Is America A Natural GOP Gerrymander?

[DC Al Fine]

There has been much talk about GOP/Democratic gerrymanders. An example many progressives cite is how the GOP lost the popular vote in the last congressional elections but won 30 more seats than the Democrats. GOP gerrymanders undoubtedly affected the margin, but I think a large portion of this effect can be explained by the tendency of Democratic voters to congregate in large cities.

Thus, you get states like Pennsylvania, where Obama won about 52% of the vote, but only 5/18 congressional districts. Some of this was undoubtedly due to gerrymandering, but even under a fair map, the GOP would probably win a majority of seats simply because of the mass of Philadelphians voting 80%+ Democrat. There's just no way to create an even map and keep communities of interest intact. Natural packs like this are seen in most states with huge cities like New York, Illinois, Michigan, and Georgia.

Suppose there was a fair congressional map in the 2012 election. Would the GOP still have won a majority of seats?

[DC Al Fine]

As an aside, I wish you Americans would name your districts. Do you know how bloody annoying it is to hear TX-3 or whatever and have to look it up on a map every time? Just call it Dallas-East or something

[DC Al Fine]

As an aside, I wish you Americans would name your districts. Do you know how bloody annoying it is to hear TX-3 or whatever and have to look it up on a map every time? Just call it Dallas-East or something

Why in the world would anyone do that?  That's just silly, and it certainly isn't an improvement.

A two-letter abbreviation with a hyphen and a number is perfectly sensible, and it's so little to type in the search engine when you want to look it up. 

Angus that's precisely the problem. I have to look up a district every time it's referenced and it does take time. I just don't have to do that when discussing Canadian or British districts. So long as you have a bit of geographical knowledge someone can refer to the district and you'll instantly know what they're talking about.

Quick what area does FL-27 cover? Quick what area does Miami South cover? Same place, one is quicker to understand.

[DC Al Fine]

Angus that's precisely the problem. I have to look up a district every time it's referenced and it does take time. I just don't have to do that when discussing Canadian or British districts.

Really, you don't have to look up stuff when you hear "Clackmannanshire:  16560 yes votes, 19036 no votes" and the like?  I think most of us do.

As an experiment I just typed in Clackmannanshire in the Google search field.  The first hit was a Wikipedia article.  The second was the Clackmannanshire Council web page.  The third was some sort of archival stuff.  Etc., etc.  Then I clicked on the news tab, leaving the search field alone.  The first hit was "Scottish independence: Clackmannanshire first to declare."  Linking to that article gave me some numbers, but no other information.

Now, let's type TX-3 in the search bar.  Not much better.  Here the first hit is a pair of shoes made by Puma.  The second is a cooling fan for a central processing unit, the Cooler Master Hyper TX3.  If I instead type "house district TX-3" I get a Wikipedia article as the first hit, but the second is a direct link to Sam Johnson's web page. 

Yeah, okay, I'm convinced that TX-3 is no better than Clackmannanshire, but it seems no worse.  I guess it's whatever you're used to, and I'm used to the XX-nn notation, so it seems normal.   

Sure, There's no reason why you shouldn't have any trouble so long as you have a reasonable command of geography.

As an aside, I wish you Americans would name your districts. Do you know how bloody annoying it is to hear TX-3 or whatever and have to look it up on a map every time? Just call it Dallas-East or something

Hearing Sam Johnson's district described as Dallas-East is just bizarre to me, given that the district is almost totally located in the suburbia north of Dallas.

I was pulling numbers/names out of my butt.