The Rule of 13 in House and Senate Elections

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Ricochet : The Rule of 13 in House and Senate Elections

Tim Groseclose October 30, 2014

 

If you want to predict House or Senate elections, a useful notion is what I call theRule of 13. It says that if a district is misaligned with your partisanship by more than 13 points, then, to a close approximation, you have zero chance of winning that district. The rule predicts the following: (i) Mark Pryor is sure to lose his Senate reelection bid in Arkansas, (ii) Mitch McConnell is sure to win his reelection bid in Kentucky, (iii) if voters become convinced that challenger Greg Orman is, for all intents and purposes, a Democrat, then Pat Roberts is sure to win his reelection; (iv) although Alaska, Georgia, Louisiana, and North Carolina are conservative states, they are not conservative enough to invoke the Rule of 13; accordingly the Democratic candidates in those states at least have a chance of winning; (v) although the West Virginia 2nd and 3rd House races are called “tossups” by some prognosticators, the Rule of 13 says that the Republican candidates (Alex Mooney and Evan Jenkins) will win for certain.

 

The Rule of 13 is formally defined as follows.