Who Is Running for House of Representatives in New York

Last November revealed the capstone of misrepresentation in American republic when Hillary Clinton won the pop vote past 2.9 meg votes but lost in the Electoral College.

But what near the U.S. Congress? How representative of the American people is the Business firm of Representatives? My Brookings colleague Molly Reynolds finds the Republican Party's current "seat bonus"—a college percent of seats than of votes—aligns with the historic advantage for any majority party in the Firm over the final 70 years, back to 1946.

This post focuses on how representative the new 115th Congress is on a state-by-country level.

Bulk party over-represented

Despite its proper noun, the House of Representatives is not then representative.

As the nautical chart below shows, the total vote differential betwixt the 2 parties for elections to the Business firm in 2022 was 1.2 percentage. Just the difference in the number of seats is 10.8 percent, giving a full of 21 extra seats to Republicans.

Figure 1: National Distribution of Votes for Congress

	NUMBER		PERCENTAGE
Party	Republican	Democrat	Republican	Democrat
Votes	63,164,365	61,750,858	50.half dozen%	49.4%
Seats	241	194	55.iv%	44.6%
"Misrepresented Seats"	21	-21	4.eight%	-iv.eight

Over-representation past country

This amass over-representation of the majority party is considerably farthermost when looked at state-past-state. In red states (see Figure 2), Republicans garnered 56 percent of the vote but 74.6 percent of representation. In blue states, Democrats won 60.3 per centum of the vote simply 69.i percent of representation.

Almost all states are "truthful"—"true red states" have a Republican majority of votes and representation; "true blue states" have a Autonomous bulk of votes and representation. 2 states are "flipped blue states;"in Virginia and Wisconsin Republicans received a bulk of seats despite Democrats winning a majority of the votes for Congress.

Misrepresentation is considerably larger within each red and blue grouping than in the U.Southward. as a whole. Translated into seats in the House, Democrats over-represent bluish states (excluding the two flipped states) by 19 seats, whereas Republicans over-correspond true red and flipped blue states by 40 seats. Republicans over-represent red states (true and flipped) by 16 percent points, while in united blue states the disparity is 11 per centum points.

Figure 2: Bulk Party Wins Disproportionate Representation

Misrepresentation in small and large states

For private states, misrepresentation is even larger. The level of misrepresentation is 20 percent or greater in 23 states—nigh half the state—and over 30 percent in 12 states.

To a certain extent, misrepresentation is partly a function of state size. In minor states with a single member—Alaska, Delaware, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming—in that location is no alternative to the votes of a portion of the citizens not being represented. In these states, on average, 37 percentage of voters selected the losing party. Even states with ii representatives—New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Hawaii, Maine, and Idaho—have a large degree of misrepresentation, on average 28 percent. This is not surprising in a winner-take-all system. Overall, the misrepresentation from these small states cancels out in the aggregate—in the 17 seats of these states there is but a 3 percentage signal disparity between the distribution of votes and the distribution of seats.

On the other farthermost are the four largest states—New York, Florida, Texas, and California. Together, these states send 143 representatives to Congress. Each has less than 10 percent misrepresentation—votes from the losing party in one commune are compensated in other districts. Moreover, the overall distribution from these states is the storybook picture of commonwealth at work: Between them, the distribution of votes and seats was equal, with less than 1 percentage deviation between votes and representation (45 percent for Republicans, 55 for Democrats).

Figure 3: Misrepresentation in Pocket-size and Large States 2016

Note: The level of misrepresentation is computed as the deviation between percent of votes and percentage of seats.

Misrepresentation in midsized states

That leaves the 34 midsized states, with 275 seats among them, to account for the observed misrepresentation. Figure 4 plots the number of seats from each state against the level of misrepresentation. Large and small states are grey; midsized states are cherry. In general there is an inverse correlation between the number of representatives from a land and the level of misrepresentation. States with 3 to five representatives range between 11 to 36 percentage points of misrepresentation, while those with 10-20 representatives range from four to 24 pct points of misrepresentation.

Figure 4: Number of Seats in Congress Compared to Level of Representation

Figure 5 below shows the level of misrepresentation in the 34 midsized states, ranked in social club of the level of misrepresentation with blue and red states shown separately. This figure shows the quite big level of asymmetric representation in many states. Out of the 34, more than than ane-third (13) take a disparity betwixt votes and representation of 20 percent or larger, and in all just five states the disparity is greater than 10 percent.

Midsized red states have on boilerplate a considerably higher percent level of misrepresentation—in these states, while 58 pct of the votes went to Republicans, they took 76 percent of the seats—an 18 percentage indicate difference that translates into 34 seats. Comparatively, in the midsized blue states, 59 percent of votes were for Democrats, who obtained 72 per centum of seats—a xiii per centum point departure that translates into 11 seats. Furthermore, red states make up nine of the 13 states with an backlog of twenty points or college misrepresentation.

Figure 5: Misrepresentation in Midsized States in 2016

Note: Level of misrepresentation computed as the difference between pct of votes and pct of seats.

Redistricting

What is underlying this result? In principle, such results are possible even if most of the land is competitive, merely one party has an edge in the majority of the districts. In practise, how districts are drawn can also affect outcomes. In fact, some states have moved to take redistricting away from elected country politicians by instituting independent redistricting commissions. The four large states that have contained commissions—California, New Jersey, Washington, and Arizona—have less than 10 percentage misrepresentation. The two other states with independent commissions, Idaho, and Montana, with two and one congressional representatives respectively, have greater than 30 percent misrepresentation. In that location is no getting around size!

Overrepresentation by number of seats per state

As to states with the most number of "extra" seats, Democrats dominate in California, with almost five addition seats. Republicans have approximately three extra seats in Texas, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina.

Figure half-dozen: Over-representation of Bulk Party

Annotation: Measured in congressional seats (compared with distribution of the votes).

Implications

The independence of the U.Due south. was launched by a revolt over the lack of representation. Misrepresentation can lead to social and economical policy distortions, feed distrust, and drive discontent in government. Gerrymandering hinders party competition and the resulting political monopoly feeds extremism in the majority political party. The edge provided by this misrepresentation gives the bulk party disproportionate ability that is particularly destabilizing and dangerous in an era of heightened polarization and partisanship.

The data advise that the most serious problem is in midsized states, a trouble that could be alleviated by the design of districts by independent bodies.

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Source: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2017/02/22/misrepresentation-in-the-house/