Final arguments from GOP, Democrats before Election Day
In the final days of the 2014 midterm elections, Democrats and Republicans fanned out across the TV networks and campaign trail to make their final arguments they hope will get voters to the polls.
With more and more polls suggesting the GOP will have a big win on Tuesday, Republicans are focused on convincing voters that delivering them the Senate majority will mean an end to gridlock in Washington.
"This is really the last chance for America to pass judgment on the Obama administration and on its policies," said 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney, a frequent 2014 Republican surrogate, on "Fox News Sunday." "The Republican Party is saying, look, we're going to take a different direction. We're going to break the blockade in Washington by having a Republican Senate."
In the GOP's weekly address Saturday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky--the man who stands to become the next majority leader if he and other Senate Republican candidates win their races--argued that Democrats had abandoned governing to protect their majority in the Senate. Republicans need a gain of six seats to take control of the Senate.
"A new Republican majority wouldn't mean we'd be able to get everything you want from Washington. But it would mean we'd be able to bring the current legislative gridlock to a merciful end," he said.
McConnell and other Republicans have already begun talking about their governing agenda in recent days. He told CBS News Congressional Correspondent Nancy Cordes that he wants to see the president "move to the middle" to work with a GOP Congress on issues like comprehensive tax reform and trade agreements. Other top priorities are a vote on the Keystone XL pipeline and a repeal of the unpopular medical device tax that was included in Obamacare.
Romney similarly pointed to an energy policy as a high-priority item for the GOP, and pledged that his party would secure the border, improve the economy and reduce poverty. In an interview on CBS' "Face the Nation," Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, said one of the first things his party should do is pass a law that convinces American companies to move profits from overseas back to the U.S.
Democrats have been countering with their oft-repeated line that Republicans aren't looking out for the average American, and they're obstructionists who won't be nearly as effective as they promise to be.
"Do you want to send a senator to Washington who's going to oppose and block everything the other side tries to do?" Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Arkansas, said during a campaign rally Sunday, according to the Associated Press. "Do you want a senator who's going to go to Washington and if he doesn't get his way, shut down the government?"
He was referring to his Republican opponent, Rep. Tom Cotton, who has maintained a consistent lead in many recent polls.
Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Maryland, who provided the Democratic counterweight to Romney on Fox, blamed Republican filibusters for preventing lawmakers from helping the middle class.
"I think voters know who are fighting for them. We know that the Democrats are fighting for affordable higher education, dealing with college education cost. We're fighting to increase real wages in this country. We're fighting for gender equity, equal pay for equal work," he said.
That was the argument that President Obama sought to make Sunday at a campaign rally for Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy.
"It comes down to a very simple issue: Who's going to fight for your future? Who is going to fight on your behalf?" he asked.
That message was somewhat muted by a series of hecklers at the rally who challenged the president over the lack of immigration reform legislation or executive action in Washington this year. Mr. Obama repeatedly told the protesters--mostly Hispanic activists--that they should be challenging Republican lawmakers, who he said were responsible for blocking reform.
Though Latino voters won't make a difference in most competitive Senate elections, they are a sizeable part of the voting population in Colorado, a state that could be a bellwether of Republican success on election night.
The response by Democrats to the Republicans' momentum in recent days has been to fall back on the strength of their voter turnout operations, which helped deliver Mr. Obama's 2008 and 2012 victories.
Predicting that Democrats would hold the Senate, Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Florida, told Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus that Democrats have a ground game Republicans "would take over theirs any day of the week."
In Florida, she said in an interview on ABC's "This Week," "I've seen, really, the most enthusiasm and the best organized ground game I've ever seen in a midterm in Florida."
Priebus responded that the GOP's ground game "is whipping their ground game." He pointed to states like Colorado, Arkansas and Iowa where the GOP is well ahead of where they were in 2010.
Cordes reports that Colorado and Iowa are the states where Republicans have gained increasing confidence strong early voting numbers and polls. In the most closely-fought Senate races this cycle, Democrats are most optimistic about holding onto North Carolina and New Hampshire.
Wasserman Schultz is relying on the argument that Democratic candidates "are focused on the issues important to the middle class and working families," while "Republicans have doubled down on obstruction and extremism." But Democrats sense that this may not be an argument that wins the day on Tuesday.
"Democrats haven't started the heavy drinking just yet, but they're definitely thinking about where they want to drown the sorrows on Tuesday night," Cordes said on "Face the Nation." "It's looking like a tougher road for them."