Cantor: GOP will win back Senate this year

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) predicted Monday the GOP would win back control of the Senate this year.  

Cantor also said it would be a good election year for Republicans in the House given that “there is a lot in this economy right now that isn’t working for people.”

{mosads}“I think it will be a good election year for us in the House, and I also think that the Republicans will also do very well and take the Senate,” Cantor told Maria Bartiromo on Fox Business Network. 

He said, however, that most people are not yet focused on the election. 

Democrats face a tough landscape in the midterm elections. Republicans currently have a 17-seat advantage in the House, and they need to net six seats in order to win back control of the Senate.

Cantor also brushed aside a Democratic proposal to hike the minimum wage, a priority outlined in President Obama’s State of the Union address and something House Democrats have attempted to push with a discharge petition in the House. 

Instead, Cantor is touting a bill that would repeal a provision in the healthcare law that defines a full-time worker as someone who works at least 30 hours per week. 

Last week, Cantor said the House would vote on the measure sponsored by Rep. Todd Young (R-Ind.) in March. The bill’s effect on workers’ income would largely equal a hike to the minimum wage, he said on Fox Business.  

“What that means is let’s roll back the regulation under ObamaCare which has taken the 40-hour work week down to 30 hours,” he said. “If you just restore that, you are adding 25 percent to the wage earner’s paycheck. Those people making minimum wage who would benefit from that would almost be made equal to that which the president is calling for under his minimum wage hike.”

He cited a Congressional Budget Office report released last week that found raising the minimum wage could cost 500,000 jobs in 2016.