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Predicting and Dissecting the Seats-Votes Curve in the2006 U.S. House Election

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 January 2008

Jonathan P. Kastellec ,
Andrew Gelman  and
Jamie P. Chandler
Jonathan P. Kastellec
Affiliation:
Columbia University
Andrew Gelman
Affiliation:
Columbia University
Jamie P. Chandler
Affiliation:
City University of New York
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Extract

As the 2006 midterm elections approached, pollsters, scholars, andjournalists attempted to predict whether the Democrats would takeback the House, Senate, or both. Much media attention was paid toPresident George W. Bush's declining popularity and the public'sdissatisfaction with the Republican-controlled Congress (see e.g.,Cook 2006). With most attention paid tothe immediate political dynamics of the campaign, less noticed(though not entirely neglected) was the fact that the Democratsfaced a significant structural disadvantage in their effort toretake both houses of Congress. The Democrats faced an uphill battleto control the Senate simply due to the small number of seats thatwere seriously contested. Their hurdle to taking over the House wassubtler but perhaps just as high: as we show here, they needed towin well over half the vote share in order to have an even chance ofwinning 50% of the seats, thereby overcoming a structural advantageenjoyed by Republicans leading up to Election Day.We thank Gary Jacobson and Walt Borges forgenerously sharing their data, Robert Erikson, Eduardo Leoni,Robert Shapiro, David Epstein, and two anonymous reviewers forhelpful comments, and the National Science Foundation forfinancial support. Replication datasets and statistical code areavailable atwww.columbia.edu/∼jpk2004/house2006.html.

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Type
FEATURES
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PS: Political Science & Politics , Volume 41 , Issue 1 , January 2008 , pp. 139 - 145
Copyright
© 2008 The American Political Science Association

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