If the Democrats take control of the House, impeaching Trump will be for the House Democrats what repealing the PPACA was for House Republicans during Obama’s terms of office. If the Democrats also take control of the Senate, I’m not really sure whether Trump will be impeached an removed or not. In many ways for Democrats not taking control of the Senate might be a better outcome for them than taking control of it.
If the Democrats fail to take control of the House, the bile we’ve seen for the year and a half will pale in comparison. Every imaginable excuse will be deployed to explain the failure. Russian interference, fraud, voter suppression, the whole kitchen sink. Everything except that they didn’t have the votes.
Well, according to the poll averages; early mid Sept looked ominous to Trump as his poll rating went 44 to 40; then Kavanaugh happened and he’s back to 43. And the amount of rally around the bloody shirt (or abandon the toxic President) is still to be determined.
An approval rating of 41-42 would result in the Democrats winning the Senate and the House. 43-45 would mean a Republican Senate and Democratic House, 46 and above would a much more Republican Senate and a Republican House.
Literally everything can swing on 2-3 percent and this is an especially volatile year as the stakes are about as high as a Presidential year.
As I recall, the Dems need to win about 56%-57% of the national vote in order to control 51% of the House, so they are not assured of anything. This is likely a turnout election, so if they lose, it will mostly be their own fault.
Steve
I doubt it’s anywhere near 7%. Experiences with single district elections around the world with roughly equal pop districts show it’s very very hard to be a minority if you get a plurality lead of 3-4%. Gerrymandering is not effective at that point – you can use math to prove that.
Which is different from a polling lead; Republicans have generally overperformed generic ballot polls by 3% according to RCP; this held true from 2006, 2010, 2014. But you could make a valid case Republicans will not overperform having alienated some of their most reliable voters; or overperform even more because an increase of shy Trump voters.
Make your own adventure!
It could be as high as 11%, though people do differ. Of course I am a bit biased as the GOP has held 13 of 18 House seats while consistently getting a little less or a little more than 50% of the votes. In 2012, Republican candidates won only 49 percent of the congressional vote in Pennsylvania, but gained 72 percent of the seats. (Link is for the math geeks among us.)
https://www.wired.com/story/pennsylvania-partisan-gerrymandering-experts/
Steve
That’s expected with first past the post voting — a small plurality lead results in big majorities. Looks like Republicans did have something like an 8% lead in each of 2010, 2014, 2016. The anomaly is 2012 where Democrats got a 1% lead but got clobbered.
But it requires a lead. First past the post systems, its impossible to have a majority in seats while losing the vote by more then a percentage or two.
Here is an example. Suppose there are 10 districts that exactly votes like the State as a whole. If Party A gets 51% to Party B 49%, they will get all 10 seats. Now another election occurs and Party A gets 49% to Party B 51%; Party A gets 0 seats. From this exercise, its clear the seats awarded are not proportional to the vote, but skewed to whoever has more votes of the state as a whole (i.e. the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer).
You can even further the exercise by trying to “Gerrymander” and get similar results. That’s an exercise left for a future post if requested.
201o was by 4%, 2012 they lost by 1.5%, 2014 8% and in 2016 they won by 11%. The highest percentage of votes they won was 55%, but they had 72% of the seats. At least a 17% deferential every election, including the one where they got fewer votes.
Also your math is incorrect. Assume 5 districts of 1000 people. The GOP is good at gerrymandering so in district 5 all 1000 people vote Dem. In the other 4 districts they win 501-499 in each district. GOP wins 80% of the districts. It wins 2004 votes and the Dems win 2996 votes. Rounded off, the GOP won 40% of the votes and Dems 60%. This may sound extreme, but read the Wired article.
Steve
I think your view is skewed from living in Pennsylvania. The Illinois 4th District is one of the most gerrymandered in the country. It was specifically drawn to create a congressional district with a Hispanic majority. Republicans haven’t drawn district maps in Illinois for decades.
Similarly with California. The state has taken strenuous action to reduce gerrymandering and it still has a gerrymandered district, the 53rd. Republicans haven’t drawn the maps there since the 80s.
Ruling parties are good at gerrymandering. Democratic Party, Republican Party, if the Green Party or Libertarian Party got a majority in a state it would get pretty good at gerrymandering, too. It is one method of weakening the power of political, ethnic, or racial minorities, preserving the seats of incumbents.
Even if the Democrats win both Houses, they will not have enough votes in the Senate to remove Trump. However, given the proven insanity and violence of a large fraction of Democrats, it is likely the Democrats will assassinate both Trump and Pence in order to seize the Presidency.
So I got asked to do an exercise in gerrymandering.
Under Supreme Court precedent, the most obvious route to gerrymander (to create unequally sized districts) is forbidden. So what parties do is adjust each districts partisan lean; this is known by terms such as “pack and crack”.
So this is what they do. Given 100 districts in a roughly 50/50 state. Party A gerrymanders so it will win its districts by 10 (55-45) while Party B wins its districts by 20 (40-60). Using a math equation, you find out if the vote was 50/50; Party A get 67 seats, an Party B gets 33 seats. Grossly unfair! But wait, what happens if the vote uniformly swings in each district towards party B by 6 points — all of Party A’s seats suddenly go (49-51) and Party A has no seats at all. Conversely, what happens on a swing of 6 points to Party A, well Party B’s seats become 46-54; Party B doesn’t lose any seats.
In effect gerrymandering involves a tradeoff — win majorities most of the time; vs win majorities less often but when you do, win huge.
As Dave pointed, in the gerrymandering in practice gets somewhat balanced between the R states vs D states.
What it amounts to is Republicans may smallish majority most of the time assuming roughly 50/50 vote; but when they lose by a few points; a lot of seats flip; much more then Democratic losing by a few points.
I agree with Mr. Schuler. If the Democrats fail to win back the House, and in fact lose seats in both House and Senate, it’s official crazytunes looneybin whackjob time. Because to the Leftists it is inconceivable, utterly inconceivable, that they could possibly ever lose elections. After all, isn’t that what elections are for? To anoint Democratic governments? Because they are the majority, have always been in the majority and always be in the majority! Polls don’t lie, forget 2016! Therefore any electoral loss must mean the elections were stolen from them, by the Russians, by Comey, by the Martians. They are so damn convinced that they are not just right but absolutely right that the possibility of being in error about anything is zero. Nada. Zilch. They forget that to err is human.
” Because to the Leftists it is inconceivable, utterly inconceivable, that they could possibly ever lose elections.”
This from the people who think millions of illegals are voting and stealing elections from the right. From the people who thought they had a permanent majority back in the 90s and early 2000s. It is said that people who can’t remember the past are condemned to repeat it. (Santayana) We need an addendum to that. Those who can’t remember the past are doomed to look silly in blog posts.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/republican-leader-envisions-100-year-majority
OTOH, there may be just a touch of truth to your claim. Dems do sometimes get whiny when they realize they win popular votes and still lose elections. Or they take 51.5% of a state’s votes and get 28% of the seats at stake.
Steve