Democrats failed to tie the AZ house because one person lost a multimember +18 Clinton district

[jimrtex]

https://twitter.com/TossupReport/status/1330912913226403841
LOL, AZ Dems win the FDP party award at the local level atleast.(however they are doing fine federally)

Reminder that both chambers were heavily gerrymandered in Favor of Democrats by abusing population deviation.I assume however that Mathis may have overpacked some districts as they  were probably swing in 2012 like AZ 9th at the federal level.

Arizona elects two representatives and one senator from each legislative district. It has become common practice for the weaker party in a district to run one candidate for representative. In fact, no legislative district in Arizona had 2 Democrats and 2 Republicans running for the House. There were 5 of 30 where the minority party did not even bother challenging the dominant party.

Not all voters are smart enough to vote for two. This likely favors Republicans. Some may want to split their vote to prove that they are "bipartisan". This may disfavor Republicans.

Of course there is some likelihood that minority party voters will vote for their senate candidate, their house candidate, and one of the other party house candidates. But still if there is an uneven split, then a minority candidate may slip through.

In fact, there were 3 legislative district where the House delegation is split. In two of those, there is a Republican senator and a split House district. But those were the two closest Senate races (52.5% to 47.5%, or so).

In those two races, the Republican representative candidates ran about 5% behind the  senate candidate, while the single Democratic candidate ran about 5% ahead of the senate candidate.

IOW, perhaps 10% of Republican senate voters did not vote for two Republican representatives, either voting for only one, or voting for a Republican and a Democrat. Some of the Democrat senate voters may not have voted for two representatives, but they mostly would have voted for the one Democrat. If they voted for a Democrat and a Republican, they may have had a bias toward one or the other.

This small split is enough for a Democratic representative to slip through.

LD-4, the district that elected a Democratic senator and a split House delegation is quite remarkable. There were NO Republican candidates on the ballot in 2016 and 2018. There was a Green candidate one year, and a Republican write-in the other.

LD-4 is drawn to look compact, but in links Tucson and Phoenix with a chunk of Yuma thrown in (about 30,000 votes were cast in Maricopa, 30,000 in Yuma, and 10,000 in Pima). Looking at the map, I would have guessed Tucson was dominant, but it appears the area around Goodyear is dominant.

The Republican senate candidate is black, and a youth inspirational speaker. He dropped out of high school and was directionless. He joined the US Army 9 years later, so I'm figuring dropout at 16 and join the Army at 25. He apparently drew enthusiastic support in Maricopa County. There has been explosive growth in the Buckeye and Goodyear areas which may have helped Republican candidates.

The Democratic senator from the district is from Yuma, as is the Democratic representative who ran for re-election and easily won. They would have powerful local appeal to people who don't want a representative from Phoenix or Tucson. Their bios say they are lifetime residents of Yuma.

The Republican representative-elect has an agricultural background, and currently runs an irrigation company. He has been a school teacher and a truck driver and has five children. He doesn't look like the typical Republican legislator who is likely either a lawyer or real estate developer. He has lived in Buckeye his entire life.

The Democratic representative who lost is black, an educator, including multiple advanced degree, now an education consultant, who is quite stylishly dressed in all the pictures I have seen of her. She would not be out of place in say Atlanta. In questioning by the newspaper, she says that she "relocated" from New Jersey and that her most admired current politician is

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Maxine Waters.

, and appears to have gone full SJW.

Not a good match for the district.

It appears that 100% of Democratic voters for the Hispanic senator from Yuma, voted for the Hispanic representative from Yuma.

Note that the Maricopa portion of the district voted Republican. If Maricopa gets a full district it will elect 3 Republican legislators in 2022.

[jimrtex]

Why exactly do the districts work this way in the first place? This is some Chilean PR-style bullsh[inks].

Most of the states thought it was a good idea that house districts should nest inside senate districts. Superficially it seems like a good idea, and it would simplify redistricting.

At one time, the number of house districts per senate district in Washington varied, and I think there was some requirement to follow county boundaries. So a smaller county might have one senator and one representative, and a larger county one senator and three representatives. In an effort to head off redistricting efforts they would sometimes move representatives from the east to the west (since Washington had the initiative, there was always a possibility that the Puget Sound area could outvote the rest of the state).

After the OMOV decision it forced the districts to be in 1:2 ratio. You could not have a variable ratio meet OMOV requirements.

The Washington constitution does not require that there not be separate house districts, and there have been fairly recent examples where not all house districts. There was a senate district that stretched down the Columbia River to the coast, with one house district based in Longview and the other on the coast (Gray Harbor, etc.).

There was a proposal to switch to split districts (it is a legislative decision). The House members were concerned about protecting their seats. It could be hard to draw two districts that keep the representatives apart. One representative noted that the other representative in the district lived behind her. It sounded kind of creepy when she noted that he could look down into her backyard from his balcony.

But now they are just stuck in a status quo. They are used to running this way and being elected this way.