Arkansas State Senate
Today, Daily Kos Election's President-by-Legislative District project ventures to two very different states, Arkansas and Vermont. President-by-LD is our ongoing project to provide election results by legislative and congressional district for every state in the nation. You can find our master list of data here.
The interactive maps in this post were created by Stephen Wolf. Each legislative chamber is mapped out and color-coded according to the presidential winner and the party that holds each district, along with some info on each legislator. You can find links to all the previously released maps here, which you may want to bookmark.
Districts in solid blue were carried by Obama and are represented by a Democrat, while those in solid red were won by Mitt Romney and are held by a Republican. Lighter red districts voted for Obama and a Republican legislator while those in lighter blue went for Romney and a Democratic legislator. Note that the map displays use only the two-party vote to give you a more equivalent comparison between presidential and legislative results, but this post and Daily Kos Elections numbers include totals for third-party candidates, though the differences are minor.
Arkansas Senate:
We have Arkansas's 2012 presidential election results calculated by state House, state Senate, and congressional district. A major thank you goes out to Daily Kos Elections' community member GradyDem for all his help sorting out the Razorback State's various quirks.
Arkansas Democrats held their post-Reconstruction legislative majorities until 2012, but when change came it came quickly. After the 2008 elections Democrats held a 27 to eight supermajority in the Senate: Now, Republicans have a 22-13 edge.
It looks like Arkansas Republicans will be in the majority for a while. Mitt Romney easily took the state 61-37, and carried 29 of the 35 Senate districts. Arkansas Democrats drew the Senate lines before they lost control, but there was only so much they could do. The median seat voted for Romney 65-31, 10 points more Republican than the state as a whole.
There are seven Democrats left in Romney seats, a little more than half of the Senate caucus. The reddest seat in Democratic hands is SD-10, which went for Romney 69-28. SD-10 includes a collection of small towns in the southwestern part of the state including Hope, Bill Clinton's childhood home. In the Senate Romney Democrats are confined to two different parts of the state: the northeastern corner and the southern end of Arkansas.
Head over the fold for the Arkansas House and both chambers of the Vermont legislature.
Arkansas State House of Representatives
Arkansas House:
This is another chamber where the Republican wave came late, but it came in full force. After 2008 Democrats held a 72-28 supermajority: Now, Republicans have a tiny 51-49 edge (this counts former Green Party representative Frederick Smith as a Democrat).
Romney took 83 of the 100 House districts: The median point in the chamber voted for him 65-32, 9 points to the right of the state. Democrats hold 32 Romney seats, with almost two-thirds of their caucus hailing from red turf. The most Republican seat in Democratic hands is HD-10 around Pine Bluff, which voted for Romney 71-27. Democrats are hoping that they can retake the state House this year, but it will be hard to win their long term unless the state as a whole begins to shift back to national Democrats.
Vermont State Senate
Vermont Senate:
We have the results from Vermont's 2012 contests calculated by state House and state Senate (there is only one congressional district). This includes the contests for president, U.S. Senate, U.S. House, governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, auditor, and treasurer. Note that we are treating Sen. Bernie Sanders as a Democrat here: Sanders ran as an independent but faced no Democrat in the general, and Sanders caucuses with Senate Democrats.
Vermont's legislature is pretty much the opposite of Arkansas. Historically Vermont was very friendly to Republicans (in 1992 Bill Clinton was only the second Democratic presidential nominee to carry the state ever) but that's pretty much a distant memory now. Democrats took the Senate in 1996 and have held it ever since. Team Blue holds a 21 to seven supermajority, with two members of the Vermont Progressive Party also caucusing with the Democrats. Barack Obama took Vermont 67-31, and carried all 13 Senate districts. The median point in the chamber voted for Obama 68-31, about 2 points to the left of the state.
Vermont Senate seats roughly (but don't entirely) correspond to counties, and each district elects anywhere from one to six senators. On both of Stephen Wolf's Vermont maps, seats with delegations split between Democrats and Republicans are colored in pink. Districts where a few members are left-leaning independents are in green along with the Progressives.
The Chittenden district is the bluest seat in the state to elect a Republican: It voted 71-28 for Obama and has a delegation of four Democrats, one Republican, and one Progressive. Lamoille, which voted for Obama by 70-28, has an all-Republican delegation (i.e. one person).
Vermont House
Vermont State House of Representatives
Republicans lost the House in the 1990s, retook it in 2000, and lost it for good in 2004. Democrats hold a 96-45 majority there, with five allied Progressives and four left-leaning independents also holding office. Vermont House seats elect either one or two members depending on their size.
Obama carried all 105 districts: Along with Hawaii, Vermont is the only state where one of the two presidential nominees took every state legislative seat in both houses. Romney's best seat was Rutland's 4, which voted for Obama 53-45. The median point in the chamber voted for Obama 65-33, 4 points to the right of the state. The bluest House seat to elect a Republican is Chittenden 6-1, which went for Obama 73-25.