EXCLUSIVE – National Republican Campaign Committee chair Rep. Tom Emmer’s been a road warrior the past two months.
The GOP congressman from Minnesota, who’s chairing the House Republicans’ campaign committee for a second straight election cycle, has spent 44 out of the past 60 days on the road, stopping in 20 states as he’s traveled between districts his party is targeting in the midterm elections. Emmer has campaigned with or helped fundraise for 55 Republican congressional candidates and 18 House GOP incumbents the past two months.
"The mission is not to leave anything on the table," Emmer told Fox News on Wednesday in an exclusive interview.
"I’m confident with six days to go that we’re going to make some history. But we leave that up to voters," Emmer said. He repeated the prediction he’s been making all cycle long: that Republicans are "going to be in the majority."
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While the GOP lost control of the White House and the Senate majority in the 2020 elections, House Republicans during Emmer’s first cycle as NRCC chair bucked expectations and took a big bite out of the House Democrats’ sizable majority. Republicans need a net gain of just five seats in the 435-member chamber in next week’s elections to win back the House majority they lost in the 2018 midterms.
"The mission really is helping candidates get over the line, helping incumbents do what they need to do in terms of funding their own campaigns, making sure that everybody understands that what we started four years ago we are about to finish," Emmer said.
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Democrats are facing historical headwinds – the party that wins the White House traditionally suffers major setbacks in the ensuing midterm elections – and a very rough political climate fueled by record inflation, soaring crime and a border crisis, and these are accentuated by President Joe Biden’s rebounding but still underwater approval ratings.
Pointing to the economy and crime, two top issues Republicans have hammered Democrats over this cycle, Emmer described the midterms as a "security election."
"America’s economic security is in a terrible place because they have to choose between buying groceries for their family or putting gas in the gas tank. And they’re watching their retirement accounts evaporate in front of their eyes and then it’s the physical security, the crime," Emmer argued.
And he highlighted that "we’re making our argument to the American people. I think everything we’ve seen over the last few weeks, perhaps since Labor Day, shows that our argument is the one that has resonated with the American people, and I think that’s going to be translated into the vote – already the early votes and the final votes on Nov. 8."
Democrats, obviously, disagree.
"Tom Emmer’s scandal-prone MAGA extremist candidates are like a ten ton weight on their chances of taking the majority. Add that to their war on seniors that would jack up the cost of medicines and eliminate Social Security or their plan to pass a nationwide abortion ban and it’s clear voters will reject the GOP," Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokesperson Chris Taylor told Fox News in a statement.
Taylor predicted that "Democrats' mainstream agenda of lowering prices, investing in America to create jobs, and protecting freedoms will prevail on Election Day."
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But Emmer forecast that "there is a political realignment taking place in this country. Just how big, how broad, and how deep it goes, I think this election is going to give us some picture of that. We’re going to see when we get through Nov. 8 and we look back, we’re going to see that it wasn’t just Hispanic voters that were available to Republican candidates. It’s arguably every minority group in America that’s traditionally voted for Democrats that’s now available to a new message."
He argued that the "realignment of the political landscape" is taking place because "one party has literally left the voters and the other party is seeking to represent Main Street America and the working men and women of this country, and that’s the Republican Party."
Pointing to the surge in the GOP’s electoral fortunes that polls have indicated over the past six weeks in the battle for the House majority, Emmer touted that "there were 18 races that we [NRCC] were playing in as of the end of last week that Biden won by double digits."
But he cautioned that "right now, we’ve won nothing yet. We’ve got six days to go to close this out and finish what we started four years ago, and I’m convinced we’ll do that."
Emmer is one of three contenders for House majority whip in the next Congress if Republicans win back control of the House in the midterms, along with Republican Study Committee Chair Jim Banks of Indiana and Chief Deputy Whip Drew Ferguson of Georgia.
But Emmer demurred when asked about seeking the number three position in House majority leadership, saying he was laser-focused on the midterms.
"As far as anything else I might do, we’ll save that for after the election," he said.
