The 2018 midterm election in the HOR, Superlatives Cat 1: Highest growth rate over 2014

Overall, the 2018 electorate (all 435 HOR races) grew by 42.41% over 2014:



This means that in terms of raw numbers, the electorate was close to 1 and 1/2 times larger than in 2014, which is indeed an enormous jump.

One state almost perfectly paced that statistic (VT):



With a +42.27% growth rate, VT came the closest to the national vote growth figure.

Logically, the states with growth rates considerably larger than the national average contributed the most to that average, they were the "drivers" of that average. And the states with growth rates far below the national average put the brakes on the average. It's logical.

5 states had growth rates above 70%, and it would surprise you to see which states they were.

1st place: UTAH



With an astounding growth rate of almost 86%, the UTAH vote went quite literally out of the roof. The D vote, at almost 104%, more than doubled in this state (but is not the D record-setter for 2018 - the R-vote growth, at +75.85% was also the largest growth rate for the GOP in all 50 states. Also, with 1,052,506 votes recorded, UTAH's total raw vote exceeded the 2012 presidential total and was only about 91,000 votes under the 2016 presidential vote total. It was also less than 10,000 votes under the 2018 senatorial total (Mitt Romney). Truly impressive. Congrats, Utah!

The Utah HOR congressional delegation went from R4 / D0 to R3 / D1, a D+1 gain.

The swing in Utah was D +6.49 over 2014.

2nd place: OKLAHOMA



With a growth rate of 80.41% over 2014, OK had the second highest growth rate and for the first time ever, went over 1,000,000 votes for the congressional delegation in a mid-term. Not only that, with 1,178,836 ballots totalled, OK even surpassed it's 2016 presidential total for the HOR (1,133,244). However, unlike Utah, at the presidential cycle level, the HOR vote doesn't exceed any presidential cycle (since 1988). Another stark difference between Oklahoma and Utah is that in Utah, the growth rate was more evenly split among the two major parties. In Oklahoma, the D's 146.21% growth rate (the second largest in 2018, after Texas) far outpaced the R's 59.54% growth rate, which is, in and of itself, a very impressive statistic.

The Oklahoma HOR congressional delegation went from R5 / D0 to R4 / D1, a D+1 gain.

The swing in Oklahoma was D +17.78 over 2014.

3rd place: NEVADA



The early voting figures, which NV provides starting 13 days before the election, were pointing to a huge jump in voter turnout, and so it was. With a +76.93% growth rate, NV is the third strongest state in this category. The raw vote total here exceeds the total for the 2004 presidential election and almost matches the 2008 presidential election. As with Oklahoma, there is a large disparity in the growth rate between the two parties.

The Nevada HOR congressional delegation went from R3 / D1 to R1 / D3 in 2016 a D+2 gain. It stayed that way in 2018, so there were no D pickup in this state, although NV-04 had been considered a possible GOP pickup target.

The swing in Nevada was D +22.80 over 2014.

4th place: CALIFORNIA

If people thought that the D-hypermajorities in California had nowhere left to grow, think again:



With a whalloping 12.2 million votes cast, California experienced a +70.51% growth rate, which translated to more than 5 million more votes cast in 2018 than in 2014. This raw vote total exceeds the presidential total from 2000 and is slightly under the same for 2004. As in the case of Oklahoma and Nevada, the growth rate here shows a huge disparity between the two major political parties: the D vote almost doubled over 2014, while the R vote growth rate (34.44%), is under the national average.

The California HOR congressional delegation went from R14 / D39 to R7 / D46, a D+7 gain.
The Ds targeted 6 seats, they picked up 7.

The swing in California was D +17.46 over 2014. Please note that the California (deep, deep blue) and Oklahoma (deep, deep red) swings are almost identical to each other and of course, in the same direction.

5th place: NEW JERSEY



With 3.1 million HOR ballots cast in this state in 2018, New Jersey experienced a growth rate of 70.13%, just under California's. The disparity between the D and R growth rate is also very similar to California: here, the D vote just slightly more than doubled, the R vote vote had a 36.64% growth rate, a good growth rate, but under the national average.

The New Jersey HOR congressional delegation went from R6 / D6 to R5 / D7 in 2016 (NJ-05), to R1 / D 11, a D+5 gain over 2014 and a D +4 gain over 2016.

The Ds targeted 4 seats in 2018, they picked up all 4.

The swing in New Jersey was D +19.21 over 2014.

Now, let's look at how the growth rate affected these states' actual % of the NPV.

In 2014, these five states combined represented 13.40% of the total HOR electorate (all 435 races). In 2018, those save five states were 16.22% of the same, a nice jump.

Those five states combined (CA 53 / NJ 12 / OK 5 / NV 4 / UT 4) have 78 representatives. That's 14.57% of the HOR, right in between the 2014 and 2018 turnout statistics.

-Stat