Nancy Pelosi, Arrogant and Certain: “We Will Win”

You would think, after all the polls were wrong and Donald Trump was elected the President of the United States in 2016, that even the most arrogant and cocksure Democrats in Washington would have learned the simple lesson: It’s ain’t over ‘till it’s over.

But apparently that confidence is unknown to Nancy Pelosi, who is chomping at the bit to get that gavel in her hands and resume her place as Speaker of the House. So when asked by Stephen Colbert on Tuesday to outline the Democrats’ chances of winning power in the midterm elections, she didn’t hesitate.

“Let me say this,” Pelosi said. “Up until today, I would’ve said, ‘If the election were held today, we would win.’ What now I’m saying is: We will win.”

Colbert urged her not to jinx her party

“Do you want to say that on Hillary’s fireworks barge that she canceled?” Colbert said. “Please don’t say that. How long are the curtains that you’re measuring right now?”

Pelosi, though, didn’t acknowledge the obvious, recent historical lesson. In fact, she said, “If everyone votes, we’ll have even a bigger victory. Democrats will carry the House. If we have a bigger victory, the Senate, governorships. It’s going to be a great night for America.”

Not sure there’s a political analyst in the country predicting that the Democrats have even the slightest chance of taking the Senate, but hey, optimism isn’t a crime, we suppose.

On the flipside, it may be unwarranted optimism on our part to insist that Republicans still have a chance to hold onto the House. Certainly, that’s not in line with the most recent polls, which show Democrats running away with a midterm victory. We wouldn’t go as far as Pelosi in saying “they will win,” but yeah…it’s not looking great. By every conceivable polling measure, she’s indeed going to have that gavel back in her hands in January of next year.

Then again, we have to go back to what we said before. That’s what the conventional wisdom looked like hours before voting closed on Election Day, 2016. You would get laughed out of any building in Washington or New York if you went into the coverage that night predicting a Donald Trump victory. It simply wasn’t supposed to happen. And yet it did. Furthermore, there’s very little indication to say that polling companies have greatly improved their methods since that astonishing night. We could very well be in for another night of surprises.

We hope so. We hope so.