When was the last time on election night that the coverage included the total vote count for the US House and Senate elections? Can anyone easily find the total votes for Democrats and Republicans in all the individual Senate and House races put together for past years? Should we not press to get this information out as part of the political coverage in this and every election in the future? Its absence undervalues the national support for the Democratic party. Getting the MSM to pay attention to the national totals would be one way to recognize that the Democratic party has far greater support in all elections than the current electoral system recognizes.
How can we change the coverage and why is it worth the effort?
Because of the Balkanized rotten borough system of electoral representation, fixed in stone by the Constitution, apart from the popular vote in the presidential election, rarely is much attention given to the national popular vote in other races. Of course since the total vote for the House and the Senate has no constitutional significance in determining the distribution of seats, it gets ignored, but for that matter the presidential popular vote is equally without effect, as the 2000 election reminds us. Why do we bother paying attention to that popular vote alone? Would it not make more sense to provide prominently the totals for the House and Senate, respectively, every two years, not just the presidential race, every four?
I do know that in the 2004 election although Bush was given a bare popular majority of around 51%, and although the Republicans did win the house by an aggregate majority, the total vote in all the Senate races yielded a clear Democratic majority, I believe, around 54% of the popular vote. Similarly I believe that for most of the Senate and House races since the GOP started to take over in 1994, the popular national majority actually favored the Democratic Party. This however is something that I have yet to confirm. Perhaps the comments can clarify and expand this question. I do believe that the 2004 election was an exceptional election in that the Republicans actually had a national majority in the House. All current indicators suggest that whatever the distribution of seats, the Democrats will take a clear national popular majority in both houses. I would not be surprised if the Senate Democratic majority will be of landslide proportions, close to 60%. Democrats are cruising to major (60-65%) electoral victories in large and medium size states such as California, New York, Massachusetts, Florida, with closer victories likely in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. Byrd, Akaka, Bingamon, Carper, Conrad, Kohl, are bound for reelection, with minor opposition. Far fewer are the easy races for the GOP right now: Ensign, Hatch, Hutchison, Lugar (uncontested), Snowe, and Thomas (Wyoming). Aside from big Texas and medium Indiana, these are small states where even big victories would not contribute much to the aggregated totals. Even if the Republicans win all the close races and deny the Democrats a majority of seats in the Senate, there is no way they could possibly deny them an overall majority of the popular vote. The House is more likely to turn Democrat so its expected Democratic national popular majority will be less surprising. We can expect a clear national majority for Democrats in both the House and the Senate.
Why is this significant? First it will give the Democrats bragging rights and a strong psychological boost going into 2008. The Democrats are the absolute majority in the country as whole, however the system may work. They should act that way in all political settings. It is an important counter to the pundit claim that the Democrats have become a minority party and can't get the support of the US population. They have the support, but the system shafts them. In fact over the past twenty years the Democrats have been the majority party more often than not.
Second, calling attention to that national total will give tangible results to Dean's 50 State strategy. The pundits cannot praise enough Rahm Emmanuel, but they have ignored the fact that without a 50 State far fewer than seventy Republican seats could be in play.
The gross inequities of our electoral system raise other even more troubling questions. The eighteenth century system of indirect representation of the original colonies favoring barely populated areas over densely populated regions undermines the Democratic party as well as the claim that we live in a democracy. With every passing year that claim becomes more and more dubious. When the republic was founded in the eighteenth century the ratio in population between the smallest state and the largest state was about 7 to 1. Now the figure is more like 70 to 1. In other words under the current ratios of population the democratic representativeness of the Senate is as much as 10 times less than it was when our system of government was first established. While the House of Representatives is nominally more democratic, it still has significant inequities. California which is 70 times the size of Wyoming only has 53 the number of representatives. We all know the consequences of these inequities for the electoral college, but we ignore them in the everyday functioning of the House and Senate. The electoral college simply exacerbates the sclerotic antidemocratic character of our system of representative government. Our votes are not equal. Some votes are more equal than others. Solving that problem is practically impossible, but ignoring it, is unconscionable. In the meanwhile we should never fail to call attention to the contradictions between the popular vote and actual representation. The fifty-state strategy at least represents an attempt to gain support in States whose individual voters have clout disproportionate to their size.
For the moment one way to call attention to that equality is for all of us to insist that we emphasize the total popular vote in this and every election. Using that slogan will underscore the anti-democratic nature of the Republican Party. The Democrats truly are Democratic. In the meanwhile, let us come up with strategies to get the media to do the math and keep track of the total popular vote. Of course GOTV is paramount, but let us also make sure our efforts are truly reflected in the coverage.