Hyperpartisanship III: Advantage GOP

A Republican theory of power that says "politics as usual" is a rational approach; for Democrats, not so much

We finished the last post with:

The one-time conventional wisdom that the growing minority population and other demographic shifts inevitably favor Democrats is clearly wrong. As parties are pulled to the ideological poles by their activists, they gain and lose voters. This dynamic seems to have left us with a competitive equilibrium.

We see that equilibrium in all three federal electoral arenas — the presidency, Senate, and House. In this post we ask: Which party benefits more?

THE PRESIDENCY

While it has become conventional wisdom that Republicans have an advantage in the race for 270 electoral college votes, it’s worth looking at closely.

The built-in bias in the electoral college is that every state (and D.C.) 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 EC 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 DC).

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 vote would have been 269-269 and Biden likely would have lost in the House of Representatives, which is charged with determining the winner in such a scenario. The 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. Importantly, this change of some 280,000 votes would still have left Biden with a 4.5% margin in the popular vote.

The lesson is that Democrats seem to need a decisive win in the popular vote to be competitive in the EC vote. So absent any major shifts in voting behavior, in presidential elections: it’s Advantage 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 a clear upper hand in only 18 states with 36 senators.

The eight purple-est states are Arizona, Georgia, New Hampshire, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Remarkably Democrats hold 13 of the 16 Senate seats in those states, counting nominal independent Sinema (AZ) in the D column since she votes with Democrats for internal organizational purposes.

The current Democratic Senate majority rests on dominating purple state seats and a senator from three red states — Montana (Tester), Ohio (Brown), and West Virginia (Manchin). They lose one blue state seat in Maine to Susan Collins.

The Democrats’ 51 seat majority is precarious, especially with the MT, OH, and WV Democratic seats all up for grabs in 2024. Several of the purple state Democratic seats are also hotly contested this year.

No question here: The Senate playing field is decidedly tilted in favor of the GOP.

THE HOUSE

House elections are a different story.

For a time last decade it looked as though Republicans had a strong advantage in these elections as well, with their seat margin far outstripping the popular vote margin 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 approximately 52.75% of the two-party vote, and ended 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 told me Republican voters were “more efficiently distributed” across the country, meaning that the GOP was competitive in more districts than Democrats.

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.

The parties have roughly the same number of landslide seats these days, with the battle for the House coming down to a few dozen competitive races.

The only conclusion: neither party has a clear edge in the House races.

FINAL ANALYSIS

Our hyperpartisan politics features both parties stressing differences and especially the danger posed by the other guy. The politics of demonization, it turns out, favors Republicans.

Given inherent aspects of our electoral system and the distribution of partisans across the country, the hyperpartisan status quo leaves the GOP with distinct advantages in winning the presidency and the Senate. The House remains up for grabs.

A Republican theory of power that says “politics as usual” is a rational approach; for Democrats, not so much.

Does either party show tendencies of breaking out of the current rut in order to grab a clear advantage in federal elections? And what would that take? That’s the subject of our next post.