OK, I realize that there is a tendency to overreact after a wave election, and we too often hear right after such an elections claims that the beneficiary of the wave is destined for long-term dominance. So my title may be a bit over-the-top. And I don’t think America is a “center-right” country or even that this election was particularly ideological (as opposed to reflecting the state of the economy). It’s pretty close to 50-50 right now, ideologically.
But I do worry that Republicans will find it increasingly easy to achieve and maintain their hold on the House over time, due to a couple serious structural disadvantages Democrats face. I’ll explain after the flip.
It seems pretty clear that the parties have become more polarized over the past couple decades, and that people are becoming more likely to vote straight-ticket. States that are Republican at the presidential level are becoming more likely to vote Republican for all state and federal races (witness, for example, even the traditionally Democratic state legislatures in places like Alabama switching this year). And vice-versa.
It would seem, therefore, that fewer districts that vote Republican for President will elect Democratic Reps., and fewer Democratic districts will vote for Republicans. This certainly seemed to come into focus over the past three election cycles, when Democrats nearly wiped out Republicans in Democratic districts in 2006 and 2008 and Republicans pretty soundly defeated Democratic Reps. in red districts in 2010.
Here’s the basic problem: there are a lot more Republican districts than Democratic districts. According to the list of districts sorted by Cook PVI, there are 234 districts that are at least R+1, and only 192 that are at least D+1 (with 9 right in the middle at D+0). If we only look at the districts that have a particularly strong lean –say, 5 points in either direction — there are 189 “strong” Republican districts (R+5) and only 156 (D+5) “strong” Democratic districts.
A big part of this, of course, is because of gerrymandering. Unfortunately, because Democrats have an urban base, they are a lot easier to pack into very Democratic districts than are Republicans. Republicans, in other words, are more efficiently distributed across districts. One of the fears, as others here have noted, is that the Republicans’ substantial victories at the state levels will make this gerrymandering even more “efficient” for the Republicans. My point, however, is that even if they fail to alter the status quo it’s clear the Democrats have a structural disadvantage in the House.
To some extent, this structural disadvantage may be true in the Senate as well, due to there being more safe Republican states (on the Presidential level) than safe Democratic states (Republican voters again being more efficiently distributed). But this is more ambiguous, and, as Clinton and Obama both proved, Democrats can turn a majority of the states into blue states.
In any case, the upshot of all this is that with greater party polarization and more straight-ticket voting, it’s becoming much more difficult for Republicans to win in Democratic areas and Democrats in Republican areas. Because of the disparity in the number of Republican- and Democratic-leaning districts, however, this development would seem to be a major boon to the Republicans in the House, whether or not they gerrymander the hell out of the areas they now control.
This structural disadvantage has another effect as well — it allows the Republicans to be more conservative and forces the Democrats further to the political center. Republican don’t have to worry about winning ANY Democratic districts and not more than a handful of swing districts (that nevertheless lean slightly Republican). Democrats, on the other hand, must win several Republican-leaning districts to maintain a majority. While the Republicans in Republican districts can get away with being fire-breathing conservatives, I doubt you’ll get many strong progressives in these Republican-leaning areas necessary to capture to obtain a majority.
This is the kind of thing keeping me up at night. Am I overreacting in suggesting that we’ll have big problems holding the House in future years following the retirements/defeats of nearly all our Republican-district Democrats (something that has little to do with the fact that America is a “center right” country but rather with the structural set-up increasingly stacked against Democrats)? Somebody talk me off the ledge here.