♪ welcome to friday. it is "mtp daily," and i'm chuck todd. just four days to go, right? both candidates are barnstorming the midwest battlegrounds right now with dueling rallies scheduled to start? just a few moments. president trump is about to speak in minnesota. then he will hit wisconsin. we will dip into these rallies as we get underway, the final weekend is actually looking like a jam-packed weekend of campaigning. also happening right now, hot off the presses our new msnbc news merrist poll of

battleground north carolina. hard to find a path of victory. he is trailing biden by six points among the likely voter model that marist has. biden's lead is within the margin of error. and in the battle for control of the senate, the democratic challengeric challeng challenger cal cunningham, that will raise some eyebrows among some folks who might think that that's a bit too large of a split especially since the presidential and the senate races has been conforming so much together. but there's a lot to dive into those numbers and we will dive into them later in the show. because north carolina is one of the few states that can tell us which direction the wind is blowing on election night. the state is expected to quickly report its results. but right now the campaigns are focused on the midwest, and as you can see by their travel schedules today alone. unfortunately the midwest is also the epicenter of a

nationwide surge in virus cases that is pushing confirmed infections to record levels again. there were more than 90,000 cases reported yesterday as we surpassed 9 million confirmed cases nationwide, averaging 100,000 cases a day sadly looks like is right around the corner. so with four days to go, cases are rising in every single battleground state. the candidates will be in wisconsin later today which is experiencing some of the worst effects of this surge. he will also be in minnesota where cases per capita are rising. same goes for michigan where president trump is about to speak. like i said, cases are rising in every single battleground state in america, as you can see in this graphic, and as you can tell simply by looking, mostly maskless rallies versus biden's socially distanced events. but the candidate's approaches to this virus could not be more different. in many ways that may be what tells us about this election

more. we have a question on our poll that everybody will see soon enough, economy versus the virus, what do you prioritize, answer that question. my nbc colleagues are fanned out across the country covering these big stories with us. monica in waterford township, michigan, where the president's going to be holding a rally in a little bit. mike memoli. gabe gutierrez is in billings, montana, where hospitals are struggling to keep up with an influx of new virus patients. let me start with monica in michigan. so, monica, this midwest push combined with the president desperately trying to put covid in the rearview mirror. wherever he goes, covid is there in much bigger numbers than any rally he can hold. >> that's exactly right, chuck. it's impossible to escape. the headlines, all of the local

news i was watching this morning before coming here talking about the rise in cases in the midwest, particularly here in michigan as hospitalizations and concern over space if surges continue in the trend they are going are top of mind for health officials. experts who say holding events like the one right behind me with thousands of people packed together couldn't be more irresponsible. but the president is running out of time, and his campaign feels this is the best asset they have in the closing days. we now have a picture of the final schedule before tuesday. and i can tell you, chuck, the president is going to be back here in michigan on sunday and on monday. it just shows you how much time he feels he needs to spend here of the final few hours before november 3rd, he will be holding two rallies in michigan closing out in grand rapids in a form of nostalgia the president loves to talk about and enjoy. that's of course where he held his last rally as a candidate

trump in 2016 before winning the white house. but also raising some eyebrows other places he's going to be going to this weekend, he will be in pennsylvania all day tomorrow, which is expected. that is a state the trump campaign feels they need to perform the best in because they're feeling good about florida, not as good about north carolina, michigan, or wisconsin, but they know they need to do well in pennsylvania. but he's also on sunday going to be in iowa and georgia playing some major defense, they are states he won quite comfortably four years ago. and then he's going to be in florida again. but not spending as much time there as across the midwest. now today here we do expect the president to take on democratic governor gretchen whitmer and continue to criticize her coronavirus lockdown measures as we look at the big picture, those cases are rising, the president is essentially attacking the governor for continuing those restrictions and engaging in that heated rhetoric in the last couple of

weeks. he's only expected to rachet that up here today, chuck. >> the problem he's got is her approval rating in michigan is higher than his approval rating in michigan right now. so that is an extraordinarily risky proposition. but, look, the focus on the midwest is because, as you point out, the sun belt, if they lose any of these sun belt states, then they have to sweep the midwest, which is why i think you're seeing them spend so much time there. mike memoli with the biden campaign in des moines, iowa, a little offence in the morning, then a little defense later this afternoon with minnesota. they see, mike, what the trump campaign is up to. they're trying to find a path to survive losing sunbelt states. >> yeah. that's right, chuck. i've come back to iowa to report we still don't know who won the iowa caucuses. but in four days we might know

who won iowa's electoral vote. and the preprogram has started. welcome to the campaign in a pandemic and the honking of the horns. but what's interesting about the biden strategy here in the last two days is he may have lost the battle here of nine months ago, but he may have well won the war. because his closing message to iowa is that he was the best democrat to go up against donald trump, he was the democrat who could campaign with democrats up and down, the ticket who could win moderate voters, who could win back these blue wall states. that's exactly what we're seeing. while kamala harris is in texas today, she will be in georgia over the weekend. those expansion states. biden very much focused on those states that -- the first of three stops in three states in one day this entire campaign. iowa, minnesota, wisconsin.

he'll be in michigan. you know you play the obama/biden joint event card once. it's a key state. it's a state where they want to make sure the african-americans vote. and then it's all pennsylvania for the stretch run for joe biden, the state where he's been more than anywhere else he's been. know that that's the checkmate state. if they win pennsylvania, that really cuts off a lot of the path for president trump. so that's where they're focusing these final days, chuck. >> mike memoli, there's no doubt the midwest today, especially when you look at the president's strategy, his is now all about finding the way to sweep the midwest now that he looks like the sun belt is not going to go that way. mike memoli with biden, thank you. but as the campaigns gear up, so has the virus. we're going to go to billings, montana. that's where we find gabe gutierrez. because it has been up in the upper rocky mountains, the upper midwest that has been hit the hardest, the dakotas, wisconsin,

minnesota, and, yes, montana. and billings is like a lot of these larger cities that are surrounded by a lot of rural counties where they get the patient ares from maybe 400 or 500 square mile vicinity, not just from the city of billings. what are you seeing there with the virus, gabe? >> hey there, chuck. you hit it exactly on the head. this hospital -- it's packed at this point. they have three covid icus here. and this is a city of more than 100,000 people. but, yes, it brings in these critical patients from rural areas around the state in montana. montana yesterday reported its second highest daily covid cases since the pandemic began. doctors and nurses we spoke with here, chuck, they're frustrated that more people haven't been wearing masks. one of the doctors we spoke with, chuck, she actually came

out of retirement earlier this year, went to new york to help with the pandemic there, comes back to billings, montana, and now the virus is knocking on her doorstep here. we also spoke with a nurse. his story was really heartbreaking. he's been dealing with this for the last several months. he's self-isolated at home away from his wife and three kids and sleeps in the basement. he says that he has personally held the hand of 23 patients who have passed away. he started doing that after his first patient passed away when he wasn't there. take a listen to some of our conversation. >> it's killing me inside. i'm kind of -- i'm broken. i'm broken. and my colleagues are broken. and people say it's not that big a deal. and i want to take them by the collar and say you don't know what you're talking about.

come see my world for a week. of family members that are broken and the staff members that are broken. >> that's one of the rns here at this covid icu in billings, montana. chuck, as i said, many of the health care workers not just here but in other places we have been to this week, el paso, minneapolis, sioux falls, south dakota, they are all frustrated that more people haven't been taking some of these public health guidelines seriously and they warn what will happen in the months ahead, what will happen when flu season takes hold, what will happen when the winter months come here and it gets here. many people think it could've been prevented, chuck. >> gabe, how are they on supplies? if you're being treated there, are you going to get access to remdesivir? are you going to get access to regeneron? >> you know, that is a challenge with some of the smaller

hospitals here in montana. again, this hospital is one of the bigger ones in the state. they are doing well on supplies, they are doing well on ppe, they are doing well in terms of treatment. but something i have been noticing over the last couple of days as i talk to health care workers across the country, it's not just an issue of bed space, it's an issue of health care workers who are getting sick themselves. and even if they are not sick, some of their family members may get sick. what happens when they have to quarantine, what happens when they have a surge, an even bigger surge in cases and they can't get the staffing that they need? it's already happening in el paso. they've had to bring in hundreds of traveling nurses from across the state to el paso. what happens here in places like montana and more rural areas to get nurses in here when you have simultaneously surges in different parts of the country. that's the big question as we head into winter, chuck. >> i'll tell you, gabe, with

that interview you just had with that nurse there as well, i mean, the toll this is taking on health care workers, month eight of this, month nine of this, i think that is now something we all need to shine a brighter line on. i'm glad you did it. gabe, thank you. we are awaiting a couple of rallies, president trump's in michigan, joe biden's in iowa. we're going to give you a taste of both rallies when they begin. also, what happens with so much winning? it sure seems like losing is on president trump's mind considering what he's been saying at some of his rallies. we'll talk to anthony scaramucci, next. postal service. we are here to deliver your cards, packages and prescriptions. and also deliver the peace of mind knowing that what's important to you-like your ballot-is on its way.

every day, all across america, we deliver for you. and we always will. stand up to moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis. and take. it. on... ...with rinvoq. rinvoq a once-daily pill... ...can dramatically improve symptoms... rinvoq helps tame pain, stiffness, swelling. and for some... rinvoq can even significantly reduce ra fatigue. that's rinvoq relief. with ra, your overactive immune system attacks your joints. rinvoq regulates it to help stop the attack. rinvoq can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious infections and blood clots, sometimes fatal, have occurred... ...as have certain cancers, including lymphoma, and tears in the stomach or intestines, and changes in lab results. your doctor should monitor your bloodwork. tell your doctor about any infections... and if you are or may become pregnant while taking rinvoq. take on ra

talk to your rheumatologist about rinvoq relief. rinvoq. make it your mission. if you can't afford your medicine, abbvie may be able to help. this was the theater i came to quite often. the support we've had over the last few months has been amazing. it's not just a work environment. everyone here is family. if you are ready to open your heart and your home, check us out. we thought for sure that we were done. and this town said: not today. ♪

scott wiener immediately went to work, making sure families could put food on their tables, defending renters facing eviction, securing unemployment benefits, helping neighborhood businesses survive. scott wiener will never stop working until california emerges from this crisis. the bay area needs scott's continued leadership in sacramento. because we know scott is fighting for all of us. re-elect scott wiener for state senate. welcome back. even as president trump claims falsely that polls show him ahead in battleground states, and even as he predicts he will

be victorious next tuesday and warns that the only way he will lose is through massive fraud, it has also become apparent that losing is very much on his mind these days. take a listen to this montage from his rallies. >> could you imagine if i lose? my whole life, what am i going to do? i'm going to say i lost to the worst candidate in the history of politics. [ laughter ] i'm not going to feel so good. maybe i'll have to leave the country. i don't know. if i lose, can you imagine? if i lose, what do i do? nice trucks. [ laughter ] you think i could hop into one of them and drive it away? i'd love to just drive the hell outta here. how the hell do you lose to a guy like this? when i say anything that even uses the word losing, the fake news says, he is thinking about losing, this is a big story, president trump thinks he's going to lose. no, i don't. >> with me now is a man who knows president trump pretty well, anthony scaramucci, former white house communications director and former managing

partner of skybridge capital. i feel like every once in a while the rallies are where he puts himself on the couch and you do here him muse. and some of these asides i think are real thoughts here. but the fact that he's talking about it is i think -- well, you know him well. i feel like it's his way as he's figuring out how to work through all this. >> well, chuck, i got to push back a little bit because let's say he had 40,000 people at the rallies and they were all psychiatrists. it just wouldn't be enough. he would need the rose bowl size of psychiatry. but, i mean, listen, the guy always channels, he's always giving you a tell. the tell is you're not going to hear from him again, the tell is he may disappear for a while. when he thought he was losing last time, he was getting ready to go to scotland to play at his golf course. so we'll have to see what he does. but he's going to lose, if you just look at the magnitude of

the data, i say that as a capital manager or not somebody that's bias, i'm just looking at the data. 25 million additional voters coming into this. it's staggering number. and you know how registration works in the country, the minority registrants are the republicans. there's more independents than democrats, and the democrats know that they're dragging independents with them. he knows he's going to lose. i think he's just trying to figure out if there's one hail mary strike on that map that he's looking at. but it's just a very different race from 2016, which is why he's doing that self-therapy at those rallies. >> look, for what it's worth, he's in the right region to try to find his hail mary. the only path he has is if he somehow recreates what he did in the midwest four years ago. but let me ask you this, anthony. how will he handle this in public if he is the losing presidential candidate? you think he's going to invite

joe biden to the white house? do you think we're going to see the two, a president-elect, biden and a president trump sit next to each other on the big yellow chairs there? >> i absolutely 100% think that. i know i'm the contrarian on this. but just remember something about the president. when he does a news search, he's searchi searching t-r-u-m-p. he could care less about y-o-u. and so that is 100% in his best interest to do that because he's got investigations going on in new york, new york city, possible investigation at sdny. and so i predict all of that smoke about not accepting a peaceful transfer and all that stuff's going to go by the wayside. he'll be remarkably conciliatory and out of character, chuck, because it's in his self-interest to do so. he's going to need to cut a deal with the biden aadministration at some point in the next two years. >> well, you do get at

something, when i've been asked the same question, i always say you have to start with self-interest. what is his self-interest in that moment? you're assuming his self-interest is protecting himself legally. what if there's a political self-interest? i remind people, people ask me, well, what's going to happen to trump after -- if he loses? and i'm, like, well, he may run for president again. and they're like what? and i'm sitting there going why wouldn't he? >> there's no chance. first of all, this is a personality cult that is about to dematerialize. just like the knight king went down in the "game of thrones," there will be new leadership. the republican party will have to have a reckoning. hopefully there will be a soul searching in the republican party and they'll find leaders that will expand the tent as opposed to close down the tent like president trump. >> you're awfully optimistic. >> republican party or the trump

defeat? what am i optimistic about? >> no. you're awfully optimistic that if trump loses that somehow there's going to be this, boy, you and mitt romney are going to lead the republicans and say, hey, it will be a different party. >> it's not going to be me or mitt romney. i'm not suggesting that. >> no, i appreciaknow, but you point. >> that style of republican is also over. but you're not going to take the republican party into an aging white demographic that finds my pillows and catheters. there will be a minority party for a generation. they have to expand the tent of the party. they have to bring in newer, younger leadership. maybe there will be elements of populism to that narrative. but it's got to be a way bigger, way broader tent. you can't go deeper than mr. trump has gone with that face. it's just not a successful strategy if you want to compete. now they've been successful with gerrymandering, and so forth of running the country as a minority party.

but i don't think they can do that demographically in the next two presidential cycles. >> look, you run a big capital fund. as you said, you look at these things, you may have personal opinions, but you're also looking at these things essentially as a capitalist, as an investor. the next six months on this economy what, happens to it, and does it really depend on who wins the presidency? >> so, again, i want to be very objective. i don't necessarily think it's over the next six months will change much who wins. it would really be over the next three years. and don't go by me. look at the jp morgan study, the moody study, the goldman sachs study. all three of their economic teams have said that the biden economic plan is better for the economy. moodies is even saying it's plus 7.5 million jobs. for me i'm just going to be very objective. either one will be okay primarily, chuck, because of the

federal reserve and those policies will be unchanged. think about 2009 and '10 in the aftermath of the global crisis. the federal reserve was toggled down to zero interest rates. that's what we're doing right now. and so therefore that's what markets and the economy really care about. i do hope though that we get a stimulus, whoever wins this race i predict it to be vice president biden, but i hope we get a massive stimulus for lower and middle-income people because it's sorely needed right now. >> well, there is no doubt. it's almost an absolutely necessary. i think on that score perhaps once the election palaces, cooler heads will prevail on that. anthony scaramucci, it's always great to get your perspective. thank you for offering it to us. >> good to be here. the i didn't love the rose bowl analogy, though. i got to work on my analogies. >> we got to socially distance. the governor of california wouldn't allow it. there's a lot of complications there. >> it needs a lot of help there.

you're talking heavy volume. [ laughter ] >> i hear you, fair enough. thank you, anthony. we are still awaiting president trump in michigan, joe biden in iowa. and once one of them begins to speak at their rallies, we will bring you those remarks live, and we'll bring you a taste of the other frontrunners as well. we've got some new poll numbers in one of the states that is already counting ballots. why north carolina could give us a preview of what's happening nationwide. ♪ ♪ ♪ the expertise that helps keep hospitals clean, is helping keep businesses clean too. look for the ecolab science certified seal. ♪ each day i wake up. but i wish you were here instead.

they need to see how good you were. to see how good we are. i'm out here for you today. for us. all of us. ♪ keep going.

but not every tomato ends in the same kind of heinz ketchup. because you can't be everyone's favorite ketchup without making a ketchup for everyone. ♪ i feel good ♪ i knew that i would, now ♪ i feel good ♪ get a dozen double crunch shrimp for one dollar with any steak entrée. only at applebee's.

welcome back. because of the millions of early votes that have already been cast in some battleground states that we know will count those early votes very slowly, we don't know when we're going to know who wins the presidency, when we've called enough states for 270 electoral votes for one side or the other. but there is one state that is already processing its votes. and that is north carolina. north carolina is right around the national average in some key demographic areas that we are following this election. watching how trump and biden perform with these groups could tell us a lot about what's happening across the country. no one battleground state is a perfect microcosm of the country, but north carolina isn't, you know, isn't bad when you look at it. florida and north carolina probably both the closest that we got these days. as we mentioned earlier our brand new nbc marist poll shows joe biden with a surprising six-point lead over president

trump. this poll shows thom tillis trailing cunningham by ten points. that could be one of the races that is the tipping point in the senate. joining me now is the republican governor, and democratic strategist. and i'm going to make a prediction and assume that both of you are not going to fully agree with our poll numbers or at least the spread there. but -- >> right. >> pat, i'm going to go to you first because you did say something to me earlier today when i was on your show. is that you did acknowledge -- you thought the democrats were ahead in playing four corners here a bit. explain. >> yeah. i think it's tobacco road politics here. if you feel like you're ahead, you hold the ball and let the

clock run out, try not to make any mistakes, hide as much as possible. and the republicans are everywhere on the media, there are grassroots efforts. the president's here. get as much free publicity as possible. first of all they've been outspent probably 3-1 in north carolina so they're shooting the three-pointers right now. i frankly strongly disagree with those polls based upon what i've just seen in the last two days i think it's dead even right now in north carolina. and it's going to be exactly who comes out to vote and what the demographics are with regard to votes. i just saw a report with some people in raleigh saying that right now the african-american vote is down as compared to 2016 by several percentage points. and it's those minor factors that could mean both the president race and the senate race. it's going to be very interesting. but that's what i see on the field. cal cunningham, the senate candidate, he's disappeared. we do not see him at all because

he doesn't want to answer any questions regarding his personal matters. >> brad woodhouse, i'm going to guess that you don't think the lead is as big as our new poll shows. frankly, i'm surprised by the margins. i'm going to be honest with folks. it is a little bigger than i thought. i think the race is a lot tighter than that but it's possible we're finding something here. the surprising thing to me is the senate race. it just never did close the way republicans thought it might. >> well, i think that's right. and, look, i do agree, i think the margin here is definitely larger than i think. i agree with governor mccory there. but i think if you look at the early vote, and we've had 4.1 million north carolinans vote already in north carolina. 4.7 million voted in the entire election in 2016. and if you think about the suburbs and how important the suburban vote is in this election, how important it is to

vice president biden, you see such a surge of votes in orange county, durham county, mecklenburg county. but suburban votes that are turning out. and i believe they're turning out for joe biden. white, educated, college-educated women are turning out. so i think the race is much closer. and i'll para phrase barack obama here, chuck. don't look at polls. vote. and i think that's what people are doing in north carolina. and it's not a surprise that as the vote increases in north carolina, republicans are in core trying to keep ballots from being counted. they were in the supreme court last night trying to cut down the number of days that you could count ballots after the election. >> let me ask you both to help us -- let me ask you both here. i don't want to get into a fight over litigating ballots. be my experts. help me follow election night. help me on election night. north carolina's going to be one of the early states that we're going to get a lot of vote out

of. pat mccory, give me the three counties you are going to be watching that will tell you whether it's a red night or a blue night. >> well, the big issue's going to be how big a lead will biden and cunningham win wake county and mecklenburg county and possibly guilford county. these are very similar to my governor's race where i got beat pretty badly in the urban areas. and then compare those to how big a turnout they are in the smaller towns around -- greenville, the gastonias, the hendersonvilles, the boones, the rural mid-sized towns of 100,000 people or less. compare those two numbers because it's going to be catch-up for the republicans. and in my case, for example, the entire night i was behind and then i caught up took the lead by 100,000. and then they found some votes in durham. and next thing i knew i was down by 5,000. so out of 4.6 million votes, i

was down by 5,000 after being declared the winner. it could be that close with both the tillis and the trump/biden race. >> brad, give me a couple of counties that you think i should be watching. >> i'm looking east of 95. i'm looking to that area that was known for that voted for jesse helms but nass county, counties east of 95 that have rural population but a lot of african-american votes, a lot of white rural votes. if the margins there shrink for trump over what he did in 2016, i think it will be a bad night. >> i would agree what you both have agreed on. what you both have agreed on is that there is no swing counties. these are all going to be margin counties. it's fascinating, north carolina, no swing areas being

it's a swing state. thank you both for providing your insight on this. much appreciated. >> thank you very much. president trump's rally in michigan is underway right now. so, let's listen in for a few minutes. >> long, dark winter. that's wonderful. that's just what our country needs is a long, dark winter and a leader that talks about it. you know, i didn't have the privilege of going to my basement in the white house. i didn't have the privilege of going to a beautiful room on the second or third floor and staying there for a year and a half because i'm president of the united states. so i didn't have that -- i had to do my job. and i said, you know, i could catch this thing, and if i do, i do, and i'm going to get better fast. i didn't know i was going to get better that fast. that was like in and out. you know, i wasn't feeling great but i got better. and it used to be they'd say you have lifetime immunity, right?

you're immune. now it's different because they said to me i'm good for four months. they brought it down from lifetime to four months. but you have to do your job, you have to get back, you have to open up your states. [ cheers and applause ] we got to get our governor to open up our state here. don't we? don't worry, november 4th they'll announce all these states, all these democrat-run states will be open. [ chanting "lock her up" ] >> not me. they blame me every time that happens. every time i mention her name, crooked hillary's name, joe biden's name, frankly. and where's hunter?

where's hunter? there's hunter right there. he's out by the truck. look at him make a couple of bucks, hunter. hunter's done very well for an unemployed person, right? for years unemployed and then he -- prescription dovato is for some adults who are starting hiv-1 treatment or replacing their current hiv-1 regimen. with...just 2 medicines... in 1 pill, dovato is as effective as a 3-drug regimen to help you reach and stay undetectable. research shows people who take hiv treatment as prescribed... and get to and stay undetectable... can no longer transmit hiv through sex. don't take dovato if you're allergic to any of its ingredients... or if you take dofetilide. hepatitis b can become harder to treat while taking dovato. do not stop dovato without talking to your doctor,... as your hepatitis b may worsen or become life-threatening. serious or life-threatening side effects can occur, including allergic reactions,... lactic acid build up, and liver problems. if you have a rash

and other symptoms of an allergic reaction,... stop taking dovato and get medical help right away. tell your doctor if you have kidney or liver problems, including hepatitis b or c,... or if you are, may be, or plan to be pregnant. your doctor may prescribe a different medicine... than dovato if you plan to be pregnant or if pregnancy is confirmed during the first trimester. dovato may harm your unborn baby. use effective birth control while taking dovato. most common side effects are headache, nausea, diarrhea, trouble sleeping,... tiredness, and anxiety. so much goes into who i am. hiv medicine is one part of it. ask your doctor about dovato-i did.

the unfair money bail system. he, accused of rape. while he, accused of stealing $5. the stanford rapist could afford bail; got out the same day. the senior citizen could not; forced to wait in jail nearly a year. voting yes on prop 25 ends this failed system, replacing it with one based on public safety.

because the size of your wallet shouldn't determine whether or not you're in jail. vote yes on prop 25 to end money bail. welcome back. the united states is now logged more than 9 million confirmed coronavirus cases since the pandemic began. and we just learned that the governor of georgia and the first lady will have to quarantine after exposure. we seem to be sprinting toward a grim projection from dr. fauci over the summer that the u.s. could reach a base line of 100 ins cases a day. seems like that's not going to happen, right? all signs point to us getting very close to that by election day if not sooner. yesterday was a record-breaking 90,000 cases that were recorded. our daily average has ticked up to nearly 80,000 a day when you look at the seven-day moving average. as cases radio iz in dozens of states, so too are

hospitalizations. nearly a thousand people died from the coronavirus yesterday in this country. there is good news in that they have limited the death toll. but, remember, it's still a thousand a day. north dakota has more total cases per capita than anywhere in the country reporting more than 1,200 cases yesterday alone, a record high. the state is struggling to keep up with a record number of hospitalizations as well. there is not a statewide mask mandate in north dakota, though a few areas have issued orders to try to curb the spread. fargo is the first north dakota city to issue a mask mandate just last week. joining me now is the fargo mayor who is also a practicing surgeon, dr. tim mahone. you're unique, you're one of the unicorns of elected politics in this pandemic, an elected official and a doctor here. this mask mandate, i know why you're doing it. let me ask you this, how are you going to enforce it?

>> we've had great compliance with it. we started our mask mandate two weeks ago, and i am pleased to say that ten cities and reservations throughout the state of north dakota have also adopted a mask mandate. the state of medicine north dakota now has 54% enforcement. we didn't have compliance before. we did have one gentleman that best behaved in the coffee shop and we did enforce a trespass on him, and he had to leave the shop because he did not wear a mask. we find that most of the time when you put what's called a mandate, that seems to have great power. people feel that that is something that is truly something you have to do. so i've been very pleased with the compliance. and i'm also seeing our numbers starting to drop a bit. we are starting to plateau.

so i'm extremely pleased it's having a positive effect. >> look, what is your next barometer on whether you feel as if you would have to do more than just a mask mandate? what are you looking at next? i mean, you just answered my immediate question, which was are you seeing some results? you're starting to see a plateau. do you think you can actually get the curb to bend downward just with a mask mandate? or do you think you're going to need to do more? >> we also did phase orange, which means our businesses only have 25% occupancy. and some size of groups can only be 50 people. weddings, funerals are no longer allowed to go forward. when they have somebody like the mayor says it so we have to do it, it seems like businesses then embrace putting a sign up and that happens. we have put out there that if the numbers don't start to come into control, death rate doesn't

continue to climb, hospitalizations today are 193. if those paradigms don't change, then we may have to go more into the economics. what are we going to do with businesses and are you going to slow down the economy. >> mr. mayor, the north dakota rise has been happening for a couple of months now. we've all been watching it. and i know you've been dealing with it. why now, why wasn't this implemented a month ago or two months ago? what's your explanation for that? >> one of the things the state of north dakota has tested in essence 105% of the population. i think if other states would test more, you might find your numbers higher, because what's happened is a lot of people who are positive, asymptomatic, aren't being found. so i think what's happened is we just finally found out what the true number was in our population. we thought we only had 2% in positives. we're now 13% of the people

tested are positive. we found more tests and we found more going on. and initially we were way low at the summertime. so we had a real low negative in the community. so we thought, wow, we escaped this thing, but we really haven't. and you know and i know this virus is just kind of a wiley coyote. it goes all over your community. you don't really know it's there. but the schools started, and we had more people that were together in small groups and now we see our numbers start to climb again. so we're going to be working hard on social gatherings. if you wear a mask we know that in the hair salon business if you wear a mask, it doesn't seem to spread in that community. in the nursing homes we do contact tracing in all our positives. we're much more aggressive in our testing than trying to track down who's spreading it, who's got it. >> mayor tim mahone of fargo, north dakota, also a surgeon, like i said, a unicorn in this pandemic, an elected official with a medical background,

always very helpful, and i appreciate you coming on and sharing your perspective with us, sir. thank you. >> thank you very much. very much enjoyed being on. and i hope we all do better in the next two weeks. we're going to work on it real hard. >> just wear a mask, at the end of the day. let's try that first and we can all go from there. thank you, mr. mayor. we are still waiting on joe biden to begin speaking in des moines, iowa. and once he begins, we will dip into that as well. as you saw we dipped into the president and you pick any two minutes and apparently you're going to get a "lock her up" chant which you saw in there, claiming he didn't start it. the governor of michigan there, there was an attempted kidnapping, not something to joke about on that front. but, once again, it was just the two minutes that we cherry-picked there, we didn't cherry pick. still ahead, what you may not see coming. keep it here.

[ engines revving ] ♪ it's amazing to see them in the wild like th-- shhh. [ engine revs ] for those who were born to ride, there's progressive. and at fidelity, you'll get planning and advice to help you prepare for the future, without sacrificing what's most important to you today. because with fidelity, you can feel confident that the only direction you're moving is forward. what do i know? i'm just a kid. our generation's too young to vote. i was one year off. kind of gets me mad a little bit. the pressure for my generation to address the climate crisis is growing. we can't ignore the climate. it's really bad. i would say, to the older generation cherry pick. planet cherry pick. will be (hopefully). so please

please please please vote for me. i'm daylan... i'm gideon... i'm amelia and i approve this message. ♪ iand i want to tell youe about my husband joe. i first met joe two years after a car accident injured his sons and killed his wife and his baby daughter. his life had been shattered. but as one of joe's favorite quotes reminds us, "faith sees best in the dark." joe's faith helped him channel his grief into purpose. it gave him the strength to fight hard for other people's families in the senate, and then take a two hour train ride home every day to be there for his own. right now a lot of families are hurting, and i know in my heart that if we entrust this nation to joe, he will do for these families what he did for ours. bring us together. help us find light in the darkness.

keep hope for the future alive in all of us. i'm joe biden, and i approve this message. before money, people tools, cattle, grain, even shells represented value. then currency came along. they made it out of copper, gold, silver, wampum. soon people decided to put all that value into a piece of paper, then proceeded to wave goodbye to value, printing unlimited amounts of money as they passed the buck to the future. that's why it's time for digital currency and your investment in the grayscale funds. go digital. go grayscale. economics? algorithms? magic? turns out, it's you. doing your thing. dreaming dreams. building new worlds. it's why we built our workspace technology.

to help you do your best work and to see what you can become. you're made for bigger things. welcome back. the battle for control of the senate is up for grabs this year. may not know for days who's won in the tightest cases or in the case of georgia could go to a runoff in january and while there's races we think are likely to flip, alabama and colorado for sure, arizona on the cusp we think, the top three on our most likely to flip list, look at the more unlikely seats to switch party and could see

potential upsets. kansas, texas and alaska. that candidate is an independent who's officially aligned with the democrats and while republicans hope to wrestle a seat in michigan. jessica, good to talk with you. look. we love to talk about the tightest races and we have all talked about montana and iowa. i did a segment on north carolina and those are the two that will tell us a lot on election night but we all like to talk about the upset specials, too. these are 11 through 14 on our list. these are in your sort of lean categories, not yet toss-ups. michigan, kansas, texas, alaska. let's again with michigan. chances of an upset here and how does it happen if it happens. >> i think it has to happen by

president trump pulling closer first of all because you have an average of polls of him down seven or eight and while i think republican john jamts is the best recruiter across the board this is a year where they have little offense opportunities and keeping democrats on the toes here and you do see some republicans that think this could be a surprise on election night. another $4 million in here. one of the most expensive races on tv we have in the past two weeks with democrats and republicans putting money here. this race could really sort of upset senate democrats' math if they lose here. more seats they have to win and they have more opportunities because we rate 12 republican held seats as competitive and 2 for democrats but this is someone to watch. i think it's in the lean democrat column because of the other factors we see happening in michigan. >> it is hard to find a place where you're going to find a

senate candidate for from one party winning a race when the presidential goes the other way. however, that brings me to the next three races. i think in all three cases if somehow democrats win they will have to win in states that trump carries texas, maybe not the case. so let me start with kansas. barbara bolier, does she need to find trump voters to pull her over the finish line? >> i think she's certainly got to have some trump voters because this isn't a state he'll win by 2 or 3 points but not the same margin he won it by in 2016 and could be a high to mid single digit race and she has that crossover appeal being a former republican herself. you have roger marshal that raised very little money, did have a tough primary and really a lot of republicans i talk to think he should have gotten the

act together but you have again like we have seen in so many races, it's a democratic explosion happening but marshal has got to make it up in the rural areas and bollier can't be blon out in those areas, too. republicans were worried about the seat two, three weeks ago but they have gotten back better poll numbers. they feel better act it. >> i was going to say it reminds me of 2014 when the same seat got a little hinky three weeks out and then brought in the resources and parulled it out. i have a feeling texas you will say hinges on the presidential so go to alaska. what does an al gross victory look like in that state? >> he does convince enough people that he is independent despite being on the ballot as a democrat. i think got a blow there he couldn't be listed as an

independent and it is -- listen. this is a state, too, probably i think we can have of these races here perhaps aside from texas a really close presidential result, too. alaska is notoriously hard to poll. >> yep. >> seeing a lot of resources flow to this state. thereto another third party candidate on the ballot. this is a race we don't know on election night because they have to bring in the ballots by dog sleds. >> that's a reminder we won't know for perhaps if i remember in the old ted stevens race took i think a good six to ten days for us to finally get all the ballots in by dog sled. i'm out of time on texas but i guess you believe that the texas senate race hinges on the presidential first and foremost and then go from there. unfortunately. i'm a bit out of time.

>> there are more cornyn biden voters i think. >> i buy they exist. thank you for being with us. joe biden is set to begin speaking any moment from now and then katy tur will bring you those remarks live because she takes over right after this short break. so you only pay for what you need? really? i didn't-- aah! ok. i'm on vibrate. aaah! only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ we started by making the cloud easier to manage. but we didn't stop there. we made a cloud flexible enough to adapt to any size business. no matter what it does, or how it changes. and we kept going. so you only pay for what you use. because at dell technologies, we stop...at nothing.

♪ this was the theater i came to quite often. ♪ the support we've had over the last few months has been amazing. i have a soft spot for local places. it's not just a work environment. everyone here is family. gonna go ahead and support him, get my hair cut, leave a big tip. if we focus on our local communities, we can find a way to get through this together. thank you. ♪ if you are ready to open your heart and your home, check us out. get out and about and support our local community. we thought for sure that we were done. and this town said: not today.

♪