The next face of CD22

The Chronicle brings up an interesting point about CD22:

The two words that usually follow U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay's name in the news are "Sugar Land."

After DeLay leaves Congress, some political experts say, the next representative of the 22nd District will likely come from Houston, not his hometown.

Because of redistricting, the area he represents is no longer dominated by the landscaped subdivisions and small towns of Fort Bend County. The district takes in parts of Fort Bend, Harris, Brazoria and Galveston counties, with Harris making up the largest piece.

I guess that depends on how you look at it. Both the Harris and Fort Bend pieces of the district recorded a smidge under 110,000 votes in 2004 for this race (Galveston had 22,000, Brazoria 31,000). I presume the Harris piece has more voters in it overall, with Fort Bend having slightly better turnout this time around. But the point that this district is no longer "Fort Bend County, plus some surrounding areas" is accurate, and may very well be a factor in future elections.

This, however, is just wrong:

[Bob Stein, professor of political science at Rice University] said DeLay has strong support in all four counties.

There's no quotes here, so maybe what Stein actually said was misrepresented. But please. Here are the results from Galveston:

Tom DeLay           REP  9,193 41.46% 

Richard R. Morrison DEM 12,377 55.82% 

Tom Morrison        LIB    400  1.80% 

Michael Fjetland    IND    203  0.91% 

If that's "strong support", then I'd like to know what "weak support" looks like. And let's not forget, DeLay drew only 53% in Fort Bend despite moving several strongly Democratic precincts there into CD09. Again I say, how is that "strong"?

Posted by Charles Kuffner on April 25, 2005 to Election 2006 | TrackBack