Mark Halperin

michigan and new hampshire and uh georgia their chances in all three are pretty good in fact i would say their chances in all three in some ways will walk through each individual one their chances there are better than the democrats chances of winning some of these republican seats okay so we're going to walk through them all individually

But you got to keep your eye on the math.

Now, the House is a whole different beast.

House races tend to be swept up into a national tide.

And you look at the special election results.

You look at the polling.

You look at some of the other variables in these individual races and what seats have come into play.

Democrats today will almost certainly take control of the House.

And I think they could win up to 25 or 30 seats net.

which would be a lot under the circumstances.

Now, we got to wait to see what happens with all this gerrymandering.

We're waiting for a Supreme Court decision on the Voting Rights Act that could scramble all this.

But we're not talking about the House today, except to say that Democrats taking the House with a big wave will certainly make it more likely they'll take the Senate.

But Senate races make their own wind and weather.

They're not as subject to the national tides.

A lot of what determines it is they're an incumbent who raises the most money, what kind of campaigns they run, how good are the candidates themselves.

That means a lot more in Senate races than it does in House races.

So we're not talking about the House today except to say, don't think that what happens in the House automatically happens in the Senate, okay?

Now, what we are talking about is the unforgivingness of the math.

And here's, I think, after doing a lot of reporting on this and thinking it through, here's, I think, the easiest way to think of it.