Republican North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis said a win over challenger Cal Cunningham would be a “firewall against [Senate Minority Leader] Chuck Schumer” becoming Senate majority leader.
Tillis has been running close yet consistently behind Cunningham — whose campaign of late has been rocked by revelations of an extramarital affair — in polling throughout the election cycle.
With a 53-47 lead and tough races in Arizona, Maine, Colorado, Iowa, and North Carolina, a win by the Tarheel state senator and at least one of the others could allow Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to keep the gavel by a horse’s hair.
“We’re gonna win on Tuesday, the president’s gonna win on Tuesday,” Tillis told Fox News’ “Justice with Judge Jeanine” during a Saturday night interview.
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“I think there were a lot of polls earlier that always trend in the benefit for Democrats,” he continued, adding that similar polling failed to predict his victory in 2014.
Asked by host Jeanine Pirro about how North Carolina affects the overall Senate landscape, Tillis called the state the “firewall against Chuck Schumer getting the gavel.” (RELATED: ‘You Would Need A Blue Wave’: Chris Wallace Is Less Certain Than Pollsters That Democrats Can Take The Senate)
“I believe if we win North Carolina, and we will win North Carolina, we’re gonna probably be able to say that we saved the Senate,” said Tillis. “We have other races that we are watching but the North Carolina, the electoral map of the president, and the map for us for us to be able to keep Mitch McConnell as the majority leader and Republican in the Senate comes right through our state.”
The current Real Clear Politics average has Cunningham up by 3.8 points.