Yes, there’s a “rigged election”: The one that ensures a Republican House majority

[G_j]

http://www.salon.com/2016/10/22/yes-theres-a-rigged-election-the-one-that-ensures-a-republican-house-majority/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=socialflow


Democrats appear headed for their biggest presidential election in years. Nate Silver has Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton as an 86 percent favorite to move back to the White House. Some polls have given her leads in reliably red states like Arizona and Georgia. Iowa and Nevada are slipping away from Republican nominee Donald Trump; Texas is tightening; Virginia is gone.

Polling averages by Silver and RealClearPolitics suggest that the Republican nominee’s fight is fading in the key battleground states of Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and North Carolina.

It takes quite a Democratic wave to tilt this many states even powder blue. But most nonpartisan analysts suggest this will not be enough to tilt the House of Representatives. The GOP holds a 30-seat majority in the House. The University of Virginia’s respected Crystal Ball says that as of today, less that three weeks from the election, only 37 competitive districts remain. Of those, 17 are toss-ups, 10 favor the Democrats and 10 lean Republican.

That means Democrats could win all the close races leaning their way and sweep all 17 toss-ups and the Republicans would still keep control of the House. In those key five battleground states? Republicans currently hold 49 of 69 congressional seats and Crystal Ball believes that only one of those Republican incumbents is even vulnerable.

Why is this? The reason is clear: In those five states and many others, Republicans had veto-proof control over the drawing of new congressional districts after the 2010 census. Republican strategists executed a savvy plan in 2010 to flip control of the state legislatures that control redistricting, then took advantage of high-tech mapping tools and draw themselves a decade of control at the state and national level.


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