commercial free. we also post extra content there every weekend. so if you're thinking about giving it a try, you'll find there's a lot of extra stuff we do on "the beat" through that podcast. that's it for tonight. i'm see you back on monday at 6 p.m. eastern. off to the races. let's play "hardball." good evening, i'm chris matthews in washington. after this month's midterm be feeling wind at their backs as the sprint toward 2020 officially kicks into high gear. with president trump already campaigning for reelection, there's a host of democratic hopefuls raising money, visiting key states and honing their messages as they look to challenge him. but even as the 2018 midterms brought a big victory for democrats with a new majority in

the house of representatives, "the new york times" reports that some wins and near losses have raised questions about whose vision of the democratic party will emerge victorious in 2020. and it raises questions about whether democrats can deliver a consistent message to voters and unite behind one nominee from a slate of candidates who could range from socialists to pragmatic scentrists. a few names loom large. a politico consult poll taken in the days following the midterm found joe biden as the early leader. bernie sanders came in second. beto o'rourke, fresh off his loss in the texas senate race came in third. senators elizabeth warren of massachusetts, kamala harris and

cory booker followed close behind. none of these big name candidates have officially declared their intention for 2020 2020 but on the stump for 2018 candidates, many seem to be previewing their own 2020 pitches. >> democrats choose hope over fear! democrats choose unity over division! and most importantly, we choose truth over lies! >> ideas that just three years ago were perceived to be radical and extremist ideas are now ideas that are supported by the vast majority of the american people. thank you, iowa. >> we are better than this and that's what we're fighting for. so let's think about it in the context, then, of what's at stake because there's so much at stake. >> this is not a time to curl up. it is not a time to shut up.

it is not a time to give up. it's a time to get up, to rise up, to speak up! it's time for you not to wait for hope but to be the hope! >> it's our time to fight back. are you ready it fight back? it's our time to fight back! >> joining me is heidi pryzbyla, donna brazile, i've got to go to you on this. you're miss inside on this thing. what do you think about now and how we look forward to all the way to november 2020? what does it look like to you in terms of the candidates right now? >> i'm excited, chris. this is my 11th presidential season. i know i'm a little older than a few of my colleagues here. we're going to have the largest, most diverse group of candidates

we've ever seen in the democratic party. yes, we will have a basket of elected official, we will have a bunch of nonelected officials, but excites me is we'll have new blood and we won't have to count on count dracula to give us fresh flood for the democratic party. >> joe biden, everybody who knows who he is is getting 28%. is it 28? 26. that's only a quarter of the vote and everybody knows who he is. it's diverse in terms of numbers. nobody's secure here. >> right. well, in elections past to donna's point, there would have been an unspoken rule for some of the others who practically already announced their campaigns to kind of step back and wait on joe biden but joe biden himself said don't do it,

this is going to be a wide open field. there is no prototype. there's going to be a knockdown, drag out fight between the progressive and blue collar type candidates. the only thing that may be off the table is the tough guy, kind of like gutter fighter model that a lot of democrats told me right after trump won was what they needed. they would need their own tough guy to go toe to toe. like mark cuban. >> how about cory? i shouldn't say this but i don't think anybody who yells ever wins. dick gephardt was a friend of mine but every time he got to that oration thing, very interesting but he's not the next president. reagan was soft spoken, obama was soft spoken. bill clinton hardly ever yelled. what do you think about cory? who is the guy that's going to go out there and blow the doors off? >> we have a 747 full of candidates coming in.

it remains to be seen. as the poll shows, the democratic party is very divided about who they want. undecided is almost as popular as the top candidate as is joe biden who has universal name recognition. who is the candidate that blows the doors off? i think it's the candidate who can prove themselves exciting to people. >> okay, beto o'rourke. >> i think beto o'rourke will be in iowa as much and as often as possible in the early months of 2020. >> do you think he wired this, that he would run even if he lost, that he was planning ahead? >> i don't know if he was planning ahead but the best outcome of him to run for president was to lose by a small margin. if he won the senate seat, i don't think it would have gone well for him to go from austin to des moines. >> why don't you be the trump whisperer here? who is he rooting for? when he does things with elizabeth warren, who people have mixed views about, as do all the candidates, some think

she's a winner some don't think so. does trump think heshe's the on he wants, he keeps doing this nickname thing with her. >> i think he thinks she won't play in rust belt states and i think he thinks joe biden -- >> do you think he's afraid of joe? >> i don't think donald trump thinks that way. but here's what people don't understand. everyone is saying who's the front-runner? just as important is who can stay in the race to take votes away from somebody. >> who has the staying power? say iowa goes for elizabeth warren and elizabeth warren wins in new hampshire and kamala challenges her in south carolina and in nevada and go to california and she cleans up. so is it over then?

like it normally would be, the one that wins in iowa or is there a guy like biden or a beto who stays in there through ten or 20 contests and then finally goes around the corner and wins. is that still possible? >> yeah, because of the proportional rules. i'm still on the rules committee, chris. one of the things we try to establish in the rules committee is to not just get the states to spread out a little bit but to ensure we have the diversity and selection of delegates that we have in every other aspect of our party. look, in 2008 and 2016, the democratic party clearly favored the establishment but the voters wanted an outsider. that's why you saw barack obama come straight up the middle in that very talented field of candidates in 2008. and in 2016, hillary clinton was the odds-on favorite and bernie came within a distance of pulling it off. had the election went another month, bernie would have caught up. >> if they hadn't had the debates on nfl nights.

>> that's a whole other conversation about our debate schedule. i do believe the outsider might be able to accrue delegates. >> although they haven't announced, vice president biden and senator warren have indicated a time frame. let's look an their coyness here. >> i don't know. i still don't know. have i to make my decision what i'm going to do after the first of the year. >> here's what i promise. after november 6th i will take a hard look at running for president. >> what's the delay? why don't they just get in this thing? >> they want to be see how the post midterm period shakes out. they want to call donors. they've been holding off until the midterms to make all those calls. now they want to see is the money there? are the staffers there? is the excitement on the ground there? do the pos lolls look good?

>> you mean they haven't decided in life they want to be president? bill clinton -- i'm not knocking bill. you can tell they ran for student council when they were 13. >> you've seen it go 50 states. if they want to be competitive, which could be a contested convention for the first time in a long time, they're going to have to race serious money, $100 million, $200 million. >> one factor in 2020 could be age. president trump will be 74. senator sanders will be 79, former vice president joe biden will be 77, elizabeth warren will be -- can we say this about a woman? somewhere near that but much younger, senator harris will be 56. cory booker is the kid in the

race. i grew up thinking eisenhower was too old to run for president and he would be have been younger. people want somebody to be 50ish. >> i think bernie sanders blew up that notion in the last election cycle. and age doesn't matter until it does, until there's an alternative that is a new shiny kind of inspiring face like a beto o'rourke. i think what's going to be much more important than age in this cycle is who can bring that seek contract sauce of appealing to those midwestern industrial on a populist appeal, a working class appeal while also keeping this new coalition together of the republicans, the more affluent suburban, you know, moderate swing voters and not alienating them, not going too far to the left. i don't know what would emerge. >> that's the ideal candidate. >> but when you're courting

during the presidential process, when you're courting voters, you're looking for somebody who can appeal to your heart but also your head. and democrats, they tend to like candidates who are feisty, people who can wake you up in the morning but yet at nighttime keep you fired up. i think they will look for someone with some energy, somebody with new ideas because, after all, we're competing against donald trump. >> as i mentioned earlier in that political poll of a hypothetical field, beto o'rourke placed third nationally just days after his loss down in texas in that senate race. here's how he thanked his supporters on election night. >> everyone who allowed themselves to hope and to believe, to be inspired by one another and to turn that into action and into votes and do something that no one, no one thought was possible, to build a campaign like this one solely comprised of people, people from all walks of life.

it is the greatness to which we aspire and the work that we're willing to put into it to achieve it, by which we will be known going forward. >> o'rourke's campaign against ted cruz may have galvanized people in texas and nationwide but as "the new york times" notes, it left some people skeptical. "we're always looking for rock stars but we're not lo-- i don' think the country is looking for rock stars." what's that about? >> he has a national following -- >> if he runs. >> if he runs. i think he's a credible candidate. they're not talking a midterm election voters. you're talking now to very progress of voters who are going

to determine this nominee. the party, i believe, has moved to the left. i think that's the most engaged part of the party. as they moved forward, the candidates are going to start moving to the left. i think he fits a lot of boxes others don't. bernie sanders was credible because of how progressive he was and they accepted the fact he was old. now he's four years older and there are others who are just as progressive. my advice to joe biden would be always get seated next to bernie sanders. >> will me do it? >> there was a lot of analysis before he lost that that could be the best thing for him. >> he just said that. >> but before he lost as well, that there was foresight that this would be a potential path for him because he does bring all of those kind of he's inspiring but he's got the populist appeal. texas is a state coming for democrats. >> how does he look with 20 other democrats in the race?

>> he's the tallest. he's about 6'4". >> how does he do with black women in the south where the most loyal base for democrats in their primary elections and provide delegate after delegate in the nominating process? and, three, how does he do with blue collar working class white voters in pennsylvania, wisconsin and michigan, those general election states that flipped in the governor and senate races this last time from trump to the democrats? >> i just gave him my book on bobby kennedy so he has a role model. he wins in all those categories. the roundtable sticking with us. coming up, there are dozens of sleeper candidates for 2020. is there a chance for one of those to break through, pop up and got to the front of the pack to become the top candidate? it's happened before several times. plus, the democratic party is looking for signs of life in the midwest, the rust belt it used to be called. it went big for trump in 2016. the upper midwest, can trump hold on to those in 2020?

or do the democrats who did incredibly well do it again in 2020? and the position trump may find himself in next year. this is "hardball," where the action is. carla is living with metastatic breast cancer, which is breast cancer that has spread to other parts of her body. she's also taking prescription ibrance with an aromatase inhibitor, which is for postmenopausal women with hormone receptor-positive her2- metastatic breast cancer as the first hormonal based therapy. ibrance plus letrozole was significantly more effective at delaying disease progression versus letrozole. patients taking ibrance can develop low white blood cell counts, which may cause serious infections that can lead to death. before taking ibrance, tell your doctor if you have fever, chills, or other signs of infection, liver or kidney problems, are pregnant, breastfeeding, or plan to become pregnant. common side effects include low red blood cell and low platelet counts, infections, tiredness,

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welcome back to "hardball." we were going over the more obvious picks of 2020 but there are dozens of sleeper candidates who could rise in popularity offer the next ye-- over the ne. none of them have announced they're running but others said they're thinking about it. let's watch them in action. >> i said i've been seriously considering running in 2020 for a while. >> i believe i've been called to fight as hard as i possibly can to restore that moral integrity and decemberen endecency.

>> we must send a signal to republicans in washington that they have failed to lead. >> it is really important for to us make sure that if we are given the responsibility to govern that we govern in a pragmatic way that makes sense. >> not just to govern but to prepare for 2020 where the focus is on workers. >> we need to focus on what matters to people. >> the state of our union is hopeful, we're resilient and enduring. >> are you looking at it? >> absolutely i'm looking at it. >> i'm seriously looking at it. i say the more the merrier, let everybody get in. >> we're back with our panel. i want to start with heidi this time. i look at the second round of what we call the kids table. it's pretty impressive. i can see four or five of those people as president. mike bloomberg if he'd get past

the primaries could be a great president. >> you talk about bullock, hickenlooper, brown, names we hadn't been talking about and are not even on that polling. >> tell me about gillin braenbr. >> she was in a tough situation because she had to lead in that moment and democrats did not want to be accused of being hypocritical. >> this will be the first presidential election in the me-too moment, me-too movement moment. i think you'll see a series of women. we've never had an issue of who

to choose from. >> we have no paradigm either. all men want to be john wayne. maybe not barack obama. he's a little more relaxed than that. but the paradigm coming out of hillary, she won the popular vote. you can't knock her success in that but she lost in the states that matter. we know all this. >> it's not going to work this way. having done the last three presidential and been involved in some way, these debates are different when they do two tier. if you looked at all the republican debates, the first tier, the non-primetime debate was much more substantive, much better, but nobody could move any numbers because they only had one fifth of the audience watching. >> does the cutoff come when the networks say you're in the first foo tier? >> that's what happens. and it's almost impossible to move out of there because nobody has seen you in primetime. unless you have a huge national

following or you're a self-fund are, it is virtually impossible to start low and move up. >> how large can that first tier be? can you have more than seven candidates up on the platform? >> we've seen some tv networks try to put 20 people up there at once. >> they're not going to do that. >> i think you could probably legitimately have ten people on the stage. >> i agree. i this i tnk ten is the startin point. >> but what's in the lower one? they're not going to do ten and two. if you have 12, they're more inclined to do six and six. >> can they mix it and have different tens? >> that's up to the networks. >> you can have three or four debates. certain tens are different than other tens. >> but the biggest election right now for most of these candidates is that election to be on the primetime debates. >> most that we've mentioned so far have been to iowa and new

hampshire. but long shot candidates have taken multiple trips out to iowa, including john hickenlooper, senator jeff merkley and john delaney and representative seth moulton and tip ryan. i've heard of those guys and there's pete buttigieg and michael avenatti and billionaire tom steyer. my hunches don't work anymore. i thought trump had support around the angry white guy. i didn't think there were that many to win those key states, turned out there were. i'm not ready to write off outsiders, like a steyer or a cuban. >> the rules are out the window. it's going to be the candidate who excites the voters. this is democracy in action.

we've seen a break up of the strength of the party system over the course of the last dozen or so years due in part to citizens united, in part to mccain-feingold and you have voters deciding and to some extent donors. >> to john's point, are they going to have a chance for voters to see them? i think in this uber crowded field, what may be a key determinant can be who gets in there and gobbles up all of the best talent and makes the connection and all of the money. there's already stories running about there being a staff talent shortage in iowa. >> i've been in this business 30-something years. in the end, it's like the yankees, everybody hates them but everybody knows them. they have attitudes about all the players. if you're in that media this evening behind you like ji

gillibrand, i would think there's power behind that. whether it's kirstjen or -- >> if you have three, all of a sudden the non-new york candidates are in the race for new york. so much it's -- >> booker qualifies because it's the new york media market. >> and financial capital. >> i wand ted to go back to jonathan's point. for a few days oprah's name was bantered about but while she didn't take the bite, there's an attitude for somebody totally different. >> michelle. after this tour is over. >> after selling out 12 arenas, she's a rock star even without running. >> don't you think a lot of that is hype now? donald trump changed and created

the model for doing that. don't you think people look at that and say with everything going on in this country, why do i need this? if you look at followers, oprah is in a different stratosphere -- she has more than all the candidates -- >> because she's not running. i used to say that about colin powell. he has a stature and always looks good. but the minute he comes out on gun rights, he lost half the people. >> rudy giuliani learned that in 2008. >> up next, signs of life for the democrats in the midwest. many of the states that flipped red for trump two years ago flipped back blue this time. how serious a threat is that to trump's reelection. how does that look for amy

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welcome back to "hardball." in 2016 donald trump toppled the blue wall in states that had long eluded his party. it was wisconsin, michigan and pennsylvania and two years later democrats in those same states swept contests for governor and

senator. the path to the white house is drawn directly through those states now, the upper midwest. so can trump hold on or will democrats take back those 46 electoral votes in 2020? i'm back with heidi pryzbyla, jonathan allen, donna brazile and john brabalanc dltbrabender. coming from philly, i know i'm not really in pennsylvania. if starts around redding. but here as the question -- has trump got a hold on that? i don't think he's got a hold on the midwest. >> i don't think anybody does. first you have to throw ohio out thereof. ohio is not going to vote the same way as michigan, wisconsin and pennsylvania. i think he won it by ten points where he barely won those states last time. the second thing, i've seen this in all the states. ne s they say, well, donald trump did x in 2016 and the republican candidates did y, much lower in 2018 and therefore it's a rec d

referendum on trump and they doesn't like trump anymore. they're the sons and daughters of reagan democrats, just because they voted for trump didn't mean they were a republican voter. many of those voters i believe will come back to trump. >> many of those voted supported barack obama in 2008 and 2012. i do believe the message and messenger -- >> these are not galvanized new republicans. they're people on the fence. >> they're on the fence. i think it matters who they select as our nominee. >> our recommendation is hillary clinton. if you could so choose to do that for us, we would be appreciative. >> i'm going to force you to do this. why do republicans hate hillary? >> wait a minute. >> that say they do. that he say they do. >> hillary lost pennsylvania,

ohio, wisconsin and michigan. how? democrats voted for donald trump. the republicans didn't put him over. it was democrats that put him over. >> wait, i have street cred here, too. i happen to be in michigan. in michigan what we saw was -- we saw democrats previous, like reagan democrats voting, but we also saw real democrats, the base, not turn out. this is to donna's point that everything depends on who you choose. you're right, john, this is a midterm election so you can't say trump necessarily lost. he did hold the rural vote and he can get those people back out again but what can democrats do? they can also get their people out depending on who the nominee is. if, for instance, let's say you choose someone -- >> does it have to be someone who dramatizes it? >> no. it has to be someone who will unite the working class. the working class is divided along racial and cultural lines.

somebody like sherrod brown could be capable of doing that. >> working class, recession. >> i wouldn't rule out amy klobuchar and some of the other democrats as being able to reach those voters as well. your thoughts? >> to john's point ohio went about ten points for trump and then brown won it comfortably, six points or so. he's got that feel. i've long thought that hillary clinton's best running mate in 2016 would have been -- >> absolutely. because he went to yale and he doesn't let it show. he has that working guy's gruff voice, comes off as a labor kind of guy. be solid on the social issues, choice and lgbt issues and all that stuff. those risk prone when it comes to the economy want to know the president is on their side.

only 25% voters report president trump's trade policies have helped their local economies. according to an nbc exit poll, one third of those in the east and midwest report their economies have been hurt by trump's trade policies. john, on this, your point, working guys like bobby casey in pennsylvania who you worked against and brown and stabenow are the same on trump, social security and medicare, leave them alone and jobs so the kids come home once in a while. they were synchronized. do democrats have to be sin k m synchronized to win those states from trope? >> here are the issues that brown could talk into and others and hgood that might be for the,

that doesn't matter. it's not going to be because of issues like trade. >> trade could. it's tied to the economy. it could be one of those issues that will galvanize democratic votes are. >> y -- voters. >> you don't think it's health care? >> health care. >> will any nominee step up, we're talking republican. ♪

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welcome back to "hardball." widespread concern about where the president has taken the country has threatened his chances of becoming a two-termer. jeff flake, a critic of the president, left open the possibility of challenging trump

next time telling politico "i've not ruled it out, i've not ruled it in, just somebody needs to run on the republican side." flake has changed his tune dramatically since he ruled out that possibility of a presidential run on this show last year. >> are you going to run for president? >> no. >> never? this is "hardball." i got to do it. your wife is here. i'm waiting to see if she has an attitude. >> what a last name of flake -- >> with a name like smuckers, it's got to be good? flake is among those who have been floated as potential candidates. kasich waited on the prospect just before the midterms. >> are you going to primary donald trump? >> well, you know, right now how do you think a primary would go? not great. >> are you going to run as an

independent? >> all options are on the table. >> we're back with heidi, donna, john. it's always been said when you're challenged within your party for the prenomination of a second term, look out, you're probably not going to get re-elected. what are your thoughts? >> george sr. had a problem with it as well. i think the biggest danger for donald trump is not necessarily a primary from his own party but an independent from within his own party that takes votes away, that basically denies him the presidency by pulling votes away and prevents him from winning the electoral college. >> i've never seen your state so united. i'm not sure it's healthy but i just checked after the midterms. 91% of your rank and file voters say they're with trump, for example.

i've never seen anything like that. does that mean probably no matter how bad things get or how difficult they get for him in the economy or world events or whatever and his personalities problems which are always there, he's still going to end up with no challenge? >> if he ran against john kasich today in ohio for governor, trump would win by 30 points. if you look at the exit polls, pennsylvania you know well, i know well, it's a good example. you lubar run, he got 88% of the republican vote. there is no buyer remorse by republicans. where there is an achilles he'll are these swing voters, donald trump loses some of those votes and has to make them up -- >> how does he get college educated women back after they decide they don't like him? >> you'll hear a lot of

candidates talk about i don't want to make this about donald trump the person, i want to make this about donald trump the agenda, which we can get behind. >> what do you think, heidi? >> i think john's right. this is not about a primary challenge, it's about a potential independent candidacy, and that will all depend on who the democrats are veering towards. it's just like with mike bloomberg in 2016. he waited to see who the democrats were veering towards. since it was hillary clinton, a more moderate candidate at not bernie sanders, he held back. i think it will be the same thing as this process plays out. there will be people who wait in the wings for a potential independent candidate. >> who is this person, independent. i don't know anyone right now. >> there's no reason to run from the right. there's a reason to be worried about somebody like nikki haley, who might be appealing to the middle. she wouldn't run as an independent but it might throw mike pence off the ticket. >> let's talk about nikki. i've been speaking the last week

or so i say what about nikki haley as the new paradigm for the woman presidential candidate? >> i think she has a lot of appeal. she's a woman of color from a southern state, i think she can appeal from the middle. >> na >> na >> nikki haley specifically ruled out the possibility for running as president. >> i will say this for all of you who are going to ask about 2020, no, i will not go for 2020 but i will support this one here. >> that was cute. "this one here." >> she'll be a force to be reckoned with. she's got now the foreign policy portfolio to add to her experiences, a woman of color from the southern state on the

republican side. she could be this nation's first woman president. >> what strikes me about her as a pure political talent, she pulled down that flag and did that ahead of everybody. when somebody said she was confused, she stopped the music and said i don't get confused. she gets on the galloping horse of history. does she have a shot if trump quits? >> if trump gets knocked off his feet after the mueller report comes out, who know what is will happen to donald trump. >> john? between nikki and michael pence, who wins? >> first of all, they're very close friends. >> oh, break my heart. if it's a battle between the two of them who wins? >> i would like to think they'd be running together as maybe a pence/hailey ticket. she's a rising start in the republican party. she certainly did a great job and did it with grace and we don't see that often these days. >> well, maybe she'll get an even bigger job in this

administration. we'll see. there's also been some pressure on senator ben sass of nebraska. >> what are the odds that you will launch a primary challenge to president trump or run as an independent and run for president yourself in 2020? >> i think the odds are a lot higher that i run for the noxious weed control board of nebraska than that. i lived on a campaign bus for about 16 months and i still have flash b flashbacks of kid puke. >> well, that's a nice image. i don't know where to go here. >> i don't see it. i think there's a void now with

the death of john mccain for the type of voice he provided. he's a young guy. >> will mitt romney step up and play that role? >> only if they let him. it's not that easy to say you're going to play that role in the republican party. i'm not sure mitt has the relationships to allow that to happen. when he talked about the bus and everything, running for president in a primary is actually a lot of fun. every debate, everybody's cheering for you, no opposition. you meet a lot of people, you go to iowa. they're not voting for anyone until they meet each candidate three times. it isn't as difficult as he makes it. running for president in primaries is kind of fun as long as you can afford it. >> i can tell you, it's fun covering them. it's a resort. i love covering it. you're working harder than i am. i love it, donna. i love covering those people. >> up next, a history lesson about the position trump may find himself in next year. -these people, they speak a language we cannot understand.

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in the first suv from the ford performance team. the new 2019 ford edge st. give yourself or those youiday love most,, the gift of tempur-pedic sleep. during our black friday event, save up to $1,000 on select split king adjustable mattress sets. make the most of your holidays, and nights with tempur-pedic®. find your exclusive retailer today at tempurpedic.com. . welcome back. even if president trump manages to defeat a republican candidate vying for the republican nomination against him in 2020, there could still be consequences. that's because history shows incumbent presidents who have faced primary challenges from within their own party don't fare very well in the general election come november. in 1992 president george herbert walker bush had to -- he later

lost to bill clinton. in 1980 president jimmy carter was dogged by a challenge from senator ted kennedy. he beat tendy, but lost to ronald reagan that november. gerald ford faced a tough primary challenge, and eventually lost to carter. president johnson was weakened by the candidacy of eugene mccarthy, and dropped out of the race. we're back with heidi, jonathan, donna and john. let's talk about the president and his own party, how does he stand? is this all over, no matter what happens, is trump the nominee of the republican party, if he chooses to be so? >> if he's on the ballot and he runs, he's going to be the nominee of the republican party. if you've seen a narrowing of the republican party, but they're very excited about him to the joint john was making earlier. 90% of republicans are with donald trump. that's not going to change. he's got them. nobody's going to pull that away from him. the danger to him is an

independent candidacy that is aimed as a mission -- >> what is the sticky glue that keeps him popular? >> it's conservative republicans that matter when it comes to this. that's the base. and so number one, he gave them tax cuts. number two, he got them two supreme court justices. and number three, as mike pence there as his vice president. conservatives are sitting there and saying for us, this president's been fabulous. they're not going to look among their ranks and say who can we all get behind to take this guy out. >> no more regulations with this guy. >> if you want to get into environment, go for it. but i'm just saying he is extremely popular, i would even say loved among these groups and therefore there is not going to be another candidate against donald trump. i would suggest that everybody just get that out of their minds now. >> so the democratic happy hunting ground is not republican votes next time, it's -- who is it, independents? >> independents. >> get the democrats to vote.

>> independents and also expanding the electorate, getting more young people out there to vote and making sure we choose a candidate that cannot just unite the democratic party but also inspire the rest of the country. >> that's a hell of a standard. >> well, i mean, we have no other choice. donald trump, i was surprised, looking at some of the exit polls, and i was -- i'm like, he is popular in florida. he is popular. i thought he was doomed after several of his missteps. but he's not. he's popular among the republican base. therefore democrats have to not just unify the party, but the candidate must also inspire the independents, millennials and others. >> what allows this candidate, the president of the united states, to get through all these daily things that most people say he's finished now, he's gone, one after another, he's gone, he's gone. he just said something that's racial, that's terrible, he's gone. >> in a word, tribalism, maybe. i mean, to donna's point i think whoever emerges has to, like i

said before, unite the working class. that was the one thread that we saw between bernie krats and trumpsters was that they really believed in this message of the forgotten man and that whole trade message. and economic advancement. >> the american people are not greedy. they just want what they have, social security, medicare, medicaid, and a job for their kids. that's what people want in skranton, that's all they want. give it to them. heidi priszybyla -- this is "hardball" where the action is. so a tree falls on your brand-new car and totals it.

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that's "hardball" for now. "all in" with chris hayes starts right now. tonight on "all in". >> i am not really shocked or surprised by anything that he may say or do. >> defeating trump. >> you can't let them take your hope away. that's the energy. >> yeah. >> how the democrats won big in november. >> if you love your country you fight for people who make it work. >> what it will take to beat trump in 2020. >> we need to restore our democracy to the people. >> when "all in" starts right now. good evening from new york, i'm chris hayes. it has become more and more clear since the midterm elections that blue wave people talked about was not just real, but enormous. and now for the first time since donald trump