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Wave elections (1918-2016)/Multiple waves

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Wave elections (1918-2016)

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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

The sections below show election years as whole rather than individual election groups like the U.S. House or state legislative seats.

We provide our definition of a tsunami election year and a composite analysis that combines our measures of wave elections into a single figure.

Tsunami election years

A tsunami election year occurs when waves appear in at least three election groups. Specifically, tsunamis occur when waves appear in both U.S. House and state legislative elections and at least one wave appears in either U.S. Senate or gubernatorial elections.

Based on this definition, tsunami elections occurred in 1920, 1922, 1930, 1932, 1938, 1966, and 2010.

Tsunami election years (1922-2016)
Year President Party Election type U.S. House wave U.S. Senate wave Gubernatorial wave State legislative wave
1920 Wilson D Presidential
1922 Harding R First midterm
1930 Hoover R First midterm
1932 Hoover R Presidential
1938 Roosevelt D Second midterm
1966 Johnson D First midterm[1]
2010 Obama D First midterm

Composite analysis

The composite analysis aggregates an overall score for U.S. House, U.S. Senate, gubernatorial, and state legislative races in a given year.

The composite score is an average of the seat share changes for U.S. House, U.S. Senate, gubernatorial, and state legislative races. It is an overall measure of how the presidential party performed in a given year.

To be considered a composite wave election, Ballotpedia determined the presidential party's seat share must decline by an average of more than 14.7 percent across the four election groups. The 10 election years where this occurred are wave election years. Like previous analyses, they are in the top quintile of the 50 election cycles since 1918.

Four of the 10 composite wave elections happened in a president's first midterm election.

The median composite score is -3.8 percent. The average composite score is -5.2 percent.

The chart below shows the 10 composite wave elections. To see the full set of elections from 1918 to 2016, click here.

Composite wave elections (1918-2016)
Year President Party Election type Overall score U.S. House U.S. Senate Governor State legislatures
1932 Hoover R Presidential -26.3% -22.3% -40.6% -28.6% -13.9%
1922 Harding R First midterm -20.7% -17.5% -18.8% -33.3% -13.1%
1958 Eisenhower R Second midterm -18.8% -10.8% -37.5% -17.6% -9.2%
1980 Carter D Presidential -18.8% -7.6% -33.3% -30.8% -3.4%
1938 Roosevelt D Second midterm -18.2% -16.1% -18.8% -27.3% -10.7%
1930 Hoover R First midterm -17.5% -12.2% -21.9% -27.3% -8.7%
1920 Wilson D Presidential -17.0% -13.6% -27.8% -9.6%
1994 Clinton D First midterm -15.5% -12.4% -15.2% -27.8% -6.6%
1966 Johnson D First midterm[1] -15.4% -11.0% -14.7% -25.7% -10.3%
1942 Roosevelt D Third midterm -14.8% -11.5% -29.0% -12.1% -6.7%

The graphs below show how each election type compares with the U.S. House elections when measured by the percentage change in seats of the president's party.

Click here to read the report as one page.

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

Footnotes

  1. 1.0 1.1 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.