U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kansas, who is leading the Republican effort to take over the Senate, said he thinks it will happen.

“At the moment, I think that the trend is in our favor,” Moran said Tuesday during a visit to Kansas University.

Republicans need to pick up six seats to hold the majority in the Senate. Moran is chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

But many of those Senate races are close, including in Kansas, where Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., is in the fight of his political life against independent candidate Greg Orman.

Moran said he believes Roberts will win. He said Roberts “is still paying the price of a difficult primary” against a spirited challenge from tea party candidate Milton Wolf.

During the primary, Wolf criticized Roberts for living in Virginia and losing touch with Kansas. Moran said that was a false issue because it falsely implied Roberts wasn’t voting the way Kansans wanted.

Moran said many incumbents face difficulties because there is widespread voter dissatisfaction with Washington, D.C.

“Kansans in particular, but Americans across the country are tired of Washington, D.C. In some places it’s about President Obama and his agenda, and in other places, and perhaps everywhere, it’s the dysfunction of Congress,” Moran said.

While at KU, Moran met with faculty members from KU’s School of Education and participated in a simulated middle school classroom in the simulation and coaching lab in the Learning Resource Center of Pearson Hall.

Before the demonstration, education professors shared with Moran their varied research projects.

Rick Ginsberg, dean of the School of Education, said the school ranks second on campus in the amount of research dollars awarded per faculty member.

KU’s Department of Special Education is ranked No. 1 in the nation by U.S. News & World Report.

Chairwoman Elizabeth Kozleski said the department is a national leader in research and application of that research.

“It is in that intersection of theory and practice that you build the capacity of teachers,” Kozleski said.

Moran thanked the educators for their work.

“What goes on in Washington, D.C., matters; what goes on in classrooms matters more,” he said.