MILWAUKEE — If you take one thing away from this week’s Republican National Convention, it should be that the GOP is confident about victory in November. Very confident.
The party sees a lagging President Joe Biden, a very favorable Senate map and an overall political environment that could sink House Democrats.
But beneath all the bluster, some House Republicans are concerned that the bold predictions may be a bit premature.
“I’m a little nervous about the House,” Rep. Lisa McClain (R-Mich.) told us.
McClain, the secretary of the House Republican Conference, laid out a scenario we heard repeatedly from GOP lawmakers this week in Milwaukee.
Democrats “are losing faith in Biden” and “the odds of the Senate flipping to Republicans are a lot higher,” McClain said.
“Because we have so many swing seats that are in play, more of the money and more of the ground game will go on the Democrat side to try to flip the House,” McClain said. “It means that’s going to be a tougher job for us to retain those seats.”
“We have to stay focused on not starting to measure the drapes and the curtains,” Rep. Darin LaHood (R-Ill.) added.
Currently, Republicans enjoy a slender House majority and will defend over a dozen incumbents who represent seats Biden won in 2020.
But earlier this week, NRCC Chair Richard Hudson told us he was targeting Democrats in seats Biden won by as much as 11 points four years ago. It was a notable vote of confidence from the Republican campaign chief that GOP candidates can perform in deep-blue territory.
Remember: We’ve heard pronouncements like this before. Most recently, Republican leaders thought they could gain up to 60 seats in the 2022 midterms. That didn’t materialize. In 2020, Democrats were also hopeful they’d grow their majority on the back of an anti-Trump electorate. That didn’t happen either.
Hudson told us that while he worries about a Democratic money advantage, “everything else is breaking our way.”
“Historically, Democrats outraise us,” Hudson said. “We don’t have to match, but we got to stay close. And so far we have, but we just got to keep the foot on the gas.”
The NRCC chair also said the group is currently polling in battleground seats to get a better sense of how much the situation has changed since Biden’s disastrous June 27 debate.
Democrats maintain that their candidates are battle-tested in local races and have track records of outrunning national figures.
“Everyone remembers when the last NRCC chief foolishly predicted a ‘red wave’ in 2022; it did not age well,” DCCC spokesperson Viet Shelton said in a statement. “Across the battlefield, Democratic candidates are winning the fundraising race, outpolling Republicans, and prioritizing the kitchen table issues that matter to voters.”
But some initial polling has suggested the party faces strong headwinds in November. For example, an Inside Elections/Noble Predictive Insights poll of a bellwether open Michigan House seat found the GOP candidate outrunning the Democrat by seven points.
