The Senate's Representational Imbalance (2019 Edition)

Now that Cindy Hyde-Smith has, equally expected, won the run-off election to serve the lastly ii years of Thad Cochran's term equally Senator from Mississippi (Cochran retired), nosotros know that Republicans volition induce got a 53-47 payoff inward the 116th Congress commencement inward January.

What per centum of the the US population volition those 53 incoming GOP Senators represent, if nosotros assume the Senators from a detail acre stand upwards for the residents of that state?

Nineteen states, with a full of some 144,461,202 residents (based on 2018 estimates), volition live represented past times ii Democratic Senators (if nosotros count King as well as Sanders with them).

Twenty-two states, with some 130,126,870 residents, volition live represented past times ii Republican Senators.

And the nine states with split upwards delegations, i.e., with 1 Senator from each party--PA, OH, AZ, WI, CO, AL, WV, ME, MT (in lodge of population)--have a full of some 52,240,741 residents.

If nosotros allocate the residents inward those nine "split delegation" states evenly--if nosotros assume, that is, the somewhat unsmooth fiction that one-half of the residents are represented past times Democratic Senators, as well as one-half past times Republicans--then the 53 Republican Senators inward the novel Senate bulk volition stand upwards for alone 47.8 percent of the population of the 50 states.  And that reveal doesn't fifty-fifty accept describe organisation human relationship of the some 4.4 1 thou m residents of D.C. as well as the territories, who presumably would vote overwhelmingly for Democratic Senators, given the hazard (although it's possible that the Puerto Rican electorate might, over time, select some Senators who would caucus with Republicans).  If nosotros accounted for them, the per centum of the US residents represented past times the 53 GOP Senators would probable live closer to 46 percent.  And, importantly, it volition live a remarkably unified majority, 1 that conforms inward most every example to the wishes of the Majority Leader.

To live sure, this 5 to vii percent "representational imbalance" isn't a huge discrepancy inward absolute terms--nowhere fifty-fifty unopen to back inward early on October.)

On the broader inquiry of whether the representational imbalance inward the Senate is justifiable and/or lamentable, I highly recommend (i) this really interesting recent post past times Mike Dorf inward which he concludes that although "the Senate is a problem, . . . it is non a work that systematically disfavors Democrats, except inward the curt run"; (ii) Richard Primus's response to Primus, "A Tentative Burkean Defense of Something Like the Senate"; as well as (iv) Primus's sur-reply.