The Future of the Republican Party

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I'll disagree there.

You're correct abouts Democrats gerrymandering in Illinois but on balance the GOP did it in more states than democrats.

It may not have been the only thing that affected the tally in DC but it did have an effect.

 

I'm with pplr on this, and in fact was about to post a similar article. Democrats certainly have done their share of gerrymandering over the years, but Republicans have made an artform of it in recent years. It clearly effected the final tally in DC. Congressional districts across the country will be imbalanced like this until the next census. The article is worth reading in full.

 

I have read the article and it's as unbalanced as they claim the gerrymandering is. The broad coments are obviously conjecture and have no real basis in fact. So what if most people voted democrat? Does that truly mean there should be more democrats in office? I think not. A better gage would have been how many close races were decided by redistricting and who came out on top because of it -- my guess is the number will be really close for both parties.

The "artform" comment is clearly a biased viewpoint. Both sides played the game and both sides reaped the benefits. The 'it's imbalanced because we should have won by more' is a nonsensical argument.

 

Fine. The Slate article is an opinion piece and not the most scientific, I concede. Still, it is one of a half dozen I have read on the subject that came to more or less the same conclusion. If her argument style and reasoning aren't to your liking, maybe you'll find the conclusions of Sam Wang of Princeton, on of the most accurate and quoted statisticians this election cycle, more convincing.

For those who don't want to read the study, here is the conclusion:

Other articles I read in the same vein can be found here:

Spoiler

http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/11/chart-of-the-day-7.html

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/11/gerrymander-effect-take-2

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/11/house-republicans-majority.php

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/10/the-league-of/309084/

As for my "clearly biased viewpoint," I don't think so. Acknowledging that one side has clearly been more masterful than the other at the same practice - in this case, gerrymandering - is called giving credit where it's due. Quite the opposite of bias. Gerrymandering is not illegal and I'm largely indifferent on whether or not it is unethical. GOP redistricting has put them in a far more favorable position nationally than they would otherwise be in, and most analyses conclude that the GOP picked up anywhere from 6-20 house seats by redistricting alone. That is significant. In all fairness, I think if there is any bias on display here, it is in your insistence that "both sides do it" – a point no one here is arguing with – while refusing to acknowledge that one side did it far more aggressively, effectively and consequentially than the other. But you are of course free to conclude whatever you want.

 

Reading through the article by Sam Wang his probabilities put the redistricting giving a net 6.3 seats to the Rebublicans -- which is not much. Like I've been saying, both sides are good at it when the differential results in six out of 435 shifting. It's not lopsided at all, this was a pretty minor shift and certainly not a result of a 'masterful' play on the redistricting. I've only gone after pplr's point two -- where the argument is republicans only kept the House because they rigged elections through gerrymandering. That was clearly one-sided and not very accurate. The republicans won the seats because they connect with a very significant voting populace, not because they rig elections.

I think the reason the democrats didn't win the House is because Obama didn't get the same level of support (i.e., voter confidence) as in 2008. A lot of people either didn't vote or shifted sides (or both) and so the presidential bounce was as great as it usually is for the incumbent's party.

 

6 out of 435 is not much, you're right. But on January 3, the Republicans will hold 234 house seats and the Democrats 199 (possibly 201, depending on how the remaining uncounted races shake out). When the difference of shifting control of the house is only 35 votes, 6 votes that are now virtually unmovable for a decade is, as I argued, quite significant. Without those 6 the Democrats would have had a decent shot of retaking the house majority in 2014. Now they have virtually no shot at doing so until the next census. This was not an accident. But that's just how I see it. People tend to see what they want, so...whatever.

I do agree on one point, though - "rigged" isn't the word I would use, as it suggests illegality.

 

I tend to see six or even 20 as statistical variance. If the democrats want votes they need to work together, stop bickering, take the high road, and get things done. Had President Obama taken the reins of his party instead of letting Reid and Pelosi control things he would have been much more productive, popular, and the democrats would be in control. Success trumps statistical variance and redistricting combined.

 

Just a couple of points:

... is saying nearly exactly the same thing as:

You see, for every seat a Republican wins, it's one fewer that a Democrat wins, and vice versa. It's a zero sum game. So if 6 Republicans won because of redistricting that otherwise would have lost, it swings the count in the House by 12 (assuming no 3rd party candidates get elected).

Other than that, I don't see what the argument is about at all. Yes, both sides attempt to draw redistricting lines that are more favorable to their party. Yes, since Republicans had control of more state Houses in 2011 when the lines were re-drawn, there were more states that had new maps that were more beneficial to Republicans. (But not all - T2B already mentioned Illinois as a state that favored Democrats, and in Maryland, the Democrats drew a map that guaranteed a 14-term Republican Congressman lost.) Also, while 2010 was certainly a wave election for Republicans, I don't know if this was present in the state houses. Republicans do own a majority of governor seats, but it is the state legislatures that are responsible for drawing district lines, not Congress.

The other thing about redistricting is that you have to pay careful mind to how demographics are changing in your state. If you aren't, it can come back to bite you on the ass down the road. This is why Obama was able to win one of Nebraska's three districts in 2008 (and thus win one of five of Nebraska's electoral votes). This problem was corrected following the 2010 census, and Omaha was divided up to make sure it's votes were split between two different Congressional districts.

But for how little or how much redistricting is helping Republicans win the House, the current electoral map is very unfavorable for them winning the presidency. More precisely, while Republican voters make up about half the electorate, they are not distributed in an efficient way across the nation. They rack up huge victory margins in the south and the plains states, but all those extra votes are essentially "wasted" when it comes to presidential elections. They are loisng in just about every close swing state out there. Once again, Obama could have lost both Florida and Ohio, and he STILL would have won the election. This is an electoral collegel map they are stuck with until 2024. (There is a 2020 Census, but the lines won't be re-drawn until 2021.)

And while you can re-draw Congressional district lines, you cannot re-draw state lines. Now that Democrats are starting to consistently win some of the Mountain time zone states - Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico are already there, and Arizona is the next domino to fall - there doesn't seem to be a quick fix for changing that outcome in 2024 either - especially if Republicans insist the reason Romney lost was because he wasn't conservative enough.