The Senate Republican campaign arm sent out a fundraising email Thursday “from” former Vice President Mike Pence in which he said President Joe Biden’s victory in 2020 was a “contested takeover,” Punchbowl News reports.

It turns out Pence didn’t have anything to do with this email.

Said a NRSC spokesman: “We appreciate Vice President Pence’s support in helping us win back the Senate. Our team made a mistake and a vendor sent the wrong version of an email. It was not approved by Vice President Pence’s team and we regret the error.”

Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball: “We’ve said before that the Republicans were favored to win the House majority next year, both because of redistricting and also because of the usual midterm trend that breaks against the party in the White House, among other factors. Following the completion of this redistricting preview, we have not changed our view on that.”

“We did our own back-of-the-envelope projections of the House and anticipated some aggressive (but not maximally aggressive) gerrymandering by both Republicans and Democrats, where applicable. We also assumed a somewhat neutral political environment, which very well may not end up being the case – in all likelihood, Joe Biden’s currently net-negative approval rating needs to rebound for there to be even a neutral environment next year as opposed to a Republican-leaning one.”

“Anyway, we got a GOP net gain of roughly a dozen seats, more than the five-seat improvement they need from the 2020 results to win the House majority. This is a deliberately modest outlook, and Republicans could easily blow past it next year, while there are also scenarios under which Democrats are able to minimize those GOP gains and perhaps even save their majority. But our default expectation has been, and remains, a Republican House takeover next year.”

“Here’s a sound bite for you: Bring it.”

— Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), responding to Donald Trump’s endorsement of primary challenger Harriet Hageman (R) in which he called Cheney “the Democrats number one provider of sound bites.”

“I know we will win in the Congress. People say, ‘Well, in the off-year, it’s not the good year.’ But, I think any assumptions about politics are obsolete. We live in a whole new world of communication and the rest. And I think that all of our members who survived Trump being on the ballot with them will survive next year, because Trump’s not on the ballot.”

— Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), quoted by Punchbowl News.

Jonathan Bernstein: “Remember that Biden doesn’t need to be popular now. He needs to be popular next summer and fall for Democrats to do well in the 2022 midterm elections, and he needs to be popular in the summer and fall of 2024 for the Democrats to win the next presidential election. His popularity depends on a successful effort against the pandemic and a booming economy. At least more than on anything else.”

Cook Political Report: “To hold the House in 2022, Democrats would likely need a combination of factors to break their way: aggressive gerrymanders in New York and Illinois, favorable commission outcomes or court rulings striking GOP gerrymanders, a rebound in Biden’s approval and weak turnout among casual Trump voters.”

“It’s not an impossible scenario, but the GOP’s path to 218 seats is much easier to envision today.”

Milwaukee City Councilwoman Chantia Lewis (D), who is running for the Senate seat held by Ron Johnson (R-WI), was charged with four felonies for allegedly stealing $21,000 from her own campaign and lying about it, The Hill reports.

Playbook: “Suddenly, stories that weren’t great political terrain for Biden and Democrats — the fallout from the Afghanistan pullout, the new Delta surge, humdrum new employment numbers, etc. — were replaced by the Texas news, then the Supreme Court non-ruling — a storyline that Democrats know will motivate their liberal base and potentially drive moderate women to the polls.”

“And that’s giving Democrats big hopes both in upcoming elections and for 2022. They can use what’s happening in other states — and the judiciary’s non-intervention — to nationalize their campaigns. All of these changes may end up provoking a backlash that motivates turnout for Dems in the midterms.”

“President Biden is eager for a fight over abortion — an issue he sees as politically advantageous after the conservative Supreme Court left in place the near-ban in Texas,” senior officials tell Axios.

“The White House sees abortion as a potent issue ahead of next year’s midterms, with Biden under huge pressure on Afghanistan, inflation, crime and the border.”

Amy Walter: “At this point, however, listening to these voters is helpful not for predicting the outcome of the 2022 election, but for understanding how they are processing the world around them. They are often much less interested in the topics and policies that get chewed over on Twitter or cable TV. Many times they also see those issues very differently than we assume they do.”

“My main takeaway was the prominence of COVID as their dominant concern. When asked about how they felt about the state of the country, almost all of them replied with a pessimistic comment. And, that negativity was almost universally centered around issues of the virus and the vaccine.”