Analysis

FROM PAGE 4 split their ballots essentially 50-50 between Republican and Democratic state House candidates. Yet Republicans won 57 percent of the House seats, claiming 63 seats to the Democrats’ 47. That amounted to an efficiency gap of 10.3 percent favoring Republicans, one of the highest advantages among all states.

Republicans controlled both Michigan legislative chambers and the governor’s office when the maps were redrawn in 2011. The Michigan House redistricting effort was led by thenstate Rep. Pete Lund, who denied gerrymandering districts to favor Republicans. He blamed Democrats for their own losses.

“The Democrats don’t know how to run campaigns; they’re horrible at it,” he said.

In addition to Michigan, the analysis found a significant Republican tilt in South Dakota, Wisconsin and Florida, all of which had a Republican-controlled redistricting process after the 2010 Census.

Democrats had high efficiency gap scores in Colorado and Nevada, two places where they won state House majorities in 2016 even though Republican candidates received This Tuesday, May 9, 2017 photo shows Lisa Brown, Oakland County Clerk and Register of Deeds, in Pontiac, Mich. more total statewide votes. Colorado’s map was drawn by a Democratic-dominated commission that Republicans criticized as “politically vindictive.” Nevada’s districts were decided by a court, but Republicans complained at the time that they appeared more favorable to Democrats.

The AP also calculated efficiency gap scores for U.S. House elections, translating those into estimates of extra seats won because of partisan advantages.

In Pennsylvania, Republicans won 13 of the 18 congressional seats last year, three more than would be expected based on the party’s vote share, according to the AP analysis.

“There’s one answer for that, one word: gerrymander,” said Terry Madonna, director of the Center for Politics and Public Affairs at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

In Texas, Republicans gained nearly four excess congressional seats compared to projections from a typical votes-to-seats ratio, according to the AP’s analysis. The efficiency gap scores show Republicans picked up at least two excess seats each in Michigan and North Carolina.

One of the largest Democratic congressional advantages was in Maryland, where Democrats controlled redistricting.

The national Republican State Leadership Committee, the force behind the party’s surge in state legislative elections, attributes its victories to candidates who better represent their communities.

For Democrats to complain of gerrymandering is “pure nonsense,” said Matt Walter, the Republican committee’s president.

“That’s just a baseless supposition to blame that all on line-drawing,” he said.

AP PHOTO/PAUL SANCYA This Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2015 file photo shows the Pennsylvania Capitol building in Harrisburg, Pa. An Associated Press analysis, using a new statistical method of calculating partisan advantage, finds traditional battlegrounds such as Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Florida and Virginia were among those with significant Republican advantages in their U.S. or state House races in 2016.

AP PHOTO/PAUL SANCYA This Monday, May 8, 2017 photo shows Pete Lund, current Michigan director of Americans for Prosperity and former Republican state House member, in Shelby Township, Mich.

AP PHOTO/PAUL SANCYA