The TAKE with Rick Klein
“Crisis it is,” President Donald Trump declared on Thursday, framing the balance of the race around the issue that animated his political rise from the start.
Crisis it has always been with Trump. And crisis it will be in the frantic stretch to the midterms – with the president misconstruing the facts and history around immigration, and misleading about the nature of the threats posed by a group of would-be refugees.
It’s a play to fears as the campaign winds down.
And it creates quite a split-screen with Democrats. Former President Barack Obama campaigns Friday in Florida and Georgia – the latter being the state where Oprah Winfrey was the star on Thursday, with her plea for voters to support a “change-maker.”
The other half of the Obama rallying cry – hope – is what Democrats are looking to channel in these final days. The dynamics seem set, but no one is quite sure of what will happen in part because the two parties have placed such wildly different bets on the country.
Trump is getting the campaign close he is orchestrating. It’s worked before, but the stage is not his alone from here.
The RUNDOWN with MaryAlice Parks
The president Thursday seemed to be in an alternate universe, one in which his administration did not separate families at the border and where his party has not been the one in power for the last two years.
Listening to the president blame Democrats for everything not fixed in the country felt a little desperate, since the GOP has, in fact, held control across Washington.
It was congressional Republicans, after all, who could not get enough votes from among their own members to pass immigration reform, and then it was the president who decided he would not back a compromise bill. And it was Republicans, too, who tried to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, and failed.
Open enrollment for those health insurance marketplaces created under the so-called Obamacare law started again Thursday for 2019. During last year’s enrollment period, nearly 12 million Americans bought insurance on the exchanges, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Those headlines of failed bills and legislative drama last year might sound like part of a distant past, but it is telling that the president is campaigning on what did not get done in Washington, instead of what did.
The TIP with John Verhovek
In any election cycle, there are guaranteed instances where Democrats and Republicans will gripe about the same thing: third-party candidates spoiling their chances at victory.
But there will be no such griping about two critical races that could decide the balance of power in the U.S. Senate.
Two third-party candidates, Libertarian Rick Breckenridge in Montana, and Green Party candidate Angela Green in Arizona, have dropped out and endorsed the Republican and Democratic candidates vying for Senate seats: Matt Rosendale and Kyrsten Sinema, respectively.
The development is welcome news for both challengers, who are competing in races within the margin of error according to recent polling, with just four days to go until Election Day.
But one place where a third-party candidate could still have an impact is Indiana, where a recent NBC News/Marist poll shows Libertarian candidate Lucy Benton polling at 7 percent in a race that has Democratic incumbent Sen. Joe Donnelly and Republican Mike Braun separated by just 3 points among likely voters.
THE PLAYLIST
ABC News’ “Start Here” Podcast. Friday morning’s episode features ABC News’ Adam Kelsey, who reports from New Jersey on how the youth vote could energize Democrats in Tuesday’s midterm elections. And, FiveThirtyEight managing editor Micah Cohen joins us to give an update on their model, which still favors Democrats to take the House and Republicans to retain Senate control. http://apple.co/2HPocUL
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