Swing State Project crunched the numbers from the recently-released 2008 American Community Survey estimates and listed the 25 fastest growing districts from 2000-2008 and the 25 districts that have lost the most residents.
An interesting trend emerged: Of the 25 fastest growing districts, 21 are represented by Republicans. The four districts that aren’t in GOP hands are in the suburbs and exurbs of Las Vegas, Phoenix and Raleigh, as well as Denny Hastert’s old district in the Chicago exurbs.
Of the 25 fastest-shrinking districts, 24 (!) are represented by Democrats. The only district represented by a Republican is the heavily-blue 2nd District of Louisiana, which is New Orleans and will flip in 2010.
This is bad news for Democrats short-term and good news for them long-term. In the short term, it means the House will have one less vote from states like Massachusetts and one more vote from states like Texas, which is gerrymandered in favor of Republicans.
In the long-term, Democrats moving to states like Texas and Arizona might make those states more competitive and give them more seats at the state level. It’ll also ultimately make these states bluer at the national level, but that’s going to be a generational shift.
Here’s the data, compliments of Swing State Project:
Fastest Growing Congressional Districts
Fastest Contracting Congressional Districts
Isaacman
7 October 2009 at 6:49 PM
This assumes that those people who are leaving the contracting areas and moving to the expanding areas are at least on average slightly democratic leaning. If however, the correlational between people wanted to move from place X to place Y is somewhat related to political outlooks then the moving population might not be “average”. It might be possible that the popultion shifts may make the conservative areas slightly more so and the declining areas more heavily democratic.
regorfa
25 October 2009 at 9:01 AM
It also assumes that “good for Democrats” is equivalent to simply electing more Democrats. But even if we also assume that the first commenter is wrong (and I don’t think you are, Isaacman), it only ensures that there will be more moderate Democratic Congresspeople from moderate districts. Moderates are often the ones that hold up Democratic priorities. Not all Democrats in the House or Senate are created equal. If MA loses 1 McGovern, Frank, Markey, Tsongas, etc. is that worth it for their agenda even if we gain 2 ho-hum freshmen Democrats from Texas? The point of electing Democrats is to pass an agenda that benefits the people of their districts and of the nation as a whole. We do not win elections simply to win elections, but rather to make positive social change that will make a meaningful difference in people’s lives.