Bachmann bid for GOP leadership gets cool reaction

[Torie]

Let's see, Bachmann ran about even with her district's PVI. If every Pubbie ran even with their PVI, that would mean the Dems would win the generic vote by about 5%. That is not a good number in a GOP wave election. If you compared GOP incumbent.s performance to their district's PVI, Bachmann this year must be close to the bottom. That might be why she got a cool reception: she is toxic with the swing voters needed to win POTUS, or for that matter, winning Congress. If everyone ran as well as Bachmann vis a vis their district's PVI, it is problematical if the GOP would even have taken the House this year.

[Torie]

I meant to say GOP incumbents. Let me make this clearer. Bachmann's CD's PVI is GOP +7%.  That means she should get an 19% margin ((7x2)+5) if she is to match a 50-50  national vote split, correcting for her CD's PVI. That is because running even with an EVEN PVI means that you lose by 5% (beaten 52.5 to 47.5). She won by 12%.  That is not very good, losing by 7% if the GOP bias of her district's GOP bias disappeared, in a wave GOP year.

And yes, the GOP may have gained some seats net this year, if they lost the generic ballot by performance was minus 7%, because that was better than 2008's minus 10.5%. Say as a wild guess, perhaps 10-15 seats - basically just the blue dogs living in very GOP districts.

In short, Bachmann is a drag - and a huge one - for the GOP. That is what the voters of her district who are swing voters whose sways back and forth decide elections, are telling us.

[Torie]

I meant to say GOP incumbents. Let me make this clearer. Bachmann's CD's PVI is GOP +7%.  That means she should get an 19% margin ((7x2)+5) if she is to match a 50-50  national vote split, correcting for her CD's PVI. That is because running even with an EVEN PVI means that you lose by 5% (beaten 52.5 to 47.5). She won by 12%.  That is not very good, losing by 7% if the GOP bias of her district's GOP bias disappeared, in a wave GOP year.

And yes, the GOP may have gained some seats net this year, if they lost the generic ballot by performance was minus 7%, because that was better than 2008's minus 10.5%. Say as a wild guess, perhaps 10-15 seats - basically just the blue dogs living in very GOP districts.

In short, Bachmann is a drag - and a huge one - for the GOP. That is what the voters of her district who are swing voters whose sways back and forth decide elections, are telling us.

I don't know where you get this 5% from.

PVI = difference from average of 2004 and 2008 POTUS performance. GOP margin in 2004 was 2.5%.  In 2008 the Dem margin was 7.5%. Average the two, and the EVEN PVI is 5% [2.5%] to the Dems ((2.5 + -7.5)/2 = -2.5%.)  Oops, I understand why you did not get it. The 5% I was talking about should have been 2.5%!  Well depreciate my remarks by 2.5% then. My bad.

[Torie]

Let's see, Bachmann ran about even with her district's PVI. If every Pubbie ran even with their PVI, that would mean the Dems would win the generic vote by about 5%. That is not a good number in a GOP wave election. If you compared GOP incumbent.s performance to their district's PVI, Bachmann this year must be close to the bottom. That might be why she got a cool reception: she is toxic with the swing voters needed to win POTUS, or for that matter, winning Congress. If everyone ran as well as Bachmann vis a vis their district's PVI, it is problematical if the GOP would even have taken the House this year.

As a result of the packing of Dem voters, there are 234 GOP PVI districts, 9 ties, and 201 Dem PVIs. This House election was unusual in that PVI was a pretty good predictor of the result (not in all cases, obviously).

A R+1 PVI doesn't mean a district is Republican leaning in the abstract.  It means that the district is one point more Republican-leaning than the average of the 2004 and 2008 Presidential votes.  Obama won by more than Bush, meaning a an R+1 PVI district actually leaned toward the Democrats, on average, in the past two presidential elections.

So what this means is that Republicans have a structural advantage. In a 50-50 election, Republicans would presumably win a majority.

I think I have this right now. A 50-50 district has a PVI of GOP +1.25%.  It is confusing, because the zero PVI baseline has a Dem bias since Obama won by a bigger margin than Bush 2004.