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| Gov. Steve Bullock (D-MT) |
I've looked back through the years, and what I've found is that this has only happened seven times since the late 1980's, and as you're going to find out, it almost always took some extenuating circumstances. None of the incumbents we've listed above are in what we'd normally consider a "traditional" scandal, and as a result were they to lose, it'd either be because they simply couldn't keep up with Donald Trump or because both Trump & the Republican had a rough night...and the incumbent got stuck on the short end of the string. Below you will find the seven times that this has happened in the past 32 years, and an explanation as to what led to the split in the votes. All of this is to say is that while it's possible these Democrats could take out incumbent Republicans, they're battling a tough bit of history to get more than one of them through.
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| Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) |
Year: 2008
Party Split: R POTUS/D Senate
What Happened: Stevens' race is one we've talked about before, so I'll just give you the gist. Essentially, one week before the election, Stevens, a landmark in Alaskan politics, was indicted in an ethics investigation (that after the election would eventually be dismissed) that had dominated the entire race. Stevens' issues had caused Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich lead in virtually every poll in difficult-to-survey Alaska, and one could argue that Stevens' loss by only 1.3-points was an indication that the state (which went to John McCain by 21 points) didn't want to defy the Republican Party, particularly the same year that their then-governor (Sarah Palin) was on the ticket. That this is the most recent example of an incumbent getting bucked while their ticket still won the state doesn't bode well for the Democrats I listed up top, as Stevens' ethics violations aren't something any Republican senator up in 2020 looks like they'll be achieving.
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| Sen. John Ashcroft (R-MO) |
Year: 2000
Party Split: R POTUS/D Senate
What Happened: Here, again, we have a bizarre set of circumstances that we wouldn't want duplicated in 2020. Gov. Mel Carnahan (D) was in a tight race for the Missouri Senate seat held by then-incumbent John Ashcroft (himself a former governor). Unlike 2008, Missouri was competitive for both the presidency and the Senate, making it similar to TX/GA/IA/MI rather than the other seats listed above. However, Carnahan died jut days before an election that looked like a true coin toss, and as a result, Ashcroft's bitter campaign was thrown asunder, making it essentially as if he was going to campaign against a widow (it was announced that Carnahan's wife Jean would take the seat should he win). On Election Day, Carnahan won by just two points while Vice President Gore lost Missouri by three. It's worth noting, of course, that had the Carnahan voters stuck with Gore rather than with Bush (Carnahan's vote total exceeded then-Gov. George W. Bush's), Gore would've become the 43rd President of the United States, as Missouri would've gotten him over 270 (and we likely never would have heard the words "hanging chad"...or more importantly had the second Iraq War).
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| Sen. Larry Pressler (R-SD) |
Year: 1996
Party Split: R POTUS/D Senate
What Happened: If the Democrats (or John James) want to find comfort in a traditional loss, they're going to have to look all the way back to 1996 for the last time an incumbent lost without having to rely upon a scandal or a tragedy to split the ticket. In 1996, Sen. Larry Pressler was running for a fourth term to the US Senate against longtime Rep. Tim Johnson (D). South Dakota is unique (similar to Montana with Steve Bullock in a lot of ways) in that their House members are elected statewide (in 1996 South Dakota was still an at-large district), and thus Johnson was just as well-known as Pressler. Pressler's position as the Commerce Secretary came at a cost, when cable & phone bill prices were skyrocketing, and many in the state blamed Pressler & congressional Republicans for causing these prices to increase. Along with Pressler's involvement in the 1996 Farm Bill (which Johnson opposed, and increasingly so did South Dakota voters), this was the end of Pressler's time in office, with Johnson beating him by 2.5 points (winning the eastern half of the state while Pressler dominated the western half). Weirdly, Bob Dole only won the state by 3-points thanks to a strong showing by Ross Perot, so it was nearly as likely that Clinton might have pulled off the victory as Pressler.
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| Sen. Wyche Fowler (D-GA) |
Year: 1992
Party Split: D POTUS/R Senate
What Happened: Again, we have a weird situation, and one that could be duplicated, but isn't likely to be. Georgia elected Bill Clinton by a slim margin (less than a percentage point) with Ross Perot doing a lot of the heavy-lifting to hurt George HW Bush in the southern bastion. At the same time, incumbent Democratic Sen. Wyche Fowler had won the plurality of the votes against State Sen. Paul Coverdell. Neither candidate won the majority of the vote, though, so the race went to a runoff, and in the runoff, with the confidence that the Democrats were going to win the White House for the first time in 12 years, Republicans came out in stronger force than Democrats to elect Coverdell over the first-term incumbent. The Democrats were so shocked by Coverdell's win that they passed a law requiring the runoff to happen only if neither candidate won 45% of the vote (which would happen in 1996, when Max Cleland would win the race with 48.9% of the vote), and the Republicans changed the law back in 2005 to 50%...and then immediately after in 2008 the Democrats totally botched a runoff after a close general election, forgetting to vote so that Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R) crushed State Rep. Jim Martin.
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| Sen. Lowell Weicker (R-CT) |
Year: 1988
Party Split: R POTUS/D Senate
What Happened: The 1988 presidential election was a blowout, and as a result three Democrats defeated incumbent Senators, perhaps as a check-and-balances in some capacity against the incoming-President George HW Bush (with the exception of John James in Michigan, there's no indication this could happen in 2020). The strangest of those contests was in Connecticut. Despite being a Republican, Sen. Lowell Weicker was running into issues with conservatives, not liberals, in his quest for a fourth term. Attorney General Joe Lieberman gained attention from Republicans, specifically William F. Buckley, who endorsed Lieberman, and so we were in a strange situation where the Republican was genuinely to the left on many issues to the Democrat. This confusion cost Weicker, who would run successfully for governor as an independent two years later. Lieberman would go on to a complicated relationship with the party, chastising Bill Clinton for his relationship with Monica Lewinsky (which led to his unsuccessful run for vice president as Gore tried to distance himself from Clinton), and then his support of the Iraq War led to him being primaried in 2006, a race he'd lose to Ned Lamont before winning running to Lamont's right. In a truly weird turn-of-events, Lamont would also go on to become Governor of Connecticut.
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| Sen. Karnes with Gov. Kay Orr |
Year: 1988
Party Split: R POTUS/D Senate
What Happened: Karnes was not a traditional incumbent. He became senator after Gov. Kay Orr appointed him to that position in 1987 following the death of Sen. Edward Zorinsky. Karnes didn't have electoral experience in Nebraska, and was seen as a shockingly bad pick by Orr (most assume she'd pick one of the state's sitting Reps. Doug Bereuter, Hal Daub, or Virginia Smith). Orr's decision to go with a fairly obscure member of the Reagan administration was made more foolish when popular former Gov. Bob Kerrey, viewed by many as a future president, decided to run for the seat, and he won. This is a strange circumstance of ticket-splitting as both Bush and Kerrey would win the state in an absolute landslide. Democrats would dominate this seat for 24 years (first Kerrey, then Ben Nelson) before Kerrey himself lost yet another comeback bid in 2012 to State Sen. Deb Fischer. Karnes, at the time of his loss just 39, has not run for political office since.
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| Sen. Chic Hecht (R-NV) |
Year: 1988
Party Split: R POTUS/D Senate
What Happened: A third indication that if we're looking for a race to pull off an upset, it's probably going to be Montana, as we have yet another contest pitting a first-term senator against a sitting governor. Sen. Chic Hecht had been out of politics for a decade when he won in 1982, but by 1988, he had made a number of gaffes on the campaign trail, and was running against an extremely popular incumbent governor, Richard Bryan, for a seat in the Senate. Bryan was more polished than Hecht, and while Bush was winning the state by twenty points, he took the race by 4-points, and then retired at the relatively young age of 61 twelve years later. Had Bryan run again, he likely would've won, thus giving the Senate to the Democrats for the first time in six years (both of the leading contenders to replace him, Gov. Bob Miller & AG Frankie Sue del Papa declined in a surprising blow to the Democrats to keep the seat, which would allude them until 2018). Hecht would make the news decades later during the 2004 presidential race, when it was revealed that Sen. John Kerry, then the Democratic nominee for president, when they served together in the Senate, had saved Hecht's life by administering the Heimlich maneuver while Hecht was choking on his lunch. Hecht, out of respect for Kerry, declined to state which man he voted for in the election, and called Kerry every year to thank him on Christmas until his death from prostate cancer in 2006.
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