It's like 6am on Redistmas Morning. Mom and Dad are still asleep, but we know that glorious presents are waiting for us under the tree, ready to be unwrapped any... minute... now. Though the Illinois state House finally passed their new congressional map last night, we're still waiting on the Senate to follow suit. (Update: The map has now been passed by the state Senate and it's being sent to Gov. Quinn for his signature.) We know they're going to do it sometime today, but we just can't wait any longer, so we're tearing into the new map right now:
And so, we give you political results for four statewide races: 2008 President, 2010 Governor, 2010 Senator, and 2010 Treasurer, and some info on the racial composition of the new districts. Many thanks go out to John M. (aka Lephead), whose data collection knows few bounds, and roguemapper, whose geographic data saved me a bunch of time.
(Note: The 2010 files are a bit incomplete, as I need data from four jurisidictions: Bond County, the City of Peoria, Stark County, and Tazewell County. However, this only affects Districts 13 and 15-18).
Now you may be thinking, why 2010 Treasurer? Well, 2010 in Illinois, more than usual, was a Chicagoland v. Downstate fight, with Gov. Pat Quinn and Senate nominee Alexi Giannoulias even losing Dem strongholds like Rock Island. Robin Kelly, our Treasurer candidate, had more of a "generic Dem" feel to her. Though she lost by 5 (to Quinn's 1-point win and Alexi's 2-point loss), she decidedly outperformed the top of the ticket in many areas downstate.
The General Assembly, as alluded above, also made a few changes to the map downstate from the first version released last week, shifting around a few precincts in Bond, Champaign, Ford, Madison, McLean, Sangamon, and Stark Counties. The biggest changes were to include more of Urbana and Normal, and also to approach Springfield from the south instead of the north. This change boosts IL-13 from 54.2% to 54.6%. In exchange, the 13th drops part of Collinsville, which we understand to shift IL-19 incumbent John Shimkus into the new 15th (while the addition of more of Urbana moves IL-15 incumbent Tim Johnson into the new 13th).
We redid our population distribution analysis to match the revised districts (our original analysis is here). Not much has changed, except that Shimkus' advantage over Johnson in the new IL-15 has improved to 54-45. It still would make sense numerically for both of them to run there (full spreadsheet here):
So without further ado, here's the 2008 Presidential race (full spreadsheet here):
Note: I allocate split precincts proportionally by the number of residents as of the 2010 census. I allocate early/absentee/provisional/federal-only votes proportionally by CD. That is, if CD 1 is responsible for 52% of a jurisdiction's Obama votes and 44% of a jurisdiction's McCain votes, CD1 gets allocated 52% of Obama's otherwise unallocated votes and 44% of McCain's otherwise unallocated votes.
So what sticks out to me? The minority-majority 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 7th all stay strongly Democratic; the 7th, as it was in this iteration, is the most Democratic, owing to the fact that the white constituents in the 7th are Chicagoans living in the Loop/South Loop and River North, as opposed to suburban/exurban residents of Palos/Orland and Will County.
The 5th and 9th are weakened slightly, with the 5th down 2 to 70% Obama and the 9th down 4 to 69% — nothing really to see here. Dam Lipinski is weakened about 5 points in Obama performance to 58%, but this was done to insulate him from a primary challenge.
The real action is in the suburbs, where the 10th is up about 2%, which should be enough to topple Bob Dold! The new 8th is 61.5% Obama and the new 11th is 61.4% Obama, both of which should be solidly Dem, though the home-state effect is undoubtedly present: Obama carried both GOP vote sinks (with 51.3% in the new 6th and 50.6% in the new 14th). Hell, he even carried the new 16th with just a bare majority.
Downstate, the 15th and 18th are clearly lost causes at 43% and 44% Obama, respectively. Some have said that the 17th is overpacked at 60% Obama (especially when considering how underwhelming Bobby Schilling is), and I'm inclined to agree. That Dem strength could have been used in the swing 13th, which is not confidence-inspiring at 54.6-43.6 (though for reasons discussed yesterday, there are a few other structural advantages that we have there). Finally, the 12th expanded somewhat to make up for population stagnation, and accordingly drops about 1 point in Democratic performance. Costello will be fine; one hopes for another candidate in his mold to hold the seat should he retire.
And 2010 (full spreadsheet here):
So the takeaways here? Well, Quinn sucked. As did Alexi.
In Chicago, the four VRA districts are once again unremarkable, except to note that Alexi outperformed Quinn here. The weakness of the ticket is clearly evident in the 5th and 9th, where Quinn got by with about 55-56% and Alexi ran a few points behind. Quinn did manage to scrape by in Lipinski's new district (despite its drop in Obama performance) with 47.5 to Bill Brady's 44.
Speaking of scraping by, Quinn also eked out a win in the new 10th (showing the effects of the precinct swapping in Cook County), 46.7 to 46.1; this gives me particular confidence for knocking off Dold. Brady narrowly beat Quinn in the new suburban 8th (48-44) and 11th (47-45) as well, but its hard to understate how much difficulty Quinn had in the suburbs. (You try campaigning on an income tax increase.) Both seats should go Dem with a competent Dem candidate. The northern 'burbs are where GOP Senate nominee Mark Kirk outshined Brady (or, you could say, where Quinn outpaced ticket-mate Alexi). Kirk racked up an 11-point margin in the new 10th to Brady's loss and an 8-point margin in the new 8th to Brady's 4.
With most of the Dem districts in Chicagoland covered, there's some major ugliness ahead. The 6th's vote sink characteristics show through, at 35% Quinn and 33% Alexi. Some Dems clamored for Bill Foster's return to happen in the new 14th (34% Quinn and 33% Alexi); let's just say I understand why Foster would choose the new 11th. Costello's 12th downstate was ok and not terrible; Quinn lost by 6 and Alexi by 8 (Kelly did the best, losing by 4).
The rest of the state is still unfinished due to data needs, but there's nothing particularly good to look at: the 15th and 16th were just plain nasty to us (though, as expected, Robin Kelly did better in the 15th — but still mired in the 20s). The 13th tenatively is looking like 37% Quinn and 38% Alexi/Kelly (the effects of Bond Co. should be de minimis), with Kelly again doing the best.
The 17th and 18th have the most significant portion missing, but it's looking as if Kelly outpolled the top of the ticket by 4% (she did win Rock Island County). The 18th, as expected, is a Republican vote sink.
As a bonus, here are racial statistics by new and old district. We knew which districts are mandated by the VRA, so there's nothing terribly surprising. Potentially of note is a drop in Hispanic population in the 3rd to protect Lipinski. Meanwhile, the recentering of the 8th around South Asian-heavy Schaumburg and Hoffman Estates raises the Asian population there to 12% from 8%.
So there's the analysis. Here's hoping Illinois pays off!
UPDATE: We believe this map will result in 12 or 13 Democrats, depending on how the 13th goes. We're not winning the 6th, 14th, or 16th anytime soon (unless Dem state Rep. Jack Franks of Marengo runs in the 14th); if we do, jeffmd will uninstall Excel and GIS from his computer and never touch them again.
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