What is the right way to calculate the vote share of GOP/Dem in House elections

[jaichind]

The latest Bloomberg tally in the House races has  GOP at 52.0% and Dem at 44.4% of the House vote as of 09:42 EST, Nov. 10.

Dem  31,699,109 out of 71,280,460
GOP  37,051,962 out of  71,280,460

 Problem with the way they computed the vote, for places like CA or WA  where it is an all GOP or an all Dem race, Bloomberg counts the vote of the winning candidate for the party that won but just have the vote share of the losing candidate which is from the same party as the winning candidate go to "other." Not sure this is the best but I could not think of anything better other than this methodology under counts  the vote share of the two parties.    

[jaichind]

I am working on a list of House races that will have the effect of warping the GOP/Dem vote share calculations using Bloomberg method.  

a) If a major party wins uncontested then it is underestimating the vote share of said party because if it had been a R vs D race then the winning party would gain vote share.  
b) If a major party wins against non-major party opposition then the non-contesting major party is losing vote share since had it put up a candidate it could have accrued more votes.  
c) If the race is a runoff between two same party candidates then I am counting it as neutral since what Bloomberg does is to count the winner only.  So the winning party lost out in terms of vote share computation on the votes for the losing candidate.  But the non-participating party in the second round also lost vote share since it did have support in the primary round that is not being reflected.  For this scenario I am counting it as neutral.  



AL-4   - R wins uncontested        - has the effect of underestimating GOP vote share lead over Dem
AL-7   - D wins uncontested        - has the effect of overestimating GOP vote share lead over Dem
AZ-7   - D wins over Other          -  has the effect of underestimating GOP vote share lead over Dem
AZ-8   - R wins over Other          - has the effect of overestimating GOP vote share lead over Dem
CA-4   - R wins over R                 - neutral
CA-5   - D wins over Other          - has the effect of underestimating GOP vote share lead over Dem
CA-17 - D wins over D                -  neutral
CA-19 - D wins over D                -  neutral
CA-20 - D wins over Other          - has the effect of underestimating GOP vote share lead over Dem
CA-28 - D wins over Other          - has the effect of underestimating GOP vote share lead over Dem
CA-34 - D wins over D                -  neutral
CA-35 - D wins over D                -  neutral
CA-44 - D wins over Other          - has the effect of underestimating GOP vote share lead over Dem
FL-12 - R wins uncontested        - has the effect of underestimating GOP vote share lead over Dem
FL-13 - R wins over Other          - has the effect of overestimating GOP vote share lead over Dem
FL-14 - D wins uncontested        - has the effect of overestimating GOP vote share lead over Dem
FL-21 - D wins uncontested        - has the effect of overestimating GOP vote share lead over Dem
FL-25 - R wins uncontested        - has the effect of underestimating GOP vote share lead over Dem
FL-27 - R wins uncontested        - has the effect of underestimating GOP vote share lead over Dem
GA-3   - R wins uncontested        - has the effect of underestimating GOP vote share lead over Dem
GA-4   - D wins uncontested        - has the effect of overestimating GOP vote share lead over Dem
GA-5   - D wins uncontested        - has the effect of overestimating GOP vote share lead over Dem
GA-8   - R wins uncontested        - has the effect of underestimating GOP vote share lead over Dem
LA-2   - D wins over D                 - neutral
LA-3   - R wins over R                 - neutral
LA-4   - R wins over Other          - has the effect of overestimating GOP vote share lead over Dem
MA-1   - D wins uncontested       - has the effect of overestimating GOP vote share lead over Dem
MA-2   - D wins uncontested       - has the effect of overestimating GOP vote share lead over Dem
MA-4   - D wins uncontested       - has the effect of overestimating GOP vote share lead over Dem
MA-5   - D wins uncontested       - has the effect of overestimating GOP vote share lead over Dem
MA-7   - D wins uncontested       - has the effect of overestimating GOP vote share lead over Dem
MA-8   - D wins uncontested       - has the effect of overestimating GOP vote share lead over Dem
NY-5   - D wins over Other          -  has the effect of underestimating GOP vote share lead over Dem
NY-6   - D wins uncontested       - has the effect of overestimating GOP vote share lead over Dem
NY-8   - D wins over Other          -  has the effect of underestimating GOP vote share lead over Dem
NY-9   - D wins over Other          -  has the effect of underestimating GOP vote share lead over Dem
NY-10  - D wins over Other          -  has the effect of underestimating GOP vote share lead over Dem
NY-13  - D wins over Other          -  has the effect of underestimating GOP vote share lead over Dem
NY-14  - D wins over Other          -  has the effect of underestimating GOP vote share lead over Dem
NY-15  - D wins over Other          -  has the effect of underestimating GOP vote share lead over Dem
NY-16  - D wins uncontested       - has the effect of overestimating GOP vote share lead over Dem
NY-22 - R wins uncontested        - has the effect of underestimating GOP vote share lead over Dem
NC-9   - R wins uncontested        - has the effect of underestimating GOP vote share lead over Dem
OH-7   - R wins uncontested        - has the effect of underestimating GOP vote share lead over Dem
OK-1   - R wins uncontested        - has the effect of underestimating GOP vote share lead over Dem
PA-14  - D wins uncontested       - has the effect of overestimating GOP vote share lead over Dem
PA-15 - R wins uncontested        - has the effect of underestimating GOP vote share lead over Dem
PA-18 - R wins uncontested        - has the effect of underestimating GOP vote share lead over Dem
SC-1   - R wins uncontested        - has the effect of underestimating GOP vote share lead over Dem
SC-4   - R wins over Other          - has the effect of overestimating GOP vote share lead over Dem
TX-3   - R wins over Other          - has the effect of overestimating GOP vote share lead over Dem
TX-4   - R wins uncontested        - has the effect of underestimating GOP vote share lead over Dem
TX-5   - R wins over Other          - has the effect of overestimating GOP vote share lead over Dem
TX-9   - D wins over Other          -  has the effect of underestimating GOP vote share lead over Dem
TX-20  - D wins over Other          -  has the effect of underestimating GOP vote share lead over Dem
TX-21  - R wins over Other          - has the effect of overestimating GOP vote share lead over Dem
TX-26   - R wins over Other          - has the effect of overestimating GOP vote share lead over Dem
TX-28  - D wins over Other          -  has the effect of underestimating GOP vote share lead over Dem
TX-29  - D wins over Other          -  has the effect of underestimating GOP vote share lead over Dem
TX-30  - D wins over Other          -  has the effect of underestimating GOP vote share lead over Dem
TX-33  - D wins over Other          -  has the effect of underestimating GOP vote share lead over Dem
VA-3   - D wins uncontested        - has the effect of overestimating GOP vote share lead over Dem
VA-9   - R wins over Other           - has the effect of overestimating GOP vote share lead over Dem
WA-4  - R wins over R                 - neutral

All in all, there are 24 districts where the GOP vote share lead is overestimated and 32 districts where the GOP vote share lead is underestimated.  So all in all the GOP lead in vote share of 7.5% seems to if anything underestimate what the GOP vote share lead should be.  

[jaichind]

One way to refine this number would be to take into account the votes that are missing from the Bloomberg tally

Dem  31,699,109 out of 71,280,460
GOP  37,051,962 out of  71,280,460

that were cast for a candidate that either had a D or R next to their name. They were in CA WA and LA where either the election was the first round or a second round that ran after a primary.  

Using this method, we can add

64,053 to R for CA-4
48,264 to D for CA-17
31,850 to D for CA-19
12,866 to D for CA-34
21,208 to D for CA-35
21,205 to D for LA-1
37,775 to D for LA-2
28,330 to R for LA-3
26,605+9,890+53,627+17,875+4,593 to R for LA-5
5,182+26,520+1,848+35,013+5,814+1,447+19,146 to R for LA-6
7,306+4,036 to D for LA-6
70,624 to R for WA-4

Dem 31,883,619 out of  71,280,460 =  44.7%
GOP 37,422,529  out of  71,280,460  = 52.5%

In 2010 it was GOP  51.7%  Dem 44.9%
In 1994 it was GOP  51.9%  Dem 44.8%

I guess the Dem should count themselves lucky that the GOP majority is not even larger based on these vote share numbers.  I think it has more to do with the way the gerrymandering worked.  It mostly created a floor for the GOP but at the cost of a ceiling.  It is interesting in 2012 the vote share was GOP 47.6%  Dem 48.8%.  But now in 2014 an increase in 5% in vote share for the GOP only yielded around 14-15 seats.  Of course a lot of the swing was in drop-offs in Dem turnout in areas that the GOP could never win anyway.  

[jaichind]

On the flip side these numbers do not include a lot of CA numbers that are still being counted so the GOP lead will shrink a bit.

[Senate Minority Leader Lord Voldemort]

Huh, I've never thought of them not counting the votes for both candidates in a one party match up. I think it would make more sense to count every vote ever cast for a Democrat and every vote ever cast for a Republican in this election if you want to do a national tally.