How many votes do the Democrats need to retake the House? Maybe less than you think.

[eridani]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2013/10/23/how-many-votes-do-the-democrats-need-to-retake-the-house-maybe-less-than-you-think/

In 2012, Barack Obama was reelected with a 3.9 percent margin of the national popular vote, yet won only 209 of the nation’s 435 congressional districts. To have won a majority of districts, Obama would have needed to win nine more. So one way to quantify any GOP bias in the congressional landscape is to ask: “How much more would Obama need to have won by in order to win nine more districts?”

One way to do this is to rank all the districts by Obama’s margin of victory, and see how much he lost by in the 218th district. In 2012, Obama lost this district by 1.7 percent. If we assume a uniform swing toward Obama, he would have needed to win by 5.6 percent to win the median district (3.9 percent+1.7 percent=5.6 percent). So based on the 2012 results, a Democrat would need to win the national vote by about 5.6 percent to win a majority of congressional seats. On the other hand, we can also examine Obama’s 2008 vote share under the 2012 district lines. In 2008, Obama won the popular vote by 7.3 percent and the re-ranked 218th district by 2.9 percent, implying that in 2012 he would have needed to win by 4.4 percent overall to win a majority of districts. Splitting the difference between these two estimates suggests that Democrats would need to win the popular vote by about 5 percent to win a majority of seats.

Another method of estimating the vote margin the Democrats would need to retake the House is to compare their actual performance in 2012 to historical levels of responsiveness in congressional elections. That is, based on historical averages, how many more votes would it take to win the 17 additional seats Democrats need on top of what they won in 2012?

[Laelth]

1. k&r for exposure. n/t

-Laelth

[politicaljunkie41910]

2. After the 2012 election, I was surprised by how small

the populations of some of these Red States are, and how few votes decided some of these congressional races. If the Dems were as devious as the GOP and the Koch Brothers, they would devise a plan whereby, retired Dems relocated to some of these Red States like Wyoming, North and South Dakota, and took over the states. There are about 10 states where you'd be surprised how few numbers it would take to flip some of these states.

[geek tragedy]

3. That's what's happening with a state like NH.

Lots of former Massachusetts residents.

Arizona will eventually turn blue because of influx from California.

Florida would be a deep red state if not for all the retired East Coast people down there.