when he s right and moving away from taking him on when he s wrong. i think it s really tough for republicans to separate themselves from trump. he s just so i mean, just shines a spotlight and grabs the whole thing. so divisive and abusive and on the attack constantly that even republicans who want to sound like they re for common ground can t get there from here with some of these voters. what s so exciting about the florida races is that you have two marquee races, the senate, the governor, two parties, but four extremely different candidates. you have the trump republican in desantis. you have the centrist kind of business republican in scott. you have the old-school moderate democrat with nelson. you have the exciting progressive in gillum. depending how those shake out, they ll win by different margins. it might be a grab bag, but that will tell us a lot about how to campaign and win in 2020. but we have no idea what formula
like will herd in texas, whether or not that was more effective than the talks about jobs versus mobs and the economy. that was the republican message from last month. but the president instead shifting the conversation to immigration. the concern tonight from republicans is that could hurt some of these key gop lawmakers in those races and could eventually lead to democrats taking control of the house tonight. i guess we ll see. manu, you just spoke to the senate majority leader mitch mcconnell. what did he have to say? he was just leaving the senate floor. we caught up with him, asking about how he was feeling. he was mum, saying, ask me afterwards how i feel. i asked him, are you predicting republicans will stay in the senate majority? all he would say is, i sure hope so, as he went into his office. republicans today nervously looking at those senate races, worried they may only pick up maybe a seat. they ll be happy with that, but it could go either way as these races are so cl
all right. manu raju on capitol hill. we ll be watching how that plays out. two of the races we re watching closely tonight are the senate races in missouri and texas. we have reporters live in both of those states. ed lavandera is in l el paso, texas, at the headquarters for beto o rourke. rebecca berg is in missouri at the headquarters for josh hawley. first to rebecca. polls show this race in a dead heat. president trump was rallying support there for hawley just last night. how does hawley feel? i saw he was behind in one poll, but it seems pretty neck and neck. reporter: that s right, jake. it s been neck and neck for pretty much this entire race. so both sides today very nervous going into tonight. no one knows how this race is going to turn out. that might be surprising to some of our viewers when you consider that president trump won the state of missouri by 19 points in 2016, but the politics here are a little more complicated.
moved the window of acceptability. conservatives in this country have adapted to donald trump. donald trump did not adapt to the presidency so what s happened is the conservative movement, because they re tribal or transactional or it s a cult of personality or they just hate democrats and the media more, they have adjusted their standards because donald trump has not adjusted to the presidency or become anyone other than who he, in fact, is. yeah. i m wondering, steve kornacki, if you look at some of the recent polls whether it was public opinion strategies or republican pollster that saw massive support for brett kavanaugh in north dakota, heidi heitkamp s home state where she has fallen behind in some polls pretty substantially. or in west virginia where joe manchin is running for reelection. or if you look at the two florida races which have both tightened up. andrew gel tin, that race has tightened up.
plaque senator. in alabama, we got a democrat. then you look at the georgia and florida races. boy, we have been talking about the new south for a long time. there s a chance that there is like a revolution as far as politics goes in the deep south with what s happening in the florida governor s race, gillum ahead right now in the georgia governor s race. doug jones in alabama and now, of course, mike espey here. that s the president that i think we re looking at in mississippi is alabama and doug jones see lex. marquespy mark espey, he reaches out. he s got he can bring in, you know, plenty of white people. he s got a record of having worked with republicans when he was in office and it s a possibility, you know, it s like