Why We Lose

Why Democrats lose, according to the Washington Post:

With Democrats locked out of the White House and in the minority in Congress, it might seem that there just aren't enough Democratic voters to win elections. But political scientist Gary Jacobson says the problem is actually more complicated: The distribution of Republican voters is more politically effective across the nation.

Jacobson's research shows a little more than half of all the nation's 435 congressional districts over recent decades consistently favored Republican presidential candidates. A little less than 40 percent went for Democrats. (The remainder had a mixed pattern.) Jacobson, at the University of California at San Diego, said this is due to an "inefficient" distribution of Democratic voters, with many concentrations of 60 percent or more in urban areas and places with large numbers of minorities. Republicans, he found, are distributed more evenly, yielding more districts in which GOP voters have a slimmer but sturdy majority.

Well, shit. I guess I should't have moved out of PA. One more reason that the 'winner take all' sort of Democracy, which the United States is nearly alone in using, isn't the best way to govern.

If we had a parlimentary system, we'd be better off.

Elections Democrats Republicans Gary Jacobson