As voters headed to the polls Tuesday for one the most closely watched midterm elections in recent history, one thing was clear: the enthusiasm of House Democratic leaders.
“I feel confident we will win,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said on Tuesday, decked out in a bright blue dress at her party’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. “Because of the quality of our candidates, which inspires a tremendous grassroots operation … I feel confident we will win, its just a question of the size of victory.”
Democrats need to gain 23 seats in order to regain the majority in the lower chamber, a position of power they haven’t been in since 2010. A CNN poll released on Nov. 5 found that Democrats led Republicans on a generic ballot by 13 points, 55 percent to 42 percent. With the first polls not slated to close until 6 P.M. eastern, polling was the only indicators both parties had on Tuesday of their prospects. (Although early voting prior to Election Day was up, the turnout numbers don’t necessarily reveal how constituents voted).
Republicans hadn’t publicly given up hope Tuesday though that they could pull off a victory, and continued making their push to voters. “The choice is clear: it’s a choice between prosperity and higher taxes. I think Americans will choose prosperity,” Rep. Steve Stivers, Chairman of the National Republican Congressional Campaign Committee, said Tuesday on Fox News.
Overall, however, Republicans seem much more optimistic about keeping the Senate than the House.
“It could happen,” President Trump acknowledged this past Friday evening about losing the lower chamber, echoing the same sentiments many strategists and lawmakers have been forecasting for the past year.
Read More: President Trump Signals Doubt About Keeping the House Ahead of Midterms
Of course, Democrats have been in this position before: two years ago, polling indicated that Hillary Clinton was more likely become the next President of the United States, and she fell short in a night that shocked the country. But Pelosi brushed off such comparisons Tuesday, arguing that Clinton won the popular vote, and was handicapped by the Electoral College, which won’t be a factor in House races.
“The popular vote rules,” she said. “So I feel very confident.”
Unlike 2016, however, Democrats have historical trends on their side. The party in the White House often loses seats after a President’s first two years in office, even if the President isn’t a controversial figure like Trump. In the 2010 midterm elections, which were widely viewed as a referendum on then-President Obama and the Affordable Care Act, Republicans picked up 63 House seats and six Senate seats — numbers the Democrats are not expected to hit tonight.
All losses, the party sustains however, are likely to be deemed a referendum on President Trump, even if the total number is lower than what the Democrats faced in 2010.
“The president absolutely is the focal point. His actions, his verbage, he’s clearly the focal point,” said Tim Phillips, President of the Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity, which has poured millions into certain races this cycle to help preserve the Republican majority.
Phillips noted that, while this is frequently the case, the focus seems to be more on rhetoric this time than on policy.
“In 2010… it was more about did you agree or disagree with Obamacare?” he recalled. “With President Trump more about the tone and the rhetoric, rather than his tax cuts, for example, which have clearly helped the economy.”
