Author: powera

The main questions I think are involved here are:

1) Will the fair districts law hold up in court?

2) Will Corrine Brown get a district that goes Jacksonville to Orlando, or will it go to Tallahassee?

3) How many “compact” Orlando seats are drawn, and how many go into rural areas?

I’m assuming (or at least hoping) that we will see some less gerrymandered lines.  It might be interesting to see what the best case GOP map is, though.  I don’t think 21-6 could work, 20-7 may have to be uglier than what we have now.

I’m not sure of the politics of some of these seats, but my take is that the Democrats gain one seat in the Orlando area, have better chances at two seats in the Tampa area (Bill Young and Vern Buchanan both lose some blatant gerrymanders), and probably pick up Allen West’s seat.  David Rivera is almost certainly gone in 2012 as well, though that might be a primary.

VRA – 3 plurality black seats, CD3 at 47B, CD17 at 47B, CD23 at 39B.  I’m not sure you can do much better with nice lines; there just aren’t enough blacks in Broward county to make Hastings’ seat more than plurality black.  Kathy Castor’s CD11 is at 46W, as is CD8 in Orlando.  The 3 Hispanic R Miami seats are all at least 65H.

Per-district analysis below the fold.

CD1 (blue, 76W 14B) – Still in the panhandle, contracts somewhat.  Very little that can be done to this district.  Scarborough Country is still safe for Jeff Miller (R).

CD2 (green, 79W 13B) – Loses parts of Tallahassee to CD3.  Stretches across the northern part of the state all the way to Jacksonville.  With the black portion of the district decreased by 9%, Steve Southerland (R) should be safe in this already conservative district.

CD3 (purple, 47B 44W) – The previous district was 49% black.  I hope this is good enough for the VRA.  This district seems more compact than the previous monstrosity, and taking Democrats from a city (Tallahassee) represented by Republicans right now is better for them.  As noted in the opening, Corrine Brown (D) is safe here.

CD4 (red, 77W 11B) – Still wraps around Jacksonville, but gets the rest of its population from the south side rather than going along the north border to Tallahassee.  Ander Crenshaw (R) should still be safe.

CD5 (yellow, 82W 9H) – Mostly the same on the Gulf coast, loses a part of Lake County.  Should be fine for Richard Nugent (R)

CD6 (teal, 72W 15B) – More significant changes here.  Loses the Jacksonville area completely, and gets the entirety of the Gainsville and Ocala areas, previously gerrymandered into other districts, as well as Putnam County.  I don’t know how this district would turn out, but I expect it’s less safe for Cliff Stearns (R) than before.

CD7 (gray, 75W 12B 10H) – Pulls out further from the Orlando area, but gaining the towns of Sanford and Deland that were pushed into CD3 before.  Still includes Daytona and a bunch of the Atlantic coast.  I assume it is safe for John L. Mica (R) still.

Orlando

CD26 (gray-ish square looking district, 63W 18B 14H) – Another new district in the Orlando area.  I really have no idea how this would turn out.  As noted below, Daniel Webster would probably run here.

CD8 (light purple, 46W 31H 17B) – My guess is Daniel Webster (R) will look for a different district to run in.  This become majority-minority and collapses to Orlando and suburbs.  It has been suggested that making this be more Hispanic, the other districts would be safer R.

CD24 (dark purple, 75W 14H) – Very similar, trades some Orlando suburbs around.  I expect this to remain a swing district for Sandy Adams (R).

Tampa:

CD9 (bright blue, 82W 10H) – As many of these other districts have done, loses some outlying areas, and picks up a few precincts gerrymandered out before.  Guessing it’s safe for Gus Bilirakis (R).

CD10 (pinkish-red, 76W 12B) – Generally shrinks but gains Democratic areas gerrymandered out before.  Basically everything from Clearwater to St. Petersburg now.  Bill Young (R) won’t be happy, but I see no way the plan can do anything else with the new rules.

CD11 (green, 46W 26H 22B) – No longer gets minority or liberal areas from St. Petersburg or Bradenton.  Still should be safe D for Kathy Castor.

CD12 (cornflower blue, 70W 16H 11B) – Generally moves in towards Tampa, losing much of Polk County and gaining areas shed by other districts.  I don’t know how safe this is for Dennis Ross (R), but it shouldn’t be too bad.

CD13 (peach, 81W 10H) – Loses rural Hardee and Desoto counties, gains the liberal parts of Bradenton back from a gerrymander.  I assume Vern Buchanan (R) would have lost this district in 2006, and it’s probably a swing district in 2012 for him.

CD27 (aquamarine, 73W 15H) – The other new district appears in central Florida.  It stretches from Kissimmee in the north to the entirety of Port Charlotte and part of Fort Myers.  Once again, I’m not sure how this would fall politically.

CD14 (olive, 76W 15H) – Fort Myers/Naples based still, loses a lot of area and gains none.  Connie Mack IV (R) is probably as safe as before.

CD15 (turquoise, 73W 15H) – Same story, shrinks slightly.  Bill Posey (R) is probably safe, though I’ve never heard of him.

Southeast Florida

CD16 (ugly green, 65W 18H 14B) – covers Fort Pierce to Jupiter on the coast, as well as Lake Okeechobee and a lot of the Everglades.  Tom Rooney (R) is in the district.

CD22 (dark maroon, 57W 22H 18B) – a compact Palm Beach district.  Allen West (R) almost certainly is in trouble with anything not gerrymandered.

CD19 (khaki, 70W 15H 11B) covers Boynton beach to Boca Raton, and then goes inland to pickup areas west of Fort Lauderdale.  Ted Deutch (D) presumably is still safe.

CD23 (sky blue, 39B 39W) – Deerfield Beach to Fort Lauderdale.  Plurality black; it can pretty easily be made 42B 36W with a tendril to Hollywood, but I don’t think it can do much better without a very thin line to Palm Beach.  Alcee Hastings (D) might not like it, but I don’t care.

CD20 (pink, 54W 28H 14B) – Coastal areas in Broward county, mostly.  Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D) should be safe.

CD17 (dark blue, 47B 30H 20W) – North Miami.  Frederica Wilson (D) should be fine.

CD21 (dark red, 76H 16W 6B) – Hialeah, other Miami suburbs to the west.  Mario Diaz Balart (R) is probably as safe as before.

CD18 (yellow, 65H 27W) – Miami and the Keys.  Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R) is probably fine here.

CD25 (pink, 68H 20W 9B) – more of the everglades, picking up population from Miami as well as Naples/Fort Myers.  David Rivera (R) is probably in trouble more because he’s a corrupt idiot than because of changes in the district.

I don’t see the point in trying to draw actual maps until we get the Census numbers next week (and when the precinct numbers are very different from projections, updated in Dave’s app), but that doesn’t stop me from drawing new districts.  I’ve taken district counts I know won’t happen to draw districts that are hopefully different from the current ones in an interesting way.

The maps:

Indiana 7

Kentucky 8

Mississippi 3

Nebraska 4

Nevada 5

Oklahoma 7

Oregon 9 (two of these)

Indiana 7

In this map, we avoid putting any of Gary (CD1, blue, 72% white), South Bend (CD2, green), and Fort Wayne (CD3, purple, also picking up Muncie) in the same district, giving three relatively vertical districts.  Considering how the population numbers didn’t really work for districts pairing these, I don’t see a Gary-South Bend district coming, especially as the Indiana GOP says they don’t want particularly ugly districts.

Marion County (CD4, red, 65% white) is just under the population for a CD, so it picks up a tiny bit of the northern suburbs.  We then get districts for central Indiana (CD5, yellow, with West Lafayette, Anderson, and Indianapolis exurbs), southeast Indiana (CD6, teal), and southwest Indiana (CD7, gray, with Evansville, Terre Haute, and Louisville KY suburbs).

Kentucky 8

I’m not particularly familiar with the state, so this will be brief.  We have 4 rural districts (blue, green, gray, and light purple) that are almost certainly safe R.

The teal district (Richmond, Elizabethtown) is probably also Republican.  We then have a Cincinnati suburb district (purple), a Lexington to Louisville district (red), and a Louisville district (yellow, 69% white).

Mississippi 3

Pretty straightforward, the state would still have one VRA seat.  CD1 [was 2] (blue, 56% black, 41% white) contains Jackson and the Mississippi River valley.  CD2 [was 1] (green, 66% white, 30% black) contains northern Mississippi with Tupelo, Columbus, and Meridian; and CD3 [was 4] (70% white, 24% black) contains Hattiesburg and the gulf.  This map might have been interesting before this year, as the 1 GOP congressman from MS was drawn out of a district.

Nebraska 4

Pretty straightforward, we still have basically concentric rings around Omaha.  CD1 (blue, 72% white) shrinks to contain only part of Omaha, while CD2 contains the rest of the Omaha area and the city of Lincoln.  CD3 contains the remaining part of the east out to Grand Island, and CD4 contains the rest.

Nevada 5

The largest visual change is that the Reno/Carson City area now has enough population for a district (CD5, yellow, 70% white) without rural Nevada, which is joined to the Las Vegas exurbs.

CD4 (red, 71% white) is almost certainly safe R.  The other 3 seats were drawn mostly arbitrarily, we have CD1 (blue, 40% white, 40% hispanic), CD2 (green, 38% white, 38% hispanic, 15% black), and CD3 (purple, 66% white) picking up the Las Vegas area.  Looking at those percentages, I’m surprised the VRA hasn’t come up more when discussing Nevada redistricting, I wouldn’t be shocked if the new seat is considered VRA (assuming Dave’s numbers are correct).

Oklahoma 7

Another state I’ve never been in and aren’t terribly familiar with.  Despite the reasonably high non-white population, I don’t see any way to draw a VRA district here, especially as it would be a black-hispanic-native coalition district.

CD1 (blue, 74% white, 10% hispanic) and CD2 (green, 76% white, 10% native) are on the Texas border, and I assume would behave similarly to northern Texas seats.  CD5 (yellow, 76% white, 11% native) is similarly on the Kansas border.

We have a compact CD3 (58% white, 17% black, 16% hispanic) in Oklahoma City, and a larger CD4 (78% white) surrounding it to the east.

CD6 (teal, 67% white, 12% black, 11% hispanic) contains most of the Tulsa area, and CD7 (gray, 70% white, 15% native) covers eastern Oklahoma.  I assume CD7 would be the closest equivalent to Dan Boren’s district.  Apart from that and CD3, I assume everything is safe R.

Oregon 9

A state so fun I did it twice.  The first was relatively neutral, the second time turned into what I believe is a GOP gerrymander.

As much as a map can when adding 4 districts, this looks similar to the current map.  We have a large eastern CD1 (blue), a coastal CD2 (green) containing medford, and a CD3 (purple) containing Bend and Eugene.

CD4 (red) contains Corvalis and what looks like semi-rural Western Oregon, CD5 (purple) is Salem based.  CD6 (teal) is the northwest corner of the state, and reaches into the Portland suburbs.

I don’t think it really matters how the lines are drawn for CD7 through 9, all should be safe D.

The most obvious change is that Eastern Oregon. is split between two districts.  CD2 (green) contains Medford and southeast Oregon, while CD3 (purple) contains Bend and northeast Oregon.  We also gain a very coastal CD1 (blue).

Now this is a gerrymander.  CD4 (red) contains the cities of Eugene, Corvalis, Albany, and Salem and very little else.  CD5 (yellow) surrounds it and covers other rural areas.

As the northeast coast isn’t being drawn into Portland districts now, there are 4 districts entirely within this shot instead of just 3.