[1] The states, with the exception of Queensland and Tasmania,[2] also hold elections for both houses of parliament simultaneously.
[4] The party built its campaigns around "keeping the bastards honest", a reference to holding the balance of power in the Senate so as to prevent the chamber from becoming either a rubber stamp for the government or a tool of obstruction for the opposition.
[6] The president may also endorse a senatorial slate, and candidates for House representatives and local officials; all of these are elected separately and voters may split their ticket down-ballot.
In the constituency vote a single representative is elected using the traditional First-Past-The-Post system.
This may be true of primary elections and may also include the placing of candidates for federal, state, and local offices on the same ballot.
One example is the 2004 Montana gubernatorial election, where Democratic gubernatorial candidate Brian Schweitzer was elected governor 50.4% to 46.0%, while incumbent Republican President George W. Bush defeated Democrat John Kerry 59% to 39%.
Another example is the 2020 United States Senate election in Maine where incumbent Susan Collins won by a 8.6% margin against Democratic challenger Sara Gideon, despite Joe Biden defeating Donald Trump in Maine by a 9.1% margin.
However, by 1968 ticket-splitting became more common with Richard Nixon making inroads nationally but Democratic Congressmen winning re-election by large margins.
Jimmy Carter provided a brief resurgence for Southern Democratic hopes before split-ticket voting became even more common in the 1980s under Ronald Reagan.
2016 and 2020 saw just one split-ticket victory: Republican Susan Collins defeated Sara Gideon by an eight-point margin while Joe Biden won the state of Maine.
For example, in Georgia, Republican Brian Kemp defeated Democrat Stacey Abrams in the gubernatorial election by seven points, drastically outperforming Republican Herschel Walker in the concurrent Senate race, which Walker lost to Democrat Raphael Warnock after a runoff election in December.