GOP Midterm Disaster? Mark Halperin Warns It Could Be Worse Than Anyone Thinks

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Ditch the clowns on the left and the jokers on the right, and join Michael Smerconish right here in the middle.

Michael Smerconish (0:57)

Mark Halperin joins us momentarily. In his Wide World of News newsletter today, he quotes conservative political analyst Henry Olson. Quote, so it's three weeks from election day, and the GOP's most important figure is crisscrossing the country to persuade his party's most loyal supporters to vote. That is, frankly, a pathetic place for the president and his party to be so close to the midterms. Last night, it was the president in Montana. Listen.

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Michael Smerconish (1:54)

Mark Halpern, it was a greatest hits reel from President Trump last night in Montana. To Henry Olson's point, what's he doing in the reddest of red states?

Mark Halperin (2:04)

Riaz, trying to save as many Republican seats and house seats as possible.

There's a lot of criticism of the polling, and you see today in Politico and elsewhere, Republicans saying, well, the public polling could be underestimating Republican support. They're not making these decisions about the president's travel and ad spending and shifting ad money around on the public polls, they're basing it on their own polls. And their own polls show the parties in a lot of trouble. So all elections involves stirring up your base, revving up your base and reaching independence. And right now, it appears the president's advisors think his best use, his most likely chances of success are going to those red areas and try to let the red areas do what they're supposed to do, which is allow Republicans to win.

Michael Smerconish (2:48)

One thing he's not doing is going to the quote unquote 35 contested house districts. As he said, he was going to do. Presumably, he's not wanted in an area like Bucks County, Pennsylvania, where Brian Fitzpatrick has a tough race.

Mark Halperin (3:02)

Well, he'll go to some of those places, at least he's scheduled to. He's supposed to go to Michigan, for instance, although he'll go to a red part of the state, almost certainly. Look, wherever he goes, people in Bucks County are going to hear about it. But obviously, going to a place and getting on the ground is going to amplify the message. I think that right now people are underestimating the possibility, not the probability, not the certainty, but the possibility that this is a much bigger night for the Democrats up and down the ballot than is commonly talked about. But the president is doing his best to forestall that.

The strategy is, again, try to save as many of the really red places as possible. A place like Bryan Fitzpatrick's statistic, Bryan Fitzpatrick may win, but it will be against a strong tide. What they're trying to do is keep that tide from washing away not only the kind of light red districts, but some dark red places, which their data shows are now in some jeopardy.

Michael Smerconish (3:57)

Mark Halpern, you can call me a lawyer, you can call me an attorney, you can call me Esquire, you can call me counselor, you can call me a knucklehead. What do you make about the semantics of how to address the press secretary?

Mark Halperin (4:12)

I mean, no offense to the lawyers out there, but I don't stand on more ceremony with lawyers than I do with other professions that sort of fetish up, well, if you haven't passed the bar, you can't call yourself a lawyer. I get why that's the thing, but I don't think that's going to be her biggest problem from what her own colleagues, some of her own colleagues are saying behind her back. I think the controversy over her maiden briefing, the controversy over her apparently overstating her legal credentials, I don't think those are going to be the biggest problem she faces in trying to ease into this job and keep this job.