Democrats failed in VA redistricting efforts and progressives are alarmed. Theoretically, map structure may favor Republicans. In practice, Republicans are down three seats.

One of the more annoying habits in American political commentary is the way “democracy” becomes a synonym for “Democrats winning.”

If Republicans redraw congressional maps, we are told the republic is in danger. If Democrats redraw congressional maps, it is usually presented as reform, fairness, representation, or some grand act of civic hygiene. The moral vocabulary shifts depending on who is holding the pen.

But when you look at the 2024 House results in the most basic apples-to-apples way — House votes versus House seats — something interesting appears.

Republicans are not overrepresented in the House.

They are slightly underrepresented.

In 2024, Republican House candidates received about 51.3 percent of the two-party House vote. Democrats received about 48.7 percent. In a purely proportional system, that would work out to roughly 223 Republican seats and 212 Democratic seats.

The actual result was 220 Republicans and 215 Democrats.

So, in practice, Republicans came out about three seats short of what their national House vote would suggest. Democrats came out about three seats ahead.

This does not fit the standard story. The standard story says Republicans are the great beneficiaries of gerrymandering and structural unfairness, while Democrats are the permanent victims of a broken system.

Republicans do benefit from favorable maps in several large red states. They also benefit from the fact that Democratic voters are heavily clustered in cities, which can make it harder for Democrats to translate votes into seats.

But the actual 2024 result was not some wild Republican theft of representation. It was the opposite, at least by the simplest national vote-to-seat measure.

Republicans got more House votes. Republicans won the House. But they did not win as many seats as a proportional system would have given them.

That does not mean every Republican complaint is automatically correct. It also does not mean Democrats never have a legitimate complaint about gerrymandering. They sometimes do. There are red states where Democratic voters are badly underrepresented. Iowa is a good example. Democrats can get more than 40 percent of the vote and still come away with zero House seats. That is frustrating, and it is not hard to understand why Democratic voters in those states feel erased.

But the same thing happens to Republicans in blue states, and somehow we are not supposed to notice.

Look at states like Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Mexico, New Hampshire, Maine, Hawaii, Delaware, and Vermont. In many of these places, Republicans represent a third, 40 percent, or even close to half of the electorate in presidential voting terms. Yet they often receive zero congressional seats.

Then there are the “generous” blue states where Republicans are allowed a token presence. California gave Republicans 9 of 52 House seats. Illinois gave them 3 of 17. New York gave them 7 of 26. Maryland gave them 1 of 8. New Jersey gave them 3 of 12. Oregon gave them 1 of 6.

Some of this is mapmaking. Some of it is political geography. Some of it is candidate recruitment. Some of it is the natural cruelty of single-member districts. If you lose every district 53–47, you get zero seats, even if nearly half the voters preferred your party.

But that is exactly the point. The House is not a proportional system. It is a district system. And both parties are capable of using that system to their advantage.

The difference is that only one side gets accused of threatening democracy for doing it.

When Democrats are underrepresented in red states, we get solemn essays about voter suppression, unfair maps, and the silencing of communities. When Republicans are underrepresented in blue states, the silence is much louder. Those voters are treated as if they do not quite count. They live in the wrong states. They vote the wrong way. Their lack of representation is accepted as the natural order of things.

This is especially rich when Democrats lecture Republicans about “minority rule.” What do you call it when 40 or 45 percent of a state’s voters get no representation in Congress? If the answer is “democracy” in Massachusetts but “gerrymandering” in Texas, then we are not having a serious conversation. We are just sorting facts by party.

The honest answer is that America’s congressional system creates distortions. Sometimes those distortions help Republicans. Sometimes they help Democrats. In 2024, once the votes were actually cast, Republicans were not overpaid in seats. They were shorted by about three.

That does not mean Republicans should stop fighting bad maps. It means they should stop accepting the premise that Democrats are the only party with a grievance.

Republican voters exist in blue states. They pay taxes. They raise families. They serve in the military. They run businesses. They sit in traffic, coach Little League, and worry about crime and schools like everyone else. They are not imaginary simply because their states are run by Democrats.

If Democrats want to have a conversation about fair representation, fine. Let’s have it.

But it has to include Massachusetts. It has to include California. It has to include Illinois and New York. It has to include the millions of Republican voters who are treated as politically invisible.

Because as of 2024, the clean national number is simple:

Republicans won the House vote.

Republicans won the House.

And Republicans still came out about three seats short.

(Contributing writer, Brooke Bell)