Florida State House Numbers Analysis

Cross-posted from Flapolitics.

I was reading Mike Lux’s post at Open Left on Congressional districts and why the Democratic caucus votes the way it does when an idea popped in my head. I was thinking why don’t we do something like this for the Florida legislature, but instead use it to see how we can take back the legislature.

In this edition, I’ve compiled the Florida House seats list. Like Lux did with Congress, I put the Florida House seats into seven categories based on Democratic Party performance. Unfortunately good data is not available for 2004 performance on the presidential level in individual state house districts, so I’ve had to stick with 2000 data, which is provided by the government. Some districts have seen demographic changes, particularly in central and southern Florida, so this list is not going to be completely accurate, but it will give us an idea of what we should be thinking about when we choose what seats we want to go after for the next two cycles.

Let’s keep in mind the goal is taking back the Florida House by 2010, so first of all we can have good policies again in our state. On the national level it also might interest outsiders, because if we win a chamber in government, then Democrats would have a say in the redistricting process that will affect the maps of Florida’s likely to be 27 Congressional seats for the next decade. It is obviously very important to the Democratic Party both inside the state and on the national level that we succeed in winning one chamber by 2010.

So now let’s get on to how we win back the Florida House. Currently as it stands, Republicans hold 78 seats to our 42 seats. That’s a 36-seat majority, meaning we need to win 18 seats to move into a tie with Republicans. Luckily we do have two more election cycles to accomplish this task. In 2006, we got off to a good start (if I remember correctly we picked up six seats?). Then in 2007, we built on that momentum, winning the 49th district (Cat. 3) seat in a special election.

2000 Democratic Performance

Statewide: 49 %

Category 1: 70 – 100: 20 districts, 20 D, 0 R

Category 2: 60 – 69: 10 districts, 10 D, 0 R

Category 3: 54 – 59: 5 districts, 5 D, 0 R

Category 4: 47 – 53: 19 districts, 5 D, 13 R

Category 5: 41 – 46: 40 districts, 1 D, 40 R

Category 6: 31 – 40: 19 districts, 1 D, 18 R

Category 7: 0 – 30: 7 districts, 0 D, 7 R

From this data we can see that as Democrats we already have the odds stacked against us. Despite having a 49 – 49 % split in the 2000 elections, the Republicans gerrymandered the districts to give a 66 – 35 district lean advantage to the Republicans, with 19 tossup districts in the middle. Even if we carry every tossup district, that still gives us only 54 seats. So to get to the magic 60 number, giving us 50% of seats, we must win an additional 6 seats from the lean Republican categories (We already have two of these, so four more), assuming we win every tossup and every lean-Democratic district. At the moment, we do hold every lean-Democratic district, but we only hold 5 of the 18 tossup districts. We hold two Republican favored districts, one in a 38% and the other in a 44% Democratic performing district. We therefore need to win at least four more of the Republican favored districts and for every district we don’t win in Category 4, we will need to win additional ones in Category 5.

From this I would say a central part of our strategy should definitely be going after those tossup districts. We really must win quite a few of those if we want to win back the House. It also should be noted that Democrats performed quite well actually in several of the Category 5 districts in 2006. We actually won the 107th district in 2006 and two of our four closest losses were from the 48th and 70th districts, where we captured 48 % and 49 % of the votes, whereas Gore pulled in only 45 % and 43 % in those districts, respectively. I’m not going to speculate on the possible causes of this movement here, though it could be any sort of things (good candidates, demographic changes, bad Republicans, statewide sentiment, etc…). The main good news though is that many Cat. 5 districts are certainly within reach for Democrats.

Another thing we should look at going into 2008 and 2010 are seats that will open up due to term limits. I looked at this particularly for the tossup districts. In 2008, we will see four open seats, one currently held by a Democrat and three by Republicans. In 2010, there will be five open contests, all seats currently held by Republicans. This gives us eight golden opportunities to pick up seats over the next two election periods. Like with the case for lean-Republican districts, just because a seat is not open does not mean Democrats are not able to compete. In 2006, the Democratic candidate captured 49% of the vote in the 83rd district against a Republican incumbent running for a 3rd term in office. Of course the open seats probably offer a better chance at victory for Democrats in most cases, but if we compete with a strong candidate and finances, then we can really compete in any of the Category 4/tossup districts and likely some of the Category 5 ones, as well. In particular, there are ten open seats that will be fought for in Cat. 5 districts. There will also be a special election in 2008 in the 38th district, a Cat. 5 district. We may have a chance there, especially given Bob Allen’s scandal-ridden resignation that opened this seat up.

Overall, from this data for 2008 I would say we definitely want to take a good look at those three open Republicans seats and look at defending our own. We’re also going to have to make a strong effort to win some of the other tossup districts and take a deeper look at several of the Cat. 5 races to see which ones will offer us our best chances of pickups. Remember, demographics have been changing in many of the districts, so those would be the ones to really look at. As an example, we know the 119th district (Cat. 5) where Michael Calderin is running has been growing in independent registration, while Republican registration has been declining most rapidly. Gore took 43 % in the district, but if that election were held again today perhaps that performance would be 45 % or higher. Of course it’s difficult to say, but it’s something to think about.

Here are the categories with their respective districts and open seats for 2008 are indicated for Categories 4 and 5, where we’ll surely be making several of our prime targets in 2008. For information on state house representatives, you can visit the Florida Progressive Coalition's Wiki Page and for information on the district performance see here.

Category 1: 08, 39, 55, 59, 78, 84, 86, 90, 93, 94, 95, 96, 98, 103, 104, 105, 106, 108, 109, 118

Category 2: 14, 15, 23, 27, 58, 88, 89, 92, 99, 100

Category 3: 36, 49, 53, 85, 97

Category 4: 09 (open-D), 22, 26, 28, 35 (open), 44, 45, 46, 50, 51, 52, 65 (open), 69, 81 (open), 83, 87, 91, 101, 120

Category 5: 03, 10 (open), 20, 21 (open), 24, 25 (open), 29, 30, 31 (open), 32 (special election 2008), 33, 34, 37 (open), 38, 40 (open), 41, 42 (open), 43, 47, 48, 54, 56 (open), 57, 60, 61, 63, 64, 66, 68, 70, 71, 72, 73, 79 (open), 80 (open), 82, 107, 114, 116, 119

Category 6: 05, 06, 07, 11, 16, 17, 62, 67, 74, 75, 76, 77, 102, 110, 111, 112, 113, 115, 117

Category 7: 01, 02, 04, 12, 13, 18, 19