Love reading your analyses, which I started doing some years ago on your Princeton Election Consortium website. What I miss here is all of the back and forth with your fellow experts that always followed your posts. We need to get those folks here for the conversation!
I do have one question: Given that this midterm outcome is such an outlier, spurred most likely(?), by reaction to the SCOTUS Hobbs decision and other current particularities, including candidate quality, etc., would this national map still be “surprisingly fair overall” had the voter participation been more normal?
Thank you for writing! What a great suggestion, would be wonderful to revitalize that community. My fault for less-frequent posting.
That’s a good question. The fact that the map overall tilts slightly toward Democrats does suggest some specific mobilization of voters, either across-the-board or in key districts.
Sam, interesting item to be sure but your partisanship is detracting from your cogency.....the Democrats are just as exquisite in gerrymandering as the GOP......Exh. A includes Maryland, my home.
Sam, I agree except slightly on which states gained from gerrymandering vs. party-neutral. By my estimates, Maryland's map (after court intervention) was very close to a party-blind expectation. And I would add Florida to the list of states with significant rightward tilt relative to party-blind expectations.
I don't think you say so, but the tea leaves in 2020 were already reading this way, correct? Also, can you say why the slope is "steep"? That is, Dems (traditionally) get a higher share of House seats than the raw national vote share?
It's not that Democrats get more than proportional, it's that any majority party gets more than proportional. I understand that it's a goal that one might want. But this goal does not arise naturally in a single-member district system.
The natural outcome depends on how variable voters are from district to district. The more variable they are, the closer one gets to the ideal slope of 1, which you are basically suggesting. But historically (and this includes other countries as well) the slope is more like 2 or 3.
One could conceivably force such an outcome from artful drawing of districts. But this was not the point of the graph. My goal was to show that this year we have a normal and majoritarian outcome.
Sam and learned colleagues, I should add that the most salutary policy is one which would add some element of proportional representation and ending FPP balloting and closed primaries, all problem areas in Maryland. The GOP in Maryland usually garners about 40% of the vote but their state and US representation does not reflect that. Plus we have multi-member districts elected by small pluralities. A national two round voting system such as exists in France is the best option and avoiding the toxic current primary system will contribute to less extreme candidates in (hopefully) more competitive districts.
Love reading your analyses, which I started doing some years ago on your Princeton Election Consortium website. What I miss here is all of the back and forth with your fellow experts that always followed your posts. We need to get those folks here for the conversation!
I do have one question: Given that this midterm outcome is such an outlier, spurred most likely(?), by reaction to the SCOTUS Hobbs decision and other current particularities, including candidate quality, etc., would this national map still be “surprisingly fair overall” had the voter participation been more normal?
Thank you for writing! What a great suggestion, would be wonderful to revitalize that community. My fault for less-frequent posting.
That’s a good question. The fact that the map overall tilts slightly toward Democrats does suggest some specific mobilization of voters, either across-the-board or in key districts.
Sam, interesting item to be sure but your partisanship is detracting from your cogency.....the Democrats are just as exquisite in gerrymandering as the GOP......Exh. A includes Maryland, my home.
Hit ctrl-F on your keyboard and look for “Maryland.”
Sam, I agree except slightly on which states gained from gerrymandering vs. party-neutral. By my estimates, Maryland's map (after court intervention) was very close to a party-blind expectation. And I would add Florida to the list of states with significant rightward tilt relative to party-blind expectations.
Computer simulations suggest that a party-blind process in Maryland would have produced up to 6 Democratic seats. See this: https://gerrymander.princeton.edu/redistricting-report-card?planId=rectT3e34TouwaqH0
I don't think you say so, but the tea leaves in 2020 were already reading this way, correct? Also, can you say why the slope is "steep"? That is, Dems (traditionally) get a higher share of House seats than the raw national vote share?
It's not that Democrats get more than proportional, it's that any majority party gets more than proportional. I understand that it's a goal that one might want. But this goal does not arise naturally in a single-member district system.
The natural outcome depends on how variable voters are from district to district. The more variable they are, the closer one gets to the ideal slope of 1, which you are basically suggesting. But historically (and this includes other countries as well) the slope is more like 2 or 3.
One could conceivably force such an outcome from artful drawing of districts. But this was not the point of the graph. My goal was to show that this year we have a normal and majoritarian outcome.
There is a more mathematical way to prove all of this. It is hinted at in a diagram and in footnote 100 of my article from sometime back in SLR: http://www.stanfordlawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2016/06/3_-_Wang_-_Stan._L._Rev.pdf#page=24
For a thread getting just a little more into the math, see this: https://twitter.com/Labrigger/status/1592578806770176000
Also excellent work by Gudgin and Taylor way back when.
thanks!
Sam and learned colleagues, I should add that the most salutary policy is one which would add some element of proportional representation and ending FPP balloting and closed primaries, all problem areas in Maryland. The GOP in Maryland usually garners about 40% of the vote but their state and US representation does not reflect that. Plus we have multi-member districts elected by small pluralities. A national two round voting system such as exists in France is the best option and avoiding the toxic current primary system will contribute to less extreme candidates in (hopefully) more competitive districts.