Video: Colbert Says Midterms Are America's Nasty Divorce—'Who's Getting the House?'

Stephen Colbert looked an anxiety-ridden mess during his show on Monday night, on the eve of the 2018 midterms, as he tried to crunch the numbers to work out what will happen when Americans cast their ballots.

"Of course, in America's ongoing bitter divorce the big question is: Who's getting the house?" Colbert said in a monologue on CBS's The Late Show.

The comedian said Democrats are "feeling alarmingly confident" about flipping control of the House of Representatives from the Republicans.

Minority Leader of the House Nancy Pelosi said "out loud" that the Democrats were going to win the House, Colbert said, and joked that she also announced the party would change its logo from a donkey to a "cursed monkey's paw."

After citing Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight, which has Democrats at a seven in eight chance of winning the House, Colbert told people to "knock on wood" and took a swig of some barrel-aged bourbon.

Colbert pointed out a CNN poll which shows women voters favor Democrats over Republicans by 62 percent to 35 percent. "But Republicans aren't worried because they have a history of not believing women," he quipped, a reference to the recent Kavanaugh saga.

"Now this year, especially, after being burned by all the prognosticating in 2016, the folks on cable news are playing it safe," Colbert said, playing clips of guests saying you cannot predict what will happen in the midterms.

"I need to know. We can figure this out. Modern statistical analysis can tell me exactly who's going to win tomorrow so I can sleep tonight," Colbert said, before going on a frantic rundown of the numbers.

"Let's just crunch the numbers, OK? In the midwest, Heidi Heitkamp is down by nine, but Claire McCaskill is up by three. Beto O'Rourke is in a dead heat with Ted Cruz, then again, Andrew Gillum is a Sagittarius and should expect good career news this month even though Venus is in retrograde.

"Meanwhile, his opponent Ron DeSantis was born in the Chinese year of the horse so his unlucky numbers are one, five and six, and election day is on the sixth of November. But Nevada's Dean Heller saw his shadow, which means six more weeks of election —MAKE IT STOP!"

All 435 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives are up for grabs this election. The GOP controls the house. The Republicans have a majority of 235 in the House. Democrats hold 193 seats.

In the U.S. Senate, there are 100 seats in total but only 35 are up in the 2018 midterms. The Republicans currently have a majority of 51 seats against the Democratic caucus of 49.

The vast majority up are held by Democrats making it unlikely they will flip control of the Senate unless they successfully defend every one, including those in states that voted for President Donald Trump in 2016.

TONIGHT: 'Tis the night before the midterms and all through America people are riddled with anxiety. #LSSC pic.twitter.com/W8XDFKNaQl

— A Late Show (@colbertlateshow) November 6, 2018

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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.

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