The asymmetry in the ways Democrats and Republicans use power can be seen in their responses to Electoral College disadvantages. When Democrats are faced with an Electoral College gap such that their Presidential candidate can win the popular vote and lose the election, they do pretty much nothing. Joe Lieberman even remarked in an exit [...]

Just a brief postscript to the House elections, which as I said were really decided in Republican state legislatures in 2011 during the redistricting process. It turns out that, on a vote-by-vote basis, more Americans voted for Democrats than Republicans for Congressional seats, currently by about half a million votes. That’s subject to change once [...]

Here’s a sad postscript that shows once again the power of dark money in off-the-radar races. The silver lining amidst the clouds of the recall election in Wisconsin was that Democrats at least “took over” the state Senate. “Took over” was a bit of a strong word, because they won a majority in the chamber [...]

The more important point is that dark money does work. It works in the House. SuperPACs and independent expenditure groups wasted historic amounts of money running into a demographic brick wall at the national level. Even at the statewide level, Democrats could withstand the attacks. But in the House, late money that poured into a discrete number of seats had a real impact. Winnable seats turned sour, even in places where Democrats did well.

Whether you think that Democrats lost the House and a majority of state legislatures in 2010 because of a lack of improvement in the economy, the natural cycle of out-party gains in a midterm election, the clever use of Republican obstructionism to dampen economic performance, those damn liberals who didn’t clap loudly enough, or whatever, [...]

The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has delivered one of the last remaining blows to voter suppression efforts across the country. And this one cements the near-clean sweep for voting rights advocates in litigation. Today, the Sixth Circuit ruled that Ohio, a pivotal state in the Presidential race, must count all provisional ballots where voters [...]

A federal court has thrown out Texas’ redistricting plan, charging that it was discriminatory to minority voters. DC Circuit Judge Thomas Griffith ruled that the court would not pre-clear Texas’ map under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. “We conclude that Texas has failed to show that any of the redistricting plans merits preclearance,” [...]

Dennis Kucinich, the eight-term Congressman from Cleveland, lost his bid for re-election last night in a primary to fellow Rep. Marcy Kaptur. Ohio lost two seats after the 2010 reapportionment, and eliminated a seat in the Cleveland region, giving Kucinich few options. He decided to try to defeat Kaptur largely on her turf, and came [...]

The Texas redistricting mess, which with a Supreme Court ruling looked to be moving in the direction of Republicans, could bounce back. The SCOTUS only ruled on which interim maps to use while a lawsuit from minority groups against the maps worked out by the legislature made its way through the courts. The underlying court [...]

This is really bad news. The redistricting map in North Carolina was particularly brutal to Democrats. Though they have a Democratic governor, Bev Perdue, she plays no formal role in the process, and the heavily Republican legislature gerrymandered the maps to within an inch of their life. A state that will be a swing state [...]

The Supreme Court just boosted Republican chances to hold the House of Representatives today by throwing out maps drawn by a panel of judges, and ordering new maps for the state’s reapportionment. To step back a bit, initially Texas lawmakers drew a redistricting map that advantaged Republicans and created no new Hispanic districts, despite the [...]