随着民主党人竭尽全力他们在总统竞选中糟糕的投票数对他们来说，有一个好消息:美国参议院选举。民主党候选人在最近的关键参议院选举投票中领先，如亚利桑那州,密歇根,内华达州,宾夕法尼亚州和威斯康星州*尽管美国总统乔·拜登落后于前总统唐纳德·特朗普在同样的民意调查中.
我回去查看了过去六周内所有涉及总统竞选和美国参议院竞选的州级民调。下表显示了各州民意调查的简单平均值;如你所见，参议院民主党人平均领先拜登5个百分点:
不难理解为什么会出现这种情况。如果你以前听过这个，请阻止我，但是拜登不受欢迎;与此同时，大多数民主党参议员候选人受欢迎的现任者，如宾夕法尼亚州参议员鲍勃·凯西和弗吉尼亚州参议员蒂姆·凯恩，和/或有表现优于榜首比如密歇根州众议员埃利萨·斯洛特金和明尼苏达州参议员艾米·克洛布查尔。你瞧，共和党参议员候选人在仅有的三个州中的支持率高于特朗普的是他们在任的两个州(佛罗里达州和德克萨斯州)和马里兰州，在马里兰州，共和党候选人是受欢迎的前州长拉里·霍根，他的表现令人震惊81%的支持率民主主义者在他离任时。
因此，为什么会出现总统候选人票数差距并不完全是个谜。更有趣的问题是，这个缺口对11月份意味着什么。基本上有三种理论可以回答这个问题:
1.拜登目前的支持率被人为压低;有很多传统的民主党选民他们告诉民调机构，他们支持参议院民主党人，但不管出于什么原因，他们还没有准备好支持拜登。因此，随着我们离大选越来越近，这些选民加入进来，拜登的支持度将会上升，这将使拜登和参议院民主党人都处于良好状态。
2.参议院共和党人目前的支持率被人为压低了。由于他们中的大多数人都不是现任者，因此他们不像他们的对手那样知名，但随着特朗普选民了解到他们在这些参议院竞选中站在“正确的队伍”上，他们的支持率将会上升。因此，川普和参议院共和党人都将在11月大选中表现出色。
3.参议院民主党人只是比拜登更受欢迎，这种差距将在选举中持续存在:许多州将同时投票给特朗普和一名民主党参议员候选人。
我对第三条持怀疑态度。如果目前的民调最终完全正确，民主党将在特朗普赢得的州赢得至少五场参议院选举。这在20年前并不罕见——2004年，七个州投票支持不同的政党竞选总统和参议员。但是今天，分裂票投票非常罕见。2016年，每个州都投票支持同一政党竞选参议员和总统。2020年，除缅因州外，每个州都投了赞成票。
这一个州的总统和参议院的差距中值在此期间也大幅缩水——从2004年的20个百分点降至2020年的仅3个百分点。
相比之下，上表中10个州目前的总统和参议院民调差距中值为10个百分点。很难想象在如此两极分化的政治环境下会发生这种事情。
因此，如果我们假设总统选举和参议院选举的结果最终会更加接近，那么我们面临的问题是哪个政党将从中受益。要回答这个问题，我们需要看到的不仅仅是民主党和共和党在最近民调中的差距，还有拜登和川普与参议院民主党人和参议院共和党人相比获得的实际选票百分比。
你看，一些模糊的事实是，一些选民在这一早期阶段仍未做出决定——观察实际百分比可以为你提供线索，了解这些选民最终可能倾向于支持谁。
想象一下X州，特朗普以43%对39%的优势领先拜登4个百分点，但民主党参议员候选人以47%对41%的优势领先共和党参议员候选人6个百分点。这是10个百分点的差距，但这并不是因为该州有10%的选民在特朗普和民主党参议员候选人之间平分选票。相反，特朗普和共和党参议员候选人的支持率大致相同:约为42%。但这位民主党参议员候选人以47%对39%的支持率领先拜登近9个百分点，这表明许多投票支持民主党参议员的人还没有决定他们要把票投给谁。
这些人最终可能会投票给拜登或特朗普，这是有道理的;顾名思义，犹豫不决的选民可能会选择任何一条路。但事实如此更容易的想象一下，他们投票给拜登是因为他们已经表示愿意投票给民主党人——而且，分裂票投票已经变得像白金票一样罕见。因此，这种情况将给民主党人带来乐观的理由。
好吧，对民主党来说幸运的是，这是一个真实的场景:X州是亚利桑那州。到目前为止，宾夕法尼亚州和威斯康星州的情况类似——民主党参议院选民对拜登的软支持几乎占了那里民调中总统和参议院之间的所有差异。不能保证他能做到这一点，但如果拜登能赢得凯西、亚利桑那州众议员鲁本·加勒戈和威斯康星州参议员塔米·鲍德温的每一位支持者，**他就有很大机会消除他在这些州的赤字。
另一方面，这一消息对拜登在其他州的表现更为不利。拜登在内华达州也有很大的上升空间，他在该州的民调落后参议员杰基·罗森9个百分点。但是共和党候选人萨姆·布朗可能也落后6个百分点法宝如果他们两人都赶上领先者，银州将大致持平，45%对44%。
与此同时，在密歇根州，实际上是拜登和斯洛特金的民调水平相同(42%)。然而，可能获得共和党提名的前众议员迈克·罗杰斯(Mike Rogers)的表现落后于特朗普3个百分点，这意味着一旦共和党人开始了解斯洛特金，他可能会在参议院民调中领先于他。
当然，这是一种过于简化的做法;同样，这些犹豫不决的选民不能保证会统一支持他们在选票上其他地方表示支持的政党。事实上，他们几乎肯定会不统一分裂——也就是说，一些人会在总统和参议院选举中投票给同一个政党，但其他人会分裂他们的选票。
最重要的是，仍有许多选民对他们的选票犹豫不决两者总统和参议院。回头看看上面的表格;其中只有两个数字超过50%(佛罗里达州51%的人支持共和党参议员里克·斯科特，马里兰州55%的人支持拜登)。因此，即使每一位不是拜登的民主党人和每一位不是共和党参议员特朗普的支持者最终都回家了，大多数州的选举都将取决于一群更难以预测的选民——真正尚未决定的选民——的选择。
杰弗里·斯凯利参与了研究。
脚注
*当然，如果共和党人拿下西弗吉尼亚州和以下三个州中的一个:蒙大拿州、俄亥俄州或副总统职位，民主党可以赢得所有这些州，但仍会失去参议院。
* *重要的是，这不与所谓的“反向提携”现象相同，这种观点认为，选票较低的候选人的精力和竞选努力有利于本党得票最高的候选人，因为他们会驱使原本不会投票的选民前往投票站。那儿有几乎没有确凿的证据逆袭是真实存在的。
Senate Democrats are polling well. That could help Biden.
As Democrats wring their hands overtheir poor polling numbers in the presidential race, there is one spot of good news for them: U.S. Senate races. Democratic candidates have led in most recent polls of key Senate races likeArizona,Michigan,Nevada,PennsylvaniaandWisconsin* even as President Joe Biden trails former President Donald Trumpin the very same polls.
I went back and looked at every state-level poll that has asked about both the presidential race and a U.S. Senate race over the past six weeks. The table below shows a simple average of these polls by state; as you can see, Senate Democrats are outrunning Biden's margin by an average of 5 percentage points:
It isn't hard to figure out why this is the case. Stop me if you've heard this before, butBiden is unpopular; meanwhile, most Democratic candidates for Senate arepopular incumbents, like Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey and Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, and/or have a track record ofoutperforming the top of the ticket, like Michigan Rep. Elissa Slotkin and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar. Lo and behold, the only three states where Republican Senate candidates are polling better than Trump are the two states where they are incumbents (Florida and Texas) and Maryland, where the GOP's candidate is popular former Gov. Larry Hogan, who had an astounding81 percent approval rating amongDemocratsat the time he left office.
So it's not exactly a mystery why there's a presidential-downballot gap. The more interesting question is what, if anything, that gap means for November. There are basically three theories to answer that:
1. Biden's support right now is artificially low; there are plenty oftraditionally Democratic voterswho are telling pollsters they support Senate Democrats but, for whatever reason, aren't ready to get behind Biden yet. So Biden's support will rise as we get closer to the election and those voters get on board, leaving both Biden and Senate Democrats in good shape.
2. Senate Republicans' support right now is artificially low. Since most of them aren't incumbents, they aren't as well known as their opponents, but their support will rise as Trump voters learn that they are on the "right team" in these Senate races. Therefore, both Trump and Senate Republicans will do well in November.
3. Senate Democrats are just more popular than Biden, and this gap will persist through the election: Many states will vote for both Trump and a Democratic Senate candidate.
Right off the bat, I'm skeptical of No. 3. If the current polls end up being exactly correct, Democrats would win at least five Senate races in states Trump carries. That wouldn't have been unusual 20 years ago — in 2004, seven states voted for different parties for president and for Senate. But today,split-ticket voting is quite rare. In 2016, every state voted for the same party for Senate that it did for president, and in 2020, every state but one (Maine) did.
Themedian difference between the presidential and Senate margins in a statehas also shrunk drastically over that time — from 20 points in 2004 to just 3 points in 2020.
By comparison, the median difference between the current presidential and Senate polling margins in the 10 states in the table above is 10 points. It's just really hard to imagine that happening in such a polarized political environment.
So if we assume that the presidential and Senate results are eventually going to come into closer alignment, we're left with the question of which party that will benefit. And to answer that, we need to look beyond just the Democratic-Republican margins in recent polls to the actual percentage of the vote that Biden and Trump are getting compared with Senate Democrats and Senate Republicans.
You see, something that margins obscure is the fact that some voters are still undecided at this early juncture — and looking at actual percentages can give you a clue about who those voters might eventually be inclined to support.
Imagine State X, where Trump leads Biden 43 percent to 39 percent — a margin of 4 points — but the Democratic Senate candidate leads the Republican Senate candidate 47 percent to 41 percent — a margin of 6 points. That’s a 10-point difference in the margin, but it’s not because 10 percent of the voters in this state are splitting their tickets between Trump and the Democratic Senate candidate. Instead, Trump and the Republican Senate candidate have roughly the same level of support: around 42 percent. But the Democratic Senate candidate is running almost 9 points ahead of Biden, 47 percent to 39 percent, indicating that a lot of people voting Democratic for Senate haven’t decided who they’re voting for at the top of the ticket yet.
It's plausible that these people could vote for either Biden or Trump in the end; undecided voters, by definition, could go either way. But it iseasierto imagine them voting for Biden because they have already expressed willingness to vote for a Democrat — and, again, split-ticket voting has become as rare as platinum. So this scenario would give Democrats reason for optimism.
Well, luckily for Democrats, this is a real scenario: State X is Arizona. And it's a similar story in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin so far — almost all of the presidential-Senate discrepancy in the polls there is accounted for by Biden's soft support among Democratic Senate voters. There's no guarantee that he'll be able to do it, but if Biden can just win over every supporter of Casey, Arizona Rep. Ruben Gallego and Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin,** he has a good chance of erasing his deficit in those states.
On the other hand, the news is worse for Biden in other states. Biden has lots of room to grow in Nevada as well, where he is polling 9 points behind Sen. Jacky Rosen. But likely Republican nominee Sam Brown is also polling 6 points behindTrump, and if both of them catch up to the leader, the Silver State would be roughly tied, 45 percent to 44 percent.
Meanwhile, in Michigan, it's actually Biden and Slotkin who are polling at the same level (42 percent). Likely Republican nominee former Rep. Mike Rogers, though, is underperforming Trump by 3 points, implying that he could pull ahead of Slotkin in Senate polling once Republicans start learning who he is.
This is, of course, an oversimplified exercise; again, these undecided voters aren't guaranteed to break uniformly for the party that they've expressed support for elsewhere on the ticket. In fact, they're almost certain tonotbreak uniformly — that is, some will vote for the same party for president and Senate, but others will split their ticket.
And, crucially, there are still lots of voters who are undecided about their votes forbothpresident and Senate. Look back at the table above; only two numbers in it are above 50 percent (the 51 percent of Floridians who support Republican Sen. Rick Scott and the 55 percent of Marylanders who support Biden). So even if every not-Biden Democrat and every not-Republican-senator Trump supporter comes home in the end, the election in most states is going to come down to which way a more unpredictable group of voters breaks — the truly undecided.
Geoffrey Skelley contributed research.
Footnotes
*Of course, Democrats can win all these states and still lose the Senate if Republicans flip West Virginia and just one of the following three: Montana, Ohio or the vice presidency.
**Importantly, this isnotthe same as the supposed "reverse coattails" phenomenon, the idea that the energy and campaign efforts for downballot candidates benefit their party's top-of-the-ticket candidates by driving voters to the polls who otherwise wouldn't have voted. There islittle hard evidencethat reverse coattails are a real thing.
