Maps: Senate Conservative Performance Index visualized

Previously, I've posted the Conservative Performance Index in a spreadsheet form, with details on the scoring and ranking of each member of the Legislature. Since maps have kinda been my "thing" on this blog, I decided to put the CPI into visual format.

We looked at the State House in this post, and now we'll look at the State Senate. To view these in a larger size, click on the images. First up, for reference, the current partisan makeup of the Senate. This includes the winners of three recent special elections -- two Democrats (SD37 and SD44) and one Republican (SD45):

Democrats hold 8 Senate seats now; 4 in the OKC/Norman metro, 3 in the Tulsa metro, and one representing Lawton and some rural areas around Fort Sill. Other than the latter district, Senate Democrats have disappeared from rural Oklahoma, including their former stronghold/base of Little Dixie.

Now, the Conservative Performance Index visualized:

The darker the red, the higher the positive CPI score; the darker the blue, the lower the negative CPI score. Bear in mind, the Conservative Performance Index is based on two factors: the member's Conservative Rating (an average of two voting record rating systems) minus their Republican District Rating (voter registration, gubernatorial and presidential voting). This is to illustrate how conservative or liberal a legislator is for their specific district.

The above map has two districts that were not rated due to being vacant, and one district switched parties. Those are indicated by the red and blue stripes. The Tulsa district that flipped shows the final rating for Sen. Dan Newberry, whose resignation went into effect on January 31st, and thus he is rated for the 2017 regular session.

The latest Senate CPI scores can be found here.

Now, let's split the map up by party affiliation. First up, the 40 Senate Republicans:

Generally speaking, the Senate Republicans scored better than their House colleagues. Members from the southeast (Little Dixie) scored the best, with 5 of the top 7 CPI scores. Freshmen GOP members comprise a whopping 11 of the 15 negative (blue) scores, with the 9 worst scores all belonging to freshmen.


Finishing things off, here are the 6 Senate Democrats:

All of the Democrats have negative to very-negative CPI scores, unlike their House comrades who had several members with positive scores.


Once again, you can view the full Senate CPI scores here. You can view the House CPI scores here and the House CPI maps here.