An interesting new article from NCEC (the National Committee for an Effective Congress) shows just how far the GOP has fallen from its late-90s glory days. They’re by no means the first to observe that the Republicans have increasingly painted themselves into a corner in the deep south with their divisive rhetoric and embrace of the religious right, but they put it into pretty stark relief with some excellent charts and maps.
I won’t reproduce their charts (please check out the link), but the takeaway is that fully 41% of the Republicans’ seats are now in the South. If the different states were stocks, the Dems would be seen as having relatively balanced portfolio, while the GOP has put most of its eggs in the southern basket, holding very little of the northeast or west anymore.
The outcome of elections since 1996 has exposed a far larger problem for Republicans, than Democrats faced in the South. More than 46% of Republican House seats emanate from southern and border states, possessing only 28% of House seats nationally.
Republicans now control only 25.9% of congressional districts in the East, which translates into a 41-seat deficit. At their nadir, Democrats still held more than 40% of all seats in southern and border states.
The article predicts this will be a long-term hole for the GOP, not just based on regional trends but also the strength of Democratic incumbents, pointing out in all the years following 1994, only three Democratic incumbents lost in non-redistricting-affected races. Update: Although by Swing State Project’s own calculations, that number should be seven.
This article focused on the current composition of Congress, and left me with a few more questions: where have we been, over the last couple decades, and where might we go? To wit, here’s how the regionalized breakdown of the House has evolved since 1992:
| Congress | Midwest | Northeast | South | West |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 110th (2006) | 50 D 50 R |
68 D 24 R |
61 D 84 R |
57 D 41 R |
| 109th (2004) | 40 D 60 R |
56 D 35 R 1 I |
53 D 92 R |
53 D 45 R |
| 108th (2002) | 39 D 61 R |
55 D 36 R 1 I |
60 D 85 R |
52 D 46 R |
| 107th (2000) | 48 D 57 R |
57 D 39 R 1 I |
56 D 83 R 1 I |
50 D 43 R |
| 106th (1998) | 51 D 54 R |
59 D 37 R 1 I |
58 D 82 R |
44 D 49 R |
| 105th (1996) | 50 D 55 R |
57 D 39 R 1 I |
58 D 82 R |
41 D 52 R |
| 104th (1994) | 46 D 59 R |
51 D 45 R 1 I |
62 D 78 R |
39 D 54 R |
| 103rd (1992) | 61 D 44 R |
54 D 42 R 1 I |
88 D 52 R |
55 D 38 R |
[Note: I’m classifying my regions a little differently than the NCEC article (which uses 5 regions), consistent with how I’ve done regions before, i.e. I use the standard Census Bureau 4-region configuration, with one change: I include Maryland and Delaware as Northeast. Don’t forget that redistricting occurred between the 107th and 108th Congresses, in case you’re tinkering with these numbers and getting screwy results.]
As you can see, most of the last 14 years was a slow recovery from the 1994 debacle (where our losses were distributed pretty evenly across the country), followed by making up most of the rest of the loss in one feel swoop in 2006. Look at where the regional differences between now and 1992 (the last Democratic majority) are, though: the composition in the West didn’t change that much, and we’re down a bit in the Midwest from where we were, although things are even there now. We used to have a big majority in the South, which has turned into a deficit for us. And while the GOP used to be nearly even with us in the Northeast, they’ve been reduced to bit players there. (Which turns out to be a good trade-off, if you remember my piece on the “pivot point” from a few weeks ago: more Northeastern Dems and fewer Southern Dems means a more progressive Dem caucus, on average, than where we were during in Clinton’s first term.
Now let’s look at where we might be next year, using the same pessimistic/average/optimistic predictions that I’ve used before (pessimistic = 13 pickups, of SSP‘s tossups and lean Ds, average = 26 pickups, including lean Rs, wildly optimistic = 56 pickups, including likely Rs).
| Congress | Midwest | Northeast | South | West |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 111th pessimistic | 54 D 46 R |
73 D 19 R |
62 D 83 R |
60 D 38 R |
| 111th average | 60 D 40 R |
75 D 17 R |
64 D 81 R |
63 D 35 R |
| 111th optimistic | 66 D 34 R |
78 D 14 R |
77 D 68 R |
71 D 27 R |
The “average” scenario takes the total number of Dems back up to where they were in the House in 1992, but the regional balance will have totally changed. All three of these scenarios show an acceleration of the trend we’ve seen so far, though: the intensification of the Northeast as a Dem stronghold, and the marginalization of the GOP in the South (where, under the “optimistic” scenario, the GOP is left with almost 48% of its seats only in the South).
I was toying around with a similar set of numbers recently. According to my analysis 2012 redistricting is likely to net the Midwest (-6 seats), Northeast (-5 seats), West (+5 seats) and South (+6 seats). I suppose this population shift to the south and west will slightly hurt us in the short-term but should ease in the long-term.