FL, GA, and KY: Population by CD

Florida was one of the nation’s biggest gainers, both in terms of overall numbers (18,801,310, up from 15,982,378 in 2000) and House seats (up two from 25 to 27, making it the only state besides Texas to gain more than one seat). Florida’s new target is 696,345, up from 639K in 2000.

Most of the state’s gains come in what’s called the I-4 corridor, reaching from Tampa Bay through Orlando over to Daytona Beach and down the Space Coast. (Of course, that’s not consistent from district to district; the only district in the state that lost outright population is FL-10 in St. Petersburg, and Tampa’s FL-11 will also need to gain voters.) FL-05, centered in Pasco and Hernando Counties north of Tampa, is now one of the largest districts in the nation, in fact. Both of the new districts seem likely to be centered somewhere in the I-4 corridor, although there was enough growth in the Miami area that it will need to expand a little, too, shifting in-between districts like the 13th and 16th a step to the north. (Miami area growth was concentrated in FL-25 in Miami’s westernmost suburbs; the rest of south Florida, especially the Gold Coast, seemed pretty stable). Despite the GOP-held trifecta, predicting the final map right now is a bit of a fool’s errand, though, considering that the effect of Florida’s Fair Districts initiatives will probably need to be filtered through the courts and the DOJ.

Florida, as you’d expect, is one of the states showing large-scale Hispanic growth. That’s not as clear-cut in the Democrats’ favor as it is in other states, in that it has a large Cuban community, although that’s largely limited to the Miami area and Cubans are becoming a smaller percentage of the total Hispanic community even there. Hispanic growth in central Florida tends to be Puerto Rican and Central American. The state as a whole moved from 65% non-Hispanic white, 14% non-Hispanic black, and 17% Hispanic in 2000 to 58% white, 15% black, and 22% Hispanic in 2010. While the most heavily Hispanic districts, naturally, remain the three Cuban districts in the Miami area, most of the biggest increases in Hispanic percentage have come in central Florida. In particular, see FL-08 (18% Hispanic in 2000, 26% Hispanic in 2010), FL-11 (20% Hispanic in 2000, 28% Hispanic in 2010), and FL-12 (12% Hispanic in 2000, 21% in 2010). Could we see one of the new districts be a Hispanic-majority VRA district that joins Tampa, Lakeland, and Orlando? The biggest Hispanic percentage increase might surprise you, though: Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s FL-20, which went from 21% to 31%, apparently based on a lot of Cuban movement to the suburbs further north).

Georgia is gaining one seat, from 13 to 14, and with that in mind, its new target is 691,975 (up from 630K in 2000). Pretty much all decade, those in the know have been expecting Georgia’s 14th seat to fall in Atlanta’s northern tier of suburbs, where the state’s fastest growth has been in distant exurban (and virulently red) counties like Cherokee and Forsyth. The new data basically confirms that, with the heaviest gains in suburban/exurban GA-07 (worth noting: Newt Gingrich’s old stomping grounds, Gwinnett County, is now the state’s 2nd largest county, having shot past Cobb and DeKalb Counties) and GA-09.

Perhaps most surprising is the deep deficit in GA-02, the VRA district in the state’s rural South; there had been discussion of it reaching up to take in central Macon in order to make GA-08 safer for its new Republican occupant Austin Scott, and that seems even likelier now, given that may be the only way for it to retain an African-American majority. The two VRA districts in Atlanta will also need to expand outward, but third black-majority seat in the ATL area, the suburban 13th, has plenty of population to spare.

The changes in Kentucky are much less dramatic, which stays at six seats, has seen little change in its racial composition, and which probably won’t even see much movement of its current boundaries. Its current target is 723,228, up from 673K in 2000. As in many states, the truly rural districts (in this case, the west Kentucky KY-01 and Appalachian KY-05) were stagnant, and will need to gain population from districts with exurban populations (KY-02, which includes Louisville’s southernmost ‘xurbs, and KY-06, centered on Lexington).