1000 Seats Here, 1000 Seats There, It’s Puro For Democrats
During the Obama Administration, Democrats experienced a net loss of 1,042 state and federal posts, This is including congressional and state legislative seats, governorships, and the presidency. Democratic U.S. Senate seats fell from 55 to 46. The share of the House plummeted from 256 seats to 194. Democratic governerships also became a rarity during this eight-year period. Statistics show a slipping from 28 to 16, for a total loss of 958 state legislative seats for Democrats.
Democrats Aren’t Starting From The Bottom And We’ve Always Been Here
Most of the people who voted in the 2016 presidential election voted for the Democratic candidate. 65,844,610 voted for Hillary Clinton. Meanwhile, the Dotard received 62,979,636 for a difference of 2,864,974. If we’re talking about the electoral college and who gets to be the president, the Dotard has it. Unfortunately, we are all suffering for it. If we’re talking about who the majority of the voting populace went with, then it’s the Democratic Party. This can’t be stressed enough.
The same thing is reflected in the Senate. 45.2 million Americans cast a vote for a Democratic Senate candidate, while 39.3 million Americans voted for a Republican. There are some caveats:
New York and California
Calfornia is the closest thing we have to a blue utopia. California’s Senate race between two Democrats (that’s how much we dominate California) concluded on election day. While New York is certainly no one’s slouch, California is the belle of the Democratic ball. California has the most electoral votes (55), New York is third with 29. Win those two states (Texas is second with 38) and you’re roughly one third away from the presidency. Of the 435 representatives in the House, a number fixed by law since 1911. California currently has 53 (the most of any state), and New York has 27 (third most).
We Are Who We Are
The map does favor Republicans as they control state legislatures and the redistricting process from the 2010 election. Gerrymandering control still may not help Democrats as much as they think. Democrats are packed into dense and urban areas. Republicans are in more rural areas giving them a natural advantage in most of the country’s congressional districts. Even “fair” districts would create a House map that favors the GOP. Getting more people is great for ideology reinforcement, but means little electorally if they aren’t in the right places. A lot of the population distribution is related to racism.
Dotard Attracting Democrats
Chris Cillizza highlghts how eight Republican-controlled state legislative seats have flipped to Democrat in 2017 alone. Republicans have flipped one which was a state House seat in Louisiana where Democrats did not field a candidate.
In 26 of 35 races (at the state legislative and congressional level), the Democratic nominee has overperformed Hillary Clinton’s showing last November. (Worth noting: Republicans have yet to flip a Democratic-controlled seat so far this year.)
Flipping 8 of 27 seats (30%) in Republican districts is incredible, but this is even moreso when considering the average Trump margin in these seats in 2016 was 19 points. The gains are impossible to ignore.
According to Gallup, the average seat loss for the president’s party in midterm elections with a president under 50% approval (as Trump is now) is 36 — a number that, if past predicted present, would cost Republicans their House majority.
