Illinois gerrymandering
Sunday, January 28th, 2018With gerrymandering in the news and several cases on their way to the Supreme Court, I’ve seen discussion of gerrymandering. The extreme Republican gerrymandering in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina have come under criticism. I occasionally go nutpicking to see what conservatives have to say about this, and their defense is mainly, ignore this because Democrats are just as bad or worse. And Illinois gets held up as an example of a state highly gerrymandered by Democrats, perhaps because Obama was from Illinois, or perhaps it is the long shadow of Richard Daley’s reputation. He died 42 years ago. So I had a look. Is Illinois heavily gerrymandered so Democrats get most of the seats no matter what the vote is? Do Democrats get seats out of proportion to the vote?
Data from the State site.
Here are the 2016 Illinois Senate election results:
37 Dems (63%)
22 Repubs (37%)
Votes for Senate:
1906132 Dems (59.5%)
1299986 Repubs (40.5%)
Illinois House election results:
67 Dems (57%)
51 Repubs (43%)
Votes for Senate:
2584929 Dems (53.9%)
2210903 Repubs (46.1%)
US House of Representatives
11 Dems (61%)
7 Repubs (39%)
Votes for US Reps:
2810536 Dems (53.6%)
2397436 Repubs (45.7%)
Proportionally, Dems would have 9.64 Reps, or 10 and Republicans would have 8.22 Reps, or 8.
The Presidential vote in Illinois was
3090729 Clinton (55.8%)
2146015 Trump (38.8%)
In the Illinois House and Senate, Democrats get 3% more seats than indicated by the proportion of votes. In the US House of Representatives, Democrats get one more seat (11 instead of 10). So Illinois is gerrymandered to favor Democrats to a minor degree in the House and to a modest degree in the Illinois General Assembly.
What’s going on in Republican controlled states?
In North Carolina, “In the 2012 presidential election, for instance, Republican candidate Mitt Romney won only 50.6 percent of the popular vote in North Carolina, but Republicans ended up winning 10 of the state’s 13 congressional seats — a whopping 77 percent.” and “North Carolina voting has been nearly split along partisan lines in recent statewide elections — such as for governor and president — but Republicans control 10 US House seats compared with three for Democrats.”
In Wisconsin, “Indeed, a year after the redistricting, Republicans captured only a minority of the statewide vote — 48.6 percent — but, as they had privately predicted, they still won 60 of the 99 state legislative seats, while the Democrats, who had won a majority of the vote, captured a mere 39 seats.”
In Pennsylvania, “To get a sense of how powerful Pennsylvania’s gerrymander was, consider that, in 2012, Democratic candidates won slightly more votes in US House elections and Barack Obama won the state. But the state’s 18 House seats didn’t split 9-9 between the parties — instead, Republicans won 13 seats there, and continued to win them for the rest of the decade.”