One of the misconceptions that’s taken hold about the 2020 election is that because Biden won by a fairly comfortable margin but Democrats performed relatively poorly down-ballot, that there was a lot of split ticket voting. That was actually not the case. In fact, quite the opposite happened.
First we’ll start with the Senate. The only state to elect a Senator and President from a different party was Maine where Susan Collins cruised to reelection even while Biden easily took the state. In 2016 there were zero “purple” states. This was the first time that has ever happened.
As far as the House is concerned, it’s worth remembering that since all 435 seats in the House are up every two years, that just because Republicans gained seats doesn’t mean they got more votes. Democrats still got more votes than Republicans did, they just got less more votes than they did in 2018. House Democrats won 50.8% of the popular vote in 2020. This is remarkably similar to the 51.3% of the vote Joe Biden won.
Moreover, out of the 435 districts in the country there were only 16 crossover districts, that is, districts that voted for one party at the top on the ticket and a different party at the bottom. This is remarkably small. Consider that in 2000 that number was 86, in 2008 it was 83, even in 2016 it was more than double (35) what it was in 2020. While it’s true that Republicans down ballot did tend to run a few points ahead of Trump, there wasn’t nearly enough split ticket voting to make it a decisive factor.
So what does this all mean? Well it means the narrative that’s taken hold about split ticket voting in the 2020 election is incorrect. Split ticket voting was unusual in 2020, but not because it was unusually high. Biden won 51.3% of the vote and Democrats won 51% of House seats (222 out of 435). For Republicans, they got the best of both worlds. Down ballot candidates benefitted from the increased turnout amongst the base while not being dragged down by Trump’s unpopularity.
What does this mean for 2022? Well, as we saw in 2018 and in the Georgia runoffs, with Trump not on the ballot there’s no guarantee that his base will come out, and by leaning into Trumpism Republicans run the risk of losing moderate, suburban voters for good. Put another way: Democrats’ clear strategy for 2022 is to paint Republicans as Trump-loving extremists. So far, Republicans are making their job pretty easy.
