Why Democrats Lost the Senate and House in 2016

Composition of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives

In the 2016 U.S. presidential elections, the Democrats experienced significant losses in both the Senate and the House of Representatives in addition to losing the presidency. While the Democratic presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, won the popular vote, Donald Trump won the electoral college votes to clinch the presidency. The Republicans not only won the presidency but also retained the Senate and the House of Representatives. In the aftermath of the 2016 elections, the performance of the Democratic Party became the subject of scrutiny among political analysts and experts. The media remained puzzled by the outcome because their predictions had been so far off. One of the issues that received considerable scrutiny was why Democrats failed to capture more seats in the U.S. House and why they lost control of the Senate. This paper examines the reasons Democrats lost control of both chambers, contrary to what some political analysts and media outlets had predicted.

The United States House of Representatives comprises 435 voting members and 6 non-voting members. In the 2016 U.S. presidential elections, Republicans captured 238 seats while Democrats captured 193 seats. Republicans thus exceeded the 218 seats required to control the House, which was led by Speaker Paul Ryan, a Republican. Based on political analyses and expert opinions, Democrats faced a relatively difficult task in capturing a majority of House seats because of the conditions that had persisted since 2014 (Scott par. 22). Since the 2014 midterms, Democrats had been left in the minority and needed to capture additional seats to regain control of the House. Their minority status meant that recapturing the majority would be an uphill task requiring suitable strategies and strong electoral performance. Following the 2014 midterms, Democrats needed to win an additional 30 seats to secure a majority — a House that had been controlled by Republicans heading into the 2016 elections.

The U.S. Senate comprises 100 seats, of which Republicans won 52 and Democrats won 46. A party must hold at least 51 seats to control the Senate, a threshold Republicans met in the 2016 elections (Scott par. 6). Prior to the election, there had been predictions that Democrats would flip two Republican-held Senate seats — in Illinois and Wisconsin — which appeared to be leaning their way. However, Democrats failed to capture those seats, as Republicans won in Wisconsin and in other states such as Indiana, Missouri, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina, all of which had been rated too close to call before election day.

Reasons for Democrats' Loss: An Overview

Contrary to predictions by the media and some political scientists and analysts before the 2016 elections, the Democrats' path toward controlling the Senate and the House proved far more difficult than anticipated. The challenge was compounded by the fact that both chambers had recently been controlled by Republicans, who had made it difficult for President Obama and Democrats to pass key legislation. Democrats' ability to take control was not only dependent on their performance in traditional strongholds but also on their performance in states rated too close to call. By the end of election night, the Democratic Party had performed poorly in some of its strongholds and in swing states, contributing to the loss of both chambers due to the factors discussed below.

Geography and Distribution of Voters

One of the major reasons for the Democrats' loss of the Senate and the House in 2016 was geography and the distribution of voters. Geography and voter distribution relate to how voters are spread across regions in the United States — across Republican and Democratic strongholds as well as swing states. Congressional and legislative elections in the United States take place under a single-member district system in which only one candidate wins each district. Under this system, there is a systematic advantage for whichever party controls how districts are drawn. The single-member district system requires that a state be divided into smaller segments through a redistricting process (Wolf par. 2). While the concept behind redistricting is to ensure that every district has a representative, voters from Republican and Democratic parties are not equally spread throughout any given state. As a result, parties have different distributions of voters across districts, which produces disparities in congressional and legislative election outcomes.

Geography worked against Democrats following the 2010 census. Republicans successfully obtained 55% of congressional districts while Democrats achieved the same in only 10% of districts. This mapping process enabled Republicans to control the majority of congressional districts that are crucial in congressional and legislative elections. Republicans also maintained significant advantages in congressional redistricting across the country because of the inefficient geographic spread of Democratic voters (Wolf par. 18). This demonstrates that the geographic distribution of voters across U.S. districts is skewed in favor of Republicans and played a direct role in the party's ability to capture more seats in 2016.

Based on the 2010 census, the geographic distribution of the American electorate provided Republicans with structural House advantages over Democrats heading into the 2016 elections. Republicans distributed their voters nearly perfectly among districts through what analysts described as surgical precision. In this process, Republicans ensured that none of their districts would be overly vulnerable or so heavily Republican that votes would be wasted (Wolf par. 10). Republicans also concentrated as many Democratic voters as possible into just a few districts by making inroads in cities such as Durham, Charlotte, Raleigh, and Greensboro. In addition, they made inroads in rural northeastern areas with large African-American populations that had traditionally elected Democrats. Where they could not crowd Democrats into liberal cities like Wilmington and Asheville, Republicans separated Democratic voters between two seats and their other strongholds.

Through this surgical precision in voter distribution, Republicans effectively positioned themselves to win far more House seats than Democrats. The Republican Party captured seats not only in rural areas but also in urban settings previously considered Democratic strongholds. Republicans won more rural seats in part because the unequal geographic distribution of voters resulted in rural areas containing more congressional districts — and therefore more House representatives — than metropolitan areas. By contrast, Democrats controlled smaller urban regions with far fewer districts and voters. While Democrats won the popular vote in many of these urban regions, the limited number of Democratic districts hurt their overall congressional performance and allowed Republicans to secure a larger share of House seats.

Conclusion

The 2016 presidential election was one of the most hotly contested in the history of the United States. After winning the 2008 and 2012 elections, Democrats appeared well-positioned to control both chambers and the White House. However, contrary to the predictions of political analysts and the media, Democrats not only lost the presidency but also lost control of both the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives. The aftermath of the election prompted extensive scrutiny of the factors that contributed to these losses. Democrats failed to capture more seats in either chamber due to a combination of factors: geography and the distribution of voters, voter turnout disparities, shifting voter demographics, poor campaign strategy, overly optimistic expectations, and the strong — and ultimately damaging — ties between Democratic congressional candidates and Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. Taken together, these factors created structural and strategic conditions that favored Republicans and sealed the Democratic Party's defeat across all levels of the 2016 federal elections.