Dems' Chances Undercut by Rigged System

Dems' Chances Undercut by Rigged System:

"When the two sides are tied nationally, the Republicans end up winning about 50 more House districts than the Democrats. Like the Conservatives in Britain, who in the UK's recent elections won far fewer seats than Tony Blair's Labour Party even though Labour only had 36% of the vote and 3% more than the Conservatives, the Democrats are undercut by regional partisan demographics funneled through a winner-take-all electoral system."

It turns out that there is a fundamental anti-urban (and thus anti-Democratic) bias with single-seat districts. The urban vote is more concentrated, and so it's easier to pack Democratic voters into fewer districts.

This is a very interesting article, and looks like the thesis to a very interesting book I need to track down.

Part of the issue in a single member district system is the birds-of-a-feather dynamic, people living near other people like themselves. Combine that with creative gerrymandering and you get 20 competitive contests among 435 US House races.

But look just a little closer. Strongly Democratic demographics - by this I mean urban ethnic minorities - tend to be more monolithic in their voting patterns than white suburban Republicans. The suburban districts tend to top out at 70, 75% Republican, but the inner city districts will hit 90% or even 95% Democratic. That means the Democrats "waste" more votes per victory.

Politics