1a/b. To begin, suppose the elections for U.S. CONGRESS were being held TODAY ... Would you vote for the Republican Party's candidate or the Democratic Party's candidate (ROTATE) for Congress in your district? [IF OTHER/UNDECIDED, RESPONDENTS WERE ASKED] As of TODAY, do you LEAN more toward... the Republican or the Democrat (ROTATE)?
BASED ON REGISTERED VOTERSRep/Lean Rep Dem/Lean Dem Undecided/Other
Current Total 38 50 12 =100
I just ran a quick and dirty analysis on the 2004 election. (Yay perl!)
In 2004, about 50.8 million people voted for Democratic House candidates.
About 54.3 million people voted for Republican House candidates.
Right now the GOP has the House, 231-202.
Given the percentage breakdown of the people voting, you'd expect the House breakdown to actually be 224-209 in favor of the GOP. So the GOP has a significant gerrymandering advantage right now. It's actually a bigger advantage than that because I didn't count any Green votes or Independent (Sanders) votes.
I'm unsure how to figure that advantage in mathematically. But if the advantage is truly 7-10 seats, and the undecideds would break evenly, then a 56-44 split would normally mean Dems up 244-191. The gerrymander would mean 234-201 in favor of the Dems, or basically a mirror image of where we are now.
I'm going to try a more mathematical way of figuring it out, though. If we're going from 51.6% GOP to 44% GOP, that means about 14.7% of GOP votes would switch. If I apply that to every congressional race nationwide, so that 14.7% of the GOP votes become Dem votes, then I get 33 switched seats, which would mean a Dem advantage of 235-198.
That's honestly more responsive than I thought. However, while this does take gerrymandering into account, it does not take into account the incumbency advantage, which would help protect the republicans from some of those losses.
Posted by tunesmith at September 10, 2005 06:39 PM
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