The Seven States of New York (Maximizing Democrats)

Previously, I did a hypothetical exercise in which I turned California into a Democratic gerrymander of five states (four of them were basically guaranteed to be Democratic under nearly all circumstances and one Democratic leaning, but not completely safe, state. The state that I really wanted to do though was New York, especially New York City (in fact, my original idea was to simply make states out of the city and the rest of New York could just be its own state, but I decided that with some creativity, it's possible to play around with the rest of the state and still give the Democrats an edge over the Republicans. Some accomodations are necessary in order to create some of these states, and that'll be apparant when they're viewed, but rather than try to explain here, I'll just let the maps do the talking:

 

 

 

Ok, with the maps out of the way, here come the explanations:

 

State 1 (New Island) (Blue)

Population: 4,191,074
Demographics: White 56%, Black 16%, Hispanic 23%, Asian 3%
Partisanship: Obama 62%, McCain 38%
Areas: Bronx, Nassau, Suffolk

Notes: Originally, my plan was to combine the Bronx with Staten Island, which would make for some poetic justice for the Bastard Child of New York City (my grandpa was born in Staten Island, so I'm allowed have a little fun at SI's expense :P). Unfortunately, a friend of mine reminded me that the Bronx has both serious corruption issues, and that the voters there are less progressive than their substantial Democratic lean would suggest (see Pedro Espada and Ruben Diaz for more on the problems with the Bronx). His suggest was that I combine the Bronx with Manhattan or with Weschester County, but I ultimately decided that would be a huge waste of Democratic votes, so I made my choice to combine the Bronx with the Long Island counties of Nassau and Suffolk. This change turns the swingy Long Island into a reliably Democratic state without giving the Bronx too much statewide influence.

 

State 2 (New New York) (Green)

Population: 2,151,335
Demographics: White 52%, Black 14%, Hispanic 24%, Asian 8%
Partisanship: Obama 78% McCain 21%
Areas: Staten Island, Manhattan

Notes:  Alright, as I said earlier, my original plan was to combine Staten Island with the Bronx, but it didn't work out, so I had to decide what to do with it, and the solution was to throw it in with Manhattan. Staten Island's population base is largely ethnic Italians, which also makes it relatively conservative and Republican, so naturally the best thing to do with them is to throw them in with among the most (if not the most) liberal counties in the country. This isn't horribly bad though, as the two boroughs combined are only a little bit little bit less populous than neighboring Queens. By the way, yes, the name is a shout-out to Futurama.

 

State 3 (New Brooklyn) (Purple)

Population: 2,589,378
Demographics: White 35%, Black 34%, Hispanic 20%, Asian 8%
Partisanship: Obama 80%, McCain 20%
Areas: Brooklyn

Notes: All I did was make Kings County into its own state. Its wikipedia page should suffice to explain my father's new birth state.

 

State 4 (New Queens) (Red)

Population: 2,319,060
Demographics: White 33%, Black 19%, Hispanic 25%, Asian 18%
Partisanship: Obama 75%, McCain 24%
Areas: Queens

Notes: This state is the entirety of Queens and nothing more, so I'll just give the wikipedia page for more information

 

State 5 (New Amsterdam) (Yellow)

Population: 1,828,601
Demographics: White 70%, Black 11%, Hispanic 13%, Asian 4%
Partisanship: Obama 58%, McCain 41%
Areas: Westchester

Notes: This is the first state that is completely outside of the borders of New York City, and the first one that did not go at least 20 points for Obama, the county is half Westchester, and half from the more Republican lower upstate counties (which is what bring down Obama's numbers, while helping to prop up his numbers at a couple of other places. Now, this does means that in a really really bad year, this state could be prone to some close calls for the Democrats, but still it's Democratic enough that I'm not horribly worried about it.

 

State 6 (New Albany) (Blue-Green)

Population: 4,514,692
Demographics: White 85%, Black 8%, Hispanic 3%, Asian 2%
Partisanship: Obama 57%, McCain 41%
Areas: Albany, Rochester, Buffalo

Notes: I'm sure I don't need to say just how atrocious this district is, but you know something, I'm ok with that, especially given some of the most egregious historical state gerrymanders (I'm looking at you North and South Dakota…) This state basically absorbs all of the major cities in the upstate area while taking pains to keep out the more heavily Republican parts of the state. This is the most populous of the new states, which it must be to keep it as Democratic as it is (without having to send tentacles into the city). I was originally planning to divide upstate into east and west, with one state (east) having a slight (but not very pronounced) Democratic lean, while the other half (the west) would be a pure toss-up state, but it would subject the new states to crazy swings based on the environment (even moderately bad cycles could be enough to give the Republicans 3 of 4 of the two states' senate seats), so I just decided to create a more strongly Democratic state at the cost of conceding a state to the Republicans, which leads us to…

 

State 7 (New Farmland) (Grey)

Population: 2,011,300
Demographics: White 95%, Black 3%, Hispanic 3%, Asian 1%
Partisanship: Obama 47% McCain 51%
Areas: Rural upstate New York

Notes: Once you take the cities of Albany, Rochester and Buffalo (not to mention places like Utica) away, upstate New York becomes quite Republican by northeast standards (although certainly more moderate). The Republicans should be able to hold this area for the short-term, though if the Republicans don't moderate themselves, they'll probably find this state will turn on them.