Will split ticket voters help Dems keep the Senate?

Ticket-splitters, on the decline for years as the country has grown ever more polarized, could be pivotal this year in several key battlegrounds, according to public polls, which show conspicuous gaps in performance between gubernatorial and Senate candidates of the same party.

Republicans and Democrats are both fighting for these voters in the final weeks of the election, appealing to moderation and sometimes distancing themselves from their party’s other pick at the top of the ticket rather than working together.

Strategists point to uneven spending, the power of incumbency and the candidates themselves to explain the disparities. Several cases underscore how GOP nominees who are polarizing or untested have complicated the party’s efforts to make the midterms a simple referendum on the state of the country, the economy and views of the party in power, some said.