NBC national political correspondent Steve Kornacki warned Monday that Democrats may be holding only “tenuous” leads over their Republican rivals ahead of the midterms, despite what the polls appear to show.
Kornacki said that for Democrats to find success in the Senate, they “need to pick up at least four” of the Republican-held seats the party is targeting. But he cautioned that doing so may be easier said than done.
“Some of these seats, by the way, in very pro-Trump states over the last decade,” Kornacki said. “But I say at least four because there are also a couple of Democratic-held seats here. Republicans think they can flip it, and if Republicans flip those, it really complicates the math for Democrats.”
Turning to the GOP-held seats in play, Kornacki acknowledged that the numbers look favorable for Democrats on the surface.
“You see the numbers with Trump’s approval rating declining, and you hear the chatter of Democrats saying blue wave, Republicans fearing it,” he said. “This is why, this is what the polls are showing. These are the races that Democrats are targeting. Republican-held seats, and the polls, to some degree here, have the Democrats ahead in all of them.”
Kornacki singled out North Carolina as an outlier, pointing to a big lead for the Democrat in that race. He noted that even Republicans, judging by how they are spending their resources, appear to be pulling back from the state.
“But it is close everywhere else,” Kornacki said. “They are leads for Democrats, but they are tenuous as well.”
Some of the states in question were carried by Trump by wide margins in 2024, even after polling had predicted Democratic victories.
Kornacki suggested that history should give Democrats pause before they start celebrating.
“I mean, look, Republicans in the Trump era have gotten used to seeing polls like this in states like this and saying, ‘Got them just where we want them,’ because we’ve seen it in places — Ohio, Iowa come to mind,” he said.
The NBC analyst went on to point to a past race where the polls badly missed the mark.
“Even you can go back, there was a Senate race in Kansas in 2020. Polls looked really promising for the Democrats, Republican ended up winning by double digits,” Kornacki said.
He explained that the Trump vote has a track record of being underestimated by pollsters.
“So that Trump vote has been missed before, doesn’t always show up,” Kornacki said. “A lot of theories why, but if that happens again, these numbers can change in a hurry.”
The warning offers a reality check for Democrats who have been buoyed by talk of a blue wave. While the party holds leads in the Republican-held Senate races it is targeting, Kornacki made clear that most of those contests remain close.
With Republicans also eyeing a couple of Democratic-held seats they believe they can flip, the path to a Democratic Senate win may prove far more complicated than the current polling suggests.
[READ MORE: Elon Musk Vows to Give a SpaceX Share to Every Child in America Next Year]
