Dem Registration Gains- Trends in State House Seats
Friday, January 15, 2010 at 10:56AM Earlier this week, I took a look at macro-level Florida voter registration trends, which showed that despite a difficult political climate, Democrats are continuing to grow their advantage over Republicans in statewide voter registration.
Today I want to look at it my favorite micro-perspective, State House seats.
Certainly, State House seats are not a perfect cell to look at. They are purposefully drawn, generally to try to guarantee a certain outcome, making cross comparisons a little tricky. That being said, they are small enough to create some interesting comparisons. And just like the statewide numbers, there is very little in the state house registration trends that wouldn’t make a Democrat smile.
According to district by district state house data from summer 2009, since the 2002 redistricting, Democrats have gained in terms of two-party voter registration in 81 of the 120 state house seats across the state, including some 41 seats held by the GOP.
Some of these shifts have been quite striking.
For example, take House District 107, the Miami Beach-Little Havana seat held by Democratic Rep. Luis Garcia. In 2002, the GOP held a 5500 voter advantage in registration. Today, Democrats outnumber Republicans by roughly 2500, a shift of almost 11 percent. In fact, nearly 90% of all growth in HD 107 registration has been Democratic or independent.
The impact showed up on Election Day, where in 2008, President Obama received roughly 8% more of the vote than did John Kerry. Trust me, I caught a lot of flack in 2006 suggesting that a Democrat could win this seat. Today, it is nearly a safe Democratic district.
Or the seat held by Speaker Designate Dean Cannon, a district that when he first ran, provided him with a 7300 voter advantage. Today, Democrats outnumber Republicans by more than 1000 voters—and its growing, probably because less than 20% of the voter registration growth has been Republican over the last seven years.
Not surprisingly, these trends tend to follow larger trade winds. For example, of the six fastest Democratic trending seats currently held by the GOP, four are in Orlando: Cannon (HD 35), Nelson (HD 38), Precourt (HD 41) and Einsaugle (HD 40), and five of the next nine are in the Miami media market (Bogdanoff (HD 91), Robaina, Rivera, Lopez-Cantera and Fresen).
What is unique about all nine of these districts? In 2002 (and even 2006), arguably only two of them could be deemed competitive- HD 38 and HD 91, and in both cases, just barely. Today, you could easily make the case that at least six and potentially eight are competitive.
Also, in all nine of these cases, larger demographic and population shifts will almost certainly continue these trends for the foreseeable future.
One other thing worth noting: Across the state, the data does show a lot of hardening of partisanship in base seats. Generally base GOP and really base Dem seats are just getting more that way. But in those places where the trends are helping one party over another---largely in the 30-40 districts designed in 2002 to be just a few points too Republican to be competitive, districts are shifting from lean safe to lean swing, creating more opportunities.
Now let me make this clear, I do not believe in any way this means the Democrats can or will win back the House in 2010, and without a lot of good fortune or luck, it is probably not going to happen in the near future.
But I do believe that the state will continue to trend more competitive in the Legislature---and if I can be so bold, even if the GOP succeeds in a worst-case scenario map for the Democrats. And just like a Cuban Democrat winning a Little Havana district, a scenario where the Democrats win back the House in the next decade isn't all that far-fetched anymore.
There will certainly be more to come on this topic.
Reader Comments (4)
We have the people to win, now how do we make them all get out and vote?
Steve,
I love that you brought up HD 107 from 2006. No one thought we could pull it off, and we did. Louie Garcia took on a candidate with a well known last name and political family history in the City of Miami. We were also outnumbered in registration figures (I remember it being something like 39 R, 33 D and the rest I or NPA). We still won 52-48. Hopefully 2010 will bring us more House seat changes, along with a Governor's office occupied by Alex Sink.
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