Wave elections (1918-2016)/What is a wave?
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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
We define wave elections as the 20 percent of elections where the president's party lost the most seats during the last 100 years (50 election cycles).
While there is not an agreed-upon definition of waves in political science, a number of scholars and journalists have tried to define the concept focusing mostly on the House of Representatives. Most frequently, political scientists will set a specific seat gain as being necessary for an election to qualify as a wave. For example, Stu Rothenberg and Al Turchfarber classify elections as waves if a party gains at least 20 seats.[1] Rothenberg’s definition also requires that the other party have minimal losses in the election.[2]
Jacob Smith, an author of this report, previously defined a wave election as “a congressional election that (1) produces the potential for a political party to significantly affect the political status quo as (2) the result of a substantial increase in seats for that party.” Under this definition, elections are compared to recent previous years in terms of both seat swing and seat gain.[3]
In most cases, these definitions produce similar results to the definition presented here, although the 20-seat-swing standard means that many historical elections will be counted as waves given the high electoral volatility of that time period.
Here are a few more definitions of waves that have been offered by academics, election experts, and journalists:
- Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report said that wave elections occur when the out-of-power-party wins "significantly more seats than they [need] to win control" and that a Democratic gain of 35 House seats in 2018 would qualify as a wave. She also wrote that races her outlet rates as "Toss-up" disproportionately break toward one party during wave elections. She noted that Democrats won 55 percent of Republican-held "Toss-up" seats in 2006 and that Republicans won 65 percent of Democratic-held "Toss-up" seats in 2010.[4]
- Catholic University political scientist Matthew Green said that a wave election occurs when "an unusual magnitude of seats or offices switches from one party to another." However, he said that the exact magnitude is unclear and that he believes a wave election should be calculated by the seats a party wins, not the vote margins in the races.[5]
- Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post said that a wave could be said to occur when a party running on a nationalized message makes gains in House, Senate, and gubernatorial races.[6]
See more media definitions of waves here.
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Click here to read or download the report as a PDF.
Footnotes
- ↑ Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball, "What Is a Wave in the Senate?" September 11, 2014
- ↑ Roll Call, "Are We Headed for Four Wave Elections in a Row?" January 31, 2011
- ↑ Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball, "How to Tell if 2016 Is a Wave Election," August 25, 2016
- ↑ Cook Political Report, "How to Define a Wave," June 7, 2018
- ↑ Matthew N. Green, "Was 2014 a “Wave” Election?" November 17, 2014
- ↑ Washington Post, "Is this a wave election? And what would that look like if it is?" October 30, 2014
