Posted on 08/07/2017 1:52:47 PM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
When Democrats think about their party’s problems on the political map, they tend to think of President Trump’s ability to win the White House despite losing the popular vote and Republicans’ potent efforts to gerrymander congressional districts. But their problems extend beyond the Electoral College and the House: The Senate hasn’t had such a strong pro-GOP bias since the ratification of direct Senate elections in 1913.
Even if Democrats were to win every single 2018 House and Senate race for seats representing places that Hillary Clinton won or that Trump won by less than 3 percentage points — a pretty good midterm by historical standards — they could still fall short of the House majority and lose five Senate seats.
This is partly attributable to the nature of House districts: GOP gerrymandering and Democratic voters’ clustering in urban districts has moved the median House seat well to the right of the nation. Part of it is bad timing. Democrats have been cursed by a terrible Senate map in 2018: They must defend 25 of their 48 seats1 while Republicans must defend just eight of their 52.
But there’s a larger, long-term trend at work too — one that should alarm Democrats preoccupied with the future of Congress and the Supreme Court.
(Excerpt) Read more at fivethirtyeight.com ...
No doubt because white Americans are racist.
A poor workman blames his tools.
Dang Russians.
As if Democrats never used gerrymandering.
“The Senate hasn’t had such a strong pro-GOP bias since the ratification of direct Senate elections in 1913.”
Speaking of tools... they are wasting this advantage like a bunch of idiots!
You would never know that based on results.
The bias is strong with this one. Gerrymandering has always been done more skillfully by Democrats than Republicans.
The excuses for dem midterm losses keep coming...
and it’s still 2017!!
Republican gerrymandering? HA! Has this author ever seen Maryland’s gerrymandered congressional district map? It looks like cooked spaghetti tossed onto a plate except the districts are very carefully computer generated to give Dems a 7 to one advantage, far more than the admittedly blue majority.
What he declines to see, or refuses to, is that gerrymandering by the Democrats when they were in power in state legislatures contributed to their own demise.
They created and ‘set aside’ ‘minority districts’ to insure a black representative would be elected from their state, no matter what. What this did in the unintended consequence category of being too clever by half is, rob adjacent districts of democrat voters that they would have had in marginal districts to win.
Then, when the GOP got control of the legislatures, they decided to keep the minority districts intact, thus insuring all the democrats were herded into one bloc and have minimal effect on other districts.........................
Obviously gerrymandering is what they want.
Congressional district gerrymandering has been done by judges, directly or indirectly, for decades, with the express purpose of maximizing representation of minorities.
Ensuring automatic wins for Democrats of course was going to lead to other districts with minimal minorities. What did they think would happen?
That’s what happens when you give Al Green and Maxine Waters the spotlight to stake-out the extreme Left positions on Trump
Link below is to Luis Gutiérrez’ 4th Congressional Map — the mother of all gerrymandered districts to get the (illegal) latino vote.
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/IL/4
The GOP will also be helped for a generation all of the state representatives and state senators they have as a “farm team” for federal and statewide offices. It is similar to what the Democrats had after 1974.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_Republican_Party
From the link(under resurgence)...
In the 90s, Georgia Republicans gained a majority in the congressional delegation after a redistricting plan adopted by the General Assembly Democrats backfired.
I remember this like it was yesterday!!! One district resembled a pencil. People were pissed off.
At the time, I was a very young Republican, and
dem representative Robert Brown(Macon) told us(thru the media) to just suck it up.
Well, we sucked it up alright and then came out in droves to vote against them.
Corrine Brown’s old district was two blocks wide in Orange Park - made so as to connect downtown Jax with Ocala. It’s now gone and so is she.
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