"Voters Don't Split Tickets Anymore"

[Jamaal510]

More: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/09/senate-trump/498287/

Holding the Senate was always an uphill climb for Republicans this year because they are defending so many more seats than Democrats. But Donald Trump’s polarizing candidacy is converging with long-term shifts in voting patterns to make the hill even steeper.

Since the 1970s, the share of voters who split their tickets—supporting one party for president and the other in Senate races—has steadily declined. If that pattern persists in November, Republicans will likely lose their slim upper-chamber majority because the most competitive Senate races are clustered in blue or purple states where Trump faces the greatest resistance. To maintain control, Republicans will need either a dramatic Trump recovery in states such as Illinois and Wisconsin—or to convince more voters to split their ballots in Senate races than either side has typically persuaded lately. Neither will be easy.

In one respect, Democrats have helped Republican candidates to escape any Trump undertow. Although some individual Senate candidates have linked their opponents to the blustery nominee, Hillary Clinton has mostly chosen not to tie Trump to conservative thought but rather to define him as a fringe departure from it. Republicans are hopeful that will help conservative-leaning voters who can’t stomach Trump revert to their usual party loyalties in Senate races. “Voters are [receiving] multiple messages telling them that you can vote a different way down the ticket,” says Alex Lundry, co-founder of the GOP voter-targeting firm, Deep Root Analytics.

But those messages are competing against a long-term evolution in voters’ behavior that has made it tougher for all senators to survive in effect behind enemy lines—in states that usually prefer the other party for president. As party-line voting inside Congress has reached near-parliamentary levels, voters have responded by treating congressional elections less as a choice between individuals and more as a parliamentary-style referendum on which side they prefer to control the majority.

[Hortensis]

1. What the "Trump effect" turns out to be has

everyone wondering and theorizing, trying to measure, but no one knows. Will the Trump effect cause some ticket splitting and how much. Will it mean lower conservative turnout? Or will the terrible threat of a liberal majority on the Supreme Court negate it?

Trump's weirdness apparently does seem to be helping down-ballot Republican candidates distance themselves from him. Hill and her crew didn't cause this, though, and while she pushes the dangerous-rogue-nutcase message at the top, local Democratic campaigns are pounding the Trump connection down-ballot.

The Atlantic author seems to think they work at cross purposes. Perhaps it's more like hammering confused and undecided voters from both directions. Between them they may encourage Republicans who won't cross the ballot to sit this one out.

Whatever, we can be sure it's part of a carefully thought out strategy to put as many Democrats in office as possible.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

2. I wonder if it is time to link tRump back to conservatives and GOP. Damage the GOP brand more. . nt

[bucolic_frolic]

3. Senate candidates have to stand on their own records and campaigns

Presidents and presidential candidates historically have very short
coattails when trying to influence the outcomes of congressional elections.
It's up to Senate candidates to tie the other party to Trump. Should be
easy in the case of Tea Party Republicans.

[LLStarks]

4. But they do... At least that's what the Ohio and Florida polls suggest. eom

[uponit7771]

5. This is good news