Desoto: Still Bright Red But Dems Hoping For Changes
On August 26, Desoto county Democrats will have a fundraiser that will play host to a number of top Democrats. The winner of the gubernatorial primary, either Bill Luckett or Johnny DuPree, will be there as will Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley, Attorney General Jim Hood, and Connie Moran and Joel Gill, candidates for treasurer and agriculture commissioner, respectively. Jamie Franks, chairman of the Democratic Party, will also be there.
Local Democrats who are seeking county offices, presently dominated by Republicans, will also attend.
Two weeks ago, about 3,000 votes for governor on the Democratic side were cast in the county. That compared with about 21,000 on the Republican side. Ron Williams actually got more votes than Luckett, who carried the county for Democrats, so the county is still solidly Republican in case anyone was wondering.
That said, it has seen changes. Along with enormous growth has been a jump in the minority population. Over the past 10 years the white population dipped from 85 percent to about 72 percent. That has given some Democrats hope that they may eventually have a better showing in the state’s fastest growing county, and many even pushed for a minority-majority House district within the county.
As the House Democrats redistricting map appropriately gave the county two new seats, they both favored Republicans. As will anything we see from the county at this time.
Majority-minority district near impossible. Paying no attention to the current districts, I set out to draw a majority-minority district inside the county. There is a sizeable Hispanic population, so a majority-black district is clearly impossible.
Centered around Horn Lake, I drew a district of 23,042 (so under deviation) that had a VAP that was 55 percent white, 34 percent black, and 8 percent Hispanic. Basically, 55/45 white to non-white. That was the best I could do without splitting precincts, something that is pretty common but I don’t have the ability to with my maps. That said, the overall population of the district would be only 50.3 percent white, and jumps to nearly 38 percent black.
For a zoomed out shot of the entire county, click here.
This district would be composed of one Southaven precinct, Southaven South, which is already plurality black and certainly losing white population. Four Horn Lake precincts: North, East, West and the Intermediate School make up the bulk of the population.
One of the things you will notice is that as counties like Desoto or Rankin take in more black and minority population, it is pretty well integrated, at least compared to the areas they were previously living in, making it more difficult to create specific districts for minorities.
It hasn’t always been this way. In 1991, Kirk Fordice made history when he became the first Republican to win the governor’s mansion in the post-Reconstruction era. He did it without Desoto county’s help. Of the 15,000 votes in the county, incumbent Democrat Ray Mabus received nearly 10,000 of them. Those 15,000 votes were about the same number that were cast in Lee and Warren counties that day. In 2007, Haley Barbour took more than 76 percent of the vote.
Presidential results in the county have generally followed state patterns. It last voted Democrat in 1976 and in 1980 it was the only county north of Choctaw to vote for Ronald Reagan. In 2008, Barack Obama won 30.5 percent in the county; the highest total for a Democrat since Bill Clinton’s 32 percent in 1992.
Speaking of years past, in the 1980s Desoto sent a young attorney to the state legislature named John Grisham- as a Democrat. He wouldn’t have much chance today.
