Played around with the new redistricting app and played the usual games we play in New York. How to make NY-1 more Democratic, take out King, and protect all the incumbents at the same time.
But being from Staten Island I tried ways to redo NY-13. And quickly saw how important the undecided New York State Senate races are.
First and foremost is how NY-13 is almost middle ground as far as it’s Brooklyn portion. Push it along the north and it becomes a lot more Democratic. Push it south or east and it becomes even safer Republican. A very possible scenario if the legislature is forced to do a “protect all incumbents who are not drawn out” map.
Staten Island is hard to redistrict out due to the south shore with it’s high voter turnout and very Republican vote. Despite being heavily unionized. Despite a Democratic registration advantage. One area with an outrageously high number of government employees is among the most conservative.
But what makes it very difficult is Brooklyn. Because you have a lot of Republlican pockets in the south. Put the South Shore there and you may well have created a district even MORE Republican than one that includes the Democratic North Shore of Staten Island.
To illustrate this problem I created a map with two Republican districts using Staten Island and Brooklyn. I actually made one a bit more compact but decided to see how many Republicans pockets I could fit. So went hog wild and went all the way out to Queens.
To answer probably your first question. No you don’t have to use Verrazzano Bridge. When Frank Murphy held the seat the district went up into Manhattan instead of Brooklyn.
First is Michael Grimm’s new district which includes his home in Rosebank.
He loses the most Democratic portion of the district. Which will be flung off either to Brooklyn or Manhattan. Probably Brooklyn (Yvette Clark) as part of a majority minority district.
Mid Island are spun off to our new district.
Grimm’s district now sports a 54 – 46 McCain-Obama vote as opposed to the old NY-13 which only had a 52-48 McCain/Obama split. And stays 71% white.
Notable additions to the district is the ultra-Orthodox high voting and very conservative neighborhood of Borough Park.
The fun part was the creation of a new district that took in the more conservative parts of Queens of Southern Brooklyn and Queens as well as going slightly into Nassau The district is 52-48 McCain/Obama and also 71% white.
The first part as you can see on the first map is the Mid-Island. You could describe these voters as Reagan Republicans. They voted for Gore, they voted for Bush, and they voted heavilly for McCain. Even more heavily than the South Shore. Yet they are also the swing voters. Michael McMahon won narrowly mid-island. So arguably I should’ve put the South Shore here instead of Mid-Island here. But first priority is to protect “our” Republican incumbent Grimm.
The Brooklyn/Queens portion will have Coney Island, Sheepheads Bay, and the Rockaways. It also has the ultra-orhodox neighborhoods around Avenue M that I can never remember the name of. A lot of Russians as well as other white ethnics.
And just for the hell of it connected it to the “Five Towns” partly in Nassau. Probably lost more Republican votes than I gained getting there. But a population made up of either the ultra wealthy or ultra-religious orthodox jews? That can anchor any Republican.
And the point of this excercise? To illustrate how important the Brooklyn portion of NY-13 is and why we’re going to need a friendly redistricting to regain this district. Not sure if this anecdote is true but I’ve heard it quite often and it sounds about right. Staten Island has only gone Democratic on the Presidential twice since the civil war. Once under Johnson in 1964 and once under Roosevelt in 1936. Now McMahon did win in Brooklyn (though not as well as his campaign had hoped). He even won mid-island. He of course won the North Shore. And he even narrowly won mid-island which usually would seal the deal. but the South Shore completely overwelmed him and gave Grimm the victory. You need a strong Brooklyn component.
Right now NY-13 will be tough but it could be won back. If the Brooklyn portion of the district turned north (or went back to a Manhattan configuration) it becomes a lot more winnable. But if the district is allowed to go east into Brooklyn. Game over.
How bad could it look? Well including Borough Park you could get a McCaim-Obama vote of 56/43. By way of reference Obama won 44% of the vote in South Carolina.
Wonder how much Weiner would complain about losing one ED I found that went 91% for McCain?
Take out the north shore of Staten Island and you can even do worse. McCain-Obama 69/39. Obama got 41% of the vote in Kansas and 38.7% of the vote in Alabama.
The last one is highly unlikely. You’d just anger voters here splitting Staten Island up. However I wouldn’t doubt the possibility of something like the other map happening.
My own NY gerrymander from January, which in many respects wouldn’t be a good idea, sent NY-13 to the north through a part of Brooklyn with large Hispanic and Asian populations and added a relatively small piece of lower Manhattan.
My guess is that with split control, NY-13 will probably look a lot like it does now and we’ll be hoping for turnout in the friendlier precincts in Brooklyn plus the North Shore to oust Grimm rather than creative line redrawing.
seen here
went for Gore in 2000, and Clinton in 1996.
Won’t lie, my impression of Staten Island is quite tainted by Jersey Shore, but it’s not as much a political wasteland as it is a cultural one…
I’ve done a great deal of playing with Dave’s app and created 2 solidly republican districts using richmond and kings. Even following a “compact, contiguous” fair redistricting guideline it is quite possible to cut 2 republican congressional districts there.
However, as you also point out, adjust those districts to the north and west and you can… not quite as… easily create 2 democratic districts.
The guidelines I followed for creating compact, contiguous districts starting at the end of Long Island and working my way through Queens into Kings into Richmond and then into Manhattan and north into upstate consistently cuts staten island into 2 districts and attaches a portion to the lower end of Manhattan. This makes it possible to use that portion of Manhatten to overwhelm the republican influence of the staten island portion to create a democratic district of say 55-60% Obama depending on how you cut it.
Similarly, you take the rest of Staten Island and combine it with the west edge of Kings heading north rather than south or east and you create another democratic district in the same percentage range. This then makes it necessary to overwhelm the south and eastern republican portions of kings with the more northern and central portions which can also be done.
Control of the Senate is key obviously.
are pretty much lost unless you go in for serious gerrymandering.
But if you are cutting a Republican map then you do not want a city district reaching into the republican portions of Nassau as you can create a strongly republican district (ala Peter King and the 3rd) all by themselves.
Similarly however, it is quite possible to create compact, contiguous districts out of Suffolk, Nassau and into Queens that voted at least in the 53-54% for Obama. Draw the line through the heart of Nassau creating a northern district and a southern district and the job is done. Pretty much the same with the western portions of Suffolk. Divide the districts between north and south and you can do it without any crazy gerrymandering.
there was a very specific antipathy for Obama there in 2008, hence the sea of red that appears there on the redistricting app, but it would be wrong to extrapolate from that that those areas are full of Republicans. To the contrary, Democrats never have problems down there at a state or local level. With the exception of State Senator Marty Golden, (and now Michael Grimm), every state/local office representing the area is held by a Democrat. Even with your example of the 91% McCain ED, it wouldn’t shock me if Wiener carried that ED, or at the very least lost it 40-60 or something like that. So a gerrymander that relies on that area to make it a Republican seat is one that would exist purely on paper.