You have commented 339 times on Rantburg.

Your Name
Your e-mail (optional)
Website (optional)
My Original Nic        Pic-a-Nic        Sorry. Comments have been closed on this article.
Bold Italic Underline Strike Bullet Blockquote Small Big Link Squish Foto Photo
Submit your comments on this article
Home Front: Politix
U.S. Election Rules Doomed Democrats' Chances Of Taking The Senate
2018-11-08
[HuFFPoo] It’s a testament to how U.S. election rules tip the scales for white, rural voters who support the GOP.

Democrats may be ecstatic that they retook the House of Representatives, but their decisive victory conceals a harsher reality: It took a landslide in the popular vote to get them here, and they are projected to lose seats in the Senate.

Those facts speak to just how far the U.S. election system is tilted in the Republicans’ favor. Through a combination of fundamental factors and partisan gerrymandering, Republicans on Tuesday retained their grip on the Senate and many state houses without a national majority.

Because the process of redrawing political maps will not begin until after 2020, House Democrats will have to defend their gains on the same, skewed playing field. Ahead of Tuesday’s election, various forecasts posited Democrats would have to beat Republicans by roughly 5.5, 7, or even 11 points in the general vote just to win a slim majority of seats in the House.


Posted by:Besoeker

#10  It is really amazing how many people don't understand that Senate races are decided by the popular vote of the people who live in the state and are registered to vote.
Posted by: Deacon Blues   2018-11-08 18:46  

#9  If New Yorkers are gonna call all the shots, I really do want out.
Posted by: Abu Uluque   2018-11-08 11:40  

#8  And, of course, there is no Election Fraud in the big cities run by entrenched (corrupt) Democratic Party Political Machines, right? Pure as driven snow they are? (/sarc, if it was needed)
Posted by: magpie   2018-11-08 09:59  

#7  This the same reason that Democratic efforts to get rid of the Electoral College. Small states will never give up the small influence they have .
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia    2018-11-08 09:01  

#6  When they try to move state borders around to facilitate their electorate, then we may have an issue.
Posted by: Mullah Richard   2018-11-08 08:21  

#5  They just don't get it
Posted by: g(r)omgoru   2018-11-08 07:03  

#4  They just don't get it. It's the United STATES of America. The Constitution would never have been ratified by over half if not 3/4 the states if they were to surrender their sovereignty to a centralized powerful government. Certainly 8 of them were not going to end up being subordinated by 5 large states. Today 40 states would just as likely not join any enterprises that would subordinate themselves to 10 major metropolitan areas.
Posted by: Procopius2k   2018-11-08 06:56  

#3  Not only dead people can vote?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru   2018-11-08 06:18  

#2  Funny how they weren't bitching about this ten years ago!
Posted by: Raj   2018-11-08 00:44  

#1  Through a combination of fundamental factors and partisan gerrymandering, Republicans on Tuesday retained their grip on the Senate

By "fundamental factors and partisan gerrymandering", we mean the fact that each state gets two Senators as spelled out in the Constitution:
The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote.

You can redraw political maps all you want, but it won't change state borders by a nanometer. And no, the popular vote and national majorities have nothing to do with senators, it's a state thing. Sorry.
Posted by: SteveS   2018-11-08 00:36  

00:00