I was looking at the latest Wasserman House Results and decided to look at which states cast more than 60% of their votes for House candidates for one party or the other. Bar a major upheaval, these states are probably out of reach for the other party in 2020.
The results are striking:
- Republicans took a 60%+ supermajority in six states (Arkansas, Idaho, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Wyoming) with a total of 26 electoral votes.
- While Democrats to a 60%+ supermajority in 12 states (California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington) with a total of 172 electoral votes.
(The votes for Florida are misleading and unusable, since the votes in four uncontested districts won by Democrats are not reported. But given the Senate and Governor’s races, Florida clearly didn’t go 60% for either party.)
This means that the GOP has to find 243 electoral votes from states that are (at least in a weak sense) contestable, while the Democrats need to find only 97. And can see where many of those are coming from.