Senate Majority Leader John Thune says Republicans will outperform the polls and keep their narrow majority, even as GOP-aligned groups pull millions from some of the cycle’s toughest races.
Fox News Digital spoke with Thune in Fremont, Nebraska, where the South Dakota Republican was campaigning for Sen. Pete Ricketts as Election Day on Nov. 3 draws near.
Thune cast a string of Senate contests as true toss-ups and argued that recent polling is missing the same Republican strength it has undercounted before. He is not writing off the close ones, even as major outside groups redirect cash away from races that have tightened or slipped.
Republicans hold a 53-to-47 Senate majority. The Cook Political Report has said the party is hoping to defend six toss-up races this cycle. Thune is crisscrossing the country to keep that edge intact.
Thune did not sugarcoat the map. Several contests, he said, sit inside the margin of error, or just outside it, with control of the chamber still in play.
"I think there are a lot of races right now just looking at the polling that are up for grabs, I mean you could call them jump balls, however you want to say it. They're margin of error races, and there are some that are maybe a little out of the margin. But I do think the polling right now, like it has been in past elections, under-reflects the Republican vote."
That assessment matches the pattern conservatives have watched in recent cycles: late deciders and low-propensity voters breaking toward Republicans once ballots are actually cast. Thune’s bet is that the same dynamic shows up again.
His focus on holding the conference together is not new. Thune’s legislative push in the final stretch before the midterms has kept the majority’s agenda moving even as members scatter to their states.
Thune put the outcome on organization as much as messaging. In every state he has visited, he said, candidates are locked on getting their people to the polls.
"Turnout's going to be a big part of whether or not we're successful or not. And in every state I've been in, that is a clear-eyed focus of our candidates. That's where resources are being invested. And I think that could be the difference for us come Election Day on whether or not we win a lot of these close races or not."
He boiled the math down further: pull out “low propensity, particularly Trump, voters,” then win the middle of the electorate. That is a turnout-and-persuasion plan, not a shrug at the numbers.
And he left little doubt about his forecast.
"And I think that we're gonna outperform the polls for sure come Election Day."
President Donald Trump has been in the field as well. He held a rally for North Carolina Senate candidate Michael Whatley, the former RNC co-chair running to keep retiring Sen. Thom Tillis’ seat in Republican hands against former Gov. Roy Cooper, and told reporters earlier this month he wants Whatley in the Senate.
"I think he’s a great man, and I am worried about him. I hope he wins. He was a great leader for the whole Republican Party when I won, and he’d be a great senator."
Trump’s public concern underscores how competitive that race has become. It also shows the White House and Senate leadership still treating these contests as winnable, not lost causes.
While Thune talks confidence, Republican PACs and outside groups have been moving hundreds of millions of dollars around the map, and not always toward the races that looked central months ago.
The Senate Leadership Fund, a PAC closely aligned with Thune, had initially pledged $44 million to help Rep. Mike Collins take on first-term Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff in Georgia. Earlier this month, that group shifted money from Georgia to Kansas, where Sen. Roger Marshall is locked in one of the cycle’s more unexpected toss-ups. The same PAC also pulled back nearly all of its spending in North Carolina.
Ossoff has led Collins in polling and raised heavily. North Carolina’s outside funding has begun to dry up as the Whatley-Cooper race wobbles. Mississippi and South Carolina, once treated as safer Republican ground, have recently moved in a more Democratic direction in the available surveys.
Those shifts do not equal surrender. They do show operatives triage scarce dollars toward contests they still believe can flip or hold. Kansas suddenly matters more. Georgia and North Carolina look harder on current numbers. Thune’s public message is that the polls still underrate the Republican side.
Leadership fights inside the party have flared before over strategy and loyalty, including episodes when allies floated primary pressure aimed at Thune. The majority leader’s current posture is the opposite of retreat: stay on the trail, fund turnout, and refuse to abandon the jump balls.
Thune’s style has been to keep the conference working in one direction rather than stage long internal wars. National Review reported earlier on his push to run a more collaborative Republican conference than the McConnell era, with senators crediting him for speeding cabinet confirmations and sharing the process more widely.
Sen. Ron Johnson said Thune “honored his promise” of a far more collaborative conference. That same managerial approach now shows up in the midterm endgame: invest in turnout machinery, speak plainly about close races, and keep vulnerable incumbents and challengers from being written off early.
He has also stepped carefully around big party set pieces when the legislative calendar demanded it, including when he left the convention spotlight to other Republican leaders while the Senate still had work to finish.
Senators are due back at the Capitol for a final stretch before breaking for the election. The political and legislative clocks are running at the same time. Thune’s argument is that the ground game, not the last public poll dump, will decide how many of those margin-of-error races fall.
Critics will read the Georgia and North Carolina pullbacks as a quiet concession. Thune’s interview frames them differently: resources follow turnout opportunity, and the party still expects to overperform once irregular and low-propensity Republican voters show up.
Marshall’s scramble in Kansas is the clearest example. A seat few expected to become a nail-biter now draws redirected cash. Collins’ climb against Ossoff looks steeper, so the big-dollar commitment there was reassessed. Whatley’s race drew a presidential rally even after outside spending faded, a sign the candidate still has top-cover even if the super PAC ledger changed.
Party discipline on messaging remains a live issue in Washington, including when GOP senators drew a hard line against mixing White House political ads with taxpayer resources. Thune’s lane here is electoral: keep the majority by treating every close race as live until the votes are counted.
The core claim is simple and testable on Nov. 3. Either the polls again undercount Republicans, and turnout among Trump-aligned and persuadable middle voters closes the gaps, or the money shifts will look like the first honest read on races that slipped away. Thune is telling donors, candidates, and voters he is banking on the first outcome.
Close Senate races reward the side that still shows up when the spreadsheets turn cold, and Thune is refusing to quit the field while ballots remain uncounted.