House GOP campaign chair: ‘I think we’ll pick up seats’ in November

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The GOP’s House campaign chair on Tuesday morning expressed optimism in the Republican Party’s odds headed into this year’s midterm elections.

“I’m very confident we’re going to hold the House,” Rep. Richard Hudson (R-N.C.) said at an “Axios AM Live” event in Washington, D.C.

“In fact, I think we’ll pick up seats,” he continued. “And the reason is, the map favors Republicans, and I was saying this a year ago before redistricting and all that that went on. And I think, with redistricting, gives us a little more of an edge on the map. The seats that are up for grabs — there’s very few — favor Republicans.”

Hudson’s comments come amid an ongoing redistricting battle between the Democratic and Republican parties to wrest control of the House.

New congressional maps enacted in the past year have swung an additional 16 seats in favor of Republican candidates and six seats in favor of Democratic candidates in states like California, Texas and North Carolina.

Hudson also cited fundraising and “candidate quality” as advantages for the GOP in the midterm elections.

The campaign chair specifically pointed to Nevada state Sen. Carrie Buck (R), who is running for incumbent Rep. Dina Titus’s (D-Nev.) House seat, as “one of the best candidates” the party has “ever had.” The Nevada primary is being held on Tuesday.

“Every metric that you have in elections, we’re ahead,” Hudson said.

The GOP lawmaker acknowledged that the majority fight between Democrats and Republicans will “be very close” this year.

“I mean, 435 seats, less than 30 are going to determine the majority, but in those 30 we’re poised to win,” he said.

Some Republican lawmakers have raised concerns that President Trump’s war against Iran could complicate GOP candidates’ election chances in November due to rising energy costs resulting from the conflict.

Hudson defended the Trump administration’s actions against Iran, echoing repeated assurances from the White House that these are only short-term economic pains.

“What we have is a temporary situation because President Trump said we’re not going to let Iran have a nuclear weapon,” Hudson said on Tuesday morning.

The campaign chair also defended the president’s comment last month that he does not “think about Americans’ financial situations” during his negotiations with Iran.

“The world is safer because of what President Trump has done in Iran, so that was the context,” Hudson responded.

“The context wasn’t that he doesn’t care what people are going through,” he continued. “He and I have conversations about it all the time. He cares deeply about what people are going through. He’s a person of great empathy and warmth.”

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