One of the interesting things that's often missed about our narrow statewide wins in the 2022 election in AZ relates to the simple story that we won those races with a GOP leaning electorate because each of the 4 GOP losers (Kari Lake, Mark Finchem, Blake Masters, and Abe Hamadeh) was so toxic that sane Republicans couldn't support them …
One of the interesting things that's often missed about our narrow statewide wins in the 2022 election in AZ relates to the simple story that we won those races with a GOP leaning electorate because each of the 4 GOP losers (Kari Lake, Mark Finchem, Blake Masters, and Abe Hamadeh) was so toxic that sane Republicans couldn't support them and split their tickets. The piece that's misunderstood is that for the most part the same ticket splitters didn't vote Dem for all 4 races. Instead different Republican voters typically defected on only one or two races. The relatively narrow results hide the fact that quite a few AZ GOP voters actually split their tickets in high profile races. When considering just those 4 races, 18.7% of Maricopa County voters split their tickets. When considering all partisan races, 37.4% of Maricopa County voters split their ballots.
Interesting; thanks. Are you suggesting that AZ ticket-splitting this cycle is highly possible? And how does one of the four toxins you mentioned running again in the highest-profile downballot race figure in?
I think the pool of available split ticket voters in AZ is bigger than generally understood, and I do think Lake will underperform Trump and Trump will underperform generic GOP legislator. I'm hopeful we'll see 2022 ticket splitters consolidate more for us downballot, rather than simply increasing the number of ticket splitters who vote for both Harris and Gallego but GOP downballot. At this point Lake is damaged goods and I expect her to do relatively worse than in 2022 (thank the GOP primary voters for saving the AZ Dem Party from kicking away a U.S. Senate seat). I also expect 2024 to be bluer than 2022 in AZ simply due to demographic trend, and improved turnout due to being a presidential year.
One of the interesting things that's often missed about our narrow statewide wins in the 2022 election in AZ relates to the simple story that we won those races with a GOP leaning electorate because each of the 4 GOP losers (Kari Lake, Mark Finchem, Blake Masters, and Abe Hamadeh) was so toxic that sane Republicans couldn't support them and split their tickets. The piece that's misunderstood is that for the most part the same ticket splitters didn't vote Dem for all 4 races. Instead different Republican voters typically defected on only one or two races. The relatively narrow results hide the fact that quite a few AZ GOP voters actually split their tickets in high profile races. When considering just those 4 races, 18.7% of Maricopa County voters split their tickets. When considering all partisan races, 37.4% of Maricopa County voters split their ballots.
Interesting; thanks. Are you suggesting that AZ ticket-splitting this cycle is highly possible? And how does one of the four toxins you mentioned running again in the highest-profile downballot race figure in?
I think the pool of available split ticket voters in AZ is bigger than generally understood, and I do think Lake will underperform Trump and Trump will underperform generic GOP legislator. I'm hopeful we'll see 2022 ticket splitters consolidate more for us downballot, rather than simply increasing the number of ticket splitters who vote for both Harris and Gallego but GOP downballot. At this point Lake is damaged goods and I expect her to do relatively worse than in 2022 (thank the GOP primary voters for saving the AZ Dem Party from kicking away a U.S. Senate seat). I also expect 2024 to be bluer than 2022 in AZ simply due to demographic trend, and improved turnout due to being a presidential year.