Is it fair to say the Republican Party is a party that is undemocratic?

[ProgressiveModerate]

Republicans struggle to win the popular vote nationally on any level.

In the House, they haven't won it outside of wave years in 2010 and 2014, as well as 2016 when there were a lot of uncontested seats. Despite this, they won the House easily in 2012. They would likely have won the House in 2020 had some of their gerrymanders not been resolved in the courts.

In the Senate, Republicans have lost the compiled Senate vote since 2004. The compiled 2016/2018/2020 Senate vote is about D+10, and yet, Democrats only have a bare majority because of a run-off law in GA and a NH Senate race that came down to 1000 votes.

On the Presidential level, they have lost the popular vote in 7/8 last Presidential elections, and yet have won the Presidency 3/8 times. The one time they won it was narrowly in 2004 thanks to a popular incumbent. In 2020, Trump almost won re-election despite losing the popular vote by close to 5 points.

On the state level, Republicans have gerrymandered certain legislatures to the point where they can control supermajorities when they lose the popular vote. In Wisconsin for instance, the tipping point in the legistlature voted more than 20 points to the right of the state. That is not normal.

I understand that we don't live in a direct Democracy, but is this really any better?

It does get me annoyed that a lot of Republicans who talk about "freedom" and "tyrannical governments" are supporting the party that gains so much of their power with minority rule.

In my view, Democrats must pass some sort of redistricting reform while they have the power; force Republicans to actually have to win the most votes to win power, because if they don't, Republicans are going to end up turning against Democracy itself.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Republicans struggle to win the popular vote nationally on any level.

In the House, they haven't won it outside of wave years in 2010 and 2014, as well as 2016 when there were a lot of uncontested seats. Despite this, they won the House easily in 2012. They would likely have won the House in 2020 had some of their gerrymanders not been resolved in the courts.

In the Senate, Republicans have lost the compiled Senate vote since 2004. The compiled 2016/2018/2020 Senate vote is about D+10, and yet, Democrats only have a bare majority because of a run-off law in GA and a NH Senate race that came down to 1000 votes.

On the Presidential level, they have lost the popular vote in 7/8 last Presidential elections, and yet have won the Presidency 3/8 times. The one time they won it was narrowly in 2004 thanks to a popular incumbent. In 2020, Trump almost won re-election despite losing the popular vote by close to 5 points.

On the state level, Republicans have gerrymandered certain legislatures to the point where they can control supermajorities when they lose the popular vote. In Wisconsin for instance, the tipping point in the legistlature voted more than 20 points to the right of the state. That is not normal.

I understand that we don't live in a direct Democracy, but is this really any better?

It does get me annoyed that a lot of Republicans who talk about "freedom" and "tyrannical governments" are supporting the party that gains so much of their power with minority rule.

In my view, Democrats must pass some sort of redistricting reform while they have the power; force Republicans to actually have to win the most votes to win power, because if they don't, Republicans are going to end up turning against Democracy itself.

I won't argue about gerrymandering and what not, but would you consider the current Liberal Party of Canada mandate illegitimate by your standards? Self-packing under FPTP, does not somehow make the winner less democratic.

Honestly, I don't follow Canadian politics enough to say.

I'm not saying that the Republican party is illegitimate, just that they don't try to get a moral mandate of winning the most votes.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Part of the problem is that Democrats' coalition in the past few years has been really inefficient. Hillary got California to swing left by 7 points, and Biden got similar swings from Maryland and Massachusetts. That does jack for them in the Electoral College and Senate. And while Texas may be getting closer, it still has a ways to go before it actually flips.

Their Senate majority in the 113th Congress included Arkansas, Indiana, Louisiana, Missouri, North Dakota and South Dakota. All of these states used to regularly elect Democratic Senators, but are now pretty much out of reach. They need to figure out why that is. And of course, they've continued to fall short in Florida and North Carolina. These states are only light red. If they can hold onto a Senate seat in West Virginia, arguably the Trumpiest state in the country, there's no excuse for losing one in Florida in the same cycle.

They have the same issues in states. In Wisconsin, Democrats are almost entirely packed into Milwaukee and Madison. Maybe I'm wrong, but in a fair map, I feel like it's just not really possible to draw a third Democratic-leaning congressional district.

There isn't any necessary reason aside from tradition why WI-1 taking in bits of Waukesha is better than WI-5 taking in Ozaukee and letting WI-1 take more of Milwaukee County.

Democrats are certainly packed and the alternative configurations would only get tried out for partisan reasons, but if they already existed there wouldn't be an urgent need to change them.

A 3D-5R map is very possible, but it's still hard to get 2 truly D seats out of Madison area without some very creative lines.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Relevant counterpoints - I'm not arguing that Republicans don't have many structural advantages, but the conventional wisdom overrates them somewhat.

1. The pattern doesn't hold at all in gubernatorial elections, where Republicans usually come out ahead in national vote totals. (I believe this is also the case for state legislative elections but can't find a number to confirm.)

2. Recent presidential elections have remained close by historical standards, and some of the GOP disadvantage is a product of their candidates' weak personal popularity. George W. Bush is the only recent Republican nominee to have held a personal favorability advantage over his Democratic opponent. This isn't totally exogenous to the party's popularity, obviously, but it does have some independent relevance.

3. Atlas tells me that the GOP came out ahead in the national Senate vote in 2010, 2014, and 2020. Wikipedia also tells me that Republicans came out ahead in the 2020 Senate vote. (I don't think this is all that meaningful a number, but you seem to have that fact wrong.) In other words, they've come out ahead in exactly half of the last six elections. Arbitrarily writing off two of those because they were "landslides" makes no sense.

4. The House numbers merit some scrutiny:

     Vote share / Seat share (bold means plurality/majority)
2020: 48% / 49% (+1)
2018: 45% / 46% (+1)
2016: 49% / 55% (+6)
2014: 51% / 57% (+6)
2012: 48% / 54% (+6)
2010: 52% / 56% (+4)
2008: 43% / 41% (-2)

This shows that (A) Republicans have a structural advantage in the House, but (B) it is not actually counter majoritarian, and (D) it weakened once Trump came into office. Moreover, it's not as if they're consistently coming out behind in the national aggregate. They've won it with two majorities and an additional plurality since 2010.

All fair counterpoints, but for #3 I was using the compiled Senate PV of the past 3 cycles. When I say the Senate PV for 2012 for instance, that is 2012 + 2010 + 2008, since in individual years, the seats that are up can throw it off balance