Virginia in nebraska did in fact go to polls today with the republican race. Threecus is instead on general election battlegrounds, florida, ohio and pennsylvania. That is because quitting up university is up with you Quinnipiac University is out with the polls that run counter to clintons current lead over trump in Many National polls. In pennsylvania, clinton and trump are statistically tied. The same is and true in florida, which is a must win state for almost any future president and finally, in ohio, quinnipiac has trump up 43 to 39 for clinton which is within the margin of error, but there is a lot in here to dig into sheer, but as we know polls like this do two things. They reflect reality and they create reality. Begin with the first thing polls do, reflect reality. What reality do they reflect . Mark lets not overreact to one set of polls. The quinnipiac is a good pollster, and the states are obviously critical for determining which one of these lands. Wins. All three of them show the race is close which suggests something is going on. One of the biggest exultation of why trump is doing better is men. Take a look at men, support for trump versus clinton. In pennsylvania, trump with a ad with menbigleag even in florida. What does that tell you . You look at the national polls, men are favoring trump usually by single digits, and some places they are tied. What is powering trumps lead in these three states, largely it is overwhelming support from health voters, and there is no doubt if he is going to win a general election, he will have to dominate men as much or more than Hillary Clinton. She is dominating women. John that is obviously true in the sense that it is reflected in the numbers. Mark almost everyone who will vote in the election comes from those Demographic Group straight Demographic Groups. John i will make an acute observation that historically speaking, nominees for major parties get a boost in polling when they become presumptive nominees. Having that declared, they tend to get a bump. Mitt romney got one, barack obama got they usually get a one. Boost. I think that is some of what is going on is the basis of historical trend, that trump is getting favorable attention in the states for voters that are looking at him as the nominee and they are not doing that for Hillary Clinton, even though we know mathematically she is just as presumptive. Mark in a world of the normal republican and democratic nominee, youd say, the base comes home, they get over 90 of the people voting. If trump can consolidate republican support, it will be surprising if these background states are not 10, 7 point clinton margins. But in fact, trump even or ahead. It starts with the gender gap. Hillary clinton has a man problem. John and there is other polling that suggests what you are saying is happening, which is to say, although there is a lot of division at the elite ranks of republicans, at the level of republican voters, there is consolidation happening, and that is not happening for Hillary Clinton. Mark she is still fighting Bernie Sanders. That was the reality of what these polls reflect. John, what reality since these polls have come out are they creating . Tonight is the reality. They are certainly helpful for donald trump. Mark that hasnt happened to trumpet with a long time. Look, this is a guy who needs to who everybody feeds on looking like a winner. But if you are trying to unify the Republican Party and overcome doubts with people who think he is a sure loser, pointing out that there are battleground states in which he is competitive or ahead, Hillary Clinton helps to ameliorate those doubts, and it is something you can point to, and may be something that is possibly true. Mark there are some republicans thats a he is not worried about trump losing but about trump winning. He would be horrible. But mostly, you have congressional members stand up , candidates, governors trump was going to win john or that he would be competitive mark what they have to start focusing on is how do we make them a better candidate . How do we work Better Together with his team . How do we get him over the finish line. That is good news for him. He said any candidate needs for it to win, but the reality is democrats do not default on to win but republicans do. A need ohio. There is no map to 270. Its of a new would be a bonus for them. What this does is it sets to the republicans assess to the republicans, there is a potential path that may include pennsylvania and trump winning in obama state that the democrats have held for many cycles in a row. John pennsylvania is often fools goal for the republicans. Fulls gold for the republicans. My only point about florida was to say that there are paths for democrats to win without florida, for barack obama won it, george w. Bush one it also. The thing is, trump does not need to prove to republicans that he is going to win. What he needs to prove to republicans is that he will not be a massive drag on the ticket, that he is doomed to lose and will lose badly. As long as he is competitive, they can do it with their minds around it. Mark sends trump became the presumptive nominee, he has been acting like trump. He has been moderating a few issues. This is to them, trump can win by being trump. If they are banking on him changing to win no banking. John no way. We are going to talk to a master poster more about these quinnipiac polls and what they reflect in a moment. First, more on Donald Trumps preparation against Hillary Clinton. The manhattan billionaire plans to travel to cleveland and take a look at the planning underway for the Republican Partys convention. Yesterday, team trump met in washington with rnc staff to discuss a fundraising agreement and how they can Work Together in the general election. Mark, as trump makes his gradual and presumably inexorable ascent from presumptive to actual nominee of the Republican Party, will he allow previous will he allow the team to keep their jobs . Mark i think they are so busy, so resistant to giving out power, that i think the trump people are probably willing the shortterm to see if the republicans can do this. Let them keep doing a lot of the research, and see how they do. Once the trump team gets to the convention or past it, if they feel like the rnc is not doing what they need to, they will take it over. Even though i think he will prevail. John i think they would never take those powers away. Just because the money is too big a problem. The New York Times has the figures he will have a hard time raising that money. The party wants trump to raise money for it but the party wants trumps help. The rnc makes itself indispensable on purely financial grounds, which is the biggest security blanket that he has. Mark lets remember that the Republican Party not just raise d raised a lot of money but they have one collections elections galore. Its reasonable to say, ok, you have helped the party, prove it. Do it at the president ial level. People who there are notice there are some new butlers coming into his world and billionaires, but i do not know where he turns to raise that kind of money if he cannot land a party for a big part of it. Mark up next, more powerful than the wizard of oz. Our pollster shows us what is behind the curtain in the polls we batted around. We will get to the numbers after these words from our sponsors. Mark joining us now from the great city of des moines, our pollster extraordinaire, j. Ann seltzer. Thank you for joining us. We are talking again about these kubiak numbers the act numbers quinnipiac that show ties between clinton and trump in pennsylvania, ohio and for the. What are your thoughts on these three polls and how seriously we should take them for a window and where we are in the race . Uestion ma these polls look different from national polls, and of course they should. What happens nationally does not always play out statebystate in the same way, and the way you win a presidency is by winning the states. First of all, i will say these are more important polls to look at the Overall National polls, in particular trying to engage the state of the race today. Nit i would pick is the interview a broader section of people, anybody who says they are registered to vote, that is how they get into their samples. There is a smaller universe among that group who say they are likely voters. Anyway, that is defined so there is a little bit of error that comes in between the people who are registered in the people that are not registered. It certainly gives us a baseline Going Forward about how these raises change in these key swing states. John we know that sample matters a lot, and the question of how accurately do these polls reflect what will be or what we think will be the composition of the electorate. Racial come position, gender composition. When you look at the samples, do you like what you see . I do like what i see. Basically, its because they are not deciding ahead of time what that electorate is going to look like. That, to me, is the pollster divinely figuring out months from now what the electorate will look like. Is telloll can do well you what the composition of the electorate looks like today, if the election were held today. There is honestly some going there is honestly going to be some shifts and what those demographics look like as we get closer and closer, but there are other things that will be far more effective in determining who actually wins the states than what the polls have measured along the way. There will be a lot of campaigning. Mark that will be some art and science and science in this answer, as is sometimes the case in polling. Is there a way to tell, in general, if you like a registered versus likely, which is a debate we will have all the way through november, is one or the other screen more likely to favor trump or clinton . What you find is that the difference showing up tends to be in the portion that says they are independent. That is a bigger group among all registered voters then it ends up being among likely voters. We always look at the independence as a Critical Group for white candidate is doing well. So of course come out we will be paying attention to that. Among a, the race is tied independents in this poll. In ohio, trump is leading by three points. In pennsylvania, he is leading by seven points. That group of independence may shrink a bit as are to the election. Is that they are finding their party toward the end of this, the same people, or is it that the independents tend to drop out and more partisans come in . That has yet to be determined. John and we know these candidates are coming in with high unfavorable ratings by historic standards for presumptive nominees. Talk a little bit about what you see across these three states. Well, i think the conventional wisdom going and is these are both candidates who have high unfavorables, and that is true and this data found that out. What was the conventional wisdom is that Donald Trumps unfavorables were much higher than Hillary Clinton, and in these three states in these polls, that is not the case. That one of these candidates had higher unfavorables, that was Hillary Clinton. Mark i do not think i have seen a national or staple where donald trump had better or close to equal favorableunfavorable to clintons of the standout in that respect. They do stand out in that respect, and again i would just reiterate that it is states like this that are going to determine who wins the presidency. Getting this early read, and it is early, on exactly how things are shaking down in swing states is painting a different picture and an important one. John one of the things happening in the democratic race is Bernie Sanders says he does better headtohead against donald trump. These polls will in addition, to make donald trump happy will also make Bernie Sanders happy. What do you make of that argument that sanders offers for white he would be a stronger general election nominee that Hillary Clinton . I think he makes a very fair point, which is in these polls, are polls have shown it as well, when you do a head to head with Hillary Clinton versus the field or Bernie Sanders versus the field, Bernie Sanders numbers ly higher than Hillary Clinton. What is that telling us about the electorate . It certainly tells us that this is an electorate that is in the mood for change, and given the opportunity to vote for a candidate that represents change, they are more likely to support that candidate. I cant tell you that a lot of those Bernie Sanders supporters, when they are asked what if it is Hillary Clinton, would say they go for trump because he is the change guy, and that would be interesting to delve into, but it makes sense. The mood of this electorate, which has been the strongest predictor of how these primaries have played out, has landed on Bernie Sanders and donald trump, two people that a year ago we would have thought had no chance. That they represented such a different path, but people want a different path. A lot of speculation about whether trump will get the psychological boost of being ahead of Hillary Clinton in a national poll. Do you see anything in the data that suggests trump has that potential in the shortterm, to pass her . I have learned nothing. Who knows what the next poll will show . I think what donald trump is in the middle of is figuring out his way forward in terms of messaging, in terms of how it is that he wants to now compete for the presidency as opposed to just the nomination. So, everything he does, on every day between now and the next poll, we will see what it shows. Mark thank you very much. Who ofup, the whos donald j trumps fundraising team. We will have that for you. John our next guest is a Pulitzer Prize winner. He is on the campaignfinance beat and joins us now to talk about some of the news related to Donald Trumps operations. What is going on in Donald Trumps money world . So donald trump, during the primary, said he wasnt raising money. People did send him money anyway, but he was not making that focus of raising money from the public. Now he has got a general election where he might need to spend 1 billion or more, so he says never mind, now i will raise money. He is starting from zero. Last week, he announced his new National Finance chairman, a guy named steve minutien. He is a hedge fund guy. Not a big pro when it comes to republican fundraising circles. Hes not a wellknown name. It is yet to be seen how donald trump will do when it comes to fundraising. Mark one of the things that has been discussed as a joint fundraising agreement with the rnc, something Hillary Clinton already has with the dnc. What is the history and the rules of the road . Why is her so much focus on it . Why is there so much focus on it . A joint Fundraising Committee would allow donald trump to not only raise money for his own campaign, but to raise money for the rnc at the same time and for many of the state political committees. The way Hillary Clinton is using it, she has 33 states signed up, so in one fell swoop, they can get a donor to write a check of 300,000 that goes to all these different places at once, and most of it goes back to help Hillary Clinton in one way or another. John why wouldnt that just the automatic . Why is it not a winwin for everybody . Well, it can be. That is why they do these fundraising agreements. But for a guy like trump or a lot of the states have already voted for somebody, the state republican parties, someone for ted cruz, summit for rubio some went for rubio, so it will be of the bit more tricky to get all of the states on board, that they will work with him to raise money for his election. He is not someone well known in the republican fundraising universe. There have been a couple big names that have come on board for donald trump in the last couple of days. How is it going in terms of trying to get butlers come up people with a track record of being and to put together big money for president ial candidate. How is that going for trump right now . As you said, he has some big fundraisers, a walker guy, a bush guy. There are some reports that he is meeting with a fundraiser for the rnc. He is a real guy with a lot of connections to raise a lot of money over the years for people. It remains to be seen, if you look at the people who were early behind him, a lot of them are people, some of them have plenty of money, but were not really part of the network that was behind george w. Bush back in the day, or behind romney in 2012, so the question is, can somehow build a new organization or find people who can build it for him . Trump won the nomination on the cheap. Does he need a lot more money or could he be raised toone and still win . And the primary, he basically took the strategy of using his celebrity and his ability to say newsworthy or interesting things to dominate the news second, and so he did not need to spend money on advertising the way other people did. Ways, that in some might be trickier in the general election where it is not so much a question of just being noticed compared to 17 other candidates running but it is really just a match of him and Hillary Clinton. He seems to hand, broken every rule along the way and succeeded in it, so im not sure anybody can tell you for sure he cannot find a totally different way of funding his way to the presidency. John you dont have any doubt in your mind that Hillary Clinton has a huge fundraising advantage over donald trump . Traditional mechanisms, absolutely. She is way ahead. John thank you for coming in and coming on. Will see you more of you we will see more of you win money really matters. Coming up, the real mark mckenna. He will be here right after this. I hope he has a hat. Mark hats off to our next guest, a former media adviser to bush 43 and to john mccain and our cohost in our show the circus. Thank you for coming. My hat is off to you. Mark you have been around candidates of both parties, so let me ask you to look into the soul of donald trump and then Hillary Clinton. What is your read on how trump is reading his situation. A classic situation with so many candidates were you get some are on your own, and then you gut have people saying, you have to evolve, pitted so you have some people, mostly her family saying let donald be donald. He has that dynamic going but his reflex is to just be donald trump and dance with what brought him here, which is to continue what he is doing. Saying, thereen is a thousand decisions he has to make within a short. Eriod of time. You have to get a convention up and running, a vp take. These are things clinton has locked and loaded. Mark i think while the trump family wants to be himself, they have been a leading arguer to say, you need to bring in some additional recourse. It takes a family. John you have known Hillary Clinton for a while. What is your read . The best thing to happen to a candidate is to lose an election. He learned more from losing many different winning. I think she understands there is two ways to run, one way to run is to run scared or unopposed. I think she in the hole campaign understand you have to run scared, you have to run like your 10 points behind, and trump , obviously a very different sort of thing that she is going to face, no playbook, no film to watch. I think they are completely cognizant of that fact. John we talked earlier in the someabout that some of the folks are headed to cleveland to get a lay of the land. You have talked about the fact that they are promising an extravaganza unlike any Republican Convention in the history of the convention. How hard is that to pull off . It is super hard. I have been the republican guy with a lot of jurisdictions and care ofbility, taking the entertainment. I have been in those discussions are we always said, this is going to be different, get out of the box and it is not going to be like any convention have seen, and the physics, it is hard to do. Donald trump as a background in entertainment, and understands how to do things different way, but i will just tell you, he hired a talent agency, i think to help get talent. Im just telling them right now, you are going to have a lot of struggles finding a list in retainers that want to come out and entertain the convention. John i like how you look into the camera. [laughter] john one thing that has been true so far, donald trump has not been able to attract a lot of hollywood stars but sports figures, other figures from popular culture. There is a card he seems to be able to lay. He would like a hollywood liberals on a side, movie actors and rock stars, but there is a category that figures culturally with them. Figures. S, coach i think there is an element of celebrity that he will bring to the table, which is part of the trump factor. I remembered the early events that he did, and a lot of people were coming for the celebrity. They wanted to say, i saw him. There is an element to that. John i have a brilliant idea for you. Howard stern. Me three factors. I think he will do better than clinton with the oak ridge boys. Mark what are three factors that will determine who wins . I think in external event could mark martian invasion, something unknown. You think that is fine . Unny . And economic cataclysm like that happened in 2008, and i think in many cases, we say the vp does that matter but in this case it might. It could make a difference. Mark what about three things that they can control, two other things they can control. Theye most important thing can control is the debate, and this will be the most watched of a in all of history. The ratings will be off the charts. People will be watching this around the globe, not just in the united states. That is going to be the most important part of this campaign by far and they can control it. John you wrote recently in Time Magazine about a lot of these new lgb t lawson and how republicans are on the wrong side of these issues. I want you to talk about that. It seems interesting to me that donald trump went where he went with the bathroom law in North Carolina and decided to deviate from republican orthodoxy there. Is there a way that trumps cultural liberalism as a new yorker may benefit him . I think it is going to help him. I think that is one of the assets. On issues one of the on issues that republicans need to be more compassionate, he is headed in that direction. These laws happening in North Carolina, for example, when we think about all of the things the Republican Party has trouble with strategically and what it ought to be thinking about and spending its time concerned about in terms of policy, lg bt bathroom rights is on nobodys this. Nobody cares about that. Even if you had these ridiculous loss, how would you enforce that question mar . But it sends the message that republicans have their head in the sand and are back in the century. Back in the 15th century. It sends a bad signal and its a good turn for trump that he is shying away from them of those. Mark do you think other republicans have not moved on this issue because there doing it out of principle worried about the backlash from the base. John i would never want to exclude the possibility that principle is at stake and that society has gone haywire and there are deeply rooted eventually for christians, but i think in many cases, there is some element of political calculation and they think they would lose votes, secure votes voters that bid for whenever going to come their way anyway because of the views on other issues. Mark will the next republican president support legal gay marriage . Guest if it is a republican president , they will have to. I think in order to be president , they will have to. John you dont have any doubt in his heart of hearts that george w. Bush supported gay marriage . Guest i think it was an evolution or him. It was like a lot of people, became to discover there were a lot of staffers and people that work for him that were gay. Mark i couldve told him that early on. [laughter] you said the Vice President thing matters a lot. Who should he pick . I think the latest rumor about bob corker, that is a sensible approach. Mark anybody . Magically, anybody i want will say yes. powell. Colin powell. Mark more than Condoleezza Rice . Guest that would be great too. Mark same thing with Hillary Clinton, she says i can get whoever i want, who should she pick . Same thing, colin powell. The conventional route is to and dop your weakness something that gives you geographic diversity, ethnic diversity, ideological diversity, whatever it might be, and then trumps case, there is some value to the notion of going unconventional, which means to go the bill clinton route, double. Understrength, finds a but who is also a maverick, unconventional, so i think that there is some value in looking at that, particularly for trump. Thank you, man. Coming up, what joe biden about Hillary Clinton earlier today. If you are watching us in washington, d. C. , you can listen to us anytime you want. We will be right back. We are all anxious to see who she is. [laughter] i feel confident hillary will be the nominee and she will be the next president. John that was joseph biden junior that will air tomorrow on good morning america. We are joined now by our bloomberg colleague, Jennifer Epstein who covers the Clinton Campaign and Jennifer Jacobs who has been covering the republican side of the race. Jennifers here simultaneously in tandem. Let me ask you this question joe biden has been all over the place in this race. Once the wealthiest throwing a bone to Bernie Sanders and the next thing he is a nice things about Hillary Clinton. What do you interpret about this . Win . He really want her to whats the deal . Jennifer he has been doing this, saying she in the last couple of months or so. I think he is at the point now where this is his way of doing a little bit of a nudge at sanders to back off a little bit from clinton and let this primary classes process play out and not make the fall harder for the democrats. Mark is Hillary Clinton worried about her relationship at this . Oint with joe biden cust i think they both understand that they need each other a bit. Her campaign is looking forward to being able to deploy him to work in places like pennsylvania , and that they will be able to use them in that way when she is reaching out to africanamericans or barack obama is doing that and she is reaching out to women, not to stereotype people, but i think there is, as much as there may be some tension and fighting of ing of eacheye other, they will be focused on the objective of winning in november. John let me ask you this question, there was tension, a lot of tension, and the motivation for him running was that he thought he could beat hillary. Is biden going to be a big part of her campaign in the fall . Mark i think he will campaign in a lot of states. They will have basically four people out there, bill clinton, Hillary Clinton, joe biden and barack obama. Maybe a little michelle obama. The tensions of the past. Mark and joe biden. Jennifer jacobs, lets talk about donald trump and the rnc. Is this a normal relationship now, or their aspects that are not normal given the phase we are in . It is starting to normalize. I think they are starting to warm up, they are starting to embrace each other. The rnc opened up the floodgates to the Trump Campaign and said , whatever resources we have, we will offer it to you. We are here for you. We will help you donald with whatever we can. John explain a little more what is going on here. Mark and i, marks question is about normalcy versus nonnormalcy. What did the trump people want . What they just make the staff disappear, or did they recognize some futility there at least on the fundraising side . They do recognize some utility. If they had their wish, they would like to see their own loyal person in the chairmanship. Him, i could replace think that is what they would prepare, but they realize there are options. I have spoken to several people in the donald Trump Campaign, and they said, he has the ability, even if there has been some tension and they do not always see i to i, he has the ability to fight with someone on monday and have them be their best friend on tuesday. They see the utility and keeping him around. The fact of the matter is, he expires, his third term in january and there has been some question on whether he would run for a fourth term. He has been chairman for six years which is a long time. Try toer option is to install someone else who would run the daytoday operations, who would be a trump loyalist. The third choice is to oust him. It is up to the rnc members and all of those people from the various states that come in pairs, for the most part, this chairman is loved by the rnc members, so it remains to be seen if they would have enough votes to even try to out him. John let me ask you a basic question. Trump and clinton have been going at it for about a week now. Do the Clinton Campaign think they are winning these days . I think that they think they are doing ok. They are satisfied to see all of the people on the right continuing to just be reluctant to support trump and that they see that, when they see that, they think when trump says one thing about taxes in one interview and says Something Different in the morning, he is doing his own damage and all they need to do is point that out again and again. Still, she has to campaign in places like kentucky where she was today because she still has a primary going on. Definitely some concern on the democratic side of the Clinton Campaign, that they cannot fully jump in, but on the republican side they are jumping in and preparing, right . Got the . Absolutely. There is a database that the republicans have that is a coverture of treasure trove of videos going back years and years. Toy are really getting ready do everything they can to attack Hillary Clinton. Mark let me ask you both about donald trump and then getting back to Hillary Clinton. Intou had full visibility the donald Trump Campaign, what would that be right now . Who does donald trump one passes Vice President. We are seeing a lot of things who backers would like to see as his Vice President , but i would like to take i would like to see who he truly wants. I i were already already know the answer to that, godzilla. Thatthink the question people have been trying to figure out for a long time, is what bills role is and how much they are talking about strategy on a daily basis. How much trust there is. John how worried is the Clinton Campaign about philadelphia if it is true sanders could win today. There is a lot of things that could happen. He could win california, what happens . Because it is mathematically , theyible at this point, are still confident. They are concerned that there could be big protests, that there could be a way of Center Supporters standing up and saying, no, we are not ok with this. It is unclear exactly what that will be. When clinton was in california last week there was so much angst and protest outside her events that clearly the Clinton Campaign is trying to figure out how they can neutralize that or listen to those concerns and also trying to not listen to them too much because they do not want to become too presumptuous for she clinches the nomination. Jacobs, jennifer two great jens that are great together. When we come back, we will have president s, sports and the great lou leach after this. Mark political reporters love sports metaphors, whether it is out of bounds, a hail mary or a pull cord press. Our correspondent has been watching politicians for a long time, and he has noticed something. When it comes to favorite president ial pastimes, theres a new sport in town. For reagan, it was chopping wood. Bush senior was making waves. Clinton jogged. And obama it is basketball. He plays with icons of the game, on easter and in kuwait. And he made it look. Played golf like past president s and you are in out of touch elitist. If the hardwood and you are one of us hit the hardwood and you are one of us. Now enter the imitation as flattery. Bernie sanders showed off his solid form waiting for results. Is this somewhat of a joke . They describe the democratic socialist as all elbows on the court. Hillary clinton said she loved to play pickup basketball but there is evidence beyond that. In 1995, during the nba playoffs, donald served as a cameraman for nbc. This was a joke. Of course, a pickup game is not with out a risk. One book describes poor Michael Dukakis after missing shot after otot during a photo sho actually being listed by three players to help him dunk like a fiveyearold on his daddys shoulders, so beware, sometimes its best to stay off the court. Mark we will be right back. John time to play one of our most favorite games. In gauging in hypotheticals. Gauging engaging in hypotheticals. Mark here is my hypothetical. If paul ryan step down or is forced out, who should donald trump select as his replacement . An articulate, attractive, smart, well spoken woman who can speak about america and donald trump with equal measures of passion. Ka trump. Rump ivan john i was going to say, James Addison aker iii. Mark keep your eyes peeled for a video with jeff daniels. Well have that tomorrow. Coming up, emily chang sits down with the mayor of boston. Until tomorrow, sayonara. Rishaad it is wednesday the 11th of may, this is trending business, i am rishaad salamat. We will be taking you to singapore, shanghai. Were watching the rally by japan, there been a recovery also in prices. Above 45 a barrel again. Some say it is a maratho n