Rick Scott says he expects Republicans will win at least 52 Senate seats

Sen. Rick Scott (Fla.), chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said on Sunday he expects the GOP will win at least 52 Senate seats on Election Day.

Speaking with CNN “State of the Union” co-anchor Dana Bash, Scott painted a rosy picture of Republican battleground nominees’ chances in next week’s midterm elections, saying he believes the GOP will win in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Arizona and Nevada, if not other states.

“We’re gonna get 52 plus,” Scott said. “Herschel Walker will win in Georgia. We’re going to keep all 21 of ours. [Mehmet] Oz is going to win against [John] Fetterman in Pennsylvania. Adam Laxalt will win in Nevada.”

Republicans are seen as heavy favorites to win control of the House, but the Senate appears to be a closer contest, according to recent polling.

Nonpartisan election analyst FiveThirtyEight’s model suggests Democrats have a 53 percent chance of maintaining their razor-thin majority in the upper chamber, while Republicans are close behind with a 47 percent chance. Democrats had held a lead over the summer, but it appears to have wavered in recent weeks.

Scott on Sunday projected Senate Republicans will have a stronger-than-expected performance on election night, suggesting Don Bolduc in New Hampshire will win in an upset against Sen. Maggie Hassan (D) and Tiffany Smiley and Joe O’Dea will do the same in Washington and Colorado, respectively.

Those three nominees have been trailing their opponents in most polls. 

But the political environment has shifted toward Republicans in recent weeks and tightened many of those Democratic candidates’ leads, providing glimmers of hope within the GOP that the party could eke out more seats than anticipated.

Scott has previously suggested that Republicans may win as many as 55 seats in the midterms.

“This is our year. The Democrats can’t run on anything they’ve done,” Scott told Bash. “People don’t like what they’ve done. They don’t like high inflation. They don’t like gas prices, food prices up. They don’t like it. The public doesn’t like an open border. They don’t like they don’t like high crime. And that’s what the Democrats are known for.”