The Progression of Tennessee House District 13

co-authored by Jack Vaughan

Let’s explore “the most interesting State House district in Tennessee,” as co-author Jack Vaughan put it. Tennessee House District 13 is one of the 26 out of 99 seats in the lower house of Tennessee’s legislature held by a Democrat and has consistently hosted the most competitive races in the state. This first set of maps shows the last five elections for this seat, and it has in fact gone back and forth:

As Vaughan says in his tweet sharing the map:

Rep. Gloria Johnson has been on the ballot all five times HD-13 has had its current boundaries, winning 3/5 times.

This Knoxville-based district has become more favorable to Democrats due to the city's shifts leftward. It's one of two House seats Democrats hold in Knox County. pic.twitter.com/GaQriDMNNK

— Jack Vaughan (@theJackVaughan) April 8, 2021

Knoxville, like many metro areas across the country, is trending Democratic. The part of the district north of the Tennessee River has managed to outweigh the more conservative, rural southern areas of Knox County added to the district by the Republican legislature in the 2010 redistricting cycle in an attempt to swing the historically working-class district to the right. The recent shift is most notable after the election of President Donald Trump in 2016, where the district went from being within a percentage point or two to being above a 5% margin for the Democrat.

State Representative Gloria Johnson has also proven herself to be a strong candidate in Knox County, such as in her 2012 win despite GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney carrying the district by 4.6%

The margin shifts visible in this second set of maps shows that even the Republican-leaning southern portions of Knox County included in HD 13 are moving a little to the left. The significant shifts, though, have occurred in the portions of west and north Knoxville that make up the northern half of HD 13, such as the margin shift of 37% towards Democrats in the West Knoxville neighborhood of Sequoyah Hills and the double-digit shifts in North Knoxville.

HD 13 is somewhat of a microcosm of Knox County: composed of an urban & suburban core with a sizable rural population. The district’s trends mirror those in the county, exceeding double-digit shifts in favor of Democrats the past decade.

Redistricting for 2022 is a complete unknown, however, and Rep. Johnson may face another unfavorable district. She succeeded in 2012, and she may well do it again.

Arkansas Gubernatorial Election 2018

Since the Clinton administration, Arkansas has trended more and more Republican.  Twitter user @yeahitsJ0sh points out that Governor Asa Hutchinson increased his margin upon re-election.  Similarly, and despite a Biden gain on Clinton by 43,438 votes, President Donald Trump surpassed his 2016 margin in 2020 by nearly a percentage point in an already very red state.  Josh says:

1. I think at this point, we all expect Sarah Huckabee Sanders to (unfortunately) be the Republican nominee and the next Governor of Arkansas.
Current Governor Asa Hutchinson was reelected in 2018 by a margin of almost 35 points, considerably more than his first win in 2014. pic.twitter.com/Yv5nRoBMTO

— Josh (@yeahitsJ0sh) May 29, 2021

 This is a finely detailed precinct map, so definitely zoom in and check out the insets:

Iowa's 1st Congressional District Elections 2018 and 2020. A.K.A. the Rise and Fall of Abby Finkenauer

I think that Representative Abby Finkenauer is one of the most interesting freshman of the 2018 House.  Second youngest woman ever elected to Congress by just under ten months, she never attracted as much media attention, positive or negative, as her classmate Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.  However, her 2018 win was arguably more impressive.

Finkenauer's Iowa House district was based in the southern half of Dubuque, Iowa, which gave her a strong base of support in the 2018 Democratic primary.  However, 15 out of the 20 counties, including Finkenauer's home base of Dubuque County, in Iowa's 1st Congressional District as drawn in the 2010s are "pivot counties", counties that voted for Obama twice then flipped to Trump in 2016.  Democratic enthusiasm was incredibly high in 2018 but Republican enthusiasm nearly met it, making Finkenauer's 16,900 vote win (5.1%) in the swingy 1st District an awesome feat.

These great maps by Twitter user @bob37689044 show how she ended up losing the next cycle:

In her 2018 election against 2-term incumbent Republican Representative Rod Blum, Finkenauer visibly succeeded in keeping the more rural areas of her district competitive, even winning Winneshiek County. Meanwhile, she ran up the votes in the urban and suburban counties of Dubuque, Black Hawk, and Linn.

During a presidential election year, Finkenauer couldn't benefit from the "throw the bums out" effect of a midterm.  She lost ground in Dubuque, while her performance across the rural counties plummeted, including a flip in Winneshiek.  Also, the Republican Party did a good job recruiting a strong challenger in now-Rep. Ashley Hinson, a former news anchor, like Finkenauer an Iowa House member, and a woman of the same generation.

Simply put, Republican turnout went up across the board, and so down went Finkenauer.  However, I'll leave you with this tantalizing bit of gossip:

In honour of Abby Finkenauer's rumoured run for Iowa Senate next year I decided to map her performance in Iowa District 1, in 2018 & 2020 and vs each other. (from left to right, 2018, 2020, % change in margin) pic.twitter.com/rF6JrR0CWr

— bob (@bob37689044) May 27, 2021