House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) expressed confidence on Monday that Democrats would easily win back the House if the midterm elections were held today.
“If the election were held today, the Democrats would handily win the House,” Pelosi said during a CNN political forum. “I can only speak in the present tense, because you never know in another couple of weeks. … I’m telling you what would happen today.”
“But we fully intend to own the ground, not yield one grain of sand, and get out the vote,” she added. “And that makes all the difference.”
{mosads}With just two weeks to go before Election Day, Democrats are feeling hopeful anti-Trump fervor and women energized by the “Me Too” movement will bring them back to power for the first time since 2010.
Democrats need a net gain of 23 seats to win control of the lower chamber, and the president’s party typically loses around 30 seats in the midterms.
Further boosting Democratic hopes is that a new NBC–Wall Street Journal poll shows voters prefer Democrats over Republicans by a 9-point margin.
At the same time, Democrats on Monday sought to tamp down talk of a “blue wave,” with Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez saying he doesn’t use the term and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who has been campaigning for House candidates, saying he expects the results will be close.
Trump, who has been hitting the campaign trail and revving up the GOP base in recent weeks, has seen his job approval rating reach an all-time high, to 47 percent, according to the NBC–Wall Street Journal poll.
And there is also record-level enthusiasm on both sides, with Republicans experiencing a major bump after the bitter fight to confirm Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
While Pelosi on Monday expressed confidence about the Democrats’ chances, she also cautioned that a blue wave is not guaranteed and urged everyone to head to the polls on Nov. 6.
“We don’t take anything for granted,” Pelosi said. “We just want everyone to vote.”