(revised Friday November 9th to correct an error in Maine Senate)

The election turned out approximately as expected from advance information, a narrowly-Democratic House and a Republican Senate. I thought it might be good to look at the results from the perspective of 2020.

Above is what an electoral map based on the state-by-state House results would look like. It was calculated by averaging the district vote share percentage for each state and seeing which side gets over 50%. Uncontested races were treated as 75%-25% for the winner. (See the comment thread for further discussion.)

The outcome is 324 D, 214 R (popular margin estimated to be 7%, subject to change). Compare that with the 2012 outcome of Obama 332 electoral votes, Romney 206 (popular margin, 3.9%), or the 2008 outcome of Obama 365, McCain 173 (popular margin, 7.2%).

However, the House election is measured not by people but districts. In terms of districts, the outcome is quite close. This arises from a combination of population clustering and gerrymandering. Without gerrymandering, Democrats would have had about ten more seats, both before and after the elec

Here is what a Senate results-based map would look like:

In this case the outcome is 269 D, 93 R, 29 unresolved (Florida), 147 with no Senate race in 2018.

This may look a bit different from the media narrative that it was a victory for Republicans – which it was, certainly in terms of retaining control. But large voter populations in safe states – California, Pennsylvania, ad so on – contribute to this larger picture.

This idea was sparked by an exchange with E.J. Chichilnisky.