Source: The Hill
by Mark Mellman
“In 1986, 59 percent of Senate races were won by the party that lost the 1984 presidential contest in that state. In fairness, it was the peak year for presidential/Senate mismatches, but through the late 90s, mismatches were greater than 30 percent. By 2020, things changed dramatically: Just one Senate election that year produced a mismatch between the party of the Senate victor and the winner of the state’s presidential contest. 2022 also yielded just a single mismatch between the party of the Senate winner and the party of the 2020 presidential victor. Today, the presidential vote seems like a near perfect indicator of the Senate vote. My Mellman Group colleague Edward Wu and I examined this phenomenon from a different perspective. We looked at the difference between the Senate vote and the presidential vote (or the previous presidential vote for a midterm) over the course of full Senate cycles.” (10/09/24)
https://thehill.com/opinion/4923217-senate-campaigns-mismatch/