Two weeks ago I posted a chart showing that Republicans had won the House popular vote by 5%. There were still votes yet to count, however, so this was just an interim estimate.
Since then 6 million votes have been counted and there are hardly any left to be tallied. As expected, Democrats have done well in the late vote counts, winning 65% of those 6 million votes. Here's the final tally:
Republicans won 51.5% of the two-party vote compared to 48.5% for Democrats. That's a difference of 3.1%.
In the end, then, this turned out not to be a massive loss for Democrats after all. But it was still a substantial one. Overall, the American public showed a decided preference for Republican views this year.
"Voters" showed a preference for Republicans, not the American people. Old folks vote, young people do not. Old folks vote for Republicans, younger people vote for Democrats. I simply don't understand why lots of people don't vote. Sure, there are excuses, none of them good.
There were 24 Congressional Districts where Republicans ran unopposed (there were 12 Districts where Democrats ran unopposed). Since there were twice as many Districts where Republicans ran unopposed that affects the overall %. The number of Districts where the gerrymandering created "safe" seats also obscures the total since people are not inclined to vote if they know there opposition vote doesn't matter.
True. What more Dems need to realize is how our overall structure favors rural and small states. Taken with just this election, a Repub 3.1% advantage producing a small majority seems about right. But you can easily look up total votes on the first page of Wikipedia (2022 not done yet). Its not a pretty sight in terms of the majority, in other words, us.
How about 2012? Where a 1.5M advantage in the popular vote for Dems resulted in a 33 seat Republican majority in the House?
Or how about (since final totals are available) the Dems having a 28 million advantage in Senate votes over '16, '18 and '20, yet barely having control? Senate over three cycles makes sense since only 1/3 of the seats are up each cycle.
Too much of this popular vote and percentage analysis obscures how much our system favors repubs structurally.
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I've mostly lived in places where my vote does not make a difference. I try to vote, especially for history making candidates, but the outcome for my area is pretty much known. Some of it is gerrymandering. Some of it is "self selection".
I'd like to split my ticket, at least for one major office--but haven't been able to do that in many years--the Republicans went off the deep end a long time ago.
So after 4 years of trump in office and 2 more years of him continuing to be a nation-destroying lunatic, Democrats STILL couldn't figure out how to get off their butts and vote in 2022. That's why the Republicans won the House. As long as trump is not ACTUALLY PRESIDENT, why bother voting? It's just SO much trouble! And Joe Biden is SO uninspiring!
Congress? What's that?
Tell me you're a white person who isn't poor or working paycheck to paycheck, without telling me you're a white person who isn't poor or working paycheck to paycheck.
Lots of non-white people everywhere and white people in working class or poor areas (especially in red states!) have a lot fewer voting machines assigned to their neighborhoods, a lot fewer early voting days, a lot more restrictions on mail-in ballots, and just a lot more hassle around voting (e.g. jobs that won't give them time off on a Tuesday, homes not well served by transit and too far to walk to the polling place, no day care for the kids while in line late into the night, etc.).
Sure, blame them for not voting if that makes you feel good. But there really needs to be a legal limit on how long voters can be expected to wait in line to vote in person as well as how hard officials can make voting not in person be. There are actual reasons why poor and minority people vote less frequently: it's a huge pain in the ass to vote in many places.
Come on. That's a ridiculous assertion. In the history of our country it's never been easier to vote than it is now. Between early voting, mail in voting, and polling places open for about 12 hours on election day there's no excuse to not vote if you want to.
There are many places in the US where it is illegal to early vote or mail-in vote unless you can document a legally acceptable reason not to vote in person. There are many democratic leaning polling locations that have 6 hour line ups to vote in person.
Oh, and tell me you're an old crank without telling me you're an old crank. ALL CAPS is never a good look, grandpa.
Democrats voted. Democrats are the people who vote for Democrats. They are mostly white educated liberals, black women of all education levels and a range of left-leaning views, and a few youngs who are on the liberal-progressive scale.
Probably a lot of lefties and progressives who would never dirty themselves by calling themselves Democrats, but who WILL show up to vote mostly Democrat once in a while, they are the ones who could not get off their butts.
Democrats voted. The problem is that we can't win without enough lefties and progressives.
Everyone Knows™ that there are tens of millions of non-voters, eligible, and to a man or woman untutored, natural democratic socialists, who sit on the sidelines because no sufficiently left-leaning candidates, are never on offer come general election day.
You could make a living running campaigns based on that theory of politics -- and some people do...
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But Republicans get more mid-term votes than Democrats. How many potential Dem voters know about any of this? Based on the anodyne, even sheepish way the mainstream media covered this dinner, it's no wonder. People don't know who Nick Fuentes is? Someone needs to MAKE them know. But that would violate the sacred both-sides directive that rules the media and ensures that all elections are as close as possible!
Of 3 midterms on the chart with a D president, it appears 2022 was the best for Dems.
Of 6 midterms on the chart, it appears 2022 was 3rd-best for Dems overall, behind 2018 and 2006.
To understand this better (in the sense of what democrats need to do to improve), we need to also know final turnout figures, by age group, and also by race.
According to 538 the reason young people don't vote is mainly because they find it too difficult or inconvenient. Yeesh, maybe we have raised several generations of snowflakes. But, it is what it is. I'm all for making it as easy as possible to vote, but we won't get there if Democrats don't vote for people who want to make it easy to vote. Big fan of mail-in voting if done right.
One problem is that this country has no legal limit on how long is too long to wait in line to cast your ballot. States are free to make voters stand in line all day and night if they want... which they do all the time in minority-majority cities and in poorer neighborhoods. Committing to voting in places where they despise early voting and mail-in voting means:
1. You need to get time off work if you work on Election Day (like most people do).
2. You need to bring food and water with you, in case the line is many hours long.
3. You need to secure evening daycare for the kids or bring them with you too. Your regular daycare or school option won't last as long as some voting lines do into the late night.
4. You may need to prepare yourself to walk home in the dark or have cab money if your transit service stops operating when you finally leave the voting booth.
There are legit reasons why young people - and people of all ages! - find voting "too difficult or inconvenient." It's because in far too many places voting *is* more difficult and more inconvenient than it needs to be!
The 2018 election while I was in line to vote (about 10 AM in the morning), I met an 18 year old young woman from the high school next door who was there during study hall to come and vote. She thought the 40 minutes would be enough to cross the street, vote, get back to her next class. Instead, it took about 90 minutes to cast our ballots. Hopefully she didn't get in trouble for missing a class or two.
This is a city neighborhood, and yes this was a young, black first time voter. I'm assuming the lines were far shorter in rural Missouri.
I'm sick of hearing the excuses. Voting will not be improved if you don't vote for candidates that will improve things. In many places it is a lot easier to vote today than ever before. When I first registered you had to do it in person, and there was nothing but in-person voting unless you could prove you were overseas and could get an absentee ballot by applying months ahead of time. No motor voter, no mail-in votes, no drop boxes.
"i'm sick of hearing that you can't simply wave all the cold air moluecules to one side of the room and hot air molecules to the other."
That about the size of it, Ace?
Hey stinker, I vote in every election no matter how inconvenient. Stop whining and just vote!
What a fine grasp of mathematics you display. And such witty banter; I assure you your posts are changing minds.
But perhaps not the way you intended.
Voting in urban Missouri is way more difficult than voting in suburban Massachusetts. There are fewer machines & workers per voter here in MO. The ID requirements are stricter. No excuse absentee ballots have only just become a thing here. (However, absentee ballots for folks over 65 have been a thing in the 5 years I've lived here.) And prior to just this last election, you needed to get your absentee ballot envelope notarized. Good luck with that if you work a 9-5 job.
Even just getting the valid voter ID is a pain in the ass. The DMVs in the minority working class neighborhoods are understaffed and most folks going to those have to take vacation or personal time to wait there. Me, I just took a long coffee break one afternoon, didn't have to tell anyone where I was going or how long I'd be gone, and went to an office near my white collar work neighborhood and was in and out in 10 minutes.
Anecdotally (we'll have to wait until the final official crosstabs are released, of course), is that young people in Georgia were taking advantage of being home for the holidays to vote early? Why, you may ask, and I will reply that significant numbers of them faced significant impediments to voting while away at college. Apparently eighteen-year-old dropouts can be trusted with a gun, but twenty-year-old students cannot be trusted with a vote.
There's a subtext here that I think Mr. Drum should just state outright instead of being coy.
Control of the House versus no control is a rather big deal. Losing control by more or fewer seats is second order.
This very superficial analysis, there a lot of factors at play which that cannot be simplified. One example, California divides districts by a nonpartisan commission, yet Dems are over represented? How can that be? No to mention the failed gerrymander in NY and the successful gerrymanders by Republicans in Ohio, Florida and Georgia. All have different reasons for being so just looking at the popular vote in an off year election is pretty much meaningless. A commenter did look at vote results by an incumbent president in his first midterm and that yields to a more clear meaningful understanding but even there the time lag reduces its import. Basically one needs to look at each election as a one off. What we see here is that we are still pretty divided, maybe 50/50, but some states are moving in certain directions which ramifications could be crucial, in other words, is there a new Blue wall?
Basically one needs to look at each election as a one off.
Truer words have been spoken. But not in politics. I give this one a +8.
I dunno. If I were a Republican looking at that chart I'd say we've been trending the wrong way since 2010. With inflation and murder everywhere they can't top 2010 and 2014?
The right conclusion to draw is: the old crime and evil elites gambit ain't working like it used to. Time to try something new?
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Not at all sure about this:
"Overall, the American public showed a decided preference for Republican views this year."
Does the Republican party even have any "views" for anyone to prefer? Do reality-challenged assertions regarding stolen elections count as "views"? If not, what else are they offering? Cuts to entitlements? I seriously doubt such "views" are preferred by a majority of any demographic group (certainly not the elderly).
What I suspect happened is the usual scenario. Average voters are capable of remembering that there's a democrat in the White House. Average voters are also capable of noticing that gas and eggs are too expensive. Hence, they vote against the President (or his party) who failed to use his magic powers to fix every problem immediately.
Unless someone comes up with some convincing data otherwise, I'm pretty sure that's the kind of scenario that played out.
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Note: 23 republican seats were uncontested v. 10 dem seats. This obviously effects the numbers. It doesn't fix the deficit but removing those numbers on both sides reduced the difference by about 1%
There were 25 races without a democrat and 10 without a republican. The net difference of 15 is 3.4$ of all races. That corresponds well with the fact that republicans will get about 2.8% more vote than the democrats. I see Kevin isn't going to admit he said that the 5% republican lead wouldn't change much in that original post.