Mitch McConnell says GOP may not retake Senate in November due to ‘candidate quality’

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said this week he believes it is more likely that Republicans take over the House of Representatives this fall than the United States Senate, citing GOP “candidate quality” as a deciding factor.

McConnell appeared at a Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce event on Thursday and spoke to the audience about the upcoming midterm elections.

“I think there’s probably a greater likelihood the House flips than the Senate. Senate races are just different — they’re statewide, candidate quality has a lot to do with the outcome,” McConnell said. “Right now, we have a 50-50 Senate and a 50-50 country, but I think when all is said and done this fall, we’re likely to have an extremely close Senate, either our side up slightly or their side up slightly.”

The Kentucky senator has changed his tone since earlier this year, when he expressed confidence in the GOP’s ability to retake control of the Senate. He told Fox News in April he believed Democrats and the Biden White House were in for a “pretty good beating” in November.

At the time, Biden’s approval numbers were low across the board, but after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade in June, and with the influx of Trump-endorsed candidates moving on to the  midterm elections after the primaries, McConnell appears to have tempered his optimism.

President Biden has enjoyed a string of recent successes, including the passage of the historic Inflation Reduction Act, the killing of al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, and the passage of a $280 billion bill that addresses the needs of US military veterans who have suffered medical issues as a result of exposure to burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Recent polling shows Democrats may have more optimistic prospects in the midterms than predicted earlier this year. While Democrats have seen a bump in the polls, Republicans have not seen a dip.