Brad, I love the detail you went into here. So interesting.
I do have a question about something that is bothering me. Adding up the total national vote does not take into account any asymmetry of uncontested races. There are ways to account for that, and I wonder if you’ve given it a try.
I'll confess, I haven't accounted for that asymmetry, and I'll be curious to see where the 2024 House popular vote ultimately lands, if someone imputes presidential results (or something else) for uncontested races.
The first order part of the logic is that people come out to vote based on Presidential races and sometimes Senate races.
Whether your House race is contested or not is almost surely an incredibly rare reason for someone to decide whether or not to come out and vote. And once they do come to vote, they’re gonna vote in that race, contested or not (or not vote in it and just vote for President, whether the House race is contested or not).
Great insights on how the educated suburban drift toward the Dems has inverted the parties’ respective abilities to win House seats. Btw there is something very therapeutic about seeing the words “Countdown to 2026.” Thanks for keeping us focused on the future.
Interesting post. Amazing that there are so few close house races. Four hundred and thirty eight districts and there are only a handful of close races despite a dead heat in the number of seats. More geographic segregation by party? Better gerrymandering?
The lack of competitive House seats is indeed a story of both geographic self-sorting and gerrymandering, as you mentioned. But also, to be fair, that list I had in my post was only showing seats decided by under 2 points. There were probably at least another dozen seats I could've added, if my cutoff had been 3 points or under. But yeah, the current uncompetitiveness of most House districts is just unprecedented.
Brad, I love the detail you went into here. So interesting.
I do have a question about something that is bothering me. Adding up the total national vote does not take into account any asymmetry of uncontested races. There are ways to account for that, and I wonder if you’ve given it a try.
I'll confess, I haven't accounted for that asymmetry, and I'll be curious to see where the 2024 House popular vote ultimately lands, if someone imputes presidential results (or something else) for uncontested races.
The first order part of the logic is that people come out to vote based on Presidential races and sometimes Senate races.
Whether your House race is contested or not is almost surely an incredibly rare reason for someone to decide whether or not to come out and vote. And once they do come to vote, they’re gonna vote in that race, contested or not (or not vote in it and just vote for President, whether the House race is contested or not).
Great write-up. The shift in the electoral bias of the House in recent years has a huge impact but has really been under-reported.
Trump clearly needs more House loyalists to staff his incoming administration.
Great insights on how the educated suburban drift toward the Dems has inverted the parties’ respective abilities to win House seats. Btw there is something very therapeutic about seeing the words “Countdown to 2026.” Thanks for keeping us focused on the future.
Thanks so much for the kind words, Jon! I do what I can. :)
Interesting post. Amazing that there are so few close house races. Four hundred and thirty eight districts and there are only a handful of close races despite a dead heat in the number of seats. More geographic segregation by party? Better gerrymandering?
Hi professor, good to see you here. :)
The lack of competitive House seats is indeed a story of both geographic self-sorting and gerrymandering, as you mentioned. But also, to be fair, that list I had in my post was only showing seats decided by under 2 points. There were probably at least another dozen seats I could've added, if my cutoff had been 3 points or under. But yeah, the current uncompetitiveness of most House districts is just unprecedented.