Democrats Would Need Huge Wave to Win House

[babylonsister]

I've read several reports where this seems near insurmountable. I sure hope they're wrong.

https://politicalwire.com/2018/03/26/democrats-would-need-huge-wave-to-win-house/

Democrats Would Need Huge Wave to Win House
March 26, 2018 at 10:01 am EDT
By Taegan Goddard

A new Brennan Center report finds that to win a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, Democrats “would need a tremendous electoral wave not seen in more than 40 years to overcome Republican advantages from gerrymandered districts in key states.”

“The report projects that a 10 percentage point national margin would gain 21 seats for Democrats — still shy of the 23 or 24 needed to claim a House majority. An 11-point margin is projected to gain 28 seats for Democrats, but they haven’t achieved such a large midterm victory since a nearly 14 point margin gained them 49 seats in 1974.”

[bearsfootball516]

1. Dave Wasserman and Nate Cohn were talking about this story earlier on Twitter

Basically saying they disagree and they think a 7-8 point win will flip the House.

They also touched on an interesting “wasted votes” phenomenon. Democratic voters tend to overwhelmingly live in urban areas. Then when they come out to vote, they rack up massive, massive popular vote totals in their areas, but that only nets them 1 seat, and then they proceed to lose all the rural areas.

[NewJeffCT]

5. understood

but, suburban voters are swinging to the Democrats if you judge by the special elections out there.

[bettyellen]

2. Margin? Does that mean a % change in swing? Its been from 10-30% depending on the area. Doable.

[NewJeffCT]

10. I tend to agree

1) The un-gerrymandering of Pennsylvania will net Democrats at least 2-3 seats, but likely more with even a 10 point swing. Lamb won with a 20 point swing despite being outspent bigly. Let's say 3-5 seats.

2) Retirements make a big difference - over 30 in the House GOP, meaning there is no incumbent with all the advantages. Some of those, like Darrell Issa, are likely losses for the GOP (unless Dems screw it up by dividing the vote between 15-20 candidates in the jungle primary) A 10 seat pickup here is a pretty conservative estimate, since at least some of those are in blue states.

3) The anti-Trump wave is going to hit some suburban Republicans as well in states like New Jersey, Illinois, New York, Texas, Florida, Washington and elsewhere.

[progressoid]

3. When we're seeing 20 plus point swings in special elections,

I don't think this is as insurmountable as they say.

[Awsi Dooger]

7. Special elections are special cases

Nobody should use those numbers toward what to expect in November, with full national push and messaging and dollars from both sides.

We own a significant advantage but the projected gains have been wildly overstated and articles like that one are proper as a cautionary measure.

Bottom line, the GOP upside is 70+ seats when the slant is heavily in their favor while it's more like 30+ in our case. That may be an unfriendly reality but it is backed by several factors, like 9% more self-identified conservatives than liberals nationwide, the gerrymandered aspects, and the fact that Republican-biased groups like older voters and rural voters show up more dependably in midterms than Democratic blocks like single women and young voters.

[blake2012]

12. wrong. same effect occurred in special elections ahead of 2010 and 2014 in GOP's favor. Such as

Scott Brown managing to win in Massachusetts.

[treestar]

19. Those have the lowest turnout usually

and are most favorable to Rs. So the success in them is in fact encouraging. Shows how hated the Dotard is.

[madinmaryland]

20. Then how did the Dems flip Congress in 2006.

An unpopular president ( repub). Same thing may happen this midterm election.

[BannonsLiver]

22. The Iraq quagmire hurt the GOP badly

By 2006 it was clear beyond any doubt there was no WMD and the bodies were coming home by the planeload. I’ll always remember that year as the year the bottom fell out for W for good.

[madinmaryland]

23. Wont the tRump/Bannon quagmire affect

The rebukes also?

[BannonsLiver]

24. No doubt

But Iraq involved people dying on a daily basis. That tends to move the needle across a broader spectrum of folks than tweets and day to day clusterfucks that have been emblematic of the Trump cabal. We all knew people who were waving their flags and singing their toby Keith war anthems around 2003 but then were humming a different tune in 2006 and into 2008. Of course that was a simpler, more gentile time relative to where we are now.

For the record I expect us to get the house and I’m not ruling out the senate either but we’ll need the bottom to fall out between now and November for the latter to happen.

[NewJeffCT]

4. hmm, judging by the amount of GOP retirements

and the fact that Pennsylvania is now un-gerrymandered, I think they're a being a bit conservative. I'm usually a big pessimist (I still see Democrats have almost no shot at the Senate), but I think a pickup of 25-30 seats is on the low side.

The anti-Trump swing has been a good 15-20 points in most of the special elections, and even the Koch Brothers and the Mercers won't have enough money to contest every race.

[Major Nikon]

6. 54 seats changed in 1994

[NewJeffCT]

11. and 63 seats in 2010

in the koch tea party wave

[Tiggeroshii]

8. They can win with 2% and still win the house, technically

As long as they get 50.1% in 25 districts needed to win the house, and do a lot worse in the districts that favor them. While thats obviously incredibly unlikely, its equally unlikely that the results in individual districts and national popular vote would correlate that same way these people exactly expect it to.

[zipplewrath]

9. It will be hard

I do think there is a touch of "wishful thinking" going on. But it doesn't mean it can't happen. And quite honestly, once the margin gets anywhere near 50/50, it's going to be hard for the GOP to pass anything. They can barely do it now. Of course even if the democrats get a majority, they won't have a big one either and it will mean they can't pass much either. However, they could get control of the committees.

And who wins and where will be an indication of the issues and themes that will favor candidates in 2020.

[First Speaker]

13. Suppose, hypothetically, the Dems win 53 or 54% of the vote for Congress...

...but the GOP still retains control. I can't imagine that "Congress" retaining any legitimacy. At that point, questions would start being asked whether our entire system retains any legitimacy. And God help us all then.

[brooklynite]

14. In the aggregate, perhaps; but now when you start to parse the actual District data...

We need net 24 seats to take the House. My database shows 7 seats are already LIKELY D or LEAN D, and 18 more are TOSSUPS.

[Docreed2003]

15. Well damn...guess we should just give up...

These guys may be trying to provide a realistic evaluation of the fall elections, but we canning be discouraged. Only in mobilizing in every district and registering voters and getting folks to the polls from coast to coast, urban and rural, will we be successful. Hell yeah it's going to be hard, but nothing worth achieving was ever earned without hard work.

[Thekaspervote]

16. Fivethirtyeight says the Dems need a solid 7-8 point generic lead to take the house

I really can’t bear to think it will turnout with a gopeeee congress come 2019

[global1]

17. We Need To Have An Historic Voter Turnout For The Nov 2018 Election....

It needs to be the biggest voter turnout in U.S. history for any election. We need to send a meaningful message to the Repugs & Trump. GOTV!!!!!!

We can't take Nov 2018 for granted there has been a lot of talk about a Blue Wave. What I'm worried about is that many will sit back and say we got this in the bag and maybe not come out to vote. We can't let that happen. This is why all Congressional Dems must stay on message and do everything in their power to influence their constituents to GOTV. We need to turn the Blue Wave into a Blue Tsunami.

[treestar]

18. The past history contains

no POTUS in office who was in any way as despised and disliked and unpopular as the Dotard.

[Wounded Bear]

21. Did they watch any TV Saturday?

Well over a million people nation-wide (assuming estimates are correct) were in the streets. That's the second time since the inaugural that has happened. Demographically, I figure the increased turnout among women and youth voters will flip the House.

We just have to GOTV, as always, but just from a cynical perspective, more voters means more Dems elected. It's been true for many years. If the kids do their homework and see that Repubs vote NRA a high percentage of the time, they'll have to vote with us.