McConnell Warns GOP May Not Retake Senate Despite High Likelihood House Flips

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) expressed doubt that the Republican Party could gain a majority in the upper chamber in the midterm elections.

He cited “candidate quality” as a reason the GOP could struggle as it hopes to flip several swing seats and ward off Democratic bids for vulnerable Republican seats.

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“I think there’s probably a greater likelihood the House flips than the Senate,” McConnell said Thursday, according to NBC News. “Senate races are just different. They’re statewide. Candidate quality has a lot to do with the outcome.”

McConnell has repeatedly butted heads with former President Donald Trump, and some took his mention of “candidate quality” as a knock on Trump’s hand-picked candidates in several crucial races.

The former president’s picks in Pennsylvania and Georgia are down in the polls. Dr. Mehmet Oz, the Republican Trump-backed nominee in Pennsylvania, is trailing his Democratic opponent, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, by an average of 11 percentage points in the polls, while former NFL player Herschel Walker, Trump’s pick in Georgia, has been plagued by missteps and scandals.

McConnell has been cautious about heralding a red wave before it comes. In April, he remarked that although the political environment looked like a “perfect storm” of problems for Democrats, it was “actually possible” that Republicans could “screw this up.”

“In the Senate, if you look at where we have to compete in order to get into a majority, there are places that are competitive in the general election,” McConnell said. “So, you can’t nominate somebody who’s just sort of unacceptable to a broader group of people and win. We had that experience in 2010 and 2012.”

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Republicans need to net at least one seat to break the 50-50 partisan split in the Senate that gives Vice President Kamala Harris the tiebreaking vote, a battle in which the GOP must simultaneously defend the vulnerable Republican senators up for reelection.

“We are just beginning to communicate about the deep flaws that their roster of candidates brings to these races,” David Bergstein, the spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said last week. “Their personal and political vulnerabilities are going to continue to be a centerpiece of these Senate campaigns in the months ahead.”