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Our Initial 2024 Presidential Ratings
With the Republican presidential primary field all but set and the election less than 18 months away, Split Ticket now debuts its initial 2024 presidential ratings. Historically, preference volatility has hindered projection-making from this point in time, over a year out from either party convention. However, with increased ideological entrenchment, it appears clear that a…
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The Electoral Impact of Election Denial
With few exceptions, majorities in both parties have historically accepted presidential election results. But that changed in the 2020 Presidential election cycle, when President Trump claimed the election would be stolen amid ballot counting delays. His conspiracy theories reduced Republican confidence in American elections to historic lows and led 147 Congressional Republicans to vote to…
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Our Initial 2024 Senate Ratings
The upcoming Senate map has been on “borrowed time” for Democrats for almost two decades, but a mix of exceptional candidate quality and excellent environments have kept them afloat for quite some time. In 2006, Democrats defeated six of the so-called “Class I” Republicans, flipping the Senate in a wave fueled by the unpopularity of…
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A Generational Cliff
Split Ticket has devoted significant coverage to the partisanship of young voters. Whether through analyzing individual-level data in voter files or by aggregating and examining exit poll estimates from the last four decades, the story we find remains consistent: young voters are extremely Democratic, and more importantly, ahistorically so. This analysis can be extended to…
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How Successful are House Challengers in Competitive Rematches?
Candidates who lose close House races are often motivated to run again. When they do, their high name recognition, strong fundraising connections, and tested campaign infrastructures tend to give them an advantage over primary opponents. Support from national party committees like the NRCC and DCCC can also be decisive in consolidating would-be crowded primary fields,…
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The Libertarian Effect
Because American politics is dominated by a two-party system composed of Democrats and Republicans, it’s hardly a surprise that observers tend to neglect Libertarian candidates. After all, minor-party contenders usually raise little money and win very few votes, causing them to have insignificant impacts on general election outcomes. Sometimes, however, Republicans do blame Libertarians for…
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The KY-Gov Republican Primary is the State’s Second Biggest Horserace this May
With less than a month to go until the GOP primary for Kentucky’s gubernatorial election, it’s a closely watched contest to determine who will take on incumbent Governor Andy Beshear in the fall. With the field fully formed, the money is already pouring in, even though the full force of the nation’s attention may not…
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Analyzing Republican Overperformance in Elections for State Treasurer and Controller
National polling generally suggests that voters trust Republicans more than Democrats when it comes to handling fiscal policy. In the lead-up to the 2022 midterms, pre-election polling from ABC News showed the GOP enjoying a 12-point advantage on the economy, compared to a 12-point deficit on the issue of abortion. More recently, CNN released a…
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Modeling the Modern Era’s Congressional Environments
Last year, Split Ticket reviewed House-level election results for the 2020 and 2022 cycles and developed a metric to quantify what a “generic ballot” election result would have looked like. In such an election, every voter is presented with at least a Republican and a Democrat on the ballot at the House level. While it…
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Our Wisconsin Supreme Court Election Preview
On Tuesday, voters will head to the polls in Wisconsin to choose a new state Supreme Court justice between the Republican-aligned former Supreme Court justice Dan Kelly and the Democratic-aligned judge Janet Protasiewicz for a seat on the state’s Supreme Court. With control of the court on the line and issues such as redistricting, abortion…
