Due to gerrymandering, we are still behind in the House, I need a number PLEASE

[Eliot Rosewater]

in past elections, lets say 2020, how many votes were cast for a democrat in all House races combined and how many votes were for a republican.

I cant find this info.

i.e. GERRYMANDERING will likely be our end. If X amount of people voted nationwide in HOUSE races, how many of those were for a dem vs a repub vs the other categories, and the answer will absolutely be millions more for dems but I need the numbers please.

For instance it would be 3 numbers

dem
repub
other

[RockRaven]

1. Try this:

Here's the Wikipedia page for 2020 House election.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections

Look under "results summary" and there's an aggregate popular vote in the table.

Towards the top there's a link for the 2018 page which is structured similarly, and you can keep going back from there.

[Eliot Rosewater]

4. Thanks...

[bucolic_frolic]

2. 2018 might be relevant, mid-term election, but things fell very very right for Dems that year

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections

Parties Seats Popular vote
2016 2018 +/− Strength Vote % Change
Democratic Party 194 235 Increase 41 54.0% 60,572,245 53.4% +5.4%
Republican Party 241 199 Decrease 42 45.7% 50,861,970 44.8% –4.3%
Libertarian Party — — — — 758,492 0.7% –0.6%
Independent — — — — 569,502 0.5% –0.2%
Green Party — — — — 247,231 0.2% –0.2%
Constitution Party — — — — 59,972 0.1% –
Others — — — — 343,577 0.3% –0.1%
Totals 435 435[e] 0 100.0% 113,412,989 100.0% —
Source: [1] Election Statistics – Office of the Clerk (see note above)

https://www.pewresearch.org/methods/2020/09/08/democrats-made-gains-from-multiple-sources-in-2018-midterm-victories/

https://history.house.gov/Institution/Election-Statistics/

[Eliot Rosewater]

3. Thanks, yes I needed off year...

[dsc]

5. This also gives us 2016

we split the popular vote 48.0% to 49.1% in their favor, and they got 241 seats which is more than we got with an 8.6% win. We improved ourselves a bit since then so we shouldn't be at quite as much a disadvantage but we still are at a bit of one.

[Zeitghost]

6. Gerrymandering has little effect at the national level

2020: House Elections:
Democrats - 77.5M votes (51%) 222 Seats (51%)

Republicans - 72.75M votes (48%) 213 Seats (49%)

[zipplewrath]

8. Kinda distorting though

Yes a large number of states have 1, 2, or 3 reps and gerrymandering is hard in those states
Mostly it ends up affecting 1 seat on a collection of states. But then look at larger states like Alabama. Where the state wide split is often around 55/45 but there are 7 GOP and 1 Democrat. And add Texas and Florida to that imbalance and now you are talking alot of seats. And the fact that California has way fewer reps than their population suggests, and the problem is even greater.

The OP question is hard to quantify exactly, and probably changes year to year. But I have seen estimates anywhere from 15 to 30 seat imbalance.

[Zeitghost]

9. It's not distorting at all

At least not on a nation wide level in the House. For every FL and TX swinging things red, there is CA or NY to swing it blue. The end result is the seats are fairly proportionate to the total votes cast nationwide. We got 51% of the total votes and we got 51% of the total seats in 2020. That seems pretty fair. There is no way you could explain a 15-30 seat imbalance with those numbers.


The real problem with gerrymandering is at the state level where many state legislatures are often not representative of their total constituency.

[dsc]

12. It is, but not for the reason he said

many states had their seats redrawn by court order prior to 2020 (both NC and PA for example) which made them way fairer. If you look at 2016 comparted to 2018 the true power of their gerrymander shines through. We barely lost the popular vote in 2016 but they got 241 seats while in 2018 we won by over 8 points and got only 235 seats. In NC, the number of seats they won for Congress was unchanged even as we went from the GOP winning most state wide seats in 2016 and losing all of them in 2018.

[W_HAMILTON]

10. If one example proves you right, this one example proves you wrong:

2016: House Elections:
Democrats - 61.8M votes (48%) 194 Seats (45%)

Republicans - 63.2M votes (49%) - 241 Seats (55%)

[Zeitghost]

11. Yes, we could look at a number of elections

But I thought the current House makeup and most recent election results were the most relevant to the discussion.

[W_HAMILTON]

13. The exception doesn't make the rule.

I mean, you can look to any reputable election pundit and they will admit that there is an inherent Republican advantage in House elections due to gerrymandering.

You say that for every Florida, there is a New York, but no, that is not true. New York -- a heavily blue state -- tried to do as you claim and they were rebuffed by their courts and forced to enact a more favorable map to Republicans; contrast that with Florida, a true purple state, and Republican leadership there just railroaded through a heavily gerrymandered map that is not at all indicative of the 50/50ish nature of that state.

Never mind the fact that you are comparing heavily blue states (NY and CA) with a purple state like FL or even a trending purple state like TX. If our strongest blue states are simply just offsetting purple and trending purple states, it's no wonder that we are still getting killed due to their heavily red states more than pressing their gerrymandered advantage.

[Zeitghost]

14. I don't need election pundit opinions

When a very easy to calculate number tells me everything I need to know. You and I and just about everyone else can compare the % of total votes cast by party to the % of seats won by party with a quick Wiki search and do the math.

The Republicans had a small advantage from 2010-2018 that peaked in 2016, giving them a few extra seats. We had erased that to basically zero by 2020.

So no, we are not "still getting killed due to their heavily red states more than pressing their gerrymandered advantage."

[W_HAMILTON]

15. So, you delight in being wrong.

Once again, the exception doesn't make the rule.

You think you know better than people whose entire careers are based on this. You say you can perform an easy calculation to prove them wrong, so I provided you an easy calculation that proved you wrong.

The well-known, built-in advantage for Republicans has not been erased -- it has been exacerbated by the failings of the census under the Trump administration and now the new heavy gerrymanders in red and purple states.

Be sure to revisit this conversation after the 2022 midterms and let's see how your easy calculation fares.

[MichMan]

7. Not understanding what you think that will prove.

Some districts vote overwhelmingly for one party over another while others are tightly contested.

District "A" votes for Democrats 90% to 10%

District "B" votes for Republicans 51% to 49%.

The only way to balance this out would be more gerrymandering in some cases, not less. The VRA is odd in a way because it prohibits "packing" of minorities in the same district, but at the same time prohibits diluting minorities across districts.

[WarGamer]

16. Here's another problem...

experts say 3-4 ADDITIONAL seats are automatically GOP because of the census and redistricting...

And that's before the gerrymandering and voting rights issues.