Why did Democrats win Senate races in so many states Trump won? Ticket splitters

WASHINGTON – Duane Canther, a 66-year-old union member who builds parts for car companies in Michigan, voted for Republican President-elect Donald Trump, but he supported Joseph Solis-Mullen, the Libertarian candidate in Michigan's narrowly decided Senate race.

Votes like his are part of why Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin defeated former Republican Rep. Mike Rogers to fill an open seat left by the retirement of Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., by 0.4 percentage points, even though Trump won the state by 1.4 points.

“I voted just to say I voted for somebody. They say if you don’t vote you can’t complain,” Canther said about his Senate vote.

“I felt both of them were flipping back and forth on certain things," he added, referring to the Democratic and Republican Senate nominees.

Neighboring Wisconsin took a similar path, re-electing Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin over Republican challenger Eric Hovde, even while giving its 10 Electoral College votes to Trump.

"Ticket-splitting" voters helped Trump carry Wisconsin, Michigan and North Carolina ? where Trump prevailed while Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein won the governor's race. Trump also won Nevada, where Democratic incumbent Sen. Jacky Rosen beat her GOP opponent Sam Brown. And he is on track to win Arizona, which has not yet been called, where Democratic Rep. Reuben Gallego is leading Republican candidate Kari Lake.

There were important exceptions. Republicans beat incumbent Democratic Sens. Jon Tester in Montana, Sherrod Brown in Ohio, and Bob Casey in Pennsylvania, though all three performed better in their state than Vice President Kamala Harris did.

Ticket-splitting used to be common, and while it is becoming less so in an era of increased partisanship, the swing-state down-ballot results show split tickets still can determine the outcome of key races.

“There are still differences between presidential and Senate races,” Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics, said. “And those differences broke in Democrats’ favor across these states.”

Running away from Joe Biden

The Democrats that prevailed in the presidential swing states worked to distinguish themselves from President Joe Biden, whose favorability ratings have been underwater for years, and campaigned on an independent brand tailored to their states.

In Arizona, for example, Gallego did not shy away from challenges facing border communities and emphasized the need to secure the southern border, a top issue in the southwestern state. Rosen in Nevada touted her bipartisan work to improve the state’s infrastructure. Baldwin in Wisconsin emphasized her dedication to policies supporting farmers and rural residents, and Slotkin in Michigan noted her commitment to American manufacturing.

Experts disagree on how split ticket voters are distributing their choices. Some say most split-ticket voters that supported Trump are handing Democrats the downballot victory by only voting for president, or voting third party for lower office, like Borden and Canther. Others say downballot Democrats won Trump supporters’ vote by distinguishing themselves from the national Democratic Party.

“The Senate candidates are often well known to voters” because they run intense campaigns with a flood of advertisements, said Barry Burden, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

And because turnout was similar for the presidential and the Senate races in most states, he argued, it is likely that some people are still splitting their ticket between the two parties.

“So voters in some places are making real distinctions to say this is not somebody who is aligned with Trump or represents him in the same way, or this is someone who has the state’s interest in mind in a way that other candidates don’t,” he said. “And that really is a different story from one state to the next.”

What do the election results mean for you? Sign up for USA TODAY's On Politics newsletter for breaking news and exclusive analysis.

Who are split ticket voters?

Split ticket voters were common in the 1970s and 1980s, when the two political parties were more ideologically diverse.

For example, while Republican President Ronald Reagan won a nationwide landslide in 1984, states he carried such as Iowa, Oklahoma and Tennessee still sent Democrats to the Senate. And while President Bill Clinton was comfortably re-elected in 1996, Republicans were still elected to the Senate in states Clinton won, like Arkansas, Oregon and Maine.

As the parties moved further apart, it became harder for voters to justify voting for candidates from both major parties on the same ballot. Today, Burden estimates around one in 10 voters are willing to split their ticket.

Tester, Brown and retiring West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin ? who will be replaced by Republican Sen.-elect Jim Justice ? were some of the last remaining Senate Democrats from red states.

Split-ticket voters are usually less engaged, know less about the candidates, don’t have a strong party identification and decide who they plan to vote for at the last minute, according to political scientists.

“They’re much more responsive to who the individuals are and to their performance in office and much less susceptible to the Washington style of defining politics,” Burden said.

Trump's victory was so widespread that these voters were not necessarily the difference-maker for him. If he had not won Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada or Arizona – all places where the Democratic Senate candidate won or is leading – he would still have the 270 electoral college votes needed to take the presidency. If he had also lost North Carolina, that would have made Harris the winner.

Ticket-splitting is more common in gubernatorial elections than congressional races. For example, former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican, led the heavily Democratic state from 2015 to 2023 but lost his Senate race to Democrat Angela Alsobrooks on Tuesday. The state also voted for Harris for president.

The Democratic Senate candidates’ victories will be the difference between a small Republican majority in the upper chamber ? it's projected to be 52 to 55 seats ? and a roomy majority that would make it easier for them to overcome the 60-vote threshold needed to pass legislation over a filibuster.

Ticket splitters are “more casual voters,” Burden said, “but they end up being the ones who make a big difference.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Why did Republicans lose Senate races in so many states Trump won?