Keith Ellison has a prediction. The deputy chair of the Democratic National Committee believes that Democrats will win back not just the House of Representatives in 2018, but the Senate as well.
“We’re going to take the House and we’re going to take the Senate,” the Minnesota congressman told me during a recent interview, following Democratic victories in the New Jersey and Virginia governors’ races on Tuesday and down-ballot wins in other states.
It wasn’t until June that chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Ben Ray Luján, a Democratic congressman from New Mexico, publicly said that “the House is in play in 2018,” or put another way: Democrats have a realistic shot at taking control back from Republicans in the midterm elections.
Winning back the House is a tall order, but winning back the Senate is likely to be even more difficult, which is why most Democrats in Congress aren’t confidently predicting it will happen. The Senate map favors Republicans, who only have to defend eight seats while Democrats have to protect twenty-five, including in states President Trump won by double-digit margins like North Dakota, West Virginia, Montana and Indiana.
Ellison has been right before when others weren’t. In a now-famous viral television exchange from 2015, Ellison said that Donald Trump had momentum, adding,“we better be ready for the fact that he might be leading the Republican ticket.” That pronouncement led ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos to laugh, before replying, “I know you don’t believe that.”
For more read the full of article at The Atlantic.
