By Josh DeLuca, Staff Writer

It has been less than a year since Democrats won the White House, regained control of the Senate, and retained their majority in the House of Representatives. This is not in the distant past, but rather is recent history. Thus, it came as something of a surprise when West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, a Democrat, declared that the United States is a “center – if anything, a little center-right – country.”

One of the things that makes the United States one of the world’s model democracies is the regular transfer of power from one political party to the next. Indeed, while the Democratic Party currently holds the trifecta – control of the White House and both chambers of Congress – it was just four years ago that Republicans had full control of government in Washington. While it is certainly possible for either party to have complete control of government and for power to completely shift hands, in recent history, the modal alignment of the federal government has been a divided government. In fact, the United States government has been unified just seven times in the last forty years and has been divided fourteen times.

Given the frequent changing of hands on the levers of power in Washington, it can be difficult to put a finger on the political pulse of the American people. Indeed, American voters are notoriously fickle and are often hungry to change the status quo, whatever that may be at the time. With such regular turnover in government, how could one possibly define a country as center-right or center-left?

Perhaps surprisingly, control of government is likely not the best indicator of America’s political lean. Republicans’ structural advantages in all three federal offices have been well-documented. In the Senate, this advantage is perhaps most pronounced. Given that all states, regardless of population, have an equal number of Senators, less-populated conservative states tend to give Republicans disproportionate representation in the Senate. In the House, Republican control of state legislatures, and thus power over redistricting, enables them to draw House district lines in ways that are favorable to them, and thus win disproportionately. As for the presidency, the partisan tilt of the electoral college has begun to shift towards Republicans. Today, Democrats need to win 52% of the nationwide vote to have an even chance of winning the electoral college.

Given the nature of these structural advantages, the makeup of the federal government is not equivalent to America’s political median. Indeed, when it comes to winning actual votes, Democrats do better. On the presidential level, Democrats have won the popular vote in seven of the last eight presidential elections. In the Senate, though Democrats and Republicans each have fifty seats at the moment, Democratic Senators currently represent 42 million more Americans than their Republican counterparts. Democrats outpace Republicans in terms of registered voters as well. According to a recent Pew Research Center poll, 49% of registered voters self-identify as Democrats or lean towards the Democratic Party, compared to 44% identifying or leaning towards the Republicans.

However, a person’s place on the political spectrum cannot be measured strictly in terms of the candidates they support. Party affiliation is not necessarily equivalent to one’s political ideology. People vote for candidates for a variety of reasons.  For example, in the 2020 election, many individuals who are at the center right of the political spectrum chose to vote for Democratic candidates, merely because they found the Republican candidates to be distasteful. To get a better understanding of where Americans are on the political spectrum, one must consider the policies that voters support.

Today, liberal policy proposals consistently poll well amongst the American people. Polls show that a majority of Americans support raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour, increasing taxes on the wealthiest 1% , instituting stricter gun control measures, creating a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, and implementing a Medicare for All healthcare law. Clearly, at least conceptually, Americans broadly support a host of policy issues that would be considered left of center.

Yet thanks to structural advantages in our electoral systems, our federal government tends to be disproportionately center-right. By catering to a minority of the American people, Republicans can maintain influence despite pushing less popular policies and receiving less support at the ballot box.

Unfortunately for Democrats, and the American majority which leans to the left, these inherent electoral disadvantages are not going away. In fact, they’re getting worse. For instance, if population trends continue, by 2040, 70% of the American people will be represented by just 30 members of the U.S. Senate. These trends don’t bode well for Democrats’ chances in the electoral college either.

While it is easy to complain about the unfairness of the system, it is not productive to do so. The way Americans elect senators or presidents is not going to change anytime soon.

Thanks to the outreach efforts of Stacey Abrams and others, Democrats have made great strides in helping underrepresented communities realize that their votes can make a difference in terms of representation and have successfully brought new voters into the political process.  Due to the structural inequity of the system, however, these efforts won’t be enough to make sure that the policies most Americans support are brought to fruition. Democrats need to implement a new kind of outreach effort.  This will involve being willing to meet with people who disagree with them to change hearts and minds.