polls are open. the key races, the key issues on the ballot and the key signs that the election day could offer republicans and democrats as we race into 2024. moments ago, the families of some 240 hostages held by hamas spoke on capitol hill. and the cases that the supreme court justices are hearing today and what it has to do with domestic abuse. i'm kate bolduan and sara sidner is off, and i'm here with john berman. this is cnn news central. and now, the polls are open, and with the presidential elections a year ago, we could have some crucial insight into the political climate that we are in today and the issues that americans are caring about the most. abortion rights have been a winning issue for democrats since the supreme court overturned roe v. wade, but does it hold still today? ohio will decide whether to enshrine abortion access into the state's constitution. abortion rights also a campaign issue in virginia though not in the ballot where every seat in the general assembly is in play. democrats are hoping this the reproductive rights help them there, but the governor is hoping that his approach can serve as a model for virginia and far beyond. with we go there with jessica dean who is standing by. what are you seeing today, jessica? >> well, we are seeing the people coming to the polls here throughout the state, and as you mentioned, every single state in the state legislature is up for grabs, and people are going to the polls across the commonwealth of virginia. and look, this is an interesting proxy battle as we are looking ahead to 2024, and happens here correlates with the trends that we see in the following year when we see these federal election, and so to that point here, governor glenn youngkin who is not in the ballot himself, and he is in the middle of the term, and he is pushing ahead and he wants the republicans to have complete control of the state legislature here to give the current state of play, and the democrats are holding the senate and republicans are holding house, and youngkin is trying to push forward with the agenda which is including reproductive rights, and includes a 15-week ban on abortion, and currently the law is on 16 weeks which is stopped on senate democrats, and it is things like that where he says it is full control of the legislature, and you can see how this is a proxy battle playing out here, and this is governor youngkin a moment ago at one of the final stops across the state to try to get out the vote. >> and i have listened to virginians all over the commonwealth, and i hear over and over again, the number one issue they are concerned about is the impact that the biden economy is having on their lives where it has cost them $700 more a month to buy the exact same things that they were buying two years ago, groceries and clothing for their children. this is what is the top issue on people's minds, and this is why virginians can trust us, trust us to continue to deliver and to do the job. i promise to get it done, and just send me folks to richmond to work with me and not against me. >> reporter: and the governor has really on the stump especially stayed away from talking about abortion as a key issues and focus on what you heard him talk about, kate, more along the lines of taxes, schools, public school system, and things like that, and law enforcement, and these are the issues that he continues to talk to voters about. and again, it will be interesting to see kind of how this all shakes out tonight, and what it can mean going into 2024. glenn youngkin himself is a rising star in the republican party is worth noting that he has a particular take on the republican, on his republican brand of politics which is certainly conservative but not full maga and if he is able to win here in virginia where there are suburban voters, kate, what does it mean going into 2024, and this is what we are keeping an eye on, kate and john. >> jessica dean, great to see you. >> another one of the key races we are watching today, kate, is the democratic incumbent in kentucky andy beshear where he would be the first african-american governor, and kentucky is a very red state. how red? you can see that donald trump trounced joe biden by one county louisville and lexington. when andy beshear when he first ran for governor in 2019, it was a close race and beshear won by 5,000 votes, but look at how many blue counties there were here. he was able to win a lot of the coal counties and college cities like bowling green, and up here in cincinnati and kenton county which is right outside of cincinnati, ohio, but this is where beshear is going to have to replicate and do what joe biden did winning these two counties here and that is what to watch for tonight, and it is tough, but the beshear family has done well. and we go to louisville, kentucky, and what are you seeing from the candidates today? >> well, daniel cameron voted here with his family earlier this morning, and actually governor beshear is spending time with his family, and he voted early, and the campaign is telling me that the family is spending time with the family dog winnie which evidently, the dog is very popular here. but cameron said that he is satisfied with the strategy he has employed which is tying the governor beshear to president biden. he also has knocked governor beshear for the pandemic response and arguing that you really need someone in frankfort in the state capitol to work in concert with the republican-controlled legislature with learning laws. let's listen to the final argument. >> if you want leadership in this state that going to reflect your values and eliminate kentucky's income tax, and get the violent crime under control and make sure that we don't put down the churches and schools again, i hope you vote daniel cameron today. >> reporter: so this is the strategy that has been tough for cameron, because what we have seen here is that governor beshear is wildly popular and we have been speaking to some trump supporters who support him. >> and people are watching this election very, very closely, and eva mckend in louisville, thank you again for that. and to point out, these are the two candidates that democrats usually win, and andy beshear wants to replicate the map when he pick up counties outside of that area, and we will be watching that very closely. kate? >> it has been one month since the hamas terror attack on israel, and more than 240 hostages are being held by hamas terrorists in gaza. we saw some of the families a short time ago with house republicans in washington today pleading for help. in israel, the israeli army says they have destroyed several tunnels in a residential area in the northeastern part of gaza. the idf released video saying that it is showing its soldiers hitting tunnels in that area, and cnn has not been able to independently confirm the location of the video. we go there with jim sciutto standing by to join us from tel aviv. jim, prime minister benjamin netanyahu is speaking out now. tell us what he is saying and how it is being received. he is saying that israel is going to maintain security responsibility for gaza for some time after the cessation of the current military operations there, and that is a change. israeli officials in days after the october 7th attacks said that would be unlikely to be the case, but netanyahu's case is saying that is the only way to keep israel safe, and the question is then becoming how long, and is that days, week, years? and if you are looking at the israeli military operation, it is methodical, and the goal to eliminate hamas, a militant group with 20,000 or 30,000 groups in gaza, that is going to take time as well, and the final point, kate, is when you are speaking to the israelis about the political support in this country for those ongoing military operation, it is strong. this is a country that was quite divided on issues prior to october 7th, including b.b. netanyahu's leadership, but in getting rid of hamas to make sure that october 7th never happens again, there is unity. so the israeli security presence will be lasting in gaza. >> jim, you have been spending time since being there in the northern part of israel at the border with lebanon. what is the latest from there? is the threat, the risk, the exchange of fire with hezbollah? what are you hearing? >> the exchange of fire is daily. in both directions. today, the idf is saying that there because group of militants in southern lebanon attempting to fire tank fire, and they successfully fired at them. virtually everyday, you will have some of the fire getting through, and you have israel firing back, and sometimes it is not striking target, and lebanese say that the israeli strike in the last several days hit a vehicle that had three children and an older woman in it. i believe we have pictures of that. so, that is a slow burn conflict on the north e earn border, andt has not broken out, and hezbollah may at some point order the forces into northern israel or attempt to cross or attack in numbers or fire missiles in a range that could hit tel aviv, and it has not happened yet, kate. but looking forward to whenever israeli military operations either tail off or stop in gaza, there is also broad support in this country among israelis for military action in southern lebanon to follow. you speak to israelis, and they are not feeling safe in the south or the north, and many will say that we have to solve that problem as a country, and push hezbollah further back, which is of course, going to require another military operation, and perhaps a lengthy one and costly one. there is an enormous amount of support in this country for that. >> thank you, jim. thank you for your reporting. jim? ivanka trump is set to take the witness stand after her father's contentious testimony. donald trump is skipping the gop presidential debate tomorrow. but we have a look at what one released a zinger of a statement that brings up her opponent's footwear. , so, ivanka trump, who we have heard very little from, is set to take the stand tomorrow after her father who took the stand and at a few times contentious and very few things that he did admit. >> and joining us is jennifer rodgers and kckara scannell who was in the courtroom for multiple days, and what do you expect to see from ivanka trump? how do you think it is going to play out? >> she is the last witness for the new york attorney general's team. as we have seen over the course of the six weeks, they are closing in on the financial statements and what they knew about them. her brother donald trump jr. said that he did not prepare them. eric trump said that he was not aware of them until the investigation, and confronted with emails that showed that he was aware of them. and so for ivanka trump, she was involved in a couple of the development deals, the old post office building, and helped to introduce the trump organization to deutsche bank through her husband jared kushner, and she is going to be asked about the deals and the financial statements and i obtained a excerpt from her videotaped deposition, and this is how she handled the questions. >> do you have any recollection of your father having personal financial statements? >> not specifically. >> what about generally? >> well, see, i combine them all in my mind, like the statements of the company and so, i -- no, i mean, not like specific to him. look, i have my own, i have never prepared one. i don't know. i have never made one. i'm not an accountant. >> that is the commenting that we have heard from trumps. they were not involved in the preparations, and they have relied on the accountants, and so they are saying that the testimony could continue on into thursday. >> so they have put the other two children on the stand and why do they want her to witness stand? >> they want her testimony as to the other promperties, and she won't say much about the financial statements, and unlike don jr. or eric, she did not sign any of them, and donald trump of course, so they cannot put her on the hook of that, but she was intimately involved with the deals of the doral club and the post office, and she can talk about those valuation, and the valuations are the key here, and the inaccuracy and the inflation of the valuations, so that is what they will be asking her about, and how were these valued and why are these numbers so vastly different from the real numbers. >> it was suggested yesterday that the whole thing, which this trial could wrap up, and i believe it is described a week earlier than expected. are people reading into that and why? >> well, the state is going to rest the case when ivanka trump finishes which is to be thursday and trump begins the defense. his lawyers vs are saying they call back the son, because on direct they can pose the questions differently and not limited to what the prosecutors asked. and so they may call up some of the banks involved in the loan, because they have testimony saying it was not material to them, the financial statements, and it was no at the main factor in the decision when they decided to loan them money, and they are going on the offensive, and say it going to wrap by the 15th, and the judge may give them the 22nd and streamlining the case as they heard the testimony coming in, but it is three more weeks of potential testimony in this case, and then it is up to the judge and not the jury to make the ultimate decision. >> to that point, did anything donald trump testify to yesterday, any of the statements leave a mark that his lawyers will need to clean up when they put on their defense? >> well, he did admit having involvement in the statements themselves, and the creation of them, and also the valuations that went into the statements, and so, i don't know what they will be able to clean that up other than, you know, maybe suggest it was not really specific or the details, and he didn't know detail, because i think that they would want to keep him as far away from the statements as possible. they have all been blaming the accountants, and whether they want to clean it up or not, and those are the admissions that he was rambling on and complaining and ranting through the testimony, and that is the danger of not having a disciplined witness who just answers the questions asked. >> thank you, jennifer and kara. a police where donald trump is not going to be picking a fight. a place where there is going to be his absence as they are already taking stage. and the supreme court is set to take up a key 2nd amendment case having to do with gun rights, and also what it has to do with domestic abuse. we'll be right back. the power goes out and we still have wifi to do our homework. and that's a good thing? great in my book! who are you? no power? no problem. introducing storm-ready wifi. now you can stay reliably connected through power outages with unlimited cellular data and up to 4 hours of battery back-up to keep you online. only from xfinity. home of the xfinity 10g network. the stage is set. five republican presidential hopefuls are now preparing to face-off in miami, the biggest nights of their lives, and maybe a slight overstatement, but still, this is the third republican debate of the presidential primary and the third time that donald trump is thumbing his nose at the other candidates by not showing up, and instead, he is shoholding h own rally not far away. and so jeff zeleny is not far away. what is going to happen this time, jeff? >> well, it is maybe not the biggest event of their lives, kate, but of the presidential campaign, it is. time is running out, and 69 days by my count until the iowa caucuses open up the campaign on january 15th. so this is a key moment for some candidates to make the move. now, the debates have changed the structure of the race at least below the trump level if you will. the first debate had eight and the next was seven and tomorrow has five. nikki haley has been benefiting from the debates more than any other candidate. so she is coming into the debate tomorrow night with the momentum, but more of a target on her back. the highest stakes without a doubt are for ron desantis. he is flying here later today from iowa where he picked up the key endorsement from the iowa republican governor kim reynolds, and she is traveling to iowa with him, and how will he hold up on the stage, as chris christie and tim scott, and the entrepreneur vivek ramaswamy. will they go after one another or donald trump? so donald trump not attending the debates is validated. he is going to be in hialeah skipping all of it. time is running out. one more debate will be in december and the question is of course, by then, who is going to be standing on stage. kate? >> great to see you, jeff. john? >> with us is cnn senior political commentator scott jennings. scott, one question i have is how the five candidates on stage are going to treat each other, and we just got an answer a few moments ago in the form of a video press release from the campaign of nikki haley, and it is an attack on governor ron desantis. she says, desantis debate preview. these boots are made for lying. and that is the nature of this debate that he is going to lie about his record, and these boots were made for lying which is a social media meme going after governor desantis' footwear that he is wearing lifts or something, and how do you make of this of the hard-hitting look for him? >> well, she had hard words for trump and tim scott and desantis, and she was firing at everybody on the stage trying to take control of the non-trump lane of the primary. she has not quite done it yet. desantis is very much alive and well and kicking if you will in that lane right now, and the trouble for both of them is that donald trump is very popular and dominant in the party primary, and to me, the real question tonight is if it is an academic exercise and trump has locked it down and a lot of republican voters who believe it is true. >> that is true. what do you believe is the answer to the question? >> what you seeing in the national polls of vis-a-vis is convincing the republicans they don't have to make a strategic choice. and the republicans will go up against trump. they like him, but they want somebody who can win, but now everybody in the national media and everybody else saying that trump is beating biden and for a republican, why don't i just nominate the person i like, and not the person i sort of like. so that is what is vaulting trump forward here. so tonight, somebody has to make an argument about why they would be better than trump with this theory that donald trump is disliked or that there are people who want to jetstison hi out of the polls. so i suspect haley and desantis are going to be arguing about that. >> you are referencing poll that shows trump is beating biden in five of six swing states. but nikki haley may say, i am more electable, and maybe lean in there, and is she going to go after trump. is this the night that not haley, but desantis, and they need to take on the frontrunner more directly? >> well, she already has taken on trump. in fact, a lot more than i would have anticipated throughout the debate season, and she has absorbed the mantle of the true anti-trump case, and more than chris christie in some way, and the question is if it is enough to dispatch the opponents and then if that is enough to win a republican primary. there is a lot of evidence that if ron desantis or some of the other folks dropped out, their people would not automatically go to her, but a lot of them would go to trump. a lot of the folks are not locked in to do something other than trump. so she will take it to him, but there has to be an appeal to people who like donald trump, and hey, i know that you like him, but we have to do something else, and this is the strategic argument that is against the polls that show trump strong against biden. >> and talk about the kate bolduan corollary for the fact that people are calling for the consolidation in the republican primaries and the after effect that if people would get out of the races and someone could take on trump one-on-one, and is that something that would give someone a chance the beat him? >> well, if, if the field consolidated down to somebody that most republicans liked, it would give them a fighting chance. the problem is that if the consolidation took place right now, there is not a ton of evidence that trump is sinking or that the image is degrading. underpinning all of this is that the republicans quite like donald trump, and one of the main problems that they had with him after 2020 or even 2022 is well, you know, we like him, but he going to lead us to more and more losses, and right now, his campaign has strong evidence that it may not be the case in 2024, that joe biden is circling the drain, and we will beat him no matter what. so, that destabilizes this, you know, strategic, and let's consolidate and see that the republican party really doesn't like donald trump, and there is not a lot of polling evidence for that right now. all of these legal travails and everything that is happening to him continues to propel him forward and the campaign is projecting a lot of confidence, but we will have a spirited conversation tonight and see if haley orcan take control, and also, the last opportunity for tim scott here. he is going to have an aggressive posture, but he has to show the republicans something if he wants to hang around much longer. >> scott jennings, always great to see you. thank you very much. kate? one father describing tragic roller coaster that he has been on. first told that his 8-year-old daughter was killed by hamas terrorists only now to learn that she may be alive and held hostage. his story is next. there are so many heartbreaking stories that behave heard coming from the hamas terror attack coming from israel. one family story that c nnn has been following closely is the father of an 8-year-old girl who said that he was relieved when he learned that his 8-year-old daughter was killed, because he said that her being held as hostage by hamas would a fate worse than death. but now he learns that his daughter was most likely taken as a hostage by hamas in gaza. >> from the morning of the 7th until now, it is a nightmare roller coaster tragedy. >> reporter: the anguished thomas hand is about to describe has left him trembling for weeks, and it is a journey of hope and resurrection is a journey that is impossible to imagine. >> on the day it is russian roulette whether you made it or not. >> reporter: on the day that the hamas ficame and ravaged the kibbutz, that morning, thomas' 8-year-old daughter emily was sleeping over at a friend's house, and he could not reach her on the day that the hamas took over the kibbutz. then thomas spoke to clarissa ward about the day that he learned that his daughter had been killed. >> thomas waited two agonizing days before getting the news. >> they said that we found emily. she is dead. i went, yes! i went yes! and smiled, because it is the best news of the possibilities that i knew that she would be in a dark room with christ knows how many people and terrified every minute, hour, day and possibly years to come. so, death was a blessing. an absolute blessing. >> reporter: thomas says that the members of the berri kibbutz said they had seen her, and then given news that made him collapse that it is highly probable that emily is alive and a hostage. >> reporter: how were you told the news that emily is possible to be alive? >> it is official from the army. with all of the information that they have, and the intelligence that they have, it is very likely that she has been taken to gaza. >> reporter: thomas says that emily's body is not with the remains of victims, and there was no blood found inside of the home where she slept the night before. and also, cell phones belonging to the family that emily was staying with have been tracked inside of gaza. >> reporter: so when you spoke to clarissa ward, you said that death would be a blessing. >> that is how i felt at the time. >> reporter: how do you describe how you feel now? >> extremely worried about the conditions she is being held in. and she is more than likely in a tunnel somewhere under gaza. your imagination is horrible. and it is her birthday on the 17th of this month. she'll be 9. she won't even know what day it is. she won't know what day it is. she won't know it is her birthday. there'll be no birthday cake, no party, no friends, it will be just petrified in a tunnel under gaza, and this is her birthday. >> reporter: thomas is now flooded with the hope and the despair of what his daughter might be enduring. he prays she can somehow hear these words to her. >> if emily is watching, just to let her know that we love her. all of us. we are all waiting for her to come back safely. >> reporter: the survivors of the be'eri kibbutz are living in a hotel and a homage to the kidn kidnapped individuals, and now emily's picture is with them. you say that it is awful. >> the waiting is awful. that is what we have to do now. just pray and hope that she comes back in some broken state, but we can fix her. we will fix her somehow. >> reporter: do you allow yourself now to think about holding emily again? >> in my head, i can see, you know, like a beach scene her running to me, and me running to her. just picking her up. never letting her go. >> reporter: ed lavandera, cnn. >> all right. happening now, the supreme court is hearing arguments on a major second amendment case over whether the government can deny access to firearms for those placed under a domestic violence restraining order. paula reid is outside of the courthouse, and what have the justices heard so far, paula? >> well, john, they have heard the arguments for over 100 minutes right now, and this is the first big 2nd amendment case that has gone before the high court since the conservative decision a year ago that restricted gun laws nationwide. this was the case of a man from texas who was accused of domestic violence with a case of his girlfriend and he was put under restraining orders. and under law, a person under restraining orders cannot possess firearms. then he went on a series of shooting events and law enforcement found a number of in the wake of the supreme court's decision, a little over a year ago, the fifth circuit agree d with him. gun advocates would agree. this is not exact ly the poster boy they would wish for. this guy is a domestic abuser, he's a drug dealer. one of those shootings he just started firing off hisgun afters credit card was declined. he was subject to a restraining order, but he was never convicted. restraining orders are important tools for law enforcement when it comes to dealing with domestic violence. every month in this country, 70 women are shot and killed by an intimate partner. >> paula, explain the legal standard now, precedent standard that is sort of framing these arguments on both sides. >> reporter: that's actually what they are asking the justices to clarify. the justice department is asking the high court to clarify their decision. this often happens. they issue a decision and there's a little confusion among the courts. the justice department, a lawyer arguing on their behalf, is asked did you mean we need to go back to the founding of our country and find an apples to apples comparison for it to be upheld, or were you speaking more broadly about principles that we have in had this nation? they are trying to seek clarify and emphasize there's a national interest in protecting people from dangerous individuals, like this man. even if they have not been convicted. however, this man's attorneys are also arguing they can see is a dangerous individual. they say that under that decision, under that supreme court decision from 2022, you do, in fact, need to find a comparable law. so they are asking for clarity on that decision. how widely does this extend? what exactly do you mean? and it will be awhile before we get a decision from the court here, but it will be important for those low courts as they begin to reevaluate gun restrictions. >> any of the justices ask any questions that clarify what they might be focused on at this point. >> reporter: it did appear the chief justice was looking for away kind of test. they love to issue tests that help the court work through the questions. it did appear he was looking to both sides to say, hey, what kind of test would you apply here? what are you asking us to do? many of the justices did appear open to offering some clarification to that 2022 decision. but again, it's going to take awhile for them to get together and agree on exactly how much clarification they want to give the country. >> paula reid, great to have you outside the courthouse explaining things so clearly. really appreciate it. this morning police are investigating the death of a jewish man who died after duelling demonstrations in thousand oaks, california. police say the 69-year-old fell and hit his head after an altercation with a counterprotester, later dying from his injuries. now police are searching for who was involved. stephanie elam has more on this, the investigation, and what we know and don't. what are police saying? >> reporter: so what we understand is this happened sunday afternoon at this busy intersection of thousand oaks, northwest of los angeles. what the law enforcement officials are saying is that kessler had fallen backwards and hit his head. we do have a little bit of video, where you can see where this happened. you can see he's down on the ground in this aftermath of what has transpired. what they are saying is they don't know what led up to this altercation. they don't know, here's the video, they don't know how many people were involved. no suspect has been named. law enforcement is saying they are not ruling out a hate crime. this little bit we blurred here, you can see this one woman with a palestinian flag is bending down seeming to check on the man, but we know kessler was taken to the hospital and died from his injuries yesterday. deputies say that at this point, they are looking for anymore information, they are hoping anyone who may have cell phone video, they will come forward. they do believe this was an isolated incident, and the investigation is ongoing. however, the autopsy did reveal this blunt force trauma is what led to his death, and the manner of death has been ruled a homicide. but they are also saying that talking to nearby rabbis, he says he has heard conflicting reports as far as law enforcement is concerned. he's asking everyone to be patient while they get more information on this it investigation and while the investigation continues. to that end, we have also the heard from the council on american islamic relations, the executive putting out a statement saying they are saddened by this and they the really do want people to wait before they jump to conclusions while they are already dealing with unnecessarily high tensions at this time. >> just so sad. thank you so much for the update. a lot of news today. thank you for joining us. this had has been "cnn news central." "inside politics" is up next.