Election results and ideology ratings for Dawson Mathis -- RightDataUSA.com

[Congressional biography]

Born: November 30, 1940 in Nashville, GA
Died: April 17, 2017 in Tifton, GA

Election Results for Dawson Mathis

Year	Age	State	Party	Office	District	Stage	Pos	Votes	%
1970	29	GA	D	U.S. House	District 02	Primary	1	27,188	41.1%
1970	29	GA	D	U.S. House	District 02	Primary Runoff	1	53,735	77.2%
1970	29	GA	D	U.S. House	District 02	General	1	59,994	91.8%

1972	31	GA	D	U.S. House	District 02	Primary	1	66,012	100.0%
1972	31	GA	D	U.S. House	District 02	General	1	65,997	100.0%

1974	33	GA	D	U.S. House	District 02	Primary	1	64,298	100.0%
1974	33	GA	D	U.S. House	District 02	General	1	59,514	100.0%

1976	35	GA	D	U.S. House	District 02	Primary	1	79,395	100.0%
1976	35	GA	D	U.S. House	District 02	General	1	95,807	99.8%

1978	37	GA	D	U.S. House	District 02	Primary	1	49,562	76.7%
1978	37	GA	D	U.S. House	District 02	General	1	42,234	100.0%

1980	39	GA	D	U.S. Senate Class 3		Primary	4	133,729	13.0%

1982	41	GA	D	U.S. House	District 02	Primary	2	48,768	47.7%

Age: Age as of July 1 of the year pertaining to this election.

Ideology Data for Dawson Mathis

Year	Age	Body	Conservative Coalition		Party Unity		Presidential Support			Vote %	Liberal	Conserv.
Year	Age	Body					P			Vote %	Liberal	Conserv.
1971	30	House	82	10	21	65	R	67	28	85	18	83
1972	31	House	82	17	36	62	R	57	41	98	0	80
1973	32	House	82	8	33	57	R	48	42	85	10	76
1974	33	House	85	10	35	59	R	57	43	94	9*	86
1975	34	House	79	8	29	57	R	51	39	81	0	77
1976	35	House	78	10	30	59	R	59	29	84	16	71
1977	36	House	79	10	35	55	D	48	39	88	6	76
1978	37	House	63	10	31	48	D	31	45	76	7	74
1979	38	House	73	4	32	50	D	39	41	74	0	71
1980	39	House	35	9	22	25	D	20	20	41	22	63
Lifetime conservative rating:												76%

Age: Age as of July 1 of the year pertaining to this row.

Conservative Coalition: According to the publication "Congressional Quarterly" (CQ), this is an alliance of Republicans and Southern Democrats (from back when Southern Democrats tended to be conservative or at least moderate) against Northern Democrats in Congress.

This concept had significant meaning perhaps through the 1980's. These statistics stopped being computed after 2000 because conservative Democrats no longer existed except in very rare cases. The number under the green check is the percentage of time this Representative or Senator voted with the coalition; the number under the red X is the percentage of the time he opposed the coalition. The numbers often do not add to 100% because of instances where no vote was cast.

Party Unity: According to CQ, a Party Unity vote in Congress is one in which the parties were split, with a majority of Democrats opposing a majority of Republicans.

The number under the green check is the percentage of time this Representative or Senator voted with his party; the number under the red X is the percentage of the time he opposed the party. The numbers often do not add to 100% because of instances where no vote was cast.

Presidential Support: These are votes for which the President has stated his position, either in via a message to Congress, by press conference remarks or other public statements and documents.

The number under the green check is the percentage of time this Representative or Senator voted with the President; the number under the red X is the percentage of the time he opposed the President. The numbers often do not add to 100% because of instances where no vote was cast. The "P" column indicates the party of the President in each year.

Vote %: The percentage of roll-call votes in which this Representaive or Senator participated by voting "Yes" or "No" (as opposed to "Present" or not voting at all.)

Liberal Rating: These ratings are based on key votes as identifed by the ultra-liberal advocacy organization called "Americans for Democratic Action" (ADA). They have been rating members of Congress since 1947. The number shown is the percentage of the time this Representative or Senator took the liberal position on a key issue. The methodology behind the calculation can be found here. Ratings followed by an asterisk were calculated the "ADA way" due to missing data regarding key votes in the ADA source material.

Conservative Rating: These ratings are based on key votes as identifed by the conservative advocacy organization called the "American Conservative Union" (ACU). They have been rating members of Congress since 1971. The number shown is the percentage of the time this Representative or Senator took the conservative position on a key issue.

The liberal and conservative ratings are not expected to add to 100% because the two groups use different sets of key votes to determine their ratings. Conservative ratings from 1961 through 1970 (and for 2024) were calculated based on key votes as selected by the creators of this website.