telling you? reporter: it s hard to believe we are only three weeks away from the next election that will largely happen in new jersey and virginia. both have governor races but they have the state legislature races as well. so i went to virginia to talk to some of the candidates there, and it really reflected on some of the people i talked to wisconsin who were voters who say they don t think the democratic party is hearing the message from the election of donald trump. so you ve got this whole wave of new candidates, first-time candidates going out there, putting themselves on the line, and they are running as the democrats. but in some cay ways, in some distances, distancing themselves from the democratic party. take a look. not far from donald trump s winery in virginia in a district where he crushed hillary clinton, kellen squire is the first democrat to run for the legislature since 2009. motivated by trump s election. i just wasn t content to sit at home and belly ache about
news radio a short time ago where he began by saying there s nothing to clarify. but here s what else he added. take a listen. well, they asked me that question, and for the most part best of my knowledge, i think i ve called every family of somebody that s died. and it s the hardest call to make. and i said it very loud and clear yesterday. the hardest thing for me to do is do that. now, as far as other representatives, i don t know. i mean, you could ask general kelly. did he get a call from obama? you could ask other people. i don t know what obama s policy was? i write letters and i also call. s difficult to f you had a be able to do that. but i have called i believe everybody. certainly i ll use the word virtually everybody where during the last nine months something s happened to a soldier. i ve called virtually everybody. i ve gone to dover. i ve seen what takes place at dover. it s an incredible scene and very, very sad. one of the saddest things you ll ever see.
is the right thing. some of the people that he may be looking at, i m going the see, if we talk him out of that, because franklythe they are great people. so our nbc news headline on this from our fantastic colleague jonathan allen is, quote, caught in a gop war. trump picks both sides. how much longer can he do that, dave? well, i think he ll do it as long as it serves his own personal needs and desires. but what has to be straightened out for the republicans in the senate seats is, they have to be able to go forward and know that they can hopefully keep a majority. but a key to that is, as you were saying, they ve got to pass tax reform. they are also going to come back as the president said, they will come back to health care next year. and that is going to be another issue, which is once again, going to be whether they can accomplish what they want to in health care. getting these things done, policy done, is critical. talking about tax reform, your boss knows a thing or two
imagine what we can do for the conditions that affect us all. imagine what we can do for you. so right now we re keeping a close eye on wall street. check out that number there, the dow jones closing in on another milestone, 23,000. less than 20 points away. stephanie ruhle is here. pretty significant. 23,000 is a big number, but it is not like it is one single story here. this is a slow grind higher. the rally didn t start when president trump was elected. we have seen this rally, this market recovery since the financial crisis. now, president trump after he won, there was some level of a super charge. but something that is important to point out, president trump is taking credit for this market rally. yet all the legislative bosses from the republican party, he
you can t focus group your way out of this one. people don t want someone to agree with them 100%. they want somebody to take their concerns to heart and listen and appreciate them. reporter: it s a different kind of listening than we see on election day, because typically the party in power, in this case, the republicans, will lose legislative seats. this is the first big test of that. and for people like kellen squire, they are going out and knocking on doors and making phone calls. even when somebody slams the door in your face, he just had that happen this weekend, when somebody said, i can t vote for you, you re a democrat, hillary clinton s a crook. brought up the whole e-mail thing. he just keeps going. the way they put it in run for something is building a bench. you want a woman president? you got to start now. chris jansing, thank you for that. we ll be looking for more from your series later this week. much appreciated. i want to bring in msnbc political reporter allen