GERRYMANDERING: I want to put down the idea that Democrats didn't try to win state legislature races

[In It to Win It]

I posted this is another thread, but I feel this deserves its own, front and center.

We tried to win these state legislative races. We REALLY did. We were playing on rigged maps.

I’m in Florida. We focused our efforts on flippable districts ONLY to gain seats in ONE chamber of the Florida legislature because the mapped is so rigged against us. We were only aiming for a gain of 3 seats in one chamber and that would only put us at half of one chamber but that’s enough to where have some say in the next map.

Democrats increased their turnout in Florida by A LOT compared to 2016. The GOP turned out their base BY EVEN MORE. Their expansion was far greater than the Democrats’ expansion and much bigger than anyone expected. Because of that, we didn’t pick up anything. All of their judges got re-elected. They didn’t lose any seats in the legislature.

In addition to Florida, we focused our efforts in Texas, NC and a host of states just to flip only a few seats because we have no path to a majority in anything. The only and absolute best thing we could possibly accomplish was an EVEN SPLIT in ONE CHAMBER of each state legislature. There was no possibility of a majority anywhere because of their rigged maps.

[left-of-center2012]

1. Who said we did not try? i've not heard that..

[In It to Win It]

2. My original comment (which was basically this post) was in response to someone that said we didn't

pay enough attention to the down ballot races... only but we did.

[TwilightZone]

4. There have been posts asserting it.

Assertions that we didn't emphasize down-ticket races, we didn't target state houses, we don't know how to run campaigns, posts seemingly oblivious of the 2018 results. Frustration that we didn't get rid of McConnell and Graham, both of which were always much more unlikely than we wanted to admit. That kind of thing.

The usual post-election blame game nonsense, though we're starting rather early this time.

[Gothmog]

3. I agree

Democrats tried to win control of these legislatures

[BComplex]

5. Texas, Florida and North Carolina ....none of those final numbers made any

sense. And in North Carolina, I saw an overwhelming number of first-day-of-early-voting in person for republicans in my county, and it looks like it was state-wide. That just doesn't happen.

#1 Republicans don't vote early.
#2 I live in a democratic majority county in North Carolina

#3 Even though we're surrounded with red-necks, and republicans are sometimes voted in for the County Commission....but only from a couple of districts where they have the potential number of republicans come out and vote. One of the places where a republican won the county commission is a strong democratic district, and the outgoing Commissioner is popular with dems and republicans alike. The guy who won is a whaco crazy Qanon dude.

#4 I have a lot of family in Texas. Most republicans. A couple of those republicans (4) who never voted before for a democrat, one voted for Hillary in 2016, and all voted Biden in 2020.

These items are reasons I still, to this day, do not feel comfortable at all with "proprietary programming" in voting machine tabulators. It just seems to me that somehow vote tallies were flipped on their heads.

[LeftInTX]

16. The seats we tried to flip locally are gerrymandered

[bullwinkle428]

6. Democrats made a GREAT effort in eastern Iowa. However, to quote the

great philosopher/comedian Ron White, "You can't fix stupid!" There's only so much you can do to counter the mentality of the willfully ignorant.

[OrlandoDem2]

7. We need to follow the advice of Rep. Anna Eskamani, D-Orlando. She could be our Stacey Abrams.

She won in 2018 in a moderate district, center-right. It was previously held by a Rep.

She is young, talented, energetic, and authentic. She has a grass roots following but the Florida Democratic Party keeps her at arms length.

Her campaign has tons of volunteers because it’s vibrant, honest, and she’s not a corporate Dem. The state Democratic Party needs to embrace her!!

[MoonlitKnight]

11. She is the future of our state

I have hope.

[LizBeth]

8. I think one of the issues is a lot of Republicans did vote Biden and didn't vote Democratic down

ticket.

[In It to Win It]

9. That happened as well! I actually fear that happened in Georgia because

while our Democratic presidential candidate got more votes this his Republican opponent, our Democratic senate candidate got less votes than his Republican opponent. That suggests to me that some people voted for Biden at the top of the ticket and vote for the republican senator down the ticket. That makes me super nervous about the Georgia and that means we can't slack. We have to turnout those same voters again, which will be more of an uphill battle without the enthusiasm of the presidential race.

[muriel_volestrangler]

10. However, you did also agree with a post that said Trump helped the Republican turnout

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100214511623#post9

So it seems a confused situation.

What do you think about the door-to-door work of Democrats versus Republicans?

[In It to Win It]

13. I think that's also true. I believe that Trump did help Republican turnout

..and I also think that there were some split ticket voters that broke for Biden and voted GOP down ticket.

Specifically, for Georgia, I think it was a combination of increased turnout for Dems and split ticket voters that put us over the top in the presidential race but not so much for the senate race.

With regard to the door-to-door question, are you asking who do I think did a better job at it? or my view of each one's strategy?

[muriel_volestrangler]

19. View of each strategy, I guess

It was being noted some time before the election that Democrats were, on the whole, doing considerably less (which remained true, as far as I know).

[LeftInTX]

17. In Texas, Biden received 366,973 more votes than Cornyn's opponent

[Amishman]

12. part of it is gerrymandering, part of it is inherent geographic disadvantage

districts are drawn on geography. We have a disproportionate percentage of our voters in urban cores. We will always be fighting an uphill battle in anything districted because of this, even with completely fair maps.

[In It to Win It]

14. I won't argue that

But I don't think that's an excuse for not trying to make a fairer map.

I recognize the disadvantage and know that it's difficult to make maps that are 100% fair. There will be areas where there are not enough Democrats no matter how you draw the districts and vice versa. For example, out of a state with 15 districts (random numbers), they make 12 of them noncompetitive when it's possible that number can be lessened to 9, and for the 9 left there's not much you can do to make them more competitive.

When given the opportunity to make more competitive districts than they currently have, the decision is always to not do that.

[Amishman]

15. Why do you think the goal should be competitive districts?

Last edited Mon Nov 9, 2020, 07:40 PM - Edit history (1)

The Constitution is mum on what basis should be used to draw the districts.

I can see three reasonable approaches.

Competitiveness.

it helps keep extreme viewpoints from having undue influence most of the time, and keeps representatives more at the mercy of their constituents.

The downside is it is very swingy,and lets flash movements grab power quickly (something like the Tea Party, Brexit Party etc).

Geographic compactness. Simple to administer and hard to rig, but not always the most fair. Advantage is your rep is the closest to you and should be more in tune with local issues.

Ideology. Opposite of competitive, group areas together based on prevailing political alignment. The upside is you end up with a rep who very likely shares many if your views. Problem is it pretty much locks in one party control of that district and makes bad reps hard to remove.

[AwakeAtLast]

18. Who draws the new maps?

We do!

[muriel_volestrangler]

20. Not really:

Votes in Arizona are still being counted, but if those chambers remain in GOP hands, Democrats will have failed to flip a single state chamber. In fact, the only chambers that will have changed hands are the New Hampshire House and Senate, which flipped to Republican control. This is a surprising defeat for Democrats — particularly as New Hampshire voters overwhelmingly reelected Democrats to the US Congress and voted for former Vice President Joe Biden by a wide margin.

According to the NCSL, this means that out of 98 chambers (not counting Nebraska’s unicameral and facially nonpartisan body), “59 are held by Republicans, 37 by Democrats.” And when it comes to unified control — meaning one party controls both the legislature and the governorship — Republicans have the edge holding 23 states to Democrats’ 15.

https://www.vox.com/2020/11/5/21551388/democrats-republicans-state-legislative-races-election-results-redistricting-gerrymandering-census

[AwakeAtLast]

21. Aw nuts! n/t