and that's just what i intend to deliver. >> right now on "andrea mitchell reports," crimson tide, republicans catch a wave of victories to take control of the senate. gain a record of house seats and run up the score in state houses from coast to coast. and we've got some new results to share with you. >> it is time for a new direction. it is time for a new way forward. >> we said for months, it's the road to a republican majority and the united states senate led through kansas and we did it! >> we are heading to washington. and we are going to make them squeal! >> and the shake-up as the dust settles, will a new washington be able to change business as usual? >> it will be two long years

until we get to replace this president. under mitch mcconnell's leadership, we will send the president bill after bill until he wearies of it. >> and start your engines, as the race for 2016 begins. what the presidential hopefuls can take away from the midterm madness. and good day, i'm andrea mitchell in new york. democrats are sifting through the political wreckage after republican midterm tidal wave washing over congress. it was a resounding victory for the new majority. republicans picking up at least seven senate seats tuesday night. and it's not over yet, the gop sees two more pick-up opportunities. first, in alaska where mark begich is behind and votes are still being counted. and in louisiana where the combined vote of bill cassidy and conservative rob manis looms over mary landrieu in a december runoff. as for the house, more gains for republicans. their largest majority in eight

decades. and it may be a long time before we see that shift back to democrats. our team is in place to break down the key states. luke russert in iowa. perry bacon in kentucky. we start with msnbc in colorado where we've got another race to call and it is a big one. bengie. >> reporter: that's right. we can now project that governor hickenlooper, the democrat is the apparent winner in colorado. he has declared victory, though the results are not official. this is a rare bright spot for democrats in colorado and around the country. governors' races have not gone well for them. they lost open races in places like massachusetts, maryland, incumbents fell in places like illinois, scott walker in wisconsin. so this is definitely good news. but at the same time, it comes after colorado senator mark udall, another democratic incumbent fell by a significant margin compared to hickenlooper. one notable difference between the two, udall focused on social

issues, particularly abortion. hickenlooper spent his time talking about the economic gains. they have a 4.7% unemployment rate which is much better than the national average. it's possible, an economic focus, messages might have resinated better. >> indeed. msnbc in colorado, thank you very much. and minority leader mitch mcconnell is poised to be the next senate majority leader if the caucus chooses him, which is all considered likely. perry bacon is live in louisville. perry? >> reporter: hi, andrea. we expect senator mcconnell today at 2:00 to lay out his vision for what he wants to do as majority leader. a job he's aspired for for a long time. interview with "time" magazine published today. he outlined two issues where he sees compromise with obama being possible. one international trade agreements and, two, comprehensive tax reform. tax reform not simple, of course, because obama's likely

to man some kind of tax increase on the wealthiest part of that. that's a big challenge. but those are the areas where he saw compromise. issue where there's going to be a lot of confrontation with the president. he talked about the idea of repealing the individual mandate in the health care law. that's something the white house feels is an underpinning of that law and it doesn't work without that mandate. so that's an area where you could see a veto and a real strong confrontation there. and breaking news now, the chairman of the republican national committee, success from this victory, ryan previs is holding a news conference, joined by congressman greg walden, and national republican senatorial committee chair of kansas, let's listen. >> to allow votes in the senate in order to protect incumbents backfired and ensure their defeat. next month, we're going to add to our majority when we win

louisiana. in the senate, it was a night of important firsts. joni ernst in the senate and the first woman in congress from iowa. tom cotton will be the youngest member of the senate. the first woman elected to the senate from west virginia. tim scott becomes the first african-american elected to both the house and the senate. in the house, we don't know exactly how big the majority will be, but it will be a majority bigger than most of us have seen in our lifetimes. we're proud to see mia love win in utah, will hurd in texas, and the youngest woman ever elected to congress. and i'll let greg talk a little bit more about house gains that are unbelievably historic. in the governors races, americans affirmed their leadership of republican governors. and in the bluest of blue sta s

states, they reject ld democrats. in maryland, massachusetts and illinois. even the president's home state where he campaigned vigorously, elected a republican, and that's how big this victory really is. finally, state houses. republicans captured many of the state legislative chambers, including the nevada senate and the assembly, the west virginia house, the minnesota house, the new mexico house, the colorado senate, and the new hampshire house. we'll have the largest number of republican chambers and state legislative seats held in history. so it was a historic night at every single level. this was all about a direct rejection of the obama agenda. as all of you know, president obama said very clearly that his policies were on the ballot and voters were very clear in return. they want nothing to do with the

policies of barack obama and hillary clinton. up and down the ballot, these were the presidents' candidates. these were the clintons' candidates, and they lost. remember hillary clinton campaigned in kentucky, grimes lost by over 15 points. then hillary went to iowa and joni ernst won by eight points. hillary couldn't save the massachusetts governor race. we won in red states, blue states, and we won in purple states. we won because our policies resinated with the electorate, our ground game mobilized voters and our candidates connected with the american people. >> and declaring victory and deservedly after the big night. he is personally responsible for reshaping the republican national committee. and for having discipline on the selection of candidates, which

is the biggest difference between now and two years ago. and let's go to iowa, one of the big states that the republicans won. senator elect joni ernst cementing her place as a rising star, after a victory over bruce braley in one of the most important states for 2016, presidential hopefuls. luke russert live in west des moines to recap that race for us. >> hey there, andrea, i was struck by what he was motioning towards. he was mentioning all the women who were elected on the republican side. the african-americans who were elected on the republican side. tom cotton being the youngest member in the senate. so really trying to show the gop is much more the party of old white men. and that was something he tried to do as rnc chair. and that is something that at least last night was successful. let's see if it translates into the voting demographics in the next election. joni ernst. i don't think it's farfetched to

say she will now be the crowned jewel of this senate republican class. why? she's 44 years old, she's a woman, she is a veteran, and she represents iowa, which, as you know very well, andrea, having been out here a bunch is the place where republican presidential hopefuls want to come and get on their way on the to the presidency. if she plays it smart and wants the king maker mold, eventually, just watch out, i really do think you could have her being the most coveted endorsement for the 2016 iowa caucuses. >> luke russert, where it all begins when we get to the caucuses. thank you very much. luke russert in west des moines. and now to take a deeper dive into the results. steve kornacki host of "up" weekend mornings on msnbc and the star of our election map coverage last night.

incredible stuff. >> thanks. >> we want to go through some of these results. let's start first with kansas. we expect it to be this really tough fight. we now learned some of the back story from the reporting in the washington post and the "new york times" of how mitch mcconnell, really a tough love moment called pat roberts and said you've got to get a real team in there and stop using these young folks who haven't done a campaign before and raise some money. the fact he didn't even live in kansas, had basically a lounge chair in an old friend's house. and that was the turning point. tell us what happened in kansas. >> let's call it up and take a look. it's amazing in a way, as you say. we were expecting this was going to be the closest race on the board last night. here's what actually happened. pat roberts won this thing in a blowout. won it by 11 points. the new campaign team that came in, the national republicans who took charge. what their mission was in this race was to nationalize it. to say, hey, kansas is a red

state, it's a republican state, these republican friendly voters are flirting with this independent candidate. we want to tell those voters in kansas, hey, if you elect greg orman, he may say he's an independent, but he's going to go and caucus with the democrats. make harry reid the majority leader. he's going to give the party control of the senate, all of those sorts of things. you can see in this margin. the margin tells you they achieve that. but if you really want to drive home that point, i want to show you the 2012 presidential map from kansas. this is what it looked like when obama ran against romney in kansas. this is what a national democrat in kansas normally looks like on a county map. 105 counties and 103 of them are republican red. that was obama/romney in '12. republicans say we're going to try to nationalize this race. here's what the county map looked like last night in kansas. 102 republican red counties in only three for orman. basically, the exact same map. that's what the republicans

achieved in kansas last night. >> let's look at new hampshire. that was another race where you had scott brown, higher profile, former senator from massachusetts. did he shake the carpet bagger thing? was that an issue? or just jeanne shaheen ran a better campaign? >> yeah, jeanne shaheen ran a good campaign. and this is one of those, it stands out now, the polling before this election said shaheen would probably win by about this margin. in a way, it's not a surprise. but when you see the wave that carried all these other republican candidates, like a tom tillis in north carolina. it suggested something else might have been going on here in new hampshire. i think what it was, was the carpet bagging thing to a small extent giving an example here. this is concord, this is the third largest city in new hampshire. the capital city. this produces democratic votes usually. what we're seeing in other places around the country is that you look at the obama 2012 levels, the democratic candidates wanted to reach. they weren't reaching those levels, they weren't getting

that kind of turnout. well, what you saw in the big democratic vote producing areas in new hampshire last night was jeanne shaheen was hitting the obama numbers. obama in concord in 2012 got 68% of the vote. jeanne shaheen got 68% last night. she's right on the number. and you can go up and down the state. you can look at manchester, the largest city, you can look in southwest new hampshire. she got 70% in keene last night, the same 70% that barack obama got in 2012. so i think, my theory on this is that the carpet bagging issue of scott brown riled up democratic voters in a way in new hampshire that maybe democratic voters weren't riled up elsewhere in the country. >> i want to ask you about -- quickly in the little time we have left about maine and new hampshire. because in maine, you had an unpopular -- maine -- maine and massachusetts. you had an unpopular governor in maine who used the ebola factor against casey hickox the ebola

nurse. and where martha coakley lost again. >> yeah, we can show you quickly in the results here, the examination the last week of this race. eliot cutler who basically said, if you don't think i can win, vote your conscience. they thought they had momentum in the ebola thing that you're talking about, it seems at the end to have given le page a boost. maine is a divided state in terms of the rural, northern maine. that's le page's base and southern maine which is more of a bedroom community to boston in a lot of cases. the surprise last nikt is how well le page did in southern maine. and it does seem -- and at the end, the ebola thing was working in his favor. we can quickly show you, massachusetts, as well. charlie baker, the republican winning in massachusetts. how did he do that last night? first of all, i should point out, we say it's such a shock, a republican winning in massachusetts, this becomes the fifth time in the last seven

gubernatorial elections in massachusetts that the state's elected a republican. this becomes a common occurrence in massachusetts because a lot of times republicans like baker will present themselves as socially liberal, fiscally conservative moderates and basically tell massachusetts voters, hey, you've given democrats everything else in the state, i'm not one of these crazy republicans from somewhere else in the country you don't like. i'm a different kind of republican, and i'll be the chaperone. and that's basically what the message of the charlie baker campaign was and it worked last night. specifically where it worked last night, the most liberal suburbs outside boston. where democrats, especially in presidential elections rack up huge margins, he did extremely well last night. >> steve, i just -- i could listen to you all day. thank you so much. >> thank you. >> it's great stuff. >> and what will the election of 2014 mean for the next two years and 2016's election? that's next. and tune in at 2:00 eastern for special coverage of mitch mcconnell's expected news conference, closely followed by president obama at 2:50.

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some things don't change after tonight. i don't expect the president to wake up tomorrow and view the world any differently than he did when he woke up this morning. he knows i won't either. but look, we do have an obligation to work together on issues where we can agree i think we have a duty to do that. just because we have a two-party system, doesn't mean we have to be in perpetual conflict.

>> mitch mcconnell along with his wife. he was conciliatory last night in his victory statement. will the president reciprocate today. joining me now, msnbc contributor and "washington post" columnist ruth marcus. first to you, chris, what do you expect to hear from the president today? we're seeing mixed reports, he made calls to republicans as well as democrats last night. at the same time, we're seeing reports that he feels that he's not to blame. it wasn't a repudiation of him because they didn't ask him to campaign for them. >> right. on your second point, andrea. there is definitely a blame game going on in washington. and it's been going on for a few days now as it's been clear what was coming last night. i don't think most people thought it would be as bad for democrats as it was. the white house is saying, this can't be our fault because none of you wanted obama in your states, and none of you -- all of you ran away from him.

senate democrats are saying, look, every ad that was run in these races was about how we voted with you, and you hurt us whether you were there or not. what you're seeing right now is something you haven't seen a huge amount of. usually when you and i are talking in the last five or six years, we're talking about republicans fighting with republicans, this is democrats fighting with democrats. i'm interested to see the tone president obama takes. remember in 2006, we had george w. bush and the thumping. in 2010, barack obama and the shellacking. let's see how he describes it. this is obviously the second straight significant rebuke for barack obama and his party in a midterm election. >> and we also had that other memorable, are you still relevant question to a president. >> right. >> see if that one comes back. ruth marcus, what about nancy pelosi? what about harry reid. after taking such a beating, historic beating on the house side, do the caucuses turn on their leaders?

will there be a shake-up? >> i think they may be a little bit more apt to be turning on president obama because that's actually the one piece that seems to be uniting congressional democrats right now, which is they're pretty annoyed with the impact of the president and his policies on the elections. i think i would have more questions about the future of senator reid than i would about the future of leader pelosi. no one expected her to have a good night in terms of taking back the house, though. if it was worse than expected, okay. losing the senate and losing the senate is a bad thing for harry reid. and -- but i -- in the end, i think they're both apt to survive, including leader reid. >> and then, we look forward to the launch of the 2016 campaign already, rand paul last night

tweeting and in interviews. he tweeted that tuesday's biggest loser is @hillaryclinton and then also on the facebook page, rand paul posts photos of hillary and losing senate candidates using th the #hillaryslosers. so you've got a whole bunch of attacks going. and just now saying that hillary was the loser, hillary and bill clinton. >> i mean, look, again. hillary clinton's potential candidacy has loomed over everything since the second i think she started her book tour and it became clear it wasn't just people talking about her running for president, it was her making clear she looked like she was going to be a candidate. rand paul, we've known this. rand paul is going to run for president. i think he views one way to unite conservatives, remember, he's in the libertarian side of things, not necessarily the social conservative side, not necessarily sort of the establishment mainstream conservative. one way to unite them all is

behind a common enemy. and that hillary clinton is that common enemy that the -- so much of the republican primary debate, andrea, i think will be about who can beat hillary clinton, what kind of person should republicans put forward. and rand paul, as he has done many times on other issues is trying to be first in the pool on it. >> and in the exit polls, we saw some indicators of what people think going forward. there's one that's kind of meaningless because it says hillary clinton against some unknown republican. and she's at 40, and then it adds -- it depends at 24%. that is my least favorite exit poll question. i'll pass that on to you. nationwide, would hillary clinton make a good president, 42, yes, 52, no. that kind of reflects the nature of the electorate there. and among the republicans nationwide, who would make a good president? jeb bush, 49, rick perry, 41, chris christie, 34. but chris christie doing a victory lap today because as the head of the republican

governor's association, he was the single most active campaigner. he had a bag full of money, a private plane and look at the results, the republican governors did very, very well. >> indeed, he had a bag full of money and he bagged some good republican governorships, including some unexpected ones, including in my home state of maryland. so -- i wanted to go back and make two quick points. one about hillary clinton. it's totally understandable and obvious and predictable that republicans would pin these losses on her and say it reflects badly on her. i think that's both predictable and a little bit of a stretch. her policies as the president told us weren't the ones on the line in this election. it was the incumbent's policies and the incumbent president's policies. the other thing i wanted to talk about was really quickly, looking forward to the president's news conference this afternoon. the thing i'm most interested in hearing about is how he's going to thread this needle between trying to appear conciliatory

and the delayed promise he made to immigration groups about how he was going to handle executive action on immigration. i think he is in quite a box once again of his own making. and i think it's going to be fascinating to try to see him houdini his way out of it. >> it's an almost impossible needle to thread. exactly. thank you, ruth marcus. >> thanks, andrea. >> and next, we'll take a look at what voters were thinking when they made their choices. breaking down those exit polls. ♪ mmm mmm mmm mm mmm mm mmmmmm here we go, here we go, here we go. ♪ fifty omaha set hut ♪ losing feeling in my toes ♪ ♪ nothing beats that newar smell ♪ ♪ chicken parm you taste so good ♪

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welcome, both. it's so great to see you. first of all, the fact that both of you are awake is a big deal. >> you, too. >> well, you know. comes with the territory. peter, let's talk first about the mood of the country. what we've learned from the exit polls, the take aways in terms of the president's job approval, which was clearly the head wind that these democratic candidates were facing. and their feeling about the role of government and about the future. >> well, all of those things made for a lot of head winds for the democrats. and particularly more than anything else, there was home cooking. the republicans had great state s to run in. one major point, the democrats did not stick together. they all ran separately. and they hung separately. and in the end of the day, democrats have to come out of this and recognize they have to work together. >> and, fred, let's talk about the economy. because in all of the exit polls, it shows that was the top issue that people cared about. they care about the economy,

they don't feel great about the economy at all. their own incomes don't reflect the general improvement in the wall street numbers. what does that tell you about how people voted on the economic issues? and why democrats didn't stress economic issues? >> well, just like in past years, andrea, the economy was a top issue of this election. what's interesting is the other issues on that -- that were offered by the pollsters. one party or the other decisively carried. like health care carried by democrats. immigration carried by republicans. but the economy, the biggest issue was basically a 50/50 split. and, look, i think if the criticism of democrats is we didn't have a national message on the economy, the other, you know, side of the coin would be what did the republicans offer about the economy? and i think one interesting stat from the exit polls, andrea, is that president obama may have only had a 44% approval rating yesterday, but the country's not

that much happier about the republican leaders in congress that they elected yesterday. >> interesting statistic, though, gentlemen about the role of government, that government is doing too much. is this a hangover from health care from the website crashing? . people want government services when there's a storm, sandy, they want infrastructure. yet they feel that government is too invasive. >> well, we always go through to sort of back and forth. and always usually in the 45, 55 range. and at this stage in the game, government's doing too much, they want the health care and they care about that. and what their expectations are from government from everything to do we bith ebola and everyth else is there. if the republicans' message comes out we just want to cut government to smitherines, we're not going to do well. >> who were the voters? older? >> this is fascinating. of course, in 2012, there was an

equal number of people under 30 and over 65. when you went to the off year election yesterday, there were many more people who were over 65. the young people didn't turn out. and that cost the democrats a lot of seats and a lot of elections. so they have to do better on that front. >> fred, can we figure out why the democrats didn't inspire or repeal? i mean, midterm elections always downturn in younger voters. why couldn't they motivate that young base? >> i think midterm elections are tough for the president and the party in power. you know, i think we were hearing a lot of this in our polls that for a lot of democratic groups, younger voters, unmarried women, there's just a sense of fatigue and just, man, we've got to do this one more time. and, you know, look, i think we had this from our september "wall street journal" poll, andrea. that by a 5-4 margin, americans thought that no matter what happened in november that nothing would change in washington.

that sentiment was particularly strong with independents and younger voters. if you're a younger voter, you vote for presidential elections, you don't see much difference between either party in the midterm. you probably do the practical thing, which is stay home. >> and what happened with latinos? because that is the big issue, they were even some protests at obama rallies for his failure to make -- to live up to that commitment on immigration reform. >> well, there are two elements. one element, his job rating has dropped. but the support from latinos was just as strong yesterday as it had been two years earlier. so that's a good sign. i want to say one thing. i think this was a wave election. but not a mandate election. big difference between the two. the voters didn't subscribe to something that the republicans said that we're doing together. they got individual messages. i think the republicans have as much at stake as the president does in his news conference. >> and peter, one quick quest n question.

with this big number of increased republicans, incumbents basically, republicans in the house, is it really going to be another, you know, five, six, ten years before the house changes because of gerrymandering? >> i think democrats will have a tough time through 2020. and you have to learn from an off-year election. that the democrats have a tough road ahead on the presidential race. >> peter hart. thank you so much. fred yang, thank you. and up next, a $4 billion election, much of it spent on television ads. what we've learned from this very expensive experiment. and they were more than just candidates on the ballots. voters weighed in on a wide range of issues. minimum wage hikes were approved in all five states they were on the ballot, including four red states. in arkansas, the measure passed with 65% of the vote. voters in oregon as well as alaska and d.c. voted to allow the recreational use of

marijuana. but florida turned down a measure to legalize medical marijuana. and in washington state, only a week or ten days after a teenager killed three classmates and himself at a high school, voters approved a measure for background checks on all gun sales, including private transactions. that was heavily supported but mike bloomberg. [ male announcer ] we all think about life insurance.

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and louisiana heads to a run-off between mary landrieu and bill cassidy since neither of them got the required 50% of the vote last night. joining me now from washington is glenn kessler, the "washington post" fact checker columnist. glenn, it's great to see you. thank you very much. i want to take you through some of the spots that you've singled out here. you said that louisiana already had some of the worst midterm ads. explain. >> well, yes, they do. i collected my list of the ten most fact challenged ads of the midterms, four of them happen to be from louisiana. now, that's a state where politics is played rough and hard and in many cases, you h had -- you had an ad, for instance, for the nra went against mary landrieu with something that was completely false for pinoccio. harry reid attacking cassidy with ads that in some cases just

boggle the mind with how far off base they were. >> when you talk about using fear in some of these ads, give me some examples where ebola, was that a scott brown ad? or in other campaigns where they tried to -- mostly republican campaigns trying to arouse fears. >> a lot of times they would take, you know, the fact of immigration and combine it with either ebola such as ebola going, you know, somehow spreading over the border, or also the islamic state, isis that somehow there were terrorists -- i believe it was used in a campaign ad in california, i don't know where. i know i gave tom cotton the senator elect from arkansas four pinnoccios for trying to suggest there was some kind of link that isis was sending terrorists connected with mexican drug

gangs. it was something that made out of whole cloth. >> and we've also got the example of alison grimes ad. i think you said at one point, that was the most fact-challenged ad of the entire campaign. accusing mitch mcconnell of somehow being connected to the coal industry or anti-coal industry forces. >> right. she stood in front of the camera. and often a lot of times the ads were done with an unseen narrater make these charges. but she herself delivered lines that said that mitch mcconnell had, you know, was in the pocket of anti-coal groups, he'd accepted $600,000 from them. and, you know, there was nothing to it at all. and it was -- it had to do with some boards his wife was on. and the $600,000 was from a bank, wells fargo, which finances coal companies. so it was really off base.

and i think it really hurt her credibility to say those things herself. >> well, glenn kessler, they all live in fear of getting that fourth pinnoccio. maybe one or two, but four, it's the worst rating a candidate can get. glenn kessler, thank you so much for joining us. your work is cut out for you in louisiana, you know, there is a runoff. >> i know, i'm looking forward to it. >> thanks, glenn. great to see you. and last night's election was history making in more ways than one. even before the new congress takes office in january. for the first time there will be 100 women lawmakers in the house and senate thanks to a special election in north carolina last night to a vacancy electing democrat alma adams who will be seated with the lame duck congress. and west virginia has elected the nation's youngest state lawmaker, sarah blair first made headlines when she ousted a two-term republican incumbent in the primary when she was only 17. too young to even vote. now she is 18 years old and the

freshman at west virginia university ran her campaign out of her dorm room. she won handily last night with 63% of the vote. blair says she plans to take a break from her studies as an economics major next semester to attend the legislature's 60-day session. and with the election of democrat mark tekkai to congress, his colleague served in iraq. and her reserve unit was called to active duty to help hawaii deal with the lava flow from that volcano. they're still after me. get to the terminal across town. are all the green lights you? no. it's called grid iq. the 4:51 is leaving at 4:51. ♪ they cut the power. it'll fix itself. power's back on. quick thinking traffic lights and self correcting power grids

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and republican leaders are taking a victory lap at the republican national headquarters a few moments ago. joining me now fresh from the meetings, the chair of the national republican senatorial committee. senator, congratulations. tell us how you did it. >> andrea, thank you very much. >> you round the play book and

first was getting the right candidates. >> absolutely. i think it's clear that we encourage recruited good people. we worked hard at the trainings education, the necessary communication skills to address the issues that the american people care about. >> there's a lot of reporting on how mitch mcconnell sort of gave some tough love to your colleague in kansas, pat roberts who wasn't running a very effective campaign early on and got him restaffed and up and going and pulled this thing out. tell me how that all came off. >> obviously know senator roberts, worked with him over a period of time, and certainly interested with his electoral

success, not because we're friends but because it's important to kansans. you had a lot of people frustrated with president obama's policies, the direction the federal government was going and lots of people were so annoyed at the united states senate under the leadership of harry reid in which we weren't doing anything. and so you had this combination of dissatisfaction with policies and dissatisfaction with the legislative process that really snowballed in our state. and ultimately, senator roberts ran a really good campaign, and ultimately the voters decided that we're not going to take a risk with an unknown. somebody who is likely to be supportive of many of president obama's policies that are unpopular in our state and my state. and somebody that's going to assist in the leadership of harry reid. in that regard, it's one of the primary reasons that i was willing to serve as the nrsc chair. it had a lot to do with the fact that senator reid has led the senate in a way that is so

unfair, so wrong for the coun y country, and it's wrong for republicans and democrats. in fact, he indicated to me, my first conversation after being elected to the united states senate that i needed to understand. we aren't going to do anything until after the next election, which was true, and then there was another election we still didn't do anything. i think there's a couple of messages coming from kansas but across the country is, yeah, there's lots of things happening in washington, d.c., the direction of the country we don't agree with. but, boy, a senate that doesn't do anything about it. that's even worse. >> well, mitch mcconnell was very conciliatory and wants to get things done. but you've got ted cruz. i mean, how is he going to corral the caucus when ted cruz not sure he'll vote for mitch mcconnell. how do you satisfy those who don't want any accommodation with the president with those who say let's try to get some things done? >> you know, andrea, i've always thought there's a series of issues in which you can find

common ground. there's a few issues in which it's hard, if not wrong to find that common ground. our jobs as legislators are to figure out which of those few things that in which because of principle, because of your campaign, what you told your voters you were going to do. you don't have much flexibility. i think all of us, all senators have to figure out which issues of those -- the president indicated this election, the november 14 election was really a referendum on his policies and what we saw was in most instances, the voters rejected the idea these policies are a good idea. i think what i would take from that is it is president obama who has a lot of opportunity now to come toward the republicans in the senate but to come to the legislature, to congress with some different set of policies that he is pursuing.

>> i just was wondering, it's very clear from the exit polling that the election was a rejection of president obama in terms of what voters were saying. but the message of rand paul last night, trying to blame hillary clinton. how do you blame hillary clinton? is this just the republicans' attempt to go after the perceived front runner? >> well, i assume when we bring secretary clinton into the political equation of november 14, we're really talking in many ways about november 2016. presidential politics has -- has got to have a flavor to this. what i would say, and i'm up for election in 2016, the way i see what is expected of me, i stand a much better chance of being able to convince the voters of kansas to re-elect me if i have an agenda that i'm pursuing in the united states senate. and so we all benefit from a

senate that now is going to function and is not going to take the position that we're not going to do anything. so, i don't think we necessarily need to get to 2016 yet. but i would say that republicans are in better shape in '16 if we have legislative accomplishments. and i guess that's also true. many of the democrats who were up for election in this election, they didn't have much they could say about what they accomplished for the same rea n reason, the harry reid was saying we're not going to do anything. >> we'll be checking back with you. this is obviously what people care about. >> thank you very much, senator. thanks for being with us. and we'll be right back. and ah, so you can see like right here i can just... you know, check my policy here, add a car, ah speak to customer service, check on a claim...you know, all with the ah, tap of my geico app. oh, that's so cool. well, i would disagree with you but, ah, that would make me a liar. no dude, you're on the jumbotron!

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and that does it for us. tomorrow, ads senator john mccain. remember, follow the show online on facebook and on twitter. and stay with msnbc for live coverage of president obama's news conference at 2:50 p.m. eastern today with chris

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welcome, everybody, to a special democracy hangover edition of rfd. it's 1:00 p.m. on the east coast, 10:00 a.m. on the west. republicans sweeping the country and claiming the senate. we're right now awaiting the first big reaction speech from president obama at the white house. that should happen in the next hour at around 2:50 eastern. in the meantime, we're hearing the president has been working the phones calling dozens of candidates from both parties. and, get this, leaving a message for mitch mcconnell after the gop captured the majority. picking up, in fact, more seats than it even needed. republicans also widened their majority in the house. they haven't had this many seats in that chamber since 1945. adding insult to political