To try and better understand what the rankings mean relative to each other, I am not prominently featuring the average result in the state. Unlike Wisconsin, where a typical race featured a Democratic margin of 51.5 to 48.5, there is no surprises where Nebraska falls on the spectrum, with Republicans holding a 28% margin on average. Keep in mind, that mean that the 6th most liberal district in the state, District 5, is an even 50-50.
I think these two reference points are really helpful in understanding the composition of the legislature. Sometimes, the natural lean of a state gives one party a very distinct, built in advantage - there's no question that if Republicans start out with that kind of advantage, it is going to be very difficult for Democrats to grab the reigns.
This is where the index comes in handy. By demonstrating where seats rank in the comparison to the state average, we can evaluate which seats Democrats need to make gains in if they are going to be successful. At that point, the strategic question becomes how to do so.
For Nebraska Democrats, it is a difficult proposition. For Districts 18, 23, 25, 27, and 29, strong Democratic campaigns would be able to claim the seats, but beyond there, it seems to me like one would have to field fairly conservative Democrats to gain any other ground. The result is that even if Nebraskan Democrats were able to build a winning coalition, it would be incredibly divided between legitimate progressive interests and a large body of very conservative Democrats, who may be more keen on governing with Republican colleagues.
It will be interesting to see how Nebraska stacks up with the rest of the conservative states - Republicans perform very strongly here thanks to two nearly 50 point victories for incumbent governor Dave Heineman, but they don't have an iron grip - no one here would be quick to forget about Sen. Ben Nelson, Obama captured the 2nd Congressional District, and Scott Kleeb ran some spirited campaigns in the past few cycles. But as a brand, the Democratic Party is hurting in Nebraska, and has no where to go but up.
In other housekeeping news, the blog has now been updated with some new features - an extended explanation of the methodology behind the index, and there is now a central page where you can easily grab the data yourself via Google Documents.
This is really interesting, but in the calculation for state legislative races, how did you account for the numerous legislative contests in which there were two Republican candidates, or two Democratic candidates? Or the incumbent ran unopposed?
ReplyDeleteSure thing.
ReplyDeleteIn races where a candidate is unopposed, or a single party held both of the runoff spots, the party is assigned the greatest electoral margin the party achieved in a legislative election that year. The reasoning? If a party didn't field a candidate in a race, or failed to reach the runoff, the party must assume that they would have faired worse in that election than in any race where they spent the energy of fielding a candidate.
Matt:
ReplyDeleteThis is a really impressive project you've put together (although as your model suggests, being a constituent of District 37, I don't really care for your political views :P).
Most of your analysis is pretty spot on. I would say people that could generally be described as "conservative" probably hold about 40 of the 49 seats in the Unicameral. Because of this conservative dominance, the political clashes tend to be more urban conservatives vs rural conservatives as the tiny liberal faction is just ignored by everyone.
Also, be careful about predicting "nowhere but up" for the state's Democrats. Nelson has had an impressive run here (one supported by many Republicans at times) but his vote on ObamaCare has probably finished him. He's being challenged by our very popular Attorney General, trails by double digits and can't get out of the 30s in polling. He's likely a goner. After THAT, the Nebraska Democrats will have found rock bottom. ;)
Again, very nice job with this. It's obvious you've put a ton of time and effort into this project and you should be proud of yourself.