“Republicans Dominated The Senate Races, Except The Ones Who Dumped Trump,” the Daily Caller reports. Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway calls the story an “important read – and critical to remember moving forward. Still waiting for those stories on how Trump helped down-ballot [Republicans] win the day.”
But the suggestion that voters punished Republicans who didn’t support Trump is false. In almost every state with a competitive Senate or presidential race, the Republican Senate candidate ran ahead of Trump—sometimes by a wide margin—regardless of whether or not the candidate stood by Trump.
The Daily Caller story focuses on the fact that Mark Kirk of Illinois, Joe Heck of Nevada, and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire all lost. Kirk announced early on that he wouldn’t support Trump. Ayotte and Heck withdrew their support of Trump after the Access Hollywood video was released in October. Ayotte said she’d write in Mike Pence, but Heck later said he still might vote for Trump.
If there had been a price to pay for ditching Trump, you would expect that these candidates would’ve lost by more than Trump, but they ran about even with him. In Nevada, Heck and Trump each lost lost by 2.4 percentage points. In Illinois, Kirk lost by 14.2 points; Trump lost by 16.0. In New Hampshire, Ayotte lost by 0.1 points; Trump lost by 0.3.
There aren’t any Senate races in which GOP candidates rejected Trump and performed worse than him, but there are examples of Republican candidates who rejected Trump and did much better than him.
In Ohio, Rob Portman announced in the wake of the Access Hollywood video, just like Kelly Ayotte, that he couldn’t vote for Trump and would write in Mike Pence. Portman won Ohio by 21.4 points; Trump won by 8.6.
In Arizona, John McCain likewise dropped Trump after the Access Hollywood video. McCain won by 12.3 points; Trump won by 4.1.
In Pennsylvania, Pat Toomey refused to say who he was voting for until minutes before the polls closed (when he told the press that he voted for Trump). Toomey won by 1.7 points; Trump won by 1.2.
In Florida, Marco Rubio said he was still voting for Trump even though he didn’t trust either the GOP or Democratic presidential nominee. Rubio won by 7.7 points; Trump won by 1.3.
In Wisconsin, Ron Johnson (along with Scott Walker and Reince Priebus) campaigned with Trump for the first time on November 1. Johnson won by 3.4 points; Trump won by 1.0.
As for the other battleground states, three GOP Senate candidates outperformed Trump:
And two GOP candidates in competitive races performed worse than Trump. In Indiana, Todd Young won by 9.7 points; Trump won 19.3. In Missouri, Roy Blunt won by 3.2; Trump won by 19.1. But both Young and Blunt said they were still voting for Trump after the Access Hollywood video came out.
Republicans in deep red states also didn’t suffer any consequences for abandoning Trump. Mike Lee of Utah called on Trump to step aside and ended up voting for Evan McMullin. Lee won Utah by 40.7 points; Trump won by 18.8. Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski also announced she would not vote for Trump. Murkowski won Alaska by 14.8 points; Trump won by 15.2. (Alaska’s Senate race was a little quirky: Libertarian Joe Miller, who defeated Murkowski in the 2010 GOP primary but lost the 2010 general election, came in second place, and the Democrat came in fourth place with just 11.1 percent of the vote.)
This isn’t to say that Trump didn’t have any positive effect downballot. It’s certainly possible that the big surge in turnout in Pennsylvania was the result of irregular voters coming out to support Trump who happened to vote downballot for Republicans. But it’s also possible that reluctant Trump supporters came to the polls because Pat Toomey was on ballot.
So is it more accurate to say that Republicans kept the Senate because of a Trump wave? Or was Trump swept into the White House by an anti-Clinton Republican wave? That’s not entirely clear, but one data point that points toward a Republican wave is the fact that 14 percent of the electorate thought neither Trump nor Clinton is qualified to be president, and those voters broke 69 percent to 15 percent in favor of Trump.
What we do know for sure is that there isn’t any evidence that Republican candidates who opposed Trump paid a price on Election Day.
