As you've seen Washington Redistricting Commissioners Gorton (R) and Ceis (D) have released a compromise map. It protects all incumbents well and gives Denny Heck (Olympia Dem who ran in the 3rd last time) a nice district to run in, but leaves the other open seat leaning a little too much Republican. In my view, a map that is fair to both R's and D's would preserve the 5-4 D-R delegation, strengthing incumbents on both sides commensurately and then make the other district 50-50.
I've put the map in DRA, which you can download here. To create the map I did "Auto Color/Color Districts from Block CSV" with the block equivalency file. 87 of nearly 7000 voting districts got split, so the Auto Color had to assign to one or the other, which is why the deviation is up to 3000 people. Nevertheless, this gives a good picture of what the district demographics and electoral makeup are.
More below the fold.
First, here are the numbers for the current districts (these numbers are from DRA obtained by creating the current 9 CDs):
District |
Total Pop |
Murray (D) 2010 |
Rossi (R) 2010 |
White |
Black |
Hisp |
Asian |
Native |
Other |
1 |
740104 |
56.2% |
43.8% |
72.7% |
2.6% |
7.6% |
12.3% |
0.7% |
4.2% |
2 |
760100 |
50.5% |
49.5% |
80.2% |
1.3% |
9.6% |
3.8% |
1.8% |
3.3% |
3 |
779348 |
47.5% |
52.5% |
83.1% |
1.5% |
7.4% |
3.8% |
0.9% |
3.3% |
4 |
773715 |
35.6% |
64.4% |
60.3% |
0.8% |
33.8% |
1.5% |
1.7% |
1.9% |
5 |
724303 |
41.4% |
58.6% |
84.6% |
1.4% |
6.4% |
2.4% |
2.2% |
3.0% |
6 |
709555 |
53.0% |
47.0% |
73.3% |
5.3% |
8.5% |
5.8% |
2.1% |
5.2% |
7 |
702888 |
81.0% |
19.0% |
63.8% |
8.2% |
8.0% |
14.7% |
0.7% |
4.6% |
8 |
812406 |
49.2% |
50.8% |
71.2% |
2.9% |
7.2% |
13.8% |
0.7% |
4.1% |
9 |
722107 |
52.8% |
47.2% |
63.0% |
7.5% |
12.0% |
11.0% |
1.1% |
5.3% |
Now the numbers for the proposed map:
District |
Total Pop |
Murray (D) 2010 |
Rossi (R) 2010 |
White |
Black |
Hisp |
Asian |
Native |
Other |
1 |
674,990 |
49.0% |
51.0% |
77.6% |
1.1% |
8.4% |
8.4% |
1.1% |
3.4% |
2 |
670,285 |
55.3% |
44.7% |
74.8% |
2.4% |
9.5% |
8.0% |
1.4% |
3.8% |
3 |
672,909 |
44.6% |
55.4% |
83.2% |
1.4% |
7.8% |
3.4% |
1.0% |
3.2% |
4 |
674,022 |
34.9% |
65.1% |
57.3% |
0.9% |
36.1% |
1.5% |
2.4% |
1.9% |
5 |
672,569 |
41.8% |
58.2% |
85.7% |
1.4% |
5.5% |
2.5% |
1.7% |
3.1% |
6 |
671,680 |
52.7% |
47.3% |
78.8% |
3.6% |
6.6% |
4.3% |
2.1% |
4.7% |
7 |
673,562 |
77.0% |
23.0% |
72.5% |
4.4% |
7.3% |
10.7% |
0.7% |
4.4% |
8 |
673,900 |
44.6% |
55.4% |
75.9% |
2.4% |
9.7% |
7.5% |
1.0% |
3.7% |
9 |
670,918 |
63.2% |
36.8% |
49.7% |
10.9% |
11.8% |
22.3% |
0.6% |
4.7% |
10 |
669,705 |
52.9% |
47.1% |
69.7% |
5.7% |
9.8% |
7.9% |
1.2% |
5.7% |
It's pretty clear that districts 4, 5, 6 and 7 remain pretty much the same: 2 safe R; 2 reasonably safe D. Districts 2 (D) and 8 (R) both go from a slight lean to safe, with about the same percentage change. So far so good.
Now, District 3 is strengthened for Herrera (R) from 52.5% to 55.4% Rossi. Also, the new 10th is about the same as the old 9th at about 52.8% Murray.
That leaves the 1st and the new 9th. Now the old 1st went 56.2% Murray -- solid Dem. The new 9th would be 63.2% Murray, so way safe Dem. Arguably, the few % Herrera gets is much more valuable than the larger % the new 9th gets compared to the old 1st, since at 56.2% it's pretty solid D already.
That leaves the new 1st (in effect the new district) at 49% Murray, 51% Rossi -- a swing district, but leaning a little to the right, kinda like the old 8th district, where Dems often came close, but never won. This is a bad deal for Dems. With districts 2 and 4-8, the deal was even, but Republicans get more out of the change to the 3rd compared to the change between the old 1st and new 9th. So the if anything, Dems should get the better side of a swingy new 1st.
Now, it's not like it would be hard to make the new 1st 50-50 or swing a little more Dem. One could easily exchange a little of south Snohomish County to the 1st (say, Brier and Mountlake Terrace) for more of Whatcom County to the 2nd. Or various other tweaks. I already tried in DRA and it's simple.
So why has Tim Ceis made this deal? I don't know. They probably have numbers for the governor's races in 2004 and 2008 and for the presidential election. But the Pres numbers are not valuable. McCain got creamed, but that does not reflect how voters in the state vote for congress and senate and governor. In 2008 Gregoire beat Rossi with 53.2%, a bit better than Murray in 2010, but it's hard to see how those numbers would change what we see with this map and the Murray-Rossi numbers.
So, I'm disappointed, but of course, it's not quite final. C'mon Dean Foster: insist on some changes!