The Illusion of Choice in Congressional Elections
Most races are over before they even start
This week, No Labels board member Andrew Tisch wrote, “Even though Election Day is over a month away, I can tell you with total certainty who will win all but a handful of the 435 races to be elected to the U.S. House.”
Mr. Tisch isn’t an elections guru like
, but it doesn’t take an expert to know that most House districts are so red or blue that the general election is a cakewalk for whoever wins the majority party’s primary.Uncompetitive races aren’t just boring—they’re bad for democracy. In these districts, the general election is nothing more than a constitutional formality. The real action is in the primaries, where less than a quarter of people vote and those who do tend to be more partisan than average. A small number of voters, whose views are often outside the political mainstream, have the biggest say in deciding most House races across the country.
And here’s the bad news: it’s only getting worse.
The Cook Political Report is a nonpartisan outlet that uses data and analytics to predict the outcomes of U.S. elections. Of the 435 House elections this year, Cook rates 366 of them as “Solid Republican” or “Solid Democrat,” indicating that party is essentially guaranteed to win. That means voters don’t have a real choice in 84 percent of congressional districts.
Even among the “competitive races,” there isn’t always tough competition. In fact, the Cook Political Report only rates 24 races as true “toss-ups” where each candidate has a serious chance of winning. And because of how closely divided Congress is, voters in these five percent of districts could decide which party controls the House after November.
It hasn’t always been this way. As the chart below shows, the number of House districts that the Cook Political Report rates as competitive has trended downward over the past three decades. In 1996, for instance, there were 219 competitive races—that’s more than half of the House! This year, there are fewer than 70.
It’s easy to pin the blame entirely on gerrymandering, a partisan tactic where state legislatures draw the lines of House districts to favor one party over the other. But the Cook Political Report found that demographic realignment is more to blame than redistricting. Cities are now reliably Democratic while rural areas are firmly Republican, and voters are choosing to live around people who share their values and opinions, creating a partisan feedback loop to further “red America” and “blue America.”
So, what can we do?
In non-competitive House districts, the primary is the only election that really matters. This is a problem because 16 states hold “closed primaries,” which bar independents (a plurality of Americans, according to Gallup) from voting, denying them a chance to shape the general election. There’s a simple fix for this: the bipartisan Let America Vote Act would require all states to let independents vote in primaries in order to receive federal election funding.
In the meantime, there are still ways to make a difference, and even those who don’t live in competitive House districts can be strategic voters. A tool called Vote Maximizer by the Electoral Innovation Lab in Princeton, New Jersey, shows federal and state-level races where peoples’ donations and efforts could make the biggest difference. Republicans and Democrats alike can use Vote Maximizer to decide which campaigns would be best to volunteer for or donate to.
But until America embraces ambitious reforms to give more Americans a say in our elections, the vast majority of Congressional elections will continue to be all but decided before the votes are even cast.
The Let America Vote Act introduced by four dedicated members of the House would be a tremendous step forward to give more voters actually an opportunity to vote in primaries and thus incentives to come out and vote. There are lots of initiatives, like National Primary Day, ranked choice voting, and as Glenwood states term limits would be welcome too (perhaps coupled with increasing the 2 year house election cycle to 4 years, so especially newly elected House members would not have to start running for re-election as soon as they get their feet wet in Congress). Anything that can be done to increase bi-partisanship in Congress will help restore trust in government. Where to begin, especially with so many different election rules for each State and the ability for Party officials to change these rules on a dime.
Good start on this subject but not enough meat on the bones.
The power of incumbency goes beyond the political color of the district. Incumbents have name recognition, postal franking, town hall meetings that are essentially paid for by constituents, and the age old ability to bring pork back to their districts. IMHO this is an insurmountable problem for new blood of either party. It also gives us a product (Congressman or Senator) who is often lazier and already knows all the answers his constituents weren't smart enough to ask. In other words they're arrogant, and spend too much money scratching every other incumbents back, raising the level of government spending to the heights that they now are instead of having sensible policy decision based on merit.
The only real answer is Term Limits. We have 330 million people in this country (NOT counting the undocumented immigrants.). Surely there are 535 people who could be replaced every, say, 20 years at most. Otherwise they stay forever, blocking good ideas and clogging up our system with regulations and excess. Enough is enough.
Trouble is Congress, by the Constitution, has change the laws on themselves and few are responsible enough to do so. There's a Convention of states process but that's tough. They won't change until we force em to. So let's start forcing....!