Beyond the presidential and Senate races in 2016, some Democrats still hold out hope of seizing control of the House in November.

So, based on the data, how likely is it that House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi can lead her party to a takeover of the lower chamber on Capitol Hill? The answer: Nearly impossible.

In fact, due to the Republican victories in state after state for the decennial congressional redistricting process, the GOP may have a firm grasp on a House majority for the next decade.

As I’ve written about previously, the Republicans have such a hold on America’s rural areas that the Red-Blue map of the U.S., based on partisan holdings in congressional districts, might make one think that the nation is overwhelmingly dominated by the Republican Party.

Take a look at the map above and you will notice that a traveler could begin a journey on the Pacific Ocean in Washington State, south of Seattle, and drive on a diagonal southeast line all the way to the Atlantic  Ocean, in Georgia, east of Atlanta, and never pass through a Democratic congressional district.

From sea to shining sea, nothing but red as far as the eye can see.

The Cook Report recently pointed out that, even if the Dems swept every single competitive House seat, they would still fall three seats short of a majority in November.

How can that be? Well, the Democrats at the state level have been outfoxed by the GOP in the redistricting processes and the long-term patterns have led to this: only 33 of 435 House seats are deemed competitive in the upcoming congressional elections.

What’s more, political analyst Charlie Cook reports that 27 of those 33 swing seats have a Re­pub­lic­an incumbent. Beyond the GOP victories in the precedent-setting 2014 off-year elections, 12 of those seats that are up for grabs lean Republican as the November elections loom.

The Washington Post offered this summary:

“It’s the latest evidence that a combination of Americans’ polarization, the concentration of Democratic voters in fewer districts, and the GOP’s overwhelming control over redistricting after the 2010 Census have made it a very tall task for Democrats to take back the House at any point this decade.”

The Post’s Aaron Blake back in 2013  foresaw this dire picture for the House Dems in the long run:

What redistricting also did, though, was allow Republicans to draw very favorable maps (for state legislatures). Those maps will also make it hard for Democrats to regain control of those (state) chambers and, by extension, overhaul the existing GOP-friendly maps at both the state and congressional levels.

Nobody is saying Democrats can’t win back the U.S. House in the coming years, but most everyone agrees that it’s significantly more difficult today than it was before and that Democrats need a sizable wave to do it. In fact, they would need to win as much as 55 percent of the popular vote, according to the Cook Political Report’s David Wasserman, something neither party was able to achieve even in the wave elections of 2006, 2008 and 2010.

 

 

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