[EL] Toobin and House Results -- Re: ELB News and Commentary 11/18/18

[Nicholas Stephanopoulos]

The historic responsiveness of the U.S. House is roughly 2:1, meaning that
for every one-point change in a party's vote share, the party's seat share
changes by about two points. Typically, then, a party that gets 54.5% of
the two-party vote should get around 59% (or 257) of the seats. So
Democrats are coming up close to twenty seats short.


On Sun, Nov 18, 2018 at 8:22 PM Mark Scarberry <
mark.scarberry at pepperdine.edu> wrote:

> Jeffrey Toobin, in the New Yorker article, writes:
>
> "Even the good news from the election comes with a caveat, however.
> According to an analysis by the Brennan Center for Justice, Democrats won
> the over-all popular vote in the four hundred and thirty-five races for the
> House of Representatives by about nine per cent, but they managed to
> capture only a relatively narrow majority of seats. This is because the
> district lines are so egregiously gerrymandered, especially in states fully
> controlled by Republicans."
>
> Assuming my math is correct:
>
> A 9% margin would put the percentages at 54.5 to 45.5 (leaving aside third
> parties). Out of 435 seats, 54.5% would be 237, and 45.5% would be 198. It
> appears that, with a few races still to be decided, Democrats will have at
> least 232 seats and Republicans will have at least 198. If the five other
> raises split evenly, the division will be 234 or 235 Democrats, and 200 or
> 201 Republicans. Is this particularly disproportionate?
>
> Mark
>
> Prof. Mark S. Scarberry
> Pepperdine Univ. School of Law
>
> On Sun, Nov 18, 2018 at 4:09 PM, Rick Hasen <rhasen at law.uci.edu> wrote:
>
> ...
>
>
>>
>>
>> Jeffrey Toobin Expresses Some Optimism About Voting Rights
>> <https://electionlawblog.org/?p=102371>
>>
>> Posted on November 18, 2018 3:17 pm
>> <https://electionlawblog.org/?p=102371> by *Rick Hasen*
>> <https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
>>
>> Not so sure I agree with this one
>> <https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/11/26/how-voting-rights-fared-in-the-midterms>
>> .
>>
>> [image: Share]
>> <https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=https%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D102371&title=Jeffrey%20Toobin%20Expresses%20Some%20Optimism%20About%20Voting%20Rights>
>>
>> Posted in The Voting Wars <https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>
>>
>>
>>
>> ...
>>
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-- 
Nicholas O. Stephanopoulos
Professor of Law
University of Chicago Law School
nsteph at uchicago.edu
(773) 702-4226
http://www.law.uchicago.edu/faculty/stephanopoulos
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