… The presidential voting pattern of a district has become a very strong predictor of how it will vote in House elections. That’s why you’ll consistently hear folks like myself cite the presidential voting patterns and pretty much only the presidential voting patterns of a district to help explain why it votes the way it does.
The only problem with what analysts are doing is that it’s probably wrong, as FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver pointed out last week. Although politics have become more presidential, local voting patterns still give us additional information about a district’s partisanship. CONT.
Harry Enten, CNN