Our most recent book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections.
In 2000 and 2016, Democrats won the popular vote but lost the electoral vote. Not a coincidence. The GOP has a structural advantage in Senate elections, and not just because of equal representation in the chamber.
Last month, Pew released a study looking at the national political landscape 100 days before the midterm election. President Trump’s approval rating among 3,554 adults interviewed showed 34 percent approving his job in office and 64 percent disapproving. Forty-three percent of the 2,628 registered voters indicated a preference for Democrats for the U.S. House, to 37 percent for Republicans.
The terrific political research team at Pew was kind enough to break out their results, detailing the 1,477 adults (1,039 voters) in 24 red states, the 1,465 adults (1,122 voters) in 19 blue states, and the 606 adults (462 voters) in seven purple states.
Looking at these data, two points jumped off the page. The first was that Republicans were surprisingly weak within their 24 base red states, leading by only 4 points, 39 to 35 percent, and leaving 26 percent up for grabs. Those interviewed in 19 blue states favored Democrats by a whopping 16 points, 50 to 34 percent, with 16 points on the table. The two parties were tied at 42 percent in purple states.
Many would focus on how much stronger Democrats are in blue areas than Republicans are in red areas. But this means that Democrats are “wasting” a lot of support. In effect, they’re running up the score in blue states, where there are few GOP seats to flip, and inflating their national showing. In purple states, where Democrats want an edge in a politically favorable environment, the support levels are even.
That leads to a second and closely related finding. Across several questions, voters in purple states are more closely aligned with red staters than with blue staters.