This is one of many great questions which demand answers as Republicans significantly underperformed historical midterm norms everywhere but in Florida. And it’s the next evolution of unpacking what happened last week as we still await final results in the Senate, with the Georgia runoff election in December, and the House, which due to antiquated election systems and laws, still includes seven states which have yet to finishing counting votes with races which will yet determine control of the lower chamber. First a dose of perspective for a moment. Did last Tuesday produce a poor election result for Republicans on balance? Yes. However, this is hugely important as part of the premise of this conversation. Did Republicans win the midterm election cycle? Yes. Does it feel like it? Nope, but then again that’s the difference between feelings and reality. They’re often not in the same place. I’ll breakdown the data momentarily, but first let’s discuss conversationally. Did Florida produce the best election cycle in the history of the Republican party within this state? Yes. Does Florida still count as one of the states? Silly I know, but here’s the point. Yes, there’s a feeling of there having been Florida and then every other state this cycle. But that doesn’t mean you just pretend that the third most populous state producing a historic result didn’t happen and doesn’t exist. And when you average our results with the rest of the country it produces a decidedly different outcome than the feelings you have may currently have. Now for the data...
As of all votes tabulated as of midday Sunday here’s the generic ballot result of all elections across the country:
Yes, Republicans gained 4.6% more of the vote than Democrats factoring in all elections in all states. Surprised yet? By way of comparison Democrats won the vote by 3.1% in 2020. So, the Republican Party performed exactly 8% better than two years ago. This is right in line with historical midterm election results. And as I stated throughout the course of the midterm cycle, generic ballot polling since the advent of the two-party system had been completely predictive, 22-0 in predicting which party fared best. It did yet again to extend that record to 23-0. And here’s the next likely surprising stat. For as much as is being made of polls oversampling Republican support in individual races, which is generally true (although they under shot DeSantis’ and Rubio’s performance by about 8 points), the generic ballot polling results actually under sampled Republican support by nearly half. The generic ballot suggested Republicans would get just 2.5% more of the vote than Democrats. You’re probably wondering why that didn’t translate to greater GOP success in general. I’ll come back to that but first more important data.
Republicans didn’t just win the “popular” midterm vote. Based on declared elections they have “won” the midterms. Based on decided races, Democrats have picked up one net seat in the Senate thus far, a number which will be either zero or two based on the outcome of the Georgia Senate runoff election – something we’ll discuss in days to come as the implications of the outcome of that race, now favors Walker. And Republicans having netted seven pickups in the House over Democrats thus far with interestingly two states at the opposite ideological end from one another accounting for them. Four of the pickups have come in Florida and the other four in New York. A number which, if it holds by the time all races are decided, is enough to flip control of the House to Republicans. So, Republicans have turned the popular congressional vote advantage into a net gain of six congressional seats thus far and a projected flipping of a Congressional chamber as a result. Was this the kind of result Republicans wanted? No. But have they effectively won the cycle with both the popular vote and gaining Congressional control? Pending the outcome of the remaining House seats, yes. What we effectively saw were states that were trending red, becoming redder and states that were trending bluer slowing their trajectory but often not enough to pull Republicans across the finish line in key close races.
Disappointed Republicans could perhaps think of it this way. Democrats were upset in 2000 when Gore won the popular vote, but Bush won the Electoral College. Ditto again in 2016 when Clinton won the popular vote, but Trump won the Electoral College. What this midterm election cycle is playing out to be is a similar version of a different thing.
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