Republican Party Trends

A person that is looking for trends and statistics about the Republican Party and its success in elections will only need to look at the past few years to see a discernible growth in states that are largely run by conservative leaders. While the Republican Party did not win the last presidential election in 2008, the race was much closer than most people believe. In that election, the Democratic Party won with only 52.9 percent of the popular vote. In contrast, the Republican Party held 45.7 percent of the vote. In the total popular vote, the difference between the two parties was less than ten million votes, only a small part of the voting population. The end count for the Republican Party was 59,934,814 votes and the Democratic Party held 69,456,897 votes. During this election, John McCain, governor of Arizona, was the nominated candidate, with Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska, running as the vice president.

However, things changed rapidly in the senate elections that happened only two years later. The Republican Party was able to emerge from the elections with a total of six more seats than they previously held. The total popular vote from the senate elections also favored the Republican Party by approximately three million votes. During 2010 there were only 37 seats available for election, of which 18 were previously held by Republicans and the other 19 being held by Democrats. With the 6 seats that were won from the Democrats, the Republican Party matched the largest number of gains since the 1994 election for the senate. However, even after the gains, the Democratic Party has continued to hold the upper hand in the Senate, with a total of 53 seats compared to only 47 for the Republican Party. GOP optimists believe that the next presidential election will see the Republican Party once again take the seat of the president by winning the election.