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Inside Politics
Harris & Trump Try To Break Out From Toss-Up Race; Trailing Trump, Harris Makes Fresh Push For Male Voters. Swing District Republicans Shift Abortion Stances; Does the GOP Have a Built-in Advantage in Pennsylvania; This Weekend; "The Apprentice" Film Hits Theaters. Aired 8-9a ET
Aired October 13, 2024 - 08:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[08:00:01]
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(MUSIC)
MANU RAJU, CNN HOST (voice-over): Toss up.
KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES & 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We've got some work to do.
RAJU: With three weeks left, Harris hits a wall, while Trump stokes fears.
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT & 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm hereby calling for the death penalty for any migrant that kills an American citizen.
RAJU: Harry Enten breaks down Republican advantages. Can Trump close it out, or will Harris break through?
And, gender gap.
TRUMP: Black men, I love Black men. I love them! I love them!
RAJU: Amid warning signs for Harris, new behind the scenes details of Obama's appeal.
BARACK OBAMA, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: That's not exactly.
RAJU: And what Trump plans to do to make up ground with women.
Plus, out-of-control? With the Senate seeming to slip from Democrats, new reporting on how the GOP hopes to hold the House.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're both pro-choice.
RAJU: By changing how they talk about the abortion.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They can try to all they want, but the record is what it is.
RAJU: INSIDE POLITICS, the best reporting from inside the corridors of power, starts now.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
RAJU (on camera): Good morning. Welcome to INSIDE POLITICS SUNDAY. I'm Manu Raju.
Tuesday marks three weeks until election and there is deep anxiety particularly among Democrats as Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are still stuck in a deadlock race, a fact underscored by new polling across key battlegrounds.
Now, despite the neck and neck race, Donald Trump took an untraditional detour last night, campaigning in deep blue California, and settling playing on a closing message similar to how he entered the political arena, nearly a decade ago, by painting a dark picture about migrants.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: If Kamala gets four more years, the entire country will become like the migrant camp of L.A. and San Francisco.
I'm hereby calling for the death penalty for any migrant that kills an American citizen or a law enforcement officer.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RAJU: Now, amid Democratic fears that Harris support may have plateaued, she is spending today in North Carolina, a state her party has not once his 2008, but now a pivotal swing state.
And that's where we begin this morning, in a North Carolina county that voted for Biden four years ago and where Harris will be later today. Eva McKend is there.
And, Eva, what are you learning about what the vice president plans to do and who she is trying to target?
EVA MCKEND, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Manu, what we're seeing from the vice president is her doubling down on her outreach to Black voters. We are in Pitt County. This is a county that President Biden won in 2020 by about 10 points.
And what we're seeing at least thus far in the polling, and this, of course, could change as people wake up and start paying attention to this contest. But what we're seeing right now is the vice president is struggling to replicate Biden's winning 2020 multiracial coalition.
So she met with black elected faith and community leaders last night at a restaurant in Raleigh. She told them that the nation could see its first HBCU graduate as president in her. She, of course, is a graduate of Howard University. She also packed up supplies during that stop as, of course, some parts
of the state is still reeling from the impact of the hurricane. Today, she will speak at a church, give remarks, as well as meet with Black farmers here in the state of North Carolina. And that's just the beginning, Manu. This week, she has a very aggressive campaign schedule after North Carolina, she'll head to Erie, Pennsylvania, then Detroit with another targeted event aimed at reaching black voters, where she'll be in conversation with Charlamagne Tha God.
She's in Philadelphia on Wednesday, then she goes to Wisconsin, Michigan, and then she ends its the week in Michigan, and Atlanta. So a very, very busy travel schedule with just 20-plus days until the election, Manu.
RAJU: Yeah, busy schedule at a pivotal moment.
Eva McKend in North Carolina, thank you for that.
And there's a lot to unpack. Of course, this morning with our great panel.
Joining me now, Anna Palmer, "Punchbowl News"; CNN's Jeff Zeleny; Maeve Reston with "The Washington Post"; and CNN's Harry Enten.
Good morning to you, guys.
JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.
RAJU: Thanks for being here.
All right. Jeff, so you are on the campaign trail. You're talking to the campaigns. There's this wave of Democratic anxiety that's just been percolating. We're hearing about it.
You -- what you're hearing on the ground, what are you hearing from operatives and the like? Is this really where the race is at right now? Is there a real fear that Harris has hit a wall here or is it just your classic Democratic concerns?
ZELENY: I would say yes to both. There's no doubt that there is -- it's elevated to more than just typical Democratic bedwetting, which we see at the end of cycles and things, there is real anxiety.
I mean, but for months, the Harris campaign has been saying that she is the underdog in this race. Now, some Democrats are really starting to believe it. I mean, of course, October is the month where more people are paying attention to the election, more voters are tuning in.
[08:05:03]
And there is a sense out there that the vice president has sort of -- not hit a wall by any means, but sort of it's leveling off.
There are so many data points that Harry will certainly get into every demographic where she could be doing better. Of course, among white working-class men, among Latino voters, among younger Black men. But the bottom line is, she needs more votes across the board. So it's not just one demographic here.
But look, it's not that Donald Trump is running away with this either. He has a clear ceiling here.
So the bottom line, the things that gives Democrats hopes as their ground game they are putting all of their hopes and what they'd been building for the last really since she was just the vice presidential nominee. This ground game, these operatives, they get out the vote operation, that's what this is about right now, not necessarily persuading some Trump voters, try to encourage people who may not vote to vote.
RAJU: But both campaigns really view this differently at this moment, and Trump campaign is trying to project this aura of confidence. They're going to blue states. Trump went to California. He's not going to flip California. News flash, Colorado North Carolina, yeah, that's probably not going to happen in -- New York I should say.
That's probably not going to have an either, but maybe you're following the Harris campaign this week. That is, is this just the Trump campaign just trying to project that they are winning? Or is that the reality of they actually believe?
MAEVE RESTON, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, WASHINGTON POST: Well, I mean, that's been their M.O. the whole time is to protect -- project this position of strength. But I mean, I think the other really important point here is that, you know, one of the reasons why it's striking that Harris has plateaued is that she is spending so much more money than the Trump campaign.
I mean, we did an analysis based on the most recent Federal Election Commission reports and her campaign is three times the size, you know, she is spending so much more on the airwaves and yet all of that money and organization doesn't yet seem to be pushing her ahead of Trump in these key states.
And so, you know, I think that's why we've been seeing her do a lot more interviews, getting out there, trying to shake it up a bit, but there are a lot of Democrats would like to go to see more -- to see more of that from her, you know, and definitely sort of putting people at ease rather than being this candidate that mainly is appearing in front of people at rallies.
RAJU: I want you to, Harry, give me your analysis on the numbers. You're going to dive a lot deeper it throughout the course of the show on this, but just a taste of what we're seeing among Black voters, Harris versus Biden. She's down about 11 points to where Biden was an encoding to exit polls in 2020. That is according to a "New York Times"/Sienna poll, were Harris versus Trump, but also in Hispanic numbers as well. That came out this morning from "The Times"/Sienna poll. She is 54, 36.
Yeah, that sounds like a significant amount. She's winning by a lot, but Biden won 65 percent of Latino voters in 2020. How big a problem is this?
HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA REPORTER: I mean, it's a large enough problem that there's I think a reason why she's polling slightly better in those Great Lake battleground states, right? Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan. They tend to have lower levels of voters of color than those Sun Belt battleground states, Arizona, Nevada, obviously with Hispanic and then Georgia, North Carolina, with African- Americans.
I mean, the bottom line is this. At this particular hour, if you believe the polling, Donald Trump is going to put up the best performance with Black voters since Richard Nixon back in 1960, not '68 since 1960. That's 64 years ago, among Hispanic voters, Donald Trump is going to put up the best performance for Republicans since 2004 and George W. Bush, the question ultimately is, is that enough to offset the strength that Kamala Harris has with white voters with a college degree?
At this particular moment, she has the strongest margin with them than any Democrat going back since recorded history with polling, I guess since 1948, 1952, whenever you want put it. But I think that's the interesting thing about this campaign. You see Kamala Harris doing better than normal for the Democrats among some groups, Donald Trump doing the same for Republicans among some groups.
And which one is ultimately going to sort of do so much better than history that it actually outweighs the other side doing so much better than history.
RAJU: That is fascinating. The coalitions could be much different.
ENTEN: Correct.
RAJU: This cycle versus last cycle. What does it actually mean? And just a matter of a few short weeks.
But last night, Trump was in California -- Coachella, California. As we just noted, probably not going to win California, but he laid out gives you heard at the top, they're his closing argument going after migrants, very similar to what he has done in his entire time in the public arena.
But also he made some remarks about the California Governor Gavin Newsom and a threat that he waged if he were to win the White House again.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We're going to going to take care of our farmers, we're going to take of your water situation, and we'll force it down his throat, and we'll say, Gavin, if you don't do it, we're not giving you any of that fire money that we send you all the time for all the fire -- forest fires that you have.
(END VIDEO CLIP) RAJU: So at a time of natural disasters, Trump is threatening to withhold firefighter -- fire money with wildfires in California to Gavin Newsom.
[08:10:02]
But it's all part of his larger political payback.
ANNA PALMER, CEO & CO-FOUNDER, PUNCHBOWL NEWS: Yeah, I mean, this is -- think about what's happening in North Carolina and Florida and the kind of false statements that his campaign has made around the relief efforts there. I think what is really stark here though, is what Trump is doing versus Kamala, right? You have Trump basically going to base voters, going to some of these other states saying that his campaigns saying, we can do -- use these as social media moments as ways to get earned media.
Whereas you have Kamala Harris doing a full-court press, right? She's doing daytime, nighttime. I mean, she's talking identity politics in a way that she hasn't before, I think clearly knowing that she needs to make up some ground here. And when you look at what they're doing with historically black colleges, for homecomings and other things. Do you really have this kind of very different strategy where Trump is kind of saying things are going darker. He's talking to his base and that's really been the play for him going in the closing weeks.
RAJU: And, you know, he's also going after her very stark terms, if you just look at the ad money that's going up on the air, the negative campaigning from the Trump campaign versus the Harris campaign by 77 percent of Republican ads, just, not just to Trump, but also GOP groups as well. Seventy-seven percent had been negative compared to 21 percent for Harris campaign, but negative campaigning works.
I mean, is the Harris campaign making his strategic blunder here by not being more negative?
ZELENY: I mean, it's possible. Look, one of the ads that really is settling in, you see it everywhere. We saw it in college football games yesterday is the transgender issue. This is something that the Trump campaign is hammering the Democratic side on. It's affecting Senate races and other things.
So this is the cultural moment of this campaign. We've seen so many of them over the years, gay marriage and other things, abortion certainly. But this is something that some Democrats wonder if the vice president is being defined in a way that they weren't really expecting. So, those ads are significant.
ENTEN: Look, everyone knows who Donald Trump is. He's been running for president, now, what for nine years since June of 2015, and he was in the public spotlight long before that. I remember him first in "Home Alone 2", right down in the lobby no less.
But Kamala Harris its not as well-known. So you would think that you would run negative ads against her may define the few voters who haven't fully formed opinion on her. That graphic to me makes perfect sense. Harris is trying to define herself positively and Trump is trying to define her negative.
RAJU: But there's also this concern about whether she's being aggressive enough.
James Carville told Maureen Dowd of "The New York Times" over the weekend, he said: Time is short, really short. They need to be more aggressive. She should scare the crap out of voters.
That's the fear among some Democrats that she's not doing that.
RESTON: Yeah. And I mean --
RAJU: Because he's doing that with her with those negative ads.
RESTON: Right. And not just the negative ads, but these tactics it's a fear that he is really driving, you know, from the trans ad, also to the very visceral way that he's talking about, you know, undocumented immigrants. And he talks at some of his rallies about how they're coming into your house -- and there's -- there's a lot going on with like the way that he's motivating people through fear.
And we certainly -- she's still tried to hold on to this kind of joyful campaign, but it doesn't seem like they are going as hard as they -- they need to go.
PALMER: And I just say one thing here is right now you noted that she's spending a lot more money, but in the next month, they're even- steven in terms of where they're spending is and what's going to happen there. It's going to be key peak question for her campaign. Do they dumping a lot more money?
RAJU: Especially as people start to pay attention, those low propensity voters, in particular, from certainly that INSIDE POLITICS viewers have been watching this very closely.
All right. Up next, is this a boys versus girls election? Harris and Trump make a last ditch effort and bring out the big guns tackled the gender gap.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Black men, I love Black men, I love them. I love them! I have gone through the roof with Back men. I don't do quite as well with Black women. I must say. I don't know why, but I'm sure that'll work out, too.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: I think it's very important to not operate from the assumption that Black men are in anybody's pocket. You got to earn their vote.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RAJU: That was Vice President Harris last month, well aware of one of the most pivotal voting blocs, Black men.
Indeed, the battle over the gender gap could very well decide who wins the presidency, as one pollster told "Politico", it is a boys versus girls election. As Trump tries to narrow the gap with women, Harris doing the same with men.
This week, she's headed to Detroit for a radio town hall with Charlamagne Tha God. In an effort to reach Black men, in particular and as Bill Clinton hits the trail, so is former President Obama delivering a blunt message.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLI)
OBAMA: Speaking to men directly, part of it makes me think that -- well, you just aren't feeling the idea of having a woman as president. These aren't ordinary times, and these are not ordinary elections.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RAJU: All right. Joining us now on the panel is CNN's Isaac Dovere, who's got some brand new reporting about Barack Obama.
Isaac, good morning. Your stories headline Obama's reemergence on the trail for Harris comes as he recognizes his own legacy is at stake. I just reading you passage from your excellent article here it says, but thought has circulated amongst several people close to the former president. If they told CNN, if Trump wins, Obama way be seen as the aberration in the history of American politics, rather than Trump and his native authoritarianism. Obama acolytes have spent the last 11 years rationalizing Trump as the last gasp backlash to the Democrat and his presidency.
What are you hearing about his strategy in his own thinking about why he's in this involved at this point in the campaign?
ISAAC DOVERE, CNN REPORTER: Well, I can tell you that -- that appearance at the campaign office on Thursday was one that even people close to Obama did not think would go quite like that.
[08:20:04]
There's something bubbling in him, a frustration with Trump's continued hold on America and with what he's seeing with Black men, I go back to in April, I asked Kamala Harris when she was still running for vice president, whether she thought Black men had problem voting for Black women. She said to me, I haven't seen that.
But Obama spoke directly to that because it's something that he is saying that the Harris campaign is seeing an internal polling as one of the things I get into in this article because that is his mission for these next couple of weeks here, to try to move enough black men and other voters, but really focused on Black men and the way only he can be.
And as I got into piece, it's for him -- yes, America, the world has a lot riding on the outcome of this election. Barack Obama does too, because what I wrote about with a legacy issue there, but also because of the way that he wants his own future to be, he is tired of being the de facto party leader here. He thought it would fade away when maybe Joe Biden, when he was hoping that Hillary Clinton would win and then he'd step back.
But I get into a lot in this piece about how even behind the scenes he's been working with Hakeem Jeffries and House Democrats, working with the Senate Democrats, and Chuck Schumer, involved in still advising Harris over the phone. And a lot of phone calls that they've had that haven't been reported before. He's only had one phone call with Joe Biden since Biden dropped out.
RAJU: Right.
DOVERE: That's in the piece, too. But all of this because he is hoping basically let the party move on. But one of the people I talked to with Mark Kelly for this, senator from Arizona, I said, are you ready for the party to move on from Barack Obama? And he said to me, not yet.
RAJU: Yeah. Well, they still need him. I mean, the question is, how effective is it looking at the numbers about the choice for president? Harris is still struggling with Black and Hispanic men compared to where Biden was. She's of course, winning those groups rather than with men, that Trump is ahead by eight points, saying where he was back in the 2020 exit polls, but she is down with Black men and Hispanic men. That is the real issue here.
Is Obama -- can he really make up that difference?
RESTON: I mean, we'll see but when you talk to -- you know, I've spent a lot of time in Nevada, as well as North Carolina and Georgia. And when you talk to Black men, there's just so much disappointment in, you know, what the Biden administration was not able to do, what they promised and couldn't deliver on.
And there's also just this enduring belief that Trump as a businessman, knows how to create jobs, will do more to sort of lift up at potentially help them build wealth.
And so, Kamala Harris this week is trying to do a whole series of events meeting with Black on entrepreneurs tomorrow, doing the Breakfast Club thing. I mean, she's trying to play up those aspects of her agenda in terms of trying to close the generational wealth gap, talking about some of those entrepreneurship and small business initiatives. But she's still is far behind where Biden was with some of those groups.
RAJU: Jeff, you were just in Arizona. Obama is heading to Tucson this week as part of this swing-state tour. What are you hearing from voters there about with these, you can see from the polling on the screen there, Trump is still ahead according "The New York Times"- Siena poll by five points. But, Jeff, you in your conversations hearing about their concerns right now.
ZELENY: Look, polling is mixed. "The Wall Street Journal" had Kamala Harris ahead in an Arizona on Friday. "The New York Times"-Siena College poll had Donald Trump ahead in Arizona on Saturday. So the reality is it's a close race. No one is ahead outside the margin of error.
But in Arizona, it's fascinating a state separately because abortion and immigration actually are on the ballot, not just hanging in the air. And that is something that is driving the Arizona a conversation. There's a proposition called Proposition 139 that's on the ballot that would enshrine abortion rights in the states constitution. But that is gaining supporters from both sides. Both Harris and Trumps the supporters.
So that's why this is so fascinating here. It is going to be a test for that. But the reason that Barack Obama is going to Tucson next weekend, and its Pima County, strong Democratic stronghold, they need to awaken every Democratic voter, everyone who voted for him.
Of course, he lost Arizona. Arizona has been a changing state, but he's also an addition to what Isaac was reporting and its great story about Black men, also reached out to a white women, white men.
So Barack Obama's appeal for the fondness the people who voted for him. The open question I have after watching him for so long all these years, do young voters are they moved by the message from a Barack Obama?
RAJU: They didn't vote for him, weren't even, you know --
(CROSSTALK)
ZELENY: But certainly not -- are we going to see him on college campuses? Yes, he is a draw but also has significant issues on immigration. He was a highly -- controversial administration on that, and the Middle East. So he has limits to his appeal. He's not Superman here.
[08:25:00]
He can sort of get some people out to vote, but he can't win this race for her.
RAJU: Did you want to jump in there?
DOVERE: No, there -- he was on a college campus in Pittsburgh on Thursday, was there with him.
There was one woman that I talked to. She's 24 years old. She said to me, he feels like the future. I said, you were eight when Barack Obama -- and she said is still feels that way. And I spoke to a lot of younger people, freshmen at Pitt, who were there and what came out of line of the most they said, its like the last time things felt normal, there's sort of nostalgia from their childhood when things were calmer and maybe that's what it will be. But I was surprised by how many young people were saying that.
RAJU: Meantime, the Vice President Harris has her running mate, Tim Walz, in seeing him trying to appeal to male voters. He was doing things such as, attended a Minnesota high school football game. He met with former students there.
He went pheasant hunting in Minnesota. He held a discussion on the Second Amendment.
It's interesting because Walz is -- the way they've dispatched Walz -- first, he was behind closed doors for a lot of times, and her doing things at rallies. You know, sure, and fundraising. But this is this new effort to try to close the gender gap.
PALMER: Yeah. I mean, I think to your point, in the beginning, he wasn't really -- they weren't really bringing them out to do much, but now they are trying to kind of focus him in areas where they think that he can make up some of that issues for her, whether it's white men, whether it's kind of going, he's going to be on "Smartless", the podcast that's super popular, trying -- I think in a really similar to what they're doing with Kamala Harris, get him as many places as possible to try to make that closing argument.
He's had some gaffes and has an uneven performances. And so there is some risk there I think that the campaign is taking even in this hunting video where he had a little bit of a hard time kind of, you know, loading his gun. It was a pretty awkward, not just a kind of a home run experience for the campaign.
RAJU: And meantime, Trump, of course, has its own issues with women voters. He's having a town hall with Fox the next week about trying to -- try to appeal to an all female audiences, kind of billing it as a -- dealing with issues impacting women. But the reason why he's doing things like that is that he's down 52-43, according to a Pew Poll on this.
Trump though in a lot of ways, he's going to lose women voters by a lot, suburban women voters, in particular. There are some writing that off to some extent while they're trying to find new voters, lower propensity voters, people who have not been really as engaged, try to expand the electorate and not writing off women, but kind of writing of some women voters.
RESTON: Well, making these huge promises about, know, IVF, or, you know, we had the interesting in thing with Melania coming out -- Melania Trump coming out and talking about how she was pro choice. So that's sort of an interesting twist in all of this.
But I think its you know, its the way in which they are trying to push up their margins with young men, those lower propensity voters. I mean, that campaign has such a bro culture around it. An end the way that he speaks and the machismo, I mean, a lot of that projection of strength, a lot of that is what appeals to those voters.
If they believe that if they can get enough of them out there, enough of those young men out there that they can balance out the gender gap.
RAJU: Yeah.
RESTON: You know, on the flip side, Harris has to push up her margins enough with men to really make up the difference. And that's what it will come down to.
RAJU: Yes, indeed. It's just fascinating to see how it will ultimately play out.
All right. Up next, why are Republicans starting to sound like Democrats? My new reporting on the surprising way Republicans are taking on their greatest weakness as they tried to hang on to the House.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[08:32:37]
MANU RAJU, CNN HOST: As Republicans are heavily favored to take the Senate in November, the House is a different story.
There are so few battleground districts that it could very well go either way. And whichever party is in power, they almost certainly will have a very narrow majority.
And the issue at the center of some of the key House districts right now, abortion. So how are House Republicans addressing what both sides agree is our biggest vulnerability?
My new reporting this morning with my colleague Sara Ferriss and Michelle Shen breaks down how they're trying to avoid a repeat of their 2022 midterm let down by moving to the center, or even the left on the issue.
Take Joe Kent, a staunch conservative Republican, vying to pick up a Democratic seat in a key battleground in Washington state and how he shifted his message since the last cycle.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. JOE KENT (R-WA): I 100 percent support Roe versus Wade being overturned.
I would move to have a national ban on abortions.
I agree with the Supreme Court that made it a state matter. And I oppose any new federal legislation on the issue.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RAJU: All right.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A bit of a shift.
RAJU: The question is, will it work? But there are so few, just to step back on where the race for the House stands for our viewers to see. There are 32 House Democratic seats in play, 33 Republican seats and just so few are considered toss-ups here.
So the Republican have tried to change to how they're approaching this issue. Will it work?
ANNA PALMER, CEO, PUNCHBOWL NEWS Well, they know what they did in 2022 didn't work, right? They had -- they thought they were going to get all these big wins in the midterms. Abortion was one of their biggest issues.
The problem is what they say, you know, a couple of months ago, even to what they're saying now, are totally different things. Is this an authentic message for them?
They've been all over the map on it. Trump's been all over the map on it. And it's on these ballot initiatives in key states, which is going to be a big issue for House Republicans.
I don't think that they've kind of figured it out yet largely because most of them do support a national ban.
RAJU: Yes, it's the ones who were trying to appeal to Democratic voters who are particularly taking this more moderate or liberal stance on this issue, according to a Gallup poll about the issues most important to them.
Republicans say that abortion really is not on the top issues there. The economy being the top, taxes also rounding it out there.
[08:34:52]
RAJU: Democrats however, view it much differently. Abortion in the middle of the pack there, 49 percent say it's extremely important.
I caught up with two candidates vying for a seat in southern California in the San Diego area, Democratic seat right now. And the Republican I talked to has actually cut an ad looking directly at the camera saying that he's pro-choice.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MATT GUNDERSON (R), CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE: since were both pro- choice, then we have an opportunity to take that conversation, set it aside and have a real serious conversation about solving the border, about inflation, the economy, jobs, crime, education.
RAJU: So if you had a chance to vote to codify Roe, would you vote to codify Roe?
GUNDERSON: I'm a state's rights guy and I think that that decision is already in place. It's been sent down to the states and I would not vote to codify Roe.
REP. MIKE LEVIN (D-CA): We know that if Mike Johnson is empowered that there are many around here that would try to get a national abortion ban in place.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RAJU: And that Republican candidate Matt Gunderson told me that he actually would oppose -- his campaign told me later that he would oppose a national ban on abortion. But even as he opposes wanting to codify Roe.
But Maeve that -- what do you think about that strategy? I mean, you're from California. Does that -- is that --
MAEVE RESTON, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, "WASHINTON POST": No. And there's -- you know, in that district there's a lot of Independents down there who are in favor of abortion rights. I mean, it's just -- it's a simple math equation particularly --
RAJU: But he's trying to argue, that this will neutralize the issue --
RESTON: Yes.
RAJU: -- set it aside and they'll focus on the issues that actually, they think voters care about more.
RESTON: Right. But I think that, you know, there's -- it's very going to be very hard to continue making that argument because Democrats are just pounding this issue over and over again.
The threat of a national ban, like even when the candidates are saying, you know, that they wouldn't support that. They're still -- Democrats are still saying that like they would be under pressure when they get to Congress.
And so I mean, it's really -- it's a smart strategy to try to get it off the table because it is top of mind for so many voters, particularly in a state like California.
But I think we can just expect the Democrats are spending so much money on abortion ads across the country. I mean, I think it's like up in the 70 percent range that mention it.
(CROSSTALKING)
RAJU: Is there a possibility we could see what happened in 2022? I mean, Republicans thought there's going be a red wave. It was not a red wave in large part perhaps because of this issue.
HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL DATA REPORTER: Yes. I mean, look absolutely possible.
You know, we talk about the presidential race being tight. We're probably not going to know who won the House for, you know, days, if not weeks on end because the ballots are counted so slowly out in California. Of course, there's so many key districts there, key battleground districts.
New York, where obviously I'm from. I took the train down yesterday. Please make the ads stop from both side. It's way too much.
You know, it interrupts my baseball games, my football games.
JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Try living in Wisconsin.
ENTEN: You know what? God bless those folks. God bless.
But here's the deal. Democrats are going to run on abortion because it's by far their best issue. They don't want this campaign to be about immigration. They don't want it to be about the economy. They want it to be about abortion.
It worked for them in 2022. Poll after poll after poll shows it's their strongest issue. Voters very much disagree with the overturning of Roe v Wade, and they very much want abortion rights codified.
The bottom line is expect much more of that in the final three weeks of this campaign.
RAJU: There's cultural war playing out on both sides. You had mentioned this earlier, Jeff, about the issue about transgender policy. In this race for the Senate also -- Republicans, it's different there. The map is much more favorable to the GOP, they stand poised to gain the Senate there, you look at just a sense on where the polling stands right now.
And what are those races where Democrats are longshot pickup opportunity in Texas where Colin Allred is running in that Red state. He is losing according to the polls to Ted Cruz, the incumbent senator.
Cruz has been hammering him on the issue of transgender rights. And Allred was the first Senate candidate to cut an ad, pushing back on that issue.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COLIN ALLRED (D-TX), SENATE CANDIDATE: Ted Cruz is lying again. But now he's lying about our children.
I'm a dad. I'm also a Christian. My faith has taught me that all kids are God's kids.
So let me be clear. I don't want boys playing girls sports or any of this ridiculous stuff that Ted Cruz is saying.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RAJU: What do you think of the cultural war aspects on the GOP side and how they're waging this in the key states?
ZELENY: It absolutely is precedent. It's one of the, you know, sort of late things emerging in this campaign. It's been out there, of course. It was an issue that Nikki Haley, I remember talked about a ton during the Republican primary. But this is something that is, you know, there are kind of a decrease in a list of cultural issues, sort of like left in the country. Of course, there are more, but this is the one at the center of this race.
I think his ads certainly very interesting, but in the presidential level as well as we said earlier, the Trump campaign is hammering, just hammering Kamala Harris on this.
[08:39:46]
ZELENY: And other -- some other Senate Democratic candidates are also worried about this, like Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin, a central issue there as well.
It's something to keep an eye on without a doubt.
RAJU: Yes. And we'll see how much it ultimately moves voters there.
All right. We have much more to discuss, including coming up, does the GOP have a built-in edge in a critical swing state?
Harry Enten right here will join me at the Magic Wall over there. He's going to take us through the numbers.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
RAJU: Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, well, they might as well just assume residency in this commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It's attracted the most amount of attention of any of the 50 states. And it could very well determine the next president. Now with the voter registration deadline fast approaching, there are some critical data points to help give us some clues about what might happen in just three short weeks.
[08:44:55]
RAJU: So I've Harry Enten here at the Magic Wall to dive into the numbers. All right. So Harry, tell us the way -- what you have found about how voted are leaning at this point compared to 2020?
ENTEN: Yes. I mean the voter registration numbers, if you want a stat that Republicans absolutely love. It's this one.
All right. Pennsylvania voter registration, you register by party and that's it. You go back to November 2020, you see Democrats 47 percent; Republicans, 39. That was an eight-point advantage.
Look at where we are today. Yes, more voters in Pennsylvania registered as Democrats and Republicans, but it's now just 44 percent to 40 percent. Now they've got a four-point gap. Democrats -- Republicans excuse me, have cut that Democratic advantage in half, in half in such a short period of time.
They have gone out. They've registered voters. There are folks that have come over to their side who were previously registered Democrats. The question is where are they picking up ground, Manu. Where are they picking up ground? This to me says it all.
All right. Which Pennsylvania counties di the GOP gain in registration. If you look in counties where less than 50 percent of the population is non-college white voters, Republicans gained just a point.
Where you have over 50 percent non-college whites, look at this. Republicans gained six points on average.
RAJU: Wow.
ENTEN: They are picking up ground in the areas you'd expect them to pick-up ground, right? Those non-college white-dominated areas, coal country in the northeast, southwest outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
But the bottom line is the registration trend. The trends we've been seeing the last few cycles with Republicans dominating among non- college white voters very much showing up in this party registration day.
RAJU: David McCormick is the Senate candidate, the Republican Senate candidate. He told me actually he believed that can actually propel him to victory because they are narrowing that margin with Democrats, the voter registration.
What does this mean for Kamala Harris in her chances of victory in Pennsylvania?
ENTEN: All right. So all of this data, bad news for Democrats, right? Good news for Republicans.
But there's one thing to keep in mind, right? You had that "New York Times"/Siena College poll that came out yesterday that showed Kamala Harris slightly ahead, but within the margin of error.
Why is that? Because take a look here. This is the Pennsylvania margin by party registration in that poll. What you see here is that Kamala Harris -- I'm going to come over to your side of the screen, Manu -- is doing better among Democrats, a 77-point lead, than Donald Trump is among Republicans, a 74-point advantage. She's also doing better with those who are not registered with a party or with another party.
But this nugget is key because even though Republicans have closed that registration gap, they haven't closed it completely.
The fact that Harris is doing slightly better among Democrats and Republicans and there are more of them, that is what gives Democrats solace is because at this particular point that state compared to say, Arizona, slightly more favorable to Kamala Harris, at least in the polling data so far.
RAJU: So what does this tell us (INAUDIBLE) -- are we seeing this nationally? Are we seeing this in other battleground states, this changing of registration advantage, Democrat?
ENTEN: Yes. All right, so this, you know, was just Pennsylvania where we're seeing just one state. I don't think we'd necessarily be doing this segment, but I believe it is part of a larger picture.
Fewer voters who are registered as Democrats, this is across the battleground states where you have party registration. Not every state has party registration, right? Wisconsin doesn't, Georgia doesn't, Michigan doesn't.
But in the battleground states where in fact you do have party registration, there are now fewer registered Democrats in Arizona, fewer registered Democrats in Nevada, fewer registered Democrats in, of course, the great state of North Carolina.
So what we're seeing in Pennsylvania is being seen in other states as well. More folks that's registering as Republicans as compared to Democrats.
But let's -- we're looking at the battleground states. Let's take this out nationally, all right? This is party registration, but let's look at party identification. Party registration, of course, you're actually registered with a party. Party ID when you say, I feel like a Democrat today, I feel like a Republican today.
They're correlated, but they're not exactly the same. But I think it gets at the trend that's going on here, Manu.
All right, so party ID nationally, you go to October, November of 2016, Democrats had a three-point advantage. You go four years ago Democrats had a six-point avenge.
Look at where we are today, Manu. Republicans with a one-point advantage, a very different picture, very much mirroring what we see in the party registration numbers in those key battleground states. And Pennsylvania in particular.
RAJU: It actually just shows you too why Harris is taking -- doing what she's trying to do. Trying to -- trying to moderate a little bit on these issues to kind of reach those very voters because the party registration is changing and the demographics of the voters are changing. Those are the people she needs to attract.
ENTEN: Absolutely. And you know, the GOP leads by a point in party identification right now. The average when the Republican Party loses is the Democrats ahead by eight. When the Republican Party wins, the average party ID advantage for Democrats is three. Republicans right now, Manu, are doing even better than the average when they went.
If there's one little nugget that I think Republicans are really helpful for, it's this party ID and this party registration data. It really points in a good direction for them and for Donald Trump.
RAJU: Wow. We'll see, a close race and that can absolutely make the difference there.
Harry Enten, of course, the guru breaking it all down for us.
ENTEN: Thank you.
RAJU: Really appreciate it.
All right. Coming up, the movie the Trump campaign does not want you to see. Well that hit theaters this weekend.
[08:49:49]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How do you always win?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's rules.
The first rule is attack, attack, attack.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Rule 2, admit nothing. Deny everything.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Rule 3, no matter what happens, you claim victory and never admit defeat.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
RAJU: The much anticipated and controversial film, "The Apprentice" finally hits theaters this weekend. That despite Trump threatening legal action and his campaign calling it quote "election interference". A spokesman saying it was quote, "pure fiction".
Now named for Trump's TV show, the movie actually examines his early years and his relationship with a notorious attorney and political fixer, Roy Cohn.
[08:54:48]
RAJU: The screenwriter says the timing of the release was coincidental. Here's how Jeremy Strong, who portrays Roy Cohn, describes the film.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JEREMY STRONG, ACTOR, "THE APPRENTICE": It's not a partisan thing. It's not telling you who to vote for. It's trying to help us understand and illuminate something about our own past. It's, you know, about how Donald Trump became who he is today.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RAJU: And actor, Sebastian Stan explained how he came to portray a younger Donald Trump.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SEBASTIAN STAN, ACTOR, "THE APPRENTICE": It's not just the mannerisms and this whole thing that everyone kind of likes to, you know, point to and then, you know, sit back and sort of let it all speak for itself.
It's, you have to look at what -- how we've gotten here and that's what I was interested in.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RAJU: While Trump is clearly not a fan of the movie, it turns out one of his closest allies has some praise. Roger Stone tweeted this week, he has seen the film and quote, "The guy who plays Roy Cohn has it down cold."
That's it for INSIDE POLITICS SUNDAY. You can follow me on X @mkraju, follow the show @insidepolitics. If you ever miss an episode, you can, of course, catch up wherever you get your podcast. Just search for INSIDE POLITICS.
Up next "STATE OF THE UNION WITH JAKE TAPPER AND DANA BASH". Dana's guests include Senator Raphael Warnock and Congressmen Byron Donalds, and Jim Clyburn.
Thanks again for sharing your Sunday morning with us. We'll see you next time.
[08:56:10]
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