Republican Rep. Tom Cole admitted that his party faces a difficult midterm election this year, but he insisted to MSNBC on Sunday that the GOP is ready.
“I think there’s going to be a very challenging election environment,” the Oklahoma congressman said, as reported in The Hill. “Nobody’s had a good off year election since 2002. So I think Republicans would be well advised to get ready.”
Cole added that “fortunately I think we are. I don’t think there’s any complacency. We’ve got very good candidates. We’ve got a great campaign committee, we’ve got good things to run on because of what this Congress and this administration have accomplished.”
Democrats have already emerged victorious in several special elections at both the state and federal level in the past year in places that President Donald Trump won heavily in 2016, The Hill reported.
Cole also discussed the failure to reach a long-term solution for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.
He placed the blame on Democrats, saying that Trump has “shown more flexibility on the issue than Democrats,” adding that “I’ve always been suspicious that Democrats wanted a deal. They love the immigration issue, they just don’t like solving the problem very much.”
The Trump administration announced last year it was ending DACA, and since then, Congress has been unable to reach a deal on a long-term solution for those who benefit from the program.
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