The reapportionment of congressional seats, and therefore of electoral college votes, pursuant to the results of the 2010 census is now complete. Seven states lose a congressional seat (and an electoral vote): New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, and California. Five states gain a congressional seat (and an electoral vote): North Carolina, Florida, Colorado, Montana, and Oregon. Why did seven states lose a seat while only five gained one? Because another state, Texas, gained two.
A rough-and-ready way to gauge the partisan advantage in this new map is to compare the 2016 electoral college result with what it would be in 2024 if every state votes the same way. Biden won 306-232, but if he or his successor Democrat carries all the same states next time the margin will be 303-235. Maybe that doesn't seem like much of a difference. Recall, though, that the three closest outcomes in 2020 were in Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin. Biden won them all by a fraction of one percent of the statewide vote. If they had all gone narrowly for Trump, he would have had 269 electoral votes. If they all go for the Republican in 2024, and no other state flips, the Republican gets 272 electoral votes. The number needed to win the electoral college is 270.
One thing such a calculation demonstrates is how narrow Biden's electoral college victory was. Sure, from sea to shining sea he outpolled Trump by 51.3 to 46.8 percent, more than 7 million in raw vote advantage, but his victory in the electoral college was by a scant 44,000 votes across the above-named three states—21,000 in Wisconsin, 12,000 in Georgia, and 11,000 in Arizona. The Republican tilt to the electoral college is substantial and growing. If nothing changes in 2024 except for the state-by-state allotment of electoral votes, the Democrat's 4.5 percent margin in all ballots cast will be worth 3 fewer electoral votes. Even more worrisome is the very real prospect of winning the national vote by more than 4 percent and losing the election.
The Senate, of course, is yet wackier: the 26 smallest states have 52 percent of the Senate seats but just 18 percent of the country's population. You can measure from the other end, too: the 10 biggest states have 20 percent of the Senate seats but 53 percent of total population. The ratios hold pretty steady. A rough formula for Senate representation of the smallest 26 states is population times 3, and for the biggest 10, population divided by 3. Republicans currently hold 60 percent of the seats from the 26 smallest states, and Democrats hold 60 percent of the seats from the biggest 10.
Since the counter majoritarian landscape isn't likely to change anytime soon, Democrats are just going to have to win on the slanted playing field. It's not as if Republicans have no problems, being unpopular and out of ideas (unless voter suppression and gerrymandering count). Democrats are not going to win Utah and the Dakotas, but I trust they're looking at Texas and Florida, the two remaining mega-sized states in which Republicans are dominant. Here's the result of the last three presidential elections in Texas:
2012 R +15
2016 R +9
2020 R +6
Florida is one of the few states in which Trump did better in 2020 than he had in 2016—but he still won by just 3.3 percent, and in the same election 67 percent of Florida voters approved a ballot initiative establishing a $15 per hour minimum wage. In the 2018 midterm, another ballot initiative proposed restoring voting rights to felons who have served their time: it was approved by 64 percent of Florida voters.
These states are both within reach for the Democrats, and winning either one would close the electoral college door on the Republicans. Also, of the eight Senate seats Republicans have from the ten biggest states, half are in Texas and Florida (the others are both seats in North Carolina, one in Ohio, and one in Pennsylvania). The Sun Belt is full of promise for the Dems, who currently hold all eight Senate seats from Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, and Georgia—something that would have been unimaginable just ten years ago. Texas and Florida could be next. They need good candidates who speak with blunt force on the issues and about their opponents. Cut what James Carville calls, in this interview, "faculty lounge bullshit."
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