With 20 days until the presidential election, Phil Musser, former Romney advisor and advisor to Gov. Mike Pence, says the Trump campaign needs to focus on the Clinton WikiLeaks scandal as opposed to making rigged election claims.
Musser told CNBC's "Squawk on the Street" that "the Trump campaign would be wise to really focus on [the WikiLeaks] issue, because this is an opportunity to pivot and point out the rigged nature of the system as opposed to going to the electoral vote process where there's no evidence."
Christy Setzer, a Democratic strategist who's served as senior advisor for Al Gore, Chris Dodd and Howard Dean also told "Squawk on the Street" that she believes the voter fraud claims are "extremely, extremely overblown. The real problem for Donald Trump in bringing up this talk is that it depresses the very people who he wants to bring out to the polls."
Setzer adds that Trump's inability to stay on message puts Hillary Clinton in "such a dominant position that she's frankly more likely to win Texas than Trump is to win Pennsylvania."
However, Musser still maintains that "Donald Trump remains very, very close to Hillary Clinton in a lot of swing state polls" with the down-ballot fluctuating constantly in polling.
But Musser acknowledges there's a "separation between how people view Trump and how they view Republican members of the House and Senate." Even adding, "I wish there was an ETF for pollsters — I'd buy it."
In preparation for the final debate, Musser maintains that focusing on the Clinton WikiLeaks issue and re-enforcing Trump's message of how he will "make America great again" is critical to share with the American people.
The final presidential debate is scheduled for this Wednesday at 9 p.m. E.T.
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