O'Reilly: MSNBC hosts may 'commit suicide' after midterms

Fox News' Bill O'Reilly has come up with one more reason for his viewers not to watch MSNBC.

The host of The O'Reilly Factor warned Monday that there could be mass suicides on the air at MSNBC if Democrats sustain major losses in Tuesday's midterms.

"It's going to be interesting to watch tomorrow and the rest of the week if [the election] plays out the way Gallup says it's going to play out, how the president will handle it, how the liberal commentators [will handle it]," O'Reilly told Juan Williams.

"I'm going to issue a viewer warning right now for children not to watch MSNBC because some people may commit suicide, alright. They may set themselves on fire over there and it would be gruesome to watch that," O'Reilly said.

A survey released Monday by the polling organization Gallup showed that likely voters favored a generic Republican candidate by as many as 15 points.

The results are from Gallup's Oct. 28-31 survey of 1,539 likely voters. It finds 52% to 55% of likely voters preferring the Republican candidate and 40% to 42% for the Democratic candidate on the national generic ballot -- depending on turnout assumptions. Gallup's analysis of several indicators of voter turnout from the weekend poll suggests turnout will be slightly higher than in recent years, at 45%. This would give the Republicans a 55% to 40% lead on the generic ballot, with 5% undecided.

Alan Abramowitz, Professor of Political Science at Emory University, determined that just a 13 point margin likely voters the the generic ballot could mean an 80 seat gain for Republicans.

But O'Reilly's predictions of mass suicides at MSNBC may be premature because Gallup's survey indicates more optimism for Republicans than most other polls.

"A half-dozen independent media surveys conducted over the last two weeks have yielded narrower margins among 'likely voters,' ranging from a nine-point Republican lead to a two-point Democratic edge," wrote pollster Mark Blumenthal.

An average of polls other than Gallup's shows that Republicans have only a five point lead on the generic ballot.

This video is from Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, broadcast Nov. 1, 2010.