IRRC correctly it was drawn in 2002 to be a “fair fight”, I thought we would win it and we did. It voted Bush 51-46 and 54-46, it may have had a slight dem voter reg edge but so what.
For this article to call it dem-leaning is simply false and frankly, ridiculous, a seat with and R Congressman voting R for President with local R state legislators is not dem-leaning.
The new lines are worse but it’s STILL not dem-leaning, not that the current district lines have anything to do with this article.
Renzi barely won it, 49.2%, in 2002, though could’ve just as easily gone the other way had Dubya not had an “up” year partly as a result of the ugly Wellstone Funerally. When Kirkpatrick won it as an open seat in ‘08, even with McCain running, she got a whopping 56% against a decent challenger who got just 39%. Unfortunately, Gosar didn’t want to run in the 1st in 2012, which might’ve kept Kirkpatrick from taking it back.
Although I don’t know how reliable the numbers are, it was listed as being 41% plurality Democrat registered (34% GOP).
That we’re even worrying about winning seats with this ridiculous Democrat minority gerrymandering is absurd. The delegation should be 7R-2D, not 5R-4D by less than a single digit percentage win in the 2nd.