GOP at Risk of Losing House, Senate
BLITZER: Welcome back. There are new signs the Republican Party is at risk, not only of losing the presidential race, but also the U.S. Senate. Take a closer look. Polling in New Hampshire shows the state's Democratic Governor Maggie Hassan eight points ahead of Republican Senator Kelly Ayotte. In response, a GOP group is out with a new ad pushing voters to re-elect their GOP Senator as a check and balance of what could be a Clinton White House. Watch this.</s>ANNOUNCER: America's future is far from certain, but no matter whom the next president is, New Hampshire needs a strong voice in the U.S. Senate. That Senator, Kelly Ayotte. She works across the aisle to get things done.</s>BLITZER: Our chief political correspondent, Dana Bash, is with us. Senior political reporter, Manu Raju, has the latest on all of this. Dana, you're doing a lot of reporting on this. How worried are Republicans about so-called down-ballot races? Do you expect ads like this to start appearing elsewhere?</s>DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, they are worried. And, yes that is the hope. When I was talking to a source who helped get that ad that you just played on the air, starting today, in New Hampshire, it was explicitly with the hope that other like-minded conservative groups, more establishment-oriented Republican groups, like the Chamber of Commerce, will turn their attention, and more importantly, their resources towards the Senate exclusively. Now, that is effectively what has been going on with regard to money, but message is the difference here, and that's what made that ad that you just played different from what we've seen, in that it makes pretty clear that this Republican group believes Hillary Clinton is likely to be in the White House. And the message to voter is, you want to keep your Republican Senator, in this case, Kelly Ayotte in New Hampshire, and you want to keep a Republican majority as a check and balance on a Hillary Clinton White House. The goal, again, by the Chamber of Commerce, in not just New Hampshire but to try send a single to other like-minded groups, and even candidates themselves, to start to say explicitly we're not going to win the White House, you've got it elect me.</s>BLITZER: What other states, Manu, are we see very tight Senate races emerging?</s>MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: Assuming Hillary Clinton wins, Democrats need to pick up four seats to take back a majority. And they have a lot of opportunities. We're expecting them to probably win in Illinois and Wisconsin, the two on the map right now. Dana talked about New Hampshire. But also Pennsylvania, another very tight race that could go either way, go the other way. And you're looking at three red states that are going to be critical that Republicans now hold that Democrats have a chance, a serious chance, of winning, in North Carolina, Indiana, Missouri. Those could easily flip. Republicans really only have one pick-up opportunity and that is in Nevada. Harry Reid's seat is a toss-up between the Republican and Democrat. Democrats have a very good shot, just because they have so many opportunities. And if Donald Trump continues to slide and loses in some of those states by significant margins, it's going to be very hard for Republicans to run significantly ahead of the top of the ticket. That's why Donald Trump's performance is so critical for Republicans in keeping majority in Congress.</s>BLITZER: Manu, Mark Kirk, an Illinois Republican Senator, he has a lot of problems potentially as well, right?</s>RAJU: That's right. He probably is one viewed as likely to lose his seat, but he is still maintaining, has an outside chance. Republicans believe that perhaps he could survive, if the Democratic Candidate Tammy Duckworth underperforms. But when you look at the landscape overall, Illinois is viewed as almost very, very likely to flip, just because it is so difficult for a Republican to win in a blue state, like Illinois, in a presidential election year. And there's no outside money going in to help Mark Kirk right now. So that's going to be very hard for him to win back. It's one of the four that Democrats are assuming they will pick up in taking back the majority.</s>BLITZER: And if they get a 50/50 split in the U.S. Senate, if there's a Democratic president, Democratic vice president, the vice president is the president of the U.S. Senate, and he presumably will cast that tiebreaking vote in favor of Democrats. Democrats would be in the majority. Dana, a number of reliably red states are turning into toss-up states. Early voting results are showing that two in particular, talking about Arizona and Utah, are looking relatively promising for Democrats. Pretty extraordinary, isn't it?</s>BASH: It is. And some of these red states, if we keep the map up, are toss-ups for different reasons. Utah is because Utah is largely Mormon. That is not Trump territory, not at all, and the Mormon Republicans that were already onboard with Donald Trump pretty much left in a mass exodus after the tape came out of him saying what he said on "Access Hollywood." That, combined with the fact that there's a third-party candidate there, Evan McMullin, who is a Mormon himself, who has been running hard there, that the Clinton campaign thinks he actually could win that state and rob those electoral votes from Donald Trump. And then if you look at Arizona, there's a different reason that it is perhaps competitive. The fact that Michelle Obama was sent there yesterday tells you everything you need to know. The main reason there is because of the demographic changes. It is a growing Hispanic population there. And a lot of young people, also, and older people, for that matter, but the Democrats think that it is more ripe demographically than others. And one thing that's surprised me, Georgia. Georgia is a state that nobody even thinks about on the presidential level. It is reliably red. And Republicans I'm talking to are very concerned that state could actually flip for Democrats this year</s>BLITZER: Manu, you're well plugged in with members of the House and Senate. It's extraordinary, isn't it, that the Republican leaders in the House of Representatives, the speaker, Paul Ryan, the Senate, Mitch McConnell, majority leader, both have been pretty silent when it comes to the Trump campaign. Right?</s>RAJU: Yeah. I mean, they're just in such a bind right now over Donald Trump, particularly Paul Ryan, the way he's handled this for months. It shows exactly the predicament he's in. The challenge for Ryan right now is that he, of course, came out and said, told colleagues he would not defend Donald Trump in the aftermath of the release of that "Access Hollywood" tape, but has not spoken out publicly against Donald Trump, because he does not want to get backlash from the right. But Ryan is in a difficult spot, because if you get -- right after the elections, if you do keep the majority, it's going to be a narrow majority, they'll have a vote on the floor of the House in order for him to be re-elected as speaker, and he cannot afford to lose many votes, particularly conservative votes, because conservatives could be more powerful in the next House Republican conference if more moderates lose their seats. So Paul Ryan is in a difficult spot because if he speaks out or does not campaign with Donald Trump, conservatives are not happy and are threatening to vote against him. That's one reason why he has been silent about Donald Trump over the last couple of weeks, and I'm not sure if he'll say anything about him before Election Day -- Wolf?</s>BLITZER: I've been calling it the sounds of silence, quoting somebody else. Guys, thanks very. Manu, Dana, thanks. Up next, the White House teasing the Philippines government over its mixed messages when it comes to its relationship with the United States.</s>JOSH EARNEST, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I dub that person the Filipino Mike Pence.