Story thread · 3 reports / 3 sources

'Perfect storm': Expert shell-shocked as GOP nightmare forecast now most likely outcome

rawstory.com · 6dShare

Veteran election handicapper Charlie Cook says the worst-case scenario he outlined for Republicans this cycle would have sounded absurd to him just six months ago — but he now considers it the most probable outcome of the midterms. "If I read what I wrote six months ago, I would have thought I'd been on some kind of mushrooms or something," Cook told The New Republic's Greg Sargent . "It just didn't seem possible, didn't seem realistic. But we're seeing what we're seeing." Cook, who has covered American elections for roughly five decades, laid out three possible scenarios for Republicans in a recent analysis – a "bad" outcome costing the GOP 15 to 25 House seats and two or three Senate seats while retaining the Senate majority, a "really bad" outcome costing them both chambers with 26 to 35 House seats and four or five Senate seats lost, and a "horrible" scenario involving even steeper losses, including six to eight Senate seats. Cook said the "really bad" scenario , the one costing Re

First report: The Democrats Are in Great Danger of Losing One of Their Senate Seats — redstate.com, 9d