Analyzing voting trends in the US House of Representatives

INFO 526 - Spring 2024 - Project 1

The Power of Voters: Christian Ortmann, Sachin Patil, Abhishek Kumar, Tejas Bhawari, Monica Kommareddy, Nick Ferrante

US House Election Dataset

Understanding the Dataset

  • Data sourced from MIT Election Data and Science Lab
  • Contains observations from elections in the House of Representatives over a span of 47 years starting in 1976 all the way up to 2022 and encompasses a total of 32,452 recorded events. Each event is represented with 20 attributes.

Question 1

How did US voting trends change election results from 2016-2020?

Analysis

To answer this question we will look at voting metrics to understand party majority and voter sentiment in each state for the years 2016, 2018, and 2020. This will identify patterns and significant changes that occurred in the election results.

Election Results

Insight

  • The sentiment of the general population is often overlooked by the electoral system
  • The sentiment of people during a single presidency will change significantly
  • Evident trends can be seen such as supporting the opposite party of the current president in midterm elections

Question 2

How often did change occur in House representation from the years 2012-2022 in the state of Arizona and which voting methods played a significant role in these elections?

Analysis

To answer this question we will look at Arizona congressional district mappings in the years 2012, 2016, and 2022 to examine the changes that occur in district representation. We will also consider various voting methods and determine which played the largest roles in these elections.

Arizona Congressional Districts

Arizona Congressional Districts

Voting Methods

Insight

  • It is not common for the party representation of a district to change in one or two elections
  • Doesn’t mean that change doesn’t occur
  • Voting methods have minimal influence on which party is elected

Conclusion

  • On a national scale, it is not uncommon for the majority representation in the House to not reflect the voting results of the general population

  • It is common for voters to support the opposite party of the current president in midterm elections

  • Regarding state districts, change does occur, though it may take years for it to be realized

  • It is rare that write in votes effectively produce a winning candidate.