The first reaction when someone sees a list of the states that are poised to gain House seats as a result of the 2010 census is usually “Uh oh, that’s a lot of red states.” Well, that’s true; of the nine states that Election Data Services projects as possibly gaining seats, only one (Oregon) has voted Democratic in the last few presidential elections. This might make the Electoral College more difficult in the short term.
The question is, though, who’s moving to these states (or being born in these states)? Over the long term, the answer is good news, because for the most part, it’s groups who are favorable to the Democratic party. (In particular, Latinos.) As immigrants get citizenship, and as their kids reach voting age, these states are likely to tip in our direction (unless the GOP somehow muzzles its nativist base and becomes all about inclusion). But this might have more immediate implications at the House level, because this may mean more minority-majority and/or ‘influence’ districts. Despite the fact that the new seats will be in red states, they might not be red seats. (Especially if we can control the redistricting process in as many of these states as possible.)
This table shows the raw numbers for population change for each major population group in each of these states between the 2000 census and the 2007 estimate. (White, Af.-Am., Asian = non-Hispanic white alone, non-Hispanic African-American alone, and non-Hispanic Asian alone.)
| State | Total gain | White gain | Af.-Am. gain | Asian gain | Hispanic gain |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arizona | 1,208,123 | 469,107 | 66,077 | 58,131 | 582,480 |
| Florida | 2,268,865 | 640,271 | 475,492 | 135,175 | 1,072,845 |
| Georgia | 1,358,297 | 454,928 | 494,140 | 92,859 | 305,616 |
| Nevada | 567,125 | 183,986 | 54,547 | 64,482 | 250,514 |
| North Carolina | 1,011,719 | 473,557 | 211,927 | 54,860 | 259,481 |
| Oregon | 326,056 | 158,006 | 11,906 | 34,316 | 120,826 |
| South Carolina | 395,697 | 225,266 | 74,125 | 16,082 | 73,844 |
| Texas | 3,052,560 | 510,305 | 365,609 | 233,307 | 1,930,733 |
| Utah | 412,161 | 273,041 | 9,201 | 14,377 | 104,955 |
In Arizona, Florida, and Nevada, Hispanic growth outpaced white growth, and in Georgia, African-American growth outpaced white growth. Most glaring of all is Texas, where Hispanic growth has outpaced white growth by a factor of four. (I’ll follow up on this when they release the 2007 estimate broken down by Congressional district, which should happen soon. This can help us look closer at, say, Texas, and identify where exactly all this new growth is happening.)
Is that the growth in Hispanic voters isn’t growing in equal numbers. Many of them are either here illegally or are working towards citizenship and thus won’t be voting anytime soon.
So essentially what is happening is that these people are counted in the census, but they aren’t getting counted at the voting booth. That means those groups that vote in higher numbers, maunly whites are overrepresented more than ever.
The “uh oh” comment is a common one (and common conventional wisdom as well). But it’s also important to keep in mind that states that will lose seats in 2010 like NY, PA, OH, and MI could be big trouble for the GOP. These are democratic states that had republican legislatures last time around and made very republican maps (as we’re all aware) and that basically gave the GOP their house advantage in the first 6 years of this decade. So if Dems take back the NY senate, PA senate, OH house and MI senate (or is it MI house?) they will be laying a big hammer down on the overly GOP maps after the 2010 census. With the new maps, you could see 6 republicans lose their seats immediately, plus maybe at least that many more with more favorable maps. And I haven’t even mentioned states like Illinois and NJ that already have the trifecta and will also be losing (republican) seats.
We could pick up 20 seats just from getting rid of GOP lean seats as industrial states lose population. Of course, we need to be careful in 2020 then because of the risk of more MAs where we have 10 Dems and 0 Reps so we can only go down. But that’s why we have a 50 state strategy.
In only two of those nine states is the white gain larger than the aggregate minority gain (South Carolina and Utah). And in five of the nine, the white gain is smaller than just one of the minority groups, leaving aside the other two.
Unrelatedly, how the hell is South Carolina growing? I’m not aware of major industries relocating there, a la North Carolina and Georgia, nor of any big growing urbanization, a la Vegas, Salt Lake, NoVa. Is South Carolina just the one part of the country where the white population is growing considerably even without in-migration?
OR is blue, NV and AZ are getting there and all but Utah on that list are not out of reach.
are a double-edged sword. The GOP has used them in NC to pack African-American voters into 2 districts (NC-1, NC-12), making all the adjoining districts whiter and easier for the GOP to win. Consider the convuluted map used – these 2 minority districts touch all 6 GOP held seat in NC:
NC-1 Butterfield (D) touches NC-2 Etheridge (D), 3 Jones (R), 13 Miller (D);
NC-12 Watt (D) touches NC-5 Foxx (R), 6 Coble (R), 8 Hayes (R), 9 Myrick (R), 10 McHenry (R) and 13.
Only NC-4 Price (D) and NC-11 Shuler (D) do not touch one of these majority-minority districts. Both NC-3 and NC-8 would probably be Democratic seats without this racial-tinged gerrymandering.
Betwen influencing redistricting by teaming up with minority legislators, using the Justice Dept oversight, and suing through GOP-friendly courts, the GOP has forced NC to draw more minority districts for both Congress and the NC General Assembly.
This does lead to more minority members of Congress and the NC House and Senate. It also makes many other seats more vulnerable to GOP takeover.
NC map of congressional districts:
http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmsp…
The fastest growing counties in SC are Dorchester (at 23%), Horry (21%), York (20%), Beaufort (17%), and Greenville (9.9%).
Having lived in Charlotte, I can’t speak to Beaufort or Dorchester’s growth as they surround Charleston. Horry county is indeed the retirees. The observer did an article not to long ago stating that coastal counties are becoming more republican, but its a moderate brand of republicanism. These areas use to be full of very conservative democrats. In reality, I think the more modern republicanism is helping us there. They are less concerned about the “social” arguments as the conservative democrats – believe it or not.
Greenville is growing with manufacturing and logisitics firms popping up all over. There are a couple of relatively new car manufacturing plants there (I believe toyota and BMW), lots of trucking companies who take advantage of the fact that Greenville is on I-85 & I-26 about equidistant from Charlotte, Atlanta and the Port of Charleston.
York County has become a fast growing suburb of Charlotte (The Charlotte city line is about 2 miles north of the NC/SC border on I-77. I-77 runs right into York county and makes a beeline to Columbia. Many of Charlotte’s blue and pink collar workers move to SC to escape NC’s higher sales tax, gas tax, property tax and vehicle tax. Furthermore, Charlotte city schools aren’t the greatest. Since these folks can’t afford the many private schools in the city, they escape to Rock Hill and Fort Mill for the slightly better schools. The county really doesn’t have industry to speak of. It’s rise is purely due to the suburbanization of Charlotte.
Here’s a link to the census bureau map.
http://quickfacts.census.gov/q…