As we saw in Part One, MoCo’s major demographic groups are not distributed evenly across the county. Here are the percentages of Hispanics, white non-Hispanics, black non-Hispanics and Asian non-Hispanics in every Congressional, legislative and council district as well as each locality in the county.
Two years ago, we demonstrated that Montgomery County was the most diverse jurisdiction in Maryland. But the county is essentially a group of smaller subdivisions, some integrated and some not. State Legislative District 20, Council District 5 and Takoma Park, East County, Downtown Silver Spring, Wheaton, Burtonsville and the City of Gaithersburg were all “majority-minority” areas in 2000. It’s reasonable to assume that since then, State Legislative Districts 17, 19, 39 and perhaps 18, Council Districts 3 and 4 and North Potomac and Germantown may have also become majority-minority. On the other hand, State Legislative District 16, Council District 1, and Bethesda, Chevy Chase, the Town of Kensington, Damascus and several other rural Upcounty areas are very heavily white.
So does any of this affect actual voting behavior? We’ll start investigating that in Part Three.