The System Really Is Rigged, But It Favors Republicans This Fall--for the U.S> House

I know WI is gerrymandered until at least 2021.




Go to the profile of Ian Millhiser
Ian Millhiser



The System Really Is Rigged, But It Favors Republicans This Fall
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Indeed, Republicans captured the House quite recently, despite the fact that their House candidates lost the national popular vote. In 2012, Democratic candidates outperformed Republican candidates nationwide by more than a full percentage point. Nevertheless, Republicans entered the 113th Congress with a 33 seat advantage in the House.

A party needs to control 218 seats in the House to command a majority. The median member of the House in 2012— that is, if you listed all House races in order from biggest Republican landslides to the biggest Democratic landslides the 218th member of this list— was Rep. Robert Pittenger (R-NC). Pittenger won his race by more than six percentage points, 51.78 percent to 45.65 percent. Based on this datapoint, as well as the fact that Democrats outperformed Republicans by over a percentage point, ThinkProgress estimated that “in order to take control of the House, Democrats would have needed to win the 2012 election by 7.25 percentage points.”

The reason for this is twofold. First, after the GOP’s strong performance in 2010, Republicans used their control of state legislatures and governor’s mansions to draw congressional maps that entrenched Republican power and minimized Democratic representation in Congress. In 2012, the first election run after this redistricting, these maps enabled Republicans to hold commanding majorities in many swing-state congressional delegations, even though Democratic President Barack Obama received a majority of each state’s presidential votes:

The second reason why House elections favor the GOP is more subtle but at least as significant: geography. ........