In my previous diary, I discussed that a New Mexican movement existed between the 1970s and 1990s to divide the state into as many as three entities. The southern portion of New Mexico would have been attached to the Trans-Pecos region of Texas and be a new state called Transpecos, the eastern section would be attached to the Texan Panhandle, and the remainder would remain as New Mexico. I decided to take up the Transpecos cause, but trash the panhandle idea. In this diary, I will examine the resulting state of New Mexico.
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New Mexico
0 Republican - 2 Democratic - 0 Swing
The state is now actually not Hispanic majority, and in fact has a white plurality at 45%. Hispanic percentage plummets to 40% with the loss of Las Cruces. Obama performance is at 60% and the average Democratic performance is just above 55%. At 1.5 million people, the state now has only two districts.
District 1 (Blue): The white percentage is at 45%, the Hispanic percentage is at 35%, and the Native American percentage is at 15%. Obama performance is at 60% and the average Democratic performance is at 56%. Population bases in Sante Fe and Farmington.
District 2 (Green): The white percentage is at 44% and the Hispanic percentage is at 45%. Obama performance is at 60% and the average Democratic performance is at 55%. Population base is quite clearly in Albuquerque and nowhere else.
34 Republican - 32 Democratic - 16 Swing
This summary takes into consideration Louisiana, Mississippi, West Florida, and East Florida from my
first diary in this series, Tennessee, Nickajack, and the version of Alabama which is the smallest and has only 4 districts from the
next diary, Sequoyah, Minnesota, and Oklahoma from the
diary after that, the two states from the
previous diary, and this new and smaller New Mexico.
Let's allot the swing districts to the parties (half to each), ending with a final breakdown of 42-40. (I've omitted the phrase about the current breakdown in these state because, well, we haven't gotten all the way though New Mexico and Texas yet). This relative gain of seats alone would put us within striking distance of retaking the House. Granted, 2010 would have wiped us out in both Florida (probably leaving us with no more than the 6 seats we have there now), Tennessee (likely giving us only Memphis's first district), and Oklahoma and Minnesota (where none of the tossup districts would be ours, perhaps save for Collin Peterson's district, and even perhaps the Iron Range district as our loss in 2010), but we'd come back strongly in any neutral year.
Update on Senate: 58-50
As of this moment in the series there are 53 states in the country. The three new additions are West Florida, Nickajack, and Sequoyah. This, ofcourse, means that there are some partisan changes. All six senators from the three new states would be quite obviously held by the Republican party, so their total goes up to 53. However, East Florida would send two Democrats two D.C. instead of just one. Which means that Democrats increase their total to 54, as Republican lose one seat bringing their total to 52. Tennessee and Texas would now likely send one Democrat and one Republican, so now we're at 56-50. Transpecos, being a new state, would send two Democrats to the Senate, taking the total to 58-50. This, despite the addition of so many new states which favor the Republicans, actually represents a net
gain of two seats for Democrats (a gain of .7% against the Republicans). Although Democrats are the majority in the chamber, they are now 7 seats below the 65 votes (3/5 of 108) required to invoke cloture.