Tuesday, March 12, 2024

How Many Senate Seats Will Republicans Have In 2015

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Georgia Election: All You Need To Know About Key Senate Run

Democrats Raised $400 Million To Win Senate Seats But Ultimately Came Up Short | Forbes

All eyes are on the southern state of Georgia, where the future of the US Senate will be decided this week. Here’s all you need to know.

There are two races and voting has been going on since mid-December.

The outcome will be crucial to how much the incoming Democratic president, Joe Biden, will be able to achieve in his first term.

Wait, another US election? Wasn’t all this done in November?


OK, rewind.

Which Party Holds The Advantage In The 2022 Senate Elections

The 2022 Senate elections are expected to be hotly contested once again as the Democrats try to build on their majority while the GOP attempts to once again regain control. Which party holds the advantage following the 2022 US Senate elections will factor heavily on the performance of President Joe Biden.

If his policies during his first two years gain traction and are viewed favorably by voters, then the DNC will have a solid shot at retaining, or adding to, their current majority. The odds produced by the top legal election betting sites will be revealed before too long, and quite often, they reflect a more accurate election result than pundit predictions.

States That Lost Seats

California continues to be the most populous state in the country, but its pace of growth has slowed enough that it will lose a seat in the next Congress. That means the states independent redistricting commission will have to decide what part of the state loses representation, which could hurt one party. Based on population growth, the endangered seat could very well be a district located completely or partly in Los Angeles County. And because Democrats control almost all of those seats, that could mean they will suffer a net loss from Californias redistricting. However, the removal of a district could make Republican Rep. Mike Garcias seat in northern Los Angeles County even more Democratic-leaning than it already is Biden carried it by 10 points if the districts new lines stretch further southward, which would give Democrats a better chance of capturing that seat.

Lastly, we know for sure that Republicans will be the ones to lose a seat in West Virginia. All three current members of Congress from the Mountain State belong to the GOP, so at least one out of Reps. David McKinley, Alex Mooney or Carol Miller will not be in the next Congress. Expect a lot of intrigue surrounding how, exactly, the seat is redrawn and perhaps a rare incumbent-vs.-incumbent primary election.


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The Changing Face Of Congress In 7 Charts

The 117th U.S. Congress took office in January, with Democrats holding narrow majorities in the House and Senate.

Apart from its political makeup, the new Congress differs from prior ones in other ways, including its demographics. Here are seven charts that show how the demographic profile of Congress has changed over time, using historical data from CQ Roll Call, the Congressional Research Service and other sources.

To determine the demographics of the 117th Congress, we pulled data from recently published Pew Research Center analyses and other earlier work. Because not all members of the 117th Congress were seated on Jan. 3, 2021, and because some then-filled seats are now empty or changed hands since that time, previously published data comes from several dates. For more information on the methodology of previously published posts, please visit the original links, which are in the text of this post.

Data on the educational attainment of members of Congress includes the 532 voting members of the legislature as of March 3. Data is drawn from the U.S. Congress Biographical Directory and, when relevant, other official biographies and news reports.


All data points reflect only voting members of Congress, except for the analysis of women in the legislature.

This year saw the swearing-in of the first Millennial senator: Democrat Jon Ossoff of Georgia. The number of Gen X senators has gradually ticked up from 16 in the 115th Congress to 20 this year.

What Is A Senate Runoff

House Seats in 113th vs to 114th Congress

The candidates in Georgia were forced into the January runoff contests after no candidate reached the 50 per cent threshold needed to win outright in multi-candidate races.

States require runoff elections when no candidate receives a;majority;of the vote.

The;National Conference of State Legislatures;said that the runoff system was intended to encourage candidates to broaden their appeal to a wider range of voters, to reduce the likelihood of electing candidates who are at the ideological extremes of a party, and to produce a nominee who may be more electable in the general election.


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State Legislative Elections 2021

States are also holding special state legislative elections in 2021 to fill vacant seats. .

See also: Partisan composition of state senates and Partisan composition of state houses

As of , Republicans controlled 54.26% of all state legislative seats nationally, while Democrats held 44.72%. Republicans held a majority in 61 chambers, and Democrats held the majority in 37 chambers. One chamber was organized under a multipartisan, power-sharing coalition.

Partisan balance of all 7,383 state legislative seats
Legislative chamber

Heading into the 2021 state legislative elections, New Jersey and Virginia are Democratic trifectas.

A trifecta is when one political party holds these three positions in a state’s government:


The concept of the trifecta is important in state lawmaking because, in many states, the governor, senate majority leader, and house majority leader play decisive roles in the legislative process.

Heading into the 2021 elections, 38 states are controlled by a trifecta. States with a trifecta include:

  • 15 Democratic trifectas

Both Georgia Senate Races Go To January 2021 Runoffs

According to Georgia state law, an election goes to a runoff between the top two vote-getters, if neither candidate wins over 50% of the vote.;

This year, none of the candidates received a majority in the regularly-scheduled Senate election between first-term Republican David Perdue and Democratic challenger Jon Ossoff.;

The same thing happened in a special jungle election for Georgia’s other Senate seat, which is currently held by Republican appointee Kelly Loeffler. Gov. Brian Kemp appointed Loeffler to her Senate seat in late 2019 to replace Sen. Jonny Isakson.


The wealthy businesswoman competed with a slew of other candidates on November 3, and will now face off against Democratic Pastor Raphael Warnock to serve out the rest of Isakson’s term until 2022,

Set to take place on the first Tuesday in January, the Georgia runoff elections will determine control of the Senate for years to come and are likely to draw millions in outside spending.;

The presidential race in Georgia between President Donald Trump and Biden is currently too close to call, with Biden ahead of Trump as of November 10.

Here are some highlights of the results:

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Results Summary And Analysis

The Democratic Party won control of the House of Representatives in the 2018 midterm elections. The Democrats gained a net total of 41 seats from the total number of seats they had won in the 2016 elections. This was their largest gain of House seats in an election since the 1974 elections, when the Democrats gained 49 House seats. Democrats won the popular vote by more than 9.7 million votes or 8.6%, the largest midterm margin for any party and the largest margin on record for a minority party.

According to the Associated Press statistical analysis, gerrymandering cost the Democrats an additional sixteen House seats from Republicans.

Voter turnout in this election was 50.3%, the highest turnout in a U.S. midterm election since 1914.

Note that the results summary does not include blank and over/under votes which were included in the official results or votes cast in the voided election in North Carolinas 9th congressional district.

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Arguments For Expanding The Number Of House Members

Democrats take House, Republicans keep Senate in historic midterms

Advocates;for increasing the number of seats in the House say such a move would increase the quality of representation by reducing the number of constituents each lawmaker represents. Each House member now represents about 710,000 people.


The group ThirtyThousand.org argues that the framers of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights never intended for the population of each congressional district to exceed 50,000 or 60,000. The principle of proportionally equitable representation has been abandoned, the group argues.

Another argument for increasing the size of the House is that is would diminish the influence of lobbyists. That line of reasoning assumes that lawmakers would be more closely connected to their constituents and therefore less likely to listen to special interests.

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Personnel Mail And Office Expenses

House members are eligible for a Members Representational Allowance to support them in their official and representational duties to their district. The MRA is calculated based on three components: one for personnel, one for official office expenses and one for official or franked mail. The personnel allowance is the same for all members; the office and mail allowances vary based on the members districts distance from Washington, D.C., the cost of office space in the members district, and the number of non-business addresses in their district. These three components are used to calculate a single MRA that can fund any expenseâeven though each component is calculated individually, the franking allowance can be used to pay for personnel expenses if the member so chooses. In 2011 this allowance averaged $1.4 million per member, and ranged from $1.35 to $1.67 million.

The Personnel allowance was $944,671 per member in 2010. Each member may employ no more than 18 permanent employees. Members employees salary is capped at $168,411 as of 2009.


Voting With The Party

This section was last updated in 2014.

The following data comes from OpenCongress, a website that tracks how often members of Congress vote with the majority of their party caucus.

  • The average Republican voted with the party approximately 93.6 percent of the time.
  • The average Republican voted with the party approximately 94.3 percent of the time.
  • The top Republican voted with the party approximately 98.2 percent of the time.
  • The bottom Republican voted with the party approximately 75.1 percent of the time.

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Effect Of Republican Retirements

Indeed, 2020 was actually a Democratic-leaning year, with Biden winning the national popular vote by 4.5 percentage points. So theres a good chance that states will be at least a bit redder in 2022 than they were in 2020.

That could make these retirements less of a blow to Republicans than they first appear. Whats more, by announcing their retirements so early, Burr, Toomey and Portman are giving the GOP as much time as possible to recruit potential candidates, shape the field of candidates in a strategic way in the invisible primary and raise more money for the open-seat campaign. And in Ohio specifically, Republicans still look like heavy favorites. Even in the Democratic-leaning environment of 2020, Trump won Ohio by 8 percentage points, implying that its true partisan lean is probably even more Republican-leaning. Ohio is simply not the quintessential swing state it once was; dating back to the 2014 election cycle, Democrats have won just one out of 14 statewide contests in Ohio and that was a popular incumbent running in a blue-wave election year .

Nathaniel Rakich and Geoffrey Skelley, FiveThirtyEight

United States House Of Representatives

Senate Update
United States House of Representatives
Flag of the U.S. House of Representatives
Type
Plurality voting in 46 statesVaries in 4 states

The United States House of Representatives is the lower house of the United States Congress, with the Senate being the upper house. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States.

The Houses composition is established by Article One of the United States Constitution. The House is composed of representatives who sit in congressional districts allocated to each state on a basis of population as measured by the U.S. Census, with each district having one representative, provided that each state is entitled to at least one. Since its inception in 1789, all representatives have been directly elected. The number of voting representatives is fixed by law at 435. If enacted, the DC Admission Act would permanently increase the number of representatives to 436. In addition, there are currently six non-voting members, bringing the total membership of the House of Representatives to 441 or fewer with vacancies. As of the 2010 Census, the largest delegation is that of California, with 53 representatives. Seven states have only one representative: Alaska, Delaware, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming.

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Govtrackus Is Taking A New Focus On Civic Education

Help us develop the tools to bring real-time legislative data into the classroom.

If youve visited a bill page on GovTrack.us recently, you may have noticed a new study guide tab located just below the bill title. This is part of a new project to develop better tools for bringing real-time legislative data into the classroom. We hope to enable educators to build lesson plans centered around any bill or vote in Congress, even those as recent as yesterday.

Were looking for feedback from educators about how GovTrack can be used and improved for your classroom. If you teach United States government and would like to speak with us about bringing legislative data into your classroom, please reach out!

Annual Congressional Competitiveness Report 2020

Ballotpedia’s Annual Congressional Competitiveness report for 2020 includes information on the number of elections featuring candidates from both major parties, the number of open seats, and more.

HIGHLIGHTS

  • More U.S. House races were contested by members of both major parties than in any general election since at least 1920, with 95.4% of races featuring major party competition.
  • Of the U.S. Representatives and U.S. Senators who were eligible to run for re-election in 2018, 55 of them did not appear on the general election ballot in 2020.
  • In the 53 open seats where an incumbent either did not seek re-election or was defeated in a primary, there were 13 races where the incumbent’s district overlapped at least one pivot county in 2008 and 2012, before switching to support President Donald Trump in 2016).
  • In 20 races, only one major party candidate appeared on the general election ballot, the lowest number compared to the preceding decade.
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    The 10 Senate Seats Most Likely To Flip In 2022

    ;;;; — After a rough month for President Joe Biden, Republicans think they have more than historical precedent on their side to retake the Senate in 2022.

    Traditionally, the party out of the White House does better in the midterms. But the surging Delta variant, a chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan and intra-party fissures on Capitol Hill have all threatened Biden’s agenda — and his ability to communicate it throughout the summer — giving Republicans more to work with as they try to retake the Senate.

    Biden’s approval rating stood at 52% in a recent CNN poll conducted by SSRS, with 69% of Americans saying things are going badly in this country. Sixty-two percent of Americans said that economic conditions in the US are poor — up from 45% in April. That’s bad news for Democrats, who only enjoy a majority because Vice President Kamala Harris is the tie-breaking vote in the chamber.

    But it’s far too early to assume that the national mood heading into the fall will look anything like the political climate of November 2022.

    One reason, Democratic and Republican strategists agreed, that Newsom was able to capitalize on that message is he had a foil in Republican Larry Elder and was able to credibly tie him to Trump. And while that may have worked uniquely well in California, Trump — even without a social media presence — is still leaving his footprint on primaries as he hand-picks some candidates and torches others.

    Here are the 10 Senate seats most likely to flip next fall.

    Congressional Balance Of Power Odds

    Democrats Target Vulnerable Republican Seats In Effort To Gain Control Of Congress | NBC News NOW

    Note: The following odds are currently off the boards, but this is how they looked on Election Day 2020.

    US Senate Control *

    House And Senate Balance Of Power *

    • Democratic House, Democratic Senate +125
    • Democratic House, Republican Senate +175
    • Republican House, Republican Senate +500
    • Republican House, Democratic Senate +6600

    *Odds from Nov. 1, 2020.

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    United States House Of Representatives Elections 2022

    Alabama;Alaska;Arizona;Arkansas;California;Colorado;Connecticut;Delaware;Florida;Georgia;Hawaii;Idaho;Illinois;Indiana;Iowa;Kansas;Kentucky;Louisiana;Maine;;Massachusetts;Michigan;Minnesota;Mississippi;Missouri;Montana;Nebraska;Nevada;New Hampshire;New Jersey;New Mexico;New York;North Carolina;North Dakota;Ohio;Oklahoma;Oregon;Pennsylvania;Rhode Island;South Carolina;South Dakota;Tennessee;Texas;Utah;Vermont;Virginia;Washington;West Virginia;Wisconsin;Wyoming

    Elections to the U.S. House will be held on . All 435 seats will be up for election. Special elections will be held to fill vacancies that occur in the 117th Congress.

    Democrats maintained a majority in the U.S. House as a result of the 2020 elections, winning 222 seats to Republicans 213. Democrats flipped three seats and Republicans flipped 15, including one held by a Libertarian. See below for more on seats that changed party hands after the 2020 elections.

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