April 9: Two Trends That Will Help Democrats in the Midterms
Taking a closer look at some of the 2024 trends that have alarmed Democrats, it’s possible to see some silver linings, and I wrote about a couple of them at New York:
In the 2024 presidential election, Republicans performed better among marginal voters than the opposition, which meant that a boost in turnout would improve their percentage of the vote, reversing a longtime Democratic advantage. A second and even-better-known development was a significant boost in the Republican vote among Democratic “base” constituencies, particularly Latinos and Gen-Z voters.
These are both good long-term signs for the GOP. But in the very short term, as in the elections between now and 2028, they could portend underwhelming results for Republicans. For one thing, their new success among marginal voters in a high-turnout presidential election will not matter much in special, off-year, or midterm elections, when the voters Democrats now rely on are relatively sure to show up, particularly given the current panic over Trump 2.0’s radical early shape. And as Politico notes, right there in the 2024 returns are signs that the GOP’s overperformance among Democratic base voters probably won’t carry over to non-presidential elections. That’s because there was a lot of ticket-splitting last November, notably among Latinos:
“Underlying the 2024 election results was a subtle trend that could signal a dramatic reshaping of the electorate: a surge in ticket-splitting among Latino voters who shifted sharply toward Donald Trump but also supported Democratic House and Senate candidates.”
This helps explain why Democrats managed to win Senate races in four states Trump carried (Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, and Wisconsin) and no less than 13 House races in districts carried by Trump. It seems entirely probable that downballot Democratic strength will carry over to the midterm congressional elections of 2026, as Politico suggests — unless, of course, 2024 reflected a more fundamental shift that will intensify even without Trump on the ballot:
“Heavily Hispanic and Latino areas that saw significant ticket-splitting are key to many swing districts and battleground states. The party that can win over those voters — Republicans converting Trump supporters into reliable GOP voters, or Democrats bringing them back into the fold more firmly — will have a clear electoral advantage in the years ahead.”
I wouldn’t count on long-term trends toward the GOP mattering much in the midterms, particularly given the other dynamic we are likely to see in 2026: an almost invariable loss of support by the party controlling the White House. One leading indicator: Of the 13 House districts that went for both Trump and a congressional Democrat in 2024, six have electorates that are at least 40 percent Latino. Democrats in those districts should do pretty well without a presidential candidate dragging them down.
Right now, I don’t think many Democrats are all that worried about how they’ll do in 2028 or 2032 or 2036. A comeback right away would be most welcome both in boosting Democratic morale and warning Republicans that all the over-the-top triumphalism we’re hearing from MAGA folk is built on a fragile foundation.
I’d also like to add further about the first possibility, namely that “1) small deviations from the prior data set have been offset by other small deviations”.
If you look at the graph below, the Republican dot is below the line, and the Conservative dot is above. This means that the rise of the Conservative dot is offsetting the fall of the Republican dot.
To me this is a clear indication that true conservatives are getting sick of the insane politicization of real issues by the Republican party.
@James Vega
The r-squared is a measure of the variation from a straight line. 100% or 1.00 means a perfect linear fit, and 0% or 0.0 means not linear at all, or completely scattered.
The rhetorical questions you raise are correct. Namely,(and I quote from your statement) “If Obama’s support fell wouldn’t that just shift the line down but maintain the same r squared value assuming his support fell off equally among all the demographic groups? Or is that the point. If his support was falling it wouldn’t be falling in all the demographic groups so the r square should go down?”
If the r squared was less than it was before that would mean that some of the prior data points have changed significantly, so as to cause more deviation from a straight-line than existed in the original data-set measured back in February.
However, since the r squared value (or coefficient of determination) is unchanged, that means one of two things: 1) small deviations from the prior data set have been offset by other small deviations, or 2) the random nature of polls are within the same statistical normative range that existed in February 2009.
So nothing is really changing, according to the r squared value.
Ok maybe I’m missing something here but: I’m not sure what relevance the r squared value has. If Obama’s support fell wouldn’t that just shift the line down but maintain the same r squared value assuming his support fell off equally among all the demographic groups? Or is that the point. If his support was falling it wouldn’t be falling in all the demographic groups so the r square should go down?
There is an additional point that should be made about the recent polling that shows Obama trending down
In February Obama was in his honeymoon, the Republicans were in complete disarray and the big issues were the stimulus package and the budget – on neither of which the Republicans could get any real traction.
Since then Obama has had to deal with the Auto bailout, Cheney-Gitmo, the size and ambition of his health care and climate change initiatives as well as sniping about his “weak” approach to the Middle East, Iran, etc — a whole series of issues that would inevitably peel away some of the “soft” honeymoon support he had in February.
Given this, the slippage we’re seeing is actually remarkably small, not large. He’s now put out most of the most controversial aspects of his progressive program and — not only has he held his coaltion together, as Dr. Abramowitz’ data shows — but his support is still in the mid-50’s overall and above 50% among independents.