The House – new, with less democracy! [Sam Wang'g blog]

[ReallyIAmAnOptimist]

====snip====
Before the election, I predicted that even if more people voted for Democratic House candidates, Republicans could still retain control. The reason I gave was redistricting since 2010, which has tilted the playing field significantly. The prediction was correct – though if anything, I underestimated the effect.

I estimated that Democrats would have to win the national popular vote by 2.5% in order to have a 50-50 chance of gaining control. I also predicted that the House popular vote margin would be D+0.0%, for Democratic gains of 2-22 seats . As of now, counting the leader in each undecided race, the new House will be 235 R, 200 D, a gain of only 7 seats. ThinkProgress reports a popular-vote tally of 50.3% D to 49.7%, a margin of D+0.6%. Both results are within range of my prediction.
====snip====

http://election.princeton.edu/2012/11/09/the-new-house-with-less-democracy/

[rachel1]

1. It's time for more independent redistricting committees to be established in EVERY state

so that the repuke scum can no longer steal any more elections.

Only then will the Democrats know how powerful they really are.

[ReallyIAmAnOptimist]

2. Yeah, this is a mess--fortunately demographics...

...continue to improve for the Dem side, which makes up some ground.
Sadly, this mess however will make 2014 a very difficult challenge to regain the 17 seats we need to take back the majority. Damn it.

[Cosmocat]

3. They simply play the game to win

flat out.

Winning at the national level is great, but they game both the court system though judicial elections/selections/confirmations and state government districting to their advantage.

I live in Pa. We have roughly a million more registered democrats than republicans. We have voted D for president for over two decades now. The margin has not been close the last two elections. But, we have one of the handful of flat amusingly drawn districts, both state and congressional, in the country and of 19 congressmen, somehow something like 11 or 12 are Rs.

The state level seats are just as bad. We have a mortal lock republican majority in the senate, and the House only flips D in big wave elections and quickly moves back to R.