The New State(s) of Representation: The Role of Redistricting

• In Event: Local Political Context and Representation

Abstract

In this paper, we focus on how state redistricting processes influence the supply of minority candidates and outcomes for minority representation, examining over-time and cross-state effects from 2014 to 2022 in both primary and general state legislative elections. Our first set of analyses take a deeper look at the racial/ethnic district percentage or “threshold” necessary to see minority candidates run for office in a district. We find little evidence of minority group-level differences in this percentage, but see that overall the threshold has decreased over time. Furthermore, when looking at open seat state legislative elections, we find that minority candidates often emerge from districts where their group is less than 40% of the district population. Finally, we show that the burgeoning number of minority Republican candidates in recent election cycles seek office and win in districts where their racial/ethnic group makes up an even smaller, sometimes electorally insignificant, share of the population.

Our second set of analyses explores state-level differences, with an eye toward variation between states depending on who controls the redistricting process. Court battles in the 1990s and mid-2000s highlighted a potential tradeoff between the creation of majority-minority districts and partisan interests: when Democrats controlled redistricting, they created minority “influence” districts that were majority-White, and Republicans packed minority voters into “supermajority” minority districts. In the 2010s and 2020s, however, this tradeoff largely disappeared as the parties further polarized on race and both parties began creating similar kinds of majority-minority districts when in power to maximize their partisan chances of victory. Instead, the emergence of independent redistricting commissions in the 2010s, ostensibly to curb partisan gerrymandering, led to the preservation of heavily majority-minority but racially mixed districts where minority candidates from multiple groups run for office against one another. As a result, the confluence of racial polarization, partisan polarization, and a diversifying country means that the exact group population district threshold is less important for minority representation than the broader partisan, racial, and redistricting context producing the district itself.

Authors

• Paru Shah, Rutgers University

• Eric Gonzalez Juenke, Michigan State University

• Bernard L. Fraga, Emory University