Let’s try something different: In comments, tell us what congressional district you live in. While you’re at it, why don’t you describe the district for us, too. And if you don’t live in a U.S. congressional district, tell us about whatever legislative district(s) you do live in.
UPDATE: This has been a super-fun thread so far. To kick it up a notch, I’ve created a Frappr map for SSP community members. This will give us a visual representation of where everyone lives. You can click below to add your location (nothing more specific than a town name or ZIP code is used). Go for it!
I live in Minnesota’s forth congressional district. It has a PVI of D+13 and has been represented by Betty McCollum since 2001. The district is centered in St. Paul which is the state capital of Minnesota and a fairly large city. It also includes a few surrounding suburbs.
Betty isn’t the most progressive representative out there but she is a solid Democrat in a solidly Democratic district. She too often backs establishment candidates instead of staying out of local primaries but she is also the 34th most progressive representative in Congress according to Progressive Punch.
It’s a great district to live in.
I live in the CA-11, which, as you may remember, is represented by freshman Democrat Jerry McNerney who defeated Republican Richard Pombo in 2006. McNerney was the first Democratic congressional candidate I ever voted for (I just turned 18 in 2006), so it really felt like my vote meant something. I was happy to see Pombo get removed, because as time went on he had become less and less of a fit for the District. I suppose I should explain.
The CA-11 is one of the eastern-most districts that is still considered part of the San Francisco Bay Area, and so the region’s Democratic leanings have taken a long time to penetrate to it. That is changing now. CA-11 consists of an affluent suburban area known as the San Ramon Valley, which I live in, and extends in a fish-hook shape to more agricultural areas towards Sacramento and includes parts of Stockton. For a long time, this agricultural flavor is what defined the district, which is what gave it a nominal Republican lean, but with the continuing growth of the Bay Area in general and it’s emphasis on technology, CA-11 is slowly adopting a more Democratic-friendly tinge. McNerney’s victory in 2006 was no fluke, contrary to what some pundits say. I think as time goes on, CA-11 will become, like the rest of the Bay Area, a Democratic bastion.
MD-2 includes a portion of Baltimore and its suburbs. It is safely Democratic. The Maryland Congressional districts are gerrymandered to favor Democrats. The Baltimore area could have been 1 very Democratic urban district and 2 competitive suburban districts. Instead it’s 3 safely Democratic districts each including a piece of the city and its suburbs. Also, MD-2 and MD-3 have got to be among the weirdest-shaped districts in the entire country. The two districts wrap around each other forming a double helix through the Baltimore area, and I don’t see any reason for it to be that way. Both districts are politically and demographically similar. My Congressman is Dutch Ruppersberger.
I live in FL-24th. This district includes parts of Volusia, Brevard, Seminole and Orange counties in Central Florida. My district has includes part of my hometown of Daytona Beach as well as Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral and stretches all the way south to the suburbs of Orlando. This district is a bizarre creation of republican gerrymandering in 2002, specifically by my sorry SOB Congressman Tom Feeney. The northern part of the district where I live (Volusia County) is the liberal part of the district with Brevard being a swing region and Seminole and Orange (Feeney’s base) being the more conservative areas.
Other facts on FL-24th:
-This district has an R+3 Cook PVI rating.
In 2004 Bush beat Kerry 5545% in the districtIn 2000 Bush beat Gore 5347% in the districtFL24 is far less diverse than the state as a whole with 80% of residents being white, 10% Hispanic and 6% black.– The district is quite wealthy by Florida standards with a median income of $43,954
-Poverty rate is 8.7%
-This district is 1,915 square miles
-Almost entirely urban. 91.2% urban 8.8% rural
-District is mostly white collar (65%) with 19% Blue Collar workers and 15% Gray collar.
-As is most of Florida, this district is growing at far higher than the national rate and thus the districts boundaries will likely be smaller after 2012.
In 2006 Feeney faced a no-name candidate in Clint Curtis, whom he outspent something like 15-1 and only won by about a 58-42 margin. This year we have a top-tier recruit in former state legislator Suzanne Kosmas who is outraising Feeney and will give Feeney the fight of his life.
Since i’m still a 20 year old college student, it’s fair to say that I inhabit 2 different districts. I’ll start with my hometown district:
TX-07: Includes the western areas and suburbs of Houston, represented by someone who is actually worse than Tom Delay, by the name of John Culberson. Fortunately he’s getting a very very stiff challenge from Michael Skelly. This district is carefully gerrymandered to leave out any area which is excessively poor while containing the rich areas, and the more conservative westerly areas (I could go into details if anyone wants it). The Eastern region is the primarily rich area – including River Oaks (richest zip code in the country I believe), West University Place, Bunker Hill and Memorial Villages, and some other counter-culture liberal bastions (WestHeimer-Montrose area). The Western part of the district is probably the biggest bastion of conservativism – it’s the farthest from the city of Houston, has the least number of minorities, and contains mostly outer-conservative suburban people, centered on Katy and I-10. The Northwestern section, North of 290 (or slightly southwest of it) is where I live. It contains middle class, upper middle class, working class neighborhoods, as well as a numerous amount of (and expanding) apartment complexes, and occasionally poor neighborhoods and this area has seen the most growth since 2000 (I’ve heard estimates of around +200,000 people, but I could be wrong). Skelly does have a realistic shot here (it’s not simply a pipe dream), and in the future this district WILL go Democratic. His profile makes him stronger in the eastern part of the district, Culberson’s incompetence makes Skelly stronger in the western – but the rapidly expanding and more moderate Northwestern area is where I think this election will come down to.
WI-02: Much less to say about it. Centered on the city of Madison, its suburbs, and rural counties surrounding it North, East and South. The only other city of size is Beloit, in the southeastern Edge. As you can imagine, “Madtown”, with its liberal reputation, as well as its growth and its suburban growth – also much more liberal now than in the past, this district will only continue to become more Democratic. It’s surrounding counties are, like most Wisconsin rural counties, relatively evenly split, with Beloit having a tint of blue in it. This is also the fastest growing district in the state, so I’m hoping at redistricting, they’ll give Beloit to WI-01 in Southeastern Wisconsin (in exchange for heavily conservative Milwaukee suburbs) to make Paul Ryan’s R+2 district a 50-50 district at last (as it was 2000), allowing us to evenly compete and recruit stronger challengers (not the same non-campaigning retread they get every year) and perhaps win this sometime; although many people in the area will say it’s impossible.
ok.
Containing Kansas City, Independence, and assorted suburbs. Also a random chunk of Cass County (Belton, IIRC). 8% of voters were in Cass County. The KC Election Board portion of Jackson County makes up a slight plurality. With the rest covered by the Jackson County Election Board.
The district is D+12. Cleaver had a competitive race with Jeanne Patterson becaue Patterson outspent him 2 to 1. Once he faced a minor opponent, he won 2 to 1. Kerry won 59/40 in this district while losing 53/46 statewide.
24% of MO-5 is African-American, but two of the last three Reps from MO-5 have been African-American (Alan Wheat and Emanuel Cleaver). When Wheat won, I believe he was the first African-American elected from such a white district.
Jacob Turk is the favorite to win the primary in August for the opportunity to lose to Cleaver. Turk has mini-billboards, after all.
As for the state-level, both of my guys in the Missouri government are Democrats. Neither is opposed. And both are moderate Dems.
The pride and joy of Illinois Republicans (atleast whats left of them). Hinsdale, Naperville, Downers Grove, Bolingbrook, Orland Park. Judy Biggert has won this district with big margins by being a pro-choice “moderate” republican. Regardless of the fact she has voted against the GI bill, SCHIP, and continues to fund the war.
This Suburban Chicago district is pretty wealthy and you have alot of “country club” republicans in Hinsdale, Burr Ridge, and Oak Brook. The towns in this CD are known for their great public schools, which makes it the fastest growing CD in Illinois. I’m hoping Scott Harper can shake things up a bit here in the fall.
We have a decent but not spectacular representative here in Adam Smith, who voted for the war but has been pretty solid in bringing the troops home.
We’re losing Tom Udall in his attempt to become our next Senator, and it looks like we’ll find out who our next Rep. is in the primary on Tuesday.
Looks to be either Ben Ray Lujan or Don Wiviott. And they’re at each other’s necks in the homestretch.
represented by Anthony Weiner. The district includes residential, middle class and some upper class areas of Brooklyn and Queens; Sheepshead Bay, Midwood, Marine Park, the Rockaways, Howard Beach, Ozone Park, Forest Hills, Middle Village, parts of Flushing. The PVI is D+14, but George Bush scored a pretty goof 43% here in 2004, largely on post-9/11 bump from the large number of firefighters/cops and thier families in this distirct, mainly Italian, Irish, Jewish etnicities.
Demographics; 71% White, 14.5% Asian, 13.6% Hispanic, 4% Black.
I live in the same territory once represented by Geraldine Ferraro and Chuck Schumer.
As Stephen Colbert put it: “The part of Nebraska with people.”
Omaha is a slightly Democratic city, while the suburbs are heavily Republican. The Mayor of Omaha is Mike Fahey, while the Congressman from this district is Lee Terry – an embarrassment.
We’re the home of the College World Series and the richest man in the world, Warren Buffett.
This is an R+6 district which makes it the most Republican in the state. Indeed, it’s the most Republican district in a huge swath of territory including all of New England, all of NY State, NJ, Delaware, “central MD “(excluding the eastern shore and the western part of the state and eastern PA. Hey, I guess you can throw in NoVA, too.
It’s suburban and affluent but mainly affluent in the sense that it really contains no cities and no poor towns.
I’m from the Essex County part of the district but mostly it’s Morris County and a little bit of Sussex. The oddity is that the people we send to the state senate and state assembly and county legislature are all Democrats. The town itself, all 7500 people, could best be described as cliquish Republican.
The congressman, Rodney Frelinghuysen, is an oddity. Somebody in his family has represented NJ in Congress in the 1700s, the 1800s, the 1900s and now the 2000s.
Frelinghuysen has not had much opposition since I moved to the district in 1999. The typical campaign against him has had maybe $10,000 to spend which results in a few bumper stickers and road/yard signs. Tom Wyka is making more of an effort this time around but …
Aside from 9/11 and a slumping economy, the area has been seriously Bush-whacked by the complete abdication of the Army Corps of Engineers and FEMA and everybody else that possibly might have had a hand in flood control. Flood Insurance is really soaring and unlike mortgages or taxes is completely NOT tax deductible. And mandated for anyone homeowner with a mortgage or home equity line of credit. The Corps of Engineers was working on flood control up river from us but I haven’t heard anything about it in years and it was insufficient in several floods.
It’s almost entirely contiguous with the Seattle city limits. (It also contains Vashon Island, a little ferry-only enclave in the middle of Puget Sound that used to be a hippy hideout and is becoming another wealthy suburb.) It’s probably one of the nation’s best educated and most child-free districts. It’s whiter and more affluent than most urban districts; it has very few Republicans (D+26, I think) and for a city with a lot of white people, it has very few Clinton supporters either. (Lots of lattes and lots of Priuses, so I guess that explains it.)
Seeing as I’m also In college I technically have 2 districts also. I’ll start with my college town, where I’m registered to vote.
CA 1st: I’m currently represented by Mike Thompson, although he started out as a Blue dog he’s left that caucus to join the new Democrat coalition along the progressive caucus. He’s been real active in my district. As a member of the Davis College Democrats, the Vice President of Finance to be more specific, I was honored to receive a $500 Donation towards our club. Congressman Thompson clearly cares about young people in politics. We’ve even got him to come to our college campus to hear student voice their own opinions about the current political landscape. I’ve already attended one of his many fundraisers, and will say it was one of the best(successful) ones I’ve been to.
Now as for my hometown its been solidly red for decades. My congressman, Ken Calvert, is an embarrassment. When he was first elected he was caught soliciting a prostitute (he was still married at the time) some family values guy he is! lol. Anyways voters were crazy enough to forgive him. Just last year or so he was caught with some corrupt land deals(you know the ones where you buy land, put some earmarks and sell it for a big profit). And he was still reelected by a healthy margin in ’06. For the longest time I never knew who the Democratic candidate running was. I’ve always felt that the best way to knock him of would be to give him a tough primary challenge.
The Democrat running this year is looking to Louis Vandenberg, He was the previous nominee for ’02,’04,’06.I feel a little guilty that I really haven’t put any effort into this race, so I plan to see what I can do when I head back in the summer
http://www.sourcewatch.org/ind…
Also a little trivia the last Democrat to hold my hometown district was John V. Tunney, who won the race with the help of the ’64 Lyndon Johnson landslide. If that name sounds a little familiar well, he ended up vacating his house seat in 1970 to mount a successful campaign to become a US Senator of CA!!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J…
Represented for awhile now by Grace Napalitano. She doesn’t do crap for the most part in Congress, but seeing as she represents an ubber democratic district, she has nothing to worry about. The district was also gerrymandered to be overwhelmingly hispanic, so since her name is not overly hispanic sounding, all of her campaign signs feature “Grace Flores Napalitano.” I have never seen her heard of her doing anything in the district, nor have I seen her do anything other than sponcer legislation. I have written her numerous times about issues that I find important, and have never, or maybe once, received a responce. When I was in a near by district, I received a very prompt responce from my representative at the time.
from the western part of CA-46 (Dana Rohrabacher-R is the incumbent). Huntington Beach Mayor Debbie Cook is running against crazy Dana and has a base of support in the Orange County portion of the district already. The district stretches all the way from Huntington Beach to include Seal Beach, a small portion of Long Beach and then skirts along the water to avoid blue territory (the rest of Long Beach and San Pedro) and encompasses all of the Palos Verdes peninsula.
It’s funny to see how they drew it to make it super safe for the Republican that holds it, but that safety is now threatened.
The Secretary of State’s latest registration figures came out just today and in just the last month and a half an extra 1300 Democrats have been registered to only 250 for Republicans.
The differential between Dem and Republican registrations is down from 63,500 in 10/2006 to 54,700 now. If additional registration gains keep apace and the large amount of Decline to Staters lean Democratic, then this district could really swing to Cook.
Hopefully lots of people from the ton of safe Dem districts in the area will get involved to flip this district to blue.
I met him first at the CA state convention in ’07
and then again this January at one his fundraisers
I think we’ve got a great hold on this seat, seeing as the Republican nominee is floundering in fundraising
I’m one of those outsiders who worked for McNerney in 2006. I was ready to do anything to get rid of Pombo, but I restrained myself and just gave money, phone banked, and worked on GOTV.
You should be proud to be able to vote to re-elect this year.
I live in Connecticut’s 5th District, containing most of the state’s northwest corner. Beautiful New England scenery abounds here, although most of the picturesque small towns have become full of suburban homes or weekend homes for wealthy New Yorkers. The district contains the cities of Danbury and New Britain, and also most of the city of Waterbury. It also contains some of Hartford’s richest suburbs in the northern end of the district and some of New Haven’s suburbs in the south. The district overall is pretty wealthy and well-educated, and the population tends to be moderate to liberal, though many conservative pockets do exist. Uber-wealthy towns such as Avon, Simsbury, and Cheshire used to be staunchly Republican, along with the small towns in the NW corner, but now all are 50/50 if not lean Democratic.
The district has a PVI of D+4, though Kerry only won the district by about 1,100 votes. Still, in 2006 we ousted faux-moderate Nancy Johnson and elected progressive Chris Murphy by a 56-44 margin, and he should coast to reelection this year. Both Lamont and Obama did very well in the district in their primaries, and Obama is sure to carry the district in the November.
The areas in the district have historically been a battleground of sorts between the two parties much as the state has been; as the state as a whole moved into the Safe Blue column the district has followed, if only more slowly.
http://ftp2.census.gov/geo/map…
Do you think you could tell from this map if you lived in MD-2 or MD-3? It must be a pain for the Congressmen and candidates. That is way more traveling than they should have to do to campaign in and represent these dense urban/suburban districts.
These are the only two MD districts currently held by Republicans. Frank kratovil has a good chance to take the 1CD on the eastern shore. Jennifer Dougherty is working to take the 6th CD in Western MD. She’s a long shot. Both are worth supporting.
I’m for making all CD’s in the USA the most contiguous as possible. Jerrymandering should outlawed. Add districts should be redrawn every ten years after the census by a disinterested third party. (Where you get that I don’t know.)
These are the only two MD districts currently held by Republicans. Frank kratovil has a good chance to take the 1CD on the eastern shore. Jennifer Dougherty is working to take the 6th CD in Western MD. She’s a long shot. Both are worth supporting.
I’m for making all CD’s in the USA the most contiguous as possible. Jerrymandering should outlawed. All districts should be redrawn every ten years after the census by a disinterested third party. (Where you get that I don’t know.)
I now live in Germany, but my home district is OH-03, known to vote very narrowly DEM in most GE’s.
Turner (R) has been rep there for a number of years. One of the few republicans I would vote for.
ALL of them hate Feeney. He’s done nothing as far as getting funding for and creating jobs in the space industry in the district. A series of strikes at the Cape over pay and other issues certainly doesn’t help Feeney either.
Cape Canaveral is represented by Republican Weldon.
is a big city and it’s conservative? That’s quite interesting .
I love studying foreign countries and their politics. I did a lot of it in college. I thought it was pretty interesting that one of the safest ridings for the Conservative Party in the UK was in Central London, a district that includes most of the touristy spots.
Space is a huge waste of money and we should take a break and focus on fixing our own planet instead of infecting other ones. We are a destructive society my friends.
I’m at UCLA, part of CA-30, represented by the most awesome Henry Waxman, also a graduate of UCLA. This district is D+20, and if it had been up to us, Phil Angelides would be the governor instead of Arnold Schwarzenegger (UCLA voted by over a 60%-40% margin for Angelides two years ago).
At the state level, we also now get to vote for the new California Speaker of the Assembly, Karen Bass, the first African-American and first woman to serve in such a role. We’re having a semi-nasty state senate race right now between two progressives, one who’s slightly better on the environment and has more experience, and one who’s slightly better on the budget and is a rising star in the party.
But I grew up in Palos Verdes, which as mentioned above is represented by the most odious Dana Rohrabacher. Hopefully Huntington Beach mayor Debbie Cook can take that Taliban-loving asshole out.
that his 6 week absence due to having a heart bypass surgery gave him a bunch of “no-votes”, which as far as lists like Progressive Punch are concerned, are 0s. That does give him a dint into his voting record.
And I understand the need for him to go right, I knew that and expected that. But some of his breaks have been . . . odd. Lampson was a good environmentalist, now one his LCV strikes against him was voting to take the Mexican wolf off the endangered species list (an amendment by Steve Pearce).
We had our county convention a few months back, plenty of stuff for all the democrats running in the county, except one, Lampson. He had 0 gear or supporters or anything. It’s almost as if he doesn’t want to be associated with the locals anymore and that worries me.
I worked my butt of for Nick in 2006, and I’m glad he’s my congressman again (I had him from 1996 until the 2003 funny business). Still, he’s gone not just conservative, but really kinda . . . fly on the wall. I don’t know what he stands for (besides NASA). In 2006 I voted for Lampson, in 2008 I’ll vote against Olson. This is a sign that he may lose this year.
I live in an L.A. neighborhood called Sherman Oaks, which from the name should be in Brad Sherman’s district, but instead is mostly in Howard Berman’s. Howard has been in Congress since 1983 and is a solid Democrat on most domestic issues but has been far too hawkish on foreign policy. He was a strong supporter of getting into the Iraq war and still supports its funding. I haven’t voted for him for several election cycles. (Did I mention that it is a safe Democratic seat? It has as much chance of electing a Green as a Republican–none.)
In 2006 there was an antiwar challenger in the Democratic primary who got about 20% and a Green in the general who got about 3% of the vote. This time Howard gets a free ride; no primary, no Green and possibly not even a Repub. I’m abstaining in the primary and maybe in the general, not that it matters.
We live near the edge of the district so every 10 years we get a new Representative as the lines are shifted. In the ’70s we had Tony Beilenson (my favorite), in the ’80s Berman, in the ’90s Henry Waxman and now back to Berman. I hope we get Brad Sherman next time, not only because he represents “the best named community in America” (Brad’s a funny guy) but also because he is more accessible to his constituents. He does lots of town hall forums where he faces the voters. Howard isn’t out there as much.
It is interesting to read about college students’ two districts. My first time voting for Congress was as a freshman at UC Santa Cruz in 1976. We replaced a GOP congresscritter with Leon Panetta who later went from chair of the House Budget committee to serving in the Clinton cabinet. That district is now represented by Sam Farr, who was the CA Assemblymember when I lived there and who won the special election for the seat after Panetta left.
Know I’m not really in the target group, but as a frequent reader I thought what the heck…
The municipality of Oslo inhabits around 500 000 people and is one of the more conservative in Norway. In the last local election in 2007, the conservatives and the right wing extremist wingnut-party got the majority with the help of two parties in the center.
In the parliamentarian elections in 2005, the Norwegian Labor party (where I am a member) got the most seats, and is now in control of government. Next election is in 2009.
There are a lot of Americans in Oslo and a quite strong Democrats Abroad organization here. So we all wear Obama-badges come November.
my urban district is represented by a SPD-woman of a turkish descent. If my ZIP code (50676) were American, I would live in Tripoli, IO – Bruce Braley’s district. Not that I could tell you anything about it…
A D+2.7 distict which has NEVER elected a Democrat to represent it in congress. Thanks to our position in the state, this is likely to be one of the hardest fought battlegrounds in the country (for House, Senate, and Presidential politics)
The district is a gerrymandered mess (shocker) consisting of all of Virginia Beach, parts of Norfolk and Hampton, and the two counties of Virginia’s Eastern Shore, Accomack and Northampton. The district used to make a little more sense, just being Virginia Beach and part of Norfolk. Now it’s basically three separate communities separated by tunnels.
Since Owen Pickett retired, the district has been represented by two terrible Republicans: closet case Ed Schrock, who served for two terms before being forced out because he was calling gay dating lines, and empty suit Thelma Drake, who got out of the real estate business at the right time.
No offense but your district tends to produce some major league A holes.
Weiner, Ferraro and Chucky?
My three least favorite NY politicians outside of the Clintons.
IIRC. The Robert Redford movie “The Candidate” was supposed to be based on John Tunney’s successful 1970 Senate race. In 1976 he was defeated for reelection by S.I. “Sleeping Sam” Hayakawa, who had been head of San Francisco State University and had fought with radical students on campus. He too was defeated after only one term partially because he was seen sleeping during Senate sessions…In the 1976 race Tunney survived a primary challenge from Tom Hayden, who had been a student leader in the peace movement and later became a longtime CA state legislator.
I have no idea why they popped up after I posted…
I’d like to see all of the NASA districts hold Democratic congress critters. We got TX-22. I think Kucinish has the Ohio one (not sure) and the base in Cali is in a Dem stronghold. The Alabama district I believe is in the open AL-5 seat.
Space is out future, make it Democratic. 😛
Republican Bob Inglis is the House member. He has primary opposition from the right and nominal GE competition. Although quite conservative, he has moderated recently on Global Warming. Taking some heat for it too.
He defeated the last Democrat to represent this district, Liz Patterson in 1992. She held the seat from ’86 to ’92. Inglis served three terms then run unsuccessfully for US Senate in ’98. He reclaimed the seat six years later. US Senator Jim DeMint held the seat from ’98-’04.
This is the most Republican seat in SC, and I don’t expect the seat to be seriously contested anythime soon. The SC-1 and SC-2 seats are getting serious D contenders for the first time in years, so I will be watching those closely. SC-1 (Charleston) in particular could be a sleeper upset.
Represented by freshman rep. Yvette Clark, who won an open seat against the son of Major Owens, who was expected to win but ran a poor campaign. This seat aint going Publican anytime in the next 5 decades, with a PVI in the +25 D range.
It’s an interesting mix of African American, 5th generation Italian and new-school yuppies leaving Manhattan for more affordable (and more diverse and enjoyable) pastures.
We went for Kerry 89% in ’04… we’re 62% African-American, as of the 2000 census… and our delegate, Eleanor Holmes Norton, can only vote whenever it’s not a tie-breaker. Does the one follow the others…?
I’m a Rice alum, so I’ve been fortunate to have an excuse to make it to the Promised Land of College Baseball twice so far, with hopefully a chance at a third trip this year.
Omaha is a great town, and the CWS is a blast. For anyone reading that likes baseball but doesn’t have a dog in the hunt per se, just go. It’s baseball in its purest form (err, except for the aluminum bats), and the vibe is unmatchable. Plus, you can gamble across the river in Council Bluffs, IA! What’s not to love!
this district covers the area from the southern suburban city of Quincy all the way down the south shore of Boston Harbor including Cape Cod and the islands of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. I live on the most latter of the preceding list.
In my part of the district, the wealth divide is extremely evident. there are there rich mahattanites who summer on the island and the cape, then there are the locals who are simply struggling to afford everyday items due to the price hikes of living on an island (gas, for instance, is 4.50-4.80 a gallon)
Rep. Delahunt has done a lot of good for the country as a whole, if not his district in particular, which makes sense as a democratic rep in the commonwealth will more than likely hold his seat for as long he deems fit. i have no issue with rep. delahunt, but i do wish he would turn his focus to the more outer reaches of his district then concentrating on the population centers of suburban boston
As a strong environmentalist, I was especially please to see McNerney win!
I currently live in OH-15. It is made up of Madison, Union and most of Fraklin County. It includes about half of the city of Columbus. This district should be going Blue this year – GO MARY JO KILJOY.
I am moving to either FL-22, VA-8, VA-10, VA-11
I live in Jim Moran’s district, which encompasses almost all of Alexandria, Arlington, and Falls Church, and is gerrymandered to include Reston and other more liberal parts of NoVa. Moran, frankly, is pretty useless, and I’d like to see him get a nice strong primary challenge in the near future.
The district is I believe the most educated district in the country in terms of percentage of the populace having graduate degrees. It is also quite wealthy due to Uncle Sam spreading it out, and has become the Democratic engine of Virginia in terms of turning out blue voters.
Tunney’s dad, also John Tunney, was the heavyweight champion of the world way back in the 1920s. Beat Jack Dempsey for the title.
Well I live in Nick Lampson’s district. PVI is R+15. If you look at it on the map I am from the most narrow portion that dips down into Galveston County. I live in Friendwood which is known as the Republican part of Galveston county. (most of Friendswood is in TX-14 which is Ron Paul’s district). I don’t know (or care really) about the west side of the district which includes Sugarland. On the the eastern side is Clear Lake which includes the all important Johnson Space Center.
As for Lampson, I’ve been disappointed thus far. He had a few good votes but has been diverging from the party too much for me to be engaged in his campaign. He still has my vote though because of the NASA issue. He is one of the best in Congress when it comes to Space and considering my dad is employed at United Space Alliance, that means everything to me.
One of the few big state senate races also intersects most of the easter end of the district. Fmr. Galveston City Councilman Joe Jaworski (yes he is a decendent of Watergate prosecutor Leon) is taking on Republican State Senator Mike Jackson. The PVI is quite Republican but less than Lampson’s district. His fundraising has been good and he’s not afraid to be called a Democrat like Lampson is. Help him out, http://www.jaworski.com
(Also, while it is out of my voter registration there’s a great lady running for state house in the Clear Lake area named Sherrie Matula. Check her out and show her some love at http://www.sherriematula.com)
Now while I am registered to vote in TX-22, I just graduated from college in Denton and I will continue to live and work for Democrats up here (Dallas has been doing well and Fort Worth is starting to get some love, Denton should get some soon). So I live and work from the confines of R+13 district TX-26 of Michael Burgess also known as . . . “who?” That should sum up this district well enough.
I’m looking forward to hear what everyone else has to say.
This is the new district we got after the last census. It was drawn to be competitive, leaning Democratic. It’s a strangely drawn district, with most of the land running along the north central border, but most of the people in two tongues that drop down into Raleigh and Greensboro. Brad Miller is my rep, and has been the only one to date. He’s a good center-to-left Democrat who fits the district well. His first race was somewhat competitive, with Brad from the Raleigh end and his opponent from the Greensboro end. His last two have been laughers, and I think he’s pretty much unopposed this time. Interestingly, his last race was against Vernon Robinson, who is sort of the NC version of Alan Keyes, and who never even bothered to move into the district.
When I moved to NC in 1997 I was in the 6th, which is represented by Howard Coble. I have no real opinion on him, since in the next two elections he was unopposed, so the local media didn’t even bother to run issue and voting record information. Thus I was glad to be redistricted into the 13th so that I actually had a choice.
Some folks on these sites have criticized Brad for not running against Dole. I, however, am glad he didn’t. He already has some important committee slots in the House – why give that up to be a freshman Senator? Plus, if he really wants to be in the Senate it makes a lot more sense to run in the “sure thing” race against Burr in two years than to run against a tougher opponent like Dole. Bowles learned the lesson the hard way, since his loss to Dole certainly played a major role in his subsequent loss to the nonentity Burr in ’04.
I’m volunteering full time for Huntington Beach Mayor Debbie Cook.
An uphill battle, but people inside the district understand that an effective local leader with extraordinary credentials in the environmental community can take on one of the least effective members of Congress, who has spent twenty years as a profound embarassment to his district.
Join us in this almost Manichean battle.
I am reading up on California’s past and present election results and legislators and I hope to be able to track the changes in voting patterns of every region of the state. One century ago, we were as Republican as Utah is now! (Of course, both parties were very different a century ago also.) We became a swing state in the Great Depression and remained that way until the 90s, when we became blue and will hopefully only get bluer!
I haven’t seen CA-26 in this thread yet, so I might as well write about it here. My hometown Rancho Cucamonga is in the 26th congressional district, after redistricting removed it from the then-42nd district, represented by Democrats George E. Brown, Jr. and Joe Baca, and placed into Republican David Dreier’s district. Interestingly, Dreier won by very wide margins for most of his tenure, when his district was completely in eastern L.A. County. When the San Bernardino portion was added, he hadn’t been able to win with the wide margins like he used to, with the exception of the Republican-friendly 2002 election. Hopefully, with my fellow Rancho Cucamongan Russ Warner, we can at least give Dreier a good run for his money!
And it is so awesome to see so many fellow Californians here. I wish I could be back home with all of you!
It’s a very large, diverse district that is mainly Democratic.
The district covers Northern New Mexico and jets down to southern New Mexico on the east part of the state.
We have the capital city, Santa Fe, as well as the third-largest city in the state, Rio Rancho (where I live). Rio Rancho is pretty much a suburb of Albuquerque.
But there are also some very conservative parts of the state. The four-corners area, with Farmington, is mainly Anglo and mainly conservative. Same with much of the eastern part of the state, which borders Texas.
In the northern mountains, where there is some good (Santa Fe) and some excellent (Taos) skiing. It is almost mainly Hispanic and very Democratic-leaning.
Bill Richardson held this seat for many years before he left to become US Ambassador under Clinton. After two years under a Republican (thanks to a green party candidate, sound familiar?) we went to Tom Udall.
Beautiful Northwest North Carolina. The district stretches from the Winston-Salem suburbs to the Tennessee border and from Statesville in the south to the Virginia border. It includes mostly rolling hills. farms and old agricultural areas, but in the west it climbs the Appalachian mountains to take in towns like West Jefferson and Boone (home of THE Appalachian State University Mountaineer Football Team!).
The district drawers, of which the aforementioned Rep. Brad Miller was one, made sure to draw the district to exclude all Democratic areas of Winston-Salem (which are in the 12th). There are pockets of local Democratic strength, mostly up the mountain. Big gains were made locally district-wide in 2006.
The congresswoman is Virginia Foxx, one of the most conservative members of the House. She was one of only a few to vote against Katrina relief and a number of other projects. It will be tough to beat her as she is quite the hardworker, often carrying one of those big checks to all the visits she makes.
BUT, there is a chance, so give money to Roy Carter, our nominee…www.roycarterforcongress.com
In Staten Island in the much discussed NY-13. Been a wild few weeks. Been nice to see the Vito Fosella Republicans stumbling without his leadership. Particularly since Vito has been a complete tool as a congresman.
Finally got a local Democratic candidate in though it will still be a race both in the primary and the general. Staten Island is tricky going strongly for Gore in 2000 and Bush in 2004. And Staten Island has it’s own unique issues. Amazing how the Republicans picked a candidate vulnerable on two of the most important ones. Transportation and health care.
The Connecticut Fourth, held by Christopher Shays, is the last Republican district in New England. Jim Himes is the Democratic challenger.
The district is more-or-less coterminous with Lower Fairfield County in the southwest corner of the state, one of the wealthiest areas in the country; this includes the banking center of Stamford, gated communities along the “Gold Coast” of Greenwich, Darien, etc., and quite a few hedge funds. However, it also includes the declining industrial city of Bridgeport, where Shays lives. Famous natives of the district include P.T. Barnum (Bridgeport), Ann Coulter (New Canaan), Christopher Lloyd (various towns), and Meg Ryan (Fairfield).
The district has been in Republican hands since the 60s, and Shays has been in office since 1989. Shays narrowly won against Diane Farrell in 2004 and 2006. (Puzzlingly, Farrell failed to improve in the wave year of 2006.) However, Democrats are doing better generally in the area, as moderate Republicans realign away from the party of George Bush.
I know she’ll make a great Speaker!
As for me, I’m stuck in the hopelessly Republican TX-24.
…he was also a co-sponsor of the “Clean Water Protection Act (HR 2169)”, which is a simple bill that would keep toxic mountaintop removal mining waste out of headwater streams.
We’ve asked several times, and Lampson has yet to co-sponsor this bill again, although it has 139 co-sponsors including several Republicans.
🙁
I am pulling for Kosmas!
IIRC. Before Wille Brown, the first Af-Am Speaker. She was an R.
I’m in Barbara Lee’s district, CA-07 I think it is.
The Harlem District, held by Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., and Charlie Rangel since 1945. Looking for black political power? This is where it all began.
When I moved into my apartment off West 96th St., some friends feared that I could make just one wrong turn and end up in Harlem (I’m white, BTW). Well, the edge of Harlem has moved many blocks to the north over the years. Looking at the growing number of whites uptown, in addition to the Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, and lately even Mexicans, I wonder if this is still a majority-black district.
Not to worry. Charlie Rangel is a very good, hard-working, popular Congressman (not perfect, and sometimes quirky, but very good). I figure he’ll leave his job the way tenants in NYC willingly vacate their rent-controlled apartments — feet first. Until then, I’m sure he’s looking forward to continuing to Chair the House Committee on Ways and Means under a Democratic President — a fellow black man, at that.
Pretty funny about your ZIP code. What is the SPD, btw?
Wow! That’s quite unusual, isn’t it? How many non-German-botn representives are there? It’s good to know that the SPD is alive and well in Koeln!
Represented by Jerrold Nadler. One of the most Democratic districts in the country with a PVI of D+28. Includes parts of Manhattan, (Upperwest side, Downtown) and portions of Brooklyn. Home of Ground Zero, Brooklyn Bridge, Coney Island, Wall Street, and a whole lot of other things.
It was until 2006 represented by the heinous Curt Weldon. It’s a 90% white district, made up of the immediate western suburbs of Philadelphia – mostly Delaware county. The heavily black portions of Delaware county aren’t in PA-07. At the federal level it leans Democratic (D+2), but most of the seats in the state legislature from Delaware county are held by Republicans. About 50% of the district is registered Republican, making this RINOland. Sestak ran a campaign farther left than I would have guessed, but he’s not a progressive. A progressive could represent this district, but not from a primary challenge.
I’ll live in this district for another month, and then I’ll move to Van Hollen’s district or maybe even Donna Edwards’ district in Maryland. Good Congresscritters.
Currently represented by Democrat Ciro Rodriguez, who we will re-elect.
Largest congressional district (not counting at-large districts), stretching from San Antonio to the outskirts of El Paso.
55-65% Hispanic, depending on your source.
Cook Political Report designates us as R+4.
I live in the NW portion of Bexar County in this district, so I’ll defer to other sources for more info.
The district runs along the majority of Texas’s border with Mexico, just north of the Rio Grande. It encompasses all of Big Bend National Park and Big Bend Ranch State Park. Major economic activities in the district include farming, ranching, oil and mineral extraction, recreation and tourism.
Moving beyond politics:
The 1956 film classic Giant, starring James Dean, Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson, was shot in Marfa, located in the western stretches of the 23rd District.
We also have the world’s largest roadrunner located in Fort Stockton.
Notable cities include San Antonio, Uvalde, Kerrville, Eagle Pass, Del Rio, Fort Stockton, Pecos, and Marfa.
I am proud to announce that today i moved in with my girlfriend to a beautiful 1-bedroom in Sunset Park, which puts us just blocks outside of Fossella’s 13th district (though i’ll urge the lady not to re-register until after she gets the much-coveted change to vote the GOP out of NYC’s delegation)
the 12th is represented by Nydia Velazquez, and it is a swathe of relatively hispanic areas of South and North Brooklyn as well as South Queens.
While I’m happy to be represented by someone more progressive than Ed Towns in the 10th district where i lived previously – somebody with very little to show for more than 2 decades of service to one of the most partisan (and i believe the highest percentage of blacks) districts in the country. the flipside of this is i don’t get to vote against him in the spirited primary challenge by a former Real World castmember.
I live in the great Washington third district. Known for logging and Mount Saint Helens, and my city being the only one in the world with a bridge built specifically for squirels.
Anyhow our Congressman is Brian Baird, a Democrat who won the seat when Linda Smith (R) ran for the US Senate in 1998. Baird has been becoming more moderate over the years, probably due to our changing district. President Bush won the district in 2000 and 2004, a district that in the 1980s was considered the second most Democratic in the state.
The districts main population centers are Vancouver, a fast growing city north of Portland, OR, Olympia, the state capital, and Longview. It streaches from the OR boarder up to Olympia, and from the ocean into the Cascades.
I live in the 5th District of Tennessee represented by Democrat Jim Cooper. This district is primarily Davidson County, home of the city of Nashville. This city is the capital of the great state of Tennessee. We are known for southern hospitality, the back handed compliment, country music, and also a fairly moderate to liberal city.
The district, even while the state went strongly for Reagan, chose Mondale with a healthy margin. This is considered 1 of 3 safe Democratic seats in the state of Tennessee. The others are District 9(Memphis-Steve Cohen), and District 8(Rural West Tennessee-John Tanner).
Cooper won his last election with 69% of the vote. This district is rateD D+6. Although Memphis has a higher Cook rating, in my opinion it is much more socially conservative than Nashville. Nashville leads on issues of gay rights in the state of Tennessee, having almost 40 percent of Nashville voters opposed to the anti-gay marriage amendment, quite impressive when all of the other counties in TN supported it in a much heavier manner.
-Zak
http://www.tnleft.blogspot.com
east central florida; currently represented by the single WORST(and possibly MOST corrupt)congressperson in the country,tom feeney BUT we have an excellent shot at defeating feeney this cycle with suzanne kosmas
This is a dichotomous district that encompasses the liberal college town Charlottesville in the North, and goes down to the Southern border encompassing what is known as Southside, including conservative places like Danville and Martinsville. It is the size of New Jersey. The southern portions are really hurting economically.
Right now we are represented by Virgil Goode, the anti-immigrant anti Muslim Republican. He was a Democrat in 1996 and switched parties in 2000. We need to retire him and elect Tom Perriello!
Basically the Democrats or Labor Party of Germany. Center-left.
This district was represented by Democrat Tony Hall for 12 terms, but the borders today do not look anything like they did when he represented it. When he had it, the district was entirely within Montgomery County (Dayton and suburbs). Republican gerrymanderers removed 75,000 residents including many from the city; added one-half of the most Republican county in the state (Warren); and two rural counties that have little to do with Dayton (Clinton and Highland). It is only these changes that have allowed Turner to remain in office.
Described pretty well by populista. Notable ethnic note, we have a lot of Hmong voters and Hmong State Senator and State Rep (probably the most in the US).
There’s no good reason for NJ to be 7-6 (or even 7-5 after it loses a seat), and most of the Republican members are dead weight in Congress. Hopefully the redistricting commission won’t draw such weird seats next time.
The state has one African American and one Hispanic district. That will stay. The easiest way will be to let Payne’s district annex the few Essex county towns in Rodney’s NJ-11 and maybe a town or two in Morris. Rothman would take a little bit more of north Bergen and the two Republicans would fight it out.
But that all revolves on the makeup of the legislature and who is governor. Corzine is up for re-election in 2009 and he is pretty tone deaf. A lot of the time what eventually comes out from the legislature is an improvement on what was there before but the initial proposals don’t sound that way and are massaged to more favorable results.
Codey, who happens to be my state senator, is a lot better politician than Corzine but he isn’t sitting on a huge personal fortune. He would have been an easy bet for re-election.
Its the eastern part of Long Island almost all of the populated areas in eastern Suffolk county and some of Nassau County. Its sandwiched between New York- 1 which is the remainder of Long Island (Hamptons,Port Jefferson)and the NY-3 and NY-4 which is most of Nassau County. The district its mostly White middle class white collar people. No significant minority groups in this district other then Hispanics who make up probably close to 10% of the district.
It’s been greatly effected by the expansion of New York City and is becoming more democratic by the day. Once a bastion of Republican Suburban politics. (My district used to be the example in history text books of a city and its republican suburbs) its now home to a Democratic Congressmen (Steve Israel), County Executive Steve Levy(However much he sucks on immigration) and most mayors and townships are now controlled by democrats. This district is one of those districts that the “Rockefellar Republican” once used to hold. The district was taken over in 2000 and 2002 by democrats and has never looked back. It’s a firm hold for democrats for the near future and is a prime example of what we have to do in order to take back suburban areas from Republicans.
centered around Freiburg this is one of liberal districts in the rather conservative state of Baden-Württemberg. Freiburg a town of ca. 200.000 inhabitants is a stronghold of the Green Party, that is currently the largest party in the city council, the mayor, Dieter Salomon, is also a member of the green party (though he actually governs only slightly left of center).
The district is represented in the Bundestag by Gernot Erler of the Social Democrats, who scored 45,7 % against Conny Mayer of the Christian Democrats and Kerstin Andreae of the Green Party, who I used to work for, and who got into the Bundestag over the green party list.
Freiburg, a university town with ca. 30000 students is the center of the district, but it also includes more rural areas around Freiburg (rather conservative) which are part of one of the best wine-growing regions of Germany
Cook PVI: D+20
Representative: Henry Waxman (woo!)
District includes parts of Los Angeles and Santa Monica.
I gave a really simplistic characterization since I didn’t think anyone would care that much :o)
In Norway left-right axes of politics is a bit different than in the US. We call the libertarians, liberals and the majority of those are in the Conservative Party. So the Conservative Party consists of traditional conservatives and economic liberalists. Whilst the Labor Party consist of traditional big-statist social democrats and more third way Tony Blair/Bill Clinton democrats.
In Europe it is not uncommon to find towns more to the right. This is where you find most white collar workers, finance people and generally higher income people. Who at the same time have about 80% election participation. While workers and lower income people have around 60% election participation.
At the same time we have for the last 10 years had a right wing popularist, anti-immigrant, bitching party. The Progress Party. What happens when things start to go too well is that people get fat and start bitching (a bit of the same dynamics that led people to vote for the GOP in 2000). Why is this and that wrong when we are such a rich country and so forth. The annoying thing is that the people that would hurt the most by the policies of this party are the ones that vote for it.
So in Oslo last year, The Conservative Party and The Progress Party gained the majority together. Very depressing after a hard fought campaign. We (Labor Party) became the biggest party and did a better election than last time, but the Socialist Party that we were supposed to govern with, imploded. Mostly becouse they are nuts.
I live in Barbara Lee’s district. Need I describe us further? According to numbers released this week, in CA-09, 64.6% of the voters are registered Democratic and 8.98% are registered Republican. That number is not a typo. The Repubs are fewer than 9%. We are even more Democratic than Pelosi’s district.
In 2004, Kerry beat Bush in CA-09 by a margin of 85.9% to 12.6%.
The strong partisan lean probably explains why I contribute money to candidates elsewhere and headed over to CA-11 to work in 2006.
For myself, I will consider TN-02 to be my home district as long as that is the address on my driver’s license. It encompassed metropolitan Knoxville and extends about fifty miles south to include a lot of rural and appalachian area, including the city of Maryville, which used to be rural, but is quickly becoming a suburban city. It is an R+11 district with a small African-American population for the South (about 13% I think off the top of my head) and other than the Boilermakers, not much union activism. John Duncan, another Republican ideologue, represents the district. I have often wondered what it would take to win this district, short of redistricting. Even a popular Democratic mayor of Knoxville probably couldn’t get the job done (and we have a hard enough time electing those.) It would probably take Peyton Manning changing his party registration and running for Congress as a democrat. The district is a perfect fit for a moderate Republican, so here’s hoping Duncan retires and we can elect one.
Of course, in the past year, since graduating college from the University of Richmond, I have lived and worked in Michigan’s 8th, Michigan’s 9th, Virginia’s 2nd, Tennessee’s 4th, Louisiana’s 6th, and Washington’s 8th. i work campaigns. I am currently living in Washington’s 8th, a large district where 80% of the population lines up on the western edge. It is a beautiful district and includes Mount Ranier, which I can see in the distance on clear days like today. Bellevue – just across Lake Washington from Seattle – is the largest city. Microsoft’s headquarters are here. It is an extremely affluent and educated district. The less affluent areas in the southern portion of the district are also less Democratic – a reverse of the districts I’ve worked in the past. WA-08 is one of the last Kerry-GOP seats and I think that will change soon. Darcy Burner is a phenomenal candidate with an amazing intellect and a real desire to bring change and get things done for the district. Our volunteers here are amazing and dedicated. Darcy has inspired a passion that Dave Reichert, the current rep. who just voted against the new GI Bill, cannot hope to match.
The district is one of the funnier gerrymanderings of the state, connecting northern inner suburb Malden (where our Congressman Ed Markey lives) with an arc of liberal northwestern and western Boston middle and outer suburbs. Lots of white professionals and international immigrants, and a “native” blue and white collar population that is quite the mix of old Yankees, Irish, Italian, French Canadian, and other earlier immigrant groups generally lumped as ‘Catholic’.
Hispanic population, Russian immigrees, and some black middle class migration out of southern Boston are replacing some blue collar and lower end white collar Irish and Italian-Americans that seem to be leaving the state for places like Florida. There’s some farming and other old industries still going on in spots, but it’s heavily bedroom suburbs and office parks for the city in parts, and the tech economy and the remains of the defense contractor economy of the Eighties along route 128 (aka 95).
There is no actual Congressional election or campaigning here, there’s only the biannual affirmation ceremony that Ed Markey is our Congressman for as long as he wants the job. He’s sort of a blend of Ted Kennedy and John Kerry. He and/or Barney Frank are likely to be the next Senator or Senators.
And yes, this is Clinton country. Obama is mostly perceived as at bottom a fairly standard Midwestern variety of Democrat here. The pledge to be “bipartisan” didn’t serve him well here- not because people here don’t find bipartisan action desirable, but because he hasn’t persuaded that his sense of what is essential is strong enough.
The bit of excitement this election is either downticket or to the north- some people are going to help out the Shaheen, Shea-Porter, or Tom Allen campaigns. Kerry is not doing too well- I’ll guess that he gets reelected with around 60% of the vote but there’s a lot of reluctance. His judgment isn’t trusted as much, when vehement he doesn’t seem to direct the energy at the right opponents. His stature is quite diminished from 2003.
Downticket there’s still some fallout in state legislature campaigns from the gay marriage legalization story. There’s another effort being made to knock off my state Senator that will predictably fail, and so will some other efforts of the kind. Elsewhere in the state there are some under the radar campaigns to replace a couple more anti-marriage state legislators.
Currently, my permanent residence is Connecticut’s 1st district, a D+14 district represented by John Larsen (D). I haven’t lived here long (my parents and I moved here in summer 2004), but I cast my first vote here for John Kerry in November 2004, shortly after my 18th birthday. According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I… , CT-01 includes most of Hartford County except the central western part and northeast and southeast corners, but also includes the northeast corner of Litchfield County and the northwest corner of Middlesex County. I think it includes pretty much all of the greater Hartford area, and I live in one of the suburbs of this area (South Windsor). I don’t really know much about this district or Rep. Larson, since I haven’t really followed politics for that long and I haven’t lived here for that long either.
When I’m in college, I’m in Massachusetts’s 8th district, a D+33 district represented by Mike Capuano (D). I know local politics even less here, but according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I… , this district includes Cambridge, Somerville, good chunks of Suffolk and Middlesex counties. Obviously, it’s got several major colleges in the area–MIT, Harvard, Tufts, to name a few. I don’t know of the demographics, but I’d guess it’s probably urban to suburban-that’s-nearly-urban.
(As a sidenote, I just looked up Wellesley College to see if it was also in this district, but it turns out it’s in MA-04, represented by Barney Frank (D).)
Before moving to CT-01, my family lived in Florida’s 20th district, a D+18 district which was then represented by Peter Deutsch (D) and is now represented by Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D). According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I… , FL-20 includes some communities in the southern half of Broward County (though not all of them) and then some southeastern corner/beach areas leading down into Miami-Dade County and onto Biscayne Bay (I think). It also barely includes my old hometown and my high school (next to the 22nd district–Ron Klein’s). It seems that the Fort Lauderdale area is split between the 17th, 19th, 20th, 21st, 22nd, and 23rd districts, all of which are heavily Democratic except the D+4 22nd (Ron Klein (D), represented by E. Clay Shaw (R) back when I lived there)) and the R+6 21st (Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R), being challenged this year by Raul Martinez (D)).
I did some research into where I lived before this, and found the current districts for where I used to live are OH-02 and OH-08. I lived in Fairfield, OH for my first several years, before moving to Blue Ash. Blue Ash is in Ohio’s 2nd district, an R+13 district currently represented by Jean Schmidt (R). My guess is that it’s the eastern greater Cincinnati suburbs–suburbs of a big city that’s already surprisingly non-Democratic to start with. I don’t know the rest of the district at all. (I ain’t gonna say anything about Schmidt…) Fairfield is in Ohio’s 8th district, an R+12 district currently represented by John Boehner (R). (I actually thought I was in Steve Chabot’s 1st district for a while, but it turns out that Fairfield is far enough from Cincinnati that it’s in OH-08.) I know very little, if anything, about OH-08, other than that it seems to be the southern half of Ohio’s western border.
i LIVE THE 6TH CD OF Wisconsin- has not had a Democratic represent since 1966.
Our Democratic governor won the district in his re-election in 2206 but except for a couple times sine 1966 the GOP usually wind 62-38 . willing to hear from others if the are from or know about the 6th CD-WI.
I couldn’t agree more! My 98-year-old dad frothes ans fumes whenever her name comes up. He has made no headway whatsoever organizing his assisted-living facility. They’re either lethargic beyond belief or just, ummm, not there. Think he has given up on this project.
This district has an open seat as Republican John Peterson is retiring. He has been a solid rubber stamp for Bush. This is the type of rural district that gets written off by the Dems. But this year we really have a chance. This district includes Penn State and so many new voters were registered that three counties in the District now have more Democrats registered than Republicans. And everybody here HATES Bush. Both the high gas prices and the economy have hit this area pretty hard as it is low income already.
If we could just get a little money support for our Democratic candidate – Mark McCracken – http://www.mccrackenforcongress.com I think we could turn this red seat blue. Media is really, really cheap here. Governor Rendell carried the district in 2006 and we voted out Rick Santorum – the worse Senator in the Senate. Time to take another look and give some support. How about it?
Alyce Bowers
so I know the area. They were just off Pines Blvd. and Palm across the street from the City Hall building. Mom sold the house in 2003 after my Dad died in 2002. Shortly after in 2004 was about the time Peter Deutch was running for US Senate and Wasserman-Schultz who was their State Senator took over the House seat. I hope Debbie is over her Ileana Ros-Lieten BGF thing by now!
Yawn. Representative Jim McDermott would win re-election even if there was a scandal involving him and a horse. For fun we go into the 8th District.
I think she works for Clinton?
a “law and order” district, I can tell you that.
Yawn. Representative Jim McDermott would win re-election even if there was a scandal involving him and a horse. For fun we go into the 8th District.
if we make both MD-8 and MD-2 slightly less Democratic.
Represented by retiring GOP Rep Terry Everett. Montgomery mayour Bobby Bright is by far the best candidate Dems have run in this seat in a long time and should run a competitive race.
Looks like the Repubs will have a runoff, but there are about 4 running real races who could conceivably make the runoff.
I read it the other day when it was at 40, then went to bed before posting myself.
I’m in the **GREAT CA-08** which is Nancy Pelosi’s district in San Francisco. Not much needs to be said about it, except that Nancy Pelosi was the conservative in the primary for the open seat. The successor to Harvey Milk on the Board of Supervisors was her opponent; he had long since consolidated the entire left wing of the party (labor, environment, LGBT) behind him, and it was a battle royal I hear, though I was a five year old in the TX-22 when it happened.
Had that guy, Harry Britt, won, he’d have been Tammy Baldwin 20 years before she was. He would have taken office right before Barney Frank was outed, and he’d’ve been a lot more liberal than Frank too.
Anyway, that’s the CA-08.
Sounds like something out of a horror movie.
Long-time reader, first-time poster, but this thread seemed too fun to not post in.
CA-14 makes up the western chunk of Silicon Valley and the southern chunk of the San Francisco Peninsula. This used to be a competitive area, represented by moderate Republicans through the ’80s before California redistricting made it an ultra-safe district for Democrats. Our current rep, Anna Eshoo, is the only person in Congress of Assyrian descent and was the only Armenian until Jackie Speier was elected in a next-door district a few months ago.
I also live a few blocks from the district’s border with the 15th district, a gerrymandered mess of geography in the middle of Silicon Valley that seems to have been put together to maximize the Asian vote for its rep, Mike Honda. The 14th is, I believe, the 3rd richest district in the nation by household income, and the 15th is also in the top 10. They are the only two of the top ten that are currently held by Democrats (until we capture VA-11 in November, anyway).
The 14th has Google, Yahoo, HP and Stanford, while the 15th has Apple headquarters (also blocks from my house). This area is basically one giant Democratic ATM, so it gets a lot of visits from presidential candidates while they rake in the big bucks.
It’s actually kinda boring from the perspective of someone who wants to help expand Democratic majorities. Everything in the area is already controlled by the Democrats and isn’t going to go red anytime soon, so there isn’t anything locally to fight for.
I’ll shamelessly whore two awesome districts here – Jan Schakowsky’s while I’m at college and soon to be Donna Edwards back home.
Honestly, I can’t complain – two solidly Democratic districts (D+18 and D+30, respectively) about to be represented by two awesome Congresswomen!
Tom Cole’s seat need I say more
Grad student and I consider myself to have two CDs. I live in New Haven and my Rep. is Rosa DeLauro in CT-03. It has a PVI of D+12. New Haven is pretty liberal, voted heavily for Obama and Lamont. The surrounding suburbs are pretty Democratic as well.
Back home I live in wonderful Hunterdon County, NJ in NJ-07. That seat is currently held by the, thankfully, retiring Rep. Mike Ferguson. He is miserable and barely won reelection in 2006. Democratic State Assemblywoman Linda Stender ran in 2006 and list by 1% and kept him below 50%. She is back for round two and the race is one of the best toss-ups in the Country. The district is PVI R+1 (I believe). This Tuesday is the primary to find out who Stender goes up against, its either State Sen. Leonard Lance or former Governor Christie Whitman’s daughter Kate. Stender has been outraising the whole Republican field, but there is a lot of money in this district and plays in the NYC media market. It is one of the wealthiest districts in the Country with average income at $74,823, it is also highly educated. Hopefully the DCCC fat checkbook will be put to good use!
Grad student and I consider myself to have two CDs. I live in New Haven and my Rep. is Rosa DeLauro in CT-03. It has a PVI of D+12. New Haven is pretty liberal, voted heavily for Obama and Lamont. The surrounding suburbs are pretty Democratic as well.
Back home I live in wonderful Hunterdon County, NJ in NJ-07. That seat is currently held by the, thankfully, retiring Rep. Mike Ferguson. He is miserable and barely won reelection in 2006. Democratic State Assemblywoman Linda Stender ran in 2006 and lost by 1% and kept him below 50%. She is back for round two and the race is one of the best toss-ups in the Country. The district is PVI R+1 (I believe). This Tuesday is the primary to find out who Stender goes up against, its either State Sen. Leonard Lance or former Governor Christie Whitman’s daughter Kate. Stender has been outraising the whole Republican field, but there is a lot of money in this district and plays in the NYC media market. I expect the Republican will be able to raise money. It is one of the wealthiest districts in the Country with average income at $74,823, it is also highly educated. Hopefully the DCCC fat checkbook will be put to good use!
I’m exit 59 on the LIE so that accounts for my analysis, would never have expected the AA population to be so high, the only minority by me is Hispanics, I had like 3 AA in my graduating high school class. And yeah Wyandanch i forgot was AA, I remember getting Walloped by them when we played them in football. (That was a bad week)
And i didn’t really Cold Spring Harbor and Woodbury were in our district, thought that was in NY-4. Good to learn about the other side of the district. So that counts the Jewish Vote. Good to learn about the other half of my district.
I live In the richest county in the State Oakland County. Michigan’s 9th district is the only district entirely within Oakland County and is a district with a vast difference in wealth. From the Richest city to the poorest city.
We have had Joe Knollenberg as our congressman for 16 years too long. He has pandered to the republican base and has never once shown an interest in working America. He has voted against Gay rights even though he has a gay son. He is an awful congressman and Thank god this is his last year!
This is my first post by the way, but I have been a long time reader. Great Site!
I live in Toronto, Ontario. My constituency is Toronto Centre which is an interesting riding for its diversity. It includes Regent Park (a public housing project) and St. Jamestown which are two of the poorest neighbourhoods in the city as well as Rosedale which is the wealthiest.
I am located in California’s 53rd Congressional District which covers about half of the city of San Diego as well as 3 other smaller cities in San Diego County. In fact, I live in the neighborhood just east of my Congresswoman’s neighborhood. My Congresswoman is Susan Davis who was elected in 2000 by defeating slimy Republican Congressman Brian Bilbray who has since come back by carpetbagging into the 50th Congressional District where he beat Democrat Francine Busby. While the County of San Diego still goes Republican overall, I am happy to report that the city of San Diego, home of (shudder) Republican Pete Wilson (mayor, US senator, & governor), has been trending Democratic for over the last 15 years. We’re working on the rest of the county now, lol.
When I fly home from Florida for Christmas and Thanksgiving, it’s back to the State of Michigan (DTW’s great new airport terminal) and then a 45 minute drive to Rochester, MI, which is located in the 9th Congressional District. This is the year that Democrats are going to take two seats in Michigan, both in MI-09 (GOP Rep. Knollenberg) and MI-07 (GOP Rep. Walberg). Knollenberg defeated Nancy Skinner in 2006 by 52%-46%. From CQPolitics: “Democratic gains in the Oakland County district combined with Knollenberg’s record low win in 2006 have made Michigan’s 9th Congressional District a top Democratic target and former state Sen. Gary Peters a top candidate for the party in 2008. Knollenberg has eight terms under his belt and has gotten an early start in campaigning for re-election. He raised $1.8 million as of March 31, but Peters is receiving support from the Democratic House campaign committee and had raised three-quarters of a million dollars by the same date.” The current COH for is Knollenberg up $1.34M to $0.65M. The race is shown as “Lean Republican” but I think this is the year that Knollenberg gets sent to retirement (and it’s not early retirement).
My district where I am registered to vote and is my official residence is FL-22, where now Rep. Ron Klein defeated then Rep. Claw Shaw in 2006 by 51%-47%. As a freshmen Congressmen, one would think Klein would be a top target, but the race is listed as “Likely Democratic” and CQPolitics notes: “Freshman Klein is being attacked from all sides after his successful ouster of 26-year House veteran Shaw last year. Klein’s primary race is complicated by former Air Force Pilot Paul Renneisen, an anti-war activist campaigning for the Democratic nomination. Retired Army Lt. Col. Allen West is gaining support for his campaign for the Republican nomination after the GOP lost its top prospect early on. West faces potential primary competition from candidates including realtor Mike Holmes. The 22nd is highly competitive territory, but Klein holds the advantages of incumbency and has proved himself to be a top-notch fundraiser.” The current COH is Rep. Klein with $2.11M to $0.07M for Lt. Col. West. I feel confident this seat will be retained in November to join the expanded Democratic Majority.
As a side note, my Michigan Senators are Democrat Sen. Carl Levin (up for re-election and as safe as safe can get with winning 60.6% in 2002 and has a COH advantage of $4.17M to um, nothing for th GOP) and Democrat Sen. Debbie Stabenow (re-elected in 2006 with 57% of the vote). In Florida, I have Democrat Sen. Ben Nelson (re-elected in 2006 with 60.3% of the vote and cash on hand of $1.69M on hand) and Republican Sen. Mel Martinez (elected in 2004 with 49.4% of the vote and a cash on hand of $1.30M).
If we can toss Knollenberg this year (along with Walberg in MI-07) and Sen. Martinez in 2010, I’ll be totally representated by Democrats back at home and here in FL!
In North Wales. Very rural, highest proportion of welsh speakers, represented by Hywel Williams, Plaid Cymru (the Party of Wales), a nationalist party who are part of a coalition government in the welsh assembly along with the Labour Party, my representative in the Assembly is Alun Ffred, also Plaid Cymru.
Nancy Pelosi’s district. Needless to say it is deep blue here. Once reporesented by the legendary Phil Burton. Now serves as a Democratic ATM. I just got back from a DCCC fundaraiser for Jill Derby (NV-02), Bill Durstin (CA-03), Charlie Brown (CA-04) and Jerry McNerney (CA-11). Gary Trauner (WY-AL) will be here later this month.
And I love Rosa DeLauro! She’s the best!
First, my home which is in FL-12, home to the Howdy Doody-looking nimrod, Adam Putnam. He’s high in the House leadership and is going to be a force to be reckoned with statewide before too long. Unfortunately, this district in central Florida is pretty conservative, though not so much that a stellar Dem couldn’t give it a shot. But we don’t have any of those…
Second, my law school, William & Mary, is in VA-01. Another conservative district.
I’m counting my summer residence as number three, the more interesting NY-13. Yes, I’m currently living on Staten Island with my grandmother, so I get to see the GOP implosion up close. It’s a lot of fun!!
howdy neighbor.
hmm i really don’t consider us that diverse in comparison to most of NYC,(I go to school at St.Johns and me being White am almost a minority) however from the indications of everyone here I guess I was wrong to label us mostly White. Must just be my area of the district.
I guess it also explains why the district has shifted so democratic in recent years.
He was a real strong progressive (probably still is). It was a special election after the death of Rep. Sala Burton, who won the seat after her husband, the legendary Phil Burton, passed away. It was about 75 miles from Santa Cruz, where I was living at the time, and gas was cheap then…He didn’t win, but I was glad to help out a bit.
The Fourth District of New Jersey encompasses the geographic center of the state–stretching from the Delaware River in the west to the Atlantic in th east, and including northern Burlington, southern Mercer, northern Ocean, and southern Monmouth counties. On its face, this is a centrist district: it has a Cook PVI of R+1. Here in the Burlington County portion, we voted for Gore in 2000 but Bush in 2004 (most likely due in part to the 9/11 effect, which hit NJ-04 very hard). All six members of the New Jersey Senate within this district (Allen, Baroni, Beck, Cisela, Haines, Singer) are Republicans, and nine out of twelve members of the General Assembly are Republicans (only Conaway, Conners, and DeAngelo are Democrats…Panter being defeated last year, which was a shame). The Monmouth and Ocean portions of the district are certainly more staunchly conservative than the Burlington and Mercer portions–in fact, the three Democrats aforementioned are from this western portion. The district is largely rural, but includes the large municipalities of Hamilton, Lakewood, Brick, Wall, East Windsor, and part of Trenton, the state capital. Like much of New Jersey (save for Salem and Cumberland counties), NJ-04 rual is more of the trendy, L.L. Bean-style rural that one sees up north in Morris, Sussex, etc., with sprawling McMansions dotting the rolling hills and along the shore. Of note, the district includes Mantoloking, the wealthiest municipality in the state, in blood-red Ocean County.
Our representative, Christopher Smith, is, confessedly probably a good fit for the ideological demographics of the district. In many ways, in fact, he is an enigma. He is a staunch populist–economically liberal (in fact, perhaps the most liberal Republican in the House on economic issues), but socially reactionary (he is head of the House Pro-Life Caucus, was one of only two of the six Republican congressmen from New Jersey to vote against making violence against LGBT Americans a crime). He strikes me as eminently sanctimonious, but at the same time he is ethically squeaky clean. He does not seem to have much of a life other than Congress…in fact, he was first elected at age 27 in 1980 and has been serving ever since, yet he is only 55 years old now!), and so I doubt anything damning will ever come to light about him. On the issues, it will be very difficult to defeat him, for reasons above mentioned. Whereas George Bush won NJ-04 by a 56-44 margin, Smith consistently wins reelection with at least 2/3 of the vote. This year, the promising progressive Josh Zeitz is running against Smith. While his efforts will ultimately probably be in vain (and, being abroad this year I can sadly do nothing to help him save donate to his campaign), I do applaud him for stepping up to the plate to take out the odious Smith.
The last district in the largest state. Most of the city of San Diego, increasingly Dem/liberal even if nobody (including Rep. Davis oftentimes) wants to admit it- the district is D+13 and the City of San Diego is actually Democratic. There’s military, but also organized labor, beach communities, and lots of expats looking to enjoy beach living (one near and dear to my heart certainly).
People here are largely disenchanted with government of all levels, whether it be Bush, Duke Cunningham in the nearby 50th, or the corruption scandals that have swept through the Mayor and City Council offices over the past few years. Despite the strong Dem majority, the local party is weak (though recovering) from being pretty well whipped early in the 2000s. To the point that, despite having a majority of the City Council, the City Attorney’s office, and most of the state-level representation, there was no legitimate Dem challenger to run for mayor this year. Dems may generally be finding candidates, but just barely and there ain’t much of a bench.
I picked a bad day to not check out this site, missing out on a thread this much fun. For the last two years, I’ve lived in IA-03, which most of you know has a contentious primary battle in only two days. At least for two days, central Iowans call geriatric center-right Democrat Leonard Boswell their Congressman. I’ve never been particularly impressed with Boswell as a politician, but his background in the military and as a southern Iowa farmer (he used to represent a rural district south of Des Moines) have made him an acceptable choice to independents in a split-down-the-middle district, thus helping him eke out single-digit margins election cycle after election cycle while never really getting a secure following. His weak efforts to stave off a primary challenge from progressive Ed Fallon are only further proof of how uninspiring he is. With that said, I’m still on the fence on who I plan to vote for on Tuesday for reasons I won’t elaborate on in this thread.
Demographically, IA-03 is a classic case of urban vs. suburban and rural. It’s essentially the city of Des Moines versus the rest of the district. The city itself is overwhelming Democratic but its growing suburban doughnut is monolithically Republican, almost to the point of cancelling out the Democratic advantage in Polk County. To some extent, the rural areas east of Des Moines are kingmakers in IA-03 elections, and they too are divided, leaning narrowly Republican. When you hear about Iowa having been a “perfect state” for Mike Huckabee with its large constituency of activist evangelicals, rural IA-03 is exactly the kind of place they’re talking about, with large numbers of uber-conservative Dutch Reformed living in cities like Pella and Oskaloosa, as well as in Grundy County in the northeast corner of the district. Three years from now, IA-03 will look nothing like it does today after Iowa forfeits yet another Congressional district after the 2010 reapportionment, but the trendline for the current district lines is one of increasing Republicanism due to the overwhelming growth of yuppies in Des Moines suburbs.
I grew up in MN-01, a mostly rural district moving the opposite direction and becoming more Democratic. Pre-2001, the district consisted of only the southeast corner of Minnesota, but the new district is made up of the southern two tiers of Minnesota counties. The biggest city is Rochester, a white-collar community full of medical professionals connected to the Mayo Clinic and settled by Germans, a climate that used to be a perfect storm of Republicanism. But as the Republican Party has moved right, Rochester has not followed them, and every two years, the city gets more and more purple. Outside of Rochester, the second and third biggest towns are increasingly liberal college cities Mankato and Winona. The union-heavy blue collar towns of Austin and Albert Lea are the old bulls of Democratic strength in MN-01 and continue to be key players in the district’s changing political atmosphere. The state’s southwest corner is sparsely populated and politically unpredictable, made up of aging Catholics who dutifully voted for Democrats like McGovern and Dukakis, but who have become less reliable in the era of abortion politics. There are still some conservative bastions in the district, namely the affluent and heavy-German small cities of Fairmont, Owatonna, and New Ulm, but the latter of those three showed some serious signs of softening in 2006, voting for Amy Klobuchar by a double-digit margin, voting for two of three Democrats in constitutional office races, and coming close to voting out an incumbent Republican legislator.
While both of these Upper Midwestern districts have a surface-level favorability for Democrats, they are most certainly to the right of most people on this site on cultural issues. They’re the kinds of places where a “theater exemption” loophole is exploited to get around smoking bans in bars, and where alot of what another poster described upthread as “Tancredo Democrats” exist, insofar as I am understanding the poster’s definition of that term to be Democrats opposed to illegal immigration. Living in this area is why I continue to insist that the immigration issue poses a long-term conundrum for Democrats.
My entire family is from the St. Cloud area in Minnesota’s Sixth Congressional District, home of crazy wingnut Michele Bachmann. The CD is basically 2 different sections. The first is the county between Wisconsin and Ramsey County, which is mostly St. Paul. So this inbetween county are affluent suburbs, which have been trending heavily Democrat. Also, with this section are the north suburban county, Anoka county. It’s population is booming and it has also been trending Democrat the past few cycles.
However, the second section of the CD, is made up of 3 counties, Wright, Stearns, and Sherburne. It is like a mini-Bible Belt in the middle of the state. Very Catholic conservative area. My state rep wins by about 20-30% every cycle. Extremely Republican, pro-lifers Christian conservatives. This is also the only part of the state that has not seen any trend towards the Democrats. Every area in our last 3 Republican CD’s have shown Democratic trending except this mini-Bible Belt area. The one beacon of Democratic hope in that area is St. Cloud, whose State. Sen. Taryl Clark would’ve been an EXCELLENT recruit by DCCC instead of Tinklenberg. She has a bright political future for sure.
My college is in St. Paul so MN-4. It encompasses all of St. Paul plus the burbs to the north and northwest and just directly south of the Mississippi river. Slightly less Democratic than the neighboring 5th, which is Minneapolis and a couple blue leaning inner burbs. The affluent 2nd tier suburbs within MN-4 to the north of St. Paul have been trending Democrat, with gains in the state houses, but by really close margins and only in 2006.
McCollum is alright. Very liberal, very establishment Democrat. I was a bit miffed when I saw that she did a flier for Dan Bostrom, a moderate conservative Democrat on the St. Paul city council when Pakou Hang, a very progressive Democrat was giving him a strong challenge. She is a very safe politician, if you know what I mean. Doesn’t step on toes and will be in the House for life and build up a ton of seniority and chair some Appropiations subcommittee at some point.
Hi, I’m kind of new here….long-time reader, first time poster.
I originally grew up in TX-22 with trowaman, but now I have moved to OH-17 represented by Tim Ryan.
OH-17 covers part of the Northeastern part of Ohio, encompassing most of Portage and Trumbull Counties, Youngstown, which is in Mahoning County, and a sliver of Summit County. The district’s D+14 PVI is due largely in part to the cities of Youngstown and Warren. Both cities have a high crime rate, as well as large black and homeless populations, and quite a bit of economic collapse from the infamous downfall of the steel industry there. Portage County is a little more culturally conservative than the rest of the district, but still votes Democratic; it went 53-47 to John Kerry in 2004. This tilt is caused by two factors:
A. Heavy union involvement, everyday, I see cars that sport bumper stickers that read “Proud to be Union, do not display this sticker on an import.”
B. Kent State University, where I am currently attending.
Born and raised in OH-15 and have lived out of the state for a couple decades now after graduating College in a neighboring state.
Followed this distict closely, since my parents and siblings almost all still live in a Columbus Ohio suburb in OH-15.
This district has been represented by the GOP, since Chalmers Wylie and then the last couple decades by a usual GOP right wing shill, Debbie Pryce. She is/was no moderate or independant.
She’s gone, after actually having to campaign and hung on barely to the seat by roughly 1000 votes.
After showing up with a bull horn on flat bed truck out front of Kilroy’s office, Pryce pretty much decided, this really wasn’t for her. It was easier not to have competition and no accountability. Those days are gone.
This district has been trending blue; even though several years ago the GOP drew up the maps again and put in some very rural sections of central Ohio in OH-15, Madison County- London Ohio and Union Counties to counter the Franklin County Democratic vote, Columbus Ohio proper . This GOP plan kept the district leaning Red with Franklin County consistant Blue. Now after decades of GOP diasterous rule, people aren’t buying their BS one bit anymore.
Franklin County will go blue again in 08 and with Obama on the ticket, most likely, or Hillary, it’s ALL over for the GOP for this seat.
Worthington went Democrat and Upper Arlington and Dublin GOP gap narrowed down to make it close in these Northwest suburbs; that are usual shoe-ins for the GOP.
Several years ago, you would never see Upper Arlington a wealthy suburb voting for a Democrat in numbers. Now with grass roots in South Upper Arlington, UA progressives movement, spreading like wild fire the last several years, the GOP days are numbered.
Mary jo Kilroy is a tireless Fighter for workers rights, minorities, women, unions, and giving the United States back to the people. She understands accountability. Kilroy has HUGE name recognition with being a 100% people advocate, not a corporate plant.
If a huge turnout shows in November, this seat will be 10 points for Kilroy. Normal or average turnout will have the Democrats finally taking this seat by 3-5.
BLUEIS GOOD
David is right. It is fun to read these thumb nails. What a great thread! OK, I’ll add my own, even tho MA residents are all Dem all the time.
I’m in the 8th CD, Tip O’Neill’s old district. MA 08 is just under 50% white, 23% black, 16% Hispanic, and 8% Asian. It’s a pretty cosmopolitan place and includes the epicenter of Boston’s gay population, highly gentrified areas with condos up to $3-4 million, areas of abject poverty, many of Boston’s and Cambridge’s universities, and lots of ‘in between’.
It’s definitely an urban CD–Wikipedia claims 2.66% ‘rural’ but I think these must be parks!–and is 71% white collar, 12% blue collar, and 17% gray collar. The district consists of most of Boston; Cambridge with its various universities; Somerville, a somewhat gritty close-in suburb; and Chelsea, another close-in suburb with a largely poor Hispanic population.
When Joe Kennedy retired after messiness arising from his divorce, we elected (albeit with much trepidation) Mike Capuano, the mayor of Somerville. Mike has turned out to be an incredibly pleasant surprise. He is as progressive as any rep I know including Barney Frank, the rep of the district I lived in about 30 years ago.
I was amused some months back when SSP discussed reps who ‘under’ or ‘over’ represented their district in terms of supporting progressive legislation. As the rep of a D +33 district, apparently Mike was considered to underperform. Initially this puzzled me. I know of NO issue on which I disagree with him. Then I realized the ‘discrepancy’. Mike sends out an excellent weekly newsletter reporting on each issue before the House, telling how he voted, any why. Typically MA House votes are unanimous among all 10 reps. Sometimes, however, Capuano dissents. Why? He refuses to vote for any funding for Iraq even when Nancy & Co support it. There have been a few other similar issues on which he refuses to vote ‘yes’ on compromise issues. Thus his dissents occur because he is MORE progressive than the House leadership. Sometimes strict numerical analysis can be misleading.:)
In any case we are not likely to elect someone else. In ’06 Mike won 90.65% of the vote. The ‘main’ opposition won 8.99%–the Socialist Worker Party candidate. Yes, we are the people whom wingnuts urge you to warn your children about. We vote Dem and we are hardcore! And, yes, there were 491 write-in votes. Missing something? Nah, no Rethuglicans in this district! I finished ’em off with my flame thrower years ago. OKOK, I’m lying. In the primary, Repubs did have 201 write-in votes. Yup, between now and November I’ve gotta dust off the flame thrower again 201 times.
I always get that. I hear many left leaning people in the Northeast and West Coast discuss how conservative Nashville-Davidson County is, as well as Tennessee, but if anything the state is horrifically moderate on most issues. Extremism seems to make many Tennessee voters nervous. We also love our incumbents in Tennessee. That’s why most seats are not competitive unless they are open. You have to propose something like a state income tax before we start to get nervous haha.
-zak
But I can’t tell you a lot about it…I had to post here for some background on why the local paper didn’t endorse the sitting incumbent (Wu) in his primary. I haven’t gotten a good feel for this district yet.
OR-01 is the western suburbs of Portland (Beaverton, Hillsboro), and west and northwest to the coast. Not as exciting this year as our neighbors to the south in OR-05 (Hooley/retiring) or the Senate race.
As most of you regular readers know (as I’ve had cause to ramble on about this for much of the last year) I live in IN-07, which is basically all of central-city Indianapolis and most of the suburbs located in Marion County. Compared to the creative geometric shapes that many districts look like, this one is pretty close to a square (although that could disasterously change if Mitch Daniels is re-elected and the Republicans control redistricting).
This is a typical urban-suburban district, very class and race diverse, facing all of the challenges and social problems much of urban America does. Although he was far from my first choice, so far I’m fine with the job Andre Carson is doing, and hopefully he’ll continue in his grandmother’s footsteps in advocating for low income, central city people.
Since many of you here seem to live in very liberal districts on either coast, I extend an invitation to come visit us here in fly-over country sometime — if nothing else, it will give you a very different perspective on politics and being a Democrat. I’ll even buy you a breaded pork tenderloin sandwich (our contribution to American cuisine, and they’re really good with bacon and mayo, especially when you’re a little drunk). Oh yeah, and a couple of weeks ago we had a little car race some people come to (which actually is really fun, and something any sports fan should experience once in thier life).
Barney Frank’s district. This one looks gerrymandered to favor Democrats–it combines the super-Democratic cities of Newton and Brookline with moderate working-class towns like Taunton and New Bedford as well as wealthy Republican suburbs like Wellesley (where I live). I’m not sure any conceivable Massachusetts district would elect a Republican, though.
Incidentally, I’m represented in the State Senate by Scott Brown, one of the FIVE remaining Republicans in the State Senate.
My district’s based here in Tulsa and our surrounding suburbs. It does, however, narrowly stretch north to the Kansas border and includes Bartlesville.
I’m represented by John Sullivan. He’s a total embarrassment but will unfortunately hold the seat for as long as he wants it. For reasons I will never figure out, The Tulsa World, our local broadsheet, has always endorsed him. While The World isn’t the most progressive paper, it isn’t too bad for such a conservative town and their steadfast support of Sullivan is puzzling.
OH-15 also contains The Ohio State University and votes HEAVY Democrat.
Ken Blackwell is gone also; so long voting lines at the University and heavy inner city polling stations will hopefully be a thing of past with the RIGHT amount of machines. These polling stations should have twice the number machines as Republican districts. You would think?
GOP guy is Steve Stivers, nothing special just a GOP same old song, we’ve heard before.
BLUEISGOOD.
Home to former Independent Sen. Jim Jeffords, and current Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders. (His replacement in the House is Rep. Peter Welch, and he’s not doing half-bad.)
Mainly because of Bernie and Howard Dean, many people think of Vermont as an ultra-liberal paradise. It is, in fact, a completely rural state (largest town: 40,000) and there is a lot of conservatism, of both the ignorant type and the old-fashioned (Jeffords) type. And then there are the lesbians in the pickup with the gun rack on the back — that is, a lot of complete stereotype destruction.
Looks like we have some major overrepresentation in the northeast and liberal big cities. Some on where are all the red state dems fighting the good fight?
I live in Washington’s 8th district – a swing district that Kerry won by 2 points (I think) in 2004 and “moderate” Republican Dave Reichert managed to hold onto in 2006. It’s an interesting place that is trending hard to the left – it should go for Barack & for Chris Gregoire for Governor (although this will be close). Reichert’s race will be a straight toss-up.
I used to live in NY’s 15th – home to Charlie Rangel. I sent him a nasty note when the CBC agreed to host that debate on Faux News…