Wave elections (1918-2016)/State legislative waves
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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
For 2018 to qualify historically as a wave election, Republicans must lose 494 state legislative seats in 2018.
State legislative races occur every two or four years, depending on the state and the chamber. The number of state legislative seats we analyzed varied due to the changing size of state legislative chambers, states being added to the union, states changing their election years, and more. See our data explanation section to see how we accounted for different term lengths and odd-year elections.
The president's party lost 494 or more state legislative seats in 10 of the 50 elections since 1918, ranging from 494 seats lost under President Dwight Eisenhower in 1954 to 1,022 seats lost under President Herbert Hoover in 1932.
Four of the 10 wave elections happened in a president's first midterm election.
The median number of seats lost by the president's party is 82. The average number of seats lost is about 169.
The chart below shows the number of seats the president's party lost in the 10 wave elections. To see the full set of elections from 1918 to 2016, click here.
| State legislative wave elections | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | President | Party | Election type | State legislative seats change | Elections analyzed[1] | |
| 1932 | Hoover | R | Presidential | -1022 | 7365 | |
| 1922 | Harding | R | First midterm | -907 | 6907 | |
| 1966 | Johnson | D | First midterm[2] | -782 | 7561 | |
| 1938 | Roosevelt | D | Second midterm | -769 | 7179 | |
| 1958 | Eisenhower | R | Second midterm | -702 | 7627 | |
| 2010 | Obama | D | First midterm | -702 | 7306 | |
| 1974 | Ford | R | Second midterm[3] | -695 | 7481 | |
| 1920 | Wilson | D | Presidential | -654 | 6835 | |
| 1930 | Hoover | R | Presidential | -640 | 7361 | |
| 1954 | Eisenhower | R | First midterm | -494 | 7513 | |
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Footnotes
- ↑ The number of state legislative seats available for analysis varied, with as many as 7,795 and as few as 6,835.
- ↑ Lyndon Johnson's (D) first term began in November 1963 after the death of President John F. Kennedy (D), who was first elected in 1960. Before Johnson had his first midterm in 1966, he was re-elected president in 1964.
- ↑ Gerald Ford's (R) first term began in August 1974 following the resignation of President Richard Nixon (R), who was first elected in 1968 and was re-elected in 1972. Because Ford only served for two full months before facing the electorate, this election is classified as Nixon's second midterm.
