Independents and all others, 202 5853882. If you have already voted, 202 5853883. You can also join us on twitter or facebook. You can also email us. Welcome to the show. Good morning. This is the hill newspaper. Two weeks toh with go. Positive pulls in colorado, arkansas, alaska, and other battlegrounds have republicans buoyant. Republicans started off well. Mavis in fort lauderdale, florida. Good morning to you. Caller i will be voting this weekend. I am voting democratic the whole way. Im hoping that the democrats keep the senate and that they will pick up more seats in the house. I cannot believe some of the people in our country. Where a single commercial can change their mind about who they are voting for. Democrats want us to have health care, a raise in pay. These things matter to small people. We need to get out and vote democrat. Host you are calling on the independent line. Caller yes i am and i think we going to vote democrat because they are focused on the small people. 2 or 3 get all of the brakes. Breaks. Start ton did you shift toward the democrats . Sides andlook at both i have been on the side of republicans as well. But right now, there is no message from the republicans. What are they standing for . Im looking out for my interests, my childrens interests. Im looking out for schools. Im going with charlie crist. I think he is more focused on the small man for governor. The republican candidate has been all over the place. Go. Eeds to he really needs to go. Fort that is mavis in lauderdale, florida. Republicans, 202 5853881. Republican democrats, 202 5853880. Ndependents, 202 5853882 the fourth line is for those who have already voted, 202 5853883. You can also send us a tweet or go to facebook. Also email us. Post, theyshington report that the likelihood of a Republican Senate takeover continues to increase with all three major election models giving the gop at least a 6 in 10 probability of winning the seats necessary to win control of the senate. Moved to3 models have. Epublicans in the past week angela in louisiana, independent caller. Caller i plan to vote and against a merry landrieu because she is bad for the state of louisiana. Host have you voted for her in the past . Caller no. Host she was first elected in 1996. What do you like about bill cassidy . More for the state of louisiana. For bad fors the state. She spends taxpayer money to fly around doing campaigns. She has got to go. Host what about the Tea Party Candidate . He is a retired colonel. Caller i like them, but i dont think he has a chance to win. Three could be a crowd for the gop in the senate race. There are nine candidates on the ballot in louisiana. Because of that, it is likely you are to ca runoff. See a runoff. Bill cassidy has the backing of the establishment. If no candidate gets a majority, the race goes to a twoperson runoff on december 6. Lets go to look toy in georgia, democratic caller. A in georgia, democratic caller. Caller i plan to vote for michelle ninens. Let me tell you this. Like, when you all come highlight, you always the negative parts about president obama. You all seem like you are trying to sect people out to think that the republicans are winning, right . That is not what we feel here, ok . We want jobs, we want high wages. We Want Health Care for georgia. It you all to play it like is not news, like we actually dont want the best for our own people here, it is almost like yall are telling everybody that the republicans are going to win. What have they done . You know they did nothing. Host we are just reading what is in the papers this morning. In there the predictions Washington Post and other folks who watched him closely. This is how did endorsement. Not an endorsement from letter to jim in texas is not an endorsement. In texas. O jim be an im proud to independent i will vote democrat has a whole but right out of a depression i will vote democrat because the democrats pulled our butt right out of a depression. The republicans do not have an answer for anything. They live on fear and discontent and people who are too stupid to learn how to be better. That is my . 10 worth. Thank you. Host diana, halifax, pennsylvania. Caller good morning. It is really so hard to decide how you are going to vote. Im trying to look at the background of who is running. One of my main concerns is the problem with the v. A. Especially the philadelphia hospital that is having to handle all of these things that were sent to them from states. Im trying to look at the background and how these people are going to try to handle the situation for the state and the federal problems. Host we are taking your thoughts on campaign 2014 and do you plan to vote, how do you plan to vote . We have a fourth line for early voters and there are over 2 million of you. Joining me to talk about on the phone joining me on the to talk about this is michael mcdonald. , are you mcdonald doing a realtime tally of early voting on your website . Guest it comes close. Some ballots may be in the mail. When Election Officials report the numbers, i try to get the numbers updated as soon as i can. We are looking at over 2. 5 Million People have already voted in this election. Host do you see trends . Guest we are seeing high turnout and some of the key Senate Battleground states, particularly iowa. Passed theeady halfway mark of early voting compared to 2010 in iowa. We are on pace in iowa to have somewhere around maybe 400,000 or so people vote right or to the election. Host can this help with predictions of how elections will turn out . Guest it can and it cant. Both democrats and republicans have vested invested very heavily in Voter Mobilization. Democrats have the bannock street project, an early voter project that uses sophisticated voter targeting to turn out there vote. The republicans have been lagging behind this from the democrats, but they are trying to play catchup. Americans for prosperity has invested 125 million in Voter Mobilization to kickstart republican disadvantage. Both parties have higher early vote turnout. Republicans have invested money and are catching up. Right now, the democrats still lead in iowa. Things have changed quite a bit. I hesitate to say right now because we have a couple more weeks to go. Is that turnout will be high in iowa. Likely, nothing that contradicts what the polls are saying. It is going to be a close race. Other states have early voting and what impact is it having . Guest virtually all states have some form of early voting. Some states require an excuse to cast an absentee ballot. States requiree. Xcuse required early voting other states have adopted much more liberal laws. Anywhere from no excuse absentee balloting, something that minnesota adopted, to all mail balloting, to in person early voting, which in number of states have. Texas was the first day to have in person early voting. There is a broad range of different types of early voting. I put them all under one roof. It is just early voting. Election officials would quibble about that characterization. Host are more people participating in early voting than in years past . Why . Guest there are a couple reasons for the upward trend that we see. We see it in president ial elections. We see a higher volume. In midterms, we see a little bit less, but still we have been on an upward trajectory. In 2010, 20 5 of votes were cast prior to election day 25 of votes were cast prior to election day. In colorado, they have moved to having all mail ballot elections. We arethe reasons why seeing more early voting is that states are adopting more permissive early voting laws. The other part is that once you have a state that offers early voting, people tend to like voting that method. It is convenient. Adopt a more permissive early voting regime, more people tend to use that early voting as part of the voting experience. Both Political Parties have invested very heavily in early voting activities. Those two things, we have to get parties pushing more people into voting early. All of those things have been driving up the number of people voting prior to election day. Host the website is electpro ject. Org. Million. Almost 2. 5 guest we are over 2. 5. I wouldnt be surprised if we near 3 million by the end of the day. Host do you break down what sort of trends are breaking along state lines . Guest yes. Some states are reporting not just the wrong number, but some ber, but some Party Registration and that gives us some clues as to the state of the race. As states move to in person early voting, what you see is that many people like in person early voting, so the numbers are really rocketing up quickly. By the end of the week, i would expect for5 Million People to have voted. Host what is happening in North Carolina . Guest North Carolina is doing mail balloting only. The state legislature changed early voting so that there would be only one week. Inpast, we would have had person voting going on right now. That will happen next week. There are expanded hours of early voting. We will have 97 of the hours we had a few years ago when we had two weeks of early voting. There are more hours on the weekends and in the evening that may make it more convenient for people to vote. Right now, we just have mail ballots and well me have 17,000 in and it is a net connect race between democrats a neck and neck race between democrats and republicans. Usually republicans are leading democrats by more than 10 Percentage Points in Party Registration. They still have to catch up. Host lets talk about georgia. In person early voting started earlier this week. Guest the update from yesterday was that we are now at 80 of folks casting an early vote. We will probably be up around 90 of early votes being cast in person. We have over 160,000 people who have voted in georgia. We dont have Party Registration in georgia. We have rates from the Voter Registration file. Calculations on where the electorate stands. It looks as though the democrats are heading about what they electorateve for an in georgia in terms of race. Right now, about 60 of the of the people who have voted our white. 32 are nonwhite. The democrats need this to have a bear victory. State that is very close and it is reflective of the polls in the state. Host if you want to dig down into the numbers more, go to the website. Michael mcdonald, associate professor at university of florida, thank you for your time. Guest youre welcome. Thanks for talking. Host president obama participated in early voting. You can see him there shaking the hands of the volunteers in chicago at that poll. Talking with them before he went into cast his ballot. Little bitshow you a about what the president had to say about the importance of voting and early voting. [video clip] early voting is a wonderful opportunity. Who are you voting for . I cant say that. Before i walked in, i said this is the most Important Office of the democracy. Host president obama early voting in chicago yesterday. We want to hear from early voters on 202 5853883. Lets go to joyce, a republican in texas. I got on the wrong line. I have already voted. I am and 82yearold black and i citizen grandmother have voted straight republican because i have noticed what the Democrat Party has done to my people over the years. There is no way i could say that i was a christian and stay in the Democrat Party. They give to people who are doing nothing. Im not talking about the people who need help. Texas a woman is running to be the governor of and she stoodte for 18 hours advocating the killing of babies. The Democrat Party took god out of the platform. They voted to put it back in, but three times that lost. People wanted to take got out. No wayt reason, there is i could say i was a christian and stay in the Democrat Party. I hear my people calling in all saying that every time you are saying something against president obama, you are saying it because he is black. We need to stop this foolishness. He said he was going to transform america. That is what he is doing. Host gerry in fayetteville, North Carolina. You for thek opportunity for giving me to say this. I will be voting and i always try my best to vote during every election and i will be giving my support to kay hagan because i think she is a fairminded person and she is good to represent our state of north , whicha and her opponent i will not call his name on the air, has done a lot of things that does not benefit us, such as schools, the wages, the voting laws, the health care, what they have not allowed for the state of North Carolina. Here are too many people that do not have health care and they do need it. Peoplenot talking about that are just doing nothing. These are individuals that are working and trying to do their best. They need some type of assistance in order for them to get health care. Thank you for giving me this opportunity to voice his opinion. Host thomas, providence, kentucky. Democrat. Plan to vote agenda. Crats have an do . Blicans, what what are they going to do . Mcconnell has forgotten about kentucky. He has forgotten about western kentucky. He does nothing for western kentucky. Says the courierjournal that the race is a statistical tie. Grimes arenell and one point apart. It could come down to the end for kentucky. We are wondering if you will vote this election cycle and how you will plan to vote. If you have already done so, we want to hear you as well. Lets go to randy, republican caller, fort worth, texas. Caller good morning. Im a recovering democrat. I switched over to the Republican Party about 510 years ago. Hats off to joyce, the texas caller. Seea black male and i dont no prospects in Democrat Party. The republican message is talking about jobs, trying to get rid of obama care. We dont like the way ebola is being handled. Our borders. Cure what do the democrats have to run on . They dont have anything to run on right now. If you want the same as the last six years, vote democrat. Host lets hear from sally who already voted in washington state. Caller in washington state, thank you for taking my call. In washington state, we are able to vote by mail. It is very simple. You can do it when you have time to review your voters pamphlet and know who you are voting for. Host how did you vote . I voted for the democrat , i called him a progressive. That is more along the lines of where i am at. Cathy Mcmorris Rodgers does not represent me. As a woman, she is an embarrassment. What about the Ballot Initiatives for background checks . On 91 and yesd no on 594. Host let me explain. Appreciate that you are addressing it. The democratic candidate is a native american. Host gun measures faceoff in ballot dual. This is from washington state. 594 would close the gun show loophole by subjecting online and gun shows tales to the samees Mental Health and criminal checks required by federal law and retail outlets nationwide. Washington state voters have to decide to vote yes for one and know for the other. No for the other. We want to give you an update on ebola. Ohio has no cases of the virus. Three people are confined. This is after the second nurse travel to ohio on an airplane. The Washington Post, many of the newspapers have this headline, the centers for Disease Control and prevention put out tighter guidelines for ebola care. This coming after much criticism of what nurses call confusing guidelines. They have decided to follow more closely Doctors Without Borders and the World Health Organization guidelines. We will talk more about ebola with the former hhs secretary and the former governor of utah. The wall street journal, fast actions wins nigeria clean bill of health. That country has gone 42 days without another case of ebola. The wall street journal has this. Study projects the spread of virus and prediction. The who has estimated that by early december, there could be as many as 10,000 cases new cases per week in west africa. At theling the outbreak source is the most important thing that needs to happen. That is in the wall street journal this morning. A new study put out by the World Health Organization. I want to point you to the New York Times. Congressional republicans are no longer calling for an outright ban. They are putting a new focus on suspending v says for those people that are traveling visas for those people that are traveling from west africa. Turkey has made a uturn over the battle for cobonnie kobani after washington pressured the country. They have agreed to help syrian kurds fight isis. Isis militant influences , that is to lebanon the latest country where that is spreading. And to campaign 2014 whether or not you plan to vote. Lets go to oscar in los angeles. Caller yes. I want to take on the issue of gerrymandering. All states of gerrymandering. It does not matter who you vote for because the congressional incumbent is always going to win because the districts are carved out for your congressional representative to win no matter what. It is almost pointless to vote unless you really truly believe that your vote makes a difference. All the money that these , whether democrat or republican, they get all this to the point run where it is impossible for any new candidate from an opposite good to actually do any when they are running for office. Andhave Gerrymandering Campaign finance reform will never change anything because of the gerrymandering that happens in states. Supposed to have independent panels picking up districts to make them fair. They are not fair because most of the panels that are picked are picked by Par