From New York to Arizona, high-profile candidates running for races further down the ballot than the presidential race are defying expectations.
Ticket splitting is a phenomenon where voters support a party’s candidate for one office and another party’s candidate for another, such as president and representative. This appears to be occurring in five of the most closely watched congressional battles in the country.
Here’s a deeper look into the races of Reps. Mike Lawler (R-NY), Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), and Sen. Sherrod Brown’s (D-OH), as well as North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein’s gubernatorial bid, which are bucking top-of-the-ticket trends.
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Mike Lawler
The New York Republican hails from a district that went for President Joe Biden by ten percentage points in the 2020 presidential election. Yet as he runs for reelection against former Rep. Mondaire Jones, Lawler is defying odds by leading in polling ahead of Election Day.
Running in a D+3 district, Jones could, by typical standards, expect to have an advantage in the race. But the nonpartisan Cook Political Report recently shifted the race in Lawler’s favor.
First elected to the 17th Congressional District in 2022, Lawler flipped the seat red in a razor-thin race. This year, he’s leading Jones by five percentage points.
“I feel very good about where we are with six days to go,” Lawler told Punchbowl News. “We’re winning.”
Elissa Slotkin
The Michigan Democrat is running for Senate in a state where former President Donald Trump holds a slim polling lead over Vice President Kamala Harris. Yet Slotkin, who is running in a race rated by the Cook Political Report as a “toss-up,” is bucking top-of-the ticket-trends as polling indicates she is outperforming her Republican challenger.
Trump holds a two percentage point advantage over Harris in Michigan five days ahead of the election, per RealClearPolitics‘s aggregate of the latest polls.
Meanwhile, Slotkin has retained a three-point lead over her Republican challenger Mike Rogers, according to New York Times polling data.
With Trump holding an edge in the battleground state, Slotkin has made an effort to appeal to centrist voters during her campaign, becoming one of multiple Democrats in tight races to release ads promoting ties to the former president.
One Slotkin ad released in August touted that she “wrote a law signed by President Trump forcing drug companies to show their actual prices.”
Ruben Gallego
The Arizona Democrat is running for Senate in Arizona, a battleground state that favors Trump by a narrow margin in most polls.
However, Gallego is holding his own in the red-leaning state. He retains a lead of roughly four percentage points against his Republican Senate opponent, Kari Lake, though she has made gains in the polls during the last few weeks.
After Biden appeared to call Trump supporters “garbage” earlier this week, Gallego criticized the president’s comments.
“No politician should be talking about anybody that way. Doesn’t matter who they are,” Gallego told reporters.
Sherrod Brown
The incumbent Democratic senator has been battling to keep his seat in Ohio, a state that polls show favors Trump by a wide margin.
Yet as he campaigns for reelection in one of the most closely watched senate races in the country, Brown still holds a razor-thin edge over his Republican challenger, Bernie Moreno.
Moreno has made steep gains during his race against Brown, who has held his seat in the upper chamber for nearly two decades.
Still, with under a week left until Election Day, the Republican has yet to gain a lead in the polls in Ohio, where Trump is projected to win the presidential election by roughly seven percentage points.
Brown is another vulnerable Democrat who has moved to align himself with Trump through multiple ad campaigns.
“Sen. Brown puts party politics aside and fights for our workers and our safety so Ohio doesn’t ever get railroaded again,” one ad states as it shows side-by-side pictures of Brown and Trump’s running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH).
Josh Stein
As North Carolina’s Democratic attorney general, Stein is making a bid for the governor’s mansion in a battleground state that is leaning toward Trump.
But while voters in the state may favor a Republican at the top of the ticket, down the ballot, they’re going for Stein.
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The latest aggregate of polling from RealClearPolitics shows the North Carolina Democrat leading Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson by over 14 percentage points.
Stein’s lead has shot up in recent weeks, as Robinson has struggled to rebound from allegations he made lewd and racist comments on a pornography forum over a decade ago.
