Monopoly Politics

Leading up to every election cycle, FairVote publishes Monopoly Politics, an interactive map and in-depth spreadsheet that predicts the results of all 435 races for the U.S. House of Representatives.

First developed in 1997 as a forerunner to the Cook Partisan Voting Index and later refined to reflect the advantage of incumbency, Monopoly Politics’ influential methodology relies on prior voting patterns to make predictions rather tha5502n polling data. This methodology is sound: Monopoly Politics’ high-confidence projections were over 99% accurate in five of the last six election cycles.

The key takeaway in every edition: Nearly every election year reinforces our original insight that partisanship is the primary determinant of electoral outcomes.

As the advantage of incumbency recedes and crossover representatives are disappearing, voters are retreating into patterns of local partisanship to elect their representatives, regardless of candidates’ experience or name recognition. The result is extreme polarization: In our current system, candidates are rewarded for adopting extreme partisan platforms, particularly in hyper-partisan districts, instead of championing inclusive policies that benefit all and strengthen our society.

Dubious Democracy

A FairVote project issued biannually since 1994, Dubious Democracy provides a comprehensive ranking of the level of competition, rate of voter participation, and voter consensus for winning candidates in congressional elections in all 50 states.

Dubious Democracy provides one clear picture: Although our constitutional framers gave the House of Representatives clear accountability to the American people, that accountability has been rendered all but meaningless by winner-take-all election rules.

Dubious Democracy 2020

Our Dubious Democracy 2020 report highlights the chronic lack of competition in U.S. House elections across the nation and how it damages democratic accountability. Of the most recent round of U.S. House races in the 50 states and Washington, D.C., only one in three races was decided by 10 points or fewer. One in 16 seats were uncontested by a major party. On average, the margin of victory for winners in contested elections was 28 points. While this is a national problem, individual states’ performance on these key measures of democracy and accountability vary greatly.

In addition to individual seats being uncompetitive, election results have also been far from fair. Under a fair, proportional system, a party should earn roughly as many seats as votes cast for them across each state. Nationally, elections met that mark in 2020, with Democrats earning 51% of votes for Congress and also earning 51% of seats. However, this national figure masks troubling trends in many states. States with three or more Representatives had a median partisan skew of 17%. States with large partisan skews include Utah, where Republicans earned 100% of seats but only 61% of votes, and New Jersey, where Democrats earned 83% of seats with only 57% of votes.

We ranked all 50 states on “Voter Voice,” based on their performance on sub-measures including margin of victory, amount of landslide victories, voter turnout, voter consensus for winning candidates, and partisan skew. In higher-ranked states, citizens are more likely to have their voices heard and more likely to make a difference in election outcomes. We also ranked all 50 states on each of these sub-measures. The full dataset is available in this spreadsheet.

As each state is responsible for drawing their own Congressional maps and setting voter eligibility requirements, every state can improve its standing and the health of their democracy.

Nationwide, replacing winner-take-all elections with a system of proportional representation would solve many of the problems that make democracy dubious in so many states. To provide real choices and improve representation, we need to pass the Fair Representation Act and move to multi-member congressional districts with fair elections based on ranked choice voting.

Find tables of state rankings on each of the sub-metrics below.

• Margin of victory
• Landslide victories
• Voter turnout
• Voter consensus
• Partisan skew

See the full dataset here:

Past Dubious Democracy datasets

U.S. Senate vacancies

Our government’s authority is grounded in the power of the people to choose our representatives. No member of the U.S. House of Representatives — “The People’s House” — has ever taken office without an election.

The 17th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution requires all U.S. senators to win election. However, at the same time, it gives governors the power to fill Senate vacancies by appointment. Since passage of the 17th Amendment in 1912, nearly a quarter of all senators who have served were first appointed.

All members of Congress, in both houses, should be solely accountable to the voters of their states and districts — not to an individual (even one elected to public office) with a personal and political agenda. Instead of filling vacancies through shady backroom deals, seats in the U.S. Senate should be filled, in all circumstances, by direct election.

Stay up to date on the news

• No more appointed senators, Baltimore Sun
• Don’t name that senator, The New York Times
• Fumbling toward democracy, The Hill

Read FairVote commentary

• The Senate loses its cool, FairVote
• Blagojevich “tell-all” book shows you can’t play appointment games in U.S. House elections
• Massachusetts should not move to appointed senators

Fair representation interstate compact

Under interstate compacts for fair representation, two (or more) states agree that each will adopt fair representation voting in multi-winner districts if the others do too. States can adopt this innovation to build a fairer and more representative Congress.

The logic is as follows: two states — one controlled by one party and one controlled by another — agree to become fairer together. A Democratic-controlled state whose districts unfairly advantage Democrats, for example, might join a Republican-controlled state whose districts unfairly advantage Republicans. That way, the majority party in each state does not feel as though it is “unilaterally disarming.” Both act together — or not at all.

Although a national standard is the best way to secure fair representation for all, states can promote fair representation now through interstate compacts. If either state repeals or fails to abide by the contract, the other is no longer bound by it.

The Potomac compact

In 2016, lawmakers in Maryland and Virginia introduced legislation that would create an agreement between Maryland and Virginia to elect citizens to a joint independent redistricting commission. This type of reform is what we call “Fair Representation Interstate Compacts.”

Under the Potomac Compact, both states would send citizens to a joint independent redistricting commission. The commission would then implement a joint multi-winner district plan: Two Maryland districts would be created to elect eight members of Congress under RCV or another fair representation method and three Virginia districts would be created to elect 11 members.

Such a plan would allow voters in every part of both states to elect candidates from their preferred major party. RCV would ensure all voters participate in a meaningfully contested election, and outcomes would be far fairer. What’s more, the legislation wouldn’t change the overall partisan impact for either political party, making it a safe political choice in both states.

On March 3, 2016, FairVote testified in Maryland in favor of the Potomac Compact for Fair Representation.

State control over congressional elections

Historically, many states elected members of the U.S. House in at-large or multi-winner districts. These methods are already in use in over 200 cities, counties, and other local jurisdictions. Illinois, for example, elected its state house of representatives with fair representation voting for nearly a century — from 1870 to 1980. Most democratic countries elect their national legislatures in multi-winner elections.

But some states using multi-member congressional districts used winner-take-all voting methods to deny representation to Black voters. In 1967, Congress passed a federal law requiring all states to elect all members of the U.S. House of Representatives in single-winner districts. Although the law was well-intentioned, it locked in a system of single-member districts whereby parties manipulate district lines for political gain.

Congress must, at minimum, repeal this mandate and grant states the right to elect congressional delegations in multi-winner elections. To ease concerns over use of winner-take-all elections to dilute the voting power of political minorities and racial and ethnic communities, Congress must require all states that use multi-winner elections to do so using a fair representation voting method.

The State Choice of Voting Method Act is one such proposal. In addition to  repealing the 1967 single-winner district mandate, it would specify that any state using multi-winner elections must use a voting method that:

• Ensures majority rule and equal voting power.
• Ensures that candidates who receive more than one-third of votes cast in a multi-winner election will be elected.
• Does not violate the Voting Rights Act.

In short, the legislation specifies that states that use multi-winner elections must also use a form of proportional voting instead of winner-take-all elections.

The act draws on a similar bill introduced in 1999 by former Rep. Mel Watt, a Democrat from North Carolina, and co-sponsored by Democratic Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina and ex-GOP Rep. Tom Campbell of California. It received favorable testimony from the U.S. Department of Justice.

To learn more about the State Choice of Voting Method Act, see our one-page policy brief and model statute.