hosted by the american enterprise institute. >> good morning. i would like to welcome all of you to our final pre-election panel. we will be back on november 5 midday to look at the results thus far. today, i am joined by my colleagues. we have a lot of ground to cover and i'm going to start by asking each of the panelists a few questions. we are going to start today with of a guide to the electoral college. his volume is all you need to understand the complexities of the electoral college. he is also an expert in absentee voting. what percent of the population do you think will vote early or absentee and can you tell us what we are learning from states -- such as texas? >> the technical answer is a lot. many people are going to vote. many more than ever. a huge increase in voting by mail and early voting in person. we have been seeing a lot more voting in this realm before. we saw 41% of the american people vote i mail or early in person in 2016. the early results are stunning. as states start to open up, you see enthusiasm go toward early methods of voting. i give credit to a university of florida professor who spent time counting these things. as of today, over 31 million votes have been cast that we know of. there were roughly 56 million of them in 2016. see certainly over 50% of the vote be early in person plus mail-in voting. youould see up to 65-70% if add those together. quickly other facts, not all states have party registration so we don't know about all of that. it, 53%tates that have of the voters are democratic. , werepublican reflecting see that democrats are more enthusiastic about mail than republicans. that texasote is does a lot of early voting. have 45.3% ofady their total vote in 2016 have voted early with many days to go. you see these things really stepping up. -- we see lines out the door. those are because of enthusiasm and social distancing. >> in our last session, you were less pessimistic than other commentators that we would see results on election night. do you still feel that way? >> i do. there are several factors. there is much more pressure on the counting of the vote and the exact numbers we are going to see a going to be delayed. we often know the winner for we know the final count in the state or nationally. it all depends on the margin. election, weclose might see significant delays. if it is moderately clear that a candidate has one, those states could be called on election night. we see a number of lawsuits going back and forth with changes to deadlines absentee voting and witness requirements. the supreme court often not allowing those changes to go forward although yesterday, and pennsylvania supreme court ruling, they let it stand. we are seeing changes there. one state that i would watch is pennsylvania both because of the allowing votes to come back with a postmark and also there is no effort to count the votes early. pennsylvania will be a state that is doing lots of voting. other states like wisconsin, arizona, reasonably they may be quicker. florida although it could be close, they tend to process things quickly. those are the states that i am watching because they are swing states. i think we would watch the most is pennsylvania. >> how many states wait until election day to count the ballots? i know the are some lawsuits pending. >> that number is changing. a number of states wait until election day or some have short times beforehand. the one change in michigan has added an extra day. some wanted more than that. that is a factor. we should look at the fact of states that don't process ballots early and states that allow them to come in late. a combination of those factors with other things combined can lead to a longer count. many states, even if they have a short time to count ballots, some of them do it at the polling place. we don't expect those states to be delayed. equation howicated these things fit together. and oath, pennsylvania and having potential issues. >> one final question, what do you make of the reports that republicans have registered new voters more than democrats. >> i'm not sure how it will affect the calculus in terms of early voting. democrats are more enthusiastic about voting by mail. it is always difficult to tell in the registration numbers whether we are picking up a lagging indicator of democrats voting republican. western pennsylvania democrats who feel more at home in the republican but have not changed the registration until recently. those are good numbers. in a sea of not so great numbers for republicans, perhaps there is hope for republicans that or of a search is not being protected -- detected. >> thank you very much. before we turn to michael, i would like to welcome our c-span audience and thank our staff. for all the help they have given us in putting this together. also, the wonderful events team. we are grateful to all of you for the help you have given us. michael, let's turn it over to you. let's look at the senate contest. the last time, you said the democrats have a serious chance of recapturing the senate. is that where you still are today? >> yes it is. it's an interesting contrast with 2016. then, you had four incumbents that ran ahead of donald trump and one there states. they were seriously contested races. this year, it's different. two states, republican senators are running for reelection. hillarye carried by clinton. cory gardner, and one pole we have in colorado does not seem to be running about even with trump not sufficiently ahead to be competitive if one pole is correct. fiveis interesting to me, incumbent republican senators are running behind donald trump. martha mcsally in arizona is way behind donald trump and her democratic challenger. ernst in northni carolina and iowa are running behind their democratic challengers. in three other races, republicans have narrowly, in states where trump is well ahead, that includes lindsey graham in south carolina and one in montana and another in kansas. seem notn incumbents to have been able to establish records of their own that would commend them to voters. >> let's look at a few other contests in georgia. >> those races seem to be very close. you have had an increase in turnout enjoy jet and an increasing number of african-american residents and voters in georgia. black majoritys suburbs of atlanta have been increasingly important in elections there. they have many people moving from the metropolitan area. that is making georgia a more democratic state so you have the incumbent republican is running just barely ahead of his democratic challenger the guy thenarrowly lost a race in upscale six congressional district a few years ago. have theher race, you race in november for the open seat vacated by the resignation of johnny isakson. , it's currentbe race in november will establish the two top -- that will go on to a general election in february. isolph warnock the democrat clearly going to make the runoff. the question is appointed senator kelly and doug collins are going to make it in. they have been running even, so that race could end up determining the majority of the u.s. senate next february. >> here are a few races you haven't ancient. alaska, kansas, and alabama. >> alaska is a race for dan who won his race six years ago. -- the independent who has support for the democratic party -- sullivan seems to be leading. some democrats are saying that's a close election. you mentioned in addition alaska and kansas. kansas, we have very little polling but the democratic candidate is a former republican officeholder and that's a state where the upscale voters in johnson county, kansas next to kansas city, missouri, metro kansas city has got most of its upscale voters they live on the kansas side of the border. reliably been making republican kansas a less republican state because they have been attracted to democrats like many upscale voters in suburban areas around the country. that is when that is a programs. you mentioned also alabama. that looks like a pickup for the republican party to add to their current 53 seats. doug jones of alabama is running way ahead of where democratic presidential candidates run but that is not enough to win in that state. rejected andto be republicans will gain. the other possible recovery -- republican gain it appears is in my old home state of michigan where the republican john james came within six points of beating the incumbent two years ago. it's running just about four points behind gary peters, a democratic one term u.s. senator who at one point, had the lowest degree of substantive identification of any u.s. senator. pickup andsible possible good news for republicans in what otherwise appears to be a bad news night for them in u.s. senate contest. >> thank you. none of the senate candidates to my knowledge have tied themselves to donald trump in recent advertisements. some of them have even said that they will be a check on a joe biden presidency. >> that is something that usually happens and i'm surprised it hasn't happened more. when joe biden has been unwilling to state where he stands on packing the supreme court which many professional democrats are in favor of but which pulls badly with general election voters, i would expect republican candidates in close races to say stop the from taking over adding justices to the supreme court, packing the court. president roosevelt made a mistake when he did that in 1937. we would expect to see that from thom tillis in north carolina. i would expect to see it from -- incumbent republicans who cannot keep up with donald trump in their home state polls. races usuallyght break in one way or the other? >> senate races often do. 1980, senate republicans want -- that was a huge surprise at that time. seats went tof the democrats six years later, they one a senate majority that had not been anticipated. won seven ofcrats the nine closest races. 2014 republicans won five out of the seven closest races. they gained majority in the senate. if all of the close races go one way, i could see a senate they could end up instead of 46 democrats as it does today with as many as 55 democrats. goall the close races against the democrats, which seems unlikely, you might see a senate that still has three republican senators. >> people split their tickets less and less and in the past. you expect that to change? we are too polarized for that to happen. a political scientist in the 50's said it would be clear -- great if we had a clearly liberal and clearly conservative party. it took 50 years. cultural issues and issues of pull -- personal values are important, people tend to stick with their party up and down the ballot. their views on moral issues are not something that changes or wobbles or changes very much depending on the unemployment rate or other external factors. this will last about 40 years but you will have to find someone else to election watch in 2040 or 2042 to tell you why it is happened. >> thank you very much. norm, you are up next. what do you expect to happen in the lame-duck if joe biden wins and democrats control the senate and house? >> if we think about the lame-duck session and most certainly there will be one of some sort, remember the republicans will still have the senate and the presidency all the way through until january 3. i don't think we will expect to see much of an inclination among democrats in the senate to do something big on the covid recovery, economic stimulus front in a way that would benefit the joe biden administration by having the economy settle down and dealing with a covid crisis that infectious disease specialists expect to ramp up. what we will see is a lot of inaction. what we have to keep in mind on that front is, as john talked about pennsylvania, if there are serious questions about the election and that includes questions as we go forward about whether there are contested slates of allete's, that will be decided by the next congress on january 6. i expect we will see along the way a senate and probably a president doing what they can during the lame-duck session to try to make sure the outcome comes out the way they want. we will have an acrimonious time. if the republicans control the senate and joe biden wins, we will get more of a sense of not wanting to do things that will no longer benefit their party in an electoral sense but that will make joe biden's life easier. we would expect a great deal of tension and gridlock as we move forward into the next year including on confirmations not of executives but branch appointees in the administration. >> you have watched a lot of transitions and i think the planning has begun already we have a biden presidency. this appears to be one area where the trump administration is cooperating. what should we watch for if joe biden is elected? i am not sure we will see a lot of continued cooperation. president trump will not be a happy camper if he loses the presidency. indicatedrs have not a willingness to work closely with the joe biden people. i am expecting a tumultuous and difficult transition if we see a joe biden victory. some of it depends on when the victory takes place. thatber, a transition would take place under a set of circumstances where we don't know the election results and we may have to go until the new senate and house to determine slates of electors. that is at least a small possibility. it is not a zero probability. that is going to throw the transition into complete turmoil. transitions have varied greatly. that includes a transition within the same party. where the outgoing people are not all that interested in making life easy for those coming in. we have had others that have been models and to me, the real model is the one from george w. bush to barack obama. staffnd his chief of deserve a great deal of credit. whether we have that this next time, i am skeptical about it. one other point i would make an a gets back to what michael said about the georgia race. newe look toward the congress, remember it is january 6 when congress certifies the electoral votes and if there are contested electors. there has been some real question about what happens if democrats pick up enough seats to get to 50. then if it's a 50-50 senate with the vice president mike pence still in that chair another 14 days. if the second georgia seat is not decided in november and won't be decided until february, that i believe will be a vacant seat and it will give democrats edge until february. we could have a really interesting and unusual dynamic if democrats don't when most of those close races and if it's an election that is a lot tighter than we see now. >> a lot of names are being floated as possible members of a joe biden cabinet. can he satisfy the progressives and moderates? we have already seen progressive pushback on some of the names like the chief of staff and front runners for that position. second question, i wonder anyher you envision republicans serving in the joe biden administration. many names have been floated. >> the democratic party has been strikingly united to this when it comes to the election itself. that will change to some degree in the aftermath of a biden victory where there will be a lot of push and pressure to make get the different forces some share of power in the new administration. one of the interesting elements , joe biden has committed to having an african-american woman if and when he gets an opportunity on the supreme court that there will be significant numbers of people of color in the cabinet. we are seeing african-americans saying they don't want to be the leadership, they don't want to settle for the traditional slots of housing or hhs. it doesn't surprise me if we would see an african-american woman as attorney general. i think we are going to see a number of posts like that and secretary of state. we will see a lot more push and pressure on places like the secretary of treasury. almost athink it is certainty that joe biden will not pick someone with a background on wall street. it will be someone with a different kind of background. i am very skeptical that it would be elizabeth warren. in part, for pragmatic reasons. to throw into some question a senate seat at a time when you might need a lot of those if it's a 55 seat democratic majority which is a remote possibility, that might be different. i don't think we will see that happening. joe biden is going to be able, because there are a lot of prime posts out there, he will be able to satisfy different factions in different ways. number of significant republicans going into the biden administration. that might include dan coats going back as director of national intelligence. it might include tom ridge coming back as well as the ones that you mentioned. includingplaces, those other than those symbolic slots ambassadorships and others, joe biden is going to start out i think beyond any show he isying to going to be the president of all the people and he wants a bipartisan approach. the question is going to be what happens after january 3 or after january 20 with a democratic president and possibly a democratic house and senate. whether the republican party in the senate decides they will follow the same approach that they did at the beginning of the obama administration and filibuster most major initiatives. then we will see how long we can stay in feel-good bipartisan fashion. >> that's talk about foreign policy and abide the administration. joe biden has said -- had some successes in the middle east. where do you expect to see the biggest differences in foreign policy between trump and biden? >> we will see joe biden on january 20 after the inauguration getting back into the purse accords. we will see him make a major effort to rebuild the nato alliance. i expect he will reach out early to japan and south korea to build stronger relationships there. taking on china in that region in a different fashion the donald trump has. moving aggressively on couple of fronts like the geopolitical one reaching out to allies there. also taking a harder line on with china and hong kong. -- on harder line on hume and right with china and hong kong. we don't have the same kind of trade architecture we had in the past. on the immigration front, i expect to see a different approach to central america. trying to provide more aid and ability for countries like guatemala and el salvador so we don't get quite the same flow and flood of people seeking asylum on the southern border. none of those are going to be easy, but i think we will see a different approach in a lot of places on foreign policy. iran, i think we will see an attempt to move into the nuclear deal in some fashion. >> norm, you are an expert on campaign-finance. do you expect campaign-finance reform to be on the front burner for a biden administration? certainly, there is a lot of dark money in the system but you also have an extraordinary increase in the number of small donors through the apparatus of republican and democratic party. how do you see campaign-finance today as someone who has followed it for a long time? >> i would expect in the new congress, hr one will be a fairly major and sweeping set of democracy reforms. that will include some campaign-finance reform. it will include trying to bring back the disclose act. that would provide more disclosure for dr. on the. by the way, that will be opposed by some 501(c)(3) groups including ones that were traditionally be in favor of campaign-finance reform because they don't want to disclose their donors. i would expect an incentive for small donors and an attempt to move back from having this big and dark money. there isn't going to be a lot of success on that front. both parties have taken advantage of it this time. >> lindsey graham -- >> what matters is getting enough money to get your message across. certainly, that has not been a problem for jamie harrison or lindsey graham. in an election like this where attitudes are hard and going in, that may not matter as much the money that you raised. where it can make a difference is in get out the vote efforts. transportation for people to get to the polls, messages about how to vote and what mistakes to avoid. that can make a difference in a lot of these races. thathas also happened is in races were democrats would not normally be competitive, where you aren't going to have the money to get the message across, cacophonous environment where it takes a lot to get that message across. they have been able to compete in places where they otherwise would not be able. that makes it harder for republicans because they have to send resources to states where otherwise they wouldn't have to worry about it at all. money makes a difference. it's not going to determine the outcome of elections, but it will help you to run the playing field. >> henry, we are going to turn to you. we are already beginning to hear stories about a wave election like 1964 or 1980. in the latest polls, joe biden has a 10 point lead. do you see a wave welding? >> there are certainly signs of a wave. the large leads of joe biden in national polls are assigned. the closeness of many senate races that republicans should be well ahead in is another sign. in some cases, republicans who should be ahead are behind. there is evidence that a wave could be building. there is some evidence that it might not be which is a number of state polls that showed donald trump doing much better in swing states. abc washington post poll today had donald trump one point behind in north carolina. ofth carolina has a history slightly under pulling republicans. not this pull, but as an average. there's a lot of signs that a wave is building, but there are growing signs that maybe it is not. while the odds are in favor of a big democratic win, i would not go to the bank yet. >> this morning, a poll showed north carolina closer than other polls have suggested. do you see that as a sign that the polls are tightening in other places? >> there are there are other polls that have a closer. there is a poll in florida that has joe biden up by only one point today. another one of the polls that was released late last night or just early this morning. there are a number of swing state polls that show joe biden's lead not lengthening after the bad debate that president trump had. that increasingly the case swing state polls are not ratifying the national polls are showing with respect to joe biden's lengthening lead in the last two weeks. that is something to look deeply at. you mentioned the debate and i think many would agree that donald trump is flailing in his attempts to define joe biden. >> it is largely too late at this point. i don't doubt that he will try. a letter was released yesterday saying that he was going to make sure to ask joe biden about the alleged corruption of hunter biden during the third debate. it wouldn't be president trump if he didn't try to define biden. but what he should be doing is defending his own record or. that is something he has also been flailing to do. yesterday's comments on a phone call and repeated at his rally were talking about people being tired of covid. that's just not the right way to defend his record. thepolls clearly show people remain scared and worried about covid. in the particularly true elderly population. president trump continues to show tone deafness. >> you said that he should be defining himself. one issue that has been interesting is the economy. the economy did not help republicans at all in 2018. there is evidence that it is not helping him now. >> a poll should something interesting. when people are asked are you better off than you were four years ago, the majority answer yes. when you ask if the country is better off, a clear answer is no. 2018 is people in the suburbs were benefiting from the tax cut and the riproaring economy. choosing to ignore that in spades. the defining feature of the modern republican seems to be a consistent ability to deny reality. the idea that somehow, talking about the economy louder is going to change that around again. the american people want a strong economy and a president and a party that represents their values. if they see the republicans and president trump as not being that, they will take a chance on the democrats. >> one final question for you. you identified four groups of potential trump successors. could you revisit those? is a hamlet on the potomac. he's been complaining for over six years about how both parties don't offer solutions but he is yet to offer any solutions of his own. he would fall into one of the four camps. successors, those defined as more trump less tweet. the restoration is people who want to return to a pre-trump republican party. the young reformers, people who want to take trumps insights about the changing nature of and purge ofusly most of its discordant elements. then, the moderate outsiders. imperial successors would be those like donald junior or or someoneike pence who will cleanse lineage from trump in some way and be a kind alert gentler version while stoking the same ideals. the restoration is would be people from the strong right .ike ted cruz or nikki haley or ben sasse who would be running as the establishment and the republican party. like marco rubio who are breaking ground on american foreign policy and domestic policy urging significant changes. moderate outsiders like larry hogan or charlie baker who are distinctly more centrist and not part of any distinct faction who would perhaps attract a following among people who want something completely different. that hasre a faction an advantage right now? >> with respect to the individuals, it is name identification. whatd to believe that the is more important than who. the alignment of voters eventually determines who the nominee is rather than going from the top down. i think that is the interesting question. there are clearly people who want restoration is to view. clearly people want to see a figure like trump. there is a very strong potential for majority or the plurality around primary voting and young reformers crowd if they are able to both articulate a good message and find an attractive messenger some time by 2023. >> thank you very much. you have all been remarkably concise. there are some issues that we have not covered at this point. david wasserman said yesterday that he expected again of 5-15 seats for the democrats in the house. what can we expect in the house? will it be a more moderate democratic caucus? democratslook at the who won 2018 and are going to be 2020 and the places where they are likely to make gains, they are more of the moderate centerleft variety than a radical left posture. the democratic party continues to be a party of coalitions. will have an easier time in some ways building a majority or a unity but it cannot leave out and they continues to be the most vulnerable. what we see from speaker pelosi to making sensitivity sure nothing would happen that puts them in jeopardy. after four years of donald trump, it's time to do some more sweeping changes. the question is going to be how much joe biden puts a break on some of those things to try to keep more toward the centerleft. about governors, there are 11 governors up this time. also, a quick look at state legislators and the ones where you have had traffic does where you can see significant changes that affect policy changes -- policy agendas in 2022? >> the governor's front is not so exciting. the one we are watching is in montana. that is a possible gain for republicans, but a tossup at this point. there are some state legislative gains, we expect democrats to make gains in democratic seats and a place like chambers. in minnesota, they might have a trifecta. in other states where they might gain like arizona or iowa, they probably won't gain a trifecta but they could rake up a republican trifecta. it will not affect redistricting. those are states that have a nonpolitical redistricting of a sort. north carolina is a state that democrats are hoping to do well. they are hoping to take two houses. interestingly, the legislature state does not need the governor to redistrict. then the big one that democrats more in theor is realm of possibility is texas. that would be a big shock for republicans to lose the governor all branches and also the redistrict after the selection. andainly places to watch again, we expect democratic gains. >> michael, you think that the supreme court nomination battle affected either party and if so in what way? performance in those hearings as measured polling seemed to increase her support among voters. it will generally marginally help donald trump and republicans. some republican senator candidates -- mr. trump assuming that judge barrett is confirmed as i expect she will be has gotten three supreme court appointments in one for your time. that is not as high as president taft, he had five in four years. then he ended up becoming chief justice himself. we will continue to see that. may bert packing issue important and that is one of the things that i would ask norm. is that something that nancy pelosi wants to whip her democrats, the democratic majority in the house to support? or does it have the potential for something like obamacare where she achieved a policy goal but at a cost? >> it is going to be an interesting dynamic. the former solicitor general under ronald reagan had an interesting piece on this in the new york times. what i would say is assuming amy coney barrett gets confirmed which come a week or less before the election in which we get a democratic landslide, that will have some impact on attitudes among democrats. what is more important is going to be the behavior of the new court. michael mentioned earlier the failed court packing of franklin roosevelt. in many ways, it was a great success. put aside roe v. wade or even the para. -- even the affordable care act. the tries to put constraints on what the president and congress can do in terms of broader policy. what administrative agencies can do that enable it to make all kinds of decisions delegated by congress. will it move back toward the says theeal era that commerce clause doesn't allow the government to do very much? if a democratic house, senate, and president find themselves and we see draconian measures on voting rights, i think you will see an enormous push toward adding seats to the court. to some degree, it's going to be that the merit garland nomination was handled in a fashion that was not legitimate. that will raise a lot of hackles. i don't see this happening for some time until we see how this court response. that is not clear whether john roberts will be able to get one additional justice to go on to keep the court from moving in a more radical direction. both republicans and democrats are loyal. do you think that joe biden will get a higher share of democrat voters then donald trump will get of republicans? >> that is with the polls are who say theypeople are republican are strongly in favor of the president. are inwho are democrat favor of biden. the joe biden advantage will be small with respect to holding his party more than donald trump. >> for the whole panel, what groups are you watching most closely in terms of moving toward or away from donald trump? importantrs are most in terms of the election outcome? >> one clearly important group is the so-called white noncollege graduates. they snuck up and elected donald trump in 2016. havesuch polling as we with this group, it is indicated or suggested at least that they are less supportive percentagewise of donald trump than they were four years ago. that is the primary reason why his boat is down. among he is doing better black americans and hispanic americans. we need to learn more about the noncollege whites as we have tended to categorize them. some polls are not differentiating or setting quotas for college grad whites evenoncollege grad whites though their voting behavior is very different or it has been in the last five years. 20 years ago, they voted the same so why do we need to make a distinction? we know now that we do. is true, one group has been warning us for five years that a lot of polls are not getting proper responses from these groups. numbers thatese henry referred to which is when you look at the clear politics average of the polling and target states and close states where we anticipate the election will be decided, donald trump is doing slightly better than joe then he did against hillary clinton. are those polls commence rick? you could argue that either way. is that the focus that we should have? probably not. it is an interesting phenomenon. would like to learn more about , the jd vance voters. >> norm? >> three groups i would want to mention. the first is older voters. we have seen a shift away from trump. whether that is a covid response or something else or how real it is, i don't know. that is an interesting group. the second is suburban women. donald trump in a rally would say suburban women please like me. that is some indication that there is some concern. the third which michael alluded to is i would say non-mexican-american hispanic voters. certainly, that matters in florida. young cuban-americans have tended to move toward democrats away from republicans. are an important voting bloc in florida. venezuelan americans and others from central america including some from puerto rico who don't view themselves in quite the same way as other hispanic voters do. if republican voters can capture 40% or more of those voters, they could move quite well in key states. >> henry, you have talked about blue-collar republicans. in the group of non-college-educated voters, you have seen a big gender gap with women moving away from donald trump. i wonder if you could say something about the union vote? i noticed donald trump was in a uniontown last week. is he going to do as well with union voters? >> i'm not sure he will do as well with union voters because in part, there was the issue of hillary clinton and joe biden is not hillary clinton. what i'm going to try to look at over the next couple of weeks is the degree to which the samples of blue-collar whites look like the sorts of blue-collar whites that actually show up. 2016.- was looking in even the samples that broke out among college whites showed more support for clinton. be notng error tends to just counting enough of the white noncollege group, but getting the wrong types of white noncollege voters. i would want to do is see if that error is pointing out again. if there is any group that might be not answering the polls, it would be the white noncollege trump leaning republican. if it looks like polls are consistently off on that sample, that would be an early sign that may be the republican myth largely of a mass polling error might have some shreds of truth. >> i wonder if the panelists have any questions for each other? then, we will turn to questions from our audience. we have answered them all. >> i would take a little issue with norm and his history of the supreme court in the 1930's which i think is not quite as clear-cut a swing in time to save nine as he suggested. also, when you look at a supreme of membersis made up appointed by one party, and by the time roosevelt was in his third term in 1941, eight of the nine justices had been appointed by president roosevelt. you start to find that the court is deciding different issues. different issues are coming before them. splits which had been -- had ordinarily not occurred in the court prior to that time start appearing. you get a certain amount of in the 1940's and 50's, personal animosity among democratic appointees to the court which is quite different from the kind of comedy and good personal feelings that have existed on the court over the last 20 years and personified in particular by the friendship between the late justice scalia and justice ginsburg. court kind of evolves and focuses on different issues over time. i wouldthe other thing say is, big money advantage for the democrats. i think that fortifies what norm was saying about, maybe they don't want to eviscerate a campaign-finance system which despite senator whitehouse's complaints about dark money, has andred the democratic party in previous cycles for the last 15 years in ways that are out of line with the rhetoric you hear from some of the liberal critics of campaign-finance arrangements. >> i guess my point, i do want to emphasize norms point but also henry's point about the older voters. i am watching them in part because we want -- we would not --e expected them to say that would have been a shock to people. it is also the group that includes the largest percentage of white noncollege voters. if there is a part of the noncollege white world falling away from donald trump and those voters are that, we have seen that in the polls but it should not surprise us given our preconceptions going into this election. year over 65 age voters have a higher college graduate percentage than four years ago over 65-year-old voters. you start getting reflections of the late 1960's and early 1970's increase in college enrollments. >> we would be remiss not to talk about the gen x and jen why voters. what we know from political socialization research is that if you vote for one party to-three times in a row if you come of age and begin to vote, it tends to solidify your identification for a lifetime. more into the electorate and will vote more frequently. karlyn: to your point, in the new state of change report, there is less evidence of the conservative rising of age of voters. the first question for our audience is for you, john. what would happen if trump refuses to concede in this election? john: first, i was i do not think that will happen. i think we will have a clear result. it will be likely. and a clear result will put pressure on either candidate to concede, both for them but also for the party would come along, i believe. sure, if we have a very close gore, it, a bush v. would be tense and ugly, and it would be a tough situation, but i really believe that we will see a clear enough result and a clear enough winner and loser and a concession. unconstitutionally, the term ends at noon january 20. really, there is no question about a term ending at that point. trumpmeone else, either with a second term or biden or perhaps a dispute where we are not sure who will be president, someone will start that term, not someone staying on past their time. karlyn: this question, should trump lose, what happens of populism?nd also populism will remain, and i do not see populism as a purely trump phenomenon. places, there is population of the center, where a side, --ogical we will go through a very difficult two years with respect to covid unless there is a miracle vaccine, the elites will continue to suppress economic activity to control the disease. -- if there is a charismatic outsider who says the system is not work for you and it is time to go somewhere different. i expect that populism will resurge in the next couple of years. in the united states, the things that drove trumpism were largely not personality depended. they were genuine concerns reflected in the polls for years. if you bother to look at them, which most people did not, and trump them along and identified key concerns people have who existed beforehand that will not go away, in some cases may be exacerbated sharply, after the beat. i expect there will be a debate over the meaning of trump's legacy, and we will see that play out for us, but globally, i think populism will, after a brief abatement, as people are hoping the elites can get this under control, when it demonstrates they cannot, at least not with their current toolbox, i expect population -- populism to greatly resurge. karlyn: michael, this is a question that you talked about, the fact that trump was running ahead of some of the gop candidates, but trump is relatively unpopular in those states. what is explanation, given his unpopularity? michael: as i said, i think one of the factors may be that it is harder for an individual senator, an individual republican senator, two establish a record of her or his own in a period of time when you have the news media full of donald trump and full of enunciations of donald trump. fori think it is harder them to establish that. susan collins, currently running for points behind in the state of maine, had established that kind of persona for herself, but even in her case, she seems to be falling behind. but four points behind does not mean, at this stage, that it is impossible for her to win. it means it is less likely than not, so let's wait and see on the results. tends tonk that that explain it. also, the challenger has choice of ground in this situation. -- thee got democratic democratic twitterverse and many democratic officials and states are itching to add 2, 4, or even 6 seats to the supreme court and fill them up with their people, but when you actually ask senate democratic candidates who are challenging republican senator's in close races, they tried to stay away from it. they want a more moderate persona than the alexandria ocasio-cortez gives them. on chuck schumer and could conceivably defeat him in the 2021 democratic primary, so the out party has choice of ground there, and i think they are taking intelligent advantage of it. karlyn: norm, do you expect leadership changes in the house, either on the democratic or republican side? i think of the age of the democratic team, and on the republican side, is kevin mccarthy safe? any of the panel, but norm, let's start with you. norman: i do not see any changes on the democratic side, in part because if you succeed, it is hard to oust your leaders. it would be different if the democrats fell short in the senate of getting a majority. even there, i would expect that they will stay with their leadership team. the same is true in the house, although as you say, the top three leaders are certainly a lot older. they are cultivating -- pelosi has a stronghold much stronger than she did in 2018, on her conference, on her caucus. they are cultivating a group of younger leaders to move along and come of course, to keep and i on them. if republicans lose 10 or 15 seats in the house, i think we will see a pretty vigorous challenge for kevin mccarthy. probably coming from his right. there are a lot of people of the jim jordan wing of the party who would probably expect, under those circumstances, that they want to take a much more aggressive approach against biden and democrats. on the senate side, john cornyn has at least a little bit of a contest for a new seat in texas. mitch mcconnell, despite having an extraordinarily well-financed component, is still in kentucky is very -- and is likely to be coming back, and i do not see any challenge to him as republican leader in the senate. karlyn: any other comments on the leadership team on either side? it is extraordinary the top three democratic leaders in the over 80 yearsn be old. they all seem very vigorous. it is pretty fascinating. i remember when sam rayburn turned 80 -- in fact, i think he died before he turned 80. so 80 is the new 60, or something like that come in the house of representatives. karlyn: do you think there is any hope for a covid package before the election or is it dead on arrival? michael: i think, if donald trump decides he does not want to bail out new york, new jersey, california, and illinois out of pension problems that there public employee unions have plunged them into, there will not be a covid package, because nancy pelosi wants that because it is important for the democratic party. those other groups who are really running policy from the democratic party, who are closing schools despite minimal health risk to the people involved and despite the harm it does to low income children. so they are in the driver's seat . such an interesting this point,dent, at has said multiple times, and i think means it, that he wants a huge covid package. because he is doing everything he can to get leverage heading into our washington campaign. that also includes the highly dubious, in terms of legality, question of sending $200 bonus checks to seniors to help pay for their prescription drugs. but he has called for a package that is even bigger than the cares act, the one that the democrats have proposed. and we know that nancy pelosi and steven mnuchin are still deep in negotiations. i do not think the odds are great that they will come up with a big package, but if they did, it would be going directly against what mitch mcconnell wants. to last thing he wants is have a big package that would to vote on. and if democrats vote on it, they would be forced to block a package endorsed by their own president. we would likely see a modest package that mcconnell will bring up on the senate floor that democrats will walk, and they will try to use that as an issue in the campaign. karlyn: any other comments on that? we have a question about the "new york post" story on the reported hunter biden laptop computer. you see it having any effect on the campaign? >> no. >> it is a sort of thing that republicans who are already going to support trump are seizing on. i doubt it will have an effect on the campaign, unless something comes out that has not already come out. likelyng that would more implicate joe biden. i think most people are partisans and are viewing these stories through their own lenses , and the person in the middle, the few that there are, have not really focused on this to say this really is something that i should be paying attention to as opposed to this is just part of the normal back-and-forth noise that i've grown weary of. >> i think there is a potential effect on regulation of the major internet companies. this is a sort of astonishing effort by twitter and facebook to censor news and to block dissemination of news, and against, certainly, the spirit of the first amendment. all of the name of we know the more than 80% democratic people who do the censoring have decided that you should not learn this. i think this will increase support for changes of section 32 which supports these companies' commercial interests. i think it has the potential for asymmetric and effect on what -- theome the companies' covid crisis has been a great crisis for facebook, amazon, twitter, and google. they have been doing great in this as small businesses have been going out of existence. and i think that there may be some backlash along the way, and it could become bipartisan as a result of the actions of the astonishinge rather actions of facebook and twitter. >> i have a somewhat different perspective. we have 50 top intelligence officials, formerly serving in the government, saying this is awash with to be this information, which is why the internet companies have been a little reluctant to go with it. and also why fox news, which had the story early on, said they were not going to be the ones who would go with it. what i find more interesting about this is the larger dynamic of hunter biden as somebody with a serious problem and how that plays with the larger electorate, including the jd vance type voters who face all of these challenges with addiction in their own families -- hunter witht his drug addiction and his father for supporting him, will have a backlash effect. i have no idea whether this will penetrate or resonate at all, but it is an interesting contrast. karlyn: we only have a few minutes left. i want to ask what you will be watching most closely in the next 14 days. watching forbe signs of weather, perhaps, the race is tightening up a little bit. i think the lead for democrats and joe biden is really quite large, so even a tightening may the presidentan is back in the race, but thinking about the after -election governance. again, if there is a biden win, with even a very narrow majority in the senate, with a 50-50 election, that makes a big difference in the way we will govern in the future. and if there is a big biden win, there is not only a more enthusiastic democratic majority, but also in the states, changes for redistricting that will be quite significant. so i think the size of the victory, even if it is not a trump win, but how narrow things are in the senate and in the state legislatures, will make a big inference in terms of the 20th.s we see posterior karlyn: what are you watching? michael: i will be curious to see whether donald trump talks more about issues that really propelled him into winning the presidency in 2016, which would be immigration and illegal immigration in particular and trade. those are the issues where he connected, in many ways, with his white, noncollege graduate cohort, which enabled him to win surprise victories in pennsylvania, michigan, and wisconsin, and their electoral votes made him the president. it is a little astonishing has not taken it up very much anymore. i think there is a potential for change in immigration, and i will go back to something that norm mentioned, which he predicted the democrats will take measures to try to prevent itush of immigrants, suppose sat empty or refugees, coming -- streaming over the mexican border, as we saw about 18 months ago. will trump raise the specter of that kind of an issue, when it is pretty clear that the democrats have been opposing every effort that the trump administration has been made to prevent that kind of onrush? we will see that comes to pass. and i just note that it is fascinating to look at these poll numbers. on the one hand, we see joe biden nine or 10 points ahead in national polls. polls, at least some polls, in states that were pivotal in 2016 being very close, within range of a possible upset result for donald trump this time. it is a fascinating situation. i think one thing people have not grasped is the unusual role of our largest state, california, in effecting the popular vote. if you go back and look at the largest state in our presidential elections, from the 1820's, when the popular vote became important, when new york, from the 1820's to the 1960's, california since the 1960's has been the largest state. up until 2000, the largest state was always within about five points of the national average. it was seriously contested. new york was a target state for years. california was a target state. now we have the largest state way off on the left. california was the number two state for hillary clinton in 2016. so every national poll we see includes these numbers. biden fromfor joe california, three points for donald trump from california, or maybe only two. and that illustrates that we may have, again, if trump wins or in future races, situations where the popular vote, plurality winner, does not win the electoral college, because after 55 54erson carries the votes in california, all the huge margin of popular votes there does not help them win anymore. karlyn: i want to remind the audience we will be back november 5, midday. but click comments about what you are watching most closely. and i want to thank the panelists of the wonderful discussion of topics over huge period of time. norman: i want to talk about covid and the way it will play out, the largest outbreak in -- and each will not be a huge problem in states like orth and south dakota, where they refused to try to bring in some of the public health measures as a state, and what happens in the election itself. if the infectious disease specialists are right, and we see the peeking as a problem -- the peaking as a problem at around election day, does it have an effect on the election itself on election day? and how will donald trump react if it turns out a lot of people cannot vote because they are sick or because the polling places are just not adequate. karlyn: henry, final thoughts? henry: i will be looking to see whether or not there is any evidence of pulling errors. i think we need to be open to that possibility. in 2019, in australia, every poll showed the liberal party was going to win -- the labour party was going to win. and then the liberal-national coalition won. be looking to see whether or not these registration changes matter. that there is clear evidence that republicans are doing better than democrats in key states. one thing i will be looking at is are the registration numbers shareholder eligible population outside of the major metro areas, because that would be an early sign that the trump attempt to expand the electorate is working. in the next two weeks, i will see what we come up with. karlyn: thank you very much. thank you to the panelists and the audience. we are grateful for your participation in this election watch. we look forward to seeing you november 5. thank you very much. >> thank you for great moderation. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] -- in virginia's second district pay live coverage at 7:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. the confirmation of judge amy coney barrett continues next week, when the senate judiciary committee meets on thursday to vote on sending the nomination to the full senate. the committee meets at 9:00 a.m. eastern with a vote set for 1:00 p.m. eastern. if approved, the senate would take up confirmation friday. watch live coverage of the committee vote on c-span, gavel to gavel coverage of the senate on c-span 2. fourmocrats need to win senate seats currently in republican hands to stay in control of the next attic. in iowa, incumbent senator joni ernst and u.s. democratic candidate theresa greenfield participate in a televised debate. the is suited to be one of most competitive race. due to technical difficulties from the host, a portion of the event cannot be shown. >> you are watching a kcci 8 news commitment 2020 special, u.s. senate debate. >> good evening and welcome to des moines for a live debate between

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