Tuesday on her MSNBC show, Rachel Maddow weighed in on the upcoming down-ballot Election Day contests.
While she did not rule out Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton winning the presidency, she seemed to rule out the possibility of the Democrats regaining the House of Representatives on Election Day.
“Democrats pretty much concede this year that they have no chance of winning back control of the House in November. There just aren’t enough competitive districts in the country right now, thanks to partisan gerrymandering, what they’re hoping for, the best they’re hoping for is to get about halfway there towards unseating House Speaker Paul Ryan and putting the House back in Democratic control. Democrats would have to flip about 30 seats in order to make the House Democratic again. They think they might, might be able to get about half that, they might be able to get about 15 seats. So they’re not really even expecting any chance of taking over the House.”
As for the Senate, she suggested much is reliant upon Clinton’s performance election night.
“[T]he problem for Democrats is it doesn’t necessarily look like Hillary Clinton is going to have a great night on November 8,” she added. “We don’t know. We’re still, seven weeks out, who is counting? But the polls are basically sort of tied up in the presidential race. If the polls continue to stay this close or if Donald Trump pulls out ahead, there may not be Clinton coattails for all these Democratic senator candidates to grab on to.”
She went on to say without traditional Republican donors giving to the GOP nominee, it could mean more money for candidates down ballot and more of a struggle for the Democrats looking to take over the Senate.
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.