Democrats 2018 gerrymandering problem is really bad: 54% of the votes and only 47% of the seats.

[ehrnst]

According to Elliott Morris’s model for Decision Desk HQ, 54 percent of the vote won’t deliver Democrats a landslide House majority. In fact, it won’t deliver them a majority at all. Morris thinks 54 percent of the vote will translate to 206 seats, leaving Republicans with 229 seats and the majority.



There is a somewhat tedious debate involving political scientists, journalists, and election analysts as to whether we should characterize this situation — in which 54 percent of the vote wins Democrats 47 percent of the seats — as the result of “gerrymandering” or just “clustering” into an inefficient geographical pattern.

But whatever you call it, it’s an ugly number.

And it’s a huge driver of present-day politics.

Donald Trump’s approval ratings are bad, and congressional Republicans’ approval ratings are also bad. But so far, the GOP shows little sign of running scared on substance, and, critically, there’s little sign that they need to be running scared on substance. If you take the polling at face value, they will get a lot fewer votes than the other party and retain their majority anyway. And the same pattern exists in the vast majority of state legislatures up and down the country.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/8/24/16199564/democrats-2018-gerrymandering-problem

[DK504]

1. Hoping the Texas cases that have permanently banned the voter oppression there will

spread to other states. Maybe the Congress will reinstate Section 5 of the Voter Rights Act. (Holding breath)

[ck4829]

2. If this is true, then this opens the question of legitimacy of the federal government.

[ehrnst]

3. It certainly questions the legitimacy of thinking backing off social justice issues is the key

to winning elections.

[ck4829]

4. +1000 We need to look at safe, legal, and powerful ways of creating change either way

Deflate the Nazi tropes and cliches, defund their organizations, discredit their leaders, and defend the people and things they consider targets, and create institutions and things that make life better beyond the government.

This HAS to be done. From the government and outside of it. Regardless.

[genxlib]

5. This is not a new problem

It happened in 2012 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections,_2012

Dems won popular vote 48.8% to 47.6% yet "lost" by 33 seats (234-201)

It all comes from getting killed in 2010 and letting Republicans right the rules in a census year.

[Amishman]

6. And only part of it is direct gerrymandering

Because of how geographically concentrated our base is, we would be at a disadvantage even with proper efficiently drawn districts

[genxlib]

8. Agreed

And that factor appears to be getting worse as we self segregate in our living patterns.

It is somewhat related to the baked in disadvantage that we have in the Senate which has a tremendous skew against populous states.

Not to mention, we have won the popular vote in every presidential election this millennium with the exception of one. Yet we have had 3 Republican Terms. We should be 4-for-5 instead of 2-for-5. You could argue 5-for-5 since the one victory was as an incumbent.


For all of our chest banging about democracy, we actually are not very good distributing votes appropriately. Actually we kind of suck at it.

[leon8822]

7. First of all who the hell is Elliot Morris

Secondly you can't predict a election that is at the end of 2018. A year in a half 3rd if I here it from 538 and Nate Silver that this is bad news I'm not concern