GOP Blowout? Karl Rove Crunches Midterm Numbers

This is a rush transcript from "Hannity," October 27, 2010. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

SEAN HANNITY, HOST: So with just six days to go until Tuesday's midterm elections, the Republicans appear poised for a blowout victories all across the country. Now The Hill's midterm election polls predicting that 50 or more Democratic seats could fall next Tuesday.

Now after polling, 42 tossed-up districts The Hill found that, quote, that the GOP candidate leads in 31 of those 42 districts. The Democrats lead in just seven of the 42 districts, and four of the races are currently tied.

But even that does not do justice to the scale of the GOP's lead. Now according to Mark Penn whose firm conducted the poll, quote, "We didn't even poll in about 15 districts that are already too far gone for the Democrats. So that, along with our entire series of polls, points to something in the range of a 50-seat gain for Republicans."

But the Democrats and their allies are not taking this sitting down. Groups that support the Democrats are gearing into action. Now the Washington Post reports that, quote, "Nearly four in every $10 spent by independent groups last week are aimed at helping Democratic candidates."

Now The Post concludes that the pattern undercuts Democrats' attempts to blame well funded conservative groups for an expected wave of losses when voters go to the polls on Tuesday.

I think that pretty much says it all. Joining me now with analysis of the Democrats' hypocrisy, his take on just how big this conservative landslide could on Tuesday, former advisor to President George W. Bush, the architect, the man with all the money, the man that has been singled out, demonized himself, Karl Rove.

Welcome back.

KARL ROVE, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Thank you. Good to be here.

HANNITY: All right. So this will be our final prediction night. So I had to get into predictions with you.

ROVE: Yes.

HANNITY: Let's start with the issue of money because you have now been the target. You, Ed Gillespie, the Chamber --

ROVE: Right.

HANNITY: Of all this money that may be coming from foreign countries.

ROVE: Right.

HANNITY: And now we learn that in fact the Democrats have a lot more money, expenditures coming from outside groups.

ROVE: Yes. In fact, here's my little cheap white board here. Politico added it up. Republican Party committees and Republican groups $677 million. Democrat and Democrat groups $856 million.

But that leaves out labor. If you add in just what the announcement have been from four labor unions, AFSCME, SEIU, and two others, $222 million they're spending in these closing weeks, the Democrats have a $1,078,000,000, $1.1 billion to the Republicans' nearly $700 million.

There's a big spending disadvantage. And so the Republican -- the president is being hypocritical when he attacks the Republicans for trying to buy the election. They're trying to buy it.

In fact catch this, Sean. The president is going to Charlottesville, Virginia, to campaign for Congressman Tom Perriello, a Democrat who's voted for the Obama agenda up and down the line.

HANNITY: Tom Perriello is the guy who said you better stop us from stealing?

ROVE: Yes, well he also is the guy who is benefiting from advertising from groups that do not disclose their donors.

HANNITY: Yes.

ROVE: Like the League of Conservation Voters and the Sierra Club (ph). Maybe, maybe the president is going down there to call Perriello and the people supporting him a threat to democracy because they have undisclosed campaign contributions, which he said was a threat to democracy.

He campaigned for a guy who's benefitted from it. What does that make the president?

HANNITY: I have a word. But this is not -- this is not a tough quiz. Well, it's hypocritical.

ROVE: Sure.

HANNITY: Is what you're saying.

ROVE: Absolutely.

HANNITY: And then you have been attacked personally. Is any of the money that you've been out raising, is any of it coming from any foreign sources? Ed Gillespie --

ROVE: Absolutely not. Look, I'm not dumb. 1907, the Congressman passed the Tillman Act. It was signed into law by Theodore Roosevelt. It says no foreign money in American political campaigns.

The New York Times asked President Obama and the Obama White House, do you have a scintilla of evidence to prove this? They said nothing. Brooks Jackson said something interesting -- the former, respected reporter for Wall Street Journal who's now the head of the FactCheck organization.

He said if you make a serious -- if accuse somebody of violating a criminal law, it's a serious allegation demanding serious evidence and the White House has produced none.

HANNITY: Well, I think David Axelrod gave the best answer and he was called out on it by Bob Schieffer.

ROVE: He said, is that the best you have?

HANNITY: Is that the best you got? And --

ROVE: Yes.

HANNITY: And do you have evidence? Well, do you have any evidence that I'm wrong, Bob? I mean, when did you stop beating your wife, basically?

ROVE: Exactly. And of course, it's David Axelrod, he turns out to have run a campaign in Chicago, a ballot initiative by -- that was funded by groups -- that was funded by unknown donors.

HANNITY: Yes. All right. Let's go to "The Hill." Let's go to the prediction. Let's go to Stu Rothenberg, let's go to Charlie Cook.

ROVE: Sure. Right.

HANNITY: You look at these guys, Politico. Anywhere between 97 and 100 seats they are saying are in play.

ROVE: You have 91 to 99 Democrat seats and between five and nine Republican seats.

HANNITY: All right. So what's your analysis at this point? And I don't necessarily even want a prediction, although I will ask for it.

ROVE: Yes, well, look, here -- let's look at it from two different ways. One is to take that number of Democrat seats that are in play. And a very smart academic named Henry Olson at the American Enterprise Institute did a study of wave midterm elections.

And what he found out is, is that the winning party took between 66 and 80 percent of the seats that were considered to be at risk and vulnerable. So since between 91 and 99, and let's call it 70 percent, just have a round number.

That means that the Democrats will lose between 64 and 69 seats in the House offset by whatever they pick up out of those Republican seats which I think is going to be two or three or four at most. So the Democrats could lose over 60 seats.

Now another way to look at it is the way The Hill looked at it, by looking at these individual polls. And I got to tell you, I looked through those and I am shocked at both the public polling data and the private polling data I'm seeing about this.

I have never seen anything like this in my life. Let me just tell you today. There is a 13-term Democrat incumbent named Kanjorski from Pennsylvania.

HANNITY: Yes.

ROVE: He's gone. There is a nine-term incumbent from North Dakota named Pomeroy, gone. We have Senate -- House committee chairs for armed services, budget and transportation, who -- and financial services who are all being severely pressed.

I've never seen so many Democrats or so many incumbents below 50 percent in my life.

HANNITY: It's pretty --

ROVE: Who are senior Democrats. I would suspect the Republicans are going to pick up 55 or --

HANNITY: What do we make about the Gallup and their model, which is likely voters, heavy turnout, light turnout? In either case it still favors Republicans in historic numbers.

ROVE: Well, in fact -- it does. And in fact, what's really about this is, their low turnout model assumes turnout is at the same level as it was in 2006. Roughly 82 million people had turned out to vote.

And the Republicans have a 16 or 17-point advantage in that -- if it's that kind of turnout, which, you know, twice as big, better than twice as big, as the gap that we had into 1994. Now what gets me is they then talk about the high turnout model.

And in the high turnout model, the Republican margin in the generic ballot goes to 12. Still above where it was in 1994. However, it doesn't make sense because if we have higher turnout this year, is it going to be because people who support President Obama are turning out or is it because we are seeing a whole bunch of people turn out who have never voted in midterm elections before, driven by the Tea Party sentiment and in some instances driven by Tea Party groups? Because they're concerned about deficits, debt, Obamacare and spending. We're going to have a huge turnout. And it's going to be 89 to 91 million people in my opinion.

HANNITY: Really? So which would be a high turnout model.

ROVE: Which would be a high turnout model and I think Gallup is wrong. I think Gallup -- I think the bigger the election, if it's 82 million --

(CROSSTALK)

HANNITY: The higher the turnout helps the Republicans?

ROVE: Helps the Republicans.

HANNITY: All right. So as you look at these races, you got a lot of close races. You got --

ROVE: Sure you do.

HANNITY: Buck out in Colorado is holding on to a slim lead. Dino Rossi is fighting for his life out in the state of Washington.

ROVE: Right.

HANNITY: We got -- Illinois --

(CROSSTALK)

ROVE: Narrow margin in West Virginia, Illinois --

HANNITY: Nevada.

ROVE: Nevada even -- Nevada, I feel better about because we're getting -- you take a look at it and it's starting to get wider. And look even Illinois which is a narrow race, you take a look at the polls, eight of the 10 polls that have been conducted in October, Mark Kirk has led. He's been tied to one, Giannoulias has only led in one.

HANNITY: Yes.

ROVE: So I'm feeling better about where these races are.

HANNITY: How about West Virginia?

ROVE: I'm feeling good about John Raese. I mean, look, where we've had races tightening, tightened because we've had mistakes made by candidates who really are fresh and new on to the stage whether it's Ken Buck. Raese ran for office but in 1984.

And, you know, we've got candidates who are unconventional and they're making mistakes as first time candidates do. But it is remarkable. Remember since World War II the average number of seats gained by the out- of-power party in the Senate is 3 1/2 on average.

HANNITY: So --

ROVE: We're looking at eight or nine seats the Republicans are going to take --

HANNITY: Not at 10.

ROVE: And it could take 10.

HANNITY: Could.

ROVE: It could take 10. It requires us to win Dino Rossi and/or win California.

HANNITY: All right. Karl Rove, good to see you. We'll be watching with you on election night.

ROVE: There we go.

HANNITY: All right. Love the board, very sophisticated.

ROVE: Very sophisticated.

HANNITY: High-tech.

ROVE: Very high-tech. High-tech graphics department. It worked.

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