Midterm Wave Warning: Beware the "Accidental Senator"

So we have a little bit of midterm history between the two of us.

You were working for McConnell and I was working for George W. Bush in 2006.

I was deputy press secretary.

You were in charge of all communications at the Senate on the Republican side.

And we headed into that midterm.

And I just had John Thune on America's Newsroom.

And I said, I do feel a little bit of 2006 vibes.

Like I could tell a reporter, yes, if the stars align and Mercury's in retrograde and everything goes our way and the polling happens and the Democrats speak to early, yes, then we are going to be able to keep all the majorities.

That obviously did not happen.

But I feel like that's where the GOP is right now.

Do they have a better shot of keeping the majority in the House or Senate at this point than the 2006 midterm?

Yeah, there are definitely a lot of similarities and it does feel the same, even though I was very young at the time.

But we were both very young.

But I think the difference here, the enthusiasm of Trump people hasn't really waned, although it's a smaller group.

And to the fundraising, the rise of Super PAC since then has gotten much, much bigger between MAGA Inc. and the Senate PAC.

You have a whole lot of money reserved in some of these tight races and they saved it to the end.

So the numbers that we see now are going to be different between now and the next few weeks.

As I understand it, about $200 million will be spent in Texas to try to help the Republican Ken Paxton win in a state where President Trump won by what, 30 points?

Yeah, it's an unfortunate consequence of the situation there.

That should be a cakewalk state, always should be.

And there are states like that across the country that in this type of environment, that should be really easy.

Instead, we're spending a lot of money in each of those

races.

So John Thune believes that Texas will stay Republican.

Do you get that sense as well?