Reapportionment and the House

One of the big problems in predicting how the House races will turn out in 2012 is that all of the states except Alaska, Delaware, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont and Wyoming must reapportion their House districts to allow for changes in where the people in their state now live according to the 2010 Census. Those seven states have such a small population that they only have one Congressional District that is the entire state so there is nothing to adjust. Making matters even tougher is that many states have either lost or gained House seats and must then change every district to allow for that.

The other pertinent fact is that this reapportionment process will be gerrymandered to benefit one political party if that political party controls the state legislature and the governorship. To see how all of this will effect the partisan balance in the House in 2013, we need to know several things. Which states are controlled by which party or is it split? What is the present partisan breakout of a state's congressional delegation. Is there a change in the number of seats that the state has? What was the margin in 2010 of all the House seats added together in favor of one party or the other. All of that information is set forth in the following table:

State	2010 Margin	Legis Control	Governor	House Dems	House Reps	Change	Net Gain
Vermont	32.54%	Dem	Dem	1	0		0
Massachusetts	27.70%	Dem	Dem	10	0	-1	0
Maryland	26.93%	Dem	Dem	6	2		0
Hawaii	24.57%	Dem	Dem	2	0		0
New York	21.20%	Split	Dem	21	8	-2	DR-1
Connecticut	18.97%	Dem	Dem	5	0		0
Rhode Island	18.46%	Dem	Dem	2	0		0
Delaware	15.74%	Dem	Dem	1	0		0
Maine	12.07%	Rep	Rep	2	0		0
California	10.81%	Dem	Dem	34	19		0
Illinois	7.14%	Dem	Dem	8	11	-1	R-1
Washington	6.75%	Dem	Dem	5	4	+1	D+1
Oregon	3.99%	Split	Dem	4	1		0
New Mexico	3.32%	Dem	Rep	2	1		0
Minnesota	2.04%	Rep	Dem	4	4		0
Pennsylvania	0.53%	Rep	Rep	7	12	-1	D-1
New Jersey	0.64%	Dem	Rep	7	6	-1	R-1
South Dakota	2.23%	Rep	Rep	0	1		0
Colorado	5.27%	Split	Dem	3	4		0
New Hampshire	6.88%	Rep	Dem	0	2		0
Nevada	6.90%	Dem	Rep	1	2	+1	D+1
Michigan	7.68%	Rep	Rep	6	9	-1	D-1
North Dakota	9.81%	Rep	Rep	0	1		0
Mississippi	10.02%	Rep	Rep	1	3		0
Ohio	11.75%	Rep	Rep	5	13	-2	DR-1
North Carolina	11.78%	Rep	Dem	7	6		0
Wisconsin	11.90%	Rep	Rep	3	5		R+1
Arizona	12.46%	Rep	Rep	3	5	+1	R+1
Virginia	12.57%	Split	Rep	3	8		0
Iowa	13.12%	Split	Rep	3	2	-1	D-1
West Virginia	13.21%	Dem	Dem	1	2		R-1
South Carolina	16.14%	Rep	Rep	1	5	+1	R+1
Arkansas	17.28%	Dem	Dem	1	3		0
Indiana	18.78%	Rep	Rep	3	6		R+1
Missouri	19.71%	Rep	Dem	3	6	-1	R-1
Florida	20.70%	Rep	Rep	6	19	+2	DR+1
Montana	26.57%	Rep	Dem	0	1		0
Idaho	27.82%	Rep	Rep	0	2		0
Kentucky	28.41%	Split	Dem	2	4		0
Tennessee	28.75%	Rep	Rep	2	7		0
Georgia	31.29%	Rep	Rep	5	8	+1	R+1
Utah	31.29%	Rep	Rep	1	2	+1	R+1
Kansas	31.45%	Rep	Rep	0	4		0
Louisiana	33.79%	Split	Rep	1	6	-1	R-1
Texas	34.72%	Rep	Rep	9	23	+4	R+3
Oklahoma	35.27%	Rep	Rep	1	4		0
Alaska	38.44%	Split	Rep	0	1		0
Nebraska	40.02%	Rep	Rep	0	3		0
Alabama	43.03%	Rep	Rep	1	6		0
Wyoming	45.94%	Rep	Rep	0	1		0

So what does all this information tell us? If you see two Dems in the party columns, then the Democrats can gerrymander the reapportionment process to benefit their party and hurt the Republicans. Likewise if you see two Reps in those columns, the opposite is true. There are 12 states controlled by the Democrats, but in 7 of them, the Republicans do not have any seats to be taken away from them. There are 22 states controlled by the Republicans but 6 of them do not have any Democrat seats to damage. The rest are split and the reapportionment process most likely will wind up in court if a compromise cannot be hammered out in the state legislature that also gets the governor to sign the bill.

It is the states that are gaining or losing more than one seat where gerrymandering can have the biggest effect. Texas is gaining 4 seats and is controlled by the Republicans but since the Democrats only have nine seats, it is hard to see how the Republicans can pick up any of the Democrat seats especially when they need to shore up districts 23 and 27 where the winning margin was under 5%. On the contrary, if they try to get greedy and make all four new seats Republican, they endanger holding ones they already have. The wisest course is to go for three to be Republican and let the Democrats have the fourth one. Thus the best the Republicans can hope for is a gain of 3 seats.

Florida is gaining two seats and it is controlled by the Republicans. Since the Democrats only have six seats it is hard to see how the Republicans can do any better than to split the two new seats with the Democrats. The same thing is true in Ohio only each party will have to lose a seat. If the Republicans controlled New York both seats that must be lost would come out of the Democrat majority. Since control is split, the most likely result will be a compromise in which each party loses a seat. Our best guess is that reapportionment will give the Republicans four new seats on top of whatever other gains or loses they might otherwise get.