Getting historic on your favorite Senate race (with pretty graphs)

U.S. Capitol by Anthony Quintano via Flickr: Creative Commons
U.S. Capitol by Anthony Quintano via Flickr: Creative Commons

 

Call this everything you need to know about the results of the Udall-Gardner race — except the actual winner.

The Wall Street Journal did a deep dive into electoral history and found that people are increasingly likely to elect a senator who is from the same party that won the state’s most recent presidential vote.

The Washington Post dug even deeper and looked at individual states, including – yes – Colorado. Meaning we could, uh, borrow from the Post while the Post, uh, borrowed from the Journal, and you get the idea.

In any case, what the Post found — using a very handsome graph, indeed — was that in every Colorado Senate election since 1988 but one (the George W. Bush/Ken Salazar year of 2004), the presidential-winning party also got the next senator.

This could be great news for Mark Udall. Or not. After all, as Churchill noted, history is written by the victors.

[Photo of U.S. Capitol building by Anthony Quintano via Flickr/Creative Commons.]

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