As one conservative intellectual said to me - he said if the choice is between [Joseph] Stalin and [Adolf] Hitler, I'd pick Stalin, meaning Ted Cruz because he's more predictable. So there's real civil war inside the Republican Party.

For Democrats, anything less than 15 net pickups will be a disappointing outcome [in presidency race].

For a long time, many Republicans thought if they just took two aspirin and laid down, [Donald] Trump would go away.

The country wants the president and the Congress focused on jobs and the economy. Any regulation that the president promulgates that isn't focused on, I think, is a risk for him, and the same is true for Congress.

The lesson is that voters in both parties are in a very anti-establishment, populist mood. Hillary Clinton is the establishment candidate.

African-American voters are not nearly as enthusiastic about [Hillary] Clinton as they were about [Barack] Obama.

The Senate is the big prize. Until recently, Democrats felt confident they could get the four seats they needed to take back control if [Hillary] Clinton is in the White House and Vice President Tim Kaine held the tie-breaking vote.