so what was it about Reagan that killed this plan?

I think you meant '74. In '64, Clinton was 18, and thus not eligible to serve in the House. Plus he was busy with his senior year of high school.

Absent any figures, I would guess 1978 is when the Republicans gained the financial upper hand and it made strategic sense to concentrate resources on perceived swing districts.

This election, it's awesome to see the GOP on the defensive, and the Dems doing awesome things like attacking in WY-AL and AZ-Sen unexpectedly.

I never believed in Rove's super secret polling showing a Republican hold of the house.  If he had such data, he would release it to shore up morale if nothing else.  

I think this is a very interesting analysis and shows it is important to file in every seat.  However, it ignores some extremely important demographic and political factors that allowed the Dems to hold the House for all those years and have undermined our ability to get it back.

1 - The political terrain for most of that time was very friendly to Dems.  When the Rs under Eisenhower finally accepted the New Deal (at least temporarily), the political gravity of the country was left of center just as it is right of center today.  This didn't really change until the election of Reagan.  Nixon and Ford both supported New Deal/Great Society programs on the domestic front.

2 - It ignores the population shifts of the last 40-50 years from the labor oriented and more progressive NE and Midwest to the South, Southwest and West which are generally more conservative.  After the 1960 census, NY had 41 House seats, PA had 27 House seats, IL had 24 seats.  After the 2000 census, NY had 29 House seats, PA 19 seats and IL 19 seats.  That is a 25 seat loss - more than enough to change control of the House - in 3 states that tend Democratic.

3 - The population being in largely Democratic states with Dem Govs and Dem legislatures allowed the drawing of districts favorable to Dems.  See the 1982 CA map drawn by Phil Burton which gave CA far more Dem House seats than it should have had based on registration and voting patterns.  This is not unlike the last 2 censuses which have resulted in districts much more favorable to the Rs due to the same factors.

4 - The South shifted from largely D to largely R.

These are huge factors which must be looked at to understand why the Dems were able to hold the House for 40 years.  Filing in as many districts as possible is important but you can't take those numbers in a vacuum.  There were other things going on.

The range of percentage wins based on the above data is 49.9 in '52 (Eisenhower) to 68.1 in '76 (post-Watergate).

Taking the low yields a win this year of 212 seats. Not enough. But I think we can all agree this is not an 'Eisenhower' year.

Taking the high, one would predict a win this year of 289 seats. Hmmm. Possible, but this is not a Watergate year, either. It should be, but it's not.

Taking the mean (average) percentage win of 59.8 would yield this year 254 seats. Double hmmm. Statistically speaking, it's entirely doable based on the data above.

So, factor in the above data, and then factor OUT the issue that in other than a 'crisis' year for Democrats ('52, '54, e.g. Eisenhower, and '66, '68, '70, e.g., Vietnam) you have an average win percent of 62.5. That would yield 265 seats.

Throw in a subjective statistical qualifier of: a) Beltway campaigns suck and we're not going to win all the numerous tight races because they suck and b) redistricting has calcified to some degree House turnover, and you might get something like this: (-.15) * (.625)=.531, or 226 seats.

Thus, playing around with the data a bit yields a predicted gain of 25 to 64 seats, or 226 to 265 seats. Dems have 201 now. I tend to go for the midpoint of that range at 244-245.

A couple of findings from this: a) As you say, the 50 State Strategy PAYS OFF. Hello, Dr. Dean! Luv ya! And b) that was fun! Thanks for the post!

I believe DEMs have long been betrayed by their consultants. When they changed their strategy to only contest "significant" seats that was a hardworking strategy for failure. I also think that Clinton was chosen not that they thought he'd win (with all that "flowers" bagage?) but that he would lose. In fact, Dems were running away from running back then. Nobody wanted to challenge the "victorious" gulf war president

Emanuel and Tauscher are two others of that ilk. They want central control of the party... Well, it's our party and we'll control it if we want to!

BTW: our greatest sin was not giving Jerry Lewis (R-CAruption) a challenger.

It's easy to say what happened in the late 1970's. Read Sidney Blumenthal's "Permanent Campaign", because that's when the role of the modern day media consultant became solidified.

And thank you David for doing this research.

No the problem was that the people that would have run bolted the party in the 80's. The the democratic party slowly became more or less a city party, as the other areas in the district became larger and larger. So no one in their right mind that thought about it ran an example of this was the Pa 19th district where there where a litany of  under funded more or less joke candidates between 1974 and 1994 then a close race then a number of joke races and then no one running for years. Viable candidates won't win if they don't think they have a chance to win. Running in a large number of districts is good at long as we preform in them.  Because of the Dccc's stupid funding strategies it's likely we may not see this level of people running again. A lot of the candidates are disgusted because of the lack of support they have gotten from the their local parties and especially the dccc. The Dccc is more or less looting their local donor bases and then telling them well we can't give you money because you can't raise anything so your not viable.

Great data!

However, just because the data is correlated, doesn't mean that there's a causal link.  No doubt that it helps to run in all 435 districts, but it seems to me that it's more an indicator of an enthusiastic base.

Here's to another 40 years of a Democratic congress (or until IRV lets the third-party candidates no longer act as a spoiler candidate, and we start having progressive coalition governments).

Your case seems a bit incomplete.

A table showing post-1978 filing numbers and seats held, showing low numbers and low victories, and then a graph, would help.

I do not blame you for not doing a graph.

The Democratic congressman from Wyoming was named Teno Roncalio, not Reno Tencalio.  He was a real Democratic hero - one of nine children of Italian immigrants (who changed their last name from Roncaglio), raised in a coal mining town with all that pedigree implies, he served in WWII and then put himself through law school.  In the midst of his on-again, off-again House career, he nearly won a Senate seat in the forbidding climate of 1966.

He died in 2003.  I can think of no better tribute than to elect Gary Trauner next week!