KEY POINTS FROM THIS ARTICLE -- For the entire period from 1972 to 2020 there is little partisan bias in the seat/vote relationship, but this overall pattern obscures substantial bias from decade to decade. -- In the 1970s and 1980s there was a substantial bias favoring the Democrats; in the...
Author: Theodore S. Arrington
The Seats/Votes Relationship in the U.S. House 1972-2018
With big national win, Democrats in 2018 overcame GOP bias from earlier in decade
Editor’s Note: This is an updated version of a story we previously published in June 2015 and January 2017 looking at the national House vote. KEY POINTS FROM THIS ARTICLE -- After adjusting the results for uncontested races, Democrats won the national House popular vote by about seven percentage points last fall....
The Seats/Votes Relationship and the Efficiency Gap: House Elections 1972-2016
KEY POINTS FROM THIS ARTICLE -- The efficiency gap is a way to measure whether one party receives disproportionately more or fewer U.S. House seats compared to their share of the national House popular vote. -- In the 1970s and 1980s, the Democrats generally won a greater share of seats...
Gerrymandering the House, 1972-2016
The high bar Democrats need to clear in order to win back the majority
Editor’s note: This is an updated version of a story we previously published in June 2015. Redistricting the U.S. House of Representatives is not a unified, national process, unlike most national legislatures. Rather, it’s the result of cumulative actions taken by individual states. Nevertheless, it is useful to look at...
Gerrymandering the House, 1972-2014
Redistricting the U.S. House of Representatives is not a unified, national process, unlike most national legislatures. Rather, it’s the result of cumulative actions taken by individual states. Nevertheless, it is useful to look at the entire House to see how the decisions in the states combine to form a fair...
Reanalyzing 2020 Reapportionment
Sean Trende’s analysis in “The 2020 Reapportionment and The Voting Rights Act” is helpful, but I would like to supplement his analysis or present a slightly different take. His overall conclusion that it is becoming more difficult to maintain voting rights districts is accurate, although the problem is with the...
The Republicans’ Built-In House Advantage
Redistricting for the U.S. House of Representatives is not a unified process, as is the case for most national legislatures. Rather, it’s the result of the cumulative actions of the states that have more than one representative. Nevertheless, it is useful to look at the entire House to see how...