What’s In a Name? Could Scrabble Scores Determine Minnesota’s Next Governor?

Gubernatorial candidates with longer names and names with letters totaling higher Scrabble tile values are nearly twice as likely to win general election races throughout Minnesota history

(This report is the eighth installment in Smart Politics’ ‘Pathway to the Governor’s Mansion’ Series. Past reports analyzed the political experience, geographic background, ethnic background, age (part 1), astrological signs, age (part 2), and U.S. Senatorial experience of successful gubernatorial candidates in Minnesota history).

Name recognition is known to play an important role in determining voter candidate preferences, particularly in early polling matchups.

Familiarity with the candidates, for example, is one of the reasons why Mark Dayton (and Norm Coleman) led their respective fields in recent Rasmussen polling of DFL and GOP preferences for likely Minnesota voters (Coleman never even entered the race). It is also part of the reason why candidates such as Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani got off to such fast starts in their respective 2008 presidential campaigns.

But what do the names of Minnesota Governors such as William Merriam, Adolph Eberhart, J.A.A. Burnquist, Theodore Christianson, and Luther Youngdahl have in common?

They not only went 12 and 0 in gubernatorial election contests in the Gopher State, but they also have names that were longer than their general election opponents and, if the board game Scrabble scored proper nouns, they would have also trounced their rivals in that contest as well.

A Smart Politics analysis of Minnesota’s 64 gubernatorial races finds that those candidates with more unusual letters (those scoring higher points in Scrabble) and those with longer names win at nearly twice the rate as their closest opponent.

In total, 41 of the governors elected to the Gopher State have first and last names with higher Scrabble scores than their opponents, or a 64.1 percent rate of victory.

Candidates with more common letters comprising their names won only 22 elections, or 34.4 percent of the time. (The 1863 matchup between Stephen Miller and Henry Welles would have resulted in a Scrabble tie, at 20-20).

Governors such as John Johnson (31 points), John Pillsbury (30 points), Alexander Ramsey (28 points), Winfield Hammond (30 points), Adolph Eberhart (25 points), J.A.A. Burnquist (30 points), Theodore Christianson (29 points), and Luther Youngdahl (26 points) collectively notched not only a 19-1 electoral record, but also an 18-2 mark on the Scrabble board against their opponents.

All this is good news for Margaret Anderson Kelliher (35 points), should she receive the DFL nomination and emerge as the general election candidate. A 64 percent chance at victory is a diceroll many Democrats nationwide would gladly take in the current political climate which finds Republicans gaining momentum as the 2010 campaigns gear up.

On the Republican side, the best the GOP can offer up, excepting long-shot Phil Herwig (22 points), is Marty Seifert whose name scores a 20 on the Scrabble board – besting chief rival Tom Emmer by six points.

The Minnesota Governor whose name has the lowest Scrabble score is Arne Carlson. At just 13 points, Carlson was able to defeat Rudy Perpich (24) and John Marty (24).

Defeated 1982 Republican nominee Wheelock Whitney (36 points) has the honor of having the name with the highest Scrabble score of any first or second place gubernatorial candidate.

Of course, Scrabble does not count proper nouns in its rules of play. Moreover, a letter which might be unusual in non-proper nouns (such as “J”) is much more common in names (e.g. John Johnson).

That being the case, Smart Politics also examined the length (number of characters) of names and found a similar pattern: gubernatorial candidates with longer names won at nearly twice the rate (36 victories, 56.3 percent) as those with shorter names (20, 31.3 percent).

(In eight instances, 12.5 percent of elections, the two leading candidates had the same number of characters in their names).

So while name recognition has long been established as an important factor in political campaigns, perhaps longer names or names with unusual letters likewise stand apart from the crowd in the mind of the voter.

Minnesota Gubernatorial Elections by Scrabble Score, 1857-2006

Year	Winner	Score	Loser	Score
1857	Henry Sibley	22	Alexander Ramsey	28
1859	Alexander Ramsey	28	George Becker	22
1861	Alexander Ramsey	28	E.O. Hamblin	16
1863	Stephen Miller	20	Henry Welles	20
1865	William Marshall	25	Henry Rice	17
1867	William Marshall	25	Charles Flandrau	24
1869	Horace Austin	17	George Otis	12
1871	Horace Austin	17	Winthrop Young	25
1873	Cushman Davis	23	Ara Barton	11
1875	John Pillsbury	30	David Buell	17
1877	John Pillsbury	30	William Banning	22
1879	John Pillsbury	30	Edmund Rice	16
1881	Lucius Hubbard	23	Richard Johnson	30
1883	Lucius Hubbard	23	Adolph Biermann	24
1886	Andrew McGill	21	Albert Ames	14
1888	William Merriam	23	Eugene Wilson	16
1890	William Merriam	23	Thomas Wilson	20
1892	Knute Nelson	15	Daniel Lawler	16
1894	Knute Nelson	15	Sidney Owen	17
1896	David Clough	22	John Lind	19
1898	John Lind	19	William Eustis	18
1900	Samuel Van Sant	18	John Lind	19
1902	Samuel Van Sant	18	Leonard Rosing	15
1904	John Johnson	31	Robert Dunn	13
1906	John Johnson	31	A.L. Cole	8
1908	John Johnson	31	Jacob F. Jacobson	35
1910	Adolph Eberhart	25	James Gray	22
1912	Adolph Eberhart	25	Peter Ringdahl	20
1914	Winfield Hammond	30	William Lee	15
1916	J.A.A. Burnquist	30	Thomas Dwyer	23
1918	J.A.A. Burnquist	30	David Evans	18
1920	J.A.O. Preus	17	Henrik Shipstead	28
1922	J.A.O. Preus	17	Magnus Johnson	26
1924	Theodore Christianson	29	Floyd Olson	17
1926	Theodore Christianson	29	Magnus Johnson	26
1928	Theodore Christianson	29	Ernest Lundeen	14
1930	Floyd Olson	17	Raymond Chase	23
1932	Floyd Olson	17	Earle Brown	15
1934	Floyd Olson	17	Martin Nelson	14
1936	Elmer Benson	15	Martin Nelson	14
1938	Harold Stassen	17	Elmer Benson	15
1940	Harold Stassen	17	Hjalmer Petersen	29
1942	Harold Stassen	17	Hjalmer Petersen	29
1944	Edward Thye	21	Byron Allen	15
1946	Luther Youngdahl	26	Harold Barker	22
1948	Luther Youngdahl	26	Charles Halsted	23
1950	Luther Youngdahl	26	Harry Peterson	21
1952	C. Elmer Anderson	19	Orville Freeman	22
1954	Orville Freeman	22	C. Elmer Anderson	19
1956	Orville Freeman	22	Ancher Nelsen	17
1958	Orville Freeman	22	George MacKinnon	25
1960	Elmer Andersen	16	Orville Freeman	22
1962	Karl Rolvaag	19	Elmer Andersen	16
1966	Harold LeVander	22	Karl Rolvaag	19
1970	Wendell Anderson	20	Douglas Head	17
1974	Wendell Anderson	20	John Johnson	31
1978	Al Quie	15	Rudy Perpich	24
1982	Rudy Perpich	24	Wheelock Whitney	36
1986	Rudy Perpich	24	Carl Ludeman	16
1990	Arne Carlson	13	Rudy Perpich	24
1994	Arne Carlson	13	John Marty	24
1998	Jesse Ventura	22	Norm Coleman	17
2002	Tim Pawlenty	21	Roger Moe	11
2006	Tim Pawlenty	21	Mike Hatch	23

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