[EL] Flaws in Politico and NY Times articles about gerrymandering
Rob Richie
rr at fairvote.org
Thu Jul 2 14:54:53 PDT 2015
To be clear, the partisan index is not based on the absolute Democratic
vote, it's based on the relative vote. And even though it' based on votes
cast in presidential years, its an exceptionally powerful predictor of
votes in non-presidential years. We've shown this exhaustively over the
years with our Monopoly Politics reports, with our last one linked here
http://www.fairvote.org/research-and-analysis/congressional-elections/monopoly-politics-2014-and-the-fair-voting-solution/
The folks at Wikipedia have developed a simple "sort" too and if you sort
by PVI, you can see the correlation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cook_Partisan_Voting_Index
Results include:
* Only six Democrats represent one of the the 229 districts with a PVI of
at least 52% Republican, including none in district that are at least 57%
Republican.
* Only six Republicans represent one of the 181 districts with a PVI of at
least 52% Democratic.
* Republicans have a 17-8 edge in the remaining districts of 51% or less
for every party.
California has 53 districts. All incumbents match the party of their
district's PVI except for a Democrat in CA-36 (PVI of 51% Republican) and
CA-21 (PVI of 52% Democratic).
This degree of politically polarized voting is getting down to the state
legislative level - there are several entire chambers where every single
representative elected in 2014 matches the party of their district's PVI by
the 2012 presidential vote. For instance, Georgia has more than 200 seats
in its legislature, and only a single legislator (a Republican who switched
a few years ago from being a Democrat) matches a district that leans toward
the other party as defined by the 2012 presidential vote.
Given these correlations and given that incumbents generally build a
personal vote share on top of their usual partisan advantage, you can see
why I'm highly skeptical about claims that redistricting will have much
impact on turnover and competition beyond any initial shakeup if you ignore
where incumbents live.
And ascribing the decrease in competitiveness to redistricting is
questionable when you see the dramatic declines in states with competitive
PVI's in presidential contests. Andrea Levien and I coauthored a piece for
Presidential Studies Quarterly
<http://www.fairvote.org/assets/Uploads/RichieLevien-PSQ-article.pdf> with
all kinds good data on this, I'll paste in a couple very telling charts
that show the decline in competitive states (obviously not due to
gerrymandering) and the rise in partisan rigidity over time.
Rob
*Number of States Shifting Partisanship 5% or more in Consecutive Elections*
*Year*
*Number of States *
*1960-1964*
21
*1964-1968*
19
*1968-1972*
24
*1972-1976*
28
*1976-1980*
11
*1980-1984*
15
*1984-1988*
8
*1988-1992*
8
*1992-1996*
8
*1996-2000*
9
*2000-2004*
1
*2004-2008*
5
*2008-2012*
3
*. Shifts in Number of Swing States and Uncompetitive States*
(Swing states = 47%-53% partisanship. Uncompetitive states > 58%
partisanship.)
*Year*
*Swing States*
*Uncompetitive States *
*2012*
11 (w/140 electoral votes)
25 (w/247 electoral votes)
*2008*
9 (w/116 electoral votes)
26 (w/275 electoral votes)
*2004*
13 (w/159 electoral votes)
20 (w/163 electoral votes)
*2000*
16 (w/167 electoral votes)
20 (w/166 electoral votes)
*1996*
13 (w/206 electoral votes)
13 (w/90 electoral votes)
*1992*
22 (w/207 electoral votes)
5 (w/20 electoral votes)
*1988*
21 (w/272 electoral votes)
8 (w/40 electoral votes)
*1984*
21 (w/260 electoral votes)
9 (w/44 electoral votes)
*1980*
15 (w/221 electoral votes)
13 (w/58 electoral votes)
*1976*
24 (w/345 electoral votes)
9 (w/46 electoral votes)
*1972*
22 (w/235 electoral votes)
9 (w/46 electoral votes)
*1968*
19 (w/273 electoral votes)
11 (w/57 electoral votes)
*1964*
17 (w/204 electoral votes)
13 (w/100 electoral votes)
*1960*
23 (w/319 electoral votes)
9 (w/64 electoral votes)
and one Republican in a district that is at least 57% Democratic.
*
Rob
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Rob Richie
Executive Director, FairVote
6930 Carroll Avenue, Suite 610
Takoma Park, MD 20912
rr at fairvote.org (301) 270-4616 http://www.fairvote.org
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On Thu, Jul 2, 2015 at 4:07 PM, David Ely <ely at compass-demographics.com>
wrote:
> 2008 and 2012 were both strong Dem years with a statewide landslide result
> so they create a weak partisan index. You should compare the by district
> results for a strong partisan index based on close statewide elections from
> the 2000’s. Or just look at the by district results in the 2012 Attorney
> General contest.
>
>
>
> *From:* law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu [mailto:
> law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] *On Behalf Of *Rob Richie
> *Sent:* Thursday, July 02, 2015 12:13 PM
> *To:* Kogan, Vladimir
> *Cc:* law-election at uci.edu
> *Subject:* Re: [EL] Flaws in Politico and NY Times articles about
> gerrymandering
>
>
>
> Here's some relevant information:
>
>
>
> *1. California congressional districts and competition: *When you look at
> the 2012 presidential elections and use that as a basis for measuring
> partisanship (the "partisan index" FairVote pioneered in the popular press
> in 1997 and that Charlie Cook later that year adapted to the Cook PVI),
> there's actually no increase in competition in California from the
> districts as used in 2008 and those in 2012. My former colleague Devin
> McCarthy wrote this November 2013 piece
> <http://www.fairvote.org/research-and-analysis/blog/did-the-california-citizens-redistricting-commission-really-create-more-competitive-districts/>
> about how the underlying partisanship of the congressional districts. The
> number of swing districts with a 50-53% partisanship (5), those lean
> districts with 53%-60% partisanship (16) and those landslide districts with
> 60%-plus partisanship (32, or nearly two-thirds of all districts) were
> exactly the same in both plans as applied in those two elections.
>
>
>
> There was a big shakeup in congressional incumbents in 2012, however,
> because incumbency was shaken up -- that definitely was new to California
> and the clearest outcome of the commission. But things settled down a lot
> in 2014, when all 47 congressional incumbent won (albeit some in close
> races). With nearly every incumbent "sorted" into a district that matches
> their own partisan label, expect future incumbent defeats to be largely
> confined to same-party contests (although no incumbent lost for that reason
> in 2014).
>
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