d’Hondting Pennsylvania

This diary attempts to somewhat futilely mash together recent Pennsylvanian federal election data with the d’Hondt method of proportional representation, just for kicks.

Lately Pennsylvanians have been a swingin’ crowd. The House delegation went from a Democratic disadvantage of 7-12 in the 109th to a majority of 11-8 in the 110th, which then hit 12-7 in the 111th before snapping back to 7-12 in the 112th. In the Senate, the same four congresses brought two Republican Senators, a Republican and a Democrat, two Democrats (sort of), and now a Democrat and a Republican again. It’s emotionally exhausting. And now I’m stuck with Tom Marino and Pat Toomey.

After reading about the recent Finnish parliamentary elections, I wondered how their Nordic variety of open party list, highest averages seat allocation would work if applied to a bothersome dummymandered state like Pennsylvania. Thus inspired, I applied the d’Hondt method, which they use in Finland, to the 2008 and 2010 election results. The d’Hondt method metes out seats according to party vote totals across a large jurisdiction — a state, in the US.  There would be no general election districts and no first past the post (FPTP) competitions.

Without districts, Pennsylvania’s parties would nominate a list of 19 candidates. In an open party list system like Finland, the party’s full list is shown on every ballot, and the electorate votes for a specific candidate on the list. That vote counts toward the party as a whole but also the candidate’s ranking on the party list. For this exercise, both parties have conveniently decided to select their list of 19 candidates through regional primaries in jurisdictions that just happen to match up with with the 19 current House districts. Thanks, imaginary parties. An alternative might be statewide primaries with the first-19-past-the post making the list. Of course, the primary campaigns would have been different under such circumstances, but let’s not worry about that just yet.

The 2008 election

In 2008 Democrats won a new seat, with Kathy Dahlkemper taking PA-03. Does the Obama wave wash another seat up on the shore with proportional representation? For now let’s imagine that voters were given a ballot with all of the Democratic and GOP candidates and chose the exact same candidate that they did on actual election day 2008.

Here’s the Democratic party list:


List rank Primary district Total votes Candidate
1 PA-02 276,870 FATTAH, Chaka
2 PA-01 242,799 BRADY, Bob
3 PA-14 242,326 DOYLE, Mike
4 PA-07 209,955 SESTAK, Joe
5 PA-08 197,869 MURPHY, Patrick
6 PA-13 196,868 SCHWARTZ, Allyson
7 PA-17 192,699 HOLDEN, Tim
8 PA-04 186,536 ALTMIRE, Jason
9 PA-06 164,952 ROGGIO, Bob
10 PA-10 160,837 CARNEY, Chris
11 PA-12 155,268 MURTHA, Jack
12 PA-03 146,846 DAHLKEMPER, Kathy
13 PA-11 146,379 KANJORSKI, Paul
14 PA-15 128,333 BENNETT, Sam
15 PA-16 120,193 SLATER, Bruce
16 PA-18 119,661 O’DONNELL, Steve
17 PA-05 112,509 MCCRAKEN, Mark
18 PA-19 109,533 AVILLO, Philip
19 PA-09 98,735 BARR, Tony

Notably, FPTP losing candidate Bob Roggio (who challenged Jim Gerlach) received more votes than FPTP winning candidates Chris Carney, Jack Murtha, Kathy Dahlkemper and Paul Kanjorski. There were quite a few wasted Democrat votes in eastern Pennsylvania. In western Pennsylvania, Murtha won convincingly with 57.9% in his FPTP race but received an underwhelming number of actual votes in his underpopulated district.

Now the Republican party list:


List rank Primary district Vote total Candidate
1 PA-19 218,862 PLATTS, Todd
2 PA-18 213,349 MURPHY, Tim
3 PA-15 181,433 DENT, Charlie
4 PA-06 179,423 GERLACH, Jim
5 PA-09 174,951 SHUSTER, Bill
6 PA-16 170,329 PITTS, Joe
7 PA-05 155,513 THOMPSON, Glenn
8 PA-04 147,411 HART, Melissa
9 PA-08 145,103 MANION, Tom
10 PA-07 142,362 WILLIAMS, Craig
11 PA-03 139,757 ENGLISH, Phil
12 PA-11 137,151 BARLETTA, Lou
13 PA-10 124,681 HACKETT, Chris
14 PA-12 113,120 RUSSELL, William
15 PA-17 109,909 GILHOOLEY, Toni
16 PA-13 108,271 KATS, Marina
17 PA-02 34,466 LANG, Adam
18 PA-01 24,714 MUHAMMAD, Mike
19 PA-14 0 None

In 2008 Republicans didn’t oppose Mike Doyle, which is a bit inconvenient for this exercise, so there are only 18 candidates on their list. The seven Republicans who won their FPTP races in 2008 hold the top seven party list spots. But Melissa Hart, who lost her FPTP contest with 44.1%, is not too far behind Glenn Thompson, who won his with 56.7%. Coincidentally, FPTP opponents Jason Altmire and Melissa Hart both hold the eighth slot on their party lists.

In total, Democratic candidates won 3,209,168 votes, and Republicans received 2,520,805 votes. Third party candidates did not receive enough votes to matter. The seats would be distributed thus:


House seat Allocation value Party Party seat Candidate elected
1 3,209,168 Dem 1 FATTAH, Chaka
2 2,520,805 GOP 1 PLATTS, Todd
3 1,604,584 Dem 2 BRADY, Bob
4 1,260,403 GOP 2 MURPHY, Tim
5 1,069,723 Dem 3 DOYLE, Mike
6 840,268 GOP 3 DENT, Charlie
7 802,292 Dem 4 SESTAK, Joe
8 641,834 Dem 5 MURPHY, Patrick
9 630,201 GOP 4 GERLACH, Jim
10 534,861 Dem 6 SCHWARTZ, Allyson
11 504,161 GOP 5 SHUSTER, Bill
12 458,452 Dem 7 HOLDEN, Tim
13 420,134 GOP 6 PITTS, Joe
14 401,146 Dem 8 ALTMIRE, Jason
15 360,115 GOP 7 THOMPSON, Glenn
16 356,574 Dem 9 ROGGIO, Bob
17 320,917 Dem 10 CARNEY, Chris
18 315,101 GOP 8 HART, Melissa
19 291,742 Dem 11 MURTHA, Jack
20 280,089 GOP 9 None (MANION, Tom)
21 267,431 Dem 12 None (DAHLKEMPER, Kathy)
22 252,081 GOP 10 None (WILLIAMS, Craig)

Democrats win 11-8 rather than 12-7 under FPTP. The Obama wave fails to bring in new seats, and d’Hondt limits Republican losses. Democrats Kathy Dahlkemper and Paul Kanjorski miss out on the seats they won in FPTP, and Democrat Bob Roggio and Republican Melissa Hart take their spots.

As a result, there are no representatives from PA-03 and PA-11, the northwest and the northeast, while there are two each from PA-04 and PA-06, in the Pittsburgh and  Philadelphia suburbs. The FPTP data favor districts with high turnout and close races over modest winning candidates in low turnout and low population districts.

But

Of course, there are several huge and massive and very large flaws with this exercise.

For one, Republicans certainly would have fielded a full party list of 19 candidates, since every vote helps the party. But the Republican list would have needed an additional 104,882 votes for Tom Manion to pass Jack Murtha. The missing Republican in Doyle’s Pittsburgh district was succeeded by a candidate in 2010 who failed to clear 50,000. Even with the increased 2008 presidential turnout, it seems unlikely that a Republican would have won 100,000 votes in central Pittsburgh. (PA-14 representatives went unchallenged in 2000 and 2004, so there’s no good reference.)

It is also unlikely that parties would use geographic primary districts in the first place, at least not in the same configuration as current congressional districts.

But the more glaring issue is that candidates would campaign differently under a proportional system, and many voters would have selected different candidates on their party list or a more palatable candidate from the other list.

Campaigns would probably be centered on media markets. The candidates in PA-01, PA-02, PA-06, PA-07, PA-08 and PA-13 would campaign in “greater Philadelphia” and compete for many of the same votes, while candidates in PA-10 and PA-11 would campaign in “northeast Pennsylvania.” A cursory scan suggests that the only big media market base splits are for the PA-03 and PA-12 candidates. The discrete media market of the Lehigh Valley would be virtually guaranteed a representative.

Without head to head competitions, voters would be free to find their best ideological fit in what might otherwise be a “lesser of two evils” situation. I’m not sure how this would pan out for the Blue Dogs or “moderate” Republicans. Independent voters in PA-11 who supported Lou Barletta over unpopular incumbent Paul Kanjorski would have had other Democratic options like Chris Carney.  

Also, candidates with demographic advantages or clear ideological differentiation could perform better within party lists by grabbing same-party votes from other parts of the state. Schwartz, Dahlkemper and Hart might benefit from the dearth of women on the ballot. Doyle would likely earn progressive votes from Altmire’s district, while Altmire could win more conservative Democrats from Doyle’s district. Similarly, Republicans turned off by Pitts could have switched their votes to a more palatable option like Platts or Gerlach.

There would also be the question of ordering the party list. In the Democratic party, the urban politicians would probably be ranked first, regardless of whether the metric is seniority, primary vote totals or power broker decision-making. On the Republican side I’m less clear who would benefit. But high ballot position would be an advantage.

So, yes, there are huge problems with applying data collected from one type of election to a completely different system. If this method were actually implemented in the 2008 election, I imagine the primaries would have produced a Democratic party list with an eastern urban/suburban bias and a Republican list with at least a couple strong urban candidates — the wealthy businessmen and lawyers who live in cities but aren’t stupid enough to run in Democratic strongholds under FPTP.

An 11-8 party split sounds reasonable in 2008, but the big city/suburban to small city/rural split could approach something like 14-5.

The 2010 election

In 2010 four Democratic incumbents lost and Republicans flipped a Democratic-held open seat. Proportional representation buffered the 2008 Obama wave — what about the 2010 tea tsunami?

Here is the Democratic party list:


List rank Primary district Vote total Candidate
1 PA-02 182,800 FATTAH, Chaka
2 PA-01 149,944 BRADY, Bob
3 PA-14 122,073 DOYLE, Mike
4 PA-07 118,710 SCHWARTZ, Allyson
5 PA-17 118,486 HOLDEN, Tim
6 PA-08 113,547 MURPHY, Patrick
7 PA-04 110,631 ALTMIRE, Jason
8 PA-07 106,536 LENTZ, Bryan
9 PA-06 100,493 TRIVEDI, Manan
10 PA-12 94,056 CRITZ, Mark
11 PA-10 89,846 CARNEY, Chris
12 PA-11 84,618 KANJORSKI, Paul
13 PA-15 79,766 CALLAHAN, John
14 PA-18 78,558 CONNOLLY, John
15 PA-03 77,562 DAHLKEMPER, Kathy
16 PA-16 70,994 HERR, Lois
17 PA-19 53,549 SANDERS, Ryan
18 PA-05 52,375 PIPE, Michael
19 PA-09 52,322 CONNERS, Tom

The Democratic list doesn’t change too much from 2008 to 2010. But FPTP winner Mark Critz brought in fewer votes than the three Philly area candidates who lost their FPTP races, and Kathy Dahlkemper drops down close to “some dude” territory. It’s clear that the Democratic list is powered by the east, where blue votes are squandered in relatively close FPTP losses and massive FPTP wins.

Now for the Republican list:


Seat rank Primary district Votes Candidate
1 PA-19 165,219 PLATTS, Todd
2 PA-18 161,888 MURPHY, Tim
3 PA-09 141,904 SHUSTER, Bill
4 PA-07 137,825 MEEHAN, Patrick
5 PA-16 134,113 PITTS, Joe
6 PA-06 133,770 GERLACH, Jim
7 PA-08 130,759 FITZPATRICK, Mike
8 PA-05 127,427 THOMPSON, Glenn
9 PA-10 110,599 MARINO, Tom
10 PA-15 109,534 DENT, Charlie
11 PA-11 102,179 BARLETTA, Lou
12 PA-04 99,867 ROTHFUS, Ketih
13 PA-17 95,000 ARGALL, Dave
14 PA-13 91,987 ADCOCK, Dee
15 PA-12 91,170 BURNS, Tim
16 PA-03 85,384 KELLY, Mike
17 PA-14 49,997 HALUSZCZAK, Melissa
18 PA-02 21,907 HELLBERG, Rick
19 PA-01 0 None

In 2010 Republicans again fielded only 18 candidates, with Bob Brady getting a free ride. Charlie Dent drops from 3rd on the party list in 2008 to 10th in 2010. I guess he benefited from Obama surge ticket splitters in the Lehigh Valley? Or just less tea fuel in 2010. Patrick Meehan does very well, besting Philly suburb veterans Jim Gerlach and Mike Fitzpatrick.  Mike Kelly, who won a seat in FPTP, occupies the 16th spot on the list, below four FPTP losers. Somehow he got fewer votes than Allyson Schwartz’s opponent. PA-03 really got wiped out in this election.

In total, Democrats won 1,860,644 votes and Republicans won 1,990,529. The third party vote was again not big enough to matter. The seats are allocated thus:


House seat Allocation value Party Party seat Candidate elected
1 1,990,529 GOP 1 PLATTS, Todd
2 1,860,644 Dem 1 FATTAH, Chaka
3 995,265 GOP 2 MURPHY, Tim
4 930,322 Dem 2 BRADY, Bob
5 663,509 GOP 3 SHUSTER, Bill
6 620,214 Dem 3 DOYLE, Mike
7 497,632 GOP 4 MEEHAN, Patrick
8 465,161 Dem 4 SCHWARTZ, Allyson
9 398,105 GOP 5 PITTS, Joe
10 372,128 Dem 5 HOLDEN, Tim
11 331,754 GOP 6 GERLACH, Jim
12 310,107 Dem 6 MURPHY, Patrick
13 284,361 GOP 7 FITZPATRICK, Mike
14 265,806 Dem 7 ALTMIRE, Jason
15 248,361 GOP 8 THOMPSON, Glenn
16 232,581 Dem 8 LENTZ, Bryan
17 221,169 GOP 9 MARINO, Tom
18 206,738 Dem 9 TRIVEDI, Manan
19 199,052 GOP 10 DENT, Charlie
20 186,064 Dem 10 None (CRITZ, Mark)
21 180,957 GOP 11 None (BARLETTA, Lou)
22 169,149 Dem 11 None (CARNEY, Chris)

Republicans win the first seat and alternate with Democrats afterwards, for a close split of 9-10 in favor of the GOP. Proportional representation helps keep down Democratic losses; although four FPTP incumbent Democrats still lose, the party overall does two seats better than under FPTP.  Carney, Kanjorski and Dahlkemper still don’t make the cut, but the fourth candidate out is Critz rather than Patrick Murphy. In fact, Patrick Murphy wins the 12th seat just ahead of the Republican who beat him under FPTP. Lentz and Trivedi, also FPTP losers, win seats as well.

The unlucky Republicans are Lou Barletta and Mike Kelly, while Charlie Dent, who got the 6th seat in 2008, just squeaks by with the 19th seat.

Manan Trivedi wins the 18th seat despite having fewer votes than Charlie Dent or Lou Barletta, the two Republicans immediately below him; the padding provided by competitive lower candidates like Critz, Carney, Kanjorski, Callahan et al was enough to compensate for his  modest vote count. Although Brady lacked an opponent in this election, the Republicans were very far from winning their 11th seat at the expense of the Democrat’s 9th seat.

Following the election of this group of candidates, there are no representatives from PA-03, PA-11, and PA-12 while there are two representatives each from PA-06, PA-07 and PA-08. The west and the northeast seats migrate to the Philly suburbs, basically. It’s worth noting that the threshold for Seat 19 is only 199,053. Several strong Libertarian (or other third party) candidates could plausibly round up enough votes (~10,000 per primary district) to seat one of their own in congress.

Given the flawed data, this system appears to effectively moderate swings and realign geographic representation in Pennsylvania, which is probably what would happen in similar states like Illinois, Ohio and Michigan. Bye bye, Joe Walsh? But then Massachusetts, for example, would have Republican representation, and Democrats could probably win additional seats in South Carolina and Louisiana. Third parties would also have a decent shot at a seat in big states like California and Texas. One unattractive feature for mappers: decennial reapportionment would be as simple as cutting one slot off the list in Pennsylvania. But otherwise it seems like it could be fun.

15 thoughts on “d’Hondting Pennsylvania”

  1. I might take a stab at doing this for a couple of states, or state legislatures, if you don’t mind.

    Of course, the issue with using d’Hondt is that it essentially disadvantages small parties, which is fine under the current system, but using a multi-member system would probably result in the establishment of more parties.

    And then, using Sainte-Laguë would be much fairer.

  2. The only thing I don’t understand is how Patrick Murphy gets the 12th seat while Mike Fitzpatrick gets the 13th, despite beating Murphy by a pretty healthy margin. If Pennsylvania only had 12 seats, Fitzpatrick would have been on the outside looking in despite getting more votes than Murphy.

  3. Seeing Fattah/Brady go from ~520K votes in 2008 to ~330K in 2010 makes me sad.

    I wonder if this sort of system would have had any real tangible impact in 2010.  The mood was so negative for Dem’s I don’t know if turnout could have been improved in Philly really.  I’m still very excited about Murphy for AG though.

    Do you have any idea how this sort of system impacts down-ballot undervotes?  That makes me angriest of all to see hundreds of thousands of under-votes in PA in Presidential years and I just don’t understand it.  For 2012, if you’re coming out to vote Obama, why not just vote straight Democrat down the line…sigh.

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