In my research on South Carolina's 2010 gubernatorial election, I came upon a fascinating chart. The chart describes the number of Democrats and Republican in South Carolina's State House of Representatives from the Civil War to the present day. The data offers a fascinating story of the Democratic Party in South Carolina, and the Deep South in general.
Since Janet Napolitano went to Obama's cabinet and McCain announced (repeatedly) that he was running for reelection, Arizona has seemed off the table for us. This, being followed by Sebelius's choice to join the cabinet instead of running for Brownback's seat, certainly but a bad taste in everyone's mouth. However, I'm inclined to a never give up attitude, and I think McCain is still very vulnerable, even if it would be an uphill fight. There's no room for naivity though. If we're going to win, we need a very strong candidate........
In several diaries or stories lately there have been comments where people have wondered whether Congressperson X is the only person of Y race to represent a district that is majority-Z. I went through the list and found every one I can think of, so hopefully this diary can be the ultimate argument-settler. Please feel free to chime in in the comments if you think someone is missing.
I'm using 2005 census estimates. Interestingly, a number of districts have crossed a threshold since the 2000 census: a number of districts, for instance, have crossed from a white plurality to a Hispanic plurality in those years (CA-17, CA-21, CA-23, CA-27), while CA-13 crossed from white plurality to an Asian plurality. TX-09, TX-18, and TX-30 crossed from an African-American plurality to a Hispanic plurality (although the Houston districts may have switched back, thanks to the New Orleans diaspora). While most districts are becoming less white, one district actually crossed the other way: HI-02 crossed from an Asian plurality to a white plurality.
