not tipping their hand romney might go. but you do see people like kelly ayotte, rob portman making a lot of campaign visits with mitt romney in ohio and other states, you look at tim pawlenty and his surrogate work. those kind of moves give a better indication of a top tier list than a chris christie who hasn t appeared with mitt romney on the campaign trail. those are your clues, but the big important thing to note is this pick is going to be coming pretty soon. either this month or next month with the republican convention in the latter part of august. can we scratch bob mcdonnell off the list after the announcement of his new role at the gop convention? i don t think we can cross him off the list, but i do think the people who are a little bit higher right now are the tim pawlentys, even bobby jindal of louisiana. certainly bob mcdonnell is in the mix. the one problem he has is he s
challenge in the state as steve brown is live in sioux city, iowa. what is the big challenge? reporter: candidates go where the votes are, where the voters are. in the state of iowa they have been missing things. we have videotape of a rick santorum visit in western psion november fifth that was the first time sioux city had seen a presidential candidate in two weeks. you might shrug your shoulders at home but consider this. this is rock-ribbed republican votes. traditionally candidates spend a lot of time. in the summer there was a drought of campaign visits if you will lasting over a month. campaigns and candidates have not been as active in republican turf in iowa. we re just winding down towards the caucuses, martha. martha: boy, it is fascinating, steve. seems like this process relied a lot more heavily on the debates. that certainly helped newt gingrich. but in terms of that handshaking on the ground, important factor in iowa as it has historically been,
bit who makes up the voters there. reporter: well the republican party is lot more spread out throughout the state and it has the folks in western iowa a little pouty these days. normally they get a lot of campaign visits. but let s take a look at the video at last campaign visit in sioux city on december 5th. for the rich republican, red dirt area, this was the last campaign visit in the last eight days. it was the first campaign visit in 14 days. one visit in 20 two days. unheard of out here with such rock solid republican turf. the state party chairman says the campaigns may be making a mistake not paying close attention to western iowa. that may be a mistake. because one thing we know, the rock-ribbed republicans they turn out on caucus night. even though there are more republicans across the state the one thing you do know in northwest iowa those republicans will turn out and do whatever it takes to start the process to replace barack obama. reporter: it s believed the campa
despite high-profile campaign visits. we talk to him coming up. in alaska, controversy descends on a senate race with joe miller against the write-in candidate lisa murkowski. and the democratic candidate as well. i m shannon bream live from the nation s capitol. the end game of the election season, america s news headquarters starts right now. nine days and counting. the chances of a republican takeover in the house are greater than the senate. all 435 house seats are up for grabs. right now, 256 democrats and 179 republicans fill the seats. this morning leading the democrat and republican national committees make cases why they ll be in control in january. steve centanni is following this. the two party leaders seem to be looking in a different crystal ball. win sees democratic election where the democratic losses will be kept to a minimum and
christie. martha coakley the democrat in massachusetts in open u.s. senate seat lost, of course, as we all remember to republican scott brown. the president is still hitting the trail, shepard, a lot of senate races up for grabs in midterm election. we are not going to to show you the map of all those races. we will show you where the president has traveled recently and where he is going to travel in days to come. look at the states, florida, new hampshire, ohio. he was just in california. next week he goes to illinois and missouri. the u.s. senate races in all of those states sometimes those are official visits. sometimes they are campaign visits. what s important to remember, shepard, is every time the president goes to a place like that, democrats get more energized. the white house is focusing by and large on senate races because it believes losing senate seats in midterm elections would do more damage in losing house seats in the long-term legislative agenda. shepard: how do pro