host: josh shapiro, you're from the philadelphia area. bloomberg has a number of key counties to look at, among them chester, a lehigh, and others. why are these so critical to the campaign in november? guest: chair gleason will agree that the swing areas likely in the suburbs. montgomery county, that represent on the board of commissioners, is the largest among them. when you look at how that area has swung in past elections, that determines the winner. if you look at the poll that came out today, president obama has a mass of 25 point lead in the five county areas and he has maintained that lead throughout in all of the various polls. i think ronny's extreme positions on, for example, a woman's right to choose really puts him at odds with moderates and suburban sensibility in pennsylvania. i'm confident that the numbers the president will show in the suburbs will propel him to victory. host: as you know, he famously referred to the state as this. "to make pennsylvania close, mitt romney must win big in alabama." what does he mean by tha

robert gleason and josh shapiro, question. give me one county that will determine when the state is going. will be a bellwether for you. guest: i will look hard at chester county. it is our strongest county in southeastern pennsylvania. i expect them to perform exceptionally. if they do, that means the other counties -- they did a great job four years ago. they carried about by 200,000. i expect us to break even this year. host: he leave the area around the philadelphia area when you say caller counties. second largest number of republicans in the state after bucks county. our most republican county in the southeast is chester county. i will look closely at chester county to see how it does. philadelphia is important to us, too. barack obama carried philadelphia by 475,000 votes. four years ago. that was a crusher. there is no question about that. i do not think we will lose it by that many. i'd think it sets us up for a major wind. -- win. remember what the inquirer poll said. barack obama has never gotten more than 49% in an

host: we have a response beginning with josh shapiro.uest: i served seven years in the state house. we work to make our elections accessible by extending the time frame for early voting. i think it is important that we make our elections as open and accessible as possible to not just democrats and republicans, but independents and those in other parties as well. host: there is no early voting in pennsylvania and neighboring ohio. why is that? guest: the powers that be have rejected that in the past. i think they are wrong. we should have early voting. guest: i am against early voting. if you want to vote early, you can vote absentee. governor corbett has had the two budgets on time, which josh could never do. a democratic governor like rendell sent us into the ground and we had to bring the republicans in to provide us with leadership to get government under control and make it more darfur in again. i would like to ask -- more job for in again. are you going to deliver 80,000 votes this time? guest: there is a 20,000 margin in chester co