Everything you need to know about ranked-choice voting in one spot. Click to learn more!

Wave elections (1918-2016)/Gubernatorial waves

From Ballotpedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Ballotpedia-Wave Election Analysis Banner.png


Wave elections (1918-2016)

Waves Report-VNT.png

Main page

Wave analyses
What is a wave? • Evaluating 2018 •
House waves • Senate waves • Gubernatorial waves •
State legislative waves

Additional analyses
Multiple waves • Presidential waves • Election types • Overall waves vs. modern waves • Effectiveness of the out-of-power party • U.S. House waves since 1918

See also
Limitations • Data • Further analysis

Full report • PDF version

Waves in the media
Media coverage • Media definitions

2018 elections
U.S. Senate • U.S. House • Governorships • State legislatures

Other Ballotpedia reports
Who Runs the States
Competitiveness in State Legislatures

June 19, 2018
By: Rob Oldham and Jacob Smith

For 2018 to qualify historically as a wave election, Republicans must lose seven gubernatorial seats in 2018.

The president's party lost seven or more gubernatorial seats in 11 of the 50 elections since 1918, ranging from seven seats lost under Presidents Ronald Reagan (1986) and Barack Obama (2010) to 12 seats lost under President Richard Nixon in 1970.

Eight of the 11 wave elections happened in a president's first midterm election.

The median number of gubernatorial seats lost by the president’s party is two. The average number of seats lost is almost three.

The varying number of gubernatorial elections held each year from 1918 to 2016 complicated this analysis. To read more about this limitation, click here.

The chart below shows the number of seats the president's party lost in the 11 wave elections. To see the full set of elections from 1918 to 2016, click here.

Gubernatorial wave elections
Year President Party Election type Gubernatorial seats change Elections analyzed[1]
1970 Nixon R First midterm -12 35
1922 Harding R First midterm -11 33
1932 Hoover R Presidential -10 35
1920 Wilson D Presidential -10 36
1994 Clinton D First midterm -10 36
1930 Hoover R First midterm -9 33
1938 Roosevelt D Second midterm -9 33
1966 Johnson D First midterm[2] -9 35
1954 Eisenhower R First midterm -8 33
1982 Reagan R First midterm -7 36
2010 Obama D First midterm -7 33

Click here to read the report as one page.

Click here to read or download the report as a PDF.

Footnotes

  1. The number of gubernatorial seats up for election varies, with as many as 36 seats and as few as 12 seats being up in a single year.
  2. Lyndon Johnson's (D) first term began in November 1963 after the death of President John F. Kennedy (D), who was first elected in 1960. Before Johnson had his first midterm in 1966, he was re-elected president in 1964.