The idea of concentration of votes accounting for the problem, though, should balance out. Congressional districts are roughly equal in size, and there’s 435 of them.
But in fact that does not happen. In 2016 Republicans won the House popular vote by just 1.1%, but won the House 241-194, a wide margin of victory, much wider than this year. election by election results vary; in 2016 the margins roughly matched, but in 2014, the Republicans actually lost the popular vote and still won the House. Overall, Republican vote totals underperform Democratic ones and yet they win more seats. It’s not a huge difference but it’s there.
The Senate, of course, is extremely biased towards Republicans. The soon to be Senate is majority Republicans despite the vote over the course of all their elections (2014, 2016, and 2018) being Democratic by a wide, wide margin.
Yeah, but you have to take into account California’s jungle primary. It causes general elections for the Senate to just be between two Democrats. Take out the California popular vote when tabulating.
Why do you think it should balance out? It could balance out, but there’s no reason it has to.
So far, it appears that Democrats are more likely to be clustered into places where 80% of the vote is Democrat and Republicans are more likely to be in places where, say, 55% of the vote is Republican.
Some of that is certainly gerrymandering, but even in the absence of gerrymandering, that kind of thing, where one party tends to cluster more tightly, can still happen.
You’re misunderstanding. What **Ashtura **is suggesting is that the message sent by voters in House elections wasn’t “Impeach Trump!”, it was a message that we want more sane, more compassionate government, and not this really weird, hateful and divisive government we’re currently experiencing.
So… legislate, and don’t spend much time playing Don Quixote and trying to impeach Trump.
Ashtura pretty clearly said that the Democrats shouldn’t investigate the Trump administration at all. That’s nuts. If he meant impeachment, then why would he use the word investigate?
If he doesn’t feel that way, then he can say so and I’ll gladly retract my criticism.
Uh where did you get that idea? And the notion of a blue wave wasn’t made up by me. I just don’t think these results equate to a blue wave any way you squint at it.
But imo, this was sorta a bust. We barley won the house, got embarrassed in the Senate worse than was even predicted, and governor’s races didn’t break for Dems like we needed them to. Sure, there were bright spots, but considering what a trainwreck Trump is, and how racist he’s been, this was a huge disappointment for me. Again, mho.
What Democrats did do is stop the forward momentum by Republicans, and that was important. This was not reflected in the Senate, but it was true in local elections, where the Dems were able to split up or take control of legislatures. Florida and Georgia were major disappointments, but you could probably make the case that Kemp won by a razor thin margin because of successful vote suppression. The Dems have about a year to figure out their next move.
Broadly speaking, white people are more politically divided than minorities. Minorities tend to cluster together geographically. So you end up in a situation where a district is nearly all minority and nearly all Democrat. Democrats win with overwhelmingly large percentages of the vote in those districts. Predominantly white districts almost never vote that monolithically, so even rural districts that are nearly all white still have significant numbers of Democratic minorities.
No. What would make for pretty good government would be an end to obstructionist tactics. Turn the clock back to pre-Gingrich days. Or even pre-McConnell days. That wasn’t an halcyon era of democracy. But it was functional.
The only paths forward involve reform or collapse for the GOP. There’s no evidence for any inclination towards the former. So we are left with the latter.
Both sides have had unified control in the past. The GOP used it to pass plutocratic tax cuts, a poorly written one with exemptions ballooning then disappearing in future years. The Democrats used their control to pass healthcare reform.
Healthcare reform. There was broad consensus that the US system was broken: rescission and the inability to get insurance for those with pre-existing conditions were two problems. The Dems discussed it for a year, held hearings, tried to arrange a compromise with the GOP. No dice. Until the GOP Senate forms a rump of at least 10 Senators willing to cross party lines, they deserve the support of nobody. In other words, my bar isn’t high.
ETA: The reconstruction of the conservative mentality around staunch neuro-typical principles would be something I could support. I don’t see it though.
Voters usually aren’t looking for massive policy shifts when they elect new parties to govern. When massive policy shifts occur, the backlash is usually immediate and crushing. Not having the Senate would force Democrats to just govern. No major policy changes, just small stuff everyone can agree on, pass budgets and spending plans, and don’t screw with people’s lives or the economy.
If the Democrats prove they can really govern, rather than just pass ambitious legislation they can’t implement competently, then they’ll get the Senate later and can then do what they want.
I voted ‘small wave’ but looking at historical results in off-year elections, it wasn’t really that. Democrats did about as well in the House as the out party has done in previous midterm elections after a change inPresidency, but they underperformed in the Senate, likely due to the Kavanaugh hearings.
And the popular vote is irrelevant in American politics, and especially in Senate and House races. The Democrats are sorting themselves into large population areas and abandoning the middle of the country where the majority of states are, so in any system of geographic representation they are likely to win the popular vote while losing seats.
Republicans have done genuine witch hunts against democrats (Benghazi hearings for example) and it never cost them any support in the polls.
Maybe the two parties are just different.
I’m still confused, because I think GOP turnout in 2018 was higher than GOP turnout in 2010. That is counterintuitive, they should’ve had more turnout in 2010 when they were locked out of power. Instead they turned out to keep power, which makes much less sense.
Trump can boost turnout. Obama had the same ability while President. I think another contributing factor was that Democrats hyped everyone up. Pretty much from January 2017 on they were talking “Blue Wave!”, whereas in 1994, 2006, 2010, and 2014, no one really talked that way until it got close. You gotta keep that stuff on the downlow. Spend two years telling everyone that 2018 is going to be a HUGE election means that people will start to think it’s a pretty huge election.
It’s not a tsunami, we didn’t get the Senate or a ton of governor seats. But Trump’s legislative agenda is dead, and the Democratic investigative agenda is very much alive and invigorated. I look forward to seeing Trump’s pathetic shrivelled secrets being dragged out into daylight for inspection.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but all the tax returns that Democrats want from Trump are from ** before** he won the presidency, right? What are they going to do - impeach him for something he did before he became president? Or do they just itch to scour over them and publish something?
I won’t pretend to speak for everybody, but I expect that when his tax returns are published we’ll see he is a total fraud who was propped up by money-laundered Russian interests. It likely won’t sway the true believers but I want this on the public record.
Is there any evidence this is true in cases that aren’t gerrymandered? Looking at past results, it sure seems like Republicans have as many lopsided wins.
Spend two years telling everyone that 2018 is going to be a HUGE election means that people will start to think it’s a pretty huge election.