Who Is Winning Over America?
A peek at That Patchwork's new 2024 United States Master Electoral Index
Editor’s Note: Hey everyone — it’s been quite a month in my personal and professional life but I’m striving to continue writing ahead of the elections next month with a return to an average of one post a week. Here I’m introducing That Patchwork’s 2024 United States Master Electoral Index — a one of a kind project I launched a couple years ago that fully captures the partisan composition of the states beyond simply relying on presidential metrics. This is the first of what I anticipate will be several posts before and after the election that will break down more of this data to paint as accurate a portrait of the states as possible. Enjoy.
We’re weeks away now from the time at which millions of ballots across local, state and federal offices will be counted, electing and re-electing thousands of people to govern their local community, their state and the federal government. And what better way to capture where the union stands than That Patchwork’s 2024 United States Master Electoral Index. Below is a partisan composition of each state based on six metrics: the last two gubernatorial elections, seat shares in each state’s Senate, seat shares in each state’s lower legislative chamber, the last two presidential elections, and the seat shares in each state’s congressional delegation the last four U.S. Senate elections.
Election margins and/or seat share margins are calculated for state and federal offices in order to create an electoral index which is display as net Democratic margin. State measures are comprised of averaging the two-party margin of the last two gubernatorial elections and accounting for the seat margin of each party in each state’s legislative chamber. Federal measures are comprised of the seat margin of each party in each state’s federal House congressional delegation, the two party-margin of the last four federal senate elections in each state, and the average two-party margin of the last two presidential elections in each state. For the federal measures, House margins are weighted at 24 percent with senate and presidential indices weighted at 38 percent each. The weights are applied to limit distorting factors on the federal index score like a state only having one or three House seats or a state with seat margins.
The result looks like this. There are 28 states in the union that, overall, lean Republican and 22 states that overall lean toward Democrats. Overall, Republicans lead Democrats electorally across the federation by 4 points. For decades up until as late as the 2010s, Democrats were competitive if not dominant in the states. Since then, Republicans have been on the offensive as Democrats have shifted toward notching federal victories.
No one election turns a state blue or red. Rather, this one or a couple large victories or several smaller ones can shift a state leftward or rightward. If Texas for example were to election a Democrat to the U.S. Senate this year by, say, 2 points, it would marginally impact Texas’s GOP+9 electoral index score even the state’s reliably Republican orientation at the gubernatorial, state legislative, House and presidential levels. Perhaps a more apt comparison is Georgia, a GOP+4 state with two Democratic U.S. Senators but is comfortably though not solidly Republican. Another example is New Hampshire, a state that is 26 points more Republican at the state-level than it is at the federal level. For Georgia and Texas, that figure is 3 points. Overall, 33 states are more Republican at the state level than the federal level.
Florida, a state national data journalists find confusing isn’t any more confusing that Georgia, Arizona, or Wisconsin. Florida is 10 points more Republican statewide than it is federally. It’s how presidential and some senate contests remain hotly competitive, but also a place where the incumbent Republican governor was re-elected by a nearly 20-point margin.
Another way to articulate how state partisan compositions can’t be fully captured by presidential metrics involves looking at the big 12 states with competitive U.S. Senate or presidential contests this year. Try not get too bamboozled.
For Republicans, despite Texas and Florida being GOP+10 and GOP+17, respectively, at the state-level their U.S. Senate index is markedly tighter as two polarizing incumbent Republicans in these states vie for re-election. Then you have the states that are frustratingly close for partisans. Georgia, Wisconsin, Arizona, despite having GOP-leaning master index scores, have proven to be well within Democrats’ grasp. Wisconsin, a state whose federal index score tends to obscure its more statewide GOP orientation stands out. Nevada, a state where a Republican governor was ever so narrowly elected faces a firmly Democrat-controlled legislature but also involves a somewhat competitive Senate election and an even more competitive presidential contest.
In Montana, the Democratic Senate incumbent faces an uphill battle as a once comfortably Democratic state turns red throughout. Instead, the Senate election in Ohio will stand to determine how voter preferences still do diverge from national expectations.
This does place into better perspective how partisan orientations can and do still diverge in decisive ways despite how polarization has seemingly ossified the states into clear camps of red or blue. During a period where the misleading national angle has a monopoly over how the union is quantitatively and qualitatively assessed, I’ve always said if you’re not paying attention to the states then you’re not paying attention.
You might still be shocked at the outcome on November 5, but hopefully after this you won’t be surprised.
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