The 2011 redistricting in Missouri gave us some very weird maps. In the Fifth District, we have the “dead lizard” district in which the Republican suburbs of Kansas City in Eastern Jackson County were carved out and moved in with the Sixth District (northern Missouri) which is mostly on the other side of the Missouri River. Meanwhile, some of the more Democratic suburbs of Kansas City (and the part of Kansas City north of the Missouri River) became the core of the Fifth District as well as what were some Democratic leaning counties east of Kansas City along the Missouri River that had historically been part of the Fourth District (western Missouri). In the Third District (eastern Missouri), you have the “claw” surrounding the St. Louis area on three sides. The Second District (suburban St. Louis) took in some of the more conservative suburbs of St. Louis in St. Charles County. The 2011 maps were the product of a General Assembly in which the Republicans were just shy of a supermajority and needed to get a small number of Democratic votes to overcome the Democratic governor’s veto.
In this next round of redistricting, not a lot has changed in terms of population. The First District (St. Louis and its inner suburbs) has continued to shrink relative to the rest of the state and will need about 35,000 people. The Eighth District (southeastern Missouri) will need around 7,000 people. Meanwhile, the Seventh District (southwestern Missouri including Springfield and Branson) will need to shed around 14,000 people. There are a lot of split precincts in the current map, so the exact surpluses of the remaining districts (and the exact shortfall in the Eighth) is hard to determine, but everything will need to be shifted somewhat.
What has changed is that there is now a Republican governor. While the Republicans do not have to make any concessions to Democrats to pass a bill, there will be some restraints caused by the need to comply with the Voting Rights Act. In other words, the Republicans are unable to carve up the two Democratic districts to get a clean 8-0 sweep of the state. But they can try to draw lines that improve the chances of keeping a 6-2 majority.
There are going to be two real questions when the General Assembly meets in the fall: 1) how much of the change in the Trump years is permanent; and 2) which legislators want to be in Congress.
On the first question, this matters most for the Second, Fifth, and Sixth. The Second was pretty good for Republicans in 2012 and 2014, but by 2020 it was a toss-up district. If you use the numbers for the decade as a whole or the early part of the decade, it’s not that hard to draw the lines, but it’s much harder to draw the lines if you assume that the 2020 results are the baseline numbers. Likewise, the rural parts added to the Fifth used to be more Democratic and the suburban parts added to the Sixth used to be more Republican. The compromise to aid both parties keep their districts from 2011 may not make as much sense in 2021.
On the second question, Missouri has an open Senate seat. Already, one representative (Vickie Hartlzer) from the Fourth has added her name to the growing list of Republican candidates. There is also talk of Jason Smith (Eighth District) and Ann Wagner (Second District) running. If you have three of the six Republican incumbents opting against seeking reelection, that leaves some room for state senators and state representatives to tinker with the lines to move more of their base into one of the open districts and move the base of potential opponents out of the district. With the exception of the Second District, these changes should have minimal impact on the general election, but they could have a big impact on the Republican primaries in these districts.
At the present time, the First District is majority minority with African-Americans having a very narrow majority of the district. As none of the adjoining precincts are majority minority, it is likely that African-Americans will dip below 50% in the new district and will have to rely on the support of other minorities to have a majority. But the First should remain solidly Democratic, and African-Americans should be the majority in the Democratic primary.
Given that Republicans are in complete control of the process in Missouri, my expectation is that the First District will gain some Democratic precincts in eastern St. Louis County. The Second District will get some Republican precincts in St. Charles County and Jefferson County from the Third District. The Eighth will also gain some precincts in Jefferson County from the Third Distrct. The Third will gain back its losses by shifting into Audrain County (from the Fourth and Sixth) and Camden County (from the Fourth). The Fourth (and the Eighth) will gain Webster County from the Seventh. The Fourth will gain part of Polk County from the Seventh and part of Saline County from the Fifth. The Fifth will gain a tiny part of Jackson County back from the Sixth.
The net effect of these changes will be that African-Americans will drop from 51% in the old First District to 49% in the new First District. The Second District will go from an R+4 district to an R+7 district. (Because the core of the First District is so solidly Democratic, the move of lean Democrat precincts to the First District actually makes both the First District and the Second District more favorable for Republicans.) Of course, these are the minimal version of changes which assume a general intent to keep the current map mostly intact.
The Democrat’s best hopes in Missouri is that the Census estimates are significantly off. If the First District is not significantly underpopulated. there are only a couple of precincts that the Republicans could switch between the First District and the Second District that would aid Republican goals. While a swing of a couple of hundred votes would definitely be doable from simply exchanging precincts if the current populations met the constitutional requirements, the big changes will come from having to move more of the Democratic leaning suburbs in eastern and northern St. Louis County into the First District leaving the Republican leaning suburbs in western St. Louis County as the core of the new Second District.
But all of this returns us to the questions asked above. If you consider the numbers from 2012-2020, these new lines make the Second District look very good for the Republicans (a likely win by around 10%) But if you just consider more recent history, the Second District might still be a toss-up district. There are some ways to make bigger changes that would move some Democratic precincts from the Second District to the Third District, but that would require the Third District crossing over into St. Louis County. Whether the Republicans opt to do that remains to be seen.
On the other hand, the changes over the past decade have made it impossible to draw a second toss-up district on the western side of the state. While you could have drawn such a district in 2011, it would not have been a toss-up district by the 2020 elections.
In short, Missouri will probably stay a 6-2 state for the next several cycles. But if current trends continue, the Second District may be back in play by 2028.
