WASHINGTON — The top executive of the Democratic Party committee charged with winning control of the House predicted victory in Tuesday’s midterm elections, projecting confidence as President Trump and other Republican leaders try to seize on a growing economy and immigration fears to save their majority.

“We’re going to win the House,” said Dan Sena, executive director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, echoing the confidence of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who made a similar prediction earlier in the week.

His Republican counterpart, National Republican Congressional Committee Executive Director John Rogers, predicted that voters would respond to fears of Washington gridlock and a moribund economy by spurning Democrats and saving the Republican House majority, albeit by a narrow margin.

“I expect that we may not know who has control of the majority on election night,” he said.

Both men spoke in interviews for an episode of C-SPAN’s “Newsmakers” set to air Sunday. A Washington Post reporter participated in the questioning.

Sena’s prediction comes two years after top Democratic officials entered Election Day convinced that presidential nominee Hillary Clinton could not lose, based on the party’s “blue wall” in upper Midwest states. Clinton shockingly lost Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin, and with them, the presidency.

But Sena said Democrats had multiple paths to victory Tuesday.

“There are probably 15 to 20 seats that the Democrats will certainly pick up. You then look at any of the seats that are toss-up or leaning our way, and there’s like another 20 of them,” Sena said. “I can’t tell you how all those seats are going to play out, but what I can tell you is, we are going to win some of them. That would give us a narrow majority. On a good night we could win a majority of them.”

Their closing argument, he said, would stay trained on health care.


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