Electoral competitiveness in Rhode Island, 1912-2014

Competitiveness in state legislatures
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Published in April 2015

The 2014 national election continued the decline in U.S. electoral competitiveness that has occurred since 1972. The decline of electoral competitiveness that has been seen on the national stage, has also been seen in states. For example, Rhode Island saw a drastic increase in the number of uncontested elections from 1968 to 2014.

This page contains electoral competitiveness information at various levels of government in this state up to 2014. For more recent information about state legislative competitiveness nationwide, click here.

The data presented below are part of a larger project on electoral competitiveness, the full report is available in the table to the right. The images below illustrate the changes in the competitiveness of elections in Rhode Island from 1912 through 2014. The data used to generate these graphs is available in the tables below those images.

Background

Since 1972, electoral competitiveness has tended to decrease across the United States. During that time, people who are members of the same political party have become more likely to live in the same area as one another than in the past. Nationally, the rate at which incumbents won reelection is also close to an all-time high. However, this does not have to do with incumbents deriving more advantages from holding office than before. It is because they are more likely to be in safe districts for their party. In contrast to the high incumbency reelection rate, the rate at which incumbents run for reelection has gone down over time.

Competitiveness is declining. On the national level, the percentage of state legislative elections won by 5 percent or less was nearly the lowest in the 1972 to 2014 period. In an absolute sense, the incidence of such elections was very low. Only 4.9 percent of U.S. residents in districts with elections saw their election won by 5 percent or less. Similarly, more Americans lived in areas with uncontested elections than ever before in the time period studied: 36.7 percent. State legislative primaries were often found to be won by wide margins or not contested at all. The rate at which incumbents won reelection is also close to an all-time high. However, this does not have to do with incumbents deriving more advantages from holding office than before. It is because they are more likely to be in safe districts for their party. In contrast to the high incumbency reelection rate, the rate at which incumbents run for reelection has gone down over time.

Competitiveness in elections in Rhode Island

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  [Ballot_StateGraph01_Marg_Stateno39RhodeIsland2015_04_23.png|Marginal Elections]

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  [Ballot_StateGraph02_Uncont_Stateno39RhodeIsland2015_04_23.png|Uncontested Elections]

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  [Ballot_StateGraph03_Inc_Stateno39RhodeIsland2015_04_23.png|Incumbent Win Rates]

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  [Ballot_StateGraph04_US_HS_Stateno39RhodeIsland2015_04_23.png|Competitiveness in U.S. House Seats]

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  [Ballot_StateGraph05_UpBallot_Stateno39RhodeIsland2015_04_23.png|Margin of Victory in Up Ballot Elections]

Table explanation

The columns in the tables below for both state senates and state houses are as follow:

• Seats: number of seats in the state legislative chamber.
• Percent Seats Up: percent of seats in the state legislative chamber that are up in a particular year for the November election.
• Percent Won By Dem: the percent of seats in the state legislature that were won by a Democrat.
• Percent Unusable: percent of seats for the state legislative chamber that weren’t usable to compute whether a race was marginal or not for this chamber in this year because of missing data. This column usually says “0.”
• Percent with 5% margin: percent of seats for a state chamber in a year that were won by 5% or less.
• Percent with 10% margin: percent of seats for a state chamber in a year that were won by 10% or less.
• Percent Unusable Other: percent of seats that have missing data that prevent the computation of whether an incumbent won or lost, whether an incumbent ran or not, or whether a race was uncontested. This column usually says “0.”
• Percent Uncontested: percent of races in a chamber that are uncontested.
• Percent Incumbent Win: percent of incumbents who ran for a state chamber in a particular year who won.
• Percent With Incumbent: number of incumbents running for reelection for a state-chamber in one year, divided by the number of seats that are up for election for that state-chamber, multiplied by 100.

The columns for the “Up ballot” tab are as follows:

• U.S. House Seats: number of U.S. House Seats that a state was apportioned in the year in question.
• Percent Not Usable: percent of U.S. House Seats in the state and year that aren’t usable to compute marginality or contestation, because of something unusual about the race.
• Percent With 5% Margin: percent of U.S. House races in the state and year that were won by 5% or less.
• Percent With 10% Margin: percent of U.S. House races in the state and year that were won by 10% or less.
• Percent Uncontested: percent of U.S. House races that were uncontested in the state and year.
• U.S. Senate 1 Margin: difference between the percent obtained by the winner of the U.S. Senate election with the U.S. Senate candidate receiving the second most votes.
• U.S. Senate 2 Margin: This is only recorded when a second election to the U.S. Senate was held because of a Senator not completing their term. For such elections, this is the difference between the percent obtained by the winner of the U.S. Senate election with the U.S. Senate candidate receiving the second most votes.
• President margin: difference between the percent of votes obtained by the presidential candidate receiving the most votes in a state minus the percent of votes obtained by the presidential candidate receiving the second most votes in a state.
• Governor margin: difference between the percent obtained by the winner of the gubernatorial election in a state with the gubernatorial candidate receiving the second most votes.

State Senate

State Senate competitiveness, Rhode Island
Year	Seats	% Seats up	% Won by Dem	% Unusable	% With 5% margin	% With 10% margin	% Unusuable other	% Uncontested	% Incumbent win	% With incumbent	% of Dem inc winning	% of Repub inc winning
1968	50	100	74	0	10	12	0	4	95	80	100	83.3
1970	50	100	82	0	12	18	0	0	97.5	80	100	87.5
1972	50	100	74	0	10	20	0	4	100	76	100	100
1974	50	100	92	0	4	10	0	18	83.9	62	100	28.6
1976	50	100	90	0	6	12	0	26	97.4	78	97.1	100
1978	50	100	90	0	6	10	0	48	97.8	90	97.6	100
1980	50	100	86	0	6	12	0	26	100	76	100	100
1983	50	100	58	0	14	26	0	6	70.3	74	65.6	100
1984	50	100	76	0	12	18	0	20	79.1	86	95.8	57.9
1986	50	100	76	0	2	6	0	24	100	88	100	100
1988	50	100	82	0	4	8	0	54	95.3	86	100	77.8
1990	50	100	88	0	4	4	0	42	90.5	84	97.1	62.5
1992	50	100	78	0	6	14	0	26	89.2	74	88.2	100
1994	50	100	80	0	2	4	0	26	100	78	100	100
1996	50	100	82	0	4	12	0	24	92.7	82	97	75
1998	50	100	84	0	2	2	0	60	97.8	90	100	100
2000	50	100	88	0	2	4	0	54	95.7	92	100	75
2002	38	100	84.2	0	5.3	5.3	0	34.2	97.2	94.7	96.7	100
2004	38	100	86.8	0	7.9	15.8	0	26.3	100	92.1	100	100
2006	38	100	86.8	0	2.6	7.9	0	44.7	100	89.5	100	100
2008	38	100	86.8	0	10.5	18.4	0	39.5	93.8	84.2	96.4	75
2010	38	100	76.3	0	13.2	23.7	0	21.1	96.9	84.2	96.4	100
2012	38	100	84.2	0	2.6	2.6	0	44.7	90.9	86.8	100	62.5
2014	38	100	84.2	0	2.6	10.5	0	57.9	97.2	94.7	96.9	100

State House

State House competitiveness, Rhode Island
Year	Seats	% Seats up	% Won by Dem	% Unusable	% With 5% margin	% With 10% margin	% Unusuable other	% Uncontested	% Incumbent win	% With incumbent	% of Dem inc winning	% of Repub inc winning
1968	100	100	76	0	8	20	0	1	88.5	78	98.1	69.2
1970	100	100	75	0	6	21	0	0	92.7	82	92.3	94.1
1972	100	100	73	0	11	19	0	7	94.1	68	94	94.4
1974	100	100	83	0	10	19	0	28	91.1	79	100	66.7
1976	100	100	83	0	9	15	0	23	95.6	68	94.6	100
1978	100	100	84	0	7	14	0	45	97.4	77	98.4	92.9
1980	100	100	82	0	5	13	0	35	96.1	76	95.5	100
1982	100	100	85	0	7	14	0	41	92.7	82	97.1	71.4
1984	100	100	77	0	6	13	0	36	96.2	79	95.5	100
1986	100	100	80	0	7	11	0	32	96.3	82	100	85
1988	100	100	83	0	4	6	0	64	100	83	100	100
1990	100	100	88	0	5	9	0	43	95.2	84	100	66.7
1992	100	100	82	0	7	15	0	28	96.8	63	98	91.7
1994	100	100	84	0	5	13	0	53	96.6	88	97.3	92.9
1996	100	100	84	0	6	10	0	57	95.5	89	97.3	87.5
1998	100	100	86	0	5	5	0	62	97.7	87	98.7	90.9
2000	100	100	84	0	3	6	0	57	96.6	88	96.2	100
2002	75	100	84	0	8	10.7	0	49.3	95.6	90.7	96.5	90.9
2004	75	100	80	0	8	14.7	0	28	96.8	84	98	91.7
2006	75	100	81.3	0	9.3	13.3	0	53.3	100	86.7	100	100
2008	75	100	92	0	6.7	17.3	0	40	93.5	82.7	98.1	62.5
2010	75	100	86.7	0	13.3	22.7	0	21.3	94.4	72	93.9	100
2012	75	100	92	0	4	12	0	45.3	96.7	81.3	100	71.4
2014	75	100	84	0	4	16	0	64	90.8	86.7	89.8	100

Up ballot

Up ballot competitiveness, Rhode Island
Year	U.S. House Seats	% Not usable	% With 5% margin	% With 10% margin	% Uncontested	U.S. Senate 1 margin	U.S. Senate 2 margin	President margin	Governor margin
1912								4.7
1916								5.2
1920								32.2
1924								24.1
1928								0.6
1932								12
1936								13.6	7.9
1938									12.6
1940						10.3		13.6	11.8
1942						15.9			17.1
1944								17.4	21.3
1946	2	0	0	50	0	10.2			8.1
1948	2	0	0	0	0	18.6		16.3	22.8
1950	2	0	0	0	0	23.3			18.7
1952	2	0	0	100	0	9.6		1.8	5.2
1954	2	0	0	0	0	18.6			16.1
1956	2	0	50	50	0			16.5	0.2
1958	2	0	0	0	0	29			1.8
1960	2	0	0	0	0	37.8		27.3	13.3
1962	2	0	0	0	0				0.1
1964	2	0	0	0	0	65.5		61.7	22.3
1966	2	0	0	0	0	35.3			26.6
1968	2	0	0	0	0			33.7	2
1970	2	0	0	0	0	36.4			0.5
1972	2	0	0	0	0	8		6.2	5.5
1974	2	0	0	0	0				57
1976	2	0	0	0	0	15.7		11.3	10.2
1978	2	0	0	50	0	50.2			34.3
1980	2	0	0	0	0			12.3	47.4
1982	2	0	0	0	0	2.4			51.3
1984	2	0	0	0	0	45.1		3.7	20
1986	2	0	0	0	0				33.3
1988	2	0	0	0	0	9.2		11.8	1.7
1990	2	0	0	0	0	23.7			48.3
1992	2	0	0	0	0			23.7	28.5
1994	2	0	0	50	0	29			4.2
1996	2	0	0	0	0	28.9		38
1998	2	0	0	0	0				9.5
2000	2	0	0	0	0	16		31.3
2002	2	0	0	0	0	56.8			9.5
2004	2	0	0	0	0			21.2
2006	2	0	0	0	50	7			2
2008	2	0	0	0	0	46.8		28.4
2010	2	0	0	50	0				3.6
2012	2	0	0	0	0	29.9		28
2014	2	0	0	0	0	41.4			5.8

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