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. We previously analyzed the 12 Democratic-held districts that Donald Trump won, but since Republicans will surely try to play offense in as many seats as they can, the eight districts that Hillary Clinton won with below 50 percent of the vote could see Democrats face stiff challenges in the future.
As shown on the map above (see here for a larger version), many of these seats are disproportionately white, have large rural populations, and an electorate with educational attainment levels lower than the national average. Trump improved upon the performance of recent Republican nominees with these demographics, particularly in the Midwest and Northeast, where most of these districts are situated. However, these voters have been trending GOP for some time as Republicans increasingly rely on white voters who don’t have a college degree.
While House Republicans might target some of these districts, the eight seats that Clinton won with just a plurality are nonetheless all somewhat Democratic-leaning. Barack Obama carried all of them in 2012, and House Democrats exceeded Clinton’s margin of victory in all but one of them. Still, most of these districts saw Trump improve considerably upon Mitt Romney’s margin of defeat. If these seats continue to trend Republican or Democratic incumbents don’t run for another term, they could become tenuous holds for Team Blue.
You can find a chart of all 12 Trump-Democratic districts and the eight that Clinton won with just a plurality below, while we previously looked at the 40 Republican-held districts that Trump either lost or carried with less than a majority of the vote. 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.
The first chart seen below displays the eight Democratic districts that Clinton won with just a plurality:
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This second chart lists all 12 Democratic-held districts that Trump carried:
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