Back in October, I wrote for the magazine:
Election Data Systems, a Manassas-based political consulting firm that specializes in redistricting and analyzing census data, says that Texas is expected to gain four seats, Florida two, and Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, South Carolina, Utah and Washington will pick up a seat apiece. Meanwhile, New York and Ohio are each losing two seats, and Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania will lose one.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist, let alone a political scientist, to see that House seats are being picked up in “red states” (Republican-leaning) and are being lost in “blue states” (Democratic-leaning). Yet just because the state leans a certain way in presidential elections doesn’t mean the seats themselves will be drawn to favor Republicans. Having at least one branch of government in Republican control, such as the governor, tends to ensure a greater degree of fairness and balance in the process.
Based on yesterday’s Census Announcement, that’s pretty darn close. Dan McLaughlin writes at RedState.com:
By and large, the news was good for the GOP. For the immediate impact, I’ll focus on the Electoral College, although it’s worth noting how many of the redistricting states – especially the two biggest gainers, Texas (+4) and Florida (+2), and one of the two biggest losers, Ohio (-2) – are now under heavy GOP control (and the GOP just recently took control of the NY State Senate, assuring a place at the table in the other state losing more than one seat, as NY is also -2).
Of course, it does nothing for Virginia. Despite growing in population, we didn’t grow fast enough and are still stuck at 13 electoral votes.
Brian Schoeneman, in our next magazine, writes extensively about redistricting and how Virginia is going to handle the situation. If you haven’t subscribed to receive your free issue yet, be sure to do so today.
Here’s a sneak preview:
A quick look at the estimated variances from target population across Virginia make it clear that the Congressional districts we have come to know are going to see some major changes. The districts need to gain or lose the following number of people in order to meet the estimated 717K people each Virginia district should possess:
- 1st (Rob Wittman-R): -36K
- 2nd (Scott Rigell-R): +57K
- 3rd (Bobby Scott-D): +60K
- 4th (Randy Forbes-R): -20K
- 5th (Robert Hurt-R): +38K
- 6th (Bob Goodlatte-R): +23K
- 7th (Eric Cantor-R): -66K
- 8th (Jim Moran-D): +33K
- 9th (Morgan Griffith-R): +67K
- 10th (Frank Wolf-R): -132K
- 11th (Gerry Connolly-D): -24K
Northern Virginia sources tell Bearing Drift that the most likely outcome here would be for the 11th to shed some of its more Democratic precincts into the 8th District, while possibly gaining some more Republican voters from the 10th. The 10th will have to lose some of its western portions into Bob Goodlatte’s district.
The makeup of these districts invariably must change.
The current makeup politically of these districts on the Cook Partisanship Index is as follows: 1 – R+7; 2 – R+5; 3 – D+20; 4 – R+4; 5 – R+5; 6 – R+12; 7 – R+9; 8 – D+16; 9 – R+11; 10 – R+2; 11 – D+2. As you can tell by these numbers, the two Democratic strongholds are almost impregnable, and given the high number of minorities in the 3rd District, trying to dilute the Democratic advantage in the 3rd is almost impossible thanks to the Voting Rights Act (more on that later). The most Republican part of the state, the Shenandoah valley along Interstate-81 from Front Royal to Bristol, is going to have to add significant numbers and the only place to get them is going to be by shifting the borders north into Northern Virginia.
