Will Democrats Take Control of Congress?

Political analyst Amy Walter offers her predictions for the mid-term elections.

Tavis: I've been hearing that speech for 15 years of my life, of what will happen if the Democrats take back the House. Are they gonna take it back this time?

Amy Walter: Oh. So you start with a tough question. Here's where we are. They're 15 seats short, and everything in the political climate points to a good year, a big year, for Democrats. Everything we just - taking the beginning of our conversation aside, just the low approval ratings of the president, the pessimism among voters about the direction of the country.

Seventy percent or so of voters think it's off on the wrong track. Democrats leading on the Congressional ballot test. There is a sense, too, that Democratic voters [are] more energized than Republican voters to come out and vote. All right, so by all those empirical, all the empirical evidence suggests that if there were a year for Democrats to take control of Congress, this is it.

At the same time, there are some structural barriers here that really are to the benefit of Republicans. Some of it's redistricting. Some of it is candidate quality. Some of it's the fact that there are just very few of these open seats that you really - for Democrats to take control of Congress, they're gonna need to knock off, I would say, at least a dozen incumbents.

That's very, very hard to do. So structurally, it's different. And the other big difference, there's a lot of talk here in Washington; you're talking about for the last 15 years, you've heard this refrain. Remember, 15 years, or it's a little bit less than that; but back in 1994, that's when Republicans took control of Congress. Fifty-two seats switched hands. Going back and looking at the numbers, all those numbers I just went through, that litany there, looks very similar to where Democrats were, going into 1994.

The one difference, and the very big difference in this - goes back to the original point you were making at the start of this - is that neither party is particularly well liked by the American public. So while voters are definitely saying right now, "I don't like the status quo," what they're not saying is, "And I can't wait to vote for Democrats in November." All right? They're saying, "I don't like either party right now. I just like Democrats; I just dislike Republicans more." And that's where we're starting.

Tavis: So tell me right quick what happens in the Senate.

Walter: Structurally, again, Republicans do have some advantages. I think Democrats look for both sides. They're gonna pick up seats in the House and the Senate. The question right now is, can Republicans pick up six seats in the Senate? That's what they need to take control. That means knocking off five incumbents and picking up an open seat, or knocking off six sitting incumbents. That is a very, very tough math. So if one house is more likely to go, it would be the House. I think that is much more tenuous right now.

Tavis: Let me ask you right quick how the president's troubles are going to - how badly they're going to hurt Republicans. Am I wrong to even make that assumption, that they will hurt Republicans?

Walter: No, you're not wrong about that. And listen, this is what we started to see probably April, May. The president's troubles started to show up in Congressional polling. All right, so if you went and talk to just any Republican incumbent; you said, "How does your polling look?" They would tell you, privately, (laughs) probably, that, "I'm about 10 points or so lower than where I was at this point in 2004, or where I was at this point in 2002."

So literally, the president's low approval rating, frustration about voter - it was a drag. The difference, though, is that what we're seeing, I think, are a whole lot of voters - maybe the Republicans are soft Republicans or independent voters - they're not moving over to the Republican as they would normally do. But they're sitting back and waiting. What they're waiting for? That's really the big question. And can Democrats deliver them something to make them move?

Read the full transcript