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Who Performed Better? Pres Nom or Party?


vcczar

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Here's how well the Presidential nominees since 1980 did in the PV versus their party in House elections. I've rounded up when calculating just because I haven't the time for fractionalizing the math. Note: The 1980, 1992, and 1996 had high 3rd party turnout, which impacts those results greatly.

Trump is both the only person to run worse than his party twice, and the only presidential election winner to run worse than his party and lose against someone that didn't run worse than their party. 

I was most surprised by Obama, who in 2008, ran identically with his party, while McCain is the most overperforming nominee to lose an election.

In 1992, both nominees way underperformed because of Perot, but Clinton beat Bush by 1 in a matchup vs party. In 1996, Perot seemed only to hurt Dole in this analysis, similar to how Anderson seems to have hurt mostly Carter in 1980. 

Margin between Pres Nom PV and Same-Party US House PV in the same election: 

12pts

Reagan 1984
 
8pts
Bush 1988

3pts

Reagan 1980
McCain 2008
 
2pts
Kerry 2004
Obama 2012
 
1pt
Clinton 1996
Gore 2000
Bush 2004
Biden 2020
 
0pts
Bush 2000
Obama 2008
Clinton 2016
 
-1pt
Romney 2012
Trump 2020
 
-3pt
Trump 2016
 
-7pts
Clinton 1992
 
-8pts
Dukakis 1988
Bush 1992
Dole 1996
 
-9.5 pts
Carter 1980
 
-11.5 pts
Mondale 1984
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