Electoral competitiveness in Virginia, 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, elections for Virginia's State Legislature feature some of the highest rates of incumbents winning reelection, which promotes an equally significant level of incumbents running to stay in office.

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 Virginia 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 Virginia

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  [Ballot_StateGraph01_Marg_Stateno46Virginia2015_04_23.png|Marginal Elections]

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  [Ballot_StateGraph02_Uncont_Stateno46Virginia2015_04_23.png|Uncontested Elections]

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  [Ballot_StateGraph03_Inc_Stateno46Virginia2015_04_23.png|Incumbent Win Rates]

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  [Ballot_StateGraph04_US_HS_Stateno46Virginia2015_04_23.png|Competitiveness in U.S. House Seats]

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  [Ballot_StateGraph05_UpBallot_Stateno46Virginia2015_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, Virginia
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
1971	40	100	82.5	0	5	10	0	30	92.6	67.5	100	83.3
1973	40	2.5	0	0	0	0	0	0		0
1975	40	100	87.5	0	5	17.5	0	47.5	87.5	80	92.9	50
1979	40	100	77.5	0	15	25	0	35	91.4	87.5	90	100
1983	40	100	80	0	5	15	0	47.5	96.8	77.5	100	83.3
1987	40	100	75	0	12.5	17.5	0	45	88.9	90	92.9	75
1991	40	100	55	0	15	32.5	0	27.5	80	75	75	100
1995	40	100	47.5	0	10	30	0	37.5	80	87.5	77.8	82.4
1999	40	100	47.5	0	5	7.5	0	52.5	93.9	82.5	93.3	94.4
2003	40	100	40	0	0	7.5	0	50	100	75	100	100
2007	40	100	52.5	0	15	20	0	47.5	90.6	80	100	82.4
2011	40	100	50	0	7.5	17.5	0	35	93.9	82.5	89.5	100

State House

State House competitiveness, Virginia
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
1969	100	100	75	0	10	23	0	47	91.3	80	91	91.7
1971	100	100	73	0	18	28	0	23	90	70	96.1	76.5
1973	100	100	65	0	11	21	0	37	84.9	86	95.8	68.2
1975	100	100	78	0	4	11	0	49	97.7	86	100	100
1977	100	100	76	0	8	19	0	49	95.3	86	94.2	100
1979	100	100	74	0	9	14	0	44	96.5	86	97	94.4
1981	100	100	66	0	10	26	0	46	89.3	84	91.8	81.8
1982	100	100	65	0	15	21	0	44	91	89	93.2	86.2
1983	100	100	65	0	1	6	0	58	95.8	95	96.7	93.9
1985	100	100	65	0	2	8	0	58	97.9	94	100	93.9
1987	100	100	64	0	7	14	0	65	93.3	89	94.8	90
1989	100	100	59	0	7	12	0	57	93.3	89	93.1	93.3
1991	100	100	58	0	3	16	0	47	94	83	94.2	93.3
1993	100	100	52	0	6	13	0	38	96.6	88	93.9	100
1995	100	100	52	0	3	14	0	31	97.8	93	98	97.7
1997	100	100	51	0	7	9	0	56	98.9	90	97.9	100
1999	100	100	47	0	4	7	0	54	97.8	90	95.7	100
2001	100	100	34	0	4	13	0	42	94.9	78	91.2	97.6
2003	100	100	37	0	2	8	0	62	98.8	85	100	98.2
2005	100	100	39	0	4	11	0	52	96.5	86	96.6	96.4
2007	100	100	44	0	5	10	0	60	97.7	88	100	97.9
2009	100	100	39	0	9	13	0	36	89.4	85	77.8	97.9
2011	100	100	32	0	3	6	0	64	96.3	82	90.9	100
2013	100	100	33	0	10	14	0	46	97.7	86	100	96.6

Up ballot

Up ballot competitiveness, Virginia
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								59
1916								35.6
1920								23.7
1924								31.2
1928								8
1932								38.9
1936								41
1937									68
1940						100		36.7
1941									63.7
1942						100
1944								25
1945									36.4
1946	9	0	0	0	11.1	40.3	36.1
1948	9	0	11.1	11.1	22.2	36		7.7
1949									43.9
1950	9	0	0	0	55.6
1952	10	0	30	30	50	100		13
1953									10.6
1954	10	0	10	20	40	100
1956	10	10	11.1	22.2	0			18.1
1957									26.8
1958	10	0	0	10	70	100
1960	10	0	0	0	50	100		5.5
1961									27.7
1962	10	0	20	20	40
1964	10	0	20	20	10	54.1		7.4
1965									11.9
1966	10	0	0	10	40	27.3	17.6
1968	10	0	0	10	0			14.3
1969									7.4
1970	10	0	0	10	10	34.1
1972	10	0	0	10	20	5.5		38.5
1973									1.5
1974	10	0	10	30	30
1976	10	0	10	30	40	100		1.4
1977									12.5
1978	10	0	10	20	50	0.4
1980	10	0	20	20	50			13.6
1981									7.1
1982	10	0	30	50	20	2.4
1984	10	0	10	20	40	40.1		25.4
1985									5.9
1986	10	0	0	10	40
1988	10	0	0	0	30	42.6		20.7
1989									0.4
1990	10	0	10	20	50	100
1992	11	0	0	0	9.1			5.1
1993									17.5
1994	11	0	0	18.2	27.3	3.1
1996	11	0	0	0	9.1	5.1		2.1
1997									13.5
1998	11	0	0	0	63.6
2000	11	0	9.1	9.1	45.5	4.6		8.3
2001									5.2
2002	11	18.2	0	0	45.5	100
2004	11	0	0	0	27.3			8.3
2005									5.9
2006	11	0	9.1	9.1	27.3	0.4
2008	11	0	18.2	18.2	18.2	31.7		6.4
2009									17.4
2010	11	0	27.3	27.3	9.1
2012	11	0	0	9.1	0	5.9		3.9
2014	11	0	0	0	27.3	0.8

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