Despite Democrats turning in a stellar midterm performance given the environment, roughly a handful of impressive Democratic Senate candidates lost their races to not-so-impressive Republicans despite running very solid campaigns, raising lots of money, and in some cases coming damn close to pulling off an upset.
Looking back over Civiqs tracking of the favorable ratings for each of these Democrats in Iowa, Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, and Wisconsin, a pattern emerges that is worth exploring as Democrats look forward to future elections and what it takes to win in swingy or even GOP-leaning states.
What happens to every one of these Democratic candidates is that they hit a "favorable ceiling" that is correlated with both the partisan makeup and lean of the state. Generally speaking, the more red the state, the lower the ceiling, and the more swingy the state, the higher the ceiling. Still, every one of the Democrats tops out at some point while the GOP advertising blitz drives up their negatives until it eventually overtakes their favorability.
First, let's take a look at the Democratic candidates' favorable ratings, starting with the least forgiving red states and through to the more friendly swingy states. Then we'll talk about it on the other side. (Note: I’m using screenshots of the Civiqs tracking polls because the graphs are not publicly available.)
Iowa (R+6 partisan lean): Ds 30%, Rs 39%, Is 32%
Candidate: Mike Franken
Lost by 12 points, 43.9% -56.1%
Franken’s favorables top out at 39%. His unfavorables catch up in October, and he closes out the race at 39%, even favorable/unfavorable.
Ohio (R+6): Ds 31%, 37%, Is 32%
Candidate: Rep. Tim Ryan
Lost by 7 points, 46.7% — 53.3%
Ryan's favorables top out at 40% in August. His unfavorables catch up in September, and he closes out the race 6 points underwater, 40% - 46%.
Florida (R+3): Ds 32%, Rs 34%, Is 34%
Candidate: Rep. Val Demings
Lost by 16 points, 41.3% — 57.7%
Demings’ favorables top out at 42% in mid-September. Up until then, the trajectory of her favorables and unfavorables had tracked each other very closely. But after Demings’ favorables stall out, her unfavorables keep rising, and she closes out the race 6 points underwater at 42% - 48%.
North Carolina (R+3): Ds 36%, Rs 37%, Is 27%
Candidate: Cheri Beasley, former Chief Justice of North Carolina
Lost by 4 points, 47.1% — 50.7%
Beasley’s favorables top out at 45% in early September. Her unfavorables catch up around mid-October, and she closes out the race 1 point underwater at 45% - 46%.
Wisconsin (R+2): Ds 36%, Rs 34%, Is 31%
Candidate: Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes
Lost by 1 point, 49.5% — 50.5%
Barnes’ trajectory is slightly different, starting out with a 50% favorability rating in August that falls 6 points over the course of the campaign. His unfavorables surpass his favorables in early October, and he closes out the race 5 points underwater at 44% - 49%.
The main point is, in every state but Wisconsin, each of these Democratic candidates’ favorable ratings plateaued well below 50%. The redder the state, the lower they peaked.
In Ohio, for instance, an R+6 state, Rep. Tim Ryan ran a hell of a campaign by most counts, going to red and blue areas alike and asking for votes everywhere. Yet his favorables stalled out at 40% relatively early in mid-August, and he was never able to break that ceiling despite having several months to do so. Ultimately, Ryan lost the race by 7 points, outperforming Joe Biden’s 8-point loss to Donald Trump by only 1 point.
Rep. Val Demings in Florida, an R+3 state, plateaued at 42%.
Cheri Beasley in North Carolina, another R+3 state, plateaued at 45%.
The only Democrat who hits 50%, Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, does it in Wisconsin, an R+2 state and the swingiest of the bunch. But bombarded by negative GOP ads throughout the general election, Barnes’ favorables erode by a half dozen points by Election Day.
Just for comparison’s sake, here’s a look at the favorable trajectory of Pennsylvania Democrat John Fetterman, who triumphed Tuesday in his Senate bid. Fetterman’s favorables and unfavorables both ticked up over the course of the race, tracking very closely together. He maxed out at 49% favorability in late September and finished the contest with favorables and unfavorables dead even at 48% all.
It’s every campaign’s job to keep a candidate’s favorable rating moving in a positive direction while their opponents work to do the opposite. But the nation’s politics are so tribal right now that the likelihood of Democratic candidates breaking 50, or even 45, in a GOP-leaning state is extremely low. That fact likely says more about negative partisanship and the lean of the state than the candidates themselves.
For the Democratic Party, it suggests that trying to expand the map is almost purely a function of the partisan lean of the state. Barnes lost by the smallest margin, 1 point, while Beasley lost a little less than 4 points. Nobody else was really in the hunt, suggesting that Barnes and Beasley were the likeliest races where an infusion of cash might have helped to push the Democrat over the top.
Election Night 2022 was full of surprises—mostly for people pushing the last couple months of traditional media narrative of a "red tsunami." The problem is that Americans are not super into the GOP. Markos and Kerry have been saying the media narrative was wrong for months, and on Tuesday, Daily Kos and The Brief team was validated. Time to celebrate!
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