What To Expect In Majority-Minority Districts
Rep. Mayra Flores, along with Monica de la Cruz, Cassy Garcia and Carmen Maria Montiel, are four of the Latina candidates vying to represent one of the more than a half-dozen majority-minority districts in Texas.
ALLISON DINNER / AFP / GETTY IMAGES
After congressional lines were redrawn following the 2020 census, the country is now home to 118 majority-minority districts — districts where racial or ethnic minorities comprise more than half of the district’s voting bloc. These districts theoretically prevent the dilution of minority voters into many different districts to give voters the chance, as a dominant voting bloc, to elect minority-preferred candidates and fuel more diverse representation in Congress.
Right now, that’s true for 69 percent of majority-minority districts, where 41 representatives are Black, 32 are Hispanic, seven are Asian American/Pacific Islander, and one is indigenous. As the Voting Rights Act intended, districts like Georgia’s 13th Congressional District and Mississippi’s 2nd District, where over 60 percent of the population is Black, for example, are represented by candidates who look like their constituents. The vast majority of majority-minority districts are currently represented by Democrats, though there are seven Republicans representing majority-minority districts in Texas.
We shouldn’t expect these numbers to change that much after the midterm elections, though — most of these races are already solidly Democratic or Republican. In open seats, there are four candidates of color who are the clear favorites to replace the white incumbents: Shri Thanedar in Michigan’s 13th, Greg Casar in Texas’s 35th, Robert Garcia in California’s 42nd and Delia Ramirez in Illinois’s 3rd.
In competitive races, it’s a similar story. Republican Mayra Flores, a Mexican immigrant defending Texas’s 34th District, is facing Vicente Gonzalez, a Hispanic Democrat who previously served Texas’s 15th District. The race is a toss-up, per FiveThirtyEight’s final forecast, but regardless of what happens, the district — which has a voting-age population that is 89 percent Hispanic — will have a Hispanic representative.
We will keep you updated on the midterms’ implication for the diversity of Congress, but as we’ve reported before, the latest redistricting cycle failed to increase representation for people of color, so it’s likely there won’t be a substantial change.