Posted on 11/23/2020 8:55:58 AM PST by Kaslin
Republicans only need one of the two seats to maintain their Senate majority. A look at the history of similar contests indicates that an electoral split is uncommon, but still possible.
The presidential race seems to be over. Republicans gained seats in the House, but Democratic control is assured there too, if narrowly. Only the Senate stands between the Democrats and undivided government, with the majority there to be decided by two runoff elections in Georgia. As close as that state was in the presidential race—a margin of 0.25 percent, according to the hand recount just finished—we can expect the Senate races there to be similarly close.
How will these elections end? Will they both end in the same result? Prognosticators who write about Georgia seem to assume so, with the debate being whether Republicans or Democrats will win both seats.
But while each party wants to win both contests, Republicans only need one of the two seats to maintain their Senate majority. A look at the history of similar contests indicates that an electoral split is uncommon, but still possible.
Because of the way Senate seats are staggered, it is somewhat rare for two to be up for election on the same day in the same state. When it does happen, we should expect that the same party would win both elections.
While people sometimes split their votes on executive offices, with a legislature they are voting not just for the candidate but also for the party that candidate would help organize the chamber. More so than in other branches of government, party matters in a legislature.
That is borne out in the history of double Senate elections. Since World War II, there have been 35 occasions in which both of a state’s Senate seats were on the ballot on the same day—36 including Georgia’s January 2021 runoff.
In 31 of the 35, the same party has won both seats. In the most recent examples, Mississippi and Minnesota in 2018, Democrats won both Minnesota races and Republicans won both Mississippi races. This was not unexpected, and confirmed what election-watchers had suspected about the two states’ electorates.
To find the most recent election in which this was not the case, we have to go all the way back to 1966. That day, South Carolina Republican Strom Thurmond easily won re-election while the special election for the state’s other seat went narrowly to Democrat Fritz Hollins. Hollins and Thurmond served together in the Senate for the next 37 years.
Even that occasion of voters splitting their tickets probably deserves an asterisk: Thurmond had been a Democrat until 1964 and, other than him, South Carolina was effectively a one-party state. Voters in 1966 elected two men who had previously won various elections in the state as southern Democrats. We have to go back four more years to 1962 to find more examples of split-tickets in a double Senate election, when Idaho and New Hampshire voters both did the same thing, sending one senator from each party to Congress that year.
That makes for a daunting historical precedent, even more so as split-ticket voting is on the decline these days. But looking beyond the winners of the elections to the actual percentage of the vote they received shows that voters’ choices are more varied than it first appears. Most of these elections have not been in swing states, which gives room for a party’s candidates to have wildly varying performances while both still winning.
The 2018 elections in Mississippi and Minnesota show just this sort of divergence. In Minnesota, Democrat Amy Klobuchar won easily in the regular election with more than 60 percent of the vote. In the special election, Democrat Tina Smith also won, but with just 52 percent.
In Mississippi, the regular election was not close, with Republican Roger Wicker taking 58 percent of the vote, but the special election was close enough to require a runoff. Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith won that election three weeks later with 53 percent of the vote.
In each case, the longer-serving senator won a greater share of the vote than the appointed replacement who was running in the special election. How could this play out in Georgia? We can see some indication in the first round of balloting. On November 3, incumbent Republican David Perdue took 49.73 percent of the vote, just missing the majority he needed to avoid a runoff. Kelly Loeffler, the Republican appointed in January to fill a vacancy, managed only 25.91 percent.
Part of that is the nature of the election: Perdue’s was a normal election where each party had one nominee. In Loeffler’s election, each party had multiple nominees, with the top two advancing to a runoff.
But even combining all of the Democratic and Republican votes in that race leads to a different tally than the regular election: Republicans won 49.37 percent of the vote and Democrats took 48.39 percent. That small difference 49.73 percent versus 49.37 percent might be enough, in this closely divided state, to split the election.
Much depends on what the third-party and independent candidates’ voters decide to do, and on whether each party can keep turnout levels as high as they were on Nov. 3. Perdue clearly has the easier road to victory: peeling off just a few votes that went to the Libertarian in his race would be enough to get to 50 percent. Loeffler’s path is harder, but she already has the support of Doug Collins, the other main Republican her race, and the rest of the party should coalesce around her candidacy.
Turnout is a bigger issue. “It will all come down to turnout” is a classic, content-free prediction in a close election, but it is often true. Traditionally, Republicans have had an easier time turning out their voters than Democrats, but recent elections may show that trend changing.
In 2018, the Democratic base was more inspired than usual and almost elected a governor in Georgia with the highest turnout ever in a non-presidential year in that state. But then they were motivated by their distaste for President Trump. Now, with Joe Biden on his way to the White House, will that energy dissipate?
Sean Trende at RealClearPolitics has suggested Republicans’ usual advantage may not yet have returned and that Georgia “may not revert to ‘factory settings.’” Likewise, Jacob Rubashkin at Inside Elections believes 2018 to have been a turning point for Democrats in the state. Democrats lost two runoffs for state offices that year, but both were exceedingly close. Is 2020 (or 2021) the year everything comes together for Democrats in at least one of these two races?
Republicans probably have more reason for optimism. The Democrats’ best vote-getter of the night, Biden, still only managed 49.51 percent of the vote. All of the energy of the presidential election could not elevate any Democrat above 50 percent, nor did any of the eight statewide races in 2018 produce a majority for Democrats.
Democrats’ growth in the state is real, but calling Georgia a blue state is premature. Republicans should feel good about their chances to win at least one, and that is all they really need.
What I’m saying is it doesn’t matter who votes, it’s who counts the votes that matters and the GOP Gov. and GOP SOS have let Dominion and the Democrats do it.
The GOP will lose BOTH races and Biden will have successfully taken over all 3 branches of Government - and meanwhile the GOP party is unconcerned, sheesh. I’m changing my registration to no-registration. The GOP embarrasses me
Absolute BS. Not with flakes like Myth, Moocowski, and Collins.
The Judiciary is the 3rd branch.
15 justices = control
“Republicans should feel good about their chances to win at least one, and that is all they really need.”
If both Loeffler and Perdue lose so that the Senate is 50-50, I would not be surprised if Joe Manchin switches parties to give Republicans a 51-49 advantage. I hope Mitch McConnell has already approached him about the possibility. Manchin doesn’t have much of a future as a Democrat since he has already come out against Medicare For All, abolishing the filibuster and fracking.
Manchin isn’t going to switch. Not in a million years.
I don't see it. If he had any integrity, he wouldn't be a democrat. But he is.
Democrat Fritz Hollins
I don't either, but don't write off possible redemption, either. Remember that a lot of us were things back in the day that we aren't now, you know, young and foolish, that kind of thing. I know I was. Manchin is old enough to know better, but if he does have a moment of stepping away from the dark side, we'd do well to have his vote with us than against us.
Don't get me wrong. We should not soften our stand on our fundamental principles. Manchin has to make the choice himself to come to us, not the other way around. But if he does, we may be in a stronger position to head off some of the more severe damage that Harris/Biden could inflict.
“Manchin isn’t going to switch. Not in a million years.”
You might be correct, but I wouldn’t bet on it. Manchin has no future in the party of AOC, Kamala Harris, and Bernie Sanders. McConnell could offer him some powerful committee chairmanships if he switches. Chuck Schumer won’t offer him anything to stay with the Democrats.
I see what you’re saying, but the smart money is to write it off.
I don’t know why anyone would believe the democrats would engage in their cheating shenanigans as much as they have but stop cheating at the 5-yard line.
I'm not saying I admire the guy or anything. I'm just looking at things from a realpolitik angle. In a closely divided Senate, numbers matter. We really need a firewall to keep Harris/Biden from running completely wild.
What if both GOPee Senators are NeverTrumpers?
What will [largely NeverTrumper] Ditch do?
Does anyone know if there is a GA ping list?
Please share:
Tracy Beanz
@tracybeanz
IMPORTANT: If you are a member of the MILITARY who lives in FULTON COUNTY, GA, and you requested, received, and voted for PRESIDENT TRUMP using an absentee ballot - please email Tips@uncoverdc.com Subject Line: GA Absentee. Retweet!
I think you and Laz are the GA ping list :-)
I tried to find one, a couple of weeks ago....to no avail.
Turnout? Does this fool not pay attention? Turnout is useless when there is massive fraud.
The left is so corrupt they now fake millions of votes to the point of over 100% turnout.
We are getting robbed and NOTHING WILL BE DONE!
Calling Bill Barr, pick up the white courtesy phone.
Too bad Ditch hates independent Republican Senators.
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
After it all goes to he’ll Trump should say “ don’t call me”.
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