This is just a quick diary on the new (well, "tentative final") map for the Arizona Legislature as drawn by the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission (AIRC). Note: When i was reading CF of Aus' fine diary, I tried re-running some of the below Index 2 calculations and I'm not quite getting the same numbers. For example, I get 43.5, not 43.7, for the current District 12's score. My apologies, although I doubt that changes too much. I'd re-run all the numbers, but I think that's a task best left for another diary.
Both houses of the Arizona legislature use the same 30 districts, with each district electing two Representatives and one Senator. The AIRC helpfully provided several different "competitiveness indexes" for each district.
To compare new and old districts, I'll use the commission's Index 2 ("Average of 2008 and 2010, each year weighted equally")--since Dave's Redistricting App has that easily-available for the old districts. Actually, not that easy--Dave's Redistricting App has an average of all 2010 and 2008 statewide races, which is not the same thing as weighting each year equally, but since the only 2008 race was the Presidential election, and since Dave's Redistricting App has that for each of the old districts, it's not that hard to figure it out if you also know the number of statewide races in 2010. Which I got from the Green Papers (http://www.thegreenpapers.com/...). I'm assuming it's one in 2008 and 7 in 2010. I don't know if DRA counts Corporation Commission races but that shouldn't matter too much.
Here are the new districts by this "index 2":
Rank R% D%
1 District 27 27.4% 72.6%
2 District 3 31.0% 69.0%
3 District 7 36.3% 63.7%
4 District 19 37.0% 63.0%
5 District 24 38.5% 61.5%
6 District 29 39.5% 60.5%
7 District 26 42.0% 58.0%
8 District 30 42.6% 57.4%
9 District 2 42.8% 57.2%
10 District 4 45.6% 54.4%
11 District 9 46.7% 53.3%
12 District 10 48.0% 52.0%
13 District 8 51.3% 48.7%
14 District 18 51.5% 48.5%
15 District 6 54.7% 45.3%
16 District 28 54.8% 45.2%
17 District 20 56.7% 43.3%
18 District 21 57.8% 42.2%
19 District 17 57.9% 42.1%
20 District 11 58.6% 41.4%
21 District 1 60.6% 39.4%
22 District 16 61.2% 38.8%
23 District 15 61.5% 38.5%
24 District 23 62.0% 38.0%
25 District 22 63.9% 36.1%
26 District 25 64.6% 35.4%
27 District 13 64.7% 35.3%
28 District 5 65.6% 34.4%
29 District 12 66.1% 33.9%
30 District 14 66.4% 33.6%
And here are the old districts, with my calculation of the above index. In each column I've put the party that controlled the seat after the 2010, 2008, 2006, and 2004 elections (relying on Ballotpedia and its archives, e.g.,
http://www.ballotpedia.org/...), from left to right respectively. I've tried to note when control was split; unless I screwed up the largest letter should always be the State Senator:
01 District 02 26.6 73.4 D D D D
02 District 16 28.9 71.1 D D D D
03 District 14 34.3 65.7 D D D D
04 District 13 35.3 64.7 D D D D
05 District 27 36.3 63.7 D D D D
06 District 15 36.7 63.3 D D D D
07 District 28 37.9 62.1 D D D D
08 District 29 39.6 60.4 D D D D
09 District 17 44.0 56.0 D D D D(1 Rep)
10 District 20 53.0 47.0 R R (1 Dem) R R
11 District 25 53.3 46.7 R D (1 Rep) D (1 Rep) D (1 Rep)
12 District 11 54.2 45.8 R (1 Dem) R (1 Dem) R (1 Dem) R
13 District 10 55.3 44.7 R R R (1 Dem) R
14 District 26 55.7 44.3 R R (1 Dem) D (1 Rep) R
15 District 23 56.2 43.8 R D (1 Rep) D D (1 Rep)
16 District 12 56.3 43.7 R R R R
17 District 24 57.8 42.2 R (1 Dem) D (1 Rep) D D(1 Rep)
18 District 30 58.5 41.5 R R R R
19 District 18 58.8 41.2 R R R R
20 District 21 59.6 40.4 R R R R
21 District 09 60.8 39.2 R R R R
22 District 08 61.4 38.6 R R R R
23 District 07 61.9 38.1 R R R R
24 District 01 62.1 37.9 R R R R
25 District 06 62.2 37.8 R R R R
26 District 22 64.5 35.5 R R R R
27 District 19 65.8 34.2 R R R R
28 District 04 65.9 34.1 R R R R
29 District 05 66.8 33.2 R R (1 Dem) R (1 Dem) R (1 Dem)
30 District 03 69.1 30.9 R R R R
Sorry that looks so weird; here's a Senate-only version:
01 District 02 26.6 73.4 D D D D
02 District 16 28.9 71.1 D D D D
03 District 14 34.3 65.7 D D D D
04 District 13 35.3 64.7 D D D D
05 District 27 36.3 63.7 D D D D
06 District 15 36.7 63.3 D D D D
07 District 28 37.9 62.1 D D D D
08 District 29 39.6 60.4 D D D D
09 District 17 44.0 56.0 D D D D
10 District 20 53.0 47.0 R R R R
11 District 25 53.3 46.7 R D D D
12 District 11 54.2 45.8 R R R R
13 District 10 55.3 44.7 R R R R
14 District 26 55.7 44.3 R R D R
15 District 23 56.2 43.8 R D D D
16 District 12 56.3 43.7 R R R R
17 District 24 57.8 42.2 R D D D
18 District 30 58.5 41.5 R R R R
19 District 18 58.8 41.2 R R R R
20 District 21 59.6 40.4 R R R R
21 District 09 60.8 39.2 R R R R
22 District 08 61.4 38.6 R R R R
23 District 07 61.9 38.1 R R R R
24 District 01 62.1 37.9 R R R R
25 District 06 62.2 37.8 R R R R
26 District 22 64.5 35.5 R R R R
27 District 19 65.8 34.2 R R R R
28 District 04 65.9 34.1 R R R R
29 District 05 66.8 33.2 R R R R
30 District 03 69.1 30.9 R R R R
Some notes:
1) The new legislative map indeed has more swing districts than the old legislative map does now--although given how much Arizona's population has changed from 2004 to now, it's hard to know what these districts were like at the time of these races.
2) As you can see, with the old districts, everything above 56% Democratic is safe Dem, of course. Unfortunately, we don't have too much data on races in between, but you can see that Democrats could compete pretty reliably all the way down to 42.2% Democratic, even in a non-blue-wave year like 2004--at least, districts that have a 42.2% Democratic index now (see point 1).
3) Using that as a guide, it's possible that Democrats might be able to compete in about 18 or 19 of the new districts, since 18 or 19 of the new districts have a Democratic index of at least 42.2% or so.
(Let me know if I screwed any of those up--it's pretty late and it's easy to transpose things.)
Basically, there were few or no swing seats before redistricting, even if you look at just Obama's percentage (I know, McCain's home state effect, but Obama's percentage jumps from 48.3% in the old District 20 to 56.8% in the old District 17). But Democrats were able to win some of these non-swing-seats in elections like 2004, 2006, and 2008. 2010 more-or-less reduced them to their 9 safe districts (plus the two Assembly survivors), but redistricting has added about 5 swingier districts than exist now while keeping 9 safe Democratic seats. Since there are only 30 districts in play, control of the Arizona legislature could well be competitive in at least a few of the next decade's elections.
I would guess that control lies in Districts 8, 18, 6, 28, 20, 21, and 17.
-District 8 consists largely of the eastern half of Pinal County.
-Districts 18 has a fourth of Chandler and some of southern Tempe, Phoenix, Mesa.
-District 6 is the "Flagstaff district" and doesn't have other large cities.
-Districts 28, 20, and 21 form a contiguous band across north Phoenix, Glendale, Peoria, Sun City.
-District 17 is mostly, and most of, Chandler.
If Democrats can hold onto their safe districts and win, say, four of those seven districts, then they'll control one or both houses of the Arizona legislature.
Maps and data from: http://www.azredistricting.org/.... In particular, the competitive data tables and the component reports.
Here are the ballotpedia pages I used:
http://www.ballotpedia.org/... has post-2006 and post-2004 for the Senate (with a few holes that I had to track down, hopefully correctly).
http://www.ballotpedia.org/... has post-2008 for the Senate.
http://www.ballotpedia.org/... has post-2010 for the Senate.
http://www.ballotpedia.org/... has post-2006 for the Assembly.
http://www.ballotpedia.org/... has post-2008 for the Assembly.
http://www.ballotpedia.org/... has the current Assembly.
Then this for the post-2004 assembly: http://en.wikipedia.org/...