President Trump’s coattails may be the best hope a number of Senate GOP incumbents have of keeping their seats.
In Arizona, Trump is running far ahead of GOP incumbent Sen. Martha McSally. In that race, McSally is averaging 44.8% of the vote compared to her challenger, former astronaut Democrat Mark Kelly, who earns 50% support, according to a RealClearPolitics poll.
The president still trails Democratic challenger Joe Biden there but by 3.4 percentage points instead of over 5. An ABC News/Washington Post poll released earlier this month had Trump leading the former vice president by 1 point.
In North Carolina, the presidential race is almost tied. Biden has a 0.8-point lead in the polling average, but most recent surveys have both candidates within the margin of error. Sen. Thom Tillis, however, trails Democratic challenger Cal Cunningham by 6 points.
Iowa’s Sen. Joni Ernst also faces an uphill battle against Democrat Theresa Greenfield, who leads the GOP lawmaker by an average of 2.6 points. Trump, meanwhile, is tied with Biden in RealClearPolitics’s average. A Monmouth poll released earlier this month had Trump leading by 3 points.
Arizona, North Carolina, and Iowa are three states where Trump enjoyed a comfortable margin of victory against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2016. Barring historically high ticket-splitting from voters, Trump’s relative popularity in those states compared to the GOP senators could be enough to drag them over the finish line. The 2016 election saw the lowest rate for ticket-splitting in a century. That means if voters like who is at the top of the ticket, they’ll probably hold their nose for down-ballot members of the same party.
Trump losing Iowa would constitute a 9.5-point reversal from his 2016 victory. In 2014, Ernst won her seat with an 8.5-point margin of victory.
North Carolina was far narrower, although Trump’s 3.7-point margin of victory was an improvement over Mitt Romney’s 2-point win in 2012. Tillis, meanwhile, won his seat in 2014 by 1.7 points.
McSally, who has never won a Senate race in the state and instead enjoys her spot thanks to a gubernatorial appointment, has a bit more of an awkward dance to perform. On the one hand, Trump remains more popular than her in the state, but the Arizona Democratic Party’s playbook of running centrists like Sen. Kyrsten Sinema means ticket-splitting may be more expected.
Trump’s numbers in states such as Maine and Georgia suggests he may be more of a liability for Republican senators there looking for another term. In Maine, Susan Collins trails Democratic challenger Sara Gideon by an average of 6.5 points, while Biden leads by an average of a whopping 15.3 points.
Both Republicans in Georgia facing Democratic challengers enjoy 2-to-3-point leads over their opponents, with Trump besting Biden by an average of 1.3 points. In 2016, the president won the state with a 5.1-point margin of victory.
In 2016, a number of GOP Senate candidates ultimately performed better than Trump in swing-state races. This time around, the reverse seems true as Republicans try to cling to their Senate majority.
