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What would the House look like if Democrats Win Every District Biden Won in 2020? [1]

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Date: 2022-08-05

Joe Biden knows Dems can win with a tied generic ballot

After favoring Republicans for the past 9 months, as of yesterday, polling has the generic Congressional ballot tied, and FiveThirtyEight’s Deluxe Model estimates Democrats have a 20% chance of keeping the house (the Lite Model, which is based on polls alone, gives them a 34% chance). While Republicans once again benefitted substantially from gerrymandering during the recent redistricting process, redistricting also resulted in fewer competitive seats overall. So while Republicans and pundits have been forecasting as much as a 30-40 point seat gain by Republicans Congress in, the truth it would take a strong R environment to achieve that goal, because there are just aren’t many seats influenced by a more modest swing in a Congress with few competitive districts.

With all this in mind, I decided to take a look at what the House would look like based on one simple criterion. What if, in 2022, Democrats win every district that Joe Biden won in 2020, and lose every district that he lost in 2020? Importantly, these are the districts as configured in 2022. So for example, Biden easily won Jim Cooper’s TN-05 district in 2020, but if it had been configured as it is now, he would have lost it 43-54 to Trump. Therefore, in 2022, it is an automatic flip to the Republicans (both in my analysis and in real life).

Of course, if Democrats win every seat Biden won in 2020, that’s not an even split between voting for Dems and voting for Rs for Congress. It’s a D+4 environment, since Biden won the popular vote by about 4 points in 2020. So I also looked at how the makeup of the House would change if we move from D+4 (every Dem wins in Congressional districts Biden won, and loses in districts he loses) all the way to an R+6 environment (every Dem wins in Congressional districts Biden won by ≥ 10 points, and loses in districts he won by less than 10 points), as well as (wishful thinking!) a D+7 environment, where Democrats win every seat that Trump won by ≤ 3 points, as well as every Biden-won seat. Since the analysis is just based on one criterion, it includes some unlikely wins and losses. For example, Brian Fitzpatrick (R, PA-01) would automatically lose in an EVEN year for Rs and Ds in my analysis because Biden won Fitzpatrick’s district by more than 4 points, but he’s rated “Safe-R” by Cook Political because of his success in holding this D-leaning district in the past. Since some states lost or gained seats due to Redistricting, those seats are automatically allocated to Rs or Ds based on how Biden performed in that area in 2020, since they currently don’t have a representative.

So let’s take a look at the numbers, and the winners and losers.

A reminder, current makeup of the House is 220D-211R, with 4 vacancies being filled this August via Special Elections. Three of the vacancies are likely to be filled by Republicans (MN-01, AK-AL, NY-23) and one is a toss-up that I’ll give to the Dems (NY-19). (Note, I did this analysis before Jackie Walorski’s unfortunate death, so that’s another vacant seat, but that district will stay solid R). So at full strength, current Congress would be 221D-214R.

If Dems win every district Joe Biden won (D+4 environment), they would gain 7 seats, for a 228 D, 207 R Congress. In the table below, you can also see what would happen as the environment shifts to favor Rs or Ds, and who the “winners” and “losers” are, with each 1 point change in Biden’s win %, as well as their rating according to Cook Political Report. So for example, in the scenario where Dems win every district Biden won, AZ-06 (Kirkpatrick’s seat) remains in the hands of the Dems, since it nominally went for Biden, and NY-01 (Zeldin’s seat) flips to Dem, since Biden nominally won there as well. But when you shift one point R (i.e., Biden must have won the district by more than 1 point), AZ-06 flips to R, and NY-01 stays R. OPEN seats are seats where the current House member is retiring, running in another district, or lost their primary.

Notably, you’ll see that, because there are few competitive seats, the floodgates don’t open for either party until we get to what is, according to current polling, a highly unlikely scenario of about R+5, (where Democrats lose every seat that Biden won by fewer than 9 points) which would result in a 30-seat gain for the Republicans over current numbers. And in an EVEN environment, Congress is essentially tied, with Republicans winning 218 seats and Democrats 217.

Keep in mind this is not a forecast of who will win in individual districts. There’s a reason Marcy Kaptur, in a district Trump won by nearly 3 points, is a rated a Toss-up, and the open CA-13, which Biden won by >10, is also Toss-Up. This is just a numbers analysis. An EVEN generic ballot nationally, means Dems have a real chance to hold on to the house, by however slim a margin. Cook is not as optimistic as I am, given their ratings for the seats (only 1 “Lean D” Dem in Districts Biden won by <8). Enjoy!

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/8/5/2114689/-What-would-the-House-look-like-if-Democrats-Win-Every-District-Biden-Won-in-2020

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