Campaign

RNC chair predicts Senate will be narrowly split after midterms: ‘I think it’ll be one seat either way’

by Jared Gans - 10/14/22 10:27 PM ET

Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel gives remarks to a packed room at the opening of the RNC’s new Hispanic Community Center in Suwanee, Ga., on Wednesday, June 29, 2022. (AP Photo/Ben Gray)

Ronna McDaniel, the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, predicted that the Senate will remain narrowly split following next month’s midterm elections.

“I think it’ll be one seat either way,” McDaniel said in an interview with Gray TV, a multimedia company that owns local television stations throughout the country.

The interview will air on Saturday and Sunday as part of the sixth episode of the company’s “Election 2022 Just the Facts” series.

McDaniel said she expects Republicans will retake the majority in the House and that the GOP will “retire” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). She also said she expects the Senate will be tight, but predicted that Republicans will win the majority there too.

She said the party has many Republican incumbents retiring, and the GOP needs to pick up a seat with a Democratic incumbent in Arizona, Nevada, Georgia or New Hampshire. She said races in Colorado and Washington are also in play.

McDaniel said Republican Mehmet Oz has built momentum against Lt. Gov. John Fetterman (D) in the race for retiring Sen. Pat Toomey’s (R-Pa.) seat.

“Oz is peaking right now,” she said. “I think Oz is going to surpass Fetterman and win that race.”

McDaniel said Herschel Walker, the Republican nominee for Senate in Georgia, has been “very forthcoming” about his struggles with mental health and overcoming them.

“He is somebody who goes into the state of Georgia and says, ‘I want to be a voice in Washington for people who are dealing with inflation, with crime,’ things that [Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.)] has turned his back on as he has voted in lockstep with [President] Biden,” she said.

Walker has faced controversy this month after reports that he paid for an abortion in 2009 for his girlfriend at the time despite running on a platform opposed to the procedure, with no exceptions for rape, incest or protecting the life of the pregnant person.

McDaniel said the race could go to a runoff, as neither candidate appears to be topping 50 percent in the polls. She said Walker has done well articulating to voters what he would do in the Senate and not getting distracted by “smear campaigns” from Democrats.