Mysql selecting (n) rows of each occurrance [duplicate]

Answer 1

Limit optimization in MySQL does just that.

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Edit

Since you want them order by some type of column or something, you also need ORDER BY clause.

Answer 2

What you are trying to do is select a number of records per group. This can be done by using variables in your query similar to this:

select *
from
(
    SELECT sid, 
        state, 
        votes,
        @prev := @curr,
        @curr := state,
        @rank := IF(@prev = @curr, @rank+1, 1) AS rank
    FROM
    (
      select t1.sid, state, votes
      FROM table1 t1
      INNER JOIN table2 t2
          ON t1.sid=t2.sid
    ) src, (SELECT @curr := null, @prev := null, @rank := 1) r
    ORDER BY state, votes desc
) src
where rank <= 2
order by state, votes;

See SQL Fiddle with Demo

There are other ways to do this which are outlined here:

Using LIMIT within GROUP BY to get N results per group?