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Divided We Stand

Divided We Stand
New book about the 2020 election.

Thursday, January 16, 2025

Democratic Challenges

Our next book is tentatively titled The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics  Among other things, it discusses state and congressional elections.

John Haskell:

There are more red states than blue by a margin of 24-19. And as partisan lines have hardened this century we have now reached the point where Democrats have exactly zero senators from these states. The last of them had a tough time surviving — a seemingly impossible one in West Virginia that Joe Manchin managed, and improbable success in Montana for Tester and Ohio for Brown. Alas, Manchin stepped side in 2024 and other two were defeated.

The red state Senate Democrat can now be reclassified from an endangered species to an extinct one.

Even if the party gets every single blue seat (they have all but the one seat in Maine stubbornly held onto by Susan Collins), they start at a severe disadvantage. The balance of power in the Senate rides on the seven purple states. Democrats do very well there, with 10 of the 14 seats, but even that is not enough, with Republicans now holding a 53-47 overall edge. Democrats’ prospects of turning that around are vanishingly slim. More likely is that Republicans gradually begin to even the score in the purple states, adding to their advantage.

As for the House, we’ll know a lot more after the 2026 midterms. At this point the body is on a knife’s edge with 220 likely GOP seats to 215 for the Democrats once all is said and done. But Democrats hold far more Trump district seats (14) than Republicans have Harris district seats (3).

While the situation in the House is not as clear cut as it is in the Senate, it too doesn’t look promising for Democrats. It’s worthwhile to be reminded that the states that stand to gain the most seats after the 2030 census are governed by Republicans who have access to those computer programs that facilitate gerrymandering. What states will losing seats? You guessed it, they’re mostly blue. Add it up: a net gain for Republicans beginning in 2032.

What we’re starting to see is a mirror image of the 1954-1994 period where the House was solidly in Democratic hands and the Senate was usually but not always also Democratic. Today it’s a solid Republican Senate with John Thune of South Dakota headed for a long run as Majority Leader and Chuck Schumer having to make himself comfortable in the minority leader’s office space. In the House, a majority is within reach for Democrats, but maybe not for long.