Is there a pathway for Republicans to win the midterms?

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