| Update, Tally says below: But, I would point out that for insurance against not gaining a majority in the State House, we need to get the FairDistrictsFlorida.org petitions signed so they can be on the 2010 ballot.
This is really important especially if we're not able to get a majority in the House. We don't want to lose all those seats for nothing. There was some discussion over at FPC over the latest Democratic victory in the special election in the 32nd district. This makes it nine seats we've gained since the November 2006 elections, a really amazing accomplishment considering where we stood before. Now the Republicans are down to a 77-41 advantage (with two Democratic-leaning open seats) and Democrats will certainly continue to chip away at these numbers in November of this year. However I made this comment on the post that we should express some caution since most of these victories have been in Democratic-leaning districts and I wanted to go into my math. This was definitely a terrific win in a red district. I give the party credit on this one. I would note the fact we picked up most of the other seats had more to do with the previous state party being so terrible than this one being so great, since all of the victories except this one have been in Democratic districts according to my spreadsheets. Nonetheless I hope this victory is the start of something new. We will have to win these types of districts if we want to take back the state house and tonight it happened.
Besides the 32nd (special election), the 107th was also somewhat Republican territory, so a correction on that. Four more were in swing districts, the 51st, 52nd, 69th, and 120th. And three of the districts very Democratic-leaning, the 36th, 49th, and 97th. In the past, I've posted on my methodology. When the FDP is saying seven of the nine districts are Republican-leaning, I'm not sure how they're getting at this but I would assume they're using Jeb Bush or Charlie Crist performance, which I don't think is a true barometer on the voting bahavior of the districts. Both Bush and Crist won by fairly large margins, so of course that would put most districts into their column. My estimation is if we go by that math, then we would be saying 85 districts are Republican-leaning and only 35 districts are Democratic-leaning. Basically we could call any victory an upset by that measure! While the state is gerrymandered horrifically, luckily we shouldn't have to overcome something like that. I guess we could also go by Bill Nelson data, which would put the districts in a more Democratic-favored nature, but that also wouldn't make sense since the election wasn't as much contested. For my data, I'm using 2000 national election performance, that of Bush vs. Gore, which I think more fairly reflects the true performance of a district. Unfortunately 2004 performance data is not yet available or I would include that to get a more accurate picture. I would point out some of these districts have actually become more Democratic in nature and registration, like the 107th and 120th districts where Republicans have continued to see declines. So if anything, my data should be construed as too conservative in my opinion. Hopefully we'll see this come to fruition in November in districts like the 119th that Michael Calderin is seeking. 32nd District Gore: 43% Bush: 54% Nader: 2% 36th District Gore: 59% Bush: 38% Nader: 1% 49th District Gore: 59% Bush: 40% 51st District Gore: 49% Bush: 48 Nader: 2% 52nd District Gore: 50% Bush: 46% Nader: 3% 69th District Gore: 48% Bush: 49% Nader: 3% 97th District Gore: 57% Bush: 42% 107th District Gore: 44% Bush: 55% 120th District Gore: 47% Bush: 50% Nader: 2%
And here's my new data on Category Rankings 2000 Democratic Performance Statewide: 49 % Category 1: 70 – 100: 20 districts, 20 D, 0 R Category 2: 60 – 69: 10 districts, 10 D, 0 R Category 3: 54 – 59: 5 districts, 5 D, 0 R Category 4: 47 – 53: 19 districts, 5 D, 13 R Category 5: 41 - 46: 40 districts, 2 D, 39 R Category 6: 31 – 40: 19 districts, 1 D, 18 R Category 7: 0 – 30: 7 districts, 0 D, 7 R Democrats particularly excelled in taking the swing (Category 4) and Democratic-leaning (Category 3) districts in 2006 and since that time. This would make sense from that standpoint that there was basically nothing left for us to defend since the previous FDP was so terrible and had our numbers at rock bottom (17 Republicans to 1 Democrat in swing districts and Republicans even had a majority of our lean Category 3 districts). Luckily we're still at this point for the next couple of cycles until most of their seats open up, so I think the momentum will definitely be on our side for the 2008 and 2010 years. And it's very important to take back the House or we risk losing the seats due to redistricting. Essentially to take back the House we're going to need to take all 13 of those Republican-held swing districts and also take 5 of the lean-Republican Category 5 seats, which is why we should be particularly happy Tony Sasso's victory was in just one of those. So that's what we need to aim for in 2008 and 2010, 13 swing districts and 5 Republican ones or some combination thereof while defending our own. It's certainly doable. |
