It is good to be back in pennsylvania. 63 days from election day. Pennsylvania. They are going to change the name of pennsylvania. 's tonight, steve kornacki on the road to 270 and how the keystone state has become a crucial battleground. I love the road to 270 map and now we get to use it. And donald trump's eroding advantage on his centerpiece issue. And just as you thought the unearthed tapes were all earthed clearly this has made me a miserable person who can't have kids. J. D. Vance and his longstanding ties to the project 2025 masterminds. I think what the heritage foundation is doing is so important and so worthwhile. When all in starts right now. Good evening from new york. I am chris hayes. The labor day holiday is over. It is the first tuesday of september. The first tuesday of november's election day and that means, yes, it is happening america. We are two months out. 63 days to be precise, which means the sprint is on to the finish. Republicans are getting very nervous about one thing in particular. Party leaders are warning top donors privately and publicly in panicked tones, they need more money to compete with democratic spending. The head of the republican party senate campaign is telling politico the only thing preventing us from having a great night in november is the massive financial disparity our party clearly faces. Let's be clear. It is a fundraisers job to sound panic and ask for money. Maybe you have seen that in text you have received. Donations have been through the roof in every election cycle since strome became the face of the republican party, but this case looks different and it does look like some of the panic is warranted. Here is why. We don't have a full tally from both campaigns, but in july the harris campaign raised $310 million, more than double what trump raised. The spending gap between the parties has rarely if ever been as big as it is today. Look at these key battleground states were the situation for republicans is so stark. Look at those numbers. Proharris groups are spending roughly 10 times as much as pro trump groups buying political ads in michigan, nevada, north carolina and wisconsin. Three times as much in the state of arizona and that is all according to political data analysis from the firm that tallies these advise on television. That is a colossal spending disparity. It is the kind that might make a difference in a tight election. There are however two swing states were despite the huge disadvantage right now in fundraising, republicans are keeping pace. I think this tells you something about where the race will come down to. This will be georgia and pennsylvania. In those states pro trump groups appear to be outspent everywhere else, but not in georgia or pennsylvania. Where they are matching pro harris spending almost dollar for dollar. The reason of course for this is the electoral college. The bizarre antidemocratic system of presidential voting that says no matter how many people vote for you for president, you need 270 state electors. It is a system that has already caused enormous problems in america, like when george w. Bush and donald trump both lost the popular vote and when the electoral college and don't forget in 2020 it was the perverse incentives and complicated machinery of the electoral college that provided trump with the opening to steal the election along with his plan for fake electors. A plan that culminated in the january 6 insurrection. That was the day that the electoral college votes were going to be tallied. The electoral college is still there. It is in the constitution, operating in the background. Every single strategic decision both campaigns make are determined by it. What you are seeing in the spending of the trump campaign, i think, they have one main path to victory that they appear to be putting literally all of their money on hand that is basically this map. Envision this result. It is pretty much the same as 2020. Everybody wants the states from that year except donald trump flips two states. He flips georgia, which joe biden famously won by 11,000 votes and he flips pennsylvania. That gives him 270 electoral votes, to 268 for kamala harris. Under that scenario trump becomes president again. Kind of a nightmare for the democrats. Harris could sweep the states and win nationwide by millions of votes. It would not matter. As the washington post pointed out if trump can hold north carolina, the only one of these states he won in 2016 and 2020 and he takes george and pennsylvania, that's it. It is over for harris. Now that path, that math is a highrisk, high reward strategy for republicans. The reason we are talking about this path is the ad spending we showed you at the top of the block. What is clear is pennsylvania is absolutely crucial. As you might have gathered from trump's last few rallies. When i am back in the white house, america's future will be built right here in pennsylvania. Pennsylvania is always a big factor. We've had big success, politically and otherwise. Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania. This is a very consequential vote in pennsylvania, because they say that if you win pennsylvania you are going to win the whole thing. We cannot let these people, we cannot let these people when pennsylvania. Pennsylvania is almost as crucial for harris. Right now she loses in the polls, but it is within the margin of error and i think it is fair to say all these states can be close. If she wins there she is in good shape. She can also win in longshot scenarios without pennsylvania. She can hold georgia and flip north carolina, which a democrat has not one for quite some time. For both campaigns the keystone state looks like a true keystone directory and that has also borne out this week. Harris and president biden rallied in pittsburgh on labor day. The campaign saying harris will return there on thursday. Running mate tim walz is beginning his own solo trip to multiple parts of pennsylvania including lancaster on wednesday. Even doug emhoff, first gentleman, is expected to campaign in allentown, pennsylvania this week. Trump is expected in harrisburg tomorrow to fill my town hall with sean hannity and fox news of course and beyond that he has no major public campaign stops scheduled this week. I'm joined now by nbc national political correspondent steve kornacki. Good to see you. Getting ready. 63 days from now. Your physical stamina built up. I found that data fascinating and indicative of where they see their race. What did you think? like you said, the importance of pennsylvania and how direct that path is. You hold north carolina if you are trump. They've got pennsylvania and they think there are opportunities in pennsylvania and maybe a missed opportunity for the democrats in not putting josh shapiro on the ticket. You put it that way and you can see the interest, but the the thing to keep in mind is in either case if you lose pennsylvania, it is the largest of the swing states for electoral votes. 19 of them. Georgia, 16. Carolina, 16. If you want to offset a loss in pennsylvania in wires to other battleground states. That is the key map. Let's look at this trump 270 map which we were showing before. You know you've got nevada, arizona, wisconsin, michigan. But he does manage to win pennsylvania, flip georgia and hold north carolina. That is that narrow 270 path. And from harris's standpoint if she were to get wisconsin, michigan, pennsylvania and nothing else, she is exactly at 270. If she loses pennsylvania she has to offset it with those states. It is first among equals when you talk about those states. One of the scenarios keeping me up at nights, but i don't think is a possibility anymore or likely is when biden was in office and it looked like he was going to have to hold the blue wall. His polling in nevada looked really bad and to the extent they were pulling that single district around omaha and it looked like he had a shot of that. He had a shot of holding the blue wall, even losing georgia, holding that congressional district and just getting 270. I worried what that would mean afterwards. Pressure on nebraska lawmakers, et cetera. That narrow path seems different now that nevada seems to be pulling in a different way. Nevada is always notoriously difficult and there has always been opportunity for republicans in nevada because you have the huge rural blue collar, white population has been trending republican. Harris has made strides with nonwhite voters. Hispanic voters in particular. This is where there was the biggest lag for biden. Where will you find voters like that in a battleground? more you will find them in the sun belt states. So there is more opportunity for the democrats down there, but that said, biden winning georgia, that is the first time a democrat had won that state since 1992 and it was 12,000 votes. Arizona was basically 10,000 votes, so these are extremely narrow margins and there is a poll of political history that keeps these states very winnable for republicans. There are two aspects about those states. Some of you have been talking about it and as you have been briefing all of us. You know, there is the polling, but then there is the kinds of people living in the kinds of places they are and the kinds of voting groups democrats do better within the trump era versus republicans. One of the things that characterizes georgia and arizona is enormous metro areas as a share of total vote for the state. So georgia, that atlanta area, that phoenix area, as democrats have done better in metro areas, including the suburbs, that has been a richer pool of votes for them and part of the math that allow them to pull off 2020. Right. Metropolitan areas, suburbs that are fastgrowing, too. The atlanta metro area, extremely fastgrowing and you have counties where democrats were losing by 30 points. 20 years ago. Or mitt romney in 2012. They can now win by double digits. They are rapidly diversifying. Democratic friendly demographics. You've got that in georgia and arizona. North carolina is another interesting one, because that sort of exists for democrats in the research triangle. You're talking about the raleigh chapel hill area. Talking about mecklenburg county where charlotte is, you've got that if you are a democrat. But if you are a republican you look at north carolina and say the democrats have been flexing their muscle in the metro areas. Trump has been driving bigger margins in rural counties and not just rural counties, midsized counties as well. Relatively speaking there is a larger noncollege white population there as a share of the electorate in north carolina. Those sort of offsetting trends, which we have seen in election after election. Midterms. We've seen it in texas, too. Democrats winning harris county 12 years ago is crazy. Now they win reliably. Around the dallas suburbs, doing much better than they were years ago. Those margins in those rural areas are going to 8020. And we can talk about a state like wisconsin, too. Suburbs outside milwaukee are still republican suburbs. A lot of other suburbs of gone. They are becoming less republican, so it is hurting republicans what is happening in the suburbs. Trump is offset a lot of that. He offset all of it in 2016. He narrowly offset it in the rest of the state. That is something democrats have to look at. When you look at the polling it is close in these battlegrounds, but it was true of biden and harris. The best numbers tend to come from wisconsin, michigan, pennsylvania. We saw that with biden in 2020 and we are seeing that with harris now and demographically. Noncollege white voters and they are in abundance in those states in particular. There is a question over whether they have adjusted properly. As there was in 2020. But everyone has been doing a lot of work on this. The bias is the ultimate question. You can take every precaution you want to say we need just the right number of noncollege white folks in our survey, but there are voters who will vote democratic. And of republicans aren't answering the phone and won't talk to you, you will get the democratic ones in the effort. If the variable you are selecting on is i don't want to talk to you because i'm voting for donald trump, essentially, it is very difficult to model your way out of that. We won't and i think that is the asterisk that comes with every poll. Georgia polling was incredibly good and we should say, in a bunch of different races that were very close, georgia polling held up pretty well. Wisconsin was the famous poll in october, 2020 that had biden up by 17. He wins the state by a fraction in the end and we saw that in 2016 as well. Every poll we see from those states, that is the asterisk that comes with it and of course we won't know until election night. Wisconsin was pretty quick. I was 3:00 a. M. Steve kornacki, great to have you here. We will do this again more. Polls show kamala harris gaining ground on key issues. My that is, next. Evan, my guy! you're helping them with savings, right? () i wish i had someone like evan when i started. 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