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Washington Post
02-07-2025
- Business
- Washington Post
The one thing about Mamdani's win that should worry Republicans
Armin Thomas and Leon Sit are partners at Split Ticket, an election data analysis firm. You shouldn't read too much into one mayoral election in New York City — let alone a Democratic primary — when it comes to gauging the broader political winds. But if there's one warning sign for Republicans, it's that national polling is starting to show discontent among two key groups that swung hard right for Donald Trump in 2024 and that helped power Zohran Mamdani's upset win: young people and Latinos. Trump romped to victory in 2024 by promising to improve the cost of living after a spike in inflation and to reset immigration policy after a rapid influx of migrants. But recent polling shows that young and Latino voters have moved sharply against the president in both of these areas and are judging his performance harshly overall. Based on five June polls measuring Trump's approval rating, the president's numbers among these groups have fallen far from his 2024 high-water mark. These negative ratings also stand out compared with movement among more 'traditionally' Republican groups: White voters and voters over 65. For each of these groups, there was less of a shift in voting behavior last election. Trump's June approval with voters over 65 is only net negative by 6.5 points, while he is above water with Whites by three points. The issues bothering these groups notably connect to ones that Mamdani — who began his campaign by interviewing Trump voters in November — ran on. He promised to both make the city more affordable and protect migrants from Immigration and Customs Enforcement crackdowns. On the issue of the economy, young people have a more unfavorable than favorable view of Trump's performance by a 25-point margin. With Latinos, it's 26 points. By contrast, the disapproval margin for voters over 65 is 7.5 points, and it's less than one point for White voters. There's some overlap between these trends: Latino voters tend to skew younger in the electorate, as the demographic has grown quickly in size and electoral importance. A large number of voters cited economic pressure during the Biden presidency as their reason for switching parties — crediting the prior Trump presidency with a stronger economic climate. Approval ratings and voting behavior are not the same thing, of course, but these persistent negative ratings among the groups that swung the largest toward the president suggest that these voters are not feeling the economic relief they believed they would be getting. On the issue of immigration, this divergence also persists. Young voters are more likely to have an unfavorable view of Trump on immigration than a favorable one by a margin of 18 points, and Latinos by 24 points, as the administration pursues a wide range of policies that have affected undocumented immigrants as well as foreign students, certain green-card holders, and people who have been temporarily allowed to live and work in the United States. Democrats should nonetheless temper their expectations. Even with strong disapproval ratings among these groups, it is unlikely that they will swing back to being as Democratic as they were previously. Trump's approval is still higher with them than it was at a comparable point in his first term. It's not a perfect apples-to-apples comparison, but it does suggest that the Republican brand, though tarnished since last year's election, remains stronger among these key groups than it did eight years ago. But Democrats also don't need to recover all their losses to have a strong performance in the midterms. Even a 1 percent better showing in House races overall would have secured them the speaker's gavel last year. The Republican Party will be making a mistake if it thinks it can take its newest voters for granted.
Washington Post
26-06-2025
- Politics
- Washington Post
How Zohran Mamdani smashed through the left's ceiling in New York
Armin Thomas and Lakshya Jain are partners at Split Ticket, an election data analysis firm. Zohran Mamdani pulled off a historic win in New York City by surging with groups that Democrats have been sliding with in recent years: infrequent, young, Hispanic and Asian voters. Last year, majority-minority neighborhoods in New York swung strongly toward Donald Trump. And while the 2025 Democratic primary electorate was bluer by definition, it's likely that Mamdani won nontrivial amounts of voters who are still registered Democrats and supported Trump less than a year earlier.
Washington Post
19-06-2025
- Business
- Washington Post
The Trump coalition is especially vulnerable to Medicaid cuts
Lakshya Jain and Harrison Lavelle are partners at Split Ticket, an election data analysis firm. As Republicans crafted their One Big Beautiful Bill, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Missouri) offered a warning: 'Our voters support social insurance programs. More than that, our voters depend on those programs.' While House Republicans ignored his pleas, opting to pass a bill with cuts to Medicaid that the Congressional Budget Office estimates would lead to 7.8 million fewer people with coverage, Hawley was onto something. There's strong evidence that voters whom President Donald Trump brought into the Republican Party over his three presidential runs will be especially affected by the proposed funding changes to health care. A quick glance at the counties with the biggest Republican swings in the Trump era bears this out: In county after county and state after state, Trump made disproportionate gains among lower-income voters, many of whom rely on Medicaid — a program that covers nearly 80 million Americans nationwide. In fact, in counties where more than one-quarter of the population is on Medicaid, Trump gained 17 percentage points in terms of margin, on average, over the party's 2012 performance, more than double his average gain in counties with low Medicaid enrollment rates. And though county results can't identify which individual voters shifted toward the GOP, polls and post-election analyses consistently found Trump improved with lower-income voters who tend to be more affected by health-care cuts. You can point to many reasons for Trump's gains in lower-income regions, but the most relevant one might also be the simplest: Unlike many establishment Republicans, Trump repeatedly promised to not touch social welfare programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. It's hard to overstate just how dramatically Trump's approach differed from those of prior Republican campaigns. In 2012, for example, Mitt Romney was caught on tape saying that 47 percent of the country was reliant on government benefits and hopelessly out of reach to Republicans, while his vice-presidential nominee, Paul D. Ryan, proposed a program to reshape and partially privatize Medicare to lower costs. Perhaps as a result, Trump's 2016 campaign yielded major gains for Republicans among voters inclined toward expanding the social safety net. According to Democratic data scientist David Shor, Trump gained 40 percentage points in margin among voters who supported universal health care but opposed amnesty. The signs of this were visible throughout the cycle; even in the 2016 primary, Trump's strongest supporters were self-identified Republicans who were registered as Democrats, hinting at greater support for government welfare programs among new converts. Trump backtracked on his Medicaid promise in his first term, and his proposals to partially repeal the Affordable Care Act and cut Medicaid spending helped fuel sweeping Democratic gains in 2018. His One Big Beautiful Bill comes with similar risks, and negative reactions are already showing up in surveys — including among his supporters. According to a KFF survey last month, 69 percent of Republicans on Medicaid and 62 percent of low-income Republicans are at least 'somewhat worried' about cuts to the program. And more than 4 in 10 respondents covered through Medicaid or the Affordable Care Act's marketplaces — where benefits will also shrink next year — identified as Republican. Trump won't be on the ballot again, but his allies in Congress also face exposure to a backlash against health-care changes. Many House Republicans, including those in swing seats, now represent districts with high Medicaid enrollment rates, opening new political vulnerabilities. In fact, several battleground Republicans represent districts in which over 20 percent of the eligible population is on Medicaid — and many of them won only narrow victories in 2024. In the face of all these developments, it's also important to remember that the Republican coalition has changed massively since 2012, with a large portion of the well-educated, suburban electorate that backed Romney now voting Democratic at the federal level. If GOP cuts end up pushing lower-income voters they have picked up in the past three cycles back to the Democrats, Republicans will not have the same suburban base to fall back on. In essence, Republicans risk repelling their newest voters after having lost many of their old ones. At the same time, the influence of culture-war issues shouldn't be discounted. Much of Trump's base could end up sticking with the GOP in the years to come, even while objecting to Medicaid changes, if voters continue to perceive Democrats as too socially progressive or focused on the wrong issues. Regardless, the past 15 years of high-profile political fights around health care — and accompanying election losses for both parties — are a testament to the fact that voting blocs cannot be taken for granted in politics. Trump repeatedly persuaded many voters outside the Republican Party's typical base to join his coalition. The durability of this new coalition remains to be seen, and the midterm reaction to his One Big Beautiful Bill will be an important test of its staying power.
Washington Post
27-05-2025
- Business
- Washington Post
A ‘Blue Wave' is building. It won't look the same as the last one.
Harrison Lavelle and Leon Sit are partners at Split Ticket, an election data analysis firm. Midterm elections usually give the party out of the White House a chance to make big gains. This was the case in 2018, during President Donald Trump's first term, when Democrats made significant gains in the House and flipped the chamber. With Democrats already picking up some momentum in early midterm polling, they could be poised for another strong performance in 2026.
Washington Post
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Washington Post
The 2024 election was even weirder than we thought
Lakshya Jain is a partner at Split Ticket, an election data analysis firm. If you're sick of looking back at the 2024 election, I'm sorry. If you want a story that changes your perception of the entire contest and is not about President Joe Biden's age, though, then I have news for you.
