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Commentary

2024 Election Analysis: Trump Outperformed Senate Candidates, Harris Underperformed

November 7, 2024

Former President Donald Trump significantly outperformed most Republican senatorial candidates on his way to reelection, while Vice President Kamala Harris underperformed about half of Democratic candidates for U.S. Senate. These trends provide further evidence of Harris’s weakness as a candidate and suggests that many voters preferred Trump by comparison.

Presidential elections usually accumulate more total votes than down-ballot races due to the higher publicity and greater perceived importance. DecisionDeskHQ reports 800,000 more ballots cast for president in the 33 states with a U.S. Senate race than were cast for U.S. Senator in those states, according to data compiled by The Washington Stand on Thursday.

However, those extra votes were not evenly distributed. Trump ran nearly 2.1 million votes ahead of Republican senatorial candidates, while Harris trailed Democratic candidates — including Democrat-allied U.S. Senators Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Angus King (I-Maine) — by 28,000 votes.

(Throughout this piece, apparent discrepancies in totals are due to third-party candidates, who won 2.6 million votes in Senate races and 1.3 million votes for president in the 33 states with Senate races. The most noteworthy of these is a Libertarian in the Texas Senate race who took nearly 900,000 votes, 7.5% of the total. As a result, 500,000 more Texans voted in the Senate race than in the presidential race.)

The numbers are even more striking if considered as a percentage of the total vote. Trump received, on average, 1.57 percentage points of the total vote more than Republican candidates. Meanwhile, Harris received an average 0.92 percentage points less than Democratic senatorial candidates.

In all five battleground states with a senate race, Trump led the Republican candidates for Senate in both total votes and percent of the total. Trump received 121,000 votes and 4.61% of the total vote more than Kari Lake (R) in Arizona. He received 122,000 votes and 1.44% of the total vote more than Mike Rogers (R) in Michigan. He received 66,000 votes and 3.41% of the total vote more than Sam Brown (R) in Nevada. He received 139,000 votes and 0.22% of the total vote more than Dave McCormick (R) in Pennsylvania. He received 50,000 votes and 1.19% of the total vote more than Eric Hovde (R) in Wisconsin.

Meanwhile, Harris received 67,000 votes and 3.54% of the total vote less than Rep. Ruben Gallego (D) in Arizona and 8,953 votes and 0.54% of the total vote less than Senator Tammy Baldwin (D) in Wisconsin. In Michigan, Harris received 24,000 more votes than Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D) but received 0.32% less of the total vote. Likewise in Pennsylvania, Harris received 39,000 more votes than Sen. Bob Casey (D), but 1.18% less of the total vote. Harris only outperformed Senator Jacky Rosen (D) in Nevada by 2,776 more votes and 0.12% of the total vote.

By Thursday, DecisionDeskHQ had called all the battleground states in favor of Trump. However, they called the Michigan, Nevada, and Wisconsin senate races in favor of the Democrats, with Arizona and Pennsylvania left outstanding. “You got some ticket splitting there,” remarked Family Research Council Action Director Matt Carpenter on “Washington Watch” Wednesday, “where voters chose Democratic Senate candidates but went for Donald Trump.”

This trend was not only noticeable in the battleground states. In fact, Trump outperformed 27 out of 34 Republican Senate candidates in votes received and 25 out of 34 in vote percentage. Harris underperformed 15 out of 34 Democratic Senate candidates in votes received and 18 out of 34 in vote percentage.

Trump outperformed Republican candidates even in many states that lean heavily Democratic. Trump outpaced Demi Kousounas (R) in Maine by 10% and Eric Hansen (R) in Delaware by 2%, while Harris outran the Democrats there by one tenth of Trump’s margin. In Hawaii, Trump took 5% more of the vote than Bob McDermott (R), while Harris trailed Senator Mazie Hirono (D) by nearly 4%. In Rhode Island, Trump outperformed Patricia Morgan (R) by 1.7%, while Harris underperformed Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D) by 4.7%. In New Mexico, Trump slightly outran Nella Domenici (R) by 0.8%, but Harris lagged Senator Martin Heinrich (D) by 3.1%.

The differences were even starker in some larger states, where percentage points translate into hundreds of thousands of votes. In Minnesota, Trump outperformed Royce White (R) by 228,000 votes (6.3%), while Harris trailed Senator Amy Klobuchar (D) by 135,000 (5.2%). In New York, Trump outperformed Mike Sapraicone (R) by 316,000 votes (3.1%), while Harris trailed Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D) by 94,000 votes (2.6%). In New Jersey, Trump led Curtis Bashaw (R) by 179,000 votes (2.0%), while Harris trailed Andy Kim (D) by 55,000 votes (1.6%). In Virginia, Trump ran ahead of Hung Cao (R) by 47,000 votes (0.7%), but Harris trailed Senator Tim Kaine (D) by 78,000 votes (3.0%).

Trump outperformed senatorial candidates in many states that leaned heavily Republican. He won 132,000 more votes (0.5%) in Florida than Senator Rick Scott (R), while Harris led Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (D) by 79,000 votes (0.2%). He led Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) by 74,000 (2.8%), while Harris trailed Lucas Kunce (D) by 49,000 votes (1.5%).

Trump even outperformed the Republican candidates who picked up Senate seats in Montana, Ohio, and West Virginia. In Ohio, Trump outperformed Bernie Moreno (R) by 313,000 (5.0%), while Harris trailed Sherrod Brown (D) by 117,000 votes (2.6%). In Montana, Trump led Tim Sheehy (R) by 12,000 votes (5.4%), while Harris trailed Jon Tester (D) by 51,000 (6.6%). In West Virginia, Trump even ran ahead of popular Governor Jim Justice by 19,000 votes (2.1%), while Harris got 6,500 votes more than Glenn Elliot (D).

There were only seven Senate races where the Republican candidate earned more votes than Trump, and these usually had special circumstances. In California, baseball star Steve Garvey (R) earned 154,000 votes (1.6%) more than Trump. In Maryland, popular former Governor Larry Hogan won 199,000 votes (3.2%) more than Trump. In Massachusetts, a “moderate” Republican with an inspiring story, John Deaton, won 111,000 more votes (3.3%) than Trump. Trump ran 30,000 votes (3.6%) behind John Curtis (R) in Utah, a state which has never particularly liked him, and 5,800 votes behind John Barrasso (R) in Wyoming, home state of Liz Cheney.

Trump fell 13,000 votes (1.1%) short of Raul Garcia’s (R) total in Washington, the only state where Democrats increased their advantage this presidential election. If someone knows a reason why Washington behaved differently, I would love to know.

The final senate candidate to outperform Trump was Pete Ricketts (R), formerly a popular governor of the state. Nebraska was the only state with two Senate races on the ballot, as well as the only state with competing pro-abortion and pro-life ballot initiatives. Ricketts personally bankrolled the campaign for the pro-life ballot initiative, which succeeded, and campaigned against the pro-abortion measure, which failed.

“When the incumbent Republican governor comes out and makes the case to voters, ‘We’ve got to support life’ … and the voters respond that way, I think there’s a lesson there for candidates who want to win over the pro-life vote. You’ve got to speak to these voters. You’ve got to tell them where you stand,” suggested Carpenter.

Ricketts won 20,000 votes (3.0%) more than Trump, while Trump won 64,000 votes (6.3%) more than Deb Fischer (R), the other candidate on the ballot. Harris underperformed Fischer’s challenger by 64,000 votes but overperformed Rickett’s challenger by 20,000 votes (all round numbers), suggesting ticket-splitting occurred.

Yet, beyond highly specific circumstances, Trump significantly overperformed Republican Senate candidates, while Harris often underperformed those on the Democratic side. This suggests that voters found Harris to be a weak candidate and found Trump to be relatively strong by comparison.

Much of this was related to Harris’s role in the current, unpopular Biden administration. “Going back to what a lot of the exit polling has shown,” said Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, “leading the issue set was the economy. People were feeling the policies of this administration. … They’re feeling scared because of the crime rates and the open borders.” Carpenter added, “71% of them were either dissatisfied with the state of the country or just outright angry. It’s really tough as an incumbent to face down that sort of discontent from voters and expect a good outcome.”

As a result, hundreds of thousands of voters across the country voted Democrat in their Senate race — and then didn’t vote for Harris. A sizable portion of those voters cast a ballot for Trump, while others chose a third-party option or voted for “none of these candidates,” as 17,000 Nevadans chose to do.

Then again, two million Americans voted for Trump without voting for the Republican candidate in their Senate race. Trump’s electoral “coattails” helped carry some Republican candidates across the finish line, especially Moreno in Ohio, but other Republican challengers lost their races in states Trump won.

This suggests that an electorally significant portion of voters have not converted to become Republicans, but rather that they simply prefer a Trump administration to a Harris administration. The past four years of the Biden-Harris administration have caused them to look back with more fondness on Trump’s first term. U.S. voters want to climb down from extremism, and they have likely given Republicans a narrow governing trifecta with which to do so.

Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand.



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