A slim Republican House vote, what it means to be a "moderate," and the church class divide | Links for December 11-17, 2022

Was 2022 really a "decent year" for Republicans?

Happy Saturday, subscribers, and here are your weekend links:

1. The New York Times maps our Republicans’ popular vote “win”

A newsletter from Nate Cohn this week details the geography of the Republican Party’s popular vote victory in the House of Representatives this November. The current tally shows they beat Democrats by about 3 percentage points — 51 percent to 48 percent — or by about 1.6 points if you predict what would have happened in uncontested seats (which you should do). For context, that makes for about a 4 point swing in the (imputed) national popular vote for the House relative to 2020, about half what you get in the average midterm since 1940.

Cohn makes the point that this swing should have resulted in Republicans winning close to 230 House seats, yet they won only 223. And so the mystery: Why? The answer, as I have explained, is that the swing in the popular came disproportionately in uncompetitive seats. Take a look at the map of statewide changes in vote totals per Co…