Flipping Congressional Districts, Part 1

 

[Previously: Data request, part 0]
[Next: Flipping Congressional Districts, part 2]

To many people, including myself, the most infuriating thing about the GOP is that they don’t try to win elections. I mean, sometimes it even seems that they are actively trying not to win elections. You can have the best candidates, with the best platforms, but it comes to nothing if they aren’t elected.

The Dems understand this, so they take the exact opposite approach and do anything they can to win elections. (Normally one would include examples here, but I don’t think it’s necessary for this audience.) Winning elections requires expensive resources, of course, but it also requires strategy, which is free.

As an engineer, I’m intrigued by the problem of how to efficiently flip congressional districts. I needed a subject for a little programming project, so I grabbed a source of 2018 election data, wrote a program that parsed it, patched up a few issues the data, and ran some metrics on it. (Some boring details here.)

This will take the form of a series of posts as an exploratory conversation with that data.

So … currently, there are 235 Democrat congressional districts and 200 Republican congressional districts.

Wikipedia has an excellent summary of the 2018 election data here.

The first question I have is, how many congressional campaigns were uncontested?

I first thought you could search through the Wikipedia page for instances of the word “unopposed.” But that’s not actually good enough. There are a significant number of cases where a Democrat ran against a Green Party candidate with no Republican in sight. I guess that’s technically not unopposed. But I’m more interested in cases where the candidate ran unopposed by a major party.

So with the data, I am now able to answer questions like that.


There are 38 congressional districts where the Democrat ran unopposed by a Republican in 2018. They are:

AL-7
AZ-7
CA-5 CA-6 CA-13 CA-20 CA-27 CA-34 CA-40 CA-44
FL-10 FL-14 FL-20 FL-21 FL-24
GA-5
LA-2
MA-1 MA-4 MA-7 MA-8
MI-13
MS-2
NY-5 NY-6 NY-7 NY-8 NY-16 NY-17
PA-18
TX-9 TX-20 TX-28 TX-30
VA-3
WA-2 WA-9
WI-2

On the other side, there are 4 congressional districts where the Republican ran unopposed by a Democrat:

CA-8
GA-8
NC-3
ND

I’m also interested in the case where the candidate ran “effectively unopposed,” meaning that one of the major candidates was so nonfunctional that they ended up receiving less than, say, 20% of the vote.

Here are the 22 districts where the Democrat ran “effectively unopposed”:

CA-12 CA-29 CA-37
IL-1 IL-2 IL-4 IL-7
MI-14
MO-1
NJ-8 NJ-10
NY-9 NY-10 NY-12 NY-13 NY-14 NY-15
OH-11
OR-3
PA-3
TN-9
WA-7

And the flip side, here are the two districts where the Republican ran “effectively unopposed”:

TX-11 TX-13


Now, the standard Republican response is that those districts are all heavily Democratic and any resources spent there are wasted. Yeah, yeah, I got that. But that’s also an easy excuse to not do anything.

You know the phrase, “The future belongs to those who show up?” Well, the data shows that the Republican Party is not showing up. And they are not showing up an order of magnitude (that is, a factor of 10) more than the Dems. 38 vs. 4 for unopposed, 22 vs. 2 for effectively unopposed. Together, 60 vs. 6.

This is a serious problem.

Barack Obama basically became president by running unopposed. In 1996, he won his state senate seat when his people had his main competition disqualified. In 1998, he ran for reelection unopposed. And ran unopposed again in 2002. Obama famously won his US Senate seat in 2004 when Republican Jack Ryan withdrew after some divorce papers were mysteriously unsealed. And, as he ran for president, John McCain suspended his campaign for a while. So running unopposed is a proven political strategy.

More to come. Next, I’ll explore applying a cost metric to flipping a congressional district.

Now that I can run arbitrary calculations on the data, I want to encourage suggestions.

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  1. namlliT noD Member
    namlliT noD
    @DonTillman

    Gary McVey (View Comment):
    Gary Robbins is right; some of these districts are not worth spending money on until or unless there’s a cultural revolution that hasn’t happened yet.

    Some districts are, some districts are not.

    If only there was a metric of some sort.

    “Watch this space.”

     

    • #31
  2. Petty Boozswha Inactive
    Petty Boozswha
    @PettyBoozswha

    TBA (View Comment):

    rgbact (View Comment):

    North Carolina 9th is an R+8 district…….that the Democrats nearly won in 2018, and evidently they are re-running the race on Sept 10th. And the Democrat is up 4pts in the latest poll. Not sure why the GOP is doing so poorly in a southern GOP lean district. Any reports from North Carolina would be appreciated.

    Tech jobs bringing in libs from out of state?

    The former Republican Rep was defeated in the primary by an evangelical pastor that utilized some consultants to puff the vote with harvested absentee ballots. But I agree mostly with Gary’s forbidden analysis.

    • #32
  3. ctlaw Coolidge
    ctlaw
    @ctlaw

    Petty Boozswha (View Comment):

    rgbact (View Comment):
    Not sure why these suburban candidates don’t make a massive break from Trump. Meanwhile, this NC guy had Trump Jr come in for a fundraiser this week.

    Because Trump and the Trumpkins have made if very clear that they will devote 500 times more energy in destroying any apostate than they will put in to win a regular contest. Thom Tillis is feeling that right now – if the Dems flip the Senate that will be a big reason why.

    This is what’s called projection.

    • #33
  4. rgbact Inactive
    rgbact
    @romanblichar

    TBA (View Comment):

    rgbact (View Comment):

    Not sure why the GOP is doing so poorly in a southern GOP lean district. Any reports from North Carolina would be appreciated.

    Tech jobs bringing in libs from out of state?

    I think its more an ongoing problem in suburban districts in any state. Before Trump, the GOP was easily able to win even the marginal suburban districts up north. Now, we struggle to win the more conservative southern suburban districts. The scary part is you would expect some correction in this trend months after 2018. But, just seems to be continuing.

    • #34
  5. TBA Coolidge
    TBA
    @RobtGilsdorf

    rgbact (View Comment):

    TBA (View Comment):

    rgbact (View Comment):

    Not sure why the GOP is doing so poorly in a southern GOP lean district. Any reports from North Carolina would be appreciated.

    Tech jobs bringing in libs from out of state?

    I think its more an ongoing problem in suburban districts in any state. Before Trump, the GOP was easily able to win even the marginal suburban districts up north. Now, we struggle to win the more conservative southern suburban districts. The scary part is you would expect some correction in this trend months after 2018. But, just seems to be continuing.

    Could also be that a lot Republicans tend to die of old age and new Democrats are born every minute. 

    • #35
  6. TBA Coolidge
    TBA
    @RobtGilsdorf

    Indeed, now that I think about it, the larger the percentage of kids going to college, the longer they stay clueless as to how the world works, and the more they are exposed to liberal indoctrination. 

    In a sense, you can’t be a conservative unless you have a mortgage. 

    • #36
  7. OccupantCDN Coolidge
    OccupantCDN
    @OccupantCDN

    I think there is a far more devious way to win seats.

    In 2018 the democrats picked up 41 seats, obviously these are swing or swingish districts because they had republicans before then. I would help AOC’s PAC, launch primary challenges for as many of these candidates as possible. Challenge them from the far far left. Drive the incumbent candidate so far left that even if they win, they’re no longer electable in their district – or they have raised and spent so much money to fight the primary their donor base is tapped out (or maxed out) for the general election.

    Its not the enemy of my enemy is my friend junk – none of these people would be in any way friendly, but rather to have your opponent fight off hoards of hyenas before the general.

    This strategy is how American democrats unseated Stephan Harper in the 2015 General election – not by primary challenges, Canada doesnt have a primary election system – but by using strategic spending to donate to candidates who would split the conservative’s votes. This is how Trudeau got 55% of the seats, but less than 40% of the vote.

    • #37
  8. ctlaw Coolidge
    ctlaw
    @ctlaw

    Petty Boozswha (View Comment):

    TBA (View Comment):

    rgbact (View Comment):

    North Carolina 9th is an R+8 district…….that the Democrats nearly won in 2018, and evidently they are re-running the race on Sept 10th. And the Democrat is up 4pts in the latest poll. Not sure why the GOP is doing so poorly in a southern GOP lean district. Any reports from North Carolina would be appreciated.

    Tech jobs bringing in libs from out of state?

    The former Republican Rep was defeated in the primary by an evangelical pastor that utilized some consultants to puff the vote with harvested absentee ballots. But I agree mostly with Gary’s forbidden analysis.

    IIRC, the entire basis for the challenge was that that was the only district where R numbers of absentee ballots approached D. The Dems, were likely ballot harvesting everywhere, while the Republicans only did it in that district.

    • #38
  9. Petty Boozswha Inactive
    Petty Boozswha
    @PettyBoozswha

    ctlaw (View Comment):

    Petty Boozswha (View Comment):

    TBA (View Comment):

    rgbact (View Comment):

    North Carolina 9th is an R+8 district…….that the Democrats nearly won in 2018, and evidently they are re-running the race on Sept 10th. And the Democrat is up 4pts in the latest poll. Not sure why the GOP is doing so poorly in a southern GOP lean district. Any reports from North Carolina would be appreciated.

    Tech jobs bringing in libs from out of state?

    The former Republican Rep was defeated in the primary by an evangelical pastor that utilized some consultants to puff the vote with harvested absentee ballots. But I agree mostly with Gary’s forbidden analysis.

    IIRC, the entire basis for the challenge was that that was the only district where R numbers of absentee ballots approached D. The Dems, were likely ballot harvesting everywhere, while the Republicans only did it in that district.

    The consultant working for the pastor/insurgent had been a Democrat operative for several decades before this race.

    • #39
  10. ctlaw Coolidge
    ctlaw
    @ctlaw

    TBA (View Comment):

    rgbact (View Comment):

    North Carolina 9th is an R+8 district…….that the Democrats nearly won in 2018, and evidently they are re-running the race on Sept 10th. And the Democrat is up 4pts in the latest poll. Not sure why the GOP is doing so poorly in a southern GOP lean district. Any reports from North Carolina would be appreciated.

    Tech jobs bringing in libs from out of state?

    No. People who work in private sector jobs are substantially Republican. And that does not appear to be a tech center.

    That district extends from Charlotte in the west to Fayetteville in the east. So it has two urban Dem. machines to deal with.

    • #40
  11. Barfly Member
    Barfly
    @Barfly

    Gary Robbins (View Comment):
    Put bluntly, it would be foolish to run in the general elections in these overwhelming districts. (Of note the four female “Squad” representatives AOC, Talib, etc. are from these overwhelming districts. They can’t be taken out in general elections; they must be primaried. The result will be Democrats, but hopefully not racist, Anti-Semitic Democrats.).

    It occurs to me that we’re better off with AOC and her like representing those districts than we would be with “moderate” (i.e. more stealthy) Democrats. If I was planning a meta-campaign I’d want to contest most districts even if they were significantly +D, but I’d want the truly unattainable ones to elect as wild and crazy a Dem as possible. The Squad Of Four is a net negative for the socialist program.

    I’ll have to think about where the inflection point would lie.

    • #41
  12. Skyler Coolidge
    Skyler
    @Skyler

    A few years ago I decided to attend a Travis County (which means Austin) Republican Party event.  It was held in a  room in a nice restaurant.  The guest speaker was some very forgettable guy who was a political consultant to one or another of the losers that never got out of the starting blocks in the republican presidential primaries.  His talk was notable for how many things he was so completely wrong about.  He didn’t even mention Trump, for instance, though it was early in the campaign and he wasn’t alone.

    The people there were all quite friendly, but no one there was a mover and shaker.  Not a single person impressed me as being someone who would be able to do anything at all to challenge a democrat in Austin.  There are a lot of republicans in Austin, and tons just outside of Austin.  But the party has no interest in doing anything to try to wrest the city away from the communists now in control of the city.

    But they sure were enthusiastic at the prayers and recitation of the pledge of allegiance.  

    I attended with a friend who has been active in working on several politicians’ staffs, even as a congressman’s chief of staff.  We both left pretty dismayed that this was the best the republicans could do.

    I know someone here is going to say, “Well, why don’t you do something?”  Well, I’m not a politician.  I don’t know if anyone here has noticed, but I have very strong opinions and am known for lacking tact at the worst times (or so I’m told, I’ve never noticed it myself). I’m also pretty introverted.  I’m not the solution.  But I’d be happy to support the people who are good at shaking hands and slapping people on the back.  Such people are abundant.  Someone should be able to make a credible attempt.  But almost all ballots in Travis County are unopposed.  

    • #42
  13. Petty Boozswha Inactive
    Petty Boozswha
    @PettyBoozswha

    ctlaw (View Comment):

    Petty Boozswha (View Comment):

    rgbact (View Comment):
    Not sure why these suburban candidates don’t make a massive break from Trump. Meanwhile, this NC guy had Trump Jr come in for a fundraiser this week.

    Because Trump and the Trumpkins have made if very clear that they will devote 500 times more energy in destroying any apostate than they will put in to win a regular contest. Thom Tillis is feeling that right now – if the Dems flip the Senate that will be a big reason why.

    This is what’s called projection.

    I wish you could hear the radio ads against Tillis I hear in NC.

    • #43
  14. TBA Coolidge
    TBA
    @RobtGilsdorf

    OccupantCDN (View Comment):

    I think there is a far more devious way to win seats.

    In 2018 the democrats picked up 41 seats, obviously these are swing or swingish districts because they had republicans before then. I would help AOC’s PAC, launch primary challenges for as many of these candidates as possible. Challenge them from the far far left. Drive the incumbent candidate so far left that even if they win, they’re no longer electable in their district – or they have raised and spent so much money to fight the primary their donor base is tapped out (or maxed out) for the general election.

    If movies have taught us anything it’s that messing with dark forces can summon job-eating undead marxist representatives who will be almost impossible to defeat. 

    • #44
  15. namlliT noD Member
    namlliT noD
    @DonTillman

    Flipping Congressional Districts, part 2 is here.

    And Flipping Congressional Districts, part 3 is here.

     

    • #45
  16. Vance Richards Inactive
    Vance Richards
    @VanceRichards

    In addition to unopposed, there are also races where a GOP candidate runs with pretty much no backing from the party (at least not financially). Just a name on the ballot, no adds, no signs. I understand you need to focus on places where you can win, but “unwinnable” can be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

    Democrats do seem more organized in that regard. In my district (NJ-11), a long time GOP congressman retired and the Democrats already had a candidate selected to replace him. Since it was historically a more conservative district, they knew you couldn’t win with an AOC, so they picked a veteran (patriot) who worked as a prosecutor (law and order). A good faux-moderate. She might vote like a Squad member, but she is smart enough to keep her mouth shut. Haven’t heard a peep from the GOP since the district was lost so I assume they are not going to seriously contest it in 2020.

    • #46
  17. Western Chauvinist Member
    Western Chauvinist
    @WesternChauvinist

    The GOP has virtually abandoned Colorado. I knew the outcome of the 2012 election as soon as I walked into the local Romney campaign headquarters and saw the faces. The state party is a mess. We couldn’t even beat the radical lefty gun-grabbing candidate for governor who literally roughed up a female employee some years ago. We had dirt on him. Early mail-in voting assured it didn’t matter.

    And now conservative El Paso county is the top relocation spot for millennials in the country. I fully expect the congressional seat to flip to Democrats within the next 8 to 10 years.

    One thing about having low expectations for Republican performance in elections? You’re rarely disappointed. 

    • #47
  18. TBA Coolidge
    TBA
    @RobtGilsdorf

    Vance Richards (View Comment):

    In addition to unopposed, there are also races where a GOP candidate runs with pretty much no backing from the party (at least not financially). Just a name on the ballot, no adds, no signs. I understand you need to focus on places where you can win, but “unwinnable” can be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

    Democrats do seem more organized in that regard. [SNIP] 

    Hillary was such a consumate carpet bagger that she literally wore carpets. 

    • #48
  19. OccupantCDN Coolidge
    OccupantCDN
    @OccupantCDN

    TBA (View Comment):

    OccupantCDN (View Comment):

    I think there is a far more devious way to win seats.

    In 2018 the democrats picked up 41 seats, obviously these are swing or swingish districts because they had republicans before then. I would help AOC’s PAC, launch primary challenges for as many of these candidates as possible. Challenge them from the far far left. Drive the incumbent candidate so far left that even if they win, they’re no longer electable in their district – or they have raised and spent so much money to fight the primary their donor base is tapped out (or maxed out) for the general election.

    If movies have taught us anything it’s that messing with dark forces can summon job-eating undead marxist representatives who will be almost impossible to defeat.

    Yea, fair point, I think that maybe how we got Trump. Hillary thought he was the 1 guy she could beat, but then CNN carried every word he uttered for more than a year.

    • #49
  20. TBA Coolidge
    TBA
    @RobtGilsdorf

    OccupantCDN (View Comment):

    TBA (View Comment):

    OccupantCDN (View Comment):

    I think there is a far more devious way to win seats.

    In 2018 the democrats picked up 41 seats, obviously these are swing or swingish districts because they had republicans before then. I would help AOC’s PAC, launch primary challenges for as many of these candidates as possible. Challenge them from the far far left. Drive the incumbent candidate so far left that even if they win, they’re no longer electable in their district – or they have raised and spent so much money to fight the primary their donor base is tapped out (or maxed out) for the general election.

    If movies have taught us anything it’s that messing with dark forces can summon job-eating undead marxist representatives who will be almost impossible to defeat.

    Yea, fair point, I think that maybe how we got Trump. Hillary thought he was the 1 guy she could beat, but then CNN carried every word he uttered for more than a year.

    I will admit that I had some trepidation when I was sewing the head of a reality tv star onto the body of a politician in the lab, but my monster defeated their robot fair and square. I regret nothing. 

    • #50
  21. Gary McVey Contributor
    Gary McVey
    @GaryMcVey

    TBA (View Comment):

    OccupantCDN (View Comment):

    TBA (View Comment):

    OccupantCDN (View Comment):

    I think there is a far more devious way to win seats.

    In 2018 the democrats picked up 41 seats, obviously these are swing or swingish districts because they had republicans before then. I would help AOC’s PAC, launch primary challenges for as many of these candidates as possible. Challenge them from the far far left. Drive the incumbent candidate so far left that even if they win, they’re no longer electable in their district – or they have raised and spent so much money to fight the primary their donor base is tapped out (or maxed out) for the general election.

    If movies have taught us anything it’s that messing with dark forces can summon job-eating undead marxist representatives who will be almost impossible to defeat.

    Yea, fair point, I think that maybe how we got Trump. Hillary thought he was the 1 guy she could beat, but then CNN carried every word he uttered for more than a year.

    I will admit that I had some trepidation when I was sewing the head of a reality tv star onto the body of a politician in the lab, but my monster defeated their robot fair and square. I regret nothing.

    Got the soundtrack for ya right here–

     

    • #51
  22. TBA Coolidge
    TBA
    @RobtGilsdorf

    Gary McVey (View Comment):

    TBA (View Comment):

    OccupantCDN (View Comment):

    TBA (View Comment):

    OccupantCDN (View Comment):

    I think there is a far more devious way to win seats.

    In 2018 the democrats picked up 41 seats, obviously these are swing or swingish districts because they had republicans before then. I would help AOC’s PAC, launch primary challenges for as many of these candidates as possible. Challenge them from the far far left. Drive the incumbent candidate so far left that even if they win, they’re no longer electable in their district – or they have raised and spent so much money to fight the primary their donor base is tapped out (or maxed out) for the general election.

    If movies have taught us anything it’s that messing with dark forces can summon job-eating undead marxist representatives who will be almost impossible to defeat.

    Yea, fair point, I think that maybe how we got Trump. Hillary thought he was the 1 guy she could beat, but then CNN carried every word he uttered for more than a year.

    I will admit that I had some trepidation when I was sewing the head of a reality tv star onto the body of a politician in the lab, but my monster defeated their robot fair and square. I regret nothing.

    Got the soundtrack for ya right here–

     

    I had no idea that there was such a clever visual performance to this song. 

    • #52
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