Comparing raw votes totals of Senators from different years

[Miles]

Inspired by IceSpear's thread.

Arkansas:



Boozman 2010- 57.5% (451,618 votes)
Pryor 2014- 42.5% (334,174)

Pryor does slightly better overall. He flips a few counties in the south (Drew, Nevada, Arkansas)

Louisiana:



Vitter 10- 56.0% (715,415)
Landrieu 14- 44.0% (561,210)

Same statewide margin. Landrieu wins West Baton Rouge and East Feliciana against Vitter, but generally does worse in urban parishes.

North Carolina:



Burr 10- 51.4% (1,458,046)
Hagan 14- 48.6% (1,377,651)

Unlike the previous two Democrats, Hagan actually does worse off. A few counties flip: Jackson, Bladen Lenoir, and Gates counties gave Burr more votes than Hagan. Hagan would actually pick up Nash county (one of the fairly few McCain 08 -> Obama 12 counties). Burr and Hagan got exactly the same amount of votes in Franklin county.

West Virginia:



Manchin 10- 50.1% (283,358)
Capito 14- 49.9% (281,820)

This was moderately surprising; though Manchin's winning percentage margin was almost a third of Capito's (10% vs 28%), he actually received about 1,500 more votes.


As usual, any requests are great!

[moderatevoter]

Hmm, maybe Gillespie 2014 vs. Gilmore 2008? Just something I randomly thought of, and it could be interesting?

[Miles]

Gilmore 08 (blue) vs Gillespie 14 (green).



Gillespie got 14% fewer votes statewide.

Also, even more interesting, is that Gilmore, even getting 33% in 2008, would have beat Warner pretty comfortably if he kept the same vote total:



Gilmore 08- 53.4% (1,228,830)
Warner 14- 46.6% (1,073,667)

[Miles]

I was actually surprised Warner would have held Henrico, and by almost 6%.

[IceSpear]

Gilmore 2008 thumping Warner 2014 is definitely worthy of induction in my thread...

[Bacon King]

Not really fair to compare a midterm to Presidential-election turnout.

Awesome maps though

[badgate]

I'd like to see a map of Sadler 2012 vs Cornyn 2014 lol


eta: after 2018 i will really be interested to see Cruz 2018 vs Cornyn 2014

[IceSpear]

I'd like to see a map of Sadler 2012 vs Cornyn 2014 lol


eta: after 2018 i will really be interested to see Cruz 2018 vs Cornyn 2014

Oh god, Sadler 2012 actually beats Cornyn 2014. I can't handle this...

If either side manages to ever actually awaken their sleeping giant of presidential voters in a midterm year...

[ElectionsGuy]

Holly hell, Gore defeats Cochran by 14 points!

Al Gore (2012): 503,467 (57.1%)
Thad Cochran (2014): 378,481 (42.9%)

But still, Susan Collins is unbeatable...

Susan Collins (2014): 413,505 (52.7%)
Angus King (2012): 370,580 (47.3%)

[Miles]

You can really see the difference VBM made in increasing turnout in CO: Udall/Gardner beats Buck/Bennet by about the same margin.

Udall 14 (red) vs Buck 10 (blue)



Udall 14- 53.4% (944,203)
Buck 10- 46.6% (824789)

Udall picks up Chafee, Larimer, Conejos and Larimer counties.

Bennet 10 (red) vs Gardner 14 (blue)



Gardner 14- 53.5% (983,891)
Bennet 10- 46.5% (854,685)

Gardner flips the three suburban Denver counties. Interestingly, though, Bennet still improves on Udall in the south; Pueblo county swings to Bennet and he actually picks up Los Animas.

[Miles]

Illinois; Giannoulias beats Oberwies by a larger margin than Durbin beats Kirk:



Gallatin, Henderson, Calhoun and Pulaski counties go for Giannoulias, but not Durbin. Fulton is the only county that Durbin wins that Giannoulias doesn't.

Durbin/Kirk detailed map.
Giannoulias/Oberwies detailed map.

[Xing]

Out of curiousity, what would Johnson '10 vs. Baldwin '12 look like?

How about Patrick '10 vs. Baker '14?

[Miles]

Grimes vs Paul instead of McConnell:



She flips a few Appalachian counties, and is generally much closer in the region, but still a 13% loss.

Paul 10- 56.4% (755,411)
Grimes 14- 43.6% (584,698)

[Miles]

Out of curiousity, what would Johnson '10 vs. Baldwin '12 look like?

How about Patrick '10 vs. Baker '14?

I'll work on these next. For the Johnson/Baldwin matchup, keep in mind that its a Presidential year vs a midterm, so its less of an apples to apples comparison.

[Lief 🗽]

So does the West Virginia map mean that the right-wing swing of the state this year was as much Democrats not voting at all as it was Democrats switching to Republicans?

[Miles]

So does the West Virginia map mean that the right-wing swing of the state this year was as much Democrats not voting at all as it was Democrats switching to Republicans?

Thats what I was expecting, but looks like turnout was down the most in WV-01, which was also the least competitive House race:



Turnout was still down in every county, though.

[Miles]

Patrick 10 vs Baker 14:



Patrick 10- 51.6% (1,113,336)
Baker 14- 48.4% (1,044,573)
Baldwin 12 vs Johnson 10:



Baldwin 12- 57.9% (1,547,104)
Johnson 10- 42.1% (1,125,999)


Dominating!

[Xing]

Interesting, I guess that really does show what a difference Presidential year turnout can make. I guess Johnson actually got far fewer votes than Thompson. Lower turnout seemed to make the difference in the Massachusetts gubernatorial election this year, as well.

[tmthforu94]

Baldwin 12 vs Johnson 10:



Baldwin 12- 57.9% (1,547,104)
Johnson 10- 42.1% (1,125,999)


Dominating!

Yes, because comparing results in a presidential election year to one that isn't is always a good thing.

[Miles]

Yes, because comparing results in a presidential election year to one that isn't is always a good thing.

As I said earlier in the thread

I'll work on these next. For the Johnson/Baldwin matchup, keep in mind that its a Presidential year vs a midterm, so its less of an apples to apples comparison.

[Senate Minority Leader Lord Voldemort]

Since I'm a home state hack, I'm trying to think of a good California scenario, but since we switched to a jungle primary/runoff system, the 2012/2004 is kind of pointless. 2012/2010 has a significant turnout difference. Only one that's somewhat reasonable is 2010/2006, but 2006 is nearly a decade ago...

[badgate]

Here are some ones that interested me:

Two Special Senate Elections in MA

Scott Brown '10: 1,168,107 64.5%
Ed Markey '13: 642,988 35.5%


Two New Jersey Losers

Barbara Buono GOV '13: 809,978 51.17%
Jeff Bell SEN '14: 772,991 48.83%

Two New Jersey Winners

Chris Christie (i) GOV '13: 1,278,932 55.72%
Cory Booker (i) SEN '14: 1,016,204 44.28%

Massachusetts Revisited

Martha Coakley '10: 1,058,682 66.85%
Gabriel Gomez '13: 525,080 33.15%

[Xing]

Two Maryland winners:

O'Malley '10 - 54.2% (1,044,961)
Hogan '14 - 45.8 % (884,400)

Two Maryland losers:

Brown '14 - 51.3% (818,890)
Ehrlich '10 - 48.7% (776,319)

[Miles]

Dole got more votes in every county than Tillis did:



Dole 08- 57.0% (1,887,510)
Tillis 14- 43.0% (1,423,259)

And she would have beaten Hagan pretty easily, too:



Dole 08- 57.8% (1,458,046)
Hagan 14- 42.2% (1,377,651)

Hagan would have actually held Wake County in this case.

This, however, is a great map:



Hagan 08- 61.2% (2,249,311)
Tillis 14- 38.8% (1,423,259)

[Miles]

The state gained about 1.5-2 million people in the interim, but Tillis got about 175K more votes than Dole in 2002:



Tillis 14- 53.3% (1,423,259)
Dole 02- 46.7% (1,248,664)