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NY-23: I See a Red Map and I Want to Paint It Blue

by: DavidNYC

Wed Nov 04, 2009 at 11:25 PM EST


NY-23 painted light blue to signify Democratic takeover

One of the nicest things about this particular win is that NY-23, at 13,200 square miles, is the fifth-largest district east of the Mississippi. The four bigger eastern districts are ME-02, MI-01, WI-07 and WI-03, all of which are already held by Democrats. So this is the biggest swath of bright blue we're going to get to paint on this side of the Mizzip. Congrats, Bill Owens!

P.S. This is the sixth special election in a row that Dems have flipped from Republicans. Our streak began at the end of a GOP streak of five straight from 1994 to 2001. (Before that, according to Wikipedia, the longest streak appears to have been the eight seats the GOP flipped in succession from 1976 to 1980.)
DavidNYC :: NY-23: I See a Red Map and I Want to Paint It Blue
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NY-23: I See a Red Map and I Want to Paint It Blue | 82 comments
Man...
I just realized that Mike Arcuri's district looks like it's giving New England the finger.
Everyone loves Herkimer County
It's like the Rorschach blot of districting.
[ Parent ]
I thought people regarded it as Abraham Lincoln's top hat
so that there was that district where he was riding a vacuum cleaner.

Bill Posey is not half-alligator...and is outclassed by Davy Crockett anyway
[ Parent ]
Take a look at NY-20, too.
It flips off New England, too.

Follow the elections in Georgia at the 2010 Georgia Race Tracker.
[ Parent ]
actually...
NY-20 looks more like a guy with a pompadour haircut giving the thumbs-up. His head (you can make out a nose, an ear, and the haircut from the very top part) is smaller because it's more in the background, while his arm and hand are in the foreground, so they're larger.

I agree, Arcuri's district looks like the side profile of an arm giving the middle finger.

Hinchey's district looks like a soup ladle...and I'll just stop here before I get carried away...  

[ Parent ]
I see Elvis standing behind Tonto
[ Parent ]
Yes,
NY-20 was drawn to appease it's growing Fonz demographic.

It's also kind of funny how it looks like it's using NJ-5 to jump the shark with.

[ Parent ]
By the way
I bet that Arcuri and also Scott Murphy aren't too happy about Owen's win.
If the Dems are able to keep all their NY seats in 2010 their new districts will probably end up much more republican than it would have been the case if NY23 was still held by a Repub.
[ Parent ]
Your probally right
I mean i'm really glad Owens won but thr drawback to his victory is that come redistricting it's going to be a pain to change the districts to keep these guys all safe.  
[ Parent ]
Now who wants to draw us some maps
where the Chris Lee district is eliminated.  Or has someone already done those?
[ Parent ]
2012
I think what is most likely to happen is Lee gets a safe district to shore up Massa and a few other Dems on that side of the state. It's going to be a grudge match between two of Owens, Arcuri, and Murphy for the right to stick around in the 113th congress.

Meanwhile, I see some major re-drawings occurring on Long Island . . .  We'll get you yet Peter King!

[ Parent ]
I think the guy who will wind up
With the short end of the stick will be Owens. Dems can still slice up NY-23 even though he won. He'll be by far the least senior member of the delegation. Of course, it's also possible that Massa, Arcuri, Hall or Murphy could lose next year.

As redistricting gurus on this site have noted, carving up NY-26 is much harder and doesn't afford you as many opportunities to shore up weaker districts.

[ Parent ]
Objectively, I agree, but
that's why I believe Owens, Arcuri, Murphy, and possibly other moderate NY-Ds will tack left, at least until 2012 district boundaries are decided.

I'm guessing whomever is the least favorite of the 3 may get the short end of the stick in redistricting.  

[ Parent ]
I think the best
solution is to simply outright eliminate Pete King's district rather than one of the upstate districts. Then the NYC districts get sucked into Long Island - they can take it and easily remain Democratic. And the Upstate districts get sucked into NYC, making them more Democratic. I'm in the process of working on a map that does that, now that I am through with CA.

But if one or more of Owens/Arcuri/Murphy lose in 2010, I think it might be a good idea to make one of those districts maximally GOP.

[ Parent ]
One Possible Solution
 I have not updated this diary yet and I posted it in August so I don't consider Owens. This diary is basically a map that could be 27-1 or even 28-0 although Lee should probably hold on but in 2012, a strong Democrat has a good shot at knocking Lee out.

http://swingstateproject.com/d...

[ Parent ]
Murphy and Owens will get combined in a North-Country district
They get a district made of pretty much everything north of Albany. It's more Democratic than the current NY-23.
Hinchey gets the Hudson Valley south of Albany and north of John Hall's district.
Arcuri gets Ithaca.
Maffei gets more of the conservative Syracuse suburbs that have been plaguing NY-23 and NY-24.
Lee's district can't be eliminated, but it can be made much more Democratic by reducing Slaughter's district down to about D+4.
I made a map.
[ Parent ]
Much too compact
Nothing this compact will ever make it through the Albany sausage factory.
[ Parent ]
*If the Dems are able to keep all their NY seats in 2010*
I think that's the key line.  

Owens will probably have quite the fight in 2010.  If he does lose in 2010, the "glass half-full" view is that it won't exist in 2012.  Really, that would be the case for any GOP victory.

All of that assumes the Democratic Party keeps its hold on the NY Senate and Governor.

[ Parent ]
Yeah
In a way, it would almost be better if one of the upstate Dem incumbents loses in 2010.
[ Parent ]
Long time from now
There could be a retirement, scandal or a federal appointment for one.  

http://www.dailykos.com/story/...
[ Parent ]
I think it's cool
that four Democrats represent the Four Corners.
[ Parent ]
And I think it's cool
that Democrats represent every district that shares a border with Mexico. TX-27, TX-15, TX-25, TX-28, TX-23, TX-16, NM-02, AZ-08, AZ-07, CA-51, CA-53

Check out the 2010 California races and help us take back Red California!
[ Parent ]
Aye, Harry Teague
gave Democrats the U.S.-Mexican border, and Ann Kirkpatrick gave them the Four Corners (along with Jim Matheson, John Salazar, and Ben Ray Luján, all of whom I should've named in my previous post). I used to think that Duncan Hunter represented part of the border until I saw a bigger map.
[ Parent ]
How many for Canada?
What would we need to capture?  WA-04 and WA-05, and MT-AL, of course.  Then, we can skip over all the way east of Minnesota and Wisconsin. I guess Miller's thumb counties in MI-10 need to go.  Oh, and MI-02 and MI-06 are on Lake Michigan too.  OH-14 is GOP-held.  What else?  Is that it?  Looks like most of the work is in rural Michigan and the Palouse.  
[ Parent ]
I hadn't considered a water boundary
otherwise it would be just MT-AL and WA-04. Then we'd have ot keep ID-01.  
[ Parent ]
Actually...
It's WA-05. WA-04 doesn't extend quite all the way up to the border.
[ Parent ]
I'll be damned
You're right.  It stops at Chelan county...always thought it went farther north.
[ Parent ]
That's just the 48 states
AK-AL borders Canada too....  
[ Parent ]
Gah!
Of course AK counts.  Wow, that was a serious case of the stupids.
[ Parent ]
CA-52 was a Mexican-border district in the 90s when it had Imperial County attached.
So the representatives of the Mexican border-sharing districts are Solomon Ortiz (TX-27), Ruben Hinojosa (TX-15), Lloyd Doggett (TX-25), Henry Cuellar (TX-28), Ciro Rodriguez (TX-23), Silvestre Reyes (TX-16), Harry Teague (NM-02), Gabrielle Giffords (AZ-08), Raul Grijalva (AZ-07), Bob Filner (CA-51), and Susan Davis (CA-53).

Check out the 2010 California races and help us take back Red California!
[ Parent ]
Does CA-53 touch Mexico?
I thought CA-51 was the whole border, unless it doesn't go all the way to the Pacific like I thought.  
[ Parent ]
Yes it does.
A very tiny part, but it's there. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wi...

Check out the 2010 California races and help us take back Red California!
[ Parent ]
Nevada
Nevada Dems should make sure to put all the rural/desert part of the State in with the Central Las Vegas district.
What's the next biggest district we don't hold
East of the Mississippi? Probably some crazy-Republican district in the South, or a downstate Illinois district?
Maine-2
which is THE largest Congressional district east of the Mississippi.

I believe Texas-23 is the biggest district in the country represented by a Democrat, but I could be wrong. Maybe a Dakota.  

[ Parent ]
It's SD-AL


Follow the elections in Georgia at the 2010 Georgia Race Tracker.
[ Parent ]
MS-03


Follow the elections in Georgia at the 2010 Georgia Race Tracker.
[ Parent ]
What could have been
Open seat 08 that we passed on, sad.
[ Parent ]
Rankin County
Uh-huh.

Call no man happy until he is dead-Aeschylus
[ Parent ]
I can't believe
That Ronnie Shows didn't try running for his old seat. Instead, he screwed around by filing for the Senate special election, and then promptly dropped out of that race.
[ Parent ]
oh we DON'T hold is what you asked
yeah Mississippi-3

Maine-2 is the largest we DO hold.  

[ Parent ]
Yup, I believe it's MS-03
It's the 53rd largest in area...almost all of the top 50 in terms of area are west of the Mississippi, btw. I counted just a handful (including NY-23) above it on the Wikipedia, and they were all repped by Democrats. KY-1 is 56th, while downstate IL's John Shimkus is 57th.
[ Parent ]
Here's a fun one
what's the smallest district represented by a Republican?

A hint, the answer was different in the last Congress.

Props to who can name both.  

[ Parent ]
I think I got it
Now: CA 40

Before 111th Congress: NY 13

I knew NY 13 but had to look up CA 40. I was figuring California though. I was right with the smallest GOP GA district (GA 06) but was surprised to see that GA 04 was smaller than ATL district GA 05. Must be the airport being in GA 05.

Check out Georgia's best progressive political blog

[ Parent ]
PS
I realize GA 04 and GA 05 are represented by D's. Sorry if that was off topic.

Check out Georgia's best progressive political blog
[ Parent ]
The biggest we don't hold West of the Mississippi
is AK-AL, I think
Lol, No contest.
What's second, MT-AL?
[ Parent ]
Yes, followed by NV-02
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...

The largest we hold is SD-AL, followed by NM-02.

[ Parent ]
we missed our chance to get WY-AL
[ Parent ]
Expand that map about 50 pixels east
so we can see Maine and Boston metro in all it's glory
Think of how nice the Northeast will look after 2010
after Dems pick up PA-06 and DE-AL and if things go well PA-15
The six flips
just to list them

2004-Kentucky 6- Ben Chandler
2004 South-Dakota At Large- Stephanie Herseth Sandlin
2008 Illinois 14- Bill Foster
2008-Louisiana 6- Don Cazayoux (sadly we lost this one in the general)
2008-Mississippi 1- Travis Childers
2009-New York 23- Bill Owens

Because of Michael Jackson
I'd love to ask the black community how Bill Cassidy is doing working for their interests these days.

Call no man happy until he is dead-Aeschylus
[ Parent ]
Yeah Seriously
I don't think they'll tell you good things about that RW loon  BTW you all know this was planned between Jackson and Cassidy. Daily Kos after the election had a diary where some guy posted showing jackson and cassidy meeting up with each other in what looks like to be a coffeeshop. Jackson was dressed in all black while Cassidy was wearing surgical scrubs (he's a doctor when he's not politicking).

Outside of Darcy Burner losing, this race hurt the most. I really did like Don and he did get the screwjob. Hope he decides to run for his old seat in '10.

[ Parent ]
Correction
After the election some guy on Daily Kos posted a disry showing pictures of Cassidy and Jackson meeting up together in what looks to be a coffeeshop. And yeah it was then as clear as day.
[ Parent ]
I remember that
It got cross posted at the Daily Kingfish, and was one of the most outrageous things I'd ever seen.

And I totally agree that Cazayoux's was one of the most heartbreaking defeats of the night, given the unfair Jackson factor. Last I checked I think he was on track to be U.S. attorney for the middle district of Louisiana, so that might be a pretty good springboard.

[ Parent ]
He's a future Attorney
General and Gubernatorial Candidate.

Call no man happy until he is dead-Aeschylus
[ Parent ]
Yeah, it was heartbreaking, but not unexpected
The only one I didn't see coming, though, was KS-02.

Bill Posey is not half-alligator...and is outclassed by Davy Crockett anyway
[ Parent ]
Didn't we lose a race since 2004...
Wasn't there a race in Ohio that we narrowly lost in 2006 or 2007?  
[ Parent ]
Not one of our own
we narroowly lost OH-02 and CA-50 in 2005, but those were already Republican seats.

We were expected to do well in OH-05, a Republican seat, in 2007 and lost badly.

We nearly lost our own MA-05 in 2007, but held on.

[ Parent ]
And
We did really badly in VA-01 and CA-48.
[ Parent ]
The last one we lost on our own turf
was VA-04, way back in 2001, when Randy Forbes won the seat left vacant by the death of Norm Sisisky.
[ Parent ]
Did the district look substantially different
when Sisisky held it?  I seem to recall it being a lot smaller and less Southside-y...more like VA-02 now is.  Am I crazy?
[ Parent ]
well we also lost LA-01
but we've also won heavily D+ districts in specials.  Just that neither heavily D+ nor heavily R+ really makes the news.

Bill Posey is not half-alligator...and is outclassed by Davy Crockett anyway
[ Parent ]
You forgot NY-20
[ Parent ]
But that was a retention, not a pick-up
n/t
[ Parent ]
There's too much red in New Jersey
Obama should appoint Frank LoBiondo to a cabinet position. I know the Dems can pick that one up in a special election.
wouldn't have been a bad choice
for Secretary of Labor, he is very pro-labor.

Call no man happy until he is dead-Aeschylus
[ Parent ]
I'm not gonna complain about woman he chose instead

[ Parent ]
Do it Mr. President
Seriously that's not a bad idea for labor secretary if Hilda Solis ever decides to retire (not that I ever want her to). Plus you all got to remember that the reason we picked up this seat was because of Obama appointing John McHugh to be his Army Secretary. Suprised no one brought this up yet.
[ Parent ]
Great Idea ...
After Corzine's loss, it would be great to pick up a house seat in NJ.

We seriously need to create another open seat.  It would create another wedge in the GOP.  I swear Rham needs to get on this idea.  If not LoBiondo, then someone else.  Heck, maybe two at once.  

Just think how miserable yesterday would have been if we didn't have NY-23.  The whole narrative would have been totally negative and Health care would be in serious jeopardy.

Kay Bay needs to hurry up too.  

[ Parent ]
Any plum ambassadorships left?
China worked for Jon Huntsman. Italy is already taken by a friend of Kerry  
[ Parent ]
YES YES YES
Utterly brilliant.

Also, I'm surprised more people didn't pick up on the PA-19 story from yesterday's Daily Digest. Given the deeply conservative nature of the GOP in central PA, I'll bet we could see another civil war in the nominating process here, and if we could find a decent candidate (preferably with a base in York) we may have a shot. Hey, if we could do it in Mississippi in 2008, we could probably pull it off in Pennsylvania in 2010 :)

[ Parent ]
PA-19
I used to live pretty close to PA-19 (Baltimore County, MD) and I had coworkers living in York County. For a Democrat to win, first they would need to neutralize the cultural issues (abortion, gay marriage, etc) and the liberal base will have to suck it up and support him/her anyway. The right kind of environmentalism would play well here. Our candidate would have to campaign on: protecting the remaining farmland from suburban sprawl, creating green energy (wind power) in PA-19 to be sold in Baltimore and Philadelphia, and building mass-transit to alleviate congestion on I-83. The campaign will have to appeal to both the culturally conservative "original" residents concerned with too much development, and to the new people moving in who are more likely to be culturally liberal but are economically conservative tax-refugees from Philadelphia or Baltimore. The Dem campaign will involve some anti-tax messages which will sound grating to the left, but again, the left will just have to suck it up and get on board anyway. And it will be well worth it if we win.
[ Parent ]
LOVE it.
Thanks!
I LOVE IT
Stay blue and stay classy Congressman-Elect Owens.
Well now that you mention it.............
Rahm tried it on in NY-03 by offering King the ambassadorship to Ireland - he knocked it back.

Lee in NY-26 is a frosh - he ain't going anywhere.

In NJ the 4th and 5th and 11th are too Republican for us to win a special there and Lance in the 7th is a frosh so he isn't going anywhere either.

That leaves the 2nd and I concur we should offer a plum to LoBiondo.

In Pennsylvania we have competitve challengers in place in the 6th and 15th so lave them alone. The 5th, 9th, 18th and 19th are way too Repub for us to win a special there - Obama <45% -  which just leaves Pitts in the 16th. Obama got 48% here hhhhhhmmmmm interesting thought. BTW if I could remove any Repub from the house in the hope that we would win the district in a special that we probably won't win in 2010 otherwise???? - Dreier in CA-26, Latham in IA-04, McCotter in MI-11 or Wolf in VA-10.

PA-18
That suburban Pittsburgh district has slipped away quickly.  It's PVI before 2008 was decent...we should have had a shot.  Will we have another chance, since is might be a cultural/religious district that suffered an Obama effect (racism, mostly, I guess...Murtha wasn't afraid to call it out).
[ Parent ]
What about MI-06 and WI-01?
Both have very promising PVIs
[ Parent ]
I think we get both
Assuming good recruitment. Especially if Ryan decides once-and-for-all he wants out of WI-01 (Senate bid? Governor bid?)
[ Parent ]
Michigan PVIs are deceptive
Recall McCain withdrew from the state weeks before the election - we've had discussions on how much that inflated Obama's numbers.
[ Parent ]
See, this is why, even when you expect to lose miserably, you still run a warm body with good credentials
Because you never know when the other side will completely fuck up royally and give you fertile ground to grow a victory.

Bill Posey is not half-alligator...and is outclassed by Davy Crockett anyway
NY-23: I See a Red Map and I Want to Paint It Blue | 82 comments

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