West Virginia: What Should Have Been Done

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Thursday September 06, 2012 · 9:11 PM PDT

2012/09/06 · 21:11

In honor of President Obama's acceptance speech, what better way to celebrate than to redistrict a state where he got his political start and remains popular and beloved? A state that serves as America's leader in racial diversity, economic growth, and a model in building for the future. Well, instead we will focus on West Virginia.

Under the West Virginia constitution, all congressional districts must not deviate more than .22% from the ideal district, which mean a maximum deviation of 1358 people. All of my districts meet this criteria and actually all have deviations below 1000 people. Additionally, until this year, WV never split counties between congressional districts, and I see no reason not to continue this tradition if it is possible to meet deviation requirements without doing so. In my map, I combine GOP Reps. Shelley Moore Capito and David McKinley in the 1st district, leading to a real chance for Democrats to pick up a GOP-held seat, and an outside shot at actually picking up both.

Maps and data below the fold:

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Wednesday January 11, 2012 · 7:57 PM PST

2012/01/11 · 19:57

This gives one district for a liberal Democrat and preserves a second one for Matheson. Both the GOP districts went over 70% for McCain. I actually managed to pack the 3rd over 80% McCain, just to see how high I could get it, but it was a little uglier, so I opted for this. Its not like we were winning the 1st anyway. Plus, this will keep Saratoga Springs mayor Mia Love out of Congress. She is one of only two African-Americans living in Utah not currently playing for the Jazz. (Even they are scarce now, with Boozer and D-Will skipping town. Have you seen Gordon Heyward recently?) The GOP is clearly desperate for a new token black Republican, after Herman Cain and Michael Steele didn't pan out, and I find it hilarious how much trouble they have doing so, so I'd love to prolong it even further. Anyway, map and analysis after the jump:

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Monday October 31, 2011 · 1:01 AM PDT

2011/10/31 · 01:01

Colorado's off-year election will be this Tuesday, November 1st, a week before the rest of the country's off-year elections. There is a statewide ballot measure, Proposition 103. The other important races are the Aurora mayoral election and the Jefferson County School Board, where the Republicans are trying to politicize the non-partisan elections. And for those of you in one of the following areas, where there are propositions to ban medical marijuana dispensaries, make sure to vote (and vote no): Fort Collins, Palisades, Brush, Yampa, Oak Creek, Steamboat Springs, and Unincorporated Routt County. Otherwise, you'll end up like this:

IMPORTANT UPDATE: User stealthisbook astutely found another case of the GOP meddling in school board elections and I have found a couple more myself. See bottom of the page for updates.

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Saturday August 20, 2011 · 5:56 PM PDT

2011/08/20 · 17:56

This map improves several of the Democratic districts: the 3rd, 11th, 12th, and 13th. In addition, it screws Republican Rep. Aaron Schock, and gives a GOP vote sink to quasi-moderate Tim Johnson. The reason for this is that Johnson is actually running in the 13th, a Dem-leaning district, which he has a shot at winning. This ensures that the 13th elects a Democrat, while a semi-moderate Republican takes up a GOP vote sink. He's not quite Walter B. Jones, but it's still nice to have a moderate taking up a conservative area. In addition, Schock may make a decent statewide candidate in the future, so this would eliminate him from Congress. He would be put in a primary with Adam Kinzinger and Donald Manzullo. If Kinzinger and Schock split the young, good-looking, and future statewide candidate vote, then Manzullo may sneak through and eliminate them both. Plus, it makes the 16th a more efficient GOP vote sink in order to give us a shot at the 14th. If State Rep. Jack Franks (D-Marengo) runs, then we could win it, so I made it as friendly as possible. This map could result in 14 Democrats if Franks runs, especially with Joe Walsh as the Republican.

For most districts, I have Quinn/Brady, Kirk/Alexi, and Kerry/Bush numbers, in addition to Obama numbers, which are provided for every district. In the Chicago area, demographic changes make the Kerry numbers a bit low, so I use an average of Obama and Quinn for a neutral year Democratic performance. Downstate, however, the Kerry numbers are probably the best indicator of a neutral year performance. All 13 districts designed for a Democrat went for Kerry in 2004, and all three downstate Democratic districts went at least 52% for Kerry, while all 10 Chicago-area Democratic districts went at least 60% for Obama.

Note: Kerry numbers are as a percentage of the two-party vote and do not include third party candidates.

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Sunday August 14, 2011 · 9:35 PM PDT

2011/08/14 · 21:35

In my previous diary, I did three Colorado redistricting scenarios and avoided city splitting and split only 2 or 3 counties outside of the metro area. The end result was a 4-1-2 with 5 Obama districts and 3 or 4 Bennet districts. In this map, I decided to split El Paso County, moving all the Democratic areas in southern Colorado Springs into the 3rd district. This allowed me to make a Colorado Springs-Douglas County-Eastern Plains GOP vote sink, which is the only way to make a 60%+ McCain district in Colorado. In addition, I threw Highlands Ranch in with Denver, to eliminate Douglas County's influence in any swing district. I also used the Democrat's Boulder-to-Grand Junction proposal in this map. It ended up creating 5 Bennet districts and 6 Obama districts. Plus, the Boulder-Grand Junction district still would have gone for Kerry in 2004, so it would be safe even for a Boulder liberal that isn't as wealthy as Polis.

Here's the map:

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Sunday July 31, 2011 · 9:18 PM PDT

2011/07/31 · 21:18

For my home state of Colorado, I drew a Democratic gerrymander, a Republican gerrymander, and a fair court-style map. The Democratic gerrymander would provide the possibility of a 6-1 delegation in 2012, including 5 districts that went for Obama, 4 with a Democratic PVI, and 3 that are at least 57% Obama. The Republican gerrymander would make 3 safe Republican districts, another that is likely Republican, and it would slightly weaken Ed Perlmutter. The court-drawn map would basically preserve the current map, but it would make the 4th (Cory Gardner) a couple points more Democratic.

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Wednesday July 20, 2011 · 9:56 AM PDT

2011/07/20 · 09:56

I previously did a diary about what maps I thought we should have drawn for Illinois and Arkansas. Now, I'll critique the GOP's map-drawing in Indiana, Oklahoma, and Nebraska. Because the Obama-McCain numbers don't accurately reflect Oklahoma's political landscape, I calculated numbers from the 2004 Tom Coburn-Brad Carson Senate race, which Coburn won 53-41. For Nebraska, the Obama-McCain numbers are not in DRA, so I calculated them, as well as the 2008 Mike Johannes-Scott Kleeb Senate race, which Johannes won 58-40. The Kleeb numbers show about what a strong rural Democrat would likely get and illustrate the safety of the new 1st and 3rd districts. The lone exception is the 2nd, which is more suburban, so the national Democrats usually perform better than the local Democrat.

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Saturday July 16, 2011 · 9:37 PM PDT

2011/07/16 · 21:37

If the New York Democrats are good negotiators, this should be what the Congressional map will look like. The Republicans should get a huge Senate gerrymander in exchange for this map. Upstate, Bill Owens and Kathy Hochul get shored up considerably and are put in Kerry districts. Richard Hanna and Chris Gibson are drawn together into a new upstate GOP district, while Tom Reed gets a new Western New York GOP vote sink. In New York City, Anthony Weiner's old district gets eliminated and Joseph Crowley's district becomes a Queens-Bronx Hispanic-majority district, while all the other majority-minority districts are preserved. To the best of my knowledge, all incumbents except for Gary Ackerman live in their new districts. All population deviations are under 1000 and I tried to minimize city and town splitting, with the obvious exception of New York City.

Here's the map:

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Tuesday July 12, 2011 · 12:53 PM PDT

2011/07/12 · 12:53

After spending a long time working on this, I finally was a able to create an 8-0 map that satisfies all my goals:

1. Keep the Eastern Shore intact
2. Maintain both black-majority districts
3. Make most districts about 60% Obama

All Democratic incumbents live in their districts, with the exception of Steny Hoyer, but he basically lives in DC anyway, and as long as he maintains a residence in Maryland, it doesn't matter if he lives in his district. Plus, as part of leadership, he would be fine with it in order to add two more Democrats to Congress.

All but one district has population deviation under 1000 and Generic D/R numbers reflect all 2006-2008 statewide races.

Poll

40 votes Show Results

Are the Maryland Dems pussies?

40 votes Vote Now!

Are the Maryland Dems pussies?

Yes, they will make a GOP vote sink and let Bartlett stick around.

24 votes

No, they have the balls to go 8-0.

8 votes

No, they will try for 8-0, but make a stupid map, that creates up 2 tossup districts.

8 votes

Illinois & Arkansas: What I would have done

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Sunday June 12, 2011 · 9:00 AM PDT

2011/06/12 · 09:00

I'm pretty content with our Illinois map, which has 11 Safe Dem seats, 1 that is safe until Costello retires, and 1 downstate swing district, basically a 12-5-1, and at best a 13-5. I made one that I think improves this a bit for us. I improved the new 13th from 54.6% Obama to 57.2% Obama, and improved the 14th from to 50.6% Obama to 53.1% Obama, in case State Rep. Jack Franks runs, which would put this seat in play and make this a 14-4 map. If Franks doesn't run, this is pretty much a guaranteed 13-5 and more solid than the current one and the only ugly district is the 13th.

In Arkansas, on the other hand, the map is awful. The 2nd and 3rd remain the same and the 1st and 4th actually become 1-2 points more Republican. This is absurd, considering Democrats controlled the trifecta. For this, I made two proposals. In the first proposal, I decided to let the 3rd eat as much strong GOP territory as possible, and I re-drew the Fayetteville Finger to allow the district to become just Democratic enough for Ross to hold it until 2014, while allowing the 1st and 2nd to take in its old blue territory in southeast Arkansas. This could allow us to keep 2 seats for the whole decade and a 3rd until Ross runs for governor in 2014. In the second proposal, I basically did a stand-pat map that only improves the 2nd by about 2%, but it is still a superior stand-pat to what was actually passed.

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Saturday June 04, 2011 · 12:19 PM PDT

2011/06/04 · 12:19

I made a map that has 15 safe Democratic districts. 12 of them are 60%+ Obama and the other three are at least 58% Obama, so these are no-question safe D. I made one other swing district that Obama won by 0.6% that a moderate could hold. In addition, I made a suburban Dallas seat that McCain won by 7, which is Likely R for now, but could flip by the end of the decade due to demographic trends. There are also 4 additional districts I drew that conservative Democrats could hold. For now, this is basically a 18-15-1-2, which is at worst a 21 R-15 D map and at best a 20 D-16 R if we win the tie, get our strong recruits in the 2 that depend on candidates, and have the dominoes fall our way in another. By the end of the decade, this is probably a 17-15-3-1. FYI, initially the map was pretty compact, but I wanted to see how blue I could get the other districts without affecting the 15 safe Dem ones, so there a few hideous districts. Anyways, here's the map:

Poll

27 votes Show Results

Who can most likely win a 60%+ McCain districts?

27 votes Vote Now!

Who can most likely win a 60%+ McCain districts?

Jim Turner

10 votes

Charlie Stenholm

11 votes

Max Sandlin

6 votes

Analysis of the Ultimate Effects of the DeLaymander

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Sunday May 22, 2011 · 10:14 PM PDT

2011/05/22 · 22:14

While I was creating my Texas map, I figured that a return to the old, pre-DeLaymander districts would be a huge benefit for us. I was absolutely wrong. I re-created the 5 rural districts we held that were targeted and altered by the GOP. It turns out that most of them ended up being just as red as they are now because of rural Texas's rapid shift to the Republicans. What the Republicans did to knock out Max Sandlin, Jim Turner, Charlie Stenholm, and Chet Edwards, and cause Ralph Hall to switch parties was to change their territory, so that they had tons of new constituents, even though the partisanship of the districts was roughly equivalent to the old ones. After re-creating them and seeing the numbers, it is clear we would have lost them anyway within a few cycles even if the Republicans didn't do their mid-decade gerrymander. Details of the individual districts after the jump.

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West Virginia: What Should Have Been Done

A Clean 2-2 Utah Dem Gerrymander

Colorado November 1st Election Preview

Solid 13-4-1 Illinois

Solid Democratic Colorado Map

Colorado Redistricting

Better GOP Maps of Indiana, Oklahoma, & Nebraska

New York Redistricting

Another 8-0 Maryland

Illinois & Arkansas: What I would have done

Texas: A Democratic Gerrymander

Analysis of the Ultimate Effects of the DeLaymander