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The gap between staggering Democratic margins in cities and the somewhat smaller Republican margins in the rest of the country allows Democrats to win key states in presidential and Senate elections, like Florida and Michigan. But the expanded Democratic margins in metropolitan areas are all but wasted in the House, since most of these urban districts already voted for Democrats. The result is that Democrats have built national and statewide majorities by making Democratic-leaning congressional districts even more Democratic, not by winning new areas that might turn congressional districts from red to blue.
The best example may be Pennsylvania. President Obama won the state by five percentage points in 2012, thanks to a whopping 83 percent of the vote in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, where Democrats combine nearly unanimous support among nonwhite voters with large margins among young and well-educated liberals. Mr. Romney didn’t win a single Pennsylvania county, let alone a district, by as much as Mr. Obama won Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. The large Democratic margin in these cities allowed Mr. Obama to carry the state, but it did not translate to a majority of House districts.
The hundreds of thousands of wasted Democratic votes in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh typify the electoral challenge facing House Democrats, which has become more pronounced during the Obama years. Mr. Obama’s strengths among nonwhite and young voters allowed him to build overwhelming margins in heavily populated urban areas, wasting more Democratic votes. In fact, nearly all of Mr. Obama’s gains over Al Gore’s showing in 2000 came from 68 metropolitan counties that already leaned Democratic. The rest of the country, in the aggregate, barely budged.
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shaun james bockert 