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Our Final 2016 Picks

Clinton 322, Trump 216; 50-50 Senate; GOP holds House

Larry J. Sabato, Kyle Kondik, and Geoffrey Skelley, UVA Center for Politics November 7th, 2016

After a nearly two-year campaign — kicked off in December 2014 by Jeb Bush (remember him?) — we’ve come to it at last. Election Day is less than 24 hours away.

And we know why you’re here: You just want the picks.

So let’s cut to the chase. Table 1 shows our final selections for the Electoral College, Senate, House, and the governorships.

Table 1: Crystal Ball 2016 election projections

Let’s start with the presidency:

THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE

Map 1: Crystal Ball Electoral College projection

Despite some wobbles along the way, we’ve favored Hillary Clinton as the 45th president of the United States ever since we did our first handicapping of the Clinton vs. Donald Trump matchup back in late March. The edge we had for her back then has eroded a little bit at the end — we had her as high as 352 electoral votes, and in the final tally we have her down to 322, with 216 for Trump. If this is how it turns out, Trump will fare 10 electoral votes better than Mitt Romney, and Clinton will do 10 electoral votes worse than Barack Obama in 2012 — 11 or 12 if rogue Washington electors follow through on their threat to refuse to vote for Clinton (but we can’t assume that at this time).

The two closest states here are North Carolina and Ohio. For a long time, it appeared that Florida was a shakier state for Clinton than the Tar Heel State, but our sources indicate that the Sunshine State looks somewhat brighter for her now, although both should be tight. Meanwhile, Ohio may be a real Toss-up state. Buckeye history and demography point to Trump, but Clinton’s ground operation could come through for her in the end. If Ohio does vote for Trump while he is losing the White House, it will be just the third time in 31 elections that Ohio will have voted for the loser. We’re picking that to happen, but if Clinton gets any benefit out of James Comey’s final (?) intervention into campaign 2016, it may be that it generates a tiny bounce that allows her to leapfrog Trump in the Buckeye State. Arizona and Iowa seem like heavier lifts for Clinton but her campaign still holds out hope in both. Ultimately, we think North Carolina and Ohio are the hardest calls in the Electoral College, so we think it makes the most sense to just split them.

The buzz in the final days has been about a late Trump play in Michigan. He will likely eat into traditional Democratic margins there, but remember that Barack Obama won the state by nearly 10 points in 2012 (450,000 votes). Trump’s climb there is steep, but out of an abundance of caution we’re moving the state from Likely Democratic to Leans Democratic. We’re doing the same thing in New Hampshire, where some polls were close last week (although many operatives do not believe the state is tied), and Pennsylvania, two states (like Michigan) that have very little early voting. Clinton is focusing on these states at the end, too, and with good reason. If Trump pulls an upset, it’ll probably be because he narrowly fought off Clinton in Florida and North Carolina and managed to spring a shocker or two in the Rust Belt.

Florida may tell us a lot about whether we’re going to have a long night or a short one. About two-thirds of voters will likely have cast their ballots early, so the vote count should not take that long. If Clinton wins the state by two or three points and is declared the victor early on, it’ll be hard to find a plausible path to Trump victory. If Trump captures the state, though, then we’ll have to see if her firewall states, like the aforementioned states of Michigan, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania, as well as Colorado, Nevada, and Virginia, come through for her.

In the prognostication business, what you predict at the end — when the drift of the year is usually fairly clear — is less significant than what you predict months before, at a time when the future is foggy. Starting in March, we have released a total of 17 Electoral College maps in the Clinton-Trump race. Not even on Clinton’s worst campaign days did we ever have her below 270 electoral votes.

THE SENATE

Map 2: Crystal Ball Senate projection

We’re forecasting Democrats to win control of the Senate, but only by the slimmest of margins.

Overall, we’re picking a net gain of four for Democrats in the Senate, which results in a 50-50 tie in Congress’ upper chamber. If we’re right about the presidential contest, that means Vice President Tim Kaine (D) will be breaking ties after Inauguration. Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D-VA) would appoint Kaine’s replacement in the Senate (long-serving Rep. Bobby Scott, an African American, is the likeliest choice). If there is an evenly divided Senate, the next important date will be Nov. 7, 2017, when the Old Dominion will hold a special election for the remainder of Kaine’s term in office (that seat also will be up for regular election in 2018). There’s also the potential for a party change that alters the Senate’s leadership if it is indeed 50-50.

The most likely gain for Democrats will be in Illinois, where we expect Rep. Tammy Duckworth (D, IL-8) to defeat Sen. Mark Kirk (R). The incumbent was always going to have a difficult time winning in a presidential year in a safely Democratic state. Although his path appears more difficult now than it did for much of the cycle, ex-Sen. Russ Feingold (D) is our pick to win in Wisconsin over the man who defeated him in 2010, incumbent Sen. Ron Johnson (R). Should Feingold win, he will become the first former senator to win back his old seat against the candidate who beat him since Sen. Peter Gerry (D-RI) in 1934. In Pennsylvania, we project Katie McGinty (D) to defeat Sen. Pat Toomey (R) in a hard-fought race. Toomey strategically tacked to the middle on some issues while in the Senate, notably gun control, but his Democratic opponent has led most polls since mid-October, giving McGinty a small but discernible edge. Perhaps our toughest call where we are picking a Democrat is the New Hampshire contest between Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R) and Gov. Maggie Hassan (D). Ayotte should run ahead of Trump, but we think it won’t be quite enough in the end for her to hold on. Count this as one of the races we are least certain about.

As for the seats that we expect the parties to retain, the most competitive ones are in Florida, Indiana, Missouri, Nevada, and North Carolina. In Nevada, state expert Jon Ralston writes that the early voting edge for Democrats suggests that the party has an advantage up and down the ticket. If this is right, the day after Election Day will be yet another bad one for many firms that polled Nevada and showed good numbers for Republicans. In light of what we see in the Silver State, we are going with former Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto (D) over Rep. Joe Heck (R, NV-3) in the only endangered Democratic-held seat.

We see Republicans retaining the other competitive seats. In Florida, we project Sen. Marco Rubio’s (R) 2015-2016 political journey to end in reelection after running for president and not intending — at least publicly — to run for Senate again if he failed in his White House bid. As we have discussed many times, Rubio doesn’t appear to have suffered much collateral damage among Latino voters in the Sunshine State because of Trump, running well ahead of his party mate among that demographic. Should Rubio defeat Rep. Patrick Murphy (D, FL-18) by only a narrow margin, there will be recriminations in Democratic circles for failing to go hard after Rubio, especially because he still has presidential ambitions that could reignite circa 2019.

When he entered the Indiana race to win back his old seat, former Sen. Evan Bayh (D) had about $10 million in his campaign war chest and was immediately judged a slight favorite. He might manage a narrow win, but we think it’s more likely that Rep. Todd Young (R, IN-9) will defeat Bayh once the votes are tallied. The Hoosier State’s Republican lean, the relatively strong performance expected by the Trump-Pence ticket (Pence is, after all, a Hoosier), Bayh’s troubles on the campaign trail, and the commitment by GOP forces not to give up on the state just because of Bayh’s candidacy led to this projected outcome.

Many national Democrats view Missouri Secretary of State Jason Kander (D) as a potential star in the party, but while his strong campaign has made the Missouri race very close, the Show Me State’s GOP lean — with a large margin for Trump creating some statewide pull — is probably going to be too much to overcome. Thus, we are picking Sen. Roy Blunt (R) to win reelection there.

Lastly, in one of the hardest calls of the cycle, we are picking Sen. Richard Burr (R) to hold onto his North Carolina seat in what has become a closely watched contest against ex-state Rep. Deborah Ross (D). Should he win while Clinton carries the Tar Heel State, Burr would be only the second North Carolina senator to win while the opposite party wins at the presidential level.

If we’re off on the total number of seat changes, we think it’s slightly likelier that Democrats get to 51 or 52 than Republicans. That could mean the Democrats pulling out a win in Indiana, Missouri, or North Carolina. If Republicans hold on to the majority, it probably would be because Ayotte survives in New Hampshire.

THE HOUSE

Table 2: Crystal Ball House ratings

Note: Seats shaded in blue are currently held by Democrats; seats shaded in red are currently held by Republicans. We are projecting that Democrats will win 15 seats currently held by Republicans and that Republicans will win two seats currently held by Democrats for a net Democratic gain of 13 seats.

For many months, we have predicted a Democratic gain of 10 to 15 seats in the House, far short of the 30 they needed to take control from the Republicans. While there are quite a few Toss-up style seats, we do not see them falling in one direction, and we’re sticking with our projection. After allocating the Toss-ups based on the opinions of our sources and, frankly, a lot of educated guesswork, we’re projecting a Democratic gain of 13 seats. That’s notable because it would exactly roll back the gains the Republicans made in the 2014 midterm, when they netted 13 seats. If this is how it shakes out, Republicans would have the same 234-201 majority they had after Barack Obama’s reelection in 2012.

A 13-seat gain is also about what we should expect based on the House generic ballot polling, which ranges from Democrats leads of about a point (RealClearPolitics) to a little under four points (HuffPost Pollster). Based on a model by Crystal Ball Senior Columnist Alan Abramowitz, a small Democratic generic ballot edge of a few points roughly amounts to a low double-digit gain, which backs up our projection.

As we’ve noted previously, if Hillary Clinton wins the White House but Democrats do not capture the House, which is what we’re projecting, she could be the first Democratic president ever to face a House controlled by the opposing party during her entire term in office, whether she serves for one or two terms. Democrats would need to net 17 seats to win the House in 2018, but history suggests that midterms almost always break against the president’s party in the House.

THE GOVERNORS

Map 3: Crystal Ball gubernatorial projection

Even though Democrats already face a 31-18 deficit in control of governorships (one is held by an independent, Bill Walker of Alaska), they face a difficult task on this map just making sure they don’t lose any additional ground. Of the seven truly competitive seats this year, just two of them are held by Republicans. So Democrats would be pleased if our projection comes true: that they come out of this election with as many governorships as they held going in.

Of the seven leaning races we have now, we’re only reasonably confident in a few of the picks. Gov. Steve Bullock (D-MT), armed with the power of incumbency, has seemed like a favorite all cycle even in a red state. Meanwhile, Lt. Gov. Phil Scott (R-VT), amazingly, appears very well positioned to win the governorship in the Green Mountain State, a one-time GOP state that will give Clinton one of her biggest margins on Tuesday. Vermont is very open to electing Republican governors, though, and outgoing Gov. Peter Shumlin (D) has been a drag on Sue Minter, the Democratic nominee. One caveat about Vermont: If no one gets over 50%, the legislature picks the governor, although past precedent suggests that they would pick the plurality vote winner (and both candidates have vowed to respect the popular vote).

Meanwhile, we’re making a mirror opposite kind of pick in West Virginia: The Mountain State could be Donald Trump’s best state in popular vote percentage, but Democrats still have a pulse statewide, which could help businessman Jim Justice (D) get over the finish line. One small factor that could aid Justice: The state recently did away with straight-ticket voting, which in the year of Trump is probably a good thing for Democrats in West Virginia.

Gov. Pat McCrory (R-NC) has stormed back at the end, but we still see Attorney General Roy Cooper (D) as a narrow favorite. New Hampshire could be a straight ticket state, which might benefit Executive Counselor Colin Van Ostern (D) against fellow Executive Counselor Chris Sununu (R). We see a split in two open red state seats by narrowly favoring former Navy SEAL Eric Greitens (R) in Missouri and 2012 nominee John Gregg (D) in Indiana. Perhaps there’s a “time for a change” dynamic that could provide a tiny boost to Greitens and Gregg: Jay Nixon (D) is leaving the Missouri governorship after two terms, while Republicans have held the office in Indiana for three straight terms (one-term Gov. Mike Pence couldn’t run for reelection after taking the GOP’s VP slot, and he was preceded by the very well-regarded two-termer Mitch Daniels). Voters can tire of one party in the state’s top job just like they can tire of one party in the nation’s top job.

Of these picks, we’re least sure about Indiana, Missouri, and New Hampshire.

CONCLUSION

At the end of the campaign, we believe we owe our readers our best possible judgment on how each race will go, which is why we leave no Toss-ups, even though many of these races truly could go either way. We’ll inevitably miss some calls — just not too many, we hope.

We deeply appreciate all the help we have received in a thousand forms in this latest election cycle. To our readers, sources, and student interns, THANK YOU. The remaining errors are ours alone. As our motto goes, “He who lives by the crystal ball ends up eating ground glass.”

Is Clinton Slipping?

There are more signs of erosion, but her floodgates appear to be holding

Larry J. Sabato, Kyle Kondik, and Geoffrey Skelley, UVA Center for Politics November 3rd, 2016

Hillary Clinton has picked an awful time to hit one of the rough patches that has plagued her throughout the campaign. Now with just days to go until Election Day, there’s added uncertainty about the outcome. But while she may not be on the brink of an Electoral College win the size of Barack Obama’s in 2008 or even 2012, her position as the clear frontrunner in this race endures.

Now, granted, some of this is, for her, bad luck and poor timing out of her control: The “Comey Effect,” referring to FBI Director James Comey’s controversial decision to inform Congress of new emails potentially related to the bureau’s investigation of Clinton’s use of a private email server, has put a dent in Clinton in the final stages of the race, although the contest was tightening in some ways before the news. The campaign’s actions also tell us that there must be at least a little bit of alarm in Brooklyn: It is putting some advertising money (not huge amounts but very noticeable) into some states that the campaign has largely ignored in recent months, like Colorado, Michigan, New Mexico, Virginia, and Wisconsin. Trump has also campaigned in these states recently and has said he is advertising in those states.

The pro-Clinton interpretation of these moves is that the campaign is so flush with cash that they can afford some last-minute spending to block Trump in these states; the anti-Clinton view is that the campaign is panicking and took some of these states, all of which are basically must-wins for Clinton, for granted.

The good thing for Clinton is that there are few signs that her leads in these states are evaporating. Recent polls of all of these states show Clinton retaining a lead, and not just by a couple of points. A much-anticipated survey from the Marquette University Law School, a solid Badger State pollster, found Clinton up six points, largely unchanged from its last survey several weeks ago. A handful of Pennsylvania polls had Clinton up around four points, not that much different from Obama’s 5.5-point margin in 2012. And a Washington Post/George Mason University poll found Clinton up six in Virginia.

Additionally, while polls are all over the map in North Carolina and Nevada, we still see Clinton as a tiny favorite in each state, neither of which is truly a must-win for her to reach 270 electoral votes.

Therefore, while Democrats are quite right to be nervous about the outcome, we as handicappers do not at this point believe there is enough of a compelling argument to believe that the race is truly a Toss-up, let alone that Trump is favored. Does that mean Trump can’t win? Of course not: If some of the national tracking polls showing a tie, like surveys from ABC News/Washington Post and IBD-TIPP, are correct, than the election may truly be something of a jump ball, because in a tied national race we don’t see any additional “blue wall” defense for Clinton in the Electoral College. In a very close or tied national race, states like Michigan, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and others could become Toss-ups too. We just don’t think that’s where we’re at, and state-level polling continues to show Clinton leading in all of those vital states.

We spend a great deal of time examining poll averages. But it may also be worth examining the preponderance of polls that back one side or the other, regardless of margin. Based on RealClearPolitics’ state-level polling data for 2004, 2008, and 2012, the candidate leading the most polls in a given state usually wins said state. In those three election cycles, there were just three cases where the candidate who led in a plurality of all polls taken from Sept. 1 to Election Day did not go on to win the state: Wisconsin in 2004, Indiana in 2008, and Florida in 2012. There was also one instance where there was a dead-even split in the number of polls led by each candidate: New Mexico in 2004.

In 2004 John Kerry won the Badger State by just 0.4 percentage points over George W. Bush. This was a touch surprising because Bush led the polling average by about one point. The incumbent had also led 66% of the polls surveyed there from Sept. 1 to Election Day while Kerry had the edge in just 24% (the rest were tied). In 2008 Barack Obama carried the Hoosier State by only one point, which was remarkable given Indiana’s traditional Republican lean. In that case, Obama had led just 32% of the polls from Sept. 1 on while John McCain had the edge in half of them. Obama also carried Florida by the skin of his teeth in 2012 despite Mitt Romney holding the edge in 49% to Obama’s 46% of the polls taken in the same timeframe. Lastly, the closest state by margin in 2004, New Mexico, saw an even split between Bush and Kerry in the number of polls they led there, with Bush carrying it in the end.

Outside of these exceptions, the person leading in a majority of a state’s polls has won that state in the past three presidential elections. Naturally, this finding comes with caveats: First, small sample sizes must be kept in mind. While Florida had 57 polls in the Sept. 1-Election Day time period in 2012, the New Mexico example in 2004 had just 12. Moreover, we are considering data from three elections, which is not a big batch. Second, RealClearPolitics’ poll inclusion/exclusion policy is important — how the site decided to include partisan polls and ones using new methodologies has changed some. Third, 2016 is not necessarily going to be much like the 2004-2012 contests, in part because third-party candidates are likely to win a far larger share of the vote than in any of those three previous cycles. The national third-party take ranged from 1%-2% of the total vote during the 2004-2012 period, whereas Gary Johnson and Jill Stein alone combine for 6.7% in the current RealClearPolitics national average. This creates more uncertainty in the race, as does a healthy percentage of undecided voters.

As for what the “poll preponderance” rule of thumb may mean for 2016, let’s examine the 16 states RealClearPolitics includes as battlegrounds, shown in Table 1 below. Since Sept. 1, Clinton has led every four-way poll (including Johnson and Stein) in Michigan, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin. She has also led at least 80% of the polls in Maine and Minnesota. With the Wisconsin 2004 example in mind, the next four states are certainly of interest. Clinton has led 75% of the polls in Colorado, 70% in Florida, 69% in North Carolina, and just 50% in Nevada. Thus, while we favor Clinton in a couple of these states, we are in a zone where her larger number of poll leads doesn’t necessarily create much certainty.

Table 1: Total polls led by Clinton and Trump in RealClearPolitics battlegrounds since Sept. 1

Source: RealClearPolitics as of Wednesday (Nov. 2) afternoon

Meanwhile, Trump has led 63% of Arizona polls and 60% of Ohio surveys since Sept. 1. And Clinton hasn’t led a single poll in Georgia, Iowa, or Missouri, though the Hawkeye State has — somehow — the same number of polls (five) in this time period as less competitive Minnesota.

This has some bearing on our ratings changes in these states, which are all in Trump’s direction.

First of all, we’re pushing all of Idaho, Indiana, Missouri, and South Carolina from Likely Republican to Safe Republican. These were always total reach states for Clinton, and in a more competitive national environment Clinton has no chance to win them. There is some indication that the Comey Effect and Trump’s relatively less controversial close to the campaign are bringing some Republicans home. Monmouth University polled both Indiana and Missouri and found Trump up double digits after he was struggling in their previous surveys. We’re also moving Georgia from Leans Republican to Likely Republican — while the state’s demographics are changing in ways beneficial to Democrats, the Peach State is just a bridge too far for Clinton.

Moving from Toss-up to Leans Republican are three states where the Clinton campaign is still heavily engaged: Arizona, Iowa, and Ohio. The Grand Canyon State seemed gettable for Clinton as of a week or two ago, but while the state has a growing Hispanic population that should weigh heavily against Trump next Tuesday, we sense Arizona is returning to its Republican roots. That’s despite Latino turnout nationally reaching potentially record levels next Tuesday, according to Latino Decisions.

Meanwhile, Iowa and Ohio have seemed demographically favorable to Trump for months, and a number of trends, including polling and early voting data, suggest a Trump lean as Clinton’s national fortunes have dipped a bit. Across the nation, early voting trends have hinted at potentially reduced enthusiasm for Clinton among African Americans as Obama leaves the scene. That is a major problem for Clinton in Ohio, where black voters make up somewhere around an eighth of the electorate, or at least they should for a Democrat to win. If that dips a point or two, Clinton is in real trouble. It’s no coincidence that Clinton is personally hitting the Cleveland area hard at the end here, including holding a rally with rapper Jay Z on Friday. Democrats are hoping that their field operation can help them turn things around in Ohio in the final days.

Lastly, while we admire an upstart underdog — and Evan McMullin’s conservative insurgency in Utah qualifies — we think a little additional Republican unity across the board should be enough to get Trump over the finish line in Utah, even though the Republican share of the presidential vote there could plummet 30 points or more from Mitt Romney’s lofty 2012 showing (72.5%) in what is a competitive three-way race. Clinton may finish third in Utah, a rarity for a major-party candidate. She wouldn’t be the first Clinton to do that: Bill Clinton finished third in Utah in 1992, trailing George H.W. Bush (first) and Ross Perot (second). It was one of two states where Perot was the runner-up, the other being Maine (Clinton won it, Bush was third).

These new ratings leave just 31 electoral votes’ worth of Toss-ups: The big prize of Florida (29), and two votes in Maine and Nebraska’s second congressional districts. Our sense right now is that Florida is a total Toss-up, while Trump may have an edge in the two districts, but we’re not ready to lean any of them yet.

Map 1: Crystal Ball Electoral College ratings

Table 2: Crystal Ball Electoral College ratings changes

We’re holding at 272 “hard” Safe or Likely electoral votes for Clinton, and an additional 21 electoral votes leaning to her (Nevada and North Carolina). Trump is now at 214, better than Romney’s 2012 total of 206, but also without a clear path to add the 56 additional electoral votes he needs to get to 270. Again, even adding Florida, the two Toss-up House districts, and Leans Democratic North Carolina and Nevada would only get him to 266.

We also have one major change to our Senate ratings. We’re pushing one of our Toss-ups, Pennsylvania, to Leans Democratic. Katie McGinty (D), Gov. Tom Wolf’s (D) former chief of staff, now appears to lead Sen. Pat Toomey (R) in Pennsylvania. Several recent polls show McGinty running roughly even with Clinton in Pennsylvania, a very good sign for her in the late going. The geographic pattern of the McGinty/Toomey vote versus the Clinton/Trump contest might be interesting: Toomey should be able to do better in Greater Philadelphia than Trump, who is very unpopular there, but McGinty may run a little bit ahead of Clinton in more blue collar parts of the state that are traditionally Democratic but where Trump may improve on typical Republican performance. Still, if this is turning into a coattail race, Toomey finds himself in a tough spot.

Finally, a quick word on the House: While Clinton still looks OK in the presidential race, it appears that the door has finally and completely been shut on the prospects for a Democratic House majority. Clinton just does not appear capable of providing the lift required to put Democrats in range of a 30-seat net gain, and House generic polling averages don’t indicate a wave is coming in the lower chamber. There are all sorts of reasons for that, one of which is the power of incumbency, as Alan Abramowitz demonstrates in a companion Crystal Ball piece this week.

We will make calls in all the Electoral College, Senate, House, and gubernatorial contests in our final pre-election Crystal Ball on Monday.

Map 2: Crystal Ball Senate ratings

Table 3: Crystal Ball Senate ratings change

Incumbency, Not Republican Gerrymandering, Is the Main Obstacle to a Democratic House Majority

Alan I. Abramowitz, Senior Columnist, Sabato's Crystal Ball November 3rd, 2016

With only a few days left in the 2016 election campaign, most national and swing state polls indicate that Hillary Clinton is favored to defeat Donald Trump in the presidential election. Democrats also appear to have a decent chance to pick up at least four Senate seats and thereby take back control of the upper chamber (with a Vice President Tim Kaine breaking ties if it’s 50-50). When it comes to regaining control of the House of Representatives, however, Democrats’ chances do not appear to be very good. Most political observers, including the Crystal Ball, agree that Democrats are unlikely to gain the 30 net seats they need to retake control of the House even though recent polls give them a lead of around four points in the national popular vote for the House of Representatives.

Why are Democrats struggling to pick up the 30 seats they need to take back the House of Representatives despite their lead in the national popular vote? The explanation, according to most observers, is that current House districts, drawn largely by Republican state legislatures in the aftermath of the GOP’s sweeping victories in the 2010 midterm elections, make it almost impossible for Democrats to gain 30 or more seats in the House. There are simply too many Republican-leaning districts for Democrats to win a majority of seats even if they win a majority of the popular vote. Thus, in the 2012 House elections Democratic candidates won more than 1.4 million more votes than Republican House candidates — a margin of about 1.2 percentage points. But despite their popular vote margin, Democrats only won 201 House seats, well short of the 218 needed for a majority.

This year, just as in 2012, Democrats appear to face an uphill battle in trying to win back control of the House of Representatives. Only 28 of 247 House Republicans currently represent districts that were carried by Barack Obama in the 2012 presidential election. Democrats would have to capture all of those seats and at least two more seats in districts won by Mitt Romney in 2012 in order to reach the magic number of 218 — a tall order indeed. Thus, while Democrats are likely make gains in the House elections, according to most of the experts it would take an electoral tsunami for Democrats to defeat enough Republicans to win a majority of House seats.

By how large a margin would Democrats have to win the national popular vote in order to win a majority of House seats? And to what extent is Republican gerrymandering responsible for Democrats’ difficulties in House elections? My analysis of the results of House elections between 1980 and 2014 indicates that Democrats do face a difficult task in trying to win a majority of seats in the House this year. In fact, they would need to win the national popular vote by at least four percentage points in order to win a majority of House seats. However, contrary to what most pundits and political observers believe, the main problem that Democrats face in trying to regain control of the House is not Republican gerrymandering but the advantage of incumbency.^[1]

The Incumbency Advantage in House Elections

The advantage of incumbency in House elections is well known. Individual incumbents are able, on average, to add a few points to their party’s normal vote share by cultivating their constituencies and, in most cases, by greatly outspending their challengers. What is not as well known is that the majority party also enjoys an advantage based on the number of seats it holds going into an election. Even after controlling for the majority party’s share of the national popular vote, the number of seats it holds prior to an election has a positive effect on the number of seats it can expect to win.

Table 1 displays the results of regression analyses of House election outcomes between 1980 and 2014. Two different models were tested. In both models, the dependent variable is the number of seats won by Democratic candidates in the election. In the simple incumbency model, the independent variables are the national popular vote margin for Democratic candidates in the election and the number of seats held by Democrats prior to the election. In the incumbency plus gerrymandering model, the independent variables are the national popular vote margin for Democratic candidates, the number of seats held by Democrats prior to the election and a dummy variable for the two elections that took place after the post-2010 round of redistricting. If gerrymandering by Republican state legislatures had an effect on party fortunes in the 2012 and 2014 elections, this variable should have significant negative coefficient.

Table 1: Regression analyses of House election results, 1980-2014

Source: National popular vote and seat results compiled by Office of the Clerk, U.S. House of Representatives

The results displayed in Table 1 show that the simple incumbency model does an excellent job of explaining the outcomes of House elections between 1980 and 2014. This model explains a very impressive 96% of the variance in the number of House seats won by Democrats with a standard error of only six seats. The estimated coefficients for both independent variables are highly statistically significant and substantively important. For every additional one point of margin in the national popular vote, Democratic candidates win about 3.7 additional House seats. In addition, even after controlling for the popular vote, there is a strong effect of Democratic seats: every 10 additional seats that Democrats hold prior to an election results in Democratic candidates winning almost four additional House seats.

Since the number of seats held by each party prior to an election is highly correlated with the number of incumbents running for each party, these results indicate that incumbency has a substantial impact on House election outcomes over and above any effect that it has on the national popular vote. It appears that incumbents are able, to some extent, to insulate themselves from the effects of national electoral tides. Just as incumbency insulated Democrats from national electoral tides during the 1980s when the party held big majorities in the House, the huge losses that Democrats suffered in the 2010 midterm election put them at a severe disadvantage in the 2012 and 2014 elections.

But what about the effects of Republican gerrymandering on the 2012 and 2014 elections? The results displayed in Table 1 indicate that any effect of GOP redistricting on these elections was quite small. The estimated coefficient for the Post-2010 dummy variable is only five seats and is not close to statistical significance. Moreover, adding this variable has almost no effect on the overall accuracy or predictive power of the model — the adjusted R² only shifts from .956 to .957 and the standard error of the model only falls from 6.01 to 6.00.

Table 2 compares the predictions of seats won by Democrats in House elections between 2000 and 2014 based on the simple and expanded models. The results once again demonstrate that adding the post-2010 dummy variable to the model makes almost no difference. For all eight elections, including the 2012 and 2014 elections, the predictions of the two models are almost identical. The average absolute error for the simple model is 5.25 seats while the average absolute error for the expanded model is 5.12 seats.

Table 2: Predicted and actual Democratic House seats, 2000-2014

Source: Data compiled by author

The coefficients for the simple model indicate that once the impact of incumbency is taken into account, there is no Democratic disadvantage in House elections. Based on these results, if Democrats hold 218 seats going into an election and there is a tie in the national popular vote, Democratic candidates should win about 215 seats in the House of Representatives, only three seats shy of the 218 needed for a majority. This means that if Democrats are able to win a majority of House seats in 2016, the party would not face any disadvantage in House elections after 2016 due to the effects of Republican gerrymandering.

What to Expect in 2016

We can use the results for the simple incumbency model in Table 1 to estimate how large a margin Democrats need in the national popular vote in order to regain control of the House in the 2016 election. Table 3 displays predictions of the number of seats Democrats would win based on their margin in the national popular vote for the House. Because Democrats are at a disadvantage due to holding only 188 seats going into the election, a tie in the popular vote would be expected to yield only 203 seats, a gain of 15 seats but well short of the 30 seats needed to become the majority party.

According to these results, Democrats would need to win the national popular vote by at least four points in order to regain control of the House. If they win the national popular vote by four points, their average lead in recent polls asking the generic ballot question, they would be expected to hold a narrow 218-217 seat majority in the 115th Congress, their first majority since the 2010 midterm election. Moreover, the results presented here indicate that post-2010 Republican gerrymandering would not be an obstacle to holding onto that majority in 2018. Democrats might very well lose their majority in 2018 if there is a Democrat in the White House, but that would have nothing to do with Republican gerrymandering in 2011.

Table 3: Predicted Democratic House seats after 2016 Election