'50-50' chance for GOP to take Senate: Mitch McConnell

In the November midterm elections, Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, said Republicans had a 50 percent chance of taking control of the Senate.

The Senate has 50 Republicans and 50 Democrats caucusing with them, McConnell said. Democrats have a slim majority in the House, but Kamala Harris is the tiebreaker in the Senate.

“If both the House and the Senate flip, I think the president will be a moderate,” McConnell said. “He won’t have any choice. And so, we’ll try to find ways to make some progress for the country during the last two years of his term … but not big dramatic change.”

In an interview with local media one week prior, he made an even more dire prediction: Republicans will likely lose the Senate. His explanation was that expectations had been lowered due to low candidate quality.

There was a strong hope that Republicans would capture both chambers of Congress in the 2022 campaign. As a result of inflation, high gas prices, President Biden's low job approval numbers, and historical political trends, Democrats are under pressure. Midterm elections tend to be a loss of seats for the party of the president.

22 August 2022