PoliBlog notes a Reuters report: “handicappers expect a mere 33 [House districts] to be competitive” in this year’s midterm elections.
At 7.6%, this is a ridiculously low share.
I hope that some of the readers of the blog who follow Canadian, UK, or other countries’ elections can enlighten us as to what is a typical share of seats that are competitive in elections in other single-seat-district systems.
Single-seat districts, especially with plurality rule, tend to have lots of ‘safe’ seats. It is inherent in the system, because party electorates always include some geographic strongholds. But there an be little doubt that the US House is on the low side (and that it has gotten worse over time). Of course, gerrymandering is a factor, but so are the increasing homogeneity of the two major parties’ electorates, and the greater use in the USA than in other plurality jurisdictions of pork barrel and other practices that shift voter attention away from party and towards incumbents’ district service.
Two responses already within the first twelve hours! Thanks Lewis and Alan!
You could look at the electoral pendulum for Australia. The parliamentary library posts a seat pendulum before each general election and it gets talked about a lot in election reportage. The swing is not especially uniform so the pendulum is not always a reliable predictor.
Seed planted by Alan — 27 February 2006 @ 04:40
In the UK in 2005 there were perhaps 150 out of 646 that were at all competitive.
This is estimated with reference to the party headquarters’ own designation of target seats. Labour had 111, mostly defensive, target seats, which is realistic. the Conservatives nominally had 180, which reflected how many they needed to gain power. In practice there were about 80 real targets. Adding in a fair few contested seats involving third parties, and Northern Ireland, gets you to about 150. This is a maximal estimate – they get pretty predictable after the first 80.
This said, the parties contest seats seriously on a wider front than in the US because the national tide may lead to unexpected victories, as in many Labour gains in 1997. Tight spending controls at the constituency level mean that incumbents cannot use financial advantage in the same way as the US to scare off potential competitors and keep a seat safe.
There are some issues in defining ‘competitive’ elections in a ways that is truly comparable between the US and countries where the swing of the national pendulum is a more important determinant of individual races.
The US also seems to have far more seats literally uncontested by one or other major party than other countries.
Seed planted by Lewis Baston — 27 February 2006 @ 06:14
The problem is that both parties gerrymander like hell because they both seem to be content with only a couple dozen competitive seats decide the balance of the House.
Dunno if this is true, but I once read that, statistically, a job in the U.S. House of Representatives was safer than a job in the Soviet Politburo.
Seed planted by fontaine — 27 February 2006 @ 12:09
The electoral boundaries in Australia used to be a subject of intense partisan competition. Australians do intense partisan significantly more intensely than Americans. The lines are now drawn by an independent commission subject to judicial review.
Seed planted by Alan — 27 February 2006 @ 13:26
Elections Canada makes the raw vote count available, and I ran a little perl script to get these figures:
Within % of valid votes => % of ridings
0.200 % => 0.32 %
0.300 % => 0.97 %
0.500 % => 1.95 %
0.700 % => 1.95 %
1.000 % => 2.92 %
1.500 % => 4.22 %
2.000 % => 6.82 %
3.000 % => 10.39 %
5.000 % => 15.91 %
7.000 % => 22.08 %
10.000 % => 30.52 %
15.000 % => 41.56 %
20.000 % => 56.17 %
30.000 % => 75.65 %
50.000 % => 94.81 %
100.000 % => 100.00 %
I dunno what the bounds are for “competitive”, but if it’s 5% then Canada has about 16% competitive ridings, double the USAmerican figure.
Seed planted by vasi — 27 February 2006 @ 18:01
Vasi, great stuff. Thanks!!
Seed planted by Professor Matthew Søberg Shugart — 28 February 2006 @ 09:41