Over at the Washington Post, Chris Cillizza presents a chart showing the dismal fortunes of the Democratic Party in recent years:
But 2008 was a landslide year for Democrats. Of course they’ll look bad if you start from there. If, instead, you start at 1994—the post-Gingrich era—and eliminate the 2008 results, you get this:1
Neither of these charts is “correct.” What’s more, both show that 2016 was, indeed, a fairly dismal year for Democrats, especially at the state level. Still, it matters where you start. If your starting point is a landslide year, things are automatically going to look bleak. But if you expand your vision to the past two decades, 2016 looks bad, but it’s not an epic disaster.
2016 was a pretty good year for Republicans. But that’s all.
1For the record, I cobbled together these numbers from several sources, and they may be off slightly. But they show the trend accurately.
