Harrison Lavelle
-
Candidate Quality And The Democrats’ 2026 House Playing Field
Ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, Democrats are busy sizing up the weak points in the slim Republican majority to maximize their chances of taking back the House. And if history is any indicator, they have ample reason to be optimistic about their chances in the lower chamber. Whether it’s… Read More
-
How New England’s House Democrats Outperformed Kamala Harris
Ticket-splitting has hit record lows in recent years. In 2024, the number of “crossover districts” in the House dropped to just sixteen — with thirteen of them electing a Democrat to Congress despite voting for Trump. Growing political polarization has made it extraordinarily difficult for down-ballot candidates to draw from… Read More
-
Turnout In The 2024 Election
Turnout may be the political world’s favorite buzzword. If you’ve ever heard a campaign say that “it’ll all come down to turnout,” you’ll know it has long since become a cliche. Whether they win or lose, candidates often credit (or curse) turnout. Case in point: the 2024 presidential race. Many… Read More
-
The Real Reason Democrats Can’t Compete For 60 Senate Seats
It’s no secret that the Senate is an extraordinarily difficult and uphill challenge for Democrats — in order to win the chamber in 2026, the party will likely need to flip at least two of Texas, Ohio, Iowa and Florida. Meanwhile, their hopes of competing in 60 seats, like they… Read More
-
America’s Demographic Revolution
Last June, we did a deep dive into the 100 largest suburban counties to explore demographic and political change between 2000 and 2020. On the demographic front, we found that all of the suburban counties included in our analysis had become more diverse. This was consistent, but not homogeneous: Asian… Read More
-
Our 2024 Wins Above Replacement (WAR) Models
Today, we’re releasing our 2024 Wins Above Replacement (WAR) candidate quality models, for both the House and the Senate. For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, here’s a brief primer: our models assemble a “fundamentals”-based outcome estimate for a race by controlling for seat partisanship, incumbency, demographics, and money… Read More
-
How did Split Ticket’s Models Perform in 2024?
At Split Ticket, we try to let data drive all of our decisions and forecasts. That’s why we transitioned from holistic ratings, like those used at the Crystal Ball and the Cook Political Report, to a fully and strictly quantitative model, like FiveThirtyEight’s approach, in 2024. As the cycle completes,… Read More
-
2024 Showed The Value Of Polling
Going into election night, polling suggested a close race between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, with surveys showing less than a half percentage point separating the two candidates in the tipping point state in Pennsylvania. The bulk of polling suggested that the race would come down to the wire, with… Read More
-
Our Final Forecast
President At the presidential level, our model views this race as a tossup, with Kamala Harris as a nominal favorite (making her our pick for the presidency). We give her a 53% chance of winning, and project her to win 270 electoral votes — at the moment, the “Blue Wall”… Read More