Natural Republican majority in Congressional Districts.

[jravnsbo]

Oh I don't know about that , SD.  We will pick our candidate this weekend and I'll be moved there by then to vote and will work hard to save that seat.  Plus in Nov Bush will be at the top of the ticket and wint he state by 25% and that will help.

speaking of state delegations.  How do they break down by party now?  I mean how many for each adn a tie, looking ahead to a House tiebreaker scenario for President.

Curently the Republicans have a majority of State Delegations:
Rep = 32
Dem = 15 (Hall switch in TX moved TX to a tie)
Tie = 4
But it is likley SD will switch to Democrats after the special election in June

[jravnsbo]

Do you have alist of which states or a link?

speaking of state delegations.  How do they break down by party now?  I mean how many for each adn a tie, looking ahead to a House tiebreaker scenario for President.

Curently the Republicans have a majority of State Delegations:
Rep = 32
Dem = 15 (Hall switch in TX moved TX to a tie)
Tie = 4
But it is likley SD will switch to Democrats after the special election in June

[nclib]

Do you have alist of which states or a link?

speaking of state delegations.  How do they break down by party now?  I mean how many for each adn a tie, looking ahead to a House tiebreaker scenario for President.

Curently the Republicans have a majority of State Delegations:
Rep = 32
Dem = 15 (Hall switch in TX moved TX to a tie)
Tie = 4
But it is likley SD will switch to Democrats after the special election in June

I think the Dems have WA, OR, CA, HI, ND, AR, TN, WV, MD, NJ, NY ,RI, MA, ME, and VT (Bernie Sanders (Ind.) caucuses with the Dems)

TX (after Hall's  switch), MS, MN, and WI are tied.

And the rest are GOP.

http://clerk.house.gov/members/olm108.php

lists all members by state and party affiliation

[nclib]

Oh I don't know about that , SD.  We will pick our candidate this weekend and I'll be moved there by then to vote and will work hard to save that seat.  Plus in Nov Bush will be at the top of the ticket and wint he state by 25% and that will help.

speaking of state delegations.  How do they break down by party now?  I mean how many for each adn a tie, looking ahead to a House tiebreaker scenario for President.

Curently the Republicans have a majority of State Delegations:
Rep = 32
Dem = 15 (Hall switch in TX moved TX to a tie)
Tie = 4
But it is likley SD will switch to Democrats after the special election in June

So, you're moving from MN to SD? I thought you had lived in SD earlier. Are you moving back?

[jravnsbo]

well that is why I avoided an AV for a long time, went to college in SD, moved to MN for a job now moving to SD int he coming months. I grew up in IA.

So when people ask, where you from?

I say "The Midwest!"

Oh I don't know about that , SD.  We will pick our candidate this weekend and I'll be moved there by then to vote and will work hard to save that seat.  Plus in Nov Bush will be at the top of the ticket and wint he state by 25% and that will help.

speaking of state delegations.  How do they break down by party now?  I mean how many for each adn a tie, looking ahead to a House tiebreaker scenario for President.

Curently the Republicans have a majority of State Delegations:
Rep = 32
Dem = 15 (Hall switch in TX moved TX to a tie)
Tie = 4
But it is likley SD will switch to Democrats after the special election in June

So, you're moving from MN to SD? I thought you had lived in SD earlier. Are you moving back?

[Gustaf]

It's twice as big as California.

Yes but you have to remember that England is not that big land wise.  Senate campaigns especially can be expensive as you have to run in a number major media markets.  But yes I see your point.

Actually if gerrymandering was banned you would end up with about 100 safe GOP seats, about 100 safe Dem seats and the rest of 'em would be marginals.
Making congressional elections very fun indeed

Wow 235 competitive seats> I'd never get any other work done. I disagree with your conclusion but it is sure fun to imagine

If there was basic parity in all the districts to the extent possible, there'd be easily that many seats competitive. I don't think we'd have a high turnover, but the races would be competitive. They'd also be more expensive. Would people think that's a good development?

Considering the fact that the cost for all British political parties' campaigns in the last election combined was less than the election campaign of 1 American senator (I can't remember which) theof election campaigns depends on a lot of things, but it might be bad to continue down that road. The referendum campaign in Sweden last fall was more expensive than Bush's election campaign, counted per voter.

[Frodo]

Natural Republican majority in Congressional Districts.

Any sensible republican will be all for banning gerrymandering and drawing the most compact districts possible. It's true that both parties indulge in gerrymandering to an equal extent. They would have to, for as Churchill said, "if one side fights and the other does not the war is apt to become a tad one sided". However I believe that if gerrymandering were ended and all districts drawn in the most compact manner with maximum community of interest in each CD, then republicans would pick up in excess of 20 seats.

I will freely admit that this is not necessarily because of more republicans in the nation(not yet anyway), in fact election after election shows a close division.

Rather Republican voters are spread throughout the country more efficiently than Democratic voters are. In other words, Democrats have far more "wasted votes" than do Republicans because their voters tend to be more concentrated in Democratic districts. This occurs because nationwide democrats tend to be concentrated in densely populated urban areas where they have huge majorities (eg 70 % + in New York City) while republicans are spread out over rural and suburban areas.

This phenomenon can already be seen in operation....., in 2000 of the districts carried by Gore, he won 53 percent of them with 60 percent or more of the vote. In contrast, Bush won 60 percent of the vote or more in just 41 percent of the districts he carried. In short, Bush carried more districts, albeit with narrower margins. If you look at map of US congressional districts you will see several districts held by democrats that include a large rural or suburban area but enough of a neighboring city to give them enough votes to win. If it were only the non-urban area it would be a republican majority district. The urban part would end up in a democratic super-majority district. If compact districts were drawn in these cases it would increase republican numbers.

Thus if compact reasonable districts were drawn you would have about 250 republican districts and about 185 democratic districts. This of course would refer to seats where parties hold a majority and not necessarily to seats that WILL definitely ELECT a republican or democrat.
Be interested in hearing other peoples take on this. Would appreciate any figures or facts provided in refutation.

If you're still out there as a lurker, please come back and tell us if your comments still hold water... 

[Mr.Phips]

This natural Republican majority in Congressional districts is a myth.  Bill Clinton, a Democrat, carried 256 districts in 1992 and 280 districts in 1996, meaning that it is more than possible for Democrats to hold that many districts.