Fewer voters today are willing to back one party’s candidate in one race and the other party’s candidate in another on the same ballot, an electoral phenomenon known as casting a split-ticket vote. Among both politicians and voters, ideological polarization and antipathy toward the other party have made the idea of breaking to support the opposition unimaginable.
We can see how this trend will play out in 2022 in states with both a U.S. Senate and a gubernatorial race. The degree to which the margins in those contests differ from one another will help reveal just how many — or how few — voters are splitting their tickets. Overall, 26 states have both a Senate and a governor’s race, and using the FiveThirtyEight midterm forecast’s average margin from each contest, we can project just how close the races in 24 of the states will run together:
Senate and governor margins in the same state are often close
Difference in the forecasted margins of victory for the leading party’s candidate in 2022 Senate and governor races in states where both offices are on the ballot, based on FiveThirtyEight’s final forecast
| STATE | INCUMBENT | FORECAST MARGIN | INCUMBENT | FORECAST MARGIN | DIFF | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| VT | Open | D+25.7 | Scott | R+28.4 | 54.1 | |
| KS | Moran | R+22.6 | Kelly | D+1.9 | 24.5 | |
| NH | Hassan | D+3.6 | Sununu | R+17.6 | 21.2 | |
| OK | Lankford | R+26.3 | Stitt | R+9.9 | 16.4 | |
| OH | Open | R+6.3 | DeWine | R+21.4 | 15.1 | |
| OK* | Open | R+21.6 | Stitt | R+9.9 | 11.7 | |
| SD | Thune | R+31.8 | Noem | R+20.9 | 10.9 | |
| PA | Open | R+0.9 | Open | D+9.8 | 10.8 | |
| HI | Schatz | D+35.9 | Open | D+25.8 | 10.1 | |
| NY | Schumer | D+18.9 | Hochul | D+9.5 | 9.4 | |
| SC | Scott | R+24.6 | McMaster | R+15.8 | 8.8 | |
| CO | Bennet | D+8.0 | Polis | D+16.0 | 8.0 | |
| AR | Boozman | R+28.8 | Open | R+21.1 | 7.8 | |
| GA | Warnock | R+1.2 | Kemp | R+8.2 | 7.0 | |
| IA | Grassley | R+12.7 | Reynolds | R+19.0 | 6.3 | |
| AZ | Kelly | D+2.2 | Open | R+2.2 | 4.4 | |
| WI | Johnson | R+4.8 | Evers | R+0.4 | 4.4 | |
| FL | Rubio | R+9.8 | DeSantis | R+13.4 | 3.6 | |
| MD | Van Hollen | D+25.6 | Open | D+22.8 | 2.9 | |
| ID | Crapo | R+38.9 | Little | R+36.2 | 2.7 | |
| AL | Open | R+30.8 | Ivey | R+32.9 | 2.0 | |
| CT | Blumenthal | D+16.8 | Lamont | D+15.2 | 1.6 | |
| NV | Cortez Masto | R+0.2 | Sisolak | R+1.6 | 1.5 | |
| IL | Duckworth | D+17.0 | Pritzker | D+17.9 | 0.9 | |
| CA | Padilla | D+22.4 | Newsom | D+21.4 | 0.9 |
A handful of races do have notably large differences, most notably Vermont, where voters look very likely to reelect Republican Gov. Phil Scott while also electing Democratic Rep. Peter Welch to the Senate. But most states will see single-digit differences in margin between their gubernatorial and Senate contests. In fact, the median difference across these races — about 8 percentage points, by our forecast — would be the lowest in a midterm election in over three decades, indicative of just how much split-ticket voting has declined.
