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Polls on Texas Senate Race; Rogers and El-Sayed's Final Debate; Former Congressman Charlie Dent is Interviewed about the Ramaswamy Backlash; Growing Concerns in Georgia about Federal Intervention in the Midterms. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired October 22, 2026 - 08:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:33:52]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Democrats have high hopes James Talarico will become the first Democratic senator elected in the state of Texas since 1988. Republicans are on track to spend more than $380 million on ads over the primary and the general election to defend that seat. It's a staggering amount of money for a state where Republicans have dominated, as you know, for decades.

CNN chief data analyst Harry Enten was over there doing I don't know what, but now he's here.

HARRY ENTEN, CNN CHIEF DATA ANALYST: I was thinking about, you said 1988.

SIDNER: Were you thinking --

ENTEN: It's 1988 in Harry --

SIDNER: No, we're not doing that, Harry.

ENTEN: Oh, we're not? Oh, OK.

SIDNER: You're not making us seem older than we are.

ENTEN: I mean you're not -- you're definitely -- Sara was born only 20 years ago.

SIDNER: Right. Right.

ENTEN: I'm like 110 at this point.

SIDNER: Look, is there any sign that this enormous amount of money -- I mean this is huge.

ENTEN: Huge. Huge.

SIDNER: $380 million. Is there any sign that this is starting to move people towards Republicans?

ENTEN: Yes. OK. So, hundreds of millions of dollars being spent in Texas. My goodness gracious. You know, if you just gave me like one 100 of that I -- you would never see me again. But no.

SIDNER: I doubt that.

ENTEN: Oh, yes, I can't stay away. I'm Liza (ph). I like it too much.

[08:35:00]

Take a look here. Texas Senate polling, Talarico versus Paxton. I mean, just look at this. Look at this consistent average of the polls that we are seeing. In July, at the end of July, look at that, it was Talarico plus three. August, Talarico plus three. September, Talarico plus three. October, Talarico plus three. I mean, maybe you want to make the argument, it's like 3.2 versus like 2.7 or 2.8. But all of this money that is being spent, it is basically three yards and a cloud of dust right now in the great state of Texas where Talarico holds this within the margin of error but still slight advantage that, simply puts, Sara Sidner, really doesn't seem to be moving at all despite all of that money that is being spent.

SIDNER: But we should mention, it's still within the margin of error.

ENTEN: It's -- were going to -- trust me, you're going to like the last slide. Stay tuned.

SIDNER: But I do love it when you go back in history and you sort of give people an idea of where campaigns were, for example, at this point for the Senate years ago.

ENTEN: Yes. If you just take a look. You know, I think a lot of people feel like Texas is a little bit of Lucy in the football, right? And, you know, that last minute, oh, we're going to win, Texas is going to turn blue. And then, boop, that football gets taken out.

SIDNER: Yes.

ENTEN: But this just looks different. This just looks different. OK, who is ahead in Texas Senate races. I mean just take a look. This is mid October polling in points. You know, right now what you got is Talarico three points. You go back two years ago it was the GOP by four. You go back four -- six years ago -- wow, I can't believe 2020 was six years ago -- it was the GOP by seven. And then I think the best historical comparison was Trump's first midterm, right. Beto O'Rourke, there was this -- all this energy that Democrats thought that they had. But at this point, Beto O'Rourke was trailing Ted Cruz by about eight points. And that margin was with about three points at the end of the day. So, that was actually an example in which the Democrat actually outperformed their mid-October polls in a state like Texas. So, it's not always the case that the polls actually underestimate Republicans. Sometimes they underestimate Democrats. And at this point, what we're seeing in Texas is extremely unusual. James Talarico is the first Democratic candidate for Senate to be up this late in the campaign since, as Sara said at the beginning, 1988.

SIDNER: I said 1988.

ENTEN: Oh, I'm sorry, I just said what I wanted to hear. SIDNER: Uh-huh.

ENTEN: That's a common problem of men.

SIDNER: Touche. It sure is. Look, how often, when you look back, do candidates who are up by

something like three points, within the margin of error, how often do they win?

ENTEN: Yes, how often do they win? This is what I do think is important. Candidates who are up by three, win more often than not.

SIDNER: OK.

ENTEN: But it's 67 percent of the time. So that means about one in three times the candidate who is trailing at this point by about the margin that Ken Paxton is go on and win. And if you're a fan of baseball, you know that one in three events happen very frequently. So, at this point, you know, slight, slight, slight, slight little pressure on the scale in favor of James Talarico. But Ken Paxton very much in the ball game.

SIDNER: Yes, I mean, look, Texas has a lot more Republicans than they have Democrats.

ENTEN: They have a lot of them.

SIDNER: And so it will be turnout, turnout, turnout most likely that makes a difference here.

ENTEN: I think we'll know in a few weeks.

SIDNER: In 12 days.

ENTEN: Oh, my God.

SIDNER: Yes, that's happening.

Harry Enten, thank you. Appreciate it.

ENTEN: Thank you, Sara.

SIDNER: John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: That's a great point, if you hit 300 in baseball, you have a great batting average, right?

SIDNER: That's right.

BERMAN: I mean that's three in ten right there.

All right, overnight, the final debate between Republican Mike Rogers and Democrat Abdul El-Sayed in the Michigan Senate race. Rogers questioned El-Sayed about his loyalty to the U.S. And for his part, El-Sayed invited viewers to play a game of MAGA bingo during the debate whenever Rogers hit a Republican talking point. CNN's Gloria Pazmino watching every second of this debate and can give us the highlights.

Good morning to you.

GLORIA PAZMINO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I did watch every second. And it was quite entertaining. Not as biting as the first -- the last debate between the two of them, but still had very sort of spicy moments between the two of them.

This was their last chance to make their case. And what you just laid out was basically their strategy, right? Mike Rogers had a chance to essentially cast Abdul El-Sayed as a radical, too to the left Democrat. Several times he tried to tie him to the Democratic Socialists of America, saying that his policies are simply too extreme.

Abdul El-Sayed, his strategy was to tie Mike Rogers, obviously, to President Trump and President Trump's policies, the economy, the war in Iran, the affordability crisis. That's what they were both doing throughout the debate.

But we had these moments where, once again, Mike Rogers brought up this question of El-Sayed's loyalty and his supposed association with the Muslim Brotherhood, something El-Sayed has denied. He has disavowed the Muslim Brotherhood. This has become a flashpoint, especially in the past few weeks as we get to the end of this race.

Here's that moment between Mike Rogers and how El-Sayed responded.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE ROGERS (R), MICHIGAN SENATE CANDIDATE: If you are going to go to the United States Senate, we need to know, are you for America or are you for these terrorist groups overseas? You can grin and you can smile and you can talk real pretty.

[08:40:00]

But I'm going to tell you what, that is a risk to our national security.

ABDUL EL-SAYED (D), MICHIGAN SENATE CANDIDATE: To bring into question my commitment to the Constitution is really beneath you. I am proud of America. I'm proud to be an American. I'm proud of our Constitution that guarantees all of us the right to pray as we choose to pray.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That is your time, Mr. El-Sayed.

EL-SAYED: And the question that you would ask that, I think is actually really quite shameful.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PAZMINO: If he is elected in a few days, El-Sayed would become the Senate's first Muslim to be elected in the nation's history. There was also a moment at the end where Mike Rogers tried to make a

direct appeal to Jewish voters, black voters, two groups that El-Sayed has been struggling with, ask -- telling them that if they find him to be too extreme, they have a home with him, with Mike Rogers.

BERMAN: That will be the final time they share a stage.

Gloria Pazmino, thank you very much.

Kate.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: This just in, there is new rating changes coming from Larry Sabato's election tracking team that -- and, of course, known as "The Crystal Ball." Sabato and his team have shifted the governor's races in Alabama, Michigan, Oklahoma and Ohio a notch more towards Democrats. This shift could mean, they say, the Democrats are now possibly narrowly favored in Sabato's ratings to possibly win an elusive majority of governorships.

The most notable of these races is the Ohio governor's race, which Larry even points to, shifting from toss up now to lean Democrats. That ratings change in their forecast comes as there is this growing backlash over the explosive ad being run by Republican Gubernatorial Candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. It features the long-estranged mother of his Democratic opponent, Amy Acton. And in it, the mother calls her daughter a liar, urges voters not to support her. But the ad leaves out basically all the context, like at the age of 12 that mother lost custody of her daughter after her husband, Acton's stepfather, was arrested, charged and indicted by a grand jury for sexually abusing Amy Acton when she was a child. And after all of that, Amy Acton's mother stood by that man instead of her daughter.

Bipartisan backlash was swift against Ramaswamy, who is standing by that attack ad. Republican Ohio Senator Jon Husted, who is in a tough re-election race himself, said, quote, "I would not have run that ad."

But now enter Vice President J.D. Vance. He says he's, quote, "disgusted," not at the ad, but by Republicans criticizing it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

J.D. VANCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, I'll be honest with you, whether the ad was appropriate or not is not really my concern.

But I have to admit that I'm a little bit disgusted when I see Republicans across the country who are whining more about that advertisement than they are about what the congressional Democrats and other Democrats want to do to the United States of America.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Joining me right now is Charlie Dent, the former Republican congressman from Pennsylvania, of course.

So, Congressman, that ad, just first -- just to take me inside a campaign, the fact that it was and is campaign approved, how would that have gone down inside your campaign operation when you were running?

CHARLIE DENT (R), FORMER U.S. REPRESENTATIVE FROM PENNSYLVANIA: Well, not well, because the way we would run our campaigns, I have a -- I would have a general consultant. I had a very good pollster. And I had a campaign manager. And we would talk about messages. Had I suggested doing something like this, they would have tackled me. And by the way, these are guys who are used to running hard-hitting campaigns. They're not afraid of it.

But what Ramaswamy has done here essentially is he's taken a grenade, pulled the pin and shoved it in his mouth. I mean that's what they've done. I mean this is really a catastrophic blow. He may have -- he may have just blown up his whole campaign with this. But our campaign would have never gone down this road.

I mean the role of the campaign is to enhance the image of the candidate. And, you know, you have to have cool and calm heads in that room to make sure you don't do anything that is potentially self- destructive and that would harm your own image. And, obviously, somewhere they failed. I don't know if it was the campaign or the candidate who overruled the campaign. I have to think that Ramaswamy, for all that money, he has some smart people guiding him and helping him. They probably advised him. But who made the decision to go with this? It's crazy.

BOLDUAN: Is there -- with that in mind, is there any way, no matter how gross people may think that this ad is, that in the grossness of politics sometimes that it works, that it has an impact on voters that make them view Amy Acton negatively?

DENT: Well, I suspect that the -- both campaigns are going to do some polling after this ad saturates for a few days, and we'll see if the numbers move. And if they -- if they move in the wrong direction for Ramaswamy, I guarantee you this ad is coming down. They will cycle it out quickly.

So, you know, it might have some impact.

[08:45:00]

I mean, look, if you're an uninformed voter and you don't have the proper context, you just see the ad, but not knowing about the history of the stepfather raping the -- his stepdaughter, Amy Acton, you know, if you don't know that, you might just say, oh my goodness, the mother is against her daughter and calling her terrible things. Maybe enough people just know that piece of it. But given all the attention and now that her brother is on the air, Acton's brother is on the air with a counter ad, again, I don't think this ad is going to last long on television. I think it's going to be pulled down soon.

BOLDUAN: And, Charlie, the J.D. Vance approach to it, he's telling people to stop whining about ads. Like stop whining about it and move on. But it wasn't hard to find J.D. Vance and his team whining about ads. I mean we found, in 2022, when he was running in Ohio for Senate, again, it's all very -- shades of the same thing, but running in Ohio for Senate against Tim Ryan. Tim Ryan ran attack ads trying to link J.D. Vance to the tragedies of the opioid crisis. Valid or even completely invalid, a mother is in this ad saying that while her son died, J.D. Vance only helped himself. To that ad then, J.D. Vance's team called it a, quote, "bottom of the gutter political hit job." And I'm left just wondering, have things just changed that much in four years?

DENT: No, things haven't changed much. But the truth is, you know, Vance, it's really rich for J.D. Vance to stand up there and defend this ad, knowing that this is an administration, of course, that obstructed the release of the Epstein files and, of course, a noted abuser of young women. And so -- and then basically side -- basically what Vance is doing, he's siding with -- he's siding with the enabler of this horrendous crime against Amy Acton, you know. And if you know about the Epstein files and the administration's reluctance to do anything about that, I mean, I don't understand why they would go down this road. It's just raising the Epstein question again. And, again, I don't know what Vance is thinking here. How he thinks this is helping Ramaswamy is beyond me. And it's certainly not helping himself. I even get the sense that the president is sort of walking a little bit away from this ad. So, I think -- I think that the vice president is out on a limb all by himself, and he's just got a saw.

BOLDUAN: Some of the reporting I'm seeing, I think it was in "Axios," is that this is a look towards his approach to 2028, the never back down approach that was very successful for President Trump. Let's see if it extends beyond Donald Trump to others.

It's good to see you, Congressman. Thank you very much for coming in.

Sara.

SIDNER: Thank you, Kate.

This morning, the new view of a police shooting that killed a one- year-old baby. Mississippi's attorney general has made up his mind on whether to charge any officer in the case. How the community is responding this morning.

And in the nick of time, a bystander noticing something's wrong with a nearby bus. What he does in a split-second decision to act that saved everyone on board.

Those stories and more ahead.

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[08:52:02]

SIDNER: As President Trump runs a campaign blitz across the deep red states, he has been repeating some familiar falsehoods, mainly the past elections were rigged. Cue Georgia, that state became a political centerpiece to President Trump's widespread campaign to overturn the 2020 election. And now, this morning, top election officials in Georgia are clashing over these conspiracy theories fueled by the president. The FBI carried out a raid on a Georgia election hub in Fulton County back in January, and now there's growing concern that the Trump administration might interfere with the midterm election just 12 days away. Early voting already underway in the state of Georgia.

And joining me now is Mo Ivory, a Democratic nominee for Fulton County Chair.

Thank you so much for being here.

Look, you were there when FBI agents seized hundreds of boxes of ballots and some election records from Fulton county's election's facility. At this moment, do you have any update on the federal investigation? Do you even know, you know, where those ballots are being kept?

MO IVORY (D), NOMINEE FOR FULTON COUNTY BOARD COMMISSION CHAIR: No. Good morning, Sara. No, we continue, in Fulton County, to have no information about where those ballots are. You know, it is not like since January, when -- and I was actually there at that raid, that we weren't given any information then. And nobody has called Fulton County, like, oh, here's an update on where the ballots are, or, you know, what we're doing with them. No, we have no idea where they are.

SIDNER: Look, early voting, as we mentioned, has already started in Georgia. Are you seeing anything different in how this federal government is operating in Georgia?

IVORY: No, not really. But right now we have been having record turnout in Georgia in early voting. And just last week, at the end of last week, which was record numbers, our Republican secretary of state applauded every one of the counties for running beautiful elections, for running accurate, fair, timely elections. And there was nothing that went wrong. Everybody's been able to walk up early, vote. There haven't been any incidents.

So, right now we feel like things are going exceptionally well. And this is a credit to all of the election workers in all of the counties. You know, Fulton County, obviously, is the biggest county and the most populous and a target of Donald Trump's. But everything has been going very well in Georgia in early voting.

SIDNER: I do want to ask you about your own state's election board. The Georgia Election Board has requested federal intervention in the election systems there. Why do you think that is?

IVORY: Oh, you know, just the continuation of the interference, the continuation of trying to sow doubt into voters' minds so that they will have less turnout. That is the game, continue to put forward these conspiracy theories, whether it's the federal government or whether it's our state election board and even the next layer, the Fulton County Election Board. Every time Republicans try to seed, sow doubt into the voters, they believe that that is a way to keep power, and they will continue to do it in a hope that it will keep voters from going to the polls, and it will decrease turnout.

[08:55:11]

But it is not doing that. In fact, it is having the opposite effect.

SIDNER: Look, I do want to ask you about something outside of Fulton County. President Trump visited Dalton, which is about an hour and a half drive from Atlanta. There he once again said the election was stolen from him in Georgia. The county election officials are telling CNN that election tensions are starting to boil up again there, that the staff is now using gloves and masks to open letters for fear of people putting things like chemical agents in there. Are you hearing anything of this kind happening in Fulton or other places in Georgia where there is fear by election workers because of some of this rhetoric?

IVORY: I have not heard that in Fulton County, but I did read the story about what was happening in Dalton. And I think it's really unfortunate. This is exactly the result of when our government goes overboard in terrifying people, and especially election workers, about doing their job. Can you imagine, you're an election worker, mostly volunteer, and you're coming nervous that you could touch something or that something could happen to you while you're just trying to help people vote in a fair way? It's so unfortunate, but this is exactly the result of what happens when our federal government, our states, and then even actors on the local level try to terrorize election workers.

SIDNER: Mo Ivory, thank you for joining us. We will be checking in on Georgia as early voting, as you say, has been very, very busy.

John.

BERMAN: All right, every election I have ever covered, someone says it is the dirtiest or most negative of all time. They can't all be. But, but maybe 2026 is a contender.

CNN's Tom Foreman has a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sex abuse at a fall church camp. A child predator working for Adam Hamilton's megachurch.

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): In Kansas, the Republican Senate candidate launches a claim his opponent concealed a sex scandal. Democrats respond with a rocket of their own.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (Singing): Doctors pledge to do no harm. Roger Marshall must've forgot. When his patients couldn't pay, he squeezed 'em for every cent they got.

FOREMAN (voice over): Both sides denied the accusations, but rhetoric is going nuclear like this all across the country.

In Texas --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Anti-oil -- UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Anti-thief --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Anti-Texas. That's radical James Talarico.

FOREMAN (voice over): Republican Ken Paxton is ripping his Democratic opponent with help from Vice President J.D. Vance.

J.D. VANCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, he's just a guy who shows a weird focus on transgender kids.

FOREMAN (voice over): But James Talarico is hitting back at Paxton's checkered past.

JAMES TALARICO (D), TEXAS SENATE CANDIDATE: I've never been indicted for fraud. I've never been reported to the FBI for bribery. I've never been impeached by my own party. And I've never given a sweetheart deal to a pedophile.

FOREMAN (voice over): Weighing in on the Michigan race, President Trump has called Republican Mike Rogers' Muslim opponent "Mohammed" and a "jihadist."

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm the president of the United States. I can call you whatever the hell I want.

ABDUL EL-SAYED (D), MICHIGAN SENATE CANDIDATE: Trump is a vain, narcissistic idiot.

FOREMAN (voice over): But Democrat Abdul El-Sayed is not having it, laying into Trump and Rogers too.

EL-SAYED: Weak, cowardly, won't stand up until his poll numbers drop.

FOREMAN (voice over): In South Carolina, Trump also took aim at the Democratic challenger to Republican Senator Darline Graham. On Truth Social he repeatedly slapped the slur "tranny" on Annie Andrews, a physician who is not transgender. And on it goes.

In Georgia --

SEN. JON OSSOFF (D-GA): Mike Collins himself has amplified neo-Nazi propaganda online.

REP. MIKE COLLINS (R), GEORGIA SENATE CANDIDATE: Imagine being a U.S. senator and out there recruiting, endorsing and supporting these people that want to see Israel wiped off the map.

FOREMAN (voice over): In Ohio, Maine and more, furious words and bitter accusations.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Every time it matters, Susan Collins sides with Trump.

FOREMAN (voice over): As the midterms burn down to the end.

Tom Foreman, CNN, Washington. (END VIDEOTAPE)

BOLDUAN: Tom Foreman, thank you so much.

So, there's surveillance video out capturing the moment that a man helps to stop a school bus as children on board in Saint Paul, Minnesota. According to a CNN affiliate there, the man spotted that the driver drops children off but the bus just keeps going with the doors still open. Here -- the bus driver was having a medical emergency, so he jumped in, took over and stopped the bus. A school officials says 19 kids were on board. The man says watching shows like "Grays Anatomy" helped prep him for this moment.

Four people were hospitalized after a crash with a semi truck on a California highway sent the truck over the center divider, and you can see it just dangling there.

[09:00:02]

The crash shut down a stretch of the highway in both directions for hours. The cause, currently not known.