Monthly Archives: November 2014

US elections

Republican seat gains in the House off a swing to Democrats since 2010?

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by Stephen Fisher

There was clearly a swing to the Republicans since 2012 in yesterday’s US midterm elections. However, the most comparable recent election for the House contest was not the general election but the 2010 mid terms.

The Democrats seem to have recovered votes since the 2010 big wave Republican takeover. According to yesterday’s exit polls, there has been a small (1 %) swing to the Democrats. And yet, the number of Republican House seats has increased from 242 in 2010, to a likely (at the time of writing) final tally of around 248 this year. Continue reading Republican seat gains in the House off a swing to Democrats since 2010? →

Methodology, US elections

A guide to the US midterm election forecasts

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Stephen Fisher and Jonathan Jones

Tomorrow Americans go to the polls for the midterm elections. All 435 seats in the House of Representatives are up for election, as well as 36 Senate seats and a host of state and local offices.

The historic tendency for the President’s party to lose ground in midterm elections, is sufficiently strong to say that there is virtually no chance of the Democrats regaining control of the House. Meanwhile the experience of previous midterm elections with a second-term President suggests that the Republicans should have a decent of winning the extra six seats they need to take control of the Senate.

Not only history but also political and economic circumstances in recent months, and especially current polls for individual Senate races suggest the Republicans have, according to the main forecasters, at least a two-thirds chance of achieving a Senate majority.

We are not attempting to forecast the outcomes of any of these elections, but several others with excellent track records for US election forecasting are. This article purely provides some introduction and links to the forecasts and offers some commentary from a British election forecasting perspective. We consider the House forecasts before turning to those for the Senate. Continue reading A guide to the US midterm election forecasts →