This Washington Post column builds on a numerical comparison of 2020 House and Senate elections that the Election Law at Ohio State team has developed. In addition to the example of Georgia discussed in the column, it’s worth considering the numbers from Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, North Carolina, and Arizona. The average 2020 House victory in each of these states was 27.7, 25.2, 23.6, and 22.2 points, respectively.  Likewise, the average margin between Biden and Trump in these states’ House districts was 24.7, 21.1, 22.8, and 20.0.  

By contrast, the Biden-Trump margin in these four states was 1.2., 0.6, 1.3, and 0.3. Two of these states had competitive Senate elections last year: North Carolina’s had a 1.75 margin, and Arizona’s was 2.4. All four are expected to have competitive Senate races in 2022.

Reducing the gap between the competitiveness of statewide Senate elections and districted House elections should be, in my view, a high priority when the new House maps soon get drawn for the 2022 midterms.