Tag: demographics

Senate:

• ND-Sen: North Dakota Public Service Commissioner Brian Kalk will announce his formal entry into the Senate race to replace Kent Conrad tomorrow. Kalk, a Republican, raised a really lame $32K in Q1.

• NM-Sen, NM-03: Facing an already-crowded primary field and the prospect of giving up a safe House seat, Rep. Ben Ray Lujan said yesterday that he won’t seek the Democratic nod to replace Jeff Bingaman in the Senate.

• OH-Sen: I think we didn’t spot this mid-April poll from GOP pollster Wenzel Strategies until now… but definitely take it with something stronger than mere salt. For one thing, they’ve regularly done polls for WorldNetDaily (I mean, seriously?), and for another, they released a seriously weird-ass poll last cycle that purported to show Rep. Norm Dicks losing to a perennial candidate. (Dicks won by 16.)

But even if you didn’t know all that, you’d have to laugh at their absurd spin: They call Sherrod Brown’s favorables “dangerous” and his re-elects “disastrous”… even though his head-to-head margin is 49-36 over Ken Blackwell, 50-36 against Mary Taylor, and 48-33 paired with Josh Mandel. In a Republican poll! Anyhow, if you want to chase this one all the way down the rabbit hole, Wenzel also had a component testing the anti-union legislation called SB5, which will very likely appear on the ballot this fall (people want it repealed by a 51-38 spread).

Gubernatorial:

• WI-Gov: Another recall poll from another not-especially-prominent pollster. Republican polling firm Etheridge & Associates (based out of Tennessee) found 44% in favor of recalling Walker and 51% opposed. They also put Walker head-to-head with a real candidate (which is what would happen in a recall election) and found him tied with Russ Feingold at 48 apiece.

House:

• ND-AL: This is a very good report from Kristen Daum, who writes the “Flickertales” blog for the Fargo-Moorhead Forum. She nails freshman GOP Rep. Rick Berg on two counts: First, last year Berg ran heavily on the theme that Earl Pomeroy was mostly relying on out-of-state money while he, Berg, was raking it in from North Dakotans. Well, with the Q1 reports in, Daum observes that about 80% of Berg’s campaign cash is now coming from interests outside of ND, including quite a bit from DC. Better still, Berg’s staff claimed he hasn’t held any fundraisers or solicited contributions… but the Sunlight Foundation’s “Party Time” website scrounged up a copy of an invite to high-dollar event held on Berg’s behalf by Eric Cantor and a couple of PACs. Whoops!

• NY-13: I’m not even going to summarize what’s at the link, except to say it’s a truly explosive story about GOP freshman Mike Grimm. Just click and read it.

• WI-01: Businessman Rob Zerban is already running against Rep. Paul Ryan, but The Fix suggests another possible Democratic name: state Sen. Chris Larson.

Grab Bag:

• Americans United: That Americans United for Change ad buy against four Republicans we mentioned yesterday apparent totals $35K. That’s at least in the ballpark of real money, and I’m very glad to see groups like AUFC and House Majority PAC start doing these thousand-papercuts sort of campaigns early.

• Polling & Demographics: Ben Smith has an interesting little exchange between a couple of pollsters with experience in working with the Latino community. One, André Pineda (who has polled for Obama, among others), says he thinks that pollsters who gather Hispanic samples by relying on surnames miss a lot of Hispanics who don’t have such names, typically because their families have lived in the US longer. These voters, says Pineda, lean more to the right than newer immigrants. But Matt Barreto of the Washington Institute for the Study of Ethnicity and Race says that Pineda’s estimates are “way off base.” Barreto says only 5-10% of Hispanics do not have Hispanic surnames, whereas Pineda’s memo suggests that the number is far higher.

• Town Halls: Want to see if your member of Congress is having a town hall during this recess so that you can go and give them what for? MoveOn has a tool that lets you plug in your ZIP code and find town halls near you.

• Voter Suppression: Unsurprisingly, the Florida legislature is moving forward with a big election law bill that’s principally designed to suppress the Democratic vote, as always in the name of preventing VOTER FRAUD!!!!!!!!!!!!!1111111111111. Changes include shortening the early voting period, adding onerous restrictions on third-party groups which register voters, and preventing voters from changing their addresses at the poll (something which Florida has allowed for forty years). Republicans are also moving forward with bills that would eliminate payroll deductions for union dues, force unions to get each member’s permission before spending money on elections, and make it harder for trial lawyers to bring medical malpractice cases. In short, as one Democratic lawmaker put it, it’s the entire GOP wish list.

Redistricting Roundup:

• Florida: This is sorta interesting. One Florida lawmaker on the legislature’s redistricting committee is telling his fellow legislators not to talk to him about redistricting – at all. The new “Fair Districts” law says that districts can’t be drawn to favor or disfavor incumbents, so mapmakers are concerned that if their colleagues start telling them about how they’d like to see the lines crafted, that could later be used as evidence in court.

• Virginia: And so it goes: A week after saying he wouldn’t change a thing about his party’s map, Dem Senate Majority Leader Richard Saslaw now says of Gov. Bob McDonnell: “We are talking to him. We are trying to meet all of his concerns.” I can’t see how this is going to end well for Democrats, who now seem to face a choice between a crappy gerrymander in the Senate and a court-drawn map… and I guess would prefer the former, based on Saslaw’s hints. Sigh.

Meanwhile, Republicans are apparently pretty pissed at McDonnell for vetoing their plans, supposedly with almost no warning, but there’s a lot that doesn’t add up here. For one, the article says that the legislature doesn’t have enough votes to over-ride McDonnell’s veto, but that’s simply not true. If House Republicans really wanted their map badly enough, they could have prevailed on their counterparts in the Senate to vote for the package deal, ensuring it was safe from McDonnell’s veto pen.

For the governor’s part, he’s also full of shit. His spokesman said that he would have preferred the House and Senate maps had been sent to the governor in separate bills, but jeez, this is classic “born yesterday” crap. There’s no way the Senate would have given away its one piece of leverage like that. Still, it does sound like the Republican anger at McDonnell is quite real (and not just limited to redistricting), which means a serious derail is not impossible. So maybe there’s still a way for Saslaw to snatch something other than defeat from the jaws of… defeat.

• Utah: The state will apparently make redistricting software available to citizens on its website, but the linked article isn’t very clear where that will happen. Any ideas?

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.

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

This diary is meant to be a little fun given all the heavy redistricting diaries we have on here. The one thing that’s always struck me about my home state is how it’s so diverse and interesting in spite of being so small. This diary will try to explain how the various cultural groups fit together by using Dave’s mapping program, along with accompanying demographic and political data.

Region 1 – Eastern Shore (blue)

292,037 people (5.1% of the state)

70.6% white, 21.5% black, 4.4% Hispanic, 1.4% Asian

44.0% Obama

46.1% Average Dem

This region is already well known to anyone familiar with MD politics, and is probably the easiest to define geographically – basically the entire Eastern shore, minus the wealthy Baltimore influence areas of Kent Island, St. Michaels, and Ocean City/Ocean Pines, as well as the college town of Chestertown and northern Cecil County.

This region is the most “Southern” part of Maryland, and would be more at home in tidewater Virginia than in the I-95 Corridor. However, given that this is not the Deep South, and that there is a fairly large black population as a holdover from slavery, Dem margins aren’t as bad here as one would think. Most of the counties still have Dem registration advantages, and as you can see, local Dems do slightly better than Obama did.

Region 2 – Prince George’s County (green)

901,776 people (15.6% of the state)

15.9% white, 67.5% black, 9.5% Hispanic, 4.2% Asian

87.5% Obama

86.1% local Dem

Geographically, this region includes all of central and southern Prince George’s County, as well as parts of northern Charles County, western Anne Arundel County, North Laurel in southern Howard County, and Calverton in Montgomery County.

Home to a large and renown middle-class African-American population, this region of Maryland is probably the closest thing in the rest of the nation to the Atlanta suburbs. It’s interesting that this region exists at all given that Prince George’s County was only 10% black in 1970. What happened to cause this shift was a court decision in the 1970s that demanded the complete racial balancing of all schools in the county. Whites fled, either out of racial fear or out of anger over having to attend a far-away school. Blacks from DC (and later from around the nation) came in to replace them, and the region has continued to grow ever sense. The most recent trend has seen the black middle class expanding outward into other counties. Just think how different Maryland politics would be if that court decision never happened.

Region 3 – Southern Maryland (purple)

297,796 people (5.2% of the state)

79.4% white, 12.7% black, 3.3% Hispanic, 1.8% Asian

43.5% Obama

50.3% Average Dem

This region spans all of St. Mary’s and Calvert Counties, along with southern Anne Arundel County and rural Charles County. This region is a lot like the Eastern Shore, but has held onto its Democratic roots a little more (as noted by the avg Dem performance). This once tobacco-producing part of the state once spanned all of Charles County and southern Prince George’s County as well. With time, the expansion of the DC suburbs will probably kill this region and make it into one big suburb with no southern tendencies to speak of.

Region 4 – Creative Class (brown)

1,712,227 people (29.7% of the state)

59.7% white, 15.6% black, 10.1% Hispanic, 11.5% Asian

65.5% Obama

66.9% Average Dem

When you meet someone who says they’re from Maryland, this is probably where they’re from. Including most of Montgomery County (MoCo), most of Howard County (HoCo), College Park and Bowie in Prince George’s County, northwestern Baltimore County, the wealthier part of Baltimore City, southern Frederick County, Chestertown in Kent County, and Annapolis in Anne Arundel County, this region is full of wealthy young professionals trying to climb the ladder of advancement. It’s hard to say when this region first took off, but I’m sure it has something to do with the GI Bill and federal government expansion in the 1940s.

This area has one of the highest income levels in the country, as well as one of the highest levels of educational attainment. It is staunchly liberal, one of the most liberal areas in the entire nation. It is the largest of Maryland’s cultural groups, and keeps growing larger each day. Who knows how much of Maryland will fall into this category in the future?

Region 5 – Baltimore exurbia (yellow)

776,454 people (13.4% of the state)

88.8% white, 3.9% black, 2.8% Hispanic, 2.8% Asian

35.8% Obama

38.6% Average Dem

This region includes northern Baltimore County, northern Harford County, western Cecil County, eastern Carroll County, northern Howard County, eastern Frederick County, and central Anne Arundel County, along with Damascus in Montgomery County, Linthicum in Anne Arundel County, Arbutus in Baltimore County, Kent Island in Queen Anne’s County, St. Michaels in Talbot County, and Ocean City/Ocean Pines in Worcester County.

This region is the nemesis of the Creative Class region. It is staunchly conservative and proud of it. A lot of people mistakenly think that the Eastern Shore is the center of Maryland conservatism, but no, this is. Andy Harris actually personifies this region – upper class, well-educated, but wanting nothing to do with society at large, and constantly scared that everything one has will be taken away. Look for this region to shrink as white flight from Maryland accelerates.

Region 6 – Western Maryland (teal)

333,931 people (5.8% of the state)

87.9% white, 6.6% black, 2.5% Hispanic, 1.1% Asian

38.1% Obama

38.6% average Dem

This region includes all of Garrett, Allegany, and Washington Counties, along with northern Frederick County and northwestern Carroll County. Staunchly conservative, this is the one region of Maryland that is historically Republican. This region was a major hotbed of abolitionism during the Civil War, and like eastern Tennessee hasn’t given up on Republicans since. The major issue here is shrinkage – Garrett and Allegany finally stopped losing population, but the eastern side continues to be devoured by the outward expansion of DC and Baltimore.

Region 7 – Delaware (grey)

42,144 people (0.7% of the state)

81.1% white, 9.8% black, 4.7% Hispanic, 1.7% Asian

49.3% Obama

51.1% Avg Dem

Encompassing northeastern Cecil County, this is the smallest of Maryland’s cultural regions, and exists as an outward expansion of Wilmington’s suburbs. It’s worth mentioning because its Dem performance is much higher than what its racial stats would suggest.

Region 8 – Baltimore, Hon!

610,137 people (10.6% of the state)

69.6% white, 17.0% black, 6.6% Hispanic, 3.7% Asian

48.9% Obama

56.6% Avg Dem

This region covers southern Harford County, southeastern Baltimore County, southern Baltimore City, southwestern Baltimore County, and parts of northern Anne Arundel County. This region is low in income and low in educational attainment (aka blue collar). Most of the people here actually came from the South and from West Virginia years ago to work in Baltimore’s then thriving factories. Now that the factories are gone, the region is best known for John Waters, drag racing, Natty Bo, and 98 Rock.

A lot has been made of this region’s racism, given how much worse Obama did compared to the average Dem. That difference is actually obscured somewhat by the numbers I’ve provided given that I included some racially-diverse (but still blue collar) neighborhoods that brought Obama’s numbers up. Given the lack of opportunity here, the region is constantly shrinking.

Region 9 – Hispanic Maryland (sky blue)

199,903 people (3.5% of the state)

14.6% white, 26.1% black, 49.8% Hispanic, 7.2% Asian

81.8% Obama

82.1% Avg Dem

Encompassing northern Prince George’s County and central Montgomery County, this region is a newcomer on the Maryland scene. It started in the 1980s when refugees from Central America began to settle in Prince George’s County. Since then, it has expanded greatly, and look for more expansion in the future. Issues here include poverty and low levels of educational attainment, but those issues might be less prevalent as citizenship becomes less of an issue.

Region 10 – African-American Baltimore (pink)

607,157 people (10.5% of the state)

12.7% white, 80.2% black, 3.0% Hispanic, 1.9% Asian

92.4% Obama

89.7% avg Dem

Encompassing most of Baltimore City, western Baltimore County, and a few scattered communities in eastern Baltimore County, this region is sadly known for extreme segregation and poverty. The region has its roots in the 1800s when runaway slaves wanted somewhere to live and work (Maryland was actually not a relatively bad place for a runaway slave to live in spite of the fact that the state had slavery). It expanded greatly during the Great Migration through the 1970s, when African-Americans from the South came north to look for factory jobs. You know the story from there – 1970s – jobs gone, 1980s and 1990s – crack epidemic, 2000s and 2010s – recovery.

One thing that should be mentioned is that the part of western Baltimore County in this region is actually very middle class, which has only worsened conditions in the inner city (as middle class African-Americans fled the city for the county). However, given that the two areas have a common history, I included them as one region. Baltimore City is actually losing blacks faster than it is losing whites now, and while some will head for the County, some will probably head South as well. Look for this region to shrink in the City but expand in the surrounding counties.

So that’s it; questions? comments?

I’ve been doing some research on college students and politics for my political action committee (and wrote up a post for our blog here)–since I don’t know enough to contribute much to the discussions about redistricting, I thought I’d share what I’ve found. Maybe this is just pointless demographic trivia, but bear with me…

The district with the most college and graduate students – by far – is Mike Capuano’s MA-08, which includes Harvard, MIT, and Tufts, to name a couple schools. College students make up 16.9% of the district; in no other district are they more than 14.3%.

The only other district with more than 100,000 college students is Jason Chaffetz’s UT-03, which is expansive enough to include both Utah State Utah Valley University and BYU. Since UT-03 has been growing so rapidly, though, it ranks only 12th in the proportion of residents who are college students.

10 of the 25 districts with the most college students (as a percentage of residents) are represented by Republicans. Chaffetz’s district is the only one among these that is totally hopeless for Democrats, although now that Chet Edwards is gone TX-17 probably falls into that category.

8 of the 10 districts with the fewest college students are represented by Republicans. Nine of those are in the Sun Belt; the district with the 10th fewest, Bill Shuster’s PA-09, is the northern district with the fewest students. Gene Green is the Democrat representing the fewest college students, and Scott DesJarlais has the very fewest college constituents.

Not surprisingly, Republicans are much more likely to represent young people than college students. They hold 8 of the 10 districts with the largest proportion of 15-24 year-olds.

I’d started this project because I was curious about the districts of a couple of candidates that my political action committee had endorsed, only to watch them lose heartbreaking races. I figured that Mary Jo Kilroy and Tom Perriello–representing OSU and UVA–would figure high on the list. But it turns out that Kilroy’s OH-15 is only 19th, while Perriello’s VA-05 is all the way down at 136th. Of course, that doesn’t mean that the dropoff in college turnout didn’t contribute to their defeats. Anecdotally, at least, I’ve heard that UVA’s turnout was terrible in 2010.

In any case: I’ll be interested to see where some of these student populations end up after redistricting, since campuses are convenient blocs of low-leverage voters who can be shuffled around districts.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that my source is the American Communities Survey, available online here: http://fastfacts.census.gov/ho…

Hi folks,

I’m looking for help finding some demographic information about congressional districts. I work with a student-run political action committee (www.snappac.org) and I’m doing a little bit of research on students and politics to help us with our 2012 targeting. I was curious to know which districts have the most high school and college students (though obviously the answer will change after redistricting). The American Community Survey has estimates of the numbers of college/graduate students and high school students in each district, but I can’t find a way to access it in convenient fashion. Instead, I have to go to fastfacts.census.gov and look up each district one at a time.

Anybody know where I could see this information all in one spreadsheet? Or an otherwise sortable format?

P.S. While doing this research, I stumbled on an interesting piece of trivia – the three largest college campuses (at least according to Wikipedia) are all currently represented by freshman Republicans. Pretty vivid illustration of the total disappearance of young voters in midterm elections. Mary Jo Kilroy and (especially) Tom Perriello also come to mind as candidates who suffered from the decline of the university vote.

Right after the 2010 elections (and immediately before) there was some very public handwringing in the media about the number of women in congress decreasing. According to the CS Monitor, the election was “tough on all Democrats, but particularly on female lawmakers.” I think some of this is misguided. Granted, as markhanna wrote in November, 2010 was definitely not another “year of the woman.” But even though the number of women shrank (ever so slightly) in the red wave, as MassGOP suggested it might, the proportion of women within each party grew, and in the long run this isn’t much of a setback. You could even read it as progress.

The percentage of women in the House Republican conference, the House Democratic caucus, the Senate Republican conference and the Senate Democratic caucus all went up, even as the overall number of women went down in the House and stayed the same in the Senate. This somewhat counterintuitive situation is the result of a shift in representation from the more heavily female Democratic caucus to the less heavily female Republican conference. But within their parties, both sides have a higher proportion of women than in the last congress. As long as Democrats have more women, the constant shifts in balance between the parties will always affect the number of women in congress, so I don’t think it’s anything to get worked up about. The GOP deserves some credit for electing more of their own women even though they brought the overall numbers down.

Regardless of what happens in 2012, the number of women will probably go up in the next election. Democrats are more heavily female than ever, and if they have a good year the number of women legislators will probably shoot upwards. Republicans probably won’t take many more seats next cycle, but if they maintain a similar majority, the natural turnover in their party should lead to more women; in the House their freshman class was more heavily female than the Republican conference as a whole and in the Senate the proportion of non-incumbent female nominees was a record high.

The 112th House

Right now, 89 of the 535 voting members of the 112th Congress are women, about 16.6%. There are 17 women in the Senate and 72 women in the House, excluding three non-voting delegates. (Delegates aren’t included in any of the numbers in this diary. Sorry, Guam.) The total numbers are not far off from the 111th Congress, which had 90 women at its close. That figure was actually higher in the opening days of the 111th, before Hillary Clinton (D-NY), Hilda Solis (CA-32), and Ellen Tauscher (CA-10) vacated their seats to join the Obama administration. Kirsten Gillibrand (NY-20) was appointed to Clinton’s Senate seat, and Judy Chu won CA-32 in a special election. But then Gillibrand and Tauscher were succeeded by Scott Murphy and John Garamendi, respectively.

Although the total number of women didn’t change much, there was quite a bit of turnover in the House. Fourteen women left (2 Republicans and 12 Democrats) and thirteen women joined (9 Republicans and 4 Democrats). The freshman class totals 96 this year, and the thirteen new congresswomen account for about 13.5%. That’s much lower than the overall ratio of just under 16.6% in the House, and about one third of the freshmen women came from the tiny Democratic freshman class. But breaking it down further, the results are less discouraging.

On the Democratic side, Diane Watson (CA-33) retired; Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick (MI-13) was defeated in her primary; and Ann Kirkpatrick (AZ-01), Betsy Markey (CO-04), Suzanne Kosmas (FL-24), Melissa Bean (IL-08), Debbie Halvorson (IL-11), Carol Shea-Porter (NH-01), Dina Titus (NV-03), Mary Jo Kilroy (OH-15), Kathy Dahlkemper (PA-03) and Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (SD-AL) all lost to Republican challengers. The four new Democratic congresswomen are Karen Bass (CA-33), who took Watson’s seat; Terri Sewell (AL-07), who succeeded gubernatorial candidate Artur Davis; Frederica Wilson (FL-17), who replaced senatorial candidate Kendrick Meek; and Colleen Hanabusa (HI-01), who defeated an incumbent Republican. Of the women who lost to Republicans, only Kosmas and Herseth Sandlin were succeeded by women. At the time of the election, there were 255 voting members of the Democratic caucus, of whom 56 were women – about 22.0% of the caucus. After the election, the Democratic caucus shrank to 193 voting members, of whom 48 are women – about 24.9% of the caucus.

On the Republican side, Ginny Browne-Waite (R-FL) retired and Mary Fallin (R-OK) ran a successful campaign for governor. Their safe red seats were both won by Republican men. Diane Black (TN-06) and Jaime Herrera Beutler (WA-03) succeeded retiring male Democrats, while Martha Roby (AL-02), Vicki Hartzler (MO-04), Renee Ellmers (NC-02), Nan Hayworth (NY-19) and Ann Marie Buerkle (NY-25) defeated Democratic male incumbents. Sandy Adams (FL-24) and Kristi Noem (SD-AL) defeated Democratic women – Kosmas and Herseth Sandlin. At the time of the election, there were 180 voting members of the Republican conference, of which 17 were women – about 9.4% of the conference. After the election, the Republican conference expanded to 242 members, of whom 24 are women – about 9.9% of the conference.

There were noticeable differences between the freshman classes in each party. There were only nine Democratic freshmen this year, and four of them were women – that’s a whopping 44.4% of the Democratic freshmen. There were actually only two straight white men, out of nine. Just as the founding fathers intended! On the other side of the aisle, the tidal wave of 87 freshman Republicans includes only nine mama grizzlies, which works out to 10.3%. But even though it’s a low number, it’s still better than the overall rate for House Republicans, which is why overall representation of women in the Republican conference increased.

Looking at the whole class of 2010 candidates, there were 47 women among the 431 Republican nominees and 91 women among the 417 Democratic nominees. So 10.9% of Republican nominees were women and 21.8% of Democratic nominees. The Republican figure is better than the Republican rate in the House and among freshmen, while the Democratic figure is a little bit lower than the 24.9% of Democrats in the House (and way worse than the outlier freshmen). Overall, 139 of the major parties’ 848 candidates for voting seats in the congress were women, and there were ten races featuring women from both major parties (CA-36, CA-37, FL-20, FL-24, KS-02, MN-04, MN-06, NY-28, SD-AL and WV-02).

Of course, nominating a woman to run against a safe incumbent isn’t necessarily a sign of progress, and a few dozen of these candidates never had much of a chance.  Of the 24 Republican women who lost their races, only five cleared 40% – Beth Ann Rankin v. Mike Ross (AR-04), Ruth McClung v. Raul Grijalva (AZ-07), Marianette Miller-Meeks v. Dave Loebsack (IA-02), Jackie Walorski v. Joe Donnelly (IN-02), and Anna Little v. Frank Pallone (NJ-06). On the other side of the aisle, seven non-incumbent Democratic women lost but got at least 40%, including two who challenged incumbents. Four of these women were running to succeed retiring Democrats – Joyce Elliott (AR-02), Stephene Moore (KS-03), Annie Kuster (NH-02) and Julie Lassa (WI-07) – while Lori Edwards (FL-12) put up respectable numbers trying to take an open Republican seat. Meanwhile, Paula Brooks (OH-12) made a decent run at Pat Tiberi and Suzan Delbene lost a close race to Dave Reichert (WA-08).

Including the 89 women who won their races, there were 101 races featuring women who received over 40%. Apart from this 40%+ crowd, there were a few other women who mounted serious challenges, notably Tarryl Clark (MN-06). And there were some other memorable challengers like Krystal Ball (VA-01) and Star Parker (CA-37). There’s a decent chance that Walorski, Kuster and Delbene all show up in the 113th.

Fun facts: there are some seriously woman-less parts of the country. For example, Georgia has 13 seats but only nominated one woman (who lost); Indiana similarly has nine seats but only nominated one woman (who lost). New Jersey had two women in its field of twenty-six major party candidates, and they both lost. Pennsylvania was about the same, even though Allyson Schwartz is hanging in there. And no women were nominated to contest any of Kentucky’s six seats. Meanwhile, Republicans contested all 53 Californian seats, but nominated only three (!) women, and the only one who won is a congressional widow. On the other hand, Democrats put up 51 nominees in California, and 23 were women. Yeah, that’s 45%. Pretty impressive given the sample size. And yet, California Democrats can’t compete with 100% female Republicans in Wyoming, 100% female Democrats in New Hampshire and 100% female everything in South Dakota.

The 112th Senate

On the Senate side of things there was no net change in 2010, with Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) losing to John Boozman and Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) replacing Judd Gregg. The overall proportion remains stuck at 17%, where it’s been since Jeanne Shaheen and Kay Hagan were elected in 2009. Martha Coakley would have given us 18%, but she didn’t, because that’s how she rolls. Sixteen new senators were seated following the 2010 election, which means that women – er, Ayotte – accounted for only 6.3% of the freshman class, much worse than the overall ratio of 17%. But although the freshman class was male-heavy, both sides of the aisle have a higher proportion of women in their caucuses. There are now five Republican women, about 10.6% of the Republican caucus, compared with 9.8% at the time of the 2010 elections. Even though the 13-member Republican class was only 7.7% female, five of the new male senators replaced outgoing male senators, so the overal proportion went up. By contrast, there are twelve Democratic women, about 22.6% of the Democratic caucus, whereas the 111th Democratic caucus was 22.0% female at the time of the election. Even though 100% of the Democratic freshmen (Coons, Manchin, Blumenthal) are men and the Democratic caucus lost Lincoln, they lost so many men that the remaining women make up a greater proportion.

But compared to recent elections, both parties did a pretty decent job nominating women in competitive races. In addition to Ayotte, Republicans put up Carly Fiorina (R-CA), Linda McMahon (R-CT), Christine O’Donnell (R-DE) and Sharron Angle (R-NV) in contests that were considered competitive at some point in the cycle. Angle and O’Donnell were a bit of a fluke, and Delaware was hardly a race after O’Donnell was nominated, but the powers that be also backed plausibly viable candidates Sue Lowden (R-NV) and Jane Norton (R-CO) before they tanked in the primaries. On the Democratic side, Robin Carnahan (D-MO) and Roxanne Conlin (D-IA) were both good candidates under the circumstances, even if Conlin never had a chance. North Carolina Democrats nominated Elaine Marshall over the beltway’s objections and Jennifer Brunner (D-OH) was considered a viable candidate by some. And then there were the five incumbents who were reelected: Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), Kirstin Gillibrand (D-NY) and Patty Murray (D-WA).

Although Ayotte and Gillibrand were the only newly-elected women in the 112th senate, it’s noteworthy that there were so many non-incumbent women in the pipeline this year. By the numbers, there were 73 major party candidates for the Senate this year, and there were 15 women. According to an analysis by CAWP (PDF), that’s the highest number ever. (The previous record was 12 in 2006.) And at 20.5%, it’s also better than overall representation in the Senate. Among Democrats, nine of 36 were women (25%) and among Republicans it was six of 37 (16.2%). Both of these numbers are better than the current caucus figures.

Leaving out the 23 incumbents who were nominated to contest their seats (including six women), there were nine women among the 50 non-incumbent nominees, which is 18% – just about the rate in the Senate as a whole. Interestingly, the Democratic pool of non-incumbent nominees was slightly more male than the Republican class of nominees. 18.5% of the non-incumbent Republican nominees were women (5 of 27), as opposed to 17.4% of Democratic non-incumbent nominees (4 of 23). For Republicans to be about even with Democrats is remarkable.

But of course, not all nominees are created equal. Lisa Johnston (D-KS) didn’t crack 30% of the vote and Roxanne Conlin only got to 33.2%. Elaine Marshall, Robin Carnahan, Christine O’Donnell, Sharron Angle, Linda McMahon and Carly Fiorina all failed to reach 45%, although Angle and Fiorina kept their losses within single digits. No one did better than 45% except Kelly Ayotte. Embarassingly, Blanche Lincoln had the third-lowest vote share, after Johnston and Conlin.

Although the overall number of women in congress will probably go up or stay about the same in 2012, there’s a chance the number of women in the Senate will decrease. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) is retiring, and so far only one woman – Elizabeth Ames Jones – is running to replace her. Claire McCaskill (D-MO), Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) are all considered somewhat vulnerable, to varying degrees, and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) could always end up as a surprise retirement. But there are already women exploring Senate runs – Sarah Steelman, Ann Wagner and Jo Ann Emerson have all been bandied about in the past couple days as McCaskill challengers, for example. And is there a Sen. Shelley Berkley (D-NV) on the horizon? If Obama appoints Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) to replace Hillary Clinton, might Deval Patrick scan through comment threads on SSP and give us Sen. Sonia Chang-Diaz?

• MO-Sen: Most likely you already saw this story yesterday, but the big story in the Missouri Senate race is that Politico’s Dave Catanese seems to be the recipient of various leaks that ex-Sen. Jim Talent will announce soon that he isn’t going to run for Senate. We won’t start jumping up and down and honking our clown horn until we actually hear it from Talent, but this isn’t a surprise, based on previous rumors out of the Show Me State and Talent’s seeming decision to focus on hitching his wagon to Mitt Romney’s star instead. Without a dominant establishment candidate in the field, it looks like even more GOPers are starting to sniff out the race: MO-08 Rep. Jo Ann Emerson is now on the record as at least “considering” a run. Emerson, who’s had some mavericky moments in the House, would easily be the most moderate GOPer in the field if she ran (and may see a path there, with multiple tea partiers seeming poised to cannibalize each others’ votes). Emerson’s potential departure would create an open seat in the currently R+15 8th, an area that actually went for Bill Clinton but has fallen off the cliff for Dems in recent years, most recently with the fizzle of the touted Tommy Sowers campaign last year.

• NJ-Sen: PPP, while “cleaning out their fridge” as they said, found some week-old GOP Senate primary numbers from their New Jersey sample. They find state Sen. and 2006 candidate Tom Kean Jr. in good shape, with support from both moderates (which is probably what he would qualify as) and conservatives; he leads Lou Dobbs 42-30 with Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno at 7, “someone else” at 6, and 15 undecided.

• KY-Gov: Filing day came and went without any last-minute shenanigans in Kentucky. Steve Beshear will get a totally free ride in the Democratic primary (looks like that primary from the scrap metal dealer didn’t materialize), and will face one of three GOP opponents: state Senate president David Williams, teabagging businessman Phil Moffett, or Jefferson Co. Clerk Bobbie Holsclaw. The general election field in the AG race is already set; Jack Conway and Todd P’Pool didn’t draw any primary challengers. The most activity seems to be in the Ag Commissioner race (vacated by Richie Farmer, who’s running for Lt. Gov.), with 5 Dems and 2 GOPers running.

• MN-08: This probably isn’t a surprise, but after his upset loss last year, 76-year-old Jim Oberstar has decided to opt for retirement rather than a rerun against new Rep. Chip Cravaack. Two other high-profile Dems, Duluth mayor Don Ness and state Sen. Tony Lourey have also recently said no. Two DFLers who are considering the race, though, are Duluth-based state Sen. Roger Reinert and Daniel Fanning, Al Franken’s deputy state director.

• Omaha mayor: Omaha mayor Jim Suttle narrowly survived a recall attempt in last night’s special election. He won 51-49. Suttle vows to do a better job of communicating with voters in the election’s wake, although it remains an open question whether he runs again in 2013.

• Redistricting: Here’s a new wrinkle in the fight over the Fair Districts initiatives in Florida: Rick Scott seems to be stalling implementation of the new standards (which would limit the state legislature’s ability to gerrymander districts). The state “quietly withdrew” its request that the federal DOJ approve implementation of the initiatives, which jeopardizes whether they’ll be in place in time for the actual business of redistricting. Florida, as a one-time part of the Deep South, is one of those states that requires DOJ preclearance for changes to its electoral regime under the Voting Rights Act.

Politico also has an interesting article today about the Congressional Black Caucus and redistricting, which will reshape many of their districts, seeing as how some of their members’ districts have had the biggest population losses of any districts in the nation (OH-11, MI-13, MI-14, and MO-01 in particular). These districts seem like they can absorb some suburban votes without losing their lopsided Dem advantages, but they’re probably more worried about members getting pitted against each other (as might happen with the two Detroit districts) or against another Dem (possible for Marcia Fudge and Lacy Clay). Other lingering questions are whether Sanford Bishop’s GA-02 (the only CBC-held district that’s legitimately swingy) gets shored up or made worse, and whether South Carolina can be compelled to eke out a second VRA seat.

• Turnout models: I rarely get the chance to say this, but if you look at only one scatterplot today, it should be this one. It’s a remarkably-clear slope showing how predictable presidential approval is across demographic groups, and more evidence that the swing in the 2010 election was uniform across groups in response to macro factors (i.e. the stupid economy) rather than a failure of microtargeting. And here are some further thoughts on the matter from Larry Sabato’s new book, pointing out the really steep dropoffs in 2010 turnout for the groups I tend to label the “casual voters” (reliably Dem lower-information voters, mostly young and/or people of color, who turn out for presidential races but not the less compelling stuff in between), and how the 2010 model isn’t anything like what the 2012 model will resemble.

• MA-Sen: Vicki Kennedy has pretty much ruled out a Senate run, if her comments to the Boston Globe are any indication. She says “the Senate is not my future;” poignantly, she recounts having received Ted’s encouragement to run before his death but responding “You’re Senator Kennedy, and that’s it.” Another Kennedy made some news yesterday, though, in fact generating his own little boomlet of Senatorial speculation: Joe III (son of the ex-Rep. and grandson of RFK) gave a mightily well-received speech in front of state legislators decrying the noxious turn in the nation’s political discourse. The 30-year-old is currently a prosecutor in Barnstable County and has turned down previous attempts to get him to run for office. Finally, some of the more cogent members of the local tea party seem to have made peace with the fact, despite their discomfort with his voting record, that Scott Brown isn’t going to be successfully challenged in the GOP primary in 2012, and are dissuading others from that line of thought. The article mentions recent House race losers Jeff Perry and Jim Ogonowski as possible names, but in the context of even them not likely to be able to gain any traction against Brown in a primary.

• PA-Sen: PPP released Republican primary numbers as part of their Pennsylvania package today, and as with many of their recent primary polls, it’s quite the collection of people who aren’t going to run. They try doing it both with-Santorum and without-Santorum. (Yes, yes, I know that sounds gross.) The Santorum-covered version, thanks to his high name rec (81% of GOPers have an opinion about him, while Schweiker comes in second at 33%), finds him way in the lead, at 45, with Rep. Jim Gerlach at 9, ex-Gov. Mark Schweiker and Rep. Charlie Dent both at 8, Rep. Tim Murphy at 7, state Sen. Jake Corman at 3, and state Sen. Kim Ward and actual announced candidate Marc Scaringi both at 1. The Santorum-free version gives the edge to Schweiker at 18, Gerlach at 14, Murphy at 13, Dent at 10, Corman at 9, Ward at 2, and Scaringi at 1.

• TX-Sen: This story may be better filed under “Dallas mayor” since it points to a somewhat unexpected vacancy that’s going to need to be filled in November. The mayoral candidacy of city council member Ron Natinsky, a key ally of Republican mayor Tom Leppert, makes it pretty clear that Leppert isn’t going to run for a second term as mayor. Leppert has often been cited a potential wild card in the GOP Senate primary against Kay Bailey Hutchison, and this may mean he’s moving toward that race.

• MS-Gov: Hattiesburg mayor Johnny DuPree made it official today, filing his papers for a gubernatorial run. He’ll face off against businessman Bill Luckett in the Democratic primary, and if he wins there, most likely against Republican Lt. Gov. Phil Bryant in the general.

• IL-14: A new profile of ex-Rep. Bill Foster has him sounding pretty uncandidate-ish in the future. He says he’d like to explore business opportunities in green energy and would consider an executive branch position if asked, but there’s nary a suggestion of a rematch.

• PA-Auditor: Allegheny Co. Exec (and 2010 gubernatorial loser) Dan Onorato says he won’t run for a third term as county executive; this is widely assumed to mean that he’ll be pursuing a bid for state Auditor in 2012. (I’m wondering if Jack Wagner, whom you also remember from the gubernatorial race, can run for a 3rd term as Auditor, and, if so, if he’s ruled it out? Anybody know about that?) At any rate, Onorato seems to be looking at lower statewide office as a better stepping-stone for his ambitions; he’s young enough that he’s probably thinking down the road to a 2016 challenge to Pat Toomey or even the 2018 open seat gubernatorial race (which, if history is any guide, will go to a Democrat).

• Special elections: As expected, last night’s special elections in Virginia went to the Republicans with totals over 60% (letting them hold both of the red districts up for grabs). Gregory Habeeb is taking over for Robert Hurt in SD-19, while William Stanley takes over for Morgan Griffith in HD-8. Also, in Mississippi, Nancy Adams Collins won in SD-11 to succeed Alan Nunnelee; I can’t find any confirmation that she, in fact, was the Republican in the race, but I have dim memories (correct me if I’m wrong) from the myriad MS-01 special elections that special elections in Mississippi don’t include party labels on the ballot.

• 2010: You’re probably all familiar with the gender gap, but Michael McDonald shows in pretty dramatic fashion just how significant the “age gap” has become, with a 16-point gap in 2010 between the parties between the 18-29 set and the 65+ set, the largest that’s ever been. The unfortunate flipside, which does a lot to explain the 2010 results, is that young voter falloff in midterm elections (25% in 2006, 51% in 2008) is much greater than among older voters (63% in 2006, 71% in 2008), boosting Republican odds thanks to their increased strength among seniors.

• Demographics: I suppose we don’t need any hints about where people are moving since we just got reapportionment data, but here’s some more in-depth data from the Census Bureau, based on what states people are moving into and out of. Long-distance moves hit a record low in 2009, thanks in large part to the sluggish economy disproportionately hitting young adults. Housing bubble/service-sector cities like Phoenix, Las Vegas, and Orlando had drops in migration, while more knowledge-sector places like Austin, Raleigh, and Portland were gainers among young adults.

• Redistricting: I’m hesitant to heap praise on one particular Dave’s Redistricting App map diary here, because, really, they’re all fantastic and an important part of the site and the community; I learn something new from most of them and they’re all time-consuming works of art, so thanks to everyone who posts them. But silver spring’s Illinois diary is worthy of some extra attention, in the hopes that the powers-that-be (in this state that’s probably the Dems’ single best shot to run up the redistricting score) might see this diary and take its basic ideas into account. It’s a map that takes the almost-unthinkable and makes it plausible: a map that’s 15-3 in favor of Democrats based on 2008 presidential data, and even creates a second Hispanic VRA district for good measure.