Between Two Majorities | The Cordray Administration

[_]

I'd like to ask, apologies if it has been posted already, but what were the results of the 2018 IL Governor's race in this timeline?

Yup

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*sigh*
Should have expected this

[Mike Thick]

I should note that I used an index of median household income and partisanship to make maps for House elections 2022-2026, but I accidentally deleted the write-up, and my left eye is screwed up temporarily for assorted reasons, but yeah, that's a thing that's happening sometime in the next few days

The results might surprise you, but are quite consistent with TD's theories.

[The_Doctor]

I'd like to ask, apologies if it has been posted already, but what were the results of the 2018 IL Governor's race in this timeline?

Yup

You must be logged in to read this quote.

*sigh*
Should have expected this

The names are eh, I picked out of past Democratic candidates. It's more that Democrats picked up the governorship. (Although now, I think it will be Pritzkher or something).

Here's the article. The Senate GOP gained 4 seats actually. Illinois's budget deficits and ongoing fiscal crisis actually plays a big role in this timeline.

[_]

I'd like to ask, apologies if it has been posted already, but what were the results of the 2018 IL Governor's race in this timeline?

Yup

You must be logged in to read this quote.

*sigh*
Should have expected this

The names are eh, I picked out of past Democratic candidates. It's more that Democrats picked up the governorship. (Although now, I think it will be Pritzkher or something).

Here's the article. The Senate GOP gained 4 seats actually. Illinois's budget deficits and ongoing fiscal crisis actually plays a big role in this timeline.

1.  Can you please post the margin?  There doesn't seem to be one
2.  I do not see Pritzker making it any better then Tilt D in otl if he's the nominee.

[The_Doctor]

I'd like to ask, apologies if it has been posted already, but what were the results of the 2018 IL Governor's race in this timeline?

Yup

You must be logged in to read this quote.

*sigh*
Should have expected this

The names are eh, I picked out of past Democratic candidates. It's more that Democrats picked up the governorship. (Although now, I think it will be Pritzkher or something).

Here's the article. The Senate GOP gained 4 seats actually. Illinois's budget deficits and ongoing fiscal crisis actually plays a big role in this timeline.

1.  Can you please post the margin?  There doesn't seem to be one
2.  I do not see Pritzker making it any better then Tilt D in otl if he's the nominee.

1. I didn't make one but I can make one for you after I do a bit of research. I've made results for people on here for demand so I'll post it here.

2. That's probably accurate. I honestly went with the view that local races were less polarized and might break against the party occupying the White House in deep blue states. That's why I had a number of states like New Mexico, Illinois, and Maine going Democratic.

Side bar on Illinois: I've often wondered why it didn't trend more Republican in 2016 given that it matched Michigan's profile of major urban state with a strong downtown rural base. I'd think with the budget crisises, that Democrats might have lost ground in 2016. I suspect offhand race is a reason but I suspect MI and IL's demographics might be similar. I know that MI's whites were 75% and IL's whites were 68%. So it confuses me slightly why IL remained a very strong Clinton state - her best in the Midwest - while other states with similar profiles went Republican.

[_]

Illinois was probably the only Midwestern state that didn't trend Republican because Trump kept demonizing Chicago.

This along with his failure in the suburbs and something of a Hometown Girl effect for Hillary (despite that she moved to NY). 

Also to TD's second point on Local Races, they can tend to break FOR the white house party because they are somewhat more detached from national politics, which is one of the many reasons Rauner has a great chance of winning if Pritzker is the nominee, which seems likely.

[The_Doctor]

Illinois was probably the only Midwestern state that didn't trend Republican because Trump kept demonizing Chicago.

This along with his failure in the suburbs and something of a Hometown Girl effect for Hillary (despite that she moved to NY).  

Also to TD's second point on Local Races, they can tend to break FOR the white house party because they are somewhat more detached from national politics, which is one of the many reasons Rauner has a great chance of winning if Pritzker is the nominee, which seems likely.

I’ll hold off on questioning Illinois for now because the second part of the statement interests me more. (For the record, I think a strong Republican can carry Illinois on the argument that the state government is deeply dysfunctional because of past Democratic spending. In the Walker timeline, I originally planned to have Illinois turn Republican, on this very basis. Given its strong 2016 Clinton lean in reality, I dispensed with this idea. But I’ll come back to this in a later post).

So, this is a very good argument. I know this because this is my second rewrite of my answer. I want to explain my 2018 thinking since I wrote the 2018 midterms in one post and really haven’t referenced it. You can judge if I make sense or not.

(I’ll talk about Illinois very specifically at the end).

Believe it or not, the midterms of 2018 are highly Republican friendly in my timeline. I’ll explain why. And this is because I agree with your argument in a sense.

First, midterms are a referendum on the Presidential party at the gubernatorial level. I looked up the midterm elections of the 21st century and late 20th century (I didn’t look at before Eisenhower because data on Wikipedia is sparse). Roughly correlated: when the Presidential approval rating is high, his party tends to be successful in the gubernatorial mansions at either holding or gaining. See: Kennedy 1962, Reagan 1986, Bush 1990, Clinton 1998, Bush 2002. Conversely, in Clinton 1994, Reagan 1982, Bush 2006, Obama 2010 and 2014, and I think Johnson 1966 (Wikipedia was lazy; I’ll probably try to edit it later), the out of the White House party gained. Even middling ratings didn’t really protect the incumbent party. Nixon 1970 is a good example.

So, since I have realignment in 2024, there’s another reason I picked the states to go Democratic, but not the federal level. Historically, the realigning President brings a large number of Senators into the Senate and upends that chamber’s narrow majority. Jefferson (you have to remember; states elected the Senators, so it was a lagging indicator, so look at 1802-1804 Senate elections), F. Roosevelt, and Reagan all accomplished this. Lincoln did not because of the South’s opposition to the GOP (the Civil War was actually the realignment in fact; not the election of 1860).

This is a kind of a meta note: since 2018 is such a heavily GOP year and I have 2024 as the realigning year, the Democrats need to lose seats in 2018. That’s why I picked the deepest GOP states to send GOP senators (WV, ND, IN, MO). But since Donald Trump’s approval rating is 48% in this timeline on Election Day (or Mike Pence?), his party loses seats everywhere else. Now, this is a bit of “meta,” and honestly, if the Democrats break even on election day 2018, in the Senate, that’s a huge tell about the realignment being in 2020 or 2024. (In my thinking anyway; you may disagree).

The in timeline explanation is that I also have polarization affecting the federal races much more than the state races. This is where I break with history. I believe that congressional and Senate Republicans will see their voters choosing to support them because of intense partisanship and polarization. It will be, on the federal level, “Do you support Donald Trump against the SJW Democrats?” We’ve seen an increasing polarization where states break heavily for their presidential vote and expect their senators and House delegation to follow suit.  

On the state level, I think it’s different. We have a number of deep blue states that elected GOP governors in 2010 and 2014 - IL, ME (at the time), VT, MA, NJ, MD. On the red state side, WV and MT are prominent examples. I think they diverge significantly from their federal cousins.

Additionally, with 33 governorships, the GOP is the clear majority. A lot of these governors are term limited or are seeing two term governors or the same party holding the gubernatorial mansion for a minimum of two terms. For the sake of simplicity I’ll note the GOP defenders in the states that I think are relevant. MI, WI, OH, IA, OK, KS, NM, NV, AZ, FL, GA, ME. In addition, IL, ME, and MD are first term GOP governors.

In a sense, I agree with you - it’s downballot where voters are more free wheeling. But in this sense, I think the reverse of you (I think) and think that the downballot votes will go to the Democrats.  


Now, to MD and MA, you are probably right that I probably have gone too far and they should, honestly, be Republican leaning because as you said, down ballot voters tend to be more free wheeling and open. Charlie Baker and Larry Hogan are excellent governors who have well understood they’re there to check the state Democrats and to provide effective governance. So in response to you, I’ll most likely change the MD and MA ratings. This is also lining up with my theory of the Northeastern - Midwestern Republican Party becoming dominant in the 2030s in the GOP.

On Illinois, however, I don’t think Rauner is a Hogan or Baker type. He is very much opposed to the status quo and has low ratings. In a deep blue state, he’s also fought with the Democratic legislature and set himself very much as against what he views as an unsustainable status quo (he’s not wrong; but the way he’s gone about it … well, he’s at a 36-58% disapproval rating, according to the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University. Even if we assume this is a Democratic poll, I don’t see adjusted that Rauner is popular? (I did a cursory Google). It suggests that as Governor, he’s failed to fight the status quo adequately. So, he might win ... but in the current climate, I think a Democrat is favored, even if he's a horrible billionaire like Pritzker.

I don't want to gainsay you since you're clearly a native, and I could be wrong. But that's my take.

I hope that answers your question. Feel free to answer and challenge it; I'll do the IL write up today or tomorrow on the results. I'll stick with Chris Kennedy for it, since he features prominently in the timeline in 2021.

[The_Doctor]

7. RyanCare: A Huge Fight on the Floor
27. Schumer, McConnell negotiate ObamaCare Deal


So, this looks pretty good. RyanCare it wasn't exactly but it was Medicaid cuts and many of the same variables played out. And woo, I even got the exact sequence and month right, although left out some details.

Next up on this arc: Chuckie Schumer gets all the cards.

[The_Doctor]

Southern Democrats would've blocked major entitlement reforms in the 1980s and 1990s. Reagan almost tried, but there wasn't support (and his own White House said no to touching the issue). There was one about limiting Medicare growth that might've won bipartisan support but Reagan passed up the opportunity.

One stumbling block is that a lot of Democratic senators were loyal to FDR's New Deal by the 1990s, just not welfare (TANF) and the concept of universal health care. They were fairly liberal on Social Security and Medicare which makes sense since the south is the poorest region in the United States.

The only way the GOP can get buy in is if a Democrat with cachet among liberals (Bill Clinton at the time in the 1990s) has the power to leverage his party into cutting a deal. The Republican Party simply isn't trusted to steward the nation's safety net, which is a major failing of their days as a minority coalition. They never became true Tories and stayed reactionary, which has limited their capability in challenging the safety net.

[Virginiá]

Also to TD's second point on Local Races, they can tend to break FOR the white house party because they are somewhat more detached from national politics, which is one of the many reasons Rauner has a great chance of winning if Pritzker is the nominee, which seems likely.

How local? While it can definitely be argued that high-profile gubernatorial races can set themselves apart somewhat, there is at least one study showing legislative losses correlating somewhat with approval ratings of the incumbent party:

https://www.vox.com/2016/9/5/12712932/american-state-government-federalism

And the premise does make sense - the politicians who are relatively unknown to the people are the most vulnerable to feelings for the incumbent president. Personally I believe the incumbent's bad image rubs off on the majority of his party, whichever office it is, but I concede that some are effective at crafting their own brand. However, this only works if they get noticed and have the money to remind people who they are.

I think the leanings of the state matter quite a bit as well. An unpopular Republican governor in a deep blue state in a midterm under a very unpopular Republican president is going to have a very tough race. Likewise for a Democrat in a reversed situation. Opposition party members need to actually be popular and well-known to survive in enemy territory.

Also, looking good TD

[Devout Centrist]

http://politi.co/2uK5zKF

Dear god

[The_Doctor]

http://politi.co/2uK5zKF

Dear god

We have a long way to go before #47. But so far things seem to be unfolding as this timeline guessed. I'm very interested to see what events exactly pan out to make him President, if he does become president.

I, uh, if everything happens in this timeline as I guessed it I will be kind of scared, to be honest, because well sh*t we have two recessions ahead of us and two failed presidencies and a ton of crap.

[_]

Well I want to say a couple things.

1st: On Cordray I'm genuinely scared rn.
2nd:  Dem message on target, but they stole it from Papa Johns lol.
3rd:  To TD on Rauner, I believe you are wrong on him, and i'm going to list my reasons for rating a race against Pritzker Tilt R after I address your argument.

Argument:
1st, Rauner was elected to STOP the Status Quo, and the people here do not want to continue on the path that Blagojevich, Quinn, and Madigan set out.

Second, Fighting the state legislature = fighting Michael Madigan, the most unpopular (currently elected) politician serving in Illinois, and against the status quo, both should help. 

Now addressing approval, I believe most of that was from the budget Crisis, which has recently ended in a way which should help him, and according to Morning Consult he is at 40-49 approval, which right after a budget crisis which has lasted since the beginning of his term is rather decent imo. 

One last thing on the TL before I go to my reasoning, if this dude is in your timeline prominently, and the Dem Nominee for IL-Gov,  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oijs0vNTF3U , I don't think that it will happen irl unless he's completely and utterly imploding in the timeline.

Now my reasoning for rating it tilt R against Priztker:
1st:  Rauner's approval is only -9 according to MC, right after the ending of a budget crisis from the beginning of his term, with 70 Million in the bank and no primary in which he can boost his approval I think he can get into the positive before the election really begins Next July.

2nd:  Budget Crisis Resolution:  The Budget Crisis has ended, lifting a cloud that has hung over Rauner since the beginning of his term, along with a 32% Tax Increase that he has already begun hitting the Democrats and Madigan on, and with Pritzker showing support for it, that won't do him well (though I expect Rs who voted for it will be either primaried or face tough reelections as well).

3rd:  For those doubting Pritzker will be the nominee see the video from above.

4th:  Pritzker is attempting to run as a progressive in a Machine state, while he is completely covered in the corruption of Madigan and Blagojevich (wiretaps in which he asked Blago for state Treasurer and Madigan's clear backing of him in the primary.) I believe this will only hurt him as progressives will not back him out of distaste for his Machine ties, and moderates/suburban swing voters will be turned off by a progressive message.

5th:  Final reason, Rauner has had the past 4 years to lay the groundwork and build infrastructure for a campaign for reelection, which he has done very well (see 2016 state legislative results, where Democrats lost supermajority in House), and has turned the ILGOP into his own personal attack dog, along with Citizens For Rauner.

All these combined lead me to rate it Tilt R at this point, if Rauner fails to improve his approval by next July I will move it to tossup, but I don't see Pritzker making it better then that unless Rauner completely implodes.

[The_Doctor]

Not_Madigan, do you want me to respond to that or should I post the write up of the '18 race first? I have it saved in Google Documents. I just forgot to post it.

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Well. He might not be Governor. It wasn't Alex G. or Chris Kennedy specific though. The article is here.  It's just basically an Illinois Democratic governor needing federal help.

Not sure how you feel about it. Illinois and a number of other states implode fiscally leading to the crisis.

Sidebar: Your arguments were persuasive, I moved MD and ME to the Republican retained seats in this timeline in the gubernatorial races. I disagree on Illinois but I'll let you respond first before saying more on that.

[The_Doctor]

I, uh, if everything happens in this timeline as I guessed it I will be kind of scared, to be honest, because well sh*t we have two recessions ahead of us and two failed presidencies and a ton of crap.

Scared for the country or the state of the GOP post 2024?

First, no idea on Peggy Cordray and Karen Pence.

second, Both.

[_]

Not_Madigan, do you want me to respond to that or should I post the write up of the '18 race first? I have it saved in Google Documents. I just forgot to post it.

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Well. He might not be Governor. It wasn't Chris Kennedy specific though. The article is here. 

Not sure how you feel about it. Illinois and a number of other states implode fiscally leading to the crisis.

Sidebar: Your arguments were persuasive, I moved MD and ME to the Republican retained seats in this timeline in the gubernatorial races. I disagree on Illinois but I'll let you respond first before saying more on that.

I'd say go with the 2018 writeup first.

Also its unsurprising IL would explode and destroy the country.

[The_Doctor]

OK here you go. Note: I kind of winged it on the Democratic campaign. Feel free to critique it as you see fit. I changed it from Alex G to Kennedy but eh. the name doesn't matter.

==========
IL 2018 Election

Alexi Giannoulias (Democratic):  2,033,693 - 53.22% - WINNER
Bruce Rauner (Republican):  1,710,793 - 44.77%
Others: 76,808 - 2.01%  

Totals: 3,821,294 | Margin: 322,899 votes - 8.45%

Illinois continued its’ streak of unpopular governors in 2018. At least, Bruce Rauner did not leave in disgrace, about to be convicted. He was merely unpopular for trying to overthrow the Democratic establishment and status quo - and having failed. Like the President he was a businessman turned politician who ran against the status quo and won an upset victory in Illinois in 2014, winning by 5 points over highly unpopular Gov. Pat Quinn.

Donald Trump’s 2016 victory (and 23 point loss in Illinois) proved a heavy headwind against his re-election bid. So were the multiple fights with the legislature. Unlike Gov. Larry Hogan (R-Md.) and Charlie Baker (R-Mass.), Rauner had never cultivated himself as a moderate blue state Republican. Nominally pro-choice, Gov. Rauner vetoed a 2017 bill to protect abortion rights and his fights with the legislature on the budget made him highly unpopular. These were the kinds of fights that Baker and Hogan sidestepped.

In 2014, he had carried every county in Illinois except Cook County. He had won the liberal ring counties around Chicago decisively and won downstate Illinois by a wide margin. His margin overall was 140,000 votes (and that was with 33% of Chicago). He campaigned against Quinn's handling of Illinois’ finances. Republicans had come within a whisker of winning the governor’s mansion in 2010 but fell to the Democrats by a bare 15,000 votes. Compared to the 2002 win (the last time the Democrats flipped the governorship), downstate Illinois was more Republican but the collar counties less so.

In 2018, Rauner took 27% of Chicago, lost a couple of counties downstate and saw his 140,000 victory evaporate into a 8% win for Democrat Chris Kennedy. He lost Lake County, which he had carried in 2014 and saw his margins among the other collar counties reduced. He lost Will County and downstate, he lost St. Claire, Jackson, and Alexander Counties. Among the other smattering of counties to the west and central Illinois, he either saw his margins reduced or lost a few.  Apropos of nothing, he became the first Illinois governor to lose re-election since 2002 (George Ryan, also, was an unpopular Republican).

The Democrats had campaigned against Rauner’s budget cuts, arguing they were prohibitive. They also argued against Rauner’s abortion position and for things like universal college tuition and helping working class Illinoisans. More people voted against Rauner than for Kennedy, to be honest. To motivate the sizable minority population out of Chicago, Kennedy pledged to create an opt out voter registration process and to fight any restrictions on voting in Illinois.

Left unsaid in Illinois was that the Democrats were not exactly the prized party. Illinoisans were disgusted with both parties and increasingly despairing of their state. Illinois Democrats were not exactly popular - but the Illinois Republican Party was hobbled by the national GOP’s toxic attitude. Put another way, the swing voters who would go GOP were routinely voting Democratic for President and were not ready to be comfortable with a strong Illinois Republican Party downballot as long as the national Southern evangelical dominated GOP ruled the nation. They were quite aware of the failures of the Chicago ruled Democratic Party on multiple issues but were not ready to trust the Illinois GOP. Had Rauner marketed himself as a do-it leader who would challenge the worst excesses of Chicago’s Democratic Party while avoiding the divisive fights over social issues and right to work - all these things that Illinoisans liked, he might have made headway. (For instance, nobody liked their taxes going up under the 2017 budget).

Gov.-elect Alexi Giannoulias would inherit a state budget in shambles, a pension system in need of constant shoring up, and state credit near historic lows. The fiscal crisis that would start in Illinois three years later had been decades in the making.

[_]

OK here you go. Note: I kind of winged it on the Democratic campaign. Feel free to critique it as you see fit. I changed it from Alex G to Kennedy but eh. the name doesn't matter.

==========
IL 2018 Election

Chris Kennedy (Democratic):  2,033,693 - 53.22% - WINNER
Bruce Rauner (Republican):  1,710,793 - 44.77%
Others: 76,808 - 2.01% 

Totals: 3,821,294 | Margin: 322,899 votes - 8.45%

Illinois continued its’ streak of unpopular governors in 2018. At least, Bruce Rauner did not leave in disgrace, about to be convicted. He was merely unpopular for trying to overthrow the Democratic establishment and status quo - and having failed. Like the President he was a businessman turned politician who ran against the status quo and won an upset victory in Illinois in 2014, winning by 5 points over highly unpopular Gov. Pat Quinn.

Donald Trump’s 2016 victory (and 23 point loss in Illinois) proved a heavy headwind against his re-election bid. So were the multiple fights with the legislature. Unlike Gov. Larry Hogan (R-Md.) and Charlie Baker (R-Mass.), Rauner had never cultivated himself as a moderate blue state Republican. Nominally pro-choice, Gov. Rauner vetoed a 2017 bill to protect abortion rights and his fights with the legislature on the budget made him highly unpopular. These were the kinds of fights that Baker and Hogan sidestepped.

In 2014, he had carried every county in Illinois except Cook County. He had won the liberal ring counties around Chicago decisively and won downstate Illinois by a wide margin. His margin overall was 140,000 votes (and that was with 33% of Chicago). He campaigned against Quinn's handling of Illinois’ finances. Republicans had come within a whisker of winning the governor’s mansion in 2010 but fell to the Democrats by a bare 15,000 votes. Compared to the 2002 win (the last time the Democrats flipped the governorship), downstate Illinois was more Republican but the collar counties less so.

In 2018, Rauner took 27% of Chicago, lost a couple of counties downstate and saw his 140,000 victory evaporate into a 8% win for Democrat Chris Kennedy. He lost Lake County, which he had carried in 2014 and saw his margins among the other collar counties reduced. He lost Will County and downstate, he lost St. Claire, Jackson, and Alexander Counties. Among the other smattering of counties to the west and central Illinois, he either saw his margins reduced or lost a few.  Apropos of nothing, he became the first Illinois governor to lose re-election since 2002 (George Ryan, also, was an unpopular Republican).

The Democrats had campaigned against Rauner’s budget cuts, arguing they were prohibitive. They also argued against Rauner’s abortion position and for things like universal college tuition and helping working class Illinoisans. More people voted against Rauner than for Kennedy, to be honest. To motivate the sizable minority population out of Chicago, Kennedy pledged to create an opt out voter registration process and to fight any restrictions on voting in Illinois.

Left unsaid in Illinois was that the Democrats were not exactly the prized party. Illinoisans were disgusted with both parties and increasingly despairing of their state. Illinois Democrats were not exactly popular - but the Illinois Republican Party was hobbled by the national GOP’s toxic attitude. Put another way, the swing voters who would go GOP were routinely voting Democratic for President and were not ready to be comfortable with a strong Illinois Republican Party downballot as long as the national Southern evangelical dominated GOP ruled the nation. They were quite aware of the failures of the Chicago ruled Democratic Party on multiple issues but were not ready to trust the Illinois GOP. Had Rauner marketed himself as a do-it leader who would challenge the worst excesses of Chicago’s Democratic Party while avoiding the divisive fights over social issues and right to work - all these things that Illinoisans liked, he might have made headway. (For instance, nobody liked their taxes going up under the 2017 budget).

Gov.-elect Kennedy would inherit a state budget in shambles, a pension system in need of constant shoring up, and state credit near historic lows. The fiscal crisis that would start in Illinois three years later had been decades in the making.

I assume you have Rauner signing the budget in 2017?
Also I can see this result for someone like Biss or Drury, but not Kennedy.  See I've been very careful on this race, I recognize Rauner's precarious position, and his only hope is going against someone like Pritzker or someone who can write attack ads for him like Kennedy. 

I have Pritzker as Tilt R atm, Kennedy as Tossup, and ANY other dem besides Lisa Madigan at Lean D, I think it's highly dependent on the dem nominee here.

[The_Doctor]

1. Not_Madigan - that could be very well true. I just did buckets of states that were most likely to go Democratic based on partisan voting history or GOP incumbent issues (Kansas, for example, had Brownback) and then went down the list of states most likely to flip based on that. Rauner's precarious position is what had me having Illinois flipping. I won't disagree with your analysis in that regard then and you are right, it's dependent on the Democratic nominee.

I fixed it to Alexi Giannoulias to keep consistent with the results.  And yes, Rauner signed a budget.

2. Technocratic Timmy, BLM issues are interesting. Reparations never happen, for very obvious reasons (white + Asia America doesn't ever agree) but with greater voting power in the 2020s and 2030s, with their Latino allies, the black community finally achieves the second half of integration - economic integration. They achieved political integration in the 1960s and in the new realignment, economic integration will follow. This, by the way, is probably why by 2030-2050, they start voting more Republican.

So, for instance, with greater voting power, more police departments are aware that their communities can vote them out. This is a big problem in Ferguson, Mo. A framework of community policing and the like is worked out. It's not perfect but after the 28th amendment to the Constitution, which protects voting rights from voter ID laws and the like, passed in 2029-2034, this presages the general agreement that BLM issues are economic in nature and should be addressed.

A lot of the AA and Latino community's issues would disappear if they had the economic wealth on a parity with Asians and whites.

[_]

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And thus the timelines diverged.

I think Pritzker can get it to D+3.5 to R+4.5, Kennedy D+4 to R+4, any other Dem makes it D+9 to R+2.

[Mike Thick]

2022-2026 U.S. House Elections: What the F*** Just Happened

United States House of Representatives Elections, 2022:

Democrats: 241 (+47)
Republicans: 194 (-47)

United States House of Representatives Elections, 2024:

Democrats: 306 (+65)
Republicans: 129 (-65)

United States House of Representatives Elections, 2026:

Democrats: 328 (+12)
Republicans: 107 (-12)

Seat counts are rough, since I accidentally deleted them with the rest of the write-up. The venn diagrams in the corners mean nothing, and are only there because I borrowed the CD maps from Adam.

All the flips are based on an index of partisanship to median household income. David Valadao's district has the lowest score (most likely to flip) at 9, while Kevin Brady's district has the highest score (least likely to flip) at 417. Texas's 27th is the median district, at 242.

A lot of the seats that flip in 2022 are pretty standard swing-seat fare --  Texas's 23rd, Florida's 26th, Arizona's 2nd, Maine's 2nd. However, there are some very notable outliers. Rural districts in Eastern Washington/Oregon and California's far North flip. North Carolina sees five districts flip in one election. As Barbara Comstock hangs on in her wealthy NoVA district, even as Tom Garrett's Republican-leaning seat directly to her south flips. Northern Louisiana and parts of Mississippi flip to the Democrats.

2024 is where things start to get extremely odd. The Deep South continues to rapidly trend left. However, perhaps what's most notable is the giant splotch of red over Appalachia and Western Pennsylvania -- a detail of the way the index turned out that fits this timeline particularly well. Even as the Rust Belt flips en masse, though, Orange County remains a Republican stronghold, and suburban districts across the country continue to hold strong (with a few debatable exceptions, like NE-2 and whichever district has Oklahoma City in it).

In 2026, we start edging into some more suburban territory -- part of why I didn't go further, since flipping a bunch of suburban districts would really conflict with what happens in the TL. However, there is some more of the fare described throughout the timeline. Kentucky's 5th, the poorest district in the nation, finally switches allegiances, as does the Republican-since-1880 TN-1st.

TL;DR -- poor people, especially poor white people, stop voting Republican. Northern Virginia is more Republican than Mississippi. Hilarity ensues.

[Mike Thick]

CA-48 (and most of Orange County) stays Republican the whole time!?!

The backyard of the Reagan Revolution prevails through the Cordray era!

*whispers* it's because they're loaded

[The_Doctor]

and in the month of July, so it came to pass, that the United States Senate, as prophesied, failed the vote 51-49 ....

[The_Doctor]

I missed this.

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That's a line straight out of the 2024 Democratic Convention, most likely, yes. "Rich Cordray" even rolls off the tongue nicely.

[jojoju1998]

Could this be a good Timeline for after the Cordray Era ?

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=269411.0