Gop Control Of State Governments Gives It The Edge In Contest To Redraw Congressional Maps To Its Advantage
House Minority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy, a Republican from California, hopes to become speaker of the House after the November 2022 elections.
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The Census Bureau released the preliminary findings of its 2020 U.S. population count on Monday, setting the stage for a once-in-a-decade congressional redistricting process that could in itself be enough to give the Republican Party the five additional House seats needed to recapture the majority following the 2022 midterm elections.
Under the new count, California, Illinois, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia will each lose a congressional seat. Colorado, Florida, Montana, North Carolina, Oregon and Florida will gain one seat, while Texas will add two.
“New census data and reapportionment add challenges for the Democrats in the midterm elections,” wrote Sarah Bianchi, political analyst at Evercore ISI, in a Tuesday note to clients, pointing out that states that President Joe Biden won in the 2020 election lost a net three congressional seats.
See also:Here’s what the 30 Dow industrials companies are saying about new voting restrictions
New York could be where Democrats decide to abandon a principled stand against gerrymandering and use their supermajorities to overrule the independent redistricting commission to create a map that nets Democrats four more seats.
Republicans Hold The House And Senate But Will That End The Washington Gridlock Even With President Trump
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Buoyed by the victory of Donald Trump, Republicans kept control of the House on Tuesday and hung on to their majority in the U.S. Senate, enshrining at least two years of single-party rule in Washington.
Democrats lost the chamber in 2014 and would have needed a net gain of five seats to retake the Senate with Trump in the White House.
They fell well short.
Many experts and political analysts had predicted a Democratic takeover, given the daunting math facing Republicans — who had to defend far more seats — and Trump’s erratic campaign.
But just as they underestimated the Republican nominee, they failed to account for the resiliency of some of the GOP’s most endangered incumbents.
Republicans staked victories in every one of the hardest-fought contests, with one exception. In Illinois, Democratic Rep. Tammy Duckworth knocked off Mark Kirk, long seen as the most vulnerable GOP member of the Senate.
In Wisconsin, Ron Johnson had been all but written off by strategists in both parties. Instead, he handily fended off a comeback attempt by former Democratic Sen. Russell D. Feingold. In North Carolina, Richard M. Burr won a second term despite waging a lackluster campaign.
Republicans, who currently hold 54 of 100 seats, also posted victories in two states once eyed by Democrats as promising takeover opportunities.
Live updates from the day after the 2016 election »
Voters seemed equally skeptical of change.
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Party Lost Several Districts To Republicans In The Election Shrinking Their Majority In The Chamber
The balance in the House of Representatives is now at 218 Democrats to 201 Republicans, with some seats still to be decided..
WASHINGTON—Democrats have clinched a majority in the House of Representatives by reaching 218 seats, the Associated Press said on Tuesday, holding on to power in the wake of a weaker-than-expected showing in the election.
Democrats lost several seats to Republicans in the Nov. 3 election, shrinking their majority in the House, in part due to President Trump and Republicans clawing back seats they had won in 2016 and lost in 2018.
Heading into the election, Democrats had a majority of 232 to 197, with one Libertarian and five open seats. That balance is now at 218 Democrats to 201 Republicans. Some races are still to be decided.
House SpeakerNancy Pelosi has acknowledged that the House outcome was much different than in the 2018 cycle, when the party won 43 seats held by Republicans, pointing to Mr. Trump’s presence on the ballot this time.
“We lost a few seats, but as I said we won those seats in Trump districts , he wasn’t on the ballot, he is now,” she said last week.
Mr. Trump had a stronger night than many pollsters had anticipated, and helped lift House candidates to victories. Coming into Election Day, many nonpartisan prognosticators had predicted the Democrats would gain seats.
Mrs. Pelosi is seeking another term as speaker in the next Congress, but her path could be complicated by the losses in the election.
Red Surge Democrats Stunned As Gop Gains House Seats Expected To Hold Control Of The Senate
More than a week after the election, a small number of House and Senate races are still undecided, but all signs are pointing to something like a red surge that few had predicted for Congress. That’s a shock because media pundits and Democrats had predicted a blue wave that never materialized. The Associated Press is reporting Democrats have been “blindsided.”
As of Wednesday, Republicans appear to have secured 50 seats in the next Senate as they’re now expected to win in Alaska and North Carolina. Plus, they have a strong chance of winning two more in Senate runoff elections in Georgia in January. Democrats are believed to have won 48 Senate seats.
And even though Democrats say they’ve won the 218 seats needed for a majority in the House of Representatives, their margin of control is much smaller than it was before this election, and it could be razor-thin.
Democrats went into the election with a 232-197 House advantage. There were also five open seats, plus one independent lawmaker. The AP says Republicans have won 202 seats so far. But there are more than a dozen races still undecided in states like California, Utah, and New York, and Republican candidates are currently leading in most of those races.
“The Republican coalition is bigger, more diverse, more energetic than ever before,” said House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy .
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Gop Takes Away 7 Seats In The House But Democrats Expected To Keep Control Of Majority
While vote counting continues in the fight to win control of the House of Representatives, Democrats have won 193 seats so far while Republicans are close behind with 185. One party needs a majority of the 435 US House seats to win control.
So far, Republicans seem to have scored more takeaways than Democrats, and that will decrease the Democratic majority in the House if the trend holds as more results are reported.
Matt Grossman of the election site FiveThirtyEight.com writes, “Republicans are doing much better than expected in the House. They have won at least 18 of 27 House races rated toss-ups by the Cook political report, along with four “lean Democratic” races and one “likely Democratic” race.”
Here are a few of those highlights:
GOP Gain in Florida’s 27th District
Republican Maria Elvira Salazar won in Florida’s 27th Congressional District, beating incumbent Democrat Rep. Donna Shalala.
GOP Gain in Minnesota
Republican Michelle Fischbach defeated the Democratic incumbent Rep. Collin Peterson to become the next representative of Minnesota’s 7th Congressional District.
GOP Gain in South Carolina
Republican Nancy Mace reclaimed the GOP seat against challenger Joe Cunningham for South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District. The race was called early Wednesday morning as Mace led with 52 percent of the vote and Cunningham with 48 percent.
GOP Gain in Oklahoma
GOP Gain in Florida’s 26th District
GOP Gain in Iowa
Democrats Hold Seat in Virginia
Rising Violent Crime Is Likely To Present A Political Challenge For Democrats In 2022
But there are roadblocks to fully enacting Democrats’ agenda. Their thin majorities in both chambers of Congress mean nearly all Democrats have to get on board with every agenda item in order to push through major legislative priorities. And without adjusting or eliminating the legislative filibuster in the Senate, Democrats need 10 Republicans to join them for various legislation — a near-impossible task.
The Justice Department Puts States On Notice About Election Audits And Voting Changes
“If they’re going to try to rely on rigging this game, because they don’t have a plan for the future and they can’t talk to the voters about their ideas and their vision, well, I think that makes me proud to be a Democrat.”
Maloney also posits that GOP turnout will be depressed in an election that doesn’t feature former President Donald Trump himself.
“There’s no evidence that this toxic Trump message will motivate voters without Trump on the ballot,” he says. “If the other side is making one big mistake, I think that might be it, which is a doubling down on this toxic Trump message of division and anger and racism and yet there’s no evidence they can pull out voters with the message without the messenger.”
He points to Texas Republican Jake Ellzey as a recent example. Ellzey was sworn in to the House on Friday, days after winning a special election that saw him defeat a Trump-backed candidate.
Maloney underscores: “It seems like the Trump endorsement’s not what it used to be.”
Here are more highlights from his conversation with NPR’s Susan Davis.
On polarization in Congress:
On the Republican Party:
On his own reelection in 2022:
With Control Of White House And Congress Democrats Have 2 Years To Make Big Changes
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U.S. Democrats secured unified control of the White House and Congress on Wednesday with the inauguration of President Joe Biden followed by Vice President Kamala Harris swearing in three new Democratic senators.
The three new senators bring the U.S. Senate to a 50-50 Democratic-Republican tie, with Harris as the presiding officer representing the tie-breaking vote.
With the U.S. House continuing under the leadership of Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Biden begins his term with the opportunity to work with the two Democrat-controlled chambers to enact significant legislative changes.
As a result of the shifting political power on Capitol Hill, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York has succeeded Republican Mitch McConnell as Senate majority leader. The Kentucky senator, who served in the top leadership post for six years, was highly skilled at blocking Democratic legislation, as well as advancing former President Donald Trump’s judicial and administration nominees through the confirmation process.
Schumer acknowledged some of those challenges Wednesday in his first speech as majority leader.
“This Senate will tackle the perils of the moment: a once-in-a-generation health and economic crisis. And it will strive to make progress on generations-long struggle for racial justice, economic justice, equality of opportunity and equality under the law,” Schumer said.
I Do Not Buy That A Social Media Ban Hurts Trumps 2024 Aspirations: Nate Silver
sarah: Yeah, Democrats might not have their worst Senate map in 2022, but it will by no means be easy, and how they fare will have a lot to do with the national environment. And as we touched on earlier, Biden’s overall approval rating will also make a big difference in Democrats’ midterm chances.
nrakich: Yeah, if the national environment is even a bit Republican-leaning, that could be enough to allow solid Republican recruits to flip even Nevada and New Hampshire. And then it wouldn’t even matter if Democrats win Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
One thing is for sure, though — whichever party wins the Senate will have only a narrow majority, so I think we’re stuck in this era of moderates like Sens. Joe Manchin and Lisa Murkowski controlling every bill’s fate for at least a while longer.
sarah: Let’s talk about big picture strategy, then, and where that leaves us moving forward. It’s still early and far too easy to prescribe election narratives that aren’t grounded in anything, but one gambit the Republican Party seems to be making at this point is that attacking the Democratic Party for being too progressive or “woke” will help them win.
What do we make of that playbook headed into 2022? Likewise, as the party in charge, what are Democrats planning for?
With that being said, the GOP’s strategies could still gin up turnout among its base, in particular, but it’s hard to separate that from general dissatisfaction with Biden.
Us Census Hands More House Seats To Republican Strongholds Texas Florida
April 26 – Texas, Florida and North Carolina are among the states that will gain congressional seats based on new population data from the U.S. census, a shift that could boost Republican chances of recapturing the U.S. House of Representatives from Democrats in next year’s midterm elections.
The overall U.S. population stood at 331,449,281, the Census Bureau said on Monday, a 7.4% increase over 2010 representing the second-slowest growth of any decade in history.
The release of the data, delayed for months due to the coronavirus pandemic, sets the stage for a battle over redistricting that could reshape political power in Washington during the next decade. States use the numbers and other census data to redraw electoral maps based on where people have moved.
Under the U.S. Constitution, the 435 seats in the House and the votes in the Electoral College that select the president every four years are divided among the 50 states based on population, with every state receiving at least one congressional seat.
The seats are reallocated every 10 years following the decennial census count.
The shift in seats reflects broader population trends that have seen the South and West grow more rapidly than the Northeast and Midwest for decades.
Texas will receive two more congressional seats next year, and five states – Florida, North Carolina, Colorado, Montana and Oregon – will gain one congressional seat each, the census bureau said.
SLOW GROWTH
How Republicans Pulled Off A Big Upset And Nearly Took Back The House
There seemed to be one safe bet when it came to the 2020 election results: Democrats would easily hold on to their majority in the House of Representatives. Not only that, but the conventional wisdom held that Democrats would pick up more than the 235 seats they won in the 2018 midterm elections.
While Democrats will have a majority next Congress, Republicans vastly outperformed expectations and nearly pulled off an election shocker.
As of this writing, CNN has projected that Democrats have won in 219 seats. Republicans have been projected the winners in 203 seats. There are 13 races outstanding, per CNN projections.
Of those 13, the Democratic candidates lead in a mere two of them.
In other words, if every one of those 13 seats went to the party leading in them right now, Democrats would have 221 seats to the Republicans’$2 214 seats in the next Congress.
Talk about a fairly close call for Democrats.
Now, Democrats may end up winning a few of the seats where they are currently trailing, but chances are they will end up at or south of 225 seats.
Compare that to what most quantitative forecasters who look at a slew of indicators predicted. Jack Kersting came the closest at 238 seats. FiveThirtyEight clocked in at 239 seats. The Economist model predicted that Democrats would win a median of 244 seats in their simulations.
Any sort of shy Trump vote was far smaller than a potential shy House Republican vote.
A 4- or 5-point miss is considerable.
Why Democratic Departures From The House Have Republicans Salivating
A growing number of Democrats in battleground districts are either retiring or leaving to seek higher office, imperiling the party’s control of the House and President Biden’s expansive agenda.
WASHINGTON — With 18 months left before the midterms, a spate of Democratic departures from the House is threatening to erode the party’s slim majority in the House and imperil President Biden’s far-reaching policy agenda.
In the past two months, five House Democrats from competitive districts have announced they won’t seek re-election next year. They include Representative Charlie Crist of Florida, who on Tuesday launched a campaign for governor, and Representative Tim Ryan of Ohio, who will run for the Senate seat being vacated by Rob Portman. Three other Democrats will leave vacant seats in districts likely to see significant change once they are redrawn using the data from the 2020 Census, and several more are weighing bids for higher office.
An early trickle of retirements from House members in competitive districts is often the first sign of a coming political wave. In the 2018 cycle, 48 House Republicans didn’t seek re-election — and 14 of those vacancies were won by Democrats. Now Republicans are salivating over the prospect of reversing that dynamic and erasing the Democrats’ six-seat advantage.
“It’s like going to war on a battlefield but you don’t know where you’re fighting, when you’re fighting or who you’re fighting,” Mr. Israel said.
Map: Republicans To Have Full Control Of 23 States Democrats 15
In 2021, Republicans will have full control of the legislative and executive branch in 23 states. Democrats will have full control of the legislative and executive branch in 15 states.
Population of the 24 fully R-controlled states: 134,035,267Population of the 15 fully D-controlled states: 120,326,393
Republicans have full control of the legislative branch in 30 states. Democrats have full control of the legislative branch in 18 states.
Population of the 30 fully R-controlled legislature states: 185,164,412Population of the 18 fully D-controlled legislature states: 133,888,565
This week, Andrew Cuomo’s star went down in flames. While the smoke clears, let’s take a moment to sit back and reminisce about the governor’s long history with ethical and legal violations.
Cuomo’s controversies regarding sexual harassment and nursing homes deaths were far from his first abuses of power. In fact, his administration has a long history of it, ranging from interfering with ethics commissions, to financial corruption.
In July 2013, Cuomo formed the Moreland Commission to investigate corruption in New York’s government. At first it was a success, giving Cuomo good PR. Yet as it went on there were rumors that, contrary to his claim that “Anything they want to look at they can look at,” Cuomo was interfering with the Commission’s investigations. There was friction within the Commission, itself with two factions forming: “’Team Independence’ and ‘Team We-Have-a-Boss’.”
Democrats Keep House Majority But ‘republicans Defied The Odds’
The Democrats could wind up with the slimmest House majority in 20 years.
Nancy Pelosi praises Democrats for retaining the House majority
The Democrats will keep their majority in the House of Representatives, but after all the votes are counted, they could wind up with the slimmest House majority in 20 years.
The Democrats gained a majority in the House following the 2018 election in which they won 41 seats. This was the largest gain for the political party since the 1974 election, in which they gained 49.
Some of the popular freshman Democrats who came into office in 2018, including New York’s Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Minnesota’s Ilhan Omar, have been elected for a second term.
But Republicans appear set to make some gains, winning nearly every tossup and picking up at least six seats based on calls of races by The Associated Press.
House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy tweeted Wednesday morning, “Republicans defied the odds and grew our party last night.”
He also tweeted to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, “You’ve been put on notice.”
Among the Republican victories is Marjorie Taylor Greene, who won Georgia’s conservative 14th Congressional District after publicly supporting the fringe conspiracy theory known as QAnon.
MORE: Georgia Republican who supports QAnon wins US House seat
In videos unearthed by POLITICO, Greene is also heard spouting racist, Islamophobic and sexist views.
ABC News’ Quinn Scanlan and Mariam Khan contributed to this report.
Opinion:house Republicans Have Two Critical Advantages In 2022
Democrats hold the balance of power in Washington, D.C., but their margin is wafer-thin: Joe Biden is president, and the party controls both houses of Congress only very narrowly. They’ve already enacted $1.9 trillion of economic stimulus. They’re haggling with Republicans over the size of a bipartisan infrastructure bill. And they’re keen to pass a new voting rights law, although moderate Sen. Joe Manchin III might scuttle the effort.
Still, their time in the majority might be limited. We live in an era of bitter, closely divided elections. And in 2022, Republicans have two advantages that might soon give them the edge in the House.
The Republicans’ first advantage: The other party holds the White House. If Biden follows the path of other recent presidents, he’ll spend political capital, navigate crises — and lose supporters in the process.
Barack Obama summarized this dynamic two years into his presidency: “In the rush of activity, sometimes we lose track of the ways that we connected with folks that got us here in the first place.” This is true of nearly every recent president. Ronald Reagan lost supporters as the 1981-82 recession tore through the economy. Obama alienated swing voters and energized tea party activists as he tried to advance the Affordable Care Act in Congress. And Bill Clinton lost voters when he attempted to pass a health-care reform bill of his own.
The GOP’s second advantage: It draws the lines.
Read more:
Republicans Suddenly Sweating Falling Deep Into House Minority
GOP leaders tout their chances to win back the majority, but falling poll numbers for Trump have some worried they could lose seats in November.
07/29/2020 04:30 AM EDT
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A slew of dismal summer polls and a persistent fundraising gap have left some Republicans fretting about a nightmare scenarioin November: Thatthey will fall further into the House minority.
Publicly, House GOP leaders are declaring they can still net the 17 seats needed to flip the chamber. But privately, some party strategists concede it’s a much grimmer picture, with as many as 20 Republican seats at risk of falling into Democratic hands.
Far from going on offense, the GOP could be forced to retrench in order to limit its losses.There’s a growing fear that President Donald Trump’s plummeting popularity in the suburbs could threaten GOP candidates in traditionally favorable districts, and that their party’s eagerness to go on offense might leave some underfunded incumbents and open GOP-held seats unprotected.
Internal Democratic surveys in recent weeks have shown tight races in once-solid GOPseats in Indiana, Texas, Michigan, Ohio and Montana that Trump carried handily 2016 — data that suggest the battleground is veering in a dangerous direction for the GOP.
And should the environment worsen, other seats in North Carolina, Minnesota, Missouri, Washington state, central Virginia and Michigan could be at risk.
Republicans Gain Senate Seats; Democrats Take Control Of House
P. Scott Shearer | Nov 09, 2018
Voters on Tuesday voted for a split Congress with Republicans increasing their hold on the Senate and Democrats taking control of the House of Representatives. As of now, the Republicans have gained two Senate seats and the Democrats have gained at least 30 Congressional seats to take back control of the House of Representatives.
There are still a number of House seats to close to call and potential recounts. The Florida Senate race is headed to a recount and the Arizona Senate race is too close to call at this time. Also, there is a Senate runoff election in Mississippi between Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith and former Secretary of Agriculture Mike Espy on Nov. 27.
The 116th Congress will include a record number of women: first Native American women — Sharice Davids and Deb Haaland ; and the first Muslim women — Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar .
Senate: Republicans have defeated Democratic incumbents in Indiana, Missouri and North Dakota, and lost a seat in Nevada with three races still to be decided. Going into the election the Democrats were defending 26 seats and the Republicans only nine. Nine Democratic incumbents represented states that Trump carried in 2016.
Senate Agriculture Committee: The Senate Agriculture Committee will have at least two new members with the defeat of Sens. Joe Donnelly and Heidi Heitkamp . Also to be watched is the aforementioned Nov. 27 runoff between Hyde-Smith and Espy in Mississippi.
Key findings
Republicans Score Big Gains In House Pelosi Barely Hanging On
Democrats expected and eagerly anticipated a “blue wave” that would sweep them into power in the White House, House, Senate, and state legislatures. It didn’t happen, not by a long shot.
In fact, not only did they do poorly across the board, but, as a Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee spokeswoman astutely noted, President Trump acted not as the Democrat-expected “anchor” but as a “buoy” for Republican legislative candidates.
That Democrats vastly misjudged the appeal of their radical agenda is crystal clear , and perhaps nowhere is that more evident than in the House races. Nancy Pelosi truly expected her party to pick up seats, yet it appears it’s the Republicans who are on track to accomplish the 10-15 seat gains the Democrats expected in their column.
Pelosi on Election Day: “Democrats are poised to further strengthen our majority.”
Pelosi today: “I never said that we were going to pick up” seats. pic.twitter.com/6s14zfA3LO
— Kevin McCarthy November 13, 2020
Despite AOC’s declaration that Democrats lost the House, they have so far managed to win 219 seats .
Powerline notes that Republicans have flipped 12 House seats: “RealClearPolitics notes that Republicans have picked up a net of 9 House seats. RCP projects that Republicans will pick up a net 10-13 seats when the counting is done.”
12 FLIPS in the House for the GOP!
CA39 Young Kim
— Students For Trump November 14, 2020
House Vacancies Leave Democrats With Tenuous Hold On Majority
April 7, 2021 / 1:51 PM / CBS News
Democrats face infrastructure roadblocks07:00
Washington — Democrats entered the year with a tenuous grip on Congress, with 50 seats in the Senate and a narrow majority in the House. But that House majority has become even smaller thanks to five vacancies with pending special elections.
Three Democrats left the House to join the Biden administration: presidential adviser Cedric Richmond, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Marcia Fudge and Interior Secretary Deb Haaland. With the death of Congressman Alcee Hastings on Tuesday, Democrats now hold 218 seats. There is also one vacant Republican seat, after the death of GOP Congressman Ron Wright in February, leaving Republicans with 212 seats in the House. With the five vacancies, 216 votes are needed for a majority.
With such a narrow majority, Speaker Nancy Pelosi can only afford to lose two Democratic votes on any legislation opposed by all Democrats. This leaves Democrats with little room for error as they mull using budget reconciliation to pass President Biden’s massive infrastructure package, which would allow it to pass with a simple majority in the Senate. Congress used budget reconciliation to pass Mr. Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, which only one House Democrat, Congressman Jared Golden, voted against.
The Number Of People Each House Member Represents Will Change
The number of residents represented by each House member will mostly grow in 2022, though it will decrease per representative in some states.
Since Montana gained a representative, its two House members will now split the state’s population currently represented by Rep. Matt Rosendale, a Republican. The addition of another House seat means Montana’s House members will represent the least amount of people compared to House members in other states.
Delaware’s sole House district, currently held by Democratic Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester, will be the largest in terms of population.
Senate And House Elections 2020: Full Results For Congress
As well as electing the US president, the country has been voting for senators and members of the House of Representatives. Here are full results from all 50 states
Mon 9 Nov 2020 09.44 GMT Last modified on Tue 15 Dec 2020 14.28 GMT
Mon 9 Nov 2020 09.44 GMT Last modified on Tue 15 Dec 2020 14.28 GMT
The US legislature, Congress, has two chambers. The lower chamber, the House of Representatives, has 435 voting seats, each representing a district of roughly similar size. There are elections in each of these seats every two years.
The upper chamber, the Senate, has 100 members, who sit for six-year terms. One-third of the seats come up for election in each two-year cycle. Each state has two senators, regardless of its population; this means that Wyoming, with a population of less than 600,000, carries the same weight as California, with almost 40 million.
Most legislation needs to pass both chambers to become law, but the Senate has some important other functions, notably approving senior presidential appointments, for instance to the supreme court.
In most states, the candidate with the most votes on election day wins the seat. However, Georgia and Louisiana require the winning candidate to garner 50% of votes cast; if no one does, they hold a run-off election between the top two candidates.
Why Did House Democrats Underperform Compared To Joe Biden
The results of the 2020 elections pose several puzzles, one of which is the gap between Joe Biden’s handsome victory in the presidential race and the Democrats’ disappointing performance in the House of Representatives. Biden enjoyed an edge of 7.1 million votes over President Trump, while the Democrats suffered a loss of 13 seats in the House, reducing their margin from 36 to just 10.
Turnout in the 2018 mid-term election reached its highest level in more than a century. Democrats were fervently opposed to the Trump administration and turned out in droves. Compared to its performance in 2016, the party’s total House vote fell by only 2%. Without Donald Trump at the head of the ticket, Republican voters were much less enthusiastic, and the total House vote for Republican candidates fell by nearly 20% from 2016. Democratic candidates received almost 10 million more votes than Republican candidates, a margin of 8.6%, the highest ever for a party that was previously in the minority. It was, in short, a spectacular year for House Democrats.
To understand the difference this Democratic disadvantage can make, compare the 2020 presidential and House results in five critical swing states.
Table 1: Presidential versus House results
| Arizona |
