Ticket splitting—the act of voting for candidates from different parties in the same election—comes and goes in American politics. Americans who started following politics at least a decade ago might remember a time when ticket splitting was a fairly common occurrence: South Dakota would send a Democrat to the House while voting firmly Republican for President, a Republican congressman would hold onto a suburban House district that otherwise voted strongly Democratic, etc. For those who started following a couple decades before that, ticket splitting was not just common, it was the norm: Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon, for instance, both won the popular vote by around 20 points and 49 of the 50 states in 1984 and 1972, respectively. At the same time, American voters gave Democrats a commanding majority (by a margin of 50 seats in 1972 and 72 seats in 1984) in the House of Representatives. Go further back, beyond the lifetime of most living Americans, however, and ticket-splitting becomes uncommon yet again. For most of the period between the formation of the modern two-party system in the 1850s until the establishment of the New Deal consensus in the 1930s and 1940s (which created Democratic dominance in Congress for most of the 5 following decades), party identification was strongly felt, and most people voted straight-ticket in every election.
In recent years, it has felt like we may be returning to the straight-ticket voting patterns of old. In 2016, for example, every single Senate race had the same outcome as the concurrent presidential election (though the margins were somewhat different); in 2020, every Senate election but one had the same outcome as the presidential election in that state. Gerrymandering and a larger number of uncontested races have made the picture in the House more complicated, but the combined House popular vote has generally corresponded fairly closely to the presidential results.
In 2024, however, something seemed to change: the outcomes in 4 Senate races were different from those in the presidential election, and many Senators who lost still overperformed Harris’s margin significantly. In the House, both Democrats and Republicans won in districts that voted for the other party in the presidential race. In North Carolina, Democrat Josh Stein outperformed Harris by double digits, while Republican gubernatorial candidates in New Hampshire and Vermont won handily despite Trump losing those states.
Did 2024 mark a revival of split-ticket voting? The answer is complicated, and it is best to look at a nationwide picture. While there are hundreds of races to look at, I intend to use this article to compare the results for the Senate and presidential elections,analyzing some patterns in split-ticket voting. The Senate results, presidential results, and relative over/underperformances (how well the winning candidate did relative to the presidential candidate from their party in each state) are shown below:
| Senate Margin | Presidential Margin | Over/Underperformance | |
| Arizona | D+2.4 | R+5.5 | +7.9 |
| California | D+18.2 | D+20.6 | -2.4 |
| Connecticut | D+18.9 | D+14.4 | +4.5 |
| Delaware | D+17.1 | D+14.7 | +2.4 |
| Florida | R+12.8 | R+13.1 | -0.3 |
| Hawaii | D+33.7 | D+23.1 | +10.6 |
| Indiana | R+19.9 | R+18.9 | +1 |
| Maine | I+17.2 | D+6.7 | +10.5 |
| Maryland | D+10.5 | D+27.7 | -17.2 |
| Massachusetts | D+18.8 | D+24.8 | -6 |
| Michigan | D+0.4 | R+1.4 | +1.8 |
| Minnesota | D+15.8 | D+4.2 | +11.6 |
| Mississippi | R+26.8 | R+24 | +2.8 |
| Missouri | R+13.8 | R+18.4 | -4.6 |
| Montana | R+7.1 | R+19.9 | -12.8 |
| Nebraska | R+7.2 | R+20.5 | -13.3 |
| Nevada | D+1.7 | R+3.1 | +4.8 |
| New Jersey | D+9.3 | D+5.9 | +3.4 |
| New Mexico | D+10.2 | D+5.9 | +4.3 |
| New York | D+17.4 | D+11.7 | +5.6 |
| North Dakota | R+33 | R+36.5 | -3.5 |
| Ohio | R+3.8 | R+11.3 | -7.5 |
| Pennsylvania | R+0.2 | R+2.1 | -1.9 |
| Rhode Island | D+19.8 | D+13.7 | +6.1 |
| Tennessee | R+29.6 | R+29.7 | -0.1 |
| Texas | R+8.6 | R+13.8 | -5.2 |
| Utah | R+30.7 | R+21.6 | +9.1 |
| Vermont | I+31.2 | D+31.2 | 0 |
| Virginia | D+8.2 | D+5.7 | +2.5 |
| Washington | D+19 | D+18.3 | +0.7 |
| West Virginia | R+41 | R+41.9 | -0.9 |
| Wisconsin | D+0.9 | R+0.8 | +1.7 |
| Wyoming | R+51.4 | R+46.2 | +5.2 |
Average difference between Senate margin and presidential margin: 5.2%
Looking through the results, it is clear that significant ticket splitting occurred in several states. In Maryland, popular former Republican Governor Larry Hogan’s campaign managed to create a nearly single-digit race in the typically safely Democratic state. In Nebraska, Dan Osborn ran an independent campaign against incumbent Republican Deb Fischer that was surprisingly successful. And in Montana, incumbent Democrat Jon Tester put up the best performance he could have in the deep-red state—though it was not enough to save him.
Looking at the patterns nationally, it seems that ticket splitting really did become somewhat more common this election—or at the very least, continued at the same level as the past couple elections. In many cases, Democratic Senate candidates seem to be the ones facilitating this ticket splitting. This is possibly because they were able to distance themselves better from the Biden administration, while Harris, who struggled throughout her campaign to separate herself from the deeply unpopular incumbent, faced voters’ wrath to a greater extent. Voters who were concerned about Trump’s personality and policy proposals but who voted for him because of economic concerns may also have voted for Democratic candidates down the ballot to assuage their consciences. A similar phenomenon may explain why many Americans voted in favor of pro-abortion ballot measures while also voting for Trump. Regardless of their intentions, millions of Americans cast ballots that spurned the party line.
From a broader historical standpoint, the level of ticket splitting we saw this year is nothing near the kind that was commonplace a few decades ago. Additionally, it seems that it was less the extent of the ticket splitting that mattered, and more where it happened: Democratic Senate candidates were strong enough to make the difference in multiple swing state races, netting them more seats from ticket splitting than in recent election cycles. It would be rash to assume that because ticket splitting became featured more prominently this election cycle, the 2024 election marks the beginning of a new era of depolarized American politics. Other factors (Biden’s unpopularity, uniquely strong incumbents, etc.) also played a part, and Senate candidates in recent cycles (such as Chuck Schumer of New York in 2016 and Susan Collins of Maine in 2020) have achieved massive overperformances over presidential candidates from the same party. It is certainly clear, however, that ticket splitting is not dead yet, and both Democrats and Republicans ought to keep in mind just how big of a difference candidate quality can make in even the smallest of races.
Leave a Reply