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National and State-by-State Party Balance of Power/Trend Reports

 
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  1. Description
    1. National Trend Reports for Governor, U.S. House and U.S. Senate
    2. State-by-State Trend Report for U.S. House
  2. Data Elements
  3. Example

 

 

Description

National Trend Reports for Governor, U.S. House and U.S. Senate

For the general election in presidential and midterm years, continuously updating reports provide the national balance of power/trend information for Governor, U.S. Senate and U.S. House. There is one report for each.

The individual national balance of power/trend reports show a party breakdown if the present trends in the vote count continue for races for Governors, U.S. Senate and U.S. House.

  • The parties are "Dem" (for Democrat), "GOP" (for Republican) and "Others" for third-party and independent candidates.

  • Effective 2024 GE, the U.S. Senate and U.S. House trends include additional party breakdowns where that information is available:

    • "Others caucus with Dem". Third-party and independent candidates that caucus with Democrats.

    • "Others caucus with GOP". Third-party and independent candidates that caucus with Republicans.

The "Others" section continues to track all third-party and independent candidates who are NOT listed in the "caucus with" sections as holdovers, leaders and winners.

 

 

  Note

 

Races where no votes have been reported do not figure in a trend table. Therefore, early in the election, the trend does not add up to the full number of seats or offices.

 

 

 

State-by-State Trend Report for U.S. House

This report is in the format similar to the national trend report, but tracks the changes to the U.S. House seats at the state level.

Data Elements

 

  Note

 

The unit for each is candidates in a party seat.

 

 

 

 

 

XML Element

Description

trendtable

The tag for this report.

@office

Name of office (Governor, U.S. Senate or U.S. House).

@OfficeTypeCode

Office type code (G, S or H).

@Test

Indicates whether this is a TEST (Test="1") or LIVE election day report (Test="0").

@timestamp

The date and time when the report was last updated.

party/@title

Party abbreviation ("Dem", "GOP" or "Others").

  Note

 

Effective 2024 GE, the U.S. Senate and U.S. House trend reports contain the following information if available:

  • "Others caucus with Dem" breakdown

  • "Others caucus with GOP" breakdown

 

 

 

trend/@name

The name of the trend in this section.

"Current"

The total number of seats for the office for each party, before the current election.

"Won"

The number of seats for each party that have been declared winners by the AP in the current election.

"Leading"

The number of seats for each party that are currently leading but have not been declared winners by the AP in the current election. For a candidate to be counted as "leading," both the EEVP and precincts reporting must be greater than 5%.

"Holdovers"

The number of Governor or U.S. Senate seats for each party that are not up for election in the current election. (For example, only one-third of the Senate is up for election each year, so two-thirds of the senators are holdovers.)

  Note

 

All U.S. House seats are up for any given election, so Holdovers will be 0 for the U.S. House.

 

 

 

"Winning Trend"

Party breakdown if present trend continues (Won, Leading and Holdovers combined).

"InsufficientVote"

The number of seats for each party where the race is ignored in trend calculations. Races with fewer than 5% of precincts reporting, with less than 5% of registered voters having voted so far, and with no declared winner are considered to have insufficient votes. Uncalled, uncontested races are included as part of the Insufficient Vote.

NetChange

Net change is broken down into two subcategories - Winners and Leaders.

trend/@name

The name of the trend in this section.

"Winners"

The number of seats that each party has won or lost in races where a winner has been declared. Any races where a winner has not been declared are ignored in this calculation.

For example:

  • If two races have been called and both for Democrats, and the incumbents in both of these races are Republicans, then the net change winners would be +2 for DEMs and -2 for GOP.

  • If a third race is then called with a GOP winner and a GOP incumbent, the net change would remain +2 DEM and -2 GOP.

  • If a fourth race is called for a GOP winner where the incumbent is a DEM, then the net change winners would be +1 DEM and -1 GOP.

"Leaders"

The number of seats that each party would win or lose in races where the winner has not been declared. Races with insufficient votes are not included in Net Change Leaders. Net Change Winners and Net Change Leaders may be added together to get net change trends, assuming that the leaders will become winners.

InsufficientVote

Races with insufficient votes are broken down into categories based on the incumbent parties.

trend/@name

The name of the trend in this section.

"Dem Open"

The number of races with a Dem incumbent not running for re-election.

"GOP Open"

The number of races with a GOP incumbent not running for re-election.

"Caucus with Dem Open"

(For U.S. Senate and U.S. House trends effective 2024 GE) The number of races with a non-running incumbent who caucuses with Democrats.

"Caucus with GOP Open"

(For U.S. Senate and U.S. House trends effective 2024 GE) The number of races with a non-running incumbent who caucuses with Republicans.

"Oth Open"

The number of races with a minor party incumbent not running for re-election.

"Dem Incumbent"

The number of races with a Dem incumbent running for re-election.

"GOP Incumbent"

The number of races with a GOP incumbent running for re-election.

"Caucus with Dem Incumbent"

(For U.S. Senate and U.S. House trends effective 2024 GE) The number of races with a running incumbent who caucuses with Democrats.

"Caucus with GOP Incumbent"

(For U.S. Senate and U.S. House trends effective 2024 GE) The number of races with a running incumbent who caucuses with Republicans.

"Oth Incumbent"

The number of races with a minor party incumbent running for re-election.

"Total"

The total number of races with insufficient votes.

Example

 

  Note

 

For an example of the fields in the 2024 GE national trend report for U.S. Senate, see Trend Reports in the Release Notes.

 

 

 

This XML example from 2012 GE shows a National U.S. House Balance of Power/Trend report. The Governor and U.S. Senate Balance of Power/Trend reports have the same format. The main difference is the Governor and U.S. Senate tables will have non-zero values for "Holdovers."

The following is the same example rendered in a readable table:

 

 

DEM

REP

OTHERS

Current

193

242

0

Won

198

227

5

Leading

2

3

0

Holdovers

0

0

0

 

----

----

----

Winning Trend

200

230

5

Insufficient Vote

0

0

0

Net Change:

 

 

 

Winners

+6

-10

+5

Leaders

+1

-2

+0

 

-----

----

----

 

+7

-12

+5

Insufficient Vote:

 

 

 

Dem Open:  0

GOP Open:  0

Oth Open:  0

Dem Incumbent:  0

GOP Incumbent:  0

Oth Incumbent:  0

 

 

 

Total: 0

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

If you still require additional assistance, please contact AP Customer Support.

For current system status or system maintenance information, please visit the AP Customer Zone website.

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

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