Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Hurray for the ticket splitters

One ballot with a Democratic vote and one with a Republican vote

Ticket splitting is alive and well, writes Klug.

marketlan/Getty Images

Klug served in the House of Representatives from 1991 to 1999. He hosts the political podcast “Lost in the Middle: America’s Political Orphans.”

A must-read for political junkies, Sabato’s Crystal Ball had bad news for fans of ticket splitting like me earlier this month: The once widespread practice has plummeted in recent presidential elections.

“Just 16 districts produced split results [in 2020]: 9 Republicans won districts carried by Joe Biden for president, and 7 Democrats won districts carried by Donald Trump. That was the lowest such total of the postwar era, surpassing the previous low of 26 in the 2012 election,” the newsletter reported.

But that doesn’t mean ticket splitting is no longer important. Pundits know in classic swing states it can provide the winning margin.


And the good news for fans like me is that the 2022 midterms gave us some hope.

That year, Vermont reelected a Republican governor who beat his opponent by a staggering 47 percentage points. Meanwhile, Democratic Sen. Peter Welch won another term by 40 points.

In Nevada, Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto won reelection, but voters tossed out the incumbent Democratic governor in favor of Republican Joe Lombardo.

The split-ticket pattern repeated in Kansas, New Hampshire, Georgia and Wisconsin. In fact, ticket splitting almost seems wired into Wisconsin’s political DNA.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

Madison screenwriter and columnist (and, might I add, ticket splitter) John Roach struggles to explain it.

“It’s a puzzle to me. I am not sure it’s rational,” Roach said. “It’s almost like they don’t want to give too much power to one side. And Wisconsin voters try to balance it out in a kind of freestyle way.”

In the Georgia race for Senate, incumbent Raphael Warnock made a strategic decision to court ticket splitters by running an ad touting his bipartisan work with Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz. Naturally, his Democratic base was horrified.

Yet I think he had his finger on the pulse of American politics – 44 percent of American voters self-identify as centrists, according to a Brookings study. That's an enormous block of voters who are bewildered by the current political climate, in which the extremes pass for the norm.

“When we are at gridlock, which we are now as a country, then you want to think that there are people who can work across the aisle,” said Melita Easters, a Democratic consultant in Atlanta.

In Georgia, a mid-50s white suburbanite and long-time Republican voter wrestled with her decisions in 2022.

“I had always been a straight-ticket voter, and I was going to vote for Governor (Brian) Kemp," she said. "But I decided to split my ticket and vote for a Democrat for Senate. It was liberating. People should not be afraid to color outside the lines. What matters is getting it right.”

I agree. Hurray for the ticket splitters.

Listen to “Lost in the Middle: America's Political Orphansto learn more about the joys of ticket splitting.

Read More

‘When People Spend Time Together, They Are Less Inclined To See Each Other As the Enemy’: ​A Conversation With Matt Grossmann

Picture of Matt Grossmann

‘When People Spend Time Together, They Are Less Inclined To See Each Other As the Enemy’: ​A Conversation With Matt Grossmann

In The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway famously observed that a character went broke in two ways: gradually, then suddenly. The same dynamic has been at work in American politics. For decades, the composition of our principal political parties has been slowly shifting, without a great deal of public attention. And then the 2024 presidential election happened, and it was suddenly obvious: the Democrats, traditionally the party of the working class, had become the party of educated elites.

Matt Grossmann has been a keen observer of this transition. A professor of political science at Michigan State University, Grossmann also directs the Institute for Public Policy and Social Research and hosts the “Science of Politics” podcast for the Niskanen Center. With his co-author David A. Hopkins, Grossmann recently published Polarized by Degrees: How the Diploma Divide and the Culture War Transformed American Politics, a book that documents a remarkable shift in American society. Since 1960, we have seen a massive expansion in the number of adult Americans earning college degrees—from roughly 7 percent of the population to nearly 40 percent.

Keep ReadingShow less
Drain—More Than Fight—Authoritarianism and Censorship
Getty Images, Mykyta Ivanov

Drain—More Than Fight—Authoritarianism and Censorship

The current approaches to proactively counteracting authoritarianism and censorship fall into two main categories, which we call “fighting” and “Constitution-defending.” While Constitution-defending in particular has some value, this article advocates for a third major method: draining interest in authoritarianism and censorship.

“Draining” refers to sapping interest in these extreme possibilities of authoritarianism and censorship. In practical terms, it comes from reducing an overblown sense of threat of fellow Americans across the political spectrum. When there is less to fear about each other, there is less desire for authoritarianism or censorship.

Keep ReadingShow less
The Moral Awakening of Cory Booker's Marathon Speech
Cory Booker | U.S. Senator Cory Booker speaking with attende… | Flickr
www.flickr.com

The Moral Awakening of Cory Booker's Marathon Speech

Just when prophetic witness felt muted by political expediency, Senator Cory Booker's unprecedented 25-hour marathon speech on the Senate floor is a powerful testament to moral courage and democratic resilience. Beginning at 7 p.m. on Monday (3/31/25) and extending through Tuesday (4/1/25) evening, Booker's historic address surpassed Strom Thurmond's infamous 1957 record, though with a profound difference, reconstituting the meaning of a "moral moment."

The New Jersey senator's sustained oratory wasn't merely a political gesture—it embodied the prophetic tradition that has long animated America's moral progress. Like the Hebrew prophets who stood before kings, speaking truth to power at high personal cost, Booker's political discourse represented a contemporary form of bearing witness. His physical endurance became a metaphor for the sustained resistance required in facing injustice.

Keep ReadingShow less
The Eagles Soar
bald eagle above brown frield
Photo by Richard Lee on Unsplash

The Eagles Soar

Nearly every American can identify the bald eagle as our country’s national symbol, purveyor of our proud heritage. Formerly declared endangered and facing extinction, in just the last fifteen years, the eagle population has quadrupled. Eagles are now spotted in areas it was feared they would never soar again: the Mississippi river bluffs, the plains of the Midwest, the east coast, the west, literally from sea to shining sea.

The Great Seal of the United States of America, adopted in 1782, features a bald eagle with a banner in its beak reading “E pluribus unum”—"out of many, one.” The seal represents strength, freedom, and independence and is a symbol of our nation's sovereignty. It is used to authenticate official documents.

Keep ReadingShow less