Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will be joining former House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi on the political junk pile come November 4th.
The abject desperation of the Democrats is beginning to show – and how. It is not only the stark reality that the Senate may take a decidedly Republican turn, but now the House looks bleaker than generally thought. Vulnerable incumbents are the main priority for Democrats with less than a week before the election, according to the New York Times.
States generally considered Democratic strongholds such as New York, California and Hawaii are now in the mix for fresh Republican faces. In fact, President Obama’s adopted state of Illinois may find a score of new Republicans. The question now is, can the GOP create a majority of House seats that passes their post-WWII number of 246? The current breakdown is 233-199 in favor of the Republicans with three vacancies.
Rep. Steve Israel, D-N.Y., chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said “We’re in trench warfare. I’m not going to sugarcoat it.” Meanwhile, Rep. Greg Walden of Oregon, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee joked, “Heck, it’s been so long since a Republican was elected to the Congress in Massachusetts, most Republicans don’t know how to spell Massachusetts.”
For the first time in memory, the National Democrats are coordinating with local campaigns in Nevada, Hawaii and California in hopes of holding seats. The Democrats have invested $1.1 million in an effort to protect six incumbents in Georgia, Illinois, Minnesota, West Virginia and California.
As Rep. Israel put it, “It’s a tough climate, it’s getting tougher. It’s the worst climate for Democrats since 2010, but it won’t be 2010. We knew that this was coming and we prepared for it.” Israel didn’t mention that his party lost 63 seats that year alone. Meanwhile, Rep. Walden quipped, “It’s a referendum year on the president and his policies. We faced it in ’06, and I know how ugly it can be.”
Democrats have out-raised their GOP counterparts, but the key is the outside Republican groups. They have the edge over Democratic-leaning groups $49 million to $31 million since July 1. The consensus among many pollsters in the last week of campaigning is the Democrats face the single biggest defeat in the history of midterm elections.
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