National GOP predicts Senate victory

The top GOP strategist tasked with winning Senate control said unequivocally that his party will accomplish that goal next month.

{mosads}”We are going to win the Senate. I feel very good about that,” National Republican Senatorial Committee Executive Director Rob Collins told reporters in a Thursday meeting.

“These races have been tough, they’ve been a grind, but we’re seeing movement in our right direction. I feel really good about where we are,” Collins continued. “I think we’re going to take the Senate. I think we’re going to take it on election night.”

Collins joked that if the GOP doesn’t win, “I’ll be in an unmarked grave in Kentucky,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-Kent.) home state.

Republicans need to pick up a net gain of six seats to win Senate control, and it appears increasingly likely that they’ll be able to do so, though the Senate map is still volatile with fewer than three weeks until Election Day.

The GOP is expected to win open seats in Montana and West Virginia, and Collins said the battle between Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) and Rep. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) is “getting very close to being a decided affair in our view.”

Collins ran through the races one by one, sounding the most bullish about Louisiana and Alaska and arguing the GOP has expanded the map to include a number of purple and blue states. Republicans are very competitive in Colorado and Iowa, both Democratic-held states where the party has held slight leads in public polling. Collins predicted it would win both. 

He conceded not everything is moving in the right direction, however, admitting that Georgia has been problematic in recent weeks due to questions about businessman David Perdue’s (R) outsourcing past.

Collins admitted the race has “tightened up” and said “Perdue needs to get through the current debate” about his career and turn the focus to former charity executive Michelle Nunn (D).

“Georgia is tight. That’s why you saw us put $1.4 million in,” he said. “We’re going to have to articulate why Michelle Nunn is going to be a rubber stamp for Obama.”

In two other red states, Collins argued the GOP would be fine.

He said that after a rough patch, Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) has bounced back by ripping independent businessman Greg Orman.

“We’ve set that up as a choice and that’s going to work for us,” he said of Roberts communicating with voters. “We had to have a very direct conversation and that’s working.”

He also admitted South Dakota was a “tight race.”

“We put a million bucks in there just to make sure we’re not going to have a problem,” he said. 

This post was updated at 2:20 p.m.