The number of House members in districts of different ethnicities than their own keeps going up

Three members who represent districts with a plurality ethnicity other than their own, and one who doesn't (can you guess which?)

Not only did the 2018 midterms usher in the most diverse Congress in U.S. history, it also swelled the ranks of an intriguing—and important—group of elected officials: members of the House who represent districts where the largest ethnic group differs from their own.

In most parts of the country, that’s not the case: A majority of congressional districts are home to a white majority and are represented by a white representative. At the same time, the Civil Rights Act compels states to draw districts that make it possible for underrepresented groups to elect members of their choice, which boosts the number of people of color representing districts with non-white majorities. 

Nevertheless, there are quite a few districts that are represented by someone whose race or ethnicity differs from the race or ethnicity that’s most common in that district—and that number is steadily going up. It’s a sign of progress that individual people of color have enough clout in many parts of the country that they can win in districts that weren’t designed to specifically elect them.

Nearly a decade elapsed between the first time I wrote about this topic and my most recent update two years ago. During those 10 years, the number of representatives in these “cross-ethnic” districts increased from around three dozen to 56. But over the course of just one subsequent election, that figure has now shot all the way up to 68, out of 435 seats total.

The 2018 elections were a key part of the story: A number of districts that have a white majority or plurality elected a person of color for the first time, often with a Democrat replacing a Republican. But they weren’t the whole story. The other major reason for this increase has been the slow and steady process of demographic change: A number of districts that kept the same white representative as before nevertheless passed from a white plurality to a Latino plurality in that same two-year period.

Below we’ll explore these changes and look at each of the members who represent districts of different ethnicities than their own.

This analysis joins two different sets of data. The first is compiled by my Daily Kos Elections colleague Stephen Wolf and details the racial and ethnic backgrounds of all 435 members of the current Congress. The other is a batch of brand new data published late last month by the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, which describes the racial and ethnic composition of each congressional district (including the new boundaries in use in Pennsylvania, where a court put a new map in place just last year).

Let’s begin with non-white members in districts with a white majority. The names in boldface in this chart and all that follow indicate freshmen.

CD	MEMBER	PARTY	MEMBER RACE/ETHNICITY	WHITE %
OH-16	Gonzalez, Anthony	R	Hispanic (Cuban)	90
WV-02	Mooney, Alex	R	Hispanic (Cuban)	90
NY-19	Delgado, Antonio	D	Black & Hispanic (Puerto Rican)	83
CO-02	Neguse, Joe	D	Black (Eritrean)	82
WA-03	Herrera Beutler, Jaime	R	Hispanic (Mexican)	79
IL-14	Underwood, Lauren	D	Black	77
NJ-03	Kim, Andy	D	Asian (Korean)	74
KS-03	Davids, Sharice	D	Native American (Ho-Chunk)	71
OK-04	Cole, Tom	R	Native American (Chickasaw)	70
WA-07	Jayapal, Pramila	D	Asian (Indian)	68
CT-05	Hayes, Jahana	D	Black	67
FL-18	Mast, Brian	R	Hispanic (Mexican)	66
MO-05	Cleaver, Emanuel	D	Black	63
OK-02	Mullin, Markwayne	R	Native American (Cherokee)	63
MN-05	Omar, Ilhan	D	Black (Somali)	63
CA-33	Lieu, Ted	D	Asian (Chinese)	62
DE-AL	Blunt Rochester, Lisa	D	Black	62
CA-49	Levin, Mike	D	Hispanic (Mexican)	60
GA-06	McBath, Lucy	D	Black	59
FL-07	Murphy, Stephanie	D	Asian (Vietnamese)	55
TX-17	Flores, Bill	R	Hispanic (Texan/Hispanos)	54
CA-24	Carbajal, Salud	D	Hispanic (Mexican)	54
IN-07	Carson, Andre	D	Black	52
CA-07	Bera, Ami	D	Asian (Indian)	51
OH-03	Beatty, Joyce	D	Black	50

This list is quite a bit longer than last year’s (25 vs. 19), and that’s even with the loss of two notable Republicans from some of the whitest districts on the previous list: Haitian-American Mia Love in Utah’s 4th District was replaced by a white Democrat, Ben McAdams, while in Idaho’s 1st District, Raul Labrador was replaced by a white Republican, Russ Fulcher.

But thanks to a diverse freshman class of Democrats, the list has grown. You’ll likely recognize the names of a number of newcomers who picked up GOP-held seats: Antonio Delgado, Lauren Underwood, Andy Kim, Sharice Davids, Lucy McBath, and Mike Levin. (Levin, whose father is Jewish and whose mother is Mexican American, is a member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.) There are also two black freshmen who replaced retiring white Democrats, Joe Neguse and Jahana Hayes.

Interestingly, one black member who retired from a majority white district, Keith Ellison in the Minneapolis-based Minnesota’s 5th District, was replaced by another African American member, Ilhan Omar. Only one Republican was added to the list, though: Anthony Gonzalez, in the whitest district to elect a non-white member, Ohio’s 16th District in Cleveland’s suburbs. (Gonzalez’s not-so-secret weapon for getting elected in this red district is that he was a football star at Ohio State University.)

Let’s continue with the districts with a white plurality (that is, less than a majority, but still more white residents than any other group) that elected a non-white member, a category that increased from 10 to 12:

CD	MEMBER	PARTY	MEMBER RACE/ETHNICITY	WHITE %
VA-04	McEachin, Donald	D	Black	49
TX-32	Allred, Colin	D	Black	48
IL-08	Krishnamoorthi, Raja	D	Asian (Indian)	48
NJ-12	Watson Coleman, Bonnie	D	Black	46
NV-04	Horsford, Steven	D	Black	43
WI-04	Moore, Gwen	D	Black	41
MA-07	Pressley, Ayanna	D	Black	41
NC-12	Adams, Alma	D	Black	39
CA-06	Matsui, Doris	D	Asian (Japanese)	36
FL-10	Demings, Val	D	Black	36
CA-13	Lee, Barbara	D	Black	34
HI-02	Gabbard, Tulsi	D	Pacific Islander (Samoan)	28

One notable addition to this list from two years ago is Colin Allred, an African American who picked up Texas’ 32nd District from Republican Pete Sessions in one of last year’s key House races. Another prominent name is that of Ayanna Pressley, who defeated longtime Democratic Congressman Mike Capuano in the primary in Massachusetts’ 7th District. Meanwhile, Steven Horsford took over from retiring fellow Democrat Ruben Kihuen (who is Latino) in Nevada’s 4th District, which for now still has a white plurality. (Horsford had previously represented this seat from 2013 to 2015.)

One district fell off this list, though, as a result of demographic change: Darren Soto, who is Puerto Rican, represents Florida’s 9th District in Orlando’s suburbs, but that district passed from a white plurality to a Hispanic plurality in the last two years.

Now let’s look at the very short list of non-black members who are in districts with an African American majority—even though that list doubled in size. (There are no non-black members in districts with a black plurality.)

CD	MEMBER	PARTY	MEMBER RACE/ETHNICITY	BLACK %
TN-09	Cohen, Steve	D	White	67
MI-13	Tlaib, Rashida	D	White/Middle Eastern (Palestinian)	53

One of the members is a longtime fixture in this chart, Steve Cohen, who’s held Tennessee’s 9th District in the Mephisa area for more than a decade, turning away a constant stream of black primary challengers with surprising ease.

New on the list, though, is Rashida Tlaib, a freshman in Michigan’s Detroit-based 13th District. Tlaib’s somewhat surprising victory in the 2018 Democratic primary in her district may have been due to the fact that she was the lone Middle Easterner running against a number of prominent black candidates, in a district with one of the largest Middle Eastern populations in the country.

Tlaib’s situation also points to a classification problem with the available data: the Census Bureau doesn’t include “Middle Eastern/North African” as a racial or ethnic option. (Officials had discussed adding it as a category in 2020 but opted not to.) As a result, most Middle Easterners check “white” on census forms, though for the purposes of this analysis, Tlaib’s personal choice is not a factor, because either way she’s not part of her district’s black majority.

We’ll now move on to non-Asian members in districts with Asian American pluralities. (There’s only one district with an outright Asian American majority, California’s 17th District, and it's represented by Democrat Ro Khanna, who’s of Indian ancestry.)

CD	MEMBER	PARTY	MEMBER RACE/ETHNICITY	ASIAN %
HI-01	Case, Ed	D	White	49
CA-15	Swalwell, Eric	D	White	36
CA-14	Speier, Jackie	D	White	35

This list also grew by one with the reintroduction of Ed Case, a white Democrat (and formerly the representative from Hawaii’s 2nd District from 2002 to 2007). Case replaced fellow Democrat Colleen Hanabusa last year after Hanabusa retired to unsuccessfully run for governor.

Now let’s look at non-Latino members in districts with Latino majorities:

CD	MEMBER	PARTY	MEMBER RACE/ETHNICITY	HISPANIC %
CA-21	Cox, T.J.	D	Asian (Filipino, Chinese)	74
FL-27	Shalala, Donna	D	White/Middle Eastern (Lebanese)	73
TX-23	Hurd, Will	R	Black	69
TX-33	Veasey, Marc	D	Black	68
CA-41	Takano, Mark	D	Asian (Japanese)	63
TX-35	Doggett, Lloyd	D	White	62
CA-20	Panetta, Jimmy	D	White	54
TX-27	Cloud, Michael	R	White	54
NM-01	Haaland, Deb	D	Native American (Laguna Pueblo)	50

In 2017, I predicted this list would get shorter, but in fact it wound up holding steady at nine members. At this point two years ago, we knew about the pending departures of two white members in two heavily Latino districts in Texas: Gene Green, and Beto O’Rourke, who of course ran for Senate and only narrowly lost. As expected, they were replaced by Latina members: Sylvia Garcia and Veronica Escobar, respectively. In addition, there was one important gain in the 2018 general election that took a district off the list: Xochitl Torres Small defeated white Republican Steve Pearce in New Mexico’s rural 2nd District.

However, there were two Democratic pickups that added names to the list: California’s 21st District, where Democrat T.J. Cox, who is Asian American, rather unexpectedly defeated Republican David Valadao in this heavily Mexican American but low-turnout district in the Central Valley. At the same time, Florida’s 27th District, which is in the Miami area and mostly Cuban, saw Democrat Donna Shalala pick up retiring Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen’s seat. Shalala, like Tlaib, is Middle Eastern.

Also of note, New Mexico’s 1st District joined this list, even though it stayed in Democratic hands; Deb Haaland, who’s Native American, retained the district after Michelle Lujan Grisham retired for a successful bid for governor. While New Mexico does have one of the nation’s largest Native American populations, that’s primarily located in the 3rd District, and even that district still maintains a Latino plurality. The current occupant of the 3rd, Democrat Ben Ray Lujan, is running for Senate, so it’ll be interesting to see what happens in the primary there in 2020.

Despite a new representative in Texas’s 27th (where the appalling Blake Farenthold resigned), that district is red enough, thanks to low turnout, that it elected another white Republican, Michael Cloud.

Also, gallingly, Texas’s 23rd District stayed on the list, as Will Hurd (the only black Republican in the House) eked out a narrow win. Hurd is retiring next year, but the 23rd is probably going to stay on the list: His Democratic challenger from 2018, Gina Ortiz Jones, is running again, and likely to pick up this open seat. Ortiz Jones’ Hispanophone surname also points to a complex piece of colonial history: She’s a first-generation daughter of immigrants from the Phillipines, which was once ruled by Spain, and identifies as Asian American.

And here’s the list of non-Hispanic members in Hispanic-plurality seats, a group that increased from 12 to 14:

CD	MEMBER	PARTY	MEMBER RACE/ETHNICITY	HISPANIC %
CA-43	Waters, Maxine	D	Black	48
CA-26	Brownley, Julia	D	White	46
NV-01	Titus, Dina	D	White	45
CA-10	Harder, Josh	D	White	45
TX-18	Lee, Sheila Jackson	D	Black	43
CA-42	Calvert, Ken	R	White	42
CA-25	Hill, Katie	D	White	41
CA-37	Bass, Karen	D	Black	41
CA-19	Lofgren, Zoe	D	White	40
FL-23	Wasserman Schultz, Debbie	D	White	40
CA-09	McNerney, Jerry	D	White	39
NJ-09	Pascrell, Bill	D	White	39
TX-09	Green, Al	D	Black	39
CA-47	Lowenthal, Alan	D	White	34

As I mentioned earlier, there were a number of districts that got added here even though they retained white representatives, because they moved from a white plurality to a Hispanic plurality in the last two years. Those are California’s 42nd (held by Republican Ken Calvert, in the Riverside area), Florida’s 23rd (held by Debbie Wasserman Schultz, in Miami’s suburbs), and New Jersey’s 9th (held by Bill Pascrell, in Bergen and Passaic Counties).

It also includes California’s 25th, which changed hands from Republican to Democrat, with Katie Hill picking up the win. In addition, the district, in Los Angeles’s northern suburbs, also switched to a narrow Hispanic plurality, which had a lot to do with Hill’s victory. (California’s 10th District, where Democrat Josh Harder defeated Republican incumbent Jeff Denham is similar, though it was already a Hispanic-plurality district two years ago.)

One name that’s come off represents a form of progress: Joe Crowley, the longtime Democratic representative in New York’s 14th District who lost the 2018 primary to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. An often under-appreciated factor in that race was the ethnic mismatch. While Crowley was first elected in 1998 to a district where, electorally, white voters were more dominant, by the time of his primary last year, the 14th had become almost one-half Latino. It’s now home to a 51% Hispanic majority, while just 22% of residents are white.

Interestingly, this makes AOC, who is of Puerto Rican descent, the only member of the “Squad” who isn’t on one of these lists. She represents a Hispanic-plurality district, while African American members Ilhan Omar and Ayanna Pressley represent white-plurality districts, and Tlaib, who is Palestinian American, represents a black-majority district.

Finally, as I discussed at length in my previous installment in this series, there’s the question of members of Portuguese ancestry, whose ethnic identification can be complicated.

CD	MEMBER	PARTY	MEMBER ETHNICITY	HISPANIC %
CA-16	Costa, Jim	D	Portuguese	61
CA-22	Nunes, Devin	R	Portuguese	49
MA-03	Trahan, Lori	D	Portuguese	20

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, however, 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 off one, multiple, or no options (along with choices like “German” or “Irish”).

So how do these members identify themselves? Costa explicitly does identify as Latino, and both he and Trahan (whose maiden name is Loureiro) are members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. 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.” He is, however, a member of the CHC’s small Republican counterpart, the Congressional Hispanic Conference.

As we concluded last time, there’s one other statistic worth noting: Fully 73 congressional districts (including 30 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.