Which of these statements is true?

[VAR]

?

[ProgressiveModerate]

I don't really know if either is true frankly. Republicans overperformed expectations, but ultimately, it looks like they'll end up with about the same number of House seats as Trump won, it's just that more of their wins were notable because they were somewhat unexpected than someone like Golden holding on. And mind you, that's with a bunch of extremely close races breaking their way.

In the Senate, Democrats also had lo9ts of overperformances of Biden in seats like AZ, MS, KS, and MT, it's just that no one likes to talk about them because they weren't decisive and most of them were still underwhelming results. Susan Collins overperforming Trump enough to win doesn't define the overall climate as downballot Rs overperforming Trump. Trump won 25 states, Biden won 25 states, and we currently have a 50-48 senate with the outstanding 2 races being in a state Biden won.

So in my view. neither statement is true because the idea it revolves around isn't really true.

[Calthrina950]

I'd say the first option is true-that downballot Republicans overperformed Trump, as in 2016. I can't remember the exact breakdown, but the House popular vote was closer than the national popular vote. In particular, Republicans won the House popular vote in Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, all of which Trump lost by very narrow margins to Biden. Many suburban Republicans, ranging from Dan Crenshaw and Van Taylor in Texas, to Brian Fitzpatrick in Pennsylvania, to say nothing of Young Kim in California, ran ahead of Trump by significant margins. I can't think of any Republican incumbents who received a lower percentage in their districts than Trump did (aside from Richard Hudson in North Carolina). Of course, there were some, but they were few.

Nevertheless, ticket-splitting was down considerably from 2016, and at the Senate level, most Republicans ran about even with Trump, with the exceptions of Ben Sasse in Nebraska (who ran nearly 10% ahead of Trump) and Susan Collins in Maine (who retained her crossover strength to win another term), making her the only Senator of either party to win in a state carried by the presidential candidate of the opposing party. And as in 2008, she was the only Republican Senator to win in a state won by the Democrats.