Even as surveys predicted a huge night for Republicans on Tuesday, leaders of the party on Sunday sought to play down expectations. Senator John Cornyn, the Republican of Texas charged with running the Senate’s election efforts this year, said on ABC’s “This Week” that he doubted Republicans will take over the Senate.
“I’m not predicting that we will get the majority this cycle,” Mr. Cornyn said. “I think it probably is going to take two cycles, but there is certainly a potential there, depending on just how high and how broad this wave election is.”
In a separate appearance, Michael Steele, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, said his party should be viewed as successful even if it fails to retake the House by winning more than 39 seats.
Mr. Steele, who had said in January that he did not think the Republicans could retake the House this year, said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that “if we get 37 seats that’s success.”
“I mean we’ve got to keep this thing in context here,” Mr. Steele said. “We were a party out of power. We were a party that on the covers of magazines around this country were called an endangered species. We were going to be regionalized, marginalized to the lower, you know, portions of the political spectrum. We have battled our way back here.”
And on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi said he would be surprised if there was not a Republican majority in the House after Tuesday, but added that seizing control of the Senate would be “harder.”
An analysis in The Times of the Senate contests, by the reporters Jeff Zeleny and Carl Hulse, provides some explanation for the Republican hedging, especially in the Senate.
The analysis suggests that Democrats are fighting for their political lives in enough seats that the party could cede control if all of them lose. But the article notes that everything would have to fall the Republicans’ way for them to take over the Senate.
Democrats continued to insist that turnout among their faithful on Tuesday will hold down the losses. Tim Kaine, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, predicted on “Meet the Press” that Democrats would hang onto control of both chambers.
And in Chicago, campaigning for the Democrat running for Senate in his old seat, President Obama urged supporters to prove the pundits wrong.
“Just like you did in 2008,” Mr. Obama said, “you can defy the conventional wisdom.”
