i m christine romans. new day starts right now . two weeks from today. the midterm elections. brace yourself. i m john berman with brianna keilar. the race for control of the senate looks to be tight. new cnn polling shows democrat john fetterman with a slight edge over republican mehmet oz in pennsylvania. and in wisconsin ron johnson, democratic challenger men della barnes basically even. inflation the top issue. followed by abortion rights. early voting in that state begins today. in pennsylvania 44% of likely voters sight the economy. and more on debates in a moment. tonight in new york, a highly anticipated debate between incumbent democratic governor kathy hochul and republican challenge lee zeldin. zeldin made crime the focus of his campaign. and last night desantis and crist going toe-to-toe on abortion. and theian going poulter wars and may have his eye on the white house refusing to commit all four years if he wins the election. according to a top official,
Catch me every day at 4 00 p. M. Eastern in this very studio. Brian will be back here at this time tomorrow night. Thank you for being with us and good night from nbc news headquarters in new york. All of that red, started get red, republican. It started getting red, red. A tiny dot of blue along the ocean. His hand starts shaking. Oh, my god, another state came. Oh, my god. Whats going on . Fake news. So bob casey doesnt mind ms13 coming in. These are the slicers. They slice people up. They want me to walk up and go like this. President trump tries to
energize his supporters in pennsylvania. He spent the Night Rallying for a republican candidate facing an Uphill Battle in the critical swing state. Plus, some of americas top intelligence officials come together with a warning about russia and promising to defend against Election Interference this november. An enemy of the people. Press secretary Sarah Huckabee sanders declines to answer whether she agrees with the president s phrase to
Comments come at a time when Trump has been both upping his attacks on the Florida governor and drawing condemnation for his violent rhetoric against the likes of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg
enough about a possible matchup between trump and desantis. desantis victory in the florida gubernatorial race was impressive, but in the early stages of a presidential campaign, he would not be facing trump one on one, but as rather one choice among many. a poll found almost half of likely primary voters still prefer trump, with about a quarter favoring desantis and 6% favoring pence. desantis popularity will probably have increased in recent weeks, but in a possible 2024 presidential campaign, he will be fighting for not trump voters and the not trump lane of the republican party is going to get very crowded. for trump to have a revival of his fortunes, many would jump back on his bandwagon. ted cruz has already reserved a spot there, promising if trump gets the nomination, he would
publicity and would likely win the largest single vote share in the early prime ministers. he might not get past 50% in any state, but most republican state primary systems favor the front-runner, and in state after state, he would just do better than anyone else. as ron brownstein reminds us, that is how trump became the presumptive nominee in 2016, while only garnering around 40% of total votes. voters did deliver a powerful rebuke to the republicans in the midterms, centered around election denial and abortion. but those who shifted appear to have been independents and a sliver of moderate republicans. these are not the voters who will determine the results of republican primaries. the results also don t tell us enough about a possible matchup between trump and desantis. desantis victory in the florida gubernatorial race was impressive, but in the early