The question is how to factor in those thirty, because they got at least some votes. Sailer calculated 52.8%, which jibes with the figure quoted above, and also with the exit poll data. There were in fact 4 uncontested Republican seats, but obviously they don’t skew things as much as the 30.

The 53% margin is pretty decent. The last president to win by that much was GHW Bush in 1988. I think you have to go back to the 70s to find a party winning by that much in the House. Very few incumbent Democratic congressmen won with less than 60%, while quite a few incumbent Republicans dropped below that figure. Yesterday’s New York Times also has a good breakdown of the exit poll data.

And while the media attention has been focused on the first Muslim represented to Congress, don’t forget that two Buddhists were elected as well, and it also seems that there are more Jewish congressmen than in the past.

“Tuesday’s election was a truly stunning victory for the Democrats. Candidates planning to caucus with the Democrats took 24 of the 33 Senate seats at stake this year, winning seven million more votes than Republicans. In House races, Democrats received about 53 percent of the two-party vote, giving them a margin more than twice as large as the 2.5-percentage-point lead that Mr. Bush claimed as a “mandate” two years ago — and the margin would have been even bigger if many Democrats hadn’t been running unopposed.”

1. Gerrymandering puts lots of members of the same party together, to ensure a victory. (If Dems won with 52% of the vote, put more Dems in, and they are safer next time with 60% of the votes).

2. Gerrymanding shifts members of the same party into other districts, to maximize districts won. (If Repubs won 2 districts with 65% of the vote, and lost 1 with 45% of the vote, they could move 5% Repubs into the losing district, to give them 3 55% victories.)

While people tend to fear #2 more, it is really #1 that happens more often. Politicians want their party in control, but not at the expense of putting their own seat at risk.

Pennsylvania and New Jersey are good examples of opposites.

New Jersey was gerrymandered for “Safe Seats”, and even in 2006, there was only one race that where the margin of victory (for either party) was less than 10 points. Democrats have 7 (of 13) seats, and will never get more than 8 (but also never have fewer than 6).

Pennsylvania, on the other hand, re-districted after the 2000 census specifically to maximize Republican districts. In 2002 and 2004 it worked well, with more Republicans winning, despite a majority Democrat electorate (but each REpublican won by smaller margins in each district). This year, though, the Democrats picked up five PA seats (to take a 12-7 lead in the state), with a bunch of really close races.

So, you can have safe seats, or you can have more seats, but it’s always a trade off. So, over the long run, it works itself out.

Unless, like this time, there is a single national issue central to the election, I don’t think those numbers will ever be useful in a system where the parties are coalitions of groups rather than the government being a coaltion of parties.

Also, I think the international press has not taken enough note of this story. He isn’t in a majority Muslim or majority black district, either.

Basically, the Democrats received 37,662,923 votes, and the Republicans received 33,668,227 votes. The Democrats received 52.8% of votes, whereas the Republicans received 47.2% of votes (keep in mind the caveats above). If you calculate things the way DeLong did, we can call that a 5.6% majority in the House.

The Democrats have done the same thing in the past, but this round the Democrats contested every single House seat, although many of the candidates were not serious.