2018 Congressional Election

This paper will seek to explain the determining factors in the outcomes of different districts in the congressional wave election of 2018. Demographic factors for each district including racial makeup, income, education, poverty level, etc will all be examined. In Congressional wave elections such as 2006 and 2010, one party makes a significant gain in seats in the House, the Senate, or both. To examine how incumbency affects seat retention, I will compare how incumbents fare versus non- incumbents in ideologically similar districts. Additional variables will be analyzed, including but not limited to: voting record, popularity ratings, support of the current administration, length of incumbency, etc. By examining this, I hope to create a probability metric to predict the outcome in the election of incumbents during wave elections