Nothing really big here; as I was going through states for my Sen/Gov by CD threads, I was noticing the turnout differences between the races in each state and thought I'd make some visualization out of it.
In the 2014 cycle, 25 states had races for both Senate and Governor. Here's a map of which contest more votes were cast in:
In most states, the differences were usually very slight (a few thousand votes at most) between the Senate and Governor's races, but a few trends emerged.
The general rule was, not surprisingly, that more votes were cast in the more competitive race. In Maine, for example, the Senate race was sleepy while the Governor's race was expected to be close; thus, more votes were cast in the Governor's race.
The most extreme example of this was Alabama, which is in a category of its own here. 31% fewer votes were cast in the Senate race, where Sessions was unopposed, than the Governor's race.
On the flip side, the only states where more votes were cast in the less competitive races were MN, NE and WY.
And the exact numbers:
