We have heard and read a great deal recently about the alleged gerrymandering of State House and State Senate districts during the 2012 Reapportionment process. On this website we have argued consistently that Democrats were given an accessible map in the State House and failed to take advantage of the opportunities presented by this map during the 2012 cycle. The Senate map (as well as the Congressional one) we would argue was a politically motivated gerrymander that was comparable to some of maps drawn in states such as Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan where the GOP took advantage of the 2010 election landslide to cement a decade long permanent advantage in both the legislature and congressional delegations.
Today let us again focus on the State House. On Sunday we unveiled our initial House Race Ratings which essentially rated 77 seats as Republican 42 as Democrat and one as a toss-up. Yesterday, my colleague Katy Burnett penned an excellent article about the reapportionment process and current discussions related to it.
When the House results are compared to the Democratic performances at the top of the ticket in the two most recent statewide elections, a drop off has occurred between the big ticket races and down ballot legislative ones.
In 2012, President Obama carried 55 State House districts and was dangerously close to carrying several more. But House Democrats who were disorganized and did a very poor job of both recruiting candidates and identifying viable ones who were running that might be able to win, carried just 44 seats. This was in a reapportionment year when many Republicans were forced to run in new territory.
In 2010, Alex Sink carried 51 House Districts under the current map. The Democrats had a bad night across the state as that election was fought on a heavily gerrymandered 2002-2012 House map while the party was routed for other cabinet positions. The Democrats also lost four seats in the Congressional Delegation that day, the most seats lost by the Democrats in a single election in Florida since reconstruction.
Here are the numbers:
2012
Romney 65 Obama 55
Republican 76 Democrat 44
2010
Scott 69
Sink 51
A total of 58 House districts were carried by EITHER Sink or Obama and a total of 47 were carried by BOTH Sink and Obama. In other words, Democrats probably have a ceiling of seats but it is closer to 60 than 50 or 45 as some have argued.
A district by district breakdown of each House seat is below.
| HD | Obama 12 % | Sink 10 % |
| 1 | 37.8% | 37.2% |
| 2 | 38.5% | 42.0% |
| 3 | 21.9% | 25.5% |
| 4 | 25.7% | 25.9% |
| 5 | 25.7% | 34.9% |
| 6 | 27.9% | 30.5% |
| 7 | 35.5% | 48.2% |
| 8 | 76.3% | 78.2% |
| 9 | 52.0% | 63.4% |
| 10 | 29.8% | 38.1% |
| 11 | 28.9% | 33.1% |
| 12 | 39.0% | 38.2% |
| 13 | 66.1% | 63.3% |
| 14 | 64.5% | 65.3% |
| 15 | 43.3% | 41.4% |
| 16 | 35.6% | 37.7% |
| 17 | 30.0% | 33.8% |
| 18 | 27.2% | 28.1% |
| 19 | 30.8% | 36.6% |
| 20 | 64.0% | 65.4% |
| 21 | 47.1% | 54.5% |
| 22 | 39.9% | 42.7% |
| 23 | 38.4% | 40.9% |
| 24 | 41.8% | 42.5% |
| 25 | 43.2% | 45.4% |
| 26 | 56.6% | 56.1% |
| 27 | 50.4% | 49.0% |
| 28 | 46.1% | 46.8% |
| 29 | 44.5% | 44.8% |
| 30 | 50.2% | 50.6% |
| 31 | 40.6% | 42.3% |
| 32 | 43.2% | 42.9% |
| 33 | 32.9% | 35.5% |
| 34 | 38.4% | 41.8% |
| 35 | 45.6% | 46.1% |
| 36 | 52.1% | 49.0% |
| 37 | 42.0% | 43.8% |
| 38 | 45.6% | 44.2% |
| 39 | 45.6% | 40.8% |
| 40 | 46.2% | 45.1% |
| 41 | 48.7% | 45.8% |
| 42 | 49.6% | 44.8% |
| 43 | 73.4% | 64.1% |
| 44 | 46.3% | 44.9% |
| 45 | 67.7% | 63.7% |
| 46 | 83.7% | 81.0% |
| 47 | 49.8% | 52.5% |
| 48 | 70.4% | 63.5% |
| 49 | 59.3% | 55.6% |
| 50 | 45.4% | 45.1% |
| 51 | 42.9% | 44.0% |
| 52 | 39.1% | 40.3% |
| 53 | 48.6% | 46.6% |
| 54 | 39.7% | 40.1% |
| 55 | 37.8% | 40.2% |
| 56 | 41.0% | 43.2% |
| 57 | 41.9% | 43.2% |
| 58 | 46.4% | 46.3% |
| 59 | 49.2% | 48.0% |
| 60 | 45.5% | 49.7% |
| 61 | 83.7% | 80.6% |
| 62 | 64.5% | 58.7% |
| 63 | 52.6% | 52.3% |
| 64 | 43.2% | 46.1% |
| 65 | 44.9% | 47.6% |
| 66 | 46.7% | 48.3% |
| 67 | 51.6% | 51.7% |
| 68 | 53.5% | 54.9% |
| 69 | 50.8% | 52.5% |
| 70 | 73.3% | 76.2% |
| 71 | 44.0% | 45.6% |
| 72 | 47.6% | 49.5% |
| 73 | 36.4% | 40.0% |
| 74 | 42.4% | 44.9% |
| 75 | 42.1% | 42.5% |
| 76 | 35.3% | 35.3% |
| 77 | 41.3% | 37.9% |
| 78 | 44.2% | 42.1% |
| 79 | 45.5% | 41.0% |
| 80 | 39.6% | 36.3% |
| 81 | 60.4% | 62.8% |
| 82 | 38.2% | 42.9% |
| 83 | 50.8% | 48.0% |
| 84 | 53.0% | 52.4% |
| 85 | 47.3% | 50.0% |
| 86 | 59.0% | 59.9% |
| 87 | 68.4% | 61.7% |
| 88 | 82.3% | 80.4% |
| 89 | 47.5% | 49.0% |
| 90 | 63.0% | 63.9% |
| 91 | 58.7% | 65.3% |
| 92 | 73.7% | 70.6% |
| 93 | 47.2% | 48.2% |
| 94 | 82.8% | 81.6% |
| 95 | 85.8% | 83.6% |
| 96 | 60.7% | 60.5% |
| 97 | 65.3% | 64.9% |
| 98 | 60.5% | 62.2% |
| 99 | 61.1% | 62.0% |
| 100 | 56.9% | 59.5% |
| 101 | 78.4% | 76.4% |
| 102 | 84.7% | 84.5% |
| 103 | 54.3% | 47.2% |
| 104 | 58.2% | 60.0% |
| 105 | 50.3% | 45.0% |
| 106 | 30.0% | 31.6% |
| 107 | 85.1% | 85.1% |
| 108 | 88.7% | 87.5% |
| 109 | 87.2% | 87.8% |
| 110 | 49.4% | 39.8% |
| 111 | 47.4% | 34.2% |
| 112 | 53.5% | 49.9% |
| 113 | 62.7% | 56.0% |
| 114 | 49.6% | 49.3% |
| 115 | 48.8% | 50.6% |
| 116 | 45.0% | 39.3% |
| 117 | 79.7% | 79.1% |
| 118 | 50.5% | 46.5% |
| 119 | 49.8% | 44.7% |
| 120 | 49.9% | 50.8% |
The Florida Squeeze 
It’s not just the districts won by Obama and sink that are the story here Kartik!
It is also the seats were they were very competitive and the Democrats often don’t even field candidates.
The party has zero interest in any of there’s seats even though building a long-term culture of getting people to vote for Democrats requires running candidates in places where your top of the ticket is getting 46 or 47% of the vote. We are not talking about seats which are 70-30. We are talking about seats that are basically 55-45 or closer were the FDP refuses to run candidates.
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We have a group of housers who r disaffected + aligned with the former leader designate who made it impossible candidates this go around. It is their fault we are in this position for the cycle. This website has wanted to imply blame on the courthouse leadership when in fact blame should be pointed elsewhere.
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Always an excuse, right?
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How is the drop in districts 21 & 60 explained? Everywhere else Obama ran better than Sink!
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District 60 is Sink’s home district. District 21 is an area where Obama performed poorly in the western part of Alachua county in both 08 and 12.
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72 85 89 93 also went towards the Rs between 10 and 12. Look at 41 42 53! Do we have candidates in those ones?
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[…] Kartik put up a great chart of district-by-district D vs. R numbers here . What needs to happen is that the FDP need to look at the districts with healthy Democratic growth […]
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