After a couple-week hiatus, I’m back to Episode 11 of my redistricting series! On tap for tonight’s episode: a magnolia founds the next world empire! Or, rather, I’ve paired two unlikely diary neighbors, New York and Mississippi.
There were a number of people who earlier asked me why I hadn’t yet covered New York, one of the obvious choices for an early redistricting diary. The reason is that back in March I drew a map for NY that assumed Jim Tedisco would win NY-20 and be primed for elimination in 2012. Just tonight I redrew New York to, on the contrary, make the 20th more Democratic to help Murphy (though the news wasn’t all good, and I’ll get to that momentarily).
Previous efforts:
Diary 1: Massachusetts and Texas
Diary 2: Michigan and Nevada
Diary 3: Iowa and Ohio
Diary 4: Georgia and New Jersey
Diary 5: Florida and Louisiana
Diary 6: Pennsylvania and Utah
Diary 7: Illinois and South Carolina
Diary 8: Indiana, Missouri, and Oregon
Diary 9: Alabama, Arizona, and Kentucky
Diary 10: Colorado and Minnesota
The chasm lies below…
Mississippi
With only four districts and a Democratic legislature offset by Republican Gov. Haley Barbour, the goal here was simple: help Travis Childers and make his 1st District considerably more Democratic without noticeably diluting the 2nd (a VRA-protected black-majority district). Much like ArkDem’s Mississippi map from some time ago, mine keeps the 2nd solidly black-majority while moving the needle in the 1st several points in the Democrats’ favor. Unfortunately, there seems to be literally no way to prevent Gene Taylor’s 4th, in 2008 McCain’s strongest district in the state, from eventually flipping to the GOP. The Gulf Coast counties are just too absurdly Republican (little-known fact: Trent Lott represented the 4th not long before Taylor, who won a 1989 special election when Lott’s GOP successor died).
District 1 – Travis Childers (D-Booneville) — the overwhelming Republican nature of Mississippi’s northernmost counties prompted me to make a truly audacious move (hat tip to ArkDem on this) in removing DeSoto County, a major source of GOP votes, from this district and putting it instead with the mostly black, Delta-based 2nd. This district carefully grabs more marginally Republican counties that were previously with the 3rd and some black counties that were in the 2nd without, I think, overreaching. McCain would likely have still won here, but not with 62% as before (since my methods are so low-tech, I can only guesstimate, and I’ll say with only minimal knowledge that this variation of the 1st is probably about 55-57% McCain, enough to keep Childers solid and keep the district well in play for a future Democrat).
District 2 – Bennie Thompson (D-Bolton) — other than its two-county northern reach, this district is heavily Democratic and hopefully at least 60% black, with an Obama percentage somewhere around 63-65%.
District 3 – Gregg Harper (R-Pearl) — once I had set aside most available Democratic turf for Thompson or Childers, and drawn a logical Southern Mississippi seat for Taylor, this constitutes what was left over (hint: a lot of white Republicans, who easily overwhelm the significant minority of black Democrats).
District 4 – Gene Taylor (D-Bay St. Louis) — I hoped against hope that there was a way to bring the McCain share under 60%, even under 65%, but that’s impossible as far as I can tell. Consider this district a loan that can be deferred only as long as Taylor chooses to stay.
New York
Well, then…I had to eliminate one seat (it’s possible the Empire State will lose two, as in the last reapportionment, but all models currently project that its 28th slot will barely be saved). Murphy winning NY-20, much as it thrilled me, put a real monkey wrench in my plans and forced me to start over with the upstate districts, especially since there are a handful of upstate Democrats with marginal districts needing protection (damn all those votes being wasted in the city!). I started my do-over looking for a way to eliminate Pete King without jeopardizing shaky Democratic strength on Long Island…turns out, not a good idea. Population loss is mostly confined to upstate, so any NYC or Long Island seat elimination will cause havoc with the necessarily illogical lines. Simply put, the dropped seat will have to be upstate. If New York ends up dropping two, maybe King can be drawn out.
I tried drawing upstate a few different ways, each messier and more gerrymandered than the last, until deciding to try something a little controversial: put Mike Arcuri at risk. Of course, I started this process wanting to shore up Arcuri, just like Massa, Murphy, Maffei, and Hall, but eventually discovered that his district would be the most difficult to shore up based on pure geography. It’s not hard to move the 20th north, or put a little Rochester into Massa’s district, but with so many narrowly GOP-leaning and swing counties in the middle of the state, helping Arcuri would have been a lot tougher.
So I paired Arcuri with veteran Republican John McHugh in a relatively even-handed district. That may bode ill for Arcuri (whose first reelection in 2008 was shockingly close) against the longtime incumbent from up north, but with Obama likely to again command some coattails in 2012 New York, maybe he has a good shot. On the flip side, McHugh hasn’t faced a tough race in forever and may bow out rather than test his probably rusty survival skills. So my proposed 23rd is a tough call, and Democrats in the legislature might prefer to seek a certain GOP loss, but they’ll be forced to resort to some mighty contortions of mapmaking to derive that result.
Other than that risky move, my other choices were, I think, logically conceived and beneficial to the Democrats. Murphy and Massa are the big winners in this map, as are Hall and Maffei to a lesser degree. It was hard not to spread upstate Dem votes too thin, especially since upstate counties tend to be within 55% one way or the other (unlike the overwhelming Democratic margins in the city), but I think I may have pulled it off, at least as well as I could while equipped with such minimal redistricting tools.
You can’t easily see the urban districts, which is good because I wasn’t able to be very precise with them (what with only a calculator, Excel, and Paint to guide me). In fact, my changes to the NYC and Long Island districts were so minimal that there’s little point to addressing each district individually. Suffice to say that, other than maintaining VRA racial protections, the only “downstate” district I thought carefully about was the 13th, which in my map comprises all of Staten Island plus a small portion of Brooklyn. Beginning at the bottom of the Hudson Valley, then:
District 17 – Eliot Engel (D-Bronx) — stretches from the Bronx to Orange County. I diluted Democratic strength a little bit to help John Hall, but the 17th stays a safe seat.
District 18 – Nita Lowey (D-Harrison) — entirely within Westchester County, safely Democratic.
District 19 – John Hall (D-Dover Plains) — 91% of Dutchess, 28% of Orange, all of Putnam, and 23% of Westchester = Dem-leaning and more clearly Dem-trending suburban/exurban district.
District 20 – Scott Murphy (D-Glens Falls) — altered not just to become more Democratic (and it obviously is, in this iteration) but specifically to strengthen Murphy, by grabbing more of the rural north and dropping most of Saratoga. Perhaps Murphy will do well in Saratoga in 2010, without a regional pol as his opponent, but since Obama’s numbers were stronger up north than in Saratoga anyway, this seemed like a sensible choice.
District 21 – Paul Tonko (D-Albany) — a bit less Democratic, this district still includes all of Albany County but also all of Schenectady and 79% of Saratoga. Tonko would represent three major upstate towns under my map, which may present occasional conflicts of interest, but certainly appeases the “geographical compactness” fetishists.
District 22 – Maurice Hinchey (D-Hurley) — sheds a few Democrats to help Arcuri and Massa, but stays Dem-leaning and reasonably compact. The toughest pill to swallow for Hinchey would be ceding liberal Tompkins County (Ithaca) to Arcuri/McHugh while picking up some moderate Republican turf in the Hudson Valley. This is what I mean about having to balance the interests of different Democrats upstate. Hinchey, and a future Democrat, should still be just fine here.
District 23 – John McHugh (R-Pierrepont Manor) vs. Mike Arcuri (D-Utica) — combines some of McHugh’s rural northern counties (the more Democratic of which were given to Murphy) with Arcuri’s Oneida County base and some overwhelmingly Arcuri-friendly territory down in Ithaca. Knowing McHugh’s moderate reputation, popularity with military interests, and seniority advantage, I went out of my way to give Arcuri a fighting chance. For whatever it’s worth, this district would have voted for Obama, as did both of the current districts — Arcuri’s 24th and McHugh’s 23rd.
District 24 – Dan Maffei (D-Syracuse) — what was involved with this district was more tinkering than careful strategy, as any reasonable take on Maffei’s district will result in something Onondaga County-heavy and Dem-leaning.
District 25 – Chris Lee (R-Clarence) — a true “leftovers” district after I had done everything within reason to put Massa’s 28th in the Obama column while keeping Slaughter and Higgins rock-solid. Other than Chautauqua County and some Buffalo-area neighborhoods, this district should be plenty Republican. And yes, I know some of you would have liked me to eliminate Lee, but there are enough GOP votes in this part of New York that Massa (or Higgins) would have been doomed for defeat under that plan.
District 26 – Brian Higgins (D-Buffalo) — literally stretches from Buffalo to Niagara Falls, for a Rust Belt-ish industrial and Democratic-leaning district.
District 27 – Louise Slaughter (D-Fairport) — much like its current form, this covers most of the “lakeshore curve” in Western New York, stretching east from Niagara Falls to Rochester (about 2/3 of Monroe County is here, with the other third given to Massa, who definitely could use the electoral aid, while Rules Committee Chairwoman Slaughter is safe as can be).
District 28 – Eric Massa (D-Corning) — if this district were a tourism ad, its slogan would be “where West and Central meet”. The Rochester portion of the district likely puts Massa in a much more advantageous position and results in a slightly Obama-supporting district (the current 29th voted for McCain). Monroe County is easily the largest population source, with Ontario, Steuben, Chemung, and Cayuga (88% of which is here) rounding out the top five. Though it’s far from a Democratic stronghold, this district may be my most effective upstate seat in terms of the overall change in its partisan composition.
Overall, this map does what we’d all like in somewhat solidifying a three-seat ceiling for the Republicans (a very bad year might result in defeats for Massa and either Hall or Murphy, but the average year would preserve at least 25 Democratic seats out of 28), one of which is quite vulnerable. More sophisticated technology would doubtlessly allow me to create more precise boundaries and more accurately estimate the partisan dynamics of each district, but given the limited resources I have, I think I did pretty okay.
Thoughts on either state? What else do you want to see from this redistricting series?
shores up McMahon (NY-13, pretty easy to do, connect Staten Island to Manhattan) and really hurts Peter King(R-asshole).
We should be able to draw a map that could give us a 27-1 edge in Congress.
MS-4 is hopeless. I’d even think about making it more Repub (Taylor would hold it anyway) and trying to hurt Harper in MS-3.
How does the potential election of Alex Sink to FL governor alter your map?
HA!
Is black growth. By 2022 I’ll bet there will be enough of them for two black-majority seats.
Yeah Taylor’s district is gone as soon as he leaves. No point in trying to blue it, Taylor can win just fine without us. While Harper’s district would be ripe for a challenge with just a few more Democrats, Barbour isn’t going to let the Dems go for a shutout like back in the early 90s. Protecting Childers, and giving us basically two permanent seats in Mississippi is the best we can hope for. Considering how red the state is, that’s not a bad goal.
As for New York, while it is fun to imagine squeezing out King, Lee, and McHugh, it really isn’t feasible as you recognize. Perhaps slight alterations, just moving counties around might destabilize them, but we really can’t lose any more Democrats from the surrounding districts or we risk over-reaching. We already hold a bunch of really marginal seats upstate and on Long Island.
All three of the Mississippi Democrats won their seats in special elections.
But merging Arcuri and McHugh might not have been the most logical way to do it. Maybe if we lose two out of NY, we can do away with McHugh, but the twit’s popular, entrenched, and not certifiably crazy. All of which cannot be said for Chris Lee. Slaughter and Higgins districts are just hemorrhaging people and are designed to be overwhelmingly Democratic. Crack Lee’s district in two and spread it out accordingly (Erie and the more Democratic of the remaining counties to Higgins, who needs more cushion, and the rest, including Genesee and Orleans (Rochester adjacent) to Slaughter. Her replacement might be a bit more conservative, but not by miles. Maybe, even Maffei’s district could eat a bit of it.
made out of all the northern counties. I think Murphy would be better at competing up there than Arcuri.
You should attempt to do North Carolina, Virgina, or Wyoming next. 😉
The GOP actually controls the Mississippi State Senate. So your plans won’t happen unfortunately. The democrats have a 27-25 numerical majority but three democrats vote with the GOP on everything and they let Lt Guv Bryant appoint all the committee heads. So unless some of these DINO’s resign in the senate and mainstream democrats replace them things will pretty much stay the way they are here in Mississippi.
will just lose. That’s how it happened in the 2nd in the 80s with Mike Espy. Everyone was amazed that he got 12%(!) of the white vote. About as well as Obama did in MS & AL this year.
The deep south is why I don’t complain about mostly white West Virginia “only” giving Obama 42% of the vote. If he’d done that well among whites in the deep south, he would have swept the entire eastern time zone and most of central.
and making swing districts a map could be drawn, with only minor modifications to the current one, that was 27-1, leaving only McHugh and even his district would go Democratic when he finally retired.
I’m worried on your MS-02, I think you seriously overstated how Democratic it would be now and the black caucus would never settle for something like that. You are underestimating, in my opinion, both the size of DeSoto and Tate county, (a little over 200,000 I believe), but yes, a solid map. I’m gonna do my own low tech New York map soon, mostly its just going to be my thought process and conjecture however, and thank you for the hat tip, I appreciate the thought. It does look kind of like my map in that it makes the first look like an alligator and the 2nd a little like a frog.
I just can’t see it on a map with the 23rd and 26th.
New York 25 to 28
A side shuffle needs to be done from 25-28-27-26
Steuben needs to be shifted from 28[new] to 25, with compensating population shifts 28-27-26, adding Chatauqua back to new 26, where it presently is. This will add a county barely going for Obana by 349 votes to the Democratic districts, and subracting Steuben, [almost 7000 votes for mccain] to the republican 25. The weakest Democratic district would thus be strengthende