Mickey Kaus has run across an explanation for the divergence between Presidential election results and downballot results that is interesting:
Why did the Democrats win the Presidential vote but do so poorly in everything further down on the ballot — Senate, House, and state-level races? There are a lot of theories: a) Republicans liked Republicanism, and conservatism, even Trumpism, but they didn’t like Trump! b) Swing voters liked Biden but were turned off by left wing Democratic themes — “defund the police,” Medicare for All, cutting edge progressivism on gender dysphoria in 8-year olds, etc. c) Voters in general wanted Congress to be a check on a Democratic executive.
All plausible. But what if the explanation is something simpler and less profound — mechanical even? The essential idea was proposed by veteran campaign reporter Walter Shapiro. It’s based on the idea of “roll off,” the tendency of some voters to vote for candidates at the top of the ticket while leaving the nether regions of the ballot blank. Here’s Shapiro:
A tentative theory: Ballot-rolloff is greater than normal this year because the Biden campaign pushed early voting by mail — and a larger than usual number of voters didn’t feel that they knew enough about down-ballot races to vote on them.
If this is true, what more explanation do you need? Dems simply made a strategic mistake: They pushed early, mail-in and absentee voting, which may have won them the presidential election but which also brought them a bunch of voters who, in their rush to rid America of Trump, left the other parts of the ballot untouched — with the result that, below the presidential level, Dems got their clocks cleaned.
And that ties in with my own concerns that mail-in ballots that must, by law, arrive by Election Day in order to be counted are an impairment of voter’s rights in that those who can, and do, choose to vote at the election booth have more time to evaluate the candidates and whatever news comes forward late than do those voters who choose, or are constrained to using, mail for their ballots.
And, given my doubts that voters are that much into the political bloodstream, which Andrew Sullivan is unfortunately wont to believe, it’s more congruent with the facts on the ground than the grandiose reads of pundits of all persuasions. Voting one or two months before Election Day may make the Democratic challenger barely known, so when, say, Joni Ernst’s name pops up on the Iowan’s ballot, they know her as the incumbent Senator, while the challenger is hardly making ripples.
Despite what the polls say.
Combine this with tremendous turnout and answers that may have been random, and the down ballot disappointment for the Democrats may be better, if not perfectly understood.
