[EL] Flaws in Politico and NY Times articles about gerrymandering

[Larry Levine]

Could this be because the PVI is a deceptive number in that it ignores independent voters who may in many cases be inclined to vote the same way their community contemporaries vote?

Larry

 

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 2:55 PM
To: David Ely
Cc: law-election at UCI.EDU
Subject: Re: [EL] Flaws in Politico and NY Times articles about gerrymandering

 

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

 

 




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Rob Richie
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On Thu, Jul 2, 2015 at 4:07 PM, David Ely <ely at compass-demographics.com <mailto: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>  [mailto: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 <mailto: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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