The four states this week for the Census 2010 data dump are Illinois, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Texas. South Dakota has only one congressional district and Texas I’m reserving for its own special in-depth post which will look at changes in racial composition in each district over the decade (and Texas isn’t out yet today, so it’s a moot point), so here are just Illinois and Oklahoma. The Illinois target (based on the drop to 18 seats) is 712,813. (Check out the depopulation on Chicago’s South Side in IL-01 and IL-02. Bobby Rush and Jesse Jackson Jr.’s districts already include small amounts of suburbs, but they’re going to need to take on significantly more.)
| District | Population | Deviation |
|---|---|---|
| IL-01 | 587,596 | (125,217) |
| IL-02 | 602,758 | (110,055) |
| IL-03 | 663,381 | (49,432) |
| IL-04 | 601,156 | (111,657) |
| IL-05 | 648,610 | (64,203) |
| IL-06 | 657,131 | (55,682) |
| IL-07 | 638,105 | (74,708) |
| IL-08 | 738,840 | 26,027 |
| IL-09 | 628,859 | (83,954) |
| IL-10 | 650,425 | (62,388) |
| IL-11 | 759,445 | 46,632 |
| IL-12 | 666,459 | (46,354) |
| IL-13 | 773,095 | 60,282 |
| IL-14 | 840,956 | 128,143 |
| IL-15 | 681,580 | (31,233) |
| IL-16 | 718,791 | 5,978 |
| IL-17 | 634,792 | (78,021) |
| IL-18 | 665,723 | (47,090) |
| IL-19 | 672,930 | (39,883) |
| Total: | 12,830,632 |
In case you were wondering about population growth in the few Illinois districts where the state’s growth was concentrated, much of that growth is Hispanic. For instance, IL-08 went from 11% Hispanic in 2000 to 17% Hispanic in 2010. IL-11 went from 7% to 11% Hispanic. IL-13 went from 5% to 11% Hispanic, while IL-14 went from 18% to 25% Hispanic. (Perhaps not coincidentally, we lost seats in three of these districts, as turnout in 2010 was much whiter and older than in 2008.)
Oklahoma (which stays at 5, and where the growth has been remarkably consistent across CD boundaries) has a target of 750,270.
| District | Population | Deviation |
|---|---|---|
| OK-01 | 754,310 | 4,040 |
| OK-02 | 729,887 | (20,383) |
| OK-03 | 732,394 | (17,876) |
| OK-04 | 785,424 | 35,154 |
| OK-05 | 749,336 | (934) |
| Total: | 3,751,351 |
To distinguish between “population loss” and “population growth at a slower rate than the national or state average resulting in a depopulated congressional district.” The red numbers only imply the latter, not necessarily the former, right?
As noted, those population shortfalls in all the Chicago-based districts (especially in IL-1, IL-2, and IL-4) are going to require a lot of creative line drawing — hopefully in a way that takes out a currently Republican suburban district and divides it up between a series of safe Democratic seats.
In addition to improving the Democrats’ partisan position, I also hope/imagine that it will cause enough significant change to Dan Lipinski’s district (IL-3) that it makes him seriously vulnerable in a primary for a safe Democratic district. No excuse for someone that conservative representing a solid Democratic urban/suburban constituency.
surprise in 2010 numbers. The 2010 numbers were about 90K lower then 2009 estimates and the entire amount of missed or population loss was in Chicago.
I need to look at some numbers and let others plug them as well. The final numbers show a deeper hole in the city for the democrats.
I hope to see a map or two in the next few days based on these numbers
Just a question: How does the government actually set the number of congresional seats for each state? In other words, what is the formula? Do they take out the first 50 seats, one for each state and then divide up the rest, or what? There is more than one mathematical way. Just curious.
Looking at the color-coded Census page for IL of Percent Pop Change by County: http://2010.census.gov/2010cen…
The city and close suburbs have a loss or minimal growth
Cook = loss
DuPage 0-5% growth
A fair growth in outer suburbs:
Lake, Kankakee 5-15% growth
But big growth for the outer suburbs and exurbs and even further betond:
McHenry, DeKalb 15-25% growth
Will, Grundy, Kendall, Kane, Boone all 25%+ growth!
Holy cow. There needs to be a new word coined for what comes beyond the exburbs
(I’d have made a screen grab of the Census’s color map, but can’t right now, but the picture is worth a 1000 words)
I think this makes it tougher for the Dems to make up a lot of ground here. Many were talking about picking up 4 or 5 districts I think 1 or 2 is more likely. Republicans obviously will suffer the lost 19th seat. It probably comes from downstate since urban Dem pols dominate in the legislature. But downstate hasn’t had as great of loss as Cook Co seats. Davis, Jackson, Rush and Guitierrez will want the majority minority nature of their seats preserved as best as possible but Jackson and Rush will have to push out into Biggert’s and Kinzinger’s districts. Lipinski too will have to push west. Quigley and Schawkowsky will have to push north and west and Davis will need some territory from fellow Dems. Walsh probably gets pushed out of Cook Co but that only helps him.
And not downstate based on these figures. It’s not going to happen (goodbye CD-17).
Chicago got creamed. I don’t think anyone even predicted close to this type of loss. The percent lost is coming up on what you’d find in neighboring big city Rustbelt towns.
The seat disappearing would definitely not be from downstate, as the only seat severely underpopulated there is IL-17, and that could be remedied by stripping the rural areas from IL-11 and IL-14, both of which are over.
Under a compromise map, you’d probably see Dold eliminated and most of his seat sucked into Schkowsky’s, as all the Chicago districts pull north and Walsh gets a safer seat out in the exurbs.
Can’t the Democrats just make 14 Democratic districts, three Republican districts, and one swing district? In other words, how many swing districts are necessary in order to cave our as many safe Democratic districts?