Tag: census

With the Census Bureau having released 2010 data for all 435 congressional districts, I started slicing ‘n’ dicing the data last week, looking at population change in the fastest growing and shrinking districts. Today, as promised, we’re moving on to how the racial composition of the congressional districts has changed.

You might remember that I did this same project a year and a half ago based on 2008 estimated data, and that was a good template for today’s work, as the lists haven’t changed that much. Where the lists have changed, it seems to be more likely because of strange sample issues in 2008 (like the rapid appearance and subsequent disappearance of a big Asian population in NY-06) than rapid changes in the trend over the last two years. As with last time, the most remarkable chart is the one showing biggest declines, percentage-wise in districts’ non-Hispanic white populations. (Because this is the key chart, I’m extending this list to 25 places.) As you’ll no doubt notice, many of these districts also had some of the biggest moves in the Democratic direction over the years from 2000 to 2008.

District	Rep.	2000 white	2000 total	2000 %	2010 white	2010 total	2010 %	% change	2000 election	2008 election
GA-07	Woodall (R)	476,346	630,511	75.5	486,673	903,191	53.9	– 21.7	31/69	39/60
GA-13	Scott (D)	295,107	629,403	46.9	202,053	784,445	25.8	– 21.1	57/43	71/28
TX-24	Marchant (R)	415,842	651,137	63.9	368,645	792,319	46.5	– 17.3	32/68	44/55
TX-22	Olson (R)	394,651	651,657	60.6	405,645	910,877	44.5	– 16.0	33/67	41/58
FL-19	Deutch (D)	494,890	638,503	77.5	456,060	736,419	61.9	– 15.5	73/27	65/34
CA-25	McKeon (R)	363,792	638,768	57.0	352,189	844,320	41.7	– 15.2	42/56	49/48
FL-20	Wasserman Schultz (D)	426,891	639,795	66.7	358,470	691,727	51.8	– 14.9	69/31	63/36
TX-07	Culberson (R)	439,217	651,682	67.4	411,276	780,611	52.7	– 14.7	31/69	41/58
NV-03	Heck (R)	459,756	665,345	69.1	568,343	1,043,855	54.4	– 14.7	49/48	55/43
TX-10	McCaul (R)	431,992	651,523	66.3	513,811	981,367	52.4	– 13.9	34/67	44/55
IL-03	Lipinski (D)	445,179	653,292	68.1	361,581	663,381	54.5	– 13.6	58/40	64/35
CA-11	McNerney (D)	408,785	639,625	63.9	400,825	796,753	50.3	– 13.6	45/53	54/44
VA-10	Wolf (R)	495,611	643,714	77.0	554,054	869,437	63.7	– 13.3	41/56	53/46
TX-02	Poe (R)	418,476,	651,605	64.2	399,454	782,375	51.1	– 13.2	37/63	40/60
FL-08	Webster (R)	447,266	639,026	70.0	459,529	805,608	57.0	– 13.0	46/54	53/47
CA-41	Lewis (R)	405,790	639,935	63.4	404,103	797,133	50.7	– 12.7	41/56	44/54
FL-12	Ross (R)	461,239	640,096	72.1	500,066	842,199	59.4	– 12.7	45/55	49/50
CA-10	Garamendi (D)	417,008,	638,238	65.3	377,698	714,750	52.8	– 12.5	55/41	65/33
CA-22	McCarthy (R)	426,192	638,514	66.7	432,482	797,084	54.3	– 12.5	33/64	38/60
MD-05	Hoyer (D)	400,668	662,203	60.5	368,667	767,369	48.0	– 12.4	57/41	65/33
NV-01	Berkley (D)	342,987	666,442	51.5	322,853	820,134	39.4	– 12.1	56/41	64/34
CA-13	Stark (D)	244,693	638,708	38.3	174,998	665,318	26.3	– 12.0	67/30	74/24
VA-11	Connelly (D)	430,091	643,582	66.8	434,526	792,095	54.9	– 12.0	45/52	57/42
CA-03	Lungren (R)	474,940	639,374	74.3	488,421	783,317	62.4	– 11.9	41/55	49/49
FL-15	Posey (R)	497,676	639,133	77.9	539,194	813,570	66.3	– 11.6	46/54	48/51

Districts appearing in the 2010 data’s top 25 that weren’t present in 2008 are VA-10, TX-02, FL-08, CA-41, and NV-01; while the other four are driven mostly by Latino growth, the growth in VA-10 (in Washington DC suburbs, more and more centered on once-exurban, now-suburban Loudoun County) is more Asian. These five replace TX-05, AZ-03, TX-06, TX-03, and NJ-07.

This presents a very different picture than the districts ordered according to the actual raw number of white residents lost. That list starts with GA-13 in first, which fell from 295,107 white residents in 2000 to 202,053 in 2010. This is the southern tier of Atlanta’s suburbs and exurbs, which is increasingly becoming a magnet for both Atlanta African-Americans moving outward and northern blacks moving south – in turn driving a lot of white flight, much of which seems to be rearranging itself north of Atlanta, especially in the 9th. The fast-growing 13th is unusual on this list, though; most of the remaining top 10 losers are districts where the overall population is stagnant or going down: MI-12, IL-03, PA-14, OH-10, IN-07, IL-02, CA-13, FL-20, and MO-01. As you’ll see in upcoming charts, blacks are replacing whites in MI-12, Hispanics are replacing whites in IL-03 and FL-20, Asians are replacing whites in CA-13, while in PA-14, OH-10, IN-07, IL-02, and MO-01, everyone is leaving, with whites are leaving the fastest.

Much, much more over the flip…

Here are the districts with the biggest gains among non-Hispanic whites:

District	Rep.	2000 white	2000 total	2000 %	2010 white	2010 total	2010 %	% change	2000 election	2008 election
IL-07	Davis (D)	178,144	653,521	27.3	204,780	638,105	32.1	4.8	83/16	88/12
NY-15	Rangel (D)	106,664	654,355	16.3	133,839	639,873	20.9	4.6	87/7	93/6
NY-11	Clarke (D)	140,595	654,134	21.5	161,819	632,408	25.6	4.1	83/9	91/9
NY-12	Velazquez (D)	150,673	653,346	23.1	180,232	672,358	26.8	3.7	77/15	86/13
GA-05	Lewis (D)	216,674	629,438	34.4	232,507	630,462	36.9	2.4	73/27	79/20
NY-10	Towns (D)	106,746	665,668	16.0	124,232	677,721	18.3	2.3	88/8	91/9
MI-14	Conyers (D)	213,120	662,468	32.2	187,516	550,465	34.1	1.9	81/18	86/14
CA-33	Bass (D)	126,488	638,655	19.8	137,720	637,122	21.6	1.8	83/14	87/12
CA-31	Becerra (D)	62,177	639,248	9.7	69,321	611,336	11.3	1.6	77/19	80/18
SC-06	Clyburn (D)	269,215	669,362	40.2	280,474	682,410	41.1	0.9	58/40	64/35

While you might expect the biggest white gains to be in the exurbs, that’s not the case at all (as suburbs and even exurbs are often becoming a first stopping-point for new immigrants). Instead, most of this list shows regentrification at work, especially in the parts of the outer boroughs of New York City currently under invasion by hipster armies (and also new additions CA-31 and CA-33, evidence of the very recent momentum in the revival of downtown Los Angeles). Similarly, Atlanta is becoming whiter even as its suburbs become much more African-American (which we got a preview of with last year’s mayoral race, where a white candidate nearly won). The odd district out is Detroit-based MI-14, where whites seem to be fleeing at a slower rate than everyone else. Only five additional districts had a percentage gain in white residents, for a total of 15 of all 435: LA-02, HI-02, CA-29, PA-02, and IL-04. (HI-02, NY-14, and CA-29 fall off the top 10 list from 2008, replaced by CA-33, CA-31, and SC-06.)

If you’re wondering which districts had the biggest numeric gains of white residents, rather than changes in the white percentage, here’s where the exurbs come in; the list looks a lot like the list of the biggest gainers altogether, or at least the whiter districts among the biggest gainers. AZ-06 in the Phoenix suburbs (with a large Mormon core in Mesa) had the biggest gain, from 490,359 to 673,881, followed by FL-05, AZ-02, ID-01, UT-03, GA-09, CO-06, SC-01, TX-26, and TX-31.

Now let’s turn to African-American populations:

District	Rep.	2000 black	2000 total	2000 %	2010 black	2010 total	2010 %	% change	2000 election	2008 election
GA-13	Scott (D)	255,455	629,403	40.6	439,119	784,445	56.0	15.4	57/43	71/28
GA-07	Woodall (R)	72,962	630,511	11.6	196,955	903,191	21.8	10.2	31/69	39/60
MI-12	Levin (D)	77,403	662,559	11.7	133,766	636,601	21.0	9.3	61/37	65/33
IL-02	Jackson (D)	403,522	654,078	61.7	414,414	602,758	68.8	7.1	83/17	90/10
MD-05	Hoyer (D)	198,420	662,203	30.0	281,862	767,639	36.7	6.8	57/41	65/33
FL-19	Deutch (D)	37,821	638,503	5.9	91,391	736,419	12.4	6.5	73/27	65/34
MD-02	Ruppersberger (D)	178,860	661,945	27.0	232,194	700,893	33.1	6.1	57/41	60/38
MO-01	Clay (D)	307,715	621,497	49.5	324,711	587,069	55.3	5.8	72/26	80/19
MI-11	McCotter (R)	23,456	662,505	3.5	64,239	695,888	9.2	5.7	47/51	54/45
GA-03	Westmoreland (R)	119,766	630,052	19.0	198,089	817,247	24.2	5.2	33/67	35/64

The list of the top 10 districts in terms of percentage gains among African-Americans is the same 10 as 2008, although with a few changes in the order. The story continues to be African-Americans moving from the cities to the suburbs, especially in the Atlanta area but also Detroit (with Detroiters moving north into the 12th), Chicago (with the metaphorical South Side now starting to extend south well below the city limits and even below I-80), and Washington DC (with Prince George’s County now largely black outside the Beltway, into the 5th, as well as inside in MD-04).

The top 10 gainers by raw numbers has many of the same districts, although also some of the suburban districts that gained a lot of everybody (like TX-22 and NC-09). It starts with GA-13 (from 439K to 629K), followed by GA-07, MD-05, GA-03, TX-22, NC-09, MI-12, FL-19, MD-02, and TX-24.

District	Rep.	2000 black	2000 total	2000 %	2010 black	2010 total	2010 %	% change	2000 election	2008 election
IL-07	Davis (D)	402,714	653,521	61.6	322,730	638,105	50.6	– 11.0	83/16	88/12
GA-05	Lewis (D)	350,940	629,438	55.8	313,302	630,462	49.7	– 6.1	73/27	79/20
LA-02	Richmond (D)	407,138	639,048	63.7	287,077	493,352	58.2	– 5.5	76/22	74/25
CA-09	Lee (D)	164,903	639,426	25.8	131,574	648,766	20.3	– 5.5	79/13	88/10
CA-35	Waters (D)	216,467	638,851	33.9	188,365	662,413	28.4	– 5.4	82/17	84/14
CA-33	Bass (D)	189,855	638,655	29.7	156,406	637,122	24.5	– 5.2	83/14	87/12
NY-11	Clarke (D)	379,017	654,134	57.9	335,828	632,408	53.1	– 4.8	83/9	91/9
PA-02	Fattah (D)	392,293	647,350	60.6	355,849	630,277	56.5	– 4.1	87/12	90/10
NY-15	Rangel (D)	198,915	654,355	30.4	169,460	639,873	26.5	– 3.9	87/7	93/6
TX-18	Jackson-Lee (D)	260,850	651,789	40.0	260,585	720,991	36.1	– 3.9	72/28	77/22

The list of districts with the biggest percentage losses among African-Americans mostly parallels the list of districts with the biggest white gains, where regentrification is changing the complexion (and that it includes the catastrophic regentrification of New Orleans). It also includes several traditionally black districts where the blacks are being replaced mostly by Hispanics: CA-09, CA-35, and TX-18. IL-01 and MD-04 have fallen off the list from 2008, replaced by PA-02 and TX-18.

The top 10 by raw numbers of losses among African-Americans is led (perhaps no surprise) by LA-02, which went from 407K to 287K, followed by MI-13, IL-07, MI-14, IL-01, NY-11, GA-05, PA-02, CA-33, CA-09. Interestingly, because New Orleans in general lost so many people, the 2nd still significantly trails IL-07 in terms of the percentage loss.

Now let’s look at Asian-American populations:

District	Rep.	2000 Asian	2000 total	2000 %	2010 Asian	2010 total	2010 %	% change	2000 election	2008 election
NY-05	Ackerman (D)	159,491	654,253	24.4	218,275	670,130	32.3	8.2	67/30	63/36
CA-13	Stark (D)	179,681	638,708	28.1	239,434	665,318	36.0	7.9	67/30	74/24
CA-15	Honda (D)	187,198	639,090	29.3	246,832	677,605	36.4	7.1	60/36	68/30
CA-48	Campbell (R)	80,095	638,848	12.5	137,094	727,833	18.8	6.3	40/58	49/49
NJ-12	Holt (D)	58,748	647,253	9.1	104,996	701,881	15.0	5.9	56/40	58/41
VA-10	Wolf (R)	41,846	643,714	6.5	107,583	869,437	12.4	5.9	41/56	53/46
WA-08	Reichert (R)	50,745	655,029	7.7	108,807	810,754	13.4	5.7	49/47	57/42
CA-11	McNerney (D)	55,895	639,625	8.7	114,217	796,753	14.3	5.6	45/53	54/44
CA-14	Eshoo (D)	102,430	639,953	16.0	140,789	653,935	21.5	5.5	62/34	73/25
CA-03	Lungren (R)	36,970	639,374	5.8	84,384	783,317	10.8	5.0	41/55	49/49

The Asian gains, percentagewise, are concentrated in the Bay Area, although the #1 gainer is NY-05, where the majority of the population is in NE Queens. Flushing is now thoroughly Asian, and that’s starting to spill over into Bayside (of Archie Bunker and Jerky Boys fame). That’s followed by the East Bay’s CA-13, the first non-Hawaiian district to have an Asian plurality. The rest of the list is mostly affluent suburban areas which are starting to become light-blue at the presidential level even as they keep Republicans in the House; will declining white populations in these districts be enough to push them over the edge?

NY-06, NJ-07, and TX-22 have fallen off the list from 2008, replaced by NJ-12, WA-08, and CA-03. If you’re curious about the top 10 by raw numbers gain, it mostly overlaps the above list, although with some of the all-purpose growth engines (like NV-03) on there too: NV-03, VA-10, TX-22, CA-13, CA-15, NY-05, CA-11, WA-08, CA-48, and VA-11.

Only twelve districts have experienced any drops in the Asian population by percentage, and most of the drops are small, so there’s not much need for a chart for them; HI-02 (28.0% to 24.9%) had the most significant change, partly because of an influx of white retirees but more so because the big rise in “Two or more” as a common choice in Hawaii. That’s followed mostly by districts with rapidly growing Latino populations:  HI-01, CA-20, CA-18, IL-02, TX-29, FL-17, CA-51, TX-30, CA-35, NY-16, and TX-16. Only six districts had drops in raw numbers of Asians: IL-02, MI-13, TX-29, FL-17, IL-05, and IL-01.

Finally, let’s look at Hispanics:

District	Rep.	2000 Hispanic	2000 total	2000 %	2010 Hispanic	2010 total	2010 %	% change	2000 election	2008 election
IL-03	Lipinski (D)	139,268	653,292	21.3	225,298	663,381	34.0	12.6	58/40	64/35
CA-25	McKeon (R)	174,193	638,768	27.3	330,711	844,320	39.2	11.9	42/56	49/48
CA-41	Lewis (R)	150,076	639,935	23.5	277,907	797,133	34.9	11.4	41/56	44/54
CA-43	Baca (D)	371,501	637,764	58.3	510,693	735,581	69.4	11.2	64/34	68/30
CA-22	McCarthy (R)	133,571	638,514	20.9	255,209	797,084	32.0	11.1	33/64	38/60
CA-18	Cardoza (D)	268,586	639,004	42.0	381,039	723,607	52.7	10.6	53/44	59/39
FL-20	Wasserman Schultz (D)	132,575	639,795	20.7	216,352	691,727	31.2	10.6	69/31	63/36
TX-10	McCaul (R)	122,894	651,523	18.9	282,641	981,367	28.8	9.9	34/67	44/55
TX-29	Green (D)	430,980	651,405	66.2	514,861	677,032	76.0	9.9	57/43	62/38
TX-02	Poe (R)	82,578	651,605	12.7	176,196	782,375	22.5	9.8	37/63	40/60

As in 2008, the biggest gainer is IL-03, covering Chicago’s Southwest Side. (I’m truly not sure if people are moving from the depopulating, closer-in IL-04 to the slightly more spacious 3rd, or if the 3rd is becoming the destination of choice for new émigrés; maybe Chicagoans in the comments might shed some insight into that.) And in second place continues to be CA-25, a Republican-held district linking LA suburbs like Santa Clarita with high desert outposts like Lancaster. Interestingly, the list is pretty evenly divided by Democratic-held districts that already were substantially Hispanic and just got much more so (like TX-29 and CA-43), and Republican-held suburban districts where voting patterns haven’t caught up with the Hispanic population (and given the number of kids and non-citizens among those numbers, where it’ll take many more years for that catching up to happen).

There’s been a lot of churn among districts since 2008, perhaps a result of the difficulty of estimating Hispanic populations: districts falling off the top 10 list since 2008 are TX-32, TX-05, AZ-04, and CA-52. These have been replaced by CA-43, CA-18, TX-10, and TX-02.

The top 10 in raw numbers gain doesn’t correlate directly with districts that had biggest white percentage drops or Hispanic percentage gains. Instead, the list pretty thoroughly overlaps with the list of the top population gainers overall; while the Hispanic percentage went upwards in all of those districts, many of these districts were ones with a large Hispanic share already: case in point, the biggest gainer, FL-25 in Miami’s westernmost suburbs (which went from 398,986 to 577,998). That’s followed by CA-45 (which I certainly would have expected to see in the top 10 Hispanic percentage changes, but where the share increased “only” by 7.2%), TX-28, TX-10, CA-25, AZ-07, TX-15, CA-44, TX-23, and CA-43.

One remarkable thing about Hispanic growth is that it’s present almost everywhere. Only six districts experienced any drops in the Hispanic percentage whatsoever, all in urban districts where regentrification is occurring: starting with NY-12 (48.7% to 44.6%), followed by CA-31, NY-15, CA-29, IL-04, and NY-14. Those same six districts were the only ones to report drops in raw numbers, either: IL-04 had the biggest loss (from 486,839 to 442,018), CA-31, NY-12, NY-15, CA-29, and NY-14.

Dave Bradlee finally managed to sort the obnoxious problems with Oregon’s 2010 Census data, which means it’s time for me to give my home state a whirl.

Nothing too much has changed, as you can see. It just has pretty lines and definitely preserves communities of interest. Only three counties (Columbia, Josephine, and Lincoln) are split between congressional districts, and none of those three are split between more than two districts.

OR-01 (blue)

Democratic Rep. David Wu, who lives in Multnomah County, is out. Unfortunately, some depopulation along the Oregon Coast means this district is stretching a bit further south to find constituents, which is maybe the only part of this map I’m not thrilled about (for aesthetic reasons). As for the politics, as this is a horse-race elections site: Despite Yamhill County’s Republican lean, the great majority of this district’s population is in true blue northwestern Oregon. If Wu can be kept out by this redistricting job, state senators Suzanne Bonamici and Mark Hass are probably in line, provided Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian doesn’t want the job. The inside scoop is that if Wu’s job opens up, he’s got first right of refusal. Likely Democratic.

OR-02 (green)

Walden lives in Hood River. Hood River has been moved elsewhere. Even if Walden doesn’t move back – and I think the diehard conservatives in eastern Oregon, which is (surprisingly enough) one of the most conservative parts of the entire country, may prefer to send Oregon Senate Minority Leader Ted Ferrioli or Bend-area state senator and ambitious “rising star” Chris Telfer to Congress instead of Walden, a close ally of (the possibly doomed) Speaker Boehner who has taken flak for being a leading member of the quasi-moderate Main Street Partnership – this district is red enough to elect an Oregonian version of Christine O’Donnell without a fuss. Anyway, I felt Hood River County belongs with eastern Multnomah County in terms of communities of interest more than it belongs with the high desert cow counties. Safe Republican.

OR-03 (purple)

Democratic Rep. Earl Blumenauer’s district has consolidated all of Multnomah County, taken over Hood River County, and poked up into Columbia County just a tad bit, simultaneously withdrawing from Clackamas County. As for politics: Che Guevara could get elected here by double-digit margins. Walden could run here, but he would get clobbered. Wu could also run here, but he would also get clobbered. Mostly, I just think this district looks nice. Safe Democratic.

OR-04 (red)

One of the enduring mysteries of Congress is the charmed existence of Democratic Rep. Peter DeFazio, a blunt, unabashed, aggressively off-the-reservation left-winger sitting in a light-blue seat. Last year, when conditions seemed perfect for a Republican to potentially upset DeFazio, Republicans in the district nominated certifiable crazy person Art Robinson. DeFazio’s final margin was closer than expected, perhaps on account of his taking victory against Robinson pretty much for granted, but it was still fairly convincing. This district hasn’t changed much. DeFazio still has the red ball-and-chain that is Linn County tethered to him, but it’s easily offset by flaming liberal Benton and Lane counties, both of which are anchored by legendarily left-wing college towns. In terms of actually drawing the map, since I wasn’t consulting political data, it was basically just leftover western Oregon and as much of southern Oregon as fit with population limits stretching east from the coast (which turned out to be not much). Likely Democratic.

OR-05 (yellow)

What is there to do about Democratic Rep. Kurt Schrader? Well, one thing to do that would make Clackamas County residents happy would be to give the piece of OR-03 reaching down a little bit into Schrader’s home county back to this fairly swingy district. Another thing might be to embark on a registration drive in increasingly Hispanic Salem and its suburbs, but that’s not really redistricting’s job. Redistricting’s job is to preserve communities of interest, and that was my chief consideration here. As a progressive who generally supports Democrats, I’m not honestly worried about Schrader, and this is why: Republicans target OR-05 every cycle, and every time, they do worse than they were expecting. Last year, Schrader was supposed to lose to Scott Bruuuuuuuuuuuuuun (who, yes, still lives in this district). He won by over five points instead. Republicans were supposed to take over the district in 2008 when then-Rep. Darlene Hooley retired. Schrader crushed Hooley’s 2006 opponent (who was supposed to beat her then, too) by 16 points. Fun fact: in this D+1 district, Republicans haven’t even come as close as five points away since 1994 – the cycle before then-Rep. Jim Bunn lost to Hooley (in 1996) by a margin nearly identical to the margin by which Schrader prevailed last year. For whatever reason, this district is fools’ gold for the Oregon Republican Party. But my favorite part of this redrawn district? It consists simply of all of Polk, Marion, and Clackamas counties, and it’s just 515 heads over the target population. Sexy. Lean Democratic.

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

Senate:

• FL-Sen: I was pretty bored with reading the George LeMieux tea leaves even before his cuppa began brewing, but in case you’re not me, the very-short-tenured former senator has been busy attending Lincoln Day dinners and meeting with GOP activists and potential donors. In beltway land, I think this upgrades him from “Lean Run” to “Likely Run.”

• IN-Sen: Treasurer Richard Mourdock is trying to cause some trouble by saying that Gov. Mitch Daniels encouraged him to run against Dick Lugar in the GOP primary, while a Daniels spokesperson said the governor did no such thing. Daniels previously said he’d vote for Lugar, but didn’t exactly endorse him. In other news, Mourdock says he expects to show $125K raised for his race in just a month of campaigning.

Gubernatorial:

• KY-Gov: Dem Gov. Steve Beshear just punked his top opposition in this year’s gubernatorial race, state Senate President David Williams, hard. Williams had insisted on broad spending cuts (including to education) as part of a Medicaid budget bill; the Democratic-controlled House had no interest in these cuts, but Williams refused any possible compromise. So House Dems (and rebellious House Republicans) passed the Williams bill anyway… I know, hang on … but full-well expecting Beshear to use his line-item veto to strike the cuts. Then they adjourned, so that the vetoes couldn’t get over-ridden. And that’s exactly what happened, handing Williams a humiliating defeat.

• WI-Gov: I’m wondering which pollster will finally have the courage to report numbers to the THOUSANDTHS of a percent. For now, we’ll have to content ourselves with Republican-affiliated pollster We Ask America, which bravely ignores all rules about significant digits and goes all the way to hundredths. They show what other polls are showing: that Scott Walker (like other loser Midwestern Republican governors) has crappy job approval ratings, in this case 43.71 to 54.87. YES DECIMALS.

• WV-Gov: The AP has a good run-down on which groups are endorsing whom in the gubernatorial race. On the Dem side, we’ve noted several of the big union heavy hitters, most of whom are backing state House Speaker Rick Thompson. But some important labor groups are supporting other candidates, like state Sen. Jeff Kessler (Fraternal Order of Police, nurses) and Treasurer John Perdue (teamsters, state troopers). Meanwhile, EMILY’s List has endorsed SoS Natalie Tenant. The AP also tried to get candidates to cough up estimates of their fundraising figures (final reports are due Friday), but only acting Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin responded, saying he’d pulled in about a million bucks.

And speaking of Thompson, he’s apparently the first on TV, with an ad touting his hardscrabble upbringing. By the way, SSP Southern Correspondent Trent Thompson notes that the soundtrack you hear is a Baptist hymn, which seems to be popular among Southern Dems (Bobby Bright featured this sort of thing in his advertising). (UPDATE: Actually, it’s an actually an old Hank Williams gospel song that’s commonly sung in churches.)

House:

• CA-36: It looks like we have the final list of candidate filings for the special election. I count ten Democrats, six Republicans, five “nonpartisan,” two Libertarians (splitter!), and one “Peace and Freedom” candidate. Also, Howard Dean just endorsed Debra Bowen, which is not too surprising given that his former organization, Democracy for America (run by Howard’s brother Jim), also recently endorsed.

• CA-51: Apparently there had been vague rumors that Dem Rep. Bob Filner might run for mayor of San Diego… and now apparently Filner just went and announced he was in fact doing so in a totally off-hand remark after a screening of the film Freedom Riders. (Filner himself was one of the Mississippi Freedom Riders.) There’s been some dispute over whether Filner’s remarks were accurately conveyed, but oddly, Filner’s office has refused to either confirm or deny the statement. Note that the race is in June of next year, so I believe Filner gets a free shot while keeping his House seat.

• TX-23: Not so fast, Quico! Gary Martin of the Houston Chronicle says that Dems are looking at a few potential challengers to freshman GOPer Quico Canseco, including state Rep. Joaquin Castro and Pete Gallego, and state Sen. Carlos Uresti. Ex-Rep. Ciro Rodriguez is also apparently weighing a rematch. While the borders of the 23rd will undoubtedly shift somewhat, it probably can’t change a whole lot thanks to the VRA (it’s 66% Hispanic), so this race could heat up earlier than many others.

• WI-01: Food service company owner and Kenosha County Supervisor Rob Zerban is apparently interested in challenging GOP Rep. Paul Ryan. Despite his leadership post and his inflexible conservatism, Ryan sits in a very swingish district that can’t really be improved in redistricting for a variety of reasons.

Other Races:

• ME-St. Sen.: The Maine SoS has set May 10th as the date for a special election to fill the seat of state Sen. Larry Bliss (D). The reason for Bliss’s resignation was certainly unusual and quite poignant: He couldn’t find a job in Maine. State legislators work part-time and are only paid $13,000 a year. Bliss said that in the absence of other work, he’d been working as a “full-time” legislator and was really enjoying his job, but he could only find employment in California, prompting his resignation. Of course, this story really isn’t that unusual at all, given how many people are still out of work and struggling terribly. Also of note: Bliss was one of only a handful of openly LGBT state legislators nationwide.

• PA-AG: Longtime Philly DA Lynne Abraham (D), who left office just last year, said she’s considering a run for state AG, despite being 70 years old. (Devoted Swingnuts will recall that ex-Rep. Patrick Murphy is also thinking about a run.) Believe it or not, no Democrat has won the AG’s office since it became an elected position in 1980.

• Wisconsin Sup. Ct.: Unnamed sources tell the National Review they’ve seen polling showing the race between incumbent Justice David Prosser and JoAnne Kloppenburg “near even.”

Remainders:

• Census: Like in NYC, pols in Atlanta are wondering why the new Census numbers for their city are so much lower than expected – 420K vs. a projected 540K. Jacob Alperin-Sherrif (better known to you as DemocraticLuntz) has an excellent post comparing Census projections with actual numbers for cities between 100K and 1 million people. You need to click through for his must-see scatterplot. There is one massive outlier: Atlanta, which is more than six standard deviations away from the mean.

Redistricting Roundup:

• Indiana: Despite total Republican control over the process, it’s starting to look like the Indiana legislature won’t finish their congressional map before the body adjourns on April 29th, largely because of a walk-out by Democrats which ground most work to a halt. But the Democrats just reached what they’re saying is a favorable a deal with the Republicans, so perhaps the process will pick up again soon.

• Iowa: The state’s independent redistricting panel will release the first draft of a new congressional map at 8:15 am local time on Thursday morning.

• Virginia: New maps for Congress, the state House and the state Senate could be released by the legislature today. Stay alert!

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.

Senate:

• HI-Sen: Ex-Rep. Ed Case said he expects to decide by “mid-April” whether he’ll seek Hawaii’s open Senate seat. Case also says that the Merriman River Group took a poll for him and claims he kicked ass in both the primary and general-but he’s only released a couple of selected toplines (click the link if you want them). PPP will have an HI-Sen general election poll out on behalf of Daily Kos/SEIU in the next couple of days.

• ME-Sen: Democrat Hannah Pingree, former Speaker of the state House and daughter of 1st CD Rep. Chellie Pingree, left the state legislature earlier this year. Only 34, she’s lately been managing the family’s inn & restaurant and serving on a local school board, so she seems like a good potential candidate to run for office once again-perhaps even to challenge Sen. Olympia Snowe. But Pingree just gave birth to her first child a week ago, which probably makes her less likely to get back into the game this year.

• MI-Sen: A GOP operative passes along word to Dave Catanese that Pete Hoekstra is turning down the chance to appear at some Lincoln Day dinners-which this source thinks is a sign that Hoekstra isn’t planning to run for Senate. Hoekstra’s would-be pollster (the same guy who was basically spinning lies about PPP last week) vociferously disputes this interpretation. We’ll see, but I personally think Hoekstra is going to tell us he plans to spend more time building turtle fences with his family.

• MT-Sen: Activist Melinda Gopher says she is contemplating a primary challenge to Dem Sen. Jon Tester. She explains her reasoning here. She received 21% of the vote and finished third in the Dem primary for MT-AL last year. I could not find any FEC reports for her.

• ND-Sen, ND-AL: Another good catch by Greg Giroux: ex-Rep. Earl Pomeroy (D) just closed his federal campaign account. While it’s not dispositive, of course, this probably means he’s not interested in seeking his old seat, or the retiring Kent Conrad’s spot in the Senate. Note that Pomeroy didn’t completely slam the door on a gubernatorial run, but I’m guessing that’s not terribly likely, either.

• NM-Sen: New Mexico’s Republican Lt. Gov., John Sanchez, sounded very much like a candidate on a recent trip to DC. He spent some time slagging ex-Rep. Heather Wilson (the only declared candidate so far) in an interview with The Hill, criticizing her moderate credentials, but also being careful to try to put a little daylight between himself and the teabaggers. Sanchez indicated he’d decide “in the spring,” and perhaps hinted he’d announce on or around April 15th… because it’s totally not teabaggish to make a fetish out of Tax Day. He also says he’ll be back in Washington next week to meet with the NRSC (this trip was occasioned by a gathering of the all-important National Lieutenant Governors Association).

House:

• FL-22: Ex-Rep. Ron Klein (D) definitively slammed the door on a rematch this cycle, saying he’s “looking forward to the private sector” (he’s taking a job with the law firm of Holland & Knight). But he did hold out the possibility he might return to office some day (he’s only 53). The same article also mentions a new possible Democratic candidate (despite the entrance of West Palm Beach Mayor Lois Frankel in recent days): state Rep. Joseph Abruzzo, who says he’s keeping his options open. (Abruzzo, hardly alone among Democrats, backed Charlie Crist over Kendrick Meek in last year’s Senate race.)

In other news, a firm called Viewpoint Florida released a very questionable poll pitting Rep. Allen West against Frankel. Really, the only reason you’d put out a survey of a district which is guaranteed to get reshaped is because you’re hoping to set a narrative among people who don’t know better (like, say, the tradmed… this piece doesn’t even mention the word “redistricting”). In addition, the poll is way too Republican, and also purports to be of “likely” voters, about one billion years before election day.

• MI-09 (?): The question mark is there because who knows what districts are going to look like, or where state Rep. Marty Knollenberg-who says he’s considering a run for Congress-will wind up when all is said and done. That name ought to sound familiar: Marty’s dad is, of course, George McFly ex-Rep. Joe Knollenberg, who lost to current 9th CD Rep. (and potential redistricting victim) Gary Peters in 2008. Of note, Marty sits on a redistricting committee in the state lege, so maybe a House race is his… density.

• NY-25: This is the kind of news I like to hear! Dan Maffei, who lost a heart-breaker last year, sent an email to supporters saying that he is “strongly considering running again” for his old seat. Maffei was always a great vote and a strong progressive voice, despite his decision to take a job after the election with the annoying “moderate” group Third Way. (I don’t begrudge the guy needing to eat, though, and the market was pretty saturated with one-term Democratic ex-Congressmen in need of a job.) We don’t know how this district will wind up, of course, but I’d be surprised if there were nowhere for Maffei to run.

• NY-26: Teabagger David Bellavia looks pretty doomed-despite having enough signatures (in theory), he failed to file a key piece of paperwork with the Board of Elections, which will probably terminate his candidacy. It’s all the more poignant because, according to this article, the other campaigns said they would not challenge his signatures-and seeing as he submitted just 100 more than the 3,500 target, it’s a good bet he was in the danger zone. (Is it really true that Republican Jane Corwin said this, though?)

Speaking of Corwin, she’s got a third ad out, once again returning to small business themes (as she did in her first spot), rather than the negative attacks in her second ad.

• PA-17: Tim Holden could be in that rare bucket of Democrats who might not actually benefit from their seats being made bluer in redistricting. The conservative Holden could have Lackawanna County added to his district, according to a possible GOP plan, which might open him up to a primary challenge from the left. It would also move a couple of ambitious pols from the county into his district, including Lackawanna County Commissioner Corey O’Brien (who attempted to primary ex-Rep. Paul Kanjorski last year) and Scranton Mayor Chris Doherty. PoliticsPA also says that Holden’s 2010 primary challenger, activist Sheila Dow-Ford, is “rumored” to be considering another run. (Dow-Ford lost 65-35 in a race fueled in large part by Holden’s vote against healthcare reform.)

• VA-05: Last cycle, few establishment figures were as absolutely hated by the teabaggers as now-Rep. Robert Hurt. He won his primary with just 48%, against a typically fractured People’s Front of Judea/Judean People’s Front field. (We really need an acronym for that. PFJJPF, anyone?) The teabaggers have now taken to protesting Hurt’s votes in favor of continuing budget resolutions outside of his district office, but given their feeble efforts to unite around a standard-bearer last time, I’m skeptical that they have the organizational power to threaten Hurt next year.

Other Races:

• Wisconsin Sup. Ct.: The Greater Wisconsin Committee is running a very negative new ad against Republican Justice David Prosser, accusing him of refusing to prosecute a child-molesting priest back when he was a D.A.-and explaining that the same priest went on to molest other kids after a parish transfer.

Remainders:

• Census: New York City pols, led by His Bloomberginess, got wiggy almost immediately after seeing the Census Bureau’s largely stagnant new population figures for the city. Pretty much everyone is convinced that NYC grew by more than 2.1%, because, they say, the bureau undercounted immigrants. And here’s a pretty good supporting piece of data: The city added 170,000 new homes over the last decade, so how could it grow by only 166,000 people? (There are no huge swaths of abandoned properties in New York, though the Census does claim vacancies increased.) As a result, city officials are planning to challenge the figures (which they think should be about a quarter million higher). But it’s worth noting that a similar challenge 20 years ago wound up failing.

• Votes: The New York Times is getting into the party unity score game, finding that (according to their methodology) 14 Dems have voted with Team Blue less than 70% of the time this Congress. It’s pretty much just a list of the remaining white conservative Blue Dogs who sit in red districts, though three names from bluer districts stand out: Dennis Cardoza (CA-18); Jim Costa (CA-20); and Gary Peters (MI-09).

Redistricting Roundup:

• Louisiana: A state Senate committee passed a plan for redistricting its own lines last Thursday; a vote by the full body could come this week. Notably, the new map increases the number of majority-minority districts from 10 to 11. Things are delayed on the House side, though.

• Virginia: A teachable moment in Virginia: Democrats in the state Senate adopted a rule that would limit the population variance in any new maps to no more than ±2%, while Republicans in the state House are using a ±1% standard. This issue often comes up in comments, but it’s simple: For state legislatures, courts have said that a 10% total deviation is an acceptable rule of thumb-that is, if the difference in population between the largest district and the smallest district is no more than ±5% of the size of an ideal district, then you’re okay. However, at least one map which tried to egregiously take advantage of this guideline (total deviation of 9.98%) was nonetheless invalidated, so while the “ten percent rule” is still probably a reasonable safe harbor, it may not be a sure thing. For congressional maps, it’s even simpler: Districts have to be perfectly equipopulous unless the state can justify the difference as necessary to achieve legitimate state policy. (For instance, Iowa state law forbids splitting counties to draw a federal map; this is considered an acceptable goal by the courts, so Iowa’s districts have slight variances.)

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.)