his assassination. we re also joined by time magazine s managing editor right now, nancy gibb, also with us larry sabado, a political analyst and scholar, author of the kennedy half century. thanks to both of you coming in. you can t completely rule out this notion of a conspiracy, can you? not totally. i have to be honest, wolf, when i started this project side of inclined more towards conspiracy, and the more i researched it, the more i realized it was lee harvey oswalt who was in the however, we can never know for sure whether he was encouraged
i will never stop fighting for the city i love and the city we all love so much. and i will never forget as mayor i work for you. the new mayor of new york city bill de blasio. it s election day. break it all down with mark preston and the director of the university of virginia center of politics and the author of the kennedy half century. thank you for staying up so late to break this all down. let me start with you mark preston. give me an overview of how significant or relevant any of what happened tonight may be come a general election in 2016. hugely on many levels. let s look at what happened down in alabama. we have the republican establishment winning beating back a tea party candidate down there in a race that could have gone the other way.
author of the kennedy half century. professor, thanks so much for joining us. i want to get your immediate thoughts about the race. it was so much tighter than polls in the last two weeks had showed. what were your takeaways from it? well, you know, one of my takeaways is i m going to rely less on polling averages in the future. the polling average was 7%. mcauliffe was supposed to have a 7% cushion. i think that s what most people were expecting. i have to say this, though. the private mcauliffe surveys, which were done by one of nbc s pollsters, he always had it two, three, four points. i don t think they were necessarily expecting a margin as big as the public polling suggested. but your earlier description was absolutely correct. why did the incumbent attorney general, who won almost 59% four years ago, end up falling short
and front runner terry mcauliffe. vice president biden highlighting the national significance of this race and took swipes at his republican rival, ken cuccinelli s conservative positions. it s the first major race between the forces and faces of the new republican tea party led by a candidate whose views on women, you know them well, but i think it s fair to say are from another era. i mean literally from another era. i think the motto of the tea party should be back to the future. so right now cuccinelli and supporters are gathered in warrenton, virginia, for a rally featuring senator marco rubio. you can see ken cuccinelli there back in the yeah, back in the background there. a new quinnipiac poll showing terry mcauliffe has a six-point lead. joining me now, larry sabato, author of the kennedy half century. all eyes on the two governors
i have no place else to go. that was president obama at last year s democratic national convention talking about his faith. now, earlier we showed you some of the extensive network of hatred and vitriol and misinformation that s been directed at the president over the years as his critics paint an oftentimes apocalyptic portrait of a fearsome dictator. we wanted to show you the real president obama and view him through another lens. a man of faith. the president s spiritual progression has been a constant throughout his administration and even before he took office. here he is just this morning attending mass with his family. early on, one of his most trusted advisers, joshua dubois was affectionately dubbed the pastor in chief for the daily words of inspiration he would send each morning to the president s inbox. stripture passages, short stories, devotionals, prayers, the president says have meant the world to him. now, joshua has transformed more than five years of daily reflecti