Obama hosts fundraiser with Senate Democrats weeks before midterms

Reported by CBS News. The paragraphs below are the opening of that article, reproduced word for word — not a summary, and not the whole piece.

Washington – Former President Barack Obama headlined a fundraiser for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Wednesday night to discuss the stakes of the upcoming midterm election.

The event featured a conversation between Obama and Delaware Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester, vice chair of the DSCC, about Democrats' efforts to flip the Senate.

"I think he is just such a voice for our country, and of both realism and practical optimism, and I think we need that right now," Blunt Rochester told CBS News. "And I think he also lays the foundation for the significance of this election."

Senate Democrats have become increasingly optimistic about their prospects this fall after several races shifted toward the party in recent weeks, including in deep-red states like Texas and Ohio that are considered toss-ups, according to CBS News' battleground tracker .

"We do not want to be overconfident, but what we're seeing in state after state after state is that people are sick of Trump, they're sick of the Republican Senate going along with them, and they see the clear divisions we have drawn between what we stand for and what they stand for," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told CBS News last month. "That has put us on the edge of victory."

Republicans currently hold a 53-47 majority in the Senate. Democrats would need to pick up four seats to gain control of the upper chamber.