85/15 Algorithm Claim Tested: What Our 2026 Data Says

Republican candidates in 18 statewide races of Nov. 3, 2026 received between 0.769 and 1.624 times Donald Trump’s 2024 vote share in the same state, median 0.870, against the 0.85 that a post by Kupe Paul on X claimed for every state that went blue (pair_tests #70).

A post by Kupe Paul (@KupePaul on X) reads: “We cracked their cheating algorithm. 85/15 algorithm….for every 1000 Trump votes (most likely during early voting when Dems front loaded everything) 150 switched to Dems. It’s the same pattern in every state that went blue.”

Lead Stories traces the formula to a Nov. 6, 2026 post by the X account Truth is Freedom, which states it in vote shares: “Republican 2026 = 0.85 × Trump 2024.” Its check is headlined “Fact Check: NO Uniform ‘15% Band’ Formula Mapping Trump’s 2024 Result Exactly Onto 2026 Senate Race -- Results Show Variations.”

If one fixed rule moved a set share of votes, every race on the same ballot would show the same ratio. The official county counts let readers see whether they do.

PostNewz compared vote shares: each 2026 Republican candidate’s share of the statewide vote, divided by Donald Trump’s share of the 2024 presidential vote in the same state. Across 18 races counted to 100% of precincts, the ratio ran from 0.769 to 1.624 (median 0.87). 5 of 18 were within 0.02 of 0.85.

The post names every state that went blue. In the 9 of these races where a Democrat leads the count, the ratio ran from 0.769 to 0.965 (median 0.898); 1 of 9 were within 0.02 of 0.85.

PostNewz does not compare raw vote counts. Fewer people voted in these 2026 races than in the 2024 presidential race in the same state (a median of 79% of the 2024 total), so raw counts fall for every party whatever happens to the shares.

Same ballot, county by county: in 481 counties of 8 states where every statewide race was counted to 100%, no county had all of its races move by the same amount (within 0.5 points) from the Republican share of the 2024 presidential vote. The typical gap between races on one ballot was CT 4.37, DE 2.62, FL 1.66, GA 4.2, MN 3.89, NC 4.26, SC 5.21, VT 20.4 points (pair_tests #62, #63, #64, #65, #66, #67, #68, #69).

Races on the same ballot: ID (GOV 0.851 vs SEN 0.845, spread 0.006); MN (GOV 0.913 vs SEN 0.933, spread 0.02); NE (GOV 0.846 vs SEN 0.841, spread 0.005); NM (GOV 0.916 vs SEN 0.789, spread 0.127); SC (GOV 0.888 vs SEN 0.803, spread 0.085); SD (GOV 1.001 vs SEN 0.954, spread 0.047).

At county level, 1555 county results give a median ratio of 0.907; 199 lie within 0.02 of 0.85. In 592 counties with two or more statewide races, the ratios of those races differ by a median of 0.036.

Method: 2026 counts are the states’ own unofficial county files (election_county_results) and statewide files (election_results); the 2024 presidential shares are summed from county rows (MIT Election Data and Science Lab 2024 precinct files; Hawaii from the Office of Elections’ county printouts). Every ratio is listed in pair_tests #70.