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. Republican leadership has continued to
00:52convey confidence that they can pull off an upset here despite almost all the
00:56prominent forecasters and even many Republican operatives expecting
01:00Republicans to lose control of the House. Their theory is that Republicans have
01:04consistently outperformed polling numbers in most recent election cycles. The
01:10head of the House Republican campaign arm told me last month that he sees it as
01:17just a bunch of knife fights basically and Republicans feel that they have a lot of
01:22strong incumbents and strong candidates. Now on the Senate side it's interesting
01:27because earlier this year Republicans were generally seen as the favorites to
01:33hold on to the upper chamber but as time went on it became much more difficult for
01:38them because Republicans had various issues with candidate quality but the Senate
01:43really is a really tight toss-up and we've seen President Trump really do a
01:50midterm blitz across those competitive states to try to ensure that Republicans
01:55can do that and it's definitely within reach for Republicans while the House
02:01seems a bit more of a stretch.
