Mark Halperin

My sources, by my reporting, suggest Collins is going to win.

And again, if Democrats can't beat Susan Collins, even if they defend all three of their seats that they're defending, they're not going to take the majority.

So that's number one.

Number two is probably the one I think is their best pickup opportunity.

North Carolina, it's an open seat.

Tom Tillis, the Republican, is retiring.

And both parties cleared the field for their favorite candidate.

So the primaries passed, and neither of them was seriously challenged.

And so there's a long general election there.

And the Democrats have a very strong candidate on paper, Roy Cooper, former governor of the state, has won statewide before, done very well as a Democrat in a purple state, used to be a red state.

The Republicans, I think my sources agree, nominated a really weak candidate.

And they chose to clear the field for him.

Michael Watley was Donald Trump's pick to be chairman of the RNC.

He left that role to run for this seat.

They cleared the field.

Nobody else ran seriously against him.

And he's not proven to be a super strong candidate.

If you're a quasi incumbent, which Cooper is right, he's the known quantity as the longtime governor of the state.

There's benefits that people know you, the people who like you, like you.

But in this era of the outsider, of the anti-establishment populist sensibility,