Ballotpedia Publishes Wave Election Analysis
Contact: Kristen Vonasek, Director of Communications
Tel: (608) 255-0688
E-mail: Media@ballotpedia.org
Using historical federal and state election results over the past 100 years, Ballotpedia proposes an objective way to define a wave election
Middleton, Wis. - June 19, 2018: Often talked about, but never defined, the term wave election is frequently used to discuss potential significant electoral gains by one political party.
In a report released today, Ballotpedia analyzes 100 years of election results to see how each president’s party performed in the even-year elections. With that data, Ballotpedia proposes an objective way to define a wave election going forward.
To be classified as a wave election, a set of elections must fall within the 20 percent of elections where the president's party lost the most seats across the last 50 election cycles (100 years).
Based on Ballotpedia’s proposal for how to define a wave election, Republicans would need to lose 48 U.S. House seats, seven U.S. Senate seats, seven gubernatorial seats, and 494 state legislative seats for each group of elections to qualify historically as a wave against the president's party in November 2018.
| What Democrats need in 2018 | ||
|---|---|---|
| Election group | Seats needed for chamber/majority control | Seats needed for a wave election |
| U.S. House | D+23[1] | D+48 |
| U.S. Senate | D+2 | D+7 |
| Gubernatorial | D+10 | D+7 |
| State legislative | D+525[2] | D+494 |
In Ballotpedia’s report, authors Rob Oldham and Jacob Smith examine the results of the 50 election cycles that occurred over the past 100 years—spanning from President Woodrow Wilson's (D) second midterm in 1918 to Trump's first presidential election in 2016. The report looked at four different election groups: U.S. Senate, U.S. House, governorships, and state legislatures.
‘We hope our proposal kick starts a conversation about how to hone in on an objective definition of when an election is a wave election,” said Geoff Pallay, Ballotpedia’s Editor in Chief.
Wave-like elections can happen in the direction of a president's party as well. For more on that, please see our additional look at presidential waves.
Ballotpedia’s analysis also includes data on:
- Years where multiple waves occurred
- Years where waves toward the president's party and waves against the president's party offset each other
- How the type of election—first midterm, second midterm, or presidential—affects the prospects of a wave occurring
- A comparison of waves from 1918-2016 and waves from 1946-2016
- The effectiveness of the out-of-power party in gaining seats
- How waves have impacted control of the U.S. House since 1918
About Ballotpedia
Ballotpedia is the online encyclopedia of American politics and elections. Its goal is to preserve and expand knowledge about politics by providing objective information about local, state, and federal politics and policies. Its content includes trustworthy information readers can rely on, covering government officials and the offices they hold, political issues and public policy, elections, candidates, and the influencers of politics. Headquartered in Middleton, Wisconsin, Ballotpedia was founded in 2006. It includes over 270,000 professionally authored encyclopedic articles that have garnered over 900 million page views.
If you’d like more information, or to schedule an interview, please contact Ballotpedia's Director of Communications at media@Ballotpedia.org.