On the US Congress and Compromise

[OttoVonBismarck]

Note that Nate Silver doesn't actually make the claim, at least in the article linked to, that the landslide districts necessarily has anything to do with gerrymandering. I'm not actually sure how much of it is actually related to gerrymandering or not. I know the FairVote website has highlighted some badly gerrymandered districts, but I haven't seen an analysis of the total numbers and how they effect elections.

A common falsehood that is asserted in Democratic circles is, Democrats won a "majority of the popular vote" in House elections in 2012, so the fact that they did not win a majority of House seats is evidence of gerrymandering. But in a first past the post voting system there are perfectly valid reasons a district basically drawn to maximize "compactness and geographic uniformity" (which is usually what non-partisan geographers claim should be the standard for district drawing) could still end up being a "landslide district."

So just the fact that the Democrats won more total votes in the 2012 House elections is no immediate evidence gerrymandering is the cause.

In the British elections in 2010, the Tories won 47% of the seats but only 36.1% of the popular vote. In 2005 Labour won an absolute majority of seats with only 35.2% of the popular vote.

[Razgovory]

So what is your explanation for the large discrepancy?

[Sheilbh]

That's all true.

But current British politics is a bad comparison. In England we've got 3 parties and in Scotland and Wales 4 (Northern Ireland's altogether different). The only real comparison would be the 50s when Labour and the Tories between them routinely attracted around 95% of the vote. So, the Republicans won around 54% of the seats with 48% of the vote, which was around a million votes less than the Democrats got.

It's not unheard of in the US either, apparently it's happened four times before last in 1996 and before that 1942.

But, yeah it's not all necessarily about gerrymandering (though I think that's part of it) it can be a feature of an enthused base, for example in 1951 there was a swing to Labour but it apparently mostly happened in their safe seats while the Tories won the swing seats.

It'll probably be a combination of factors this year too. For example I believe Romney won independent voters so I can imagine that in the US equivalent of swing seats the Republicans did well, while a key thing for Obama was that his original coalition of minorities and college grad whites stuck together - I imagine often turning out in safe-ish Democratic areas.

[OttoVonBismarck]

So what is your explanation for the large discrepancy?

Like Sheilbh, a combination of factors.

Gerrymandering is but one of those factors. Romney did a lot better among independents than McCain did, for example. So it isn't unreasonable to suspect that the GOP may have done well in districts with heavily split registration and with large independent numbers.

Many of the right were not enthusiastic about Romney, and some have said the GOP base didn't support him with turnout as they should have. If that is true (I haven't bothered to check) it could also mean in a lot of "landslide Republican districts" instead of winning 80-20% GOP, maybe the GOP only won 60-40. Then in the Democratic districts, where Obama did very well with his base of minorities, Obama won by more than 60-40. So in the Republican districts the GOP didn't do as well as they thought they would, in the Democratic districts the Democrats did very, very well.

FWIW I don't know if the GOP has any districts that are as massively one party as the majority-minority districts in America. A black district is basically 90%+ going for the Democrats, and there are few analogues because even in strongly GOP country, many rural counties have viable white conservative Democrats who run and get at least 30-40% of the vote.

[DGuller]

So what is your explanation for the large discrepancy?

Like Sheilbh, a combination of factors.

Gerrymandering is but one of those factors. Romney did a lot better among independents than McCain did, for example. So it isn't unreasonable to suspect that the GOP may have done well in districts with heavily split registration and with large independent numbers.

Many of the right were not enthusiastic about Romney, and some have said the GOP base didn't support him with turnout as they should have. If that is true (I haven't bothered to check) it could also mean in a lot of "landslide Republican districts" instead of winning 80-20% GOP, maybe the GOP only won 60-40. Then in the Democratic districts, where Obama did very well with his base of minorities, Obama won by more than 60-40. So in the Republican districts the GOP didn't do as well as they thought they would, in the Democratic districts the Democrats did very, very well.

FWIW I don't know if the GOP has any districts that are as massively one party as the majority-minority districts in America. A black district is basically 90%+ going for the Democrats, and there are few analogues because even in strongly GOP country, many rural counties have viable white conservative Democrats who run and get at least 30-40% of the vote.

That's not entirely an accident.  The whole point of gerrymandering is to give your opponent 90% districts, and to give yourself 60% districts, and that's exactly the strategy that Republicans pursued in the many states that they managed to seize during anti-Obama hysteria.

[Eddie Teach]

It's a lot easier for Republicans though, as their voters don't tend to pack themselves into geographically small enclaves.

[Jacob]

Don't tread on me.

Don't be a whiner.

Love it or leave it.

Exactly.

[Ed Anger]

Down with foreigners.