Day 29: New Hampshire

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

It's definately trending Dem. Some have said Kerry only won it being from a neighobring state, but to that I say: see 1988.

The 1988 results astound me actually. It voted for Bush by a higher percentage than Idaho!

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

That sounds even crazier. In North Dakota each State House district elects 2 representatives and you have 2 votes, the top 2 win of course. Does that mean you have 13 votes in those districts with 13 reps? And imagine knowing all the candidates.

I like the Minnesota system. Each State Senate district in divided in two, each of those halves elects one State Rep. Simple and works best.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Well not every state has enough state Senators such that twice that number would be a large enough even number that ties between parties would be very unlikely.  Of course there's always the chance of independents holding the ballance of power, but imagine if the partisan balance in the Minnesota state House was 67 Democrats, 66 Republicans and 1 moderate Independent.  The Democrats would have fully half the seats in the Legislature, so it's different than Independents holding the ballance of power and the situation the Republicans would be in, but would not have a majority.  I'm not saying that it couldn't work, but it would be pretty odd.  Has something like that ever happened in Minnesota, btw?

Hasn't yet, but it's not hard to see it happening. Republicans only have a 2 seat majority in the state House now, so the loss of one seat to an Independent or an incumbent leaving the party could create that.