Today's look at the future of the electorate focuses not on cultural demographics, but rather on reapportionment of the Electoral College and U.S. House seats. Here are three possible outcomes for the post-2010 reapportionment, which will first be used in the 2012 elections for both President and U.S. House:
2010 Reapportionment
State
Guaranteed
Possible
Outside Chance
AZ
+1
+2
+2
CA
0
0
-1
FL
+1
+1
+1
GA
+1
+1
+1
IA
-1
-1
-1
IL
0
-1
-1
LA
-1
-1
-1
MA
-1
-1
-1
MI
-1
-1
-1
MN
0
-1
-1
MO
0
-1
-1
NC
0
0
+1
NJ
-1
-1
-1
NV
+1
+1
+1
NY
-1
-1
-1
OH
-1
-2
-2
OR
0
+1
+1
PA
-1
-1
-1
SC
0
+1
+1
TX
+3
+4
+4
UT
+1
+1
+1
Here are the different electoral changes for 2012, based on these models:
Guaranteed: Obama 361-177 McCain.
With Republicans winning Florida, Indiana, Nebraska-02, North Carolina, and Ohio (the "low hanging fruit"), it becomes Obama 287-251 Republican. The key states for Obama to hold would be Virginia (13), Colorado (9), Iowa (6), Minnesota (10), New Hampshire (4) and Pennsylvania (20). Republicans would need 18 electoral votes from that group in order to tie, and 19 to win outright.
Possible: Obama 359-179 McCain.
The same scenario as above, but the low-hanging Republican fruit makes it Obama 285-253 Republican. They would need 16 electoral votes from the key swing states to tie, and 17 to win.
Outside Chance: Obama 359-179 McCain
The same scenario as above, but after the low-hanging fruit Republicans would need 15 electoral votes to tie, and 16 to win.
In the extended entry, I look at the 2020 and 2030 reapportionments, which are more positive for Democrats.
I am going to write a series of pieces (hopefully) over the next 24 hours laying out the biggest individual races as we head into the final two weeks of the election. My first one is on the state legislative level.
Are state legislature races getting the priority they deserve? According to Tim Storey of the National Magazine of Policy and Politics, there are 28 of 84 legislatures that could go either way. Some of them are in large states that would dramatically impact redistricting in 2011.
We know money and several other factors have major effects on House races. But after we account for these major factors, how much advantage does incumbency give a candidate? A gerrymandered district? Getting caught in a scandal?
Yesterday I showed some regressions for Republican performance in House races for the years 2002, 2004, and 2006 that take account of incumbent party, fundraising ratio, and district partisan makeup.
Using these, we can tell how well we expect a Republican to do given certain conditions. However, the regressions are not perfect - the data don't fall along the lines plotted. There's plenty of room for other factors to be involved. We can use the differences between what we expect and what actually happened - the residuals - to tease out the effects of additional conditions. Below, a pack of factors, from the most important - money, party, district - to the less important ones - incumbency, gerrymandering, longevity - to the more interesting ones - scandal and failure.
I'll start by showing the Permanent Republican Majority in its current form in the House - the distribution of seats according to the percent of the vote Bush had in 2000 in each district. I've added a smooth curve through the data:
Click to enlarge.
Here's the distribution of Democratic House seats:
Click to enlarge.
The Blue Wave of the Democrats is clearly eroding that red cliff. And there's a good 60 or so Republicans - some in oh-so-carefully gerrymandered districts - teetering right on the edge…. it looks like a couple dozen have fallen in.
Below, the evolution of the House from 1993 to today, and a bit about redistricting.
Cross posted at Daily Kos and Swing State Project.
In posts about the Bush Dogs, Chris and Matt call for "more and better Democrats". This actually implies two separate, but complementary goals, one to get More Democrats and another to get Better Democrats, and there are several complementary strategies to achieve each of these goals:
