How the DFL Lost the MN Legislature

The Minnesota DFL, even in the face of a GOP wave-year in 2010, were nonetheless optimistic with Mark Dayton polling very well and with majorities in the state legislature large enough to withstand a wave election.  While Mark Dayton was elected, one of the bigger 2010 election shockers was losing the MN legislature, meaning the state wouldn’t be looked to to rack up a few rare wins for progressives with marriage equality and a redistricting map that at the irritates the hell out of Michele Bachmann.

After doing this analysis, losing the state legislature is no longer that surprising as the majorities were very bloated, relied on districts the DFL had very recently won.  What I personally assumed was that even if it’s a wipe out in the suburbs and Dayton gets killed there, we’ll win with Greater MN and still hold onto a slim-downed majority.  Also, our legislature map-making process makes it so that losing one chamber probably means losing the other.  This is because one state senate district equals two state house seats so if you lose both state house seats, you probably lost the state senate seat associated with them, or vice versa.  (REDO, YOU’LL ACTUALLY HAVE THE NUMBERS TO GIVE SOME PRIMER SOON ENOUGH.)

State Legislature Representation


Year
Legislature
Majority
       
       
Percentage
Turn Over
2003
House
GOP
82
52
61%/39%
2005
House
GOP
68
66
51%/49%
DFL+14
2007
House
DFL
85
49
63%/37%
DFL+17
2009
House
DFL
87
47
65%/35%
DFL+2
2011
House
GOP
72
62
54%/46%
GOP+25
2003
Senate
DFL
35
31
52%/48%
2005
Senate
DFL
38
29
57%/43%
DFL+3
2007
Senate
DFL
45
22
67%/33%
DFL+7
2009
Senate
DFL
46
21
69%/31%
DFL+1
2011
Senate
GOP
37
30
55%/45%
GOP+16

The most important thing this table shows is the high amount of fluctuation that occurred this past decade.  After redistricting, the GOP were at their height of legislative power but this quickly collapsed over the decade.  This means the majority the DFL had coming into 2010 was weak electorally due to such a large percentage of the caucus coming from formerly Republican districts and as newly elected incumbents themselves.  A pro-GOP year came along too soon for our own wave-elected incumbents to solidify themselves so the outcome was everyone getting wiped out.

Also note that the 2009 senate elections are only the changes in two special elections that occurred.

Plenty more after the jump including lots of maps!

BLAH

As for the maps themselves, I didn’t do different colors for gains versus holds simply because there has been so much turn-over and I didn’t think it’d be as useful for comparative purposes.  I also used a very tight definition for the metro area so I’d estimate it at only a 30 mile radius from the center-point.  (This made it better for map-making purposes.)  It’s also hard to see but there are two state house districts for both the cities of Duluth (NE corner) and Rochester (SE corner).  (The Rochester ones only once they go blue.)

State House

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2011 State House Election Statistics


   District  
      Area      
   Losing Margin    
   2008 Pres    
   2010 Gov    
1A
Greater
17.4%
R51/47
R45/44/9
1B
Greater
1%
D51/46
D46/43/10
2B
Greater
4.8%
R50/48
R46/42/10
3B
Greater
2.5%
D50/47
D47/41/11
8B
Greater
12.2%
R52/45
R49/40/10
11B
Greater
17.1%%
R55/43
R52/35/12
12B
Greater
14.1%
R57/41
R52/35/12
13B
Greater
5.4%
R52/46
R47/39/13
15B
Greater
0.1%
D57/41
D46/41/12
16A
Greater
11%
R55/42
R52/35/11
17B
Greater
18.6%
R54/44
R51/36/12
25B
Greater
0.2%
D54/44
R46/42/12
27A
Greater
0.4%
D58/40
D49/39/10
30B
Greater
4.8%
R53/45
R51/33/14
37B
Metro
16.3%
D50/48
R48/37/14
38A
Metro
5.4%
D56/42
R44/43/13
38B
Metro
4%
D53/45
R46/39/14
40A
Metro
3.5%
53/45
R46/42/11
41B
Metro
5%
D54/45
R45/39/15
42A
Metro
.6%
D54/44
R45/40/15
49B
Metro
2.9%
D49/49
R48/40/11
53A
Metro
12.7%
D50/49
R49/37/13
56A
Metro
4.1%
D51/48
R48/38/13
56B
Metro
6.3%
D53/46
R48/39/13
57A
Metro
3.2%
D57/41
D45/41/13

TEXT!!!dufhaeiu ghacnlithn3ch4tacinuh4auihrixucnht L4YT AGHY ACLT

DFL State House Losses


Class
Losses
% of Total Losses
Total Class
Survival Rate
2003
6
24%
—–
—–
2005
3
12%
14
79%
2007
11
44%
19
42%
2009
5
20%
6
17%

State Senate

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2011 State Senate Election Statistics


   District  
      Area      
   Losing Margin    
   2008 Pres    
   2010 Gov    
4
Greater
9.2%
R51/47
R47/40/11
10
Greater
9.7%
R56/42
R54/35/10
15
Greater
1.7%
D51/46
R45/41/12
16
Greater
14.9%
R58/39
R56/31/11
17
Greater
12.2%
R55/43
R52/35/11
22
Greater
18.9%
R52/46
R50/37/8
25
Greater
2.6%
D49/48
R47/39/8
28
Greater
10%
D50/48
R47/38/15
30
Greater
1.6%
D50/48
31
Greater
11%
R55/42
R52/35/11
38
Metro
3.6%
D55/44
R44/41/14
40
Metro
2.1%
D54/44
D44/43/12
47
Metro
5.1%
D51/47
R48/41/8
51
Metro
5.3%
D52/46
R44/43/11
53
Metro
5.5%
D51/58
R48/38/13
56
Metro
3%
D52/47
R48/38/13

DFL State Senate Losses


Class
Losses
% of Total Losses
Total Class
Survival Rate
2003
4
25%
—–
—–
2007
10
63%
11
9%
2009
2
13%
2
0%

BLAH BLAH iunuon euangua4w here is some text.

Shoring Up Rural Democrats

In 2010, there was a major political disconnect in our messaging and voters weren’t willing to buy voting for a party where the candidate themselves even think their party is heading in the wrong direction.  Shouldn’t be surprising, and having more solid Democratic districts outside of major metropolises is how we can expand our big tent party while having them actually feel like a part of the party.  This project is aimed at creating districts where the Democrats are heavily favored without needing big city liberals to get them elected.  You’ll notice I ignored doing any VRA districts in the South mainly because these possible districts get so widely talked about and redistricted here at SSP that I didn’t feel like doing something that has already been done.

I was going to add in Presidential numbers and go through that work, but then came three more projects to play with so I updated this with DRA 2.1 and called it a day.  (I’ve been sitting on this for awhile, and some of you have seen this when I posted a draft on accident.)

Northern Minnesota Plus

This combines the Iron Range in the NE and west central MN, which are respectively the L and F in DFL.  Throw in some American Indian reservations to connect the two and you’ve got yourself one of the largest districts in the country and I’d guess is approaching 60% Obama.

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Southeastern Minnesota

Combines the southeastern farming areas (some more F in DFL), the towns along the St. Croix River (Updated and Mississippi River), Northfield, which has two very liberal private colleges, the city of Rochester (100k pop.) and then the current representative’s home in Mankato in the western end of the district.  Moves from swing to lean Democrat on the Presidential level, and if Rep. Walz can survive in 2010, then it should be safe Dem for him in most cycles for decades to come.

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Northeastern New York

This combines the Dem parts of the current NY-23 and NY-20 into a likely Dem district in a place now used to voting for Dems at the Presidential level but still has some local Republican flare.  Rep. Owens will no longer need Doug Hoffman to win an election!

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Syracuse, New York Plus

This district is one I question belonging since it isn’t that rural of a district considering it’s a central city with tendrils to other cities.  But after going through some other states, I realized the goal is creating solid Dem seats in rural areas.   So even though the Dem strength isn’t in the countryside for this district, the district is located where a solid liberal can be elected outside of a metropolis and just needs a gerrymandered mess to make it happen.

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Western Wisconsin

Combines the extremely Democratic Lake Superior counties and then snakes down the border to catch up with the St. Croix River (Updated and Mississippi River), which creates many solid Dem river counties.  Throw in Eau Claire for good measure and you’ve a got district that voted for Obama by 60%.  This is a district that the GOP would want to create, as you can create a GOP leaning district out of the remains of WI-7 and WI-3, but you’d also be drawing Sean Duffy out his district.

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Rural Colorado plus Fort Collins

Follows the path of Obama counties in rural Colorado, and then to get to population equity, I threw in Fort Collins.  A previous permutation included Boulder instead of Fort Collins, but this way is probably better for doing a complete Dem gerrymander of the state.

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Southeastern Ohio

Takes all the Democratic parts of OH-7 OH-6 and OH-18 and then includes the main population center of OH-16, Stark county.  Includes all three former Democratic Congressmen’s homes so a fun battle royal could have ensued.

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Southwestern Indiana

Likely Dem district made by combining Terre Haute in the north, Bloomington in the east, and Evansville to the south.  Could have been another very fun three-way Dem primary.

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Upper Peninsula plus Muskeogon

This district uses water contiguity generously by combining the UP with two blue counties on the east portion of the Lower Peninsula and then blue counties down the west side to connect to Muskegon.  This is probably my favorite district in this project as its gerrymander is very simple but extremely effective.  You could even trade the two eastern counties for more western ones to not make it seem as much of a stretch but I’ll save that for the MI legislature some day.

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Lexington plus Eastern Kentucky

This one involved going through the Presidential performances of 2000, 2004, and 2008, as even beyond Obama imploding in Eastern Kentucky, there were a lot of shifts between all three cycles.  The district that ended up being made was Lexington plus every county east of it that has voted Dem at least once since 2000 and then the least GOP we could get from there.

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Central North Carolina

This is another district the GOP would want to create as a means to screw over either Rep. Kissel or Rep. McInytre as it combines all the Dem portions of both their current districts.

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Western North Carolina

This creates an octopus with the city of Asheville as the center, snaking out to Dem cities and making Rep. Schuler quite safe and hopefully makes him go a little easier on Pelosi.

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If you have better/more ideas, feel free to post them in the comments!

Minnesota DFL Ungerrymander

Here’s what I call an ungerrymander that ends up benefitting the DFL.  The metro seats get compacted and the map turns into a four metro/four Greater MN map.  The new MN-6 (grey) does contain a lot of the population within the metro so it could be classified as both.  This map should eliminate John Kline and it also doesn’t hurt Paulsen too much but his district is now in better position to slip from underneath him over the decade.  If Bachmann runs, which seems likely if she doesn’t become the Presidential nominee, this map probably would result in a 4/4 female/male delegation and 6/2 DFL/GOP.  If state sen. Bonoff runs and beats Paulsen, 5/3 female/male and 7/1 DFL.

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MN-1 Blue

Tim Walz (DFL)

52/45.5 (51/47)

Get’s a little more safe for Walz and if he can survive 2010 against a tier 1.5 opponent, then he should be fine.

MN-7 Orange

Collin Peterson (DFL)

48/50 (47/50)

Good thing he owns a plane.  And a point more safe to boot by trading central MN counties and going from border to border.

MN-8 Purple

OPEN

56/43 (53/45)

Rep. Cravaack’s exurban areas of Isanti and Chisago Counties are given to the new MN-6 which is more favorable for the GOP but also is where Bachmann could run.  These two counties get swapped out for the city of St. Cloud so now former state sen. and MN-6 2010 loser, Tarryl Clark, can run here.  If it were Clark vs Cravaack, she’ll annihilate him.

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MN-6 Grey

Rep. Cravaack

40/58 (45/53)

This becomes a Republican vote sink for the state and combines all the exurban and heavily conservative rural territory surrounding the Twin Cities.  Cravaack could win, but if Bachmann wants to run for a seat, she’ll run here and she will win.

MN-2 Cyan

Rep. Kline

52/46 (48/50)

Kline’s seat loses all of it’s exurban and rural territory as it becomes a strictly south metro district, making this seat 8% more DFL.  He is much more in line with Bachmann than with Paulsen so he has the wrong profile for this district.  And state sen. Katie Sieben has been widely talked about moving up someday as she’s only in her 30’s and represents a swing’ish state senate district.

MN-3 Green

Rep. Paulsen

53/46 (52/46)

Paulsen got off pretty lucky as his district needed to pick up more territory and the suburbs his district would then include are all GOP leaning.  The district does border the city of Minneapolis now, so everything west of the city lines are included, which make the district 1% more in our favor.  I could have swapped back in Bloomington and given Kline the Carver County suburbs, but this looks prettier and keeps the map more directional.

MN-5 Yellow

Rep. Ellison

72/26 (74/24)

District now is the city of Minneapolis and the north metro.

MN-4 Red

Rep. McCollum and Rep. Bachmann

63/35 (64/34)

Includes Bachmann’s home, but I highly doubt she’d run here as MN-6 is winnable and includes most of her old territory.  The district loses some of it’s southern suburbs and shifts more into a St. Paul+NE metro district.

TX GOP Gerrymander: +3 Hispanic, +4 GOP

After a few tries and reading a few ideas for what could happen with redistricting, I finally came up with this final draft of a map combining everything I know to make one nasty GOP gerrymander.  TX-25 once again became a “fajita strip” but I find that creating another Hispanic South TX seat is very possible once you work some mojo into Bexar County (San Antonio.)

Three new Hispanic seats, with a possibly four new GOP seats (three open and one incumbent screwed over.)

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For the numbers, the first set of Obama/McCain are the new district’s numbers, second set are the former district.  I put new district’s demographics when relevant.  Open seats do not have former district numbers because they are new seats gained from redistricting.

TX-16 Silvestre Reyes

Brown, Far western El Paso district

65/34  66/34

This district stays more or less the same and Reyes would easily win another term.

TX-23 Quico Canseco

Green monster western Texas

41/59  51/48  35/5/58

This border district becomes much more Republican by taking in Hispanic territory in the Texas panhandle.  This new territory, while pretty Hispanic, is also heavily Republican.  Any Republican should be safe here and with the GOP primary being the decider, a white GOPer could certainly slip into this Hispanic majority seat.  (Argument #1 for the DOJ.)

TX-13 Mac Thornberry

Pink north central

26/73  23/77

This district loses some of it’s panhandle portions and thus becomes a little less gerrymandered by taking in more territory in north central TX.  Because of how the map worked out, I had to throw Waco into this district because before I had Chet Edwards in an open seat with most of his old territory and it being more Dem friendly.  No way.

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TX-19 and TX-11 were panhandle seats that are pushed east by TX-23 and now are used to crack the Austin area.  Both become decidedly more Democratic, but not enough to make a difference.  The other Austin area seat, TX-31, remains mostly unchanged.

TX-19 Randy Neugebauer

Yellow

35/64  27/72

TX-11 Mike Conway

Peach

37/61  24/76

TX-31 John Carter

Cyan

41/58  42/58

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Bexar County is key to making gains in South TX for the GOP.  There is a lot of population to play with and the GOP can be very effective in knowing how to divvy it up.

TX-21 Lamar Smith

Grey

39/60  41/58  62/6/29

A few points more Republican with the same general northern San Antonio metro area.

TX-20 Charlie Gonzalez

Orange

69/29  63/36  15/7/75

Becomes more Democratic with packing the most Dem precincts in Bexar County.  Very much a Dem vote sink as creating two 60%-Obama Hispanic districts in Bexar County is entirely possible, could be considered packing Hispanics.  (Argument #2 for the DOJ.)

TX-28 Henry Cuellar

Red

47/52  56/44  39/2/55

His district now takes in a different portion of San Antonio suburbs and loses some heavily Dem border territory.  In total, this district becomes 17% more Republican, and a little less Hispanic overall.

TX-15 Ruben Hinojosa

Cyan

73/26  60/40  8/0/91

Packed every Dem precinct that I could yet again.  Packing Dems does mean packing Hispanics and I’d love to know if any other districts in the country can beat 91% non-white for a single demographic.  (Argument #3 for the DOJ.)

TX-33 OPEN

Turquoise

47/52  36/3/58

Brand new south Texas district that heavily utilizes Bexar County for population in the north with being anchored by Harling and parts of McAllen in the south.  This and Cuellar’s district could be competitive in a Presidential year with Hispanic turn-out, but a mid-term year should favor the GOP more.

TX-25 Lloyd Doggett

Blue

66/33  59/40  29/10/58

New fajita strip to connect Austin to Brownsville and a new Dem sink Hispanic district.  This district is crucial in creating a GOP Hispanic district to the west and shoring up Farenthold to the east.  (Argument #4 for the DOJ for overly gerrymandered.)

TX-27 Blake Farenthold

Violet

45/54  53/46  37/4/57

Takes in less border territory and more rural Hispanic territory SE of San Antonio to make a GOP seat based in Corpus Christi for Farenthold.

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TX-17 Bill Flores

Brown

38/61  32/67

This district becomes a few more points Democratic and now takes in rural counties central TX rather than connecting to the Dallas metro area.  Flores should be fine as once this district went Republican, it’s probably gone for good.

TX-10 Mike McCaul

Indigo

42/57  44/55

Retains the same concept of the current TX-10 while shoring up McCaul a bit.

TX-14 Ron Paul

Pink

38/61  33/66

Not too different; a few more points Democratic but nothing to worry or care about.

TX-34 OPEN

Orange

32/67

This seems like a weird place for the new Houston area seat to end up but population growth meant that two GOP incumbents based closer into the city are given more compact seats.  This new district is basically the left-over exurban/rural territory of these two incumbents’ districts.  

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TX-22 Pete Olson

Yellow

40/59  41/58

Same district, tick more Republican because that’s how the map shook out.

TX-2 Ted Poe

Cyan

36/63  40/60

Poe’s district loses the rural territory and is just about all Harris County district.

TX-8 Kevin Brady

Red

34/65  26/74

New compact Harris and Montgomery County district for Brady.  It becomes much more Democratic, but safe GOP nonetheless.

TX-7 John Culberson

Grey

41/58  41/58

Without adding a new Hispanic district in the Houston metro, Culberson’s district sees no shoring up.  Still pretty safe GOP, but that could change drastically over the next decade.  (Depending how the housing market shakes out.)

TX-9 Al Green

Green

79/21  77/23  16/40/32

This district, along with the next two, are nearly identical to the former districts with some changes to reflect population growth.  All three minority-majority seats will see the same incumbents return under this scenario.

TX-29 Gene Green

Violet

64/36  62/38  20/10/67

TX-18 Sheila Jackson Lee

Peach

77/22  77/22  22/42/31

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TX-35 OPEN

Turquoise

33/66

New seat that takes TX-17 portion of rural territory leading into the metroplex.  Combined with much of the city of Arlington, the third largest city in the area, and you’ve got yourself a district.

TX-6 Joe Barton

Violet

37/62  40/60

Not much change here.

TX-5 Jen Hensarling

Blue

35/64  36/63

This district moves further into East TX to avoid taking in more Dem territory in the metropolitan area.

TX-1 Louie Gohmert

Indigo

30-69  31/69

Moves north to accommodate TX-5.

TX-4 Ralph Hall

Orange

37/62  30/69

Snakes into Dallas and the city of Garland to protect the other GOP Dallas-area incumbents as Hall can afford to pick-up more Democrats while doing so for the other incumbents moves them from no sweat to slightly annoyed and will have to have a few more extra fundraisers.

TX-12 Kay Granger

Indigo

36/63  36/63

Very similar to the current district, with the same Presidential numbers as well.

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TX-26 Mike Burgess

Brown

37/62  41/58

District becomes much more Denton County-centric with it becoming a very solid GOP seat along the way.

TX-3 Sam Johnson

Yellow

36/63  42/57

Ditto Sam Johnson whose district becomes the mirror of the previous district and is much more Collin County based.  Also now extremely comfortable for the GOP and can last the next decade.

TX-32 Pete Sessions

Red

42/57  46/53

He should be very happy with his new district.  The creation of a Hispanic district means shoring up Sessions a bit.

TX-24 Kenny Marchant

Green

38/61  44/55

Ditto Marchant, who now gets a +23% McCain district.

TX-36 OPEN

Peach

67/32  22/12/63

New Hispanic district that stretches from Fort Worth to Dallas.  Easy gain for the Democrats in the area.

TX-30 Eddie Bernice Johnson

Grey

82/18  82/18  24/52/21

This district is able to become an AA majority with shedding Hispanic territory to the new TX-36.  This is one reason why AA interest groups could be happy with this map as it guarantees them a Dallas seat, with Houston now being their only other concern.

Maximizing Rural Democrats

Blah blah blah blah

Minnesota: North + West Central

Obama,McCain

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Minnesota: Southeast

Obama,McCain

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Wisconsin: North Shore + St. Croix River Area

Obama,McCain

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New York: Northeast

56% Obama, 43% McCain

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New York: Syracuse + Surrounding Dem Areas

58% Obama, 40% Mccain

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Ohio: Southeast + Canton

Obama, McCain

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North Carolina: South Central + Fayetville

59% Obama, 40% McCain

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North Carolina: Western + Asheville

52% Obama, 47% McCain

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Indiana: Eastern

Obama,McCain

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Michigan: Upper Peninsula + Muskegon

Obama, McCain

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Kentucky: Eastern + Lexington

Obama,McCain

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Colorado: Rural + Boulder

Obama,McCain

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Iowa: Eastern

Obama,McCain

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Senate/House Wave Loss

Races within 10% House

2008

Al-2 50-50 Bright D

Al-3 54-46 Rogers R

Al-5 51-48 Griffith D

AK    50-45 Young R

AZ-5 54-33 Mitchell D

CA-3 49-44 Lungren R

CA-4 50-50 McClintock R

CA-44 51-49 Calvert R

CA-50 50-45 Bilbray R

*CO-4 56-44 Markey D

CT-4 50-49 Himes D

FL-8 52-48 Grayson D

*FL-16 60-40 Rooney R

FL-24 57-41 Kosmas D

FL-25 53-47 Diaz-Balart R

ID-1 51-49 Minnick D

IL-10 53-47 Kirk R

KS-2 51-46 Jenkins R

KY-2 53-47 Guthrie R

LA-2 50-47 Cao R

LA-4 50-50 Fleming R

LA-6 48-40 Cassidy R

MD-1 49-48 Kratovil D

MI-7 49-46 Schauer D

MI-9 52-43 Peters D

MI-11 51-46 McCotter R

MN-3 48-41 Paulsen R

MN-6 46-43 Bachmann R

**MS-1 54-46 Childers D (Nov. 54-44)

MO-9 50-47 Luetkemeyer R

NE-2 52-48 Terry R

NV-3 47-42 Titus D

NH-1 52-46 Shea-Porter D

NJ-3 52-48 Adler D

NJ-7 50-42 Lance R

*NM-1 56-44 Heinrich D

*NM-2 56-44 Teague D

*Seats won by more than 10% but pick-up for other party

**Seat picked up in special, won by more than 10% in November

Texas Redistricting: The Return of the Jedi

If you can’t tell by the title, this is strictly a Democratic gerrymander with the goal being how many Obama districts can be squeezed out of Texas while pretty much following current VRA’s and not severely weakening current incumbents.  I purposefully had ignored all other possible VRA’s, such as a Hispanic plurality/majority district in Dallas.  However, since the voting is so polarized, an Obama district in TX almost automatically means it’s going to be heavy on the minority population.  So even while the intention isn’t there, this map still naturally makes two new majority-minority districts in Dallas, a solid Hispanic plurality district in Houston, two new majority-minority seats in Houston and a Hispanic majority seat in Southern TX.  

The question becomes, what would happen in a majority-minority district that’s a swing district, because the primary vote would be mainly minority voters and they’d need to pick up some white vote to account for drop-off in voting habits to get to 50%+1.  Id like to think though that the suburbs of Dallas and Houston aren’t that racial charged and we’d do okay.

I did a 36-seat map.  TX may gain either three or four seats; I just picked one and went with four as having an extra seat to work with seemed more fun.  The four new seats ended up being one in South Texas to reflect the booming Hispanic population, two in Dallas as roughly 1.3 million people have moved into the area since the 2000 census, and the fourth is another Houston area seat with my gerrymandering resulting in a north suburban Houston seat.

The map is 22 Obama districts and 14 McCain districts and I hope you enjoy!

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Greater Dallas

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Only explanation about relay of information is that in the 2nd line in initial description of district, after Presidential results the order is White%/Black%/Hispanic% of population.

Red: TX-32  Pete Sessions R

34%-65% McCain     80/4/10

District now becomes much more like the current TX-26 but instead of combining suburban and exurban areas with Democratic areas in the Dallas-core, it now picks up the heavily GOP portions of north Dallas.  Sessions would be much happier here.

Green: TX-3 Sam Johnson R

35%-64% McCain     79/5/10

Sam Johnson may actually live in TX-32 or the new TX-33 but I have a feeling he’d rather run for this open seat that contains most of his old territory.  Safe GOP, gerrymandering to only take in GOP precincts in the inner-Dallas area.

Lime Green: TX-4 Ralph Hall R

28%/71% McCain     78/13/7

Pretty much the same district for Ralph Hall already represents, he’ll be happy.

Periwinkle: TX-1 Louie Gohmert R

29%/70% McCain     72/16/9

He got lucky as well (as lucky as one can get in a pretend redistricting) and Gohmert’s district stays pretty much the same.

Pink: TX-6 OPEN

26%/73% McCain     83/6/9

This district is very similar to Joe Barton’s current district so he’d probably opt to run here instead of against Bernice Johnson in a black plurality district.  Kay Granger may also be looking for a new district to run in (if she doesn’t pull the trigger on a statewide run) and this district contains her old suburban and exurban territory.  

Inner-Dallas

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Here’s with city lines and here is with no lines.

Redistricting Dallas was easily the most fun, so much damage can be done to the GOP gerrymanders there.  What I found is that you can squeeze out 6 Obama districts, however, most of them will be extremely swingish, Hispanics get no plurality or majority district, it is heavily gerrymandered, and the AA district now has a tail.  Making 5 Obama districts would be an extremely solid Dallas area map and would pretty much guarantee us all 5 of those seats and could provide a district where a Hispanic can easily get elected (mine it’s 50/50).  But I’ll save that for the Democrats in TX to make because Im going for 6.

Peach: TX-24 Kenny Marchant R

31%/68% McCain     84/3/9

Merchant’s home gets thrown into what looks like TX-26 with Michael Burgess, however Burgess gets put into a different district.  So while Merchant is the only resident incumbent, Burgess may want to run here as well instead of try his hand at an Obama district.

Cyan: TX-26 Mike Burgess R

52%/47% Obama      59/12/19

As previously stated in the last district, this is a newly made Obama district that he won by 5%.  In the north Democratic Denton, then some McCain districts to snake down to more suburbs that are starting to swing our way, and then picks up strongly Democratic areas in Dallas and Tarrant counties.  This is also the 2nd most white Obama district in the state, with the two Austin based districts ranking 1st and 3rd.

Yellow: TX-33 OPEN

51%/48% Obama      53/14/24

New district formed out of blue precincts in northeast/northcentral Dallas county with it picking up the Democratic precincts in the booming city of Plano north of that in Collin county.

Gray: TX-5 Jeb Hensarling R

52%/47% Obama      48/16/32

Jeb’s district now takes in much more of Dallas county, snaking in a little bit to pick-up left over Dem precincts from Johnson’s district moving into rural areas.  A Hispanic would stand a decent shot at winning here; they’ll make up a strong plurality/majority of the Dem primary so the real challenge will be getting a Hispanic legislator elected in such a white district that only went for Obama by 5%.

Blue: TX-30 Eddie Bernice Johnson D vs Joe Barton R

66%/33% Obama      39/41/18

For this district, I cut out much of the Hispanic population in Dallas county and replaced it with white dominated areas in suburban and exurban areas south of Dallas, thus giving those Hispanic Dem precincts to other districts that can use them.  With the Hispanic population plummeting from 34% to 18%, Johnson actually get’s safer and this district will have no chance of going from AA to Hispanic in representation.

Turquoise: TX-34 OPEN

51%/48% Obama      47/12/35

Another new Obama district, this one also is majority-minority and a tinge more Hispanic and less white than TX-5, but also 2% more Republican.

Violet: TX-12 Kay Granger R

53%/46% Obama      50/17/28

Fort Worth no longer gets screwed out of having a Democratic representative and the district now covers only the city of Fort Worth and a few inner-suburbs that are surrounded by it’s city limits.

West Texas

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Purple: TX-13: Mac Thornberry R

23%/77% McCain     72/5/20

Boring.

Pink:TX-19 Randy Neugebauer R

27%/72% McCain     67/6/25

Boring’er.

Sea Green: TX-11 Mike Conway R

23%/76% McCain     71/4/22

Boring’est.

West Texas Hispanic Districts

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Orange: TX-16 Silvestre Reyes D

65%/34% Obama      18/3/76

Same El Paso based district for Reyes.

Purple: TX-28 Henry Cuellar D

52%/46% Obama      22/2/74

This district looks much like Ciro Rodriguez’s, save for he lives in Bexar County which now has enough population for two separate Hispanic districts.  And with Cuellar’s voting record, he seemed like a perfect fit for this district rather than stick him in what would be an extremely strong Obama district next-door.  So his home of Laredo in the SE extreme of the district is put into the district.

Central Texas

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Maroon: TX-23 Ciro Rodriguez D

56%/42% Obama      30/5/61

There’s Ciro!  This district is much Democratic, and will be much easier for campaign stops on Rodriguez.  Congrats man, sit back and enjoy the incumbency, but still work hard.  (This is pretty much guaranteed to happen regardless of whose in charge of redistricting in TX.  They can probably gerrymander two Hispanic district enough here in the county to make one one really swingy though.)

Cyan: TX-20 Charles Gonzales D

58%/41% Obama      33/10/53

His district does get less Democratic and that’s because he now has to share his blue territory with another Dem in Bexar county.  He’ll live.

Brown: TX-21 Lamar Smith R

33%/66% McCain     75/3/19

Smith’s district takes on a different shape, but covers most of the same exurban/rural territory around San Antonio and Austin.

Lime Green: TX-31: OPEN

56%/42% Obama      62/5/29

New Austin based district for any Dem who wants it.  

Olive Green: TX-25 Lloyd Dogget D

60%/39% Obama      58/12/24

Dogget’s district gets a little bit more Democratic and a helluva a lot smaller.

Light Blue: TX-17 Chet Edwards D

53%/45% Obama      56/19/20

This district is now a pair of legs connected to Edwards home of Waco.  The right leg picks up AA precincts through small cities and rural areas while the left leg takes in the Democratic city of Killeen and then on down to pick up some suburbs and a couple of precincts in Austin.

Southern Texas

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Yellow: TX-27 Solomon Ortiz D

53%/46% Obama      27/2/69

This district stays surprisingly the same as I figured it’d get smaller.

Green: TX-15 Ruben Hinojosa D

59%/40% Obama      20/2/77

Hinojosa’s district trades around some precincts in Central TX with the new Hispanic district and with another GOP district to maximize Democratic performance, which was lacking after the city of McAllen was completely taken out for population purposes.

Pink: TX-35 OPEN

60%/40% Obama      18/1/80

New Hispanic district centered around McAllen on the border and then takes in much of Cuellar’s old territory in Central TX to create a solid progressive Hispanic Congresscritter.  Also the most Hispanic district in the state.

Greater Houston

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Salmon: TX-14 Ron Paul R

29%/70% McCain     73/8/7

Ron Paul’s district is re-shaped and all Democratic areas in the district are removed (Galveston and it’s surrounding areas), suburbs closer into Houston are added, and then the rural areas inbetween Houston and Austin are dolloped on.  A bit more Republican, pretty gerrymandered and with no central focus as this district really was just the left-overs.

Gray: TX-36 Ted Poe R vs Kevin Brady R

25%/74% McCain      81/4/11

This district is the one I deemed the new one.  Montgomery county is estimated to have grown by just over 50%, or roughly 150,000 people.  So now there is a district centered around the county.  A couple of precincts of Poe’s hometown are in other districts but he probably lives here, and Kevin Brady does for sure as well.  But he may want to run next door.

Moss Green: TX-8 OPEN

28%/71% McCain      78/8/10

Here’s where Kevin Brady would probably run as it consists of most of his old territory and he’d have an easy win.

Merrygold: TX-2 OPEN

53%/46% Obama      45/22/29

My favorite district on this map and the one I started with first when mapping, which I had never done before and is why I finally got it perfect over the many tries (could never get it to be an Obama district because Id start with TX-22).  In the east it picks up all the Democratic areas in the Beaumont/Port Arthur metro, moves west to Baytown, snakes through the suburbs in Houston  (and missing Republican areas to boot) on down to Galveston, and then to Freeport.  It’s a minority-majority district  and probably strong enough Dem to elect one.  

Violet: TX-22 Pete Olson R

52%/48% Obama      46/20/22/12%(Asian)

Much less gerrymandered before, this district is now a very Fort Bend-centric district that expands from there to pick up as Democratic of precincts as possible.  A chunk of Houston does extend into Fort Bend that I’d estimate at 85% AA and the surrounding areas from there in the county also contain many heavy minority areas.  This higher AA population is what makes it majority-minority and Democratic.

Inner Houston

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Here’s with city lines and here’s with no lines.

Pink: TX-10 OPEN

30%/69% McCain     74/4/15

This district is open and takes on TX-10’s numeration because it got split up three ways and was my left-over number.  McCaul could run here because the district contains his base of the Houston suburbs, as may Culberson because he now has an Obama district.  Solid GOP regardless.

Orange-Red: TX-7 John Culberson R

57%/43% Obama      34/19/40

Culberson’s district is now transformed into a bird-shaped district that has a strong Hispanic plurality and with a strong 14% Obama showing.

Green: TX-18 Sheila Jackson-Lee D

71%/29% Obama      33/37/26

Her district gets much more white, 9% less Hispanic, and a little bit more Republican.  However, like Johnson in Dallas, even though the district seems less friendly on the surface, by eliminating much of the Hispanic population, Jackson-Lee won’t be threatened in a primary and all subsequent representatives would be AA as well.

Pale Yellow: TX-29 Gene Green D

55%/45% Obama      31/15/50

The district loses Baytown, which makes it less Democratic and less Hispanic.  However, Green’s pain is the Democrats gain so he’d just have to suck it up.  He can win here just fine.

Blue: TX-9 Al Green

63%/37% Obama     30/26/32

This Green wont be very happy either with his district as it no longer has a black plurality but rather a Hispanic one.  This is due to the district losing it’s AA precincts in Fort Bend county, which was needed to create that Dem district.  He can probably win, and if not, it’d still be a progressive Democrat and be Hispanic then.

THE END.  Expect a Revenge of the Sith version in 28 years.

Analysis of MN-6: The Land of Bachmann

MN-6 is a combination of suburbs and exurbs of the Minneapolis/St Paul metro area, the St Cloud metro area, and rural towns and townships.  I divide out the St Croix River area into its own category because all along the river, it has a distinctive DFL tinge/dominance and it is clearly a different segment of voters compared to other areas of similar distance to Minneapolis/St Paul and with similar population density.  Once urban sprawl expands further east, Im sure that’ll change.  (Note that my decision on what is an exurb vs rural vs suburb is subjective and you can argue both ways for some of them.)

I labeled the counties on the map and tried my best to darken the county lines to differntiate.  St. Cloud city proper is divided up between three counties so reference this map if you care to see the line divisions more clearly.

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I graduated from high school in St Michael-Albertville, a pair of exurbs right on the border of the district that would be considered the NW edge of the metro.  These exurbs are full-blown tea-bagging country where repealing parts of the constitution is quite popular.  CNN’s polling on tea baggers lays out the key demographics of a tea-bagger and this article was actually a bit of a light bulb in realizing why my hometown was so conservative.   One key factor is making more money than average, which is true for these exurbs, as per these wikis, St. Michael, Andover, Elk River, and Ham Lake. But there is also another section of exurbs where being rich and conservative doesn’t make them a tea-bagger but more so by what is discussed in this NYT article; white, lower educated and religious.  Minnesotans do attend church at a higher rate then the rest of the country, making the exurbs probably even higher on average when you break down the attendance level by region.  And, this area is not Scandinavian Lutheran, but rather German Catholic, which makes them a much more conservative religious bunch than religious people in MN as a whole, and even more so when you take out the popular progressive Catholic churches in the Twin Cities.  From my personal experience, the case with these exurbs is that it’s a combination; they are more highly educated like most Minnesotans are, so they make more money yet are much more religious and this religiosity is of a more conservative nature, which turned them into fundamentalists in many regards of their thinking.

The exurbs make up 31.63% of the total vote in the district, the largest individual area to rack up votes.  And with Minnesotan’s superiority in political activity, these exurban areas are a hotbed for tea-baggery.  But the exurbs can only carry so much; the rest of the district will make an incumbent like Bachmann always a fair target in any election cycle in a district with this build.

Below the jump we get into the good stuff.

The Basics of the District

The next three maps show the presidential results for the past two cycles and the 2008 congressional results.  The 2004 presidential map is broken down by city instead of precinct due to so many cities changing their precinct layout between those 4 years.  Here is a 2008 results map broken down by city for easier comparison between 2004 and 2008.

Bush v Kerry 57%-42%

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McCain v Obama Results 53%-45%

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Bachmann v Tinklenberg Results 46%-43%

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The Democrats are mainly confined to St. Cloud (54%/44% Obama), the suburbs (50%/48%), and the St Croix River area (51%/47%) with them only totaling 38.73% of the vote, though.  McCain racked up much bigger margins in all his areas, winning the St. Cloud area by 13%, the exurbs by 16%, and the rural areas by 22%!  This district does a great job of being a vote sink for the bigger suburbs that have grown rapidly and become much more Dem-leaning over the last decade by combining them with large swaths of the far reaches of the metro area.  This is also seen with MN-2 and MN-3.

By looking at the Congressional results, it becomes apparent where Tinklenberg really did well and ate into the GOP vote, or at least where the GOP voted Indy instead for Bachmann.  The next set of maps will compare these drop-offs.

Drop-Off Analysis

The next three maps show the drop-off from McCain-to-Bachmann voters, Obama-to-Tinklenberg, and then the overall advantage a precinct had for a party.  

McCain v Bachmann Drop-off

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Obama v Tinklenberg Drop-off

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Overall Average Advantage

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As a background of Minnesota politics, we have the Independence Party which attracts a much more significant amount of protest votes than third party candidates in other states.  WIth Bachmann being such a character, she is going to make a lot of Republicans not like her, which resulted in Bachmann underperforming McCain by 6.92%.  This also occurs on the DFL side as Tinkenberg underperformed by 1.17%, even while Tink is a perfectly inoffensive candidate.

As for the maps, I see three noteworthy areas where drop-off breaks from the average.  The exurbs in Northeast Wright County (my old stomping grounds) are where Bachmann does a bit better than the average.  This area is the most tea-baggish from extensive anecdotal evidence so I’m not very surprised; this is really her base.  However, the advantage is around 2% and makes up only a handful of cities, so this doesn’t help Bachmann too much.  And, these are areas that are trending away from the GOP as they grow in population.

The three densely populated suburbs show some major dissonance, with Woodbury and Anoka having much fewer ticket splitters for the GOP compared to the DFL by a pretty wide margin.  But what makes that more interesting is that Blaine is an identical suburban city but actually saw a DFL advantage.  Tinklenberg was mayor of Blaine from 1987 until 1996 so what appears to be found is an area where there is a definite home-town advantage occurring.

The other area is obviously St. Cloud and it’s surrounding area.  In both territories, Tinklenberg improved on Obama’s percentage of the vote and in the surrounding St. Cloud area, Bachmann lost 3% more McCain voters than the district average.  This is also where our likely nominee, state senator Tarryl Clark, represents.  This along with the suburbs are the two areas I chose to investigate further.

Another thing to note is that it appears stronger Obama districts posted a stronger Pres-Cong drop-off advantage for the Republicans.  I would hypothesize that the swing voters all swung Obama and then many of them swung to the Indy Party for the Congressional.  This can be seen with some of the St. Croix River areas, in St. Cloud, and also seems to be tied to why the suburbs are worth investigating.

Percentage of Overall Third-Party Vote in Suburbs

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Here I wanted to check to see if the percentage of votes for the Independent varied from the district average when looking at precincts that also varied from the drop-off average.  And the results are conclusive that nope, not at all.  St. Cloud and St. Cloud area showed similar results; both had a similar drop-off pattern, one had higher Indy voters, one had less than average.

For the next maps, I compare what percentage of the Indy Congressional vote is made up of people who voted for McCain as well.

Suburban Vote Analysis

Percentage McCain Voters Make-up of Indy Vote

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Obama/Indy votes were on average much more prevalent in the two suburbs of Anoka and Woodbury.  Tink still won these two cities by decent margins, 4.8% and 5.9% respectively, but this goes along with what I mentioned earlier; precincts that Obama won decisively have worse drop-off margins.  When the GOP is already getting beat, you can only get so much drop-off before you hit the base GOP support in any given area.   And swing voters most likely went for Obama more so in these areas, which then probably lead to a larger drop-off in the Congressional.

The real story though is how Tinklenberg’s home-town advantage resulted in very solid results in the +50k pop. city of Blaine.    When the numbers are averaged out for Anoka and Woodbury, the GOP have a 35.29% advantage in make-up of Indy vote compared to the district average in these big city suburbs.  Blaine had a 7.9% DFL advantage compared to the district average, thus giving Tinklenberg a home-town advantage where 42.38% of the Indy vote is made up of vote McCain voters rather than what should have been Obama voters.

St. Cloud+Area Vote Analysis

Percentage GOP Voters Make-up of Indy Vote

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Tarryl Clark will be our nominee here and is starting to look to the general election against Bachmann.  She was elected in a special election and sworn in for the 2006 legislative session starting in January, and is currently number two in the state senate DFL leadership.  Clark should be able to clean-up in her home-town and be able to resonate as the St. Cloud candidate in the rest of the St. Cloud area.  (Anyone know the last time St. Cloud sent one of their own to Congress?)

Running the home-field advantage numbers from Tink’s performance, if the electorate were to be exactly the same for Clark, she’d gain 1525 votes in St. Cloud and 2446 votes in the St. Cloud area, giving Clark a grand total of 3971 more votes.  When you subtract out the loss of a home-town advantage in Blaine (989 votes), having a home-town advantage in St. Cloud based off the 2008 electorate gives the DFL a net plus of 2982 votes, or just under half of the total vote needed to beat Bachmann in the 2008 cycle.  I also believe she could do better home-town advantage wise, as this a small-town atmosphere and a home-towner can really exploit that.

*Note that the precinct on the left hand border is left white because there were no third party votes cast in the Congressional.

Conclusion

Clark is certainly running in a year that’ll be much tougher than it was for Tink, but I’m optimistic for a few reasons.  First, from the data I’ve presented, she stands a great shot at picking up votes from her home-town advantage vs other DFL candidates, her fundraising is out of this world, she’s actually attacking Bachmann and because of that, I think she will do a better job overcoming the national environment.  This race can’t be one of GOP vs DFL, it needs to be Michele Bachmann vs Sane Opponent.  If Clark can properly frame this race and stay on the offense, hopefully Bachmann will be the Musgrave of 2010.

MN DFL Delegate Race Update

Local blog, Minnesota Progressive Project, has been keeping up the delegate race as best as they can through people posting and calling around.  They have a running tally blog post and a fantastic spread sheet that has all of the info they’ve got so far, with some missing caucus conventions.  But it appears that isn’t too many so they’ve done a great job.

I’ll just go over the relevant stuff in the post with some of my own opinion interjected.

As a side note, our own Populista regularly has posts featured on this blog and played a role in the Draft Rybak, and can probably speak well to how the Rybak campaigned managed to pull off what I thought was a coup in making the delegate race competitive with MAK.