To achieve a majority in 2014, Democrats do not just need to win, they need to win big.
The political dynamic in the current House is defined by a combination of gerrymandering, a skewed first-past-the-post election system and big money influence. That dynamic favors the Republicans. Indeed, in 2012, Democrats won 1.7 million more votes than Republicans in House races across the country, yet the Republicans finished the election with a reasonably comfortable 234-201 majority. (With current vacancies, the split is now 232 Republican to 200 Democrats.)
To take the House in 2014 -- an off-year election where Republicans (as the opposition party to a president who is in his second term) begin not just with structural advantage but with what is traditionally seen as the political upper hand -- Democrats would need a substantial shift.
The Democrats had a 48.3 to 46.9 advantage in 2012. But because most districts are skewed to favor the Republicans, the Democrats moved from 193 seats after the 2010 election to 201 seats after the 2012 election.
Since the district lines will remain essentially the same in 2014 as they were in 2012, Democrats must win not just the handful of districts that favored President Obama while sending a Republican to the House. They need to be competitive in districts that leaned Republican in 2012. That's unlikely if they merely maintain the 1.4-percent advantage the party gained in 2012. But it could happen if the Democratic advantage moves dramatically upward.
There is a long time between now and the 2014 election. A lot can change. But if the Democrats could reap just half the advantage they now have in the NBC polling -- for a 3.5 percent margin over the Republicans in next year's House races -- that would begin to put the most marginal Republican House races in play. And that, despite the extreme impact of gerrymandering, increases the sense of vulnerability among Republicans in more competitive districts.
Those Republicans are starting to feel the heat.
And if the numbers keep moving in the Democratic direction, those Republicans will begin -- despite all the pressures from the Tea Party and its wealthy benefactors, despite the very real threat of primary challenges -- to start angling for negotiations and compromise. They won't make a "do-the-right-thing" argument. They will make a necessity argument based on a prospect that did not exist a few weeks ago, that a majority carefully constructed through meticulous gerrymandering might not hold in the face of broad revulsion at obstruction and extremism.
John Nichols calls the Ryan plan to end the budget showdown a "Shock Doctrine" fix.
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