And joining us from Green Bay,
WI, former aide to the George W Bush White House
and State Department,
Elise Jordan. She's an MSNBC political analyst,
and she sat down with Wisconsin voters last night to
get their thoughts on the election.
So first Elise, tell us about
who these voters are that you spoke with.
Hi Mika. So last night I sat down with two
groups of Wisconsin voters,
the all important voters in this state where around 20,000
votes decided the last two presidential elections.
We spoke to a group of female Trump supporters and
then we spoke to a group of right leaning swing
voters to hear what they thought about the recent shake
up in the election and how they see the campaign
now.
Mika, I, I will say that I had been in
Wisconsin about a month ago doing similar focus groups and
I was really shocked at what a burst of energy
the new nomination of Vice President Harris has given the
race in the sense of how the Trump supporters responded
and how the swing voters responded.
So I, I'm excited for everyone to hear directly from
the voters at this important moment,
right. So let's let's listen to one of the groups
you you spoke with
women Trump supporters in Wisconsin.
I'll say it again. Women Trump supporters in Wisconsin.
Here's some of what they had to say to you
about Vice President Kamala Harris.
Do you think that having
Vice President Kamala Harris as the nominee dramatically changes Donald
Trump's odds of winning?
I'm worried about it. I think she's going to go
for the
minority and female and young,
younger voters, progressive. Everybody's excited about her.
And that scares me, you know,
because I Trump has to reconfigure
where he's going and how they're going to
outsmart her. How do you perceive Vice President Harris compared
to President Biden
in terms of competency and experience?
I
think she's worse. She doesn't even know what's going on
at the border,
right? And that's what she was supposed to be doing.
Doing and in charge of.
I mean, as a school teacher,
if I did not do what I was supposed to
be doing,
you better believe my job would be in jeopardy.
Well, it isn't. It Not only was her job not
in jeopardy,
she was just handed a promotion.
Is there anyone that Kamala Harris could appoint as her
vice president that you would find reassuring,
would make you consider voting for her?
No. No, no. Never consider
voting for her. No. No,
I would not. RFK Junior way before.
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah,
and she's not the first woman to run for the
presidency.
Hillary Clinton. I'm assuming no one voted for Hillary Clinton
in 2016.
So it's not necessarily going to sway you to vote
for a woman in office.
When do you think America will have a female president?
When there's a competent 1.
Just. I don't get a good feel for her.
I think she's an idiot.
Right, Mary? Why do you think that she's not that
bright?
Because she hasn't done anything
in the the time that she's had.
We don't know anything about her as far as her
three years so far in the White House.
She's not real smart. That's my opinion.
It could be wrong. If Vice President Kamala Harris wins
the election,
do you think that will be an honest result?
No, no, no one respects her.
Haley's
the very unsurprised, some some fairly unsurprising
responses there from the, the MAGA group that you talked
to.
I'm I'm really interested in the
in the the other group you did the which is
the kind of the swing voter group,
the center right voters. And,
and I'm, I'm interested because one of the things that
the Trump campaign has done,
in addition to some of the racist and sexist attacks
that they've lodged against her
over the course of the last couple days,
there has been in their advertising or digital
video, there's been this focus on the question of she
was in on it.
She was concealing President Biden's health
and, and trying to make that one of the many
arguments they want to make about her.
I'm curious in that group,
in the in the center right group,
not the, the MAGA group,
what kind of what do you hear from them about
that issue?
I'm trying to try to kind of get a sense
of whether that is an issue that has real salience
with voters and something that the Harris campaign is going
to have to deal with going forward.
Well, Hallman, that's a great question because that's exactly what
we're about to hear in the next clip and why
we chose this clip because it really came out so
organically. The idea that the swing voters that these right
leaning voters are grappling with considering Vice President Harris,
but they feel misled by the Biden administration about Biden's
fitness.
And so they don't necessarily trust her and they questioned
if she played a role in a so-called,
quote, cover up of President Biden's health.
So let's listen to the second group of voters.
These are undecided voters talk about their caveats with Donald
Trump and with Kamala Harris.
If you have one concern about President Trump,
tell me that concern. And then
what's your one concern about Kamala Harris?
For me, my concern about Trump
is him making too aggressive of choices
and us not being able to recover from it.
I appreciate that he is willing to,
if a bomb is dropped on our doorstep,
he is out the door as fast as it hit
us.
But that does make me nervous because did we vet
everything that's going to happen of it?
My concern about Harris is a bomb is dropped on
our doorstep.
It's going to be 6 months before we move and
now we're viewed as wheat.
So again,
which route do I really want to go?
It's personal questions on myself.
So it makes me a little nervous on both sides.
It would just be nice if they concentrate more on
the issues instead of the mud sling and personal attacks.
I mean, we got problems in this country.
Let's the left ring and the right ring are on
the same bird.
I mean, let's let's try to find that common ground.
But we can't agree on things.
Let's start with that. What about you,
Karen? I don't think we can ignore
Trump's
convictions, his integrity, his moral character.
I worry about him. If he gets
retaliation
for, you know, something, he
gets him upset and he's going to retaliate without
slowing down. Thinking it through,
I, I honestly need
to get more information about
Camila because I just don't know enough about her.
So I'm, I'm going to wait and see.
I have to kind of step back and see.
I've learned a lot just through our conversation today about
her that that's,
I found really interesting.
Who do you blame for President Biden being in office
in this condition?
Who deserves the blame?
His close staff,
They work with him every day.
So I think that's what also makes me nervous about
the vice president.
Harris talk about that a bit.
So yes, she's going to be in it,
but she also helped keep
him in and where he's at right now.
And if he really is as bad as what they've
been saying,
I think if he steps down as president and she
steps into the presidency before the end of his term,
it almost makes me question a little bit more why
it didn't happen sooner.
She's worked with him. She's been,
to my understanding, with him daily or at least a
couple days a week.
Why hasn't this been brought to attention?
If she's willing to hide that type of information once
she's in office
now, what she's willing to hide for herself?
And so I think that makes me a little bit
uneasy. Not necessarily that I wouldn't vote for her for
it,
but it definitely opens that questioning
of why. Why now? Why are you now being OK
with exposing Biden's health concerns?
Is it because it benefits you
or kind of what that line of questioning looks like?
Yeah. Is it a power grab?
Or does anyone agree with
Melissa's point that it calls into
the vice president's judgment that she has been around
while Biden's health has deteriorated?
100% agree. But it also seems like that's kind of
how she carries herself. She kind of does what in
the moment she needs to do to continue to move
forward and move up.
So interesting. I love these,
Elise. They really give a sense of of
how people are thinking in these swing states,
independent voters, voters who maybe still are making a decision.
I'm curious.
It almost seems like you get a sense of what
the challenge will be for Vice President Kamala Harris when
you hear from these voters.
What are you going to be doing today?
Who will you be speaking with today?
Well, we're leaving the National Railroad Museum,
who hosted us last night to talk to these great
Green Bay voters.
And we're heading to Madison.
And we're going to talk to progressive voters under the
age of 40.
And then we're going to hear from traditional Democratic voters
about how they feel about President Biden leaving the race
and their thoughts on the new nominee,
Kamala Harris.
All right, MSNBC political analyst Elise Jordan,
great work. Thank you so much.