thank you, john ralston. great to be out here in the city of great superficiality, but i'm not going to say that in this great town. thank you. we'll have pregame coverage tomorrow night live from las vegas starting at 7:00 p.m. tomorrow night eastern. after the debate at 11:00 eastern we'll have all the reaction and announcements from the spin room again. bill clinton will be out here come. he is already out here. >> another big break for hillary clinton after republican staffer on the benghazi committee says the investigation by that committee is what a lot of democrats suspected all along. just a partisan witch-hunt against the former secretary of state. this is good news for hillary. >> as house republicans scramble to fill their leadership vacuum, republican voters still prefer donald trump. the rejection the republican establishment is having on both fronts, don't you see? >> on the eve of the first democratic debate, is it too late for joe biden to make his move? >> finally, let me finish with joe bide

andrea mitchell, my friend, john reca ralston, and "the nation." joan walsh writing for a real newspaper. and eddie rendell joins us from philly. governor rendell, i'm so glad to have you on on a debate tonight, because you are a debater. hillary clinton has three challenges tonight. this endless push for her to be humanize herself, whatever that means, from her corner people. number two, take down bernie a little bit, at least stop his growth. and three, keep biden out of the race. can she do a triple tonight? a hat trick? >> sure, i think she can. not saying she will, but she certainly can. she has a good sense of humor, which she showed on all of these tv shows the last few weeks. she should employ that a little bit. that helps humanize her. secondly, she comes across in these debates, and you remember in 2008, chris, against probably the greatest debater in public speaking, if politics in our lifetime, she held her own in 2008, for sure. she comes across as very

. >> let me bring in one of my favorite political reporters to talk with, john ralston, host of ralstonon pbs in nevada. he owns the beat when it comes to nevada politics. john, these numbers that we put up last night, the fact that nevada's on the rise when it comes to union membership, no other swing state is on the rise. no other state in the union is seeing a rise in unimembership. this really has become, should we say that nevada is now starting to move in a much bluer direction than eight years ago? >> funny you mentioned that, talking to someone the other day, about nevada being a purple state. there's two components, one is the union membership itself. we're a right to work state, but the power of labor is about to go to a painters union event that hillary is having and hillary and bernie and o'malley have gone to visit the culinary union, which is the most powerful, 55,000 members. it's half hispanic or more, it's the latino turn-out operation in nevada and the latino vote is going to be large in the caucus, but also will play a big role in november of 2016, may end up being 20

we are joined by our colleague as well as the nostradamus of nevada politics, john ralston.d to see both of you. give us a sense, the caucus state matters a lot. give us a sense of the relative weaknesses of the sanders and clinton organizations. >> there is essentially no sanders organization. bernie sanders held his first organizational meeting in nevada. he has had not any presence here before that. hillary clinton has had an infrastructure set up for months. she hired all the people who help to beat her when obama was in the caucus in 2008, and people who helped her in that caucus. she has latino leaders, latino voters obviously important here. she the only one with any organization. mark: what would you guess the floor and ceiling is on the size of electorate next year? what is the most that will turn up, what is the fewest? >> there isn't that much interest right now. it's going to be tough to tell. certainly not what it was when obama-- 30,000 i think? mark: might be lower. >> potentially lower. it's still october. we look at this in these silos by the day. by the tim

fellow haircare product consumer, phil mattingly, well as the nostradamus of nevada politics, john ralstonod to see both of you. age before beauty. give us a sense -- the caucus state matters a lot. to the democratic caucus. give us a sense of the relative strengths and weaknesses of the sanders and clinton organizations. >> there is essentially no sanders organization. bernie sanders held his first organizational meeting in nevada just over the weekend. they had a few hundred people to talk about it. he has had not any presence here before that. hillary clinton has had an infrastructure set up for months. she hired all the people who help to beat her when obama was in the caucus in 2008, and people who helped her in that caucus. so she has latino leaders, latino voters obviously important here. so she has him far out. she the only one with any organization. mark: what would you guess the floor and ceiling is on the size of the electorate when we get to next year -- what is the most that will turn up, what is the fewest? do that think there is going to be much interest, right now, mark. it

john ralston is the host of the show on pbs "ralston live."s correctly predicted every event in nevada in history. >> how do i live up to this? >> nevada is an early voting state. third state for the democrats after iowa and new hampshire. for the republicans it comes right after south carolina. it will be crucial. how is it different particularly for the democrats? how is it different than iowa and new hampshire? >> of course, we're a much more demographically difbers state, right? iowa and new hampshire are superwhite states. a completely different system. iowa is a caucus, nevada's a cauc caucus. that's the only similarity. the latino vote here will be huge. a huge percentage of the democratic vote which is what hillary clinton knew and why she got some infrastructure built up here among latinos with some latino leaders helping organize her campaign. she has a huge headstart in the democratic race. >> of course, that's quite intentional. new hampshire she's trailing in the polls to bernie sanders. iowa getting very, very close. so if things

former republican national committee chairman michael steele, long-time nevada political reporter john ralstonand democratic strategist robert zimmerman who is a hillary clinton supporter. john, start off with you. we had the campaign manager on for bernie sanders. he was saying that some of the early numbers in showed that his candidate won the debate. we don't have any polls out exactly right now that show a solid number. i think that anyone could confirm. the bottom line is both bernie sanders and hillary clinton certainly appeared strong when they were asked those tough questions. >> yeah. listen, tamron, i think that bernie sanders did well for the audience that he was going to appeal to anyway. he roused the faithful. maybe he brought in some new people because there were so many people watching the debate who didn't know that much about him before. but he got lost a few times on foreign policy i thought, and his essential defense of hillary clinton on e-mails was a great moment for her. i just think she did exactly what she needed to do. she towered over the field last night. maybe it i

long-time nevada political reporter john ralston, host of "ralston live" on pbs state wide in nevada. also former vermont governor and national democratic committee chairman, howard dean. john, start with you. obviously peter's report makes some points about the unions so far not backing hillary clinton with. what the numbers look like there on the ground. you know better than anyone else the importance of the state because of the early voting. >> yeah. listen, tamron, hillary got organized in nevada very, very early. she's been here for months. she learned the lessons of 2008 where she didn't like caucus states. she hired people who were here for obama in 2008. she hired a lot of latino activis activists. the latino vote is very, very important here. it is one-quarter of the population. it will be significant in the caucus. bernie sanders held his first organizational meeting in nevada this weekend, tamron. those numbers do not surprise me at all. hillary is in very, very good shape here. i think she knew somehow way back when that she needed to create a fire wall in nevada in case i