Electoral advantage
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  Presidential Elections - Analysis and Discussion
  U.S. Presidential Election Results (Moderator: Dereich)
  Electoral advantage
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Author Topic: Electoral advantage  (Read 4913 times)
Gustaf
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« on: January 27, 2004, 04:23:43 PM »

I have done a little walk-through of general elections from 1900 and onwards and done a simple little experiment.

If the 2 main candidates had been tied, and we of course presume that the required "swing" is equally distributed through-out the country, we would get a winner, and the result would point at an advantage due to distribution of voters for 1 party.

I have excluded those elections where a 3rd party candidate recieved EVs, b/c it messes things up (1912, 1924, 1948, 1960, 1968). I have only reluctantly included those were 3rd party candidates ran strongly.  

The result is:

   Rep   Dem   Rep-Evs   Dem-Evs   Winner
1900   48.59%   48.58%   258   189   Rep
1904   47.00%   47.01%   236   240   Dem
1908   47.31%   47.30%   257   226   Rep
1912               
1916   47.68%   47.68%   276   255   Rep
1920   47.24%   47.23%   283   236   Rep
1924               
1928   49.50%   49.50%   228   304   Dem
1932   48.53%   48.53%   272   259   Rep
1936   48.67%   48.68%   305   226   Rep
1940   49.76%   49.76%   318   213   Rep
1944   49.64%   49.65%   285   246   Rep
1948               
1952   49.76%   49.76%   285   246   Rep
1956   49.67%   49.67%   259   271   Dem
1960               
1964   49.76%   49.76%   240   298   Dem
1968               
1972   49.10%   49.10%   264   273   Dem
1976   49.05%   49.05%   283   254   Rep
1980   45.89%   45.89%   241   297   Dem
1984   49.67%   49.66%   306   232   Rep
1988   49.51%   49.51%   286   251   Rep
1992   40.23%   40.23%   275   263   Rep
1996   44.98%   44.98%   259   279   Dem
2000   49.13%   49.13%   301   236   Rep


Any thought/comments?
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zorkpolitics
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« Reply #1 on: January 27, 2004, 08:29:17 PM »

Because of the Republican advantage in small states I expected a Republican would have been favored, my surprise is that in 64, 72, 80, and 96 the advantage was with the Democrats.
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Gustaf
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« Reply #2 on: January 28, 2004, 03:54:05 AM »

Because of the Republican advantage in small states I expected a Republican would have been favored, my surprise is that in 64, 72, 80, and 96 the advantage was with the Democrats.

Yeah, the small state-advantage is less pronounced than one would think, though the Republicans have held the advantage most of the time. It's interesting to note that Carter's voters were better spread out in 1980 than in 1976, but he lost the first and won the second. And McGovern was well-positioned.... Smiley
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Gustaf
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« Reply #3 on: January 28, 2004, 03:53:32 PM »

OK, I've done a special on the 1912 election, considering all runners fairly equal, thus making it a three-way race. So I out all 3 main contenders, Roosvelt, Taft and Wilson, at just above 30%. The result is, of course, that no one recieves a majority of the EVs, but Roosvelt gets the most, carrying:

West: California, Washington, Oregon, Nevada, Arizona

Plains/Rockies: Montana, the Dakotas, Kansas, Nebraska

Mid-West: Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, Michigan

Northeast: Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maine, West Virginia (not sure where to place WV)

for a total of 189 EVs.

With the exceptions of Delaware and Oklahoma, who voted for Taft, Wilson carried the Solid South, as well as Colorado, Missouri and Indiana, giving him 186 EVs and 2nd place.
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minionofmidas
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« Reply #4 on: January 29, 2004, 05:35:40 AM »

Yeah, I'd actually started to do the same yesterday, only 1992-2000 yet but I would have continued now if you hadn't done it for me.
Basically the US election system has two inbuilt factors of unfairness that work against each other: The small state bonus, which tends to favor Republicans, and the winner takes all system itself, which favors large states and thus tends to favor Democrats. So now we have an answer to the old question of which one has more effect...And it's the statistician's standard answer: Depends.
Though 14:7 for the Reps is a clear bias, it's not as strong as the 2000 result would lead you to believe. It's the most extreme result since 1984 and since 1940 before that.
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