It's the Brian Lera Show on WNYC.

Good morning, everyone.

The presidential election is underway in some states, election day itself, November 5th is drawing ever closer.

And in our weekly Monday morning politics segment, we're looking at swing states with guests from those states and inviting your calls if you're in or connected to those states.

Today we'll take a detour from the seven main battleground states that you always hear about and discuss some

possible swing states that aren't usually considered swing states. Politico reports that the race

is close in Virginia, according to the polls there. In recent cycles, Virginia was a fairly comfortable

blue state in presidential elections, But in at least three states generally

consider deep red, the race is closer than people might have imagined there. Trump's lead in

Alaska is down to single digits. That made some news last week. We will focus more closely now

on two other states where Harris and some down-ballot

Democrats might have a surprisingly good chance to win. Iowa and Texas. From Iowa, we welcome Jay Ann

Selser, public opinion researcher and president of the Des Moines, Iowa-based polling firm,

Selzer and Company.

From Texas, we welcome Alexandra Samuels, senior editor at Texas Monthly.

Jan and Alexandra, welcome to WNYC.

Hello from New York.

Thank you so much for giving us some time from your states.

Hello. Yes, happy to be here.

And, Selser, I saw you on TV last week saying your jaw dropped looking at the difference

between your poll results for the Des Moines Register in June compared to just recently. Would you

tell us that story? That story is, I don't drop my

...