Butch Cassidy: I couldn't do that. Could you do that? Why can they do it? Who are those guys?
Who are those guys, indeed! We all know the story of the skewed redistricting in states controlled by Republicans after the 2010 election, but I wanted to look more in depth where the Republicans had the largest effect. Much like the posse chasing Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, you had to marvel (or cringe in our case) at how they "could do that" in such blue states as Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and to a lesser extent in swing states that voted Democratic in 2008 and 2012 like Ohio, Florida and Virginia.
A few months ago, I wrote a diary that looked at the Partisan Voter Index (PVI) and noted the relatively bleak prospects of Democratic pickups in 2014 due to redistricting.
My Daily Kos diary Some complained that it was a little too hard to understand, so I'll try to make this one a little less "inside baseball". My previous diary noted the limited amount of races where Democrats could win a Republican held seat. With this diary, however, I'd like to highlight the positives for Democrats.
First, 2010 was and will probably be the high water mark for Republicans for the foreseeable future. Why? Well, their majority is contingent on their redistricting in the blue rust belt states. They can not continue to hold both state houses and governorships in those states for very long. Secondly, the 2020 election will be a presidential year and Democrats will not be staying home in that election especially in the blue states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Wisconsin. Those elections will not only determine the presidency but who will control the redistricting process in those states.
In looking at the election results of 2008, 2010 and 2012, I tried to look at where redistricting helped the Republicans the most. I did this by looking at how each state conducts its redistricting and where the Republican's controlled the entire redistricting process. I looked at how many "competitive" districts there were in each state and what states failed to reflect their presidential voting in Congressional races. I also looked at how many "competitive" seats were held by Republicans compared to Democrats.
Follow me below the orange curls for a look at some of the possible good news for Democrats following redistricting.
First, let's look at a table which notes the states where Republicans controlled both the state legislature and governorships, what the redistricting process was for that state and its present Congressional delegation by party.
|
State |
Governor |
Legislature |
Redistricting Process |
Congressional Delegation |
AL |
Republican |
Republican |
Legislative Committee |
6R-1D |
AZ |
Republican |
Republican |
Commission - 25 members -10 Dem, 10 Rep, 5 Ind |
4R-5D |
FL |
Republican |
Republican |
Legislature |
17R-10D |
GA |
Republican |
Republican |
Legislative Committee |
9R-5D |
ID |
Republican |
Republican |
Commission - 6 members 3 Dem, 3 Rep |
2R-0D |
IN |
Republican |
Republican |
Legislative Committees draw unless deadline is not met, then 5 member Commission does. |
7R-2D |
KS |
Republican |
Republican |
Legislature appoints members to reapportionment commission. |
4R-0D |
LA |
Republican |
Republican |
Legislature |
5R-1D |
MI |
Republican |
Republican |
Legislature |
9R-5D |
MS |
Republican |
Republican |
Legislature |
3R-1D |
NC |
Republican |
Republican |
Legislature |
9R-4D |
OH |
Republican |
Republican |
Legislature |
12R-4D |
OK |
Republican |
Republican |
Legislature |
5R-0D |
PA |
Republican |
Republican |
Legislature |
13R-5D |
SC |
Republican |
Republican |
Legislature |
6R-1D |
TN |
Republican |
Republican |
Legislature |
7R-2D |
TX |
Republican |
Republican |
Legislature |
24R-12D |
UT |
Republican |
Republican |
Legislative Committee |
3R-1D |
VA |
Republican |
Republican |
Legislature |
8R-3D |
WI |
Republican |
Republican |
Legislative Committee |
5R-3D |
A few things jump out in this table. One is the sheer number of states where Republicans controlled both the governorship and both state houses, 20 of them. This does not even include Alaska, Wyoming and both Dakotas which are also fully controlled by Republicans but only have the 1 congressional district where congressional redistricting would obviously not matter. The other is that only 2 of those 20 states redistrict by commissions, Arizona and Idaho, the 18 others are all done by the legislature. You'll also probably notice that Arizona is the only Republican run state that has a Democratic majority in its Congressional delegation. Even Idaho with only 2 congressional districts, which are both Republican held, are divided evenly partisan wise compared to the state as a whole. The last 2 presidential elections in Idaho have given the Republican candidate 28.5% wins on average. The 2 congressional districts are +27 and +30. So, the commission led redistricting were eminently fairer in coming up with the new districts.
Perhaps the biggest thing, however, are the blue states that were taken over by the Republicans in 2010. Florida, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin each were won by Obama in 2008 and 2012. Each of them were redistricted to give them Republican majorities in their state's delegation even though the state as whole voted Democratic. The most egregious being Michigan and Pennsylvania which gave Obama victories on average of 13 and 8 points, but where their delegations were 9-5 and 13-5 Republican advantages, respectively and Wisconsin which averaged 10 point victories for Obama yet had a 5-3 Republican split. In addition, Florida, Ohio and Virginia while giving Obama smaller victories also had large Republican majorities in Congress. Finally, North Carolina and Indiana which voted Obama in 2008, but Romney in 2012 also gave large Republican majorities due to redistricting.
So what could be the good news for Democrats in all of this? Well, let's look at those same Republican held states in another table.
|
State |
No. of "Competitive" Districts |
% of "Competitive" Districts |
"Competitive" District(s) held by |
AL |
0 |
0.0% |
|
AZ |
3 |
33.3% |
0R-3D |
FL |
11 |
40.7% |
9R-2D |
GA |
0 |
0.0% |
|
ID |
0 |
0.0% |
|
IN |
2 |
22.2% |
2R-0D |
KS |
2 |
50% |
2R-0D |
LA |
0 |
0.0% |
|
MI |
9 |
64.3% |
9R-0D |
MS |
0 |
0.0% |
|
NC |
2 |
15.4% |
2R-0D |
OH |
10 |
62.5% |
10R-0D |
OK |
0 |
0.0% |
|
PA |
8 |
44.4% |
8R-0D |
SC |
1 |
14.3% |
1R-0D |
TN |
0 |
0.0% |
|
TX |
1 |
2.8% |
0R-1D |
UT |
0 |
0.0% |
|
VA |
5 |
45.5% |
5R-0D |
WI |
4 |
50% |
4R-0D |
A brief explanation of what I believe is a "competitive district is in order here. Much like the PVI (Partisan Voting Index), I took the average presidential results for each congressional district and chose any district that received less than 55% of the vote for either Presidential candidate. Why 55% and why does it make it competitive? First, the 55% cut off. I chose under 55% because, all things being equal, the race starts with a single digit difference. With 55% or more, the race starts with at least a 10 point lead in that district and, at least psychologically if not realistically, a double digit lead seems so much harder to overcome. Secondly, to be sure, saying the individual House race is competitive and the district is competitive can be two different things. Races are competitive depending on who's running from each party, their fundraising/financial wherewithal to spend on the race, their campaign management, etc. let alone what the general party affiliation of the district is. I'm perfectly aware that me saying the district is "competitive" does not, in real terms, mean that it is in fact competitive. Nonetheless, it is a good starting point.
Again, if we look at the number of "competitive" districts (58) from this table, 51 of them are in states that Obama won in 2008 and/or 2012. Nearly all the McCain/Romney states where Republicans controlled the redistricting process had no "competitive" districts. Also notice that the only red state with "competitive" districts had a commission doing the redistricting. Arizona had 3 of their 9 districts competitive all of them being held by Democrats now, but each of them extremely competitive. None of them had more than a 5 point difference, roughly the margin of victory for Obama in 2012. Another amazing gerrymandering job is Texas, continuing the DeLay massacre, where only 1 out of its 36 districts is under 55% and that is TX-23 which is a 50-49 Republican district, currently held by a Democrat. So, other than the 3 close districts in Arizona and the one in Texas, the only other "competitive" districts held by Democrats are in Florida, those being newly won seats in FL-18 and FL-26 by Patrick Murphy and Joe Garcia, respectively.
If you look, however, at the blue states in this table, not a single "competitive" district is held by a Democrat. All the Democratic seats in those blue states were Democratic vote sinks which is just what you'd expect from a Republican gerrymander. The problem for Republicans is there is nowhere to go but down. When all but 2 of those 51 "competitive" seats are held by your party in states that you couldn't win on the presidential level, it's nearly impossible to hold them all.
Well, you might say those 49 districts may be at 53% or 54% Republican which would make them on the safer side of competitive. I thought the same thing so let me list those 49 from most Republican to least.
|
District |
% Average Vote McCain/Romney |
% Average Vote Obama |
OH-2 |
54.5 |
44.0 |
PA-05 |
54.3 |
44.3 |
OH-6 |
54.2 |
43.7 |
OH-12 |
54.1 |
44.4 |
PA-03 |
54.0 |
44.7 |
FL-15 |
53.2 |
45.9 |
MI-02 |
53.2 |
45.6 |
FL-12 |
53.1 |
45.8 |
OH-05 |
53.1 |
45.1 |
PA-11 |
52.8 |
45.8 |
FL-10 |
52.7 |
46.5 |
MI-10 |
52.7 |
45.9 |
VA-01 |
52.7 |
46.3 |
FL-16 |
52.6 |
46.6 |
FL-25 |
52.4 |
47.2 |
OH-16 |
52.4 |
46.2 |
OH-7 |
52.3 |
45.6 |
FL-02 |
52.2 |
46.8 |
OH-01 |
52.1 |
46.8 |
OH-15 |
52.1 |
46.2 |
VA-05 |
51.8 |
46.9 |
WI-06 |
51.2 |
47.6 |
MI-04 |
51.1 |
47.6 |
MI-01 |
51.0 |
47.5 |
FL-07 |
50.9 |
48.2 |
MI-03 |
50.9 |
47.8 |
PA-16 |
50.7 |
48.2 |
MI-11 |
50.3 |
48.6 |
VA-04 |
50.3 |
48.9 |
OH-14 |
50.2 |
48.4 |
FL-18 |
49.9 |
49.4 |
WI-01 |
49.9 |
49.1 |
OH-10 |
49.7 |
48.8 |
MI-07 |
49.2 |
49.4 |
PA-07 |
49.1 |
49.9 |
VA-10 |
49.1 |
49.9 |
FL-27 |
48.8 |
50.8 |
MI-08 |
48.8 |
50.0 |
PA-15 |
48.7 |
50.0 |
VA-02 |
48.7 |
50.3 |
PA-06 |
48.3 |
50.6 |
WI-08 |
48.3 |
50.5 |
FL-26 |
48.2 |
51.4 |
WI-07 |
48.1 |
50.5 |
FL-13 |
48.1 |
50.7 |
MI-06 |
47.7 |
51.0 |
PA-08 |
47.6 |
51.3 |
Only 9 of the 49 districts is 53% or more Republican. Additionally, 14 of other 40 are districts that Obama on average has won. That leaves 26 very competitive districts. If the Democrats just win those 14 districts that Obama won and even 20-30% of these 26 competitive districts, that's more than enough to win back the House. Also, remember that these are just the blue states that got redistricted by Republicans. There are also the few districts in California that elected Republicans even though it is a decidedly Democratic district because of the top two system there. Needless to say, there are a number of Democratic pickup opportunities if the right people are recruited, are funded sufficiently and run decent campaigns. The House can be won back again!