Author: Crisitunity

Public Policy Polling (PDF) (3/24-27, Mississippi voters, no trendlines)

Johnny DuPree (D): 25

Phil Bryant (R): 56

Undecided: 19

Bill Luckett (D): 27

Phil Bryant (R): 53

Undecided: 20

Johnny DuPree (D): 28

Dave Dennis (R): 41

Undecided: 31

Bill Luckett (D): 25

Dave Dennis (R): 43

Undecided: 32

Johnny DuPree (D): 28

Hudson Holliday (R): 37

Undecided: 35

Bill Luckett (D): 28

Hudson Holliday (R): 38

Undecided: 34

(MoE: ±3.4%)

The 2011 gubernatorial race doesn’t look to be much of a challenge for the Republicans to hold; neither Dem nominee, either Hattiesburg mayor Johnny Dupree or businessman and Morgan Freeman chum Bill Luckett, comes anywhere close. (If you’re wondering why they didn’t poll anyone stronger, nobody else is coming; the field is already closed.) The Republican primary — between Lt. Gov. Phil Bryant, whom I expect is the favorite based on being the only of the five candidates with name rec over 50% or positive favorables (32/27), businessman Dave Dennis, and retired general and county commissioner Hudson Holliday — is where the real action will be, but it doesn’t seem like PPP polled the primaries.

Public Policy Polling (PDF) (3/24-27, Mississippi voters, no trendlines)

Travis Childers (D): 33

Roger Wicker (R-inc): 51

Undecided: 15

Jim Hood (D): 36

Roger Wicker (R-inc): 50

Undecided: 14

Mike Moore (D): 38

Roger Wicker (R-inc): 48

Undecided: 14

Ronnie Musgrove (D): 35

Roger Wicker (R-inc): 52

Undecided: 13

Gene Taylor (D): 36

Roger Wicker (R-inc): 48

Undecided: 17

(MoE: ±3.4%)

With no Dem challenger on the horizon for Roger Wicker (who beat ex-Gov. Ronnie Musgrove in 2008, after previously being appointed by Haley Barbour to succeed Trent Lott), PPP throws the entire Dem bench up at the low-profile Wicker and finds that nothing really sticks, as he has a pretty strong 51/23 approval, including 33/29 among Dems. If anything, it gives a relative sense of what Dems are best liked here… it’s probably ex-AG Mike Moore, who polls within 10 and has 39/23 favorables.

Senate:

• CT-Sen: Connecticut’s open seat Senate race was always destined to be a high-dollar affair, and the money chase is well underway. Former SoS Susie Bysiewicz released a first quarter total of a respectable $500K, but Rep. Chris Murphy, her main rival in the Dem primary, just more than doubled up on that, with $1.1 million raised over the course of his first 10 weeks. (Of course, they’ve both picked their low hanging fruit on their first trip to the orchard, so the challenge will be to keep up that rate.)

• FL-Sen: PPP, who put out general election numbers on the Senate race last week, have the GOP primary numbers… and they find GOP voters saying “Uh, who?” (Y’know, like that guy who used to be the Senator… who somehow is known by only 26% of the sample?) Unfortunately, Connie Mack IV dropped out while the poll was in the field, so, better-known than the other options (perhaps courtesy of his dad, the former Sen. Connie Mack III, who the state’s older and more confused voters might think is back) he leads the way at 28, with the actual candidates, ex-Sen. George LeMieux and state Sen. majority leader Mike Haridopolos at 14 and 13, respectively. Additional likely candidate Adam Hasner is back at 5. Don’t look for any help on choosing from Marco Rubio: he’s just announced that he won’t endorse in the primary.

• HI-Sen: There still seem to be fans out there for losing ’06 IL-06 candidate and Obama admin member Tammy Duckworth, eager to get her into elected office somewhere someday, and the place du jour seems to be Hawaii, where a Draft Duckworth page has popped up for the open Senate seat.

• MA-Sen: Salem mayor Kim Driscoll has been the occasional subject of Senate speculation for the Dem primary, along with the mayor of pretty much every other mid-sized city in the state. Nevertheless, she pulled her name out of contention yesterday (all part of the Democratic master plan of not having a candidate to deceptively lull the GOP into complacency, I’m sure). Meanwhile, Republican incumbent Scott Brown (last seen praising the Paul Ryan Abolition of Medicare Plan, rolled out his first quarter fundraising numbers: he raised $1.7 million in Q1, leaving him with $8.1 million cash on hand. That’s, of course, huge, but the silver lining on that is that it doesn’t leave him on track to hit his previously-announced super-gigantic $25 mil fundraising goal for the cycle.

Gubernatorial:

• FL-Gov: With various newly-elected Republican governors in polling freefall, Rick Scott (who can’t even get along with his GOP legislature, let alone his constituents) really seems to be leading the way down. Quinnipiac finds his approvals deep in the hole, currently 35/48, down from 35/22 in February (meaning he picked up no new fans in that period, but managed to piss off an additional quarter of the state). Voters says by a 53-37 margin that his budget proposals are unfair to people like them. Voters are also opposed to the legislature’s proposal to stop collecting union dues from state workers’ paychecks.

• MO-Gov: After spending Monday dragging out his fight with those who buy ink by the barrel (aka the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, who broke the story on his fancy-pants hotel habit), Missouri Lt. Gov. and Republican gubernatorial candidate Peter Kinder seemed to dial things down a notch yesterday: he says he’ll ‘voluntarily’ reimburse the state $30K for those expenditures, and while not exactly apologizing, says he seeks “to move this nimbus off the horizon.” Um, whatever that means.

House:

• AZ-06: After getting mentioned a lot when Jeff Flake announced his Senate run, opening up the Mesa-based 6th, state Senate president Russell Pearce is now sounding unlikely to run according to insiders. (Blowback over his links to the Fiesta Bowl controversy may be the last straw, though, rather than his status as xenophobia’s poster child.) A couple other GOP names have risen to the forefront: state House speaker Kirk Adams, who’s considering, and former state Sen. majority leader Chuck Gray, who is already in.

• CA-36: One more big union endorsement for Janice Hahn in the primary fight against Debra Bowen to succeed Jane Harman: this one comes from the SEIU.

• CT-05: The open seat vacated by Chris Murphy is likely to draw a crowd, and here’s a new Republican contender in this swingy, suburban district: Farmington town council chair and former FBI agent Mike Clark. Clark has a notable profile for helping to take down a fellow Republican while at the FBI: corrupt ex-Gov. John Rowland. He’ll face Justin Bernier in the GOP primary, who lost the primary in 2010.

• FL-20: In case Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s work load couldn’t get any heavier, she just got a new heap of responsibility dumped in her lap: she’ll become the new head of the DNC, to replace newly-minted Senate candidate Tim Kaine. She’ll, of course, keep her day job as Representative.

• MN-08: The Dem-leaning 8th is as good a place as any to pick up a seat in 2012, but there’s the wee problem of trying to find somebody to run there. The latest Dem possibility that drew everyone’s interest, Yvonne Prettner Solon, the former Duluth-area state Sen. and newly-elected Lt. Governor, won’t run here either.  

Other Races:

• NH-St. House: I realize that with 400 members you’re going to have a lot of bad apples, but still we’re up to 3 GOP frosh having resigned already from the New Hampshire state House. Hot on the heels of a 91-year-old member resigning after advocating (literally) sending ‘defectives’ to Siberia to starve, Gary Wheaton just resigned for driving with a suspended license after a previous DUI (and then publicly suspected the arresting officer for targeting him because of his vote against collective bargaining). And somewhat less dramatically, Robert Huxley eventually got around to resigning after not getting around to showing up for any votes so far in the session.

Remainders:

• EMILY’s List: EMILY’s List is out with its first five fundraising targets for the 2012 cycle. Some of them are to be expected, with high-profile GOP freshmen and already-announced female opponents: Allen West (who may face West Palm Beach mayor Lois Frankel in FL-22), Paul Gosar (who faces a rematch with ex-Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick in AZ-01), and Charlie Bass (rematched with Ann McLane Kuster in NH-02). They also targeted Joe Heck in NV-03 and Chip Cravaack in MN-08, who don’t have opponents yet but conceivably could match up with Dina Titus and Tarryl Clark, respectively.

• WATN?: Thirtysomething Carte Goodwin seemed to make a good impression during his half-a-year as a fill-in in the Senate (in between Robert Byrd and Joe Manchin), moving him to prime position on the Dems’ West Virginia bench, but he says he’s not running for anything else anytime soon. Or more accurately, he says the only the only thing he’s running for “is the county line.” (Uh, with the revenuers in pursuit?)

Yesterday I created lists of the biggest gainers and losers among congressional districts over the period of 2000-10, but only hinted at the changes in racial composition that were underlying the overall population changes. A longer post about the racial composition (analogous to this one I did a year and a half ago) changes is in the works, but as part of that I conceived of this table… which really would have worked better with yesterday’s piece, so I’m giving it its own home here. It shows the numeric change in each district, broken down by the numeric change among each race in each district.

What should stand out here is that among the 25 biggest gainers, in most of the districts, the combined non-white gains exceeded the (non-Hispanic) white gains. Among the few that didn’t, some are districts that are either heavy on retirees (AZ-02, FL-05), some have a large Mormon population (AZ-06, UT-03), with a few a little harder to classify (GA-09 is sort of the exurban white flight receptacle from the rest of the Atlanta area, and ID-01 is a mix of a lot of Mormons and a lot of white flight from southern California). As always, as I’ve cautioned many times before, these districts aren’t an immediate panacea for Democrats and look to stay fairly red for the short term; with most of these districts full of kids (kids who aren’t likely to grow up to be Republicans, though!), gains at the ballot box are going to unfold slooooowly.

District	Rep.	Total change	White change	Black change	Asian change	Hispanic change
NV-03	Heck (R)	378,510	108,587	40,011	71,132	136,127
AZ-02	Franks (R)	331,404	171,702	20,194	14,194	110,853
AZ-06	Flake (R)	330,373	183,522	18,103	23,727	89,920
TX-10	McCaul (R)	329,844	81,819	49,129	31,182	159,747
FL-05	Nugent (R)	289,814	178,699	27,165	10,496	65,238
CA-45	Bono Mack (R)	275,656	56,706	17,886	22,645	170,850
GA-07	Woodall (R)	272,680	10,327	123,993	47,477	80,659
TX-26	Burgess (R)	263,279	112,403	20,457	21,450	100,522
TX-22	Olson (R)	259,220	10,994	66,263	64,288	112,521
TX-31	Carter (R)	250,233	108,700	24,991	16,193	89,632
NC-09	Myrick (R)	232,672	96,914	62,615	15,404	47,784
VA-10	Wolf (R)	225,723	58,443	19,165	65,737	71,862
UT-03	Chaffetz (R)	221,687	116,807	4,236	7,233	79,400
FL-14	Mack (R)	219,658	99,639	23,344	7,121	85,608
AZ-07	Grijalva (D)	214,773	31,852	14,353	7,048	154,255
NC-04	Price (D)	207,446	95,066	30,678	30,282	43,656
CA-44	Calvert (R)	205,748	15,323	8,961	36,006	142,532
CA-25	McKeon (R)	205,552	– 11,603	33,418	23,554	156,518
TX-21	Smith (R)	205,024	69,035	13,983	15,086	102,114
FL-12	Ross (R)	202,103	38,827	46,963	8,079	101,630
TX-28	Cuellar (D)	200,565	25,648	3,741	3,060	166,375
TX-23	Canseco (R)	196,502	36,500	8,704	8,756	139,265
TX-04	Hall (R)	194,642	93,402	19,450	12,972	60,583
GA-09	Graves (R)	193,905	116,666	8,550	9,842	53,801
ID-01	Labrador (R)	193,008	141,065	2,289	3,448	39,020

With the Census Bureau having completed its gradual rollout of data from all the states last week, I’ve finally gotten around to assembling data from all the various congressional districts into one place. While the actual population gain or loss in each district isn’t as important a number, for SSP purposes, as the number of people each district will need to shed or gain as part of the redistricting process (which you can see in the various posts we did as each state’s data came out), the overall gain and loss is an important part in the overall picture of where people are moving to and from (and where they’re being born). Just the numbers of people moving in or out isn’t as helpful as knowing who exactly these people are, and we’ll delve a little more deeply into the changing racial compositions of the CDs in the next day or two… but for now, here are the overall population change numbers.

You’re probably noticing, “Wow, that’s a lot of Republican districts.” That’s certainly true, but these are also districts that (as we’ll see when we talk about changing racial composition), for the most part, aren’t becoming more Republican; people tend to bring their values with them rather than undergoing some magical David Brooksian conversion experience once they move in from the city, the inner-ring suburbs, or another country. Some of these districts are ones where much of the gains are Hispanic (like NV-03 or TX-10, or just about any California district on the list); in the case of GA-07, it’s becoming more African-American. That isn’t to say that these are all on the verge of becoming blue, of course; with much of these districts’ non-white populations under 18, it’ll be a gradual process. And redistricting is likely to de-diversify at least some of these districts, with some of the closer-in suburban portions of these districts (note that many of these districts are the ones right on the cusp of suburb and exurb) to be given to lower-population urban districts that need to expand outward, with the remaining parts of the districts staying red. (GA-07, again, is a case in point; the innermost parts of Gwinnett County, which are pretty diverse today, probably will need to get added on to underpopulated GA-05, leaving the rest of the district in very Republican-friendly condition.)

You may recall I did this same thing a year and a half ago when the 2008 estimates came out; there’s been very little change to the list since then, although with some swapping of places. Despite its position at the absolute epicenter of the housing bubble, NV-03 moved up from 4th to 1st place, past the two Arizona districts and TX-10. Districts that fell out of the top 25 in 2008 include GA-06, TX-03, CO-06, FL-25, IL-14, and FL-06, replaced by VA-10, FL-12, TX-28, TX-23, TX-04, and ID-01.

District	Rep.	2000	2010	Change
NV-03	Heck (R)	665,345	1,043,855	378,510
AZ-02	Franks (R)	641,435	972,839	331,404
AZ-06	Flake (R)	641,360	971,733	330,373
TX-10	McCaul (R)	651,523	981,367	329,844
FL-05	Nugent (R)	639,719	929,533	289,814
CA-45	Bono Mack (R)	638,553	914,209	275,656
GA-07	Woodall (R)	630,511	903,191	272,680
TX-26	Burgess (R)	651,858	915,137	263,279
TX-22	Olson (R)	651,657	910,877	259,220
TX-31	Carter (R)	651,868	902,101	250,233
NC-09	Myrick (R)	619,705	852,377	232,672
VA-10	Wolf (R)	643,714	869,437	225,723
UT-03	Chaffetz (R)	744,545	966,232	221,687
FL-14	Mack (R)	639,298	858,956	219,658
AZ-07	Grijalva (D)	640,996	855,769	214,773
NC-04	Price (D)	619,432	826,878	207,446
CA-44	Calvert (R)	639,008	844,756	205,748
CA-25	McKeon (R)	638,768	844,320	205,552
TX-21	Smith (R)	651,930	856,954	205,024
FL-12	Ross (R)	640,096	842,199	202,103
TX-28	Cuellar (D)	651,259	851,824	200,565
TX-23	Canseco (R)	651,149	847,651	196,502
TX-04	Hall (R)	651,500	846,142	194,642
GA-09	Graves (R)	629,678	823,583	193,905
ID-01	Labrador (R)	648,922	841,930	193,008

And here are the biggest losers, looking every bit as heavily Democratic as the list of gainers is Republican. However, if you go through the list line by line, you’ll notice that very few of these districts are even remotely-considered as being on the chopping block. That’s partly because many of these are VRA seats, or otherwise set up by Republican legislatures as Democratic vote sinks (PA-14, for example). The most obvious exceptions up for elimination are PA-12, which almost everyone concedes is gone with the wind, OH-10, which is set to get mashed with OH-13, and possibly IL-17, ironically one of the few GOP-held seats on the list (although it might instead wind up getting turned into a significantly bluer district by the now-Dem-controlled Illinois legislature). Instead, as I mentioned earlier, many of these districts are going to wind up reaching out further into the suburbs… in many cases, expanding to follow the same constituents who just moved out of the city (for instance, all the Detroit residents who moved across 8 Mile into MI-12).

District	Rep.	2000	2010	Change
LA-02	Richmond (D)	639,048	493,352	– 145,696
MI-13	Clarke (D)	662,844	519,570	– 143,274
MI-14	Conyers (D)	662,468	550,465	– 112,003
OH-11	Fudge (D)	630,668	540,432	– 90,236
IL-01	Rush (D)	654,203	587,596	– 66,607
PA-14	Doyle (D)	645,809	584,493	– 61,316
IL-04	Gutierrez (D)	653,654	601,156	– 52,498
IL-02	Jackson (D)	654,078	602,758	– 51,320
MS-02	Thompson (D)	710,996	668,263	– 42,733
NY-28	Slaughter (D)	654,464	611,838	– 42,626
MO-01	Clay (D)	621,497	587,069	– 34,428
PA-12	Critz (D)	646,419	612,384	– 34,035
AL-07	Sewell (D)	635,631	603,352	– 32,279
OH-01	Chabot (R)	630,545	598,699	– 31,846
OH-10	Kucinich (D)	631,003	599,205	– 31,798
OH-17	Ryan (D)	630,316	600,111	– 30,205
CA-31	Becerra (D)	639,248	611,336	– 27,912
MI-05	Kildee (D)	662,584	635,129	– 27,455
MI-12	Levin (D)	662,559	636,601	– 25,958
NY-27	Higgins (D)	654,200	629,271	– 24,929
IL-09	Schakowsky (D)	653,117	628,859	– 24,258
NY-11	Clarke (D)	654,134	632,408	– 21,726
TN-09	Cohen (D)	631,740	610,823	– 20,917
IL-17	Schilling (R)	653,531	634,792	– 18,739
PA-02	Fattah (D)	647,350	630,277	– 17,073

Much more over the flip…

Now, let’s switch over to counties. Counties are a unit of analysis that don’t get talked about at SSP as much as congressional districts, despite the fact that they’re more useful for talking about historical trends because their boundaries (almost) never change over the decades; the rationale, I suppose, is that much of the nation’s population lives in huge counties that contain multiple (or in the case of Los Angeles County, more than a dozen) CDs, so in many cases it’s not as granular a sort (and conversely, counties turn into too-granular a sort if you’re interested in, say, Kansas or west Texas).

Still, looking at which counties gained the most population in raw numbers, it provides an interesting counterpoint to the biggest-gaining CDs. While you’d get the impression of impending utter Republican dominance by looking at the party IDs of which CDs have excess population to shed, looking at the nation’s largest counties shows that, when you balance out the parts and pieces that make up the various CDs, many of the counties have very swingy results at the presidential level. I was also planning to look at changes in racial composition by county as well as by CD in the coming days, so it’ll also become quite evident (if you hadn’t already mentally extrapolated from which CDs are in which counties) that much of the growth coming in these fastest-growing counties is coming from non-whites.

County	08 Results	2000	2010	Change
Maricopa, AZ	44/54	3,072,149	3,817,117	744,968
Harris, TX	50/49	3,400,578	4,092,459	691,881
Riverside, CA	50/48	1,541,387	2,189,641	644,254
Clark, NV	58/39	1,375,765	1,951,269	575,504
Tarrant, TX	44/55	1,466,219	1,809,034	362,815
San Bernardino, CA	52/46	1,709,434	2,035,210	325,776
Bexar, TX	52/47	1,392,931	1,714,773	321,842
Los Angeles, CA	69/29	9,519,338	9,818,605	299,267
Collin, TX	37/62	491,675	782,341	290,666
San Diego, CA	54/44	2,813,833	3,095,313	281,480
Wake, NC	57/42	627,846	900,993	273,147
Orange, FL	59/40	896,344	1,145,956	249,612
Miami-Dade, FL	58/42	2,253,362	2,496,435	243,073
Fort Bend, TX	48/51	354,452	585,375	230,923
Hillsborough, FL	53/46	998,948	1,229,226	230,278
Denton, TX	37/62	432,976	662,614	229,638
Mecklenburg, NC	62/37	695,454	919,628	224,174
Gwinnett, GA	44/55	588,448	805,321	216,873
Travis, TX	64/34	812,280	1,024,266	211,986
Hidalgo, TX	69/30	569,463	774,769	205,306
Pinal, AZ	42/56	179,727	375,770	196,043
Sacramento, CA	58/39	1,223,499	1,418,788	195,289
King, WA	70/28	1,737,034	1,931,249	194,215
Palm Beach, FL	61/38	1,131,184	1,320,134	188,950
Kern, CA	40/58	661,645	839,631	177,986

The counties with the biggest numeric loss, on the other hand, are almost all Democratic ones with a few exceptions from the New Orleans suburbs. Some are Dem strongholds that are just intensifying (like Cook County, home of Chicago, whose blueness we kind of take for granted these days… Mike Dukakis won it only 56-43). Others are onetime solid Dem counties that have turned swingy as older ex-unionists die off and educated young voters book their tickets elsewhere (like the western Pennsylvania and West Virginia counties).

County	08 Results	2000	2010	Change
Wayne, MI	74/25	2,061,162	1,820,584	– 240,578
Cook, IL	76/23	5,376,741	5,194,675	– 182,066
Orleans, LA	79/19	484,674	343,829	– 140,845
Cuyahoga, OH	69/30	1,393,978	1,280,122	– 113,856
Allegheny, PA	57/42	1,281,666	1,223,348	– 58,318
Hamilton, OH	53/46	845,303	802,374	– 42,929
St. Bernard, LA	26/71	67,229	35,897	– 31,332
Erie, NY	58/40	950,265	919,040	– 31,225
Baltimore city, MD	87/12	651,154	620,961	– 30,193
St. Louis city, MO	84/16	348,189	319,294	– 28,895
Montgomery, OH	52/46	559,062	535,153	– 23,909
Jefferson, LA	36/62	455,466	432,552	– 22,914
Mahoning, OH	62/36	257,555	238,823	– 18,732
St. Louis, MO	60/40	1,016,315	998,954	– 17,361
Trumbull, OH	60/37	225,116	210,312	– 14,804
Lucas, OH	65/33	455,054	441,815	– 13,239
Fayette, PA	49/50	148,644	136,606	– 12,038
Washington, MS	67/32	62,977	51,137	– 11,840
Beaver, PA	48/50	181,412	170,539	– 10,873
Genesee, MI	65/33	436,141	425,790	– 10,351
Saginaw, MI	58/40	210,039	200,169	– 9,870
Essex, NJ	76/23	793,633	783,969	– 9,664
Hampton city, VA	69/30	146,437	137,436	– 9,001
Cambria, PA	49/48	152,598	143,679	– 8,919
Kanawha, WV	49/49	200,073	193,063	– 7,010

While looking at congressional districts by percentage of change isn’t that interesting (as they all start from a very similar baseline, giving you almost the same results as raw numeric change), it’s worth a deeper look with counties, because counties come in a wide variety of sizes and the fastest-gainers by population don’t dovetail much with the fastest-gainers by percentage. The percentage gainers tend to smaller counties that are poised at the very edge of metropolitan growth, making the transition from rural to exurban. Case in point: #1 Kendall County, which is where you wind up if you find already-exurban Kane County and then head south, to where Chicagoland meets the prairie. The bigger-name counties on this list, like Loudoun County, Virginia, Douglas County, Colorado, and Collin and Fort Bend Counties, Texas, are some of the archetypal exurbs of decades past, which are starting to diversify and make the stylistic transition from exurb to outer-ring suburb… and their voting patterns are starting to change too, with Loudoun turning light-blue and Douglas and Collin still pretty red but making sharp moves in 2008.

County	08 Results	2000	2010	Change Factor
Kendall, IL	53/46	54,544	114,736	2.10
Pinal, AZ	42/56	179,727	375,770	2.09
Flagler, FL	50/49	49,832	95,696	1.92
Lincoln, SD	42/57	24,131	44,828	1.86
Loudoun, VA	54/45	169,599	312,311	1.84
Rockwall, TX	26/73	43,080	78,337	1.82
Forsyth, GA	20/78	98,407	175,511	1.78
Sumter, FL	36/63	53,345	93,420	1.75
Paulding, GA	30/69	81,678	142,324	1.74
Sublette, WY	21/76	5,920	10,247	1.73
Henry, GA	46/53	119,341	203,922	1.71
Teton, ID	49/49	5,999	10,170	1.70
Williamson, TX	43/55	249,967	422,679	1.69
Fort Bend, TX	48/51	354,452	585,375	1.65
Union, NC	36/63	123,677	201,292	1.63
Douglas, CO	41/58	175,766	285,465	1.62
Dallas, IA	46/52	40,750	66,135	1.62
Newton, GA	50/49	62,001	99,958	1.61
Hays, TX	48/50	97,589	157,107	1.61
Collin, TX	37/62	491,675	782,341	1.59
Franklin, WA	37/61	49,347	78,163	1.58
Delaware, OH	40/59	109,989	174,214	1.58
Forest, PA	42/55	4,946	7,716	1.56
Osceola, FL	59/40	172,493	268,685	1.56
Montgomery, TX	23/76	293,768	455,746	1.55

Finally, here are the biggest losing counties by percentage. Unfortunately, beyond the obvious Orleans Parish (and several other smaller Louisiana parishes obliterated by hurricanes), it’s a bunch of counties that you’ve probably never heard of, most of which are very tiny. Beyond that, it tells us that blindingly-red western Kansas and western North Dakota are losing population, as well as the Texas and Oklahoma Panhandles… and also dark-blue, mostly-black rural counties in the Mississippi Delta, which was seen in MS-02’s population loss. The list continues on like that ad nauseam; the next county with a population over 100,000 is all the way down at #148: Wayne County, MI, which is 88% of its 2000 size. St. Louis city and Cuyahoga County, OH follow along at 92%.

County	08 Results	2000	2010	Change Factor
St. Bernard, LA	26/71	67,229	35,897	0.53
Issaquena, MS	61/38	2,274	1,406	0.62
Cameron, LA	16/81	9,991	6,839	0.68
Orleans, LA	79/19	484,674	343,829	0.71
Sharkey, MS	68/31	6,580	4,916	0.75
Chattahoochee, GA	50/49	14,882	11,267	0.76
Sheridan, ND	29/69	1,710	1,321	0.77
Kiowa, KS	18/80	3,278	2,553	0.78
Towner, ND	52/45	2,876	2,246	0.78
Cimarron, OK	12/88	3,148	2,475	0.79
Cottle, TX	27/72	1,904	1,505	0.79
Jefferson, MS	87/12	9,740	7,726	0.79
Tensas, LA	54/45	6,618	5,252	0.79
Monroe, AR	47/51	10,254	8,149	0.79
King, TX	5/93	356	286	0.80
Culberson, TX	65/34	2,975	2,398	0.81
Esmeralda, NV	24/69	971	783	0.81
McDowell, WV	53/45	27,329	22,113	0.81
Jewell, KS	20/78	3,791	3,077	0.81
Claiborne, MS	86/14	11,831	9,604	0.81
Washington, MS	67/32	62,977	51,137	0.81
Lane, KS	19/79	2,155	1,750	0.81
Quitman, MS	67/32	10,117	8,223	0.81
Greeley, KS	20/79	1,534	1,247	0.81
Swift, MN	55/42	11,956	9,783	0.82

Here’s an interesting proposal from some Seattle-area activists: a majority-minority district in the Seattle area.

That could be done, just barely, by combining Southeast Seattle with the suburbs south of the city, where the minority population has exploded over the past decade.

The Win/Win Network, a nonprofit group, drew up the potential “majority people of color” district and plans to submit it to the Washington State Redistricting Commission, the bipartisan panel charged with redrawing the state’s political map this year.

It isn’t as convoluted-looking as you’d think, but it would violate tradition (and usual redistricting commission policy) by splitting Seattle down the middle. (You can see the map at the link.) While north Seattle — maybe the likeliest place outside of Sweden to see a Volvo-on-Volvo traffic accident — is what makes Seattle one of the whitest major cities, south Seattle is very diverse and if you add in its close-in southern suburbs, you literally get to 50.1%. Whether this actually gets forced into being is a big VRA-related puzzle, though; while recent case law (like Bartlett v. Strickland) has dealt with districts where a minority’s share doesn’t reach 50%, I’m not aware of any cases on the issue of creating minority districts where the share tops 50% but it’s a tossed salad of all possible minorities. The implications of that issue could be huge, especially for redistricting California this year.

If you haven’t seen the New York Times’ newest version of its remarkable Census map (now updated with 2010 count data to replace ’05-’09 ACS data), the Seattle example is a neat place to start, especially if you’re having trouble conceiving of the Seattle area as diverse. Go to the dot-based racial distribution map, and find Census tract 281, just north of the airport. This may actually be the most racially balanced tract in the whole nation, more so than anything in Queens or the East Bay, based on my puttering around the map: it’s 26% white, 24% black, 19% Hispanic, and 22% Asian. In fact, here’s a challenge/rainy day activity for you all: if you can find anything more balanced, let us know in comments! (Sorry, no babka.)

This opens up a can of worms in terms of what’s most “balanced,” though, depending on how many races you want to talk about. Tract 919 in Flushing, Queens, is 27% white, 33% Hispanic, and 33% Asian (but only 4% black)… or if you want to go with a 5-way split, check out Tract 9603 (Nanakuli, on the west shore of the island of Oahu), which is 12% white, 18% Hispanic, 17% Asian, 30% multiracial, and 20% Native Hawaiian! I don’t want to limit how you define “balanced,” so feel free to point out any interesting tracts that you find.

UPDATE: I’ve found at least one that seems to beat that Seattle-area tract: it’s Census tract 355108 in Antioch, California (in Contra Costa County): 25% white, 24% black, 24% Hispanic, and 20% Asian.

Today’s the last day of Census data releases, meaning we have the complete set of all 50 states now. The Census Bureau released some data summarizing the entire nation, including what you’d think was the single most important bit of all, considering the way they hyped the announcement: the new population center of the U.S., still in south-central Missouri, but moving 30 miles to the southwest, now near Plato, MO. Perhaps more interestingly, they summarized the country’s demographic change as a whole: that starts with the nation’s Hispanic population crossing the 50 million mark, now up to almost 17% of the nation’s population. Hispanics and Asians both grew at a 43% rate, and people checking “2 or more” races rose at a 32% rate. The non-Hispanic white share of the population fell from 69% to 64%. They also found a country that’s more urban than ever before, with 84% of the country living in metropolitan areas now.

I know you’re all champing at the bit to find out what happens in Maine, but there’s this other state called “New… Something” that we should probably get through first. New York is one of only two states to lose two seats, from 29 down to 27. (Ohio was the other one.) New York’s new target is 717,707, up from about 654K in 2000. Thanks to a few hundred votes in a couple of state Senate races that tipped that chamber’s balance, the GOP managed to hold on to one leg of the redistricting trifecta, meaning that instead of a shot at a 26-1 Dem map, there’s probably just going to be a shared-pain map instead with a GOP loss upstate and a Dem loss in the NYC metro area. That’s despite the fact that New York City itself actually grew a bit, to 8.175 million, still by far the nation’s largest city. (There are moves afoot toward an independent redistricting commission, but this doesn’t seem likely to happen.)

In general, the heaviest losses were in the western part of Upstate, with the state’s two biggest losers the Dem-held 27th (Buffalo) and 28th (Rochester). On the other hand, losses also popped up rather patchily in parts of the outer boroughs (especially the 11th in the black parts of Brooklyn… without much seniority, Yvette Clarke may wind up with the shortest straw among the NYC delegation) and Long Island (Peter King’s 3rd… which would be a prime target for the 2nd seat to evaporate, if only the Dems controlled the trifecta here). The big gainers were both urban (Jerry Nadler’s 8th, probably fueled not so much by growth in Manhattan as among Orthodox families in Borough Park in Brooklyn) and exurban (Nan Hayworth’s 19th, at the outermost reaches of the NYC metro area).

While none of the districts in New York seem to be undergoing the kind of rapid demographic transformation that threatens the red/blue balance in any place like we’ve seen in Texas or California, a few districts are worth looking at just as an indicator of what an interesting tapestry New York City is. Take the 5th for instance (another possibility for wipeout, given its strange position straddling Nassau County and Queens, and Gary Ackerman’s non-entity-ness): it’s moved from 44% non-Hispanic white, 5% non-Hispanic black, 24% non-Hispanic Asian, and 24% Hispanic, to 36% white, 4% black, 33% Asian, and 26% Hispanic, close to an Asian-plurality, thanks to growth in the Asian community in Flushing. A few districts in New York City are getting whiter, thanks to hipsters and gentrifiers: the 11th moved from 21% white and 58% black to 26% white and 53% black, while the 12th moved from 23% white and 49% Hispanic to 27% white and 45% Hispanic. The Harlem-based 15th went from 16% white, 30% black, and 48% Hispanic, to 21% white, 26% black, and 46% Hispanic, while the remarkably complex, Queens-based 7th went the other direction, from 28% white, 16% black, 13% Asian, and 40% Hispanic to 21% white, 16% black, 16% Asian, and 44% Hispanic.

Now for the maine event! (Rim shot.) Maine’s a lot like Rhode Island and New Hampshire in that the long-standing boundary between its two districts rarely seems to budge much, and this year won’t be any different. Maine’s target is 664,181, up from 637K in 2000. The disparity of a little more than 4,000 people means things won’t change much; the Republicans control the redistricting process this year but there’s not a lot of fertile material here for them to try to make swingy ME-02 much redder.

Rhode Island doesn’t offer much for redistricting fans to sink their teeth into: it has two districts that are about equally blue, the Dems control the redistricting trifecta, and the disparity between the two districts, while not New Hampshire-close, requires only minimal boundary-shifting. Rhode Island’s target is a tiny 526,284 (only up from 524K in 2000… Rhode Island had the smallest growth, percentage-wise, of any state over the decade, putting it 2nd overall behind only Michigan, which actually lost population). If this continues, there’s the distinct possibility we could see Rhode Island reduced to one House seat come 2020. Also worth noting: Rhode Island had a lot of Hispanic growth over the decade, not quite on par with the Southwest but high for the Northeast; it went from 8.5% Hispanic to 12.4%, and Providence moved to a Hispanic plurality.

South Carolina is gaining one seat to move from six to seven; its new target based on 7 seats is 660,766 (it was 668K in 2000, so every district gained significantly over the decade). With the GOP holding the trifecta and much of the growth seeming to come among white retirees, look for the creation of one more Republican-friendly seat… with one possible wild card, that the Obama DOJ might weigh in and push for a second African-American VRA seat (theoretically possible if terribly ugly, as SSP’s crack team of freelance mapmakers have shown here). The biggest growth has come in the coastal Low Country, rather than the fiercely evangelical uplands; I’d expect Charleston and Myrtle Beach, both part of SC-01 for now, to wind up each anchoring their own districts.

West Virginia is staying at three seats for now, although it might be headed for two seats in 2020, given its slow growth and low targets; its target is 617,665, only up from 603K in 2000. The 3rd, in coal country in the southern part of the state, is losing population (though not as fast as one might suspect); the 2nd needs to shed an amount equivalent to what the 3rd needs to gain, leaving the 1st pretty stable. Much of the state’s growth is in the far east tip of the Panhandle (in the 2nd), especially Berkeley County, which serves as Washington DC’s furthest-out exurbs. Dave Wasserman, who seems to get all the good redistricting-related gossip, says that while the obvious solution (moving Mason County from the 2nd to the 3rd, and calling it a wrap) still seems likely, the Dems who control the redistricting trifecta might want to cobble together a slightly Dem-friendlier 1st along the state’s northern boundary that includes both Morgantown and the Panhandle exurbs (the only counties in the state that are getting bluer).

Today’s Census data dump is three slow-growth northern states: Massachusetts, Michigan, and New Hampshire. Massachusetts is set to lose one seat (from 10 down to 9), meaning its new target is 727,514 (up from about 634K in 2000). Interestingly, the growth among all the districts was pretty consistent, with only about 20,000 difference between the state’s largest and smallest districts. Estimates over the decade had shown Boston losing population, but in the final count it did eke out a small gain.

With no clear loser on the population front among the districts, that makes the question of who draws the shortest redistricting straw even more complicated… unless someone reverses course and decides to retire, either to challenge Scott Brown (most likely Mike Capuano or Stephen Lynch) or to call it a career (John Olver). Olver’s 1st did wind up being the smallest by a small margin, so the most talked-about mashup of the 1st and 2nd may well happen; alternatively, based on seniority the axe could fall on the delegation’s newest member, William Keating. At any rate, with Dems firmly in charge of the process, don’t look for any of these districts to lose their bluish hues; the main question is who gets left without his musical chair.

When it was revealed in December that Michigan was the only state out of 50 that actually lost population since 2000, it was clear that the state’s urban districts were in a world of hurt… but I have to admit I’m still surprised at the way that Detroit has utterly cratered. The Motor City, at one point the 4th largest city in America, is now down to 15th, with a population of 713,777 (now smaller than johnny-come-latelies like Columbus, Austin, and Charlotte). The 13th may be the 2nd least populous district in the country at this point (after WY-AL). I briefly had to wonder whether we might actually see Detroit turned into one CD, mostly contiguous with the city boundaries (since it’s now about the same population as an ideal district), but I can’t imagine that the Obama administration’s DOJ would allow the state GOP (which controls the redistricting trifecta) to pack only one overwhelmingly African-American VRA district when the population is there to support two, albeit two that will have to reach significantly into the suburbs now.

Michigan’s current target is 705,974 (based on the drop to 14 from 15 seats), up from about 663K in 2000. That means that six of its districts (the Upper Peninsula-based 1st, the Flint-and-Saginaw 5th, and the 9th and 12th in Detroit’s northern suburbs, in addition to the 13th and 14th) outright lost population over the decade. With the 9th and 12th also big losers, and with the VRA looming over the 13th and 14th, this all seems to confirm what most people are expecting, that Gary Peters and Sandy Levin are going to get much better acquainted with each other in a Dem primary. If you go further out into the districts that contain Detroit’s exurbs (the GOP-held 8th and 10th), those are the two districts in the state that actually need to shed some population.

These two district states are really drama-free, and New Hampshire might be the least dramatic of all. The two districts in the state stayed remarkably balanced (as they always do… the state has had two districts since the 1800s, with the boundaries rarely moving much), to the extent that the 1st needs to pick up only 254 people from the 2nd. I’ll leave it to the good folks in comments to argue over which ward in Hooksett should be the one that gets moved. (New Hampshire’s target was 658,235, up from 618K in 2000.)

Public Policy Polling (3/18-20, “Michigan voters,” no trendlines):

Virg Bernero (D): 47

Rick Snyder (R): 45

Undecided: 8

^{(MoE: ±4.4%)}

These “do-over” questions from Public Policy Polling are, of course, off in hypothetical-land and don’t have an immediate application (other than to encourage high-information partisan types like us to find a convenient desk and start pounding our heads on it). But they are certainly remarkable, and starting to put together, brick by brick, a real picture of the pendulum swinging back incredibly rapidly among fickle midwestern swing voters. Today, it’s Michigan’s turn, where they find that if the 2010 gubernatorial election were re-done, Democratic mayor of Lansing Virg Bernero would edge out Rick Snyder.

In a way, that’s even more startling reversal of fortune than PPP’s previous results in Wisconsin and Ohio, as Snyder ran as a centrist and superficially reasonable guy, instead of an out-and-proud jackass like John Kasich and Scott Walker, and wound up winning by 18 points instead of squeaking by. (Although the composition of the electorate seems to have changed a lot since 2010, suggesting a lot of Democrats sat on their hands that year and are now asking themselves why… PPP’s electorate went only 49-43 for Snyder, with 8% didn’t vote/don’t remember.)

The problem for Snyder is that he isn’t governing the way he campaigned; 36% are now saying he’s “too conservative,” and that has dragged his overall approval rate down to 33/50… one of the shortest honeymoons ever, as now he’s in almost as bad a shape as Jennifer Granholm was when she left office. Snyder’s on the wrong end of public opinion on all the prominent policy questions: there’s 49/37 support for a constitutional amendment guaranteeing collective bargaining rights, 59/32 support for collective bargaining for public employees, and 32/50 opposition for Snyder’s probably-unconstitutional attempt to take over and dismantle faltering municipalities. The one bit of good news that Snyder can take away from this: he’s recall-eligible after only six months in office, but voters are leaning against that, with 38% in support and 49% against.

Mason-Dixon for the Billings Gazette (3/14-16, registered voters, no trendlines):

Jon Tester (D-inc): 46

Denny Rehberg (R): 45

Undecided: 9

(MoE: ±4%)

If you needed any convincing that the Jon Tester/Denny Rehberg duel is going to be one of the closest Senate races in the country in 2012 — where not only the seat but potentially control of the entire Senate may boil down to a few thousand voters in Montana — here’s some clear evidence. Mason-Dixon finds the race is a “virtual tie” (as those in the media are fond of saying), with both candidates with high name recognition and extremely high levels of polarization in how voters of the two parties support them. Tester gets 94-1 (!) support among Dems while Rehberg gets 89-3 support among Republicans; Tester’s lead depends on indies, among whom he leads 49-37.

Mason-Dixon also looked at approvals for the state’s other big-name politicians: Max Baucus, once the one untouchable political figure in the state, is now its least popular (thanks to his role as one of the most public faces of the HCR sausage-making process), with 38% approval. Should the currently 69-year-old Baucus retire in 2014 (and he may have no choice, given those numbers), outgoing Gov. Brian Schweitzer would be a ready-made replacement for the Dems, tops in the state at 60% approval. Tester is at 50%, with Rehberg at 48%. (The Gazette doesn’t seem to report the disapproval half of the equation, for some reason.)