House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) said Thursday if Republicans think the race is tightening between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, it will benefit the Democrats’ attempt to recapture a House majority.
After saying she had no concerns about Clinton’s transparency in the wake of the party nominee’s health problems and delayed disclosure of her pneumonia diagnosis, Pelosi appeared to characterize the close White House race as imagined by the GOP.
"If you want to talk politics, I want Hillary Clinton to have the biggest possible mandate, but if the Republicans want to believe that this race is tightening, let them believe that, because the more our own people see that it’s important to vote in a tight race, it sort of speaks to that urgency, the more of them will turn out, so it works to our advantage," she said.
Pelosi added that the House is "definitely" in play for her party.
Republicans currently hold a 60-seat majority in the House, meaning the Democrats would need to flip more than 30 seats to take back control of the chamber.
Republicans have controlled the majority since the Tea Party wave in the 2010 midterms, and they expanded their advantage in 2014. That was the same year Republicans won a majority in the U.S. Senate for the first time since the Democratic sweep in 2006.
Trump has taken leads over Clinton in polls in such swing states as Ohio, Florida, and Nevada. The data site FiveThirtyEight has shifted its odds toward Trump this month, although Clinton still remains favored in their models to win.