Earlier this week, in the context of a discussion on the list serve
about whether a national swing in the votes in the fall congressional
elections could alter party control of the U.S. House, Keith Gaddie,
Michael McDonald and several others (including me) posted some comments
about the TX congressional districts. Basically, the issue discussed
regarding Texas was whether the TX districts had been so severely
gerrymandered during the re-redistricting in 2003 that Democrats could
pick up seats there in 2006, even if the 2006 fall elections show a
significant anti-Republican tide. Professor Gaddie reported his view
that "[e]ven the districts in Texas showed a potential to swing
dramatically, despite the nature of the gerrymander." I disagreed with
that point earlier this week and now offer up some additional comments
and observations.
In Texas, statewide Republican candidates have averaged (58%) and (59%)
of the vote, respectively, in 2002 and 2004, and those figures include
the overwhelming Democratic vote in the majority-minority districts. In
the competitive marginal seats that were the targets of the DeLay
gerrymander, statewide Republican candidates averaged over 64.5% and
62.9% of the statewide vote in the last two elections, including 61.9%
and 56.8% in the disputed District 23 (Rep. Henry Bonilla), where a
Hispanic district was substantially altered to create a district in
which Anglos are a majority of registered voters. Such numbers
indicates these districts are unlikely to be susceptible to Dr. Gaddie's
"partisan tide."
These data tell me that it is simply not the case, as Professor Gaddie
claims, that "a third of the seats in Texas that are currently in GOP
hands could come into play based on a five-point shift in partisan
tendencies." The fact is, DeLay and his legislative allies went to
extreme lengths to a design a plan that would withstand political tides.
The 2002 race for Texas Lt. Governor (John Sharp (D) vs. David
Dewhurst(R)) was the closest statewide race in the past two cycles,
pitting a well-known, well-funded conservative Democrat who had been
elected three times statewide against a wealthy Republican newcomer. In
that sense, the Democrat in that contest had many of the same advantages
an incumbent Democratic officeholder might enjoy. So the Texas
Republicans made sure that in the 2003 plan, the Republican Lt. Governor
candidate received at least 57% of the 2002 vote in each of the marginal
districts. This was done while, at the same time, systematically
dividing or shifting any geographic or demographic base vote out of such
districts that were held by Democrats.
The DeLay designed map systematically built a buffer against future
partisan electoral tides while allowing the new Republican Members to
establish their own incumbency advantages. It should be noted that
Congressman Chet Edwards, an extraordinary candidate who was the lone
targeted Democrat to win in 2004, won in large part because there was no
way to draw him into a more Republican district and separate him from
all of his electoral base. Regardless, this seat would almost certainly
go to a Republican and stay Republican were Edwards not the candidate.
Likewise, despite the extraordinary circumstances surrounding Tom
DeLay's resignation and a group of strong Democratic candidates like
former Congressman Nick Lampson, Shane Sklar, and Will Pryor, each of
these candidates are decided underdogs because the map was designed to
overcome all other political factors. For that reason, barring an
unprecedented political tsunami, DeLay's deed will not be undone until
court action or a new census forces the state of Texas to draw a new
map.
Full Disclosure: I represented a group of Congressional Democrats as
intervening plaintiffs in the challenge to the 2003 Texas
re-redistricting.
Gerry Hebert
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-election-law_gl@majordomo.lls.edu
[mailto:owner-election-law_gl@majordomo.lls.edu] On Behalf Of
rkgaddie@ou.edu
Sent: Monday, May 22, 2006 8:03 PM
To: Michael McDonald
Cc: 'election-law'
Subject: Re: RE: RE: Electionlawblog news and commentary 5/22/06
Mike-
I readily concede that it is the "most competitive" scenario. However,
all of the reconstituted elections for Texas from 1998-2002 construct
themselves around this same data signature, and show the same reactivity
. . . the real question is where the tipping point for districts is,
rather than how often they tip.
Reagrdless, even in this worst of gerrymanders, there is reactivity to
across-the-board swings.
Keith (nee' Ronald)
_____________________________
Ronald Keith Gaddie
Professor of Political Science
The University of Oklahoma
455 West Lindsey Street, Room 222
Norman, OK 73019-2001
Phone 405-325-4989
Fax 405-325-0718
E-mail: rkgaddie@ou.edu
http://faculty-staff.ou.edu/G/Ronald.K.Gaddie-1
----- Original Message -----
From: Michael McDonald <mmcdon@gmu.edu>
Date: Monday, May 22, 2006 5:50 pm
Subject: RE: RE: Electionlawblog news and commentary 5/22/06
I don't agree with Ronald's analysis of "the most competitive" Texas
statewide race in 2002 as a basis for claiming a third of the Texas
congressional seats will come into play with a 5% vote swing.
Checking the
Texas SoS website, The margin of victory in the 2002 LT governor's
race was
5.74%, the next closest was the Commissioner of the General Land
Office at
11.68% and the average of eight statewide offices, including the Chief
Justice, was 16.79%. I rather doubt that the 2002 LT governor race is
representative of the underlying partisanship of Texas.
I agree, however, that a uniform vote swing model is most likely
incorrect(anyone who reads the fine print of the academic articles
by authors as
early as Tufte will see the caveats in this regard). Though, without
knowing where the qualified candidates and money are this far in
advance of
an election, it is the best that we can go on at this point.
Indeed, I
rather expect that the Democrats will do better in terms of their
overallvote totals simply on the fact that they are fielding more
candidates in
uncompetitive races -- races that would have previously been
uncontested by
a Democrat -- and Republicans are not fielding a like number in
uncompetitive Democratic districts.
I've heard it mentioned before that the "non-uniform" (for the lack
of a
better word) vote swings are concentrated in competitive races. I
wonder if
that is true. It could be just as likely that a larger amount of the
overall swing comes from second-tier competitive districts (because
thefavored party is fielding more qualified challengers than in other
elections) or from the uncompetitive districts (because any
challenger is
fielded). I suppose one could estimate the normal vote for a given
electionand then observe where the largest error occurs. Anyone
know of such a
study?
As for David's question, 7.5% does seem to be a large number (btw,
I mean
57.5% of the two-party vote), but I haven't done a similar study for
previous elections, so I can't say with authority how unusual it
is. But,
perhaps there is a paper worth writing here about where vote swings
areconcentrated that would produce the statistic as a by-product.
I am skeptical that Hispanic turnout is going to be much higher in
thiselection. Like it or not, midterm elections are low-turnout
affairs and
given the lower socio-economic status among Hispanics, they will
likely vote
at the low rates as they have done in previous elections. Even in
California, where Hispanics were organized and mobilized in the
1990s by
Prop. 187, 2004 CVAP turnout among Hispanics (from the CPS) was
46.9% while
among white non-Hispanics it was 70.6% (see:
http://www.census.gov/population/socdemo/voting/cps2004/tab04a.xls,
plus my
calculations).
Finally, why incumbency is collapsing into uncompetitive seats is
that, as
Jacobson points out, there was a lot of sorting of mis-matched
incumbentsinto similar partisan-leaning districts in the last round
of redistricting.
------------
Dr. Michael P. McDonald
Assistant Professor, George Mason University
Visiting Fellow, Brookings Institution
Mailing address:
(o) 703-993-4191 George Mason University
(f) 703-993-1399 Dept. of Public and International Affairs
mmcdon@gmu.edu 4400 University Drive - 3F4
http://elections.gmu.edu Fairfax, VA 22030-4444
-----Original Message-----
From: rkgaddie@ou.edu [rkgaddie@ou.edu]
Sent: Monday, May 22, 2006 5:37 PM
To: David Lublin
Cc: Michael McDonald; 'election-law'; owner-election-
law_gl@majordomo.lls.edu
Subject: Re: RE: Electionlawblog news and commentary 5/22/06
Good points made by David.
How much of that incumbency advantage is personal anymore?
Oppenheimer> points out that the incumbency advantage is collapsing
onto general party
safety in districts. Abramowitz has been tracking a similar
collapse of
congressional partisanship into presidential partisanship. The
exit poll
data in 2004 also confirm that the presidential vote and
congressional> vote are now generally structured by ideology. So,
if voters do go south
for Republicans, it may be that large numbers of seats have
sufficient> partisan capacity to weather the storm.
But, as David also points out, these will not be uniform swings .
. . I
would be concerned for Republicans in every district in
California, but
also in districts where there are large Latino, citizen
populations - say
the 3-10% range - that are undervoting. The current political
environment> makes this undermobilized electorate potent for a
general election with an
embattled GOP incumbent or a usually Republican open seat.
Even the districts in Texas showed a potential to swing
dramatically,> despite the nature of the gerrymander. The graphic
I attached shows the
seat swing from the 2002 LTGV in Texas (most competitive seat),
based on
uniform one-point shifts in the vote statewide (Alford and I
presented> similar graphics in our reports in 2003). About a third
of the seats in
Texas that are currently in GOP hands could come into play based
on a
five-point shift. There are structural biases, but they are
insufficient> to mitigate great political tides.
_____________________________
Ronald Keith Gaddie
Professor of Political Science
The University of Oklahoma
455 West Lindsey Street, Room 222
Norman, OK 73019-2001
Phone 405-325-4989
Fax 405-325-0718
E-mail: rkgaddie@ou.edu
http://faculty-staff.ou.edu/G/Ronald.K.Gaddie-1