North Carolina (PPP) - Cunningham +7

[Virginiá]

I actually wonder whether there is any conceivable scenario where Trump wins reelection and loses the senate to Dems? I doubt, but if so, the path very likely goes through NC.

That would seem unlikely based on 2018 2016, of whose Senate races showed the biggest alignment with state presidential results in generations. Split ticketing voting is at an all-time low.

[Virginiá]

I actually wonder whether there is any conceivable scenario where Trump wins reelection and loses the senate to Dems? I doubt, but if so, the path very likely goes through NC.

That would seem unlikely based on 2018, of whose Senate races showed the biggest alignment with state presidential results in generations. Split ticketing voting is at an all-time low.

Do you mean 2016? 2018 Senate races, while well-correlated with the 2016 map, had a lot of aberrations in county results, such as in WV, ND, Montana, Ohio and even places like NY and Maine

Yes, my mistake.

This is from 2016:

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/06/26/more-and-more-senate-elections-reflect-states-presidential-votes/



2018 Margin difference

[Virginiá]

Really trying not to make the same mistakes from 2016 by thinking conditions are favorable when they're not, but really hard to see how a major recession of which hit the economy immediately and likely won't come close to fully recovering until next year won't affect not only this Senate race, but many other races, very negatively for Republicans.

All this is to say that these numbers wouldn't be surprising if Republicans do indeed pay a large electoral penalty for being the governing party amid a recession so bad people are drawing comparisons to the 1930s.

[Virginiá]

It's no longer the economy, stupid. 2018 was a D wave despite a strong economy, there is no way to predict that 2020 will be some kind of 1932 wave because of the recession which awaits the world. Also, there is only one entity which bears the blame for the economic crisis and this person is neither Trump nor Tillis, it's China. (Memo -) People who blame Covid and/or the recession on Trump were never going to vote republican anyway).

But the economy has never been a major factor in midterm elections. It's usually only dominant in presidential elections. Midterms instead go by the popularity of the incumbent president. It's why Bill Clinton and George W. Bush both had easy midterms (1998 and 2002) despite major events occurring that could have derailed them - impeachment for Clinton, recession and 9/11 for GWB. Both had the same thing in common - very high approval ratings going into the midterm election.

This is all to say that a president could weather an economic storm or other negative major event, but their approval rating would reflect it. If they are handling it poorly and poised to suffer a backlash from the electorate, their approval rating will crash. If they are are destined to perform strongly, their approval rating will be high. It's basically a barometer for the election.

[Virginiá]

With Trump it has changed, economy is no longer the most important factor for many voters, many people are no longer voting with their wallet but according their social values. (just look at which party is representing the richest congressional districts)

Right, well, all I'm saying is that would be a major change from how past elections have played out, and there have been a lot of studies on this. Changes in the economy (GDP, jobs, etc) have a direct correlation to the ruling party's performance. I posted an article about it a couple weeks ago too, which did have a small caveat that increased polarization could reduce (but not eliminate) the effect of the economy because people were so entrenched in support for their party that they are less swayed, but that has yet to be proven, because we haven't had a recession election under current levels of polarization. So this is really the first test of the idea. 2008 wouldn't count for a number of reasons, but the primary being that there was undoubtedly a lot of cross-party voting up and downballot, especially in the south, indicating notably less polarization.