How Democrats and Republicans win

Before reading this, read 2024 Was Lost On Turnout if you haven’t already.

The secret to winning elections is turning out your base.

Republicans won in 1994, 1998, 2002, 2010, and 2014 because of a collapse in turnout for the Democrats. Republicans consistently see more consistent voting in House elections in Presidential election years vs midterms compared to Democrats.

From 2008 to 2016 Democrats saw wild swings of over 20 million votes between presidential and midterm elections. Republicans only saw a swing that large in 2006 and 2016. This is what led to Republicans winning every midterm when Obama was President. During that era the Democrats had stopped using the 50-state strategy, trying to pick races, instead of investing everywhere while Republicans were invested everywhere. The inevitable consequence is the Republicans performed well in districts Democrats did not invest in. Picking districts is like picking stocks. Sometimes you get lucky, most of the time you don’t.

The 2010 “red wave” was not so much of a red wave but a collapse of the Democratic party’s strategy.

In 2022 Democrats lost 25 million votes compared to 2020, their second largest drop in the modern party system, second only to 2010. That is why Republicans won the midterms under Biden. I need to do further investigation into the 2022 exit polls to see exactly which issues voters were unhappy with at the time and disagreed with Biden. That’s another post for the future.

In 2018 for comparison Democrats saw their vote count drop by only a million votes which gave them victory. The challenge for Biden and the DNC was how could they have governed in a way which would have led Americans to continue to keep a consistent vote for the Democrats in the 2022 midterms. That’s what it’s all about. Govern in a way that people want to keep you in office, and then communicate about it.

I define our modern party system as 1994 to present when the Southern Democrats finally defected to the Republican Party, leading to more clear ideological distinctions between parties.

A challenge for Democrats however is due to how the demographics of Democratic voters are concentrated in cities, and given our voting system we need to win by a margin of at least 2% in order to have a chance of winning the most seats in the House. If Democrats win less than 51% of the vote (excluding third parties), Republicans will win the House. This is due primarily to urban districts being heavily democratic which leads to a lot of wasted votes. So overall Democrats need to perform well in suburban swing districts which pushes our vote total over 51% of the vote.

But ultimately, whether you are a Democrat or a Republican, they key to winning elections is to stay popular. Democrats have a slight disadvantage in our election system because we have so many voters in large urban areas, but it’s not impossible to overcome. The ingredients are simply a modified Keys to the White House, plus a few more. Let’s call it Keys to the House. Let’s test the following keys:

• Strong short-term economy
• Strong long-term economy
• Major policy change
• No foreign or military failure
• Major foreign or military success
• Charismatic president
• Campaigning in more districts than the opposition

All of this is compared to the president’s party.

So we can now use this system to look at recent elections.

2002 Midterms

• Strong short-term economy: True
• Strong long-term economy: True
• Major policy change: True, PATRIOT Act
• No foreign or military failure, True
• Major foreign or military success, True, we removed Al Qaeda
• Charismatic president: True, Rally around the flag after 9/11
• Campaigning in more districts than the opposition

From this the other two keys don’t matter which makes it clear why Bush was able to be the first Republican to win a trifecta in his first midterm since Calvin Coolidge.

The system accurately predicts the 2002 midterms.

2004 election

• Strong short-term economy: True
• Strong long-term economy: True
• Major policy change: True, it was a very productive congress
• No foreign or military failure: True
• Major foreign or military success: True, removed Saddam Hussein
• Charismatic president: True, Bush’s approval was still over 50%
• Campaigning in more districts than the opposition

Unsurprisingly, Republicans won the 2004 election.

2006 election

• Strong short-term economy: True
• Strong long-term economy: True
• Major policy change: True, Real ID, tax cuts
• No foreign or military failure: False, Iraq was collapsing
• Major foreign or military success: False, Neither wars had concluded
• Charismatic president: False, Bush’s popularity had tanked
• Campaigning in more districts than the opposition: False, Howard Dean won this election with the 50 state strategy

The system correctly predicts the 2006 election.

2008 election

• Strong short-term economy: False
• Strong long-term economy: False
• Major policy change: False
• No foreign or military failure: False, Iraq was seeing increasing terrorism, Invasion of Georgia
• Major foreign or military success: False, Both Iraq and Afghanistan were failing
• Charismatic president: False, Bush was horribly unpopular
• Campaigning in more districts than the opposition: False, Howard Dean was very successful

It is no wonder Obama won a trifecta in 2008.

2010 election

• Strong short-term economy: True
• Strong long-term economy: True
• Major policy change: True
• No foreign or military failure: True
• Major foreign or military success: False
• Charismatic president: True
• Campaigning in more districts than the opposition: False

This is what this system is hiding. There is only one key which matters in how well you perform in the midterms. Are you campaigning more than your opponent, and does your strategy work. If that key is false, you will lose the election.

That’s not the only thing the election comes down to. There is only one key to the House of Representatives. Do a better job getting more ethical and qualified people nominated, support them to victory, and win.

The Fifty State Strategy is the dominant strategy to win the House of Representatives. If one party uses it, and the other party does not, the Fifty State Strategy will win. If both parties use it, look at the other keys.

2012 election

• Strong short-term economy: True
• Strong long-term economy: True
• Major policy change: False
• No foreign or military failure: False
• Major foreign or military success: True
• Charismatic president: True
• Campaigning in more districts than the opposition: False

The Democrats almost won the 2012 election, but since the Republicans were using the 50 state strategy and Democrats were not, the Republicans won a razor thin majority. But Democrats won more votes, as the system predicts.

2014 election

• Strong short-term economy: True
• Strong long-term economy: True
• Major policy change: False
• No foreign or military failure: False, Ukraine war
• Major foreign or military success: True
• Charismatic president:
• Campaigning in more districts than the opposition: False

Republicans were using the 50 state strategy but Democrats were not. I suppose Obama was no longer seen as charismatic by enough Americans at this point, making the system accurate to the result. Having to deal with 4 years of a Republican House will do that.

2016 election

• Strong short-term economy: True
• Strong long-term economy: True
• Major policy change: False
• No foreign or military failure: True
• Major foreign or military success: False
• Charismatic president: False
• Campaigning in more districts than the opposition: False

The system accurately predicts the Republicans would win the 2016 election.

2018 election

• Strong short-term economy: True
• Strong long-term economy: True
• Major policy change: False
• No foreign or military failure: False, Russian campaigning for Donald Trump was coming to light.
• Major foreign or military success: False
• Charismatic president: False
• Campaigning in more districts than the opposition: False

Unsurprisingly, Democrats won the 2018 midterm.

2020 election

• Strong short-term economy: False
• Strong long-term economy: False
• Major policy change: False
• No foreign or military failure: False, inability to contain coronavirus in China, Taliban “deal”
• Major foreign or military success: False
• Charismatic president: False, Trump was extremely unpopular
• Campaigning in more districts than the opposition: False, Democrats were using the 50 state strategy

With 51% of the two-party vote Democrats won a small majority in the House.

2022 election

• Strong short-term economy: True
• Strong long-term economy: True
• Major policy change: False
• No foreign or military failure: False, Afghanistan, Ukraine
• Major foreign or military success: False
• Charismatic president: False
• Campaigning in more districts than the opposition: True

Looking at it this way, it is not surprising Republicans won the 2022 midterm. Both parties now use the 50 state strategy, as we can see with record turnout.

2024 election

• Strong short-term economy: True
• Strong long-term economy: True
• Major policy change: False
• No foreign or military failure: False, Ukraine, Israel
• Major foreign or military success: False
• Charismatic president: False, Biden was unpopular
• Campaigning in more districts than the opposition: True

Identical to the 2022 election. Biden failed to learn from losing the midterms, failed to correct his mistakes, and kept too many keys False.

Conclusion

Just like how the Keys to the White House is a recipe for winning the Presidency, we can easily take a subset of those keys, and adding in one more regarding internal party functions, we can accurately predict how Americans vote in House of Representatives elections.

Voters are not stupid. In order to keep power you have to govern well, communicate well, and have a functional party policy. This is why in other countries if a party loses the election their leader is immediately booted from office. This is a good custom which the Democratic Party should adopt. You get one shot to win an election, and if you lose, you are replaced. If you win, you may choose to stay on as long as you bring on good results.

As a trained political scientist, this is so obvious to me.

I have recorded historical congressional data beyond what Wikipedia has in this spreadsheet. Enjoy.