we do our best to make that work. deal! my money. my choice. my meineke. listen, we want to get you live to ohio state. can we take that picture? that s congress mwoman mary jo kill roy. you can t see her, she s a lot shorter than that podium. i hope they get a box for her at least and let s hope that the president can be seen and the first lady over those microphones there. going to be speaking shortly and if it happens within this hour, we will bring it to you live right here on cnn.
could the numbers be to the midterms? reporter: very damaging. take a look at ohio. the unemployment rate here is over 10% at 10.1%. it is worse than nationally. you have a race for governor where ted strickland, the democratic incumbent, so popular and was considered a potential running mate for president obama a couple years ago, is now in difficulty against john kasich, a former republican congressman. rob portman in the senate race is significantly ahead of his democratic opponent lee fisher, an open seat for republicans that looks like they will hold. and you have six house seat that is are held by democrats that are in jeopardy, including the one here in columbus with mary joe kill roy, the democratic incumbent. all the people are on the defensive about the economy and jobs with voters saying, hey, you democrats are in charge, why haven t you fixed it and
expected back in court in two hours. the 22-year-old star of the jersey shore will face kill roy in the battleground state of ohio. luke russert joins us from washington with a look at that. she s in trouble, luke. she is, indeed, poll after poll shows her trailing her opponent. somewhat ironic. this is a district where barack
competitive district. this one massachusetts congressman bill delahunt. so counting delahunt and massa, democrats now have 17 open seats to defend. republicans have 20. of course, most of those democratic open seats are competitive. most of those republican ones are not. the nbc political unit is rolling out three top ten lists today of house races that we re going to be watching. we have the top ten takeovers, the top ten toss-ups, and then what we re calling the top ten majority makers. this last list is the seats to watch if a tidal wave does hit the democrats, they ll lose a lot of these seats. if it doesn t, they ll hold them and hold their majority. let s look at the top ten takeovers. seven of the ten are democratic seats. most of the races on this list are open seats. one of the exceptions is mary joe kill roy at number ten. till roy nearly lost in 2006 when she lost the first time. eked out a victory in 2008 and now she s getting a rematch with stivers and he s one of the gop