Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Minnesota Census Data Released

The long wait is over, the Census bureau today released the comprehensive state level data for Minnesota. Right now I'm just going to go over the congressional numbers and will dive further into the weeds in later posts.

Way back in January I used 2009 estimates to breakdown how the districts will have to change. Now we have the real numbers. To refresh your memory, the total population of Minnesota was counted as 5,303,925 for an ideal district size of 662,991 (there will be three districts with one less person).

Here's the official Census populations of the districts [difference from ideal size]:

CD1: 644,787 [-18,204]
CD2: 732,515 [+69,524]
CD3: 650,185 [-12,806]
CD4: 614,624 [-48,367]
CD5: 616,482 [-46,509]
CD6: 759,478 [+96,487]
CD7: 625,512 [-37,479]
CD8: 660,342 [-2,649]

The biggest difference between these numbers and the ones I used in that January post are in CD's 3 and 8. It had looked like CD3 was going to be the closet district to ideal but it turned out to be CD8. In fact, looking at these numbers CD8 looks to be the district that will experience the least amount of change.

The numbers released today brought some of the districts closer to ideal than the estimates were expecting, CD's 1, 7 and 8, while the rest got further away. CD's 2 and 6 gained more than expected while CD's 3, 4 and 5 didn't grow as fast as estimated.

What this means is what everyone already knows, the Twin Cities and Western burbs are growing more slowly than the exurbs. The real news from these numbers though is that CD8 is less likely to be the point of contention that was previously expected.

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On a related note I got this email today:

Draw the Line Minnesota Officially Launches!

Draw the Line Minnesota is a growing coalition, led by Common Cause Minnesota, League of Women Voters Minnesota, Minnesota Council of Nonprofits and TakeAction Minnesota. We're looking for more partners. Please let us know if you'd like to sign onto our principles, have a conversation, or have us come and speak to your board or staff on redistricting.

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