Elections

Noam Scheiber has a recent piece about the Republican party that makes two points. The first is that Republicans in Congress—especially the House of Representatives—are more out of touch with mainstream political opinion than their Democratic counterparts, and have grown more so recently. There are a lot of reasons to think this point is sound. See here, here, and here (though see also here for a different perspective). At the very least, it’s debatable. Personally, I tend to agree with Scheiber.

However, I disagree about what Scheiber believes is the cause:

What explains the PR pileup that GOP elders can’t seem to clear to the side of the road? Partly it’s the structural forces at work in American politics…But the more direct and mundane explanation is gerrymandering. Thanks to the way Republican legislatures drew congressional districts in 2000, the median House district leaned Republican by two points over the next decade—a big edge given the tiny margins that frequently decide competitive races. Since 2010, the built-in advantage has grown to three points. The result of all this gerrymandering is to give the Republicans a death grip on the House. In 2012, they won 1.4 million fewer votes than Democrats in all the House districts combined, but still managed a 33-seat majority.

As John and I have argued, the evidence that gerrymandering has given the GOP any sort of grip on the House—death, Vulcan, or whatever—is weak. And the connection between the districts (however they ended up that way) and polarization is also pretty feeble.

But what about the median district argument? The median was +2 Republican before the redistricting, which means it was 2 points more Republican than the mean (given the way the Cook Political Report measures these things). Then it became +3! That’s a lot, right?

Maybe. But let’s put it in context. The median district has been more Republican than the mean in virtually every House election since 1952. See the graph below. In other words, the Republican party had the same advantage in 1952, but was a very different party. So something else is going on.

Why is gerrymandering is such a popular explanation for things? I’d guess it’s because it reeks of corruption and manipulation, so it taints everything it touches. It’s easier to get mad about something if you can blame it on politicians rigging the game to thwart the will of the people. If more mundane forces are at work, it becomes harder to get mad, and harder to think of the solution.

I’m not trying to pick on Scheiber here, since I think everyone has a natural tendency to lurch toward these kinds of explanations. It’s just that sometimes there isn’t much evidence in support. This is one of those times.