The Cook Partisan Voting Index (Cook PVI) is a measurement of how strongly a United States congressional district leans toward the Democratic or Republican Party, compared to the nation as a whole. The Cook Political Report introduced the PVI in August of 1997 to better gauge the competitiveness of each district using the 1992 and 1996 presidential elections as a baseline. The index is based on analysis by the Center for Voting and Democracy (now FairVote) for its July 1997 Monopoly Politics report.
The Cook PVI is formatted as a letter, plus sign, and number:
- Letter: The major party, Democratic (D) or Republican (R), to which the district leans
- Number: The extent of that lean, in rounded percentage points
For districts without a lean, the index written as "EVEN" without a number.
Read more about Cook Partisan Voting Index: Calculation
Famous quotes containing the words cook, partisan, voting and/or index:
“The Indian remarked as before, “Must have hard wood to cook moose-meat,” as if that were a maxim, and proceeded to get it. My companion cooked some in California fashion, winding a long string of the meat round a stick and slowly turning it in his hand before the fire. It was very good. But the Indian, not approving of the mode, or because he was not allowed to cook it his own way, would not taste it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The trenchant editorials plus the keen rivalry natural to extremely partisan papers made it necessary for the editors to be expert pugilists and duelists as well as journalists. An editor made no assertion that he could not defend with fists or firearms.”
—Federal Writers’ Project Of The Wor, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“Even voting for the right is doing nothing for it. It is only expressing feebly your desire that it should prevail. A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Exile as a mode of genius no longer exists; in place of Joyce we have the fragments of work appearing in Index on Censorship.”
—Nadine Gordimer (b. 1923)