Race, Redistricting, and Re-Election: The Fate of White Incumbent Democrats in the 1994 Congressional Elections
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15763/issn.2374-7781.2002.23.0.337-353Abstract
Critics of racially-motivated congressional redistricting have argued that the practice has numerous negative consequences. Following the Republican victories in the 1994 midterm elections, many critics concluded that the creation of “majority-minority” districts helped the GOP win control of the House of Representatives. In this article we subject that claim to empirical scrutiny. Using a multivariate regression model we examine the electoral fates of white Democrats who had survived the 1992 election. After controlling for other political and personal factors, changes in the racial composition of their districts had little negative impact on these members’ 1994 electoral margins. Moreover, we find that in the South, white Democrats who lost African-American constituents actually fared better than those who had gained them. These results indicate that the impacts of racially-based redistricting are more complicated than many have supposed.References
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