with michele bachmann. however, there is a strong evangelical pull in that district. gay marriage is on the ballot. that might be enough to push her ahead as well as the redistricting. she ll probably sneak through but, still, a very we ll see. she spent more i think on that than the presidential race. we ll bring in the rest of our friday super panel. republican strategist and president of new frontier strategy, and of course luke sticking around. up in new york melissa harris perry host of msnbc s melissa harris-perry. i m sorry. i thought i d be in new york today. yes. all of our travel schedules have been messed around a little bit. i want to focus quickly on michele bachmann. i go back with these memories of bob thorn you know when he ran for president. and on election night at the time an unknown hispanic woman by the name of loretta sanchez shocked him. turned out orange county was slipping away. he got punished for not being in
him in a member versus member contest. the biggest one i remembered goes back to 1996 when bob doanan ran for president and was the surprise loser on election night in his old orange county district that everybody thought could not be lost. today we re looking at congresswoman michele bachmann. is it her turn? she is facing a tough re-election challenge less than a year after finishing last in the iowa republican caucus. joining me now luke russert. he just returned from minnesota s sixth district and because we were focused on this because we figured out nobody is spending more money on a re-election to a house race than michele bachmann. it really is amazing. for someone who was the tea party darling, the whole star of the movement, started the tea party caucus a year ago, who is a prolific fundraiser finds herself in the fight of her life. take a look. a year ago michele bachmann was a tea party star running for president of the united states. it is so great to be here in
this time and all of the polling numbers look very positive and people appreciate the work that i ve done for the district so we re all happy. reporter: bachmann s fame makes her a prolific fundraiser and she is spending millions on hard hitting ads against her opponent. big spending jim graves is no different. reporter: she hopes this will turn out her base. i think she cares about minnesota and what is going on here. reporter: and be enough to overcome what could be a vote for change. she s probably been in, lining up to give somebody else a chance. chuck, i spoke to the graves campaign and they acknowledge they face an uphill battle to unseat michele bachmann. she is getting about 50% in the polls. he is within the margin of error in his own polling. the star trib has a little wider than that. what he needs is folks that vote romney, vote for klobuchar, and vote for jim graves. talking to a lot of republicans in minnesota who tend to be more moderate than the ones we s
the district, too much of a national figure. this happens when you try to be a national star and look like you re not tending to the home front. it does and it could. the district and redistricting got about a plus four republican benefit so a slightly improved district for michele. she has a history as luke said of running tight races. she has a few scares where she won by three or four points. that is probably the likely outcome here. your point is valid. i want to talk to you and i want you to both hit on this point. melissa, i just had sessions, the fact is you talk to the strategists on both sides and one thing everybody is sure of, with the presidency, the battle to control the senate controls the house. republicans are going to get re-elected to control the house. what is the message voters are sending if they re-elect a democratic president and senate and republican house? i think part of it is just as you were leading in with michele bachmann. the fact is voters collecti
certainly by spring this will all iron out. i don t think bottom line sandy is going to have a big impact on the national economy. it s not a game changer at any time. all right. mark zandi of moody s analytics the man we always turn to on these fridays. we re going to keep following these reports. thank you very much. thank you. still ahead we ll get team obama s take on the brand new jobs report. you ll see that exclusively here first. plus we re live in ohio where the president is expected in about an hour from now. then we ll take a deep dive into some house breaks. in particular michele bachmann went for presidential candidate and tea party star to a congresswoman fighting for her political life. first a look ahead at the schedule today. mitt romney and the president. the president running for the presidency of ohio. mitt romney will also be in ohio today. he s got visits for a couple other states as well. you re watching the daily rundown only on msnbc.