How many House members represent districts of different ethnicities than their own? Turns out, a lot

Rep. Beto O'Rourke (D), of the 80 percent Hispanic TX-16

It’s getting to be an old story: Thanks to the nexus of gerrymandering and people’s tendency to self-sort into homogeneous communities, swing districts are going the way of the dodo, and the House is increasingly balkanized into districts where the general election is a foregone conclusion. As a result, this story goes, House members tend to look a lot like their constituents: Districts with an African-American majority usually elect a black representative, while districts that are mostly white and evangelical tend to elect a fellow white evangelical.

It turns out, though, that that story isn’t really true—there are a lot of congressional districts (CDs for short) where that doesn’t happen. But where are they? In other words, which are the districts where, say, there’s a white majority and an Asian-American representative, or one with a Latino majority and an African-American representative? There are more than this simple tale might lead you to think.

And in fact, the number has gone up considerably in the last decade. Nearly 10 years ago, I first asked this question while writing for Swing State Project; there were 12 districts with a white majority or plurality represented by someone non-white, while there were 17 districts with a Latino majority or plurality represented by someone not Latino. Those numbers have since gone up to 29 districts with a white majority or plurality represented by a person of color, and 21 districts with a Latino majority with a non-Latino representative. In addition, there’s one majority-black district represented by a white person and two plurality-Asian districts represented by white people, similar numbers to what we saw a decade ago.

In a way, that’s a sign of progress, at least where we're seeing more non-white people represent white-majority districts. The growth in the number of Latino-majority districts represented by a non-Latino, meanwhile, has more to do with the simple increase in the number of districts that have tipped to a Latino majority in the past 10 years. Some of them still have the same representative they’ve had for many years, while many others still don’t have the level of Latino voter turnout that matches the Latino share of the population.

What follows is the list of these districts, categorized according to which race or ethnicity has majority or plurality in each district.

I’m relying on two different spreadsheets compiled by Daily Kos Elections’ Stephen Wolf, one that describes the ethnic and racial backgrounds of all 435 House members, and one that contains the racial and ethnic breakdowns of each House district, using one-year 2016 data from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (and reflecting the new boundaries in Florida, North Carolina, and Virginia).

Let’s start with non-white members in districts with a white majority:

CD	member	party	member’s race/Ethnicity	white %
WV-02	Mooney, Alex	R	Hispanic (Cuban)	90
ID-01	Labrador, Raul	R	Hispanic (Puerto Rican)	84
WA-03	Herrera Beutler, Jaime	R	Hispanic (Mexican)	81
UT-04	Love, Mia	R	Black (Haitian)	74
OK-04	Cole, Tom	R	Native American (Chickasaw)	71
WA-07	Jayapal, Pramila	D	Asian (Indian)	69
fl-18	Mast, Brian	R	Hispanic (Mexican)	68
CA-33	Lieu, Ted	D	Asian (Chinese)	65
MN-05	Ellison, Keith	D	Black	64
OK-02	Mullin, Markwayne	R	Native American (Cherokee)	64
MO-05	Cleaver, Emanuel	D	Black	64
DE-AL	Blunt Rochester, Lisa	D	Black	63
FL-07	Murphy, Stephanie	D	Asian (Vietnamese)	58
TX-17	Flores, Bill	R	Hispanic (Texan/Hispanos)	55
CA-24	Carbajal, Salud	D	Hispanic (Mexican)	54
CA-07	Bera, Ami	D	Asian (Indian)	53
IN-07	Carson, Andre	D	Black	52
OH-03	Beatty, Joyce	D	Black	52
IL-08	Krishnamoorthi, Raja	D	Asian (Indian)	52

Interestingly, the whitest districts here on the list are all represented by Republicans … though that’s largely a factor of the fact that the whiter a district it is, the more likely it is to elect a Republican (regardless of that Republican’s race). Also of note: The whitest Democratic-held district here, Washington’s Seattle-based 7th District, saw a 2016 an open-seat general election where both candidates were non-white; Pramila Jayapal defeated fellow Democrat Brady Walkinshaw, who is Cuban-American.

And non-white members in districts with a white plurality:

CD	member	party	member’s race/ethnicity	white %
va-04	McEachin, Donald	D	Black	49
nj-12	Watson Coleman, Bonnie	D	Black	47
nv-04	Kihuen, Ruben	D	Hispanic (Mexican)	46
fl-09	Soto, Darren	D	Hispanic (Puerto Rican)	43
wi-04	Moore, Gwen	D	Black	43
nc-12	Adams, Alma	D	Black	40
fl-10	Demings, Val	D	Black	37
ca-06	Matsui, Doris	D	Asian (Japanese)	37
ca-13	Lee, Barbara	D	Black	35
hi-02	Gabbard, Tulsi	D	Pacific Islander (Samoan)	29

Several of the districts on this list only got there recently because of the 2016 round of court-ordered redistricting in several southern states. For instance, Virginia’s 4th District was previously a GOP-leaning district centered in the Hampton Roads region with a more pronounced white majority. Unpacking black voters from the old 3rd, however, considerably increased the black population of the 4th, by adding Richmond and Petersburg to the district.

The 4th ended up falling slightly short of a black majority; in fact, it has slightly more white residents than black residents. Nevertheless, the political lean in this district is such that Donald McEachin, an African-American state senator, was still elected comfortably to this open sea least yeart, as expected. (The 4th’s previous representative, white Republican Randy Forbes, knew he couldn’t win the redrawn district, so he tried instead to run in the 2nd but lost in the primary.)

North Carolina’s 12th went in rather the opposite direction: It used to be a very long, skinny district with an African-American-majority that linked the central cores of both Charlotte and Greensboro, but court-ordered redistricting last year shrunk it down to just Charlotte area, creating a narrow white plurality. Nevertheless, it stayed solidly Democratic enough that African-American incumbent Rep. Alma Adams had no trouble getting re-elected.

Now let’s look at non-black members in districts with an African-American majority or plurality:

Cd	member	party	member’s race/Ethnicity	black %
tn-09	Cohen, Steve	D	White	66

There’s a grand total of one of them: Steve Cohen, who has represented Tennessee’s Memphis-area 9th District for many years, despite many attempts to primary him out (often from the right) along racial lines. Ten years ago, Democrat Bob Brady, who represents Pennsylvania’s 1st District, was also on this list; however, that district has since passed from a black plurality to a white plurality, following the latest round of redistricting.

Brady deserves a dishonorable mention, though: He specifically asked his Republican buddies in the legislature to make his seat whiter to reduce the risk of a primary challenge from a black candidate, which they did, while also gerrymandering the state to screw Democrats elsewhere as hard as possible. There’s some serious karma coming his way, however. Brady is now under federal investigation for scheming to get a primary opponent to drop out in 2012 by disguising a $90,000 payment to his rival’s campaign, so he might soon get replaced by a black Democrat anyway.

Changing gears, here are the non-Asian members in districts with an Asian plurality:

cd	member	party	member’s race/ethnicity	Asian %
ca-14	Speier, Jackie	D	White	34
ca-15	Swalwell, Eric	D	White	33

The Asian plurality in California’s 15th, in the East Bay, is extremely narrow; whites also make up 33 percent of the population. Indeed, as of 2016, there only 175 more Asians than whites in the district! Incidentally, there’s only one district in the country that currently has an Asian majority: California’s 17th, in Silicon Valley. It’s represented by Ro Khanna, who is Indian-American.

Now let’s look at the Hispanic-majority districts with a non-Hispanic representative:

cd	member	party	member’s race/ethnicity	Hispanic %
TX-16	O’Rourke, Beto	D	White	80
TX-29	Green, Gene	D	White	77
tx-23	Hurd, Will	R	Black	68
tx-33	Veasey, Marc	D	Black	67
tx-35	Doggett, Lloyd	D	White	61
CA-41	Takano, Mark	D	Asian (Japanese)	59
NM-02	Pearce, Steve	R	White	55
CA-20	Panetta, Jimmy	D	White	53
tx-27	Farenthold, Blake	R	White	53

This list is likely to get somewhat shorter after 2018: Beto O’Rourke is giving up his seat to run for the Senate in Texas, Gene Green is retiring, and Will Hurd is in a district that would be very vulnerable in a good Democratic year. Also, Blake Farenthold’s career is in dire shape after a previous sexual harassment settlement recently returned to center stage, and Steve Pearce is also retiring to run for governor of New Mexico, though those two districts are red enough that their replacements would probably also be white Republicans.

And here’s the list of districts with Hispanic pluralities and non-Hispanic representatives:

CD	member	party	member’s race/ethnicity	Hispanic %
ny-14	Crowley, Joe	D	White	50
ca-43	Waters, Maxine	D	Black	47
NV-01	Titus, Dina	D	White	47
CA-26	Brownley, Julia	D	White	45
CA-10	Denham, Jeff	R	White	43
tx-18	Jackson Lee, Sheila	D	Black	42
CA-19	Lofgren, Zoe	D	White	40
ca-37	Bass, Karen	D	Black	40
tx-09	Green, Al	D	Black	39
ca-09	McNerney, Jerry	D	White	38
CA-47	Lowenthal, Alan	D	White	37
CA-39	Royce, Ed	R	White	34

One other name on the last list might stand out as unusual: conservative Republican Ed Royce, who’s been representing Orange County for many decades, starting way back when it was a suburban white bastion. Royce hasn’t really ever faced a competitive general election before, but his number might be up next year, thanks to the rapidly changing racial composition of his district. One noteworthy bit of trivia about California’s 39th is that non-Hispanic whites are, in fact, only the third largest racial group in the district, at 28 percent, with Asians at 32 percent.

We’re also including one final list, which we’re pulling out separately because it’s a potentially contentious topic: members of Portuguese descent representing districts with a Hispanic majority or plurality.

cd	member	party	member’s ancestry	Hispanic %
CA-21	Valadao, David	R	Portuguese	76
ca-16	Costa, Jim	D	Portuguese	60
ca-22	Nunes, Devin	R	Portuguese	48

Democrat Jim Costa is a member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and Republicans Devin Nunes and David Valadao are in the Congressional Hispanic Conference (the GOP’s equivalent). Based on that alone, we wouldn’t include them in the list of non-Hispanic members representing Hispanic districts. All three, however, are all part of the large Portuguese-American community in California’s Central Valley.

Some authorities, such as the Census Bureau, do not regard those of Portuguese descent as fitting within either the category of "Hispanic" or "Latino": “Hispanic” is used to mean “from a Spanish-speaking culture or nation” (which could include someone of European Spanish ancestry), while “Latino” is used to mean “from a Latin American nation” (which could include someone of Brazilian ancestry, even though Brazil speaks Portuguese). Portugal does not fit neatly into either of those categories. Instead, the Census Bureau treats Portuguese as an “ancestry,” a separate category from race where respondents can check out one, multiple, or no options (along with choices like “German” or “Irish”).

How do these members identify themselves? Costa explicitly does identify as Latino, while a Nunes spokesperson, by contrast, has said the congressman “is not opposed to it if considered Hispanic,” but added that he thinks the descriptor is “too broad ... so he doesn't find a lot of use to the term.” Valadao, meanwhile, seems to eschew either category. One other Central Valley congressman, Democrat John Garamendi of California’s 3rd District, could also fit into this list; he identifies as having Basque ancestry, which would also place his ancestors on the Iberian peninsula. However, he’s stated that he does not identify as Hispanic.

There’s one other statistic worth noting: Fully 70 congressional districts (including 25 of those highlighted in this post) have no single racial or ethnic group that comprises a majority of the district’s population. That fact, too, tells a different story about America than we're used to hearing.