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Divided We Stand

Divided We Stand
New book about the 2020 election.

Friday, November 30, 2018

It Could Have Been Worse for the House GOP

In Defying the Odds, we discuss state and congressional elections as well as the presidential race

David Wasserman at the Cook Political Report:
Democrats won over 53 percent of all votes cast for House compared to 45 percent for Republicans. To put this wave in perspective, Republicans' margin over Democrats was seven percent in both 1994 and 2010, and Democrats won the national House vote by eight points in 2006. Right now, Democrats lead the House vote by 8.4 percent and make up 62 of the 93 members of the freshman class.
As bad as this outcome was for Republicans, it could've been worse: there's strong evidence November's universally high, historic midterm turnout actually aided Republicans more than Democrats. For example, on November 6, GOP Rep. Troy Balderson (OH-12) received about 68,000 more votes than he did in the August 7 special election, while Democrat Danny O'Connor received just 56,000 more.
Nationwide, there were 23 Republicans who won their House races by less than five points. Had the Trump base not woken up after the Kavanaugh fight, Democrats could have easily gained 50 seats.