Christopher Fultz

THE 15% BAND Look at this chart. 59 races. Senate and governor. States ordered from reddest to bluest in 2024. The solid lines are 2024. The dashed lines are 2026. The shaded bands are what moved. One formula fits all of it: Republican 2026 = 0.85 × Trump 2024 Democrat 2026 = Harris 2024 + 0.15 × Trump 2024 For every 1,000 Trump points, 850 stayed Republican. 150 landed on the Democratic side. The numbers: Senate: Republicans kept ~85% of Trump’s share Governor: ~86% Variation explained: 88% What makes it strange: It didn’t matter how red the state was. Wyoming, Ohio, Illinois, Massachusetts: same 15% (p = 0.69). The Democratic gain was sized by Trump’s vote, not Harris’s. The Harris part is zero. The 0.85 beat both standard election-swing models in every set of races. Drop any single state and the multiplier stays between 0.846 and 0.853. Why seats flipped: At 0.85, any state where Trump got under about 58.5% falls below 50%. Texas, Kansas, Iowa, Ohio, South Carolina, North Carolina: all under that line. All flipped. What this means: Midterms are messy. This one isn’t. Two sets of races, different candidates, different campaigns, and the same 15% decrease almost everywhere. A pattern this even demands answers at the ballot level: paper ballot hand counts, poll-book check-ins against votes counted, and voter files showing who actually turned out. The numbers raise the question. The ballots can answer it.