Senate Effect on the House

Two months ago I told you that your senator had no coattails. There's no evidence he did. Below are the senate and gubernatorial results with how the Republicans did in the House. I included 113 races that were expected to be competitive, 103 Democratic, 10 Republican. The GOP won 72 of those races, a 64% clip. Anything above that may have had senate or gubernatorial help. If they fell below, there wasn't enough help.


Republicans picked up the House seats they targeted in Alabama, Idaho, Kansas, North Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and South Dakota. These were all Republicans strongholds. So the top of the ticket may have helped, but I think this year they didn't need it. Despite a very strong showing in Georgia, however, the GOP was only 1 for 2. Iowa And Arizona are swing states, where you'd hope the top of the ticket would help. Yet, the GOP was below average in Arizona and struck out in Iowa.

These next groups had either a strong GOP performance and a weak one or middle of the road performances in one or both races.


The Republicans did much better here. If you exclude Minnesota and Maine, they were at 85%. Even with those two, they were at 79%. It's difficult to see how the top of the ticket took the bottom, however. Marco Rubio, Rob Portman, John Boozman, Kelly Ayotte, and Jim Demint all won by hefty margins, but the GOP was mediocre in the gubernatorial race. If the senator didn't help the gubernatorial candidate, did he help the congressional candidate?


You have a chicken and egg question here. Republicans don't do well in most of these states. Was it the electorate or the senate candidate that won so many of these races for the Democrats?

The last group is an interesting mix. There was no senate or gubernatorial race in any of them. Yet Republicans did very well in these states and only one of these seats was a gimme.


Republicans were the strongest when they didn't have a completely strong top of the ticket or when there was no top of the ticket. The top of the ticket may have helped in some instances, but it wasn't a strong indicator across the board.

Looking at these numbers it's possible that a strong top of the ticket helped the Democrats stem off some losses, but all except one in the bottom tier is a dark blue state. Democrats here don't need a top of the ticket to win races. Senators and governors at the top of the ticket may help sometimes and might not other times. Yet if we see strong candidates in these slots in the future, that won't indicate how the party will do.

Presidential candidates are a completely different story. Obama's effect on senatorial and House races in 2008 was strong and may well be again in 2012.