Uninspiring Jobs Report  Adds to GOP Concerns

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0:57One last economic report card before the midterms, and it's not a grade President Trump wanted. I'm Dana Bash. Let's go behind the headlines and inside politics.

1:1332 days until the election and we are tracking the races, candidates and stories that could shift the balance of power here in Washington and across the country. Here's what's on our midterm radar. First up, the final jobs report before Election Day is complicating Republicans' closing pitch. The U.S. added just 29 ,000 jobs in September, far fewer than expected, while unemployment ticked up to 4.2 percent. Voters across the country rank the economy as their top issue. But President Trump is dismissing concerns about rising costs. Here's what he said just yesterday on the trail in Texas. They came up with the word affordability.

1:54So from day one, they said, well, what about your prices? And then they came up, you know, they always come up with these words. affordability. Everyone thinks that the prices are high because of me, but they're not. We're the ones bringing down the prices. New polls from Fox show two Senate seats Republicans used to bank on are deadlocked. In Texas, Democrat James Tallarico has 51 percent support among likely voters, while Republican Ken Paxton has 50, excuse me, 49 percent. What that means is no clear leader. And in Iowa's Senate race, an open GOP seat, just two points separate Democrat Josh Turek and Republican Ashley Hinson, which means that state is also within the margin of error.

2:40No clear leader. Now to Kansas, where Democratic Senate nominee Adam Hamilton is taking on recurring attacks from his opponent, Republican Senator Roger Marshall. In an interview with Politico's Dasha Burns, Hamilton leaned into the accusation that he's too woke for Kansas. This idea of being woke, well, I don't know what they mean by that, but I do know the idea of being awakened, like not being in slumber, but being awakened to truth, to kindness, to compassion. We're supposed to do that. Like, you know, I'm pretty sure if Jesus were here, you would call him too woke. The Cook Political Report labels the race as lean Republican.

3:18Kansas hasn't elected a Democratic senator in 94 years. And a big presidential announcement about a Senate battleground may have been a bit premature. South Korea claims it never committed to the$54 billion Alaska investment President Trump touted two days ago, standing with the state's vulnerable Republican senator right by his side. Dan Sullivan, the senator of Alaska, has been a great senator. He's been working on this deal and other deals in Alaska, the pipeline, for almost 20 years, and we're now getting it done. But the South Korea, excuse me, South Korean trade minister says putting figures or using definitive language goes far beyond what was agreed.

4:07When asked about the apparent discrepancy, Tia Whitehouse spokesman called the announcement historic but never addressed those comments from South Korea. I'm joined by a terrific group of reporters. Tia, I'm going to start with you because just the picture here and the way that the president is trying to punch through the very bad economic news by doing what he does best, which is to say this is a comms issue, or he thinks he does best, and we're going to try to shape their narrative with new ideas in places like Alaska and push ahead even though clearly, at least according to South Korea, that ain't baked.

4:48Yeah, I mean, it sounds like there was a little bit of exaggeration or over-promising on this announcement, and the reality is more measured. But I think what the president wants is he's trying to deliver some wins for these candidates in these now, you know, hotly contested states. So we've seen him do it otherwise, other places. I know we're going to talk about that more later. But I think here in Alaska, he was trying to give Senator Sullivan something to say, look what he accomplished. Look what we've done. And in the process, kind of overpromised and quite frankly, maybe was a little bit misleading on what the true nature of this agreement with South Korea was, which now, you know, now you've got to backtrack or the circumstances are a backtrack.

5:38But now it's also affected relationships with South Korea. Yeah. And again, this is if you kind of look at the big picture, this is about, as you said, the president trying to deliver some wins. This is one of the sort of benefits of having a bully pulpit to be able to use it and also having the strings of the federal government to try to find these deals. And it's not just President Trump who has tried to do this. Try, I guess, is the important part of this. And I actually want to, you mentioned there's another example of this just today. President Trump announced a big investment also in Iowa,$15 billion there, he said, would go to a new steel plant.

6:16But like Alaska, there are a lot of questions about whether that too will even open. We have the wonderful Jeff Zeleny on the ground in Des Moines. Jeff, what are you hearing from voters and lawmakers about some confusion about whether this new plant in Iowa the president promised is actually happening? Well, Dana, you can think of this in all of these states as the red state rescue plan by Republicans in the final month of this midterm election campaign. And we saw in the Oval Office when the president invited the Iowa governor and much of the Iowa Republican delegation into the Oval Office on Monday to talk about that steel plant to be built, at least to be proposed in far southeast Iowa.

6:58And the Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnick, said the deal is done. He suggested that no tax incentives were needed. Well, that is not the case. The case, the Iowa legislature is meeting right behind me here in the Statehouse here in Des Moines to consider a tax incentive or credit, if you will, of about$1.4 billion over 10 years. That is causing some consternation among Republicans and Democrats alike. Yes, they like the idea of job creation, but there are deep questions here about the fiscal health of Iowa. There's a budget shortfall. So even some conservative Republicans are wondering if this is a wise idea.

7:31At the same time, some Democrats are wondering how can they stop the idea of these jobs to be created? We're talking about some 6 ,000 temporary construction jobs, and we're talking about about 1 ,600 or so permanent jobs for this steel plant. So, look, this is all going to be worked out, but the legislature is meeting in special session right now, including some members of the State House who are running for the U.S. House. So a lot of interesting overlaps here, but this is far from a done deal. but clearly an attempt from the president to try and rescue his sagging approval ratings here in Iowa, Dana.

8:05Yeah, I mean, giving out, trying to give out economic candy to the Republicans in these key races, not necessarily there yet, as we've been talking about. But kind of broadening it out a little bit, you have been on the ground. You're talking to voters and you have talked to the Republican candidate trying to keep that open seat red, Ashley Hinson. What is her assessment of the state of play for her and the headwinds that she is facing given the economic situation? Dana, it's been a remarkable balancing act to watch Ashley Hinson, who's a three-term member of Congress from here in Iowa. She's running for that open Senate seat, as you said, being vacated by the retirement of Joni Ernst.

8:49And she has been very supportive of the president. When she announced her campaign, she said she was running to be the president's top ally in the U.S. Senate. In recent weeks and months, she has softened that a bit, saying she would be a bipartisan leader. There's no doubt that the weight of the Trump disapproval is hanging over here, but she also faces a difficult balancing act of threading the needle here between trying to keep Trump voters enthused and some independent voters still on her side. So we asked her yesterday on the campaign trail about the president's assertion that he's still as popular as ever.

9:24During that meeting in the Oval Office, President Trump said he's more popular than ever before. Do you wonder or worry that he may not be getting the full picture of what some voters are actually thinking? Well, certainly I'm always willing to tell him what I think about what's happening on the ground. Well, we didn't talk about that specifically. We talked about the major investment that he was able to help us get for Iowa, right? And that's what's important to me, is always focusing on what's the next thing we can do to help our people.

9:53So there's no doubt that Hinson is one of those potential majority makers for either side. I mean, Republicans are investing so much here. This week, they added their contribution. The Super PACs did 20 million more in support of her campaign. That is a sign that they are not comfortable with where she is. And we should point out all this. President Trump, of course, he won Iowa three times in 2024 by 13 percentage points down. Yeah, Iowa has been solidly red for the last decade because of President Trump. And now it's back to more purple, it looks, the way it was when we started covering it. Jeff, thank you so much.

10:31Looks like a beautiful day there in Des Moines. Thank you. Reporters back here at the table. Let's just go back to the economic. I know you hate talking about economic data, Phil, so I'm sorry to put this horrible issue to you. Yeah, bank the next 45 minutes. Let me go. The jobs report, which is actually not a laughing matter. only 29 ,000 new jobs, unemployment rate of 4.2%. This next data point is really the key. You heard the president talking about affordability, and he doesn't really understand why that's a big deal. This is why it is. Look at wages versus inflation. Wages, 3.0%, so 3%. Inflation, 3.6%.

11:09I'm not an economist, but I understand that math doesn't math, which is why affordability is such an issue. Such an issue has been an issue obviously for a number of years now has become more palpable and pervasive not just because everybody's polling because we're close to 30 plus days out from the midterms, but because those two numbers inverted a couple of months ago, which was probably the biggest, I think, single issue the Trump administration was facing on a granular household level. When you look at what the president is referring to, and then when I'm out in the field talking to people about these specific issues in a lot of these states, what you recognize is there's really kind of two economies.

11:45There's the economy the market's operating in right now, the market participants are looking at, and then there's the economy that households are dealing with right now. And the midterm map is being drawn by the latter economy, the one that households are dealing with, the one that is dealing with mortgage rates now at 7.28%. That's up almost a quarter of a percentage point in less than two weeks, which is extraordinary. gas at$4.40. In Iowa, where Jeff is right now, diesel prices, there was a deal with the European Union's drawing down their own emergency stocks today, which should help prices, but they've doubled over the course of the last couple of months, and that passes through pretty much every element of the U.S.

12:19economy. And so these are significant issues. They are very, very real. And two things can be true at the same time. The market can be hitting records or nearing records on a day-to-day basis. Corporations can be doing very well, particularly in very specific industries, most notably AI, and households around the country can still be struggling because they're just falling behind in the race. And that's what the White House and Republicans point out. The S &P 500 up 29 % since Inauguration Day. But I think it's actually because of these two different economies that there is a dissatisfaction coursing through the American public because they know what their economy is on a daily live basis.

13:00They see all of this other economy that is happening or other people getting rich or the elites seem to not be so hampered by the real world economy that they are facing. And so it is that it is. Yes, those two things can be true. And because those two things are true, I think you are seeing a real pessimism, dissatisfaction and quite frankly, a bit of anger from the American people in this economic moment that is going to play out at the ballot. Yeah, I mean, this is one of the key reasons why various forms of populism is driving all of the energy. Hold that thought. We're going to take a quick break.

13:39Coming up, are Republicans giving up on North Carolina's GOP Senate seat? We've got breaking news on the race to control the U.S. Senate.

13:53This podcast is supported by Anthropic, the public benefit corporation behind Claude. Everyone's got a hard question about AI. Anthropic was built to surface those questions and share what it finds along the way, because there's hope in hard questions. Ask yours at claude.ai slash Spotify and keep thinking. That's claude.ai slash Spotify. Kate holds the key to every brand asset your business has ever made. She's the only person who knows the difference between teal, turquoise, and the correct company blue. But she's going on vacation. Luckily, before the company falls into design disarray, you realize you can put Kate into Canva.

14:38Save every color font and logo to a brand kit everyone can access. And Kate can vacation happily in the knowledge that no one will ever use Comic Sans. What will you Canva today? Republicans appear to be facing a dark reality in the North Carolina Senate race. The main Senate GOP super PAC, the Senate Leadership Fund, is pausing future spending for Republican Michael Whatley in his race against former North Carolina Democratic Governor Roy Cooper. Now, Republicans have already spent close to$90 million to boost Whatley, but it's not showing up in polls where Cooper is consistently leading. Instead, the Senate Leadership Fund is upping its spending in Ruby Red, Kansas, where that incumbent Republican Senator Roger Marshall is trying to fend off a much tougher than expected challenge from mega church pastor Adam Hamilton.

15:34And my panel is back here. Phil Mattingly, I just want to read a statement that we just got from Michael Watley's campaign in response to this news about this major, important Republican entity saying we're going to go elsewhere. Undecided voters who break late decide the election in North Carolina, and the majority of those late breakers typically go Republican. We feel confident we have the resources to highlight career politician Roy Cooper's 40 years of failures and win in November. Not untrue in terms of what has happened in recent years when it comes to federal elections. I would say statewide, Democrats have been quite okay with how things have broken late in governor's races, including the races for Governor Cooper.

16:19The one thing I think that's important contextually here is, one, Republicans have been talking about this quietly for the better part of the last couple of months. They have not been impressed by Watley as a candidate or his ability to kind of catch on within a state that was always going to be hard running against a two-term popular governor. and Roy Cooper. The second is the amount of places that Republicans are dumping huge amounts of cash right now. Texas being obviously the most notable, but you mentioned Kansas. They are triaging in a lot of places. They are spending in a lot of places.

16:48It's not just a triage. It's like literally save when you go down to Texas. And they also see some opportunities on the map as well that they can target Democrats on. And so you're trying to, there's the shorter hand version with graphics of what I'm saying. And so this is the moment, and we all know this quite well, we've all done plenty of cycles here. Tia's dealing with the Georgia races as well right now, where people are making decisions based on what they're seeing in the numbers. Some of these decisions might be related to, hey, can we stabilize or pop these numbers briefly and then we can pull back out?

17:14It'll be dependent on what they see. Yeah, I think it's interesting, you know, North Carolina, it shows that candidates matter. And even Republicans have said from the beginning that they weren't sure that Watley would be the strongest candidate. especially again against a popular governor, right? And so in the other race in Kansas, it's kind of similar where Democrats really feel like they got a great candidate and they feel like he's catching on. They feel like he can talk to voters in the middle. And now he's making what should be like an easy reelection for an incumbent more difficult. And it's causing the Republicans to have to invest in so many places they wouldn't normally think of investing.

18:00And I just think it shows really why candidates matter. Yeah, I mean, you saw at the beginning of the show the way in which Adam Hamilton, the Democratic candidate in Kansas, is trying to turn the term woke on its head and doing so with his ability to speak like a pastor and a preacher. We're talking about all of this, and we need to kind of take a moment And remember that there are, using that map, maybe again, there are so many Senate races that are up for grabs where a lot of money is being spent. But we just don't know in so many of these races. David, you were reminding all of us this morning how it can go.

18:41They are very, very tight. Iowa, where Jeff Zeleny is, Michigan, Texas, Ohio. All of these races have no clear leader. Yeah. I mean, that last one in Ohio is probably outside of margin of error there, of what we're looking at there. But certainly among these Fox News and Marist polls, you are seeing margin of error races. And what that means is, as you said, no clear leader. So don't get obsessed about which candidate is numerically higher. When races are that close, it doesn't matter which candidate's numerically higher. It really could go either way there. That's what a true toss-up is, which doesn't mean, I don't want to undermine, this is a pretty dramatic move for the Republicans to pull out of North Carolina, right?

19:26Like, this is a state that Democrats, you know, they need a net gain of four Republican seats to win the majority. So when the Republican Party says, or a portion of the Republican Party says, we're pulling out of here, and basically we are seeing that the Democrats are going to flip that seat. They're one-fourth of the way there on that hill that they're trying to climb to flip four seats. Now, they still have to hold on to their own in places like New Hampshire and Michigan. Real toss-up contests at the moment. And it is still in deep red. This is the other part. It's not just that the polls are closed, Dana.

20:00It's where these races are taking place. So it is deep red territory. States that Donald Trump won by double digits just two years ago. Yes, the fact that they're close shows what a different political environment this is and what his standing is. But we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that Texas, Ohio, Iowa, Alaska, these are places that have a Republican DNA. And so that is why when we are noticing that the president is on a red state tour right now. And let's put up the travel. Oh. No, no, go. As you're talking, I want to put up where the president is traveling to back up what you're saying.

20:36That is why, yes, his red state tour speaks to hate. why is the president going to this deep red territory? Well, yes, it speaks to the troubles they are facing in this political environment, but it also just speaks to the reality of the map of the need that if they are to have any success or mitigate some potential losses here, they do need to actually shore up and drive some enthusiasm among their most loyal supporters. Okay, hold that thought. We have a lot more to talk about on this topic. Coming up, President Trump says that he'd say it to Ken Paxton's face, and he did. You're going to want to hear the president's pitch in this Texas Senate race.

21:10You know, the one that he upended with his endorsement of the very GOP candidate, he's now chiding.

21:24This podcast is supported by Anthropic, the public benefit corporation behind Claude. Everyone's got a hard question about AI. Anthropic was built to surface those questions and share what it finds along the way. because there's hope in hard questions. Ask yours at claude.ai slash Spotify and keep thinking. That's claude.ai slash Spotify.

21:52President Trump's October Blitz is officially on, just not where you'd expect. Well, I want to say a very special hello, Durant, and hello to Oklahoma. We were in Texas trying to get Ken Paxton elected. We have to do that. Yep, you heard that right. The president is rallying for Texas Senate candidate Ken Paxton, but doing it from Oklahoma. You heard Paxton's name came up right at the top before the president even brought up the Republicans actually on the ballot in the state where he was, in Oklahoma. And when he did bring up Paxton in Texas, this is how it went. Ken Paxton was at my side more than anybody.

22:37And I have to always remember that because he could be a pain in the ass sometimes, I'll be honest. David Challion, part of why he's saying that, I believe, is because of some leaked audio from Ken Paxton complaining about the fact that the big midterm convention that occurred in Texas in his home state actually perhaps hurt Paxton more than helped it. Let's look at another incident at that Trump rally in Oklahoma, where they actually used some of that leaked audio to push back on it. It was an interesting choice. There's leaked audio that came out yesterday from the New York Times saying Ken Paxton isn't sure that the numbers after that midterm convention helped him and maybe hurt him.

23:27Are they still on board, Republicans at large, on board with President Trump and his political influence? Yes, sir, 100%. What do you say to those Republicans who have any doubt about Trump's influence? Get on the Trump train. We're going to the front. I mean, that was an unbelievable moment because he's highlighting a negative in order to try to squash it. But still, he's I don't know that everybody at that rally or people who are watching on the local news in Texas or Oklahoma really knew about it. Right. Until he just played it. And I'd add one more element to this, which is like you find at times presidents of past and even Donald Trump on occasion will sort of let something slide, you know, to allow a member of their own party who's in a very tough race.

24:15This got under his convention. That was his idea that he like this isn't going to be something he let slide. Even when he's berating the candidate, packs it himself in Texas in front of the very voters, he's asking to make sure they show up and vote for him. Yeah. OK, can we turn to Florida? Talk about states that we don't really engage in that much recently. It has become a red state. It is a place where the president has gone. The vice president, in fact, was just there yesterday. And he was pretty tough on the Democratic candidate for Senate, Angie Nixon. Let's watch that. I have the easiest job in the world.

24:56I get to talk about how crazy the Democrats are. When Angie Nixon calls herself a socialist, I think the right response is to say, then get the hell out of here. You don't belong in America, if those are your views. Here was what Angie Nixon said, in part, in response to that. The most ordinary man imaginable came to my home state to tell me to get out of America while they enjoyed the comfort of buildings my ancestors built. Imagine standing on the shoulders of the people who built this country and then telling their descendants they don't belong here. Yeah, I mean, Angie Nixon, so I've known her for years, ever since she was a staffer in a state lawmaker's office.

25:37And so her rise politically includes, you know, activism. She knows the process. And now she's this candidate on this big stage. And her clapbacks, as you can see, She's very well thought out in that way. And she's pretty deliberate in how she claps back. So in this one, it was clear that, you know, she's thought about the fact that she's being attacked as a black woman, as descendants of slaves in America. And I think it also is a way for her to get around or beyond the attacks on her aligning with socialism. Yeah. So I think it's an interesting choice. Which she is. And in a sort of in a vacuum, this Vance attack is sort of cut and paste no matter where he's going.

26:23This is what he's doing to Democratic candidates. In Florida, it happens to to actually fit because she is aligned with Democratic socialists. The way that he said it allowed her to clap back, as you said. Which is fascinating because this is to your point, this is kind of copy paste wherever he ends up, wherever Vance is going right now. And it's kind of a Republican attack line that they look at polling and it resonates more than anything else that they've got working with them right now. And Angie Nixon becomes kind of like the perfect stereotypical Democratic candidate in that lens to point out and elevate.

26:55The difference here is that it also elevates her in a campaign where you talk about Florida. Florida Democrats would love we're talking about national money, big money pouring into battleground races and battleground states. None of that money from Democrats is pouring into Florida right now. and every Florida candidate would love to have any national money and attention. This certainly grants them the attention. We'll see if it sends any money. A law of unintended consequences. I was just going to say because the money is starting to flow in from like the grassroots. You know what I mean? Maybe not from the party, but she's really starting to catch on.

27:26And I also will say that Florida is becoming really interesting. Byron Donalds is not polling as strongly as I think a lot of people thought he would have with Trump's endorsement after winning that Republican primary for governor. The governor's race is also more competitive than a lot of people thought. You're not ready to say Florida, Florida, Florida quite yet, but we're watching it. I'm not. Okay. Coming up, John King heads to Georgia, where the peaches are sweet and the politics are divided.

27:54I feel he did the right thing. President Trump loves America. He loves the people. And, you know, granted, this is short-term pain.

28:10Now for a quick message from Anthropic, the team behind Claude, the AI built for businesses. Customers count on their bank, and banks count on their most important systems. Now those systems count on Claude, and nine of the Fortune 10 companies use it for critical work. See why leading companies trust Claude at claude.ai. slash span. Kate holds the key to every brand asset your business has ever made. She's the only person who knows the difference between teal, turquoise, and the correct company blue. But she's going on vacation. Luckily, before the company falls into design disarray, you realize you can put Kate into Canva.

28:52Save every color, font, and logo to a brand kit everyone can access. And Kate can vacation happily in the knowledge that no one will ever use Comic Sans. What will you canva today? Now to another southern battleground state. Georgia is on John King's mind in the latest installment of All Over the Map.

29:17Early to work at Rebel Tea House. Christine Wynn first opened these doors four years ago. Six employees then, 18 now. A success story, but plenty of stress. Cost has risen 18 percent across the board for us. It has been a struggle for a lot of people to get out there and to sort of purchase goods, so we're grateful that we do have such a good local community that will show up for the small businesses. This is Decatur in DeKalb County, the Atlanta suburbs. Decision time as Georgia picks a new governor and decides whether to send Democrat Jon Ossoff back to the Senate. And so the cakey at the bottom is the sugar?

29:56Yeah, the cakey at the bottom is the sugar. Likely Ossoff for Wynne. She likes how he mixes it up on social media and sees Democrats in Congress as more likely to help with a major business goal. Right now, for us to afford health care, it's not like I can work any harder to get it. It has to be something that comes from, you know, a bigger policy change. Wynne tends to vote blue, but is less certain in the governor's race. Former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms is the Democrat, healthcare executive Rick Jackson the Republican. Data centers is a big issue. Energy cost has already gone up. Being able to differentiate between whether or not it ties in with the data centers would be nice to know.

30:40But the biggest thing is how it affects the community and the people living in those areas. Taxes and safety also on her list. I have to wait to see what the debates will say. Georgia's recent history is deep red. A Republican governor for 23 years now, Republican control of the legislature for 22 years, and Georgia has voted Republican in eight of the last 10 presidential elections. In 2020, though, Joe Biden narrowly carried Georgia, and in early 2021, Ossoff and fellow Democrat Raphael Warnock won runoff elections for both Georgia's U.S. Senate seats. So is Georgia still a red state, a purple state, or a state about to tip blue?

31:20It's a big and legitimate question because of the rapid pace of demographic change here. Back in 2000, Georgia's population was 65 % white. That's down to 48 % now. Blacks were 29 % of the Georgia population in 2000. That's up to 32%. Hispanics were 5 % back in 2000, more than 12 % now. And the Asian vote is also growing fast. Just 2 % of the population back in 2000, now above 5%. So this is Marietta campus. KERRY FOLKS lives in Atlanta, sees the change every drive to his graduate school studies in Marietta. Suburban Cobb County was solid red 15 years ago, solid blue now. But FOLKS still sees a lot of conservative Bible Belt outside of the suburbs, and he worries some younger students don't share his zeal for voting.

32:11Gen Z is just apathetic toward all of it. They don't see any sort of feasibility in voting because it's all just going to be terrible anyway. Why are we a part of this? And to some extent, I had that as well as a younger person. The governor's race is his test. Like, has there been enough talk, enough push for people to see, oh, we can have a black woman in office? So I think that's where the skepticism comes in. Georgia's never had a woman governor. It's never had a black governor. And it's never had a former Atlanta mayor become governor. You think she can knock all those three down in one election?

32:53I hope that she can. It would be great if she did. We're trying to stay in Cobb County because that's where my son's job is. Powder Springs is near the western edge of Cobb County, about 25 miles from Atlanta. Shantevelana Willis would have voted for Donald Trump in 2024 had President Biden stayed in the race. But she went for Vice President Harris in the end. I was really trying to go with the lesser of two evils. Sorry to categorize her that way, but yeah. Unhappy now with losses in crypto investments she blames on Trump, unhappy with the Iran war, and with gas and grocery prices. Why is everything always somebody else's fault?

33:32When do you take responsibility for what you put in place? A fan of Senator Ossoff, but Volana Willis lived in Atlanta when Bottoms was mayor and says she often didn't feel safe. She would break three barriers in one election if she won. Does that matter to you at all? Nope. Nope. I want the person who is most qualified, who cares about all the people. Do you like Mr. Jackson or is it just you can't vote for her? I like some of the things he's done, but no, I can't vote for her. I won't. Being a black woman, all that, she don't get my vote for that. The port of Savannah is all the way east, Chatham County.

34:09All aboard. Lifelong Republican Randy Powell lists immigration and taxes as his top issues, and he says it is unfair to blame just Trump and Republicans for high prices and high mortgage rates. I put the blame on both parties because they're not talking. No longer than 400 days. A flashback from 2009. I met Powell here 17 years ago, a Savannah police officer who, at the age of 50, was called back to military service and sent to Iraq. The soldier always does what he stole. That war was unpopular and brought big political change. The current war is unpopular, too, with a big election just ahead.

34:47I feel he did the right thing. President Trump loves America. He loves the people. and, you know, granted, this is short-term pain. Powell loves retirement. He politely spars with neighbors who are Democrats and during a lap around the lake was quick to point out his Republican friends. There's another two of my Republican friends. He hopes Republicans hold the House and says if Georgia and other blue Senate seats flipped red, maybe Trump could get more done. If we can get 60, you know, we can start passing. Assoff's counter-argument would be if the Democrats take the Senate, maybe they can force Trump to talk.

35:26You know what? Trump's doing the best he can. President Trump's doing the best he can when it comes to the American people. Powell is as upbeat as they come, but he knows his midterm hopes might be unrealistic. Savannah is 250 miles from Atlanta, but also a big part of Georgia's shift. George W. Bush was the last Republican to win Chatham County in a presidential race. 26 years ago, back before Powell became a grandfather and was sent off to war. Ties are changing. We're getting people from other states that are moving down here because, one, they like the low taxes. They like the lifestyle and everything.

36:05But with that comes change in our voting percentages. John King, CNN, Savannah, Georgia. Up next, Republicans and Democrats are spending gobs of money to make sure their ads make it in front of your eyeballs. But what are they spending all that money to say? Stay with us.

36:31Now for a quick message from Anthropic, the team behind Claude, the AI built for businesses. Customers count on their bank and banks count on their most important systems. Now those systems count on Claude, and nine of the Fortune 10 companies use it for critical work. See why leading companies trust Claude at claude.ai.

36:57Another week closer to Election Day, and even more political ads are flooding the airwaves. If you live anywhere where there's a tough race, I don't need to tell you this. One theme that is emerging is asking for a little help from the opposing party. Take a listen to this ad by Democratic candidate Elaine Luria featuring none other than Ronald Reagan.

37:41this message. It's a rematch, David. She's trying to get her old seat back. Jen Kiggins is the Republican now there and is one of the tightest races in the country. It is. And thankfully, the polls close early in the evening there. So on election night, it'll be one of the first races we're watching in Virginia to see if we can read any tea leaves about it. But listen, one of the reasons why it's such a tight race is because it's such an evenly divided district. And so you can understand the thinking of the bipartisan appeal, trying to really shed everybody sort of just wearing their partisan jersey here and trying to open up for her an opportunity, of course, to use Ronald Reagan to see if she can bring in some people who might otherwise just be disinclined to listen to a Democratic's argument for their candidacy.

38:28You mentioned kind of reaching across the aisle. That is another theme that we're seeing in several of these very tight races, which we're not used to because so much of what we, end up covering the tight races is the primary race. So they don't talk about bipartisanship. But now we're heading towards Election Day and they need to because they need to get voters from the other party. Listen to, I guess we have three more examples, including from Republican Ashley Hinson, who Jeff Zeleny talked to in Iowa. I'm working with both parties to put the squeeze on big pharma and big insurance companies.

39:05Andy puts people over politics. He worked across party lines to get things done for Kentucky. I never forgot who I represent because I never left. And that's why I pushed for no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, and why I worked with both parties to let money shift from college to technical school. Yeah, I think it's interesting. And they all do it. You know, you've seen it on both sides of the aisle when they're running statewide in these toss-up states or they're in a toss-up district. I will say that for some of them, the rhetoric doesn't always match their reputation on the Hill. You don't say.

39:46And so I think for voters, you know, I think one of the things that I think voters are looking for is to go beyond just like how what what does that mean? Exactly. Like what policies, you know, when John was talking to that voter in Georgia who was talking about health care. And we know there's a real debate among Democrats and Republicans in Congress about the Affordable Care Act subsidies, about the cuts that could come to Medicaid under the big, beautiful bill. Like, that's where the rubber meets the road when you're talking about what it means to work in a bipartisan fashion. Well, here's another kind of variation of the point that you're making.

40:22This is Greg Landsman running for a Democrat running for reelection in Ohio. He is somebody who considers himself part of a problem solver, part of the problem solver caucus. Now he wants a billionaire tax. So he's talking about some issues that you are more likely to hear from progressives. But it tells you where the electorate is. Watch. These tech billionaires pay a lower tax rate than most firefighters and nurses. That's crazy. I'm fighting for a new law to put a minimum tax on billionaires and use every dime of that money to lower taxes for working people. It's exactly what you two were talking about before, the haves and the have-nots.

41:02Populist economic policy crosses both polls of the Democratic Party and also much of the Republican Party as well, more importantly, and I think this actually connects a lot of the ads you just saw there. People want solutions. People hate everyone that's an incumbent, and if you're an incumbent that never talked to anybody or is purely polarized, They want nothing. You're the most endangered right now. And I think that's why you're seeing the pivot to the we love everybody. We're pragmatic. We love solutions guys, Dana. We're just solutions guys. If only the governing would reflect that, that would be amazing.

41:32What a nice Friday to be able to speak to all of you and learn so much, as I always do. Thank you for joining Inside Politics. CNN News Central starts after a quick break.

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