Senior Democrat Nancy Pelosi has said her party “will win” back control of the US House of Representatives in the 2018 midterm elections.
Ms Pelosi, 78, said during an appearance on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert: “Let me say this. Up until today, I would’ve said, ‘If the election were held today, we would win.’”
The leader of the Democrats in the House said now she thinks “we will win,” adding: “Democrats will carry the House. If we have a bigger victory, the Senate, governorships, it’s going to be a great night for America.”
In the current Congress, Democrats have 194 seats out of 435 in the US House.
They need at least 218 seats to “flip the House”.
The public prediction was an uncharacteristic move for the longtime California Congress member, but Ms Pelosi has been expressing confidence in the midterms since at least May.
“Please don’t say that! Do you want to say that on the Hillary [Clinton] fireworks barge she cancelled? Please don’t say that!,” Mr Colbert joked, alluding to the polling data which bolstered Ms Clinton’s confidence she would win the presidency in 2016.
Ms Pelosi was undeterred though, noting the “ground” game of campaigning Democrats across the country was “not yielding one grain of sand” to Republicans.
The late night host cautiously said: “I feel like I should sacrifice a goat to take the hex off what you just said.”
A number of crucial Senate and House seats are up for grabs this year, particularly seats with the potential to flip from Republican ‘red’ to Democrat ‘blue,’ like the Texas Senate race between Democrat Beto O’ Rourke and Republican incumbent Ted Cruz.
Ms Pelosi also provided a translation for Mr Colbert’s audience of Donald Trump’s latest move to announce he may repeal birthright citizenship in the US despite it being a Constitutional amendment.
She said it was “more of the same,” adding that his message to supporters was: “Listen, you’ve go to stick with me. I’m the only one who is going to protect you from these scary people coming up over the border.”
Ms Pelosi noted it the president’s rhetoric was in line with “taking babies out of the arms of their moms and putting them in cages” and “warning about a caravan that’s over 1,000 miles away.”
“What he was saying today has no relationship to what his authority is,” she said.
