Distortion and Revolution in Texas U.S. Congressional Redistricting Politics: 1972-2014

Over 42 years and 22 US congressional elections between 1972 and 2014, Texas evolved from a state controlled by the Democratic Party since Reconstruction to one dominated by the Republican Party. This thesis examines the relationship between measures of district compactness and changing demographics (decreasing non-Hispanic White percentage and increasing Hispanic percentage) on a measure of electoral bias, as measured by a metric called distortion during this transition. Distortion is the difference between the percentage of seats won by a party with the percentage of votes it received in a statewide congressional election. Using a general linear regression model, the research finds that distortion decreases as compactness increases, while demographic variables do not significantly affect distortion.

Name thesis:degree_name

Geography

Level thesis:degree_level

Masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Geography

Year

2015

Author dc:creator

• Hunter, Willard B

Contributors dc:contributor

• Lippitt, Christopher
• Xiao, Danqing
• Rocca, Michael

• Texas Redistricting Delay Partisan Bias compactness demographics

Language dc:language

English

Identifier

https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/geog_etds/28

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:digitalrepository.unm.edu:geog_etds-1027