The foreseen “big red wave” may still be coming for the House in the midterms, but there has long been a question of how those tides may impact control of the Senate.

While Fox News’ Jessica Tarlov argued “do not reduce” Democratic legislative accomplishments, her defense of the left’s chances in November seemed to highlight a broader issue faced by the GOP.

(Video: Fox News)

The co-host of “The Five” contended the favorability for Democrats after her colleague Jeanine Pirro railed to the contrary, laying emphasis on President Joe Biden’s low job approval and perceived constant breaks from his duties.

“The president has taken 150, 150 vacation days. That is five months off in a year and six or seven months. That is crazy,” Pirro exclaimed. “And the Democrats at this point are saying we’ve got to build Joe up, even though half of us don’t want him to run again, even though most of us don’t think the guy’s capable of finishing a thought or a sentence because it’s important to us so that we can win.”

Fellow co-host Joey Jones used that to pivot to Tarlov suggesting any accomplishment for the Democrats really came from Senate Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and not Biden.

“You know, Jessica, it’s a good point. He’s been on vacation. I mean, he got elected from the basement, so maybe he can get reelected on vacation. Maybe there’s a strategy there. But is this Biden’s win? Is this Biden’s victory or is this Chuck Schumer’s victory?” he wondered.

“It’s Democrats’ victories,” Tarlov contended as she framed unity within her party. “And that’s the decision that people make…Biden is personally unpopular. He’s been inching up. He’s now around 40 percent popularity. But the Democrats, as a party, as the choice of Americans heading into the midterms, are getting increasingly popular now, tied in terms of who’s favored to win, to take, to be in charge of Congress.”

“We’re favored to win the Senate. [Republican Senate Leader] Mitch McConnell (KY) was caught yesterday by a reporter, asked about what he thought was going to happen and he said that they’re not likely to take back the Senate. A few months ago Mitch McConnell felt pretty good about those odds,” she went on.

As previously reported, McConnell spoke with the press Thursday while attending the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce luncheon and said, “I think there’s probably a greater likelihood the House flips than the Senate. Senate races are just different, they’re statewide. Candidate quality has a lot to do with the outcome.”

McConnell seemingly swipes at Trump with snide ‘candidate quality’ remark https://t.co/0ecHhsihwN

— Conservative News (@BIZPACReview) August 19, 2022

“Right now, we have a 50-50 Senate and a 50-50 country but I think when all is said and done this fall, we’re likely to have an extremely close Senate,” he went on. “Either our side up slightly or their side up slightly.”

His remarks were taken as a slight against endorsements of candidates by former President Donald Trump who have struggled in certain battleground states like Pennsylvania. Dr. Mehmet Oz who won the Republican nomination for Senate in the Keystone State with the backing of Trump had since downplayed that pivotal support and has been widely panned as a “bad candidate.”

As Fox News host Tucker Carlson had pointed out, “A good candidate is a candidate who promises to fix the problems that voters worry about most. Candidates like that tend to win elections because the message is bigger than the man. A candidate with a powerful message can overcome virtually any obstacle from multiple bankruptcies to universal media hostility to a dull, orange skin tone.”

“It’s not complicated. Unfortunately, donors and party leaders often do complicate it,” he went on. “They want candidates to talk about issues that they care about, which are often very different from the issues that the public cares about.”

With that in mind, the recent decision from the National Republican Senatorial Committee to slash their ad buys in Pennsylvania by $7.5 million since August 1, according to Newsweek, suggests what McConnell cares about is keeping a close margin in the Senate and hurting Trump’s control over the party as the race against Lt. Gov. John Fetterman stands at a “toss-up.”

Rather than push on the discord stemming from GOP infighting, Tarlov pushed on her unifying message for the left and touted a list of accomplishments she suggested Biden had led his party on, including “the American Rescue Act…the PACT Act, the CHIPS Act,” and “the Inflation Reduction Act,” which she further lauded, “It’s unfair to reduce the thing that is unequivocally a good thing to just oh, ‘it’s one good thing.’ There are a bunch of good things in there. And just because it’s not your politics doesn’t mean that it doesn’t count.”

“And I’m not saying that they will say Joe Biden was God’s gift to the presidency,” she concluded, “but do not reduce what has been accomplished in this term. And Democrats got that done with the slimmest of majorities.”

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Kevin Haggerty

Staff Writer

Native of Brooklyn, NY, Kevin Haggerty is a graduate of Hunter College where he studied Cultural Anthropology and Geography. An avid reader and truth seeker, he currently resides in Texas with his wife and their dog and, when he isn't researching current events and their impacts, you'll find him spending time with friends and family or working on his next novel.

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