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Trump & Harris Close Out Race With Starkly Different Visions; 9 Days To Go: Why Is The Presidential Race Deadlocked?; Final Batch of National Polls Shows Tied Race; Badger State Brawl; McConnell Dodges Questions but Unleashes on Trump in New Book. Aired 8-9a ET

Aired October 27, 2024 - 08:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[08:00:38]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(MUSIC)

MANU RAJU, CNN HOST (voice-over): Nine days.

KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES & 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We are fighting for freedom!

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT & 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Kamala broke it and I will fix it.

RAJU: With the race deadlocked, candidate stormed the battleground.

TRUMP: We become like a garbage can for the rest of the world.

RAJU: As Trump goes dark, Harris leaned on star power.

MICHELLE OBAMA, FORMER FIRST LADY: If we don't get this election right, we as women will become collateral damage to your range.

RAJU: And new data on why the race is still so tight.

Plus, anxious nation. Two pollsters on what they're watching in these final days.

And Badger State battle.

SEN. TAMMY BALDWIN (D-WI): I want voters to know how serious the stakes are in this election.

RAJU: We go one-on-one as Wisconsin Senate race its ugly.

Are you trying to remind voters that she's gay?

RAJU: INSIDE POLITICS, the best reporting from inside the corridors of power, starts now.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

RAJU (on camera): Good morning and welcome to INSIDE POLITICS SUNDAY. I'm Manu Raju.

An anxious nation awaits a verdict of voters in just nine days and the race remains deadlocked in the final full week on the trail. The candidates looking for any kind of advantage they can get as they target key voting groups.

And Kamala Harris heads to Philadelphia today after campaigning in Michigan last night with former first lady Michelle Obama. Meanwhile, Donald Trump plans to deliver his closing argument tonight in deep blue, New York City in Madison Square Garden after visits yesterday to both Pennsylvania and Michigan.

But the big question, how many persuadable voters are actually left? And what kind of differences will pitches like these actually make?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Immediately upon taking the oath of office, I will launch the largest deportation program in American history.

We become like a garbage can for the rest of the world.

HARRIS: It's either Donald Trump in their stewing over his enemies list or me working for you checking off my to-do list.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: So far, more than 36 million ballots have already been cast in this election.

And we've got live team coverage this morning with our Eva McKend traveling with the Harris campaign and Danny Freeman with Trump.

So let's begin with Eva McKend in Michigan.

So, Eva, we're learning about Harris's campaign plans this week. What can you tell us about that?

EVA MCKEND, CNN NATIONAL POLITICS REPORTER: Well, Manu, what we're going to see the campaign do is barnstorm all seven battleground states. She begins this week today in Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia, at a Black church where the campaign is going to tout the endorsement of 1,000 faith leaders from across the country. Monday, she's right back here in Michigan in Ann Arbor. It's part of the -- when we vote, we win concert series.

We're going to hear from Maggie Rogers perform. Tuesday, she's back in Washington for a big that speech. They are hailing this are billing this rather as the closing argument. It is at the ellipse close to the White House, the very same place where the former president gave that famous speech, that infamous speech on January 6.

Wednesday, the vice president in three states, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

Thursday, she is in Reno and Las Vegas, and Arizona. So the message clear here, Manu, in the closing days of this campaign

be everywhere, lay out the stakes of this election and mobilize voters. It's all about turnout, getting people to turn out to vote -- Manu.

RAJU: All right. Eva McKend in Michigan, thank you for that.

And Donald Trump was also yesterday, he was in Michigan before holding a rally in the Keystone State and that's where we find Danny Freeman, who's in State College, Pennsylvania, where Trump spent the night trying to pick up votes.

So, Danny, what are you learning?

DANNY FREEMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Manu, I think to characterize former president Trumps past 48 hours is really it was all about reaching out to young men. First, you had that event last night, right here in state college on Penn State's campus. And there was much of his normal Pennsylvania type stump speech during that particular rally. There was a lot about fracking, bashing the Biden-Harris administration on immigration also, at one point, he made fun of Vice President Harris and targeted superstar Beyonce because Beyonce did not sing at that Friday night rally in Texas.

But early on, he really played to that hometown crowd when he actually highlighted the Penn State wrestling team.

[08:05:04]

He brought them up on stage. He commented over and over again about how muscly they were and praised them for their successful few years. And I should say the crowd here at Penn State, they really loved it. And when you combine that within his interview back on Friday with Joe Rogan, you can really see a through line here.

That was a three-hour interview, Manu. It was at times freewheeling, at times meandering. He dipped into some of his election conspiracy notes during that interview as well. But you can see the strategy all again, targeting younger men, perhaps at least in the case of Joe Rogan's podcast men who might not be added lets plugged into the election, or men who might not be as likely to vote in general.

So that's really what the former President Trump's whole weekend was about. But then as you noted, Manu coming up tonight former President Trump will not be in any of these swing states. Instead, he is going to be in New York City having a rally at Madison Square Garden later this evening. We'll see how that goes -- Manu.

RAJU: If he does at all any of his messaging that we've heard really for the past three election cycles.

Danny Freeman in Pennsylvania. Thank you for that report.

And let's bring this -- break this all down with my great panel this morning, "The Wall Street Journal's" Molly Ball, "Semafor's" David Weigel, Zolan Kanno-Youngs with "The New York Times", and NPR's Mara Liasson.

Good morning to you all. It's great to see you.

Nine days, can you believe it? And some just -- wow, that it's already here. Okay. So you have a new story out this morning, just about where the voters, how they feel in Georgia, you spend some time on the ground there, really though, it is just so tight everywhere you look, if you break down the battleground states, we at CNN has averaged, all the key polls, and these are the key states, it is all basically within the margin of error.

So, Molly, as you've done your reporting on the ground what. What are you hearing from voters and what are you hearing about, which campaign maybe in a better position if at all, come election day?

MOLLY BALL, SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, WALL STREET JOURNAL: This race is tied. It is tied nationally. It is tied in literally every swing state. It is shaping up to be the closest election in American history. And as you might expect, that has people pretty nervous, right?

And I went to a Trump event, a Harris event, talked to some rank and file voters at an early voting center in suburban Atlanta, and almost to a person they expressed this sense of just extreme anxiety. Now some of it is just suspense, we are nine days out already, nearly 40 million votes have been cast. So some of it is just people cant wait to find out which way this is going to go when we really do not know based on it any of the data we have.

And this really is on a knife's edge, but also over and over. Voters for both candidates were telling me this does not feel like a normal election. It feels like something much more, existential. It feels like a crisis and a lot of ways.

And so you have both -- both Harris's supporters and Trump supporters saying they really do not know if our democracy will continue. And we have a data on this also from our Wall Street Journal national poll that we released this week, 87 percent of voters said that they believe that the country will sustain permanent damage if their candidate does not win this election.

So the stakes are very, very high and you hear both campaigns amplifying this message.

RAJU: Yeah. I mean, you've been talking to the campaigns do give a sense on election day, who may be in a better position or does it feel like it just impossible to know?

DAVID WEIGEL, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, SEMAFOR: The arguments haven't changed. The Trump campaign has done a very good job of broadcasting confidence, which Democrats have ever been good at this to. They're not this cycle because Democrats have this memory of -- for a few years, 2000, 2004, 2008, '12 overperforming the final polls. And that's not been the experience in the Trump era.

So you talked to Democratic organizers. They are confident they have spent years building out an operation that is going door-to-door, are finding people and I've been -- we've all been went out with them. It's true, they are finding those frustrated voters who might have gone Republican, but for Dobbs, they exist and Democrats have found them. Republicans are really running I'd say on this energy they have that peoples everywhere they go, they're finding people who never would have voted for Trump before, but have come into this argument that he things are better when he is in charge, peaceful will occur in the Middle East when he is in charge, an argument that Democrats really have not had a good answer to this -- this dynamic where he goes to Michigan and says, I'm going to make peace, TBD the details, and it works on people.

So they're all -- all these atmospherics that keep going Trump's way. Then you look at the data, then you look at the turnout Democrats have, they are still in a position to win this. And they remember, is this 2020 or 2022 because they do remember 2022. And the mindset they had going into this election, even if polls were tied, they were going to lose they didn't, they still think those voters are potable somehow.

RAJU: And, of course, so much as Danny was reporting and we've been reporting is about the gender gap. Right? Trump is doing better with men. Harris, doing better with women. So yesterday in Michigan, when Michelle Obama was stemming something with Kamala Harris, she made her pitch pretty directly to male voters to look out for the concerns that women have.

[08:10:04]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: So I hope you'll forgive me if I'm a little frustrated that some of us are choosing to ignore Donald Trump's gross incompetence while asking Kamala to dazzle us at every turn. I hope that you'll forgive me if I'm a little that we are indifferent to his erratic behavior, his obvious mental decline, his history as a convicted felon, a known -- a known slumlord, a predator liable for sexual abuse, all of this while we pick apart Kamala's answers from interviews that he doesn't even have the courage to do y'all.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: So many different levels of that. But one of the things that stuck out to me is that she's using language that Harris doesn't use, calling him a convicted felon and a predator found liable for sexual abuse.

ZOLAN KANNO-YOUNGS, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: No, that's right.

I mean, she was unvarnished. She was candid, you know, yesterday and that arresting speech, I think pointed in both criticism of which she described as a double standard between Harris and Trump. But also, I think when that speech turned to reproductive rights as well, it really was one of the more sort of emotional and on parts of the speech. And let's be clear, you're right. This election very much could be

defined by a gender gap and to see the different ways that Democrats are also trying to appeal to men. There was a difference yesterday and the way Michelle Obama tried to appeal to men, than former President Obama, just weeks ago it was a shift from scolding and almost admonishing men and flying sexism could be at play between men who are hesitant to vote for Harris and Michelle Obama yesterday saying, look, reproductive rights is not something that will exclusively apply to a woman at her speech, almost imploring meant to imagine their wife also going through an emergency situation and because of the restrictions on reproductive rights that we've seen.

I think that speech is something were going to look back on here, particularly because of how it represents the gender gap that were seeing. And also this sense of urgency that Democrats have to try to bridge it.

RAJU: Is it too late to make a difference?

MARA LIASSON, NPR NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: No, I don't think it's too late to make a difference, but here's the thing, that gender gap is pretty even. He's doing about as well with men as she's doing with women. And what Democrats need is for women to be a very large percentage of the electorate in the past, there are always like 50 to 53. Men are like 47, women turnout more, but this time, Democrats need a really big turnout among women. Maybe like 55 percent, 56 percent of the electorate, in order to make up for the -- really the losses that she suffered among groups that should be with her Black men, Hispanic men.

So I think that it's not too late. I think that there's a lot of negative partisanship going on. Go into that voting booth and vote to stop the other person, not necessarily because you're thrilled with the person you're voting for. I think you're hearing that for both sides.

RAJU: And you're talking about the gender gap, there's -- the Harris campaign announced this morning about new ads really aimed at targeting men and they're going to air on Monday night football, including in some select media markets, the Pittsburgh Steelers are playing the New York Giants on Monday night.

This is one of the ads airing in Philadelphia during Monday night football.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AD NARRATOR: Philadelphia is different. They insult us.

TRUMP: Bad things happen in Philadelphia, bad things.

AD NARRATOR: They don't like us. We don't care because here's the thing that people like Donald Trump don't understand, we're Philly, (EXPLETIVE DELETED) Philly. And when you fight us, we fight back.

(END VIDEO CLIP) RAJU: I mean, we were talking about this earlier, you're seeing on the dream big football games that the Trump campaign has been dominating the airways. It seems at least anecdotally from watching games by anti-trans ads trying to target those voters, didn't message here.

KANNO-YOUNGS: It seems every time you watch a football game at this point, you're going to see those ads performed by Trump that, that, that are anti-trans, you're right. Trump was also at a football game just last week. He was at the Steelers game as well -- as well, I believe, showing up with Antonio Brown.

And then you also have the Joe Rogan interview just a couple of days ago. That's all what we're talking about here, trying to basically appeal to men and it highlights that gender.

LIASSON: And those are low propensity voters that they're trying to get, so it's a harder job, although -- even Democrats called Trump a human turnout machine, but he's going after a shrinking pool of voters because non-college voters get a smaller percentage of the electorate every two years, but also voters that don't usually vote.

RAJU: OK, let's pause the conversation for now because there's a lot more to discuss coming up, a question many of us hear all the time. Why is this race so close? What we're learning from new numbers, because even for President Obama says he doesn't get.

[08:15:05]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: I get why people are looking to shake things up. What I cannot understand here's why anybody would think that Donald Trump will shake things up in a way that is good for you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

RAJU: The questions so many people are asking is, why is this race essentially tied? And how come neither candidate has really been able to maintain any sort of consistent lead? Many Democrats are aghast at Trump without his baggage, criminal charges and felony convictions still can very much win this race and the anger is palpable.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Donald Trump is a loser.

He's a loser as a candidate, the more importantly, in my view, and I'm just going to say straight up, he's a loser as a man.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[08:20:00] RAJU: All right. My panel is back.

This is -- one of the questions is, is Biden dragging down Harris?

This is how the view of the country is right now about how Biden job approval rating, not good, 37 percent, according to the CNN poll. And other question is, how are things going in the country today? Just 32 percent of the country believed that things are going well, 68 percent badly. That is according to that same poll.

Is Biden dragging down Harris?

BALL: Well, that's the basic answer to your question of why Trump is so competitive in this race, right? People are very unhappy with the direction of the country. They're very unhappy with the current administration they want change and they just aren't sure if the type of change that he is offering is one that they can get on board with, but you have to think that, you know, a non-Trump Republican candidate would be running away with this thing because voters aren't -- do not like this administrations policies on the biggest issues of the day, on the economy, on immigration. Those are the biggest issues in most polls and voters feel that this administration has mishandled them.

So I don't know if it's Biden specifically who's dragging down the ticket given that, you know, Kamala Harris is also in the administration, is also in the White House, is basically an incumbent and has refused to distance herself from Biden.

RAJU: She's really struggled with that question, like how would you be different?

BALL: I think she struggled with it. I think her answer to it is no.

RAJU: Yeah. Yeah. That's right.

BALL: She's answered the question over and over, and her answer to that is I do not want --

LIASSON: But that's the wrong.

RAJU: Yeah, that's a wrong answer, right, when she said that.

LIASSON: The thing about these statistics, Donald Trump should be way ahead all the fundamentals favor him, very historically unpopular administration, high prices, even if the rate of inflation is coming down, those are things that defeat presidents. Why isn't he ahead?

I mean, you could ask the same question of her. She's running against as you said, a convicted felon twice impeached. Why isn't she ahead? He's now ever gotten more than 47 percent. Now that was fine in 2016 when they were third parties, not so good in 2020, can he get above that? And can she get anywhere close to the 51 that Biden got?

RAJU: Yeah.

LIASSON: That's the question here. RAJU: Here -- maybe this could answer the question. Why isn't he more

ahead? Look at the same poll about Trump. Demeanor and temperament, 56 percent say that is the reason why they plan to vote against him. His demeanor and his temperament, and about his pledge to go after his enemies.

Fifty percent of likely voters say Trumps pledge to go after his enemies is another reason to vote against him, which explains also why there's a big push that make this a character fight, more so than a policy fight.

KANNO-YOUNGS: Absolutely and look, I've talked to Republican strategists who have said there is a political vulnerability right there. If you're the Trump campaign talk about the economy, you could have talked about the border and sort of a record number of border crossings over last couple of years.

But instead, were increasingly seeing the former president portray America with this sort of dark have this dark description of America. You saw him describe it as a garbage can last week. You've talked -- heard him talk even more about enemies within using the military to target political enemies, just emphasizing the sense of retribution that would occur if he were to make it to office.

That isn't a disciplined message. It's just not, and, you know, he can call it the weave or what-have-you, but if you're strategists here, Republican strategist then they're saying that you have these political vulnerabilities that you could be criticizing instead. He often is having a message that's distracting in a way that could also be an answer why this is still even?

RAJU: Yeah. I mean, it is a characteristic that is one reason why he's having trouble with some voters, particularly in the suburbs.

In the ad -- I want to talk a little bit about the ad money and the strategy here and where some of this money is going overall, spending is just so enormous. Lets $779 million from Democrats alone between July, late July and where we are today. And that is compared to 574,000,004 Republicans. That's on TV ad spending Republicans have closed the gap about even in the last few weeks, there's spending a lot more money labor, just so much money.

But what's interesting is that there is money that is now being spent on TV in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, in Michigan, going after a candidate who's getting 1 percent in the polls Jill Stein.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AD NARRATOR: Stein isn't sorry about swinging the 2016 election to Trump and now she's being helped by MAGA allies and Trump's former lawyer. Longtime Klan leader David Duke endorsed her.

A vote for Stein is a vote for Trump.

Just ask Putin.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: It's the Green Party candidate, of course. Jill Stein is a reminder of how the came down in 2016 and Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, she took about 1 percent of the vote. Of course, Hillary Clinton did not win that race.

What do think about the strategy?

WEIGEL: They're trying to -- Democrats are trying to suppress some of this vote. Although as Wisconsin, a couple other states didn't see a lot of third-party energy like I did eight years ago. Suppress some of this --

RAJU: You think it's different than it was in 2016?

WEIGEL: It is. And also -- let's the longer story here, how Democrats grapple with this.

So Kamala Harris headed choice, the vice president. She did not pick somebody that the left -- well, I shouldn't say the base, but the left wing of the party thought was more moderate, like a Josh Shapiro or Andy Beshear. She picked the most progressive option of that and then days later, I was in Michigan when she rally with Walz and she got protested by Gaza protesters.

And so I don't think that -- she's running on Medicare covering home care. She's running on some progressive ideas. Some progressives are not happy that she's not running on more, not talking --

RAJU: Including Bernie Sanders who wants her to talk more --

WEIGEL: Including Bernie Sanders, yeah. The ads are about that. But they are fishing in this pond of frustrated Republicans because the left has been really ordinary about do not getting all of its demands from this campaign and not getting any new position on Gaza before the election.

So part of that is saying, even if you're frustrated by that, please just wait nine days, don't vote third-party. You -- you're going to see what happens with Trump.

RAJU: Yeah. Let's see if that appeal actually works.

All right. We'll learn sooner enough.

All right. Coming up, two polling experts, they'll join us and they share what they're going to be watching over the next nine days, and as results start rolling in. Their insights, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:30:38]

MANU RAJU, CNN HOST: It's not easy keeping up with a slew of polls that come out every day. But the political world studies all of it to glean any insight into the electorate. Former President Trump has seen a small bump in a positive direction,

but does it mean anything? And do Democrats have a reason to be nervous?

Well, two top polling experts are here with me right now to answer all of our questions. Democratic pollster Celinda Lake --

CELINDA LAKE, DEMOCRATIC POLLSTER: Hi.

RAJU: -- and Republican pollster, Brenda Gianiny.

Good morning. Nice to see you guys.

BRENDA GIANINY, REPUBLICAN POLLSTER: Good morning.

RAJU: Thank you so much for coming in.

So just a sense of where we are nationally, national -- of course, states decide the election, but this is where the mood is of the country right now. Just deadlocked across the board as you can see, no clear leader on your screen from all that public polling.

But there seems to -- there seems to be this narrative out there that things are better for Trump and not as good for Harris from the data. Is that a real assessment of where things are?

Is Trump in a better position, or is it just impossible to know?

GIANINY: I think Trump definitely -- we've seen every -- in our data we've seen Trump take a lead over about the last seven days. So things are shifting quite a bit. Ever since the debate we've had it locked. It's been dead even.

But over the last seven days, things have moved to Trump's favor. And it really is not a function of what Trumps doing. It really looks to be a function of the Harris campaign and her pivot on messaging to democracy looks to be hurting her.

RAJU: Have you seen that in your polls? Is it democracy -- this is, she's going to give a closing argument at the Ellipse at the site of the January 6 speech Donald Trump gave. Is that the right message at this time or is that having an impact negatively?

LAKE: It does have an impact on turnout and it energizes the base. And this is all about turnout now. But she's also got to keep at the same time an economic message going.

I mean, that is what is at the root of people's dissatisfaction. But if I can say in answer to your first question, the polls are dead even, and I would advise everybody to get off the pollercoaster and when a pollster --

(CROSSTALKING)

RAJU: Even the pollsters don't know.

LAKE: You know that's right.

RAJU: So basically, throw everything out.

LAKE: Yes. Go vote.

RAJU: Go vote.

LAKE: And get your neighbor out too.

RAJU: That's just -- let's talk a little bit about voting and what actually will happen come election day and where some of the bellwethers and we want to look at this break down in Georgia a little bit. About where some of the key demographic groups in that critical, critical swing state.

This is a Marist poll breaking down the demographics here. In Atlanta suburbs right now, Harris is ahead by six points according to that poll. People who make less than 50k a year, she's up ahead as well. More than 50k a year, about tied. Black voters 82 percent, she's leading. And she's losing to white voters 31 percent to 67 percent of Trump's, according to that Marist poll.

So Brenda is that -- when you look at the bellwethers in Georgia, is that -- is that a breakdown that you'd be comfortable with that could give Trump a victory.

GIANINY: Absolutely. So I think even more than looking for demographics, its looking at the demographic shifts in those counties. So I think we are going to have some insight pretty early on election night.

I'm not sure that we're going to know who's president on Wednesday but I think we're going to have some good insight early because if you look at those counties outside that you were highlighting outside metro Atlanta its really north of Atlanta. Those close-in suburbs, think Buckhead, Alpharetta, those are places that we thought they voted overwhelmingly for Mitt Romney but they cratered for Trump.

So what are those voters going to do up against Harris? And then you go just a little bit further north to those ex-urbs (ph), think Gwinnett County, Cobb -- that rapid diversification of that region really speaks to the numbers that you just highlighted.

You have black voters registering about four to one to white voters. So is that going to swing that? So I think even more important than looking at demographically, it's looking at those regions and how they're going to -- how they're going to vote.

And I think we're going to have some good insight election night.

RAJU: Yes, we'll see. And in Pennsylvania of course, the big prize on election night and how that is -- that state's break down.

We look deeper into the numbers there according to a Franklin and Marshall poll, among likely voters in Pennsylvania, the central PA, Trump is leading by a comfortable margin. Male voters ahead by six points, losing to women by 12 points in PA and white non-college educated voters by 17 points there.

[08:34:51]

RAJU: So Celinda what about that breakdown? Does that are you ok? Are you comfortable with where Harris stands in Pennsylvania, based on that?

LAKE: Well, nobody should be comfortable about Pennsylvania. And I think we will have early indicators because Pennsylvania is going to tell a big story.

But what you do see there is quite a gender gap. And what you see is that's winning women by more than we're losing man. And that's the formula for success.

We have to -- we have to win women by more than we lose man. And we're trying at both ends of that. It's like whack-a-mole.

We've got to keep (ph) non-college-educated women from voting the same way as their husbands.

RAJU: Just to speak -- speak about the gender gap, I mean, are you concerned about that? Trump losing by 12 points in Pennsylvania going into this poll among women.

GIANINY: Absolutely. Clearly the Trump campaign has made a calculation that they're going all in on men. And so they're trying to get Hispanic men. They're trying to get African-American men to make up that loss with women.

If you follow his message, I mean, you don't go on Joe Rogan to win over Latino voters. That's clearly that there --

(CROSSTALKING)

GIANINY: You don't have the host with his shirt off in convention.

So I think that their strategy is they're fine with that gender gap.

RAJU: And just look at where the polls were in 2020, 2016, and 2012. The final polling numbers at that time, just to give viewers a sense of that on your screen there. There were some errors, of course, in the past. What kind of errors could viewers expect?

LAKE: So all of these polls make an assumption about turnout. And anybody who tells you they know what the turnout is going to be is lying to you.

RAJU: Ok.

LAKE: So, I think there's a secret Trump vote and I think there's a secret Harris vote. You're going to see a surge on both ends and pro- life, for example, young -- younger women in Kansas right after the Dobbs decision, they turned out at higher rates than any group of men.

If we have that formula today, we're going to win the race. RAJU: All right. We shall see.

Thank you guys both so much for joining me.

GIANINY: Thanks for having us.

RAJU: Really appreciate your insights.

And coming up. I hit the trail in battleground Wisconsin and the deadlock race for a critical Senate seat. Well, it has gotten nasty.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: Are you trying to remind voters that she's gay?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[08:36:55]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

RAJU: What is going on in Wisconsin. The Senate race there has devolved into one of the nastiest in the country with the majority at stake. So I traveled to one of the best places Madison, Wisconsin, the home of my alma mater, to get a front row seat into the feud between Democratic Senator Tammy Baldwin and her GOP challenger Eric Hovde.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RAJU: It is a bitter battle in the Badger State where Democrat Tammy Baldwin has held a seat for nearly a dozen years.

SEN. TAMMY BALDWIN (D-WI): I'm being challenged by a self-funding multimillionaire by the name of Eric Hovde.

RAJU: Now facing deep-pocketed Eric Hovde who has turned the race into a dead heat with Democratic control of the Senate in peril.

ERIC HOVDE (R-WI), SENATE CANDIDATE: I'm the tip of the spear, but I can't do it without all of you.

RAJU: For months, Baldwin and her allies had been pummeling Hovde with the scathing comments he made in the losing Senate primary bid a dozen years ago.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Eric Hovde has insulted just about everyone.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What's wrong with this guy?

RAJU: And his vast fortune stemming from owning a $3 billion bank along with the $7 million home in Laguna Beach, California.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hovde's lifestyle, pure California.

RAJU: But Hovde has poured at least $20 million of his own money into the race, helping the GOP outpace Democrats by millions on the air in the final month of the campaign.

HOVDE: Thank you.

RAJU: As he rides Donald Trump's coattails, Hovde has launched a flurry of attack ads that hit very close to Baldwin's home.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Tammy and her girlfriend get richer while we struggle.

RAJU: Since August, Hovde and GOP groups have cut at least eight ads targeting Baldwin's six-year relationship with financial advisor Maria Brisbane, demanding the senator disclose her partner's assets, even though Senate rules do not require that for partners, only spouses.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Baldwin's in bed with Wall Street. While she sleeps in her girlfriend's million-dollar condo in New York City, Wisconsin families are getting hammered.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's a conflict of interest.

RAJU: The senator has gone on air, pushing back.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This ad is a complete lie.

RAJU: And strongly denies the GOP allegation that her partner's investments conflict with her work.

Should she just not disclose this, put this to rest, disclose her assets, disclose her clients, just to keep critics.

BALDWIN: Absolutely not.

RAJU: Why not?

BALDWIN: If I was dating a doctor, should they disclose their patients? I mean, come on. This is -- this is -- just stay out of my personal life. I disclose everything that I'm legally required to disclose.

RAJU: But Baldwin, who first won 2012 and became the first openly-gay senator sees the attacks differently.

He's trying to remind voters that you are gay?

BALDWIN: I think he is. I think he's also trying to distract from his sort of judgmental weaknesses.

RAJU: Hovde denies that's his intent.

RAJU: Because I've seen your ads, because you almost -- you say that it's her girlfriend. You almost emphasize girlfriend. Are you trying to remind voters that she's gay.

HOVDE: Oh, come on. I could care less whether she's gay. I mean, this is a ridiculous question. It's a simple fact that she -- her partner is investing in areas that Senator Baldwin oversees. They don't disclose it at all.

RAJU: CNN reviewed footage of a 2009 (INAUDIBLE) for then- Congresswoman Baldwin said she should have to disclose her then domestic partner's financial information, now part of a GOP attack.

[08:44:48]

BALDWIN: Surely the public interest would require that these obligations apply also to partners of gay and lesbian office holders.

RAJU: So how do you reconcile that?

BALDWIN: Yes.

So I don't particularly want to talk about my past life, but we have a domestic -- we had a domestic partnership law here in Wisconsin. And my ex and I were legally domestic partners.

That's not the case in my current situation.

RAJU: So that's a different situation than (INAUDIBLE).

BALDWIN: Yes.

RAJU: So you guys -- you have a condo together but you're not domestic partners.

BALDWIN: That's correct. That's a legal term and we are not.

RAJU: But Democrats say Baldwin's relationship is no different than male senators who have had girlfriends. And say the GOP is now using dog whistles.

RAJU: Because you specifically say she's in bed with Wall Street in those ads. That's pretty explosive.

HOVDE: Well, one of my design ad guys created that, yes. And the point is, have you seen her ads on me?

RAJU: Hovde, who like Baldwin was raised in schools in Madison says he is the one being unfairly attacked.

Your ads have been pretty scorched earth. Do you --

HOVDE: Wait, wait, wait. Come on. She went total scorched earth trying to tell people I'm from California when I've had my home, my residents, you know, not even a mile away down here on a Lake Mendota.

RAJU: I thought you were in Laguna Beach for a while and I bought a home out there where my wife and I spend probably about three months out of the year, the last five years.

RAJU: Hovde reports the total value of his assets is at least $195 million, but it's unclear just how high that goes.

You call on her to -- her partner to disclose her clients. Would you disclose more information about your own personal wealth.

HOVDE: I gave full disclosure. I've given full disclosure and by the way --

RAJU: Can you say precisely what the net worth is.

HOVDE: NO, I'm not going to get into that.

RAJU: You spent about $20 million or so on the campaign so far. Is there a limit to how much of your own personal money you'll spend? I'm not going to get in that. I'm not taking special interest money because I'm not going to be owned by special interests.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

RAJU: All right. My panel is back.

Dave, you were out there with me. What do you think of Hovde's attack, the way he's going after Baldwin and her partner?

DAVID WEIGEL, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, SEMAFOR: It's relentless as you covered. I asked him a follow-up question, I think after your interview. is there some decision she is made, some votes she's taken you think was compromised and he couldn't name what it is.

Just he is, as a wealthy candidate, he's one in a line of wealthy candidates Donald Trump included -- has made this overall argument that if you have made your own money, you can't be bought, you're uncorruptible. The other person who's benefiting from either personal connections or from super PACs, they are -- they can be bought.

And that was not -- in the summer, that's not something that's very credible to most Wisconsin voters. They're trying to make it credible now, just the way they're doing it with Kamala Harris.

RAJU: There's just rich guys running in Republican candidates all over the country spending their own money. $20 billion, at least have his own money.

MOLLY BALL, SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, "THE WALL STREET JOURNAL": Well, on the flip side to this argument that's in their favor, which is that they can't be bought because they are so rich, the Democrats have been relentlessly attacking them as out of touch millionaires and billionaires.

And we've seen that in a number of these races where the candidate is attacked for not being, you know, a true resident of the state or not -- you know, and you have, you know, Dave McCormick in Pennsylvania, you have --

RAJU: Tim Sheehy in Montana.

BALL: Sheehy in Montana, a bunch of these self-funding rich candidates, which parties love to recruit because they can spend their own money. But then that also means that inevitably they're going to be attacked for their wealth. RAJU: What did you think of the way that Hovde went after Baldwin?

MARA LIASSON, NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, NPR: I thought -- first of all, I thought these were absolutely fascinating and kudos to you because they were both completely on the defensive and really were struggling to answer these questions.

But look, it's working. He was way behind and then he started to relentlessly attack her, spent tremendous amounts of money on the air and the race is now a complete tie.

So it's clearly working.

ZOLAN KANNO-YOUNGS, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, "NEW YORK TIMES": This race really does show how in this current state of politics that we're in, it's not just a debate over the issues obviously.

But this was a prime example of we were talking about in the last block just how you can have really these attacks on character and trying to basically shape the race over somebody's character and their, in this case, identity as well.

I do think it's interesting just how Baldwin is focusing so much as well on rallying rural voters, even bringing Josh Shapiro in for some help on her --

RAJU: Yes. Yes, we'll see if that works.

All right. Thank you, guys. Thank you so much for joining me this morning.

But we still have more coming up. What do the most powerful Senate Republicans really think of Donald Trump? And why is the news only coming out now?

That's next.

[08:49:15]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

RAJU: There are two words that rarely come out of Mitch McConnell's mouth. "Donald Trump", at least publicly. Since pointedly blaming Trump for the January 6 attack, the Senate GOP leader and the former president have had a bitter falling out.

McConnell often refuses to talk about it publicly, but that changed, of course, when he agreed to extensively cooperate with Mike Takin of the Associated Press whose biography of the GOP leader called "Price of Power", comes out this week.

In the book given to me ahead of its release, McConnell calls Trump a "sleazeball", a "narcissist", and "stupid", as well as being "ill- tempered".

He says the MAGA movement is completely wrong, and he suggested that Trump committed an impeachable offense by his actions leading to the January 6 attack.

Now, notably, those responses are strikingly different than McConnell's answers to my many questions about Trump in his weekly press conferences.

[08:54:47]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY): Well, in what has become a weekly tradition, Manu, look, I said to you all, basically to you every week. I don't blame you for trying but I'm not going to be commenting on the presidential election.

Well we all missed you last week?

RAJU: Yes.

MCCONNELL: You're back.

RAJU: Yes, I missed you all, too.

Over the past week since the debate, Trump and Vance have been advancing this Internet rumor of Haitian migrants eating pets in Springfield, Ohio. The governor has concerns about this. So does the mayor.

Should they stop saying that?

MCCONNELL: I'm not going to get into presidential contest?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: McConnell, who is stepping aside as GOP leader at year's end is endorsing Trump for president.

That's it for INSIDE POLITICS SUNDAY. You can follow me on X @mkraju, follow the show @INSIDE POLITICS, and follow me on Instagram @manu_raju.

If you ever miss an episode, catch up wherever you get your podcast, just search for INSIDE POLITICS.

Up next, "STATE OF THE UNION WITH JAKE TAPPER AND DANA BASH". Jake's guests include GOP VP presidential nominee J.D. Vance and former Congresswoman Liz Cheney.

Thanks again for sharing your Sunday morning with us. We'll see you next time.

[08:56:00]

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