An electoral deadlock develops between the parties ... to the Democrats' disadvantage

25 years of popular vote stasis

Over several days we’re sharing a six-part essay on how the Democrats ended up where they are today — as a party that has broken from FDR’s liberal experimentation and change, becoming the conservative party in the traditional sense of being averse to change and innovation. How and why did this happen?

Here’s the outline:

I. A brief review of party history up to 1964 (published 4/14)

II. The Democrats from 1964 to the new century (published 4/16)

III. The aughts were a hopeful time, but problems lurked under the surface (published 4/18)

IV. An electoral deadlock develops between the parties, to the Democrats’ disadvantage

V. A case study in party dysfunction

VI. The party establishment has its head in the sand, and concluding thoughts

This review of Democratic party history brings us into the new century. Hyperpartisanship has resulted in a stark divide between the two parties, to the point where by and large Democrats and Republicans simply don’t like or trust each other.

Electoral stasis
One result of this polarized environment has been an historically long period of electoral stasis, with neither party gaining a large or lasting advantage. In the 1980s presidential elections were won by decisive margins of 8-18%. Beginning in the 1990s not only did presidential elections get closer, but also winning candidates have failed to achieve 50% majorities in five of the last nine elections dating back to 1992. And since 1994 congressional majorities have been contested every cycle – a far cry from Democrats’ dominant position in Congress for more than a generation up until that year.

As we saw in the last post, the one-time conventional wisdom that the growing minority population and other demographic shifts inevitably favor Democrats is not coming to pass. As both parties effectively adopted ideological litmus tests on cultural issues and were pulled further to the ideological poles by their activists, they gain and lose voters. You can’t build a broad and lasting governing coalition if you exclude people who don’t toe the line. This dynamic seems to have left us with a roughly 50-50 stalemate.

Yet, while the popular vote totals reflect this standoff in all three federal electoral arenas — the presidency, Senate, and House, given the quirks of our electoral system it’s not necessarily the case that power breaks down evenly when all is said and done. Let’s look at the evidence.

The presidency
While it has become conventional wisdom that Republicans have an edge in the race for 270 electoral college (EC) votes, it’s worth looking at closely.

The built-in bias in the electoral college is that every state (and the District of Columbia) gets two EC votes to start with. The rest of the EC votes are distributed based on population, the proxy for which is House seats. So while Wyoming (three EC votes) gets one vote for every 200,000 residents, California (56 EC votes) gets one for about every 750,000.

One could imagine an electoral college that would lessen the bias by removing the two-vote bonus given to every state. This would not have changed the EC margin much in 2020, since Biden and Trump each took 25 states (with Biden winning D.C.).

But in 2016, if you removed two EC votes from each state Trump’s 77 vote EC margin would have dropped to 57, since he won 30 states to Clinton’s 20 (plus DC). So the built-in bias can potentially make a difference, and probably works in favor of the GOP given its strength across so many lesser-populated rural states.

Digging a little deeper reveals a clearer GOP advantage. Hillary Clinton won the popular vote in 2016 over Donald Trump (2.1% margin) and still lost the electoral vote. Joe Biden’s margin was even larger — 4.6%. Of course he won the EC vote.

But if only 44,000 total votes had flipped in Wisconsin (21,000), Georgia (12,000), and Arizona 11,000), the 2020 EC would have split 269-269 and Biden likely would have lost in the House of Representatives, which is charged with determining the winner in such a scenario. This vote switch would have barely changed Biden’s popular vote margin.

And losing 155,000 more votes in Michigan and 81,000 in Pennsylvania would have left Biden with the same states as Clinton in 2016, and Trump with a clear EC victory. This change of some 280,000 votes would still have left Biden with a 4.5% lead in the popular vote.

The 2024 election wasn’t as tight in the Electoral College as 2020 even though Trump’s margin of victory (1.5%, 49.8% to 48.3%) was about one-third as large as Biden’s had been. Trump took all seven contested “purple” states for a 312-226 EC edge.

The lesson is that Democrats seem to need a decisive win in the popular vote to be competitive in the EC. Absent any major shifts in voting behavior across states, the advantage in presidential elections goes to the GOP.

The Senate
The Constitution gives each state two senators. Based on results in presidential elections in recent years, it is fair to say that solidly red states number 24, which gives Republicans the upper hand for 48 Senate seats.

At the same time, Democrats seem to have an advantage in only 19 states with 38 senators.

The seven hotly-contested purple states are Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Coming into the 2024 elections Democrats held 11 of the 14 Senate seats in those states, counting nominal independent Kyrsten Sinema (AZ) in the Democrat column since she voted with the party in the Senate for organizational purposes.

The Democrats held the Senate majority 51-49 at that time by dominating those purple state seats and having senators from three red states — Montana (Jon Tester), Ohio (Sherrod Brown), and West Virginia (Joe Manchin). They lacked one blue state seat in Maine that was held by Republican Susan Collins.

The Democrats’ 51 seat majority was precarious, especially with the MT, OH, and WV Democratic seats all up for grabs in 2024. When all was said and done, Tester (MT) and Brown (OH) lost their races and Manchin (WV) chose not to run, with the Republican candidate winning handily. And Republicans also picked up one purple seat, with Democrat Bob Casey losing to Dave McCormick in Pennsylvania. The end result was a 53-47 GOP Senate. That margin is more likely to expand than contract in the future given the opportunities the purple states afford the GOP going forward. As for the red states, any Democratic victory will be regarded as a major surprise.

No question here: The Senate playing field is decidedly tilted in favor of the GOP for the foreseeable future. It would send shockwaves through the political world if Democrats were to retake power in the chamber anytime soon.

The House
House elections are a different story.

For a time last decade it looked as though Republicans had an advantage in these elections as well, with their seat margin far outstripping their portion of the popular vote when all 435 races are added together. Let’s look at some numbers.

2012: Democrats had a 1% edge in the popular vote, with Republicans winning 54% of the seats.

2014: Republicans got almost 53% of the two-party vote, ending up with 57% of the seats.

2016: Same story — Republicans with just a 1% margin in the popular vote but a 55-45% edge in seats.

Political scientists and election analysts at the time suggested Republican voters were “more efficiently distributed” across the country, meaning that the GOP was competitive in more districts than Democrats. Democrats inflated their popular vote numbers by dominating urban districts.

But, ever since, the story changes. Beginning in 2018 and carrying through ‘20 and ‘22 the popular vote has mirrored the distribution of seats. Democrats got 54% of the two-party vote in 2018, and 54% of the seats, and in the next two elections the party margins were tight both in popular vote and seat distribution.

In 2024 Republicans had about a 2.5% edge in the overall popular vote in House races with an even smaller seat margin of 220-215, which comes to only a little more than a 1% edge.

The parties have roughly the same number of safe seats these days, with the battle for the House coming down to a few dozen competitive races. While it may appear that neither party has a clear edge in the House races, looking ahead that may change.

The 2030 census is looming, the results from which dictate the distribution of House seats per state. The Brennan Center for Justice, a liberal think tank, projects seat gains of four for both Florida and Texas (both red) and seat losses of four and three respectively for California and New York (both blue). No blue state stands to gain seats; no red state stands to lose seats.

States determine the district lines subject to few constitutional restrictions – party-based gerrymandering is not among them. Sophisticated algorithms will be employed by GOP-run state legislatures that should serve to give Republicans a not insignificant edge in the battle for the House beginning in 2032.

For the remainder of the decade it’s either side’s ball game in the House. After 2030 it looks like advantage GOP.

Summing up the impact of hyperpartisanship
Our hyperpartisan politics features both parties stressing differences, especially the dangers posed by the other guy. The politics of demonization, it turns out, favors Republicans despite the even breakdown of the popular vote. Given inherent aspects of our electoral system and the distribution of partisans across the country, the status quo leaves the GOP with distinct advantages in the races for the presidency and control of the Senate. The House remains up for grabs for the rest of this decade – but maybe not after that.

As a result, a Republican theory of power that says “politics as usual” is a rational approach. They have a near lock in one chamber of Congress and other advantages going forward. Even so, they’re more ambitious than that. The Trump era has brought a good deal of policy churn within the party, with members of Congress re-thinking long held views on trade and foreign policy. And the populist approach at the presidential level is showing promise for breaking into once-solidly minority Democratic constituencies.

Democrats emphatically do not benefit from politics as usual. The status quo, even a 50-50 popular vote standoff, leaves them at a distinct advantage. Yet there is curiously little policy churn in the party, and no evident plan to address fall off in support among key constituencies.

In the next installment we will take a close look at the 2024 campaign, which gives us a window into the party’s seemingly inexplicable complacency.