The Hill News

Republicans are on the verge of winning 55 to 65 seats in the House on Nov. 2, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) predicted Wednesday night.

Gingrich, the architect of the successful 1994 GOP takeover of the House and Senate, predicted his party would do well better than picking up the 39 seats they need to win back control of the House.

In the Senate, Gingrich said Republicans were in striking range of winning back the 10 seats they need to take back the Senate, but the potential 2012 presidential candidate stopped short of predicting an outright takeover.

"All I'll tell you is that, as a general principle right now, Republicans are probably between plus-55 and plus-65 in the House and they're between plus-seven and plus-12 in the Senate," Gingrich said of Republican fortunes during an appearance on Fox News.

"And they're going to be between 32 and 34 Republican governors after election night," he added of the GOP's gubernatorial contests.

An electoral wave of that magnitude would be considered a good night for Republicans by most standards, especially for the House GOP. A win of 55 to 65 seats would not only make House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) the speaker of the House and hand the GOP control of committees, but it would give Republicans more of a margin for error in their vote counts on legislation.

Gingrich said this fall's elections might not be on the magnitude of 1994 or 1980 -- the two most recent flash points to which Republicans have referred to describe their own electoral circumstances -- but, rather, the 1932 elections that saw Democrats pick up 97 seats in the House.

"And I think that will be a bigger sweep than '94; it may comparable to anything we've seen sin! ce 1932," he said.