So, I was reading about the event of no candidate getting 270, just in case some New York billionaire decides to run a spoiler campaign, and I learned something new. I'm sure most people here know that the House votes on the President in that case, and he Senate votes on VP. But there were two wrinkles I learned. Firstly, the house is allowed to pick only from the top three electoral vote winners for president, but the Senate can only pick from the top two electoral vote winners for VP. So you could end up with a I/R ticket. Or I/D. But very unlikely an independent VP.
But secondly, and more interestingly, even though the house gets to pick, it is not the case that each representative gets a vote. Rather, each state delegation gets one. So the 25 Texan Rs and and 11 Ds get one vote (obviously for the R) and the California delegation, which is 39-11, would only cast one D vote. Which is the same as the Alaska delegation, which is just one Republican.
So, it's even possible for a candidate to fail to get a majority of voters, fail to get a majority of electors, AND fail to get a majority of the house, yet still become President. The important thing isn't to control the house, but to control each individual state delegation. Now, odds of someone taking advantage of that is low, but it is the new house that gets to choose, not the old one. So, it could happen that the Dem candidate could win despite a Republican house, provided they were savvy enough to make sure that the right Democrats won the right seats in the house.
It'll never happen, but I thought it was interesting. If I knew better which seats are actually up for reelection in the house, I could get an accurate number, but in theory, the Democrats could pick the president despite their candidate not getting a majority in all three stages and they might only have to flip as few as 9 seats.
Again, it's just political fan fiction, but it was a fun distraction.
