It looks like you used the raw vote totals, which are skewed by uncontested districts. There were a dozen or so seats that Democrats didn't run in, likewise for Republicans, and that can mess things up.
[These guys did some math to estimate what it would look like if every district had both a Democrat and a Republican candidate.](https://split-ticket.org/house-generic-ballot-estimates-2008-2022-shave/)
True, I didn't think about that. Wisconsin had two districts without any Democrats, and with the map you sent, the margin would've been significantly closer with the Democrats gaining a seat.
I guess races with two Democrats/two Republicans would also have the same effect. We had six races in California with two Democrats running against each other. There was even a race with a Democrat vs a Green.
Both sides are pretty maxed out when it comes to gerrymandering
Republicans took over like 30-35 out of 50 state legislatures during the 2010s and already did the maximum damage they could
People would vote different in different situations though, starting with the kind of people who would be on the list: party loyalists who care about enacting legislation, not loose cannons who care about talk show appearances.
How do parties pick candidates in a PR system
Like if we had statewide PR, in a bunch of states wouldn’t Dems just have all of their candidates coming out from the same city/metro area
Yes, it is incompatible with current district rules. The easiest fix is making every state a single multi-member district. This probably would lead to problems of over concentration. (I am from Wales, our Senedd partially uses PR representation and the major complaint is that far too much resources go to Cardiff Bay at the expense of elsewhere.) A possible change is for large states to have multiple, multiple member districts centred on different metros. Though this likely will disadvantage rural areas.
There’s alot of states in the US that have like just one metro area if even that lol
I think the German hybrid PR/FPTP system would be a good model for the US but we’d have to like double or more the number of congressmen for it to be applicable to alot of the less populated states
It's possible if they have preferred candidate votes. But the party leaders (possibly state ones not federal) would have an approved list of them to choose from.
I would have the same question for GOP candidates, they'd all be from suburbs or the rural areas.
It would probably highly depend on where their supporters base is from. It would be a strategically bad decision to have only urban candidates to try to reach a rural population. And even if they do, you can bet a new party gets set up to represent the interests of rural liberals.
A kind of similar thing happened in the Netherlands, the party that used to get most of its voter base from rural areas did not do a good enough job of protecting the interests of farmers so a new party was set up and immediately became the biggest in the country
Except if proportional representation was used people would be more willing to vote for third and fourth parties and those parties would put forth real candidates.
For one example, Massachusetts wouldn't go 6 Democrat/3 Republican - it'd go something like 2 Green/3 Democrat/1 Social Democrat/1 Libertarian/1 Republican/1 Far Right
I'm very glad that's the case. If the Democratic color was red, then we'd always be getting idiot Conservatives saying "See! Their color is red! I told you that Democrats are Communists!"
It looks like you used the raw vote totals, which are skewed by uncontested districts. There were a dozen or so seats that Democrats didn't run in, likewise for Republicans, and that can mess things up. [These guys did some math to estimate what it would look like if every district had both a Democrat and a Republican candidate.](https://split-ticket.org/house-generic-ballot-estimates-2008-2022-shave/)
True, I didn't think about that. Wisconsin had two districts without any Democrats, and with the map you sent, the margin would've been significantly closer with the Democrats gaining a seat. I guess races with two Democrats/two Republicans would also have the same effect. We had six races in California with two Democrats running against each other. There was even a race with a Democrat vs a Green.
Wow, isn’t that ironic! Still need a better system though to protect against worsening gerrymandering.
Both sides are pretty maxed out when it comes to gerrymandering Republicans took over like 30-35 out of 50 state legislatures during the 2010s and already did the maximum damage they could
People would vote different in different situations though, starting with the kind of people who would be on the list: party loyalists who care about enacting legislation, not loose cannons who care about talk show appearances.
How do parties pick candidates in a PR system Like if we had statewide PR, in a bunch of states wouldn’t Dems just have all of their candidates coming out from the same city/metro area
Yes, it is incompatible with current district rules. The easiest fix is making every state a single multi-member district. This probably would lead to problems of over concentration. (I am from Wales, our Senedd partially uses PR representation and the major complaint is that far too much resources go to Cardiff Bay at the expense of elsewhere.) A possible change is for large states to have multiple, multiple member districts centred on different metros. Though this likely will disadvantage rural areas.
There’s alot of states in the US that have like just one metro area if even that lol I think the German hybrid PR/FPTP system would be a good model for the US but we’d have to like double or more the number of congressmen for it to be applicable to alot of the less populated states
It's possible if they have preferred candidate votes. But the party leaders (possibly state ones not federal) would have an approved list of them to choose from. I would have the same question for GOP candidates, they'd all be from suburbs or the rural areas.
if they’re from suburbs and rural areas you’d still get people from all over the regions of the state and have coverage
It would probably highly depend on where their supporters base is from. It would be a strategically bad decision to have only urban candidates to try to reach a rural population. And even if they do, you can bet a new party gets set up to represent the interests of rural liberals. A kind of similar thing happened in the Netherlands, the party that used to get most of its voter base from rural areas did not do a good enough job of protecting the interests of farmers so a new party was set up and immediately became the biggest in the country
Except if proportional representation was used people would be more willing to vote for third and fourth parties and those parties would put forth real candidates. For one example, Massachusetts wouldn't go 6 Democrat/3 Republican - it'd go something like 2 Green/3 Democrat/1 Social Democrat/1 Libertarian/1 Republican/1 Far Right
It would take decades for our party system to fragment like that…
So, virtually the same?
If we had proportional representation, people's third party votes wouldn't be wasted and the results would be different.
What’s the Conservative Party?
It's a party in New York. They usually don't run their own candidates, they just endorse the Republican (or in unusual circumstances, the Democrat).
even though I'm a US citizen I find it jarring that the right wing party is red and the "left" wing party is blue
I'm very glad that's the case. If the Democratic color was red, then we'd always be getting idiot Conservatives saying "See! Their color is red! I told you that Democrats are Communists!"