NYT: Study Says 80% of New Orleans Blacks May Not Return

See? Freedom is on the march in America, too. :sarcasm:

You are dead right. Bush and the Repubs do call this freedom. They pretend it's the free market, and free enterprise, and free choice, and that it's the fault of the poor that they don't have enough money to return. It'll be interesting to see how they explain away the poverty that will hit the surviving parts of the city when 60% of the consumers in the city aren't there to buy their merchandise, or pay their taxes. I guess that's when the Feds will step in to help people--"Hey, them rich white guys are starting to suffer down there. Let's give them some tax breaks so they can live like they're accustomed."

We still have debates over how many black people to allow in a city, even how many should return to their own homes. Not--"Hey, let's make sure every resident is able to rebuild, to reclaim his or her job and life and family and history" but "Well, we've rebuild New Orleans for the white people, now how many black people do we really have to take back?"

I don't even know who to despise the most in this. Bush and his Dancing Bloodbath Gang, who is so slow and stingy with the money that peole feel they have tomake choices, the white people who managed to survive in New Orleans who aren't screaming their lungs out that we need to rebuild for everyone, Congress of both parties who are letting this stand, the local and state governments... I guess all of them. This is disgusting. Maybe America doesn't deserve to survive Bush.

prompted him to proclaim that New Orleans would be a "chocolate city". :eyes:

I don't think people should go back at all if it is not safe to do so. and what will they go back to?? the businesses are gone as well. 29% poverty was bad enough, why make it more?

Name one place in the world that is totally safe from everything that could ever happen. :eyes:

but say Denver or Columbus have little chance of being covered by a flood. Also, Ohio for example has little chance of an earthquake.

why move people back to a city when they are going to be subjected to the exact same risk?

disasters can happen everywhere. risk is unavoidable.

ask the dutch if NO can be protected from the sea.

you are forgetting that it is not just rain and the storm surge but the wind does damage as well. sure, build the levies to withstand a category 5 winds and rain. then watch the wind tear the city apart.

I suppose next you'll be advocating that Californians leave their state, especially San Francisco, which has clearly been proven to be an earthquake-prone area.

Perhaps you do not understand the ties that bind someone to a particular area of the country. It's more than land. It's roots, it's memories, it's a sense of continuity in a family.

Whatever. I'm wasting my breath and my time.

below sea level. it should not be another disaster waiting to happen.

What I'm seeing from the bush administration is to let it go through a near-death experience and then revive it by a white-man land grab. I sincerely hope those who left and cannot return put a hex on the place of those who come in and exploit it.

I'm just waiting to see how happy the racists will be to discover that the blacks who have migrated to their communities, or close to their communities, are going to stay.

safety is a matter of building proper flood protection.
If Holland can do that then so can the US.

but the wind didn't tear the city apart, did it now?

the areas protected by proper old-fashioned levees, french quarter, and uptown, have huge, huge, huge wind damage and yet they're fine and they will be easily repaired and many repairs have been made already

wind don't do what water can do and i speak as one who has been the victim of two serious wind events in as many years

you have to abandon the entire midwest and good parts of the southeast if you're that afraid of wind, you can't live like that, dude

back away from the re-runs of day after tomorrow

wind has never destroyed an entire city without the help of water, ain't gonna happen, altho it's entertaining enough as a big screen blockbuster silliness

doesn't come out in the right place, this is in reply to the silly person asking if they have hurricanes in holland who thinks if we are properly protected by levees in new orleans then wind will just clean us up

but you already knew that.

not really sure what point youre making.
the hurricane is not the point.

...and political. With the diaspora of predominantly poor, black, Democrat-voting NO residents to other overwhelmingly GOP states (Texas, Mississippi, etc.), this tips the precarious political balance in Lousiana towards the Republicans. Nobody can tell me that wasn't in the GOP minds when they were thinking what their "response" should be.

most are back already

I'm not even going to entertain your question about hurricanes being racist, as you know full well that it's not the hurricane that decides who gets to go back and who doesn't.

New Orleans Evacuees and Activists Testify at Explosive House Hearing on the Role of Race and Class in Government's Response to Hurricane Katrina
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/09/1443240&mode=thread&tid=25

Well, maybe I exaggerate a little, but to me the atmosphere of New Orleans is empty without the black culture, the generations who have lived and died and poured their hearts and souls into making New Orleans one of the most extraordinary cities in the world. This was their home.

The GOP is heartless, heartless, heartless.

A way to "whiten up" the place

A lot of the displaced people have relocated to Texas.

If GWB was actually trying to be racist, he'd be doing everything he could to get blacks to move back to N.O. Lucky for the Democrats, he's an incompetent boob.

The principal method you use to Gerrymander is concentrating your opponent's followers into a single district. For example, if you have five 50/50 districts, you want to make one a 100% district for your opponent, and have the rest become 60/40 for you. You get 4 seats, while your opponent gets only 1. The WORST thing that could happen is for all the people in the 100% district spread themselves around the country, because you'd suddenly have races in play that never were before. That's a disaster for any party whose Congressional caucus is vastly disproportionate to the support they have the nation - as it is for the GOP.

There is going to be a huge turnover in Congress this year, partly due to the ongoing N.O. debacle.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

//We're now returning to our regularly scheduled fact-free flaming

without a ready supply of cheap labor. Don't be surprised if New Orleans suddenly starts speaking Spanish once again as Latinos are brought in to fill the void. Talk about going back to the beginning! It was a Spanish town originally!

New Orleans was founded in 1718 by Jean Baptiste Le Moyne, sieur de Bienville, and named for the regent of France, Philippe II, duc d'Orleans. It remained a French colony until 1763, when it was transferred to the Spanish. In 1800, Spain ceded it back to France; in 1803, New Orleans, along with the entire Louisiana Purchase, was sold by Napoleon I to the United States. It was the site of the Battle of New Orleans (1815) in the War of 1812. During the Civil War the city was besieged by Union ships under Adm. David Farragut; it fell on Apr. 25, 1862.

london and paris seem to do all right on the tourism, their labor ain't cheap

we DON'T need more cheap labor, we need more good paying jobs, if anything good has come of this catastrophe, it is the fact that hourly wages have jumped, even the fast food places are paying over $8 an hour now PLUS BONUSES, it used to be $5 and change an hour, and a bonus to stay on the job for a whole week, don't make me laugh, it would be unheard of

we need well-paying jobs that support the community, not the cheap jobs that drain the heart out of people

we don't need to attract the tourist who doesn't change his underwear or his hundred dollar bill, we need upscale who is willing to pay a fair price and allow people to earn a fair wage

i got NO problem w. the increase in hourly wages, none

fewer but higher quality tourists would be fine with me

is vote her conscience and fillibuster Alito. You know she wants to but thinks it will lose her the next election. Earth to Sen. Landrieu - N.O. has been cleansed of Democrats, you are toast anyway honey

How is it some dumb hick can get away with so much crime?

It's a damn shame to see families scattered and a culture lost, but as individuals the people who left may be looking around and deciding that they're better off staying where they are now now than returning. I can count three diasporas in my family's history over the last 150 years. It was a matter of staying together and living in poverty or moving on to find a job elsewhere. I think a lot of New Orleanians never had the means to make a choice before.

I am not a conspiracy theorist, but I am beginning to doubt "offical" numbers these days. Who did the interview, where did the interview them, WHEN did they interview them?

I know evacuees in my area who are planning to return. For now they are waiting until the school year is over, so they don't have to move their children again. Two are making weekend trips a few times a month back to their neighborhoods.

How do we know that these are not numbers cooked up to persuade people to NOT return? Because, if they see that other's are saying they aren't going back, maybe they will not go back either. I will wait and see how this plays out, but for now, I trust nothing when it is reported about New Orleans in the MSM.

it's just numbers pulled out of their ass, as far as i can tell

homeowners will return, what choice do they have?

as far as renters, i don't see why we should even be trying to encourage them to return, there are no rental units, and we are not going to be able to get levee protection for the entire area in time, so it's basically we are asking people to come back from a place where they are currently safe to a place where it is still unsafe, just for our political convenience

the black voter is the best thing that ever happened to louisiana, but there is a moral issue abt encouraging people to come back when they may be better off elsewhere

a renter, w. no savings, is going to be in a tent or a trailer for hurricane season 2006 and this season is predicted to be the equal of 2005

also keep in mind there are almost no hospital services and really v. little to help the uninsured patient, if you are older, disabled, etc. now is not the time to return, charity was completely destroyed by katrina, our entire hospital system was destroyed, even if you can pay, it's scary how many patients are packed in w. you waiting, it's crazy

i can't morally ask someone to put themselves in that position

... trying to talk little old ladies out of their land for pennies on the dollar. Under Bush there must be an absolute free-for-all of corrupt business deals going on. It could make Halliburton's Bush-cozy sleaze in Iraq look like a church picnic.

actually, he grew up there, has been out for twenty years -- and is heading back this spring! :bounce: By comparison, I have "only" been out for fifteen years...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=240934&mesg_id=240934

Two things are underway here. First, the Compassionate Conservative in Chief is prepared to allow hundreds of thousands of Louisianians to lose all of their equity and go into bankruptcy. Those folks will then spend the rest of their lives paying out the rest of the mortgage on their ruined homes under the less-than-generous terms of the new bankruptcy bill. He gets paid either way, so that's not a problem. For him.

Later the CCinC will step in to save the home building, mortgage, real estate and related industries by bailing out the mortgage holders. This is perfect consistent with the way the current batch of politicians in Washington like to do things, going back to the Savings & Loan bailout. Remember that one? The average Joe and Jane got there couple of thou' from the FDIC and lost the rest. The people who milked the system for all it was worth got to keep all of their illicit gain.

As if this weren't fun enough, consider my wife's thought this morning. Be prepared to be inundated with calls from helpful people willing to cash you out of your house for dimes on the dollar--of your lot value. When they figure this out (if they weren't in from the beginning), the vultures will no longer be circling. They'll be sitting in the tree over your sorry ass, practicing their four part harmonies and waiting to come in for dinner.

We are being swindled Texas-big, by people who know how its done. Forget fair buyouts. The speculators will flock in and buy up vast tracts of property for next to nothing. When you're done endorsing that paltry check to the mortgage company, the guys in the White Hats (the ones with hats only, no cattle) will jump in and take care of the rest of your mortgage. Well not the rest of your mortgage. You'll go to your grave owing on that. But the mortgage holders will get theirs. Just you wait and see.

i think this is pure-d fantasy i'm sorry

we all had $$$ in our eyes after the event but, guess what, if your property wasn't worth selling before katrina, it sure ain't worth anything after it has been torn up after the storm

i used to get contacts from realtors all the time wanting to know if i would sell, after katrina, i haven't had one inquiry and it has been 5 months

there is no swindle, that is just a nice fantasy so we can dream of litigating someone and one day getting a whole pile of money, the problem is not that our property is soooo valuable (else we could just borrow against it and go on w. our lives anyway) it's that it isn't, never has been, never will be and that *co just don't care abt helping the middle class homeowner and the lower middle class or the out-and-out poor are just plain off his map

the prob. is they just don't effin care

You might recall that in 1993, we had big floods in St. Louis. Both the Mississippi and Missouri flooded big time -- way out of their banks. A lot of land flooded; a lot of land didn't. After the flood, the levies were built up around the land that flooded. The levied land that didn't flood "withstood" a huge flood. Now both types of land are very valuable and there has been a ton of development in the Chesterfield Valley and in Earth City.

If New Orleans is rebuilt, it will be through some sort of big government effort to make the land reliable. The land will go from unreliable to valuable and reliable. Nice climate, nice location, nice history...

Maybe it's a fantasy. Maybe it is just early.

If all we have is Bush's promise to rebuild the levees, maybe the realtors are waiting on something more credible. I would be reluctant to speculate on it myself. But if I owned land there, I would want to hold onto it, and I would hope to have some legislation to keep the bank's mitts off of it until the situation settles down.

I agree, Bush doesn't give a "rat's" about anyone but the wealthy. That's just the problem. There is nothing to keep him from waiting out the poor people, making sure they won't return, keeping the land values low through insincere or inadequate rebuilding. Once enough of the "right" kind of people buy into the land, Bush announces a new huge pork project.

Paranoia? Of course! The GOP and Bush administration have allowed dirty people with dirty money to crawl and leave trails of slime all over our country -- all over the world. Why not New Orleans?

If there is a dirty play to be made, there will be GOP and Bush supporters lined up to pay the required graft and cheat whoever it takes. And there will be the GOP controlled government to look the other way and even abet the crime. That is the Abrahamoff game, and you can bet there are other Abrahamoff's out there.

we did not share in any market bubble, our housing and land has always been super super cheap

no need for a hurricane or any schemes to make the land cheaper, it was under-valued even before the storm so if the developers really wanted it so bad they could have had it for a helluva lot less strife and trouble to say the least

people on the northeast coast, people on west coast, they can actually RETIRE on the gain in value of their homes over their working life of living in the house

in new orleans area our homes barely or maybe don't even keep up w. inflation

the homeowners who return and go thru great sacrifice to restore and rebuild, i think it would be wonderful if they were rewarded by seeing their home values go up

i'm just not seeing it, there is a small hurricane uptick but it's more like 5 or 10 percent increase in value, nothing to be worth the trouble of actually selling my house and going to another town, as you say, early days

but, again, the displaced homeowners ARE returning

it is the displaced renter who is not returning nor is it fair to ask her to return at this time when there are no rental units, you should not ask people to return, to live in tents, w. little or no hospital services, just because houston is getting sick of hosting some of us or because you want their votes -- which are the two real reasons there is all this screaming for very poor black people to hurry up and return to new orleans -- it is a nice cover-up for the hard reality that too many people don't want louisiana people indefinitely in their area

stories like this, we are definitely being played

you wouldn't want to be in a tent or trailer in southeast louisiana when hurricane season 2006 opens, we can't ask it of others

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1696860,00.html

New Orleans could lose 80% of its African American population in the wake of Hurricane Katrina unless there is a special effort to help poor people return to the city, says a report on the storm's impact.

The study, based on satellite maps of New Orleans and the nearby coast and census data, confirms what many residents suspected: Katrina inflicted disproportionate damage on poor neighbourhoods with high unemployment and a high number of renters. These people were unlikely to have home insurance or the necessary resources to return and rebuild.

In the city of New Orleans, three-quarters of the 354,000 people who lived in the areas worst damaged by the storm were African American, and 29.2% were poor, the study found. Nearly 53% were renting and did not own their own home. More than 10% were unemployed.

"The danger in the current thinking about rebuilding is that it specifically excludes important elements of the population whose neighbourhoods were destroyed, and who won't find a place in the future city. Disproportionately that means people who were African American and below the average income of the city," John Logan, a sociologist at Brown University, Rhode Island, and author of the study, told the Guardian.

White House stonewalls official Hurricane Katrina inquiry
By Naomi Spencer
28 January 2006
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/jan2006/hurr-j28.shtml

The Bush administration is withholding information relevant to a Senate committee investigating federal management of Hurricane Katrina. Invoking executive privilege, the administration has also refused to allow sworn testimony from senior White House officials on the disaster and governmental response.

At his press conference Thursday, Bush defended the practice. “If people give me advice and they’re forced to disclose that advice, it means the next time an issue comes up, I might not be able to get unvarnished advice from my advisors.” He also claimed his administration had been “fully cooperative” with the House and Senate committees.

At the committee hearing Tuesday, witness presentations focused on the extent of emergency preparedness in the months and years before Katrina, which left at least 1,100 dead, displaced more than a million area residents, and caused hundreds of billions of dollars in damage.

But the investigation, conducted by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, has been thwarted by the White House from obtaining communications logs, and even dates and times of meetings and phone calls regarding Katrina emergency response efforts.

<more>

"Uncle Tom's Historical New Orleans Extravaganza Show. Now using genuine negroes rescued from the time that God wiped out NO with his holy storm Katrina." :sarcasm:
Martin and Malcolm are both rolling over in their graves. This was all by design. NO will be rebuilt as an overpriced tourist trap that will now "import" enough of its former black population to make it work. That or they'll just start claiming that the white man invented jazz.

how was it all by design?

it's silly season stuff like this that makes us easy to brush off

i can believe negligent homicide, i can believe malfeasance, it is apparent to me that * awards jobs on the basis of pay-off or patronage rather than ability and for this he should pay the price of impeachment, trial, and prison

however, it is pretty apparent that his actions are the result of incompetence and uncaring, not any design

anyone who wanted to develop tourist attractions in new orleans could have done so before the storm at far, far, far cheaper cost in labor, materials, and just plain hassle factor

the conspiracy theories are just plain silly

orleans has been completely open, even the lower 9th ward, for 2 months, if you really want to come back, then you have to look at your own soul for why you haven't come back

cameron parish has been open for only 2 weeks, and there has been open discussion of buying out and relocating entire towns that have been wiped out, is anyone going on the fabulous internets and pointing out that there may be great oil weath there or there is great shrimping etc. there or there are other valuable resources there and we must be sure the original inhabitants are not cheated, no, it's all crickets, maybe it's because cameron is majority white and there is nothing to gain by selling stupid conspiracy theories?

everyone whose land must be taken for improved levees, wetland buffers, etc. black or white or martian, should be generously compensated, our focus should be on fairness and getting people the $$$ to rebuild their lives, not on wild-ass conspiracy theories that make no sense whatsoever

I'm confused at why someone who was unemployed in NOLA, was evacuated, and might be unemployed at their new location would have a preference for being unemployed, again, in NOLA.

I mean, is the idea that we are going to restore every fomerly homeless person to their former non-home and every formerly jobless person to their former non-job?

Being on the skids sucks. But it sucks everywhere. If my life had sucked prior to Katrina, then I don't know how I would react to people proclaiming their desire to make sure that my life is restored to a status in which it sucks every bit as much as it did before the storm.

It can't cost that much to at least give the former homeless brand new cardboard boxes to replace their old ones, but I can't see that as a tremendous motivator to move back.

in the new 9th Ward Mall.

if the theories were true, then we'd be getting funding for our levees, we ain't gettin it, *co says no

you would not be willing to live in the lower 9th ward w.out decent levee protection but you are asking others to do so?

i can't do that

i won't stand in the way of people who are highly motivated to return, who do return and start doing what they can to restore their property, but neither will i encourage renters to return because they are "colorful" and attractive to some would-be tourist on the internet, when i know that the availability of rental units is nil and the availability of public health care is almost nil

the black voter is the best thing that ever happened to louisiana but we can't ask the poorest and most vulnerable to put their lives on the land for political advantage

at this time we need to hammer on getting money to the state for levees and getting money to individuals for rebuilding their lives, such as baker bill and forcing insurance companies to get current on paying claims

the time to pressure renters to return is when there is decent housing for them

and i'm sorry if houston is getting twitchy, they will just have to deal, none of us asked for this storm and it was never going to be fixed in a few months

http://www.sfbayview.com/010406/confrontbulldozers010406.shtml

after the developers have laid their claim, you'll see the levees repaired, not before. This stuff is going through the courts right now. It's the condition of the levees that make the case that the community is "blighted."

there are definitely places i'm aware of that should be taken

for instance no more unsafe floodwalls along the london ave. canal, the houses too close to the canal should be taken, the owners (any still alive) should be properly compensated, and the old-style traditional levees that protected uptown so well should come to gentilly

there does need to be a push for some eminent domain

problem is, there is no political will nor is there courage to tell people, no, you can't rebuild here, it is unsafe, you did not even have cat 3 protection there, it was always unsafe and the situation must be amended

same in cameron, while there is talk of removal, reality is that no land is being purchased for wetlands and people are now left w. no choice but to rebuild yet again -- after complete devastation twice in 40 yrs -- on the same ground of their destroyed towns

eminent domain could be a lifesaver and a financial future saver for many people

however, * has said NO

we need to keep the pressure up and insist that right is done by the homeowner, i hate to see rove under every bed, but it is strange to me to see "progressives" who are strongly taking a position that is guaranteed to harm the little guy and the small homeowner

we need the new flood maps NOW, we need the $$$ NOW, and we do need wise use of eminent domain NOW, certain areas need to be taken and returned to wetlands or used for proper levee protection and that is just final if you really care abt human life

of course if you just care abt rhetoric that's quite a different matter but until proven otherwise i prefer to believe most here on DU making this conspiracy argument are simply ignorant rather than deliberately ill-intentioned, i do think they are being used, it's pretty obvious that no one is helped here in new orleans by conspiracy mongering and unrealistic property appraisals and many will be badly harmed

start at the beginning, keep it simple, and cut out the namecalling. educate us.

there's nada in the media about this. we're counting on people at the scene to report it & you sound like you've been there, if you're not there right now.

They want to turn N.O. into a country club - white upper middle class only. This 80% poor black statistic also explains why the response to these hurricane victims was so shoddy - no - rather nonexistent, except to herd them all into a death trap and let them die and rot there for a week.

Ethnic cleansing another DUer posted - and that is EXACTLY what this is and was.

they absolutely want them to return, they don't care if we have no levees, they don't care if it's unsafe, they're hammering on us night and day that louisiana evacuees have suddenly caused a huge crime wave in houston

here is my conspiracy theory, i think they are racist bigots doing their thing w. unusual subtlety for a change and the progressive community is just being played

sure, they want to push them out, not because of any imagined crime wave -- why would storm victims be any more prone to crime than anyone else? -- but because of pure-d racism and classism, as louisiana peoples tend to be blacker and poorer than peoples of some of the host states

you're not seeing the news we're seeing, all abt how houston gang war this and houston gang war that and somehow houston never had gang wars before katrina, i don't freakin think so

....racist it is. Thanks for the on-the-scene update.

Probably the racist GOP doesn't want them in Atlanta or TX and they also don't want them in N.O. Seems they just want them to die. ie: They don't want them anywhere. They're the festering sore that screams all that's wrong with our American society, economy, and way of life - the huge gap between rich and poor. The GOP just wishes they'd disappear.

I kept asking myself, when they had them all herded into the Superdome - "Are they TRYING to kill these people?"

I still think they were.

We have had upwards of 15,000 Katrina victims relocate here, and they really view getting out of NO as a blessing, a new start on life. They don't want to go back.

sorry to all you south carolina DUers but to me the place is a hellhole so it was a strange piece to read

yet according to the evacuees they interviewed -- many of whom did not know where they were being taken when they were rescued -- they are actually having better opportunity, better housing, better jobs, either south carolina has really changed or else these people came from unimaginable bangla-desh style horror and poverty, or both i suppose

if someone has found a better situation elsewhere, i say let them stay

houston in particular seems to be getting obnoxious (not all of houston but the bigot element) abt claiming we transported our gangs, we are undesirables, etc, and they want us all shipped back ASAP but reality is otherwise, i do think texas and houston in particular is behind a lot of the conspiracy whispering to encourage people to run back home before they are ready

we cannot ask people to live in an unsafe area, w. little health care and no levee protection, when they have found jobs, better social services etc. elsewhere

Even IF they could afford to move back, and somehow miraculously fix their homes and neighborhoods back to a "liveable" condition...with their lack of financial resources, theses "rebuilt" homes and neighborhoods would NOT be immune to the NEWLY-rewritten "emininent domain" law which permits commercial developers (ala Hell-iburton) to take back the land for "more profitable commercial use" than the basic human act of just habitating.

they are allowed just fine, i live here, where do you live?

the land could have been had cheaper and w. less fuss years ago, if you knew anything abt real estate values here, ever bought property in southeast louisiana, it sure don't sound like it!

again, as i've said again and again, if you honestly believe this land so valuable by god find an evacuee who doesn't want to return, pay her for her property, and do the sweat equity required to see a good return on your property, you'll be helping the evacuee who needs $$ now and if you really believe the land to be so profitable you'll be helping yourself gain in net worth

but suddenly when i suggest you spend your own money you take another look and realize, oh, wait a minute, i guess that land is not worth anything after all

if you think valuable land could be bought for pennies on the dollar, if you REALLY thought that instead of just stirring the pot, you'd be buying it

yeah, i'm getting a bit tetchy, that's what happens when i make an argument based on experience, logic, and facts and i get back a lot of non-logic based on "gut feelings" by people once stepped foot in new orleans french quarter ten years ago for a bachelor party

i suggest everyone here who thinks this land so valuable come buy some, put your money where your mouth, if you are right, you should profit handsomely, er, you do think you're right, don't you, you wouldn't be posting conspiracy theories just for shits and giggles when people's entire future is at stake

right?

http://scoutprime.blogspot.com/2006/01/bring-new-orleans-back-commissioners.html

It is by design the city will no longer be "chocolate."

Both in New Orleans and the places these people ended up? I'm wondering if some red districts might be tipping blue now.