Today and yesterday's Census data dump is of three states that didn't gain or lose seats but will need some internal adjustment to reflect population movement from the cities and the rural areas to the suburbs: Minnesota, New Mexico, and Tennessee. (It also included three states with at-large seats that we won't need to discuss: Alaska, Montana, and North Dakota.)
Minnesota barely made the cut for retaining its eighth seat (13,000 fewer people statewide and it would have lost it), which you can see in its very low new target: 662,991 per district. (That's up from about 615K in 2000.) Despite the fact that Michele Bachmann lives there, people keep pouring into MN-06 in the outer-ring suburbs and exurbs to the north, west, and east of the Twin Cities. Only it and MN-02, taking in the southern suburbs/exurbs, will need to shed population, giving part to the rural 1st and 7th, and part to the urban 4th and 5th (and suburban-but-boxed-in 3rd). With split redistricting control, look for the parties, if they're able to agree, to settle on incumbent protection.
Talk of moving the college town of St. Cloud, currently in MN-06, into MN-08 (which would enable Tarryl Clark to run there) may be premature, as MN-08 gained enough population that it can remain about the same. In fact, the fact that it did so may say a lot about last year's election; the 8th's growth has been happening at its southern end, where the MSP exurbs begin and where new Rep. Chip Cravaack hails from, and the population growth in this area has outpaced losses in the dark-blue Iron Range to the north, Jim Oberstar's traditional turf.
District
Rep.
Population
Deviation
MN-01
Walz (D)
644,787
(18,204)
MN-02
Kline (R)
732,515
69,524
MN-03
Paulsen (R)
650,185
(12,806)
MN-04
McCollum (D)
614,624
(48,367)
MN-05
Ellison (D)
616,482
(46,509)
MN-06
Bachmann (R)
759,478
96,487
MN-07
Peterson (D)
625,512
(37,479)
MN-08
Cravaack (R)
660,342
(2,649)
Total:
5,303,925
New Mexico's target is 686,393, based on staying at three seats (up from 606K in 2000). Not much change needs to happen between the districts; the largely rural NM-02 will need to gain some population, probably from the southern suburbs of Albuquerque in NM-01. New Mexico has become appreciably more Hispanic over the last decade, though maybe not as dramatically as the other three border states (California, Arizona, and Texas), moving as a state from 45% non-Hispanic white and 42% Hispanic in 2000 to 40% non-Hispanic white and 46% Hispanic in 2010. That means that, since 2000, it has become the first state with a Hispanic plurality. The movement was fairly consistent among districts, with the 1st going from 42% to 48% Hispanic, the 2nd going from 47% to 52% Hispanic, and the 3rd going from 36% to 39% Hispanic (the 3rd, though, is the least-white of the three districts, thanks to an 18% Native American population, which stayed consistent over the decade).
District
Rep.
Population
Deviation
NM-01
Heinrich (D)
701,939
15,546
NM-02
Pearce (R)
663,956
(22,437)
NM-03
Lujan (D)
693,284
6,891
Total:
2,059,179
Tennessee stays comfortably at nine seats, and its new target is 705,122 (up from 632K in 2000). It, like Minnesota, has seen a big population shift from cities and rural areas to suburbs and exurbs, as seen in the huge growth in the 6th (which half-circles Nashville on the east) and the 7th (a thin gerrymander that hooks up Nashville's southern suburbs with Memphis's eastern suburbs). In particular, western Tennessee, both in the city (TN-09) and the rural areas (TN-08) were hard-hit, with the 8th barely gaining and the 9th outright losing population. The GOP controls the redistricting process for the first time here, but with them up 7-2 in the current House delegation (and with Memphis unfixably blue), look for them to lock in current gains rather than getting aggressive with TN-05 (seeing as how Nashville could be cracked into multiple light-red urban/suburban districts, although that has 'dummymander' written all over it).
At first glance, the GOP appears to be doing as well as it can in TN. They control the governor's mansion, state leg, both senate seats, and every house seat outside of the two in Memphis and Nashville. But the seemingly ironclad Democratic stronghold of Nashville is actually possible for the GOP to crack. TN-05, which encompasses the city, has a PVI of D+3, which is low enough that it can be split among the heavily Republican precincts surrounding Nashville without doing too much damage to the GOP reps in those districts. And TN-05 is also 70% white, so the VRA does not provide an obstacle. I have attempted to draw a map that successfully cracks Nashville, giving the GOP 8 reps, without weakening the surrounding districts (especially the 8th, held by potentially vulnerable freshman Stephen Fincher, aka the gospel singer from Frog Jump).
Under the Wyoming Rule, Tennessee would increase its share of districts to an impressive round dozen. But while the Volunteer State was once a swing state, it has become solidly Republican, at least for the time being. It remains unclear whether the wing of the party represented by the relatively moderate Sen. Corker or the wing of the party represented by Lt. Gov. Ramsey, who called Islam a "cult" during the primary campaign, will win in the battle for the soul of the Tennessee Republican Party, and whether the victor may determine where the fickle electorate lurches next.
As it rests now, though, Tennessee Republicans could force a 9-3 map under Wyoming Rule redistricting, and the only reason why they could not draw a 10-2 map is the Voting Rights Act.
TN-01 (safe Republican)
Rep. Phil Roe's district just loses a few counties.
TN-02 (likely Republican)
Rep. Jimmy Duncan's district is now consolidated around Knoxville.
TN-03 (safe Republican)
Rep.-elect Charles Fleischmann gets a nice safe district that looks a lot less disgusting than outgoing Rep. Zach Wamp's current oddly shaped district.
TN-04 (safe Republican)
No longer Rep.-elect Scott DesJarlais's district, this Republican-friendly open seat is leftovers from the first three.
TN-05 (safe Republican)
A partial successor to Rep.-elect Diane Black's TN-07, this district contains her Gallatin residence and is thus her seat, for all intents and purposes. It has nothing to do with the safe Democratic district in Nashville, represented by Rep. Jim Cooper. On the contrary, this seat is safe Republican.
TN-06 (safe Republican)
Just as the previous district provided a natural home for Rep.-elect Black, DesJarlais's gutted TN-04 is effectively replaced by this smaller district. Middle Tennessee is fertile ground for Republicans, and DesJarlais should be fine here.
TN-07 (likely Republican)
This district, which contains the home of outgoing Democratic Rep. Bart Gordon, is an open seat that leans Republican due to the territory. If Gordon runs, he might be able to win it, but it's pretty conservative territory for the most part.
TN-08 (safe Democratic)
Team Blue finally gets on the board, with this successor to Cooper's TN-05 solidly Democratic with its territory nibbled down to the center of Davidson County.
TN-09 (likely Republican)
With Democratic Rep. David Tanner history, Republican Rep. Marsha Blackburn (currently of TN-07) gets a less stupid-looking district. She should be established enough to win even though it includes a bit more of Democratic-leaning Davidson County than before.
TN-10 (safe Republican)
This western district, which includes pieces of the current TN-07 and much of the current TN-08, is an open seat that any Republican should be able to win.
TN-11 (safe Democratic)
As VRA districts go, these aren't very stringent. This partial successor to TN-09, represented by Democratic Rep. Steve Cohen, is 51% African American, 41% white. I don't know if Cohen lives here, but it should be safe for Democrats.
TN-12 (likely Democratic)
I screwed over Rep.-elect Stephen Fincher, who looks like a liability for the GOP in Tennessee right now anyway, and plopped him into a coalition VRA district, which is 47% white, 46% African American, and 100% problematic for Republicans. Sen. John McCain of Arizona carried Tipton County in 2008, but only won Lauderdale County by a few points, while then-Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois won big in Shelby and Haywood counties. Fincher could win it with a great campaign, but he doesn't seem to run great campaigns.
Thoughts, either on the map or on the Wyoming Rule?
FL-Gov (R) - (yes!!!!!!)
FL-Sen (D) - Meek v. Greene
FL-12, 25 (R) - open seats
FL-02, 08, 22, 24 (R)
FL-02 (D) - challenge to a Blue Dog from the left, v4.1
FL-17 (D) - Meek's open seat
AK-Gov (R) - Parnell and the ghost of Palin?
AK-Sen (R) - Murkowski v. Palin proxy
8/28:
LA-Sen (R) - Vitter v. Traylor
LA-02 (D) - Lafonta v. Richmond
LA-03 (R)
Somewhat surprisingly, to me, Tennessee's 8th Congressional district features a highly competitive House race in 2010. The reason for the surprise is that the 8th has never really been competitive: John Tanner, the retiring incumbent, never won with less than 62% of the vote (even in 1994, he won 64%.) Part of this was, certainly, that Republicans never gave a serious challenge to Tanner.
This made sense back in the 1980s and 1990s. Jimmy Carter carried the then-7th district in 1980 (Tennessee only had 8 districts in the 1970s), and Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis each won 43% of the vote in the 8th. In the 1990s, Bill Clinton carried the district twice, and Al Gore narrowly carried it in 2000. So, this was basically a Democratic district. (Note to those concerned: the district lines haven't changed much at all since 1980. The 2000 redistricting subtracted some heavily Republican Memphis suburbs and added part of Clarksville, the net result of which was to change this from a district that Gore won by less than 1,000 votes to one that he won by around 7,000 votes.)
While it may feel like we wrapped up the election cycle on Tuesday, there are always more elections to come. This post covers the special and runoff legislative races coming up in the next month. There are three other important races, the Mass. Senate race and the Houston and Atlanta mayoral runoff races, that will be covered in a future post.
Dems have a chance at picking up one seat in California, two in Tennessee and one in Kentucky, while they are defending another seat in Kentucky, one in Georgia and one in Iowa. There are also two interesting inter-party fights going on in the Georgia runoffs.
This is cross posted on my new blog dedicated to following special elections and culling absentee ballot information from all states into one spot to increase turnout in local races. To read more about each race and learn more about the candidates, click here.
I am sure I left out some races - I hope you will let everyone know about them in the comments and I will be sure to write about them shortly
It's been a while since we've talked about state legislatures, so here are some bits and pieces on where we stand right now (if you need a primer on where the most hotly contested chambers are and what the margin of seats held is, see my previous diary here). New York remains the big prize, with Democrats within one flipped seat of a tied State Senate and two seats away from taking control. This is the only state I know of where individual races have been polled; over the past month Siena has polled 10 of the 62 races, and with one GOP-held open seat poised to fall to the Democrats, one Dem incumbent trailing a GOP challenger, and one GOP incumbent tied with his Democratic challenger, the outcome is too close to call.
In Texas, the House is possibly the next juiciest legislative target after the NY Senate, which looks more like a two-cycle project but might actually get done this year. Republicans currently hold the House 79-71. Burnt Orange Report recently put together an impressive set of projections, and it seems like a 75-75 split is possible if Dems run the table on the closest races.
They peg two Democratic challengers, Diana Maldonado (open seat in HD-52 in Austin's northern suburbs) and Chris Turner (against incumbent Bill Zedler in HD-96 in Ft. Worth's southern suburbs), as "Lean Dem," with two more potential Democratic pickups at the "Tossup" level (Joe Moody in an open seat in HD-78 in El Paso and Joel Redmond in an open seat in HD-144 in Houston's eastern suburbs). A Houston Chronicle article from yesterday seems to support this analysis; while it doesn't delve in to specific seats, it looks at fundraising and general mood to conclude "Climate is ripe for Texas House takeover."
We're going to try something new here at Swing State Project: a list of competitive state legislature races for 2008. However, we aren't breaking them down into the tossup/lean/likely framework that you're familiar with. Unlike Senate and House races, where there is abundant polling and fundraising information to help us make informed decisions, state legislatures are jigsaws made up of hundreds of different races, most of which we know precious little about. Therefore, we're simply listing the closest legislative bodies, starting with the ones that are tied and working downward based on percentage of seats held by the majority party.
There are a few legislative bodies that are close enough to be on this list, but aren't included because they're elected in off-years (Louisiana House, 53 D/49 R/1 I/2 V) or everyone gets elected all together in 2010 (Michigan Senate, 17 D/21 R).
This list makes a few of these legislative bodies look to be at more risk of flipping than they actually are. For instance, the Tennessee Senate isn't likely to flip back to us this year, as we're facing the potential loss of Democratic held open seats in GOP-leaning rural areas due to retirement. Conversely, Democrats in the Oregon House are likely to strengthen their position because of Republican retirements in suburban Dem-leaning seats. Indiana Democrats also seem optimistic about their ability to hold the razor-close Indiana House.
Likewise, there are chambers where reality might place them a little higher on the list. Most prognosticators, for instance, would agree that the New York Senate flipping to Democratic control is all but a done deal at this point, what with Majority Leader Joe Bruno already having hit the eject button and several GOP old-timers in strongly Democratic seats running on fumes. Similarly, there's a lot of optimism about retaking the Wisconsin Assembly.
Also, there is a handful of states where the number of seats needed to flip, and the small number of constituents per seat, make it possible that anything can happen. (Consider the New Hampshire House of Representatives in 2006. The GOP controlled 62% of the seats, making it look safe. The Democrats flipped 90 seats (out of 400... NH has by far the largest state legislature) to take firm control. No one saw that coming, proof that anything can happen at this level.)
Alaska may be a prime example, where Dems only need to flip two seats to take control of the Senate... and with indictments cutting a swath through the Republican caucus in the Senate, the popular Governor now facing a mini-scandal of her own, and potentially big Obama coattails, it may be the year to make it happen. The Senates in both North and South Dakota also need only a few flipped seats to change hands, and, again, with Obama coattails, it's possible; the same applies to the perpetually-close Montana House.
As stated during last month's state legislature overview, though, useful links about state legislatures are few and far between in the blogosphere, so we need our readers to help be our eyes and ears. If you have any further insights into any of these races or helpful links, please share in the comments.
I know that it's easy here at Swing State Project to get seduced by all the glitz and glamour of U.S. House races. (That sounds hilarious when you think about how incredibly nerdy it sounds, but, well, there's a kernel of truth there.) Bear with me for a minute, though, as we drop down to the real meat and potatoes of American politics: state legislatures. I'll try to keep everyone updated in future months about developments in some of the biggest contests, but here's a primer to start with.
Here are some reasons why you should very much care. First, the states are often the crucibles for experimentation with progressive policy. That's especially been the case over the last few decades of Republican domination at the national level, although hopefully that will change once we actually have a progressive trifecta in Washington.
Consider where the movement toward civil rights and marriage or civil union rights for gays and lesbians has occurred: it's been purely at the state level. If and when truly universal health care happens, given the difficulty of getting it through Congress, it's most likely to happen in some of the states (and the some of the boldest moves in that direction have already occurred in the states, such as in Vermont and Oregon... and not coincidentally, back when they had MDs for governors).
Also, the state legislatures are our bench for federal office. The GOP may be the party of wealthy self-funders popping out of nowhere, but the Democrats are largely a meritocratic bunch and many of our best have stints in the state legislature on their resume, where they honed their skills and built their networks. Just as one example, consider what the guy who, four years ago today, was representing the 13th District of the Illinois State Senate is up to now.
Finally, in most states, the state legislatures control the redistricting process, not just for themselves but for U.S. House districts as well. The entire shape and terrain of the nationwide electoral battlefield for the entire 2010s will be determined by who has control of the legislature in key states following the 2010 election. This is partly why we were so hosed during the early 2000s: GOP-held legislatures in states like Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Michigan drew remarkably GOP-favorable maps. And even when the blue wave came in 2006, the pro-GOP gerrymanders probably saved them the loss of even more seats.
Some GOP-held legislatures are ready to flip now; others have the Democrats in a somewhat deeper hole, but a sustained push over two electoral cycles can have the Democrats in control in 2010. Let's take a look at the key playing fields for this year and the next few years, starting with Republican-held legislatures that are within striking distance. (The rank order is mostly gut-level, although I did use some informal metrics involving the size of the state, how close the gap between the two parties is, and how much is at stake for that state with 2010 redistricting.)
Looks like Tennessee Dems have caught a bad break: Their likely Senate candidate, businessman Mike McWherter, the son of former Gov. Ned McWherter, is expected to drop his Senate bid.
Two potential candidates for the seat, former state Democratic Party Chair Bob Tuke and Nashville insurance lawyer Kevin Doherty, both say that they received calls from McWherter to inform them of his decision to cut the cord on the race.
Tuke said earlier this year that he planned to seek the Democratic nomination to run against Alexander, but then stepped aside after McWherter indicated an interest.
"I'm going to go through a very methodical, intentional analysis of it - talking to people and looking at the polling Mike had done. Then we'll see - hopefully in just a few days. Time's a wasting," said Tuke.
Tuke says he'll also talk with Nashville attorney Kevin Doherty, who had also indicated an interest in making the race until McWherter stepped up.
This seat was always a long shot for Dems to pick up (absent a Lamar! retirement), but McWherter was expected to partially self-fund his race, with the potential to make Alexander sweat a little. The news isn't good by any means, but at least we have a couple of potential candidates who are giving the race a look.
