There are competitive U.S. Senate races in five of the 2024 presidential battleground states: Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. And one of the narratives emerging from polling of these states is that Joe Biden is running behind his ticket mates pretty regularly. Here’s what the New York Times said in comparing Biden to four Democratic Senate candidates in its latest round of polls:
Democratic candidates for the Senate in Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin lead their Republican rivals and are running well ahead of President Biden in key states where he continues to struggle, according to polls by The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer and Siena College.
The battleground surveys of registered voters indicate that the president’s difficulties against former President Donald J. Trump may not be enough to sink other Democrats, especially Senate incumbents who are facing less-well-known Republicans …
But those voters are enough to give Democrats a chance at holding the Senate, where they currently hold a one-seat majority. To maintain control, the Democrats would have to sweep every competitive Senate seat and win the White House.
That’s a glass-half-full take for Democrats. The glass-half-empty interpretation was offered by my colleague Jonathan Chait:
The most recent New York Times polling again finds Biden trailing in all the swing states (except in Michigan, and only if you count likely voters as opposed to all registered voters). Those states find Democrats winning every Senate race.
The point here is that Democrats have a Joe Biden problem, not a partywide problem. Regular, mainstream Democratic candidates are holding up just fine in the purple states.
Either way you look at it, the numbers at least superficially suggest significant ticket-splitting among voters in battleground states. The Times estimates that “about 10 percent of Trump voters back the Democratic candidate for Senate in the four states, while about 5 percent of Biden supporters back the Republican.” That doesn’t sound like a lot, but it actually is in terms of recent trends in presidential elections.
In 2016, not a single state produced a Senate winner from the party that lost the presidential race in that state. In 2020, there was just one presidential-Senate split-ticket outcome: in Maine, where veteran Republican Susan Collins won even as her not-so-close ticket mate, Donald Trump (whom she did not endorse), lost. And as Sabato’s Crystal Ball observes, 2020 actually saw less ticket-splitting than 2016 overall; in just three states — none of them presidential battlegrounds — did a Senate candidate run more than 10 percent ahead or behind the top of the ticket. All of the overperforming Senate candidates (Collins, Rhode Island Democrat Jack Reed, and Nebraska Republican Ben Sasse) were well-established incumbents.
Well-established incumbent would also describe two of the Democratic senators who appear to be running significantly ahead of Biden so far this year: Pennsylvania’s Bob Casey Jr., a three-term incumbent who has yet to have a close race, and Wisconsin’s Tammy Baldwin, a two-term incumbent who has been an elected official since 1986. Both will face very wealthy self-funding Republicans (Dave McCormick in Pennsylvania and Eric Hovde in Wisconsin) who have never held public office and will probably rise in the polls as they become better known and the campaigns heat up. In Nevada, another Democratic incumbent, Jacky Rosen, is almost certain to be in a very close race, probably against Republican Sam Brown, who still has to navigate a tricky GOP primary. In Arizona, Democrat Ruben Gallego holds a modest lead (5 percent in the RealClearPolitics averages) over Republican Kari Lake in recent polls, but that race, too, may tighten up as Lake battles to consolidate the GOP vote, moderating some of her past MAGA edginess. And in Michigan, which features an open seat, it’s hard to tell whether Democratic congresswoman Elissa Slotkin’s small (one point in the RCP averages) lead over likely Republican opponent Mike Rogers is durable given a large early undecided vote.
Overall, using the RCP polling averages and sticking to a two-way Biden-Trump race, the gaps between Biden’s support and that of his likely Senate Democratic ticket mates are real but not overwhelming. In Arizona, Biden is at 43.2 percent, while Gallego is at 46 percent. In Michigan, Biden is at 45.2 percent, and Slotkin is at 39 percent. In Nevada, Biden is at 41.8 percent, and Rosen is at 42.3 percent. In Pennsylvania, Biden is at 45.6 percent, and Casey is at 46.4 percent. And in Wisconsin, Biden is at 47.3 percent, and Baldwin is at 49.8 percent. These are not big yawning gaps, so the perception of ticket-splitting is partly just the difference between small Senate leads and small presidential deficits and, again, the different nature of the Senate and presidential races.
The best guess is that the gaps between Senate Democratic and Biden performance in battleground states will continue to narrow. Overall, it’s entirely in play for Biden to be reelected while Democrats lose the Senate or (though this is less likely) for Biden to lose the White House while Democrats hang on to the Senate. If only because Democrats have to sweep close Senate races to avoid losing that chamber, a Republican presidential-Senate combo victory is entirely plausible. And if Democrats retain control of both the White House and the Senate, giving a reelected Biden control of the confirmation of his appointees, all the midyear anxiety over Biden’s poll numbers will soon be forgotten. It remains unlikely that ticket-splitting will be the big story of 2024.
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