and in north carolina, kay haggin up by over a point over tom tillis. and for a closer look at the battleground states, go to mike and shera is politics editor. start with the north carolina race. this is one that republicans were confident about winning when the campaign season started 5 or 8 years ago it seems like. but it looks like it will go down to the wire and kay haggin could retain her society? >> yes, she has run a strong campaign. and tom tillis is the speaker of the north carolina legislature and it damaged his campaign in the long run. it was on the top of the target list for republicans in the start of the cycle and people were spending millions on the air waves in the state for the race a year ago. a year ago and it is probably will be the most expensive senate race. tillis had a rough summer but seemed to have closed the gap in the last couple of weeks and the other thing to remember is that early voting is important in this state and if democrats have a good operation that helps kay haggin to survive tomorrow. >> it seems like tom tilli

for republicans and i would say if they boat kay haggin they probably have the senate. and new hampshire earlier in the night with scott brown and gene sha heen. it is a tougher game for republicans, but these are the first two states that will come in and some ways it could be an early night if republicans are winning those states and looks like a republican majority. and if they don't it could be in the west and longer night. >> so many of them are close together and certainly within the margin of error. the president has had so many missteps and why rrnt republicans further ahead right now? >> a lot of the states, democrats have had success in localizing the races. and the republicans wanted to nationalize it and make it all about president obama and you saw it in louisiana. democrat landrieu doesn't want to be associated with him. she's wanting to talk about what she can bring. and in alaska ba gich talks about the fishing issues. and hunting issues. is that going to be enough when you have the president under 40 percent and in the 30s in a lot of the states that mi

think some places may have felt it would not be a woip out for the democrats and if mishil nun and kay hagginn north carolina could hang on to the narrow leads and the democrats, it would not be as bad as it turned out to be. but if you took those polls away and in the journalist would talk to more people and not base their analysis on what those numbers show, we would have had a better picture of the midterms that there was a republican wave building. we don't know how big before election day but we blew it on this one. >> sounds like reporters are talking to people who grooe agree with them and they missed the story altogether. senator john thoum was on the air with us and he felt it was a photoop on the part of the president. >> there is it a lot of the posturing. president obama had the 73 nows conference and i felt like i needed a drink of kentucky bourbon. and he would like to work with republicans. and i would like to be more optimistic that the city produces more than hot air. but i think we are heading to grid lock and the sides finding common ground would be nice. but they are so po