up because of what the russians and saudis just did. i ll speak with don bacon and elizabeth slot kin. plus presidential portrait. maggie haberman has an in-depth look at his rise to power, including changing views on abortion, reversing the position he once made right here on this program. i m very pro-choice. yamiche alcindor and brendan buck. welcome to sunday, it s meet the press. announcer: this is meet the press with chuck todd. good sunday morning. i m kristin welker in for chuck to do. election day is just 30 days away. ronald reagan worried jimmy carter would engineer a last-minute release of u.s. hostages. carter, of course, did not, but the term stuck. there s at least three stories unfolding. first the nuclear threat from russia. then there are rising gas prices, now averaging just under $4 a gallon, which democrats worry there will be a sign to voters that there is a true. but the october surprise of the week, it could determine control of senat
You re not donald trump? i think there s a baselines challenge to in a. number one, he s been in public life for a very long time, dealing with the national media in the way that herschel walker was not, and in a way that dr. oz was. it depends on the specifics. the oz/fetterman race is very different. i think you ll see mo celebrity candidates, particularly among republicans, jumping in. that is the donald trump effect. that is a very good point. the map runs through nine key states in order to win back control. vice president have can be republicans have to flip one seen. in wisconsin, senator ron johnson is trying to put the focus on crime. listen to this recent exchange. whenever i see a police officer, i sigh thank you for yourselves and if i have time, i say please don t be dispirited
Trump. but that was also kind of the point. he was trying to transfer his support down the ballot, telling people a vote for saccone was a vote for the trump agenda. i ve been talking to republicans all day, whether that support is transferrable, and they re saying it is going to be district by district. there are going to be districts where the president is going to be welcome, people are going to wrap their arms around him. other districts like colorado, for example, the house republican democratic map runs through california, new york, new jersey. those are going to be very different. republicans and the president have to get on the same page and be strategic about the decision, because the outcome of these races, of course, affects all of them. jason, it s interesting, this question of transfer ability. all these republicans wondering, trump has this special bond with the republican base, can i tap into that at all? i m reminded here of the frustration democrats had in the obama
This is where the clinton campaign, i think, has the vast majority of their focus right now. they think it s going to be potentially late into the night. it is kind of the fulcrum of so many different issues, whether it s kind of the culture wars, there s just so much going on there. and it s going to tell us what might happen, say, in georgia. this is really kind of the new democratic map runs through the south, runs through north carolina, runs through georgia. and it s moving away from ohio and pennsylvania. steve schmidt, same question? looking at florida, looking at north carolina, i think we have really clear indications of a direction of the night once we have a little bit more data from those states coming in. north carolina right now, obviously, president obama was able to win north carolina once, but not twice. i m not sure that the republican party effort this year took the lessons of romney s success there to heart. it seems like trump has tried to win north carolina