In 2012, Democratic House candidates earned more votes combined than Republicans did, but the Democratic Party still came nowhere close to reclaiming the chamber. Now, Democrats are faced with the grim reality that they're likely to be locked out of the House until 2022 at the very earliest, barring a wave election that no one can count on.
But it shouldn't be this way. As we'll demonstrate, it's eminently possible to draw nonpartisan congressional districts that give voters a real choice and allow the majority to have its voice heard. Below, you'll find proposed maps for the entire Lower South that reflect these principles.
Florida — Proposed Map:
Click any map to enlarge
Interactive version • District summary stats
Current Map:
Drawn by: Republican governor and legislature
Intended to Favor: Republicans
Delegation: 10 Democrats, 17 Republicans
2012 Vote: Obama 50, Romney 49
Summary: Republicans blatantly ignored the recently enacted Fair Districts amendment and the original map was struck down, with litigation currently on appeal.
Net Change: Democrats gain zero to two seats
Florida Republicans drew an aggressive gerrymander that blatantly violated the Fair Districts amendment passed via ballot initiative in 2010. Democrats won a Pyrrhic victory last July when circuit court struck down parts of the map, but let Republicans get away with making minimal changes with little partisan impact. The case is currently being appealed to the state Supreme Court where the left-leaning bloc has a majority thanks to former Gov. Charlie Crist.
We could see parts of this map implemented, especially in central Florida, if Democrats are victorious in state court and if the U.S. Supreme Court does not find ballot-initiated changes to congressional election unconstitutional in its current Arizona case. While Democrats probably would not have won many more seats in 2012 due to unique incumbency factors, the party would stand to gain considerably in future cycles such as 2016 when they might gain four seats compared to their current total of ten. That would result in a majority of Florida's 27 districts.
Head below the fold to see just how big of an impact nonpartisan redistricting might have on Florida and the rest of the Lower South.
Starting north to south in Florida, the 1st District is unchanged and is the reddest district in the state. The 2nd District regains the rest of Madison County while dropping part of Taylor. This decreases Romney's margin by 0.5 percent, which wouldn't have been enough to change the outcome.
The 3rd District lurches to the left with the addition of Gainesville along with Ocala. Romney's margin shrinks by 11.6 points, but the district is still pretty strongly Republican. Sen. Bill Nelson did win it by nearly four points and Democrats tended to outperform Obama's numbers in northern Florida. However, it is unlikely that a strong candidate would have run. Even though Republican Rep. Ted Yoho is a tea partier and an opponent of democracy, his upset primary win over then-Rep. Cliff Stearns would have caught Democrats unprepared.
The 4th District remains dark red, while the 5th District is entirely contained within Jacksonville. The old 5th was a racial gerrymander not even remotely compact enough to be required by the Voting Rights Act. This new district went for Obama by 5.6 points. Even Alex Sink won it by 2.7 despite losing statewide for governor in 2010. Democratic Rep. Corrine Brown is a polarizing figure and would have been vulnerable, but given the degree to which Democrats outrun Obama's performance in the Deep South, she very likely still wins. It's quite possible she wouldn't have even been the nominee if someone such as Jacksonville Mayor Alvin Brown challenged her in the primary.
Moving south, the 6th is a swingy district now that it drops St. Augustine. Romney won it by just 1.8 percent and Obama actually carried it in 2008 by 5.1 points. The president was unusually weak for a Democrat in this area, as evidenced by Sen. Nelson nearly matching his statewide margin here. Against a very right-wing Republican like Rep. Ron DeSantis, it's quite plausible that Democrats would have narrowly prevailed here, but this district could have gone either way.
The 7th District improves 5.6 points for Obama to where he now carried it by his statewide margin. However, Republican Rep. John Mica is a very entrenched incumbent and would have had little trouble holding his seat. The 8th District is unchanged and remains strongly Republican.
In Central Florida, the 9th District becomes nearly 15 points more Republican, but Obama still won it by 10. Democratic Rep. Alan Grayson is another polarizing figure, but even he would have had no difficulty winning here. Of course, given how little overlap this seat has with his 2010 district, it's quite possible Grayson runs in the safer 10th instead. That district becomes solidly Democratic and Republican Rep. Dan Webster would have been demolished had he run there. If Grayson stayed in the 9th, former Orlando Police Chief Val Demings would have won, thus electing another black representative in what is a new majority-minority seat.
The 11th remains strongly Republican, as do the 12th, 15th, and 16th given the Republican incumbents running there in 2012. The big change in the Tampa area however concerns the 13th District, which becomes 8.8 points more Democratic. With the prospect of having to actually run a competitive campaign, it's quite possible that the late Republican Rep. Bill Young would have retired and Democrats would have flipped taken the seat. It's even possible he might have lost, but given his 15.1 point win, he probably would have had a modest victory had he stayed put. However, Alex Sink would have comfortably won this seat in the 2014 special election. The 14th remains solidly Democratic despite shifting more Republican.
In southwestern Florida, the 17th and 19th remain dark red. The 18th drops nearly all of its population in Palm Beach County and takes more of the Everglades and territory inland. Given how there's almost no overlap with the old 22nd District, there is no reason why Republican Rep. Tom Rooney wouldn't have remained in this district. Thus, Democrats don't even come close to winning it without facing lightning-rod Republican Rep. Allen West. Even if West somehow were the nominee here, he still would have probably won given that the district shifts 2.6 points more Republican and he only lost by 0.6 percent.
In southeast Florida, the black majority 20th is dismantled and replaced by a district that is nearly plurality black. The old district that combined Ft. Lauderdale with West Palm Beach was not at all compact enough that this should have been required. However, even if this change is not made, the political impact is negligible. Both the 21st and 22nd are solidly Democratic regardless of one's interpretation of the VRA, as are the 23rd and black-majority 24th further south.
Changes to the three Hispanic-majority seats benefit Democrats, with Obama's margin in the 26th improving 8.8 points. Democratic Rep. Joe Garcia would have won in a blowout in 2012 and even survived in 2014. The 25th becomes 11.2 points more Democratic and Obama now won it by a wide 9.1 points. However, Obama's numbers in this heavily Cuban-American seat were unusually good for Democrats and it's unlikely that incumbent Republican Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart would have been seriously challenged since McCain won there by over four points. However, he would have been an appealing target in future cycles.
The 27th District actually becomes 3.9 points more Republican, but given how entrenched incumbent Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen is, it's not a problem for Democrats that she holds Romney's best seat in the region. All in all, Democrats likely net one seat, defeating DeSantis and Webster while Democratic Rep. Patrick Murphy is not elected.
Alabama — Proposed Map:
Interactive version • District summary stats
Current Map:
Drawn by: Republican legislature
Intended to Favor: Republicans
Delegation: 1 Democrat, 6 Republicans
2012 Vote: Obama 38, Romney 61
Summary: Republicans effectively maximized their seats
Net Change: Democrats gain one seat
The VRA-mandated, black-majority 7th District does not need Birmingham like how Republicans drew it. It drops the city and consists of nearly the entire Black Belt region, including Montgomery. Note that while I did not intentionally set out to draw black-majority districts with as few black residents as necessary as a goal in and of itself, many of these districts are already fairly uncompact or divide communities and it is more optimal to mitigate those factors once VRA requirements are satisfied.
That allows for a compact 6th District consisting of Birmingham and its denser suburbs. It's possible to keep Jefferson County whole, but drawing it this way makes more sense for the 3rd and 4th Districts, which would become contorted otherwise. The 6th also has a large black population of slightly below 40 percent, meaning black voters almost certainly form a solid majority of the Democratic primary electorate.
Incumbent Democratic Rep. Terri Sewell probably runs in the safer 7th despite being from Birmingham. However, given how the 6th voted for Obama by close to his national margin, it is very unlikely that a Republican would have won this seat. Even in 2014, former Rep. Parker Griffith nearly carried this district despite losing badly overall as the Democratic nominee for governor. Obama's numbers are essentially the floor for Democrats in Alabama in 2012. Thus, Republican Rep. Spencer Bachus likely loses to a black Democrat. The other five districts remain safely Republican.
Georgia — Proposed Map:
Interactive version • District summary stats
Current Map:
Drawn by: Republican governor and legislature
Intended to Favor: Republicans
Delegation: 5 Democrats, 9 Republicans
2012 Vote: Obama 45, Romney 53
Summary: Republicans would have effectively maximized their seats if a weak nominee had not managed to lose to a strong incumbent in the 12th District, Democratic Rep. John Barrow.
Net Change: Democrats gain one seat
In Georgia, the 12th District becomes more compact and retracts from the south. A new majority-minority 7th District is created by unpacking suburban Atlanta, while four other districts remain majority black.
Politically, the 12th shifts a large 9.1 points to Obama and he only lost it by 2.8 points. Democratic Rep. John Barrow would have had an easy win and maybe even survived 2014. The new 7th District went for Obama by 4.2 points and given racially polarized voting in Georgia, it very likely would have elected a Democrat. The 2nd, 4th, 5th, and 13th remain solidly Democratic, while the other seats remain strongly Republican.
Louisiana — Proposed Map:
Interactive version • District summary stats
Current Map:
Drawn by: Republican governor and legislature
Intended to Favor: Republicans
Delegation: 1 Democrat, 5 Republicans
2012 Vote: Obama 41, Romney 58
Summary: Republicans effectively maximized their seats
Net Change: Democrats gain one seat
Republicans drew the black-majority VRA district from New Orleans to Baton Rouge to pack in as many Democrats as possible and this is completely unnecessary. The New Orleans area in Orleans, Jefferson, and St. Bernard Parishes fits neatly into a single majority-minority district. That allows the VRA district to shift to Baton Rouge and Lafayette, where racially polarized voting is stronger anyway.
This gives Democrats two safe districts and the strong likelihood of both Democrats being African American. The four other seats all remain strongly Republican, although the 4th is now slightly more Democratic than the state. Republican Rep. Bill Cassidy either runs against fellow Republican Rep. Steve Scalise in the 1st, or more likely simply retires before his successful 2014 senate run.
Mississippi — Proposed Map:
Interactive version • District summary stats
Current Map:
Drawn by: Federal court
Intended to Favor: Neither
Delegation: 1 Democrat, 3 Republicans
2012 Vote: Obama 44, Romney 55
Summary: The court implemented a least-change version of last decade’s court-drawn map. However, both maps were flawed.
Net Change: Democrats zero to one seat
Republicans could have controlled the process here, but did not need to since the courts drew a favorable map for them anyway. While the 2nd District is mandated by the VRA to be majority black, there is no need for it to be over 60 percent black and split the Jackson metro area to do so. Trading Jackson for the rural counties to its south allows the 3rd to united Jackson into a single district that is generally more compact.
The political impact of these changes is massive. The 2nd shifts 20.2 points more Republican, but Democrats easily would have held it due to Obama's 13.4 point win. However, the 3rd swings 17.5 points more Democratic and with a Romney win of just 3.6 percent it would have been competitive. Moderate, white Mississippi Democrats typically can outrun Obama's performance in a competitive race, but that typically happens in the north and south of the state where racial polarization isn't quite as strong. Republican Rep. Greg Harper probably holds on, but it's not out of the question that he could have lost.
The 1st and 4th are little changed and remain very dark red.
South Carolina — Proposed Map:
Interactive version • District summary stats
Current Map:
Drawn by: Republican governor and legislature
Intended to Favor: Republicans
Delegation: 1 Democrat, 6 Republicans
2012 Vote: Obama 44, Romney 55
Summary: Republicans effectively maximized their seats
Net Change: Democrats gain one seat
There is no need for the VRA 6th District to contain parts of both Charleston and Columbia, as this was solely done to pack Democrats. By dropping Columbia from the 6th, the metro area fits neatly into the 2nd District. It is possible to draw the 6th without any part of Charleston in it, but this causes the 7th District to become quite ugly. Furthermore, the 1st would still lean Republican even with all of Charleston.
The impact of this map is that the 6th remains strongly Democratic, while the party gains the 2nd District. Republican Rep. Joe Wilson had a relatively poor performance even in 2010 in his gerrymandered district after the incident where he shouted "You lie!" at the president during a speech before Congress. It is highly unlikely that Wilson would have been able to win a seat Obama carried by 3.2 percent. All five of the other seats would remain strongly Republican.
Texas — Proposed Map:
Interactive version • District summary stats
Current Map:
Drawn by: Republican governor and legislature
Intended to Favor: Republicans
Delegation: 12 Democrats, 23 Republicans
2012 Vote: Obama 41, Romney 57
Summary: Republicans effectively maximized their seats.
Net Change: Democrats gain three to four seats
Republicans went to extreme measures to gerrymander Texas before getting rebuked in federal court. Still, their gerrymander does a considerable amount of damage. Texas is one of the most difficult states to draw due to the myriad VRA-related issues it presents. To ensure that this map passes muster, the population stats are calculated among citizens only (you can find the adult population numbers here). Because the Census does not ask about citizenship, the data is from the 2008-2012 American Community Survey, with a margin of error of roughly one percent.
The biggest changes are predictably in the urban areas of the state along with South Texas. The narrow "Fajita Strip" districts in the south are required by the VRA, otherwise Hispanic voters would be overwhelmingly packed into fewer seats. This map eliminates the narrowly Hispanic-majority 35th District stretching from Austin to San Antonio. Despite a nominal Hispanic majority, this district was likely to elect a white Democrat from Austin like Rep. Lloyd Doggett given the disparities in primary electorate turnout.
As a replacement, Corpus Christi is restored to a new fajita strip 27th District in the south where Hispanic voters could reliably elect the candidate of their choice. Incumbent Republican Rep. Blake Farenthold would not be able to win re-election here with presidential turnout.
Stretching from El Paso to San Antonio, the 23rd District's Hispanic population is increased and the district becomes 13.1 percent more Democratic. Rep. Pete Gallego would have easily won in both 2012 and 2014. Austin is no longer split several ways and a new swing district is made out of the 25th. Romney only carried it by three points, while Obama won it by 5.3 percent in 2008. Democrats very well might have flipped this seat, but it probably goes narrowly for Republican Rep. Michael McCaul.
In Houston, the two black VRA seats are maintained as is the Hispanic seat. A new urban 10th is created after the old district was eliminated. Obama won this seat by 4.4 percent and it is unlikely that Republicans would have won it in 2012, although it would have been close and they may even have been favored with midterm turnout. This district is majority minority by the full voting age population, but among citizens it's slightly less than half.
Note that while the 9th is only 48 percent black, this is probably the lower end estimate because the Census Blocks aligned poorly with voting precincts. Additionally, if I could split the relatively large population precincts, this could be ameliorated without much impact on other districts.
In the Dallas-Ft. Worth metro area, a new heavily Hispanic 33rd District is drawn while the 6th remains the court-mandated coalition district. The 30th is kept majority black. All three seats are heavily Democratic, and Rep. Marc Veasey likely runs in the 6th. This would allow Hispanic voters to reliably elect their preferred candidate in the 33rd, which is not the case under the current map despite Republican claims that it would do so.
Districts 9, 15, 18, 16, 20, 28, 29, 34, and 35 remain safely Democratic, while all other remaining districts are heavily Republican. In total, Democrats gain three seats, all of which could possibly elect a minority.
This map was drawn in collaboration with University of South Carolina political science Ph.D student Wendell Mayes, IV, who argues:
"The spirit of the Voting Rights Act is to ensure that minority communities are able to elect their candidates of choice. While Republicans may currently have a proper legal basis to split excess minority populations after drawing the required districts, they violate the spirit of the law itself by drawing the minimum possible number of minority districts. The map here solves that problem by ensuring that all legally required minority districts are actually controlled by minority voters and are simultaneously compact.
Republican mapmakers would have a legal basis for ignoring some of the choices made here. The 10th and 25th could be made significantly more Republican at the expense of the 7th and 31st, respectively, and the 33rd could be dismantled in favor of further packing the 6th while drowning minority communities into suburban districts. However, it is important to understand that ignoring these choices would constitute a Republican gerrymander by shredding communities and placing wildly disparate interests together in districts.
Just as Democratic gerrymanders of Texas would be normatively inappropriate (for instance, it is possible in Texas to draw a visually appealing district connecting Democratic portions of Tyler, Waco, and Killeen that could support a Democratic candidate), so too are gerrymanders drawn by Republicans. This map seeks to illustrate that a fair compromise, one that respects communities of interest and the spirit of the Voting Rights Act, creates areas of genuine competition and coincidentally reflects the partisanship of the state itself."
By comparing the Democratic seat share in each state to Obama's vote share, we can approximate the disportionality in each state. The broader South is by far the worst region for geography bias against Democrats. This is unsurprising considering it is also has one of the highest rates of partisan polarization, while partisan and racial segregation are also very strong. However, this region's anti-Democratic bias is neutralized by their advantage in the Northeast.
Because every single map in this region benefitted Republicans, Democrats stand to gain considerably with a net of eight additional seats. Furthermore, most of these gains would come from more minority Democrats being elected.
Methodology
The criteria for drawing optimal districts are numbered below in order prioritization, but it is important that these factors be balanced with one another.
1. Ignore partisanship
2. Comply with the Voting Rights Act's demand for majority-minority districts
3. Utilize communities of interest like shared culture or economic class
4. Minimize unnecessary city and county splits
5. Geographic, not geometric compactness
You can find further details on the methodology used to construct these districts here, as well as all of the associated data files.
For all of our posts in the Nonpartisan Redistricting series, click here.
