It's notes from America. I'm Kai Wright and you're listening to our pop-up election series on the call.

It's where I'm just wringing up, people who are smart about some aspect of this

now quite exciting election cycle and picking their brains

this week as the Democratic National Convention

unfolds, I figured it's time to talk a little horse race. I found myself kind of

of obsessing over some survey data that the Cook political report published.

So on the call, I've got Patrick Toomey who helped create the polling I've been obsessing over.

He's a partner at the research firm, BSG, which is collaborating with the Cook Political

Report on what they're calling the Swing State Project.

That is just what it sounds like.

They're polling in seven swing states,

and they've just released their August numbers.

Patrick, thank you for getting on the call with me.

Thank you so much for having me to talk about the polling.

Coming live from the Democratic National Convention, I should say also, and I should say for context,

your background in political polling has been with a lot of Democratic Party organizations

including the Obama White House.

That's correct.

How's it at the DNC?

What's going on there?

It's very exciting to be here.

I think we've gone from a party where there was a lot of hand-winging and concern

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