The Six States proposal is a wonk’s brain candy. Everybody knows it’ll never pass, but many can’t resist the “what if?”
Fox and Hounds analyzed how the Six States would alter the political map of California and the U.S. Of particular interest to us is what kind of political animal the state of “Central California” would be.
Surveying senatorial elections back to 2004, they figured Central California, though only narrowly Republican, would have elected Republicans all but once. “The only exception would have been Dianne Feinstein’s reelection bid in 2006, when she would have defeated Richard Mountjoy.”
Surprisingly, though, our Kentucky-sized population of 4.2 million slightly-more-red-then-blue voters would not increase Republican’s presidential chances.
“Why would the Republicans have received so little benefit from breaking up current-California’s Electoral College bulk?” the piece asks. “Because each of the four or five (new) states carried by Obama would have had two additional Senate seats counted in its Electoral College allotment, and those would have roughly offset the small Republican pickup of a single state or two.”
Wonky stuff, as I said. But fun. Read the whole thing here.
