Mitch McConnell Can't Handle The Truth

Sometimes the truth hurts Mitch, but lying about it won't make it any better.

Listening to NPR this morning I heard Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell repeat the latest Republican Senatorial talking point, that Republican Senators 'represent half the population', never mind the fact that it simply isn't true.

McConnell made the same claim earlier in the week on ABC and James Surowiecki was all over it.
His back of the envelope calculations indicate that Republican Senators actually represent about 37% of the population.

Like Surowiecki said, claiming to represent just over one third of the population just doesn't have the same ring to it, although it would have the ring of truth.

For the hell of it let'd do some math...

So we take all the States and their Senators and their population...
(assuming that Obama is eventually replaced with a Democrat and that Franken remains the winner in MN)
And then we say that each Senator represents one half of the State's population...

State - Senators - Population - Population Represented by Republicans

Alabama - 2 Republican - 4,661,900 - 4,661,900

Alaska - 1 R 1 D - 686,293 - 343,146.5

Arizona - 2 R - 6,500,180 - 6,500,180

Arkansas - 2 D - 2,855,390 - 0

California - 2 D - 36,756,666 - 0

Colorado - 2 D - 4,939,456 - 0

Connecticut - 1 D 1 ID - 3,501,252 - 1,750,626

Delaware - 2 D - 873,092 - 0

Florida - 1 R 1 D - 18,328,340 - 9,164,170

Georgia - 2 R - 9,685,744 - 9,685,744

Hawaii - 2 D - 1,288,198 - 0

Idaho - 2 R - 1,523,816 - 1,523,816

Illinois - 2 D - 12,901,563 - 0

Indiana - 1 D 1 R - 6,376,792 - 3,188,396

Iowa - 1 D 1 R - 3,002,555 - 1,501,277.5

Kansas - 2 R - 2,802,134 - 2,802,134

Kentucky - 2 R - 4,269,245 - 4,269,245

Louisiana - 1 R 1 D - 4,410,796 - 2,205,398

Maine - 2 R - 1,316,456 - 1,316,456

Maryland - 2 D - 5,633,597 - 0

Massachusetts - 2 D - 6,497,967 - 0

Michigan - 2 D - 10,003,422 - 0

Minnesota - 2 D - 5,220,393 - 0

Mississippi - 2 R - 2,938,618 - 2,938,618

Missouri - 1 R 1 D - 5,911,605 - 2,955,802.5

Montana - 2 D - 967,440 - 0

Nebraska - 1 R 1 D - 1,783,432 - 891,716

Nevada - 1 R 1 D - 2,600,167 - 1,300,083.5

New Hampshire - 1 R 1 D - 1,315,809 - 657,904.5

New Jersey - 2 D - 8,682,661 - 0

New Mexico - 2 D - 1,984,356 - 0

New York - 2 D - 19,490,297 - 0

North Carolina - 1 R 1 D - 9,222,414 - 4,611,207

North Dakota - 2 D - 641,481 - 0

Ohio - 1 R 1 D - 11,485,910 - 5,742,955

Oklahoma - 2 R - 3,642,361 - 3,642,361

Oregon - 2 D - 3,790,060 - 0

Pennsylvania - 1 R 1 D - 12,448,279 - 6,224,139.5

Rhode Island - 2 D - 1,050,788 - 0

South Carolina - 2 R - 4,479,800 - 4,479,800

South Dakota - 1 R 1 D - 804,194 - 402,097

Tennessee - 2 R - 6,214,888 - 6,214,888

Texas - 2 R - 24,326,974 - 24,326,974

Utah - 2 R - 2,736,424 - 2,736,424

Vermont - 1 D 1 I - 621,270 - 0

Virginia - 2 D - 7,769,089 - 0

Washington - 2 D - 6,549,224 - 0

West Virginia - 2 D - 1,814,468 - 0

Wisconsin - 2 D - 5,627,967 - 0

Wyoming - 2 R 532,668 - 532,668

50 States - 100 Senators

Total Population: 304,059,724

Population Represented by Republicans: 116,570,127

So 116,570,127 / 304,059,724 = .38337 or 38%

So that scratch math was pretty spot on.

Maybe someone can give Mitch some math pointers...

(Wikipedia had the best Senator list and the Census Bureau provided the population numbers)

(ed. note: that's as pretty as it's gonna get kids, I have a headache from making it look that good and that's pretty bad. Anyone know how to put a table into blogger?)