Southern Republican Subnational Advancement: The Redistricting Explanation

Authors

  • Joseph A. Aistrup

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15763/issn.2374-7781.1995.16.0.15-32

Abstract

Implicit in numerous explanations concerning the Republicans’ problems in the South is the rationale that the Democrats gerrymander away any Republican gains. However, with the enforcement of provisions o f the Voting Rights Act, others have found evidence that it is the Republicans who gain from the redistricting process. This article tests these propositions by analyzing the extent o f bias and the swing ratio for southern state legislative contests both before and after the 1970s and the 1980s redistricting, respectively, as well as controlling for single-member (SMD) and multimember (MMD) districts. We find that the orthodoxy described above is not strongly supported. The district lines for contested elections were not substantially biased toward the Democrats in the first place, and the bias of the representational system does not show a substantial movement toward the GOP after the switch from MMDs to SMDs. Democrats appear to benefit from redistricting as a result of a decline in the swing ratio, thus making their incumbents better protected from aggregate swings in voter preference.

References

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Published

1995-04-01

Issue

Vol. 16: Spring 1995

Section

Articles

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