"No Choice" Elections Rule in a Competitive House

Democrats and Republicans are as narrowly divided in the U.S. House of Representatives as they have been in decades. In each of the last three House elections, the total number of votes received by Republican and Democratic House candidates was nearly dead even. Most political observers see the question of which party will control the House after the November elections as essentially a toss-up, mirroring the close partisan division evidenced in the 2000 presidential elections, the battle for control of the U.S. Senate and state elections around the nation.

Yet this fierce competition for power should not disguise the fact that the outcomes in the great majority of U.S. House races are so predictable that few Americans have any chance to change their own representation in the House. In both the 1998 and 2000 general elections, for example, fewer than one in ten House races were won by competitive margins of less than 10%. More than 98% of incumbents were re-elected in both years, and of the twelve defeated incumbents, only one had been elected before 1992.

What's going on and what does it tell us about who will control Congress in the future?

Starting in 1997, the Center for Voting and Democracy has released a biannual report, Monopoly Politics, that projects the outcome of most House races based on a simple, but powerful observation: the partisan division in most districts determines the winner in most elections. In most House races, we can project not only who will win but by what margin without knowing anything about the identify of the challenger, about the voting record or any other characteristic of the incumbent, about campaign spending in past or current elections or about polling data and organizational endorsements. All we need to know are the results from recent federal elections in the district and the incumbent's party and seniority.

Of the 361 House winners which we projected winners in July 1997, for example fully 358 won, including 346 who won by comfortable margins of at least 10%. Of the 340 incumbents we projected would win, only one lost. In the 18 months between our 1997 projections and the 1998 elections, a great deal happened - the controversy over whether to impeach President Clinton, the launching of campaigns by well-funded challengers and more - but those developments had little impact on these "no choice" elections.

Similarly, nearly two years before the November 2000 elections, we projected 235 races to be won by more than "landslide" margins of more than 20%. We were wrong in only a single race, which was won by a margin of "merely" 18%.

This year, we have developed a new "one size fits all" projection model to underscore the power of our analysis". Our past projections considered some relatively subjective factors such as regional differences - the fact that Democrats run more strongly than one might expect in the northern Plains and Texas, for instance, and Republicans run more strongly than expected in New York State. But our new projection model relies exclusively on a few simple variables to make projections, with no variation by year of election and by region. To make it clear that our process of making projections is completely transparent, we are making our spreadsheets with data and calculations easily available to the public on the web.

In order to avoid errors, our simple model makes fewer projections than in previous years, but it is even more accurate and still narrows the competitive election playing field to fewer than one in four races. Applying our model to elections in 1996-2000, there is only a single error out of 930 total party projections. Out of 515 total projections of landslide victories of more than 20% (totaling well over a third of all House races taking place in this period), our model was accurate 497 (97%) of the time in its margin prediction. Of 18 landslide projection errors, 13 races were still won by comfortable margins of greater than 10%, and none of these seats was wrong in its partisan projection. Overall, our model is accurate on victory margin projection in 96% of races from 1996 to 2000.

This year, for November 2002 our model projects 332 U.S. House winners, including 195 by margins of at least 20% and another 100 by margins of at least 10%. This is a larger number of projections than even in the non-competitive elections at the end of the 1990's. And of the remaining 104 districts, most in fact will not be competitive.

Opportunities for voters to define their own representation and for new groups to be represented in the halls of Congress thus are all too rare. Our findings suggest that for most Americans interested in influencing which party controls the House, it would be more effective to send a campaign contribution to candidates in a competitive race than vote in their own because most of us live in thoroughly uncompetitive districts.

We certainly don't advocate Election Day boycotts, but the two best chances for most people to change their representation in "the people's House" for the next decade have already passed - in this year's primary's election, where nominees were chosen to run in districts that are mostly safe for their party, and even more importantly, in the recent process of redistricting when the landscape of U.S. House elections for the next decade was largely determined. But voter turnout in primaries was at a near-historic low of less than 20%, according to the Committee for the Study and the American Electorate, while few citizens had a glimpse behind the closed doors that mark a redistricting process in which legislators choose their constituents before their constituents choose them.

This language might seem extreme, but the most entrenched Members of the U.S. House could tell you otherwise. Before retiring after the 2000 elections, Pennsylvania Republican Bud Shuster faced a general election opponent exactly once in his seven elections. Many other incumbents face at best token opposition. In fact, nearly one out of every ten incumbent House Members has won each of his or her last five elections by more than 40%. Every single one of these entrenched incumbents represents a district that leans heavily toward his or her party. In this year's general election they essentially have zero chance to lose as well. Indeed, it is one thing to point out that the percentage of winning incumbents has not dropped below 90% in more than a quarter-century. It is another to add that most incumbents represent districts that even if open, would be safe for their party.

And it doesn't stop at the U.S. House. All evidence suggests that state legislative elections are even less competitive than House races and that state legislators are all the more zealous in protecting their political fortunes in redistricting. In 1998 and 2000, more than two out of every five state legislative races were uncontested. That number likely will be similar in 2002. While some states like Arizona, Idaho, Iowa and Washington have adopted redistricting processes that are designed to protect the public interest, most states give legislators nearly unchecked power to draw their own lines. And in many states, there is simply no way to make certain areas competitive for more than one party as long as we use "winner-take-all" elections in which a simple majority of voters has the power to define representation for everyone.

Due to redistricting, election data for many districts was not available until recently, which explains why we are releasing our projections so close to the election. Immediately after the 2002 election, however, we will have nearly all of the pieces of information we need to be able to release our model's projections for as many as four in five of the November 2004 House race. Between that time and November 2004, the only factor we will use to adjust our projections is whether a seat becomes an open seat. This year's projections and those for 1996-2000 can be understood in the same way. They do not rely on "horserace" factors like campaign financing and tactics or external events such as the state of the economy.

Finally, we are quick to admit that there are anywhere from 40 to 100 House races in any given year in which campaign factors and quality of representation indeed do matter. While our model provides insight into what might happen in those races, we do not want to overstate its power. Indeed the latest campaign financing patterns indicate that those wielding campaign cash know where their money makes a difference. Where races are within our margin of error, the amount of spending is rising to astronomical levels, as in last year's special U.S. House election in Virginia where more than $10 million was poured into a swing district. Where races are already decided, however, most money only flows to incumbents from friends and organized interests who want to help the incumbent fend off future primary challenges or gain more power to influence colleagues and political players in their district.

For the full report and 2002 predictions, see The Center for Voting and Democracy

© 2002 The Center for Voting and Democracy