Attention is paid and estimates will be made, but the polling can be a little spotty. Right now RCP forecasts 231 Republicans, 189 Democrats, with 15 tossups.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/house/2016_elections_house_map.html
So in practical terms if the GOP controls the Congress and the Dems get the Senate and the Whitehouse does that mean yet more deadlock with no ability to get anything passed?
If the Republicans don’t want anything passed, yes. But historically, it has not meant that and I hope it won’t mean that going forward. There’s new leadership all around. Paul Ryan is in charge of the House and not particularly inclined towards obstruction if he has his way. And the Democrats will have Hillary Clinton as President and Chuck Schumer as majority leader instead of the disengaged Barack Obama and the disagreeable Harry Reid as Senate leader. Clinton and Schumer have a history of working well with Republicans. Obama and Reid, not so much during their Senate time.
First off, the house does not control the budget. Revenue bills must originate in the house, but the senate is free to amend them in any way they like, including substituting their own version.
Second, the Rep leadership seems to be embarked on not agreeing to anything a Dem president proposes. I see no reason for that to change, since they see no advantage to themselves. So as long as the heavily gerrymandered house stays Rep, yes gridlock. It will get worse in two years as the Reps are almost certain to take back the senate because there were a number of Dems pulled in by Obama’s coattails in 2012. Unless there is general revulsion at Rep obstructionism.
This post makes no sense in a thread about a 538 prediction about congress.
What you might be missing is that the US congress consists of two houses, the Senate and the House of Representatives.
What the heck happened between July 20 and August 3? Some wayward polls really screwing with the results?
And I’m waiting on Missouri too. I like Kander and there’s a lot of indications that he’s just a point or two behind, so I’m very surprised to see it’s a 30/70 chance for him.
and holy crap! I didn’t even realize that Russ Feingold was running again. That’s awesome. I think the people of Wisconsin realized just how badly they f-ed up last election cycle.
The House of Representatives (435 members) plus the Senate (100 members) add up to the US Congress.
The two houses are roughly equal in responsibility. The House starts all spending and tax bills and the Senate confirms appointments made by the president. For any bill to pass, both houses must agree on what to pass before the president signs it into law.
It is a near certainty that the Republicans will control the House. This is because of the way House districts were mapped out in 2011 based on the 2010 census. The Republicans controlled the process and drew maps most favorable to themselves. Democratic House candidates actually got more votes (I forget the exact margin, about 2%, I think) nationwide than Republicans in 2012, but Republicans maintained a huge majority in the House. The race for the control of the House was won in 2011 and nothing can change that until 2021.
It is likely Democrats will garner 1 to 3 million more House votes this year than Republicans and still be a minority in the House.
Since states cannot be Gerrymandered the Senate is in play and usually is in most elections.
Why 538 instead of 535? Washington DC has been awarded 3 Electoral College votes.
This is not correct. Gerrymandering works by concentrating one party in a few districts and giving the other party slim majorities in many districts. So in a typical election where voters follow historical patterns, that party wins a disproportionate number of seats. But, if there is a shift in voters, those districts with slim majorities can easily flip.
For example, look at Pennsylvania. The districts’ biases (+ for R, - for D) are +14, +12, +10, +9, +9, +8, +8, +6, +4, +2, +2, +2 +1, -4, -13, -15, -28, -38, for 13 R vs 5 D. But if there’s a shift by voters of 3 points towards D, it becomes 9 R vs 9 D. Republicans need 5-point shift in their favor to gain even 1 seat, while D would gain 5 seats with a 5-point shift in theirs. It’d take a 14-point shift in their favor for R to gain just 2 seats, while 14-point shift in D favor, would give them all but one seat.
Gerrymandering gives an advantage in a typical election, but has large down-side risks to the gerrymandering party and almost eliminates risk to the other party. This doesn’t mean Democrats will take control of the House, but does mean that Republicans do have a significant risk of losing it.
True as far as you’ve described. But it’s not *quite *that simple because each district votes separately. So within your example of PA what you really mean is e.g. that a 1 point shift D-ward in that one critical knife-edge district will move that one seat from R to D.
To the degree all the districts’ votes are correlated my quibble becomes a distinction without a difference. But when some districts are having good economic times and others bad, when some are experiencing population loss while others are gaining, the correlation becomes a long ways short of 100%.
I could easily see situations where some of the +2 and +3 districts move to D while other +2 and +1 districts remain R or become more so.
For a big country our politics are surprisingly local.
Last two polls show the race tightening though. But yes, Feingold is one of the good ones. I think he got punished for his ACA vote. I think he’s continuing to poll poorly for not apologizing for that ACA vote.
Yeah sorry I was under the impression that “congress” meant the house of reps, not both of them together.
It can be a little confusing to non-Murricans, because when we refer to a “Congressman” or “Congresswoman,” we mean a member of the House.
I avoid this by using Representative instead
Well, sometimes. When someone exorts people to “write to your congressmen about this issue”, they probably mean both houses. But yeah, one might call Paul Ryan “Congressman Ryan”, while one wouldn’t call John McCain “Congressman McCain”.
I think this is because the Senate is considered more prestigious than the House (due to there being fewer of them, and their terms being longer), and so you call them by the more prestigious title. Sort of like how a doctor is still a “Mr.” (or “Ms.”), but you still refer to him (or her) as “Dr. So-and-so”.
I’ll have to check, but IIRC this is a holdover from the very early days, in which the House was considered *more *prestigious than the Senate. A Representative was synonymous with Congressman; a Senator was a lesser creature. The House was elected by the people, while the Senate was chosen by legislatures, critical in the “we the people” flush of nationhood. There were many examples of Senators quitting to run for the House because that was a step up in the hierarchy.
This changed gradually because of the natural advantages of the Senate allowing individuals to make reputations for themselves. Oratory was the supreme weapon of fame, so Senators like John Clay and Daniel Webster gained gigantic renown. But when John Quincy Adams left the Presidency he went to the House to be closer to the people.
It depends on how willing the Republicans in the House are willing to compromise. If the “Hastert Rule” is still applied (where a bill that does not have the support of a majority of the Republicans in the House is not even brought up for a vote), then gridlock would appear to be the order of the day.
However, also keep in mind that a Democrat-controlled Senate would make it much easier for President Clinton to appoint Supreme Court justices, and she has already made it quite clear that she is willing to appoint justices who don’t believe that prior majority opinions of the court need to be upheld.
How much impact will the Orthrus of Trump becoming more toxic to many swingable voters (especially the most key White college educated women group) and Trump’s attack on “disloyal Rs” have on Senate and House prospects?
In general the House is discussed much less because flipping it Democratic has been considered such a longshot, while the Senate is a much more achievable Democratic goal … but now? Structural advantages, including but not limited to gerrymandering*, mean (per Wang’s analysisanyway) that overall the D side needs to win House races by at least 6 points overall to have a reasonable chance of flipping and by 8 to more likely flip.
A damn heavy lift but the way this dog is barking maybe not an impossible one.
*Structural advantages include the actual concentration of Democratic voters in non-gerrymandered districts based merely on the urban-rural divide of Democratic and GOP leaning voters.
I especially like that Orthrus impregnated his mother to produce additional monsters. Seems somehow fitting for Trump’s apparently indiscriminate use of his seed.