New Congressional Map Released

Three federal judges released the state’s new Congressional map on Monday, with some pretty big changes coming because of the strong growth in MS-01 and the even stronger population loss in MS-02.

In the run-up to yesterday, the talk had generally centered on will Bennie Thompson get most of Jackson, as he wanted, or would Gregg Harper give him Southwest Mississippi (Adams and Wilkinson) as he wanted? The truth is none of that really happened.

Adams and Wilkinson are still in MS-03, and there were some changes to Northeast Jackson, but nothing as dramatic as Thompson and his allies (Sen. Kelvin Buck) proposed. Remember, here is the map of what they proposed.

Under their plan, Thompson would have picked up: Voting Districts 8, 9, 17, 36, 37, 44, 45, and 79. But here is what will be included/ remain in MS-03: Districts 1, 5, 8, 9, 14, 15, 17, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 44, 45, 47, and 78. So basically Thompson picks up precincts 46 (which they didn’t want) and 79 while he loses 1, 5, and 15. VTD 79 is a very strong Democratic precinct (72% Obama) so the move makes sense. VTD 46 is on its way there even though John McCain was at 61 percent in 2008. But the precinct is plurality black and trending that way in strong fashion.

For Harper’s new precincts, VTD 1 and 5 are very strong Democratic precincts while VTD 15 went very heavy for McCain and it didn’t make a whole lot of sense for it to not be in MS-03 to begin with when you look at how the Jackson precincts are split.

There were some changes to Madison county although they seem to be in line with the demographic/ political leanings of each district.

So where did they find the new population for Thompson? We all pretty much knew Panola was headed to the Second, but so is all of Yalobusha and Grenada. Leake is no longer split and is now entirely in MS-02. Needless to say, the judges opted to move Thompson east.

Here’s my question for the future: Where do they turn for new population in ten years? I suppose I am being pessimistic, but is there reason to believe MS-02 won’t need new territory next time around? You are already east of I-55, but you really can’t keep going east into counties like Calhoun, Webster, Choctaw, Winston, etc. I suppose that is something every one will deal with when the time comes.

As for the other districts, Winston and Choctaw have been moved to MS-01, while that district also began to reach into Oktibbeha. The state wants to keep Starkville and Oxford separate, and no precincts from the city have been moved, but it is interesting to see.

Marion and Jones are now fully in MS-04, while a good bit of Clarke and all of Jasper has been sent to MS-03. Not a whole lot you can do to make MS-04 more Republican but losing Jasper is a good place to start.

Overall, I’m impressed with how few split counties there are. By my count, just four are: Hinds, Madison, Oktibbeha, and Clarke. And Jackson is the only split city. MS-01 is skinnier, MS-02 is wider, MS-04 is shorter, but overall they have not been changed in any major way.

Here are the demographics of each district:

MS-01: 70% white/ 26% black
MS-02: 65% black/ 33% white
MS-03: 62% white/ 35% black
MS-04: 72% white/ 23% black