Actually, there is one other thing I should probably add. I don't know why I didn't think to put this in before. The redistricting battle may well be what determines the outcome of the House elections this year in Mississippi. If McCoy gets his way, that may be enough to hold the House for the Dems. But, if the GOP wins this battle or they run in current districts this year and run in new districts next year, that makes things considerably easier for the GOP.
Someone may find this link interesting: http://www.scribd.com/doc/50413003/Malone-Mathis-Story. In this article, a sitting Democrat member of the House actually admits that he had the lines of his district on the new map so that he wouldn't have an opponent in the upcoming elections. There's been a lot of, shall we say, curious features about the House Democrats' map. Such as, districts in the Delta region which has lost population roughly equivalent to two House districts being stretched a bit to the east so that region wouldn't lose seats, while the Hattiesburg area, which is growing and is much more Republican-leaning, isn't gaining seats as would be expected.
Here are the current and House-propsed maps if anyone is interested:
Current: http://www.scribd.com/doc/49975345/2002-House-map
Proposed: http://www.scribd.com/doc/49975251/House-2011-proposal
Edit: BTW, a lot of information about the redistricting battle can be found here: http://majorityinms.com/. I know some will probably complain about the site being Republican-leaning, but they have been keeping close tabs on the process. If anyone has any interest in the subject, you can probably at least find some links you'll find interesting.
I strongly agree. It's good for political geeks like us to look at sites that hosts exclusive state legislative election no matter its political stripe. I also regularly read into the
Majority in Mississippi site. On Florida, I also read
Sunshine Statge News, a conservative site that contains one-stop information articles on all of Florida's state legislative races every now and then. At a broader level, I also recommend
Red Racing Horses, right-leaning equivalent of the
Swing State Project, a well-renowned if left-leaning election informal central; although the former is more focused on federal elections so far.
BTW: Nice to meet a fellow Mississippi-based poster!
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