There is always variation in how many nominees each major party runs for the U.S. House. Some years the Democrats have more nominees; other years the Republicans have more. This year, there are more Democratic nominees for U.S. House across the nation than there are Republicans.

I was curious to see if one could predict which major party will win a majority in the House, just by checking to see which major party had the most nominees. The results are that generally, the major party with the most nominees will win the House majority. But the idea isn’t foolproof.

For the years 1994 through the present, the major party that had the most nominees went on to win a majority, except in 2000, 2014, and 2016. So the theory only worked in 13 out of 16 election years.