Welcome to squawk alley. John forte is on assignment today. Lets get to the top story, the campaign trail. One week away from the president ial election. National polls are tightening as new reports question Donald Trumps financial past and putin and russia. And Hillary Clinton is in hot water with those new emails. John . Less than seven days to the election. Were getting close. Take a look at how close the race is getting in the polls. Average of National Polls by the New York Times, realclear politics and huffington post. Real clear 2. 5, New York Times down to 4. Huffington post 5. 6. Whats that mean for the electoral map . He has to take that lead that mitt romney had and build it up to 270. Battleground states all across the country. Theres a difference between some of those battleground states. Let me start with four. Now trump has a very good chance of winning. Florida, ohio. Weve also got nevada and iowa. All of those are states where donald trump has a good shot. However you go to the next tier. Those four would only get him to 265. These are tougher states for donald trump. Hillary clinton has clear leads in all of them. And then, finally, two states, North Carolina and arizona where Hillary Clinton has been very competitive with donald trump could take those away. That makes the electoral climb that much harder. Here are the battlegrounds across the country. Lets do the reverse for democrats. Because theyve got the uphill climb here. First of all, theyve got two, which look very good for them. Wisconsin, ron johnson. Illinois, kirk. Both of them are vulnerable. Next tier of races. All these republicans are vulnerable but theyre all running fairly competitively so democrats have got to figure out a way to get a couple of those. And then one other category. That is nevada, where harry reid is retiring and his seat is vulnerable. Joe heck could win that state which means democrats have a higher hill. The hill is really high when you take a look at the house of representatives. Theres only about three dozen competitive races. Democrats would have to run the table with almost all of them. Very difficult. And Donald Trumps closing in the polls makes it more difficult. Forecasters saying no more than 20 for democrats in the house. Well see in a week, guys. John, we mentioned the headlines in the top of the hour, comey email stories on the clinton side, flurry of news yesterday of varying degrees regarding donald trump. Is all of that noise at this point . Is it really about get out the vote . Are we in that period already . Yes, we are. Of course, a significant amount of the votes have already been cast. Early voting has become so widespread across the country. At least a quarter of the vote in this entire election is already in the books. People look at the polls and what we can tell is that american turnout is more difficult for Hillary Clinton to sustain than it was for barack obama for obvious reasons. However, she is doing better with hispanics, many of whom were turned off by donald trump and with College Educated white voters. On your point, carl, a lot of it is noise at this point. Email stuff which exploded last friday or this Tax Information thats come out in the New York Times today, it is hard for it to move the needle. That doesnt mean that things dont tighten in the end and partisans come home to their candidates but it is difficult to reshape core opinions in the electorate about Hillary Clinton and donald trump. Those are pretty well fixed. John, theres still so many people who are undecide voters. Is that normal to have such a large portion of the electorate not have made up their mind at this point in the election . When do you expect people to make a decision . I dont think there are that many people who are undecided. There are some people who are ambivalent about their preferences but the true number of undecideds has gotten pretty small. Many of those people will end up not voting. What weve seen is the support for the third party candidates, gary johnson and jill stein, has been dwindling down and that support has generally gone to Hillary Clinton. But, you know, there is a group but its not a particularly large group of undecided. Thats a consequence of the polarization of approximate politics. Well talk to you in a few minutes, john, im sure. John harwood. Thing heating up. Were joined now by political analyst, serve as adviser to howard dean. John just said the words partisans coming home to their party and explaining how these polls tightened at the end. We noticed casic writing in mccain. Ive already voted, wrote in a candidate as well. I wrote in paul ryan. But for the same reason as john ca kasich did. The race may tighten as we go into these final days and i think that the scandal of last friday gives trump momentum at a time when his campaign is in a death spiral. We were talking about a potential Hillary Clinton land slide. That looks less likely to me. Her victory still seems pretty solid to me. Christy theres been no predictability throughout this election cycle. Analogies being made to brexit, whether this is americas brexit moment. Even that came down to the fact that it was raining that day and that kept people from going out and voting. Are we going to get to election day and its all going to depend on turnout . Yeah. Well, i mean, yes and no. Of course, turnout is incredibly important. The reason were not going to get to election day and not know where its going to be, you can read into those tea leaves quite a bit. It you look at, for example, florida right now, Clinton Campaign is doing a masterful job of turning out low propensity voters, people who traditionally dont necessarily vote in elections, but they would necessarily be with clinton. The question for them is just whether or not theyre going to get to the polls. Theyve been working on turning out their base which, in the end, is much, much more important than getting those republican independent voters, which they spent a lot of money trying to court. Christy, you mentioned people who wouldnt otherwise vote. They capture likely voters, people who have voted before. Do you think that there are errors in polling that make it hard to capture exactly what the outcome will look like . Thats always a question. We look at a state like nevada, for example, where barack obama won by a much large r margin. Theyre not capturing as much of the hispanic vote accurately. So thats certainly possible. In fact, thats more likely to play out in Hillary Clintons favor than in trumps. If we game out how you see the race right here, trump coming back from essentially a very low bottom how does the Democratic Party strat enjoys their period between november and january and the first hundred days . What would that even look like . I think thats very difficult. I take no joy in this as a republican, or as an american. Comey announcement virtually assures that republicans will do almost immediately what they wanted to do anyway, which is to investigate Hillary Clinton. Theres not going to be much of a honeymoon in my view. But thats not good for the country. Its not good for the democrats or the republicans. When the dust all settles, well have to see. I think the Republican Leadership in the congress is going to be much more willing to work with a president clinton on a substantive agenda than people think today. Hillary clinton worked well with her republican colleagues in the senate. Speaker ryan, who i expect will continue to be the speaker, has a substantive agenda, is quite willing to sit down with a president clinton to talk about common points of interest. Theyve got to get to that fast or well be overwhelmed by scandals and thats not good for anybody. Does that involve chopping off an entire arm of voters who see speaker ryan and other centrists, as you might say, republicans, as traitors . Thats the fight within the Republican Party is assured, no question about that. Trump faction has certainly been created, reject a whole bunch of things that republicans believe trade, immigration, national security. Well have an argument within the party. But its not clear how intense that argument will be going forward. Paul ryan is the only thing that unites the House Republican caucus. Thats why he became speaker really against his own wishes after john boehner stepped down. Any attempt to go after paul ryan will only produce chaos not another alternative. Thats a high hill to climb, christy, even if i mean, who knows what happens within the senate and the house but is the Democratic Party prepared for that kind of a lack of a honeymoon . I dont think they ever expected anything but a lack of a honeymoon. This campaign has certainly been no honeymoon for the Clinton Campaign. Clinton supporters or as americans i dont think we expected anything other than gridlock in congress. That possibility increases when youre looking at what this fbi story does, i absolutely agree with vin. It lessens the likelihood of a clinton landslide and probably helps rks a bit but increases the likelihood of even more gridlock. We have to get through the next six days and change. I imagine well be talking to you before then. Christy and vin, thank you so much, joining us from d. C. The markets are in negative territory. S p is declining for the sixth consecutive session, currently eyes its longest losing streak of the year, currently down four points. The dow is down 23. Nasdaq is down nine. Ism manufacturing mostly in line. China manufacturing pmis were better than expected. Shares of large l brands quarter guidance below blow expectations, blaming slowdowns in its victorias secret brand. Blackberry closing a deal with ford to become the automakers tier one. Blackberry will be the centerpiece for fords connected car efforts. Term of that deal were not disclosed. Gannett. Major currency swings hitting sonys bottom line. Fallout on that coming up and 2016 president ial election, deep dive into trumps quote legally dubious tax practices as the times put it when squawk alley comes back. Is it a force of nature . Or a sales event . The season of audi sales event is here. Audi will cover your first months lease payment on select models during the season of audi sales event. bing like cologne. Y things you dont want in industrial strength morning but theres one thing you do. gags its called predix from ge. The cloudbased Development Platform thats industrialstrength strength gannett dropping its bid to buy tronc after months of negotiations. Shares of tronc falling on that news. David is back with more on that. As you said, carl, this began last spring, of course, when tribune came with an unsolicited bid to buy tronc. It was named tribune and has changed its name during the course of the fight thats gone on many, many months but concluded earlier today when after seemingly reaching a deal at least on price of 18. 77 a share for tronc, tribune its financing became, lets call it, squishy excuse me, gannetts financing became squishy and its board of directors, im told, started to express real concern about a potential deal in light of two consecutive quarters of soft finances at the company. So withdrew, even though there was really the possibility of replacing banks who had withdrawn from a potential syndicate to finance the deal with other banks, there seemed to be concern about both the cost of the financing and 600 basis points and again the concern overall about the deterioration of Financial Performance at gannett which comes off a lousy quarter last quarter and one that wasnt particularly good prior to that. When these two Companies Began talking, gannetts stock price was higher. Result of a combination would be positive for both shareholder bases and, therefore, questions why board of directors would be hesitant to go ahead. Others, im told, were willing to step up and do the job. Gannett not trading much at all. Shares of tronc are down dramatically. It began at 12. 25, went up from there. There was a prospect of a proxy fight next march if tronc didnt come to the table but they d 18. 75 had been an agreedupon price but couldnt get there at the end because gannett terminated. Of course, a lot of this reflects ongoing weakness overall in print, print advertising. We see it almost every day in terms of layoffs, reorganizations. Not just of tronc or gannett but time down 30 , New York Times 18 , news corp. Down 21 . Tribune hired bankers years ago to try to sell the whole company before it ended up splitting up. This has been a target for a very long time. Im wondering if you think any buyer would have the same issues that gannett had if it were to try to solicit another deal. I think they might. I think thats true. Michael farrow, the man who runs tronc, who also, for a long time, was opposed to any deal, believes the strategy hes pursuing will eventually deliver the holy grail. Well see on tronc. Theyre reporting earnings after the bell today. They said in a press release couldnt they have at least waited to see what our results were before making a decision to terminate . Maybe they shouldnt have changed the name. Troncs an interesting name. Yeah. I still call it tribune. I prefer to call it legendary brand. I know. They want you to be thinking about the future, what he claims is the ability of Artificial Intelligence to help transform the delivery of ads and so many other parts of the business. Well see what they say when they report earnings. Youll be on it. Yeah, well be following. Thanks, david. All eyes on square and embattled ceo jack dorsey. And doubling down on his support of trump, but is it enough to win the hearts and minds of the valley . Well discuss that on the other side of this break. Y with just one tap right from the alert. Wow, i guess we dont need the kid anymore. Custom alerts on thinkorswim. Only at td ameritrade. Is it a professor who never stops being a student . Is it a caregiver determined to take care of her own . Or is it a lifetime of work that blazes the path to your passions . Your personal success takes a Financial Partner who values it as much as you do. Learn more at tiaa. Org welcome back to squawk alley. Final jobs number before the election is coming up friday. All the major indexes are in the red for october, their worst performance since january. Check out the price of rbob gasoline. Trading at the highest levels since june because of a colonial gas pipeline explosion in alabama where reports are that one person died, five injured. That, raising questions, kayla, about wholesale distribution of gasoline at a time where already inflation was leading gasoline higher all around the country. Of course, it had been lower throughout much of the year. We are reminded that supply issues can change that very quickly. Sony reporting a plunge in fiscal Second Quarter profits, battery business and stronger yen. Company had lowered its earnings forecast earlier in the week. Currency, i dont know how some of these companies manage. Theyll admit to being as clueless as most traders when it comes to currencies, very hard to read in periods of dollar weakness or in this case dollar strength. Its hard enough for American Companies to manage staring down boj a Japanese Company even harder. They did trim their cpi forecast but leaving gdp intact. Square reporting Third Quarter results after the close today. Investors continue to focus on Management Issues at the company and jack dorseys dual role as ceo while also running twitter. They did have a big boost last quarter from the fact that they are migrating to content readers, headphone jack from the latest iphone. They have prominent retails base at the apple store. Thats whats driving a lot of its sale. Well see what square says after a few other large names. Electronics arts, gillian, noble energy and etsy. The earnings parade does continue ahead of more media names later in the week like facebook, fox and so forth. Normally this time we would be counting down to the european close. This weeks close is at 12 30 eastern. As you may know sometimes daylight savings time ends on europe on sunday. So european markets currently slightly in the red as the dow maintains some slight losses. The close will return to this time on monday after most americans turn their clocks back an hour this coming weekend. I chose to go to london this weekend so ill be missing the fall back. Ill timed to say the least. Cover of the new york time this is morning, Donald Trumps quote illegally dubious method to avoid paying taxes. And making the case for a donald trump presidency. Did he convince his colleagues in the valley . Next. Entering mosul, advancing towards its center. Military vehicles seen driving in the southwest of the city. Mosul is the final isis in iraq. Its top Climate Change negotiator telling reporters the world as moving in the direction of balancing Environmental Protection with economic growth. New poll of 1500 adults shows 81 ranked obesity as the most Serious Health problem, tied with cancer and ahead of heart disease. However, onethird of obese people say theyve never spoken to a doctor about their weight. Butterballs turkey talk opens today. First time ever, theyll be able to text their cooking questions 24 7 heading into the week before thanksgiving. Thats our cnbc news update. Lets get back over to squawk alley. Courtney, thanks so much. Hundreds of millions of dollars in debt, Donald Trumps taxes. A closer look at the times story and probabl