If electoral college was ended, could the republicans EVER win another election?

[Renathras]

'kay

10 charmanders

He was talking about the entire nation, you're talking about Florida. You're also using the Presidential vote to try and insist there's gerrymandering of non-President legislative seats. And you're using what is perhaps the most ridiculous district in the nation (second only to that...pterodactyl shaped one the Democrats of Maryland made...) to defend this.

Seriously, pay attention to a claim if you want to rebut it:

What I said: "It's not because of gerrymandering, it's because of Democrat voters getting concentrated in fewer states. Combine this with the fact that people can vote for President in one party but - SHOCKER!! - can vote for other people in other races."

While you might might MIGHT have an argument (which would need a lot more to support it than what you've given) that a handful of states like Michigan or Florida have had any substantial gerrymandering, that does NOTHING to explain the results in Kansas or Oklahoma, where Republicans win handily. I've said it before, so I will say a version again:

NATIONAL popular vote does not decide STATE/LOCAL elections.

The poster who said this was right:

I think you guys are just looking for an excuse as to why you are no longer a national party. It's the message, not the messaging, or the gerrymandering.

However, I am not fundamentally opposed to the notion some funny lines are drawn. I just think both sides do it, and there is factually no way to draw them that would satisfy both sides.

^ Agreed.

The Democrats have ceded a large portion of the country and its population with their focus on their ideology. This wouldn't be a problem for them if everything was decided by national popular vote, but it's not. And many states the statewide popular vote goes against them. No gerrymandering needs to happen for Wyoming or Kansas or Oklahoma to have Republican domination from the state to the federal level.

What's crazy is they seem to be unwilling or unable to realize this. The Democrat postmortem of 2016 is insanely full of denial. Far moreso than the 2012 Republican one, which was actually talking about how they need to back off their policies and try appealing to more people (then Trump won by appealing to less, but those that just happen to be in the right places geographically to make a difference - his margins in "red" states were smaller than Romney's, but in purple and light blue states, his margins were large enough to win). And the crazy thing is, the Democrats are insisting that they lost because they didn't go far ENOUGH left. That they need to double down.

Maybe the Democrats can use this to leverage a White House victory, but they're going to keep losing at the Senate and state levels unless they can convince their urban voters to move to...Kansas.

...like, literally. To Kansas. (Among other places, but the Wizard of Oz reference was too good to pass up.

...but this means, over time, they might have national power but, in an ironic way, less of an actual mandate and far more pushback from the states.

[Fahrenheit]

In their current God, guns, guts incarnation? Unlikely, the deck would be stacked against them.
If they shed the zealotry and the anti intellectualism? Yes.

[alexw]

Did you legit just say I was in denial of this issue, while quoting me where I said I'm sure this is going on, just not to the degree you think it is?

You should know by now, I don't need data to refute ridiculousness. Data is nice for figuring out the finer points but, you don't need data to know up is not down. You are legit implying your party has been reduced to rubble because of gerrymandering, while refusing to acknowledge that Republicans won the popular vote in those states as well.

There's a difference between overwhelming loss of control of states and political power and a slight marginal loss. The popular vote has gone back and forth over the last 6 years. In this particular election in 2016 it would be a slight marginal loss. Yet somehow republicans have overwhelming political control. Again that can only be explained by gerrymandering.

[Donimic]

We don't have a democracy, we have a constitutional republic. The problem with a pure democracy is that it will fail as soon as somebody has the bright idea to flood a country with low IQ voters for the sake of political power.

In case you are in another country living under a rock, we just did that. His name is Donald Trump and his message led to the largest turnout of uneducated voters in the history of this country. Because of that the Republicans now control the house, senate, executive branch, and soon the supreme court.

[Kindria]

In their current God, guns, guts incarnation? No.
If they shed the zealotry and the anti intellectualism? Yes.

what does that even mean? You say Zealotry, what is wrong with humbleness towards God, and the right to ones own defense via freedom of arms. You sir demonstrate ignorance perfectly.

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In case you are in another country living under a rock, we just did that. His name is Donald Trump and his message led to the largest turnout of uneducated voters in the history of this country. Because of that the Republicans now control the house, senate, executive branch, and soon the supreme court.

Uneducated? Source Please, that seems to be the Battlecry on these forums. Failure to agree with your point of view does not equal lack of intelligence, only ignorance on your part.

[Renathras]

He can say whatever he likes. The facts speaks for themselves. In the past control for state capitols swapped back and forth between democrats and republicans based on the popular vote. Suddenly after the 2010 redistricting round they don't. And yet according to him that's down to "geography". That's just plain delusional.

Not at all. The reason there aren't swaps anymore is largely due to hyperpartisanship and Democrat VOTERS (as well as the party) leaving rural states. This is HUGE. It's also not all one-sided - when was the last time the California state legislature "swapped" to Republican? Perhaps you'd like to tell me how Democrat New York is "swapping" to Republican every other election, what with the Democrats not gerrymandering and all?

There are 25 states in this country with populations of less than 5 million. There are less than 40%, in some cases less than 30%, Democrat voters in a lot of those states. That means that the Republicans already have a 25 state advantage. While the Republicans don't hold them all (Hawaii, Vermont), they hold a lot of them. A string of victories in small population, rural states gets you a lot of STATE legislatures wins pretty quickly.

Then you have a few states that are larger but also have substantial conservative leaning, Republican majorities like Texas. Again, as I've said in previous posts that you've ignored, you can argue gerrymandering has padded their majorities, but not that it's GIVEN them the majorities. They have a majority of the votes in Texas, Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Missouri, South Carolina, and Alabama. That puts you at around 30 states of solid Republican control.

Considering the governorships are decided by statewide popular vote, not districted vote, it's instructive to look at the fact that this is about the number of governorships and US Senate delegations that are strongly Republican as well. This indicates that the results on the state legislature levels and state delegations to the US House would probably be majority Republican as well - again, you can argue their majorities might be smaller, but not that they wouldn't still have majorities.

Then you have a lot of states which have a balance (one party has one chamber of the legislature, the other has the other, or maybe one has the legislature but the other has the governor), and this gives you the bulk of the remainder.

That is to say, the 6 states the Democrats have control in they would maintain, and while a handful might turn to being split between both parties, they likely wouldn't turn to being Democrat control. The FACT, the data, since you like that so much, would remain:

Democrats only have uncontested control in 6 states.

This is because their party appeals to a localized group of people heavily concentrated in small areas.

[Donimic]

Uneducated? Source Please, that seems to be the Battlecry on these forums. Failure to agree with your point of view does not equal lack of intelligence, only ignorance on your part.

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Education is not intelligence.

Note that i did not say intelligent. Although thank you for making my point with a lack of reading comprehension.

[Renathras]

There's a difference between overwhelming loss of control of states and political power and a slight marginal loss. The popular vote has gone back and forth over the last 6 years. In this particular election in 2016 it would be a slight marginal loss. Yet somehow republicans have overwhelming political control. Again that can only be explained by gerrymandering.

Bolded for logical fallacy.

Republican control in 2016 decreased in the House and Senate. They won, but with smaller margins - while winning a larger share of the popular vote than they did in 2014 or 2012. Care to explain how gerrymandering means winning LESS seats while winning MORE percent of the vote? Because, last I checked, that's the OPPOSITE of what gerrymandering is supposed to do...

(Short enough for ya?)

[Fahrenheit]

what does that even mean? You say Zealotry, what is wrong with humbleness towards God, and the right to ones own defense via freedom of arms. You sir demonstrate ignorance.

Zealotry in regards to how they want their religious beliefs to intrude into policy decisions. Abortion, contraceptives, creationism/intelligent design come to mind.

I own a gun, Benelli supernova, I like them too. But In my opinion, the GOP has drifted into fetish territory with their resistance to any and all gun control measures.

[Renathras]

In case you are in another country living under a rock, we just did that. His name is Donald Trump and his message led to the largest turnout of uneducated voters in the history of this country. Because of that the Republicans now control the house, senate, executive branch, and soon the supreme court.

Oh, this is hardly the largest turnout of uneducated voters in history - far more voted in 2008 and 2012, though doubtless for the guy you liked winning, so you had no problem with them then. These same voters came out for Trump this time, though in smaller numbers (less people voted in 2016, but 2008 was a huge year, turnout wise, so not likely to be met again any time soon until the population growth just reaches that point).

What lead to Trump's victory was erosion of Democrat support. The Democrat party has largely abandoned a large portion of the country - "flyover country", they call it - and they had a really unpopular candidate, even within the party itself, leading to low enthusiasm and low turnout.

While the Democrats might still have lost with more turnout (geography!), it would have been closer in the Electoral College if they could have kept Wisconsin and Florida or Michigan or Pennsylvania. Trump still might have won, but his popular vote percentage would have been smaller and his Electoral College victory by the narrowest of margins...instead of a somewhat landslide of over 300?

[Theodarzna]

I know Liberals dream of a day when they never have to be anymore that 15 miles from the sea to campaign, but I doubt that day will ever come about.

[Renathras]

Zealotry in regards to How they want their religious beliefs to intrude into policy decisions. Abortion, contraceptives, creationism/intelligent design come to mind.

I own a gun, Benelli supernova, I like them too. But In my opinion, the GOP has drifted into fetish territory with their resistance to any and all gun control measures.

Is this different than the zealotry with liberals where they want their ideological beliefs to intrude into policy decisions. Abortion, contraceptives, creationism/intelligent design come to mind.

Also, on guns - it goes back to the reason for them (the real reasons, of which the were two) and that it's a Constitutional right. It'd be much like saying the government should license people for free speech or you had to sign up for a government permit to be protected from unwarranted searches and seizures, or sign up in a government database if you wanted a jury of your peers (all of these things I mention because these are others of the first 10 Amendments - the Bill of Rights).

And if ANY politician talked about you having to register in a database to get a trial by jury or to not have to self-incriminate - would you be calling opposition to that "fetish territory with their resistance to any and all jury control measures"? Or about their "fetish territory with their resistance to any and all warrantless search control measures"? Of course not. You'd be every bit as "zealous" about it, because you'd realize how important it is.

That you don't realize how important opposition to gun control is doesn't make you a bad person. It also doesn't make it less important.

[Kindria]

I know Liberals dream of a day when they never have to be anymore that 15 miles from the sea to campaign, but I doubt that day will ever come about.

It is easier for them to project ignorance onto others.

[Fahrenheit]

Words

I'll take zealotry based on scientific analysis over morals derived from a several thousand year old book of faith any day of the week, twice on Sunday.

You're way overthinking the gun shit. The fact that you wrote three long ass paragraphs over that shit is testament. Is it too much to ask that people shouldn't be allowed to sell to crazy people? As in private, non federally licensed sellers?

[Lumineus]

'kay

10 charmanders

You think Republicans did this? The Democrats can't even get 90% in that district with it sprawled the way it is. If the cities were spun off into three mostly-suburban districts they probably wouldn't have that seat at all.

[Cthulhu 2020]

You think Republicans did this? The Democrats can't even get 90% in that district with it sprawled the way it is. If the cities were spun off into three mostly-suburban districts they probably wouldn't have that seat at all.

If you don't know how gerrymandering works, you should probably stay out of a discussion about it.

[Kindria]

If you don't know how gerrymandering works, you should probably stay out of a discussion about it.

Is it only gerrymandering if Repubs do it? Just curious, seems both parties are guilty of the practice.

[God Save The King]

I'm just going to go paragraph by paragraph,

While I agree with you partly, you're looking at it wrong.

I'm not looking at it wrong per say, I tried to simplify it greatly, losing a great dealing of meaning, to avoid writing out giant walls of text people don't read. I did read all of yours however (ex. the guy who quotes my post before you skipped most of it)

You say that the Republicans fairly won the House, then say they wouldn't have won the Senate by popular vote. You claim this using vote results for non-popular vote decided Senate seats across several elections where the national mood was different each time (2010 was a very anti-Democrat year, 2012 a nominal Democrat one, as 2008 was, 2014 was a nominally anti-Democrat year, and 2016 was a very anti-Democrat year - meaning if more than just 1/3rd was up per election, the results would be VERY different). You can't just add those together and claim to make any serious point about how the results would be if it was a proportional system.

You can add different vote years up to achieve interesting data; that's mainly what I was working with. We have no other metric so I went with what we had. Issues with trends, moods, turnout, etc, all skew the results. You can hope they "average out" but that's wishful thinking. My "idea" I suppose is to still keep the same number of senate seats, have 1/3 of the senate up every 2 years, 6 year terms, etc. Just kind of redraw senate districts so each one is representative of equal population (give or take). If you had that kind of system, the results would be, as of this election, a 53D-47R Senate (aggregating 2012, 2014, and 2016 results). This, of course, assumes that the new "way" we elect Senators doesn't change how people vote/turnout. Naturally you'd have 13 Senators across states like CA, vs. 1 big senator for most of the midwest (again I'm not saying this is better, just trying to convey a point)

I mean, if, as you note, the Republicans "fairly" won the House, it stands to reason they'd also "fairly" win the Senate by that same margin, does it not? Unless you have some evidence that people voting for their House representatives in 2016 would somehow, and for some reason, always or often vote for the other party's Senate candidate. I'm not saying it's impossible (my last post was talking about split tickets), just that it seems an odd assertion to make without some kind of evidence. Generally speaking, the House and the Senate move the same way each election, right? Just the Senate doesn't flip because it's only 1/3rd that move per cycle. That 1/3rd moves the same way the House moves, but it's not a perfect 1-1 comparison (hence, some vote splitting and the like).

Ehh people split tickets more than you think. I.e. 62.6M votes for Trump, 61.4M Votes for R-House, vs 65.2M votes for Clinton, 58.2M for D-House. Most of the missing votes for the house actually went to third party candidates. An example this election, Florida was a swing state for the Presidency, but was hard Republican for Senate. Indiana was a swing state for the Senate, but hard republican for Presidency. Another example, Montana usually votes Republican by about 10-20%, but they have a Democratic Senator. New Jersey, a hard blue state, has a Republican Governor. The list does go on. I don't have hard numbers for you (I could dig them up if you remain opposed to the idea).

The issue with the Senate is that it's very state centric, and each state moves differently during the election. The house is so divided and fragmented, that it appears to follow national trends (heck we often conjecture national trends from house races). If New York shifts 20 pts more blue or 20 pts more red, their Senator is a still a Democrat. Same idea in places like Utah. Around 37-40 states could slide 10 pts in the opposing direction and still elect the same Senator.

Republicans win the Senate with fewer votes because the Senate was designed in the original Constitution to protect state power, not reflect the population (originally, Senators were actually elected by the state legislatures, not statewide popular vote). It was also intended to be a less volatile (in terms of swings and politics) body than the House, hence why only 1/3rd of it changes at a time. This is why it's trending more Republican over the long run - because of geographic distribution.

Right you are. I'm aware of this, I was simply trying to explain why you can't equate the popular vote of the country and the results of the Senate, since they are not at all related. In extreme examples, say 95.5% of the population lived in 5 states, and the remaining 4.5% lived in the other 45. That 4.5% of the population would have 90% of the vote in the Senate. Let's say the Purple party won over those 4.5%, and Orange Party won over the 95.5%. You couldn't say that the Purple party is popular among the people simply because they hold the Senate. They're just popular with the right people.

That's what I was getting at with Republicans so easily holding the Senate.

In fact, the Senate results are ENTIRELY due to geographic distribution - you can't gerrymander statewide votes. This is also true for state Governorships.

Neither the Senate nor the Governor results can be blamed on gerrymandering in any way. They're ENTIRELY a result of regional/geographic distributions of voters.

My Civics professor likes to do a bit of false equivalency that leads to an interesting thought. Basically, the whole country is gerrymandered. Hear me out. You take this country of ~300M people and divide it into 50 parts. Each part gets 2 representatives with one vote each. The fair thing to do would be to divide the country into equal 6M person chunks. Instead, in the most extreme case, you end up with a ratio of 39M to 580k, or 67:1. Sound familiar?

Again, I understand the point of the Senate. I'm was just trying to convey why you can't conflate the popular vote vs. senate results.
.

The House isn't a direct, proportional vote, either. It's just closer to one than the White House or the Senate are. This is because districts do not cross lines, and every state gets at least one. Unless House districts were drawn regardless of state lines and evenly split the nation into the, what, 438 seats? Unless you have that, you'll never get a perfectly proportional House vote. (You still wouldn't anyway since no district would be decided by 51%) But since state boundaries prevent district lines from crossing them, you're going to end up with the House always veering somewhat in favor of the party of rural voters, which in this case is the Republicans.

The House is generally classified as a direct limited-proportional vote. It is as proportional as it can be given its limits, which you more or less describe.

...and, oddly, the House result was the most democratic of the three this year - as you point out - and went Republican.

It's always been rather odd to me how the country votes for the President vs. Senate vs. House. They never quite align. Always a little off, like a slightly crooked painting on a wall...

So, the most democratic of our institutions...went Republican. And the one most free from gerrymandering (the Senate)...also went Republican. (Indeed, while the Republicans lost some House seats, they came out largely even on the Senate count, and are set to gain in 2018 when the 2012 Democrat heavy cohort is up for reelection). And the state governorships, also immune to gerrymandering...went Republican.

Senate/Governorship, as you said, tend towards rural Americans, i.e. Republicans.

This should tell you that, even if gerrymandering is a problem, it's hardly the explanation, or even the dominant explanation, for the government we have now all across and at all levels of the US.

If you need evidence that gerrymandering has been a problem, look at the 2012 election. I'm not saying it was a problem this election, but 2012 was a god damn spit in the face of democracy.

the results were 234 seats for Republicans, 201 seats for democrats/independents.

Republcans received 47.6% of the vote, Democrats (alone) received 48.8%, and Independents picked up the last 5%~

[Cthulhu 2020]

I know Liberals dream of a day when they never have to be anymore that 15 miles from the sea to campaign, but I doubt that day will ever come about.

Last I heard, people were whining about how liberals own the coasts. Campaigning happens in swing states, which is a lot of middle America and... Florida. Packed full of old racist people who were alive when beating a black person in broad daylight wasn't a crime. At least not one that would be prosecuted.

Getting rid of the electoral college would mean they have to campaign EVERYWHERE, and not just Florida, Ohio, Colorado and the two or three other swing states. Imagine every state getting campaign attention, and not just the "toss ups".

[Lumineus]

If you don't know how gerrymandering works, you should probably stay out of a discussion about it.

I know how it works just fine. I'm telling you it doesn't make any sense for the Republicans to have drawn the lines that way because it results in the Democrats getting one seat instead of zero. Whereas you and others mistakenly believe it would get them three if it was drawn different.