joining us now is jon erpenbach, he and 13 other state senators left the state in an attempt to halt passage of the union-stripping bill. senator erpenbach, good to see you. >> good to see you too and welcome back. >> thank you. things are going great for your side of things coming up to tuesday's elections. what are your expectations for these elections, what do you think is going to happen? >> well, i tell you what, rachel, we could win anywhere from two seats to four or five seats, it depends. it is close in two seats and we are ahead in three other seats. keep in mind, we're ahead in republican areas, republican state senate seats, some of these seats have been held by a republican for over 100 years so just the fact that we're leading in three of them and it's a tossup in three other seats it says a lot for what we're trying to do. >> one of those democrats has successfully defended his seat, two more, what do you think about those races? >> we have bob wirch in southeastern wisconsin, it is built on labor tradition, goes way back as far as labor families are concern. bob should

joining us once again is wisconsin state senator, jon erpenbach, one of the senators that left the state earlier this year. senator erpenbach, i see you are among friends tonight. how is the mood there in madison? >> it's good, rachel. i'd like to introduce you to madison, wisconsin. madison, wisconsin, rachel maddow. [ cheers and applause ] >> that is very, very, very impressive. >> they love ya. >> i guess i'm moving. >> yeah, you should move to madison. you'd love it here. >> i have a feeling that might be a good idea. senator, what do you think is going to happen today? we heard confidence from the democratic party the last couple of weeks, but in recent days we've heard a lot of caution these races are likely due to be close, if not in some cases impossible for democrats to get some pick ups. >> right, i do think we'll do very well tonight, three or four seats is possible, but we're in uncharted territory if you look at any election cycle and that usually means a lot of trouble for incumbents and undecides usually break 2-1 for the normal challenger. what we're dealing with, we've n

jon erpenbach, we'll have him on "the ed show" later tonight, we have the ground game, boots opt ground, but we don't have the money they have. this is a battle of two titans going at it in two different ways. obviously, you can't underscore the impact the tea party groups have had here the last five days, and that's why it's so hard to judge what's going to happen in some of these other districts other than the 14th, which we were talking about. a lot of it is unpredictable. what does a great turnout mean? does that mean the citizens united money worked, does that mean republicans have awakened to support a governor in the 30 percentile when it comes to approval? this race has everything. it is so futuristic, it is so on the cutting edge, it is transforming how politics is going to be run, i think, in this country. and it is a real message to ohio with senate bill 5 that is now finally on the ballot, where they got far more signatures than they needed. it's a real message to michigan where rick snyder and his radical agenda and some of the things they have passed in that state such as