CO & LA: Shifting Populations Will Impact '08 Senate Races

[sethm0]

 I agree with the article's assessment on the Colorado Senate race.

 I am not as fatalistic on Louisiana as some Democrats - Landrieu still has solid approval ratings. I do agree, though, that LA is the Republicans' best shot at a pickup. I call it 50/50.

 One interesting topic of conversation could be the effect that these population trends will have on house redistricting. Louisiana will almost certainly lose a seat after 2010, but chances are it will be a Republican seat. Assuming the Democrats can keep control of the legislature for that long, Melancon's seat won't be carved up, and New Orleans will still have enough of a black population to keep Jefferon's seat Democratic - albeit by smaller margins than previously.

 Add to this the fact that those 200,000 or so Louisiana blacks who have gone to other states will improve Democratic performance in those places. An extra 100,000 blacks in Houston will create headaches for the Texas legislature when their next redistricting comes around.

 Finally, this article does a good job of showing why states like Colorado and Nevada are gaining population - because people are moving there from California, the northeast, and Mexico. Therefore, these states will continue to become more Democratic and could lead to the Democrats eventually taking an additional house seat in Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and perhaps Arizona.

 Advantage Democrats.

[sethm0]

 ^^^
 
 A good point, I hadn't thought of that.

[sethm0]

Besides, most of the Katrina residents in Houston either don't vote or are either killing each other off as we speak (thanks to the talented efforts of present mayor Bill White)

 I won't accuse people of racism, but that quote comes pretty close. Thanks for telling us that those ig'nunt black folk can't vote because they are "too busy killing each other."

 Poor choice of wording aside, your argument is flawed. Just because many Katrina evacuees aren't registered to vote now, doesn't mean they won't be in the coming years. And they don't even need to be registered to vote to be counted in the census, which is part of what the post is about.
   No Republican who represents a part of Travis County won his seat by more than about 35,000 votes in the last election. Again, I'm not saying that the influx of refugees will surely create a new Democratic seat in the coming years - just that it'll tighten margins, pose headaches and, along with the rapidly growing Latino population throughout south Texas, cause Republicans to divert funds they normally would not be required to.

 As far as Colorado goes, the only people who don't seem to understand it are the Colorado Republican Party. Since in the last half decade they have lost the governorship, the state house, the state senate, the congressional delegation, a U.S. senate seat, and now face a candidate for the other U.S. senate seat who is out raising and out-performing theirs, I don't think it is much of a stretch to say that Colorado is trending Democratic and the influx of new voters to the state has a role to play in that - between 2000 and 2005, a net increase of 160,000 new people entered the state and the growth rate of Hispanics was twice that of whites.

 Finally, I would not suggest that the increased black population in Baton Rouge means that Baker's seat is in imminent danger. He is too popular among white swing-voters. However, when he retires, an extra 50,000 black voters in the district will help make the race to replace him interesting.

 All of these things - LA losing a Republican house seat through redistricting, margins in Republican-held Houston-area house races getting closer, Baker's LA seat being up for grabs when he leaves office and the Democratic Party consolidating power in Colorado and other western states - are long-term trends. No one is saying that they will all happen right away, but over time they all seem quite possible, if not likely.

 The bottom line is that migration shifts, including those resulting from Katrina, may in the end help Democrats more than Republicans, with the possibly exception of Mary Landrieu. And even she may be in better shape than people think. The most recent post-Katrina Survey USA poll has her at 54% approve, 42% disapprove, including a decent 47/48 among whites.

[sethm0]

 1. As time goes on, more and more of the Katrina refugees in Houston will settle in there and, eventually, change their voting registration. Nobody expects all or even most of them to return to New Orleans at this point, especially with what a haphazard job is being done of rebuilding there. And don't try to be cute - when Spade says Katrina refugees are too busy killing each other to vote he's not talking about rich white people.

2. I did mean Harris country - that was a typo, and indeed it is true that in '06 no Republican won by more then 35,000 except for Poe - and he represents the northern suburbs of Houston, not the part that most Katrina evacuees are living in. Culberson, McCaul and Paul were all at or below 60% in '06 without the Katrina refugee vote. Even if a significant fraction of Katrina refugees in Houston begin to vote in the future, that will be a factor in some of the other Republican seats around Harris; Perhaps not enough to swing the seats, but certainly enough to force Republicans to divert resources.

3. You cannot deny the disarray that the Colorado Republican party is currently in, compared to the relative ascendancy of the Colorado Democratic Party. I won't waste my time defending the obvious.

[sethm0]

 That is a good analysis, but it is still true that if most of those people stay in Houston, regardless of what CD they are currently in, they will have to be accounted for in redistricting in a few years, most likely meaning that a good chunk of CDs 9 and 7 will need to be split between the more conservative districts.