With the midterm elections fast approaching, Decision Desk HQ crunches the numbers based on current polling and finds that while the Democrats are likely to win a strong majority of the votes for House seats, it won’t result in taking control of that chamber of Congress.





The Democratic Party is ahead in generic ballot polls, earning 54.2% of the two-party vote share on average. They hold an 8.4 percentage point lead over the Republicans… But, because Democrats are clustered in cities and face harsh gerrymanders, they aren’t expected to win an equivalent share of the seats in Congress.

In current conditions, they are predicted to pick up a net 12 seats, which would leave them the Republicans with 229 seats and the Democrats with 206, despite getting more than 54% of the vote. Running thousands of simulations, DDHQ gives the Democrats only a 30% chance of winning control of the House, a far cry from anything like proportional representation (which is not, of course, guaranteed under the Constitution, as opposed to some parliamentary systems).

This is, in fact, largely the result of gerrymandering. In Michigan, Democrats get far more votes than Republicans for House seats, both as an absolute measure and as a percentage, but only have 5 of the 14 seats. The same is true in the state legislature, where Republicans have control by a 63-47 margin despite losing the popular vote decisively. This is one reason why the Wisconsin gerrymandering case that the Supreme Court will hear next term is so important, though I’m not hopeful that they will reach the right result. I think it’s more likely that they will punt on the case and not intervene.