More fake news about “gerrymandering” being spun at the Argus. #1 factor in Dems losing? Not running candidates and acting like a political party.

After previewing their story with a video, the Argus Leader got around to posting it’s bizarre fantasy about how South Dakota’s poor, poor Democrats were hurt by big bad Republicans gerrymandering them into legislative extinction later in the day yesterday.  And it looks like we have another case of a story being written to somehow try to support a nakedly biased lede, while at the same time they ignore basic facts:

South Dakota’s election map is stacked against Democrats more than any other state in the nation, according to an Associated Press analysis.

Nearly 2 in 5 votes cast in 2016 state House races went to Democratic candidates, but the party captured only 14 percent of seats in the chamber.

and…

What the 2011 committee came up with significantly favored Republicans, according to the Associated Press analysis, designed to find instances where one political party won, widened or retained its grip on power through political gerrymandering.

The analysis concludes that, had South Dakota Republicans won eight more House seats than would have been expected based on the average vote share in districts.

“There are Democrats that can’t win because they’re in districts that have been gerrymandered for decades,” said Sam Parkinson, South Dakota Democratic Party executive director. “Just because you control the majority of seats doesn’t mean you should draw the boundaries.”

and..

“It’s a fantasy for the AP to say the Republican victories can be attributed to gerrymandering,” Dan Lederman, chair of the South Dakota Republican Party, said. “That margin of victory isn’t due to gerrymandering, it’s because of weakness in the Democratic Party.”

Read that here.

As I did yesterday, I’m still calling bullsh*t on the story which ignores and downplays basic facts.

The biggest factor which was ignored in the Argus article was that Democrats will always face difficulties in winning elections when the fail to run candidates. In the last eleciton Dems failed to run candidates in nearly 30% of the races in the State Senate, while Republicans conceded only 17% – and those were the only races that Dems won.

To it’s only credit, the article actually went out on a limb and mentioned voter registration in the tail end of the article, begrudgingly noting “South Dakota Democrats also face significant disadvantages in fundraising, voter registrations and statewide name recognition. Republicans entered the 2016 election with 252,116 registered voters compared to Democrats’ 170,694.”

As my father might derisively note to me when I state the overwhelmingly obvious, “No sh*t, Dick Tracy.

Is it possible that the overwhelming election of Republicans might also be largely attributable to the fact that the South Dakota population is comprised of an overwhelming number of Republicans, and has nothing to do with any ridiculous claims of drawing districts in an unfair manner?  Could be.  

When the Districts were drawn in 2011, they were not drawn in any different of a manner than they had before. And as Bob Mercer notes this morning, Democrats used to be able to do well after Republicans drew them:

Looking back to the 2001 redistricting, Republicans had a two-thirds majority in the House, with a 50-20 advantage in 2002 and a 49-21 advantage in 2003.

The Senate also was in two-thirds control of Republicans, as the chamber went from 24-11 to 26-9.

The 1992 redistricting came amid a brief resurgence, at least on the Senate side of the Capitol. The House of Representatives fluctuated somewhat.

Republicans held a 45-25 advantage in 1991 and a 42-29 advantage in 1993 before returning to 46-24 in 1995.

The Senate switched from an 18-17 advantage for Republicans in 1991, to a 20-15 advantage for Democrats in 1993. The chamber returned to Republican control in 1995 at 19-16.

Read that here.

In two previous redistricting efforts, (1991 and 2001) Republicans actually lost seats after redistricting, and in 1992, Democrats were able to take the Senate Chamber after a Republican led redistricting. Which the Argus conveniently ignored, because it conflicted with the fairy tale they’re trying to spin.

B-BUT HOW DID THEY DO THAT WITH EVIL REPUBLICANS DRAWING THE LINES?

As I noted yesterday, in South Dakota, our redistricting abilities are limited, and the rules require that certain boundaries be followed, and that the population must be split up as evenly as possible.

§ 5.   Legislative reapportionment. The Legislature shall apportion its membership by dividing the state into as many single-member, legislative districts as there are state senators. House districts shall be established wholly within senatorial districts and shall be either single-member or dual-member districts as the Legislature shall determine. Legislative districts shall consist of compact, contiguous territory and shall have population as nearly equal as is practicable, based on the last preceding federal census.

Read that here.

In addition to that, South Dakota Legislative redistricting typically ends up under review by the federal government to ensure minority representation, so whether Republicans like it or not, it has to be played pretty straight.

The biggest difference between previous redistricting and this last time is that Democrats used to have a much more organized presence, and put their efforts into voter registration and fielding a full slate of candidates.  In recent years, actually acting as a political party has been abandoned in favor of promoting ballot measures as panacea to their electoral woes.  And as I’ve said time and again, and has been proven time and again – IT DOES NOT WORK.

But I’m getting off track. I can go on about what Democrats do wrong in elections in this state for hours. This was about the ridiculous story which ignores basic facts.

The naked bias against Republicans being exhibited more and more by the Argus Leader is just tiring at this point. And this article is just yet another example of it.

17 thoughts on “More fake news about “gerrymandering” being spun at the Argus. #1 factor in Dems losing? Not running candidates and acting like a political party.”

  1. Fake news in South Dakota- when are we going to wake up and stop buying the Argus Leader? Newspapers like the Argus wouldn’t even exist if it wasn’t for the money they get from local governments being required to publish public notices.

    Argus needs to be kicked off the “newspaper welfare” – no more public notice requirements!

  2. Considering there are a few areas of SD that are almost entirely of the Democrat party and a large number of the “nearly 2 in 5 votes” come from those areas, it is not surprising that only 14% of the seats were won by Democrats. If a party has less than 40% of the vote, in what world would a statistician expect there should be a higher percentage of seats won by the Democrats?

  3. It is really easy to blame this on redistricting, but that is really misreading the situation. Lets look at District 27, which encompasses almost the entire Pine Ridge Reservation. That district has a large Native American population, and a large Democratic voter registration advantage. The AP may look at that and assume it is done to keep all the democratic voters out of other more republican districts. However, that was done to comply with prior judicial orders regarding the Civil Rights Act. That is true in a lot of other “reservation districts.” However – note, District 27 still has two GOP House members.

    What does this mean? That democrats are simply under-performing, as a start. With the voter registration advantage the Dems have there, it is almost unimaginable to expect GOP victories in that district. Oglala Lakota County was in the top 5 (or so) of highest percentage districts that voted for President Obama in the nation, yet they elected 2 GOP members to the House. That is true in every competitive district as well. The GOP simply has won every close district the last few cycles. This could be for various reasons, but the key is that you can not blame it on redistricting. It is more likely because of GOTV machines and the power of incumbency thereafter.

    Second, with the Civil Rights Act court orders requiring that the reservation districts be drawn as they are, you see an effect of increasing the strength of other GOP leaning districts. Those districts oddly result in the effect that Gerrymandering is intended to create (packing as many of the voters of the minority party in the fewest districts).

    Most of our districts are fairly rural, and it isn’t going to change much. Does it matter that much if Hand County or Kingsbury County is with Beadle County? A little, but not much. The days of Farmer’s Union Democrats controlling those areas has passed. There are just too many R’s in rural South Dakota (currently) to be competitive for most Democrats. Are there some districts on the margin in Sioux Falls or Aberdeen that could be redrawn which may result in more parity, ie you could redraw the cathedral district into other SF districts – but that has the potential effect of actually helping the GOP in the current climate. I don’t think there is any rational way to redraw Rapid City to make competitive districts unless you intentionally try to block all the democrats into one district, which would make all the other districts even more uncompetitive.

    In short, this is complicated. You could write a doctoral dissertation on this. But the article is way over simplified.

  4. So in other words, District 15 in Sioux Falls is merely an act of God, huh? Even though every ten years it continues to make a creep to the south at District 9’s expense, but to the benefit of Districts 12 and 13, in terms of Republican numbers for Districts 9, 12, and 13, and Democratic numbers in 15.

    Gerrymandering is not only a partisan issue, its an issue for Republicans too, and an issue for urban and rural voters as well. The District 15 creep is obviously designed by Republican leaders to maintain dominant Republican legislative districts in 12 and 13 so as to protect the political ambitions of the elite within the Republican Party in Sioux Falls. But this is at some expense to Republicans in District 9, who experienced some Democratic wins or at least competitiveness over the years, but that is okay for the Republican elite, because they tend to live in 12 and 13 and not 9.

    Not to mention, that there is also an urban/rural divide in our current legislative districting, where Sioux Falls is being denied its true representation in Pierre and as a result the rural areas around Sioux Falls are asked to accept a watered down representation of their mainly rural concerns. What I mean by this is that Sioux Falls based on its population should have like seven legislative districts which are completely made up of only Sioux Falls residents, but in actuality there are only four, which means that both urban and rural concerns are watered downed by this districting or gerrymandering, but once again, I will allege that this is all done to protect the Republican elites in Sioux Falls, so that they can win and win without competitive races….

  5. EC,

    I am all for healthy competition. It makes us better in our businesses, our professions and political ideas by studying the competition to see what has worked for them and how we may adapt it to get that edge. If one is a candidate and feels confident in what they have to offer and serve voters than I’d say “bring it” and have a great debate and contest! Let the voters decide! That includes not excluding other political parties nor unaffiliated candidates if they have the support. Let the contest be fair and square. Otherwise it is a hollow victory.

    The caliber of candidates gets better with increased competition and oversight, better government and guess who benefits in the end? The citizen/taxpayers.

  6. Miranda,

    I totally agreed with you on the issue of competitiveness. In fact, is not competitiveness the true kinetic energy of a capitalistic society? Why the Republicans do not value this when it comes to legislative districting speaks loading of their parochial gerrymandering intent, where the interests of a few is paramount and those interests are more about protecting the elite than even their own party as a whole.

    The root of the evil in the obvious gerrymandering that goes on in this state is not Republican versus Democratic, rather it is the elite versus the people and all good South Dakotans, regardless of their partisan favor, should be concerned about this.

  7. EC

    District 15, also known as the Cathedral District, is addressed by me earlier, and could be drawn out of existence. However, that district makes sense geographically as is. If that happens, you may have slightly more competitive races in Sioux Falls, but given the current fortunes of the Democratic Party in SD, it’s my belief that you’re more likely to lose Democratic seats rather than gain if that were to happen.

    1. Well, District 15 “geographically” is a new geography every 10 years, as it is continually moved south to protect Republicans in Districts 12 and 13. I think it would be healthier for the Democratic Party if its potential and or credible and predictable wins could be more than just 15, however. But as long as we are enablers to this “Refugee District” for Democrats (Dist. 15), then the dreams of a two party state or at least a two party reality in Sioux Falls/Minnehaha County, where almost a 1/4 of the citizens of the state live, is merely a dream…

      In the last two cycles, Democrat Susan Randall beat at least one of her Republican opponents in Minnehaha/District 12 for the State House, but she still lost those races because of Lincoln/District 12; which is a demonstrative example of how District 15 “creep” protects Republican candidates in 12 and 13 and especially elite Republican candidates.

      1. Everything you said is wrong.

        Due to population increase in South Dakota, District 15 needed to be geographically expanded to increase its population. Where, exactly, would you prefer it to be expanded if not South?

        Republicans win because THERE ARE MORE REPUBLICANS.

        1. What? If it is because of population growth, then wouldn’t it contract?
          Instead of shifting to the south and the northern parts becoming part of 9?

          “Republicans win because THERE ARE MORE REPUBLICANS”… And they win even more because of gerrymandering……

            1. Perhaps, but 15 even with its southern migration has stayed solidly Democratic and this migration has helped to make 12 and 13 more Republican. While 9 has become more competitive or maintained a competitiveness as it as acquired the former northern tier of 15….

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