Comparing Seventh Districts
So what's the truth?
Running the numbers suggests those criticisms may have some validity. The Blogland added the numbers up for the differing Seventh District proposals and here's what we found:
THE SENATE PLAN: The Senate's proposed Seventh District would reach across the Lowcountry and into the Pee Dee region. In 2008, the counties which the Senate proposes to put into the district, as a total, barely went for McCain, who received just under 51.3%, carrying 148,103 votes while Obama carried 47.6% of the vote with 137, 642 votes cast.
But it's important to note that 10,000 vote lead for McCain counts all of the Georgetown County vote. In 2008, McCain won the county by just over 1,000 votes of 30,000 cast in that county. The Senate plan splits the heavily-Republican part of the county into the First District, placing the heavily-Democratic interior precincts in the Seventh. This means the district was about dead-even at the national level, generally an indicator of a toss-up district which could very well swing based upon the outcome of national elections.
In this district, GOP voter growth in Beaufort, Berkeley and Dorchester Counties, which received two of four relocated State House seats in the 2010 redistricting and gained one in each of the two previous reapportinonments would ensure the district would gradually tilt to the GOP column. But it probably wouldn't be enough to upset a Democratic incumbent.
THE HOUSE PLAN: The Seventh District, as proposed by the House, would essentially restore the Pee Dee and Grand Strand-based district which had existed for most of the 20th Century. In 2008, McCain carried this district by a somewhat larger margin, with 53.5% of the vote (148,415 votes) against 45.7% (127,247 votes) for Obama.
THE HOUSE PLAN: The Seventh District, as proposed by the House, would essentially restore the Pee Dee and Grand Strand-based district which had existed for most of the 20th Century. In 2008, McCain carried this district by a somewhat larger margin, with 53.5% of the vote (148,415 votes) against 45.7% (127,247 votes) for Obama.
The twenty-thousand vote GOP lead in the district proposed by the House would actually be a litte larger as the House plan leaves southern Florence County, which is fairly Democratic, in the Sixth District. While McCain carried Florence County by just under two thousand out of 58,000 countywide, his margin over Obama without the Lake City area would probably have been somewhat larger.
Over time, the district would probably tilt even more Republican as Horry County, which has received an additional State House seat in each of the last three redistricting cycles, continues to grow in population.
Look for these and other arguments to be considered as House and Senate leadership meet to work out a compromise plan - or give up and allow the courts to decide the issue for them - in the weeks to come.
Over time, the district would probably tilt even more Republican as Horry County, which has received an additional State House seat in each of the last three redistricting cycles, continues to grow in population.
Look for these and other arguments to be considered as House and Senate leadership meet to work out a compromise plan - or give up and allow the courts to decide the issue for them - in the weeks to come.
Your praise of the Pee Dee 7th in the first 2 sentences of the House Plan descriptions clearly shows bias.
Why go back 4 years when you can go back 6 months every county in the Pee Dee 7th except for Horry voted for Sheheen.
You talk about the growth of Horry as your justification for it being stronger in Pee Dee but somehow you conveniently forgot that 3 of the top 4 growing counties are in the lowcountry 7 who's total growth surpassed Horry.
I am not saying I support the lowcountry 7 because I don't but your analysis is a joke.
Besides, Sheheen was 1) an outlier who represented the best-case Democratic outcome and 2) state races don't influence congressional races anywhere near as much as Presidential races.
Now we know why this guy didn't put his name with his comments.
I went ahead and pulled the 2004 presidential race returns to see what I got. If you take the Bush/Kerry race, where the GOP vote was as strong as it could have been in a national race, you get a GOP vote of about 56.4% in the House District 7 and 54.8% in the Senate's District 7.
Keep in mind that you have to split precincts with Georgetown County in the Senate plan, which puts the coastal GOP precincts into the First, thus skewing the statewide totals. I didn't do this in the math for the 2008 totals as I didn't have the time, but it wouldn't have helped the GOP numbers in the district.
The difference in vote leads between the two plans is about 5000 votes. As we know in SC, more than one statewide race in recent years has come down to 5000 votes or less. John Spratt's 52/48 win in 1994 was 5,000 votes. Bob Inglis' upset of Liz Patterson in 1992 was by less than 1,000.
Sometimes the small things make a big difference, and everyone expects the Democratic base to turn out as heavily next year as it did in 2008, so the '08 numbers might give us some idea of what to expect.