There’s a perception, at least among Republicans, that Democrats are just better at winning really close elections than Republicans are. That bleeds into conspiratorial thinking (after all, in today’s world, only very close elections can be tipped by fraud or other forms of mischief) as well as a more general pessimism that Republicans need to beat the margin of recounts and sketchy practices in order to win.

Is it actually true? Back in 2014, recalling the disastrous 1986 cycle (when Democrats went 8-0 in Senate and governor’s races decided by less than two points), I took a deep dive into the numbers. Looking at every presidential, Senate, and governor’s race between 1998 and 2013, I concluded that Democrats had a very pronounced advantage in the closest races, winning 20 out of 27 elections decided by less than a point. Overall, out of 147 races decided by 6 points or less, Democrats won 87, or 59 percent.

Is that still true in the age of Trump? I went back to the numbers. There are some methodological problems. I used runoff percentages for Georgia and Louisiana, which takes away some of the oomph from a strictly Election Day focus, but it would be strange to classify Jon Ossoff’s defeat of David Perdue by reference to the Election Day vote, which Perdue won. I counted Democrat-aligned independents running in lieu of a Democrat candidate as Democrats, but discarded the Alaska elections that pitted Lisa Murkowski against a Republican.

The results are still pretty striking:

In the closest races, Democrats since 2014 have dropped from winning 74 percent of the time to winning 63 percent, still an edge you would not expect to find randomly over 46 elections. Republicans have the edge in races decided by 1–2 points, but the Democratic advantage reasserts itself (albeit less dramatically) in 2–4 point races, plus they’ve won 19 out of 31 (61 percent) in races since 2014 decided by 4 to 6 points.

Overall, in presidential, Senate, and governor’s elections since 1998, Democrats have won 32 out of 46 elections (69.6 percent) decided by less than a point, 51 out of 90 elections (56.7 percent) decided by two points or less, 100 out of 184 elections (54.3 percent) decided by four points or less, and 150 out of 261 elections (57.5 percent) decided by six points or less. That’s a striking pattern. I haven’t done a similarly systematic examination of House races, but just looking at 2024, using a more generous 5- and 10-point window, Democrats won 21 out of 36 House races decided by 5 points or less, and 46 out of 68 House races decided by 10 points or less:

Whatever the causes, Republicans still have trouble closing the deal when they’re up against Democrats at the retail level.