Why did the Democrats get shellacked in the 2020 down-ballot races?

A thread.

1/
Democrats, expecting to dominate in 2020 House and Senate races, are regrouping after underperforming expectations.

Dems, defending 235 House seats, will keep a thin majority of around 221 (218 needed). They need both GA Senate run-off seats to get 50 Senators.

2/
After election day, before a good deal of results were even called, the wings of the Dem party started a public fight about who was to blame.

It started when barely re-elected VA Rep @SpanbergerVA07 blamed progressive messaging on a caucus call.

3/ https://twitter.com/ericawerner/status/1324439295847968768?s=20
She particularly blamed "defund the police" messaging, which was used in attack ads against her and--she believes--hurt her with independent voters.

Pelosi dismissed this feedback and insisted that House Dems, despite severe losses, had a mandate.

4/ https://twitter.com/ericawerner/status/1324443088245399554?s=20
After that commentary went public, @AOC went on the attack against the centrist wing, blaming the losses on poor centrist campaigns with inadequate digital marketing.

/5 https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1324694301234921474?s=20
The progressive wing argues that Biden was put over the top by base turnout driven by activism. @AOC cited this WaPo article from before the election predicting results would all come down to turnout.

Centrists instead credit appeal to independents.

/6 https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/11/01/trailer-it-all-comes-down-turnout/
Analysis | The Trailer: It all comes down to turnout

In this edition: The fight to turn out Democrats in the cities, the two parallel campaigns of the final stretch, and the war over voting gets uglier.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/11/01/trailer-it-all-comes-down-turnout/
In a point that perhaps went too far, @AOC also suggested that attacks on "defund" and "socialism" were dog-whistled racism.

No doubt we've seen racist attacks against progressive stances, but the messaging may be subject to other critique.

/7 https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1324698828944138243?s=20
What really happened in voters' minds?

Evidence is only now coming in, in the form of focus groups and reporting.

Here are a few data points, anecdotes, and surprises that we know about so far:

/8
First, in this record (66+%) turnout election, the turnout aided both sides.

This interferes with a pre-existing narrative that turnout tends to help Dems. Dem activists were successful in driving turnout, but so was the GOP so it largely washed.

/9 https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/11/08/trailer-democrats-won-white-house-lost-myth-about-turnout/
Analysis | The Trailer: Democrats won the White House and lost a myth about turnout

In this edition: How turnout this year confounded even victorious Democrats, what Republicans are saying about legal challenges, and the start of a new race in Georgia.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/11/08/trailer-democrats-won-white-house-lost-myth-about-turnout/
Next, there was substantial GOP switch-voting to Biden. Biden won Ind voters by 14 points after Clinton lost them by 4.

This did NOT translate down-ballot. Ind and GOP voters split tickets, voting against Trump but not supporting Congressional Dems.

/10 https://twitter.com/saletan/status/1324160246680588289?s=20
The largest mistake Dems and pollsters seemed to have made was assuming turnout would disproportionally help Dems. Instead, Ind and GOP switch voters played a bigger role than expected.

Here is the writer of that WaPo article cited by @AOC:

/11 https://twitter.com/daveweigel/status/1325090160682409986?s=20
The progressive arguments about the quality of campaigns do seem to have merit. Credible people are taking them seriously.

What I'm looking for that I haven't seen yet is indications that purple state campaigns were disproportionately poor.

/12 https://twitter.com/jbouie/status/1325250913888505856?s=20
This is key: according to HuffPo, as Biden pulled ahead in the polls, voters reported being LESS likely to support down-ballot Dems. The ticket-splitting seems to have been caused by fears that the new admin would be pulled too far to the left.

/13 https://twitter.com/Robillard/status/1325823456680808450?s=20
The same reporter points out that Dem's relentless focus on a few national themes (ACA, etc), while benefitting them previously, may have used up their effectiveness and/or been ineffective against more individually-targeted messaging from GOP.

/14 https://twitter.com/Robillard/status/1325824065203019778?s=20
The campaign committees also seem to have some structural faults and misguided investment strategies (How realistic was TX investment after all?).

Everyone rightly credits @staceyabrams's remarkable work delivering GA for Biden.

/15 https://twitter.com/meredithshiner/status/1326210415521624065?s=20
More recently we're starting to get anecdotal evidence from a pollster named Danny Barefoot. He focus-grouped swing voters.

"Defund" messaging seems highly negative among swing voters, who didn't accept that the messaging was not literal.

/16 https://twitter.com/dburbach/status/1326324850491879425?s=20
More from the focus group: When the actual policies of reallocating some funding to community services were explained, those policies had 70% support among lean-Biden voters who instead voted Trump.

/17 https://twitter.com/dannybarefoot/status/1326216451896844289?s=20
Worthy of note: COVID response was also a murky topic for independent voters. Most agreed that Trump was responsible for botching the response, but voted for him anyway thinking that a Biden admin would subject them to further lockdowns.

/18 https://twitter.com/dannybarefoot/status/1326211471030816775?s=20
Answers varied as to why these lean-Biden voters instead chose Trump, with one saying that she thought Biden would win easily and didn't want it to be overwhelming. Barefoot then muses on how the poll coverage might be affecting voting behavior.

/19 https://twitter.com/dannybarefoot/status/1326217728051437569?s=20
I'll post more here as I see it, but early indications are that Dems don't benefit as much as they thought from turnout, and are more dependent on ind and conservative voters than they realized. And when these voters hear "defund" and "socialism", they take it literally.

/20
Just saw this, again by @daveweigel:

Doug Jones got about 50% more votes in 2020 when he lost his seat than he did when he won the Alabama special election.

GOP turnout in 2020 was crushing.

https://twitter.com/daveweigel/status/1326567630057181184?s=20

/21
Probably also needs to be said in a what-went-wrong thread that many of the lost seats were picked up in the 2018 wave and would have reverted to the mean anyway. I would argue this calls for even more consideration on defending purple seats.

/22 https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1326568753740525569?s=20
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