basically unchanged. 46% approve, 56% disapprove. in previous terms a 46% approval rating for a sitting president would mean that his party was headed for a big defeat, they would be throttled. but is it possible that president trump has changed the rules or that the geography of our political divide has changed the rules? even though election day is tuesday, some 33 million people have already voted. it s a record for the early vote for midterms. we could be on our way to our first-ever midterm with 100 million voters, a mini presidential, if you will. we have correspondents across the country covering just a few of the races we ll be watching on tuesday night. these are the big four states that we re focused on right now and we ll begin in arizona where democrats are hoping to pick up an open senate seat. vaughn hillyard is there in tempe for us. vaughn, this is very, very close and in many ways democrats think if they can t win an arizona senate seat this time, when can they. repo
negative message to democrats as you re trying to fire democrats up to get them to support your campaign? i believe oprah s presence fires people up because she has been fiercely independent her entire life. i think what she s saying is this is an election about the issues. listen to the conversations happening between the candidates. look at whose showing up, who s talking about issues, who has comprehensive plans for your life and make a decision not based on party but on record and on intention. i m the only candidate who shows up every time who has detailed comprehensive plans for georgia and most importantly who keeps her promises and honors her commitments. i think what she is signaling to independents and everyone else is that this is the time to make a choice based on who s best for georgia and she believes i am it and so do i. you ve called your opponent a liar and used some harsh language.
seats, we have incredibly strong candidates who have also said that their job, number one, is to stand up for their states working with donald trump if it helps, but fighting him if that s necessary to protect the people in their state. you know, tennessee and texas strike me as fascinating in this respect. they re both supposedly red states and yet you have one democratic nominee who s been comfortable using the i word, impeachment, beto o rourke down in texas, and he s within striking distance. and you have one democrat in phil bredesen who say if you worry about party, i m not going to win. if you vote the person he s almost running as a centrist republican in the state yet they re both in the same position. what does that tell you about where the democratic messaging works best? is it better to be a base progressive like beto or better to be a centrist like bredesen. well, it tells you that the quality of the candidate is really important and their ability to communicate on
maybe democrats make a few gains there, but you re going to be dealing with a republican legislature. you have to work across the aisle if you re going to accomplish anything. how do you repair this divide? let s be honest, it feels worse than ever. how are you going to try to do this? number one, i ve run this campaign going to every single part of the state. i have not ignored a single community or county because i believe that my job is to speak to every single voter. number two, if you look at the issues i talk about, education, high-class education for everyone, access to health care in every community and making sure that we have good-paying jobs. this cuts across partisanship. most importantly, i can stand on my record. i was the leader of democrats in a majority republican legislature and able to work across the aisle and get good done. we can disagree on principles, but we have a common responsibility to georgians. i ve always said people don t care about your party, they ca
you know, phil bredesen and a few other democrats, kyrsten sinema has been trying to reject her party label a little bit saying she s not really a proud democrat. they have all made promises that they won t be just sort of blank checks for the democratic leadership. phil bredesen said he wouldn t vote for the current leadership. if he wins, do you feel as if the senate democrats have to look for new leaders because that s a promise that was made in order to get the senate majority, for instance? well, those members running i m sure will fulfill their commitments, but that doesn t mean that we don t have a strong leadership team in the united states senate. look, this is an example of what i was talking about earlier, that what voters want are senators whose number one job is to stick up for their states. and sometimes that means working with their party leadership, sometimes that means working in the opposite direction. but that s very different than republican candidates who are s