Union voters tend to have reliably strong turnout. In a lot of the country that’s relatively small but in the Midwest manufacturing areas that blue collar union vote can decisive. In a cycle where the Republican keeps the union margin relatively small, like Trump did in the Midwest, that high turnout doesn’t help the Democrat much. When the Republican wins the union household vote, like Trump did in Ohio, things get ugly for the Democrat.
Are you familiar with what happened in the last Senate election in Alabama?
Also, it’s not just a Congressional election. There will be many local elections and referenda which can be far less partisan. My state voted for Trump by a 28% margin but my state House representative is a Democrat.
Although all my representatives are in solid blue districts, there are some contentious ballot measures this year.
I live in Massachusetts, which is safely Democratic (except for Gov. Faker). What that does do is allow me the luxury of voting for whatever socialist whack job third party candidate is on the ballot…
Thanks all for the responses, you had some good points there.
When I lived in Massachusetts, in my local districts, it was usually the Republicans that were the whack-job third-party candidate, behind the Greens. Or fourth party when the Libertarians found less nutty candidates. It’s amazing the party managed to find candidates at all.