Methodology

Votes With Dems

This page explains how Votes With Dems calculates the percentages shown on our scorecards. We publish our methodology so readers, legislators, and journalists can verify our work and understand exactly what our numbers mean.

Votes With Dems is published by Floor Vote Holdings LLC, a private for-profit media company. We are not a political action committee, a nonprofit, or a campaign organization. We are a publisher of political commentary and analysis based on public legislative records.

What we measure

For each Republican legislator we score, we calculate the percentage of contested votes on which that legislator voted the same way as a majority of Democrats in the same chamber.

We call this number the legislator's “Votes With Dems” percentage. A higher number means the legislator more often took the same position as the Democratic caucus on contested legislation.

What counts as a vote

We include only recorded floor votes from the official legislative journal of each chamber. We do not include committee votes, voice votes, or procedural motions where no roll call was taken.

Contested votes only

We score only contested votes. A vote is contested when at least one member of either party votes against the prevailing side. We exclude unanimous votes from the calculation.

We exclude unanimous votes because they do not distinguish legislators from one another. Naming a road, recognizing a state holiday, and most technical cleanup bills pass without opposition. Including them would add the same fixed value to every legislator's score and would obscure the differences our scorecard is designed to surface.

This is a methodological choice, not a hidden one. The total number of votes in each session, the number we excluded as unanimous, and the number we scored are published alongside every scorecard.

How the Democratic majority position is determined

For each contested vote, we identify how a majority of Democrats in that chamber voted. If more Democrats voted Yes than No, the Democratic majority position is Yes. If more voted No than Yes, the Democratic majority position is No. Ties and absences are handled as follows:

  • If Democratic votes are evenly split, the vote is excluded from the calculation.
  • Absences, excused votes, and non-votes are not counted as either position.
  • A legislator who is absent for a vote has that vote excluded from their personal denominator, not counted against them.

How the percentage is calculated

For each legislator we calculate:

(votes matching the Democratic majority position) ÷ (total contested votes cast)

The result is expressed as a percentage rounded to the nearest tenth.

Data source

All voting data in our scorecards comes from BillTrack50, a legislative tracking service that aggregates roll call data from official state legislative records. BillTrack50 is our sole data source.

We do not independently verify every vote against official state records. If an error is reported, we verify the disputed vote against the official chamber journal or legislative website for that state and correct our data promptly if a discrepancy is confirmed.

We are not responsible for errors originating in third-party data sources, including BillTrack50. For each state we score, the official state legislature remains the authoritative source of record for all roll call votes.

Corrections

If you believe a vote is recorded incorrectly on our site, email info@floorvoteholdings.com with the legislator's name, the bill number, the date of the vote, and a link to the official record. We review every correction request. When we confirm an error, we update the underlying data, recalculate the affected percentages, and post a dated correction notice on the scorecard page for that legislator.

We do not remove or alter accurate data based on requests from legislators, campaigns, or third parties.

Editorial perspective

Votes With Dems is a commentary publication with a stated conservative editorial perspective. We believe voters in Republican-majority districts have a legitimate interest in knowing how often their elected Republicans take positions aligned with the Democratic caucus, and we present our data with that audience in mind.

Our editorial perspective affects what we choose to publish, what we headline, and how we contextualize the numbers in our commentary. It does not affect the underlying calculation. The methodology described on this page is applied uniformly to every legislator we score, regardless of party, faction, or our editorial view of that legislator.

Where our content moves from data into opinion, we say so. Phrases such as “in our view,” “we consider,” and “we believe” mark commentary. The percentages, vote counts, and source citations are factual claims we stand behind.

What our scorecard does not measure

Our percentage measures one thing: how often a legislator's recorded floor vote matched the Democratic majority position on contested legislation. It does not measure:

  • The legislator's overall ideology or conservatism
  • The quality, importance, or substance of any individual bill
  • Committee work, constituent service, or floor speeches
  • Whether the legislator's vote changed the outcome of any bill
  • The legislator's intent or reasoning for any vote

Readers should treat the Votes With Dems percentage as one data point among many when evaluating a legislator.

Updates to this methodology

We may revise this methodology as we expand to additional states or refine our process. When we make a substantive change, we post the revision date at the bottom of this page and preserve prior versions on request.

Votes With Dems is published by Floor Vote Holdings LLC. Questions: info@floorvoteholdings.com

Methodology last updated: 5-6-2026