The Senate Elections in 2010 – Some Statewide Voting Numbers

Over the past few weeks, I’ve begun to look at the potential candidates in some of the states that are likely to have close Senate races in 2010. Before I continue that process and ultimately come up with my first predictions, I want to take a look at the results of statewide elections in the states that will hold Senate elections next year.

Today, I’ll start with the Democratic Presidential vote percentages for the last three elections. I computed the simple average across these years, then a weighted average (with 3,2,1 weighting going backward) and finally a projection for 2010 based on linear regression of the three years. These are denoted “Avg”, “Wt Avg” and “Trend”, respectively in the table below.

State		2000	2004	2008	Avg	WtAvg	Trend
AK	R	28%	36%	38%	34%	36%	42%
AL	R	42%	37%	39%	39%	39%	37%
AR	D	46%	45%	39%	43%	42%	38%
AZ	R	45%	44%	45%	45%	45%	45%
CA	D	53%	54%	61%	56%	57%	62%
CO	D	42%	47%	54%	48%	50%	57%
CT	D	56%	54%	61%	57%	58%	61%
DE	D	55%	53%	62%	57%	58%	62%
FL	R	49%	47%	51%	49%	49%	51%
GA	R	43%	41%	47%	44%	44%	47%
HI	D	56%	54%	72%	61%	63%	73%
IA	R	49%	49%	54%	51%	52%	54%
ID	R	28%	30%	36%	31%	33%	37%
IL	D	55%	55%	62%	57%	59%	63%
IN	D	41%	39%	50%	43%	45%	50%
KS	R	37%	37%	41%	38%	39%	41%
KY	R	41%	40%	41%	41%	41%	41%
LA	R	45%	42%	40%	42%	42%	39%
MD	D	56%	56%	62%	58%	59%	63%
MO	R	47%	46%	49%	47%	48%	49%
NC	R	43%	44%	50%	46%	47%	51%
ND	D	33%	36%	45%	38%	40%	47%
NH	R	47%	50%	54%	50%	52%	56%
NV	D	46%	48%	55%	50%	51%	56%
NY	D	60%	59%	62%	60%	61%	62%
NY	D	60%	59%	62%	60%	61%	62%
OH	R	46%	49%	51%	49%	50%	52%
OK	R	38%	34%	34%	35%	35%	32%
OR	D	47%	52%	57%	52%	54%	60%
PA	R	51%	51%	55%	52%	53%	55%
SC	R	41%	41%	45%	42%	43%	45%
SD	R	38%	39%	45%	41%	42%	46%
UT	D	26%	26%	34%	29%	30%	35%
VT	D	51%	59%	68%	59%	62%	72%
WA	D	50%	53%	58%	54%	55%	60%
WI	D	48%	50%	56%	51%	53%	57%

(Note that there are two rows for New York due to the "normal" election for Chuck Schumer's seat and the special election for the one to be vacated by Hillary Clinton. The second column is the Party of the current officeholder: for purposes of this Table, I put a "D" for Bernie Sanders even though he is technically an Independent.)

What can this tells us? Ignoring all of the other factors, this can show us where incumbents of one Party are sitting in seats within states, which are voting for the other Party. In what follows, the states will be following parenthetically by three numbers, referring to the “Avg”, “Wt Avg” and “Trend” numbers from the Table.

Which Democratic seats might be vulnerable? The most notable is Arkansas (43%, 42%, 38%), in which Blanche Lincoln is up for re-election. The second is North Dakota (38%, 40%, 47%) where Byron Dorgan will seek his fourth term. The only other possibility is Indiana (43%, 45%, 50%) – Evan Bayh’s seat.

Now, which seats currently held by Republicans are in states that have been voting Democratic? The three that stand out are New Hampshire (50%, 52%, 56%) where Judd Gregg will be running for re-election, Pennsylvania (52%, 53%, 55%) in which Arlen Specter has said he will seek another term, and Iowa (51%, 52%, 54%) and the seat long held by Chuck Grassley. All three of these seats have all three indicators over 50% meaning preference for Democrats in Presidential races. There are a few other states where at least one indicator is at 50% or all three indicators are very near that mark. For two states, all three indicators are over 48%. These are Ohio (49%, 50%, 52%) and Florida (49%, 49%, 51%), two seats that will be open due to the announced retirements of George Voinovich and Mel Martinez. Then there is North Carolina (46%, 47%, 51%) where Richard Burr will seek a second term and Missouri (47%, 48%, 49%), which will be an open seat due to the retirement of Kit Bond.

Clearly, this is but one set of numbers of interest, and a set that completely ignores incumbency and the past popularity of that incumbent. However, they are numbers to be considered. In the next few days, I’ll look at other statewide vote counts for the two Parties and see what this information is revealed.