Gop Senate Outlook Grows Dimmer Amid Quality Of Nominees Concerns.

During a stop in Kentucky on Thursday, McConnell admitted that the House is more likely to turn red than the Senate — a statement that, while in line with election forecasts, shows how Republicans are less worried about upper chamber races from three months before the midterm elections. “I think there’s probably a better chance of flipping the House than the Senate,” McConnell told reporters when asked about his midterm expectations, according to NBC News. “Senate races are just different — they’re statewide, the quality of the candidates has a lot to do with the outcome,” he added. McConnell’s remarks were a clear reference to candidates endorsed by former President Trump in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Arizona and Georgia, who are trailing their Democratic rivals in at least some recent polls. On Thursday, the nonpartisan Cook Political Report changed its rating for the Pennsylvania Senate race from “flying up” to “weakly Democratic,” signaling headwinds for Republican Mehmet Oz in his race against Lt. Gov. John Fetterman (R). . The shift came amid the crudité controversy in the Keystone State. Oz came under fire when Fetterman’s campaign re-released a video the TV doctor released in April showing him shopping for crudité in an attempt to show the effects of inflation. The Democratic campaign seized on the video, with the candidate tweeting “In PA we call it… a vegetable tray,” the latest move in his attempt to paint Oz as a New Jersey carpetbagger. Fetterman’s team said it raised more than $500,000 within 24 hours of the video’s release. The lieutenant commander remains comfortably ahead of Oz in the FiveThirtyEight average, 49.1 percent to 37.7 percent. Republican concerns in Ohio’s Senate race also became clearer this week when the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported that the McConnell-aligned Senate Leadership Fund was pouring $28 million into the state for television and radio ads boosting the author ” Hillbilly Elegy,” JD Vance, the Republican candidate for the Senate. is battling Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio). The investment marked a big jump from the roughly $5 million national Republicans had previously poured into the race. Ryan has a slight lead over Vance, 43.9 percent to 42.7 percent, according to the FiveThirtyEight polling average. In Georgia, GOP candidate Herschel Walker struggled to get past incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock (D). Walker, a former college football Heisman Trophy winner, has come under fire for various lies and amid revelations that he has more children than was publicly known. In Arizona, Sen. Mark Kelly (D) has a lead in the polls over Trump-backed Republican Blake Masters. Kelly was up 50.3% to 42% in the FiveThirtyEight polling average. McConnell — who in November said he was “optimistic” that the 2022 midterm elections would be “very good” for Republicans — has been managing expectations for months. In April, he said it was “really possible” for Republicans to “screw up” in November, despite a perfect storm brewing for the GOP, including President Biden’s low approval ratings and rising inflation. Earlier this month, he predicted during a television interview that the Senate race in November would be “very tight.” “I think when the smoke of the Senate race clears, we’re likely to have a very, very close Senate still, with us slightly up or the Democrats slightly up,” he said. Since then, the outlook has worsened for Republicans, with more candidate and polling infighting plaguing the party. And McConnell’s latest prediction shows he’s taking note. “Right now, we have a 50-50 Senate and a 50-50 state, but I think when it’s all said and done this fall, we’re likely to have an extremely close Senate, either our side slightly up or the them up slightly,” McConnell said in Kentucky on Thursday. Democrats are favored to win the Senate 64 percent to 36 percent, according to FiveThirtyEight. “I think what McConnell said is objectively true, but it was objectively true,” Scott Jennings, who previously worked for the Kentucky Republican, told The Hill in an interview. “Going back several months, it was pretty obvious that everyone, including forecasters, said it would be much easier and predictable for the Republicans to take the House,” he added. The Senate map makes things tougher for Republicans this cycle, despite positive national headwinds. The few states that will ultimately determine control of the Senate are mostly contests in places where Biden beat Trump in 2020. Republicans are also defending open seats in Pennsylvania and Ohio while trying to unseat Democratic incumbents in other swing states. “The Senate map wasn’t that good,” Jennings said. “Obviously the environment is good, but the Senate map is not as welcoming to takeover as it is in the House.” “Midterms were always going to be challenging under the best of circumstances because of the nature of the map and how many of these competitive races were purple and blue states like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin that historically went Democratic more often than Republican. over the last 30 years,” Republican Sen. Colin Reed told The Hill. Strategists also noted that some of those GOP candidates emerged from wild, bruising primaries, still reeling from the competition. “It’s pretty obvious in the polls that they’re still suffering from the hangover from the brutality of these primaries,” Jennings said, pointing to tight caucuses won by Vance and Oz in Ohio and Pennsylvania. In zeroing in on Oz — who beat former hedge fund CEO David McCormick — Jennings said the primary race “had a real impact on his image.” “It’s just going to take some time to repair it and get it back to a place where it can actually work,” he added. Candidates must also “adjust [their] message accordingly” after the GOP primaries, according to Reed. He emphasized the need for Republicans to move away from re-running the 2020 presidential election. “Those people who can’t make that rotation and make those adjustments are the ones who struggle,” the quarterback said. US calls for Navalny’s release on second anniversary of poisoning Kinzinger says Pompeo ‘did all the bidding of Donald Trump’ while serving as secretary of state With just over 80 days until the election, strategists noted that there is plenty of time for GOP candidates to course-correct and gain interest in the polls. But Republicans are still bracing for the Senate’s fate to collapse. “It’s very easy to see that a Republican majority in the Senate next year is a coin flip, at best, and far from certain,” Reid said.