My Clothes Are Packed and I Want to Go, Idaho, Oh, Idaho

After tackling Washington on Sunday, today I look toward a neighboring state whose legislature is similar in structure to that of Washington, but where Democrats find themselves in much less fertile territory - Idaho. Idaho's 70 legislators are divided into 35 multi-member districts, with each district also elected one state senator. Because of the overlapping districts, I'm again presenting these results as one chart, and will continue to include the 50/50 rating so that everyone can better piece together where these districts fall in comparison to their own states of interest.



Idaho's results are very similar to what we found in Nebraska - a lot of territory outside of Democratic reach, with an urban hub that could support legislators who were not just Democratic in name, but on policy as well. There has been lots of mention on Daily Kos Elections about the possibility for a Boise-based Congressional District if population trends continue through 2022, and from my data, I would not be surprised to see something very similar to what we have in Nebraska today - an urban centered district that is competitive territory, coupled with two seats that would be incredibly difficult to contest. Below I have constructed a graph of both states LDI, and 50/50 scores - not only do they track each other incredibly closely, but as 50/50 shows, even when you don't center the indexes around the state average, they still produce incredibly close results.



We've looked at a couple of states where Democrats have struggled - Maine and Nebraska in particular - and noted that the steeper the dropoff from the Democratic vote centers, the more problems the party seems to have. To this effect, Idaho might actually be in a better position than the other state - despite being incredibly conservative territory to start out with, the 50/50 scores show that first quarter of Democratic-leaning seats, the party remains competitive with Republicans, with performance only tailing off towards the end. You can see this on the graph, in the area where the red dotted-line first crosses the blue dotted-line until they cross again.

Now, granted, we are only talking about 25% of the legislature, and that is certainly no majority. But given the current composition, that isn't a bad benchmark to aim for. Growth in the Boise area will be conducive to stronger Democratic performance, and the 2008 election should have offered a bit of hope to Idaho Democrats, as Obama outperformed Kerry's numbers across the board, following the national swing. Picking up these seats will grow the bench, encourage others to run, and hopefully expand the playing field even further.

Finally, as a housekeeping note, I have been sorting out the remaining states and organizing them by how good their available information is. So far, the one state that I can find only abysmal data for is Massachusetts. Any readers able to link me to solid election results provided by the state? In return, I'll share with you my favorite Idaho song: