Congressional district stats

A side note about the 2011 ACS estimates for the 113th Congress: the Census Bureau's "Easy Stats" website provides ACS estimates only one district at a time. The Bureau didn't provide data in bulk for all districts (which seems odd, since so many of us would want to analyze comparative statistics across multiple districts, and not be constrained by having to click through Easy Stats one district at a time).

But one of the refreshingly enterprising analysts who participates in the NICAR listserv - a terrific collection of individuals interested in meaningful analysis of Census and other statistical data sets -- wrote a Python script to collect all the 113th Congressional ACS data in one place. Here's the write up and here's a link to the resulting CSV file.

2011 Congressional District County Components

From Daily Kos

CDs-by-County: I think you're all going to love this. Thanks to yet more hard work by jeffmd, we now have a new chart for you: congressional districts by county. Click the link and you'll find a tab for each state laying out which counties are in which congressional district. But there's a lot more. Jeff has also figured out how many people in each county (or part thereof) are in a given district (that's column C), what percentage of each CD is made up by each county or county-part (column D), and finally, what percentage of each county is in a given CD (column E). Since counties are an easily understood and frequently used layer of political organization (for example, party endorsements are often made at the county level), this kind of information is very useful, since it lets you see how much sway a particular county has in a particular congressional district.

(I've changed the example from Arizona to New York)
For instance, if you open the New York tab, you'll see that 198,289 residents of Broome County live in NY-22, and those folks in Broome make up almost 28% of the congressional district's total population. But if you look at column E, you'll see that only 98.85% of Broome is place inside the 22nd—that means it's split among more than one district. Scrolling down (or searching on the word "Broome"), you'll see that there's also a teeny-tiny fraction of the county in NY-19 (just 2,311 people).

How the districts may shift

The CUNY Mapping Service has mapped the 2010 population counts by legislative district in New York, to gauge how the districts (state and Congress) may need to shift within and across regions. This does not yet account for the other issues that will play a central role in redistricting – compliance with federal statutes and court decisions, prison population counts for state & local districts, etc – but it’s an interesting first-cut analysis of what’s to come.

States Gaining Congressional Seats have More Hispanics

From Hispanic Busainess:

States set to gain congressional representatives have larger Hispanic populations than other states, the Pew Hispanic Center said Wednesday.

The center analyzed 2010 Census data. Researchers found the percentage of eligible voters that are Hispanic in states gaining seats is 15.2 percent. Those states that are losing seats or remaining flat average 5.4 percent...

Variation in Insurance Coverage Across Congressional Districts

New data on health insurance coverage from the American Community Survey show extensive variation in rates of private and public coverage and uninsurance across congressional districts in the United States. Rates of private coverage are lowest in districts that have higher poverty rates which tend to be concentrated in the South and West and uninsurance remains most serious in districts with low rates of private coverage. This analysis identifies the districts in which residents would have the most to gain from health reforms that are designed to increase health insurance coverage toward a higher and more uniform national standard

CQ Announces New Map That Shows 2008 Presidential Election Results By Congressional District

Congressional Quarterly Inc. has announced the launch of a new interactive map that shows the results of the 2008 presidential election by congressional district.

What if the 2008 presidential election had been re-run using a district-based system of awarding electoral votes — used only in two states — instead of the winner-take-all method that every other state uses?

The answer is that Barack Obama still would have beaten John McCain, though the Electoral College tally would have been closer than the actual 365-173 margin of victory.

According to a CQ Politics analysis, Obama would have beaten McCain 301-237 using a district-based system, under which a candidate receives two electoral votes for winning a state and one electoral vote for every congressional district he or she wins. Only Maine and Nebraska allocate electoral votes in this fashion.

The analysis found that Obama won 242 districts and McCain won 193 districts. Obama also posted another 59 electoral votes by carrying 28 states and the District of Columbia, which is entitled to three electoral votes under the 23rd Amendment. McCain would have received another 44 electoral votes as a result of winning 22 states.