Washington State gets a 10th Congressional Seat. But where to put it? And what might the delegation look like?
There's been some talk of centering a new district around Olympia (Thurston County), the capital, even though Thurston did not grow as much as King County (where Seattle is) or Snohomish County (north of King) or Clark County (closest to Portland, OR).
Nevertheless, I decided to see if we could create a 10th around Olympia, but still allow the 6th (Norm Dicks) and the 9th (Adam Smith) to retain their cores. Well, we can. And it's not bad for Democrats either. And it might even be acceptable to Republicans.
More below the fold.
First the background:
-- Washington has a bi-partisan commission that draws the districts: 2 Republicans and 2 Democrats with a non-voting chair.
-- The current delegation is 5D - 4R, but it was 6D - 3R until the last election, when the 3rd district flipped.
-- The 8th district has always been R, but has been barely R for the last 3 elections (2 with Darcy Burner contesting; the last with Suzan Delbene contesting).
-- The 4th and 5th are solid R. The 7th (mostly Seattle) is solid D. The 1st, 6th and 9th have been reasonably safe D in recent years with the current incumbents, but if open, could be somewhat swingy.
-- The 2nd has been D for a while, but was very closely contested last time.
-- Currently 2 districts (4th and 5th) are east of the Cascades (which is a major snow-covered mountain range) and none of the rest have to traverse the mountains to any significant degree. With 10 districts, however, 1 district must have 1/4 of its population east of the mountains and the rest west of them.
Before diving into the detail, let's look at the numbers. Here's are the current 9 districts.
District |
Total Pop |
Murray (D) 2010 |
Rossi (R) 2010 |
White |
Black |
Hisp |
Asian |
Native |
Other |
1 |
740104 |
56.2% |
43.8% |
72.7% |
2.6% |
7.6% |
12.3% |
0.7% |
4.2% |
2 |
760100 |
50.5% |
49.5% |
80.2% |
1.3% |
9.6% |
3.8% |
1.8% |
3.3% |
3 |
779348 |
47.5% |
52.5% |
83.1% |
1.5% |
7.4% |
3.8% |
0.9% |
3.3% |
4 |
773715 |
35.6% |
64.4% |
60.3% |
0.8% |
33.8% |
1.5% |
1.7% |
1.9% |
5 |
724303 |
41.4% |
58.6% |
84.6% |
1.4% |
6.4% |
2.4% |
2.2% |
3.0% |
6 |
709555 |
53.0% |
47.0% |
73.3% |
5.3% |
8.5% |
5.8% |
2.1% |
5.2% |
7 |
702888 |
81.0% |
19.0% |
63.8% |
8.2% |
8.0% |
14.7% |
0.7% |
4.6% |
8 |
812406 |
49.2% |
50.8% |
71.2% |
2.9% |
7.2% |
13.8% |
0.7% |
4.1% |
9 |
722107 |
52.8% |
47.2% |
63.0% |
7.5% |
12.0% |
11.0% |
1.1% |
5.3% |
With this proposal, the 10 districts would look like this. As you can see, this would result in a 6D - 4R map, where all but 1 district become less competitive.
District |
Total Pop |
Murray (D) 2010 |
Rossi (R) 2010 |
White |
Black |
Hisp |
Asian |
Native |
Other |
1 |
672485 |
54.5% |
45.5% |
69.7% |
1.8% |
6.6% |
17.7% |
0.4% |
3.9% |
2 |
672414 |
53.3% |
46.7% |
76.2% |
1.9% |
10.3% |
6.3% |
1.8% |
3.4% |
3 |
672433 |
43.4% |
56.6% |
75.2% |
1.5% |
15.0% |
3.4% |
1.9% |
3.0% |
4 |
672511 |
34.7% |
65.3% |
63.5% |
0.9% |
31.4% |
1.6% |
0.7% |
1.8% |
5 |
672494 |
41.5% |
58.5% |
85.5% |
1.3% |
5.3% |
2.4% |
2.3% |
3.1% |
6 |
672333 |
53.5% |
46.5% |
77.5% |
4.2% |
6.4% |
5.3% |
1.6% |
5.0% |
7 |
672452 |
80.9% |
19.1% |
66.6% |
7.4% |
6.6% |
14.1% |
0.6% |
4.6% |
8 |
672566 |
47.3% |
52.7% |
75.9% |
3.2% |
8.2% |
7.7% |
1.1% |
3.9% |
9 |
672468 |
53.1% |
46.9% |
59.5% |
8.0% |
13.6% |
12.6% |
1.1% |
5.1% |
10 |
672370 |
52.8% |
47.2% |
75.5% |
3.9% |
8.9% |
5.4% |
1.7% |
4.7% |
The conventional wisdom is that the 3rd district will span the mountains through the Columbia valley. That means that any plan will leave the 3rd, 4th and 5th district as solid R. And essentially the map will look like this.
The 3rd would swing up and include the city of Yakima and the Yakima Indian Reservation. Most of the population is in Clark County. I've included all of Lewis County in the 3rd, which forces most of Cowlitz (where Longview is) to be left out. The 5th gives up the city of Walla Walla, but is otherwise unchanged.
Now, we said we want the new 10th to start with Olympia. Thurston County has 252,000 people, so we'll need to find another 420,000. And we said we don't want to disturb the core of the 6th (Bremerton and Tacoma) or the 9th (Tacoma suburbs and south King County). And we have to take up SE Washington anyway. So...
In the south the 10th includes the cities Kelso and Longview (Cowlitz County). And in the northeast it pushes to the outskirts of Tacoma. It would take Grays Harbor and Mason Counties from the 6th district.
So what does that do to the 6th and 9th? Here we show the old and new 9th district.
The 9th loses it's southern portion (magenta), but picks up (light green) the area around South Hill, a little of eastern Tacoma and the rest of Kent. In the north it trades Renton for the areas bordering Seattle.
The 6th loses Mason and Grays Harbor counties to the 10th, but retains its core of Tacoma and Bremerton. It also retains the north Olympic Penisula and picks up Bainbridge, Vashon and Whidbey Islands.
The Seattle area then looks something like this.
The 7th remains Seattle's district. It loses Vashon Island and gains Shoreline. The 1st district (currently held by Jay Inslee, who is running for Governor) shifts to the east, losing Bainbridge Island and its part of Kitsap County. It retains Bothell, Kirkland and Redmond and gains Bellevue, Mercer Island, Sammamish and Issaquah.
In this scenario, the 2nd district loses Whidbey Island and eastern Snohomish County, gaining the southwest strip of Snohomish County.
The 8th district then becomes a safe Republican seat, spanning the eastern portion of Snohomish, King and Pierce Counties.
What's in it for Democrats? 6 safe seats. A new 10th district that went 52.8% for Patty Murray; a much-improved 2nd district for Rick Larsen (was 50.5% Murray, now 53.3%); an improved 6th district Norm Dicks (was 53.0% Murray, now 53.5%); an improved 9th district for Adam Smith (was 52.8% Murray, now 53.1%); a still-safe 1st district for someone (54.5% Murray). And of course the solid 7th district (80.9% Murray).
What's in it for Republicans? 4 safe seats. A much-improved 3rd district for Jaime Herrera Beutler (was 47.5% Murray, now 43.4%); A sigh of relief for Dave Reichert in the 8th district (was 49.2% Murray, now 47.2%).
We'll see...