he lives, he says he votes on election day, but today 'm right next door to the board of eltions because i'm running an errand. if there is no line, i might vote early today. so, it might be a matter of convenience. a plan for voting there, many of you shared your approach as far as election day is concerned. lydia, maryland, independent line, hello. caller: i vote what i call hybrid. i request a mail-in ballot, but i turn it in on election day. so, i get the feeling of turning in on election day. host: in your state location, it's ok to turn in that way? caller: well, i turn it into any polling place where they have a

collection bucks. but i just think that to me, if you want to vote on election day, that works better for me. i voted absentee for decades, because the place where i lived, although the polling place was accessible, they had no accessible parking. so, i just got in the habit of voting not in person, if you want to call it that. host: and your comfort level in that, has a grown over the years? how would you characterize that? caller: i live in a different town then when i started voting absentee. i'm satisfied that the people running our elections are dedicated to doing what's right, even though we have a rabid republican county council person who has gone after those people, merciless, and has complained because there are more people who chose to be election judges that are republicans -- that are

democrats and he somehow thinks it's going to skew the election. what can i say, it's sad. host: lydia, giving us her thoughts there. thank you for doing that, lydia. let's hear from alan in oklahoma . oklahoma city, republican line on a plan to vote. good morning. caller: good morning, thank you for your program. host: thank you for calling and participating. what's the plan that you have? host: me and my wife are going to vote early on the 30th. there are four polling places you can go too early. there's one close to our house in cleveland county, oklahoma county. i took my mother, i set her up

for a mail-in voting. two days later she called in to confirm that they received her vote. host: so, early voting, do you like that approach? how would you describe it? caller: usually, when there is a really tight election like this, really important, it can get chaos. we have such small turnout in our voting, usually in regular voting, but in a presidential election, it can be a mile long. the weight. host: alright. that was alan in oklahoma city. here's an nita in the battleground state of pennsylvania. good morning. caller: in northampton county, lehigh valley, it could literally swing the whole state or the whole country, from some

reports i've heard. i'm proud to say i recently in the primaries became a machine operator. i will be working election day, but not at my own booth. i had to make a plan this year. in addition to having an adult son on the autism spectrum who also votes. we were able to make a plan. this is the first time ever where i went to the county courthouse with ids, a simple form. 10 minutes later we were quiet,r mail-in ballot, put them in the secrecy envelope provided, and then bring it back to the counter. they were stamped received and we are all done. i am really happy with this process of going through the county courthouse and doing this because i do not have to worry

about the mail service or anything like that and my son was able to vote without the disturbances and noises that can often overwhelm him. i was so happy about that and i have a plan with people i know who might have trouble on election day voting who normally do. i will be giving rides to help people do the same thing. that is -- host: that is anita finishing out this hour of calls. we are continuing on with our series taking a look at belgrade states. after the break we will focus -- at battleground states. after the break will focus on georgia. three guests throughout the course of the morning to talk about georgia. we will start with rahul bali to talk about those things and later on you'll hear from

georgia professor charles bullock from the university of georgia as he discusses the battleground state of georgia. that continues when washington journal comes back. >> brenda why ample -- two gladiators. she is writing about william jennings bryan and clarence darrow. each of them celebrities for decades were going into battle over god and science and the classroom and not incidentally over what it meant to be in america. brenda wineapple's latest book is entitled keeping the faith and is about the scopes trial held in the small town of dayton, tennessee and focused on the state law that prohibited the teaching of evolution in the schools. >> author brenda wineappl with

her book "keeping e faith book notes plus with host brian lamb. book notes plus is available on the c-span app or wherever you get your podcasts. >> attention middle and high school students across america. it is time to make your voice heard. c-span studentcam documentary contest 2025 is here. this is your chance to crated documentary that can inspire change and make an impact. your documentary should answer the question, your message to the president. what issue is most important to you for your community whether you are passionate about politics come the environment, or community stories, student can is your platform to share your message with the world, with a grand prize of $5,000. this is your opportunity not only to make an impact but to be

rewarded for your creatitynd hard work. ente submissions today. scan the code or go to studentcam.org for details on how to enter. >> "washington journal" continues. host: over the next seven days the washington journal will be focusing on key battleground states. we will examine what has changed since 2020, what pollock -- what public policy issues are influencing boaters and the trends that could give us clues on how the state might vote. joining us is raul bali, a political reporter from wabe ra dio, he has been on this program before. welcome back to the program. why georgia as a battleground this year? guest: it was the closest state

four years ago and a lot of the dynamics you had a four years ago are still here, whether it is demographics or the questions around both candidates. host: let's start with the demographics. in 2020 joe biden barely won the state 49 point 51% over former president trump. let's start with that. when it comes to those numbers, what has changed and what has stayed the same? host: the starting point is georgia is a republican state. that is always my starting point. there is always an opportunity and a path for democrats to win. in 2022 you saw the governor of the state of georgia, brian kemp , a republican, win reelection, but you also saul raphael warnock win reelection. up and down the ballot state

white republicans won, lieutenant governor to other offices and they held onto the state house and state senate. that is my starting point, georgia is a republican state. on the same year you can see a democrat win statewide. those numbers and those things have not changed in georgia. host: 11 million or so people in the state. you say it is a republican state. how does that break down? guest: in the state of georgia we do not have voters register by party. we have about seven point one million active voters in the state of georgia. you saw governor brian kemp win his reelection by about 53%, but then you saul raphael warnock get to a runoff and then win in a runoff against herschel walker. the challenges some of the voters did not come back and some of the voters were uncomfortable with herschel

walker. when we look at georgia we do not have party registration. the way i look at it is this is a republican state but you can win if you find the right path. host: when you talk about those demographics and you take a look at the state itself, what portions of the state would you look at saying what is the determining factor of who wins this year? guest: we talk about who will be the swing voters. every voter in georgia will matter, whether in rural georgia where you have a lot of republican voters but a smaller population, and then the large democratic centers like augusta, atlanta, macon, and savannah. those are areas that are strong. then you have the northern suburbs of atlanta you are always watching for. while they lead republican they can vote democratic. my colleague during the 2020 and

2022 election cycles would talk to voters who voted for governor kemp and senator warnock. when i went to the farther outreaches, i would run into voters they just give the republican ballot. they were uncomfortable with herschel walker as a senate candidate. you see them skip that race. those are the kinds of scenarios. you may have voters who show up who otherwise vote republican but then they skip the presidential race and vote for another candidate. that is what you are watching for. what are those small shifts? let me give you one interesting point. in the past two weeks i have talked to two republican candidates who tell me in their internal polling they are running just ahead of former president trump. that could be the margin in the state of georgia. host: the other margin, and you

have seen the headline as much as a lot of people about the early voting. over one million coming insofar. what does that number mean to you? guest: we have saturday and sunday voting. as of now we are at 1.4 million voters have already cast a ballot. we have 7.1 million active voters. almost 20% have already cast their ballot. we still have two weeks to go with in person early voting and absentee voting. the vast majority of counties have hit 20%. there are couple of democratic areas that jumped out at me. a gusto, sit -- a gusto, savannah -- augusta, savannah, and macon. their numbers are little bit behind. democratic counties with not as high numbers. another number is 55% of those

voters are women. you will have some people say we are doing great in republican counties and you will have democrats point out that women are voting in bigger numbers than men and that may portend something for vice president harris. host: we take a look at the battleground state of georgia with rahul bali joining us from wabe if you want to ask him questions. (202) 748-8001 if you support former president trump and jd vance, (202) 748-8000 if you support vice president harris and governor walz. if you're undecided it is (202) 748-8002, and (202) 748-8003 for georgia residents. if you want to call specifically and ask about your state, feel free to call that number and ask. mr. bali, candidates making repeated trips to the states. tell us where they are visiting and tell us about the ground

game that both candidates have in the state. guest: let me talk about the ground game. a week ago i spent some time inside a republican campaign office for former president trump and inside one for vice president harris. the number one message from both sides is vote early, vote early. otherwise you have a plan to vote? that was the number one message i was hearing from both campaigns and the volunteers. the volunteers were phone banking. one of them was mentioning we just got hit by a hurricane, we need to be prepared, we need to vote early if something happens. other people mentioned long lines. the secretary of state is talking about 55% to 60% of voters will have their votes cast before we get to election day. in terms of the ground game you have folks knocking on doors,

making phone calls, and right now the focus is on getting as many votes banked as possible. that was what i was hearing from the campaigns. as to the candidates, they are coming repeatedly. vice president harris was here this weekend for two days. she did a rally at a local amphitheater and then make two visits to two religious organizations on sunday. the vice president will be back this thursday doing a rally with former president barack obama. former president trump will be here the day before on wednesday. the one thing that is jumped out is the number of rallies former president trump is doing close to atlanta. his last rally was in suburban atlanta. his next rally is in gwinnett

county, also suburban atlanta. one of the things i have noticed is it in outreach or just getting more media attention, those are two things that have jumped out at me. host: how many electoral votes up for grabs in georgia and how they get parsed out depending on who wins? guest: it is winner take all. 16. host: we talked about the population itself, the our employment rate at 4.1%, median household $75,000 or so. when people vote in georgia, what are the top issues, economic or are there other things people are interested in as they had to the polls? guest: when you talk to voters both sides mention the economy and republican leaning voters bring up immigration and when you talk to democrat leading

voters they bring up abortion. it is those three issues. people will mention other issues but it is those three. when you talk to voters that is what is bringing them to the polls. host: (202) 748-8001 if you support former president trump. (202) 748-8000 if you support vice president harris. (202) 748-8002 for the undecided or support others voters. georgia residents, line for you, (202) 748-8003. mr. bali, a recent port decision overturning previous decisions made. one involving hand counting. tell us about this decision and its importance. guest: the republican-led election board added at the 11th hour this idea that at the polling location count the number of ballots, not the number of votes and match that

with the number of the machine in that precinct would have. the people who argued against that -- the people who argued for it said it is one more thing that they wanted under the umbrella of election integrity. the folks that opposed it, including local election officials said this is last-second, the training is already done for election officials, and you have advocates argue this would delay election results because instead of moving the machines and moving the balance to where they need to be counted you would stop and after count the number of ballots. it went to court and the judge basically said this is too much too late. he stopped it. it is being appealed. the heels have been -- appeals have been filed and it will go to a higher court. it is this late hour, the expectation that this will not be happening on election night this year.

host: the secretary of state was on the sunday shows yesterday. he talked about his level of confidence of voting within the state. i want to play a little of what he has to say and get your perspective. [video clip] >> we will have photo id for all forms of voting. people are concerned about signature match. we have been sued by the democratic and republican party questioning the validity of signature match so we headed photo id on top of signature match so we are identifying those voters. we are almost pushing 1.4 million who have already voted early and who we have accepted absentee ballots. will probably see record turnout early voting. as it relates to the state election board rules, i never support any of those. i was vocal on day one and they were ruled unconstitutional and shut down. those republican counties, two republican-controlled boards and

two election boards joint those suits and fought against the state election boards. it is very easy to vote, we have photo id, we verify citizenship, and we have record turnout. >> there also doubts on the republican side of the ledger. georgia congresswoman marshall he taylor green is claiming fraud is underway -- marjorie taylor greene is claiming fraud is underway. the county said there is one case of a printed ballot not reflecting a better selection in one of your colleagues said this was human user error. as the state's top election official, have you seen any evidence of fraud? >> no. host: that was from yesterday. that is brad raffensperger, secretary of state. guest: the first thing that jumped out at me, i had not heard the 70% number. that could be a pretty incredible number.

this is been a challenge for the secretary of state of getting those in his own party who have been arguing there is fraud, there is a problem with the machine, they have been having to fight that percentage of the republican and conservative movement. it was a republican-led state election board that offered up those changes. that has been their main fight. they have been fighting against democrats over accusations around voter suppression. you see the numbers. you will have accusations. i expect to see accusations from both sides. woodfield example is a perfect example. the official mentioned there is the chief operating officer. he said it was a single voter. the message they had is look at your printed ballot. when you go to the poll you will get a printed sheet of paper that shows who you voted for and

the messages in from them is look at your printed ballot. if it does not match what you want when you need to go to the polling manager. host: georgia is a battleground state. sandy starts us off. a supporter of former president trump. caller: i am voting for trump because i think he will have a strong military, a strong economy, a safe order, get the criminals out of our states, and democrats have let the country run amok with riots. that is why i am voting for trump. host: we have a viewer off of x saying when it comes -- this is a viewer from california texting us saying do you anticipate any issues on election day or problems with the counting of votes itself? guest: i don't. anything can happen.

going into a news i wanted to prepare for anything. if you have a large percentage of votes already counted, already in, that is going to help with longer lines on election day. if 65% to 70% of votes are cast before election day, that will portend shorter lines on election day and that is the one thing that jumped out. we will have a lot fewer absentee ballots than we did four years ago. the counting of those will be quicker. you will have more people voting on voting machines in the state of georgia. there are always going to be challenges. i want to remind people that long before 2020 42016 it always was in georgia -- before 2020 or 2016 it always was in georgia

that the smaller republican counties would come in earlier and the democratic counties would come in later. he would start seeing swing. could those be smoothed out? possibly. that is always as it has been. in terms of issues, obviously the weather. traffic. traffic may seem like a funny thing to bring up but we have become the king of bad traffic and moving ballot boxes and machines can be a challenge. can there be headaches and hiccups? we will be watching for those. host: what are the rules when it comes to election day and when those ballots can be added to the tally? how does that work? guest: each county is allowed -- they have to give public notice about when they will start counting. nothing will be counted until election day. the timing, counties can decide

that and someone will correct me if i am wrong, but everything will be counted. then you do have military ballots that will be allowed to come in until the end of the week. that is an important community in georgia. we have large bases in augustine and macon and columbus. everything will be counted on election day. something will be shifted a little earlier in the day. host: we have the line for georgia. this is dick in sharpsburg, georgia. caller: i have called 42 state representatives, i have called every federal representative and senator and governor kemp and brad raffensperger, and my

question to those people is if you commit treason through voter fraud in the state of georgia what is the penalty for committing treason through voter fraud in the state of georgia? not one of them people could give me an answer. not one. i have even asked our personal attorney, what is the punishment -- instead of getting up in front of some judge that can make your decision. let's set a penalty. host: why is it a concern for you in your state? caller: in georgia? you didn't see the video of the women hauling the boxes and suitcases out from one of the tables?

why haven't you ever had to nest desousa on about his documentary about the 2000 meals? if i was president of the united states there would be 2000 people hanging from a tree. host: i will leave it there. when it comes to the larger issues of voter fraud and those who might share the caller sentiment, how would you respond? guest: a perfect example is what you mentioned with whitfield county. you are seeing election officials respond faster when something like this happens. what he brought up ended up being debunked. about the suitcases of ballots. what you're seeing now is faster responses. you have whitfield county respond that issue with one voter. what state election officials respond faster. when these claims up there being responded to much faster. host: let me take you a little

bit back in time. a viewer on x brings up the 2020 election. president trump asking the secretary of state to find those votes. how much of that hangs over the day in and day out of the electoral process in georgia? guest: it does. you get that sense when you're at the state election board. those folks who believe that happened in 2020, falsely believe that happened, they still bring it up there. the former president does hint at it. he hinted at it at his most recent rally. not directly saying the election was stolen, he said something happened in 2020. you will hear him say that. that is the reason you see, back to what i said before, you have the immediate response when someone brings up an accusation. host: what is the status of the

georgia election interference case brought by the fulton county district attorney? guest: that is basically on hold right now. you have a few people who have pleaded in those cases, but basically the case is on hold right now. host: let's hear from joe, a supporter of the vice president in baltimore talking about georgia and its battleground state status. good morning. caller: good morning. i will be supporting vice president harris. i was considering -- the caller earlier who got cut off for saying adult words about genitalia, as a point of decorum

i have heard this last month the s word twice and the f word once from anchors quoting a speech by a politician. i don't know with the fcc regulations are for quoting, if that is different. but when a caller cannot speak on c-span because they are using language the former president of the united states used, then if that is not appropriate for civil discussion they need to be removed from the conversation. perhaps that says something about the person they are quoting. host: let's hear from doug in florida. you are next up. caller: thank you for having me on. i am supporting vice president

harris and tim walz for president. i want to thank you guys talking about election results. i am in florida. when the last election occurred there were pamphlets from trump saying it is safe to vote by mail. he was sending it to people in florida. the messaging around the rest of the country was it is not safe to vote by mail. i like how this gentleman online is a more people will vote in person, so that should be secure. republicans like marjorie taylor greene and elon musk talking about the dominion voting machines and the false information there, i want to give it a shout out that fox was sued for misleading people about this unsubstantiated information. god bless the usa and thank you for all you do. host: when it comes to election workers and poll workers, we saw a new series of rules put in after the 2020 election.

how do you think that has impacted voting overall and what does it mean for the poll worker today? guest: we have seen different things. back to my colleague sam went to an election worker training. what had happened in the past years motivated people to come out and be election workers and do that kind of work. there are concerns. i was at a recent event that featured election officials. at least one of the election officials was concerned that after this election they will lose election workers if this becomes as stressful as past elections. you are seeing both concerns about losing more election workers but you are also hearing there are some people that the situation has motivated them to be election workers. i want to mention something about a previous caller. chase oliver who is the libertarian presidential candidate and is from georgia and has appeared on the ballot before.

i will be watching his numbers. there are libertarians in georgia there may be people from the other parties who want to vote for him. and jill stein is on the ballot for the first time. we have not had a we have not had a green party candidate on the ballot before. i'm going to be watching the numbers around those two candidates as well. host: when you come to the two-weeks-plus we are at, what are you watching for? guest: we are watching for their visits, seeing if any messaging changes or anything specific for georgia, or who appears with them on stage. i will be watching their messages. former president trump will be here later this week. the vice president will be here this week with former president barack obama. i will be watching the messaging. talking to voters.

have they voted, not voted? just talking to voters to see what is bringing them to the polls. host: rahul bali joining us from wabe in atlanta talking about the state of georgia. you can find his work at wabe.org. thank you for your time. we will continue taking a look at george as a battleground state. we will hear from the university of georgia's charles bullock who specializes in southern politics and then emory university's alan abramowitz will join us later as "washington journal" continues. >> as the 2024 presidential campaign continues, american history tv presents its series. learn about the pivotal issues of different euros, uncover what made these elections historic,

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eastern on c-span2. >> friday night, watched c-span's 2024 campaign trail, a weekly discussion on how the campaigns have progressed in the past week. two reporters join each week to talk about the messages and events driving the political news and to look at the week ahead. watch friday nights at 7:00 eastern on c-span, online at c-span.org, or download as a podcast on our free mobile app or wherever you get your podcasts. c-span, your unfiltered view of politics. >> "washington journal" continues. host: charles bullock joins us, with the university of georgia, professor of political science among other distinguishing

things at the university, also the author of a book. what characteristics make georgia a battleground state this year? guest: the changing population. we are becoming much more diverse. the people moving here are not only racially and ethnically diverse but they come from all over the country. many bring their partisanship with them. the people moving here are more democratic than the folks already here. in the past, our younger voters have been much more democratic than their grandparents have been. we are not seeing that this year in the pulling. those are the things that have transformed georgia from being a very red state most of the century into being the most competitive in terms of the percentage win for joe biden four years ago.

we are still in that vein of being a state very much up for grabs. host: president biden barely winning the state in 2020 compared to former president trump. when it comes to those things and the things you describe, what are you watching for this time around with the entrance of vice president kamala harris into the race? guest: i look at what share of the white vote a democrat gets. in the past, a democrat could get as much as 30% of the total white vote. that could work in favor of getting strong support in the black community. polling has shown kamala harris is usually hitting the 30% mark but struggling to get to the level she needs to get in terms of black support which needs to be in the upper 80's. joe biden got about 88% of the white vote -- excuse me 80% of

the black vote and donald trump got only about 11% of the black vote. but if he had gotten 12%, he would have won georgia. it would not take much of an improvement by trump among black voters to carry the state in 2024. host: what is your sense that it is not at levels we have seen previous? guest: all indications are that she is doing as well as she needs to among black women but struggling to get the same level of support among black men. women tend to be more democratic than men. what she needs to be able to do is to get the black male support up a little higher. host: we have seen a lot of visits in recent days, more to come. as far as who she is visiting and the parts of the state she is visiting, what does that tell

you about the state of her campaign as far as where she wants to attract votes from? guest: a little surprising some weeks ago when she and tim walz spent time in southeast georgia. there are only one or two counties in the area that would vote democratic, so she was reaching the areas that in the past have been republican. the bulk of the votes will come out of metro atlanta. a democrat will get half of all the votes they will get from five counties. a democrat needs to pump up the voting in metro atlanta and hope they can hold on because they will lose probably 130 counties in georgia. georgia has more counties than any other state other than texas. needs to ramp up the vote in atlanta. other counties may go as much as 90% for trump. host: we keep looking at george

as a battleground state. 202-748-8001 if you support the trump-vance ticket. 202-748-8002 if you support the harris-wallace ticket. 202-748-8003 for others. you talked about the book you wrote, "the changing political south." elaborate on what you have seen in recent years. has this been in recent years or over the course of many years? guest: george added about one million residents between 2010 and 2020. the number of whites in the state decreased slightly. we are becoming a much more diverse state. you look at george and other southern states as black and white citizens.

now more than 10% of our population is hispanic. more than 5% is asian. our voting electorate is not that heavily hispanic but we are getting increasing numbers of people from different backgrounds than typically seen in the south. host: what does it mean for the candidates? i suppose they have to be more creative as far as the constituencies they reach out to in the state. guest: exactly right. the warner campaign was putting out messages in a variety of language other than english or spanish and going into some of the asian languages. i think we are seeing more of that for both democrats and republicans running statewide as they try to reach these diverse communities. host: professor bullock, we

talked about this with our last guest. when it comes to the process of voting itself, how would you describe your comfort level as far as the accuracy of voting heading into election day? guest: large number of georgians that have voted indicates many are feeling quite comfortable. you will still find georgians who say they do not believe it can be legitimately counted unless you show up on election day. this year, unlike 2022 and 2020, the republican party and donald trump himself is saying it is safe to vote early voting or even absentee. through saturday, we have had 1.3 million break my guess is we are well above 1.4 million. if we have the same turnout we had in 2020, one quarter of all

votes may have already been cast. we have early voting throughout this week and next. we will have saturday voting again next week. the expectation is most georgians will have voted well before the first tuesday in november. host: what is surprising about the numbers in early voting? guest: no surprise. with time, people who try it find it is easy, i like that, put it on my schedule when it works out well for me. the fact many more georgians are doing early in person voting is not surprising. we with other modes are seeing fewer people voting absentee -- we along with other states are seeing fewer people voting absentee.

that was really covid driven. host: robert from atlanta, go ahead. you are on with the guest. caller: good morning. the prior segment had a caller from south georgia repeating the lies about the suitcases at the state farm arena and the nonsense in the movie that was withdrawn. i wonder if you can speak as a professor to the lies and misinformation propagated principally, in my view, by the republican side about the election. thank you very much. guest: lots of controversy around georgia, lots of accusations of criminality and malfeasance. i think those have been fully explored. there's been no evidence to it.

while we had 5 million ballots counted, not only was there a machine count which was duplicated but we went through and hand counted all 5 million of them and did not show any difference. the notion about there being suitcases of ballots suddenly appearing from nowhere, it turns out that is the way the ballots are transported from location to location. there has never been any evidence to support the claims. another claim had to do with absentee voting and lots of dead people or imaginary people voted. they did a hand count of those in cobb county. out of 15,000, there might have been two that were questionable. we have never had an election given the scrutiny the 2020 presidential election had.

i think the reason so much attention was focused on that is donald trump carried georgia in 2016 by 200,000 ballots. that was about the margin by which republicans were winning. i think trump himself and maybe his advisors was not aware of how the state was changing. therefore when he loses by 11,779 votes, he reaches back in his mind to 2016 and says, how could this be? we have seen senate victories won by less than 100,000 right democrats. that does indicate the state electric is changing. host: we saw the georgia board of election pass a rule that would have hand counting the ballots.

we saw the judge put that on pause. what would have been the result if hand counting had taken place? guest: we are counting the number of ballots. we are not counting how they are cast, for trump or harris. the effect would have been to potentially slow this down. in a small, rural precinct, you can do this quickly. if we have a large turnout on election day in some metropolitan precincts, it could take a long time. one of your colors in the earlier segment did talk about how he did not expect there would be that many people showing up. i think that is right. if it did anything, it would slow things down. georgia was fairly late getting some votes in in 2020. in terms of calling the state for biden, that took place saturday after the tuesday vote. it would have contributed to those kinds of delays. host: charles bullock joins us

from the university of georgia. caller, go ahead. caller: janine here from kentucky. i will be on the ballot for the election. i am a constitutional conservative and i am quite concerned that our constitution is being violated by the harris-walz and bidens when they have taken control of our city, county, and state. my concern is our secretary of state, we have made great changes to our locations in precincts. our precinct have been narrowed down to where we will have many more people who vote by one precinct and they have done away

with local precincts that brought people in from where they live. i guess my bottom line is, what are your thoughts on the violation of the constitution in voting rights in the changing of how our elections and ballots are counted? i would like to see hand counted ballots to make sure everyone's vote is counted and not fed into the computer. host: that is janine. you have elaborated on that a little bit. if you want to do more, go ahead. guest: there was concern they were consolidating precincts. i do not know about kentucky. my expectation is that was a decision made [indiscernible] at the [indiscernible]

[indiscernible] by the election board and would not have been done by the harris-biden administration. with regard to the notion of hand counting of ballots, that would take a long, long time and would delay the outcome. perhaps the best situation is if you are doing as we are in georgia where there is an electronic counter to rely on that for your first look and if they are concerned about a close election, hand count after that as a check. if there is not close coordination between the results, dig deeper into it. if you want to get results out fairly quickly, you will have to rely on machine counts. host: there is a viewer off of x asking about the electoral votes up for grabs asking if the state of georgia has ever had a push to split the electoral college votes like maine and nebraska.

guest: i don't think so. i don't recall that. estate doing that loses potentially some of its clout. if your party is losing come you can say we have x number of congressional districts my party wins. while it is a minority of the congressional districts, we would like to see it split that way. does not much movement beyond those states to move in that direction. there was talk about this in other states a few years ago. i think the reason they pulled back was the majority party looked at it and said we want to be able to [indiscernible] to our candidate is what they were hoping to do.

host: andrea, you are next. caller: thanks so much for taking my call. everybody heard donald trump threatening people. "come on, guys, give me more votes." everybody heard that. everybody knows what he did. his supporters know that there was no fraud. they know that. i wonder if, what is the reason people still support him in that state? what happened was extremely serious and extremely public. my other question is, do you think he could have tried to do what he did if we did not have the electoral college? thank you so much for taking my

call. host: andrea in north carolina. guest: it turns out our survey showed the majority of republicans in the state still do believe there were problems in the georgia electoral system, to use trump's terms, that the election was rigged. they have heard it so many times it reinforces any suspicions they might have had. for a lot of republicans, if donald trump says it, they are going to believe it. that is why we still have the suspicion hanging over the elections here in georgia. we have never had elections as inspected and recounted as we had in 2020. if something was never any evidence to support his claims -- there simply was never any evidence to support his claims. if you make the claims long enough, a lot of people will accept it as the truth. host: you talked about the dynamics changing the state for

georgia. do you notice similar dynamics in other southern states? guest: in north carolina where the caller was from, that like georgia has a similar history. north carolina has small counsel government made up of statewide elected officials. like georgia, there are a large number of them. unlike georgia, executives are republicans. in north carolina consistently that body has a split. i think right now there are four democrats including the governor and attorney general, and six republicans. my hunch is probably the same kind of outcome this year. north carolina elects statewide offices in a presidential year. in north carolina, voters are well accustomed to splitting ballots.

in georgia, we are not so used to doing that. it is one of the things that makes them similar. it is also experiencing new kinds of people moving there. my hunch is that like georgia, the people moving in our less republican tha -- are less republican than the folks already there. virginia looked very blue until the 2021 statewide elections which republicans swept for the first time in many years. most of the rest of the south is still red. alabama, mississippi, there are no prospects for major democratic gains in those states. host: let's hear from a viewer in athens, georgia, supporter of former president trump. this is jimmy. hello. caller: good morning, professor bullock. i graduated from utah in 1994 --

uta in 1994. i don't think i had one of your classes then. my question is about accounting procedures in georgia. i know there are still court proceedings going on in the way they are counting ballots in georgia. how has that changed and what is the status of that right now? thank you. guest: one of the changes is we will be able to start counting the early voting and absentee ballots earlier. that may help us get results out. it may also go against the tradition of georgia which was the small rural counties would get their ballots in first. they would come in first and the urban vote would come in later. that fueled some of donald trump's concerns about what was happening in georgia. my recollection is from 11:00 election night in 2020,'s lead

had grown to around 300,000 votes. as the urban vote comes in, that you roads -- erodes. i think that is part of what set him off saying they are manufacturing votes because at one point, it looked like he was winning georgia by the same kinds of margins republicans had succeeded with much of that decade. we may get results earlier and we may get a better balance between urban results and those coming in from small rural counties. host: viewer from chattanooga, anthony, on our undecided line. caller: thanks. professor, i took political science at ut. when you look at the political science on the number of bellwether states, it don't add up. when somebody wins 2500 counties

and another one wins 500, now i want to draw your attention back to the court hearing on three/24/24. the lady from the election committee got up there in front of the judge and told him none of the mail-in ballots were verified even though the county paid $1 million to buy the machine. one more point. we saw what happened on tv for ourselves. so, we make our own decisions about what we saw and thought about it. every individual can make their own opinion about that. but on atlanta news first,

election director was interviewed on election day and he said they had 70 3000 votes to count. it was the cbs feed from atlanta news first. host: i think we got a point of all that, going back in time a little for that. professor bullock, if you want to take something from that? guest: i think one of the things that concerned the caller is if you look at counties or one of the color-coded maps of the united states at the county level, you see a lot more red th an blue because democratic votes are concentrated in urban areas. 150 nine counties, democrats have made the winds in recent years but have only won 29 or 30 counties. the democratic vote very much concentrated in urban areas. rural areas will be where the

republican votes are. those went as much as 90/10 in favor of trump. for democrats to win in georgia and other states, they have to run up the vote total in urban areas and see if that can offset their loss of the best geographic bulk of the state. host: professor bullock, as far as the job that faces the secretary of state, what do you think he faces this year? what do you think about his ability to manage election day? guest: i think the secretary of state and his staff are in good shape for running this. in 2020, he was elected in 2018, so it was his first big challenge and he got beaten about the head repeatedly.

they have learned a lot from that. despite the accusations, there was never anything proven to indicate there are major problems. as he said himself in the infamous phone call with president trump in january just before january 6. president trump calls the secretary of state and lists off all of the allegations that dead people were voting, noncitizens were voting, double counting, and this and that. if you find a transcript of the call, he effectively refutes each of the accusations point by point. i think georgia's elections should run very smoothly. you may have a problem in a particular precinct where a machine fails or something of

that point. but we have not had illegality in georgia in recent years. if you go back a couple of generations, there was vote buying but that is ancient history. host: in houston, supporter of vice president kamala harris. caller: good morning. i want to remind everybody we are still waiting on [indiscernible] anybody who thinks donald trump receives 20% of the black man vote, he won't see it, it is not going to happen. have a good day. host: professor, you have probably seen the polling even more closely than the rest of us. what you think about the trends like the color talked about --

what do you think about the trends like the caller talked about? guest: some polls have indicated maybe the black male vote might be hitting the low 20's. the most recent figures, two polls have shown this, harris is getting above 85%, maybe as high as 87% of the black vote. if that is the case, 20% of the black males are not saying they are going to vote for donald trump. host: what kind of trends, interesting things? are you watching for? ? guest: it looks like paris's trend to get the share of the white votes she needs. we won't really know this until after the fact let is there enthusiasm among black voters? will they turn out in large numbers? that is as important as her getting into the upper 80's in

terms of the percentage of the vote. we also know in georgia, and i think this would be true in most states, that the white vote for a democrat is cast largely by whites who have gone to college. in this state, if you are a white voter who has gone to college, you are twice as likely to vote democratic as if you are a white voter who did not go to college. what those numbers look in terms of college-educated and non-college-educated voters. host: you talk with your students about politics. what are you saying to them and what are they telling you? guest: i am teaching almost exclusively political science students so skewed sample. for most of my students, this will be their first presidential election. for some, the first time they voted. i would think everyone one of them is registered.

the polls had not been open more than three hours when the first of my students showed up wearing buttons showing i already voted. they are interested and excited. i think reasonably sophisticated, probably more sophisticated than most voters. we have large numbers of both democrats and republicans. in a political science class like i teach, there will be a number of students actively working on behalf of one of the campaigns or the other. something different between our students and other citizens is our college republicans and young democrats get along well. they like each other. a number of the leaders of those organizations over the years have said they like to be in a class where there is there counterpart from the other party in the class. it makes it easier in teaching. you have someone you know is active in college republicans makes a point, you can turn to some of the young democrats and say, what is your side think

about this? host: professor charles bullock from the university of georgia and author of the book "the changing political south," thanks for your time today. we will finish off our look at georgia as a battleground state with him or university's alan abramowitz when "washington journal" continues. >> with some of the tightest races for congress in modern political history, stay ahead with c-span's comprehensive coverage. we bring you access to the top debates from across the country. debates from races shaping your state's future and the balance of power in washington. follow our campaign 2024 coverage from local to national debates anytime online at c-span.org/campaign.

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what issue is most important to you or your community? whether you are passionate about politics, the environment, or community stories, studentcam is your platform to share your message with the world. with $100,000 in prizes, including a grand prize of $5,000, this is your opportunity not only to make an impact but also be rewarded for your creativity and hard work. enter your submissioay. scan the code were visit studentcam.org for all details -- scan the code or visit studentcam.org for all the details. >> "washington journal" continues. host: alan abramowitz of emory university joins us as we continue our look at georgia as a battleground state. thank you for giving us your time. i suppose everybody had to take on why georgia is a battleground state. what would you say? guest: i would say georgia had

become a battleground state primarily because of shifting demographics and also the changing appeal of the republican party nationally among college-educated white voters who are found in large numbers in the atlanta suburbs. host: can you elaborate on that last point? guest: sure. if you look at the voting patterns in the state, we see democrats have made large gains in the atlanta suburbs. the city of atlanta itself in the inner suburbs surrounding it have long been democratic strongholds. the most significant change we have seen has been the dramatic improvement in the democratic vote share in some of the other surrounding suburban counties like cobb county and gwinnett county which maybe 15 years ago were pretty strongly republican in their preferences.

now, those counties have shifted to the democrats. two things are contributing to that. one is the demographics of those counties are changing and the nonwhite share of the electorate in the atlanta suburbs has increased dramatically, especially the african american share but also latino and asian american. but in addition, we have seen college-educated white voters in the atlanta suburbs, as many other metropolitan areas around the country, have been turned off by the direction of the republican party under donald trump. while we have seen republicans making gains among noncollege white voters and in rural areas, we have seen at the same time republicans losing ground to democrats among college-educated white voters and particularly those found in large numbers in

the suburbs of major melcher polident -- metropolitan areas of the country including atlanta. host: when you so polls showing close races for georgia, what is your level of confidence in what you are seeing? guest: i am pretty confident it is going to be a close election here. i would not be confident protecting who is going to win. i think it will be within two or three points at most one way or the other. that is the way it has been in recent elections except for a couple of elections for governor where brian kemp won easily but he had the benefit of incumbency. in the senate elections in 2020 and 2022 and in the presidential election in 2020, we saw a very close contest decided by a margin of no more than one or

two points. i'm expect and to see the same thing this year. host: you do your own modeling when it comes to elections in a model called "time for change. tell --"time for change." tell our viewers about that. guest: i have a forecasting model i have been using for quite a few years. i try to pick the outcome of the presidential election at the national level. it is not looking at swing states in particular but the national results. it is based on three predictors. one is the incumbent president's approval rating in the middle of the year, the second is the growth rate of the economy and second quarter in real terms, and the third is the time for change factor which is based on how long been, party has been in power. i find first-term incumbents have a significant

advantage they lose in second or later term elections. when you put those three together, you get a fairly accurate prediction, and you get it several months in advance of the election. indeed, i find if you wait longer to try to make a prediction based on data closer to the election, you do not get significant improvement. i have this feeling about a lot of the modeling going on right now that all of these forecasting models updating forecasts on a daily basis are not getting a improvement. -- getting significant improvement. we probably know as much as we will know on election day as of several weeks ago. the underlying factors are pretty much set. they are not changing. when i take those three factors and put them together and

statistically estimate where the election is likely to come out, i have two predictions, one for the popular vote and one for the electoral vote. we need to know how the electoral vote will come out to know who's going to win. this year, both predictions come out with a very slight edge for kamala harris. popular vote margin is predicted to be in the vicinity of 2.5 to 3 percentage points. the popular vote. in terms of the electoral vote, it gives harris a predicted 284 electoral votes, which is barely enough to win. so, the two results are pretty similar. given the margin of error in these sorts of forecasts which is unavoidable, where i am

really coming out is saying i think kamala harris has a strong chance of winning the popular vote, somewhere in the vicinity of 75%. but when it comes to the electoral vote, her chances of winning are lower, closer to 60%. so, that leaves us with a pretty significant chance that we get another election in which the popular vote winner loses the electoral vote. there is about one chance in six according to my model of that happening. if you look at other forecasting models, they are seeing something very similar. host: if you want to ask our guest questions, 202-748-8001 for those who support former president trump. 202-748-8000 for supporters of the vice president. for the undecided, 202-748-8002.

georgia residents, 202-748-8003. alan abramowitz joining us from emory university. you talk about forecasting on the big scale. can we narrow it down? over one million people so far early voting in the state. what does that suggest about an outcome because of the early numbers? guest: i do not think the early voting numbers give us much of a clue about the outcome of the election. they tell us there is a lot of enthusiasm for voting. you would have to break that down and look at what the turnout rates are across the state in some of the different counties depending on whether they are strongly democratic or republican. there are certain counties we know are heavily republican or democratic. i have not seen that done. even if we had that information it would still not tell us much. we know a lot of voters will

wait and vote on election day. it does not matter when people vote. the fact democrats are disproportionately getting early does not necessarily mean the election is going to turn out in favor of the democratic candidate. it just means democrats are voting early and republicans might choose to vote on election day. that is what happened in 2020. it looks like that is not happening to the same degree this year. we know republicans have been encouraging their voters to turn out early. parties like their voters to turn out early to get their vote locked in and then they do not have to worry about contacting them and trying to get them to the polls on election day. it makes things easier for the parties, but it is not really predictive of anything. host: when it comes to the state itself, we have been showing people a map of the state so far. what areas of the state would you pay particular interest to as a determining factor of who

wins? guest: i would look at both the turnout and the margin in the atlanta suburbs. i think those are the sort of swing counties in the state. see if the democrats can maintain the kind of advantage they have had in recent elections in counties like cobb county and gwinnett county, see if the democrats get the big margins they need out of dekalb and fulton county see how republicans are doing in more peripheral suburban counties like forsyth county that continued to be a republican stronghold but with democrats making some inroads. i think we have to look at the suburbs. we also have to look at the party margins in their stronghold. for the democrats, it is atlanta and the inner suburban counties. for republicans, the outer suburban counties as well as the small counts and rural areas of the state.

i guess we pretty much have to look everywhere. it is hard to pinpoint any one place to look. i would compare the performance of the parties when we start to see results with the way they performed in other recent elections like the 2020 and 2022 elections which were very close. host: we showed people the results of the 2020 election. do you think that margin, that closeness, will be similar this time around? guest: it certainly could be very close again. i would not necessarily predict it will be 11,000 or so votes, 12,000. it could be somewhat larger than that. in terms of a percentage point margin, i would be surprised if either trump or harris wins the state by more than two percentage points. host: if you want to ask our guest questions, 202-748-8001 for those of you who support former president trump.

202-748-8000 for supporters of the vice president. undecided voters, 202-748-8002. georgia residents, 202-748-8003. you were talking about modeling. if you look at the economics of the state, what does that tell you about who is going to cast their vote for whom? guest: georgia's economy is very strong right now. we have low unemployment. we have strong economic growth. pretty steady job creation. but the national economy is also quite strong. if we look at the recent numbers in terms of inflation which has come down quite a bit, job creation remains strong, unemployment remains low, real gdp growth in the second quarter , the actual term included in my

forecasting model, that came in at 3% on an annual basis. 3% is a very solid performance. the predictions are that the third quarter will come out slightly above that. in objective terms, the economy is doing quite well. the subjective economy is not so good. that is the interesting thing here. despite the fact that all of the objective indicators show the u.s. economy is doing very well and better than the economies of most other advanced industrialized countries, when people are asked about the economy, they do not feel positive about it. many of them do not. part of that is partisan. republicans think the economy is terrible because former president trump keeps telling them that. but across the board, perceptions of economic conditions are not as positive as you might expect given what

the objective indicators show. ultimately, it will be a question of whether those subjective perceptions dominate the objective evidence the economy is actually doing quite well. host: darrell in kentucky, supporter of former president trump, on the battleground state of georgia, talking with alan abramowitz, go ahead. he is gone? let's hear from allen in illinois, a supporter of vice president kamala harris. caller: i was wondering with the trip kamala made to the rural areas if that has made any contributions. [indiscernible] host: ok. guest: we are seeing harris has been making some effort to reach out to some parts of the state. this is similar to what she is

doing in other swing states. some of the small towns and row areas to try to make inroads there. one of the keys to the outcome of the election is not going to be just how well the candidates do in their own areas of strength but whether they can reduce their deficits in the areas they know that they are going to lose. there is no doubt harris is going to lose small-town and rural georgia by a big margin. but if she can lose those areas by a margin, even slightly smaller than other democrats have in recent elections, including biden in 2020, that can have a big impact on the overall outcome. outreach to parts of the state that are not in your base can be effective. president carter's 100th

birthday and his vote for kamala harris got quite a bit of coverage in the news. i do not think it will have much impact on people's voting decisions. everyone understands former president carter is a strong democrat. as he himself said, he has never voted for a republican in his life so it is hardly surprising he voted for kamala harris. host: we saw the vice president in two churches on sunday. when it comes to the state's dynamic, how do religious voters factor into that? guest: traditionally, democratic candidates have put a lot of time and effort into mobilizing black voters through the churches. this particular sunday, the last couple of sundays before the election where we have early voting, have been times when there have been major efforts to mobilize black voters to the polls.

i think it is sometimes called souls to the polls. you have the service and then you vote on sundays. this is something democrats pushed for very hard. they've been making a big effort to do that. the african american turnout will be one of the keys to the outcome of the election. democrats, a strong african american turnout. they also need to win the overwhelming majority of the african american vote. the other side of the equation is that white evangelical voters in georgia, which is a very large group as well, tend to be quite conservative here and vote overwhelmingly republican. that is true across the country. that is another rather large voting bloc in georgia. in many small towns and rural areas of the state, you have a large percentage of the electric made up of white evangelical voters -- electorate made up

of white evangelical voters. in terms of religion, both groups tend to be fairly religious. and they have somewhat similar religious beliefs. but politically, they are diametrically opposed. host: sean is in new york on the undecided line. go ahead. caller: i would like to mention something about the economy doing well. the american public, they just withdrew 85 million dollars from american bank accounts. i believe it is approaching $35 trillion in debt. people are paying more for groceries nationwide.

bone just laid off tens of thousands of workers on top of that -- boeing just laid off tens of thousands of workers on top of that. how can you say the economy is doing well? guest: i understand where you are coming from. certainly, prices are a lot higher than they were four years ago for many basic goods and services. i think people are still somewhat upset about that. you mentioned boeing laying off workers. yes. there are those negative developments. what i am saying is if you look at the objective numbers and the trends in the economy as measured by the best indicators we have available, we can say they are quite positive.

i am talking about unemployment, is very low. job creation is very strong. we had well over 200,000 jobs created in the most recent monthly report. inflation is way down from where it was. we had very high inflation but it has come way down. and has come down close to the 2% range the federal reserve was looking for or has as its guideline. that has allowed the fed to lower interest rates. with lower interest rates, we are seeing that begin to work its way through the economy with lower mortgage interest rates and lower credit card interest rates. things that directly affect people's lives. it will take time for those things to be felt. people's perceptions are not wrong necessarily, but i am just saying this is what the

statistics tell us. i am a believer in data and evidence. i think sometimes our own personal perceptions and feelings can lead us astray because they are based on our own personal situation which is not necessarily representative of the entire country. i think it is important to look at the evidence. it is important to look at the data. the evidence and data tell us the economy is doing quite well. host: when it comes to data, what are you watching for in the next couple of weeks? guest: everyone is obviously watching for the polling data. it has been kind of frustrating in that regard. given how close we are to the election now, barely two weeks away, we have not had a lot of recent high-quality national polls or high-quality polls in

some of the swing states. i think that will change in the next week or so. i think we will begin to see a lot more quality polling. we have had a lot of polls but i consider some of them pretty sketchy, questionable. "the washington post" came out today with a new series of swing state polls. i would consider those pretty reputable. they pretty much tell us what we already knew from earlier polling which is that the race is very close. it is a very tight race in the swing states. almost deadharris leading in a s and trump in a couple states. the take away is this is a close election. i do not think we will have any way of confidently predicting the outcome before election day. we will have to wait for the election returns this time.

it will not be a landslide election. it is not one of those were we know in advance who the winner will be. we will not know until late into the night or possibly the next day or even later what the final outcome is going to be. other economic numbers will be coming out. at this point i do not think they will change people's perceptions much. host: what does your level of confidence in the election system in georgia and the ability to have an accurate count? guest: i am quite confident about the election system in georgia. i think we have a very competent secretary of state and i think the people running the election know what they are doing. they will not be deterred by any threats which we see happening all of the time. we also had decisions made recently by the courts in georgia.

we had rules put in place by our state election board that were very questionable, a very partisan election board nominated by trump supporters -- dominated by trump supporters. with those court rulings, which got rid of the need for a hand count of the ballots on election night which would've caused chaos and long delays and confusion, apparently that is not going to happen. i am confident we will get an accurate count. we may not know the results for a while. if the election is very close it will take many hours or could take many hours to determine who the winner is. in the end we will get an accurate count and that will be true almost everywhere across the country. i am more concerned about what the reaction is going to be afterwards, particularly from

mr. trump and his supporters if it does not turn out the way they want. host: alan abramowitz with emory university finishing our look at the battleground state of georgia. thanks for your time. guest: very glad to be with you. host: will finish the program with open forum. (202) 748-8001 for republicans, (202) 748-8000 for democrats. independents, (202) 748-8002. we will take those calls when the "washington journal" continues. ♪ >> brenda wineapples calls them two gladiators. she is writing about the

politicians william jennings bryant and the criminal lawyer clarence darrow. each of them were going into battle over god and science and the classroom. not incidentally, over what it meant to be an american. brenda wineapple's latest book is entitled keeping the faith and is about the scopes trial held in dayton, tennessee and focused on state law that prohibited the teaching of evolution in the schools. >> author brenda wineapple with her book keeping the faith on this episode of book notes plu with our host brian lamb. ok notes plus is available on the c-span now free mobile app or wherever you get your podcasts. >> since 1979, in partnership with the cable industry, c-span has provided complete coverage of the halls of congress, from

the house and senate floors to congressional hearings, party briefings, and committee meetings. c-span gives you a front row seat to how issues are decided with no commentary, no interruptions, and completely unfiltered. c-span. your unfiltered view of government. >> if you ever miss any of c-span's coverage you can find it any time online at c-span.org. videos of key hearings, debates, and other events feature markings that guide you to highlights. these markers appear on the right-hand side of your screen. this timeline tool makes it easy to quickly get an idea what was debated and decided in washington. scroll through and spend a few minutes on c-span's points of interest. >> "washington journal"

continues. host: open forum until the end of the show. (202) 748-8001 for republicans, (202) 748-8000 for democrats. independents (202) 748-8002. post your thoughts during the day on our social media sites and on x @cspanwj. at 12:30 this afternoon, panel discussions of the presidential elections with politil analysts from five major news organizaons hosted by the economic club of washiton dc. you n see that at 12:30 on c-an, c-span now, or c-span.org. later on today at 3:00, reblican presidential nominee donald trump will speak to voters at a caai rally in greenville, north cali. that will a 3:00. you caneehat on the main platforms.

we will also give you information about vice preside harriss she continues her travels her two week plus of election day. you can go our website at c-span.org when it comes to events related to campaign 2024. let's go to floyd in washington state. good morning. caller: i just heard the segment with alan abramowitz and i think i understand why there is the disparity of opinion on the economy. to his point, all of the indicators of gdp growth, which implies businesses are doing better does show a lot of promise. i think there is an income disparity where you have folks who have been investing and they are doing extremely well and

then you have folks just earning a living. they are not doing quite as well because prices have been going up and i do not think either party -- i am a supporter of kamala harris and i think she is a better choice. >> diane in georgia joining us, republican line. caller: keeps on promising everybody else $20,000 and everything. our economy down here where we are having to pay for something for a dozen eggs, i don't see it. i don't see how they can say the economy is great when i know it is not. when you are a mother and you try to buy stuff for your kids and you cannot buy it, there is something wrong -- she just

keeps on promising too much to other people and she is leaving the white race people out and they will not vote for her. that is all you hear is what she wants to say, not what we want to say. it is $20,000 here. host: let's hear from chris in texas. independent line. caller: good morning and thanks for taking my call. today's the first day of early voting in texas and i hope everybody gets out about and if you do vote i hope you do not vote for 10 crews. he decided to go on vacation in mexico. ted cruz, greg abbott, ken paxton are all against reproductive rights for women. if you have a mother or daughter or a sister or know any woman, you should not support ted cruz. i live on the border.

i do not see any so-called wave of illegal immigrants coming over. it is simply not true. for another example of using falsehoods to arouse one part of the population to get votes and donations is that. there is not a wave of illegal immigrants. check it out. host: that is chris in texas. in new jersey, democrats line, we will hear from susan. caller: thanks for taking my call. i wanted let you know what issues are important for me. immigration is an important issue. both of my parents are immigrants. now i hear we have gangs in new york city. i feel a little bit unsafe when i go there. at the same time i know we should be helping our neighbor countries to have a better life.

he had to flee for himself. i know it might be expensive. like the gentleman was saying before there are those who have investment income and those who are working for a living. i worked in banking for a while and i had so much in new york city but when i left to work at an outfitter i do not have much and i work for a living. for me i am helping my community but i can see i'm quickly descending into what would be called a difficult life where the price of eggs matters. i am willing to pay high prices for organic food. i spend the entire day taking care of my boyfriend's elderly mother. there are so many pressures we have. i have a brother who has

paranoid delusions and has been living alone in los angeles. he has no mental health support. he has seen a psychiatrist once in the last year and is taking one of those drugs to help with anxiety. what do we do? we have so many issues in this country. how can the president help? i don't know. i am a lifelong democrat so i wanted to explain the issues impacting my life. host: charlene in california, republican line, you are next up. caller: i just don't understand how anyone could be behind the democratic party when tim walz got on national tv and took my lord's name in vain. that is totally beyond me.

i will be voting for trump and thank you for taking my call. have a good day. host: charlene in california. part of this open forum. the number is (202) 748-8001 for republicans. (202) 748-8000 for democrats. (202) 748-8002 for independents. cnn highlights the fact that vice president kamala harris has tapped liz cheney for a blue wall tour as it has been described leading up to election day saying the vice president making that aggressive bid to win over republicans in swing states on monday with liz cheney. her campaign is courting across

similar terrain that tipped the 2016 states for donald tmp but swung back to democrats in 20. you can see part of the tour as it is being described with the vice president and liz cheney. that will be at 7:00 tonight. you can see that on our platforms at 7:00 tonight at c-span, c-span now, and c-span.org. independent line, this is beverly in oregon. go ahead. host: good morning, c-span. -- caller: good morning, c-span. in 2020 donald trump to not have enough votes to win and since then he has done nothing to get more voters on his side. he has lost voters from january 6. he lost a bunch with roe v. wade. he has lost a lot of republican men and women.

the has done nothing to get more supporters. i do not think it is possible for him to have the votes and numbers to possibly win. he will not win. host: mary up next in louisiana. democrats line. caller: thank you for taking my call. i want to say i do not understand why all of these people call in and gives trump such a good review. trump is a batman. -- trump is a bad man. is that the kind of person you all want to be president? wake up and smell the coffee. stop drinking the lemonade. host: not coffee and not lemonade but fries. that was part of the former presidents day yesterday working at a mcdonald's in pennsylvania. it is highlighted in the reporting from the washington post saying the restaurant he visited was closed so the public

during his visit at the motorist to mr. trump served were screened by the united states secret service before his arrival. no one ordered food. instead the attendees received whatever mr. trump gave them. he was at the fry station for about five minutes and spent 15 minutes at the drive through window, much of it taken for from reporters. that is yesterday's visit the former president had at that mcdonald's, part of the effort to win the white house in this campaign season. let's hear from linda in arkansas. republican line. caller: thank you for taking my call. the economy in arkansas is lousy. i am retired and we have a fixed income. this year between grocery and utilities my expenses have gone up $400 a month which i have no way of -- also the big bank

averages 70 families a month for the whole year. that is a lot of people. sales tax revenue is up because everything is so high and there is no tax on it when you go to buy it. prices won't come down. if someone can do something for my utilities i would be delighted. kamala speaks of nothing like that. she has no plan to lower utilities. she cannot set the price for your food or utilities. i will vote for trump. host: that is linda. we are showing video of mr. trump working at mcdonald's. there is a bit from his experience at the fry station. [video clip]

>> very good, very good. >> we will take from these ones first. >> like that. get the salt on it. never touches the human hand. >> very good. >> that i will get another one. i will grab it. never touched by a human hand. nice and clean. of course my hands are nice and clean. you are a good instructor. host: here is bill from jacksonville, florida. independent line. caller: just two thoughts about

the economy and how folks cannot seem to afford everything. when i got to the parking lots it is amazing how almost full they are. on the good professors talk about sheep polling -- about sheep polling, i would like to see the polling numbers for the same kinds of things four years ago to get an indication of how things have changed. thanks very much. host: lewis joins us from north carolina. democrats line. caller: top of the morning. wasn't that ridiculous? mcdonald's. i guess he is trying to see what it feels like to have a job. i hear a lot of people, especially the woman said something about walz saying g-d like wow, that is awesome. she is saying i will not vote for him when he do that but look

at all of the things trump stated but it will still not push these people away. c-span, why don't you show the clip when he talked about arnold palmer's penis? five you show that clip where he talked about how he will use the military against the people? and when he went to arizona among all of the hispanics he did not say he would round up hispanics, he said he would round up people from the congo. who do you know who comes from the west congo? african-americans on the transatlantic slave trade. they went to niger because that is where the blacks were who knew how to farm. america did not know how to farm. they starved. get your history right and show the clip talking about this man's penis. host: rich in kansas, republican line. caller: i should have been on

independent, i don't know why they put it on republican. host: i will leave it right there and have you calling on the independent line. try to get in before we leave in 10 minutes. let's hear from carrie in massachusetts. independent line. caller: i am independent but i am leaning. the thing i mind so much about c-span is they show things like they will show trump doing the fry thing to make a just of him but yet they will not -- to make a jest of him but they will not show kamala denigrating religions of catholicism by her remarks and when the man from virginia called in and said she never said it, yes she did. i saw it live on c-span. pedro did not know it existed. that is the thing i mind so much about c-span.

they only give half the story. they had two men on this morning and they were both leading for harris in their views and yet they give both of them back to back. why don't they have like the old walter cronkite used to do and have david brinkley on one side, i go way back, and have it more fair and balanced. instead you have a very biased opinion. i am sorry, pedro, but i know where you are leading. you have a biased opinion of who you show and how you cut them off fast and if they start to say something you feel liens one way or another, you start to also lose them or they instantly cut up. host: you major point. thank you for calling -- you made your point. you can watch the vice president

comments on our c-span website. our video library if you want to access that. that is at c-span.org. we present everything that is happening with no interference from us as far as the way we show you these events. a lot of events taking place at the election day. you can find it there. the wall street journal highlights the fact that elon musk said he plans to award $1 million a day to a randomly chosen voter who has signed his petition pledging to uphold the rights to free speech and to bear arms, stepping up efforts by his political group presidential prospects. the story from the wall street journal highlights the fact that ahead of that announcement, election law specialists have been divided on whether offering rewards for signing a position -- for signing the petition oversteps the law -- adding that

the intention punishable by prison time. the prohibition covers not only monetary expenditures but anything of monetary value like liquor lottery chances were welfare benefits according to a justice department official. let's go to marianne in virginia, democrats line. caller: good morning. i was listening to the program last night and i got sick because old men telling lies over the television with young people and we minded people listening to the lies. this country needs prayer.

so we can have some peace. i have been living for years and i don't suppose i have the privilege of looking at the program. please have more peaceful people on television. thank you. host: let's hear from lee in san antonio, texas. republican line. caller: thank you so much. i appreciate the opportunity. your hearing people's personal opinion. this is something different. i live in texas. i love my state, i love where i am from. we have to open up our eyes and see where we are at currently. with the economy and everything we are dealing with seems to be one of the biggest issues. it has almost become unaffordable to afford bacon,

some of the simple things in life. if we vote for the same party again that has been in the current office the past four years, then we are voting for the same party all over again, it will just be another rerun. we are focused on the things donald trump says and making a big deal and do not understand that when he was in office for the four years he was in there we were in a pretty good place. i am not too offended on some of the things that he says. you have to look at where we are right now within our country and how things are being ran currently. fully within the four years he was in office and to weigh those things out. open up your eyes. host: that is lee in texas. we will go to richard, also in texas. independent line. caller: good morning.

thanks for taking my call. i have only one thing to say about the election. i don't know where most people's eyes is at, your virtual eye -- but the spiritual eye is saying there will be a landslide in one candidate. those people who are saying this and saying that, look up. it is here and it will come to pass. it will be a landslide victory in the democratic way. the republicans have to go back to their desk and teach their lessons all over. they will never come back to power until 2030. that is when they will take over again. host: kathy in detroit,

michigan. democrat line. caller: good morning, c-span. i just want to say that for me this election is about values, equity, respect, being honorable , and serving the people. as far as i am concerned, former president trump has no ethics nor values and does not respect any people. i love kamala harris, i will vote for her, i think she is smart, i think she has integrity , i think she definitely has values. there is a threat to our democracy, not only via former president trump, but his cronies. wake up, america.

the economy does not have anything to do with the president. if you are having trouble paying your bills call utility company and ask them to help you work something out. contact the people who manufacture the products you are paying more money for and find out why they are raising prices. if you put two and two together a lot of these businesses are making up for all of the money they lost during the pandemic. it does not have anything to do with the president. host: one more call. ben in maryland. republican line. caller: i would like to say kamala harris lied about working at mcdonald's, so the five minutes president trump was working at the fry station was five minutes more than kamala harris ever worked at mcdonald's. host: ben finishes off this open forum.

also for all of you who participated in the course of our three hours together. we'll continue tomorrow taking a look at battleground states. you can find more information about our series and other things campaign 2024 related at c-span.org. another addition of washington journal comes your way at 7:00 tomorrow morning. we will see you then. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2024] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. vit ncicap.org] >> a look at some of our live campaign 2024 coverage today on c-span. at 12:30 eastern political journalistanalyze the upcoming elecons and in any event hosted by the economic club of washington, d.c. at 3:00 eastern dona trump speaks to supporters at a campaign rally in greenville, north carolina. while in thetate the former president will travel to asheville to tourreas damaged by hurricane helene. at 7:00 eastern democratic

presidential nominee in vice president kamala harris will campaign with republican liz cheney in waukesha, wisconsin and also make campaign stops in pennsylvania and michigan. you can also watch these events on c-span now or online at c-span.org. >> with one of the tightest races for control of congress in modern political history, stay ahead with c-span's comprehensive coverage of key state debates. this fall c-span brings you access to the top house, senate, and governor debates from across the country. debates from races shaping your state's future and the balance of power in washington. follow our coverage from local to national debates anytime online at c-span.org/campaign and be sure to watch tuesday, november 5, for a live real-time election night results. c-span, your unfiltered view of

politics, powered by cable. >> as the 2024 presidential campaign continues, american history tv presents a series, historic presidential elections. uncover what made these elections historic and explore their lasting impact on the nation. this saturday, the election of 1968. >> i am talking about america's future, my vision for that future, and what i think i can do with the youth and experience i left behind me. >> they want to make sure the fellow who will be there president will not let their house be burned down, will not let the mortgage market go to pieces, will not let the stock market go to pieces. >> people are concerned over this nation, there is a threat to internal security about the

breakdown of law and order. it is a sad commentary we cannot walk in the streets or the parks in the large cities of our country. >> republican richard nixon depleted -- defeated hubert humphrey and george wallace who was running as the american independeny cdidate. tch a stork presidential elections saturday at 7:00 eastern on american history tv on c-span2. >> c-span is your unfiltered view of government. we are funded by these television companies and more, including charter communications. >> charter is proud to be recognized as one of the best internet providers and we are just getting started, building 100,000 miles of n infrastructure to reach those who need it most. >> charter communications supports c-span as a public rvice along with these other television providers