By Jim Ellis
Jan. 24, 2017 — With all but North Carolina now publishing their final county returns –- a glitch in absentee balloting still remains unsolved, so the final Tar Heel State numbers are not yet officially reported –- we can now look at which congressional districts split their votes.
In 2016, for the first time in electoral history, we saw all Senate race states voting consistently. That is, each of the 34 states holding a Senate race voted for one party’s candidates at both the presidential and senatorial levels.
In House districts, we see some divergence, but again very little. As in the 2012 campaign, when only 7.1 percent of the districts chose one party’s candidate for president and the other’s for the US House, a similar pattern arose this time. In the election just completed, voters in 400 CDs chose the same party’s candidates for president and the US House. In 2012, that number was 404.
While Hillary Clinton was carrying the national popular vote, and Donald Trump took 30 of the 50 states, the Republican also carried a majority of House districts, 230-205.
Clinton carried 23 districts that elected a Republican House member, including seven in California. This is unsurprising since the Golden State’s overall vote totals were highly unbalanced when compared to the rest of the country. Conversely, President Trump took a dozen seats that elected a Democratic congressman. In 2012, those numbers were similar. President Obama carried 26 CDs that elected a Republican House member, while Mitt Romney could only convert five districts that chose a Democrat for the House.
Donald Trump’s four strongest districts were AL-4 (Rep. Robert Aderholt-R; 80.4 percent), and TX-13 (Rep. Mac Thornberry-R; 79.8 percent), while TX-11 (Rep. Mike Conaway-R) and GA-9 (Rep. Doug Collins-R) tied with a 77.8 percent Trump vote percentage. Hillary Clinton’s three strongest CDs were NY-15 (Rep. Jose Serrano-D; 93.8 percent), NY-13 (Rep. Adriano Espaillat-D; 92.3 percent), and PA-2 (Rep. Dwight Evans-D; 90.4 percent).
The Democratic House districts with the largest spreads for Trump all came from one state: Minnesota. Rep. Collin Peterson’s 7th District gave President Trump a 30.8 percent vote spread (61.8 – 31.0 percent) while reverting to award him a 52-47 percent victory in the congressional race. The Trump spreads in MN-8 (Rep. Rick Nolan) and MN-1 (Rep. Tim Walz) were 15.6 and 14.9 percent, respectively. The Nolan and Walz win percentages, however, both fell below 51 percent. Nolan scored a bare 50.2 – 49.6 percent percent re-election win, while Mr. Walz’s victory spread was 50.3 – 49.6%.
The strongest Clinton districts that returned a Republican to the House came from Florida and, unsurprisingly, California. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Miami) scored a 55-45% re-election victory, but Hillary Clinton carried her 27th District by just under 20 percentage points, 58.6 – 38.9 percent. In the neighboring 26th District, Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R-Miami) notched a 53-41 percent re-election, but Clinton won his South Florida CD, 56.7 – 40.6 percent. Going to the Bakersfield, CA area, while Rep. David Valadao (R) was winning a third term with a 57-43% margin, Clinton took a 55.2 – 39.7 percent vote share in the same 21st District.
The two congressional districts with the closest presidential results were OR-4 (Rep. Peter DeFazio-D) where Clinton scored only a 46.1 – 46.0 percent win, and PA-8 (Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick-R), in which Donald Trump barely held a 48.2 – 48.0 percent victory spread.
Below are the 23 Republican House Districts that supported Hillary Clinton (the Clinton percentage is in parenthesis*):
AZ-2 – Martha McSally (49.6%)
CA-10 – Jeff Denham (48.5%)
CA-21 – David Valadao (55.2%)
CA-25 – Steve Knight (50.3%)
CA-39 – Ed Royce (51.5%)
CA-45 – Mimi Walters (49.8%)
CA-48 – Dana Rohrabacher (47.9%)
CA-49 – Darrell Issa (50.7%)
CO-6 – Mike Coffman (50.2%)
FL-26 – Carlos Curbelo (56.7%)
FL-27 – Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (58.6%)
IL-6 – Peter Roskam (50.2%)
KS-3 – Kevin Yoder (47.2%)
MN-3 – Erik Paulsen (50.8%)
NJ-7 – Leonard Lance (48.6%)
NY-24 – John Katko (48.9%)
PA-6 – Ryan Costello (48.2%)
PA-7 – Pat Meehan (49.3%)
TX-7 – John Culberson (48.5%)
TX-23 – Will Hurd (49.8%)
TX-32 – Pete Sessions (48.5%)
VA-10 – Barbara Comstock (52.2%)
WA-8 – Dave Reichert (47.7%)
The following are the 12 Democratic districts that President Trump carried:
AZ-1 – Tom O’Halleran (47.7%)
IA-2 – David Loebsack (49.1%)
IL-17 – Cheri Bustos (47.4%)
MN-1 – Tim Walz (53.3%)
MN-7 – Collin Peterson (61.8%)
MN-8 – Rick Nolan (54.2%)
NH-1 – Carol Shea-Porter (48.2%)
NJ-5 – Josh Gottheimer (48.8%)
NV-3 – Jacky Rosen (47.5%)
NY-18 – Sean Patrick Maloney (49.0%)
PA-17 – Matt Cartwright (53.4%)
WI-3 – Ron Kind (49.3%)
* All congressional district statistics were compiled by the Daily Kos Elections website