The Playing Field Shifts: Predicting the Seats-Votes Curve in the 2008 U.S. House Election

Publication Year
2008

Type

Journal
Abstract
This paper predicts the seats-votes curve for the 2008 U.S. House elections. We document how the electoral playing field has shifted from a Republican advantage between 1996 and 2004 to a Democratic tilt today. Due to the shift in incumbency advantage from the Republicans to the Democrats, compounded by a greater number of retirements among Republican members, we show that the Democrats now enjoy a partisan bias, and can expect to win more seats than votes for the first time since 1992. While this bias is not as large as the advantage the Republicans held in 2006, it is likely to help the Democrats win more seats than votes and thus expand their majority.
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