4th District Growing and Voting

Swing State Project continues its excellent review of the 2008 election results by Congressional district and finds that North Carolina's 4th District, represented by David Price, cast the third largest number of votes of any district in the country last year.

That's not a huge surprise. Raleigh/Cary was the fastest growing metro area nationwide between 2007 and 2008 and that's a huge chunk of Price's district. It's also a pretty engaged segment of the population so high turnout has a lot to do with the numbers in addition to the population growth.

It's a trend that goes a long way toward explaining Barack Obama's surprise victory in the state last year. He took the 4th by 116,000 votes. The only district that gave the President a larger margin of victory in terms of raw votes was Mel Watt's.

It also has pretty clear implications for redistricting- some of Price's territory is going to have to be reallocated whether North Carolina gets a 14th Congressional seat or not. That may be an opportunity to help shore up Bob Etheridge's district, which is safe for Democrats as long as he's in it but could be competitive in an open seat situation.