The Red Ripple-Trickle-Fizzle may not have been as bad (for the GOP) as it seems. Expectations were inflated, which led to the deflation of partisans (like me) who wanted the Dems to get it good and hard.
As it turns out, the GOP may have done about as well as could be expected, based on the history of general elections since World War II. The following analysis draws on the official history of biennial elections through 2020 (here), an estimate of the GOP’s share of the two-party vote for House seats in 2022 (51.6 percent), and an informed guesstimate of the number of seats the GOP will hold when all of the votes are counted (221).
In the following graph, the point representing the 2022 election is circled. So, yes, winning 50.8 percent of House seats (i.e, 221) is less than expected when the GOP wins 51.6 percent of the two-party vote in a general election:
Why did the GOP under-perform in 2022 (and other years)? I derived a regression equation that explains (robustly) the differences between the estimated values (the straight line in the graph above) and the actual values (the data points). The equation has two explanatory variables:
the party of the incumbent president at the time of the election
whether or not the GOP holds a minority of House seats at the time of the election.
Relative to the estimates based solely on percentage of two-party vote (the regression equation in the graph above), the GOP does less well than expected when (a) there’s a Democrat is in the White House and (b) the GOP is the minority party in the House. Both conditions prevailed this year.
Here’s a graph of the record for every general election since World War II:
My method of adjusting the raw relationship between vote share and share of seats yields an estimate for 2022 that is very close to reality: actual = 50.8 percent; estimate = 50.4 percent.
Were other factors in play? Of course; to name some of them:
reapportionment of House seats and redistricting after the 2020 census, which probably helped Republicans
the perception of Biden as a senile and dangerous leftist, which should have energized Republicans
the Dobbs decision on abortion, which did energize Democrats and took some energy away from Republicans
Trump’s toxic, egoistic visibility, which also energized Democrats and may not have done much for Republicans
some loony pro-Trump GOP candidates, nominated with the help of Democrat funding and crossover votes in the GOP primaries (Looniness hurts Republicans more than Democrats — witness John Fetterman and the “Squad” — because it’s not expected of Republicans.)
How did those factors (and others) combine to affect the percentage of votes garnered by GOP House candidates? I have no idea and neither does anyone else. I will say that if the GOP’s percentage of the vote was lower than it could have been, it was probably because Trump is still on the political stage. He did a lot of good as president, and I defended him staunchly in my blog. But it’s time for him to remove himself from the public sphere, for the sake of his party and the country.
A final note: Given the leftward drift of the country since World War II, it’s almost miraculous that the GOP emerged from minority status in the 1990s and remains a force to be reckoned with in Congress. Granted, the GOP has also moved somewhat to the left, but it still espouses conservative values, even if it doesn’t always uphold them.
I love it. Trump did well for us, but might have to go. (Looking bad for us at this point, however. He would not go quietly to that night and huge party split would cost us.) The national leftward tilting, yes. Just look at yr grown or growing children. The right by no means dead yet, but is on the defensive. As for Republicans' "almost miraculous" performance, in view of the miraculous not being something to count on, this assessment is not so encouraging at that. Interesting, however, as ever from this writer.