No, Simplicio means Orange politicians. All districts are ‘safe,’ in that the majority party in the district is likely to win. But the orange districts are extremely safe—so much so that one expects the orange politicians to become out of touch with their voters. The theory is that competition is what forces politicians to actual pay attention to what voters care about, and to steal issues from other politicians that might be generally popular.
Like ChristianKl points out, this mostly ignores primaries, but note that even in primaries the Orange politicians only really need to care about internecine Orange issues, rather than developing a nationally relevant platform. If they have the power to knock potential contenders out of the Orange party, this means they they can route around the voters entirely. (Attempts by the Greens to do this in 55% Green districts would lead to a Green loss.)
No, Simplicio means Orange politicians. All districts are ‘safe,’ in that the majority party in the district is likely to win. But the orange districts are extremely safe—so much so that one expects the orange politicians to become out of touch with their voters. The theory is that competition is what forces politicians to actual pay attention to what voters care about, and to steal issues from other politicians that might be generally popular.
Like ChristianKl points out, this mostly ignores primaries, but note that even in primaries the Orange politicians only really need to care about internecine Orange issues, rather than developing a nationally relevant platform. If they have the power to knock potential contenders out of the Orange party, this means they they can route around the voters entirely. (Attempts by the Greens to do this in 55% Green districts would lead to a Green loss.)