What Happened™ in 2022
An Analysis of the 2022 Midterms
This is the first in a series of reports on What Happened in the 2022 general election from the perspective of the Catalist voter database, the longest-running outside the two major political parties. This analysis examines national-level election results in the House and state-level results for Senate and gubernatorial races.
Major Findings
The 2022 election defied conventional wisdom and historical trends. In a typical midterm election year with one-party control of the presidency, House and Senate, the incumbent party would expect major losses. Instead, Democrats re-elected every incumbent senator and expanded their Senate majority by a seat, won the overwhelming majority of heavily contested gubernatorial elections, gained control of 4 state legislative chambers, and only narrowly lost the U.S. House.
Democrats won in the majority of heavily contested races, with electorates in these contests looking more like the 2020 and 2018 electorates than a typical midterm. Unlike recent midterms, which were wave elections with across-the-board, national swings, there was less of a national trend in the 2022 midterm. In this analysis we will present national results based on the U.S. House vote, where Republicans outperformed Democrats, as well as analysis from states that had highly contested races, according to the non-partisan Cook Political Report, where Democrats outperformed Republicans. Unlike other recent midterm years, our analysis shows a stark contrast between the electorate in areas with one or more highly contested House, Senate or gubernatorial races versus those with less contested races.
Gen Z and Millennial voters had exceptional levels of turnout, with young voters in heavily contested states exceeding their 2018 turnout by 6% among those who were eligible in both elections.1Here, turnout refers to the raw number of votes in 2018 and 2022. See call-out box below for a description of different types of turnout statistics. Further, 65% of voters between the ages of 18 and 29 supported Democrats, cementing their role as a key part of a winning coalition for the party. While young voters were historically evenly split between the parties, they are increasingly voting for Democrats. Many young voters who showed up in 2018 and 2020 to elect Democrats continued to do the same in 2022.
Extreme “MAGA” Republicans underperformed. Across heavily contested Senate, Gubernatorial, and Congressional races, voters penalized “MAGA” Republicans. Candidates who were outspoken election deniers did 1 to 4 points worse than other Republicans, contributing to their losses in important close races. Of course, election denial is one of many extreme positions associated with “MAGA” Republicans, so this analysis likely reflects relatively extreme stances on other issues, including abortion rights, as well as Republicans such as Kari Lake (Arizona gubernatorial) and Doug Mastriano (Pennsylvania gubernatorial) who ran relatively insular campaigns.
Women voters pushed Democrats over the top in heavily contested races, where abortion rights were often their top issue. After Republican-appointed justices on the Supreme Court overturned abortion rights, a disproportionate number of women voters registered to vote in states with highly contested elections. At the same time, polls showed Democratic women and men indicating they were more engaged in the election. While relative turnout by gender remained largely stable, Democratic performance improved over 2020 among women in highly contested races, going from 55% to 57% support. The biggest improvement was among white non-college women (+4% support).
Democrats largely retained their winning 2020 coalition in heavily contested races, with some exceptions. Turnout and support among voters by race, education, gender, and other demographic factors remained relatively stable in heavily contested races. Such stability does not usually occur between presidential and midterm years, demonstrating how the Democratic coalition blunted a Republican “red wave.” One notable shift includes Black voters. While they continued to play an outsized role in contributing to Democratic victories, Black turnout largely fell in contested races. Meanwhile, Democratic support among Black voters rose in Southern states with heavily contested elections, but fell in less contested states.
About What Happened
Catalist is a data utility that maintains the longest-running voter file outside the two major political parties. Voter files, including Catalist’s, are primarily built from publicly available state-level voter registration databases. Catalist combines these data with information from surveys, the Census, commercial data and proprietary matching and modeling to support voter registration, campaigning and advocacy among unions, progressive groups, and Democratic campaigns.
After the 2016 election and Donald Trump’s relatively surprising win, Catalist began sharing a voter-file based view of the electorate to help inform the public, policymakers, progressive organizations, media outlets and Democratic campaigns with high quality data, particularly before organizations make major investments in the next campaign cycle. These analyses have also served as a high-quality reference point for media outlets, academics, and non-partisan analysts.
The What Happened project involves dozens of staff at Catalist across a range of expertise as well as input from partner organizations with deep experience in data related to specific constituency groups. Team members acquire voter file data from all 50 states and Washington, DC, including local and county-level data, as well as precinct-level election results. Data scientists and other technical experts standardize and process these data across the voter file, including running data through record-linkage algorithms and relating commercial, Census and other data back to voter file records. Using precinct-level voting records, survey data and other Catalist data and models, data scientists carefully reconstruct What Happened in a given election based on all available data, building up from the precinct level and down from national results to build a coherent view of the electorate.2For more on What Happened’s methodology, see a 2021 presentation to the American Association for Public Opinion Research from Catalist Chief Scientist Yair Ghitza.
What Happened Over Time
This is the fourth installment of What Happened. Previous public analyses include the 2018 midterm, 2020 presidential and 2021 Virginia gubernatorial election. Catalist also conducts commissioned analyses for advocacy and political organizations, licenses data to media outlets, and responds to public interest media requests. For questions about What Happened or additional analysis, please contact us.
About Catalist
Catalist operates as a trust, with a board comprised of major unions, progressive organizations and data specialists with years of experience in Democratic and progressive campaigns. Catalist is the first and only unionized data firm in its field (Catalist Union, Communications Workers of America Local 2336).
About Voter Files
As long as there have been lists of people qualified to vote, there have been voter files. In the pre-digital era, election administrators and state parties kept physical lists of voters tucked away in filing cabinets. After the 2000 election, with support from federal legislation, states began to digitize their voter registration records, allowing election administrators to standardize and digitize registration data across local and county-level geographies. The major parties, as well as independent voter file companies like Catalist, have used these public data as the baseline for their own voter files and have combined them with commercial, Census and other data sources to glean insights about the electorate. Catalist has compiled an overview of different types of election data. Further reading includes Hacking the Electorate (2015) by Eitan Hersh and The Victory Lab (2013) by Sasha Issenberg.
TOP Polling
Catalist manages The Omnibus Project (TOP), a long-running progressive community poll that informs work for major unions, including AFL-CIO, AFSCME, NEA, SEIU, the Strategic Victory Fund, and other partners. These results inform Catalist models — leveraging oversamples of Black, Latino and AAPI voters — to more precisely estimate trends among smaller demographic groups.
National Results
Recent midterms have typically involved national waves that favor one party over the other, particularly when there’s backlash against a party that controls the presidency and both chambers of Congress.
Figure 1. Two-Way Democratic Support in General Elections (1976 to 2022)
But in 2022, there was no national wave in either direction. Instead, Republicans enjoyed an overall advantage nationally, but Democrats outperformed them in highly contested races, where Democratic turnout and support levels were higher. 3What Happened includes modeled vote choice for U.S. House races as well as modeled vote choice for state-level races for Senate and Gubernatorial races. These estimates are carefully constructed by comparing precinct-level results to data from the voter file, Census, and polling, among other sources, to build a coherent picture of the electorate.
In the elections for the House of Representatives, Democrats received 49% of the two-way national vote, a 3-point drop compared to the 2020 election results at both the Presidential and House levels. However, in the most heavily-contested House races — those rated by the non-partisan Cook Political Report as Tossup or Lean — Democrats did much better, winning 40 out of 64 House races. Altogether, this resulted in Republicans winning a narrow 9-seat majority in the House, smaller than many expected before the election.
When we examine only the most heavily contested Senate and Gubernatorial elections, Democrats did slightly better (51.0%) than they did in the 2020 Presidential election (50.5%). As a result, Democrats won 13 out of 18 elections that the Cook Political report rated as a Tossup or Lean, keeping control of the Senate and many state houses.
Table 1. Differences Between Heavily Contested vs. Less Contested Races in Recent Midterms
| Dem Two-Way Support | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Cook Rating | Elections | Previous Pres | Midterm | Change |
| 2014 | All | 69 | +51 | +47 | -4 |
| 2014 | Tossup/Lean | 29 | +51 | +47 | -4 |
| 2014 | Other | 40 | +51 | +47 | -4 |
| 2018 | All | 69 | +53 | +56 | +3 |
| 2018 | Tossup/Lean | 31 | +47 | +51 | +3 |
| 2018 | Other | 38 | +56 | +59 | +3 |
| 2022 | All | 70 | +53 | +50 | -3 |
| 2022 | Tossup/Lean | 18 | +51 | +51 | +0 |
| 2022 | Other | 52 | +54 | +50 | -4 |
Majority control for the House and the Senate were incredibly narrow. Shifts of just a few thousand votes would have led to Democrats retaining their House majority instead of losing it or, conversely, Republicans securing a Senate majority. The House outcome was further impacted by once-a-decade redistricting, with lawsuits and legislative disputes over Congressional district lines stretching into future election cycles, too.
Heavily Contested vs. Less Contested Races
While there is no perfect definition of heavily contested races, this analysis relies on the final pre-election ratings from the non-partisan Cook Political Report. We define “heavily contested” elections as those which were rated Tossup or Lean for either party. These analyses include data about redistricting, polling, fundraising and on-the-ground reporting and have a strong historical track record.4The Cook Political Report ratings for the House, Senate, and Gubernatorial races included nearly all of the closest races in the country and the ones where parties heavily contested the outcome. We also examined other methods for identifying the closest races, including replicating our analysis using different cut points from election forecasting models, most notably from FiveThirtyEight. While some results change, the top contours of our analysis remain consistent using any reasonable definition. Further, it’s worth noting that any definition formulated before the election itself will miss outlier races, such as Democrat Adam Frisch coming within a few hundred votes of unseating Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert (CO-03) in a district that would otherwise be expected to lean 7 points in Republicans’ favor according to the Cook Partisan Voting Index. While it’s tempting to include such races in an analysis, doing so can unintentionally bias findings toward electorates that had exceptionally weak or strong candidates. Finally, it’s always difficult to analyze counterfactuals. Perceptions of a race as highly contested often lead to it being even more heavily contested as parties and outside groups seek to tip the race. Conversely, when races seem less contested, parties and outside groups tend to invest less, further fueling perceptions that other races should be priority.
These races include 64 House races; Senate races in Arizona, Georgia, Colorado, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin and Gubernatorial races in Arizona, Georgia, Kansas, Maine, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon and Wisconsin.
Overall Turnout
By any historical standard, 2022 turnout was high. Nationally it did not match 2018’s record-breaking turnout of 118 million votes, but it did reach 111 million ballots cast, according to the United States Elections Project, run by University of Florida political scientist Michael McDonald, which we rely on for many of these calculations.
This is well above any other midterm in terms of raw votes. When looking at the percent of eligible people that voted, turnout was also higher than any midterm since 1970, save 2018. However, these national turnout numbers mask important differences at the state and congressional level: namely, that turnout matched or even exceeded 2018 turnout in the most highly contested elections in the country.
In Senate races across the country, there were 8% fewer votes cast in less contested races, compared to 2018. In heavily contested races, however, turnout often increased, with 5-8% more votes cast in Nevada, Pennsylvania, Arizona, and New Hampshire; similar-to-2018 turnout in Colorado, Wisconsin, Georgia, and North Carolina; and 10% fewer votes in Ohio. Similar trends are seen in highly contested vs. less-contested Gubernatorial races. We see similar trends in heavily contested versus less contested House races, but those are complicated by other factors.5In a preliminary analysis of Congressional District turnout, we saw higher turnout in heavily contested districts. It is difficult to reliably estimate these numbers, though, due to (1) changing district lines before and after 2020 redistricting, and (2) ballot roll off, in which people voted for statewide races at the top of the ticket but did not vote at the Congressional level.
Importantly, in these heavily contested races with higher turnout, Democratic candidates generally prevailed. This does not imply that turnout jumps were the only reason for Democratic victories, but they contributed in many cases. The remainder of the report will discuss changes in composition of the electorate for different key electoral subgroups.
While some of these turnout trends are driven by population increases, it mostly reflects the high turnout environment that has been consistent from the 2018 election onward. In highly contested elections — where voters know the race could be decided by a small number of votes and campaigns invest resources into engaging voters — turnout often matched the historic “Blue Wave” election in 2018.
Defining Turnout
Election analysis includes a few ways of thinking about turnout.
Ballots cast or Overall turnout — The total number of ballots cast by a specific group.
Turnout rate — The turnout rate is the percentage of a group of eligible voters who actually cast ballots.
Vote share — Vote share is the percentage of the total electorate a group comprises.
Because overall turnout has increased since 2016, it’s often the case that raw turnout and turnout for specific groups have risen even as their vote share declines — because other groups have turned out at higher rates.
Voting and Party
Party registration and party identification inform Catalist’s Vote Choice History estimates, but are distinct ways of thinking about people’s voting patterns. For instance, someone who is not registered with a party and does not identify as a Democrat but who regularly votes for Democrats would be modeled as a Democratic voter in this analysis, but would not be counted as a “Democrat” if one were examining only party registration and self-identified party affiliation.
Two-Way Support
Political scientists and data practitioners tend to analyze U.S.-based election results based on a two-way split between the major parties. An election where a Democrat wins by 4 points would involve a two-way-split of 52-48. These conventions allow analysts to compare historical election performance in the most straightforward way possible, focusing on which party wins a contest and how parties build winning coalitions. While third party-voting and undervoting – where voters leave some votes on a ballot blank – are both important, they complicate comparisons between party coalitions, so we rarely refer to them in analyses. Finally, Catalist tends to avoid discussing changes to “vote margin” which can exaggerate differences in support. For instance, a party that goes from 52-48 support in an election to 55-45 support has increased their two-way support by just 3 points but increased their vote margin from 4 points to a much-larger-seeming 10 points. We would refer to this as a 3-point change in two-way support.
Figure 2. Turnout Change (2018 to 2022) Overlaid with Results
New voters. Campaigns and voter registration groups invest significant resources in identifying, registering and mobilizing new voters as they seek to grow their coalitions. The high turnout era has been marked by millions of new voters entering — and staying in — the electorate. In 2022, 17 million votes (21% of the total) came from people who registered in 2018, 2020, and 2022. Since 2016, millions of new voters have entered the electorate, at rates much higher than previous midterm and presidential years. Once these new voters have registered and cast their first ballots, they are much more likely to keep participating in elections.6The chart below is partly driven by recency, meaning in-cycle registrants are more likely to vote than people who registered in previous cycles, all other factors, such as age, being equal. The more important factor is the high turnout environment. In 2014, only 8 million voters were new registrants from the previous 3 cycles. In 2018, that number rose to 17 million voters, and remained at 17 million in 2022.
Figure 3. 17 Million 2022 Voters Registered After 2016
What Does This Mean for Turnout in 2024?
For practitioners, high turnout cycles mean that more voters have registered, cast ballots and engaged with campaigns, meaning there is more opportunity to re-engage these voters over time because they are visible to voter files and campaigns. Voting itself is also habitual and people who vote once are more likely to vote again than people who have never voted at all. We may remain in a high turnout era, but voters’ perceptions of how competitive and salient an election is can change dramatically. Higher turnout does not automatically confer advantages to Democrats and parties have been able to fight to near-parity in the past several general elections.
The 2022 Electorate
The Catalist voter file offers some of the most detailed demographic data about the electorate. In each section that follows, we’ll discuss specific findings, notable findings for subcategories of voters, and how voters files make these estimates.
Age
Gen Z and Millennials played a remarkable role in the 2022 election, voting heavily for Democratic candidates and exceeding their turnout from 2018. That makes this the second midterm cycle in a row where young voters have not only defied conventional wisdom about their willingness to turn out, but delivered decisive victories for Democrats. Seeing these trends requires taking a generational view of the electorate based on birth-year cohorts, not just snapshots of voters who fall into a specific age range in a given election year. (See call out box on how we define “young voters.”)
Generational Succession in the Electorate
There are different conventions for defining the youth vote in electoral analysis. The most common is examining 18-29 year olds, though some analysis counts anyone under 40 as a young voter. Catalist’s analysis focuses on generational cohorts, based on the Pew Research Center’s definitions of generations by birth year. This method allows analysts to track generations over time, which helps account for how different generations politicize in early adulthood as well as significant differences in the number of people who are born in any given year or generation. For instance, the very large Baby Boomer generation is starting to move into the older age categories that were previously occupied by the Silent and Greatest generations. Voters in these older generational cohorts tend to “exit the electorate” at significantly higher rates after they turn 75 as a result of illness and mortality. Meanwhile, new generations of voters start turning 18 and casting their first ballots while generations that were previously counted among the “youth vote” enter older age categories.
Table 2. Share of Electorate and Democratic Support by Generations and Age Ranges (2018, 2020 and 2022)
| House: National | Senate/Gov: Highly Contested | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Percent of Voters | Dem Support (Two-Way) | Percent of Voters | Dem Support (Two-Way) | |||||||||
| Group | 2018 | 2022 | 2018 to 2022 | Pres 2020 | 2022 | 2020 to 2022 | 2018 | 2022 | 2018 to 2022 | Pres 2020 | 2022 | 2020 to 2022 |
| Total | 100 | 100 | +0 | 52 | 49 | -3 | 100 | 100 | +0 | 50 | 51 | +1 |
| Gen Z / Millennials | 23 | 26 | +3 | 60 | 62 | +1 | 23 | 27 | +4 | 59 | 60 | +1 |
| Gen X | 25 | 26 | +0 | 50 | 47 | -3 | 25 | 26 | +0 | 48 | 49 | +1 |
| Baby Boomers | 38 | 38 | -0 | 48 | 44 | -4 | 38 | 37 | -1 | 47 | 48 | +1 |
| Silent / Greatest | 14 | 10 | -3 | 46 | 42 | -5 | 14 | 10 | -4 | 44 | 46 | +2 |
| 18-29 | 12 | 10 | -2 | 62 | 65 | +3 | 12 | 11 | -1 | 60 | 63 | +2 |
| 30-44 | 21 | 20 | -1 | 57 | 58 | +1 | 21 | 20 | -0 | 56 | 57 | +2 |
| 45-64 | 38 | 36 | -2 | 48 | 45 | -3 | 38 | 36 | -2 | 46 | 47 | +1 |
| 65+ | 29 | 33 | +5 | 48 | 44 | -4 | 29 | 32 | +4 | 47 | 48 | +1 |
Turnout. In 2022, the Gen Z and Millennial cohorts grew from 23% to 26% of voters, while the Silent and Greatest generations fell from 14% to 10%. Baby Boomers held steady at 38% of the electorate.
These trends are often obscured by examining age ranges from election to election for the simple reason that generations of voters — including generations with very different population sizes — are moving through those age-ranges over time. For instance, if you only examined age ranges, you would see that 18-29 year old voters comprised 12% of voters in 2018, dropping to 10% in 2022. Conversely, voters aged 65+ were 29% of voters in 2018, rising to 33% in 2022. This might lead one to conclude that youth voting fell off while older voters surged. In fact, these trends are largely driven by the large Baby Boomer cohort aging into older age ranges.
From 2018 to 2022, for example, a full 9% of voters “graduated” from the 45-64 age group to the 65+ age group in the intervening four years. This age range’s 5% increase in vote share is simply a function of aging, particularly important as the large Baby Boomer generation moves into their senior years.
On top of that, turnout trends in the most heavily contested races were different than they were in less contested parts of the country. In heavily contested races, turnout among Gen Z and Millennials went up, exceeding 2018’s “Blue Wave” high water mark. This can be seen in the line graph below, highlighting trends from the most contested states. Here, we track turnout by birth year, making generational cohorts comparable over time. The turnout curves for 2022 and 2018 are strikingly similar; they remain substantially higher than 2014, even approaching the Presidential election of 2012.
Figure 4. Total 2022 Voters by Birth Year in Highly Contested States
Another way to see this data is shown below. When looking at people who were eligible to vote in both 2018 and 2022, turnout actually went up for everyone under the age of 60 in highly contested states. In states that were not highly contested, turnout went down across the board, but still remained high compared to other midterms. Altogether, this indicates that the work done to register and motivate new voters in 2018 and 2020 is still paying dividends.
Figure 5. Turnout Change from 2018 to 2022 by Birth Year
Support. Democratic support among 18-29 year old voters remained high, standing at 65%, exceeding Biden’s performance in 2020 by 3 points. This marks the fourth major election in a row where Democratic support stood at the 60s or higher, marking a large and consistent Democratic advantage from the time Trump was on the ballot in 2016.
Figure 6. General Election Democratic Support Among 18 - 29 Year Olds
This has not always been the norm: From the late 1970s to the early 2000s, young Democratic support was routinely between 50% and 60% and even dropped below 50% in some cycles, according to exit polls. While support rose dramatically in the 2006 midterms amidst opposition to the Iraq War and in 2008 during President Obama’s first election, the midterm years of 2010 and 2014 saw a substantial drop in support among young voters, in part due to young Democrats sitting out those elections but also due to across-the-board declines in support for Democrats in a Republican wave year. Support has remained incredibly strong since 2016, however, notably including the past two midterms: peaking at 68% in the wave year of 2018, and remaining high in 2022. This marks the first time that young people's Democratic support has been greater than 60% for two consecutive midterm elections, and now includes a midterm with a Democratic incumbent president.7Such sustained levels of support can have generational-level effects on the electorate as people tend to stick with political party affiliation they develop in early adulthood. For instance, people who grew up during Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s presidency were more likely to become Democrats and persist with Democratic voting over time. Similarly, Ronald Reagan’s relatively popular presidency led more voters to align with the Republican Party. Donald Trump’s unpopularity may be politicizing a generation of voters away from the Republican Party and toward Democrats.
Democratic support among young voters is partly due to the diversity of this group, as America becomes more diverse over time. But that is not the whole story. Democratic support was higher among young voters of color, both nationally (78%) and in highly contested races (also 78%).8 For a brief comparison, here we group all Black, Latino, AAPI, and other non-white voters together. We disaggregate voter trends among these groups in more detail below. But support among young white voters rose between 2018 (53% national, 52% highly contested races) and 2022 (58% nationally, 57% highly contested races). This 5-6 point support change is notable, indicating a broad base of Democratic support among young voters across the country.
Age on the Voter File
Voting is an age-based right and 41 states report dates of birth, birth years or age on their public voter files. For jurisdictions that do not report age data, age is often represented via commercial or other public data and can also be estimated through modeling.
Race
Turnout and voting patterns vary significantly by race. Electorates are usually less diverse than the country as a whole, reflecting uneven participation in elections as well as the effects of discrimination and voter suppression targeting potential voters of color. At the same time, voters of color are a growing part of the country and the electorate, as well as a key part of the Democratic coalition.
Table 3. Share of Electorate and Democratic Support by Race
| House: National | Senate/Gov: Highly Contested | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Percent of Voters | Dem Support (Two-Way) | Percent of Voters | Dem Support (Two-Way) | |||||||||
| Group | 2018 | 2022 | 2018 to 2022 | Pres 2020 | 2022 | 2020 to 2022 | 2018 | 2022 | 2018 to 2022 | Pres 2020 | 2022 | 2020 to 2022 |
| Total | 100 | 100 | +0 | 52 | 49 | -3 | 100 | 100 | +0 | 50 | 51 | +1 |
| White | 75 | 76 | +2 | 44 | 42 | -2 | 79 | 79 | +0 | 42 | 44 | +2 |
| Black | 12 | 10 | -1 | 91 | 88 | -3 | 12 | 11 | -1 | 92 | 91 | -1 |
| Hispanic/Latino | 9 | 8 | -0 | 62 | 62 | +1 | 5 | 5 | +0 | 61 | 62 | +1 |
| AAPI | 4 | 4 | +0 | 66 | 59 | -7 | 2 | 2 | +0 | 63 | 61 | -2 |
| Other | 2 | 2 | +0 | -- | -- | -- | 2 | 2 | +0 | -- | -- | -- |
The Democratic Party beat expectations with a strong multiracial coalition. White voters comprised 66% of the Democratic coalition, evenly split between white college and non-college voters. The other third of the coalition was comprised of voters of color. While Republicans have made inroads among some voters of color in some states, their coalition remains much less diverse than the country as a whole. A full 86% of the Republican coalition is white, mostly white voters without a college degree, and only 14% of their votes come from voters of color.
Figure 7. 2022 Party Coalitions by Race
Analyzing data by race is incredibly important for understanding the U.S. electorate. We urge practitioners and others readers to keep the following in mind:
- Race categories in election analysis. Catalist largely follows Census conventions for representing race on the voter file, including white, Black, Latino, Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) and Other categories, the latter of which includes Native American, Middle East and North African, biracial, multiracial and other groups.
- Census changes complicate turnout estimates by race. In previous What Happened reports, we reported turnout rates by race, meaning the percent of eligible voters who actually cast ballots in a given election. We don’t do that here, because of changes in how the Census reports race. Starting in 2020, the Census changed their questionnaire, encouraging respondents to list their “origin” as part of their race self-reporting. This change led to the Census coding many more respondents as biracial, which is usually coded as “Other Race” in election analysis. This makes comparisons over time difficult and fraught with potential problems. The 2020 Census was also impacted by COVID, which may have led to undercounting, including disproportionate undercounting for people of color. Catalist will integrate newer Census data into its election analysis over time and will revisit this topic in greater depth in future reports.9The Census Bureau has updated its turnout estimates, including by race, based on self-reported participation in the 2022 election. While this data is incredibly valuable, we find it’s important to cross-check it against the voter file, especially since some people self-report that they have voted even if they have not.
- Subcategory analysis is more difficult for smaller groups. It’s easier for analyses of both survey and voter file data to see demographic shifts among subcategories of very large groups as opposed to smaller groups. Because 2022 voters were approximately 76% white, that means such statistical inferences are clearer for subcategories such as white non-college women than they are for other subcategories, such as Latina non-college women. While voter files do not have formal margins of errors like polls, we urge caution when examining turnout and support changes among small groups, particularly when filtering data by race.
Additional Data for Subcategory Analysis
A central feature of What Happened analysis is high-quality, multi-modal polling information. For these populations, sample sizes are low enough that presented estimates should be read with extreme caution. It remains important for partners to continue collecting more information to accurately and responsibly analyze disaggregated trends in electorally critical communities, including in contested races. Catalist will continue to support the data collection and analysis as a high priority. Please contact our team if you have additional data or analysis projects that Catalist’s team can incorporate or support.
White Voters
Support. Overall, Democratic support among white voters fell by 2 points compared to 2020 (44% to 42%), but in states with highly contested races, performance improved (42% to 44%).
Turnout. White voters comprised 76% of the 2022 electorate, up a point since 2018.
Education polarization. College-educated white voters are consistently more Democratic than white voters without a college degree, a trend that has been increasing over time, particularly during the 2016 election and onward. These differences by education are less evident — and sometimes not evident at all — among voters of color.
Constituency Reports
In each of these sub-sections, we discuss turnout and support levels for voters by race. We also discuss other factors that show significant differences for turnout and support as well as shifts from previous cycles for each group. We’ll share parallel sets of data for voters by race and other demographic subgroups in constituency reports over the summer.
Table 4. Share of Electorate and Democratic Support by Race and Education (2018, 2020 and 2022)
| House: National | Senate/Gov: Highly Contested | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Percent of Voters | Dem Support (Two-Way) | Percent of Voters | Dem Support (Two-Way) | |||||||||
| Group | 2018 | 2022 | 2018 to 2022 | Pres 2020 | 2022 | 2020 to 2022 | 2018 | 2022 | 2018 to 2022 | Pres 2020 | 2022 | 2020 to 2022 |
| Total | 100 | 100 | +0 | 52 | 49 | -3 | 100 | 100 | +0 | 50 | 51 | +1 |
| White Non-College | 44 | 44 | +0 | 37 | 36 | -0 | 48 | 47 | -1 | 36 | 40 | +3 |
| White College | 31 | 32 | +1 | 55 | 50 | -5 | 31 | 32 | +1 | 53 | 51 | -2 |
| Black Non-College | 8 | 7 | -1 | 91 | 87 | -4 | 8 | 8 | -1 | 92 | 92 | -1 |
| Black College | 4 | 4 | -0 | 89 | 89 | +0 | 4 | 4 | +0 | 91 | 91 | -0 |
| Latino Non-College | 6 | 5 | -0 | 61 | 62 | +0 | 4 | 4 | -0 | 61 | 63 | +2 |
| Latino College | 3 | 3 | +0 | 62 | 63 | +1 | 2 | 2 | +0 | 61 | 61 | -1 |
| AAPI Non-College | 2 | 2 | +0 | 64 | 57 | -7 | 1 | 1 | +0 | 62 | 60 | -2 |
| AAPI College | 2 | 2 | +0 | 67 | 61 | -7 | 1 | 1 | +0 | 65 | 61 | -3 |
In 2022, the Democratic support gap between white college and white non-college voters decreased. In the national House vote, white non-college support levels for Democrats (36%) remained essentially unchanged from the Presidential vote in 2020 at 37%. Democratic support among white college voters, on the other hand, dropped by 5 points, from 55% in 2020 to 50% in 2022. There is still a double-digit support gap between white college and white non-college voters (14 points in two-way vote share), but it’s smaller than in 2020 (18 points).
Similar to other demographic groups, there was a different story in highly contested Senate and gubernatorial races. Here, Democrats actually improved their vote share among white non-college voters (36% in 2020 to 40% in 2022), while slightly losing support among white college voters (53% in 2020 to 51% in 2022). Directionally, in both cases, the relative improvement came among white non-college voters.
Figure 8. Democratic Support Change By Percentage of White College-Educated Voters in Census Blocks, Relative to Statewide Results (2020 to 2022)
This was a somewhat surprising result given the prominent role education polarization has had in recent elections as well as differences among public data sources. The graph above shows precinct-level results illustrating the trend.10These races include Georgia Gov, Michigan Gov, New Hampshire Senate. Pennsylvania Senate, Wisconsin Senate and Wisconsin Gov. In these cases, Democrats did better than Biden’s 2020 results in precincts with many white non-college voters (left of graph), while they did slightly worse in precincts with many white college voters (right of graph), relative to the statewide change as a whole.
Educational polarization also varies significantly by geography, both in terms of overall support levels as well as the support gap between white college and white non-college voters. For instance, in Georgia’s gubernatorial race, there was a 13 point gap between white-non college support (18%) and white college support (31%). In Michigan’s Gubernatorial race, by contrast, there was only an 11 point gap with white-non college support at 47% and white college support at 58%. These voters’ preferences may be shaped by many other factors including urbanity, religiosity and union density, as well as state and regional political history.
Further, these overall trends obscure gender differences among these voters, with white non-college women and white college women demonstrating more support for Democrats and white college men decreasing support.
Gender and education. A notable gender gap remains within white college voters. Despite any changes in 2022, white college women remain a strong base of Democratic votes, with support in the mid-to-high 50s in both the national House vote, and in the highly contested Senate and gubernatorial races. White non-college women, meanwhile, were a bigger part of the support gain in the contested races (+4) compared to white non-college men. Finally, white college men had a notable drop, particularly in the national house vote (51% Democratic support in 2020 to 44% in 2022).
Table 5. Democratic Support Change Among White Voters by Education and Gender 2020 - 2022
| House: National | Senate/Gov: Highly Contested | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Group | Pres 2020 | 2022 | Diff | Pres 2020 | 2022 | Diff |
| White College Women | 58 | 55 | -3 | 56 | 58 | +2 |
| White College Men | 51 | 44 | -7 | 48 | 44 | -4 |
| White Non-College Women | 41 | 40 | +0 | 40 | 44 | +4 |
| White Non-College Men | 32 | 33 | +0 | 32 | 34 | +2 |
Education on the Voter File
Voter files can reliably model aggregate education levels thanks to robust Census data and the degree to which college- and non-college graduates geographically sort themselves. Education is not a direct stand-in for class, income or wealth. A college educated teacher with a great deal of student debt, for instance, may have lower income and wealth than a non-college graduate who owns a small business.
Black voters
Support. Black voters remain the strongest Democratic constituency by race, with support levels exceeding 80% and 90% depending on state. In heavily contested races, Black voters essentially matched their 2020 support levels, with overall support at 92% in 2020 and 91% in 2022. Nationally, however, when accounting for states with no heavily contested elections, Democratic support among Black voters fell, dropping from 91% to 88%.
Turnout. Turnout among Black voters also fell from the past midterm, relative to other groups. While we don’t explicitly estimate the turnout rate due to changes in Census data on eligible voters, we do see that the percent of voters that were Black decreased, both nationally (12% in 2018 to 10% in 2022) and in the most highly contested elections (12% in 2018 to 10% in 2022).
Constituency Reports
In each of these sub-sections, we discuss turnout and support levels for voters by race. We also discuss other factors that show significant differences for turnout and support as well as shifts from previous cycles for each group. We’ll share parallel sets of data for voters by race and other demographic subgroups in constituency reports over the summer.
Figure 9. Democratic Support Among Black Voters (2020 to 2022)
Digging deeper into these states, we see that in Southern states with heavily contested races — specifically, Georgia and North Carolina — Democratic support among Black voters actually increased – up to 94% support for Stacey Abrams in the Georgia Gubernatorial, 96% support for Raphael Warnock in the Georgia Senate race, and 95% support for Cheri Beasley in the North Carolina Senate race. These are also the two states with the highest Black voter populations – 29% of 2022 voters in Georgia were Black, and 18% in North Carolina – and were major targets of investment and attention by Democratic campaigns and associated organizations. In other heavily contested states outside the South, Black support generally declined by 2 to 6 points with the exception of Nevada, where Black support remained steady.11 May 24, 2023: Due to rounding and referencing an earlier data set, a previous version of this report stated Black support as declining 3 to 6 points with a 1 point increase in Nevada. Thank you to Pete Backof for alerting us to this error.
Black candidates. The Southern races also featured Black Democratic candidates. In these races, where a Black candidate was on the ballot and Black voters made up more than than 5% of the electorate, we see an increase in Democratic support among Black voters. For Mandela Barnes in the Wisconsin Senate race – another Black candidate in a highly contested race, but one where Black voters were only 5% of the electorate – we estimate a support drop compared to 2020.
Black voters by gender. Black women remain the strongest Democratic-leaning constituency. In highly contested races, 94% of Black women voters cast Democratic ballots. Black men remain the strongest Democratic-leaning constituency amongst all groups of men by race, staying essentially steady at 88% support in heavily contested races. However, at the national level, there was a drop in support among both Black men and Black women. Black women support declined from 93 to 91% overall, and Black men support declined from 87-83% from 2020-2022.
Black voters by age. Younger Black voters saw more dropoff for Democratic support than older Black voters. In 2020, Black support was fairly steady among age groups, around 91-93% for all groups both nationally and for the aggregated set of contested states. In the national House data, Democratic support levels among young Black voters dropped to 84% and 83% among 30-44 year olds. But in the highly contested states, Black support held steady for all groups except the youngest cohort. Support also remained steady in the Georgia and North Carolina Senate races even for the youngest Black voters.
Table 6. Democratic Support Among Black Voters by Age
| House: National | Senate/Gov: Highly Contested | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Age | Pres 2020 | 2022 | Diff | Pres 2020 | 2022 | Diff |
| 18-29 | 92 | 84 | -7 | 93 | 88 | -5 |
| 30-44 | 89 | 83 | -6 | 91 | 90 | +0 |
| 45-64 | 91 | 88 | -2 | 92 | 91 | -1 |
| 65+ | 92 | 92 | +0 | 93 | 94 | +0 |
Latino voters
Support. Latinos lean strongly toward Democrats, though that support has shifted in recent election cycles. Between 2016 and 2020, Latino support for Democrats dropped from 71% to 62%, as discussed in our 2020 report. In 2022, some pre-election polling suggested that Latinos were continuing in that direction, voting more Republican than they did in 2020. We find a more nuanced story. Overall, both the size of the Latino electorate (compared to 2018) and Latinos’ partisan split (compared to 2020) remained essentially unchanged, both at the national level and in highly contested races. Nationally and in the highly contested states, we find Latino support to be 62%, almost identical to Biden support levels from 2020.
Constituency Reports
In each of these sub-sections, we discuss turnout and support levels for voters by race. We also discuss other factors that show significant differences for turnout and support as well as shifts from previous cycles for each group. We’ll share parallel sets of data for voters by race and other demographic subgroups in constituency reports over the summer.
Figure 10. Latino Democratic Support by State in 2016, 2020 and 2022
At the state level, there are some notable differences. For instance, we find that Latino support increased for Mark Kelly in the Arizona Senate race (67%) compared to Biden in 2020 (63%). By contrast, Latino support for Democrats fell in Florida, from 51% for Biden in 2020 to 43-44% in the Senate and Gubernatorial races. It’s worth noting that Florida is the only state where the plurality of Latinos are of Cuban heritage and have been consistently more Republican across election cycles. In the rest of the country, Mexican-American are the dominant Latino group, so it’s often worth disaggregating Latino data by ethnicity as well as state.
Other races that were heavily contested have relatively small Latino populations, so inferences about these data are more difficult to make.
Turnout. According to our models, the national share of Latino voters rose from 2014 (6%) to 2018 (8.5%), and remained essentially unchanged in 2022 (8%). A similar story is found in the Current Population Survey (CPS), conducted by the Census Bureau and Bureau of Labor Statistics, which found that Latino voters’ share of the total electorate rose from 2014 (7%) to 2018 (10%), and remained steady in 2022 (10%).
Estimating Latino turnout this cycle is more difficult, however, because doing so requires reliably estimating the total voting eligible Latino population. Some recent discussion has focused on public data sources indicating a decline in Latino turnout from 2018 levels, particularly the CPS. This is driven by the voter share population listed above, along with the CPS estimates of the Latino eligible population. As discussed earlier (“Census changes complicate turnout estimates by race”) changes in the race question in the 2020 Census and related coding prevent us from reliably estimating the 2022 eligible population at this time. Because of the importance of this topic, we plan on revisiting it in detail in the future.
AAPI voters
The Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community continues to be the fastest growing in the United States, more than doubling since 2000 from over 10 million to 20.6 million according to the 2020 Census. They are projected to reach 35 million people by 2060.
Turnout. As the AAPI community’s population has increased, so has its electoral participation. Compared to 2014, all states with heavily contested statewide or congressional races saw a sharp increase in AAPI vote share. Even compared to the anomalously high participation midterm of 2018, AAPI voters’ share of the electorate rose from midterm to midterm, as shown in the figure below.
Constituency Reports
In each of these sub-sections, we discuss turnout and support levels for voters by race. We also discuss other factors that show significant differences for turnout and support as well as shifts from previous cycles for each group. We’ll share parallel sets of data for voters by race and other demographic subgroups in constituency reports over the summer.
Figure 11. AAPI Share of the Electorate in Heavily Contested States
AAPI voters’ share of the electorate remained steady even compared to the 2020 presidential election. As is the case in most midterms, the electorate was whiter than the 2020 presidential election, but AAPI voters continued to constitute 4% of the national House electorate. In another sign of both rapid population growth and high baseline participation, AAPI voters formed 4% of the electorate in both heavily contested and less contested contests.
Except for Nevada, the states that had heavily contested statewide elections this cycle happened to be ones where AAPI voters constituted a relatively lower share of the population. Nevertheless, AAPI voters were 2.5% of the electorate in these states, matching their 2020 share and higher than the winning margins in several races. Among these states, Nevada has the largest share of AAPI voters, who formed almost 8% of the electorate in both 2020 and 2022. In all other states such as Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, AAPI voter share remained steady compared to 2020 at 2% to 3%.
Young AAPI voters. In a sign that population growth is an important driver of vote share, the AAPI electorate has become younger compared both to 2014 and 2018 in the states listed above. Voters under 30 formed only 3.1% of the AAPI electorate in 2014. In 2018’s youth-fueled midterm, the 18-29 cohort’s share dramatically increased to 11.5%. In 2022, the youth cohort rose again to 15.3%. Overall, voters under 40 formed a majority of the 2022 AAPI electorate for the first time compared to 2014 and 2018.
Support. A clear majority of AAPI voters supported Democrats, but support dropped compared to 2020. In 2020, 66% of AAPI voters supported Democrats across the country. In 2022, national support dropped 7 points to 59%. In highly contested statewide races, AAPI voters were more Democratic leaning — support decreased but the drop was limited to 3 points, from 63% in 2020 to 60% in 2022. However, disaggregation by state shows quite a bit of variation in both overall levels of support and also the change from 2020 to 2022, much more so than we see for other groups by race. This may be a function of the challenges inherent in smaller polling and other data samples on which this report is based.
Race Data on Voter Files
Seven states collect self-identified race data on their voter registration forms and include that data on their public voter files. These states include Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee. Additionally, voter files include historical self-reported race data from Kentucky and Mississippi, which no longer include this data on their public file. Why these states and not others? Surprisingly, there is no comprehensive historical record as to why this is the case in each state, however some of these states used to hold segregated primary elections which were ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1944. During the Civil Rights Era, these data were useful for measuring the impact of the Voting Rights Act in covered jurisdictions, but were not mandated by the act itself.12These practices are discussed in Hacking the Electorate by Eitan Hersch (2015). Today, these data remain valuable for precisely estimating the racial composition of the electorate; some state legislators have suggested adding race data to their registration forms to help shed light on how representative their electorates are. When self-identified data is available, Catalist prioritizes that information over modeled data, including when a voter identifies their race in a state that collects race data then moves to a state that does not. When self-reported data is not available, Catalist uses a Race Model that relies on Census data, naming conventions, poll results and other factors to estimate and assign a race to a given record. Modeling race on voter files has allowed campaigns to reach more voters of color outside of so called “majority-minority” precincts, an important development as suburbs have become more diverse.
Gender
When Republican-appointed justices on the Supreme Court struck down long-standing abortion rights in June of 2022, voters responded almost immediately, with a disproportionate number of women registering to vote in states with heavily contested elections and voters in Kansas striking down an anti-choice ballot question in August. At the same time, Democrats generally, including Democratic women and men, started to indicate they were more enthusiastic about the midterm election. While voter files can’t tell us why people voted, we do see that women continued to turn out to vote and Democrats sustained their support among women voters in highly contested races.
Table 7. 2022 Share of Electorate and Democratic Support by Gender, Race and Education (2018, 2020 and 2022)
| House: National | Senate/Gov: Highly Contested | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Percent of Voters | Dem Support (Two-Way) | Percent of Voters | Dem Support (Two-Way) | |||||||||
| Group | 2018 | 2022 | 2018 to 2022 | Pres 2020 | 2022 | 2020 to 2022 | 2018 | 2022 | 2018 to 2022 | Pres 2020 | 2022 | 2020 to 2022 |
| Total | 100 | 100 | +0 | 52 | 49 | -3 | 100 | 100 | +0 | 50 | 51 | +1 |
| Women | 54 | 53 | -1 | 57 | 54 | -2 | 54 | 53 | -1 | 55 | 57 | +2 |
| Men | 46 | 47 | +1 | 47 | 43 | -4 | 46 | 47 | +1 | 45 | 45 | -1 |
| White College Women | 16 | 17 | +1 | 58 | 56 | -2 | 16 | 16 | +0 | 56 | 57 | +1 |
| White College Men | 15 | 15 | +1 | 51 | 44 | -7 | 15 | 15 | +1 | 48 | 44 | -4 |
| White Non-College Women | 23 | 23 | -0 | 41 | 40 | -0 | 25 | 25 | -0 | 40 | 45 | +4 |
| White Non-College Men | 21 | 21 | +0 | 32 | 32 | -0 | 23 | 23 | -0 | 32 | 34 | +2 |
| Black Women | 7 | 6 | -1 | 93 | 91 | -2 | 7 | 7 | -1 | 94 | 94 | -1 |
| Black Men | 5 | 4 | -0 | 87 | 83 | -4 | 5 | 5 | -0 | 89 | 88 | -1 |
| Latina Women | 5 | 4 | -0 | 66 | 67 | +1 | 3 | 3 | -0 | 66 | 66 | +1 |
| Latino Men | 4 | 4 | -0 | 56 | 57 | +1 | 2 | 2 | +0 | 55 | 57 | +2 |
| AAPI Women | 2 | 2 | +0 | 70 | 64 | -6 | 1 | 1 | +0 | 68 | 64 | -3 |
| AAPI Men | 2 | 2 | +0 | 60 | 52 | -8 | 1 | 1 | +0 | 58 | 56 | -1 |
| Single Women | 26 | 25 | +0 | 64 | 62 | -2 | 26 | 25 | +1 | 63 | 65 | +2 |
| Single Men | 19 | 19 | +2 | 53 | 51 | -2 | 20 | 19 | +1 | 51 | 52 | +0 |
| Married Women | 28 | 28 | -1 | 50 | 47 | -3 | 28 | 28 | -1 | 48 | 49 | +2 |
| Married Men | 27 | 27 | -1 | 43 | 38 | -5 | 27 | 27 | -1 | 41 | 40 | -1 |
Overall, women voters pushed Democrats over the top in heavily contested races. While Democrats lost ground in the national House vote among both women (-2 points) and men (-4 points), they did better in highly contested Senate and Gubernatorial races. In the heavily contested top-ticket races, Democratic performance actually improved over 2020 among women, going from 55% to 57% support.
Education. The biggest improvement here was among white non-college women (+4% support). These findings are consistent with the outsize role reproductive freedom played in the 2022 election, discussed in more detail below. While it is difficult to say with certainty, it is plausible that Democrats were successful in convincing this segment of voters that choice was on the ballot, leading to marginal gains that secured important wins. Conversely, the biggest drop was among white college men (-7 nationally, and -4 in the highly contested states).
Race. Support from both women and men voters of color remained steady in heavily contested races. While Democrats sustained losses at the national level among Black women (-2) and Black men (-4), those losses were mitigated in states with heavily contested races, as discussed earlier. Among Latina women and Latino men, we see slight gains in support (+1) at both the national level and in contested states.13When rounding, this appears to be a 1 percent drop, but is so close as to be statistically insignificant. Despite modest losses in some cases, Black women remain the most Democratic-supporting group of those mentioned here.
Marital Status. Single women remain a solid base Democratic group, with 62% Democratic support nationally (-2 from 2020), and 65% support in the highly contested states (+2 from 2020). They are followed by single men (51% Democrat support nationally), married women close behind (47%), and finally married men (38% nationally, the largest drop among this group at -5 points compared to 2020). In the highly contested states, both married and unmarried women slightly increased their Democratic support (+2) while men stayed essentially even overall. Among men, white college men saw a support drop of 7 points, the largest shift by gender and marital status.
Gender on the Voter File
Gender is well-represented on voter files, with 30 states providing gender data on their public voter files. In states without such data, gender is represented via commercial data as well as modeled based on surveys, naming conventions, and other inputs. A few states allow voters to identify as non-binary when they register to vote or get a drivers license, but these data are not reported on voter files.
Urbanity
Americans’ voting patterns are generally sorted by population density, with people in denser areas tending to vote more Democratic. This has been the case in recent elections, and continued to be the case in 2022.
Table 8. Share of Electorate and Democratic Support by Urbanity
| House: National | Senate/Gov: Highly Contested | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Percent of Voters | Dem Support (Two-Way) | Percent of Voters | Dem Support (Two-Way) | |||||||||
| Group | 2018 | 2022 | 2018 to 2022 | Pres 2020 | 2022 | 2020 to 2022 | 2018 | 2022 | 2018 to 2022 | Pres 2020 | 2022 | 2020 to 2022 |
| Urban | 20 | 19 | -1 | 72 | 71 | -1 | 13 | 12 | -1 | 70 | 71 | +1 |
| Suburban | 55 | 58 | +3 | 54 | 50 | -4 | 59 | 62 | +3 | 54 | 54 | -0 |
| Rural | 25 | 23 | -2 | 33 | 30 | -3 | 29 | 26 | -3 | 35 | 35 | +0 |
Both nationally and in the highly contested states, turnout increased in suburban areas, with the suburban share of the electorate increasing by 3 points. Urban share decreased by 1 point while rural areas decreased by 2 points.
In the highly contested states, support levels within these groups remained essentially unchanged. At the national level, support remained steady in urban areas, but decreased by 3-4 points in the suburbs and rural areas of the country.
Other Demographic Factors
The list of demographic factors that can be applied to the electorate is endless, including people’s religious beliefs, their status as parents, and their stances on specific issues. These factors, while important, are beyond the scope of this analysis, but are often the subject of research Catalist conducts for clients and partners.
The Red Wave That Wasn't
“MAGA” Candidates, Reproductive Freedom and Election Denial
Our reports generally tend to avoid analysis of particular issues, instead focusing on estimates of turnout and vote choice among clearly defined voting blocs. The impact of policies and issue positions on voting is notoriously difficult to estimate with any certainty, given the close correlation between party identity, ideology and vote choice, as well as the complexities of measuring issue opinions according to different survey questions over time.
Despite this difficulty, we make an exception here to discuss two sets of related issues in the 2022 election which appear, based on available data, to have contributed significantly to Democratic overperformance and Republican underperformance: Republican extremism about election denial, and Republican extremism on a woman’s right to choose. We choose these two issues because of data availability, not because they are necessarily singularly important in this election and it’s worth noting that extremism on these issues often comes hand-in-hand with extreme positions on other issues, too.
When the Opposition Party Can’t Balance
The incumbent president’s party usually experiences substantial losses in the following midterm election. While there are multiple potential explanations for this general trend, one that seemed particularly relevant in 2022 was the idea of “balancing” – which happens when voters wish to check a presidents’ power by supporting the opposition party, sometimes as part of a backlash to the president’s party advancing new policies around which an opposition party counter-mobilizes.
In 2022, many analysts expected exactly this: a “red wave” to counter President Biden and Vice President Harris’s win in 2020. Over the course of 2022, however, voters were continually reminded that former President Trump and many other Republicans encouraged their supporters to violently attack the Capitol on January 6th, both through high-profile Congressional hearings as well as ongoing criminal investigations of Trump and his supporters. Throughout the primaries, Republican candidates who denied the election results — and even some who participated in the January 6th rallies that preceded the attack — secured their party’s nomination.
Then in June, a Republican-appointed majority on the Supreme Court overturned long-standing abortion rights, putting reproductive freedom front-and-center in many elections and leading to an immediate uptick in Democratic enthusiasm for participating in the midterm elections.
Rather than unifying against the incumbent party or criticizing its major policy priorities — as Republicans did when they mobilized against President Obama and Obamacare in the 2010 midterm or as Democrats did in 2006 in response to the Iraq War and in 2018 in response to the Trump presidency — many Republican candidates wound up leaning into their own party’s most extreme and unpopular positions.
Election denial. Because Republican candidates were somewhat divided on how directly they supported Trump’s election denial, we can use candidate positions on accepting Biden and Harris’s 2020 victory as a point of comparison. The Washington Post compiled an analysis of public statements from 2022 candidates, categorizing Republican candidates as election deniers or non-deniers based on their stated positions on these issues.14These designations are not totally clear cut because some politicians left their stance ambiguous, but the Washington Post offers a non-partisan analysis with clearly stated criteria that we could use to categorize races.
Figure 12. Republican Support Compared to Trump 2020 by Type of Race and Candidate Stance on Election Denial
Using this data, it becomes clear that Republican election deniers received a “MAGA penalty” of 1-4 points in high profile elections. In highly contested Senate and Gubernatorial elections, Republican election deniers did 1.5 points worse than Trump did in 2020, averaging across the 13 elections that qualified. Republicans who didn’t explicitly deny the 2020 results did 3 points better than Trump in 2020, though there were only 5 such candidates in this subgroup. In states that were not as highly contested, Republicans did 5 points better than Trump 2020, more in line with a red wave. We see a similar trend is seen in House elections, though to a lesser degree.
Figure 13. Republican Support Compared to Trump 2020 by State and Candidate Stance on Election Denial
Aggregate numbers are useful, but it is illustrative to look at specific races and elections, too. The graph above covers states that had any highly contested election at the Senate or Gubernatorial level. There are a few states where a Republican election denier ran for one top-ticket position, while a non-denier ran for the other. In every case, the election denier did worse than the non-denier, with non-deniers being the only Republican candidates that did substantially better than Trump. For instance, in Ohio, Mike DeWine (Governor) did better than J.D. Vance (Senate) and in Georgia, Brian Kemp (Governor) did better than Herschel Walker (Senate), and so on.
In less contested states, election deniers were the only Republicans at the top of the ticket. In many of the closest races, these Republicans did moderately to substantially worse than Trump did in 2020.
The exact “MAGA penalty” is hard to measure – indeed, using slightly different definitions, the New York Times, States United Action, Stanford University researchers and Independent Strategic Research Collaborative chair Michael Podhorzer show slightly different numbers. Other factors, such as incumbency and level of office, are undoubtedly important and perhaps related to candidates’ decisions as to how closely to tie themselves to Trump and his positions. At the same time, some of the most strident election deniers also espoused anti-choice positions and ran relatively insular campaigns that did not feature usual campaign activities such as rallies or mainstream media interviews. Doug Mastriano, the Republican nominee for Pennsylvania governor who attended January 6th rallies at the Capitol stands out in this regard, underperforming Republican Senate nominee Mehmet Oz by 5 points.
But these and other data uniformly point towards the same conclusion: that Republican extremism on this and other issues likely cost Republicans key elections in 2022.
Abortion Rights. Another incredibly salient issue in the 2022 election was abortion rights. In June, Republican-appointed justices on the Supreme Court overruled federal protections for abortion, leading to immediate changes to many state laws and disruptions to abortion and related healthcare services.
This became a major issue in the campaign, immediately galvanizing voters across the country, particularly women and Democrats. In the direct aftermath of the Dobbs decision, women started registering to vote in disproportionate numbers, growing from 50% of newly registered voters to 55%, and then leveling off to 52% for the remainder of the election cycle.
Figure 14. Percent of Voter Registrations by Women in 2022
Public opinion on abortion also shifted considerably post-Dobbs. While analyzing public opinion of issue questions is fraught with complexity, opinions on abortion may be a notable exception because of the consistency in question wording over decades.
Table 9. Changes to Public Opinion on Abortion in Heavily Contested States (2020 to 2022)
| Data Source | Gender | USA | AZ | CO | GA | KS* | ME | MI | NC | NH | NM | NV | OH | OR | PA | WI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AP VoteCast | Total | +4 | -2 | -4 | +4 | +20 | +7 | +5 | +2 | +5 | +2 | +1 | +6 | +2 | +6 | +8 |
| AP VoteCast | Women | +5 | -4 | +1 | +5 | +15 | +1 | +2 | +9 | +3 | +4 | +3 | +4 | +4 | +7 | +11 |
| AP VoteCast | Men | +2 | +1 | -8 | +2 | +25 | +15 | +9 | -6 | +6 | +0 | +0 | +8 | +1 | +3 | +3 |
| Exit Poll | Total | +7 | +8 | -- | +0 | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | +7 | -- | +6 | +9 |
| Exit Poll | Women | +10 | +10 | -- | +0 | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | +9 | -- | +9 | +11 |
| Exit Poll | Men | +4 | +4 | -- | +2 | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | +7 | -- | +5 | +6 |
We find a modest but notable change in abortion opinion in 2022. In short, the public, particularly women, seem to have become more pro-choice in the wake of Dobbs. Among people who expressed an opinion in each of the following polls:15We exclude “don’t know” or “undecided” responses for all of the numbers listed here.
- National exit polls show that 55% of voters thought abortion should be legal in 2020, rising to 62% in 2022. The change from 2020 to 2022 (7 points) was larger among women (10 points) than men (4 points).
- AP VoteCast shows an increase in pro-choice opinion, going from 60% in 2020 to 64% in 2022, with a larger change among women (+5) than men (+2).
- Both the exit poll and AP VoteCast show changes in highly contested states. The shift here was widespread, though not universal. Notably, the biggest change in the AP VoteCast data was in Kansas, which had the first high-profile abortion referendum since the Dobbs decision in August, where pro-choice voters overwhelmingly rejected an anti-choice constitutional amendment in a high-salience election where almost half of registered voters cast ballots. Despite this substantive difference between Kansas and other states, there are technical reasons to think this may be an outlier. We include it here to show the complete results.16 Factors that could be at play in contributing to Kansas as an outlier on abortion policy opinion change are (1) the sample size for the abortion policy item, (2) the mix of probability (phone and web) and non-probability (web) survey sources and (3) how that may have changed over time.
- Gallup shows a similar increase in the national data, with 46% saying abortion should be legal (in 2021) to 54% in 2022. They also show that people identifying as “pro-choice” increased from 51% to 58%, compared to “pro-life.”
- Not all data sources show such a strong trend. For example, the Pew Research Center shows a 2-point increase from 2021 (60% saying abortion should be legal) to 2022 (62%).
While it’s difficult to draw a direct causal arrow between abortion opinion changes and vote choice, we see several lines of evidence that this issue made a critical difference in key states.
Gender differences. Voter turnout rates between men and women were similar to past midterms, women in key states ended up voting more heavily for Democrats, as discussed earlier. In highly contested Senate and Gubernatorial elections, 55% of women supported Biden in 2020, rising to 57% supporting Democrats in 2022. This was particularly true among white non-college women, going from 40 to 45%.
Gender and race. Opinion change among Black, Latina, AAPI, and women of other races deserves closer scrutiny. Similar to other issues, opinion change and activism can manifest themselves in nuanced, differing ways among demographic groups. Regarding turnout and vote choice, we did not see changes among women of color that were as dramatic as the shift in Democratic support among white women, but women of color are generally at much higher levels of Democratic support to begin with. Additional research is warranted to understand how race, gender and other factors contribute to opinion change on abortion in the wake of the Dobbs decision.
The exact relationship between reproductive freedom and vote choice will remain a point of close scrutiny as state- and federal-level policy fights continue to shape people’s real-world experiences with reproductive care as well as campaigns and associated media coverage.
Conclusion
Ahead of the 2022 midterm election. President Biden spoke in front of Independence Hall in Philadelphia — the birthplace of the United States Declaration of Independence and Constitution. He warned Americans that “the threat to American democracy is real” but assured listeners that they could fight back. “We are not powerless in the face of these threats,” he said. “We are not bystanders in this ongoing attack on democracy….it is within our power, it’s in our hands — yours and mine — to stop the assault on American democracy.”
In 2022, millions of Americans did take that power into their hands by rejecting election deniers in close races and continuing to turn out in heavily contested elections more generally. But their collective efforts weren’t enough to keep the House. And Republicans’ long war to take over the judiciary has led to a massive loss on abortion rights, even as it also created a turning point in the midterms over the summer as Democratic enthusiasm rose. Looking ahead, 2024 looms as another election year where we face the prospect of razor-thin election results against candidates who are trying to undermine elections themselves — a prospect few people working in campaigns could have imagined when their careers began.
As people who work at a progressive data utility, we recognize that the data we collect, analyze and report on are far more than bits and code — they represent millions of Americans registering to vote, casting ballots, joining unions and advocacy organizations, and volunteering for campaigns to talk to their neighbors. In many ways, they are our most robust picture of democracy in action. We remain committed to serving the progressive community and look forward to publishing more data about specific constituency groups and states, with an eye toward informing our collective work heading into 2023’s general elections and the next presidential election in 2024.
Reach Catalist
If you’re interested in commissioning more research on the 2022 electorate or other topics, please reach out. Catalist is eager to find ways to make voter file data accessible and useful to practitioners.
Contributors
Project lead. Hillary Anderson, Director of Analytics
Lead authors. Yair Ghitza, Chief Scientist and Haris Aqeel, Senior Advisor
Editor. Aaron Huertas, Communications Director
Data engineering. Brenton McMenamin, Senior Data Engineer
Graphics and data engineering. Ben Gross, Analyst
Catalist Executives. Michael Frias, CEO; Molly Norton, Chief Client Officer
Catalist Analytics Team. Janay Cody PhD, Senior Advisor for Data Equity; Jonathan Robinson, Director of Research
Catalist Data Team. Russ Rampersad, Chief Data Officer; Lauren O’Brien, Deputy Chief Data Officer; Brenton McMenamin, Senior Data Engineer; Dan Buttrey, Director of Data Acquisition
Many current and former staff members have also contributed to this report through their work building and maintaining the Catalist file. These insights would not be possible with the long-term investment Catalist has made in people and data since 2006.
We would also like to thank Chase Stolworthy and Melissa Amarawardana for their work on graphics and site design for previous version of What Happened.
Finally, Catalist is deeply grateful to the clients, partners and other community leaders who offered thoughtful review and feedback throughout the process, especially:
- Asian American and Pacific Islander Power Fund: EunSook Lee, Executive Director; Carrie Pugh, 8821 Strategies, Senior Advisor for Strategy and Program; and Eli Il Yong Lee, SWEL, Consultant
- BSP Research: Matt Barreto, PhD, Co-Founder and President
- EMILY’S List: Melissa Williams, Vice President Independent Expenditure
- EquisLabs: Carlos Odio, Co-Founder and Senior Vice President of Research; and team
- HIT Strategies: Terrance Woodbury, CEO and Co-Founder; Roshni Nedungadi, Partner; Jake Rubinstein, Senior Data Manager; and team
- Gen-Z for Change: Olivia Julianna, Director of Politics and Government Affairs
- Michael Podhorzer, Independent Strategic Research Collaborative chair
- NAACP in partnership with GSSA: Derrick Johnson, President and CEO NAACP; Dr. Albert Yates, Principal GSSA, Catalist board member
- NextGen America: David Sanchez, Vice President of Campaign Strategy
- Planned Parenthood Action Fund: Rachel Hall; Director, Data, Analytics and Research
- Priorities USA: Nick Ahamed, Deputy Executive Director; Chelsea Bukowski, Director of Analytics and Polling; John Spaw, Director of Data Science
- Strategic Victory Fund: Stephanie Schriock
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