Talk:Cook Partisan Voting Index/Archive 1

Source
I could only find the Cook PVI ratings on dKosopedia, but I don't think I can mention Daily Kos as an objective source. Socal gal at heart (talk) 07:13, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

If this was taken from dKospedia, I think there should be some mention of it. 128.255.79.33 (talk) 20:18, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Hey, here's an idea:instead of explaining California's CPVI, let's explain ALL OF THEM!!!!! :)
 * Actually, I think the wordiness of the California explanations need to be removed. How the CPVI is calculated is the same for every district, it's simple and easy to understand, and it is clearly explained in the beginning of the article. All the explanations do is clutter the list and make it harder to read. Poolboy8 (talk) 01:20, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Swing
The article (on 11.iii.2008) said that PVI was the same as swing in the British and Australian election systems. This is incorrect. Swing refers to the CHANGE in allegiance from one party to another that occurs at a general election. PVI refers to the underlying political landscape of a district. Thus at a general election, a UK constituency might swing from Conservative to Labour by 10%, but that is just a one-off and it may swing back later. A PVI is taken from a longer series of data. 212.74.26.3 (talk) 17:10, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
 * But not a terribly long series... the article says that the prior two elections are used in the computation. Petershank (talk) 15:59, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

State PVI
These can't possibly be right. Bush won Arizona by 6 and 11, but this has a PVI of Republican + 1? —Preceding unsigned comment added by The Animal (talk • contribs) 18:57, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

2008 Election
Someone needs to update all the PVIs to take into account the results of the 2008 election. The new PVIs should be based on the 2008 and 2004 elections. The PVI article, as well as the articles for all the states and congressional districts, must be updated to reflect this change. 71.172.84.252 (talk) 06:15, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Verification needed
I compared the table in Wikipedia to the PDF cited as a reference, "Cook Political Report, PVI for the 110th Congress," and found more than 30 districts with different scores in the source than appeared in the article. I assume this is because the article as written was based on an earlier version of the Cook Report. I corrected the article and updated the articles for the corresponding districts, but it was an error-prone process and could use a second set of eyes. In particular, I looked mostly at the numbers; if a district flipped from one party to the other but maintained the same score, e.g. "R+2" to "D+2", I may have missed it. The article could also use some additional fact-checking:


 * I did not verify the party of the incumbent representatives. This will certainly need an update for the 111th Congress.
 * ✅ by others; verified myself. --Allstar86 (talk) 23:58, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
 * The statewide PVIs are not sourced. These should be sourced or deleted.
 * There are raw numerical scores (hidden by "display='none'" blocks) which don't appear in the source. These should either be re-sourced and updated or deleted.
 * ✅ in part by others; verified in its entirety myself. --Allstar86 (talk) 23:58, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! -- Shunpiker (talk) 09:03, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Update for 2004/2008 elections
The Cook Political report has not yet published the new PVIs for the districts, but it can be calculated without too much difficulty; should we wait for them to be published or do it ourselves? Nevermore | Talk 20:51, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Source for State CPVIs?
The website for the Cook Partisan Voting index only lists the congressional districts. And I did some numbers in my head, and some of these state totals seem off (i.e. in both 2004 and 2008 Florida was a few points more Republican in how it voted for President than the nation as a whole, but is only R+0). Is there a source for this data? --Mr Beale (talk) 12:17, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

I used Cook's political website to find this PDF page of PVI results by state here and used it to edit this page: I had to make more corrections than I thought. Florida and Ohio are not even, but R+2 and R+1, respectively. Only Colorado is even and it lies at the current center of our Electoral College vote, although I expect it to shift to Virginia for the 2012 election. Florida actually has a slightly-higher Republican PVI than Virginia does. Heff01 (talk) 17:43, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Changes
Probably too early to change it, but I'm thinking we'll need to in a few weeks. It looks like Utah's 2nd congressional district is now the most Republican to have a Democratic representative. I'm less sure what's the most Democratic to have a Republican, but I'm thinking it's Illinois's 10th congressional district.--T. Anthony (talk) 01:02, 5 November 2010 (UTC)


 * {Not that I haven't done this myself, BUT,) should we be "selecting" these? Shouldn't they be selected by someone else? ie WP:RELY. It's really WP:OR to "notice" something, isn't it? Student7 (talk) 15:15, 6 November 2010 (UTC)


 * No, there's really no problem just reporting the facts here. I think Cook is going to come out with a new list eventually anyway. Magog the Ogre (talk) 19:07, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

State PVI table doesn't sort correctly by PVI column
The "by state" table doesn't sort correctly if you click on the PVI column header. I assume this is because the undisplayed index numbers didn't get updated the last time the PVI's were. If someone out there feels comfortable doing this, please go ahead; otherwise, I may end up trying it. Richwales (talk) 17:22, 10 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I fixed it. I didn't realize until now that someone else had noticed it; I ran across it yesterday and became extremely irritated by the broken figures. Everything is fully updated now. The only change between now and next year's elections should occur when NY-20's special election is decided, or if a congresscriter leaves office before the election.  Horologium  (talk) 10:12, 12 April 2009 (UTC)


 * This is out of sync again. 75.204.40.89 (talk) 10:06, 19 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Waded in deep and fixed it. Until the next time...75.204.109.235 (talk) 16:28, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Original research
There are no inline footnotes. This is often tolerated with a new article. This is no longer a new article.

People are inserting "observations" made by themselves in the PVI and inserting them here. This, folks, is WP:OR. It needs to stop. Moreover, it needs to be reversed. We can place stuff here footnoted when, and only when, this has been noticed by a reputable media observer, not by us. We are not writing articles, per se, we are editing material, footnoted, into articles, summarized from the observations of others. We are not enhancing them or making up for the lack of observations by reputable observers. This must stop! Student7 (talk) 14:48, 11 January 2011 (UTC)


 * The subsection labeled "scenario" is all invented by Wikipedia editors which is extremely contrary to policy. This subsection must be reliably WP:RELY cited or it will be deleted shortly. Student7 (talk) 19:24, 6 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I decided to just remove the "scenario section" for now. It's interesting, but you're right that it's a bit speculative.--T. Anthony (talk) 09:00, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

By state legislative districts
The section "By state legislative districts" has a single source, listed as http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2011110716002

The link does not lead to an article, and therefore is not a source. If there is no source, the section should be removed as it constitutes original research. Dibbun (talk) 07:51, 2 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Periodically, soft links "die." They are sometimes filed in a for-pay data bank. There may be a way to retrieve old soft links.
 * Anyway, this does not affect the hard copy. Please remember that this link has been there for other editors to audit for several months. They did not disagree with it. And if you can get a hard copy, or discover access to the soft copy, it can still be challenged. I do not have it. But this seemed accurate to me (and perhaps other "watching" editors) at the time.
 * It was not "original research" at any time. It was all taken from the article. Student7 (talk) 16:17, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

WP:Verify states, in part, "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth—whether readers can check that material in Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether editors think it is true" The information may have been verified by other editors but that is irrelevant if the source no longer exists.

"To show that it is not original research, all material added to articles must be attributable to a reliable, published source appropriate for the content in question, but in practice you do not need to attribute everything. This policy requires that all quotations and anything challenged or likely to be challenged be attributed in the form of an inline citation that directly supports the material."

I challenge it because the source does not currently exist in any verifiable form. The hard copy or access to the soft copy must be obtained in order to justify inclusion on verifiability grounds.

Furthermore, the information is not encyclopedic in form. If this research has actually been conducted, then perhaps a case can be made for the inclusion of the actual research findings, but probably not. A college freshman does not meet academic notability guidelines in WP:Prof. In its current form, the information would best be used in an article along the lines of "Research Topics of College Freshmen" but including a sentence about research which has theoretically been conducted is not useful in an article like this. Dibbun (talk) 08:46, 3 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Sorry that you can not personally verify it. Many lines in Wikipedia, perhaps hundreds of thousands, are attributed to either hard copy books or hard copy newspapers (after the soft link has died online). There is nothing wrong with the Burlington Free Press. It is a reliable source. It was not questioned during the time that the soft link existed, when it very well could have been easily verified. It can still be verified if your library has a copy of the BFP or a subscription to their archive, I suppose. Not sure why an article by anybody, which comes to the attention of a newspaper (not just "any" college freshman, I would guess), can not meet reliability standards. (I wrote a lot of papers in college. None of them were covered by a reliable newspaper, for some reason.) It seemed scholarly to me. If you look back to when it was entered (when the article came out) until the soft link disappeared, no one challenged it. There was a reason for that. Student7 (talk) 00:03, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

WP:Burden states in part, "The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material." As I said above, the material's inability to be verified is not the only issue. It is also irrelevant to the article. It is unencyclopedic as it confers no facts or information. It is only a blurb which theoretically promises that information has been generated by someone who does not meet academic notability guidelines. While the newspaper would be a valid source for the individual who wrote the paper (presuming it exists) the paper itself is not a valid academic source for this article's topic if it was not written by someone who could be considered an expert in the field. I also cite the non-sequitur option in Argument_from_authority as it is not necessarily true that these past editors you reference considered the verifiability or appropriateness of the information, nor is their lack of removal of the material an implicit endorsement of its content. Dibbun (talk) 11:18, 7 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Why don't you look at the actual article and then decide. Without looking at the material, I don't see how you can make a conclusive decision. Student7 (talk) 14:57, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Produce the source and I will look at it. Dibbun (talk) 22:43, 7 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Whoa! This meets WP:VERIFY. Soft copies are definitely not required. I furnish them when available as a convenience to other editors and for credibility. But when, they die online, as they always do eventually, it is best to have a hard copy. Both happened here.
 * Alas, our very "best" WP:RS are often hard copy only. But we try. As I did here. Student7 (talk) 20:40, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

CPVI numbers for newly drawn (2012) House districts
A section should be added to the article (temporarily - until DEC 2012 or JAN 2013) that lists the CPVI numbers for the newly drawn (2012) House of Representatives' districts (the post-redistricting districts that will stand for election in NOV 2012).

This temporary section need only list the House of Representatives' CPVI numbers, as the state CPVI numbers will not change (until the 2012 presidential general election has occurred, of course).

72.82.178.237 (talk) 07:39, 17 January 2012 (UTC)


 * The new CPVI numbers for 2012 have been publicly published on the Cook website (on free, non-subscriber webpages).


 * The pages are arranged by state (sequentially and alphabetically): cookpolitical.com/node/15 (for Alabama) through cookpolitical.com/node/64 (for Wyoming). Or just Google: site:cookpolitical.com "[name of state]".


 * The pages contain hyperlinks to a page for each new district with the new CPVI number for said district.


 * 72.82.168.37 (talk) 06:39, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Origins of PVI
This is Rob Richie, director of FairVote. Given how much folks talk about PVI, I thought it would be useful to establish its origins with our July 1997 report called Monopoly Politics - still available online here: http://archive.fairvote.org/reports/monopoly/

We had a good splash with this 1997 report, including CSPAN showing it multiple times, including in prime time, and a lot of news coverage - -see http://archive.fairvote.org/reports/monopoly/quotes/index.html

Charlie Cook, who is definitely extremely good at this kind of analysis, was one of those who wrote about the report, coming out with an article in August 1997 in Roll Call. We talked a good bit in his preparation for the article, and he was intrigued with the method of analysis we had developed. Later in the year he came out with his PVI number.

What we had come up with was PVI, but only using one election -- the 1996 election -- and only using Clinton's relative percentage of the vote. But otherwise, it was just the same as PVI. And Cook's revisions only affect the bottomline number slightly -- modifying any significant changes over a 4-year period with a longer-term average with the previous election. It's debateable which approach is more predictive of what's going to happen in the next election.

We still use the single election approach, and it's highly predictive. You can see our latest report here: http://www.fairvotingus.com RRichie (talk) 21:04, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Potential source material
Here's potential source for the article Cook’s Partisan Voting Index and the Decline of the Swing District, In the Almanac of American Politics, "each House district comes with its own "Cook Partisan Voting Index," a scientifically jiggered rating system created by veteran national political analyst Charlie Cook that is "designed to provide an overall assessment of a state or congressional district's generic partisan strength."" There’s not enough water for a 2014 wave -- Jreferee (talk) 13:48, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Recent change in 'Party in Senate' column in States' table
I just want to state my strong dislike of the recent change made to the original "Party in Senate" column at this article. Firstly, it does a much worse job at trying to convey the information that the original "Party in Senate" column was trying to convey – namely, looking a state's CPVI, is the state represented by two Senators of the same party, or one from each? With the new version, this same information is now significantly harder to pick out of that table.

Secondly, the change that has been made is basically not germane to this article (i.e. who cares who's the "Junior Senator" and who's the "Senior Senator" at the Cook PVI article?!). It also completely redundant with the information already covered at the Political party strength in U.S. states article (where the "Junior Senator"/"Senior Senator" information is already presented and actually is germane!).

I'd like to solicit the opinions of other editors on this issue – can anyone make a good case why we shouldn't revert to the previous, easier-to-read version of the states' table here? --IJBall (talk) 06:48, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

Data shouldn't be in here
This article should be about the subject. It shouldn't tabulate a load of data that actually is the subject of the article.

To give an analogy: song articles are about the song, they don't give all the lyrics, score, etc. 82.22.227.170 (talk) 21:19, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Given the subject matter, I don't think you're going to get much support for this proposal... I Oppose any removal of the data. --IJBall (talk) 22:22, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

Putting the data in the article is likely a license violation, there is no license specified to any of the data Cook produces so my default it is covered under standard US copyright law, thus incompatible with the CC-BY-SA license utilized on wikipedia. Snuxoll (talk) 00:53, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

Florida's 2nd
This article says that Florida's 2nd district has R+6 when discussing the extremes, but the list puts it as R+18. The district's article says R+6.184.7.161.80 (talk) 03:13, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
 * The cited source from Cook,, has it as R+6. I'll go ahead and fix the value in the table. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 03:35, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

By State
It says that in the event of an even national vote, the electoral college will break almost exactly split with the "even" PVI of Colorado breaking the tie. I think this is based on the electoral college prior to the post-2010 census reapportionment. I added the numbers up myself, and it looks like Republicans have a significant advantage over these numbers. Does this need to be changed? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 123nickelplated (talk • contribs) 08:15, 18 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Some of this seems to take 2010 into consideration. It seems to me that whatever the summary was 2008-2010 should be preserved in a "History" section. But the result should always be "current" under the main explanation. Student7 (talk) 13:27, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Shouldn't the House Balance column show ratios by lowest common denominator? For example, the Georgia entry shows a ratio of "10R 4D." Shouldn't that be "5R 2D"? Gil gosseyn (talk) 04:13, 24 June 2016 (UTC)
 * It's based on the actual number of Reps: 10 actual R Reps, and 4 actual D Reps... --IJBall (contribs • talk) 04:37, 24 June 2016 (UTC)

New CPVI released
I see there's been a lot of editing activity recently, but I still see some old info (like the recently-reverted edit about 2008 and 2012) and old sources. I'm wondering which parts are old and which parts have been updated to the most recent, and if there's a fast way to import the data from the Cook Political Report directly - specifically, from the source that is currently source 4, which is the most recent, from only 5 days ago as of today. Blippy1998 (talk) 18:43, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Good news: that covers the PVI's for individual House districts. Bad news: it does not seem to cover the overall PVI's for the 50 states, which are the numbers that are used for Senate – that source still needs to be updated for 2016... --IJBall (contribs • talk) 19:02, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

CPVI Calculation Section
I had a little trouble understanding the explanation of the calculation. I wonder if I may have interpreted something. It reads:

"PVIs are calculated by comparing the district's average Democratic or Republican Party's share of the two-party presidential vote in the past two presidential elections to the nation's average share of the same. The national average for 2004 and 2008 was 51.2% Democratic to 48.8% Republican.[1] For example, in Alaska's at-large congressional district, the Republican candidate won 63% and 61% of the two-party share in the 2004 and 2008 presidential elections, respectively. Comparing the average of these two district results (62%) against the average national share (50%), this district has voted 12 percentage points more Republican than the country as a whole, or R+12."

Where does "50%" come from if the average national share was 51% for Democrats and 48% for republicans? Furthermore it is stated that the scale compares the districts average "Democratic or Republican Party's share" of the vote, but which party specifically is used for comparison in any given calculation? Is it set up such that it's always R or D + a number? Can there be minus? I think the explanation could be clearer or else I am simply not understanding. LostRoss (talk) 21:49, 28 February 2018 (UTC)


 * IMHO, there is clearly an error in the quoted text. --LondonYoung (talk) 23:54, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

Cook PVI District Index for Pennsylvania does not match the cited source?
I'm not a regular editor, sorry if I'm doing this wrong, but I was looking at the PVI in Pennsylvania and it does not match up with the Cook Political Report's Partisan Voting Index: Districts of the 115th Congress that it is citing (https://web.archive.org/web/20170607150217/http://cookpolitical.com/file/Arranged_by_State_District.pdf). I think this might be due to redistricting - Pennsylvania's Supreme Court ordered that the electoral map be redrawn in February and there is a new map. From what I read (https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/pennsylvanias-new-map-helps-democrats-but-its-not-a-democratic-gerrymander/) the numbers in the article are correct for the updated map - for example in the new map districts 1/2/3 should be slightly Republican leaning, heavily Democratic leaning, and heavily Democratic leaning, which the Wikipedia article shows - but the document that the article cites still has them as D+31/D+40/R+11. Maybe there is an updated version of the PVI that it should be citing instead? I'm not sure where it would be though because from what I see on the Cook website (http://cookpolitical.com/index.php/pvi-map-and-district-list) the numbers do not match up to the numbers listed in the article. I'm not 100% sure if that is the case, but either way the page's index information doesn't appear to match the source that it is citing. --NotAWikipediaEditor 17:08, 6 March 2018 (EST)
 * Penn. was, IIRC, one of those states forced to do an out-of-cycle redistricting by the courts. That is why the numbers don't match. They probably haven't been updated yet because I'm not sure it is clear if the current map will end up being "final" or not... --IJBall (contribs • talk) 23:00, 6 March 2018 (UTC)