Ticket splitters to the rescue

And of course one race was in Wisconsin

I grew up in Milwaukee in a mixed marriage. My mom the Irish Catholic, Democratic daughter of a union railroad worker. My Dad, a German Lutheran, Chamber of Commerce, American Legion Republican.  To keep peace at the dinner table, politics and the Immaculate Conception were off limits.

Yet when the next election rolled around, they shopped like diners in a Chinese restaurant: one from column a, one from column b. This Republican, that Democrat.

If you listen to many political scientists, it was sort of a cute, quaint custom that rarely happens in the age of harsh partisanship.

“The height of ticket splitting was probably in the late eighties or early nineties. There were lots of voters especially, who voted for Republican presidents, Reagan and Bush, but voted for Democratic members of Congress as a very common pattern,” says University of Wisconsin political scientist Barry Burden.

“Something like a quarter of voters in those elections were splitting their tickets voting for the Presidential candidate of one party and a Congressional candidate of another.”

Today ticket splitting has largely collapsed in the House. Listen to this number: coming into this election voters in only 23 congressional districts - out of 435 - split their votes between the Presidential candidate of one party and the House candidate of a different party.

And in the Senate, there was only one unicorn, Maine’s Susan Collins.

A powerful voice for choice in the Republican caucus, in 2020 Collins was under siege from national Democrats over her confirmation vote for conservative Supreme Court judges. For months ahead of the November election, she trailed Democratic challenger Sara Gideon in nearly every opinion poll. Collins faced a more than two-to-one fundraising deficit.

But in the end Maine voters, with a strong independent streak, told the donors from Beverly Hills, suburban Chicago and Boston - especially Boston, to go to hell.

When the race was called, Collins, who has served as a Senator for 24 years - won by a     nine-point margin, roughly the same percentage as Democrat Joe Biden.

 “It tends to matter most in states like Wisconsin, Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona where you have these very competitive statewide races, and even a small number of people, maybe eight percent of voters, going back and forth between the parties could change the outcomes even on the same ballot,” University of Wisconsin Professor Barry Burden told me.

Despite the lectures by many political scientists and columnists about the fatal, final gasp of ticket splitting the practice suddenly rose from the dead in 2020. Of course it happened in Wisconsin when Democratic Governor Tony Evers and Republican Senator Ron Johnson were both re-elected. True again in Georgia with Republican Governor Brian Kemp and Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock. And in Vermont, New Hampshire, Kansas and Nevada.

And now this week it happened again here when Tammy Baldwin won, as Trump was carrying the state.

“There's kind of a magic in Wisconsin that no matter what happens with changing demographics, areas of the state growing, other areas of the state shrinking, influx of people from other places. The partisan balance tends to stay about 50/50, sort of baked into our DNA,” said Burden.

According to the Milwaukee Journal exit polls, 4% of Trump voters in Wisconsin voted for Baldwin, and 3% of voters for Vice President Kamala Harris voted for Republican Senate candidate Eric Hovde. The margin was thin, but it was enough.

Tammy took my House seat in Madison when I kept my term limit pledge and quit after four terms. As the first Republican to hold it in three decades, it made sense in would flip back.

We first got to know each other when she was serving on the Dane County Board. She was public about her lesbian identity, so I offered to split a sandwich with her while we sat on the lawn of the Capitol for a long discussion. I wanted to understand the issues facing the gay and lesbian community before I made up my mind on likely legislation in D.C. She was always gracious and years later called me to offer tickets to George W. Bush’s first inauguration.

Our politics are nothing alike. I like her as a person but she is far too progressive for my view of limited government. My record was one of the most independent in Congress. Her Democratic party unity score was 98%.

What saved Tammy this race I believe, was her strong commitment to constituent service. She made it a priority for her 12 years in office. For much of the summer she held a substantial lead over Republican candidate Eric Hovde who stumbled out of the gate. But after Labor Day the Hovde campaign upped its game and surged along with Trump. In the closing weeks it was a jump ball race. Tammy up by one, Hovde tied, then ahead.

While I was in office I was committed to constituent service. A Libertarian at heart, I loved beating up the bureaucrats who were driving my voters mad with regulatory overreach. My staff did an amazing job getting a college student home from Europe who had lost her passport, assisting the desperate widow frenzied over a missing social security check and supporting an angry farmer furious over new wetlands rules. Those people told their neighbors, family and friends how we helped them. They paid me back in the voting booth.

During the early days of the Ukraine war one of my former campaign Chairs, and long-time Republican called me about his frustration with trying to get two dozen refugees into the country. One of his staff was Ukrainian and he wanted to do his part. My friend not only had jobs to offer but as a developer he had housing he could also offer. The immigration wheels turn slowly. ”Be patient,” Homeland Security admonished us. Well it is sort of hard to be patient with bombs levelling your neighborhood. Tammy’s’ office demanded action, and the green light was flipped on. Today the refugees are thriving in Madison. Several own a popular restaurant.

As I write this the Democratic Senate candidate in Michigan also won the open seat. Trump won by 81,000, She won by 20,000. In Wisconsin Trump won by 30,000. Baldwin by 29,000. Arizona is likely to go blue, too. Nevada is still too close to call. In North Carolina Trump won handily but so did the Democratic Governor candidate.

Here’s how Jennifer, a middle-aged Georgia woman described her decision to Rich Thau in a 2022 focus group on her decision in 2022 to split her vote for a Republican Governor and a Democratic Senator.

“I was a straight ticket Republican. And I thought the issues and character were at play. I thought Kemp has done well on the economy and Warnock has shown progress on issues and so I knew going in I was going to do a split ticket. And it was different than before. It felt liberating. How so? Well in the past I felt like I had to be consistent with the party line. And I feel more these days we should be able to color outside the lines. It feels more comfortable to do that. Just get it right!”

Like many voters lost in the middle these days I think ticket splitting should be celebrated. When you walk into the poll, don’t just pull the lever. Take a breath and think. Sometimes pulling a straight ticket works for you. But with historical frequency, in Wisconsin it does not.