From the LuAnn Bennett for Congress campaign:
Additional Research Finds Split Ticket Now Rare, House Candidates Tied to National Mood
McLean – Republican pollster Robert Blizzard outlined yesterday the extreme difficulty facing down-ballot races trying to outrun their presidential candidate. Drawing on data from the 2012 presidential election, Blizzard found GOP congressional candidates in 81 competitive districts ran only one point better than GOP Presidential nominee Mitt Romney.
Blizzard concluded that if Trump is polling less than 45 percent in a Congressional district, “that spells trouble for any GOP’er.” A new Washington Post poll found that Clinton respectively leads by 45-points and seven-points in the DC suburbs and exurbs that make up VA-10.
Washington Post political analyst Chris Cilliza further outlined the crumbling landscape facing Republicans like Barbara Comstock:
“First, a very broad but important point from Blizzard’s tweets: It is VERY hard for a House candidate — whether incumbent or challenger — to run significantly ahead or behind the top of the ticket in a presidential year. The presidential race is so all-encompassing for voters — and House members/candidates typically so little known — that how the top of the ticket goes heavily dictates the results of House races. That’s true even in cases where the House incumbent specifically tries to run away from the top of the ticket; voters tend not to differentiate all that much — if they are voting against the Republican at the top of the ticket, they usually do the same down-ballot. It’s why political waves occur — and why we call them waves.”
When confronted in the past with this possibility, Rep. Comstock has contended that voters will split the ticket, telling National Journal, for example, “We’ve always a tradition here of being independent minded.”
However, new research from the Pew Research center directly undercuts that argument, finding instead that “split-ticket” voting is exceedingly rare and on a “steep decline.” According to Pew, “In 2012, only 26 House districts out of 435 (6%) split their votes.” Further, split tickets general break the opposite direction than a Clinton-Comstock vote. Over the past four decades, “split-ticket districts were overwhelmingly Republican for the presidency but Democratic when it came to the House.”
“Republican elected officials, pollsters, and party leaders all feel the weight of a Trump candidacy, yet our opponent continues to support the party line,” Bennett spokesman Robert Howard said. “Instead of relying on fantasy split-votes, our opponent should once and for all renounce her disastrous presidential nominee.”
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