New Polls Show Tighter Race in Key States; Gary Johnson On Syria: "What Is Aleppo?"
COOPER: Got more breaking news, with the general election now just 61 days away, there's new polling tonight shows the race is tightening and some key battleground states. Gary Johnson, the Libertarian Party candidate, now polling in the double digits in two key states, as we mentioned earlier, whether that support holds after his stumble today remains to be seen, a stumble about Aleppo. During an interview on MSNBC, he was asked about the crisis in Aleppo. Here's how that went.</s>MIKE BARNICLE, MSNBC "MORNING JOE" PANELIST: What would you do if you're elected about Aleppo?</s>GARY JOHNSON, (L) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: About?</s>BARNICLE: Aleppo.</s>JOHNSON: And what is Aleppo?</s>BARNICLE: You're kidding.</s>JOHNSON: No.</s>BARNICLE: Aleppo is in Syria. It's the epicenter of the refugee crisis.</s>JOHNSON: OK. Got it. Got it.</s>BARNICLE: OK.</s>JOHNSON: Well, with regard to Syria, I do think that it's a mess.</s>COOPER: Gary Johnson was pretty secured over that gaffe. Too early to tell if it's going to affect his poll numbers going forward. John King, though, is here to break down tonight's new poll. So four new major battleground state polls. What are the number show?</s>JOHN KING, CNN INSIDE POLITICS HOST: They show us, Anderson, as our national poll did the other night that we have a tightening race as we go into the final 60 days. Quinnipiac University, let's pull up the numbers and stretch about a little bit. In Pennsylvania, a blue state for the Democrats in presidential politics going back to the '80s. Yes, Clinton leads but by just five points. In Ohio, Republicans don't win the presidency without it. Donald Trump up four points in this new Quinnipiac polling. North Carolina, one of the closest state last time, Obama won it in 2008 and lost it to Romney in 2012. A four-point Clinton lead there. Another tough close competitive race. And in Florida, the closest of all the states in 2012, 43-43, a tie. Now, the third-party candidates are included here as you noted, Gary Johnson, gets 14 in Ohio, 15 in North Carolina. We'll see if his lack of Syrian knowledge gets him in trouble in the poll, and you see right now Anderson, one thing to both third party candidates are doing is lowering the finish line, the leaders in this states in the mid 40s, that could affect the dynamics.</s>COOPER: For weeks we've been talking about the advantage that Clinton has when it comes to the state-by-state outlook. So is that no longer the case?</s>KING: It is no longer as greater advantage. There's no question especially when you look at some of the other battleground states, places like Colorado, places like Virginia, it still advantage Clinton. But just look at the trend line in the race as we go into the final months and as we lead up to that first debate. This is the RealClearPolitics average. Back on August 15th, just a couple weeks ago in Pennsylvania on average, she was up by nine. Now it's six. In Ohio, she was up by two on average. Now it's a tie. North Carolina, it was two. Now it's one. In Florida, it was three. Now it's a tie. So in four very important battleground states, you might argue, the four most important battleground states at least from the Trump perspective, the race is tightening without a doubt.</s>COOPER: And you called this Trump path "A" what is that?</s>KING: I call it path "A" for Trump, because it is inside his campaign, when you talk to his advisers, day view this as his most plausible, some think is his only path to 270. Here's how we have the race right now, Anderson. We've been through this before, if the election were today, CNN believes Secretary Clinton would win. She would get at least 273 electoral votes, those the dark blue and lighter blue on this map right here. But look at the gold tossup states. They include three we just talked about. If Donald Trump can win Florida, if he can win North Carolina and if he can win Ohio, those are big ifs. I'm not saying it would be easy. But he's competitive. If you just saw that polling. If he gets those three, then he's up to 253. The fourth state we just talked about, Pennsylvania. Clinton goes over the top now because we lean Pennsylvania in her favor. Five-point lead for Clinton. If Donald Trump can find a way to flip that one, that's 273 for Donald Trump. That's the presidency, Anderson. That is plan "A" in the Trump campaign. And they quickly acknowledge plan "A" is their most viable plan, not easy, but easiest.</s>COOPER: Does all this suggest that the Clinton campaign needs a correction course? John is going to stick around. I want to bring in CNN's chief political analyst Gloria Borger and CNN political analyst and "USA Today" columnist, Kristen Powers. Gloria, I mean if the Clinton campaign, how concerned are you by these tightening polls?</s>GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: I think you're very concerned. And what you're going to see them do is kind of try to reach out now beyond what they've been doing. What they've been doing is going on the attack against Donald Trump. You saw Hillary Clinton do that this morning after the commander-in-chief forum saying that, he was scary and that he's dangerous. And what they are thinking, though, in the Clinton campaign is, OK, voters who don't like Trump now know why they don't like him. They get that. They now believe they have to give voters an affirmative reason to say, OK, I'm going to cast my ballot for Hillary Clinton. So she went to the National Baptist Convention today, talked about her faith. She's going to have a bipartisan foreign policy, national security forum trying to reach out to kind of more moderate voters. And we also saw her in a couple of blogs today talking about her personal side, about how her husband is a more natural politician than she is and she has to work a little bit harder at it, kind of opening up a little bit and they're hoping -- that hoping that this will help them with those persuadable voters out there.</s>COOPER: You know, Kirsten, from the beginning of this Clinton has always said, and she said it again today, they've always expected a close race. She feels that she's in a strong position, those were her words. But would the campaign be trying to sort of recalibrate or opening up to the press, for instance, in the way they had if they, indeed, felt she was in a strong position?</s>KIRSTEN POWERS, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yeah. Well I think the fact that they did that shows us they feel they had to do something a little bit different. She was also under a lot of heat for that. And I think finally was worn down by it and I think they realized as well that that probably fed into the feeling that she wasn't trustworthy, if you're not going to make yourself available to the media, then you're not going to seem very trustworthy. But I think they also, you know, have been spending a lot of time, it's been pretty negative in terms of attacking Trump, and getting in arguments with Trump, frankly over things that don't really make sense. It doesn't make sense for her to be getting into arguments with him about whether he supported the Iraq War or not because she supported the Iraq War. And it's one of the things the Democrats don't like about her. So the fact that he supported it, she brought that up last night at the presidential forum, and gets in this back and forth with him, it doesn't really do anything to help her because it just reminds people that she supported the Iraq War and, frankly, his criticism of the Iraq War is much more -- is much stronger than any criticism you hear coming from here.</s>COOPER: John, when do races basically kind of lock in or start to lock in? Is there time which wherever they are is where they're likely going to be on Election Day? Do some remain volatile all the way to the very end?</s>KING: Right, we've been talking about this for months. There's a danger in taking this race and comparing it to any race we had for because of both candidates not just Donald Trump, but because of Hillary Clinton, both candidates have strength. Both have very weaknesses. One of the remarkable things about this race is some things are pretty locked in. If you look at the polling data, for example, Donald Trump struggles with nonwhite voters, seems to be locked in. Donald Trump's success with white voters seemed to be pretty locked in. The education gap is startling. She does very well with those who have a college education. He does very well with those who don't. Those seem locked in. Even when you go state by state, is just comes down to a percentage of those groups and each of the states that moves the polling numbers, but independents are swinging. Since the conventions, Hillary Clinton had them after the two conventions. They're swinging back toward Donald Trump right now. And Anderson this one, again she has an advantage when you go state by state, but it's a shrinking advantage, and you say are they locked in. Remember, John McCain did not wake up in Election Day 2000, I think he was going to win, that race was locked in. Mitt Romney woke up on Election Day in 2012, thinking he was going to win, it was that close. Florida was very close, North Carolina is very close, Ohio was very close. Even Pennsylvania was only five points. There's the -- who's going to win part of this race is not locked in.</s>COOPER: It is interesting, Gloria, I mean I mentioned this a little bit. Clinton wrote something today on this blog, "Humans of New York" and I want to read a bit of it. She wrote in part "Sometimes I think I come across more in the walled off arena, and if I create that perception, that I take responsibility. I don't view myself as cold or unemotional. And neither do my friends. And neither does my family. But if that's sometimes the perception I create, and I can't blame people for thinking that." This is clearly, I mean as we just discussed part of -- of I don't know, it's a recalibration or just an effort to kind of win over some people who are undecided. Or dubious.</s>BORGER: You know, it's difficult to be on the attack all the time, all the time, all the time. When you're trying to convince skeptical voters to effectively like you. She knows what her trust numbers are. She knows that's a problem. And I think that they've really decided to take this turn to a larger context. To provide her vision for the presidency. To provide her vision for the nation. To move it to a different level here because I think they understand that voters are sick and tired of it and that they believe she can do this a lot better than Donald Trump can do this, who would like to be battling all the time. And I think she does understand that she needs to figure out a way to, if you will, humanize herself. I mean, that happened at the convention through her husband and her daughter, but they understand that she still needs to continue to do this for whatever reason.</s>COOPER: You know, Kirsten, as we look at these tightening poll numbers, I mean it just, again, reaffirms how important these upcoming debates are going to be.</s>POWERS: Definitely. Well, look, if you look at when she was doing well after the Democratic Convention, and there's a combination also that I don't think things went so well for her at the Republican Convention. But remember, that was a very aspirational message. It was, you know, when they go low, we go high. And I think that they need to try to get back to that message a little bit. Her problem, of course, is that a lot of her voters, lot of voters, frankly, on both sides, are motivated by their dislike of the other candidate. So, you know, more than an affirmative vote for the person that they're choosing and so she does need to still highlight the negatives about Donald Trump, but needs to find that balance of also being aspirational and upbeat and talking about herself and I hate that word, but humanizing herself the way she did ...</s>BORGER: Yeah, me too.</s>POWERS: ... at the convention.</s>COOPER: Kirsten Powers, thank you, Gloria Borger, John King as well. Just ahead, we have breaking news on the upcoming presidential debates, a new polling on which candidate voters expect to do better and what that says about how both candidates might want to prepare for their face-offs.