Tag: Pres-by-CD

Time for another installment in the slicing ‘n’ dicing of our presidential-election-results-by-congressional district dataset. One interesting thing I noticed (that has sort of a “well, duh” feel to it if you think about it for a minute) is that the districts that had the largest raw numbers of votes for Obama or for McCain were rarely the same districts that gave them the best percentages.

The raw vote numbers instead can point to a variety of factors: districts that experienced rapid population growth since redistricting, districts that started out the decade with high population (for instance, some at-large districts haven’t grown much, but have always been very big), districts in civic-minded states (like Wisconsin and Oregon) where turnout is always high, and low-income minority-majority districts (where, despite increased turnout for Obama, overall turnout is still comparatively low).

District	Rep.	Obama votes	District	Rep.	Obama votes
WA-07	McDermott	308,226	TN-01	Roe	75,255
PA-02	Fattah	298,834	AL-06	Bachus	74,657
WI-02	Baldwin	286,089	TX-08	Brady	74,545
NC-04	Price	275,205	NE-03	Smith	73,099
MD-04	Edwards	270,377	GA-09	Deal	70,366
CA-08	Pelosi	266,210	TX-29	Green	66,808
IL-02	Jackson	260,869	TX-19	Neugebauer	65,020
CA-09	Lee	260,662	AL-04	Aderholt	58,863
OR-03	Blumenauer	260,128	TX-11	Conaway	58,326
IL-07	Davis	255,470	TX-13	Thornberry	53,860

The biggest Obama vote totals tended to come in districts that don’t necessarily have the highest PVIs, but are the some of the most stereotypically “liberal” districts centered on mostly-white cities with left-leaning traditions (Seattle, Madison, San Francisco, Portland). Some of the more relatively affluent African-American-majority districts round out the list. (The lowest Obama totals did in fact come from the districts with the worst Obama percentages, with one big exception: TX-29, which Obama won easily, but has the fewest total votes of any district.)

District	Rep.	McCain votes	District	Rep.	McCain votes
FL-05	Brown-Waite	249,328	CA-35	Waters	27,789
WI-05	Sensenbrenner	243,597	CA-33	Watson	27,672
AL-06	Bachus	243,465	CA-31	Becerra	25,441
MT-AL	Rehberg	242,763	NY-12	Velazquez	23,504
GA-03	Westmoreland	235,263	NY-06	Meeks	22,302
FL-01	Miller	234,185	NY-11	Clarke	20,709
FL-04	Crenshaw	233,446	NY-10	Towns	19,677
CO-06	Coffman	229,715	IL-04	Gutierrez	18,453
TN-07	Blackburn	229,068	NY-15	Rangel	14,954
FL-06	Stearns	228,651	NY-16	Serrano	8,437

The highest McCain vote totals mostly came in rapidly growing suburban districts that lean Republican (MT-AL is also here, simply by virtue of its size). Half of these districts are ones where Obama got at least 40% of the vote, so these aren’t necessarily the most right-wing territory (heh, except for AL-06). However, these are districts that will need to shed population with 2012 redistricting, so their Republican lean may leach out into currently neighboring districts. (The districts with the most pitiable McCain totals tend to overlap the districts with the highest PVIs.)

District	Rep.	Total votes	District	Rep.	Total votes
MT-AL	Rehberg	491,092	TX-15	Hinojosa	167,821
FL-05	Brown-Waite	446,316	NY-16	Serrano	167,443
NC-04	Price	438,937	CA-43	Baca	164,830
CO-06	Coffman	437,740	CA-34	Roybal-Allard	142,774
WI-05	Sensenbrenner	421,962	CA-31	Becerra	142,662
WI-02	Baldwin	414,638	IL-04	Gutierrez	139,546
DE-AL	Castle	412,412	AZ-04	Pastor	132,076
MN-06	Bachmann	412,408	CA-20	Costa	129,561
FL-06	Stearns	408,014	CA-47	Sanchez	128,277
FL-07	Mica	401,966	TX-29	Green	108,507

For context, here are the districts with the highest and lowest total number of votes. The districts with the greatest numbers of votes are mostly ones we’ve already seen, depending on whether they lean Democratic or Republican. The lowest totals are in Hispanic-majority districts, where citizenship and language barriers are at issue.

Another topic in the slicing and dicing of our newly compiled presidential-election-by-congressional-district data: where are the split districts? In other words, which districts won by Obama have Republican representatives, and which districts won by McCain have Democratic representatives? (CQ already beat me to the punch on this particular question, but to give it a new spin, I’m arranging them in order of the districts’ three-way margin, which gives at least some relative sense of vulnerability.)

District	Republican	Obama Margin	District	Democrat	McCain Margin
LA-02	Cao	49.3	MS-04	Taylor	35.5
DE-AL	Castle	25.0	TX-17	C. Edwards	35.2
IL-10	Kirk	22.8	OK-02	Boren	31.2
PA-06	Gerlach	16.6	TN-04	L. Davis	29.8
WA-08	Reichert	14.8	AL-02	Bright	27.4
IL-06	Roskam	13.2	ID-01	Minnick	26.6
PA-15	Dent	12.4	TN-06	Gordon	25.3
IL-13	Biggert	9.6	LA-03	Melancon	24.0
MI-06	Upton	9.5	MS-01	Childers	23.5
NJ-02	Lo Biondo	9.3	AL-05	Griffith	22.9
MI-11	McCotter	9.2	MO-04	Skelton	22.7
IL-16	Manzullo	8.5	AR-01	Berry	20.3
IA-04	Latham	7.5	VA-09	Boucher	19.1
OH-12	Tiberi	7.5	AR-04	Ross	18.8
MI-08	Rogers	6.9	MD-01	Kratovil	18.5
VA-10	Wolf	6.8	UT-02	Matheson	18.1
MN-03	Paulsen	6.4	WV-01	Mollohan	15.3
NY-23	McHugh	5.2	WV-03	Rahall	13.5
CA-45	Bono Mack	4.6	GA-08	Marshall	13.4
CA-50	Bilbray	4.2	TN-08	Tanner	13.3
FL-10	Young	4.1	KY-06	Chandler	12.2
CA-26	Dreier	4.1	PA-04	Altmire	10.5
WI-01	Ryan	3.9	AZ-01	Kirkpatrick	10.2
NJ-07	Lance	3.5	AR-02	Snyder	9.9
CA-24	Gallegly	2.8	FL-02	Boyd	9.7
FL-18	Ros-Lehtinen	2.3	ND-AL	Pomeroy	8.6
MI-04	Camp	1.9	SD-AL	Herseth	8.4
VA-04	Forbes	1.5	PA-10	Carney	8.3
NE-02	Terry	1.2	SC-05	Spratt	7.2
WI-06	Petri	1.2	OH-18	Space	6.7
CA-25	McKeon	1.1	AZ-08	Giffords	5.9
CA-44	Calvert	0.9	NC-11	Shuler	5.6
CA-48	Campbell	0.7	NC-07	McIntyre	5.6
CA-03	Lungren	0.5	AZ-05	Mitchell	4.5
—	—	—	IN-08	Ellsworth	3.9
—	—	—	MN-07	C. Peterson	2.7
—	—	—	OH-06	C. Wilson	2.7
—	—	—	OH-16	Boccieri	2.6
—	—	—	CO-03	Salazar	2.5
—	—	—	PA-17	Holden	2.5
—	—	—	VA-05	Perriello	2.3
—	—	—	NY-29	Massa	2.2
—	—	—	FL-24	Kosmas	2.0
—	—	—	NY-13	McMahon	1.8
—	—	—	IN-09	Hill	1.8
—	—	—	NM-02	Teague	1.3
—	—	—	CO-04	Markey	0.9
—	—	—	PA-12	Murtha	0.4
—	—	—	PA-03	Dahlkemper	0.006

There’s a definite tilt in the playing field that happened with 2008, compared with 2004: there are 34 Obama/R districts and 49 McCain/D districts. In the aftermath of the 2004 election, there were 18 Kerry/R districts and 41 Bush/D districts. The numbers have moved not only because Obama picked up a number of suburban districts that previously resided in the R+5 area (especially in places like California and Michigan), but also because of some inroads we’ve made at getting Blue Dogs elected in districts that were dark red in both 2004 and 2008. (Remember how the disparity in Kerry/R and Bush/D districts was part of the “permanent Republican majority?” They were going to slowly pick off all those Bush/D districts while, of course, we picked off nothing and the presidential bar didn’t move, either.)

I don’t want to cause your eyes to fall out by printing the whole 2004 list, so here’s the top 10 in each category (worth seeing if only to see what a swath we’ve cut through the moderate Republicans in the last four years):

District	Republican	Kerry Margin	District	Democrat	Bush Margin
IA-02	Leach	11.5	TX-17	C. Edwards	39.7
CT-02	Simmons	9.7	MS-04	Taylor	37.2
DE-AL	Castle	7.6	UT-02	Matheson	34.7
IA-01	Nussle	6.5	MO-04	Skelton	29.0
PA-07	Weldon	6.1	ND-AL	Pomeroy	27.4
CT-04	Shays	6.1	SD-AL	Herseth	21.5
IL-10	Kirk	5.5	AL-05	Cramer	20.3
NH-02	Bass	5.0	VA-09	Boucher	20.2
FL-22	Shaw	4.9	TN-06	Gordon	20.0
PA-08	Fitzpatrick	3.4	OK-02	Boren	18.8

I’m going to be doing some slicing-and-dicing of our dataset of 2008 presidential election results by congressional district in the coming weeks. Let’s start out with some of the basics: the most Democratic and Republican-leaning districts, as well as the most narrowly divided districts. (I’m measuring this in terms of the three-way margin, rather than Obama or McCain percentage.)

If you’ve been poring over the presidential results-by-congressional district data that we’ve compiled, you’ve probably noticed that there are a whole lot of districts that flipped from being won by Bush in 04 to Obama in 08 (64 of them, to be exact), and only one that flipped from Kerry to McCain. That’s interesting enough, and other analysts have already delved into that… but I decided to look at one more data point, and also factor in what the district did in 2000.

When I start talking about districts in terms of them being “GBM” or “BBO” or “GBO” it may sound like I’m talking in terms of genetic code. I’m using those as shorthand for how the district performed in the last three elections: being won by Gore/Bush/McCain, or Bush/Bush/Obama, for instance. In a way, though, we are very much talking about the genetic code for each district, because each of these classifications reveals a lot about what kind of political ecosystem the district is located in.

Over 80% of all House districts are either Bush/Bush/McCain or Gore/Kerry/Obama; not so interesting. I’m concerned with the remaining 75 districts. Many of them aren’t what you’d traditionally think of as swing districts, but rather red districts in blue states that got pushed along by Obama’s strong performance in those states. Time will tell whether these become the “new” swing seats, or if they fall back as the blue wave passes. These fall largely into the “BBO” category:

Bush/Bush/Obama: CA-03, CA-11, CA-24, CA-25, CA-26, CA-44, CA-45, CA-48, CA-50, FL-08, FL-18, IA-04, IL-06, IL-08, IL-11, IL-13, IL-14, IL-16, IN-02, KS-03, MI-01, MI-04, MI-06, MI-07, MI-08, MI-09, MI-11, MN-01, MN-03, NC-02, NC-08, NE-02, NH-01, NJ-07, NY-19, NY-20, NY-23, NY-24, OH-01, OH-12, OH-15, OR-05, TX-23, TX-28, VA-02, VA-04, VA-10, VA-11, WA-03, WI-01, WI-06, WI-08

You can see a couple different trends here, primarily previously-Republican-leaning suburbs in states where Obama cleaned up (California, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin) or where it was closer but he made a big push (Virginia, Ohio, Florida). There are also a fair number of rural Michigan districts here as well, pointing toward McCain’s more general collapse in that state.

There are also a few of the most conservative Hispanic-majority seats that finally cracked, and a few formerly red districts in midwestern cities that benefited from heavy Dem targeting (IN-02, NE-02). There are also a few rural northeastern Rockefeller Republican seats in New York and New Hampshire where patience with today’s GOP seems to be finally exhausted. Finally, I see at least three seats where I would wager that Dukakis actually beat Bush I, but where Democratic fortunes started to wane in the mid-90s until the recent rebound (IA-04, OR-05, and WA-03).

Gore/Bush/Obama: CA-18, CA-47, FL-10, GA-02, GA-12, IA-03, NJ-02, NJ-03, NV-03, NY-01, TX-15, TX-27

Among the “GBO” districts, there’s a mix of several things. There are more Hispanic-majority districts, where Bush’s attempts at Latino outreach in 2004 may have helped him eke out a win. There are some northeastern suburban seats where Kerry didn’t play very well (partially but not entirely explained by the 9/11 effect, perhaps). There are a few Georgia districts where paltry African-American turnout may have harmed Kerry, and finally some of the most knife’s-edge swing districts of all (FL-10, IA-03, NV-03), where Gore’s slightly better overall nationwide position vs. Kerry seemed to make the difference.

Bush/Kerry/Obama: NC-13, OR-04, TX-25

See a commonality here among the “BKO” districts? These are three districts dominated by college towns (Raleigh, Eugene, Austin) but with conservative surroundings. In OR-04 and TX-25, a lot of that may have to do with a strong Nader effect depressing Gore votes (and in Texas, a favorite son effect boosting Bush). Interestingly, Nader wasn’t on the ballot in North Carolina in 2000, meaning that this shift is probably based on demographic changes in the Research Triangle as liberal whites from elsewhere move in.

Gore/Bush/McCain: AR-01, AR-04, NJ-04, NY-03, NY-13, TN-08, WV-03

There are two clear sub-groups among the “GBM” districts: some of the most Dem-friendly districts (and ones that would be particularly responsive to favorite sons Clinton or Gore) in the Appalachian arc finally falling through the floor. And some of the most socially conservative districts in the New York metro area, where the 9/11 effect was especially pronounced and still seems to linger… but where Gore also seemed to overperform.

Gore/Kerry/McCain: PA-12

The lone “GKM” district, as I’ve discussed before, is one that’s trending away from us because of, more than any other reason, mortality. Former unionists who formed a strong Democratic core in the collar counties around Pittsburgh are dying off rapidly, leaving a mix of their economically dislocated and culture-wars-susceptible descendants, and new exurban residents. This brings us to the last possible permutation: the Bush/Kerry/McCain district… and there ain’t no such beast.