00:00Republicans to hold on to the Senate need to outperform polls the way that
00:04they have in most recent election cycles and just hold on to four of those toss
00:10up seats. The head of the House Republican campaign arm told me last
00:16month that he sees it as just a bunch of knife fights. Republicans are heading
00:20into the midterm cycle as the clear underdog especially when it comes to
00:23battle for control of the House but even to a certain extent with the Senate
00:28which is generally seen as much more of a toss-up although a bunch of prominent
00:32forecasters have given Democrats the edge there and this is due to a number of
00:37reasons. Most significantly is President Trump's low approval ratings but then
00:41there are also concerns about high gas prices, high diesel prices, the conflict
00:46in Iran, affordability issues and more. And then there's just the history of this
00:52where since 1938 the party control of the White House has lost House seats in
00:58all but two election cycles and Republicans were heading into this
01:02midterm election cycle with a really really historically slim majority of 219
01:09seats when you include Kevin Kiley from California who's an independent that
01:14caucuses with them. So Democrats only needed to have a few pickup seats and they
01:20are at a polling advantage. In fact the Cook Political Report which is usually
01:24pretty conservative in how it ranks things indicates that right now Democrats
01:29are favored to win at least 220 seats. You need 218 seats to get a majority. So
01:34already right now the Cook Political Report is saying Democrats are favored and
01:40then there are 17 toss-up seats after that. Republican leadership has continued to
01:45convey confidence that they can pull off an upset here despite almost
01:50all the prominent forecasters and even many Republican operatives expecting
01:53Republicans to lose control of the House. Their theory is that Republicans have
01:58consistently outperformed polling numbers in most recent election cycles and
02:04they believe that they could do that again then they believe that there's an
02:08advantage that they have because of redistricting. The head of the House
02:13Republican campaign arm told me last month that he sees it as just a bunch of
02:19knife fights basically and Republicans feel that they have a lot of strong
02:23incumbents and strong candidates. Now on the Senate side it's interesting because
02:29earlier this year Republicans were generally seen as the favorites to hold on
02:34to the upper chamber but as time went on it became much more difficult for them
02:40because Republicans had various issues with candidate equality. The Senate does
02:44not have the same history of the House as you know consistently losing midterm
02:49elections for the party in control of the White House. It's been much more of a
02:53mixed bag but the Senate really is a really tight toss-up depending on how you
03:00categorize it at least seven toss-up races on the Senate side so that would
03:05include Alaska, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Michigan, Ohio, and Texas and basically in
03:11order to hold the Senate Republicans need to win four of those races to get a
03:1750-seat majority and then the Vice President would be the tiebreaker and if
03:22you look at the polling aggregates for all those races they're pretty much
03:26within one to two to maybe three percentage points so they're really close
03:31races. Republicans have a history of outperforming in Maine with Susan
03:37Collins, Michigan. Michigan is one seat that Democrats have that's an open seat
03:42now that Republicans are hoping to flip and they're certainly in the running to
03:46potentially do that. So basically Republicans to hold on to the Senate need
03:49to outperform polls the way that they have in most recent election cycles. It's a
03:55little bit different than in the House where they were really kind of
03:59significantly have to overperform the polls in the House. In the Senate it's they
04:02just kind of need to do what they've typically done and just hold on to four
04:07of those toss-up seats and we've seen President Trump really do a midterm blitz
04:13across those competitive states to try to ensure that Republicans can do that. The
04:19Senate is really key because that's what the president needs in order to get some
04:24of his nominations through is Senate approval and of course with the Supreme
04:29Court we know that Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas they're getting up
04:34there in terms of age they could want to retire in a few years so if Republicans
04:39lose the Senate they could be at risk of you know losing this control
04:45ideological control of the Supreme Court and it's definitely within reach for
04:51Republicans while the House seems a bit more of a stretch.
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