Talk Elections

serious discussion please.

Neither is a problem, but to answer the poll question, I would say option 2 (margin of victory being the key indicator for me).

Democrats have the bigger problem now, Republicans will have the bigger problem in a few years.  The biggest SE state is a swing state (FL), and the 2 other big states (VA, NC) are trending overall in the Dems direction.  Barring a landslide, the GOP doesn't even have a chance in Pennsylvania anymore (Bush visited 40+ times and lost by 2 pts. in a 2 1/2 pt. national victory), NH is only 4 EVs, and the rest of the region is so solidly Democratic that the GOP has no problem bashing it for the sake of rallying small town America. 

LOL. You are almost as funny as Scoonie.

nc is trending democrat?

wait did i miss something?

it's pretty slow, hard to miss

It's not really a problem, just a matter of will.  I would say in the current state of both of the parties 2 is harder, but yet the South could flip Democratic with a moderate populist.

Umm... look over the years
1988-NC 8.44% more Republican than the National Average
1992-NC 6.25% more Republican than the National Average
1996-NC 13.20% more Republican than the National Average
2000-NC 13.38% more Republican than the National Average
2004-NC 9.98% more Republican than the National Average (due to Homebody Edwards being on the ticket)

Not to mention, the Democrats have lost the last two open senate races there.

NC is move to the Right.

If I had to pick a state from the deep south most likely to trend Democrat and become at least a swing state in the near future, I'd say Georgia. Other than that, I agree with Takeourcountryback.

Democrats.  Even if we start taking the entire midwest, by 2012 it won't matter, upon which Hispanics will start to really take hold of the party as we're forced to try to pick up the southwest.  Between 2012 and 2020, the perfect Democratic ticket would be a Southern Presidential candidate and a Hispanic South-Western VP.  The South is expanding too rapidly to count on winning elections by simply ignoring it.

The South seems to vote more on a general feel than on concrete issues. This means that it's probably harder to swing as long as Republicans can successfully portray teh Dem candidate as a Northeastern liberal. I think a moderately populist Southerner could still take Arkansas, Lousiana and Florida, possibly also Tennessee and Virginia. I'm not really sure which will be hardest. However, it's obviously a bigger problem for the Democrats than it is for the Republicans.

If we reduce the South to just the confederacy and count the Northeast as PA-MD and Northeastwards (including DC as well) the South wins in EV 153 v 117 and 131 v 95 in congressmen. (senators are tied, but with the current situation, counting Jeffords as a Democrat, the GOP holds the South 18-4 while the Democrats only have a 15-7 advantage in the Northeast.)

The Dems clearly have the bigger problem, because the Republicans, as 2004 proved, can lose the entire Northeast but still win elections.

New Hampshire, once a safe Republican state, is becoming more Democratic.  They already have a Democratic Governor (Lynch).  Within the next ten years, Sununu or Gregg's Senate seat will be held by a Democrat.  As to North Carolina, the Charlotte area and Research Triangle is slowly moving towards the middle, like the Northern Virginia suburbs.  Florida is tough to track, and may always be a swing state.  Louisiana and Arkansas are winnable, but as I said before the candidate would have to be a social moderate.

Neither party has a problem just because they can't win every state. Why do people on this board not seem to understand that?

Even with Edwards on the ticket, Bush performed better in North Carolina than he did in 2000.  Anyway, Kerry visited PA almost as many times as Bush did... and Bush only lost by 2%, not to mention the the demographic of the state is shifting far in favor of the GOP.  The Democrats can't even win governor here anymore unless they run a guy who pretends to be Republican Light against a weak Republican candidate.

The only reason Kerry one here in 2004 was because of his military record, his connection to Heinz and vote fraud in Philadelphia, which a recently released study said is now the vote fraud capital of the US.

http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=51235

The problem is Democrats losing hold of the Midwest and Republicans losing hold of the SW.

More electoral votes are moving Democrat than Republican:
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But the trends are likely to favor Democrats even more in the future:
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Are you stupid?  TX and NC are not trending to the left.

Yeah, right. ::)

From what I've heard Wisconsin and Minnesota will stay as slight lean Dem or at most swing states.  Both states have been socially progressive since the turn of the last century.  Could I see some statistics that prove that they're moving in the oppisite direction?

Nixon did win Wisconsin 3 times.

"Trends" are overrated. They occur slowly, when at all.

Democrats, for obvious reasons.  We can't win elections; they can.  Their inability now to crack the northeast will be more of an annoyance for them than a problem.

I agree with you mostly, but I think Ohio already proved it's just as mindless as the rest of the country.  Withe their economy the way it is and they voted more on the gay marriage issue?  They've lost it.  Ohio will be solid GOP in 2012 methinks. 

You are apparently too stupid to read - the map on which Texas and North Carolina trend 'left' is clearly labeled 'the future'.  I hardly think anyone can dispute that these two states will trend Democrat in future, though whether it will be enough to every tip them to a Democrat Presidential candidate is debatable.

No doubt you are correct about the mindlessness and self-destructiveness of a majority of Ohioans, but there can be little doubt that their state is, on the whole trending very slightly more 'leftward' with every election cycle.

Hmm No if you look the the trending of both states they are trening more to the right.

The problem with analizing the trend ofTX is that there's been a George Bush of TX on the GOP ticket for 6 of the last 7 elections, and then there was LBJ on the Democratic ticket in the '60s. Some of the shift from 1964 to 2004 can be explained by home states.

Which one of these are you denying.  They are all pretty much the truth.  Military service in a lot of places in PA (like many similar places in the South) is golden, even if the Republicans did call it out, it probably still helped him, on the whole.  The Heinz people still carry a lot of weight in the Pittsburgh area.  I would bet that that was probably at least 40,000 votes, at least right there, combine the hometown feel of the campaign in Western, PA, esspecially the Southwest, with the military record, and it gave him about the same boost the Dems would have got in Arkansas and Tennessee if they had run Clark.  Finally... well, I have nothing to say other than that is what the study said.  I provided a link.

Unlike what some Dems seem to think, that 19 point lead that the exit polls gave Kerry here did not hold.  You guys seem to forget that, esspecially when you called PA two hours after the polls closed, even though, percentage wise, it was closer than Ohio.  Not to mention that this state used to give huge wins to Dem candidates and only flirted with landslide Republicans.  So, if the Republicans can't win here, the Dems have no shot in Ohio and Florida.

Time to wheel out this again methinks:

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If a successful Republican manages to win a couple of northeastern states the likelihood is that they will all fall.

But the south is very difficult for the dems to win. Arkansas needs some work but places like Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina and Georgia need alot of work.

The populations are growing yet they are having no imapct on the result. So as northerners move to the south. The small states in the northeast have a better chance of voting Republican.

If you look at the Northeast - Republicans have 5/20 while the democrats have 4/20.

Republicans haven't won two states in the northeast since 1988. While the dems won 3 in 1996 but he was from the south. So we cant suggest how well a Republican would do in the northeast if they were from there.

But i thnk the dems have a bigger problem. But the dems are in a better position than they were in 1980.

I thought Kerry won Pennsylvania because of the increasing Democratic strength in the suburbs.  It seems to me that to win Pennsylvania, a candidate just needs to win Philadelphia and Pittsburgh and some of the smaller cities like Scranton, Reading, and Allentown.  I'm not from Pa., but I do know that these towns are pretty blue-collar.  Shouldn't that help Democrats in Pennsylvania, or are the voters in these towns voting based on social issues?

I've got TN state House and Senate color-coded maps to fill in for you... will send when I get a chance.

Thanks :)

harder to overcome? Reps in the NE, no question really. (We're asking compared to the SE, not to SC, the Plains, or Utah, after all.) Bigger problem is the Dems' one for now though...simply demographically a bigger problem.

Most of those smaller cities are still in the 55% Democratic column, but that is far less than they used to get in those places.

In order for a candidate to take Pennsylvania today, he must win by a large margin in one fo the three sections (Philly, "T", Pittsburgh) and at least finish above the majority in one of the other two.  Kerry barely accomplished this in 2004.  I think he carried the Pittsburgh area by about 53% which far, far, FAR less than the 70% majorities that Democrats could once reasonably expect to comand in the region.  Even in the Reagan landslide of 1984, the Democrats managed to poll 58% in this area.

This treand is offset, however, by Republican loses in the Philadelphia metro, but not quite.  As a whole, I would say that the state had pulled about 5% in favor of the Republicans since the days of Reagan.  True, Philadelphia is growing faster than other parts of the state, but Republican end roads into the Philly exurbs like Allentown and Reading are also aparent.  As well as the fact that the Lancaster-York area has expirienced tremedous growth in the past 30 years, as has State College and these areas don't see to be getting any less Republican.

Short term the Dems have a bigger problem but i think long term the republicans are gonna implode because of the perception that the far right is running things.

A18, it's not about winnign every state, but winning enough states to win an election...last time a Democratic presidential candidate even won a majority of the national popular vote was 1976, before that 1964 and before that 1944.

Lancaster and York are two completely different cities. York county is very blue-collar...but it's blue-collar Republican. The city of York is a Democratic stronghold though. Lancaster has a totally different vibe. Much less blue-collar, more suburban looking...with a hip, liberal feel to downtown (though it's actually fairly Republican). The majority of Lancaster's growth is coming from Philadelphia and to a lesser extent New York, which would lead to a Democratic swing (I believe Lancaser county actually did see a slight Kerry trend). York's growth has been very rapid, and is coming mostly from Baltimore's suburbs, which at this time...seems to favor Republicans. Pennsylvania is just a state that in every little corner seems to be getting pulled in different directions. The Harrisburg metro is just a miniature Pennsylvania and is getting pulled in all directions with people moving in from all over the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic.

I've said for sometime that I expect Pennsylvania to continue to stay about the same....a Democratic leaning swing state. We would easily go Republican in a Republican landslide...but in close elections, we swing Democratic.

Reading and Allentown are not exurbs. They are cities that are now (especially Reading) becoming more and more affiliated with the Philadelphia metro. I believe Berks, Lehigh and Northampton are all at the peak of their Republican swing, and will slowly become more Democratic as they become associated with the urbane and liberal Philadelphia suburbs. Even the true Philadelphia "exurbs", which are really just subdivisions sprouting up across Lancaster and Chester counties, are swinging both counties more Democratic.

I also believe that Democratic losses probably won't get much worse across the Southwest, the areas economy by nature would give Democrats a slight advantage (though of course not as much as 50 years ago). So I'd say Democrats will still win the Pittsburgh area by about 50-55% (depending on the candidate).

Pennsylvania really isn't that hard to predict, it's just that it's so close it can swing either way. The state is seeing very little overall population growth or trend either way.

You are mostly correct, however, don't assume that those people coming from New York are going to swing the area in favor of the Democrats.  Why are they leaving New York in the first place?  I can't be sure, but I can give some educated guesses.

I missed your Pittsburgh comments, what about the economy around there do you think would keep in it in the Democratic column?  The northern and easter suburbs are treanding heavily Republican, and this tread is starting to get into the once uber Democratic strongholds like New Castle.

I think supersoulty and danwxman give good points here.  I have only passed western PA, so I have to give soulty the judgement there, but also Max Power as well.   danwxman hit on the South Central/Southeast to a tee however I am getting a little skittish about Bucks County. They barely elected Kerry and upgraded to a hard right Mike Fitzpatrick for Congress over the moderate libertarian Jim Greenwood.  Had the Dems a Peter Kostmayer or libertarian leaning liberal, they would have picked up PA 8.  I have good feelings about Montgomery, Delaware, and northern Chester counties and think Lois Murphy will win PA 6.  I will have to admit PA is getting pulled in every which way and the deciding factor where I'm from will be will the Bucks Dems pull their collective heads out of their asses?  Most of the younger people I know from that area are quite liberal so there is promise.   

I would imagine that Lackawanna County and the Lehigh Valley are strong Democratic places purely from an economic standpoint.

Talk to Keystone Phil about the Lehigh Valley.  He'd disagree with you strongly.  They did elect Pat Toomey to Congress, however, it was mainly because the Dems put up morons.  We also took two recent blows in special elections, but they were also GOP held seats to begin with.  I think it's temporarily pulling right due to exurbia, but will pull back left again when it becomes suburbia.  The steel industry is dead there.  Mack Truck in Allentown is also not doing so hot either.  The GOP smelled blood there and capitalized bigtime.  Our last two hopes there are Jennifer Mann and T.J. Rooney and the first one lost a State Senate special election when Charlie Dent when on to Congress.

Not only that, but the valley has been tettering on the edge towards the GOP since 2000.  Both Gore and Kerry barely made it past in the Allentown area.

What about Scranton/Wilkes-Barre and the anthracite coal districts?

They've been holding steady largely due to the fact they do not have MCMansions like the Lehigh Valley.  The economic situation in that area is quite glum.  My younger sister goes to the University of Scranton and it is a depressing area to be in except for maybe the ski resorts.  My guess is it will stay Dem for a while.

That is a pretty fair assesment.  Even it is less Democratic than it used to be, though.

Probably due to social issues.

The Lehigh Valley is not what it used to be. Economic conservativism is on the rise with the more young professionals moving into the area. The Dems are having a good time in the Philly suburbs but hurting in the Lehigh Valley.

Mann and Rooney are the only Dems they have left in the area and they are overrated. The GOP has control of the area and will stay in control for awhile.

Are you a native of the Allentown-Bethlehem area, Phil?

And so this country goes to the dogs...

Lehigh county is trending Democrat, at least on the Presidential level.

Are you in the Valley, or do you live in SE PA like Phil and Flyers?

Haha, you haven't seen the PA-13 yet, have you?

Wait, never mind.  That's right.

Actually, it gets closer each time and that helps the GOP.


I have family in that area but I don't live there and am not originally from there. I'm a Northeast Philadelphian.

1992 - Clinton - 41%
            Bush - 37%
            Perot - 22%

Dem win by four points.
           

1996 - Clinton - 46%
            Dole - 43%
            Perot - 10%
            Other - 1%

Dem win by three points.


2000 -  Gore - 49%
            Bush - 48%
            Nader - 3%

Dem win by one point.


2004 - Kerry - 51%
           Bush - 48%
           Other - 1%

Dem win by three points.


The county is not trending Democrat on the Presidential level.

What do you call 2000-2004? With the surge in population in the Lehigh Valley recently, I'd say this marks a good trend (for Democrats that is).

Uh...going down in margin of victory in 1996 and 2000 but going up last year isn't a trend.

Surge in population?  I thought after the closure of Bethlehem Steel and other industries that this place would wind up economically stagnant.  Guess the Valley is becoming an exurb of the Philadelphia metro area.  Are McMansions popping up?

The Lehigh Valley has a pretty healthy economy right now. Much like my part of PA (south central) it is a prime location between many major cities, which tends to spur a lot of growth in the transportation industry. There is also spillover from New Jersey and the Philadelphia suburbs...people moving out from Philadelphia might not want to move into sparsely populated upper Montgomery or Bucks county and instead choose the nearest metro which is the Lehigh Valley.

for us non-pennsylvanians, define 'lehigh valley'

I'm not from Pennsylvania, but the Lehigh Valley is about 50 miles north of Philadelphia and about 90 miles west of New York.  It contains the cities of Allentown and Bethlehem, both of which are on the Lehigh River.  Sometimes the Delaware River cities of Easton, Pa. and Phillipsburg, N.J. are also included in this general area.  As the home of Bethlehem Steel and the Lehigh Valley Railroad, it was once a very large industrial center.  Though it's steel days are past, according to our Pennsylvanian forum members the area is booming again.

ok is I-81 north of harrisburg to I-84 considered part of the lehigh valley?

No.  I-81 is in the Susquehanna Valley.  I-84 goes through Scranton and Lackawanna County.  The Lehigh Valley lies along Interstate 78 between the Delaware River and the western end of Lehigh County.

Everytime I go up there, more homes are going up. Needless to say, economic conservativism is on the rise. The days of strong labor in the area are over. Social conservativism is still pretty strong there, too.

Their is something called the National Margin Phil.  Yes it did go down from 96-00, but against the national margin it has gone more Dem from 96-00 & then again from 00-04

Ok so there was a "trend" for Dems between two elections. I don't consider that a trend at all but anything to satisfy the hacks here.

Based on the the vote totals, PA generally tracked the national changes from 2000 to 2004. In 2000 Bush to Gore lost by 4.2% in PA or by 6.3% if you add Nader's vote to Gore. In 2004 Bush lost the state to Kerry by 2.5%. That's an improvement of either 1.7% or 3.8% with Nader. Nationally Bush improved 3.0% in the two party or 5.7% adding Nader to Gore. Bush gained in PA but by less than his national averages.

At the county level, Gore carried 18 PA counties in 2000. In 2004, Kerry only carried 13 counties. Bush flipped Mercer, Lawrence, Greene, Cambria, and Carbon to his side. Note that at the county level Bush gained the most in SW PA.

Not according to the Almanac of American Politics 2006 (just got it today, so thrilled).  According to them, the area went 50-50 which is a considerably better margin than the Reps have recieved in recent elections.

You can consider that a trend,  just look at the suburban shift in the NYC & Philly burbs from 88-92 and then from 92-96, two elections, but I would say anyone at that time would agree their was a trend there

But Republican totals in the valley were depressed compared to national totals in the 60's, 70's (except Ford), and 80's.  It was not until the 90's and then 2000 and 2004 that Republicans began to run stronger there than they did state-wide or nationally.

It's probably not a good idea to get so absolutist over trends. After all in 1984 Mondale lost Lackawanna but won Armstrong.
You can say that inbetween 1992 and 2004 Whatthehell County trended 25% towards the GOP in Presidential Elections or whatever and you can have a guess why... but that's about it.

^^^^^^^^^^

Each election brings with it a unique set of issues, a unique set of circumstances, and a unique set of candidates.  Democrat candidates have been getting progressively taller since 1988.  Does that mean Bill Bradley will get the nomination in 2008?

Had 9/11 happened in 2004 instead of 2001, Bush would have won 48 states.  Circumstances change from year to year, independent of trends and demographics.

That's not to say that trends aren't useful to follow, but their predictive capacity is limited.

I'm sensing that the Repubs up there are more along the lines of Charlie Dent, not Santoomey.  The economic populism is dying there I'll admit, but I'm also sensing a libertarian trend in that region in general.  That's why I think the Dems are holding on there at the presidential level.  Remember, I have said this before and I'll say it again- Democratic districts are by and large more Democratic than Republican districts are Republican.  The PA GOP can spead itself out better while the Dems are more dense.  Look at PA 132 (Mann) and PA 131 (Beyer, used to be Browne).  Mann's district is incredibly Demcoratic, say 75% while Beyer's is even, lean GOP.  This trend also holds true in Philadelphia.  You based NE Philly on being pro-life on 6 out of 8 districts having pro-life Reps.  Well, you can spaghetti string Crestmont Farms, Morrell Park, Parkwood, the more conservative areas of Somerton down to Fox Chase in one district thus effectively forcing O'Brien, Kenney into a primary battle and neutralizing Fox Chase at the same time.  You could also plop Perzel's base and spaghetti string a corridor down Harbison/Aramingo Ave to Taylor's base creating a Perzel-Taylor primary.  You do that I guarantee you will have 6 out of 8 pro-choice delegates from NE Philly in Harrisburg!  Boy would that be fun if we were to ever take back the PA House.

Wrong. If you look at the GOP primary, Dent got 52% and the two other conservative challengers made up the other 48%. Dent could have had a more serious challenge if O'Neill didn't run. The district is more Santoomey. PA 15 is not libertarian. Stop making it seem better for you. Toomey totally destroyed Specter there in the GOP primary so there's no arguing that the area GOP is more moderate and if you say the Democrats there are socially liberal, you've lost it.

Good luck taking back the State House anytime soon.

Quite honestly, I don't want the Democrats or the Republicans controlling the state assembly anymore. DeWeese is mentally retarded, and the Republican leadership is full of stuck-up fatcats who think they deserve more money while simultaneously trying to hurt the poor with an expanded sales tax.

I agree with you whole heartedly.  When it comes to the state legislature in PA, I wish we would just toss all the bastards out.

I can't stand DeWeese and a number of others but I don't think the body itself is all that bad.

Yes it is both Dem and Rep.  DeWeese is a moron and is killing us Dems.  The entire Northeast Philadelphia delegation should be booted out barring Mark Cohen as well.  I know he has a bit of a speech impediment, but I admire Cohen for his balls and speaking his mind.  I'll even include John Taylor plus his 3 other GOP clowns in this equation considering they have been in there 20+ years and have done very little.  I am also not sparing Democrat Bill Rieger who should have retired 20 years ago for he needs to be carried in with an oxygen mask and should be in a home plus I am no fan of Mike McGeehan.  And of course Alan Butkovitz, who I kinda like, is going to be Controller of Philly.  Time for some young blood in there! 

I want more of Josh Shapiro, Mark Cohen, Mike Gerber, and Jennifer Mann in the PA State House.  On anotehr note, is it just me or are Jewish politicans just better? 

My state Rep. Sam Smith is the majority leader, so one would think that I would want him to stay in.  But, if he has a primary opponent, I'll vote against him.  I've had enough of the inept bullsh**t that is the PA state Republican party.  Esspecially with this latest pay raise.  If you knew how much corrupt politicing went into this.  They basically forced Republican Reps to vote for it or else lose party backing.  They leaned extra hard on a group of Reps here in the north that the party has all but declared they don't like, gee, wonder why they did that?

What do you think of Feingold? He always votes against pay raises.

Funny how yet another thread got hijacked by the Pennsylvanians. Damn Pennsylvanians, they try to steal everything from us...damn...*mutters incoherently to self*

Rieger is scum. The guy lives just a few minutes from me yet represents North Philly and is notorious for his ghost voting.

Are Jewish politicians better? Since they tend to be liberal, of course you'll think they're better.

I don't mind the NE Philly GOP delegation. I like O'Brien and Taylor. I don't follow/just don't care about Kenney that much. It'll certainly be pretty weird when they all retire and we get some new representation. We've grown up with these Representatives, most of which have been in office for over twenty years. Whether you like them or not, it'll be difficult getting used to them not being around.

When LBJ was on the national ticket in the 1960s, the Republican Party in Texas was barely functional.

When George W. Bush was on the ticket in 2000 and 2004, the Democratic Party in Texas has been barely functional.

If in 2008, we were to start off with a standard liberal Democrat and a standard conservative Republican in Texas, in a best case scenario you will get numbers of roughly 55% for Republicans and 45% for Democrats (the statewide race I would compare to that is Cornyn v. Kirk Senate 2002).  Dole in 1996 (won the state with 48%) would have probably gotten 53%-54% in Texas without Perot, and the state has trended slightly Republican since then (my best guess).

A Southern Democrat on the ticket could add a couple of points his way, but in order to have a chance to win, you would probably need a pretty liberal Republican candidate added on top. 

And all of this stuff is not set in stone either.  A Southern conservative Democrat will have certain problems in the Northeast.  A more moderate, outside the South Republican would have certain problems in the South.

All in all, I would pay attention to Al's maps.  They tell the biggest story.

Rieger should retire.  I would have liked to see Raphael Collazo win that seat.  Actually his seat tweaked its way into Northwood/Frankford area since Perzel vacated that area.

As for the Irishmen representing NE Philly well, economically they aren't all that far off from me but socially, I think they are waaay to parochial for my liking.  I will include Mike McGeehan(D) in this, but that's only on social issues.

I was just pointing out about Jewish pols Cohen, Butkovitz, and Shapiro being fairly close to me politically both economically and socially.  I just checked my nose size, not Jewish!

Turned out to be the worst case scenario for the GOP even in 2016 when Republican nominee was not a standard one

Wow have things changed a lot

ITT: TX and NC will never trend Democratic; PA/WI is a lock for the Dems.

Funny to see this thread was started on my 23rd birthday.   

So...the guys saying the Northeast is more of a problem for Republicans than the Southeast is for Democrats were right, yes? VA is now Leans D at worst, Obama carried NC once and its down to Leans R from nearly-safe in 2005, and Florida remains a tossup, while Republicans haven't really done any better in the Northeast than they did then (Trump lost NH and Republicans have lost their Senators there; he did win PA, but the GOP no longer has both Senators there, like they did in 2005, and seem on track for a large defeat in 2018).

But the guys saying Kerry states were Safe D in perpetuity were just as hilariously wrong in 2005 as they remained a decade later.

Since Bush barely lost WI in 04 and lost PA by only a few points that point was wrong even then.

Contrarian view: Democrats, because even with the various trends in their favor, they now have to win by almost 10 to control anything. 

If you're talking about the House popular vote, it's not necessarily 10 and it wouldn't always be 10. There are some estimates that say Democrats could flip the House with as few as 5-6 points, although the more common number is 7. I've only seen one analysis mention >= 10 before, and I still think that is much too high.

Also, this high number is what it would take to flip the chamber, not maintain an existing majority. The incumbency advantage accounts for some of that larger margin, which would be reversed if Democrats won, say, a 230 majority. Then it might be the case that Democrats could hold the House with a smaller margin.

The House is less skewed than 10%, but plenty of state legislatures in swing states would require a double digit win to take control (e.g. Michigan), and if you are assuming TX, GA, AZ, et al. move further to the center, this becomes an even bigger problem until they are actually voting left of the nationwide vote because they are all big states.  The Senate basically requires a double digit PV win in 2018 or 2020.