raising spurious questions about what that means. it s really getting nasty. what was fascinating seeing on friday the mccormick campaign trot out mike pompeo, the former secretary of state, going after oz on these turkish issues. the concern for republicans here is that if this primary, which has been very bloody, hurts them in the general election. moving too far to the right. pennsylvania is one of the very few pick-up opportunities for democrats in this cycle. presumably the chance of holding the majority could come down to the democrats winning here, they have a serious chance of picking up this seat. it s a republican seat of the lieutenant governor on the democratic side, connor lam running against malcolm kenyatta as well. this is going to be a very close race, obviously there s already been tens of millions of dollars spent, much more on the air waves ahead. i want to set the scene at
here are ten states cnn is watching as the most likely to flip. four of them currently held by democrats, six by republicans. alice, to you first, which of these races are you focusing on as pick-up opportunities? what is it going to take to flip them? it s going to take really galvanizing the republican party together and really capitalizing on the division and the low morale in the democratic party, which is in full swing. i happen to look at georgia, my home state, because it was a pivotal race earlier in 2021, and i m looking at georgia to see the raphael warnock race get flipped back to republican hands. i see georgia as a big pick-up opportunity, and certainly other states across the country can galvanize and focus on what we see as a low morale problem with the democrats, and also the low accomplishment in terms of the
concern among republicans is that because the support will be fractured, gritons could emerge and become the nominee and be vulnerable in a general election. talking to republican leaders, they are watching this very closely. mitch mcconnell told me that he s watching this closely. i asked him, were you engaged in this race, trying to defeat griotns in this primary if he catches steam? he would not rule that possibility out. democrats believe that gritons emerges they could see a repeat of 2012 when claire mccaskill won there when todd akin, a controversial republican, won that nomination. and obviously candidates always matter but they matter particularly this cycle for republicans. if you look at the map, 34 seats are up for grabs. 14 democrats are holding 20. republicans are holding. so they re got to hold onto their people. but they have some pick-up opportunities. there are some candidates in these states that are problematic. eric gritons is one of them. but in other places you
democrat leading. 6 of them in republican districts and again the magic number tonight for democrats is 23. net gain of 23 gets you the house of representatives. you have one republican leading in a democratic district. we haven t called these races yet, critical to note. just went up to 8%. you see it moving as we re talking. as we move into the next hour, especially, the results are going to start to tick up. and so you have 25 democrats, 8 in republican districts so one of the ways to look at this is to come over here. we have not called these races but these are the pick-up opportunities. you see eight opportunities for democrats to pick up, one opportunity for republican to pick up. again, that is normally a safe democratic district there, the vote count s early, we ll keep an eye on it, see if there s a surprise happening in the state of georgia tonight. but eight democrats, the goal is to get to 23. this one is blue at the moment so i m going to pop back in and check on this
suburbs here, amy mcgrath now pulled ahead by 8,000 votes. you start getting into a house race, up to 33%. again, far from over. we re still counting. take a look at the big picture of the house district as all of a sudden it s looked up at 11 leading the vote 11 democrats are leading in republican held districts. 11 leading the vote in republican held districts so you start looking here. this is the full map and you start thinking, where are the pick-ups so look at your pick-up opportunities. again for democrats, east of the mississippi, they believe there are more than enough seats, targets of opportunity to get close to the 23. let s go through and let s start. we just showed you kentucky 6. donald trump carried this district. if the democrats are winning at the end of the night, that tells you there s a strong democratic vote tonight. so let s come up here now into the state of virginia. this is virginia 10, barbara comstock. this is a must win for the democrats. more than ha