Erin Kelly

USA TODAY

Republican leaders' growing call for voters to elect "checks and balances" to Congress to rein in the power of the next president amounts to a tacit admission that they believe Hillary Clinton is going to win, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said Wednesday.

"One thing they're saying now, we want checks and balances, is a real admission on the part of the Speaker and the Senate majority leader that Donald Trump is a here-today-gone-tomorrow candidate for president of the United States," Pelosi, D-Calif., said at a news conference at the Capitol.

She said House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's use of the term "checks and balances" is "a euphemism for obstruction." She said Republican leaders want to keep their majorities in the House and Senate in part to thwart Clinton's policy agenda.

Many GOP candidates in close House and Senate races have essentially been asking people to split their votes by choosing Republicans for Congress even if they vote for Clinton for president. One of the prime examples of that is in the hard-fought Pennsylvania Senate race, where Republican Sen. Pat Toomey has been appealing to Clinton voters to choose him over Democratic challenger Katie McGinty.

Pelosi stopped short of predicting that Democrats will win the House. But whichever party wins control of the chamber, it will most likely have only a single-digit advantage over the minority party, she predicted.

"I think we're in a good place," she said of the Democratic effort to take the House. "Again, it's all about the ground (game)."

Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska, one of the first congressional Republicans to oppose Trump, said Pelosi is wrong to equate checks and balances with obstructionism.

"Respectfully, Minority Leader Pelosi, those checks and balances are what separate our job as lawmakers from punditry or blind political cheerleading," the senator said in a statement. "Checks and balances aren’t code; they’re what give our constituents — the American people — a voice in a city full of unelected bureaucrats. They are profoundly important for Americans of every walk of life."