When I started researching the viability of a Democratic victory in CA-42, my goal was pretty simple – provide a factual argument that progressive Democrats should support my friend Tim Sheridan in this race, even though the district has an R+10 PVI. And while that remains my primary goal, the research has raised some interesting questions.
Ultimately, the answer I am looking for is – when is an R+10 district not really an R+10 district? What impact, if any, did the combination of CA-42 being radically re-drawn in 2010 and the absence of a serious Democratic challenger have on the 2012 election result, and subsequent R+10 PVI rating? Is it possible that the 2012 election results are not representative of the underlying voter dynamics within the district? In other words, is this a district that is more naturally more competitive than the 2012 election results suggest?
More below the fold...
In my last post, I looked at the voter registration, voter turnout, and election results for CA-42 in 2012. I concluded that the absence of any meaningful Democratic campaigning within the district contributed to inflating Calvert’s vote total, and most likely suppressing Obama’s. Thus, the R+10 PVI is likely inflated as a result.
Further, although Republican currently enjoy a significant voter registration advantage, the dynamics of this election cycle suggest that a large voter registration drive by Democrats in CA-42 will have a significant payoff. Republicans are not in a position to focus resources here because four other Republicans in California are already preparing to face stiff challenges, including Buck McKeon, Gary Miller, David Valadao, and Jeff Denham.
In this post, I will look at the racial and ethnic demographics of the district, and explain how, all other factors being equal, this district doesn’t look anything like what you would expect in an R+10 district. For the purposes of this post, I use the terms “Hispanic” and “Latino” interchangeably, although I recognize that they are not entirely synonymous.
Let’s start by looking at the racial and ethnic make-up of CA-42. For this diary, I used data from the 2012 ACS and compiled here at Daily Kos back in September:
Non-Hispanic White: 45.1%
African-American: 4.9%
Asian/Pacific Islander: 8.9%
Two or more: 3.2%
Hispanic (of any race): 37.7%
What stands out to me is that the Non-Hispanic White population is only 45%, and the Hispanic population is almost 38%. How do those compare with districts across the nation? There are 100 Congressional Districts with fewer non-Hispanic Whites, but only 10 are held by Republicans.
TX-22 Pete Olson 43% R+15
CA-25 Buck McKeon 43% R+3
CA-22 Devin Nunes 42% R+10
TX-27 Blake Farenthold 42% R+13
NM-02 Steve Pearce 39% R+5
CA-39 Ed Royce 32% R+5
CA-31 Gary Miller 27% D+5
FL-27 Ileana Ros-Lehtinen 19% R+2
FL-25 Mario Diaz-Balart 19% R+5
CA-21 David Valadao 18% D+2
There are 51 Congressional Districts with a larger Hispanic population, and only 9 of those are held by Republicans.
CA-25 Buck McKeon 38% R+3
CA-10 Jeff Denham 41% R+1
CA-22 Devin Nunes 45% R+10
TX-27 Blake Farenthold 50% R+13
CA-31 Gary Miller 52% D+5
NM-02 Steve Pearce 52% R+5
FL-27 Ileana Ros-Lehtinen 72% R+2
FL-25 Mario Diaz-Balart 72% R+5
CA-21 David Valadao 73% D+2
There is almost, but not quite, a complete overlap. However, for the purposes of this analysis, but I will consider all 11 districts listed above. Notice that eight of these districts are significantly more competitive, including two with a Democratic PVI. Of the three with similar or higher Republican PVI ratings, two are in Texas, where the districts are the result of ruthless gerrymandering by Republicans in the state legislature.
In contrast, California created a non-partisan commission after the 2010 Census to handle re-districting. The results have been generally favorable to Democrats, although one consequence of the new congressional map was to place Ken Calvert in CA-42, which is home to far more Republicans than his old seat in CA-44, where Calvert only narrowly won in 2008 against Bill Hedrick, 52-48. But it’s important to note that Republicans were not responsible for drawing the new CA-42. Calvert was just a lucky beneficiary. Compare Calvert’s fate to Gary Miller, the Republican who held the seat in CA-42 until 2012, but was placed into CA-31, a D+5 district after redistricting.
The last district, CA-22, is located in the Central Valley, and is held by Devin Nunes. Although he is technically not Hispanic (his family is of Portuguese descent), he is a member of the Congressional Hispanic Conference, and is a co-chair of the US-Mexico Friendship Council in Congress. He is a strong candidate who grew up in the district he now represents. Notably, he received MORE votes (132,386) than Mitt Romney (125,213) in CA-22. Nunes may be the exception that proves the rule.
The main take-away here is that, all else being equal, districts with such a low non-Hispanic white population tend to be competitive districts. In the absence of specific influencing factors, such as the active gerrymandering in TX, or an ethnically Hispanic Republican candidate, political analysts should be suspicious that any district with such a high Hispanic population and low non-Hispanic White population be given such a high Republican PVI rating, or that such a district is necessarily safe for a non-Hispanic white Republican.
What does this mean for CA-42? Well, apart from concluding that the district is probably far more competitive than the R+10 PVI rating that it currently has, it means that a Democrat who can motivate the Latino community to register and vote is in a good position to win in 2014. As I have previously noted, and as I will address in a future post, Calvert is a relatively weak candidate who holds unpopular positions on immigration and other matters of interest to the Latino community.