| I chose to start with 1988 because you have to start somewhere, and I think 20 years and 6 Presidentials makes for a good enough metric of recent elections. It also includes the 1988 "blowout" because there is a key point to raise about it.
So for Presidentials, we have Democrats winning the popular vote 4 of the 6 times, and the GOP getting a popular majority twice to the Democrats' once. I am a big believer that Ross Perot did not "rob" the elder Bush in 1992, but probably did deny Clinton a popular vote majority. That said, it is what it is and I will deal with the results as is.
The Senate results are particularly interesting when you consider how much of this period had the Republicans in the majority of the chamber. Yet Democrats won the popular vote 8 of the 11 elections, and had a majority 7 of those (D's are over 50% in 1998 if the graph is not clear). This includes Democrats winning the PV three times during the period of Republican control.
For the House, note that Republicans never captured a popular majority, not even in 1994 or 2002, which Democrats have done 4 times since 1988. You have to go back to the first do-nothing Congress of 1946 to find the House Republicans capturing a majority of the votes. Also, you can see the effectiveness of gerrymandering that Democrats did narrowly win the popular vote in 1996 but failed to retake the House.
Summarizing
Treating Presidential, House and Senate as equal, this data represents 28 national elections, in which Democrats win the popular vote 18 times, and a majority of it 12 times. Republicans win 10 times, and majorities 4 times.
If you want to argue that House and Senate are half a national election each, we end up with 17 national elections, Democrats winning 11 of them, and 6.5 with a PV majority. Republicans win 6, with 3 PV majorities.
What you also get from this, is that at no time since probably 1928 has the Republican party won the popular vote at the Presidential, House and Senate at the same time. Just in the data here, Democrats have done it twice, 1992 and 2008. 2008 is even bigger that Democrats captured a popular vote majority in all three, which they did not do in 1992. Barack Obama, meet Carl Yastrzemski because you just won the triple crown.
As for 1988, with Bush Sr's big win over Dukakis, we have the Democrats winning strong majorities of the popular vote in Congress, hence why Bush Sr was not judged to have a mandate.
Republican electoral success, such as it is, has been concentrated at the Presidential level since 1932. They never managed to convert the popularity of their Presidential candidates from Eisenhower onward into true congressional mandates. This speaks to their tactic of turning Presidential elections into mere personality contests. Usually this entails destroying their Democratic opponents on character grounds. In 2006, many of us laughed at their efforts to run against Pelosi since almost no one knew who she was, but looking at it now, it is no surprise they tried: it's all they're really good at. They sure have a tough time persuading voters to vote for them in greater numbers than the Democrats.
I know the above popular vote wins often didn't translate into actual control over Congress or the Presidency for Democrats. Historically the Republicans have proved good at winning power while losing elections (2000 was not unique), but popular will still matters. If it didn't, social security would already be history and Reagan would be on Mount Rushmore. Is it too early to resurrect the phrase "natural governing party" again? Probably. While Democratic claims to that title are debatable, Republican ones are laughable. |
