Barack Obama, a bitter voter from Chicago, Ill., called into a talk radio program to complain about politics Tuesday afternoon.
Obama, a Democrat, seemed to temper expectations for his party’s Senate chances in the midterm elections, lamenting the difficult electoral map that Democrats face in 2014.
“When you look at the Senate races, because of the fact that a third of the Senate is up at any given time, it tends to be a little bit arbitrary which seats are really going to be contested, and which aren’t,” Obama said on WNPR’s The Colin McEnroe Show. “So for example, in this election cycle, this is possibly the worst possible group of states for Democrats since Dwight Eisenhower. There are a lot of states being contested where they just tend to tilt Republican. And Democrats are competitive, but they tend to tilt that way.”
Some have suggested that Republican capture of the Senate majority this year should expedite an amendment to the Constitution eliminating the midterm elections, since they tend to inconvenience Democratic administrations. Obama, a former constitutional law professor, didn’t comment on such a proposal.
Republicans need to net six seats this election cycle to secure a Senate majority. They are favored to do as much if not more, though the possibility of runoff elections in Louisiana and Georgia could delay an ultimate outcome for weeks.
