Numbers, arranged haphazardly (blog.contegix.com).
by Tony Petrangelo
Sep 16, 2019, 7:00 AM

hPVI 2019, House edition

It’s time for the bi-annual release of hPVI, Minnesota’s Oldest And Most Beloved Legislative District Metric™.

For those unfamiliar with hPVI, it’s a partisan voting index for state legislative districts that I’ve been compiling in one form or another for over nine years.

In the first part of this post I will do some analysis of the new version, if you’re jonesing for the numbers though, the actual hPVIs can be found at the bottom of the post.

For more information on what hPVI is see the explainer (from the 2017 edition, but still relevant as an explainer). For programmatic access to the numbers see the hPVI API. There is also an hPVI LeftMN sub-site now which can be found at hpvi.left.mn.

House hPVI Histogram

Like with the Senate version, the state of play in the House has shifted further towards the DFL since the last edition of hPVI. The DFL now has more Even to D+10 districts than the GOP does, 31 to 25, in the 2017 version the GOP had 37 such districts to the DFLs 36.

Looking at the next bucket, in 2017 the DFL had 10 districts rated from D+10 to D+20, now they have 16, while the GOP went from having 31 to 32. And in 2017 the GOP had a single district R+20 or greater, now they have 5, while the DFL went from having 19 districts over D+20 to having 24 now.

Here is all of that information in a more digestible form:

Year > R+20 R+20 – R+11 R+10 – Even Even – D+10 D+11 – D+20 > D+20 Total GOP Total DFL
2019 5 32 25 32 16 24 62 72
2017 1 31 37 36 10 19 69 65

* Note: 37B has a raw hPVI of 0.004, ever so slightly DFL leaning, so I’ve put it in the Even to D+10 bucket. But 0.004 is essentially zero and one could make a credible argument that 37B doesn’t really belong in any of the buckets.

As with the Senate, the DFL now has more districts it is favored in than the GOP does. In the Senate hPVI post I translated the hPVIs of the districts into rough race ratings of the Toss-up, Lean, Likely and Safe variety which I will replicate for the house version below.

Safe GOP Likely GOP Lean GOP Toss-up Lean DFL Likely DFL Safe DFL
37 11 10 11 12 12 40
59 11 64

Unlike the Senate edition where six of the eight Toss-up districts have GOP incumbents, in the House version eight of the 11 Toss-up districts have DFL incumbents. The reason for this disparity is that the House was up for election in 2018, a year in which the DFL won a bunch of Toss-up districts, while the Senate was not.

Those Toss-up districts are:

District Name Party hPVI
3A Rob Ecklund DFL EVEN
14B Dan Wolgamott DFL D+2
27B Jeanne Poppe DFL EVEN
33B Kelly Morrison DFL EVEN
36A Zack Stephenson DFL EVEN
37B Nolan West R EVEN
38B Ami Wazlawik DFL D+1
39B Michelle Christensen DFL D+1
47B Greg Boe R R+1
54B Tony Jurgens R R+1
55A Brad Tabke DFL EVEN

Amazingly, in the House, there are only two members who are in districts that lean to the party opposite the one they are in:

District Name Party hPVI
4B Paul Marquart DFL R+8
5A John Persell DFL R+3

While Persell will no doubt be one of the GOPs top targets for 2020, don’t be surprised if they don’t try too hard to unseat Marquart, who defies political gravity better than any one else in the legislature.

At the same time Donald Trump was winning 4B by over 21 points, 56.7-35.1, Marquart was cruising to re-election 53.9-46.1. In 2019 Jeff Johnson won 4B by over nine points while Marquart won by almost 18 points. In both cases Marquart’s margin of victory was almost 30 points better than the DFLs top-of-the-ticket candidate.

House hPVI Table Analysis

The same broad trends in the Senate numbers are present in the House numbers as well (as would be expected). The districts outside of the metro area continued moving towards the GOP while the suburban districts surrounding the Twin Cities continued moving towards the DFL.

Greater Minnesota District Movement

1A (Dan Fabian) R+12 to R+16, a 4 point swing (12 points since 2015).
2A (Matt Grossell) R+7 to R+11, a 4 point swing (10 points since 2015).
3A (Rob Ecklund) D+4 to Even, a 4 point swing (9 points since 2015).
5B (Sandy Layman) R+4 to R+7, a 3 point swing (9 points since 2015).
6A (Julie Sandstede) D+8 to D+3, an 5 point swing (13 points since 2015).
6B (Dave Lislegard) D+6 to D+3, an 3 point swing (11 points since 2015).
10B (Dale Lueck) R+9 to R+13, a 4 point swing (10 points since 2015).
11B (Nathan Nelson) R+8 to R+12, a 4 point swing (11 points since 2015).
17A (Tim Miller) R+9 to R+14, a 5 point swing (13 points since 2015).

Suburban Minnesota District Movement

42A (Kelly Moller) D+5 to D+9, a 4 point swing (6 points since 2015).
44A (Ginny Klevorn) R+2 to D+7, a 9 point swing (10 points since 2015).
47B (Greg Boe) R+6 to R+1, a 5 point swing (8 points since 2015).
48A (Laurie Pryor) D+6 to D+10, a 4 point swing (7 points since 2015).
48B (Carlie Kotyza-Witthuhn) D+1 to D+7, a 6 point swing (11 points since 2015).
49A (Heather Edelson) D+8 to D+13, a 5 point swing (11 points since 2015).
51B (Laurie Halverson) D+6 to D+10, a 4 point swing (8 points since 2015).
53B (Steve Sandell) Even to D+5, a 5 point swing (9 points since 2015).
56A (Hunter Cantrell) R+1 to D+3, a 4 point swing (6 points since 2015).

The House hPVI Table

district name party hpvi rpvi abs
01A Dan Fabian R R+16 -16.23 16.23
01B Debra Kiel R R+12 -12.48 12.48
02A Matt Grossell R R+11 -10.62 10.62
02B Steve Green R R+15 -15.09 15.09
03A Rob Ecklund DFL EVEN 0.42 0.42
03B Mary Murphy DFL D+7 6.83 6.83
04A Ben Lien DFL D+7 6.56 6.56
04B Paul Marquart DFL R+8 -8.30 8.30
05A John Persell DFL R+3 -3.15 3.15
05B Sandy Layman R R+7 -7.48 7.48
06A Julie Sandstede DFL D+3 2.78 2.78
06B Dave Lislegard DFL D+3 2.86 2.86
07A Jennifer Schultz DFL D+21 21.00 21.00
07B Liz Olson DFL D+18 17.55 17.55
08A Bud Nornes R R+14 -13.87 13.87
08B Mary Franson R R+17 -16.76 16.76
09A John Poston R R+22 -21.57 21.57
09B Ron Kresha R R+23 -23.42 23.42
10A Josh Heintzeman R R+13 -12.75 12.75
10B Dale Lueck R R+13 -13.37 13.37
11A Mike Sundin DFL D+4 4.37 4.37
11B Nathan Nelson R R+12 -12.00 12.00
12A Jeff Backer R R+11 -11.28 11.28
12B Paul Anderson R R+21 -20.50 20.50
13A Lisa Demuth R R+15 -14.93 14.93
13B Tim O’Driscoll R R+14 -14.31 14.31
14A Tama Theis R R+4 -3.56 3.56
14B Dan Wolgamott DFL D+2 1.71 1.71
15A Sondra Erickson R R+18 -17.66 17.66
15B Shane Mekeland R R+23 -22.53 22.53
16A Chris Swedzinski R R+12 -11.78 11.78
16B Paul Torkelson R R+15 -14.65 14.65
17A Tim Miller R R+14 -13.55 13.55
17B Dave Baker R R+10 -9.54 9.54
18A Dean Urdahl R R+17 -17.19 17.19
18B Glenn Gruenhagen R R+18 -18.22 18.22
19A Jeff Brand DFL D+4 3.68 3.68
19B John Considine Jr. DFL D+10 10.10 10.10
20A Bob Vogel R R+13 -13.31 13.31
20B Todd Lippert DFL D+4 3.81 3.81
21A Barb Haley R R+3 -2.73 2.73
21B Steve Drazkowski R R+11 -11.48 11.48
22A Joe Schomacker R R+16 -16.21 16.21
22B Rod Hamilton R R+12 -12.17 12.17
23A Bob Gunther R R+16 -15.58 15.58
23B Jeremy Munson R R+8 -8.02 8.02
24A John Petersburg R R+9 -8.85 8.85
24B Brian Daniels R R+10 -9.65 9.65
25A Duane Quam R R+5 -5.15 5.15
25B Duane Sauke DFL D+8 7.96 7.96
26A Tina Liebling DFL D+12 12.03 12.03
26B Nels Pierson R R+5 -4.73 4.73
27A Peggy Bennett R R+5 -4.81 4.81
27B Jeanne Poppe DFL EVEN -0.36 0.36
28A Gene Pelowski Jr. DFL D+6 5.69 5.69
28B Greg Davids R R+5 -4.92 4.92
29A Joe McDonald R R+16 -15.59 15.59
29B Marion O’Neill R R+13 -13.01 13.01
30A Nick Zerwas R R+14 -13.66 13.66
30B Eric Lucero R R+15 -14.66 14.66
31A Kurt Daudt R R+21 -20.82 20.82
31B Cal Bahr R R+16 -16.23 16.23
32A Brian Johnson R R+16 -15.79 15.79
32B Anne Neu R R+12 -12.02 12.02
33A Jerry Hertaus R R+9 -8.68 8.68
33B Kelly Morrison DFL EVEN 0.20 0.20
34A Kristin Robbins R R+5 -4.54 4.54
34B Kristin Bahner DFL D+3 3.26 3.26
35A John Heinrich R R+6 -5.60 5.60
35B Peggy Scott R R+8 -7.72 7.72
36A Zack Stephenson DFL EVEN 0.39 0.39
36B Melissa Hortman DFL D+8 7.86 7.86
37A Erin Koegel DFL D+3 2.91 2.91
37B Nolan West R EVEN 0.00 0.00
38A Linda Runbeck R R+4 -3.67 3.67
38B Ami Wazlawik DFL D+1 0.96 0.96
39A Bob Dettmer R R+4 -3.89 3.89
39B Michelle Christensen DFL D+1 1.11 1.11
40A Michael V. Nelson DFL D+23 22.69 22.69
40B Samantha Vang DFL D+21 21.15 21.15
41A Connie Bernardy DFL D+13 12.85 12.85
41B Mary Kunesh-Podein DFL D+20 19.55 19.55
42A Kelly Moller DFL D+9 8.62 8.62
42B Jamie Becker-Finn DFL D+12 12.07 12.07
43A Peter Fischer DFL D+10 9.72 9.72
43B Leon Lillie DFL D+9 9.07 9.07
44A Ginny Klevorn DFL D+7 7.33 7.33
44B Patty Acomb DFL D+12 11.83 11.83
45A Lyndon Carlson Sr. DFL D+14 14.24 14.24
45B Mike Freiberg DFL D+21 20.66 20.66
46A Ryan Winkler DFL D+22 22.36 22.36
46B Cheryl Youakim DFL D+25 25.04 25.04
47A Jim Nash R R+13 -13.47 13.47
47B Greg Boe R R+1 -0.86 0.86
48A Laurie Pryor DFL D+10 10.36 10.36
48B Carlie Kotyza-Witthuhn DFL D+7 6.96 6.96
49A Heather Edelson DFL D+13 13.46 13.46
49B Steve Elkins DFL D+11 11.23 11.23
50A Michael Howard DFL D+19 18.68 18.68
50B Andrew Carlson DFL D+12 11.76 11.76
51A Sandra Masin DFL D+11 10.75 10.75
51B Laurie Halverson DFL D+10 10.05 10.05
52A Rick Hansen DFL D+13 12.89 12.89
52B Ruth Richardson DFL D+6 5.63 5.63
53A Tou Xiong DFL D+11 10.69 10.69
53B Steve Sandell DFL D+5 4.97 4.97
54A Anne Claflin DFL D+5 4.88 4.88
54B Tony Jurgens R R+1 -0.67 0.67
55A Brad Tabke DFL EVEN -0.19 0.19
55B Tony Albright R R+10 -10.49 10.49
56A Hunter Cantrell DFL D+3 2.83 2.83
56B Alice Mann DFL D+4 3.78 3.78
57A Robert Bierman DFL D+5 5.41 5.41
57B John Huot DFL D+4 3.73 3.73
58A Jon Koznick R R+4 -4.11 4.11
58B Pat Garofalo R R+9 -8.63 8.63
59A Fue Lee DFL D+35 35.37 35.37
59B Raymond Dehn DFL D+35 35.41 35.41
60A Diane Loeffler DFL D+35 35.42 35.42
60B Mohamud Noor DFL D+38 37.98 37.98
61A Frank Hornstein DFL D+37 36.79 36.79
61B Jamie Long DFL D+37 36.51 36.51
62A Hodan Hassan DFL D+42 42.35 42.35
62B Aisha Gomez DFL D+43 42.82 42.82
63A Jim Davnie DFL D+39 38.88 38.88
63B Jean Wagenius DFL D+31 30.66 30.66
64A Kaohly Her DFL D+35 35.50 35.50
64B Dave Pinto DFL D+30 29.97 29.97
65A Rena Moran DFL D+37 37.24 37.24
65B Carlos Mariani DFL D+32 31.61 31.61
66A Alice Hausman DFL D+24 24.31 24.31
66B John Lesch DFL D+33 33.33 33.33
67A Tim Mahoney DFL D+27 27.30 27.30
67B Jay Xiong DFL D+27 27.26 27.26

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