2026 Mid-Term election outcomes: US Congress

[Brainster]

By ignoring any maps, which the GOP are doing, there's no limit to how many voting districts can be created or how they look geographically.

So the Dems can create millions of electoral districts, with each one to be a single blue household. No problem getting to a polling booth for them, just walk to the dining room and deposit your paper ballot (Donny loves paper ballots!) in the family teapot. And counting the votes and phoning them in can be grandma's job.

Meanwhile, all the red households will be rounded up into one district that looks like the Amazon and its tributaries across the state. The one polling booth for them can be at the far end, up a dirt walking track in a barn. No mail-ins; you need to go there in person, on the day. And no food or drink in the queues either!

Yes, it's getting that ridiculous. But Gavin Newsom is showing that reflecting the GOP back on itself is powerful.

California has 52 congressional seats. They can divvy the state up into 52 districts, but they must be as nearly exactly equal in population as possible per two separate Supreme Court decisions, unless they serve a legitimate state interest, such as compactness or maintaining geographical boundaries. There's also an exception for majority-minority districts but that doesn't apply to California.

The same applies of course to Texas and its 38 seats. I will say that both states did a pretty good job of gerrymandering for the majority party in the state--California has 43 Democrats in Congress and 9 Republicans, while Texas has 25 Republicans and 12 Democrats (the final seat is vacant after the death of Democrat Sylvester Turner). Newsom is going to have to work pretty hard to find five more seats.

 

[Norman Alexander]

California has 52 congressional seats. They can divvy the state up into 52 districts, but they must be as nearly exactly equal in population as possible per two separate Supreme Court decisions, unless they serve a legitimate state interest, such as compactness or maintaining geographical boundaries. There's also an exception for majority-minority districts but that doesn't apply to California.

The same applies of course to Texas and its 38 seats. I will say that both states did a pretty good job of gerrymandering for the majority party in the state--California has 43 Democrats in Congress and 9 Republicans, while Texas has 25 Republicans and 12 Democrats (the final seat is vacant after the death of Democrat Sylvester Turner). Newsom is going to have to work pretty hard to find five more seats.

Why do they have to break it up into the same number of districts as seats? If you can "legally" gerrymander in defiance of the intent of the law, make as many districts as you need and assign many of them to seats. Not legal? Who cares!

 

[TragicMonkey]

Missouri's house Republicans are "working with Trump" to redraw the maps. We're already a red state but the two little blobs of blue are deeply irritating to Republicans. It's not enough to have simply a majority, they must have everything. Anything less than 100% control is unacceptable to them.

At least Kansas City's only getting gerrymandered. St Louis is going to get "law enforcement", this week the FBI was invited to "partner" and vastly expand its presence here. Because that's what the FBI does, right, patrol the streets and fight street crime?

 

[Norman Alexander]

You misunderstand. If a Democratic state does that it is a massive overstep of their authority, the state is in the hands of corrupt mismanagers and therefore the National Guard/Army needs to be sent in to 'correct' this.

Then you will have a MUCH bigger problem nationwide than basic redistricting and gerrymandering.

 

[LiteBright]

Why do they have to break it up into the same number of districts as seats? If you can "legally" gerrymander in defiance of the intent of the law, make as many districts as you need and assign many of them to seats. Not legal? Who cares!

They could try but it would be challenged and eventually make its way to SCOTUS where the "justices" would have to go to extra trouble to ensure that California's attempt was illegal while Texas' was just fine.

In a way I hope it happens. Let that be the final nail in the coffin of the idea that this SCOTUS is in any way interested in the equal application of the law.

 

[Segnosaur]

The same applies of course to Texas and its 38 seats. I will say that both states did a pretty good job of gerrymandering for the majority party in the state--California has 43 Democrats in Congress and 9 Republicans, while Texas has 25 Republicans and 12 Democrats (the final seat is vacant after the death of Democrat Sylvester Turner). Newsom is going to have to work pretty hard to find five more seats.

Ummm California did not gerrymander.

Gerrymandering is when you have politicians determining district boundaries to benefit their own party. But California uses an independent/non-partisan organization to draw it's election boundaries.

Now it is true that California sends more Democrats to Congress than you expect given voter support there, but that just seems to be the way republican support is distributed in the state (voters spread evenly across much of the state without "clumps" of support to give them actual house seats)

 

[johnny karate]

Really? Then why didn't they draw the maps that way in 2020?

For the same reason they didn’t do all the other authoritarian ◊◊◊◊ in 2020 that they’re doing now. They didn’t think they could get away with it then. They no longer have any sane voices in the party telling them not to and they feel emboldened.

I continue to not understand your lack of understanding.

Everything Republicans have been doing since Trump took office has been an unhinged power grab. They want total control of everything.

What is it about this that confuses you?

 

[Brainster]

Ummm California did not gerrymander.

Gerrymandering is when you have politicians determining district boundaries to benefit their own party. But California uses an independent/non-partisan organization to draw it's election boundaries.

Now it is true that California sends more Democrats to Congress than you expect given voter support there, but that just seems to be the way republican support is distributed in the state (voters spread evenly across much of the state without "clumps" of support to give them actual house seats)

Whether they intended it or not, California is effectively gerrymandered to the point where it's going to take some creative line-drawing to squeeze an extra seat or two, let alone five.

 

[NM156]

Whether they intended it or not, California is effectively gerrymandered to the point where it's going to take some creative line-drawing to squeeze an extra seat or two, let alone five.

Time to get creative then.

 

[Brainster]

Nate Silver checks in with a longish article on the redistricting wars. He agrees with me that there may not be a lot of juice left to squeeze out of the Lone Star State:

A Reuters headline on Sunday claimed that “Trump's redistricting push could bring decades of Republican rule” in the House. But that’s probably wrong. As Eli wrote last week about Texas, many of the estimates we’ve seen of projected seat gains are overconfident, understating how many supposedly safe seats could still be competitive in the event of a blue wave (or a red one) next year.

He also very much agree with the push by California to do likewise:

The initiative marks the end of a decade-plus of a “when they go low, we go high” attitude among Democratic leaders, which the party base has increasingly soured on. And here, the base has the right strategic instincts. Actions like Newsom’s could help the party keep the playing field level in the long run — or even eke out an advantage.

He also mentions the negative side-effects, such as more wack jobs from both parties. In non-competitive districts, sitting representatives are probably more at risk in their primaries than in the general election.

He does get in a couple digs at the Democratic establishment including this one:

And if Democrats think that Trump and Republicans represent an existential threat to democracy, their actions have consistently failed to match their rhetoric.

 

[johnny karate]

Oh no, we might get more “wack jobs” from Republicans. Hard to imagine what that might look like.

And while the criticism of Democrats not meeting the moment is a valid one, making that criticism about a moment they’re meeting is a strange choice.

I was, however, surprised to learn that there are still people who take Nate Silver seriously.

 

[W.D.Clinger]

Nate Silver checks in with a longish article on the redistricting wars.

That's a very interesting article, mainly because it presents actual data that refute several platitudes too many folks are repeating. Some excerpts:

• "The Congressional map has become fairer" from 2016 to 2024...."not so much because the lines were redrawn but because of that Republican shift among working-class minority voters away from Democrats. In 2016, Democrats had a pronounced left tail of wasted votes; now they don't so much"
• "In 2016, the median district was 5.5 points redder than the country overall. Last year, that was down to just 1.5 points."
• "If you look instead at the number of marginal seats that each party controls under a “trifecta”...it’s pretty close: 153 for Republicans and 148 for Democrats. And this is after a bad election for Democrats last year."

 

[Tero]

Even Reagan lost a lot of seats. graph there.

Tero Gervais (@tero55gervais) on Threads

For the 100 day popularity, Trump just barely beat himself in 2016, as the second worst approval. Midterm swings in the house are the routine. Not sure of why Obama had such big numbers. Other than he is black, a reaction from rural whites at the time. Populist Reagan was really poor tow years in.

www.threads.com

 

[Brainster]

Oh no, we might get more “wack jobs” from Republicans. Hard to imagine what that might look like.

And while the criticism of Democrats not meeting the moment is a valid one, making that criticism about a moment they’re meeting is a strange choice.

I was, however, surprised to learn that there are still people who take Nate Silver seriously.

You mean the guy who correctly called 49 out of 50 states correctly in 2008 and went 50 for 50 in 2012, and who was the only prognosticator to give Trump a chance in 2016? That Nate Silver? Yeah, he probably said something complimentary about Trump sometime and so nobody you know listens to him.

 

[Brainster]

That's a very interesting article, mainly because it presents actual data that refute several platitudes too many folks are repeating. Some excerpts:

• "The Congressional map has become fairer" from 2016 to 2024...."not so much because the lines were redrawn but because of that Republican shift among working-class minority voters away from Democrats. In 2016, Democrats had a pronounced left tail of wasted votes; now they don't so much"
• "In 2016, the median district was 5.5 points redder than the country overall. Last year, that was down to just 1.5 points."
• "If you look instead at the number of marginal seats that each party controls under a “trifecta”...it’s pretty close: 153 for Republicans and 148 for Democrats. And this is after a bad election for Democrats last year."

Silver brought the same type of rigorous statistical projections that he brought to baseball (well-known among the baseball stats guys like me) to politics. Granted there are a helluva lot more variables in politics, which is why he presents things in probabilistic format. This bugs people who are used to hearing that X will win or Y will win. But it's a recognition that all projections are based on multiple assumptions, any one of which could turn out to be wrong. In 2016, Silver noticed an assumption was being made that if one of the industrial Midwest states went for Trump, that was just a one-off. He recognized that if one went, several could go, and that was why his model, while still predicting a Hillary victory (as everybody did) gave Trump a much larger chance at winning than anybody else. So he was wrong, but less wrong than most.
Pretty sure he has a full-time staff behind him at the Silver Bulletin as he did at the NY Times (maybe not as large). As you point out, he backs up his points with data rather than common wisdom (which is neither).

 

[Gulliver Foyle]

Oh no, we might get more “wack jobs” from Republicans. Hard to imagine what that might look like.

And while the criticism of Democrats not meeting the moment is a valid one, making that criticism about a moment they’re meeting is a strange choice.

I was, however, surprised to learn that there arestill people who take Nate Silver seriously.

Haven't been following much, what's the story?

 

[johnny karate]

You mean the guy who correctly called 49 out of 50 states correctly in 2008 and went 50 for 50 in 2012, and who was the only prognosticator to give Trump a chance in 2016? That Nate Silver? Yeah, he probably said something complimentary about Trump sometime and so nobody you know listens to him.

I’m not clear why you cited examples of his success at statistical analysis in defense of his political analysis.

You understand those are two completely different things, correct?

 

[Segnosaur]

Speaking of redistricting.... Right now the focus seems to be in Texas and California (and to a lesser extent Florida), but there is another battle going on in Utah...

From: https://13wham.com/news/nation-worl...lated-voters-right-by-bypassing-proposition-4
The Utah Legislature violated voters’ rights by approving congressional boundaries that split Salt Lake County, Third District Court Judge Dianna Gibson ruled...The ruling means new congressional maps must be drawn ahead of the 2026 midterm elections....

(Utah had an independent organization that proposed district boundaries, but republicans in their legislature messed with the boundaries to gerrymander a few seats.)

I expect the republicans will probably try to appeal and use other delay tactics until its too late to draw the maps for the mid-terms, but if the judge's rulings stand, we could look at this partly reversing some of the Texan gerrymandering.

 

[johnny karate]

Haven't been following much, what's the story?

Silver has been becoming more of a pundit then a statistician and has had some absolutely terrible takes, like his prediction that Eric Adams would become a viable nominee for president.

 

[Segnosaur]

Silver has been becoming more of a pundit then a statistician and has had some absolutely terrible takes, like his prediction that Eric Adams would become a viable nominee for president.

Umm... he never claimed that Adams WOULD win the nomination, or even that he would be the most likely (he said he would be in the "top 5". )

He also made that prediction in 2022... before it was known that Biden would 1) run for re-election, and then 2) withdraw from the race.