School boards in session: non-incumbent success rates in 2015
 Election Analysis |
Methods of election Opposition Non-incumbent success rates |
Success rates |
Analysis of incumbency advantage in the 2014 school board elections |
School board elections, 2015 |
A total of 1,405 non-incumbents ran for school board seats in 2015. They accounted for 59.20 percent of all school board candidates. A total of 562 non-incumbents won their election bids, taking 40.81 percent of the seats up for election. Of those winners, 103—18.33 percent—won their seats without opposition. A total of 408 seats were left open on the ballot when incumbents decided not to run for re-election. Non-incumbents took 394 of them without having to defeat an incumbent; the other 14 were either not filled in the election or else were won by informal candidates.
The following sections analyze non-incumbent success rates by state and by enrollment.
Methodology
In 2015, Ballotpedia covered school board elections in the top 1,000 school districts in the United States by enrollment. Of those districts, 440 held school board elections. These elections took place in 32 states. The 18 states where the largest districts by enrollment did not hold elections in 2015 were Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Nevada, North Dakota, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia and Wyoming. These states are not included in this report.
The elections in the 2015 scope were not equally divided across states. The range runs from a high of 218 school board seats on the ballot in Texas to a low of one seat on the ballot in Mississippi. The comparisons made in the report are not representative of each state as a whole; rather, they demonstrate the relative election trends among the largest districts of each state, with varying sample sizes in each location. To mitigate the unequal representation by state, this report also looks at election trends by enrollment size. School districts were compared by eight enrollment ranges, with the largest enrollment size at over 100,000 students and the smallest enrollment size below 10,000 students.
This report counts only formal candidates. Candidates are considered formal if they completed the regular filing process stipulated for school board elections in their state. Write-in candidates are not considered formal candidates because of the extreme variation in election filing laws across states. While some states require write-in candidates to file formally, other states do not require write-ins to file at all.
For more information on Ballotpedia's methodology for this report, check out the methodology in Ballotpedia's 2015 school board election analysis.
Analysis by state
The map above details the number of non-incumbents who were elected to school boards in the largest school districts in each state. States depicted in gray did not hold school board elections. |
Of all the states, Nebraska had the highest percentage of non-incumbents elected to school boards in 2015. They won all three of the seats up for election. Connecticut had the second-highest percentage of non-incumbents elected. They won 60.98 percent of the seats in that state. Idaho had the third-highest percentage, with non-incumbents winning 57.14 percent of the seats on the ballot.
Mississippi had the lowest percentage of non-incumbents elected to school boards in 2015. Only one seat was on the ballot in that state, and only an incumbent ran to win it. Alaska had the second-lowest percentage of non-incumbents elected. They won 12.5 percent of seats up for election in that state. In Oklahoma, non-incumbents took 14.29 percent of the seats, which was the third-lowest percentage in 2015.
The map to the right details the number of non-incumbents who were elected to school boards in each state in 2015. More details about how many non-incumbents ran in each state can be found in the table below.
| Non-incumbents elected in the 2015 school board elections (by state) | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| State | Total enrollment | Districts holding elections | Seats up for election | Total candidates | Total non-incumbents | Seats won by non-incumbents (#) | Seats won by non-incumbents (%) |
| Total | 10,322,036 | 440 | 1,377 | 2,375 | 1,406 | 562 | 40.81% |
| Alaska | 80,652 | 3 | 8 | 12 | 5 | 1 | 12.50% |
| Arkansas | 85,040 | 6 | 11 | 16 | 7 | 4 | 36.36% |
| California | 1,453,222 | 46 | 122 | 246 | 155 | 48 | 39.34% |
| Colorado | 663,315 | 21 | 65 | 115 | 79 | 35 | 53.85% |
| Connecticut | 127,693 | 9 | 41 | 74 | 51 | 25 | 60.98% |
| Delaware | 62,469 | 5 | 8 | 16 | 12 | 4 | 50.00% |
| Idaho | 97,639 | 6 | 14 | 25 | 15 | 8 | 57.14% |
| Illinois | 409,548 | 24 | 82 | 139 | 80 | 35 | 42.68% |
| Iowa | 146,562 | 10 | 41 | 68 | 43 | 19 | 46.34% |
| Kansas | 174,722 | 7 | 28 | 52 | 30 | 7 | 25.00% |
| Louisiana | 71,054 | 3 | 4 | 8 | 5 | 2 | 50.00% |
| Massachusetts | 126,853 | 9 | 51 | 76 | 41 | 17 | 33.33% |
| Minnesota | 172,892 | 9 | 33 | 56 | 33 | 11 | 33.33% |
| Mississippi | 9,518 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Missouri | 307,680 | 18 | 38 | 73 | 50 | 21 | 55.26% |
| Montana | 11,145 | 1 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 25.00% |
| Nebraska | 36,943 | 1 | 3 | 8 | 7 | 3 | 100.00% |
| New Hampshire | 26,243 | 2 | 19 | 36 | 21 | 6 | 31.58% |
| New Jersey | 274,059 | 18 | 58 | 114 | 73 | 29 | 50.00% |
| New Mexico | 198,128 | 8 | 20 | 41 | 27 | 10 | 50.00% |
| New York | 207,170 | 16 | 44 | 73 | 45 | 25 | 56.82% |
| North Carolina | 186,101 | 4 | 16 | 41 | 29 | 6 | 37.50% |
| Ohio | 320,378 | 19 | 46 | 80 | 44 | 16 | 34.78% |
| Oklahoma | 258,524 | 13 | 14 | 16 | 4 | 2 | 14.29% |
| Oregon | 270,159 | 13 | 44 | 72 | 43 | 17 | 38.64% |
| Pennsylvania | 238,994 | 18 | 91 | 161 | 104 | 43 | 47.25% |
| South Carolina | 21,097 | 2 | 9 | 13 | 5 | 3 | 33.33% |
| South Dakota | 37,227 | 2 | 5 | 8 | 3 | 1 | 20.00% |
| Texas | 2,723,097 | 80 | 218 | 369 | 199 | 75 | 34.40% |
| Virginia | 655,920 | 20 | 103 | 166 | 98 | 43 | 41.75% |
| Washington | 618,358 | 34 | 102 | 151 | 75 | 33 | 32.35% |
| Wisconsin | 249,634 | 12 | 34 | 47 | 22 | 12 | 35.29% |
Analysis by enrollment
A total of 53.62 percent of school board seats in school districts with a student enrollment of 30,001 to 40,000 were won by non-incumbents in 2015, which was the highest percentage compared to other enrollment sizes. Districts with a student enrollment between 60,001 and 80,000 had the second-highest percentage with 48.39 percent of seats going to non-incumbents.
The lowest percentage of non-incumbents, at 38.24 percent, were elected in school districts with an enrollment above 100,001 students. Districts with a student enrollment of 10,001 to 20,000 had the second-lowest newcomer election rate with 38.95 percent of seats going to new board members.
The chart to the right details the percentage of non-incumbents who were elected to school board seats in 2015 by student enrollment size. More details about how many non-incumbents ran and how many seats they won by enrollment range can be found in the table below.
| Non-incumbents elected in the 2015 school board elections (by enrollment) | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Enrollment size | Districts holding elections | Seats up for election | Total candidates | Total non-incumbents | Seats won by non-incumbents (#) | Seats won by non-incumbents (%) |
| Total | 440 | 1,377 | 2,375 | 1,406 | 562 | 40.81% |
| Below 10,000 | 52 | 147 | 236 | 135 | 61 | 41.50% |
| 10,001 - 20,000 | 243 | 778 | 1,271 | 719 | 303 | 38.95% |
| 20,001 - 30,000 | 74 | 216 | 389 | 236 | 90 | 41.67% |
| 30,001 - 40,000 | 25 | 69 | 132 | 89 | 37 | 53.62% |
| 40,001 - 60,000 | 26 | 82 | 166 | 111 | 34 | 41.46% |
| 60,001 - 80,000 | 8 | 31 | 61 | 36 | 15 | 48.39% |
| 80,001 - 100,000 | 5 | 20 | 44 | 31 | 9 | 45.00% |
| Above 100,001 | 7 | 34 | 76 | 49 | 13 | 38.24% |
See also
| School Boards | News and Analysis |
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