With less than two weeks before Election Day, four key midterm races have shifted in the GOP’s favor, giving Republicans hope they can seize control of Congress in November.
Two House races in California, as well as one in Oregon and a Senate race in Arizona, have been updated by election forecasters to reflect GOP gains, with many shifting from leaning Democratic to being deemed as toss-ups.
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The Arizona Senate race between Republican Blake Masters and incumbent Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) has shifted from leaning Democratic to being rated as a toss-up, giving Republicans hope they can flip the seat red as part of their efforts to seize control of the upper chamber next month.
“We believe this is a race that’s within a point in either direction, and there’s still a good chance that we would lose,” a Democrat close to the Kelly campaign told Politico.
Meanwhile, a House race in Oregon has been updated to reflect GOP gains, with the state’s 5th District race between Rep. Kurt Schrader (R-OR) and Jamie McLeod-Skinner leaning toward the Republican incumbent. The race was previously considered a toss-up.
“This is a Democratic-leaning area that Joe Biden won by 9 [points],” Dan Conston, president of the Congressional Leadership Fund, told the outlet. “In a district like that, we’ve been able to focus on what’s going on in Portland with police cuts, homelessness as an issue, and saying this is what [McLeod-Skinner] wants to bring, and this is the reality of her policies. And I’ll tell you, last week, Democrats walked away from that district. … [Schrader] would have been immeasurably tougher. Could we have beaten him? Maybe. But it would have been a seriously hard fight.”
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Additionally, two House races in California have been shifted in Republicans’ favor. California’s 27th District has been rated as leaning Republican after formerly being deemed a toss-up, and the 49th District has been moved into toss-up territory after initially leaning Democratic. If those two races hold steady for Republicans, it could help the party seize control of the House as part of its efforts to gain majorities in both chambers of Congress.
The updated races leave Republicans favored to win at least 213 House seats, just five shy of the 218 needed to clinch the majority. Democrats are favored to win 195, and 27 remain up for grabs as toss-up races.
