Chris Cuomo asks the tough questions to newsmakers in Washington and around the world. Wild card . Why . He picked his pal, kris kobach, over the partys choice, who has a slim lead in polls over kobach even though trump is backing him. The proposition is this. Could trump put this governors seat in play by picking the controversial kobach . Youll remember him of gu dayzy voter fraud fame. Remember that commission to find fraud that found none . Thats him. Trump remembers the loyalty. The gop would like to forget he exists. Its also a crucial test for the other side. Democratic centrists are fighting the growing progressive wing for the future of the party. Then theres something im calling the x growth factor. What can democrats do to peel off trump voters . What do i mean by trump voters . Voters who are disaffected and who picked trump for being an antipolitician. What can they do for that . Lets get after all of this right now with chief National Correspondent john king monitoring it all for us from the nations capital. John, ive been watching the
cities. Theyre starting to run strong in the suburbs. Thats what the democrats are hoping for tonight, chris. We can go through this race in more detail. At the moment if youre Danny Oh Conner, you like that in Franklin County. You love this in Delaware County. This should be starting to turn red. Go anywhere in america. Cities are blue. As you move away, it should start to turn red. If this stays blue, Danny Oconnor is in good shame. But remember only 5 in Delaware County. Lets hold tight. You move into the more rural areas, the republican areas, and you start to see Troy Balderson doing what a republican should do here. The question is lets keep counting the votes down here. So two observations and a question. The first one is we remember from the clinton trump race that the way ohio goes early is not the way it necessarily finishes. She was up double digits. She wound up losing by eight in that state. Secondly, really late endorsement by the republican governor and popular one in ohio, john kasich, for balderson. Were not really sure if that was just about trump Kasich Intrigue or how he feels about baldersons positions, the state
senator there. The question to you this is this. Theres this big question with the democrats about where their future is, whether or not they have to embrace they are now the party not of the traditional Working Class but of big cities, new immigrants, younger populations. Do they embrace that and see te suburbs as a battleground, or do you think they continue to try to fight back for those working families that are all in those red areas . You can go to different parts of the country, and you have interviewed on your program, and you know over the years different democrats who will give you different answers. In some degrees, it depends on what state youre in. In a state as big let me switch walls here. In a state as big and complex as ohio, this is the current house delegation, 12 republicans and four democrats. If you want to win a house district, youve got to have Working Class voters here. Down here in columbus, if you want to win the city, which they do, then youre more of your progressive, Liberal Party in the city. If you want to win statewide, its a lot more complicates, with i is why the key other 2018
most times republicans tell you the early votes come out for the democrats. Republicans tend to be more traditionalists. They vote on election day. Can Danny Oh Conner hold this lead in Franklin County, and are these big percentages out in the rural areas for Troy Balderson you see the big percentages, especially here, a little more so over here. The percentages are great. Is the math enough . Are enough rural republicans coming out to vote tonight to offset at least what early on is a big dan anyway oconnor advantage, down here, near columbus, as you noted, in the suburbs where the people live. Lets do it this way. As you see the numbers change in an impressive way, get in high ear. Ill come right back to you. Lets bring in cnn chief Political Correspondent dana bash and chief political analyst gloria borger. Weve got both of you here. Its great to get both of your minds on the idea of the distinction between politics and policy. Dana, starting with you here, by historical measure, ohio should not be a race. You cant find a metric that is positive for the democrats going into this, and yet you got danny
oconnor is in a very competitive race. What do we learn from a Policy Perspective about what buttons hes pushing . Its an important question because ive been talking to republicans and democrats all day about these races, particularly ohio. And theres one thing that they agree on, and that is something really simple, chris. And thats candidates matter. Its easy to forget that when youre in these what looks like potential wave elections. But even in a wave election, in a district like this, your point, where a democrat hasnt won in almost 40 years, waves arent enough. And so in this particular case, what Danny Oconnor has done is focus on basically bread and butter issues, on health care, on Social Security, on medicare, drilling down on those, attacking the parts of the republican tax plan that they believe really that he believes really appeals to independents and maybe even some
trump voters who he can get. He also is very much aggressively distancing himself from all things washington, including his own party leader, nancy pelosi. And on the flip side, Troy Balderson, in any other environment, would be a perfectly fine republican candidate in this district, which is, you know, democrats didnt even bother for the past, you know, three decades. And in this case, republicans say hes okay, but he was slow at getting up and running on the air and getting to the point where he understood that this was a real race. Now, this could be a republican win in the end. But just the fact that were having this discussion about this race really is a reminder that the focus is where it should be as far as democrats are concerned on these bread and butter policy issues, which could bring some of those rural voters that you were talking about back into the fold for democrats come november. Thats a question. I really believe that trump didnt make the movement. The Movement Made trump. You had disaffected people who were looking for antipoliticians, not a savior but a virus to inject into the system and attack the elites and attack all the systems they didnt like. And they found it in trump. I dont know what the democrat play is there now. Lets shift over to you, gloria. I love being able to pose a question that gets answered in realtime on the show. Whats going on with Governor John Kasich . He was slow on balderson. Why . Really. Really slow. Well, you know, first of all, lets talk about his popularity. Hes got a 52 popularity, but hes more popular with democrats in the state than he is with republicans right now. So number one. With balderson, he took months too endorse him for a couple of reasons. One is he disagrees with him because john kasich, as you know from the president ial campaign, really believes governors should take that medicaid money in ohio. Balderson said, you know, no, you should not. Also it is no secret that john kasich does not like donald
trump at all. So this was kind of this was kind of dicey for him. But in the end, he ended up endorsing the republican. What kind of difference its going to make at this point, we really have no idea. And, you know, he has been out there for him, but i think the question is in the areas where john kasich is popular, Delaware County, suburban women, will he be able to convince those people who do not like donald trump that because hes endorsed him, they ought to go for him . And will he be able to convince those independent voters that they ought to go for balderson . And those are the folks that like kasich. A little complicated. It is, especially just because he endorsed doesnt mean hes out there burning calories for him. Hes not. We havent really seen that. I understand theres a big difference between an endorsement and a commitment. So well see how it plays out. Thank you very much. You hear anything that we need
to get to the audience, let me know. Ill come right back to you. Lets dig in to what this means tonight with cnns chris cillizza. Good to have you. So tom perez said to me once, you know, i heard you saying, cuomo, everybody likes a tax cut. You know who doesnt like a tax cut . People who didnt get one. Thats something that oconnor is working in ohio. They said they would help you. You didnt get helped by the tax cut. I always think in campaigns you got to Pay Attention to the ads because thats where the moneys going. So republicans started talking about the tax cut a few weeks back, attacking oconnor, promoting balderson. They stopped doing that very quickly and switched to a message, chris, that was focused its like a replay of 2010 and 2014. Nancy pelosi is a liberal. Danny oconnor wants to be for her. That tells you one thing. Now, Danny Oconnor and the democrats now towards the end of this campaign are spending money on ads that essentially say troy
balderson is for this tax cut. This tax cut would bankrupt Social Security, medicare. It would help the wealthy and hurt you, average person. Thats not what we thought would happen and what republicans insisted i remember when trump signed that tax cut, republicans said, we are going to run on this every single day. This is great for us. People like more money in their pocketbook. They may, but i will tell you there is a reason that democrats didnt start on taxes and ended on taxes and republicans started on taxes and didnt end on it. Heres a Realtime Check on the margins we believe weve seen a contraction, a shrinking. Look at that. The numbers are pulling up. You heard john king earlier. You have to watch this with patience because we saw with Hillary Clinton in ohio, democrats vote early in that state. They do early voting. They do voting by mail. So theyre already in the system. They tab yulate them right away. But the real returns can often
be very different. She was up by double digits. She lost by almost double djs in that state. I think she lost by eight. So the numbers are contracting. Its going to be very close. Thats unusual. But the democrats have to get wins not just close losses. So lets leave it there. Lets take a quick break because were going to get more numbers in and well be able to process them for you. So when we come back, well have the latest returns from the race were watching in ohio. But, remember, you have five big states all across the country tonight that are going to give us a look at where peoples heads and hearts are in advance of the midterms. Our best look yet, next. Behr pr ordinary versus overachiever. A lot of paints say they can do the job, but just one can behr through it all. Behr premium plus, a top rated interior paint at a great price. Family friendly, disaster proof. Find it exclusively at the home depot. Crisp leaves of lettuce. Freshly made dressing. Clean food that looks this good. Delivered to your desk. Now delivering to home or office. Panera. Food as it should be. Panera. When you bundle your auto and hwith esurance, you could save with their single deductible. So if you confused the brake with the gas, or if your lamp post jumped out of nowhere, or if you forgot your bike was on the roof rack, you only pay one deductible instead of two for a claim involving both your auto and home. And when you save that much, its almost like it. Never even happened. Thats auto and Home Insurance for the modern world. Esurance. An allstate company. Click or call. This bed. All right. This Ohio 12th District race has become a proxy for the State Of Play between democrats and republicans. This is our best look at what might happen in the midterms to date. We have people at both campaigns and youre getting such different stories. Jason carroll is at republican Troy Baldersons headquarters in newark, ohio. Rebecca berg is at democrat Danny Oconnors in westerville. Two very different stories. Ill get to berg in one second. Jason, what are you hearing from balderson . What are they telling right now . Reporter first of all, just hearing some cheers here in the room as some of the results just came in. Look, they are feeling very optimistic at this point. They realize it could be tight. The race could be tight. It could be a late night. Theyre feeling especially good about the president , chris, coming in this weekend. They feel as though hes going to give balderson that extra bit
of a push that he may need. They know that there is a lot of momentum coming in from democrats, but the question is can the president create enough enthusiasm to match the enthusiasm coming in from democrats . The campaign feels as though that will be the case. Jason, thank you very much. The spin there is, hey, we knew this could be close. Really . Trump won it. Romney won it. Clinton was up early. She got beat significantly, eight points in that. And theyve held this seat for 30 years, rebecca berg. So now oconnor is close, but lets put the numbers up for people. We just had another ohio moment, which is he was up. But the lead is now all but gone. This race is neck and neck. Theres still a lot of votes to be tabulated. If you look at the different plays, 66 in, now balderson is ahead. Just like that. As you jump from county and county, and john king is
standing by. Hes looking at the county by county mix in this because its a big part of the state, the 12th District. Youre going to see moves as they move from demographic to demographic. And the allimportant battleground will be the suburbs. Now, rebecca berg, oconnors people are not going to like what they just saw happen on the big screen. Whats their mood . Reporter no. Well, theyre certainly not going to be surprised, chris, by these jumps in the polls, and they are expecting tonight a very close race. As you mentioned, this is a republican district. A republican has represented this district in Congress Since 1940 for all about two years. So this is solid republican turf, and Danny Oconnor has certainly overperformed. Democrats have overperformed. But over perfoperforming is not to be enough for them. They want to win this race. They want to send a message for democrats here in ohio and also National Democrats going into the fall. And so we do expect, of course,
a close race. But they are definitely hoping for a win here tonight. Theyve been working to get out the vote hard. They knocked on doors twice for every target voter. So this has been an aggressive campaign, and theyre not looking for second place here tonight even if they do exceed expectations. Is that journey that they have blasting behind you there, rebecca berg . Are you too young to pick up on that song . It is. Dont stop believing, chris. Dont stop believing. They better hold on to it right now. Maybe a subliminal yeah, those lyrics are going to play one of two ways in this race tonight. All right. Thank you very much. Jason, rebecca, as you hear things in the campaign, we need to tell the audience. Come back to us. Why are we saying ohio is such a bellwether for tonight . You have all this hoistry on the gop side but you have this very tight race. So what does that contradiction tell us . Well, ill tell you what the main play is suburbs. I know people think that most of the votes come from urban areas, big cities, but thats not true. 49 of the votes in the last election came from suburbs. And you know who won them . Donald trump. Thats why its such an important demographic. The democrats need them. Can they start moving that direction . All of those factors are what makes it a bellwether and an awesome topic for a great debate. As the results come in, these two gentlemen will argue over what it means, next. Sarah always chooses to take the stairs. But climbing 58,070 steps a year can be hard on her feet, knees, and lower back. Thats why she wears dr. Scholls orthotics. Theyre clinically proven to relieve pain and give you the comfort to move more. Dr. Scholls, born to move. Sometimes a day at the ballpark is more than just a day at the ballpark. Stadium pa all military members stand and be recognized. Sometimes fans cheer for those who wear a different uniform. No matter where or when you served, tmobile stands ready to serve you. Thats why were providing half off family lines to all military. Comcast, building americas largest gigspeed network. All right. Now, up on the screen youre going to see over the course of the night what the State Of Play is. The democrats need 23 states to flip the house. One of the reasons were watching ohio tonight is if Danny Oconnor pulls off an upset, and it would be a major upset in that 12th District race, it goes down to 22. Still a lot of wood to chop for the democrats. But if they dont win this one, its equally as impressive. Lets bring back john king right now, the guru, because since i last spoke to you, this race has flipflopped twice. And it could in the course of this conversation again. When you went to break, the republican was ahead. You come out of break, the democrat is ahead by 1,018 votes. Danny oconnor leading 50 to 49. 4 . 75 of the vote in. Lets look at these counties because thats where this gets so important. Number one, Danny Oconnor is doing what his team thinks he needs to do most of all, keep it above 63 , 64 in Franklin County. That needs to be more than a third