With all the talk by Virginia Gov Bob McDonnell about fair redistricting, I thought it would be interesting to make a map that is actually fair. However, instead of just doing a congressional map, I did a State House and State Senate map as well. Do to the fact that it is 150 districts, I will not be giving information on each like i usually do. Instead, i just did a count and classified each district. Any district with less than 45% Obama is Safe R, 45-49.9 is Likely R, 50-53.9 is Lean R, 54-56 is Toss-Up, 56.1-59.9 is Lean D, 60-64.9 is Likely D, 65 and up is Safe D.
Arkansas rounds out the first batch (along with Iowa and Louisiana) of states finishing their redistricting tasks, so we've crunched the data to see how the last few elections went in the newly-designed districts. (If you're unfamiliar with the new map, which wound up without the infamous "Fayetteville Finger," you can take a gander here.)
District
Obama #
McCain #
Obama %
McCain %
Beebe %
Keet %
Lincoln %
Boozman %
AR-01
102,670
151,918
39.17
57.96
67.68
30.32
42.29
52.34
AR-02
129,888
157,732
44.29
53.79
66.06
32.28
42.02
53.77
AR-03
85,866
161,902
33.86
63.85
57.84
39.93
26.01
68.32
AR-04
103,886
166,465
37.41
59.95
65.54
32.52
36.49
58.07
Unlike last decade's map (which placed in Arkansas in the company of only Iowa and West Virginia in keeping every county intact), the new Arkansas map splits several counties down the middle, making this a more difficult task than Iowa (and more difficult than Louisiana, which seems to have more useful data). Jeffmd's data crunching involved not only some estimation of how to allocate absentee ballots, but also some approximation of Sebastian County (i.e Fort Smith, now split between the 3rd and 4th) votes, which aren't listed by precinct but rather by polling location, meaning rather tediously mapping the county and pinpointing polling places. (You can check out the full spreadsheet here.)
Despite controlling the redistricting trifecta here (the Gov. plus both legislative chambers), it doesn't seem like Arkansas Dems did much to advance their cause here, leaving the numbers pretty much as is, despite shifting around a lot of counties (especially in the dark-red northwest, where there's now an unsightly bulge of the 4th into the former 3rd). The old districts were 38 Obama/59 McCain in AR-01, 44/54 in AR-02, 34/64 in AR-03, and 39/58 in AR-04... hardly any change at all, although the 1st improved very slightly at the expense of the 4th. If there was any consideration given to either improving Dem chances at picking up the 2nd or strengthening the 4th in the event of a Mike Ross retirement, it didn't pan out.
Last Thursday and Friday were a busy couple of days in the House, with the passage of Paul Ryan's Medicare-eviscerating budget and the defeat of a panoply of other budget options, including Democratic alternatives and a seriously dystopian proposal from the Republican Study Committee (the ideological caucus that once was the House Republicans' extreme-right vanguard but now, with 179 members - including almost all of the freshman class, even the ostensibly moderate ones - pretty much overlaps with the House Republicans as a whole, encompassing nearly three-quarters of them). The week before that came the appropriations vote, which was more or less a vote on whether to keep the government running or shut it down. These particular roll call votes gave some definition to fissures within the Republican caucus that we've instinctively known are there; there's a lot of overlap between the members voting 'yes' on the alternative RSC budget and those voting 'no' on the CR (i.e. voting in favor of a shutdown), providing the basic outline of mainstream vs. teabagger in the House, and also cluing us in on where the multitudes of new GOP freshmen fall on that spectrum.
As you can see with the chart below, the ones voting 'no' on the RSC budget and voting 'yes' on continued government operations are the party's establishment: leadership, Appropriations Committee members, the remaining rump of moderates and assorted other conservatives who still fall into the 'sane' camp, and various swing-district freshmen watching their own backs. The ones voting 'yes' on the RSC budget and 'no' on the CR are, by contrast, the really nasty pieces of work, the ones who tend to get the most media attention for their bomb-throwing comments and don't seem to have much interest in the consequences, given their (mostly) safe districts. There are a few glaring exceptions, and those are the freshmen in Obama districts who seem content to go down with the ship in 2012: Allen West and Joe Walsh... and one very strange third member of the group, in the form of VA-02's Scott Rigell, who seems eager to recast himself after being on the defensive in 2010's primary for having contributed to Obama and other RINO-ish offenses.
The ones in the middle, voting 'yes' on the RSC budget but also 'yes' on the CR, are the ones who in previous decades would have been the House's far-right but are just sort of business-as-usual these days; they tend to make up the RSC's rank-and-file, in favor of total austerity but not outright monkey-wrenching the economy. Maybe the most interesting collection is the ones voting 'no' on both the RSC budget and the CR (in other words, they're against the RSC's every-man-for-himself budget but also in favor of a shutdown). Most of these confused folks seem to be freshmen who are still figuring out their ideological identities in terms of what'll get them re-elected next time (see Chip Cravaack as a main case in point, as well as, say, Robert Hurt and Scott Tipton). However, a few are veterans seeking a promotion -- Dean Heller and Denny Rehberg - and seemingly trying to work an angle, not letting themselves on record as having voted in favor of anything unpopular. (Rehberg, in fact, took this even further, as one of only the four GOPers who voted against the Ryan budget, along with sorta-moderate Walter Jones, vulnerable freshman David McKinley, and Ron Paul, who voted against it from the right.)
R: Republican Study Committee
T: Tea Party Caucus
M: Main Street Partnership
F: Freshman
O: Obama district
Y on CR N on RSC
N on CR N on RSC
Y on CR Y on RSC
N on CR Y on RSC
Aderholt (R, T)
Alexander (R, T)
Barletta (F, O)
Bass (M, 'F,' O)
Benishek (R, F, O)
Berg (R, F)
Biggert (M, O)
Bilbray (R, M, O)
Bilirakis (R, T)
Black (R, T, F)
Bonner (R)
Bono Mack (M, O)
Boustany
Buchanan (R)
Bucshon (R, F)
Camp (R, M, O)
Canseco (R, F, O)
Cantor (R)
Capito (M)
Crawford (R, F)
Crenshaw (T)
Davis (R)
Dent (M, O)
Des Jarlais (R, F)
Diaz-Balart (M)
Dold (M, F, O)
Dreier (M, O)
Duffy (R, F, O)
Ellmers (R, F, O)
Emerson (M)
Farenthold (R, T, F, O)
Fincher (R, T, F)
Fitzpatrick (M, 'F,' O)
Fortenberry (R, M)
Frelinghuysen (M)
Gerlach (M, O)
Gibbs (R, F)
Gibson (R, M, F, O)
Graves (MO) (R)
Griffin (R, F)
Grimm (R, F)
Guthrie (R)
Hanna (R, M, F, O)
Hastings
Hayworth (R, M, F, O)
Heck (F, O)
Herrera (R, F, O)
Hultgren (R, F, O)
Jenkins (R, M, T)
Johnson (OH) (M, F)
Jones
King (NY)
Kinzinger (R, M, F, O)
Latham (O)
La Tourette (M)
Lewis (M)
Lo Biondo (M, O)
Lucas (R)
Luetkemeyer (R, T)
Lungren (R, O)
Marino (F)
McCarthy
McKeon (R)
McKinley (R, M, F)
McMorris Rodgers (R)
Meehan (M, F, O)
Murphy (M)
Noem (R, F)
Nugent (R, T, F)
Nunes
Paulsen (M, O)
Petri (M, O)
Pitts (R)
Platts (M)
Reed (R, M, F)
Renacci (R, M, F)
Rivera (F)
Roby (R, F)
Rogers (AL) (R)
Rogers (KY)
Rogers (MI) (O)
Rooney (R)
Ros-Lehtinen (O)
Roskam (R, O)
Runyan (M, F, O)
Ryan (R, O)
Schilling (R, F, O)
Schock (R, M)
Sensenbrenner
Shuster
Simpson
Smith (NJ)
Stivers (R, M, F, O)
Thompson (R)
Tiberi (M, O)
Turner (R, M)
Upton (M, O)
Walden (M)
Webster (R, F, O)
Whitfield (M)
Wittman (R)
Wolf (M, O)
Womack (R, F)
Young (AK)
Young (FL) (O)
Young (IN) (R, F)
One interesting post-script: the vote on the RSC budget was subject to some last-minute monkey business, as Democrats switched their votes en masse to 'present,' leaving the RSC budget too dangerously close to passage for leadership's tastes. TPM reports that at least four key Republicans switched their votes at the very last second to keep it from passing, although it's still not exactly clear who the switchers were:
After a few minutes of panic and pandemonium, GOP leaders convinced Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier (R-CA), Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), as well as Rep. Mary Bono Mack (R-CA), to switch and save the day.
After initial reports that Connie Mack had also switched were squelched, those later turned to rumors of Buck McKeon as #4. I'm not exactly sure why Dreier, Bono Mack, and McKeon (all in Obama districts that could morph into something even bluer thanks to California's new redistricting commission) were willing to go on record in favor of the RSC budget in the first place; they might be secretly happy to be 'no's at this point.
One other observation: notice who's not anywhere on the list? Dave Reichert, possibly one of the most vulnerable long-time House GOPers in 2012 unless redistricting saves his bacon; he was a non-voter on both bills. It's not clear whether he's ill again, or whether his electoral strategy for 2012 involves hiding under a pile of coats for the next two years. [UPDATE: Several commenters point out that Reichert's mother passed away last week; our condolences to him and his family.]
That's not all! We still have all the Dems to talk about, over the flip...
With the Louisiana redistricting map one of the first to emerge intact from the sausage-making process, it's time to crunch the numbers and see just what kind of districts we wound up with. (Notice that I'm not saying the map is a done deal... the Obama DOJ might still weigh in and shake things up, as they could conceivably push for a second African-American plurality district under the VRA.) Our resident data guru, jeffmd, has sliced and diced the shapefiles on the state House's website, overlaid that onto the VTDs available from the Census Bureau, matched the VTDs to 2008 and 2010 election results available from the Louisiana SoS website, and voila:
District
Obama #
McCain #
Obama %
McCain %
Fayard %
Dardenne %
Melancon %
Vitter %
LA-01
81,515
233,789
25.34
72.68
25.30
74.70
24.89
69.79
LA-02
235,554
81,703
73.36
25.44
73.01
26.99
70.38
24.72
LA-03
111,831
210,951
34.06
64.25
39.36
60.64
31.40
62.55
LA-04
126,899
187,020
39.94
58.86
45.78
54.22
36.29
57.54
LA-05
124,119
209,705
36.69
61.98
40.04
59.96
32.98
60.31
LA-06
103,071
225,094
30.90
67.49
33.04
66.96
32.45
62.02
The full precinct-by-precinct dataset, courtesy of Google Docs, is available here.
If you aren't familiar with the contours of the new map, you can take a look here. In a nutshell, the 1st remains the New Orleans suburbs, the 2nd remains New Orleans proper (although now it reaches into Baton Rouge's African-American neighborhoods as well), the 4th is still centered on Shreveport, the 5th is still Monroe and Alexandria, and the 6th is still centered on Baton Rouge (even if its core is now missing). The big difference is the 3rd, which now mostly occupies what used to be the 7th, across Lake Charles and Lafayette; the old 3rd, in Cajun country south of New Orleans, has been parceled out to the 1st, new 3rd/former 7th, and also the 6th and 2nd.
As you can see, the redistricting result is very, very likely to result in a 5-1 map. The friendliest district for Dems, after the 2nd, is now the Shreveport-based 4th, but even it didn't even see Barack Obama hit 40%. That's not much different from the current setup (where he did hit 40%); the old 6th was the friendliest for Dems, but barely more so (with 41% for Obama).
Greg Giroux has some other interesting tidbits available on how the 3rd district (which is now poised to become a battleground between incumbent GOPers Charles Boustany and Jeff Landry) got neatly dismantled: Boustany represents 575K of the 3rd's residents, while Landry represents only 180K of them, a nearly 3:1 advantage for Boustany. Of the old 3rd, 29% of it wound up in LA-01, 28% in new LA-03, 24% in LA-06, and 18% in LA-02. (The Daily Kingfish has picked up on this, and speculates that Landry might be better off challenging Steve Scalise in the 1st instead.)
With the Census Bureau having released 2010 data for all 435 congressional districts, I started slicing 'n' dicing the data last week, looking at population change in the fastest growing and shrinking districts. Today, as promised, we're moving on to how the racial composition of the congressional districts has changed.
You might remember that I did this same project a year and a half ago based on 2008 estimated data, and that was a good template for today's work, as the lists haven't changed that much. Where the lists have changed, it seems to be more likely because of strange sample issues in 2008 (like the rapid appearance and subsequent disappearance of a big Asian population in NY-06) than rapid changes in the trend over the last two years. As with last time, the most remarkable chart is the one showing biggest declines, percentage-wise in districts' non-Hispanic white populations. (Because this is the key chart, I'm extending this list to 25 places.) As you'll no doubt notice, many of these districts also had some of the biggest moves in the Democratic direction over the years from 2000 to 2008.
District
Rep.
2000 white
2000 total
2000 %
2010 white
2010 total
2010 %
% change
2000 election
2008 election
GA-07
Woodall (R)
476,346
630,511
75.5
486,673
903,191
53.9
- 21.7
31/69
39/60
GA-13
Scott (D)
295,107
629,403
46.9
202,053
784,445
25.8
- 21.1
57/43
71/28
TX-24
Marchant (R)
415,842
651,137
63.9
368,645
792,319
46.5
- 17.3
32/68
44/55
TX-22
Olson (R)
394,651
651,657
60.6
405,645
910,877
44.5
- 16.0
33/67
41/58
FL-19
Deutch (D)
494,890
638,503
77.5
456,060
736,419
61.9
- 15.5
73/27
65/34
CA-25
McKeon (R)
363,792
638,768
57.0
352,189
844,320
41.7
- 15.2
42/56
49/48
FL-20
Wasserman Schultz (D)
426,891
639,795
66.7
358,470
691,727
51.8
- 14.9
69/31
63/36
TX-07
Culberson (R)
439,217
651,682
67.4
411,276
780,611
52.7
- 14.7
31/69
41/58
NV-03
Heck (R)
459,756
665,345
69.1
568,343
1,043,855
54.4
- 14.7
49/48
55/43
TX-10
McCaul (R)
431,992
651,523
66.3
513,811
981,367
52.4
- 13.9
34/67
44/55
IL-03
Lipinski (D)
445,179
653,292
68.1
361,581
663,381
54.5
- 13.6
58/40
64/35
CA-11
McNerney (D)
408,785
639,625
63.9
400,825
796,753
50.3
- 13.6
45/53
54/44
VA-10
Wolf (R)
495,611
643,714
77.0
554,054
869,437
63.7
- 13.3
41/56
53/46
TX-02
Poe (R)
418,476,
651,605
64.2
399,454
782,375
51.1
- 13.2
37/63
40/60
FL-08
Webster (R)
447,266
639,026
70.0
459,529
805,608
57.0
- 13.0
46/54
53/47
CA-41
Lewis (R)
405,790
639,935
63.4
404,103
797,133
50.7
- 12.7
41/56
44/54
FL-12
Ross (R)
461,239
640,096
72.1
500,066
842,199
59.4
- 12.7
45/55
49/50
CA-10
Garamendi (D)
417,008,
638,238
65.3
377,698
714,750
52.8
- 12.5
55/41
65/33
CA-22
McCarthy (R)
426,192
638,514
66.7
432,482
797,084
54.3
- 12.5
33/64
38/60
MD-05
Hoyer (D)
400,668
662,203
60.5
368,667
767,369
48.0
- 12.4
57/41
65/33
NV-01
Berkley (D)
342,987
666,442
51.5
322,853
820,134
39.4
- 12.1
56/41
64/34
CA-13
Stark (D)
244,693
638,708
38.3
174,998
665,318
26.3
- 12.0
67/30
74/24
VA-11
Connelly (D)
430,091
643,582
66.8
434,526
792,095
54.9
- 12.0
45/52
57/42
CA-03
Lungren (R)
474,940
639,374
74.3
488,421
783,317
62.4
- 11.9
41/55
49/49
FL-15
Posey (R)
497,676
639,133
77.9
539,194
813,570
66.3
- 11.6
46/54
48/51
Districts appearing in the 2010 data's top 25 that weren't present in 2008 are VA-10, TX-02, FL-08, CA-41, and NV-01; while the other four are driven mostly by Latino growth, the growth in VA-10 (in Washington DC suburbs, more and more centered on once-exurban, now-suburban Loudoun County) is more Asian. These five replace TX-05, AZ-03, TX-06, TX-03, and NJ-07.
This presents a very different picture than the districts ordered according to the actual raw number of white residents lost. That list starts with GA-13 in first, which fell from 295,107 white residents in 2000 to 202,053 in 2010. This is the southern tier of Atlanta's suburbs and exurbs, which is increasingly becoming a magnet for both Atlanta African-Americans moving outward and northern blacks moving south - in turn driving a lot of white flight, much of which seems to be rearranging itself north of Atlanta, especially in the 9th. The fast-growing 13th is unusual on this list, though; most of the remaining top 10 losers are districts where the overall population is stagnant or going down: MI-12, IL-03, PA-14, OH-10, IN-07, IL-02, CA-13, FL-20, and MO-01. As you'll see in upcoming charts, blacks are replacing whites in MI-12, Hispanics are replacing whites in IL-03 and FL-20, Asians are replacing whites in CA-13, while in PA-14, OH-10, IN-07, IL-02, and MO-01, everyone is leaving, with whites are leaving the fastest.
Dave Bradlee finally managed to sort the obnoxious problems with Oregon's 2010 Census data, which means it's time for me to give my home state a whirl.
Nothing too much has changed, as you can see. It just has pretty lines and definitely preserves communities of interest. Only three counties (Columbia, Josephine, and Lincoln) are split between congressional districts, and none of those three are split between more than two districts.
OR-01 (blue)
Democratic Rep. David Wu, who lives in Multnomah County, is out. Unfortunately, some depopulation along the Oregon Coast means this district is stretching a bit further south to find constituents, which is maybe the only part of this map I'm not thrilled about (for aesthetic reasons). As for the politics, as this is a horse-race elections site: Despite Yamhill County's Republican lean, the great majority of this district's population is in true blue northwestern Oregon. If Wu can be kept out by this redistricting job, state senators Suzanne Bonamici and Mark Hass are probably in line, provided Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian doesn't want the job. The inside scoop is that if Wu's job opens up, he's got first right of refusal. Likely Democratic.
OR-02 (green)
Walden lives in Hood River. Hood River has been moved elsewhere. Even if Walden doesn't move back - and I think the diehard conservatives in eastern Oregon, which is (surprisingly enough) one of the most conservative parts of the entire country, may prefer to send Oregon Senate Minority Leader Ted Ferrioli or Bend-area state senator and ambitious "rising star" Chris Telfer to Congress instead of Walden, a close ally of (the possibly doomed) Speaker Boehner who has taken flak for being a leading member of the quasi-moderate Main Street Partnership - this district is red enough to elect an Oregonian version of Christine O'Donnell without a fuss. Anyway, I felt Hood River County belongs with eastern Multnomah County in terms of communities of interest more than it belongs with the high desert cow counties. Safe Republican.
OR-03 (purple)
Democratic Rep. Earl Blumenauer's district has consolidated all of Multnomah County, taken over Hood River County, and poked up into Columbia County just a tad bit, simultaneously withdrawing from Clackamas County. As for politics: Che Guevara could get elected here by double-digit margins. Walden could run here, but he would get clobbered. Wu could also run here, but he would also get clobbered. Mostly, I just think this district looks nice. Safe Democratic.
OR-04 (red)
One of the enduring mysteries of Congress is the charmed existence of Democratic Rep. Peter DeFazio, a blunt, unabashed, aggressively off-the-reservation left-winger sitting in a light-blue seat. Last year, when conditions seemed perfect for a Republican to potentially upset DeFazio, Republicans in the district nominated certifiable crazy person Art Robinson. DeFazio's final margin was closer than expected, perhaps on account of his taking victory against Robinson pretty much for granted, but it was still fairly convincing. This district hasn't changed much. DeFazio still has the red ball-and-chain that is Linn County tethered to him, but it's easily offset by flaming liberal Benton and Lane counties, both of which are anchored by legendarily left-wing college towns. In terms of actually drawing the map, since I wasn't consulting political data, it was basically just leftover western Oregon and as much of southern Oregon as fit with population limits stretching east from the coast (which turned out to be not much). Likely Democratic.
OR-05 (yellow)
What is there to do about Democratic Rep. Kurt Schrader? Well, one thing to do that would make Clackamas County residents happy would be to give the piece of OR-03 reaching down a little bit into Schrader's home county back to this fairly swingy district. Another thing might be to embark on a registration drive in increasingly Hispanic Salem and its suburbs, but that's not really redistricting's job. Redistricting's job is to preserve communities of interest, and that was my chief consideration here. As a progressive who generally supports Democrats, I'm not honestly worried about Schrader, and this is why: Republicans target OR-05 every cycle, and every time, they do worse than they were expecting. Last year, Schrader was supposed to lose to Scott Bruuuuuuuuuuuuuun (who, yes, still lives in this district). He won by over five points instead. Republicans were supposed to take over the district in 2008 when then-Rep. Darlene Hooley retired. Schrader crushed Hooley's 2006 opponent (who was supposed to beat her then, too) by 16 points. Fun fact: in this D+1 district, Republicans haven't even come as close as five points away since 1994 - the cycle before then-Rep. Jim Bunn lost to Hooley (in 1996) by a margin nearly identical to the margin by which Schrader prevailed last year. For whatever reason, this district is fools' gold for the Oregon Republican Party. But my favorite part of this redrawn district? It consists simply of all of Polk, Marion, and Clackamas counties, and it's just 515 heads over the target population. Sexy. Lean Democratic.
Yesterday I created lists of the biggest gainers and losers among congressional districts over the period of 2000-10, but only hinted at the changes in racial composition that were underlying the overall population changes. A longer post about the racial composition (analogous to this one I did a year and a half ago) changes is in the works, but as part of that I conceived of this table... which really would have worked better with yesterday's piece, so I'm giving it its own home here. It shows the numeric change in each district, broken down by the numeric change among each race in each district.
What should stand out here is that among the 25 biggest gainers, in most of the districts, the combined non-white gains exceeded the (non-Hispanic) white gains. Among the few that didn't, some are districts that are either heavy on retirees (AZ-02, FL-05), some have a large Mormon population (AZ-06, UT-03), with a few a little harder to classify (GA-09 is sort of the exurban white flight receptacle from the rest of the Atlanta area, and ID-01 is a mix of a lot of Mormons and a lot of white flight from southern California). As always, as I've cautioned many times before, these districts aren't an immediate panacea for Democrats and look to stay fairly red for the short term; with most of these districts full of kids (kids who aren't likely to grow up to be Republicans, though!), gains at the ballot box are going to unfold slooooowly.
With the Census Bureau having completed its gradual rollout of data from all the states last week, I've finally gotten around to assembling data from all the various congressional districts into one place. While the actual population gain or loss in each district isn't as important a number, for SSP purposes, as the number of people each district will need to shed or gain as part of the redistricting process (which you can see in the various posts we did as each state's data came out), the overall gain and loss is an important part in the overall picture of where people are moving to and from (and where they're being born). Just the numbers of people moving in or out isn't as helpful as knowing who exactly these people are, and we'll delve a little more deeply into the changing racial compositions of the CDs in the next day or two... but for now, here are the overall population change numbers.
You're probably noticing, "Wow, that's a lot of Republican districts." That's certainly true, but these are also districts that (as we'll see when we talk about changing racial composition), for the most part, aren't becoming more Republican; people tend to bring their values with them rather than undergoing some magical David Brooksian conversion experience once they move in from the city, the inner-ring suburbs, or another country. Some of these districts are ones where much of the gains are Hispanic (like NV-03 or TX-10, or just about any California district on the list); in the case of GA-07, it's becoming more African-American. That isn't to say that these are all on the verge of becoming blue, of course; with much of these districts' non-white populations under 18, it'll be a gradual process. And redistricting is likely to de-diversify at least some of these districts, with some of the closer-in suburban portions of these districts (note that many of these districts are the ones right on the cusp of suburb and exurb) to be given to lower-population urban districts that need to expand outward, with the remaining parts of the districts staying red. (GA-07, again, is a case in point; the innermost parts of Gwinnett County, which are pretty diverse today, probably will need to get added on to underpopulated GA-05, leaving the rest of the district in very Republican-friendly condition.)
You may recall I did this same thing a year and a half ago when the 2008 estimates came out; there's been very little change to the list since then, although with some swapping of places. Despite its position at the absolute epicenter of the housing bubble, NV-03 moved up from 4th to 1st place, past the two Arizona districts and TX-10. Districts that fell out of the top 25 in 2008 include GA-06, TX-03, CO-06, FL-25, IL-14, and FL-06, replaced by VA-10, FL-12, TX-28, TX-23, TX-04, and ID-01.
District
Rep.
2000
2010
Change
NV-03
Heck (R)
665,345
1,043,855
378,510
AZ-02
Franks (R)
641,435
972,839
331,404
AZ-06
Flake (R)
641,360
971,733
330,373
TX-10
McCaul (R)
651,523
981,367
329,844
FL-05
Nugent (R)
639,719
929,533
289,814
CA-45
Bono Mack (R)
638,553
914,209
275,656
GA-07
Woodall (R)
630,511
903,191
272,680
TX-26
Burgess (R)
651,858
915,137
263,279
TX-22
Olson (R)
651,657
910,877
259,220
TX-31
Carter (R)
651,868
902,101
250,233
NC-09
Myrick (R)
619,705
852,377
232,672
VA-10
Wolf (R)
643,714
869,437
225,723
UT-03
Chaffetz (R)
744,545
966,232
221,687
FL-14
Mack (R)
639,298
858,956
219,658
AZ-07
Grijalva (D)
640,996
855,769
214,773
NC-04
Price (D)
619,432
826,878
207,446
CA-44
Calvert (R)
639,008
844,756
205,748
CA-25
McKeon (R)
638,768
844,320
205,552
TX-21
Smith (R)
651,930
856,954
205,024
FL-12
Ross (R)
640,096
842,199
202,103
TX-28
Cuellar (D)
651,259
851,824
200,565
TX-23
Canseco (R)
651,149
847,651
196,502
TX-04
Hall (R)
651,500
846,142
194,642
GA-09
Graves (R)
629,678
823,583
193,905
ID-01
Labrador (R)
648,922
841,930
193,008
And here are the biggest losers, looking every bit as heavily Democratic as the list of gainers is Republican. However, if you go through the list line by line, you'll notice that very few of these districts are even remotely-considered as being on the chopping block. That's partly because many of these are VRA seats, or otherwise set up by Republican legislatures as Democratic vote sinks (PA-14, for example). The most obvious exceptions up for elimination are PA-12, which almost everyone concedes is gone with the wind, OH-10, which is set to get mashed with OH-13, and possibly IL-17, ironically one of the few GOP-held seats on the list (although it might instead wind up getting turned into a significantly bluer district by the now-Dem-controlled Illinois legislature). Instead, as I mentioned earlier, many of these districts are going to wind up reaching out further into the suburbs... in many cases, expanding to follow the same constituents who just moved out of the city (for instance, all the Detroit residents who moved across 8 Mile into MI-12).
Today's the last day of Census data releases, meaning we have the complete set of all 50 states now. The Census Bureau released some data summarizing the entire nation, including what you'd think was the single most important bit of all, considering the way they hyped the announcement: the new population center of the U.S., still in south-central Missouri, but moving 30 miles to the southwest, now near Plato, MO. Perhaps more interestingly, they summarized the country's demographic change as a whole: that starts with the nation's Hispanic population crossing the 50 million mark, now up to almost 17% of the nation's population. Hispanics and Asians both grew at a 43% rate, and people checking "2 or more" races rose at a 32% rate. The non-Hispanic white share of the population fell from 69% to 64%. They also found a country that's more urban than ever before, with 84% of the country living in metropolitan areas now.
I know you're all champing at the bit to find out what happens in Maine, but there's this other state called "New... Something" that we should probably get through first. New York is one of only two states to lose two seats, from 29 down to 27. (Ohio was the other one.) New York's new target is 717,707, up from about 654K in 2000. Thanks to a few hundred votes in a couple of state Senate races that tipped that chamber's balance, the GOP managed to hold on to one leg of the redistricting trifecta, meaning that instead of a shot at a 26-1 Dem map, there's probably just going to be a shared-pain map instead with a GOP loss upstate and a Dem loss in the NYC metro area. That's despite the fact that New York City itself actually grew a bit, to 8.175 million, still by far the nation's largest city. (There are moves afoot toward an independent redistricting commission, but this doesn't seem likely to happen.)
In general, the heaviest losses were in the western part of Upstate, with the state's two biggest losers the Dem-held 27th (Buffalo) and 28th (Rochester). On the other hand, losses also popped up rather patchily in parts of the outer boroughs (especially the 11th in the black parts of Brooklyn... without much seniority, Yvette Clarke may wind up with the shortest straw among the NYC delegation) and Long Island (Peter King's 3rd... which would be a prime target for the 2nd seat to evaporate, if only the Dems controlled the trifecta here). The big gainers were both urban (Jerry Nadler's 8th, probably fueled not so much by growth in Manhattan as among Orthodox families in Borough Park in Brooklyn) and exurban (Nan Hayworth's 19th, at the outermost reaches of the NYC metro area).
While none of the districts in New York seem to be undergoing the kind of rapid demographic transformation that threatens the red/blue balance in any place like we've seen in Texas or California, a few districts are worth looking at just as an indicator of what an interesting tapestry New York City is. Take the 5th for instance (another possibility for wipeout, given its strange position straddling Nassau County and Queens, and Gary Ackerman's non-entity-ness): it's moved from 44% non-Hispanic white, 5% non-Hispanic black, 24% non-Hispanic Asian, and 24% Hispanic, to 36% white, 4% black, 33% Asian, and 26% Hispanic, close to an Asian-plurality, thanks to growth in the Asian community in Flushing. A few districts in New York City are getting whiter, thanks to hipsters and gentrifiers: the 11th moved from 21% white and 58% black to 26% white and 53% black, while the 12th moved from 23% white and 49% Hispanic to 27% white and 45% Hispanic. The Harlem-based 15th went from 16% white, 30% black, and 48% Hispanic, to 21% white, 26% black, and 46% Hispanic, while the remarkably complex, Queens-based 7th went the other direction, from 28% white, 16% black, 13% Asian, and 40% Hispanic to 21% white, 16% black, 16% Asian, and 44% Hispanic.
District
Rep.
Population
Deviation
NY-01
Bishop (D)
705,559
(12,148)
NY-02
Israel (D)
679,893
(37,814)
NY-03
King (R)
645,508
(72,199)
NY-04
McCarthy (D)
663,407
(54,300)
NY-05
Ackerman (D)
670,130
(47,577)
NY-06
Meeks (D)
651,764
(65,943)
NY-07
Crowley (D)
667,632
(50,075)
NY-08
Nadler (D)
713,512
(4,195)
NY-09
Weiner (D)
660,306
(57,401)
NY-10
Towns (D)
677,721
(39,986)
NY-11
Clarke (D)
632,408
(85,299)
NY-12
Velazquez (D)
672,358
(45,349)
NY-13
Grimm (R)
686,525
(31,182)
NY-14
Maloney (D)
652,681
(65,026)
NY-15
Rangel (D)
639,873
(77,834)
NY-16
Serrano (D)
693,819
(23,888)
NY-17
Engel (D)
678,558
(39,149)
NY-18
Lowey (D)
674,825
(42,882)
NY-19
Hayworth (R)
699,959
(17,748)
NY-20
Gibson (R)
683,198
(34,509)
NY-21
Tonko (D)
679,193
(38,514)
NY-22
Hinchey (D)
679,297
(38,410)
NY-23
Owens (D)
664,245
(53,462)
NY-24
Hanna (R)
657,222
(60,485)
NY-25
Buerkle (R)
668,869
(48,838)
NY-26
Vacant
674,804
(42,903)
NY-27
Higgins (D)
629,271
(88,436)
NY-28
Slaughter (D)
611,838
(105,869)
NY-29
Reed (R)
663,727
(53,980)
Total:
19,378,102
Now for the maine event! (Rim shot.) Maine's a lot like Rhode Island and New Hampshire in that the long-standing boundary between its two districts rarely seems to budge much, and this year won't be any different. Maine's target is 664,181, up from 637K in 2000. The disparity of a little more than 4,000 people means things won't change much; the Republicans control the redistricting process this year but there's not a lot of fertile material here for them to try to make swingy ME-02 much redder.
Rhode Island doesn't offer much for redistricting fans to sink their teeth into: it has two districts that are about equally blue, the Dems control the redistricting trifecta, and the disparity between the two districts, while not New Hampshire-close, requires only minimal boundary-shifting. Rhode Island's target is a tiny 526,284 (only up from 524K in 2000... Rhode Island had the smallest growth, percentage-wise, of any state over the decade, putting it 2nd overall behind only Michigan, which actually lost population). If this continues, there's the distinct possibility we could see Rhode Island reduced to one House seat come 2020. Also worth noting: Rhode Island had a lot of Hispanic growth over the decade, not quite on par with the Southwest but high for the Northeast; it went from 8.5% Hispanic to 12.4%, and Providence moved to a Hispanic plurality.
District
Rep.
Population
Deviation
RI-01
Cicilline (D)
519,021
(7,263)
RI-02
Langevin (D)
533,546
7,263
Total:
1,052,567
South Carolina is gaining one seat to move from six to seven; its new target based on 7 seats is 660,766 (it was 668K in 2000, so every district gained significantly over the decade). With the GOP holding the trifecta and much of the growth seeming to come among white retirees, look for the creation of one more Republican-friendly seat... with one possible wild card, that the Obama DOJ might weigh in and push for a second African-American VRA seat (theoretically possible if terribly ugly, as SSP's crack team of freelance mapmakers have shown here). The biggest growth has come in the coastal Low Country, rather than the fiercely evangelical uplands; I'd expect Charleston and Myrtle Beach, both part of SC-01 for now, to wind up each anchoring their own districts.
District
Rep.
Population
Deviation
SC-01
Scott (R)
856,956
196,190
SC-02
Wilson (R)
825,324
164,558
SC-03
Duncan (R)
722,675
61,909
SC-04
Gowdy (R)
770,226
109,460
SC-05
Mulvaney (R)
767,773
107,007
SC-06
Clyburn (D)
682,410
21,644
Total:
4,625,364
West Virginia is staying at three seats for now, although it might be headed for two seats in 2020, given its slow growth and low targets; its target is 617,665, only up from 603K in 2000. The 3rd, in coal country in the southern part of the state, is losing population (though not as fast as one might suspect); the 2nd needs to shed an amount equivalent to what the 3rd needs to gain, leaving the 1st pretty stable. Much of the state's growth is in the far east tip of the Panhandle (in the 2nd), especially Berkeley County, which serves as Washington DC's furthest-out exurbs. Dave Wasserman, who seems to get all the good redistricting-related gossip, says that while the obvious solution (moving Mason County from the 2nd to the 3rd, and calling it a wrap) still seems likely, the Dems who control the redistricting trifecta might want to cobble together a slightly Dem-friendlier 1st along the state's northern boundary that includes both Morgantown and the Panhandle exurbs (the only counties in the state that are getting bluer).
