The blue wave is going to hit with a vengeance in Tuesday’s midterm elections, according to pollsters who say Democrats should easily capture the 23…
The blue wave is going to hit with a vengeance in Tuesday’s midterm elections, according to pollsters who say Democrats should easily capture the 23 seats they need to regain control of the House.
But an upbeat President Trump predicted victory in the Senate — where pollsters say the GOP has a good chance to maintain or widen its majority — and even the House.
“There is a great electricity in the air like we haven’t seen, in my opinion, since the ’16 election,” Trump told reporters before leaving for a rally in Cleveland.
“So, something’s happening . .. I think we’re going to do very well in the House. I have never seen the energy that we have, the energy that this whole party has now, it’s really incredible.”
Whatever the outcome, Trump made it clear these midterm elections are about him.
“In a sense, I am on the ticket,” he said at the rally.
Earlier, in a telephone town hall. the president urged supporters to get out and vote because “the press is very much considering it a referendum on me and us as a movement.”
Every major poll said Trump is wrong about the Republicans maintaining control of the House.
The political Web site FiveThirtyEight calculated that Democrats had an 87.5 percent chance of winning it back.
Similarly, The Cook Political Report said Republicans had a tougher road to maintaining their majority.
“We rate 75 races as competitive, including 70 GOP-held seats and just five held by Democrats. A ‘Red Exodus’ is contributing to the potential ‘Blue Wave.’ Of Republicans’ 41 open seats, 15 are rated as toss-ups or worse, and another five only lean Republican,” according to the Web site.
Sabato’s Crystal Ball, a Web site run by University of Virginia Center for Politics Director Larry Sabato, predicted that Democrats would easily pick up the necessary 23 seats.
But it also cautioned that anything was possible with the country so deeply divided and memories of Trump’s upset win in 2016 still fresh in mind.
Most polls predicted similar results, with a CNN generic ballot survey showing Democrats ahead of Republicans by 55 percent to 42 percent, and the RealClearPolitics average of generic polls showing Democrats leading with 49.7 percent compared with 42.4 percent for Republicans.
But the final Politico/Morning Consult poll prior to the midterms was an outlier, showing Republicans cutting into Democrats’ lead on the generic congressional ballot.
According to that poll, 43 percent of registered voters would vote for the Democratic congressional candidate in their district — only slightly more than the 40 percent who would vote for the Republican candidate.
Meanwhile, political donors who identify themselves as “retired” gave 52 percent of the $326 million they contributed through Oct. 17 to Democrats, compared with 48 percent to Republicans, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.
That’s an about-face from four years ago — and a midterm record.
At the Cleveland rally, Trump accused Democrats of “inviting caravan after caravan of illegal aliens to flood into our country and overwhelm your communities,” and attacked the media and Hillary Clinton, prompting the usual “Lock Her Up!” chant from his fervent fans.
He also claimed that work had begun on his long-promised border wall, sparking “Build the Wall” chants, and declared that Democrats would destroy health care.
They will “take away your health care. You can forget it. You’re gonna live in a socialist world,” he predicted, adding that he would fix it.
“We’re going to be the ones that solve the health care,” the president said.
He was less combative in an interview with Sinclair Broadcasting — even to the point of conceding that perhaps he should tone down his rhetoric.
“I would like to have a much softer tone. I feel, to a certain extent, I have no choice. But maybe I do. And maybe I could’ve been softer from that standpoint,” he said.
“I would love to get along, and I think after the election, a lot of things can happen. But right now, they [the Democrats] are in their mode, and we are in our mode.
“And you know if you’re criticized, you have to hit back, or you should.”
