Using Folded Seats-Votes Curves to Compare Partisan Bias in the 2020 Presidential Election with Other 21st Century Elections

@article{Cervas_2022, title={Using Folded Seats‐Votes Curves to Compare Partisan Bias in the 2020 Presidential Election with Partisan Bias in the Five Other Presidential Elections in the 21st Century}, volume={52}, ISSN={1741-5705}, url={http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/psq.12788}, DOI={10.1111/psq.12788}, number={2}, journal={Presidential Studies Quarterly}, publisher={Wiley}, author={Cervas, Jonathan and Grofman, Bernard}, year={2022}, month=Apr, pages={429–435} }

Abstract

Using a folded seats-votes curve, we examine partisan bias in the 2020 presidential election and compare it to partisan bias in the five other presidential elections in the twenty-first century. 2020 and 2016 are extreme outliers with respect to the absolute magnitude of partisan bias in the Electoral College. In 2016, 2020, and 2000 bias runs in a pro-Republican direction; in the other three elections in this century, the opposite is true. But partisan bias can vary with where on the seats-vote curve we look to find bias, and we identify the lowest vote share at which there is no partisan bias (if such exists).