education. we must provide the funding for education. when we invest early we won't have to agree about the corrections. it's a crime we spend twice as much on convicts than allocations in the schools. >> moderator: the next question will be asked by rachel hubbard and it will be directed to representative dorman. >> moderator: in the past few years will also issues ranging from tax credits to abortion to the repeal of common core have had the constitutionality challenged. some argue it could be spent on other things. what is the role of the governor in the constitutionality of the laws that you sign. >> certainly any bills that come across my desk the number one thing i will look at is the constitutionality of the language and make sure that the dollars are spent wisely. we can't continue to waste on the wall suits suits processing

suits against and that happened time and time again. i asked the office how much has been spent and they wouldn't give me the figure. anytime the any time the legislator asks for the figures on the appropriations committee that's wrong. we should receive those numbers so we can do a better job. but the point of the budget this year. we were given a $7.2 billion budget bill at 10 a.m. in the morning on the last friday of the session and the first vote was that 12:32 and a half years later when the legislators don't have the proper time to review the budget we certainly cannot see the best type of budget for oklahoma. we must be responsible with those taxpayers dollar and make sure that the legislation that passes is constitutional and it goes back to the thorough review from one year and that's why we will see better legislation and opportunities. the money that is currently being wasted should québec into

the classrooms to teachers for a pay raise, to protect benefits and certainly to help students receive resources to achieve their highest potential. >> moderator: governor you have 90 seconds. fallin: every time that we review a law passed by the legislature we get the review with the legal counsel as well as the legislative staff and their team so i don't think there's anyone in the legislature that passes the bill that would be the visit unconstitutional but there are challenges that are passed and signed by the legislature and by the governor. we certainly don't want to waste money on the challenges to lawsuits and constitutionality of the law. there are some that people challenge that are constitutional and that reflect the law and some are ruled the

other way but we don't want to waste taxpayer money and we want to make sure the walls we pass our constitutional and i agree with the representative we do want to put money towards education and towards moving the taxes which he opposes but i'm for lowering taxes and the state of oklahoma if had wanted more towards the state services that make a difference like mental health and substance abuse and focusing on prison reform and the patrolmen we were able to give them a raise and corrections more money this year. those are important topic for the state putting money into roads and bridges. we need to focus on the resources of the state. >> moderator: the next question will be asked by mr. pryor and it will be directed to governor fallin. >> moderator: following the 20 those of 2013 including the two that killed seven elementary

school students each of you pushed plans to the building of storm shelters and safe rooms in schools. neither of the proposals passed. if you are elected what will you propose in the next session to address the issue of school safety and security and why do you think that your plan is the best idea? fallin: let me say that all the time and as we had in the community and in fact all the different devastating things in the last four years has been very disheartening for the state of oklahoma. i was there on the ground during the 20 those within a couple hours after it hit to walk through the devastation to walk through the school and to know we had a loss of life and work with first responders and i just want to shout out to the first responders and the charities that worked to help people suffering during a great loss at

that time but we want to make sure that children are safe in their schools and i do propose that we would allow schools and local control of locals districts into systems to have the opportunity to vote for the bond if they wanted to put an safe in safe rooms or some other safety precautions. actually the representative did propose that a couple of years ago the same position when he talked about increasing property taxes. the voters would be voting on it and that is local cultural. this year he proposed the spend $500 million on a bond issue that would have to come from somewhere out of the state budget. both of us care deeply about children and safety and storm shelters but to answer the question i will continue to push that we have that local control so that communities can decide what they need in their individual communities. >> moderator: thank you. representative to have 90 seconds.

dorman: thank you. this is good but made the decision more than anything else. working with family members and other parents trying to get an initiative passed to improve school security we must look at the different options. we found a better solution than raising taxes and found we could use the franchise tax to back up the bombs and match the dollars that would provide the $2 billion necessary to build storm shelters in the schools and improve school securities against the terrorist activity but that meant opposition when the governor and others in her party because they did not want to see the bond issue go through that we did pass the issue to repair the capitol building. so, i do see a flip-flop there and a flaw in the decision-making policy and the rationale when we chose that the capitol building was more important than the public schools for the kids and

grandkids. we must do what we can to ensure that the schools are adequate and provide security. the governor championed the property tax you cannot slice it any other direction she was pushing a bill that would increase property taxes locally. we have provisions of the constitution to protect against tax increases. we will not see legislation go through that the legislature's holy will legislature's holy will push the tax increase. so her saying that i've been for tax increases is a flawed logic. >> moderator: the next question is by rick green and it will be directed to representative dorman. >> moderator: but is oklahoma's biggest environmental problem and what is your approach to solving it? dorman: we must work to provide the necessary resources. we had the districts in high school they gave me an opportunity to learn about the problems we face.

the dams were built for 50 year life but it's been over 70 years since they've been fixed. we must provide the proper infrastructure and make sure those federal dollars oklahoma pays for their taxes come back so we do not have to raise taxes and we shouldn't ask our citizens to put more. we've seen the tax credits issued and the numbers and the estimates say that we almost $7 billion of tax credits for businesses with corporate welfare. we must reassess those and use the money to be put back into make sure we have proper conservation programs and work with our farmers. we see program after program that helps other sectors of business but we've been leaving farmers behind. we must work on developing better water policies for the state. we need a leadership that is in touch with the citizens.

all four corners we need leadership that was down with those folks at the coffeeshop, hear their ideas and bring them back and have the vision to pass policies that will work for oklahoma and we must do this in a bipartisan manner working with republicans and democrats alike. >> moderator: you have 90 seconds. fallin: i want to comment on the previous question that representative answered. he wanted to use the franchise tax for storm shelters but also wanted to take the franchise tax towards education funding which is 35 million which is half of what i've already put into the education funding for the state and by the way they did have a valid issue to be able to raise the local bond issues and the communities to put in storm

shelters. i appreciate the community putting that on the ballot itself. my point is that they had to get a 50% margin but at least we have schools that are already doing that in the state. back to the environment issue i think one of the biggest issues facing oklahoma has been the drought and potter is impotent to so many sectors of the economy whether its agriculture, the energy sector, whether it is tourism and recreation or residential drinking water we have initiated a statewide water implementation plan for the state and water conservation. we all want to be good stewards of the land and water and air. we implemented a piece of legislation that says we won't use any more water in 2060 and and and would've utilized today so we can conserve our water and just last week and a half ago i hosted a draft for an bit focus on ways to reuse the water into and the industry to do that.

>> moderator: it's time to hear from oklahoma state university students. the panel members will each read a question submitted by students in the audience and the first question will be read by rachel hubbard and directed to the governor. >> this is from catherine. she asks do you agree or disagree there is a connection between the increase in earthquakes? if you do what do you intend to do about it? fallin: first of all i think that they have been concerned about earthquakes. we've had a long history of earthquakes, a lot of scientists, the u.s. geological survey, other experts committee university of oklahoma, industry

sector people looking at what is the cause are or a man-made or a course of nature itself but one thing we do know is we have to get the information correct the facts and research and that's why i started a governor is coordinating council that takes the u.s. geological survey and the sciences and the major universities and even the private sector to join together to gather the data, gathered information and to make them make sure that we understand whether it is man-made or whether it is caused by something else. also, the corporation has been working with us and in fact they have a system that deals with the energy sector that gives them a red light if they think it may be on a fault line were certainly red light if it could

cause an earthquake so we've been having with agencies to make sure that we are addressing this issue. >> that is on the minds of many. there was one that happened about on the go to discuss the topic because oklahoma is frustrated as we have seen an increase in earthquakes in the state with no reason. the science has been done we just need action taken. make sure that the industry is a privacy practices and we need leadership that's in touch that will deal with these issues. the damage that has occurred to the individuals with what we saw in one of the early earthquakes this is unacceptable we need action and leadership that will address this problem. we must work together as a bipartisan legislation to come up with the solutions working with the corporation commission also withholding the industry accountable making sure the

practices are safe. we need to see the results and do something about that. we must act responsibly and made sure the citizens and their property and their safety is of the utmost and the highest consideration. >> the next question will be directed to representative dorman. >> moderator: this question is from a senior at oklahoma state university. if elected or reelected, what would you do to ensure that college students are wasting in oklahoma after graduating but also to create jobs for the college graduates? dorman: thank you for that question and that is a growing concern. as we've seen in the education field, too many of the program are leaving the state to go to the green pastures along the lines where they pay 15,000 more dollars starting off.

we must work to improve the situation we face in the schools and provide and protect the benefits. those teachers have worked hard that work hard for their entire life to serve the benefit and we must have responsible leadership to the cost-of-living increase to provide for those retired teachers too many are struggling and they have to find a second job. that's not right we must work to provide those opportunities for all businesses. about 80% of the businesses in oklahoma are small businesses but often they are overlooked and soap chasing the brass ring to bring in a big corporation we should work with those small businesses. my department will work with the different regions and the career tech to provide job training debate for training. we have one of the destination infecting the agency ordered outside of oklahoma city right here in stillwater. we must work to make sure the job training is top notch and that will help us improve the

small businesses and eventually build them into larger businesses. we must provide those opportunities and i think that includes paying a living wage to oklahoma. fallin: we are looking forward to you staying in the state of oklahoma and that has been one of my top schools is to create the right type of economy, create the right kind of job that will help you achieve the american dream. the mother of six we want to make sure all of our children can stay in the state of oklahoma and find a high-paying good job so we can do better than we have as adults. so we have been able to create over 102,000 jobs in the state of oklahoma. the per capita income in the state of oklahoma is one of the top rising income levels levels that doubled the national average and increased the income

so you will be able to find a good paying job. we also have the fastest gdp growth in the nation making it one of the hottest markets to locate and just this week i saw an article that said we are ranked seventh in the nation for young professionals between the age of 20 to 24 to locate obama and then don't forget that the low cost of living in the state. we are one of the top states in the nation for having a low cost of living. that's what we have been working towards is to make sure that you will be doubled to graduate and have the kind of good paying job and be able to stay here and be a good contributor to oklahoma and then another thing i just want to close with just been working on college completion and i'm very proud of the america works college completion program that increases the number of college graduates. >> the final question will be read by mr. green and it will be directed to governor fallin. >> moderator: osu freshmen.

in light of the recent natural disasters in the school shootings, how do you plan on updating emergency plan for oklahoma's public school system lacks fallin: that is a great question. we certainly want to make sure all facilities in oklahoma especially the buildings and schools are safe. i recently received the endorsement that i am very proud of and i'm a big supporter of the second amendment of the state of oklahoma and i want to make sure that we do everything we can to create safe facilities at the school and that's why i propose allowing local school districts to look at the need to decide if they need to in hands their school safety facility and at the school to be able to make those decisions themselves how much they can afford to, what they need to do. and that is very important. i certainly work with highway patrol or homeland security to make sure that we keep the public aware of any potential

threats. we certainly had a very tragic episode that happens in the state of oklahoma that shook us down to the very foundation and we want to do everything we can to make sure that oklahoma is aware that whenever there is a threat that we address them very quickly and that we keep the public informed. but i guess it goes back to say that we are doing everything we can to make sure that we have an emergency plan in place and we certainly have initiated that. i was the lieutenant governor when we had our federal building that was bombed back many years ago. i was there during a difficult time and we are going to do everything we can to make sure that we are are safe as citizens and protect the second amendment rights. >> you have 90 seconds. >> sometimes talk is cheap and we need real leadership and action that will respond to this. four years ago when janet took

over in the state department of education, one of the programs that she dominated off the bat was the emergency hotline to call for issues that might be facing your school. we saw when the council met just a few years ago there was one of that was one of the first suggestions to reinstitute. the board that my opponent has appointed has backed up all of these policies on the goal that have hurt our schools. we must see real action and leadership that will sit down. i championed that after the school shooting a year ago. we had a meeting and i invited school superintendents and professionals and teachers and parents from all over the state to discuss what we could do better. we almost saw a tragedy similar to what we saw in sandy hook. they reported the situation. we must encourage them to look

for these situations into work for the school administrators. i want to see more resource officers. partnerships between the municipalities and school districts to have that mentor position and the law-enforcement officer in the schools to help provide the safety and security. we must work to make sure the teachers have the right resources. we cannot continue these cuts. >> moderator: that concludes the question portion. we were here closing remarks and according to the claims us. representative dorman you have two minutes. dorman: again i want to say that it's a great pleasure to be here tonight. i have many great memories in the student union and on the campus and it's hard to believe i'm up here now having this opportunity. i want to work to make sure we have the right voice and vision in the state capitol. we need a leader that is in touch and someone who will work cross party lines.

as i've traveled around the state i've had the opportunity to visit with my democratic and republican colleagues both sides taking me around introducing me to their constituents and voters. this has been an amazing experience as i've traveled around learning about their needs and i want to have the opportunity to serve you as the next governor in the great state of oklahoma. we need leadership that will not simply talk about the issues that will take action and not to veto bills that sits down and work to make sure those policies are right and make sure they are constitutional but they are dressed in the all-around oklahoma to make sure that water is protected and not given with a memorandum of understanding like we saw. to not shut down the necessary programs that help in the most dire situations we must make sure that we provide the proper

funding for mental health issues. my opponent says she increased funding that there was a 20 million-dollar cut to the mental health programs. we must see real leadership in the certainly coming back to education we must have a champion for those students that will eliminate these ridiculous tests come up with appropriate standards in and not just follow the party line with washington, d.c. bureaucrats but listen to the experts and do what is needed to provide the best opportunity for the students to achieve their highest potential. i ask for your vote on november 4. thank you. >> moderator: governor you have to minutes. >> it is a great pleasure to be here tonight and certainly a wonderful opportunity to be able to speak to the voters. first i would ask for your vote and support for my reelection of governor as the state and thank you for the opportunity to be able to serve the great state. i promised the voters several

things when i took office. first that i would work on creating jobs and building a better future for oklahoma families, to help our small businesses be able to grow and prosper and turned the budget around and create new wealth and revenue and be able to prioritize the spending and put more money back into education which is exactly what we did, to be able to put more money into the roads and bridges and reform the correction system and do things like the justice reinvestment act to be able to stand up to washington, d.c. whenever washington does things that takes away the individual rights or takes away the states rights i am the only candidate in the race that has done that and stood up and voted against obamacare and stood up and said no to a failed policy. president obama said if you liked your health healthcare plan you could keep it and promised your premiums premiums with him to go out and if your

doctor you could keep it. none of that has come true and my opponent now wants to take more obamacare and put it in oklahoma through medicaid expansion. there are ways we can help the state improving the and serving the healthcare without adopting a big government takeover of the health care system that is already making other states go broke. it's cost over a billion dollars if we were to implement medicaid expansion into the state. i've been impressed by endorsed by the national federation of independent businesses and by the national rifle association. we've stood up for things that are important oklahoma. i haven't been endorsed by moveon.org or those national groups into the state. i'm the only conservative in the race and i will continue to lead oklahoma with conservative principles. [applause] >> moderator: that concludes

and i would like to thank governor fallin and joe dorman for the debate and also the journalist panel of rachel hubbard to mr. pryor from odt atv and rick green from the capitol bureau chief of the oklahoma news. i would also like to think the partnership of oeta tv, believed to be league of women voters and oklahoma state university for putting on this debate. it was a good debate. be sure to vote on november 4. goodnight. [applause] here's a look at some of the campaign ads that are airing in oklahoma in connection with the governor's race. >> i'm joe dorman.

my mom lives close by. here i learned to stretch every dollar to support the second amendment and value my public education. >> as governor i will improve schools by taking franchise tax revenue out of the hands of legislators and using all of those funds for classroom instructions no tax increase. i am joe dorman and i will be a responsible program and proven education governor. >> the last four years have challenged us in ways we never imagined that we have come through stronger, tougher and better. under the leadership of governor mary fallin oklahoma changed for the better. she made the economy her top priority and today we are the leader in job growth attracting business opportunity. she promised to make the government smaller, more efficient and she has closing have a billion dollar shortfall and balancing the budget while cutting taxes. she stood up against the intrusive federal government

fighting obamacare and we faced our greatest challenges she was there. to lend a hand, lead a prayer, share a hug. it's who she is, a leader and a friend, our governor, mary fallin because nobody cares more about oklahoma, no one. >> i am joe dorman. as governor i will always put oklahoma first. mary fallin is out of touch. she cited with washington bureaucrats on common core and vetoed the second amendment bills i worked with leaders in both parties to override her veto. >> an a+ in the rating and a champion for our schools. joe dorman for governor. >> we need a governor who doesn't care what washington thinks and who put oklahoma first. a live look outside of the supreme court where the justices have kicked off the new term

this morning by turning away appeals from five states seeking to prohibit marriages. the courts refusal to hear the challenges teams that the lower court decisions striking down the bands in indiana, wisconsin, utah, oklahoma and virginia will go into effect clearing the way for same-sex marriages in those circuits. >> today the heritage foundation is hosting a discussion on the visa waiver program which allows citizens and other countries to travel to the u.s. for up to 90 days without a visa. former homeland security secretary michael chertoff will be part of the panel looking at security concerns raised by the program and how it affects intelligence gathering efforts. that's why today at noon eastern on c-span2

the government is not looking to end with any particular solution but rather, describe a high level the attributes of what the solution should look like, but they have to be secure, they have to be enhanced and they have to be interoperable. and what's better than be a bit of a guidepost of the industry to start developing solutions around it. is it, just looking at the pilots that we have, we have some that are looking at smartphone applications and which will basically be used in lieu of the password to to login to different sites and others are testing different types of biometrics and fingerprint, face, voice recognition. again, not to say every one of these will be the solution for everybody, that's the kind of things that we are testing out. >> republicans have a 60% chance of taking over the senate and

the upcoming elections. that's according to charlie cook. the national journal hosted mr. cook and former posters for bill clinton and mitt romney. this is 90 minutes. .. close to seven years because

neil and i go back 30 odd years, instead, about 30 years. these are folks that i have enjoyed being with and love watching their work. they are just too great prose into great people. i'm really looking forward to the. let me sort of do a very, very sort of nutshell where i am and i want to get neil and stan up and talk about what they're seeing out there. if you go back to the early part of last year, there were two competing scenarios, to sort of theories about the 2014 and midterm elections could be about. one theory was some of the challenges, problems facing the republican party in 2012 which would flow into 2014. and the other was that this would be a classic midterm election referendum on the incumbent president, and with

all that entails. so two competing directions. it could've gone either way. in terms of challenges facing the republican party some of them work with key voting groups and some of it was sort of their own, service some the things they were doing. just sort of nutshell. the challenge minority voters is we know that governor romney got 59% of the white vote and gosh, nobody has advocate and 59% of the white vote a loss a presidential election. quite simply what was happening is the country's changing so much that it's getting hard. developer congress was almost identical. if you're losing the african-american vote by a seven-point and the latino vote by a 44-point margin, they don't generate enough white voters, how well can you do in order to win if given the change in demographics of the country.

this wasn't a romney campaign thing because a vote for congress was virtually identical. so you look at that and say it's a big, big demographic challenge that the republican party is going to have to face. then you look at young voters. losing 18-29-year-olds by 23-point margin, that's a challenge and even when your best group, 65 and older your winning by 12 points, this is a trend that it's got to be soared almost for republicans found a way. i tend to look, i just turned 60 last year so i look at voters under 45, under 40. they are the future. i look in the mirror and look at those of us roughly our age, jeff peterson, wherever he went, we are like the pre-dead last night for republicans who are doing really well with the pre-dead answer is not so well with the future. that's got to be an ominous

trend. women voters, slice and dice. but there were specific challenges that were very problematic for republicans in 2012. could've been in 2014. and then there was one other thing that played republicans in 2010-2012, and that was simply a pattern that they develop in those two elections, nominating exotic and potentially problematic people for the u.s. senate who have unique ability to seize defeat from the jaws of victory. you know, not to name names or anything, but indiana, missouri, delaware, colorado -- what am i missing? nevada, yet. some interesting people. and was i going to continue? were republicans going to nominate begin some of these people that would have a chance to seize defeat of the jaws of victory. so was that going to happen?

these are real challenges facing the republican party and ones ahead and worry about going into 2012. and then the other hand, what i midterm elections about? particularly second term midterm elections. it's a reference on the incumbent president. they are not always that way. occasionally there's an exception to the rule. 1998 bill clinton second term midterm election turned out to be a backlash against impeachment. in 2000 he was 40 months after 9/11. so sort of the reverberations 9/11 were still occurring. but other than that, as my friend stu rothenberg likes to point out, the party, the white house has lost house seats in the with reelection since the civil war. that's going not a random pattern. i'm not going to go through any of the poll numbers because we have two of the best pollsters in the business coming up, but to me, my view is that what we

are seeing is the problems, the challenges that faced the republican party and kept them from picking up three seats they needed at the time to get a majority in the senate, and to win the presidential race, those challenges in 2012, they were real and it really hurt and they may be real and hurt them in 2016, not in the context of this election they just seem somewhat smaller. they just don't seem to be the dealbreaker is that they were in 2012 and possibly could be in 2016. while if he went back to year and a half ago, and thought what's the worst, if a democrat what's worst-case and if you could have? and that would be a president with really, really low approval numbers, generally in the low to mid '40s with disapproval's in the low to mid 50s. with across the board while the approval ratings on the economy, lousy approval rating on handling foreign policy. i mean that, you know, think of

the nbc/wall street journal poll that neil's firm is the republican have on that firm, on that poll, but overall was 40 approved, 54 disappeared so your minus 14 overall. handling economy was 43 approve, 53 disapprove, minus 10. the real kicker was ensuring a strong national defense. 32 approved, 62 disapprove. wow, that's sort of kind of earth shattering. you just look at that and say wow, you know, i'm going to use a technical political science term here, this is a bummer environment for democrats. [laughter] the problems are just as big as they thought. in terms of what happens, everybody in this room knows we have a room full of pros. but does not much is going to happen in the house. democratic losses could be as few as two or three or four

seats and could be as many as nine, 10, 12, something like that. if republicans hit 13 they would be at the highest point the been since the end of world war ii but that's kind of a bit above the range of most likely outcomes but the real deal is the senate. in 300 words or less the way i look at it is, it's like a perfect storm of factors coming together. it's exposure, just the raw numbers but democrats have 21 seats up, republicans only have 15. that's the first factor in the least important of the bigger one is a map, the geography of this election but it's awful for democrats. when you have seven democratic seats up in states that romney carried and there's only one republican seat up in an obama state, and susan collins in maine and she could not lose reelection if you try. of that. six of the seven republican seats that are up this time our democratic seats up in romney states were won by 14 points or

more. romney won by 14 points or more. you show me a state where romney won by 14 points and i'll show you a state that in 2014 i would want to be democrat running for a federal office in that state. it just is what it is. third is turnout. quite simply midterm election turnouts tend to be a lot better for republicans with the turnout smaller. the presidential year, the turnout is big, broad, diverse. it looks like the country. midterm elections the turnout is about what, 70% of what a presidential turnout is. not only smaller but boulder, wider, more conservative, more republican. it's the thumb on the scale. and lush of a situation like 2006 we had an unpopular war in iraq and hurricane katrina, and lush a something like that going to tilted back to the of the direction you will have returned dynamic that will favor republicans and then the broader environment. you look at those four and say wow, those are pretty big, sort

of atmospheric conditions for democrats. when i so do the math real quick and then i want to get neil, maybe i should stall punches little bit because we're waiting on stand to get here, but on the other hand, we can get neil -- we will see. when i do the math i'm putting it at about 60% chance of republicans getting the majority. i've been sort of therefore reform won't, and at one point of a sword higher than most people and that if you look at a lot of the models on a chilly lower percentage than most of the computer models out there, if you follow those things. but i would put it at 60%. the way i sort of do the math is this. there are three gimme putts for republicans but democratic seats that will clearly go republican. montana, south dakota, west virginia. that's three. so theoretically republicans are

halfway to the six seats they need just with the gimme putts. then you get to the three other democratic seats up where romney carried by 14 points or more. mark begich and alaska, mark pryor in arkansas, mary landrieu in louisiana. each of these, these are really, really, really challenging, difficult and i would say at least a little bit in each one uphill races for each one. could one of them survive? yeah, one of them could survive, scheuer. but the thing about it is if, this is a huge if, if republicans don't lose one of their own seats, e.g. kansas, if they don't lose one of their own seats, all republicans have to do to win a majority, montana, south dakota, west virginia, louisiana, alaska, arkansas. that's it, game set match. but if one of these three

survive, baggage or land or prior, any one of them survives, and that means republicans have to pick up at least one purple swing state or light blue state that is a. or conversely if any of the republican vulnerable seats lose, and mitch mcconnell was in a dead even race for a long time and now he just kind of picked up a little bit over alison grimes. i would also did not say pull it away and he is not safe but you can see sort of old bit of daylight in between them. it looks to be stable. looks right now from at least my vantage point to be stable. georgia, democrat michelle nunn was ahead for a good while. it's close. now using david purdue pulled up and again small that you can see daylight, seems reasonably stable. where i think you have to give republicans the edge. kansas is the one that i am

almost stuff by going about because this is like the race from office. it is so damn weird. it in my business, you look at your experience and i've been doing this for 30 years but my newsletter for 30 years. you look at this and you say okay, ace on past experience when we have seen things kind of like this, what happened in the past? well hell, nothing has ever happened like this. it's sort of the unique democrat drops out, the independent is running, five points ahead of the incumbent. the incumbent was well-liked in the state that sort of mailing in for the last couple of years. and won the primary and went home to take a nap. home to alexandria, virginia,. [laughter] so you didn't kind of wince and say this disaster could have been avoided or, you know? so that if, and funny thing about kansas is, this is actually neil's home state.

there's only one thing, actually two things that we are really sure about. there's going to be an election on november 4, and that if pat roberts wins he will sit with republicans. that's it for what we know. everything else, greg ortman, does he when, yes or no? if he wins does he decide to sit with the democrats and sort of deep down you look at him and say this guy looks, sounds, walks, talks onto democrat mostly. i think that is popular his heart is but on the other hand, he said things that would suggest that he would do what's in the best interest of the state which i think is good for denver public and are already majority, he will sit with them. or if he's a tiebreaker well, i think his heart is more democrat but then he abruptly john guy, might want to run for reelection which suggests sitting with her focus might be a better idea. and all this is against the backdrop of a civil war taking

place underneath within the republican party that's causing sam brownback, the governor, to be five points behind in a state that's like genetically republican. so we went it's just one of of e weirder things i've ever seen. but let's just for the sake of mouth let sort of say for fun, or not fun, but said that roberts loses, okay? so if republicans, if the baggage, landrieu or prior survives, republicans need a purple or light blue state. if robert lucas, republic is a purple or green state. if each of those things happen, democrats need to pick up two seats. there are five of them that were sort of looking at the possibilities in this purple swing or light blue. and the two that i think are out so the closest, mark udall in colorado and bruce braley in iowa. i mean, these races are effectively even but if you had

to say if one side or the other has momentum right now, just a little bit of momentum, who would you say? i'd have to say republicans in both those cases and that's not a prediction but those do look pretty decent for republicans. on the other hand, north carolina with kay hagan. she's got sort of used the phrase i've used before, small but stable, seemingly stable lead over tom gillis. i think basically a legislature in particular a state senate that is sort of went a bridge too far off to the right. it hurt the guy. it's hurt the speaker and might really cost him the election would otherwise be a pretty winnable race. michigan very, very close but here's stand. i've been -- michigan very, very, very close. it would appear to me that gary peters the democrat has a very,

very small but it didn't stable lead. just a couple of points but it's not much and i would say organized labor is doing much more and more effectively in michigan and not so in wisconsin and the governor's race that we'vwehave seen anywhere in a l, long, long time. but i put a finger on the skipper democrats in that michigan, and finally jeanne shaheen. there's some conflicting polls. most are showing her ahead by half a dozen points that we've seen some including a cnn poll that had the tide. there may be some closure there. i still think she seen that sort of a measurable advantage. so if republicans need one in each of the iowa are color-coded to efforts to its got to be both of those but if, you know, it's sort of if they just simply get republican states voting republican, they don't need to win any swing states.

or if they lose both of the need to win two out of the purple or green categories. i put it at 60%. my good friend and competitor rothenberg, stu rothenberg, we did something the other day and he is sticking with his prediction of seven seat. he doesn't give percentages. he does the number. most of, and just one less thing and then we'll bring up neil and stand. you know, sometimes people have asked me, why the heck do we need to listen to charlie cook or his team and jeff jaffe and david wasserman and amy walters? why do we need to listen to them or stu rothenberg and his terrific ali, nathan gonzales? why should we listen to them if we have made silver and "new york times" and these other models that are out of there? in my analogy is sort of the money ball analogy from the book and the movie. that is not a team in major

league baseball that does not employ a team of statisticians doing sabermetrics. not one. but i'll see it as important. does not one team that fired all their scouts either. what they found the optimal approach is look at the data, analyze the data, but also listen to the scouts. have them looking, sit in the bleachers with the speed gun which as we do and what our team does. in terms of anything candidates, watching the races, sit in jennifer's office and she sitting there watching ads, you know, hours on end. and just sort of evaluating each of these from more of a subjective, qualitative as opposed to quantitative. i think there's value in all of those things. if i were going to look at two models most, i would watch nate silver. i have a lot of respect for me. i think those more. i think it's in the statistical toolkit that i couldn't do in a million years and i think he's intellectually honest.

it's a different approach from what i take and i believe in my approach but i think it's worth looking at. "the new york times" i think they do a pretty good job. they had to scramble to put something together after nate left to go to espn but i think it's worth looking at. i'm not huge fans of the post a version of it and i'm not sure why princeton molecular biologist are doing election models, but that's the point. that's gone from 70 -- anyway, we're not going to get into that. so anyway, that's sort of where i am on it. and what i'd like t to do though is bringing to people that just go through just mountains and mountains of data and just had the experience and intuition with stan greenberg. the work that stands firm does and particularly with a democracy where they are doing some just incredibly high quality both in terms of

national surveys and surveys of competitive strikes, it's unlike anything else that is out there. just a normal seeking valuable. and neil is just one of the best around and his firm is half the nbc/wall street journal poll which is my other favorite poll out there. very firms both represent a normal sought quality work. and i really, really bright people and are really perceptive and also very nice people and good friends. so i want to bring them up, and then i'm going to listen very carefully and hopefully we can glean something from them. and i'm not going to put either one of them on the spot to throw any other clients under a bus or tell shamelessly, but just let them tell us what they think. so you guys want to come on up? [applause] >> and sit where ever you want.

all right. who wants to go first? you want to catch her breath and let neil go? >> i will let neil go. >> open up for a few minutes and then let stand catch -- >> projections are at seven. go race by race, right? let me just kind of start with some of what charlie talked about which is kind of political environment and i think charlie is exactly right. the political event is set by president obama's job approval rating. sitting at 40, 41, 42%. the way i look at it, and his job approval he is about 10 to 12 points lower than when he beat mitt romney in 2012. you take that 10 or 12 points and applied to the states, senate states that are red states, not up for grabs right now, and if the president won

that with 50% of the vote, then arguing he could get 30% job approval in the states which is, and could be difficult climb for the democratic candidate. charlie, your home state louisiana, i know, democrats feel the same way 5 mary landrieu is in deep trouble there. we just finished a poll there. what you think obama's approval rating is among whites, white voters in louisiana? >> i'm not sure but i suspect there's a queue in front of it. >> no. spent there isn't one in front of it? >> 15%. 15 to 80. guys, i've been doing pulling a long time. we are looking at numbers we've never even seen before. you know, mood of the country, a

lot of these kinds of figures, job approval of congress. i saw one poll job approval of congress with 6% in the margin of error in the poll was five. [laughter] pretty soon we could be a net negative. i talk about congress in terms of their friends until the program because our friends and family approve of the job congress is doing and. and just the environment itself. it is a strong anti-incumbent environment. voters, want to dig into in your discussion is the sense that voters believe the washington has let them down and that we can't fix this country can we fix washington, d.c., our politics and our politicians. that's one reason why we've seen turnover election after turnover election. there is frustration and anger so that they used to be voters can use the voters hated congress but hate the congress been. now they hate congress and they don't trust the congress been.

there's a sense that the members of congress has to approve him result every year. there's an anger with washington's in action and dysfunction. so this is all creating a political environment that is extraordinarily negative. it's actually towards both parties, not just the party in power. but it's a negative political environment. my second point is, don't kid yourself into believing this is a national election. this is not a national election. this is a 10 state election. very similar i think a the 2012 election, to the presidential election where truthfully it was only eight states are competitive in that election. this is the same model and this is what i think is democrats a bit of an advantage because they can focus their resources on these minimal number of states. give you an example, the average voter, let's see, since labor day, i am has been the most

advertised state per capita in the country. i've been 147 ads per capita in iowa since labor day. that people have seen. on september 23, take one day, september 23 in des moines there were 325 political ads in the senate race on tv one day. >> wow. >> so first of all, god bless you if you're in iowa or north carolina or michigan or colorado, or kentucky and your being beseiged with all this advertisement because you can't wait for the election to be over. is not a national election but it's a state-by-state election and is not really a national schematic that's running through this election. the obama approval rating underpins this thing and the frustration in d.c. but it is a state-by-state election, and the personality count. my third point is campaigned

committed. that's what i think anybody who is predicting republicans are going to win or democrats are doing, guess what? campaigns make mistakes. over the last month or so we've seen it go from republican advantage unquote to kind of democrat edge and back to republicans having to win back. these campaigns and these candidates make mistakes. they want advertisements and effective. they focus on the wrong issues. new information is introduced into these campaigns and these campaigns do make a difference. iowa and colorado and kentucky and, you know, michigan, north carolina, all these states, what happens over the next month is going to make a difference. the fourth point is, which charlie didn't really raise, is that terrific republican enthusiasm advantage. republican voters are significantly more enthusiastic, they are pumped up for this election and you're going to

have to like hold them back from the polls on election day. so republicans have a significant advantage in intensity. we have that same intensity advantage in 2012. i learned a lot of valuable lessons from the mitt romney campaign. one i learned as an unenthusiastic vote counts just as much as an enthusiastic vote off mike and so when democrats are able because of the ground operation turn out voters you are low propensity can who are unlikely, who are low interest voters, their votes count just as much as my republican, you know, 45 year-old man in the suburbs for russia's the polls on election day. they count the same. so all the shooter about the republican intensity advantage, cautionary tale. i saw those numbers and what a

president romney a unfortunate because we are president obama. take that with a grain of salt. because we are on the ground, so my fifth point here is guys, we have a long ways to go. in political terms, well, where five weeks outcome for a half weeks out from the election. that several local lifetimes. a lot of stuff can happen. the senate is not yet decided. i think it may change a couple of times between now and election day. don't take to heart all these come everything saying, republicans have that enthusiasm advantage. you know what? if the democrats ground game works and works well and have unlimited number of states to do it in, six or eight states, that enthusiasm advantage may be wiped away by the democrat turnout operation. so this is, it's a dead heat. if you toss a. i agree with charlie with the

assessment of the state. and we went into purple states? do we win iowa or colorado or both? how close is north carolina going to be? it's a fascinating campaign, but we are a long ways from determining the winner of the senate. and as you know, because this is a pretty smart audience, election is going to determine the winner of the senate anyway probably because that's going to be in december in louisiana. my final piece of ice to you, if you have any extra capital, buying a tv station in new orleans -- [laughter] be a really, really good investment. and if you want to watch a lot of political ads, just go visit new orleans between election day and the runoff election in december. every political operative will be in town, and every tv station will be full of tv ads because it could come down to the runoff election in louisiana.

>> florida 2000. >> one thing, i was in baton rouge and new orleans this past weekend and i was talking to a station manager of the cbs affiliate, and he said they are actually now seeing their advertising for november for the getting scaled back because they're just basically saving money for the runoff. i thought that was interesting. stand? >> charlie, you're the best but i appreciate this and really value all of the collaboration i've had with neil and respect his judgment on almost every point that he has made today. i apologized for creating -- but you should know that this is the future because my schedule is said that charlie palmer, but mike uber app set my car there and it picked up and sent me there. i was automatically program come and 27 i walked in, i said maybe

the artist bps were down and they have gone to a smaller room to try to create a sense of interest in this election. >> sorry. i was at charlie palmer's yesterday morning last night. >> i kept asking for charlie cook. anyway -- this is obviously, i mean all elections are fascinating but i think this is genuinely, it's on the knife's edge. everything that neil has said about the conventional wisdom, particularly partisan conventional wisdom, one to step back from, neil began to go down that road and begin talking, and i said oh, my god, one more panel where they tell me how many white males don't vote for obama or how many independents, how well republicans are doing with independence. romney won independence and he wanted will. it was kind of the end of life.

it can be possible obama's going to win. were a different country and you'll is one of those people that recognized the change. i'm in the 50/50, probability, slightly down from -- neil come easily to in the 50/50. you go from 60-40, a the way during the course. >> don't let me get away with 50/50. i've got to shake it one direction or the other. >> pollsters are paid for it, you know? you have to go the other way. look, we are doing the heavy senate battleground polling right now for npr, bipartisan poll which we released tomorrow which i'm not going to get the results of the. we will also release on monday a poll in four of the battleground states for wb, women's vote.

we will have that. we are also as you know both involved in actual races and actually independent efforts in many of these states but and i'll try not to talk about the states where involved but i do spend like probably twice a day just going through all our polls looking for what's the trend, you know, what's emerging. just stepping back from it, and i think it's a little hard to read what's happening from washington because the part you become washington is the obama part. focus on the president and he's in the news and he's clearly the dynamic. just noting on the obama peace, we had in the npr poll, i'm not going to give their numbers, but in the previous polls that we did for npr or the senate battleground, his approval was 37, 38%. very low in these 12 states that

we poll that constituted the battleground romney won the states by eight. tough territory. we will look at the results tomorrow, but if you look at, just take the last 10 polls conducted, public polls conducted and look at obama's approval, pulling away from the monthly average, his approval has gone up from 42 to 44 in the public polls that are out there. it's been stuck at 42 for a long time. i think when we look back on this next week, we will look at what happened with isis in syria and iraq and might represent a point in which the president hedged up nationally. and that affects republican motivation, et cetera. let's go to the states. the other factor playing out here is the intense unpopularity of the republican party. this is not a both parties

issue. there is nobody can we have our current polling in the battleground, there is no one more unpopular than mcconnell. mcconnell is well known as harry reid and is the most asthma i do want to make comparisons that will cause problems on who i work for on the house side will get attacked as it targets in republican campaigns, but mcconnell -- >> can i mentioned her name? [laughter] >> mcconnell has exceeded that in the senate battleground, which republican battleground. he represents washington and gridlock. if you want to look at what in regression model what drives the boat, views of the house republicans are more important than the use of the senators and the senate parties. the house republicans define the republican party. now, we move away from that and we say we don't have gridlock, we don't have a government shutdown. the way the republican brand problem plays out is in the advertising and the positioning

of the candidates in the states. you don't see it because it's being played out state by state. as a reason why you went from republican, these states being fairly republican defender the more democratic is because they began associating those candidates with their party, with their priorities, including a whole range of issues, insensitivity to women at a range of things that have become important in these state elections. there's a third piece in this which i've become to recognize is increasingly important if you want understand kansas can understand north carolina. the republican governors and republican models of governing coming out of the 2010 election is intensely unpopular. if you want to look at who has a lower job approval ratings in louisiana, look at governor jindal who is lower than the president. so look at thom tillis, look at the republican program in north

carolina and what's happened with that association. so states that have been brought into play are in play because there's another part, there's a state story and local store to the republican agenda and brand, which is making these races more competitive on the democratic side. we also found in the, which neil is underscoring, in the battleground we have not found in the last poll we did, you know, with errors, we found no difference on consolidation, likely to shift in your vote an education -- intention to vote amongst democratic and republican voters in the battleground states. they have been so bombarded with immediate that they are kind of in a different place. if you go back to the 2004 election and what happened in bush's reelection, there was a

shift around three points nationally. in the battleground where it was thought out, no change. not a point of change. not a decimal point of change from one election to the next where the advertising at the intense campaign centered. we will look and see what the npr show tomorrow, but be alert to niels bohr and that the presumption of the advantage, and watch the issues that emerge. part of the republican brand palm is the problems of women. these issues have been played and they are a factor in how people are voting. the last piece i will add is on the affordable care act. where the presumption and the strategy for republicans has been to pound that issue. initially i think as a swing vote to get, and to get, to

punish democrats, but i think increasingly as a motivator, as a reason for people to vote. you should watch for the npr poll tomorrow on this issue on the affordable care act. when we look back and we say, you know, how come there was one more election cycle in which republicans were certain to take control and didn't? the single biggest added a run have been on the affordable care act. it's down to about a quarter now but it's still a quarter. our testing it is the weakest attack that they have, that they are using. they are not using other things but they are much stronger because i think the ideological determination to use the affordable care act, obamacare as their issue, and you'll see with the npr it's a much more complicated issue than that. it's not big enough to decide

the elections. and so the issue priorities, what they choose to run on fromd is already lots of evidence they are shifting in the states. but there's a lot unresolved, and 50/50 means i really don't know. i am looking at in the states that i really better, very closely felt 50/50. i don't see a trend either way in terms of these things i just described ar are things that cat go into the equation, and a lot of it's baked. already. and i don't see any evidence of a break-in one or the other. >> let me ask neil a question on affordable care, and then lets you sort of opened it up. we had a top republican senate strategist suggest us six months ago that they started telling their clients, you need to move

away from the affordable care act. quote, we've milked that cow for all it's got. and that you can't be a one trick pony, you can't be a one issue, start diversifying to start moving or messaging other places because there are no more points to be scored on the affordable care act. does that reflect what you think and what you've seen in your data in? >> if you look at the approval rating at the fort worth care act and you compared in the same survey to approval rating of obama, they are identical. obamacare is obama and obama is the better one in the same period in the obamacare issue is one that is i think it is pretty much baked in but it is as stan said, and transport sharp on this, it's motivation. it reminds voters why this election is important, why the

need to go out and vote. is more of a base issue than a persuasion or stimulation issue. i think you see some campaigns go back to it late just to remind voters, hey, everything you didn't like about it, this other person voted. just to be back in the mix a little bit because obamacare is shorthand for big government bureaucracy government takeover health care, and then you tie that to the sense that there are thousands of people lost their health insurance or lost the ability to go see their doctors, weren't able to keep their plans. you go back into that and kind of remind people. it will come back up but it's not, it's not the only issue. into effect late in campaigns i think you're going to find what we try to do in a lot of our campaigns is you want to interject new information in the next. you want to tell people something new that they didn't already know. because if you repeat the same stuff over and over again, they are immune to it.

they need to hear new information. they are still trying to figure out their decisions, and so i think you will find some of these campaigns turning to some the issues over the last weeks of the campaign. >> now, stan said there were other issues that are more powerful that republicans could be using, and let's just, what do you think -- >> stan made the comment. let's hear what -- >> i'm not telling -- [inaudible] >> i'm just kind of curious -- >> i'm going to pass on that one, charlie. they always do one with the talk about spending and deficits. >> okay. you are more forthcoming than i expected. i think there's some microphones one it around the room you're yes, no?

yes, okay. there's one over here. this one over here. asthma not relative david cook at the christian meier said wave your hands and a nonthreatening fashion, and we will have a microphone come to you. so there's one right over here. >> thank you. charlie, you have arkansas, louisiana, alaska as tossups, and when you're discussing them you seem to indicate you that republicans were more likely to win two out of three. if you could take 10 tossups and you distribute them at 50/50, you get a free seat democratic advantage the other states would tossups? >> some of this is semantics and approach. and if you look, "the new york times" periodically is running sort of what each of the models are doing, what we are sick and what larry said that though, delay us all. you will notice that we tend to

carry more tossups anybody else. so it's a matter of definition. to me a tossup is i don't have a really strong, or we, our team does not have a really strong feeling that we kind of know who's going to win. if it's a link on we think we know who's going to win. if it's a toss, there is a sufficient element of doubt that we're not going to be put our reputations on the line. it's sort of like an umpire. our strike zone is a little wider than some of the other folks. i'm not saying that are worse. i'm guessing our definition. >> charlie, rank those three states. >> i would say if democrats only lost one, which i think is highly unlikely, i think it could be arkansas. i think is the only lost two states, i would throw in probably louisiana. and if one survived i think it might be more likely to be

alaska, but i think more likely, i think it's more likely that all three go down. well, far and away than one comment and probably more three thank you. but, sort of in my calculations, i'm kind of assuming that at roberts comes up short, and we may all be surprised but i kind of think so. in my mind republicans need seven, not six. they need to grow seven and that six. but my hunch is going to be iowa -- i mean if i could know to race as i rather know iowa and colorado. >> to that question, i would recommend that you bring a regional, cultural and historical trends, lens, you know, to it.

this country is not only in gridlock in washington. we are polarized. it's not just polarization. we have some regions of the country that are moving more and more, more absorbent, more republican, more hostile, others are moving in the opposite direction and there are very different trends. when i look at these races i look at the south, and without a specific races, the trends of the south are dramatic. if you look at the states they always come out a little worse than, i will say that, you know, mary landrieu always manages somehow to work out something, some kind of magic and there's some non-southern parts of louisiana. but the south almost has always -- north carolina is much more common if not, you know, we know presidential it's much more part of the new growing coalition that includes postgraduates and

others that make it, edit diverse immigrant population is making it part of, and so the trend there is important. i think of alaska as not, even though it's ranked lower on the list of the democrat is holding at its much more of a libertarian montana, alaska mode which those quirky things. whether begich wins or not i think is a function of how we think that kind of candidate wins. >> as most everybody knows that there's a lot more men and alaska, you know, then women and there was a reality show that have to sustain, it was taking some alaskan women and taking them to florida that were single, you know? kind of an interesting premise. >> where is this leading? [laughter] spent the line was for women and alaska the odds are good that

the goods are odd. [laughter] i always kind of love that. but i kind of say that -- go ahead. [laughter] >> jeez, charlie, i don't know how the hell a follow-up not comment. dan, when you look at those states and i think likely all three may go our way, but i just want to make this point. kind of reiterate how charlie opened up this whole session and talked about kind of historical perspective. if republicans fail to win majority, and i think it's going to be very tight. obviously, republican you know where i stand on that. but i think you go back to look at previous, look at delaware, look at indiana, look at nevada, missouri. i don't think it's not necessarily a failure of republicans issued to win it because winning six of seven seats, beating incumbents is

tough. it's just damn tough, and i think you look at what, you know, our failure in previous elections have failed to set this up so that we could win with five seats or four seats this time instead of having to win six or seven. so i think we take some of these problems in terms of we don't have those, any wild and crazy nominees we've had in the past. i think -- >> exotic. >> exotic, yes. and i think we're in pretty good shape. but it's still a tight. >> take the problem with the elites. you haven't fixed the problem. tillis represents the core of the republican party. he was the preferred candidate. the problems you're having a with people that are% the core of the party. that's a serious problem. >> candidate quality is always an issue. show we talk bruce braley? you know, it's always an issue.

that's what make campaigns and candidates better. that's why don't think, if you asked me today what one of them would take place at it's 33 days now, whatever. that's a long ways to go. campaigns make a lot of mistakes in 30 days. >> amplifies -- to apply meals earlier point that i'm going to put my colleague jennifer duffy on the spot to do a fact check for me. in the last 10 years, five elections, democrats have unseeded 11 republican senate -- 12? 12. you're saying 12, yes? 12 republican senate incumbents, and republicans have unseeded free. yes, three democratic incumbents. so for some reason there's been some resistance in the last decade or inability for republicans to knock off democratic incumbents even in 2010 that was a great year for

republicans. so yes, they do have to overcome that to get the majority. where is the next question? who's got the mic, and argue next? >> i guess a tactical question. a lot of money is on into television advertising, and my impression would be that is going to the near dead rather than a living because most, my children really don't watch television commercials, yet we are heading into world war ii with a strong cavalry. what are your thoughts on the effectiveness of television advertising, and who is getting, which voters isn't reaching? and what is it achieving? is a just motivational or is it actually trying to -- >> or is it just noise. >> your point is exactly, i

mean, what we've seen a energy. we get a national should with targeted -- democratic party are as well. in which we found fewer than half of americans, half of american voters now say that they get their news from live tv every day. that they watch live tv every day. and among 18-44-year-olds, just one-third say they watch live tv every day. like, you've got to be kidding. it's extraordinarily difficult. things have changed dramatically. two-thirds of americans now with smart phones. that includes these blackberries which i don't consider a smart phones. >> but it's got a better keyboard. >> exactly. >> you would have gotten there on time. >> how you can make it with voters is extraordinary difficult and i think right now there's a ton of money spent on tv advertising that getting people who have already decided.

that's why some of these digital companies, all of our campaigns are spending much more money on digital and trying to reach out and doing targeted communications, personal recommendations with voters so that what you're seeing is everybody knows we've still got to do the tv but which are not seen in the campaigns is the amount of money that's going to digital an amount of money going to the individual contact and even mail through these campaigns and personal contact. that doesn't mean you leave tv uncovered. >> to illustrate your point though, i like to use an example. our daughter who, in 2012, was 26 living in cleveland, ohio. she did not, her tv set was not wired to cable but it didn't have rabbit ears, and she watched something called out the tv, which i don't even know what that is.

and she would generally listen to either her ipod or iphone music or to npr on the way to and from work. and so reaching her, you know, she wasn't a swing voter, but reaching her would've been a challenge for a campaign. that is exactly what neil is saying. >> let me speak both sides of this. we still have -- >> you ought to be a political analyst on the one hand speed we saw campaigns this cycle where advertising can shift the race in major ways. look at pennsylvania and the governor's race and what happened there. somebody is watching tv. races are still impacted, you know, by the tv. i remember after super pacs became legalized by the court, i remember in the last cycle us worrying, not just worrying, watching enterprise million

dollar buys coming from outside and really impacting the race's. that seems to be much less of an issue. people know it's coming. i think the media, therefore, the fund-raising has to balance it. they know it's coming and the planning balances out. and i also think you now reached not so much lack of penetration into the market, saturation into the market in which people roll their eyes. getting hurt on negative ad right now, you know, in these elections can i just don't think any of these are going to be shifted by a killer, you know, saddened by her add that i think it's locked in, people are taking a lot of advertising. >> who's got a microphone? who's got a question with a microphone? >> over the last month there

have been significant shifts in iowa and in colorado. can you discuss why there have been shifts of there? and, obviously, candidates do matter and is that what's happening in those two states? thank you. >> i'll be glad to. >> i can't. >> i will first. i think obviously a very competitive race. joannie ernst came out of the primary and the democrats did a nice job of beginning to define her as did the brady campaign. but i think what's happened there is that bravely failed to define himself. he failed to give voters a reason to kind of vote for him. it was all about joannie ernst. we did some focus groups among wal-mart moms which is really a fascinating group, and we did one of these groups in des moines, and then you a lot about joannie ernst, positive and negative.

they knew nothing about bruce braley. what bruce braley failed to do, he couldn't define himself at all. want to bunk and money caught up with democratic money and begin to kind of focus on his record, it caught up to him. so i think, and i think voters accepted joni for who she was and then been now focus on who bruce is. i think those numbers have changed a little bit. that's one. ..

and we are seeing that in the area. i think we are seeing some shifts. we have great hopes for colorado and iowa in the end in the presidential. i always thought in the campaign we always saw iowa as a state that had the greatest science of voter remorse after the election of 2008 and 2012 and a they put

obama into office and there was more disappointment, there was more of a sense of the trail is way too strong but he was and what they expected and i think that is one reason why the obama campaign spent so much time in iowa in the september of 2010 and 2012. but i still think you have that kind of sense in the state and i think that's part of what may be giving a little bit of energy behind the campaign. >> who else? okay. so many over here. there is a hand. let's go ahead and get microphones. there's one hand here and here. good morning. i have two questions the first is about georgia and the district and i was wondering from your perspective how do you think -- how is that race

looking for the incumbent and my second question is there are a lot of candidates that go out actively seeking women's votes but what about the male vote and particularly what is your view on that? >> do you have a unique feeling on that? i wish that our house editor was here but i will just sort of jumped in he's got an edge in a district that's just absolutely ugly for a democrat, really, really ugly. you just sometimes you see people that are survivors and you know when that person steps aside that seat is gone. but at the same time everybody up here has seen candidates that were able to survive.

i think that he's going to survive this. in north carolina it's very difficult he was able to survive for a long time and this year he just basically decided to pull the plug but as i remember the districts got we called it a partisan voting index in other words it's either seven or eight more republican than the rest of the country that he has a connection and so far this year it looks like he's working so that if you told me that democrats were going to lose ten seat nationwide i don't think that he would be there. if this got in the house it's a different spin the house and the senate for technical reasons the houses and going to shift much into technical reasons why the

senate will be the best case for democrats losing four seats and five, six, seven is more likely and eight is less likely there aren't that many seats left when you lose 63 seats and won the election and you only get eight to back you are already below made hanging fruit for republicans already picked and it just is a sort of of mob of aberration after that but i think that he is going to be okay. and if you saw her early on i think he would say democrats may be having an even worse night in the house then we than we had thought but my guess is that he will survive despite the fact that the environment is pretty tough for democrats this year.

>> what about west virginia three clicks to >> i wouldn't necessarily say that. don't worry i'm not going to avoid your question. if you are doing a profile of where in the last ten years has the democratic party struggled so much, i would say border south from a small town, in order number of white voters and i would say a state with a heavy fossil fuel. [laughter] sokol west virginia, kentucky. that's just sort of where it all comes together and i think he's

got a good campaign but if rahal can survive this thing it would be kind of pretty surprising because he's got sort of all -- it's like all the risk factors for a heart attack. i shouldn't use that metaphor but anyway, that's one is a lot tougher. >> in the response to the question about men there vendor is able to focus on the gender gap. the flipside of that is of course democrats have a huge problem with men voters, too and the gender gap goes both ways and you see that in all of the states right now where republicans are doing much better but not as well among the women and you're seeing it in the approval ratings across the board.

we've seen that the gender gap since the ronald reagan election of 1980 and it stands into contracts but it's still a significant gap and we need -- the democrats also have significant challenges among males. >> not to disagree that there is one partial mitigating factor and i think this is one of the great and equities on the planet of women live longer than men so there are 53 percentage and 47 males -- >> it comes out of balance a little bit. >> everything that was said was absolutely right. >> the filter for the soft to be what's happening on the republican conservative heartland and all the places you talked about those are all

trending heavily on all of the issues and problem areas but if you look at the nonwhite college men outside of the heartland there is no trend against democrats, no shift against democrats outside. >> while we are on the gender thing and i'm not going to put either of you on the spot even though i suspect you both have done some work in louisiana this cycle but there was a cnn poll a couple weeks ago that showed the affected the mary landrieu bill cassidy race which showed effectively no gender gap whatsoever. i haven't seen the cross tabs in any other survey in the state so i don't know whether that was just a nominally enough pull or whether there was a pattern and a some reason why she wasn't giving a whole lot better among the women then the men.

>> that is a good morning take every poll that we look at with a grain of salt and we start looking at it in terms of independent voters and african-americans or hispanics. the samples and the marketing of this can vary dramatically. how the sample is done and very. if something doesn't seem right it's probably not. i have read on a handful of polls the last few weeks because i didn't believe the data. if i can't explain it to the client, if there isn't a rational explanation i have to redo it and figure out what's happening here. so if the numbers change for no apparent reason it's probably not right.

>> is there any cable show watching this that when the poll shows something different from every other rather than considering it hot news -- [laughter] the odds are that it's probably just wrong. so putting a huge spotlight on it you're probably doing your viewers a disservice. >> we should note there is a difference between the campaign polls and almost all of them that are done publicly and for the newspapers. all of our polls are voter polls and we are sampling people that we know voted in 2010 or 2006. we are dealing with likely votes and that's true of every campaign in the state's and that means the campaigns are dealing

with polls that are much more real and not as subject to these. >> let me throw one thing out and if either of you want to respond but you can't say this yourselves because you will sound self-serving but one of the things you hear is that independent polls are more reliable than those bipartisan organizations and the idea is that the partisan sponsored polls are somehow really biased as if the campaign would spend a whole lot of money on getting the money wrong would be a good idea. and i think what a lot of people miss out is that if stand does a poll with lousy numbers for a democrat, the odds that you are ever going to hear those numbers are almost nonexistent.

so the thing about it is that this assessment is getting made and the thing is that a freestanding pole in the state that he would do not a benchmark that something that you would have you would have done pic women in the last week or two what would it cost? >> 28,000. [laughter] i submit there are no newspapers in america, no radio station that are releasing numbers from a survey with a fair market value of $28,000. it would be probably closer to $3,000 so this is sort of a

mythology that spelled up that the academics kind of dwell on. >> i think you're right we ought to take it into the fact of the modeling because with democracy corps we release every poll and announce in advance so we don't have the option of getting the result and we do that on purpose. >> what is the going gets policy -- what is the blanket policy. >> i totally trust him. he has the race and he's probably rate about it to being very close they are not going to release the polls and first of all there are random variations and some probably had a poll where the democrat wasn't doing very well so you have to be

careful when there is a bias. >> we have done 1400 this year. we have released what, 20 maybe. >> your party is having a good year. >> we are doing a ton of surveys yet we got a c+ and it's based on my 20 polls. it's ridiculous but take it with a grain of salt. the campaign released the data a teen hundred surveys done over i think eight days in the field starting on friday night and ending on saturday. my take away of that is dated

tracking 1809 days and cherry pick those days because those were the days that showed him up by two points. if they had been there at a a day later or earlier the numbers were different. take away the grain of salt. take that with a grain of salt but when you look at some of the polls that show they start coming to the likelihood going to the likelihood on the voter campus after labor day and then the numbers get really crazy it's because they are not doing it right. so take it with a grain of salt. >> after this gets one over to jeff. he gave me a plug with my newsletter 30 years ago.

i am not biased at all. one comment and then questioned. the comment is about georgia. they said that it may not be settled until september. is it possible to go into january? >> i keep focusing on the louisiana that there is a runoff provision in georgia. november 4, december 6 for louisiana it is entirely possible it could be georgia as well so what does that do if they get elected in kansas it's like he's in limbo. he doesn't know which way to go. >> that wasn't my question.

>> i thought it was interesting. >> if i listen to everything that has been said that this isn't going to be the way of the election. the races are very, very close and if we look forward to 2016, what is the take away right now in terms of strategizing since it's not a wave in the next two years given the fact that it's going to start shortly after this election ends. stack for the congress and the senate. if you see that it's going to be a way that's on the ground and the lower-level campaigns. what's it mean for 2016. number one i think that as republicans we haven't addressed the issues that cost the

election in 2012. the great success but we had in 2010 didn't mean squat for 2012. that was a challenge and i don't think that we haven't addressed the challenge going forward in 2016. we face significant obstacles growing in the 16 presidential elections regardless whether you are elizabeth warren or anybody else. >> the democrats i talked about this time flip over and work against republicans. there are 24 republican seats in 2016. seven of the seats are up in the obama states and there are no

democratic seats up in romney states. it's a presidential election so instead of the midterm like we have now where there is a turnout on the scale for the republicans, that isn't on the scale for the republicans. and so, there is a real -- republicans really, really need to not only win a majority this time, but if they could put an extra seat or two on the scoreboard, they might find that handy if they have it in the senate as it is entirely possible. but to me that sort of the the sort of the nightmares and rao for the republicans is this. they are party was so pumped up and optimistic about while both in terms of the presidential race and in terms of the majority of the senate and so they were bitterly disappointed and they came out of it wondering, you know, did we get

wiped to or was our money not well spent. i'm talking macro going into these as one might expect because the community is so down on the republican side and we have a strategy whose that if it wasn't for the cook brothers we would be getting blown away financially right now. they are keeping republicans in the game. >> so the thing is if they only picked up four seats or five this year they've had with all of these amazing factors working in republicans favor the donors are going to be absolutely in a

state of enormous depression and if they are going into 2016 with only 49 or 50 states in the election that they could lose the seats themselves that's how you get to see the democrats up at -- they are in 205960 where they were in 2009, 2010. but 53, 54. that would be the worst-case scenario for the republicans. so 16 is really huge which is why all of you as citizens to give vacation, relax a bit, stay tuned because the basis turned out and they are upset about the

issues running on the affordable care act. they have taken their positions on immigration going into this off year election. every one of the presidential candidates is lined up against the idea of the legal position of the dreamers. they come out of this election with that being the defining issue if you are a republican and where you stand on immigration. for the hispanic population, the dreamers it is the most important problem symbol of whether you understand us. we polled for the times. there is nothing more important than the framers for the community. the republican party has a long time long-time coming back. there are a lot of states coming back. >> last question right here.

>> thanks. i was glad to endorse your newsletter back in the 80s with the commission check that got lost in the mail. at the polling question the world is changing and we are giving up our land lines and moving to cell phones but can you talk about how you figure out to make sure you get a good demographic cut the landline paper and things like that, how do you figure it out, how do you get to that group? >> of the democracy corps does 50% of cell phones and rising, but the cost of the national poll with a cell phone, $10,000 more just dealing with the cell phone portion. in a bigger sense it's actually

saved the polling and i thought that we would be gone by now. the polls were so underrepresented of the country was happened is increasingly you can get cell phones and they cost less and people are using it as their number. you have the minority voters and those that are particularly high on their cell phones. i thought people would not do that long surveys on the cell phones and i was wrong. the dropout rate on the polls is no greater than on the land lines. so i think it's safe to the polling. we are still here pontificating because the transition has happened. >> eight to ten years ago nobody gave out their cell phone.

>> are you kidding me, no way. it's automatic. that's where it can be reached. the last time the phone rang at home that doesn't happen. so, it is ten years ago we never would have dreamed that we would make a living by calling people on their cell phone that we do but it increases the cost and 30% of every survey that we do you need to make sure we have half of the younger enough of the younger voters and that the quote is so that we make sure we have younger voters in the samples. it's much more expensive and much more difficult and time consuming. when i first started this business we did volunteer service in the late 1970s. i ran these phone banks and we called for every interviewee wanted complete we pulled five telephone numbers. it's probably up to 150 now.

it's extraordinary. that's why the media outlets are unwilling to spend that kind of money they should be spending to get it right. but in the stuff that we do we are testing messages for and against candidates that allows people to take screenshots of that. you don't want the messages on the front page of the journal. expect the question i'm going to ask each of you is pretend that the c-span camera isn't there. if you had to give some advice to your party in the 200 -- was

he 16 election you have to give advice to your party on what they ought to be thinking about and what direction they need to be shifting, where would you go with that candid advice to the party. >> i think that a seasoned woman is the right thing. [laughter] >> may be a grandmother. [laughter] >> is that your wife you're talking about? [laughter] >> the tough advice is on the economy. they are speaking on the

economy, but the economy has fundamentally changed and people know it's structurally. there's not been a mature discussion from democratic leaders about this economy and how you have to raise middle-class incomes and that conversation needs to start. >> i think i read that in the book. >> it was a couple of years ago. >> your advice? >> we have a demographic that we need to address in the obama era among the african-americans and latinos. and unless we address that, we are going to have a tough time winning the presidency. >> well, i've treasured my relationship with the national journals since 1998 and it's been great and the collaboration

with united technologies use our grade and inspired to have an elevator in my house and helicopter in my backyard and we will get there. anyway thank you. this will be great we have a standing room only crowd. thank you all for coming. [applause] >> we will take you live to heritage foundation in just a few minutes for a discussion on the visa waiver program. first, a live look outside of the supreme court where the justices have kicked off the new term this morning by turning away the appeals from five states seeking to prohibit marriage. the courts refusal to hear the challenges means that the lower court decisions striking down bans in indiana, wisconsin, you talk about oklahoma and virginia will go into effect paving the way for same-sex marriages in t