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Wave elections (1918-2016)/Further analysis
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House waves • Senate waves • Gubernatorial waves • State legislative waves |
Competitiveness in State Legislatures |
June 19, 2018
By: Rob Oldham and Jacob Smith
Although we reviewed 100 years of election data and provided a definition for the elusive concept of a wave election, this report just scratches the surface of the existing body of work on wave elections. We showed in What is a wave? that the debate over waves is not new and has already been the basis of numerous academic articles, news reports, and data-driven examinations of American elections. As noted in our limitations section, we intend this report to contribute to that discussion, not settle it.
In the spirit of furthering the discussion, here are a few possible lines of inquiry that academics, journalists, or election experts could pursue using our dataset:
- Further segment the dataset to determine what constitutes a wave in the different election types (first midterm, second midterm, presidential)
- Bring in data on the two factors generally thought to predict election results: economic performance and presidential popularity
- Dig deeper into the concept of a combined wave (briefly addressed in this section) to learn more about waves that build over multiple cycles
We look forward to participating in future discussions on waves, particularly after the 2018 elections. If you would like to discuss waves with the authors or have questions about the report, email us at editor@ballotpedia.org.
Click here to read the report as one page.
Click here to read or download the report as a PDF.
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