Yesterday, 4CasandChio published a diary outlining a scenario by means of which Trump pushes the election into the House of Representatives by denying the Electoral College 270 votes for Biden, largely by enlisting the help of compliant governors to avoid sending electors to the college on December 14. This would throw the election into the House of Representatives, where the individual congressional delegations vote, not the individual representatives. In other words, it’s a 50 vote election, with 26 needed to win.
Not discussed in that diary, however, is a key fact: it’s the NEW HOUSE that makes this vote. And we’re not far away from having a majority of the delegations in the 117th Congress. Flipping a handful of races flips their states, and that ensures the presidency. Dispositive results on Election Day for the House elections would, ideally, head off an effort to circumvent the Electoral College, or thwart it after the fact.
Today, the Republican Party forms a majority of only 26 congressional delegations, and there’s a tie in Pennsylvania. I took a look at the current congressional delegations, and compiled the following table of “number of seats to flip to get to majority-Democratic delegations.” Here’s the current status:
Number of seats to flip for majority-democratic house delegations
State |
Seats |
State |
Seats |
Florida |
1 |
Idaho |
2 |
Pennsylvania |
1 |
Utah |
2 |
Alaska |
1 |
Missouri |
3 |
Montana |
1 |
Arkansas |
3 |
Wyoming |
1 |
Louisiana |
3 |
North Dakota |
1 |
Indiana |
3 |
South Dakota |
1 |
Kentucky |
3 |
Mississippi |
2 |
Tennessee |
3 |
South Carolina |
2 |
Georgia |
3 |
West Virginia |
2 |
Alabama |
3 |
Wisconsin |
2 |
North Carolina |
4 |
Oklahoma |
2 |
Ohio |
5 |
Kansas |
2 |
Texas |
5 |
Nebraska |
2 |
|
|
There’s no assessment of which of these are easier to target, clearly. Whether from the redness of the state or the number of seats to move or both, the list above has no advice as to which seats to go after. To get a closer look at that, I went to this table at 270toWin.com. That suggests that PA-10 is a toss-up, alongside three Texas seats out of five needed. Moving on to the “Leans Republican” column, FL-15 and PA-1 both seem possible, with an additional Texas seat. Various other combinations (the “at large” seats in AK and MT are both in lower-cost markets and hence potential opportunities for leveraging relatively modest investment) involve the “Likely Republican” column, and aren’t out of reach.
Consequently, my next five donations are going to FL-15, PA-1, PA-10, AK-AL, and MT-AL.
A couple of notes and implicit assumptions, which I’m sure will get observed in comments as well:
- This all assumes we don’t lose any delegations in the House elections. That could happen. Defense matters.
- Michigan is majority-democratic because Rep. Amash left the GOP. But his seat still is in the Leans-R category.
- The new map in North Carolina may be an important factor and could put that delegation within reach. NC-08 and NC-09 are the seats to watch here.
- Hunter’s diary this morning about the House GOP being left out to dry is very much an encouraging sign.