What's Our Problem?: A Self-Help Book for Societies

by Tim Urban

the fact that in the recent political environment, Republicans have been more likely to win elections without capturing a majority of the vote. Both parties have done their fair share of gerrymandering, but the Republicans, who control more state legislatures, had until 2022 been more egregious about it.54 Throughout the 2010s, Republicans only needed to win about 45% of total votes for Congress to win the House majority, compared to the Democrats needing to win more than 55% of voters to be the majority party.55 The same phenomenon exists in the Senate, where all states have the same two seats, leaving low-population states (which typically vote Republican) over-represented.⬥ With their ability to win rural states, Republicans have been able to win the Senate majority while losing the aggregate popular vote for Senate. Likewise in presidential elections where, because of the electoral college system, two of the past three Republican victories have come while losing the popular vote, something that hadn’t happened since 1888. All of this has stuck the Democrats with the burden of having to win the center and freed up Republicans to be more ideological. By the end of Obama’s presidency, the Republican Party had sold off so many little pieces of itself that it bore little resemblance to the party of Reagan. Republican tribalism had become the party’s most sacred value. What mattered most was Republican victory in a war against the Democratic enemy, even if that victory had t...