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INSIDE POLITICS
Clinton's Lead is Shrinking; 54% of Americans Say Things are Going Well in the U.S.. Aired 12-12:30p ET
Aired October 27, 2016 - 12:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[12:00:00] JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR: John and Kate, thank you. A cloudy but still gorgeous day here in the nation's capital. Welcome to INSIDE POLITICS. I'm John King. Thanks for sharing some time today.
Twelve days to Election Day and the race for president is tightening. That's the buzz and well, there's some truth to it. Hillary Clinton's national lead is shrinking, and we are revising our CNN electoral map to reflect Donald Trump's improved standing in Nevada and Florida.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: We can't make any of this happen if we don't have you voting. Now, Donald Trump says he can still win. And he's right
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Hillary Clinton campaigning there.
Florida and Nevada on our map, you see it there, moved from lean Democratic back to toss-ups. Those are the gold or yellow states right there on the map. So, yes, that map today is a downgrade for Clinton from yesterday.
But a little context is critical. Yes, what was on average a nine- point national lead five days ago is now down to six. But that nine- point lead, let's be honest, it was bloated by the fallout from that recording of Trump bragging about groping women. Today's six-point lead is still stunning if you think about the last 10, 15, 20 years in our politics. So any conversation about the tightening presidential race, here's a good guidepost if you're involved in one.
In the past several days, Trump's math has moved from impossible to improbable. Hillary Clinton's strategy is no secret, block any chance of a Trump comeback by winning states the Republicans cannot afford to lose. So she's in North Carolina this afternoon for her first joint appearance with the first lady, Michelle Obama. Trump has three stops in Ohio, one of the handful of states both dead heats now on the list of must wins for Donald Trump. Dead heat states he must win. That's where you see Donald Trump these days.
With us to share their reporting and their insights, Ed O'Keefe of "The Washington Post," Jackie Kucinich of "The Daily Beast," Margaret Talev of Bloomberg Politics, and Ryan Lizza of "The New Yorker." So let's begin with the big question. People see Florida, dead heat, Nevada, dead heat, and everyone says, oh, the race is tightening. Tightening or tightening in a way that' a surge for Trump on a comeback path or a tightening in a way that, OK, we live in the United States, a polarized America, this is pretty natural.
ED O'KEEFE, "THE WASHINGTON POST": The latter.
JACKIE KUCINICH, "THE DAILY BEAST": Yes.
O'KEEFE: Nevada is - is sort of become the new Florida in that you've got these tight contests and Democrats will tell you, any chance they get, the polling out there's pretty bad because it doesn't account properly for Hispanics, among others. Florida being tight, I mean, look, the sun came up today -
KING: Right.
O'KEEFE: And the pope's still catholic. That's the way it works. We're just going to have to (INAUDIBLE).
KING: Right. Right. It was the closest state between Obama/Romney was Florida.
O'KEEFE: Right.
KING: Ohio was also very close.
KUCINICH: I was going to say the same thing.
KING: North Carolina went back and forth. The states, that if you - you know, if you put that map back up, the states that are gold that are toss-up state are the states that we always come down to in the final weeks. So in one regard you could say again, Trump's in a better position today than he was last week. But last week he was in an incredibly deep ditch of his own digging because of that "Access Hollywood" tape and then the women coming forward. Now, if you're Clinton, you're still - you're still in a commanding position. But as she just said there, you'd better be careful.
MARGARET TALEV, BLOOMBERG POLITICS: Well, and if you look at this time four years ago, it was really a much tighter race. It was supposedly within a margin of error race.
KUCINICH: Right.
TALEV: And then you saw what happened in the very end. For Clinton, the last couple of weeks, as the sort of groping accusations took hold, the big fear inside her campaign was this complacency issue, right, that her supporter - either her real supporters or like her, eh, whatever, I'll go with her supporters figured this thing was done and maybe they don't have to show up. The sort of flip side of the complacency argument is that as things appear to tighten, it helps them to make their case against -
KING: May actually help her in an odd way. TALEV: Yes.
KING: If people start talking it's a closer race. And she's been focusing, Ryan, almost exclusively on going to, A, the battleground states, the ones that are always close in the end, but, B, the ones that have early voting -
TALEV: Yes.
KING: And they're open. They're trying to win the election today, not on November 8th.
RYAN LIZZA, "THE NEW YORKER": Bank as many of those votes as you can to make Election Day turnout a little bit easier. I mean I think the best indicator this week, aside from any of the polls of where this race is, is that Mike Pence, yesterday, was in Utah.
KING: Right.
LIZZA: Right. A state that had -
KUCINICH: And Donna Brazile is in Utah today.
LIZZA: Yes. A state that hasn't voted for a Democrat since 1964 I believe. The map you just put up, I believe Trump has to win all of those toss-up states. The ones that (INAUDIBLE) -
KING: Even if he wins them all, it's not enough. We'll get into -
LIZZA: He still needs New Hampshire. He still needs several others.
KING: Yes, (INAUDIBLE) -
LIZZA: he's got to sweep those. The tightening in Florida, yes, it's tightening up. That Bloomberg poll yesterday. But, before that, it has been extremely consistent in a - with a two to three point Hillary Clinton lead. Come - it will come down to the wire but, you know -
KING: The one you -
LIZZA: As you said in the open, it's gone - opening, it's gone from impossible to improbable.
KING: Impossible to improbable. And if you talk to Republicans in those states, where there are battleground Senate races, you go to North Carolina, you go to Florida, you go to Ohio, you go into Nevada, and most of them tell you they think if it's close Clinton will win at the end because she has more money in the bank in the final days and she has a superior campaign organization, nuts and bolts.
LIZZA: Yes.
KING: Another way you know Donald Trump knows he's losing, he's suddenly doing interviews with networks other than Fox News. He talked to our Dana Bash yesterday when he was in town. Today he's on "Good Morning America" with his wife Melania. Listen here. The conversation, George Stephanopoulos asking about, what was it was like between Donald Trump and Melania Trump when all these women came forward and said Donald Trump inappropriately kissed them or touched them.
[12:05:05] (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MELANIA TRUMP, DONALD TRUMP'S WIFE: They were - they were lies. And as I said before, all the accusations, they should be handled in a court of law.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, "GOOD MORNING AMERICA": So you believe the lawsuits should go forward?
M. TRUMP: Yes, I believe that. And - because to accuse somebody of - without evidence, it's very hurtful and it's very damaging and unfair. And - but, honestly, do we still need to talk about that? Let's talk about jobs. Let's talk about secure our border. That's what American people want to hear about.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Yes, I think - I think people do -
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: And just to finish, I can't apologize for something that I didn't do.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Interesting there. Number one, again, proof that Donald Trump understands that he needs - he's doing mainstream media. He's bringing his wife on with him to try to soften up his image some. He understands the dynamic of the race just by being there. You know that.
But, number two, first Melania Trump saying, yes, she agrees her husband should sue his accusers. Something he said repeatedly on the campaign trail in recent days and his staff has told him to stop saying -
KUCINICH: Right.
KING: Stop talking about that. But then she does the pivot even better than Donald Trump.
O'KEEFE: Far better.
KING: Let's talk about jobs. Let's talk about the things the American people want to talk about. Maybe he should bring her out in the campaign more.
KUCINICH: Which begs the question, where has Melania Trump been, where she could potentially have helped stem the bleeding that Donald Trump has been going through since these women have come out and accused him. She did come out. She did do an interview a week or two ago. However, it's so late at this point to have her sitting next to her husband talking. Why wasn't this done immediately? And it's a question that we haven't really gotten a good answer from the campaign.
TALEV: Yes, I also think when your posture, which I guess it has to be is, "I can't apologize for something that I didn't do," you - you are just taking often the table a whole bunch of voters for whom, if you addressed it in a more nuanced way, perhaps you could bring them back into the fold. What I didn't do encompasses potentially every single accusation that's been made over - and they're a completely different range of accusations, some of which seem to have more evidence behind them than others. What you say I can't apologize for something I didn't do, what you're saying is, I have nothing to say to any of the people who I could still persuade for whom this is the pivotal issue.
KING: Right, and he says that in that interview taped at the new Trump international hotel up the street from us here in Washington. At the event yesterday, he gave Newt Gingrich an atta boy for essentially getting into a public fight with Megyn Kelly -
KUCINICH: Oh, my God.
KING: Who Megyn Kelly was simply saying, the conduct of people running for president is newsworthy and we will discuss it, thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.
O'KEEFE: Yes.
KUCINICH: Right.
O'KEEFE: And it's - it's incredible. The important thing to remember about that "Good Morning America" appearance, I mean that's a show, obviously, that's watched predominantly by women. He's bleeding women. He's just - he's just - he's not finding any support among them. Fifty-five percent of women very anxious about a Trump presidency in the ABC/"Post" tracking poll out this morning. That number has to improve for him. Things like that potentially -
TALEV: When you see him go -
KUCINICH: And threatening to sue them.
TALEV: Yes.
O'KEEFE: Yes.
KUCINICH: When - (INAUDIBLE) when you had these women coming out and saying the reason they didn't come out earlier is because they were afraid.
KING: Right.
KUCINICH: And so what does he do, he says I'm going to sue them after the election. That doesn't help. That is not helping his message. It is not helping him at all.
KING: He has tried - he has tried to shut that down in some recent interviews when people bring it up. He said - it was - I believe it was a Fox News interview, when he called in the other day, saying, you know, people want to talk about that, you know, I don't, but he's the one -
KUCINICH: He keeps bringing it up.
KING: He's the one who brought it up in Gettysburg, of all places, in the Gettysburg address.
LIZZA: Right.
KING: But you mentioned he needs to deal with his deficit with women. It's not just - it's not just a traditional women gender gap with Democrats. You see especially white college educated women, a constituency Mitt Romney carried four years ago, a constituency very important when you go through the battleground states. North Carolina for one. Colorado's probably off the map because of this. There's another one. Listen to this piece of - part of the interview here. George did ask, you know, where is Melania Trump? To your question, Jackie, why hasn't Melania Trump been on the campaign trail more often?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
M. TRUMP: We will see. My priority's my son, Barron, our son Barron. And I support him 100 percent. And I'm there for him every time he needs me. And I might join him. We will see.
D. TRUMP: She's actually going to make two or three speeches.
M. TRUMP: Oh.
D. TRUMP: And I will tell you -
STEPHANOPOULOS: It's new right there.
D. TRUMP: Oh, it is. It's - it's - she's amazing when she speaks.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: It looked a little bit there -
O'KEEFE: When is she going to give those speeches?
KUCINICH: Well, exactly.
KING: Well, when, number one. But it also looked like that was news to Melania Trump.
KUCINICH: Right.
KING: When Donald Trump said you're going to make two or three speeches, her head kind of came a little and was like -
O'KEEFE: He said the same thing earlier - but he said the same thing earlier this year, that she would be out there talking about women's issues and whatnot.
KUCINICH: Yes.
LIZZA: Sometimes he says stuff and it doesn't turn out to be 100 percent accurate.
O'KEEFE: I've heard, yes.
LIZZA: I mean it does seem like since mid-August, when the new campaign team came on board, at least in their strategy, in their public appearances and what you can sort of glean from an interview like this, which is obviously geared towards women and probably the college educated women that he's bleeding, you see the Steve Bannon, who's the CEO strategy, and you see the Kellyanne Conway, who's the campaign manager's strategy. You know, Bannon is all about that older white male base and making sure it turns out. And he believes that there is a so-called hidden Trump vote out there. Conway is more traditional Republican pollster. She's spent her whole life, you know, trying to explain how Republican, especially Republican white men, can appeal to college-educated women. And you just sort of see that play out as they - as they seesaw between doubling down on his base and making these occasional attempts to reach - to do some addition.
[12:10:13] KING: To that point, the conflict within the Trump campaign over how to go at this, what your strategy should be. Here's Donald Trump on Twitter today talking about potential fraud he thinks in Texas. Texas, a very red Republican state where the polls show Trump leading, but just narrowly. Trump tweeting, "a lot of call-ins about vote flipping at voting booths in Texas. People are not happy. Big lines. What is going on?"
What is going on? And I'll just remind our viewers listening, I believe Texas has a very, very, very, very, very conservative Republican governor and a very conservative lieutenant-governor in the state of Texas.
KUCINICH: Yes.
KING: So if there's a problem in Texas, Donald Trump's going to - can't accuse the Democrats of rigging that one.
LIZZA: You know, and one thing about just - there are - we know this as people in the news business, you know you hear a lot of wild things about people saying, oh, when I went to push the button on the voting machine it said all Hillary or all Trump.
KING: Right.
LIZZA: And on Election Day there are always a lot of these stories. Some of them have merit. Some of them have - don't.
KING: Technology issues, right.
LIZZA: Well, you have a candidate with 12 million followers on social media who is - now seems OK with, you know, amplifying accusations, even if they haven't been investigated and shown to be true. And that's going to be interesting (INAUDIBLE) -
KUCINICH: And - and how is -
O'KEEFE: And here's why - here's why he raises Texas, though. Here's why.
KUCINICH: It's because of that poll.
O'KEEFE: Well, that poll, plus, on the second day of early voting this week, on Tuesday in Texas in the 15 largest counties, 795,561 early ballots cast, up from 523,000 and change in 2012. Those new voters are not Republicans and he knows that he has to gin up (INAUDIBLE) -
LIZZA: But, remember, some of the - some of the best operatives of the Obama campaign, for the last few years, have made Texas the priority for the Democrat Party.
TALEV: Trying to - trying to build.
KING: Right.
LIZZA: They always thought it would be 2020, 2024.
TALEV: Yes, that's right.
KUCINICH: Right.
LIZZA: It's now a close race here in 2016.
KING: I want to make clear, Texas officials are saying flatly, no evidence.
TALEV: There's nothing going on.
O'KEEFE: Nothing. Nothing.
KING: They have no evidence of this.
LIZZA: Right.
KING: They say there's nothing again (ph).
Now, some of the counties are run by states. You know, within a state, the county officials run the elections, but Texas officials saying they have no evidence this far. I want to (INAUDIBLE) one thing. Some of Trump's issues here are that his problems are of his own making. He goes to Gettysburg to lay out his reform agenda, he threatens to sue the women and he launches into attacks on the media. He's also gotten into this fight with the Khan family, memorably after the Democratic Convention and, frankly, Trump was simply played by the Clinton campaign. They put this gold star family up there. Their story is tragic. Their endorsement of Hillary Clinton was quite moving. They talked about how they don't feel welcome in Donald Trump's America. He's going back and for with this. And again now he's still stoking this issue saying that if he had been president back when George W. Bush worked in that building behind me, that Captain Khan would still be alive.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I have great respect for the Khan family. I have great respect for - I mean, their son is a great hero. But if I were president at that time, Captain Khan would be alive today, George, because I wouldn't have been in Iraq.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: I don't want to revisit the whole idea about when Trump decided he was against the Iraq war.
KUCINICH: Right.
KING: It was not before the invasion. That's what he wants you to believe. But it was not before the invasion. He wasn't gung-ho about it, but he wasn't against it before the invasion. But when you're talking about the issue, and, again, Mr. Khan is campaigning for the Clintons, so if Donald Trump does interviews, it may come up from time to time. Mr. Khan has taken a very active role. He's in advertising for the Clintons. He was in Virginia campaigning yesterday. But do you just -- isn't the right answer, I have great respect for Mr. Khan. I have no interest, you know, in continuing this conversation. I wish him the best. Why would you go on to say, Captain Khan would be alive today?
KUCINICH: Because you're Donald Trump and you're not - it - and you don't think through how disrespectful a comment like that is to military families, to people in the military. It - he doesn't think three steps through. He just - he thinks that that's going to win the argument. It doesn't.
KING: It's not an argument you should try to win.
KUCINICH: No.
KING: With a gold star family you say thank you.
KUCINICH: Uh-huh.
KING: Thank you for your service, sir, and I wish you the best.
Everybody sit tight.
Up next, Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama hit the trail together for the first time in just an hour or so, well aware a win in North Carolina would block Donald Trump's path to the presidency.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[12:18:30] KING: Welcome back. The White House, and the Washington Monument there as we come to you. Welcome back to INSIDE POLITICS.
Yes, the presidential race is getting a bit tighter in some of the battleground states, but the underlying political climate is shifting in a way that should play to Hillary Clinton' advantage.
Look at these numbers. In our new CNN/ORC poll, 54 percent Americans say things in the country are going well today. Forty-six percent say badly. Now that going well number is the highest of the Obama presidency. And that better mood translates in other ways. Fifty-five percent of Americans now approve of how the president is handling his job. That matches the high watermark of the second term. And so you look at that number. One of Hillary Clinton's problems in this election is that she would be continuity. After a two-term presidency, people often look for change. Donald Trump is trying to make the change argument. But if President Obama is at 55 percent and if 54 percent of the country thinks things are going pretty well, is this --
O'KEEFE: It would (ph) match most years.
LIZZA: This - this is not a change election.
O'KEEFE: Yes.
LIZZA: This is not an change election.
O'KEEFE: No.
LIZZA: That is not a change election. Those -
KUCINICH: Well, and that's why you see -
LIZZA: And this, we have to retire one figure in our coverage, right track/wrong track, because we're all - we've all been fooled by the wrong track number which says that 70 - sometimes 75 percent of the country thinks we're on the wrong track. And that is clearly Democrats saying that maybe Obama is not liberal enough.
KING: Right.
LIZZA: Democrats saying maybe that they don't like Congress because it's being obstructive. The fact that a majority of the country say things are going well and that Obama has a high approval rating just completely undermines the idea that this is an election about change.
KUCINICH: Well, and part of the reason -
LIZZA: And probably the single biggest reason that Hillary Clinton is going to win -
KUCINICH: Well, and let's remind -
LIZZA: Aside from Trump's polling (ph).
KUCINICH: Let's remind everyone how unique it is that Obama is on the campaign trail for her right now and Michelle Obama.
TALEV: Yes.
KING: Right.
O'KEEFE: Yes.
[12:20:04] KUCINICH: But we haven't seen an incumbent president campaigning for his potential replacement in many cycles.
KING: You're right.
KUCINICH: Because usually the numbers are so in the hole.
LIZZA: You know --
O'KEEFE: Did Reagan do it for Bush?
LIZZA: I looked -
KING: Bush - Bush was -
LIZZA: Yes.
KING: George W. Bush was tanked at this point. Bill Clinton was not welcome by Al Gore. Bill Clinton actually was above 50 percent, but Al Gore wanted no part of him -
KUCINICH: Yes.
KING: Because of the Monica Lewinsky. And Ronald Reagan did a little bit for George H.W. Bush, but not much. He did it at the convention. But he was very effective at the convention saying we are the change, you know, when they - and very - but he was not out there as actively in (INAUDIBLE).
LIZZA: I looked this up yesterday. It looks like the last time that a Democrat, a non-incumbent Democrat won election after two full terms of another Democrat was 1836. So that - if you put aside Truman/FDR, because Truman was president and FDR died in office. The last time a Democrat did that was 1836.
KUCINICH: It was -
KING: Ryan Lizza channeling his inner Jeffrey Lord.
TALEV: Oh, God. Wow, this is (INAUDIBLE).
LIZZA: Someone I've never been compared to.
TALEV: (INAUDIBLE). So, but it was that the 2008 financial crisis that - and like the kind of approach of it, which had helped Obama eight years ago, and then it was the undertow of it that hurt him and made him such a liability for Democrats, you know, in the midterm and that challenged him a little bit in 2012. And now I think we're seeing a - to some extent, the upside of it, which is -
KING: And yet - and yet look at these numbers. We live in two Americas. I mean there are - there literally is a parallel universe when you ask Democrats and Republicans, how are things going in the country today? Eighty-five percent of Democrat say things are going well. Fifty-one percent of independents. That's important, the middle of the electorate. At least it's 51. It's over the 50 mark. But 21 percent of Republicans. Look at the difference between Democrats and Republicans.
We live in the same country. We breathe the same air. We live in the same states. We root for the same teams. But we have an incredibly different view of the country.
One more, Ed, before you jump in. Obama job performance, 93 percent of the people who say they're going to vote for Hillary Clinton say the president's doing a good job. They approve of his job. Look at the Trump number, 91 percent of Trump voters disapprove.
O'KEEFE: That was my question is - what was the percentage of self- identifying Republicans in this poll and was it lower than normal because I wonder how many of them are now independents or considering themselves independents. That - I mean we do live in two Americas, but that, to me, seems that -
KING: Right. Right.
O'KEEFE: You know, we've come down to the floor basically among Republicans.
KING: It's just remarkable, though, that just - they're looking - it's the half full or half empty, I guess, conversation, and how different Republicans and Democrats -
TALEV: So when (INAUDIBLE) party identification in some ways, for some people.
KING: Right. Look at it. And a lot of independents aren't really independents. Lot of people just don't like to be associated with institutions so they move their - they're either Democrats or Republicans (INAUDIBLE) -
KUCINICH: Right.
O'KEEFE: Yes.
LIZZA: It also suggests that - I mean a lot of people who say, oh, if Donald Trump hadn't been the candidate, if it had been Rubio or even Cruz or Kasich, this would have been a cakewalk for Republicans. I think that that's, you know, I'm a little skeptical of that. I think it would have been a close election no matter what given Obama's approval rating, which historically is the most -
KING: Right.
LIZZA: The best indicator of which party's going to win.
KING: And there's another Obama who has an even higher favorability rating. She doesn't have a job approval rating, obviously, but she has a higher favorability rating. She's going to be on the trail with Hillary Clinton in Winston Salem, North Carolina, in just a little bit. It is the ultimate swing state. Obama won it in '08, lost it to Romney very narrowly in 2012. If Hillary Clinton can win North Carolina, game, set, match, to borrow from my friend Ed there. There's no way. Donald Trump can't get to 270 without North Carolina.
So Michelle Obama will be there today with Hillary Clinton. We've already seen her on the trail and she can be quite persuasive.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MICHELLE OBAMA, FIRST LADY: This is not normal. This is not politics as usual. This is disgraceful. It is intolerable. And it doesn't matter what party you belong to, Democrat, Republican, independent. No woman deserves to be treated this way. None of us deserves this kind of abuse.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: She is the super surrogate, no disrespect to the president or to Senator Sanders or to Elizabeth Warren or to Bill Clinton or anybody else, the Clinton campaign views her as the super surrogate.
Today we are told she is going to be less about Donald Trump, although I suspect she'll get some zings in at Donald Trump, and more about why she thinks Hillary Clinton should be president. Why's that important?
KUCINICH: I mean she -
LIZZA: That is very important because, you know, I was going to say this (INAUDIBLE) notebook so I may (ph) repeat myself later, but so much of the case that Hillary Clinton is making is to disqualify Donald Trump. And the more that Clinton can make the case affirmatively for her own agenda, if she wins, the better she's - the more successful she's going to be in that first year because a lot of Republicans are going to say, oh, this was a fluke. You only won because Donald Trump was disqualified.
TALEV: Yes, I agree. I think part of this is mandate preparation, which is what you're getting to.
LIZZA: Yes.
TALEV: Michelle Obama's really interesting because she appeals mostly to women. This is the real strength. But on two levels. One, to African-American women for whom turnout is going to be essential in a place like North Carolina. And then, two, to white suburban women, kind of like between the cities and the excepts, like right in that sweet spot, right? And so, to some extent, I look at what she did in South Carolina in the primary in 2008 as a model for what they want her to do in places like - especially in North Carolina this time around. It's to kind of turn out the African-American vote and also appeal to more broadly on the woman message.
[12:25:08] KUCINICH: I want to point out one way Michelle - how you can tell Michelle Obama is a super star surrogate. Hillary Clinton keeps on adopting her turn of phrase.
O'KEEFE: Yes.
KUCINICH: You heard it during the debate. You - the, we go low - or the other way around.
KING: They go low, we go high.
KUCINICH: They go low, we go high. KING: Right.
KUCINICH: That - that - that was -
TALEV: We go low by going high.
KUCINICH: Yes. Right. That. But you hear Hillary Clinton adopting her lines a lot.
KING: All right. Stay -
LIZZA: You hear it. And Melania Trump, too, sometimes.
KUCINICH: Aw.
O'KEEFE: You had to go there.
KING: Stay with CNN throughout the day. We'll bring you that event a bit later. But up next here, we map out why the races tighter and why the hill for Donald Trump, though, is still very steep.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KING: Welcome back.
A closer look now at the changes we're making to our CNN electorate map. A with those, a look at whether this race is really tightening up as we head into the final 12 days. Number one, here are our new changes, and these are the big shifts. Florida, now a toss-up state. Nevada, now a toss-up state. In our map just yesterday, we had both leaning Democrat. But new polling in both states showed tight, tied races there. So we've moved those races back into the toss-up category.
[12:30:04] What does that do? It downgrades Secretary Clinton. She's still at 272. That's enough electoral votes to win the presidency. But she's now below 300.
