Today and yesterday’s Census data dump is of three states that didn’t gain or lose seats but will need some internal adjustment to reflect population movement from the cities and the rural areas to the suburbs: Minnesota, New Mexico, and Tennessee. (It also included three states with at-large seats that we won’t need to discuss: Alaska, Montana, and North Dakota.)
Minnesota barely made the cut for retaining its eighth seat (13,000 fewer people statewide and it would have lost it), which you can see in its very low new target: 662,991 per district. (That’s up from about 615K in 2000.) Despite the fact that Michele Bachmann lives there, people keep pouring into MN-06 in the outer-ring suburbs and exurbs to the north, west, and east of the Twin Cities. Only it and MN-02, taking in the southern suburbs/exurbs, will need to shed population, giving part to the rural 1st and 7th, and part to the urban 4th and 5th (and suburban-but-boxed-in 3rd). With split redistricting control, look for the parties, if they’re able to agree, to settle on incumbent protection.
Talk of moving the college town of St. Cloud, currently in MN-06, into MN-08 (which would enable Tarryl Clark to run there) may be premature, as MN-08 gained enough population that it can remain about the same. In fact, the fact that it did so may say a lot about last year’s election; the 8th’s growth has been happening at its southern end, where the MSP exurbs begin and where new Rep. Chip Cravaack hails from, and the population growth in this area has outpaced losses in the dark-blue Iron Range to the north, Jim Oberstar’s traditional turf.
| District | Rep. | Population | Deviation |
|---|---|---|---|
| MN-01 | Walz (D) | 644,787 | (18,204) |
| MN-02 | Kline (R) | 732,515 | 69,524 |
| MN-03 | Paulsen (R) | 650,185 | (12,806) |
| MN-04 | McCollum (D) | 614,624 | (48,367) |
| MN-05 | Ellison (D) | 616,482 | (46,509) |
| MN-06 | Bachmann (R) | 759,478 | 96,487 |
| MN-07 | Peterson (D) | 625,512 | (37,479) |
| MN-08 | Cravaack (R) | 660,342 | (2,649) |
| Total: | 5,303,925 |
New Mexico’s target is 686,393, based on staying at three seats (up from 606K in 2000). Not much change needs to happen between the districts; the largely rural NM-02 will need to gain some population, probably from the southern suburbs of Albuquerque in NM-01. New Mexico has become appreciably more Hispanic over the last decade, though maybe not as dramatically as the other three border states (California, Arizona, and Texas), moving as a state from 45% non-Hispanic white and 42% Hispanic in 2000 to 40% non-Hispanic white and 46% Hispanic in 2010. That means that, since 2000, it has become the first state with a Hispanic plurality. The movement was fairly consistent among districts, with the 1st going from 42% to 48% Hispanic, the 2nd going from 47% to 52% Hispanic, and the 3rd going from 36% to 39% Hispanic (the 3rd, though, is the least-white of the three districts, thanks to an 18% Native American population, which stayed consistent over the decade).
| District | Rep. | Population | Deviation |
|---|---|---|---|
| NM-01 | Heinrich (D) | 701,939 | 15,546 |
| NM-02 | Pearce (R) | 663,956 | (22,437) |
| NM-03 | Lujan (D) | 693,284 | 6,891 |
| Total: | 2,059,179 |
Tennessee stays comfortably at nine seats, and its new target is 705,122 (up from 632K in 2000). It, like Minnesota, has seen a big population shift from cities and rural areas to suburbs and exurbs, as seen in the huge growth in the 6th (which half-circles Nashville on the east) and the 7th (a thin gerrymander that hooks up Nashville’s southern suburbs with Memphis’s eastern suburbs). In particular, western Tennessee, both in the city (TN-09) and the rural areas (TN-08) were hard-hit, with the 8th barely gaining and the 9th outright losing population. The GOP controls the redistricting process for the first time here, but with them up 7-2 in the current House delegation (and with Memphis unfixably blue), look for them to lock in current gains rather than getting aggressive with TN-05 (seeing as how Nashville could be cracked into multiple light-red urban/suburban districts, although that has ‘dummymander’ written all over it).
| District | Rep. | Population | Deviation |
|---|---|---|---|
| TN-01 | Roe (R) | 684,093 | (21,029) |
| TN-02 | Duncan (R) | 723,798 | 18,676 |
| TN-03 | Fleischmann (R) | 692,346 | (12,776) |
| TN-04 | Des Jarlais (R) | 688,008 | (17,114) |
| TN-05 | Cooper (D) | 707,420 | 2,298 |
| TN-06 | Black (R) | 788,754 | 83,632 |
| TN-07 | Blackburn (R) | 792,605 | 87,483 |
| TN-08 | Fincher (R) | 658,258 | (46,864) |
| TN-09 | Cohen (D) | 610,823 | (94,299) |
| Total: | 6,346,105 |
that Tim Walz could get a tougher district, absorbing conservative exurbanites from the 2nd. But wouldn’t Gov. Dayton insist on a safer seat for Walz? Can it be made any safer, or is that area of the state too devoid of obvious Democratic areas?
Since the Republican areas of MN-08 are on the outskirts of the district and the Democratic areas of the district are on the interior it will be next to impossible for Republicans to strengthen Chip Cravaack much. This is still a Democratic leaning district, every Dem running statewide won it easily, Oberstar’s loss had more to do with him becoming a creature of DC and not paying enough attention to his district than with some yearning to elect a Republican.
Some counties in Tennessee still will vote Democratic for the right candidate and Nashville in multiple districts with places like that is a surefire dummymander in an unfavorable GOP year.
I did some internal work for the Montana Democrats on the 2014 Legislative Redistricting, and I’ll need to revisit my lines.
The fact that you thing that Minnesota’s legislature and governor could “agree” on a map. That hasn’t happened in my lifetime, and may not ever happen in my lifetime. The courts are going to draw the map, and just shift some of the 6th to the 7th (This is far county we are talking about anyways, Peterson’s forte.). I see Washington County giving some of it’s area to the 4th to make population meet. Since both the 5th and 3rd need to gain population, I think that either the 3rd or the 5th with expand further into Anoka County (My bet is on the 5th taking up Blaine). We will see what the judges do though. Traditionally, the court maps have kept good tabs on communities of interest, and keep districts mostly compact (The 6th district is a bit of an ugly duckling currently, though).
Perfect solution for NM-01 is to take Torrance County and give it to Pearce. That will shift it to about D + 7. Heinrich or more likely his replacement will be much more favored in this district. With split control in NM it’s hard to really change the boundaries much and doing this would essentially put Pearce at ideal population. It would sure up Pearce even more.
and have suggested for months several plans to ease everyone’s pain in MN. Its not a final deal but the VA congressional delegation has put together a deal. I really expect to see a deal on the MN seats. The lack of any major candidate from the Iron range area actually increases the chances that one of these scenerios come about.
1st scenerio–Walz gets most of Rice and loses Wabasha county. That’s a small move to the left for him. Peterson gets rest of Beltrami and some of Koochiching to do his 36K shortfall. MN8 picks up 38K in Benton county. That moves MN7 a bit to the left and MN a bit to the right.
2nd scenerio. MN7 picks up balance of Beltram, Koochiching and Itasca counties. CD7 loses a county in SE part of seat to CD2. MN8 picks up the eastern part of Stearns county that includes Clark’s home. Simlar move for Walz in CD1 as listed above.
This helps the three key incumbents and may or may not create a 4-4 map. Not sure this happens but watch the incumbents.
The two Twin City districts needing to pick up so much territory, I’d say, completely cancels out getting to cut out rural territory out of MN-2 and MN-6 and make at least one of them more competitive. It does now seem almost guaranteed that Bachmann’s home will be put in MN-4, as the city of Woodbury almost identically matches the population needed for MN-4, borders it, and still keeps it strictly east metro. Not sure about Ellison’s. Needing that much pop. is going to make MN-3 safer, most likely.
Wow even MN-1 grew more than MN-4 and MN-5. Expect to see MN-5 to turn this around over the next decade. Mpls was just starting to hit it’s stride in the condo market but then the economy hit. Units were already being sold in what would have been the tallest all residential building west of Mississippi, but project canceled. Currently, Mpls has one of the best economies and lowest unemployment rates in the country, and RT Rybak is the shit and knows how to get people to build in downtown.
Downtown St. Paul also has a budding new housing area called Lowertown, and it actually has done really well despite the economy. The new inter-downtown lightrail will have it’s last stop in the neighborhood at the starting to get renovated Union Depot. And the stimulus provided a lot of tax credits for building stuff and St. Paul heavily took advantage because they had many shovel ready, but fucked over, projects to go. But I don’t know if this one neighborhood will provide too much growth.
(Not proofreading because I gotta go to work!)
It makes it so much easier to fully appreciate what is happening in these districts and which party held seats are likely to be most effected by gerrymandering.