Tag Archives: reapportionment

Census Reapportionment:
The Hidden Votes

By Jim Ellis — Thursday, March 9, 2023

President

Census Reapportionment: The Hidden Votes — Already, the 2024 presidential race has actually gotten closer. The 2020 national election was decided by a 74 electoral vote margin, a 306-232 margin for Democrat Joe Biden. Without any state changing its 2020 outcome, however, his victory spread has now decreased to 68 EVs.

Census reapportionment is the reason, and it makes a net six-vote difference in the Republicans’ favor based upon Donald Trump’s aggregate EV number from the last election. This is because reapportioning the number of US House seats throughout the country affects and changes the electoral vote count (EVC). As you know, the EVC is comprised of each state’s federal representatives, meaning two senators and the number of House members each entity possesses.

Therefore, under the new totals, Biden’s winning count over his Republican opponent would be 303-235. Understanding that the presidential winner needs 270 electoral votes, the Republican deficit is now 35 as opposed to 38. This is important because it changes the number of states that Republicans must convert in order to win the next race.

President Biden loses electoral votes in California, Illinois, Michigan, New York, and Pennsylvania, but gained two back in Colorado and Oregon. The first five lost a congressional seat apiece in reapportionment, while the latter two gained a district apiece. Conversely, the next Republican nominee would gain electoral votes in Texas (2), Florida, Montana, and North Carolina, but lose one apiece in Ohio and West Virginia. Thus, the Republicans gained an aggregate three electoral votes while the Democrats lost three, for the net swing of six.

For the next Republican nominee, he or she must again re-establish the party’s southern core. Former President Trump needed to carry the southern tier states of Arizona, Texas, Georgia, North Carolina, and Florida to position himself throughout the rest of the country. He failed to do so, losing Arizona and Georgia, but the next nominee must return these two entities to the GOP column if the party is to have any chance of again winning the White House.

If the next Republican nominee fails to take these two states, for a total of 27 electoral votes (Georgia 16; Arizona 11), there is no realistic chance of cobbling together a 270-vote victory coalition. The GOP nominee will need at least one more state to convert in addition to Arizona and Georgia, with Wisconsin’s 10 votes being the simplest numerical path to an outright state coalition victory.

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Congress Convenes Tomorrow with 93 New Members; Early Reapportionment Projections

By Jim Ellis — Monday, Jan. 2, 2023

Congress

Montana’s Ryan Zinke (R-Whitehall) returns to the House.

New Members: Congress Convenes Tomorrow with 93 New Members — The 118th Congress is sworn into office tomorrow and like all others, this new assemblage is a unique group.

In the House, we see 85 freshmen members coming to Washington, including the dozen who won special elections during the session just ended. Additionally, one former member, Montana’s Ryan Zinke (R-Whitehall) who also served in the Trump Administration as Interior Secretary, returns to the House.

The Senate, exclusively due to retirements along with one appointed member, California Sen. Alex Padilla (D) seeking a full term, will only welcome eight new freshmen since all incumbents seeking re-election were victorious.

Of the 85 new House members, 46 are Republicans while 39 are members of the Democratic Party. Just over one-third of the incoming group will be serving in their first elected position, a total of 31. Conversely, 37 of the House freshmen have previously been elected to their respective state legislatures. The remaining 17 held other elected positions, typically at the local level as county or city officials.

In the Senate, only two of the eight incoming members have never before served in an elective office: Alabama’s Katie Britt (R) and J.D. Vance (R) of Ohio.

States

Reapportionment: Early Projections — Apparently, it is not too early to begin discussing which states may gain and lose representation in the 2030 census. The first concrete projections have been publicized based upon the country’s current growth trends since the 2020 census was completed.

No real surprises were among the first cut, as eight seats are projected to change states. In the 2020 census, only seven seats changed states. The early estimates suggest that Texas will again be the big gainer, with an additional three seats. This would increase the nation’s second largest population state to 41 seats, if the early guesstimates prove accurate. Florida could gain two seats, with Idaho, Utah, and Washington each gaining one seat.

The losing states would again be familiar, as Illinois and New York could be on a path to lose two seats apiece. Pennsylvania would again be slated to lose one. The new losing states would be Connecticut, New Jersey, and Wisconsin, all possibly losing one of their current districts. None of these projections are firm, and much will happen to change the national and regional growth rates in the coming eight years.

North Carolina Map Rejected

Rejected 2022 North Carolina Congressional Redistricting map (click on map above or here to go to an interactive map at DavesRedistricting.com)

By Jim Ellis

Feb. 8, 2022 — In what has almost been a decade-long game of gerrymander ping pong, the state Supreme Court on Friday rejected the new North Carolina congressional and state legislative maps, thus repeating their actions from the two previous times the panel’s majority disqualified a Republican legislature’s map.

The vote was 4-3, with all four Democrats voting in favor of declaring the map a partisan gerrymander, consistent with their past action, while the three Republicans voted to uphold the plans.

We are again looking at a relatively quick re-draw situation because the twice-postponed North Carolina primary is now scheduled for June 7. If an agreement cannot be reached, it is possible the candidate filing deadline and statewide primary are again postponed.

The high court’s move was expected, but this is a serious setback to Republicans from a national perspective since North Carolina appears to be the only state where the party can gain multiple seats through redistricting.

It is likely that the inter-party pairing of Reps. Virginia Foxx (R-Banner Elk) and Kathy Manning (D-Greensboro) will be re-drawn when a new congressional version is passed. The Greensboro area has been the major focal point of this and the previous maps, with the partisan Republican legislature and partisan Democratic court continuing to battle over a map that will eventually become the state’s 2022 political playing field.

As drawn, the legislature’s map — under North Carolina law and procedure, the governor, in this case Democrat Roy Cooper, has no veto power over redistricting — would have returned either 10 Republicans and 4 Democrats or possibly has high as 11 Republicans and 3 Democrats. Under the current draw, the Republican advantage is 8-5.

North Carolina gained one seat under national reapportionment, and the last iteration of the state Supreme Court map, ordered before the 2020 election, resulted in the Republicans losing two seats, one in Raleigh and the other in the Greensboro area.

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Michigan’s Anti-Incumbent Map

By Jim Ellis

Jan. 5, 2022 — One of the biggest complaints most commonly aired about redistricting is that it favors incumbents, but such is not the case with the recently completed Wolverine State congressional map. In fact, the members of the Michigan Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission appear to have gone out of their way to upend the state’s sitting federal office holders.

The current 14-seat map features seven Democrats and seven Republicans with two of the seats converting from Republican to Democrat in the 2018 election. Michigan loses a seat in reapportionment, and it became apparent from the start that the Republicans would absorb the loss because a great deal of the population growth deficit was coming from the middle section of the lower peninsula.

That proved to be the case, but the cut was a bit different than expected. Considering the population deficit and Michigan’s geography, i.e., being surrounded by lakes, Canada, and other states, the most logical district for collapse appeared to be Rep. John Moolenaar’s (R-Midland) 4th District because it sat in the middle of the area that the population change clearly affected.

While the Moolenaar district was certainly altered in a significant manner, it was the western district of Rep. Bill Huizenga (R-Holland) that was broken into small pieces.

While true that Moolenaar was technically paired with Rep. Dan Kildee (D-Flushing/Flint) because his home city of Midland was placed in the new 8th District, a new safe Republican 2nd CD that contains much of the current Moolenaar district lies available for him to the west. While Rep. Kildee sees his home Flint/Flushing area remaining intact, he finds himself in a more competitive seat and may be facing a challenge from former congressman, attorney general, state appellate judge, and ex-US Senate and gubernatorial GOP nominee Bill Schuette in a seat that can now conceivably elect a Republican.

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Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard to Retire

By Jim Ellis

California Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-Downey)

Dec. 23, 2021 — House retirement announcements keep coming, as late Monday veteran California Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-Downey) made public her intention not to seek a 16th term next November.

In the 1992 election, Roybal-Allard, then a member of the California Assembly, won the open campaign to succeed her father, US Rep. Ed Roybal (D-CA), as he was concluding his own 30-year congressional career. Combined, the Roybal family will have held the Los Angeles County-based congressional district for 60 consecutive years when Rep. Roybal-Allard completes her current term at the beginning of 2023.

The congresswoman’s retirement announcement comes on the heels of fellow Los Angeles US Rep. Alan Lowenthal’s (D-Long Beach) pronouncement over the last weekend that he will not seek re-election. Both Roybal-Allard and Lowenthal are 80 years old.

The Lowenthal retirement apparently produced discussion within the California Citizens Redistricting Commission membership of collapsing his 47th District and combining it with Roybal-Allard’s 40th, which is nearby. They then agreed upon such a design, which would have meant a major constituency change for the congresswoman, taking her into a substantial amount of territory that she had not previously represented.

The redraw design makes sense particularly when seeing that the Roybal-Allard district, the most Hispanic seat in the nation with a population percentage exceeding 87 percent, is the CD also needing the greatest population influx, some 70,139 individuals, among the 35 California districts requiring more people.

Directly to the west of Roybal-Allard’s 40th lies Rep. Karen Bass’ 37th CD that includes Culver City and part of the Watts area. In late September, Bass announced that she will run for the open Los Angeles mayor’s office, becoming the first California member to create an open seat in the state delegation.

The original redistricting draft combined this district largely with Rep. Maxine Waters’ (D-Los Angeles) CD, but with Reps. Roybal-Allard and Lowenthal now retiring, combining their two seats became the logical redrafting move. The Bass district was then restored.

Combining the 40th and the 47th into a new 42nd CD in conjunction with other adjustments, allows the Commission members to meet the state’s population quota of 760,350 residents per district throughout the Los Angeles metro area. Together, the 18 districts that comprise LA County required a population influx exceeding 620,000 people, hence collapsing a central and southern Los Angeles County pair of districts into one became the commissioners’ most logical solution.

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Calif. Rep. Alan Lowenthal to Retire

By Jim Ellis

California Rep. Alan Lowenthal (D-Long Beach)

Dec. 20, 2021 — California Congressman Alan Lowenthal (D-Long Beach) announced late last week that he will not seek a sixth term in the House next year becoming the 18th Democratic member to either retire or run for another office.

Rep. Lowenthal, 80, will have been in elective office for 30 consecutive years at the completion of this term, including his time in the California Senate, State Assembly, and on the Long Beach City Council. Prior to venturing into elective politics, Lowenthal was a college psychology professor at the California State University at Long Beach.

The congressman’s 47th District is a small urban CD that contains parts of Los Angeles and Orange Counties. He represents the cities of Long Beach and Signal Hill in LA County, and Cypress, Westminster, and Garden Grove in Orange County. His district also is home to the Port of Long Beach, which is the largest container terminal in the nation, and is one of the key reasons Lowenthal sits on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

With a second California open seat coming in a period of just over a week — Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Tulare) announced Dec. 6 that he would resign — redistricting strategy could significantly change. The California Citizens Redistricting Commission members are in the process of developing a new congressional map.

California loses a seat in reapportionment, and the population numbers suggest that one of the Los Angeles area seats will be collapsed. Rep. Lowenthal’s district appeared to be one of the prime targets for elimination. The first draft map, however, yields a collapsing of Rep. Karen Bass’ 37th CD in the Culver City area largely because she announced her campaign for mayor of Los Angeles early, thus giving everyone advance notice that she would not be seeking re-election to the House. The Lowenthal retirement coupled with Nunes’ in the Central Valley, however, could change the redistricting strategy.

A total of 18 congressional districts touch Los Angeles County. Nine are fully contained within the county boundaries, while the other nine, such as Rep. Lowenthal’s 47th District, expand into neighboring domains. All 18 require more residents to meet the new state per district population quota of 760,350 individuals. CA-47 needs an additional 45,679 people to reach the resident requirement, making it the 13th highest California CD that requires increased population.

Rep. Bass’ district, one of the nine fully contained within LA County, ranks 17th among the California CDs needing more people, translating to 38,173 bodies.

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Texas 2022 Candidate Filing Closes

By Jim Ellis

Dec. 17, 2021 — Texas became the first state to see candidate filing close for the 2022 elections, so the campaign season has officially been launched.

In the Lone Star State, candidates file with their respective state party organizations, or county parties if their race is fully contained within one entity, and not the Secretary of State. Therefore, the filings might not yet be fully recorded and approved. The statewide primary is scheduled for March 1. If no candidate for whatever office does not receive majority support in the first election, a runoff between the top two finishers will occur on May 24.

What we know so far is that Gov. Greg Abbott (R) will face a significant Republican primary challenge from former Florida congressman and ex-Texas Republican Party chairman Allen West and former Dallas state Sen. Don Huffines. The latter man, who was defeated for re-election in 2018, has the ability to self-fund a statewide primary campaign. Former congressman and 2020 presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke will be the Democratic nominee as he faces only minor opposition in the party primary.

Regardless of the level of competition, Gov. Abbott, though his approval ratings are at a low ebb in his seven-year career as the state’s chief executive, is a heavy favorite in both the Republican primary and the 2022 general election.

The main constitutional office of interest is the attorney general’s race. Here, embattled incumbent Ken Paxton (R), who has for years been under a federal SEC indictment that has yet to move forward, and who has been publicly accused of having an ongoing extra-marital affair, faces three strong candidates for re-nomination: State Land Commissioner George P. Bush, US Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Tyler), and state Supreme Court Justice Eva Guzman.

Though Paxton has personal and legal problems, his favorability ratings among Republican primary voters is still surprisingly high. Forcing the two-term attorney general into a runoff election, however, is a clear possibility.

With the state having no Senate race in 2022, the federal focus turns to the new 38-member US House delegation. Texas gained two seats in national reapportionment, thus increasing their delegation size from 36 to 38 seats. The state will wield 40 electoral votes in the next presidential election, second only to California’s reduced 54.

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