Thread by @K_Thomas_Ross

We all know the #UndemocraticElectoralCollege is unfair and unrepresentative. But in real life, because of voting blocks, it ends up that a few swing states deciding who is president.

The US is ruled by rural white America & white nationalists, including tRumP, because of the #UndemocraticSenate. States with 17% of the population control half the Senate

The smallest population state elects the same number (2) as the largest, giving their majority voters great power. The 9 states with half the US population have only 18 of 100 Senators.

Of course, in #WinnerTakeAllElections, only majority voters have any influence. Inherited from the archaic UK system, this disenfranchises everyone not in the majority. Among leading Western “democracies”, only the UK, the US and Canada still has this system.

Our #House is a few blue islands – the cities - in a vast red sea. Fortunately, the populations balance between greater urban areas and mostly rural is approximately even, resulting in a House that is nearly almost close to a 50/50 split, in the last 20 years.

After the Great Depression, the Democrats controlled the House most of the time, leading to a great expansion of environmental, civil rights, labor & other protections. Desegregation, the Voting Rights acts and the GOP love of Wat and prisons gradual lost the South.

Since 1998, the GOP has usually had the majority. A large part of this is, because of ‘white flight’, the suburbs have mostly white, conservative and GOP.

But the 2018 election saw a major shift. Educated white suburban women, especially, could not stand a Pres and GOP which is sexist and racist. The suburbs are still conservative, many of the suburbs went Democratic.

The MSM portrayed it as a liberal (AOC) victory, but only two Democrats were successfully primary-ed (2 GOPers on the Right also). Democrats had a net gain of 40, but it was overwhelming suburban. (The House also gained 13 women net, but, again, they are mostly moderate).

In 2018:
….1) We threw out 30 incumbent GOPers. One was urban (Staten Island, 2 were rural (upstate Maine and the Catskills). The rest were suburban. (Admittedly, there are all sorts of suburbs);
2) No Democratic incumbents directly to the GOP;

3) We lost 3 open seats to the GOP - 1 rural (southern MN), 2 suburban); and
4) We took 13 open, normally GOP seats, all of them suburban.
2018 was a suburban revolution for the Democrats.

True, most of these suburban victory margins were narrow, the freshmen tend to be moderate (DINO’s, some would say), and we will not keep them long – if the GOP ever regains its integrity, conscience and sense of justice. (Perhaps they never will.)

This suggests a very basic master strategy for taking more House seats in 2020 (ignoring individual district candidates, scandals and issues.) Assuming that we do not mind more DINO’s (certainly preferably to nearly every GOP). Concentrate on the suburbs.

@TheAtlantic has a subsidiary that analyzes House districts, based on population density, called @CityLab. It reveals, that the big pickups in 2018 were in closer suburbs – dense or ‘sparse’. (Spare is relative – fewer high-rises, and apt complex, and more neighborhoods).

Rural areas and rural suburban areas remain GOP. We have the cities. The battlefield is in between.

Only one urban/suburban district remains GOP. FL-25, Naples to Miami. (Mario Diaz-Balart – (2018 margin 52/43, but it is 44% Cuban-American). (Cubans tend to be more conservative than other Latinos, and Naples more than most of the cities of Florida.)

So, while many spare suburbs can be taken. If you want the most likely, in general, I would target the Dense Suburban:

A number of GOP Incumbents have also decided to retire, or seek other office. No Democrat has yet declared in AL-01. AL-03, Il-15, TX-11 and UT-01. However, these candidates look promising:

GA-07 @Carolyn4GA7
IN 05 @HaleIndy
MI-10 @kelnoland2020
MT AL @WilliamsForMT
TX-22 @SriPKulkarni
TX-23 @GinaOrtizJones
TX-24 @JanForCongress

Other promising races include”
IIL-14 @RepUnderwood
PA 10 @PAAuditorGen

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