# Democratic House Math **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [November 12, 2022, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democratic-house-math/974806 "2022-11-12T18:24:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Lance\_Turbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lance_turbo/32/6156_2.png) [@Lance\_Turbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lance_Turbo)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2022, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democratic-house-math/974806/1 "2022-11-12T18:24:38Z")
Democratic control of the House is not out of the question, although it is a bit of a long shot. With the help of Dave Wasserman (Cook Political Report, @redistrict on Twitter), I have collected the House races that have yet to be called and categorized them as Lean D, Toss up, and Lean R. Dems have 205 seats in the bag. There are seven Lean D seats. If we give them all of those that’s 212. That leaves six seats needed for control. There are six Toss up seat and six Lean R seats. Dems either need to sweep the Toss ups, or win as many of the much more difficult Lean R seats as Toss ups lost. It’s a bit of an inside straight draw, but better chances than winning the Powerball while getting struck by lightning. Lean D | District | Current Margin (%) | Current Margin (votes) | Est. vote in | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | CA-09 | +12.6% | +9,918 | 36% | | CA-21 | +9.2% | +7,463 | 49% | | CA-47 | +2.4% | +4,555 | 67% | | CA-49 | +4.2% | +9,073 | 69% | | CO-08 | +0.7% | +1,691 | 97% | | ME-02 | +5.3% | +15,013 | 88% | | OR-06 | +1.7% | +4,058 | 80% | Toss up | District | Current Margin (%) | Current Margin (votes) | Est. vote in | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | AZ-01 | +1.4% | +4,029 | 85% | | AZ-06 | -1.0% | -2,906 | 87% | | CA-13 | -0.2% | -84 | 46% | | CA-22 | -5.0% | -2,878 | 39% | | CA-41 | -1.2% | -1,598 | 47% | | WA-03 | +1.8% | +4,959 | 92% | Lean R | District | Current Margin (%) | Current Margin (votes) | Est. vote in | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | CA-03 | -6.0% | -9,962 | 51% | | CA-27 | -12.0% | -15,633 | 50% | | CA-45 | -8.0% | -12,701 | 60% | | CO-03 | -0.4% | -1,122 | 99% | | NY-22 | -1.5% | -3,925 | 94% | | OR-05 | -2.3% | -6,792 | 86% | This is, to the best of my ability, how things stand right now. I will try to keep the thread up to date if there’s any interest. Let me know if you find any obvious mistakes. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2022, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democratic-house-math/974806/2 "2022-11-12T18:47:42Z")
Thanks for doing this. I’ve been doing the same, but just flipping through various tabs. Very nice to have it gathered up. FWIW, I don’t think they can do it. I think the most likely outcome is like Dem 215 Rep 220. But my god, that’s still amazing. I mean, even Boebert may be scared to be too obnoxious after this. They are not going to be able to ritually impeach Biden every week. I do think the timeline where it ends up 218/217 and that swing seat is Boebert and she loses by less than 100 votes would be possibly proof that we are living in a simulation. ---
**Author:** ![Tabco](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tabco/32/7644_2.png) [@Tabco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tabco)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2022, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democratic-house-math/974806/3 "2022-11-12T18:49:47Z")
WA-03 looks about right to me. That’d be a big one since it’d flip the district from R to D. The Republican candidate Joe Kent is a bit of a hardliner and has ties to Trump. Before they lost the 2020 election he was looking to join his administration. ---
**Author:** ![flurb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/51bf81/32.png) [@flurb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flurb)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2022, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democratic-house-math/974806/4 "2022-11-12T18:51:56Z")
It’s important to keep in mind that with a margin this close anything can happen. After the 1930 midterm elections, Republicans were set to control the House 218-216. Then between the election and the start of the next Congress, _fourteen_ Members-elect died. After all the special elections shook out, Democrats ended up with a 219-212 margin ---
**Author:** ![Lance\_Turbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lance_turbo/32/6156_2.png) [@Lance\_Turbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lance_Turbo)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2022, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democratic-house-math/974806/5 "2022-11-12T18:52:29Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > I’ve been doing the same, but just flipping through various tabs. Very nice to have it gathered up. I was doing the same and I kind of figured other people were too. Glad to be of service. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2022, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democratic-house-math/974806/6 "2022-11-12T18:52:32Z")
I wish the democrats would gerrymander. The GOP does it, and if the democrats do not it puts us at a disadvantage. Until gerrymandering is banned on a national level, the dems not doing it is going to cost us races. I think California’s house representation would be 50-2 if they gerrymandered. New York Lost 7 dem seats due to the state supreme court overturning their gerrymandering. That means in CA & NY alone, the democrats lost 14 dem house seats. Thats enough to have given the dems ~230 house seats this election cycle. For the record, I’m opposed to gerrymandering. It needs to be banned nationally for both national and state districts. But until that happens, democrats can’t refuse to use it while the GOP exploits it to expand their majorities. ---
**Author:** ![Lance\_Turbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lance_turbo/32/6156_2.png) [@Lance\_Turbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lance_Turbo)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2022, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democratic-house-math/974806/7 "2022-11-12T19:17:33Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > I wish the democrats would gerrymander. Fun fact: it looks like the Democrats are getting more benefit from gerrymandering this cycle than the Republicans. Here’s the argument: as of right now across all house races there have been 51,840,364 votes cast for Republican candidates and 46,876,570. That’s a two party vote share of 52.5% R to 47.5% D which tells us that the mean district has about a 5 point Republican lean. However, because things are so close, it looks like the median district will be quite close to even, likely somewhere around a 1 to 2 point Republican lean. This results in a 3 to 4 point non-parametric skew that favors the Democrats. More simply, if you told anyone who is knowledgable about house races that Republicans across House races nationally would win by an average of five points, they would have assumed a huge Republican majority. For reference, in 2020 Dems were +3 nationally in House races which led to a 222 D - 213 R House. If you shift that election by the 8 point difference between 2020 and 2022 you would get around 35 extra R seats or a 187 D - 248 R House. It looks like what happened was that some Democrat controlled states did a little gerrymandering and some Republican controlled states tried but were already so gerrymandered that they couldn’t gain many seats. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2022, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democratic-house-math/974806/8 "2022-11-12T19:21:58Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > I think California’s house representation would be 50-2 if they gerrymandered. Impossible since 2008/2010 - it’s now enshrined in the CA constitution that congressional boundaries are determined by a “neutral” commission. For what it’s worth the CA Democratic party, Barbara Boxer and Nancy Pelosi fiercely opposed the original 2008 proposition for just that reason. Democrats were in their rise to ascendancy in the state and saw the rug being pulled out from under their feet on just how high that ascendancy could go. But c’est la vie - since I also despise gerrymandering I can’t really argue against it except in retrospect and hypocritically. ---
**Author:** ![Marvin\_the\_Martian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/marvin_the_martian/32/2898_2.png) [@Marvin\_the\_Martian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marvin_the_Martian)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2022, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democratic-house-math/974806/9 "2022-11-12T19:30:13Z")
Dems tried a severe gerrymander in NY and it got thrown out by the courts. The court ordered redraw may have cost the Dems as many as four congressional seats. They got greedy and got burned. I am hopeful about AZ-1 (my district). Last nights drop seemed to indicate that the rest of Maricopa County votes lean blue. Hoping that holds for the East Valley, I haven’t dug into the precinct level data. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2022, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democratic-house-math/974806/10 "2022-11-12T19:55:04Z")
It’s also possible that the Republicans got burned by their own gerrymandering. The idea behind gerrymandering is that you create a bunch of districts where your side has a small majority, and a few districts where the other side has a blowout majority. But the downside to that is that it means that if the political winds shift enough (which needn’t be very much), you can lose a bunch of your districts at once. ---
**Author:** ![Lance\_Turbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lance_turbo/32/6156_2.png) [@Lance\_Turbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lance_Turbo)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2022, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democratic-house-math/974806/11 "2022-11-12T20:02:45Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > The idea behind gerrymandering is that you create a bunch of districts where your side has a small majority, and a few districts where the other side has a blowout majority. That’s one of the ideas. Not all gerrymandering takes this form. But point taken. Theoretically this could have happened in some state or other. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2022, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democratic-house-math/974806/12 "2022-11-12T20:20:15Z")
True, there’s gerrymandering in favor of a party, and gerrymandering in favor of the individuals who currently hold office, which aren’t usually the same (if you’re trying to keep yourself in office, you’ll want your own personal district to have a large majority of your supporters). Of course, this also means that the Republican party as a whole could have been the victim of gerrymandering designed to keep a few specific Republicans in office. ---
**Author:** ![Lance\_Turbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lance_turbo/32/6156_2.png) [@Lance\_Turbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lance_Turbo)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2022, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democratic-house-math/974806/13 "2022-11-12T20:37:39Z")
This is a little off topic, but there’s also gerrymanders to create majority minority districts (a.k.a. beneficial gerrymanders). The [Illinois 4th Congressional District](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illinois%27s_4th_congressional_district) is often brought up in gerrymandering discussions because of its weird shape, usually as an example of, “Democrats do it too.” But it’s more complicated than that. The district was created due to a court order that Chicago needed a majority Hispanic district. The district’s shape comes from joining a Puerto Rican neighborhood with a Mexican neighborhood which were inconveniently not next to each other. Democrats win the district by around 60 points typically which is a lot of wasted Dem votes, thus this district is a net benefit to Republicans statewide. So we have a gerrymander drawn by Democrats, by court order, that benefits Hispanics and Republicans, but hurts Democrats. ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2022, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democratic-house-math/974806/14 "2022-11-12T20:50:15Z")
> [@Lance\_Turbo](#): > > > [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > > > I wish the democrats would gerrymander. > > Fun fact: it looks like the Democrats are getting more benefit from gerrymandering this cycle than the Republicans. I’d like to see if the same is true with state legislature districts, where the sample size (wrong term, as not a sample) is greater. Does anyone know of a web site with that data? ---
**Author:** ![Lance\_Turbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lance_turbo/32/6156_2.png) [@Lance\_Turbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lance_Turbo)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2022, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democratic-house-math/974806/15 "2022-11-12T20:55:37Z")
> [@PhillyGuy](#): > > Does anyone know of a web site with that data? I have, in the past, calculated this on a state by state basis. Even posted some of that on this board. When the election is all done I’ll probably do it for Wisconsin which has one of the most aggressive state level gerrymanders. If there’s another state you’re curious about, let me know. ---
**Author:** ![zimaane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a3d4f5/32.png) [@zimaane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zimaane)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2022, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democratic-house-math/974806/16 "2022-11-12T20:58:32Z")
Rather cynically, imho, the first Bush administration pushed in court to force the creation of majority African American districts in the South, which not coincidentally benefitted Republicans in the remaining districts. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2022, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democratic-house-math/974806/17 "2022-11-12T21:29:10Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > For the record, I’m opposed to gerrymandering. It needs to be banned nationally for both national and state districts. But until that happens, democrats can’t refuse to use it while the GOP exploits it to expand their majorities. The Democratic Party as a whole has long engaged in gerrymanding, and while the modern GOP has turned it into an art form, it is actually really difficult to even define, much less prohibit or “ban” processes that you think of as gerrymandering. For your edification: > **[The Gerrymandering Project – FiveThirtyEight](https://fivethirtyeight.com/tag/the-gerrymandering-project/)** > > FiveThirtyEight uses statistical analysis - hard numbers - to tell compelling stories about elections, politics and American society. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![flurb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/51bf81/32.png) [@flurb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flurb)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2022, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democratic-house-math/974806/18 "2022-11-12T22:34:50Z")
> [@Lance\_Turbo](#): > > This is a little off topic, but there’s also gerrymanders to create majority minority districts (a.k.a. beneficial gerrymanders). The Voting Rights Act requirement that racial minorities have the opportunity to elect individuals of their choosing – which underpins the creation of majority minority districts – is squarely in the sights of this Supreme Court in _Merrill v. Milligan_ and is unlikely to survive much longer. ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Lendervedder](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/happy_lendervedder/32/8488_2.png) [@Happy\_Lendervedder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Lendervedder)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2022, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democratic-house-math/974806/19 "2022-11-12T22:52:27Z")
> [@flurb](#): > > Then between the election and the start of the next Congress, _fourteen_ Members-elect died. Very efficient serial killer. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2022, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democratic-house-math/974806/20 "2022-11-12T23:10:31Z")
Remember, in 1930 it was a five month gap between the election and the seating of the new Congress. Still, 14 seems to be pushing the stats a bit. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democratic-house-math/974806.md?page=2)