Merry PVI-mas
Special election reckoning, 2017 redux, disillusioned Democrats, what matters more in 2025, abortion support by state, the mystery of rising right track, ChatGPT's new image model, extreme candidates
No. 356 | April 4th, 2025
🇺🇲 2026
The Cook Political Report has released their 2026 PVI scores.
The average seat now sits at R+1, which is now closer to the nation as a whole. That’s because Republican gerrymanders are down.
Other key takeaways:
Trump won 230 Congressional districts, but House Republicans only won 220 seats.
The number of competitive seats ticked up slightly, largely because very Democratic seats drifted into more competitive territory due to Realignment. (But Republicans haven’t flipped very many of these seats just yet.)
For the first time, the opposite party controls no seat outside of the competitive zone (R+5 or more, or D+5 or more).
Nonpartisan redistricting does make seats more competitive — the 40% of seats drawn this way represent 56% of the competitive House seats.
Republicans fell short in the Wisconsin Supreme Court election and turned in a pair of underperformances in Florida.
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