Cook Political Report: Dems to take Senate

The nonpartisan Cook Political Report predicted on Tuesday that the Democratic Party would see a net gain of five to seven Senate seats in next month’s elections, giving them a slim majority regardless of which party takes the White House.

{mosads}Cook said that Senate Republican candidates appeared to be doing well across the country, despite the unpopularity of their presidential nominee, Donald Trump, up until a 2005 video surfaced earlier this month of Trump making sexually explicit comments about women.

At that point, according to Cook, the GOP’s chances of keeping the Senate began to “unravel.” Before the video was released, Cook had predicted that Democrats would have a net gain of between four and six Senate seats.

“Early voting is underway in 27 states, so Republicans don’t really have much time to turn things around, and Trump won’t be any help, especially since his campaign doesn’t really have a ground game to speak of,” the report reads. 

“The GOP’s only hope is to start running a checks-and-balances message, or more blatantly, a don’t-give-Clinton-a-blank-check message to motivate their base, particularly what one strategist called ‘casual Republicans,’ to the polls,” referring to Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

Cook also noted that of the six states it has classified as toss-ups in the Senate race, Trump leads in just two.

“History shows that races in the Toss Up column never split down the middle; one party tends to win the lion’s share of them,” the report says. 

“Since 1998, no party has won less than 67 percent of the seats in Toss Up. While the 2016 election has broken every political science rule and trend, we’d be surprised if this becomes one of them.”