When was the last time Republicans got the most total votes in a congressional election?

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

The answer is 1994.

Yet the Republicans won congress in 1996, 1998, 2000, 2002 and 2004.

The generic ballot polling question is heavily tilted toward Dems because there are more of us. But because we are concentrated in large states and in cities we are under-represented in congress. Our concentrated districts contain a lot of "wasted" Democratic votes.

(For instance, in the Republican "wave" election of 1994 the Gallup genric ballot question was D-47% R-47% in October and D-46% R-46% in Novemeber, days before the election. Because of our built-in national advantage in the poll question Dems need to do better than tied. Gallup Historical at bottom of link: http://www.gallup.com/poll/127439/Election-2010-Key-Indicators.aspx )

Part of this is natural. Some of it is due to gerrymandering. (Like in Texas where they have absurdly safe Democratic seats with all available Dems jammed in together.)

On this chart you can see the cluster of years the Republicans win/hold the House while getting less than 50% of the national vote.

Or, looked at the other way...


Charts from http://fruitsandvotes.com/?p=740

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

1. self kick for material added on edit

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

2. ...

[Gaedel]

3. From the graphs

It looks like both parties have gotten their "over/under" share over the years (or am I missing something from your data?).

Given that a single congressional district is "winner take all" you will always have this disconnect. If we get 47% in a given district, we don't get 0.47 of a congressional seat.

Also, if you try to carve out "safe seats" so that minorities get adequate representation, you end up with "packing" Democratic voters into a district to our detriment elsewhere. Gerrymandering with the sole intent of maximizing Democratic seats would lead to a loss of seats held by minorities.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

4. The tragedy of Identity Politics

What you say about minorities is true. Increasing representation by minority individuals can reduce representation of minority interests.

The creation of specific African-American districts (as Tom Delay sought in the infamous Texas redistricing business), for instance, isolates/segregates African-American interests.

It is much better for any minority to have a lot of politicians seeking their support as a key minority bloc. The optimum to achieve desired policy goals is to maximize influence, not identity representation.

For instance, I am an atheist. I cannot expect representation by an "out" atheist.

If all the atheists were rounded up in a district then I would have one atheist representative.

On the other hand, if we concentrated atheists so that there were four 25% atheist districts then at least one candidate in each district would have no choice but to seek that atheist vote.

It is not obvious that having a token atheist while the other three districts can ignore atheist issues entirely would serve my interests better.

The representatives from the other three districts would be products of a political scene where there were NO atheists. Probable result, one atheist representative and three theocratic representatives overtly hostile to my interests!

The idea that only a member of a group can represent group interests is at odds with the whole concept of representative democracy... just a tragic fact of being human.

The fact that Meg Whitman is getting 50% of women in a state where women usually go 65% Dem is sad. Will Whitman actually represent women's interests better?

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

5. over/under share

I do not think Dems have ever won congress without getting more total votes than the pugs. I think all those years where we had under 50% are years we lost. (There is one unlabeled year on the Dem chart that is confusing.)

[Gaedel]

6. Above and below the 'strike line"

dots on one side of the strike line indicate over-representation for votes and dots on the other side inicate under-representation for the votes you got.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

7. I see what you mean

Yes, everyone has more or less "efficient" years.

But the way things are set up it is probably impossible for a Dem election to be so efficient that we win congress while getting less votes. Certainly highly unlikely.

Probably more about urban vs. rural than anything else.