Title: What Is the Coattail Effect in Politics?
Headings: What Is the Coattail Effect in Politics?
What Is the Coattail Effect in Politics?
Coattail Effect in 2016
Riding Coattails
Source

Content: Democrats, meantime, had their own polarizing candidate to worry about: Hillary Clinton. Her scandal-plagued political career failed to generate enthusiasm among the Democratic Party's progressive wing and left-leaning independents. It could be said that both Trump and Clinton had coattail effects on the 2016 congressional and legislative elections. The surprising surge for Trump among working-class white voters — men and women alike — who fled the Democratic Party because of his promise to renegotiate trade deals and levy stiff tariffs against other countries helped elevate Republicans. The GOP emerged from the election in control of both the U.S. House and Senate, as well as dozens of legislative chambers and governor's mansions across the U.S.
House Speaker Paul Ryan credited Trump with helping the Republicans secure majorities in both the House and Senate. " The House majority is bigger than expected, we won more seats than anyone expected, and much of that is thanks to Donald Trump...Donald Trump provided the kind of coattails that got a lot of people over the finish line so that we could maintain our strong House and Senate majorities. Now we have important work to do," Ryan said after the November 2016 election. Riding Coattails
A strong coattail effect often results in a wave election, when one major political party wins substantially more races than the other. The opposite usually happens two years later, when the president's party loses seats in Congress .