[EL] State by State party ID breakdown

Thu Dec 3 06:23:13 PST 2015

I would qualify Charles' helpful post by adding that the most reliable way
to use the presidential results is not as a "straight tally", but in a
relative sense. That is, given that Obama defeated Romney by four
percentage points in the two-party vote even as the underlying partisan
balance in the country is assume to be about 50-50, then a state that
mirrored the national average with a 52% to 48% tally has partisan balance,
while a state like Florida that was dead even in the 2012 race in fact is a
Republican-leaning state.

FairVote developed this "partisan index" approach in 1997 with our first
"Monopoly Politics" report based on the most recent election, and then
Charlie Cook later that year adapted it to the "partisan voting index" by
factoring in the last two elections. We keep using the single election
method and find it controls outcomes in most partisan elections.

Here are just two examples of its connection to state legislative results
from an analysis we're doing on the impact of independent redistricting
commissions. Keep in mind that the legislative seats were elected largely
in 2014, but the relative 2012 presidential vote dominates outcomes.

*Arizona*: Out of 80 seats, total of 3 have "partisan mismatch

* 30 legislative districts each used to elect 1 state senator and 2 house
members

- 12 have Democratic partisanship, and all have 1  Democratic senator and
23 of 24 house members are D's
- 18 have Republican partisanship, and R's win 17 of 18 senators and 35 of
36 in house
- Of 30 districts, 5 are a generously defined competitive area between
43.6% and 58.3% partisanship

*California*: Out of 120 seats, total of 7 Republicans in Democratic
districts and none in Republican districts

* CA state senate, 40 seats
- 2 R's in D in districts, and no D's in R districts

* CA assembly, 80 seats
-  5 R's in D district and no D's in R districts

TO be sure there are exceptions here and in other states -- especially when
picking governors. But the number of "mismatches" keeps declining.

Rob

On Thu, Dec 3, 2015 at 8:56 AM, Charles Stewart III <cstewart at mit.edu>
wrote:

> I think most political scientists (or at least many) would say the best
> quick place to start is just to take recent election returns in
> presidential elections.
>
>
>
> I like Leip’s presidential atlas for such things:
> http://uselectionatlas.org/.
>
>
>
> Rather than take just the 2012 election, you might want to average 2008
> and 2012.
>
>
>
> Party registration is a non-starter, so don’t even try that one.
>
>
>
> There may be a source out there that reports party identification from the
> big national academic surveys (like the CCES), and maybe someone on the
> listserv would run that table for you quickly.
>
>
>
> The book “Statehouse Politics” is probably out-of-date for your purposes,
> but you might want to give it a look in any case.
>
>
>
> -cs
>
>
>
>
> *--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------*
>
> *Charles Stewart III*
>
> *Kenan Sahin Distinguished Professor of Political Science *
>
>
>
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>
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> *From:* law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu [mailto:
> law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] *On Behalf Of *Schultz,
> David A.
> *Sent:* Thursday, December 03, 2015 8:43 AM
> *To:* michael.mcdonald at ufl.edu; law-election at uci.edu;
> lawcourt-l at legal.umass.edu
> *Subject:* [EL] State by State party ID breakdown
>
>
>
> Hi all:
>
>
>
> Does any one know of a database that has already organized state by state
>  population party identification  or affiliation over the last few election
> cycles?   (I.e. of those surveyed, what percentage identify as Democrat,
> Republican, or independent).   I would prefer to be able to look at
> presidential election cycles over the last few elections but also including
> congressional (midterm) is fine too.  What I have in mind is the exit poll
> data that does the state by state breakdown of partisan affiliation.  I
> know I can go back and go to CNN or other sites and create the data myself
> but before I do that I want to see if anyone has already done that.
>
>
>
> Thank you.
>
>
>
> --
>
> David Schultz, Professor
> Editor, Journal of Public Affairs Education (JPAE)
> Hamline University
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>
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