Daily Kos Elections recently completed calculating the 2016 presidential election results by congressional district. With ticket-splitting rates at historic lows, and presidential results highly correlated with congressional results, these numbers serve as a strong predictor of future House election outcomes. While Democrats look to gain the 24 seats needed to acquire a House majority, they also must defend the 194 seats they already hold. Accordingly, the 12 Democrats whose districts supported Donald Trump will likely be top targets for Republicans.
As shown on the map above (see here for a larger image), half of these districts are located in the Midwest, where Trump improved significantly on the performance of recent Republican presidential nominees. Many of these districts are predominantly rural or located outside of big cities. Astoundingly, there are now zero House Democrats from the South who hold seats that voted Republican for president, which is likely the first time that has happened in many decades.
Most of these districts are overwhelmingly white, and the white voters there are significantly less likely to hold a four-year college degree than their peers nationwide. White voters who lack a degree have increasingly voted much more for Republicans than college-educated whites in recent presidential elections. If that trend holds up and continues to spread downballot, Democrats could be in a lot of trouble in these seats.
Of course, while Trump carried all of these districts, so did congressional Democrats, many of whom dramatically outran the top of the ticket. Nine of these 12 districts even voted for President Obama in 2012, indicating that they might be more hostile to mainstream Republicans who don’t posture as populists like Trump did. However, given the declining rate of split-ticket outcomes nationally, many of these Democrats could soon find that their luck runs out.
You can find a chart of all 12 Trump-Democratic districts below, while we previously looked at the 23 Republican-held districts that Clinton won. Be sure to also check out our earlier maps and analysis of the presidential and congressional results for all the districts, and our Congress guide spreadsheet, which compiles those results along with demographics and member information for every seat.
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