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Wave elections (1918-2016)/Presidential waves

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Wave elections (1918-2016)

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Main page
Wave analyses
What is a wave? • Evaluating 2018 •
House waves • Senate waves • Gubernatorial waves •
State legislative waves
Additional analyses
Multiple waves • Presidential waves • Election types • Overall waves vs. modern waves • Effectiveness of the out-of-power party • U.S. House waves since 1918
See also
Limitations • Data • Further analysis
Full report • PDF version
Waves in the media
Media coverage • Media definitions
2018 elections
U.S. Senate • U.S. House • Governorships • State legislatures
Other Ballotpedia reports
Who Runs the States
Competitiveness in State Legislatures

June 19, 2018
By: Rob Oldham and Jacob Smith

The 2018 elections could feature offsetting wave elections, which is when a wave against the president's party and a wave toward the president's party happen in the same year.

A wave toward the president's party, also known as a presidential wave election, is the opposite of a wave against the president's party, which is what this report has primarily discussed. Presidential wave elections are those in the bottom quintile of elections since 1918, usually where the president's party gained seats or suffered minimal losses.

The president's party needs to win nine U.S. House seats, two U.S. Senate seats, and 108 state legislative seats to have presidential wave elections in each group. It needs to at least hold even in gubernatorial races, neither winning nor losing any seats.

The 2018 offsetting waves could occur if Republicans lose 48 or more U.S. House seats and win two U.S. Senate seats, which is plausible because Democrats are defending 10 Senate seats in states Trump won in the 2016 election.

There have been four offsetting wave elections since 1918, and all involved offsetting U.S. Senate and gubernatorial waves. See the chart below for more information. Click here to see the full dataset.

Offsetting wave elections
Year President Party Election type Wave against president Seat change Wave toward president Seat change
1926 Coolidge R First midterm[1] U.S. Senate -7 Gubernatorial +7
1970 Nixon R First midterm Gubernatorial -12 U.S. Senate +3
1982 Reagan R First midterm Gubernatorial -7 U.S. Senate +2
1986 Reagan R Second midterm U.S. Senate -8 Gubernatorial +8

The graph below maps election years based on percentage changes in U.S. House and U.S. Senate seats. The graph is divided into four quadrants:

  • Q1 contains years where the president's party saw an increase in its share of U.S. Senate seats and an increase in its share of U.S. House seats.
  • Q2 contains years where the president's party saw an increase in its share of U.S. Senate seats and a decrease in its share of U.S. House seats.
  • Q3 contains years where the president's party saw a decrease in its share of U.S. Senate seats and a decrease in its share of U.S. House seats.
  • Q4 contains years where the president's party saw a decrease in its share of U.S. Senate seats and an increase in its share of U.S. House seats.

Click on the boxes below to see the presidential wave elections (the 20 percent of elections where the president's party performed best) since 1918 in U.S. House, U.S. Senate, gubernatorial, and state legislative elections as well as the 20 percent of election years with the highest composite scores.

Click here to read the report as one page.

Click here to read or download the report as a PDF.

Footnotes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Calvin Coolidge's (R) first term began in August 1923 after the death of President Warren Harding (R), who was first elected in 1920. Before he had his first midterm in 1926, Coolidge was re-elected as president in 1924.
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