Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell acknowledged Wednesday that 2018 will likely be a challenging year for Republicans and that they will face headwinds as Democrats look to retake both the Senate and the House in November.
“This is going to be a challenging election year,” McConnell told Kentucky Today. “We know the wind is going to be in our face. We don’t know whether it’s going to be a Category 3, 4 or 5.”
“I’m hoping we can hold the Senate,” the Kentucky Republican said. “And the principle reason for that, even if we were to lose the House and be stymied legislatively, we could still approve appointments, which is a huge part of what we do.”
Despite his caution, only nine Republican Senate seats are up in November, including one vacated by former Sen. Thad Cochran this week in Mississippi, compared to 26 seats held either by Democrats or independents that vote with Democrats. Ten of the Democratic seats are held by senators in states where President Trump was victorious in 2016.
McConnell hopes the tax reform package passed in December will help Republicans keep both chambers in November, and cautioned that if Democrats regain control of both chambers, they will try to repeal the tax law just like Republicans have with the Affordable Care Act since its passage in 2010.
“It’s noteworthy that when we did comprehensive tax reform 30 years ago, we left it alone for four years before the political winds shifted and we started playing with it again,” he said. McConnell snapped his fingers to show how quickly Democrats would try to change the rules “the next time the political winds shift.”
Republicans currently hold a one-seat advantage in the Senate after Sen. Doug Jones, D-Ala., won the Alabama special election in December, and have a 23-seat advantage in the House.
