Republicans eyeing a 60-seat supermajority in the Senate need to set their sights lower, political analyst Charlie Cook said on Tuesday.
“It is impossible,” said Cook, speaking at National Journal’s Election Preview event, joking that pundits rarely speak in such black-and-white terms.
Democrats hold a 53-47 edge in the Senate but are in jeopardy of losing the majority because they have to defend 23 seats next year--including in battleground and Republican-leaning states such as Missouri, Montana, and Nebraska. The GOP could win as many as six or seven seats, Cook said, but will fall well short of reaching the 60 seats necessary to end filibusters in the chamber.
“The underlying seats just aren’t there for Republicans to get up to 58, 59, 60 seats,” he said. “It would be really, really extraordinary for that to happen.”
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