Mitch McConnell Doesn’t Think Republicans Will Win the Senate Because of ‘Candidate Quality’ Issues

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) told reporters on Thursday that he’s not holding his breath for Republicans to pick up Senate seats in November’s midterm elections because, well, many of the dudes running are awful.

“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 at a luncheon on Thursday, per NBC News.

I didn’t know how much I needed this but: Ahahahahahaha.

McConnell doesn’t name names, but NBC News points out that several first-time Republican candidates are struggling, including Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania, Herschel Walker in Georgia, J.D. Vance in Ohio, and Blake Masters in Arizona. McConnell’s comments aren’t just a dig at the candidates, but at former President Donald Trump, who endorsed them.

McConnell’s diss comes days after the National Republican Senate Committee cut millions of dollars in ad buys in Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Wisconsin, where incumbent Ron Johnson is facing off against Lt. Governor Mandela Barnes.

And on Thursday, the nonpartisan Cook Political Report changed its rating in the Pennsylvania Senate race where Oz faces lieutenant governor and incredible shitposter John Fetterman from “toss up” to “lean Democrat.”

Cook Political Report also said control of the Senate is now a toss-up, rather than likely Republican, and cited strategists’ fears of repeating embarrassing losses like they did in 2010 and 2012. Cook Political name-dropped absolutely legendary Republican Senate failures of the past, including Todd “Legitimate Rape” Akin in Missouri, Christine “I’m Not a Witch” O’Donnell in Delaware, and Richard “Pregnancy from Rape is God’s Plan” Mourdock in Indiana. (In a bit of poetry, today marks 10 years since Akin’s legitimate rape comment.)

Even Trump himself thinks Oz will “fucking lose” absent dramatic changes, according to a Rolling Stone report published Friday. Trump has reportedly gone so far as to ask if it was a mistake to endorse Oz over hedge fund millionaire David McCormick. When advisers have shown Oz’s terrible polling to Trump, he is befuddled because Oz was supposed to have star power:

Trump has sometimes responded by asking advisers how it’s possible that someone who was that popular on TV for so long is doing so poorly in the polls. When Trump has inquired if the polling has been “phony” or skewed, multiple people close to him have assured him that—as one of the sources describes to Rolling Stone—“this is not a matter of the polls being ‘rigged,’ there are major problems with this campaign and, more specifically, this candidate.”

This is all very funny; but short of a miracle, Democrats are still expected to lose control the House, so they’ll be even less able to pass meaningful legislation than they are now. Having the White House and the Senate would basically limit Democrats to appointing judges, while a Republican House will probably try to impeach Biden. We’re living in hell!