Win. And this year, they really, really want to think that. They really want to think theyve got a shot at wisconsin. Theyre running against Hillary Clinton who didnt do great in the wisconsin primary on the democratic side. Hillary clinton lost the wisconsin primary by, like 13 points. So thats against her. Also in the primaries this year, more people turned out to vote in the republican primary than turned out to vote in the democratic primary in wisconsin. The kind of numbers can matter. Republicans in wisconsin have control of the state senate. Republicans have control of the state senate, of the Governors Mansion with scott walker. Republicans have also under scott walker pushed through really draconian voting restrictions that could mess with wisconsin, particularly among minority voters and poor voters. Although in the very recent past, in the last couple of weeks, courts have stepped in to block some of the worst of the wisconsin voting restrictions. So, on paper, i think the Republican Party is thinking, if they were ever going to pull off wisconsin, maybe this is going to be the year they can do it. Theoretically, this ought to be a very exciting time, a very auspicious time for the republican president ial nominee to come campaign in the great state of wisconsin. Right now, in this Republican Party, the republican president ial nominee coming to wisconsin, it should be like a republican allstar game. The chairman of the national Republican Party, wisconsin. The Top Republican in washington, wisconsin. The most celebrated republican governor in the country, like it or not, wisconsin. And on top of all of that, wisconsin has one of that handful of incumbent republican senators who is up for reelection and who the Republican Party desperately needs to hold on to his seat if they have any chance to hold on to the senate. They really need ron johnson to hold on to his senate seat in november. The latest polling said hes going to louis it to russ finegold. So theres a lot of reasons for republicans to be excited about, and energized by, and desperate to campaign in wisconsin. Wisconsin ought to be the Republican Partys laser focus right now. There could not be, on paper at least, there could not be a more auspicious time for the nominee of the president of the Republican Party to barn storm the state of wisconsin. And, yeah, this time tomorrow night, donald trump is due to be in green bay, wisconsin. Wouldnt you know it, turns out that the national Republican Party chairman, who is from wisconsin, and the speaker of the house, who is from wisconsin, and the most celebrated republican governor in the country, is from wisconsin, and that endangered ron johnson who cannot afford to be anywhere but wisconsin, turns out, all of them are going to be washing their hair tomorrow. Every single one of them will unfortunately have to miss this auspicious visit to wisconsin by the Republican Partys president ial nominee. Donald trump and mike pence will be campaigning together tomorrow in green bay, wisconsin. But they might as well be in canada or in mexico, or on mars, as far as the rest of the Republican Party is concerned. Theyre just scattering as soon as he gets there. Its like, if donald trump was pacman, and all the little republican ghosts were circling him, chasing him around, but then he eats the power pill, gets the nomination, and poof, all the ghosts scatter, they all take off, because suddenly is the threat to them, waca, waca, waca, waca. Today the speaker of the house, Wisconsin Republican paul ryan, today he told a conservative talk radio host that he is distressed. He finds distressing Donald Trumps campaign for president , but he does still endorse donald trump for president. Even if donald trump doesnt endorse him to be speaker of the house, which he still doesnt. That same dynamic is now at play with donald trump and john mccain. And with a number of other prominent and endangered republicans across the country. Well be talking about that a little bit later on tonight. But this wisconsin trip that is scheduled for tomorrow, it should be a fascinating thing to watch. Wisconsin ought to be a very different thing than it is right now in republican politics. And the only reason it is what it is right now, which is a mess, is because donald trump is their nominee. So, wisconsin tomorrow. Today, donald trump spent the day, inexplicably in the state of maine. Now, Donald Trumps trip to maine today is not being described as one of the big gaffes of the week. Right . Its not being treated as a strange political decision that he was in maine. Its not being described as one of the latest things to go wrong this week. Another bizarre turn from donald trump and his campaign in this super strange week, but you know what, it really is. And i think this trip to maine should be seen that way. Look at the state of the race right now. Look at the polling. Take a snapshot. Theres a lot of attention on national polls, there always is. National polls right now are brutal for donald trump. Tonight the nbc wall street journal poll came out, showing Hillary Clinton with a ninepoint lead over trump. Following fox news poll showing Hillary Clinton with a National Lead over donald trump of ten points. There was also a National Reuters poll that came out today that had Hillary Clinton leading donald trump by four points. And theres a national Mcclatchy Marist poll which showed Hillary Clinton leading donald trump nationwide by 15 points. Journal poll came out, showing Hillary Clinton with a ninepoint lead over trump. Following fox news poll showing Hillary Clinton with a National Lead over donald trump of ten points. There was also a National Reuters poll that came out today that had Hillary Clinton leading donald trump by four points. And theres a national Mcclatchy Marist poll which showed Hillary Clinton leading donald trump nationwide by 15 points. Which is insane. That said, we dont vote nationally as a country. We dont vote all at once as a country. We vote state by state, and it is the swing states who are determinative in terms of who wins the election. Those polls really are more important than national polling. And right now the polling situation in swing states for donald trump is a disaster. Its absolutely dire. In florida, Hillary Clinton, the latest poll, leading by six. In michigan, the latest poll, Hillary Clinton leading by nine. In pennsylvania, the latest poll, Hillary Clinton leading by 11. In new hampshire, clinton leading by 17. 17 . When youre losing that bad, after the conventions are over, when youre losing that bad in all of the swing states after the convention, not to put too fine a point on it, but if youre a president ial candidate, you have to change that. Thats an emergency. Swing state numbers like that, in all the swing states, thats a fivealarm fire. If youre running for president , there is nothing you can do in a polling circumstance like this that is more important than trying to turn around your numbers in states like this. In places like florida and pennsylvania and new hampshire. A campaign that is losing all of those states, all of those states, all at once, by these kinds of margins, less than a hundred days out. Thats a campaign that is on fire. Thats a campaign on fire, that is sinking into a lake that is also on fire and the fire truck that just showed up to help is on fire, and whats shooting out of the fire house is more fire. Youre just cooked. Youre in terrible shape. Thats irredeemable. You have to fix that. In the swing states. And so, in the face of those horrific swing state numbers, donald trump spend the day today in maine. And i hear that maine is very nice this time of year, but you know what, theres nothing donald trump can do for his campaign in maine. He might as well have been in mexico or canada for real. I mean, barack obama won maine against mitt romney by 15 points. Obama won maine against john mccain by 17 points. Even when the republican candidate was george w. Bush, who sort of lived in maine, who summered in maine or whatever, his parents lived in maine, john kerry beat george w. Bush in maine by almost ten points while also losing the rest of the country to george w. Bush. Maine is not going to help. Current polling has donald trump losing in florida, ohio, pennsylvania, michigan, new hampshire, even missouri. Hillary clinton right now is currently taking down her ads in virginia and in colorado. Not because they think that i losing there, but because her campaign is getting so confident that she has put virginia and colorado away, they dont even need to try there anymore and waste their money. Theyve got them in the bag. And in the face of that, donald trump is campaigning in maine. Hes not going to win maine. What is he doing in maine . Even if he did win maine i mean, there is the political scientists among us, will note, if theyre drunk, will note that there is the drunk political scientists among us will note that there is an argument to be made after midnight with people who dont know very much, that maybe donald trump spent today in maine because he was trying to win that one electoral vote that gets awarded separately in maine. Maine is one of those weird states where they have one Congressional District that awards its electoral vote separately from the rest of the state. Remember . Barack obama got that one vote out of maine in 2008. Hillary clinton is making a play to get that one vote out of nebraska this time around. So maybe thats what trump is doing in maine, trying to get that one electoral vote out of that somewhat more conservative Congressional District in maine, even though its never, ever awarded its electoral vote separately from the rest of the state before, so theoretically its possible. So maybe thats what hes doing. Still a weird thing to focus on when youre losing florida and ohio. But maybe thats what hes going for. That one. No, turns out thats not what hes going for. Because even though donald trump went to maine, he didnt even go to that district where in an alternate universe he might get that vote. If he was, he would have been to bangor. But no, he went to portland. If you are a person who was hoping for donald trump to win the presidency of the United States, donald trump going to portland, maine, today, is electoral malpractice. I mean, its like if Hillary Clinton were losing this election badly, but she decided the way she was going to try to pull it all back together by spending her time campaigning in oklahoma. It just makes no sense. But there was donald trump in portland, maine today. Where his security decided to throw out protesters in a crowd, for the offense of them standing and holding up pocket copies of the United States constitution. The trump crowd responded by screaming at the protesters as they were being thrown out of the event. They screamed at them usa which is an awkward thing to scream at people who are just standing there holding the constitution. Usa, yes, exactly, usa. But that is what happened while donald trump was in maine. The dominant narrative in the Political Press, the coverage of the Political Campaign right now is that donald trump is such a frustration to other republicans. Donald trump is turning out to be a frustration even to his own campaign. And i dont think theres anything wrong with that. I mean, he must be frustrating. Today the Trump Campaign had to spend the day cleaning up after him, when he started talking inexplicably about a video he swears he has seen, a video made by the iranian government, which he saw this morning, showing cash being offloaded in tehran. He said iran made the video and showed it here on the news to embarrass us. He was very upset to see that iranian video. There is no iranian video of the type he was describing. Ultimately over the course of the day, maybe what he was talking about was watching the news and being confused by what he was seeing, when he was looking at file footage of something unrelated. And so now the campaign has to deal with the question of how somebody who is that easily bamboozled by Standard Video footage in a tv newscast should never be expected to handle classified intelligence briefings, which hes now receiving as of this week because hes the republican nominee for president. I get that for the people who are trying to elect him, he must be a frustrating person to work with. But i will add this. The evidence suggests, i think any fair look at the evidence suggests that its not just him. That theres also something wrong with the effort to elect him. With the work that other people are doing on his campaign. Because you know what, somebody made a decision to send him into wisconsin tomorrow to be openly snubbed and rejected by all other Republican Leaders in wisconsin. And somebody made the decision today to send him to freaking maine, where donald trump has the same chance of winning that state, as i have of winning miss teen usa. And i know, i know [ laughter ] for real. Betting outfits in the uk right now are taking bets on whether donald trump is about ready to quit the race for the presidency. The l. A. Times reports today, quote, that serious senior lawyers have been researching how the rules would work if the Republican Party had to replace donald trump on the ticket. I mean, honestly, it seems like a ridiculous possibility that the Republican Partys president ial nominee would quit the race in august, after the convention, when nobody else can get the nomination. But you know what, whether or not you think Something Like that is possible, whether or not you think donald trump is a ridiculous candidate for president , the campaign to elect him, the campaign by other people to make him president is also starting to look like a ridiculous campaign. And that is not all on donald trump. That is on the Republican Party. Hes their guy. At least he is for now. Which you are you . 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I know youre going to do the right thing to send Kathryn Cortez masto to the United States senate. Youre okay, keep talking, well handle. Youre not going anywhere. Okay, here we are. Keep talking, keep talking. Okay, well keep talking and apparently these people are here to protest trump. Because trump and his kids have killed a lot of animals. So, thank you for making that point. So this was a group of Animal Rights protesters at the vegas rally today, and were not sure exactly what they did that caused a way bigger reaction than protesters usually get at a Campaign Event protest, but that was a dramatic moment when the secret service rushed the stage, seeing them in action is always sort of impressive. Hearing the secret Service Agent give his protectee a calming pep talk, doubly impressive and also a little unsettling. Keep talking, were not goin