US Election Week 2020

[OttoVonBismarck]

Some things to keep in mind with that map:

1. Almost none of this is actually a change from the status quo, take that for what it's worth.
2. In OH there is now a requirement to use a bipartisan commission, for various reasons I don't fully understand, it's never been widely reported on. But there was a statewide referendum that creates a districting commission for both state legislative and U.S. House seats. The commission can be pushed around to a degree by the party that controls the state legislature, but if you look at the text of the implementing law the result in OH will most likely mean less gerrymandered districts. Although it doesn't rise to the level you'd like to see, OH will be improved.
3. PA and NC courts have already quashed existing gerrymanders in those states, and likely will do so again for new gerrymanders that cross lines of reasonability.
4. The independent commission in MI is new and should improve things there.
5. The commission in VA is new, and the previous districting was controlled by the GOP, so things should improve there.

The remaining states I consider to be relatively badly gerrymandered and likely to continue to be so are SC, FL and TX, in terms of states where I think Dems even realistically have good political chances at state and congressional offices. This is, in fact, an improvement from the Dem's positioning after the 2010-era redistricting.

[alfred russel]

Syt, this is what I was posting about on election night. Not all the House elections have been called, but right now I think Democrats are up in about 222 or 223. You need 218 for a majority--their majority has been slashed to almost nothing.

Based on that map--acknowledging OvB's objections--there were only 13 republican house members in the last election in states the democrats control the redistricting process.

In republican states, there were 56 democrats. If you take out the states that OvB objected to, there are 49.

Plus the republican controlled states are going to get even more seats as reapportionment happens (Texas will get three seats for example).

If we had run the election last week with the district maps we are likely to have in 2022, the Republicans would likely have a comfortable house majority.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I mean the maps in 2022 aren't actually likely to be friendlier to Republicans than they are now. The GOP won several districts this time that are regularly contested because of significant, and historic, turnout in multiple key states. While it's possible such turnout could happen again in a midterm, it's not immediately obvious that would be the case. There's also a number of Republican seats in states like California, New York, and New Jersey that are vulnerable and likely to actually become even more vulnerable after those states redistrict due to the general erosion of Republicans in those states in general.

[OttoVonBismarck]

The big thing to keep in mind is the last like 50 years the GOP has had less election turnout variance than the Democrats, but generally less total vote in high turnout elections. This is because of the Dem coalition having more low propensity voters. What Trump really did in 2020 was pull voters into voting for the first time, these voters "look a lot" like the base voters that won him the primary and the general election in 2016. Assuming these are a permanent fixture of the Republican coalition when Trump's name is not on the ballot is probably questionable logic, given they didn't appear to materialize in 2018. Because a lot of purple districts had a lot of these voters in it, the GOP was able to recapture several purple seats they won in 2018, and protect several GOP House members expected to be vulnerable.

We had the highest turnout in 2020 of any election in like 100 years. Maybe we've entered a new high turnout era in American politics, but I'm not actually sure it's likely at all to expect this.

FWIW a lot of analysts had said this exact thing would happen if turnout went really high. The typical narrative about Dems benefitting from high turnout actually is in the "normal" political cycle, where the GOP has a greater % of high propensity versus low propensity voters, so when more of those voters across the board show up, you get those lower propensity Democrat voters turning out and winning elections for the Dems. What a lot of analysts have pointed out is if you get outside of "low propensity voters", who are still voters, in normal scenarios, there's a significant well of voters in the white working class who culturally lean Republican and in most (non-election based, issues-based) opinion polling, seemed to be likely "pickups" for the Republican coalition if they voted. The issue is these people aren't low propensity voters--they are non voters, most of them aged 40+ who had never registered or cast a ballot in all their years. Not many people seriously thought Trump could get many of them to vote.

He did, and that's the big story of 2020. But are they now part of the voting process forever? I dunno. No one does. Assuming they are is probably a mistake akin to how assuming similar voters that came out for Obama in 2008 (but have never voted again--including this year, even this year Biden didn't see the turnout surge in black zipcodes that Obama did) will now be a permanent part of the voting landscape. One simple way to look at Trump 2020 is he did in rural and small town counties what Obama did in black urban counties in 2008--and as good a politician as Obama was he never was able to replicate that in midterm elections and didn't even fully replicate it in his 2012 reelection (likely because the narrative was he was never in serious risk of losing, so I suspect those voters reactivated at lower levels.)

[Solmyr]

Interesting thread about Biden policy supporters who voted for Trump: https://twitter.com/dannybarefoot/status/1326210279387099136

[alfred russel]

OvB: it isn't just about voting. It is also about drawing lines on a map and having 10 years pass.

Take three republican states: Texas, Georgia, and Florida. All gerrymander.

In all 3 states, democrats have picked up a house seat since 2012. The reason is as simple as the creation of small majority republican districts and super majority democratic ones in 2010, to ensure republican leaning delegations. But 10 years later population changes have caused some of those to become democratic.

In redistricting, they should be able to get those 3 seats back. Plus those states are collectively getting 5 new seats because of population growth. If those are created to be republican, that means you have 8 new republican house members from those states. (of course some of the seats in states losing them may be republicans)

The Republicans will probably only need to flip 5 or 6 seats in 2022 to get to a house majority.

[Razgovory]

I feel that would lead to riots in the streets.

Yup

Would that matter to the republicans? There were BLM riots in the streets in summer and they just sent police to beat and gas the protesters. Right now they (up to Pompeo and Barr) are keeping up the pretense that there was widespread voter fraud and Trump has actually won. Sorry, the US is not out of it yet, at this point I won't expect Biden to actually become president until I see him sworn in.

I think it would matter to Republicans.  Reversing a national election would result in riots and protests that could bring down the government.  It could be an American Maidan

[garbon]

Interesting thread about Biden policy supporters who voted for Trump: https://twitter.com/dannybarefoot/status/1326210279387099136

I'm not sure if interesting is the right word.

[OttoVonBismarck]

OvB: it isn't just about voting. It is also about drawing lines on a map and having 10 years pass.

Take three republican states: Texas, Georgia, and Florida. All gerrymander.

In all 3 states, democrats have picked up a house seat since 2012. The reason is as simple as the creation of small majority republican districts and super majority democratic ones in 2010, to ensure republican leaning delegations. But 10 years later population changes have caused some of those to become democratic.

In redistricting, they should be able to get those 3 seats back. Plus those states are collectively getting 5 new seats because of population growth. If those are created to be republican, that means you have 8 new republican house members from those states. (of course some of the seats in states losing them may be republicans)

The Republicans will probably only need to flip 5 or 6 seats in 2022 to get to a house majority.

TX and GA all have more Democratic voters than in 2010, they already basically used computer software to get the best maps possible in 2012 onward, with more of the enemy, the software is going to fail to produce a map as beneficial as the current map was back in 2012.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Also FYI, I'm anti-gerrymandering but we already had a lot of deep dives on the 2010 gerrymander that showed it maybe determined like +6 total seats for the Republicans. I don't think the GOP majority in that span of time when it had a House majority was ever actually determined by that margin. I think it is more of a negative impact for state legislative balance of power than congressional, Democrat control of the House in 2022 is going to be far more based on the Dems ability to do politics than it is going to be based on district lines. I think crying about gerrymandering (and again--I'm against it), to explain bad performance in House races up until 2018 largely was making excuses for poor Democratic campaigning, messaging, and turnout ops.

[DGuller]

I wonder what's going to be the long-term outlook on voting by mail.  Just like with WFH, a lot of people who never did it before have done it now, and all the yada-yada about fraud aside, I'm sure most reasonable people saw that it's actually well thought-out. 

Would there be pressure in at least some states to make it a permanent fixture?  Even if it only happens in blue states, there are still a lot of blue states which are surprisingly backwards when it comes to promoting voter participation.

[OttoVonBismarck]

A few red/reddish states already had fairly well established vote by mail: Ohio, Utah, Florida. It's popular there and it probably helps Republicans most of the time, so will likely stay untouched. In states where it was expanded specifically for covid and where the GOP control the state legislature I would expect it to go back to the status quo and not be expanded at all in the near future.

[Sheilbh]

Interesting polling that the majority of voters (and a majority of Republicans) think Trump lost the election.

It feels like all of this rigamarole is just public therapy for Trump to eventual say "I don't accept that I lost, but I concede".

I've seen people saying they think in part it is also to gee-up the base ahead of the Georgia run-offs, but I'm not sure if that works. It feels to me like: "your votes don't count because the Democrats will, inevitably, cheat their way to victory" is not necssarily a message that would boost base turnout

[alfred russel]

TX and GA all have more Democratic voters than in 2010, they already basically used computer software to get the best maps possible in 2012 onward, with more of the enemy, the software is going to fail to produce a map as beneficial as the current map was back in 2012.

To hone in on Georgia, which I know the most about , the presidential election results by year:

2008: R +5
2012: R +7
2016: R +5
2020: D +0

So maybe it swung 5 points democratic, and that meant the map drawn post 2010 designed to give republicans 9 house seats and democrats 5 is untenable, and 8 to 6 (the current split) is the best the republicans can do.

HOWEVER, the swings at the district level have been massive. My district is the one that has flipped. I don't have 2020 data, but these are the swings in my district:

2008: R +25
2012: R +23
2016: R +1
2020: D +10 (I'm using house results because I can't quickly find presidential results for the district)

That is a 35 point swing in a single district. I doubt that was projected by a computer model in 2010--I'm sure the district mappers assumed this would be a safe republican district through 2020. The further out you get from redistricting the less effective a gerrymander is going to be. The 35 point swing to the democrats in this district is offset by swings to republicans in other districts--I don't see why a 2020 redistricting can't account for these changes and move georgia back to a 9-5 congressional delegation.

[crazy canuck]

Interesting polling that the majority of voters (and a majority of Republicans) think Trump lost the election.

It feels like all of this rigamarole is just public therapy for Trump to eventual say "I don't accept that I lost, but I concede".

I've seen people saying they think in part it is also to gee-up the base ahead of the Georgia run-offs, but I'm not sure if that works. It feels to me like: "your votes don't count because the Democrats will, inevitably, cheat their way to victory" is not necssarily a message that would boost base turnout

I think that is correct.   But I think it demonstrates how much Republicans still fear him and his base even after he lost. 

Grumbler, I am interested on your assessment about whether you still think Trumpism will die off after a couple of election cycles after seeing this.