2010 Census: Who Gains, Who Loses

84 thoughts on “2010 Census: Who Gains, Who Loses”

1. ::sigh::  If we dont win the governor’s mansion in 2010, this is going to be ridiculously messy.

   And we will have 6 out of 8 of our incumbent representatives being no more than 4-5 terms old.  Kline 2002, McCollum 2002 (I think) Ellison, Walz, and Bachmann 2006, whoever wins CD3 2008.  And since I think we have the upperhand in CD3, we will have a 6-2 ratio and the only way I can see in possibly getting rid of a Republican CD is to get rid of an incumbent DFLer, either Ellison or McCollum and that battle would be extremely divisive.

2. there’s been talk of congress making puerto rico a full fledged state by 2012, in time for redistricting and they’re saying it would get six votes and would probably pass.  since it’s a zero-sum calculation in the house, it could be worse and this data could be useless (though we’d get most of PR’s house seats and the senate seats.)

3. Florida, ugh, people should stop moving there.  They’ve already been on huge dissapointment as is.

   Illinois I think should be fine.  There is a lot of CD’s to play around with but solid majorities and Dem governor (for now).

   Iowa will be fine except I just remembered it is all done by courts and straight by county lines….  That’s too bad.  We could’ve gotten rid of Latham easily enough and since his CD has a D-PVI, we could give whats his face from CD3 who represents the Des Moines CD some more Democrats to cover him.  Give the more Republicans spots to King and voila, political incumbency, but alas, courts….

   Lousiana has to work in our favor.  There simply aren’t any D’s to cut!

   Massachusetts, they’ll have to cut out Tsonga, she will be the newest, she performed horribly in the special, she’s gone in 2012, sucks for her.

   Michigan, if we dont fix that CD map I’ll be pissed.  That is probably the most unrepresentative CD delegation out of any state.  Well, I guess the Dakotas, but their’s is due to great candidates, not gerrymandering.

   Missouri-I bet we lose a seat.  Especially if we were to gain CD6 in 2008, unless we take the governor’s race, that could alter things quite a bit.

   Nevada-I’m assuming that new seat will be ours.  I don’t see how they can gerrymander a whole red CD when all the growth is really in CD3 and that CD is practically 50-50 as is.  We should at least be able to hold a 2-2 Congressional delegation.

   New Jersey-there are quite a few vulnerable Repubs in that state, we should be able to get rid of a GOP seat maybe at the exspense of strengthening other GOP seats though.

   How will Ohio play out?  We’ll have Strickland still and that CD delegation will change more for our favor after 2008.  We could probably fix 1 and 2 and make it more centered around Cincinatti instead of cutting it in half and weakening the Dems there.  Yeah, if we do that with all the major cities more (CD15 mainly), we can insulate some Dems there and just let the rural parts of the state take whatever shape around the Dem sanctuary CD’s if you will.

   Oregon, that has to be a GOP seat.  The 4-1 delegation is pretty misrepresented (a 3-2 would be quite fitting) so a 5-1 delegation seems impossible.  But again, the right candidate, most things are possible.

4. I believe this would be the first reapportionment since statehood in 1850 in which California did not gain a seat.

5. After we win and hold NV-02 it will be 2D 1R in Congress.  We really need to pick up at least one seat in the Nevada Senate so that we control the Legislature for redisticting.  Redistricting should result in at worst 3D 1R after the 2012 Congressional election.

   1. However, it would take a fillibuster proof 60 Democratic Senators for a binding (Up or Down) vote on statehood to be sent to Puerto Rico.  Statehood is THE issue in Puerto Rico with approval at about 50%.  If a binding vote was actually presented to the Puerto Ricans, hopefully, they would vote for statehood.  Statehood for Puerto Rico should be a “plank” of the Democratic party platform.  We should expect the addition of 6 House and 2 Senate non-competative Democratic seats.  Why is it a zero-sum calculation in the House?  Could Congress add the 6 House seats to make a total of 441?

6. If we get the State Senate in time, a bigger if with the immigration debate and Spitzer’s free fall, we can probibly knock off two Republican seats in the redistrict game. Knock out one upstate seat, and split Staten Island. Give half to Nadler’s District and take part of his Brooklyn area and combine it with Clark’s District as well as the other half of Staten Island.

   1. See, MN I think is tricky because if we were to put Bachmann and Kline together, there are two ways to do it.  The one that makes most sense is to use Washington county as a bridge inbetween the two (far right county, border between Wisconsin) but that is a 50-50 county and should be used to effecitevly Dem up the new 6th.  The other way is to make one really awkward CD that spans all the way around the metro area goes from the Wisconsin border and almost all the way back around to it in a circle.  I dont mind gerrymandering a bit but I think there should be a limit.

      I’d like to look into combining Minneapolis-St Paul and use the suburbs that already encompass both CD’s to add significantly to the Dem population in CD3 (Ramstad, 51-49 district) to make that safe for whichever Dem wins that seat and then add other Dem suburbs in CD5 to CD6 to try to oust Bachmann.

      Only problem is, you go from 2 really safe Dem districts, a complete toss up and one Rep favored CD to 1 untouchable Dem seat, one Dem favored seat and one toss up seat.  And you screwed over an incumbent, either our liberal Ellison who is awesome, or slightly moderate McCollum who has her eyes on seniority positioning and has a seat on Appropiations.

      Maybe we could get McCollum to move to Washington county and take on Bachmann.  It’s probably 15 minutes from where she currently lives…  That’d be the race of the century for me.

   2. What I’d like to see in the New Texas map would be, for Lampson anyhow, some way reconnect TX-22 with the rest of Pasadena, taking the rest of Galveston County, while perhaps removing some of the worse areas of Brazoria/Fort Bend/Harris.

      For Jefferson County, what I’d like to see is 2 completely East Texas districts, one based in Beaumont(which is Jefferson) extending northward rather than into heavily GOP rich suburbs of Kingwood, and another using elements of both Sandlin and Turner’s old districts. One completely Fort Worth district (there is none) that would probably elect a Dem, and 1 Dallas dem district and another higly competitive Dallas/Arlington district. 2 Austin-based districts represented by Lloyd Doggett and Michael McCaul’s replacement. 2 heavily GOPer districts based primarily in the Northwest exurbs of Harris + Montgomery, as well as the Northeast exurbs + Montgomery (and some surrounding counties). And, of course, another Hispanic South Texas district.

      but we will need to have at least of a majority of the committee (3/2) if we want even some of our aims, and a 4/1 majority if we want to enact a complete reversal.

      1. The only true safe D district currently is Blumenauer’s (03, Portland city). Would taking the silicon forest areas (Beaverton/Tigard/Hillsboro) from Wu hurt him? I don’t know, but I’m concerned about it.

         The new district suggested would be an interesting mix – probably lean D, but would also be amenable to the right (wrong?) wingnut. Clackamas was big in the anti-gay marriage initiative back in ’04.

         I do like the idea of helping Hooley, she deserves a break after several cycles of tough elections.

         1. Which CD would you get rid of?  CD3?  I would absolutely hate to lump them into Kline or Bachmann’s district, they are way too conservative and putting them with Ellison would be a horrible fit, he is way too liberal.  McCollum would represent them well but alas, Minneapolis is sort of in the way…..

            I guess we could get rid of CD3 though, make it part of Anoka and Washington county, whoever will be the incumbent  can go up against Bachmann and we would have a pretty good chance there.  I like this plan more now actually.  I no longer think combining MSP is a good idea 🙂  I really just wanted to get rid of McCollum, she pisses me off.

   3. St. Louis, as a whole city, has enough population for less than .5 of a Congressional district. It’s already a stretch to serve as the basis for two districts, Clay’s in the north and Carnahan’s in the South, and population is declining. The St. Louis area is effectively a Democratic gerrymander that puts some Republican suburbs in the 9th and the others in an extremely safe 2nd.

      If the Republicans are drawing districts, they have every incentive to eliminate Carnahan’s district and keep Shelton’s district around until they can pick it up when he retires. The 2nd would become slightly more competitive, but not enough for Akin to sweat.

      If Kay Barnes wins in the 6th this year, all bets are off. Republicans could choose to dismember her district instead. If Nixon wins, as looks likely, he could veto any map and send it to the courts, which should abolish Carnahan’s district as the slowest-growing non-VRA district in the state.

      1. It has to grow by a large percentage to get another seat. It doesn’t just need another 720,000 people; all 53 districts in the state already have to grow by an equivalent amount just to keep up with the country as a whole. The first 3-4 million people added to California in 2000, then, only serve to keep it from losing seats to state growing even faster. There are districts in L.A. and the Bay Area that are completely built out and stagnant or declining in population. They need to poach voters from other districts just to stay viable.

         1. ….in Boswell’s district no less, and am not convinced that Lamberti would do any better against a generic Democratic challenger than he did last year against Boswell.  Perhaps I’m wrong, but I think Boswell’s age and health issues worked against him more than Lamberti’s textbook red-meat Republican campaign in a Democratic year.  If Boswell retired now, and any number of Democratic candidates stepped into replace him in what we hope is a Democratic year in 2008, that Democrat would have two terms of incumbency that would position him/her better against a possible faceoff with Tom Latham in 2012.

      2. …is the source used by the National Journal.  (You may have heard of them.)

         You might want to link to the other projections you’ve seen, otherwise the debate is just: their data and analysis vs. your impressions.

      3. The DLCC link has a totally different list of predictions, which to me seem a lot more likely. (I’m extremely skeptical of Washington picking up a 10th seat, for starters.) As best as I can tell, PoliData’s predictions are based on starting with the 2006 census estimate and extrapolating to 2010 based on 2000-2006 growth, while the DLCC’s predictions are based on the actual 2010 census bureau projection. (I don’t see a cite on the DLCC pdf that says that’s their method, but I crunched the numbers myself last year based on the census 2010 projection and they were almost identical to the DLCC’s numbers.)

         Here are the predictions from the DLCC:
         Arizona +2
         California +1
         Florida +2
         Georgia +1
         Illinois -1
         Iowa -1
         Louisiana -1
         Massachusetts -1
         Michigan -1
         Missouri -1
         Nevada +1
         New York -2
         Ohio -2
         Pennsylvania -1
         Texas +3
         Utah +1

      4. “Is Texas really growing that fast? I don’t think so.”

         Growth from 2000-2006

         Cali
         7.6%

         Colo
         10.5%

         Texas
         12.7%

         of which

         Austin metro
         21.1%

         Houston metro
         17.5%

         Dallas-Ft Worth metro
         16.3%

         San Antonio metro
         13.5%

         McAllen metro
         “the Valley”
         lower Rio Grande border
         23.0%

          

7. Step One: Control enough of the statewide Constitutional offices to hold a one vote majority on the Commission that redraws the districts for the state legislature.

   Status: After the 2006 elections, we hold the majority on the commission, BUT if we were to lose even one spot in the 2010 elections, we would be screwed.

   [The fact that Barbara Sykes lost to Taylor, for state Auditor (one of the seats on the commission) 49.36% to  50.64% could come back to haunt us.]

   Step Two: Flip as many of the current Ohio US House seats as possible in 2008. Taking three seats would be historic, taking four would be incredible. AND we’ve got to hold for Zach Space.

   The outstanding crop of challengers that we have this year are what I call “gerrymander busters.”

   In college basketball, they have one weekend where the mid-major conference schools get to play the big schools. It’s called “bracket busting” because if the underdog schools can win, it will change the way the tournament selection committee draws the brackets.

   We face that situation here in 2008. If STRONG candidates with excellent fund raising like Franklin County Commissioner Mary Jo Kilroy, Major (and state senator) John Boccieri, Appellate Court Judge O’Neill and Ohio House Minority leader Steve Dreihaus can break through, it will make life MISERABLE for the Ohio GOP.

   Until now, much of the GOP stranglehold here has come from the strength of their Congresscritters (Think Pryce, Ney, Oxley), but if we flip this delegation? “Bye, Bye Boehner.”

   It should be noted that the GOP Congressional committee is broke while the DCCC is pretty flush. The Club for Growth is REALLY cannibalizing the GOP fund raising. They do “Seagull campaigning.” That’s where they fly in, squawk a hell of a lot, sh*t all over and then fly away.

   Sadly, there are other Congressional Districts in Ohio which might be in play, except that we just don’t have effective candidates. There are too many parts of the state where our bench is ZILCH.

   Step Three: We MUST gain control of one chamber in the Ohio General Assembly. The Senate is hopeless. We are four seats away in the Ohio House. If we control the intra-state redistricting process, the Governor’s Mansion and either chamber all will be well when it comes to reapportionment.

   Our US House District map is such a COMPLETE clusterf**k that we should wipe it out and start fresh, protecting our incumbents (even though SOME OF THEM don’t deserve it!!!) and screwing over theirs.

   Which must be what the voters want– since they overwhelmingly rejected a state Constitutional initiative to try and come up with a means for non-partisan district making…

8. My guess is that the new district would be somewhere in the Metro Atlanta area.  Most of the growing counties are in the Atlanta MSA but are scattered around Atlanta, so it’s difficult to really say where in the area it will be.  I’m guessing it might be in Northwest Georgia somewhere. 

   I think the net result will be a gain of one Republican seat.

9. I’m not familiar with this Polidata person, but this list doesn’t seem quite right, based on other projections I’ve seen. Perhaps population trends have changed radically in the past few years, but for California and Colorado not to gain seats seems highly unlikely. The fastest growing county in the country is (still) here in the Denver suburbs, for instance. And California only needs to grow by a tiny percentage to gain another seat.

   Is Texas really growing that fast? I don’t think so.

10. It looks like no one has posted about Florida yet.

    The 16th district, represented by Tim Mahoney, spans the outer exurbs of both the Gulf Coast and Palm Beach County. With population growth on the Gulf Coast, I expect it will be split with a Republican-leaning open district on the Gulf Coast and Tim Mahoney representing a district centered on Martin and St. Lucie counties on the Atlantic coast.

    Other areas of growth are along the coast south of Jacksonville and north of Tampa, which I expect to lead to a new Republican district. The lines around Orlando are so twisted because of incumbency and Tom Feeney’s drawing a district for himself that I can’t guess where they would put it. However, they can’t limit Democrats to one district in north-Central Florida forever. Eventually there will be a Democrat from Jacksonville and one from Orlando, but it may take a good election to get it.

    Democrats are actually overrepresented on the Gold Coast under the current lines.

    1. To be honest, the silicon forest areas are probably about 60% of what’s keeping Wu afloat. The high-tech professionals are really becoming the driving political and economic force in western Washington County – they’ve got the only good jobs in the area, are about the only people who can reliably GET good jobs in the area, and are spending so much on housing that rent has gone out of control and now nobody else can afford to live there. If the major (and rapidly growing) tech sector constituency didn’t tend to lean D, Wu would have a much worse fight on his hands.

       The other major group in OR-01 is the crusty coastal folks in Clatsop and Columbia counties, which maintain a huge Democratic registration advantage and were both on the very short list of rural Oregon counties won by Kerry in 2004. Both together counterbalance any Republican tilt from Lake Oswego, Tualatin, Bull Mountain, and the Portland exburbs.

       Actually, I think my concept of OR-06 would lean R. Lake Oswego and West Linn are heavily Republican. Adding some of the East Side wouldn’t totally balance that out. Throw in the Clackamas suburbs, and you’ve got, as you yourself have said, a district “amenable to the wrong wingnut”. Clackamas is the deciding factor here, and it tends to lean Republican – Kerry lost the county by about 2,000 votes in 2004. Also, if everything went according to what I said before, it would probably keep OR-01 at about the same partisan level as it is now. On one hand, half of the silicon forest would be out of Wu’s district and in OR-03, but he’d still have the other half, and would also be getting rid of Lake Oswego, which balances it out.

11. The only way I see how the redistricting is going to go in Georgia is that they split Gwinnett County into two, with South Gwinnett, Walton, Putnam, Henry & Newton Counties making up the new 14th district & combining North gGwinnett with the 9th district. Or just make Gwinnett County one whole district by itself.

    1. They’d pretty much have to slam the floodgates shut next year. I’d predict that the largest population they could have in 2010 and stay at only 26 seats would be about 18,800,000. (The Census Bureau predicts 2010 nationwide population of 308,935,581, meaning an average district target of 710,197, and if you multiply that by 26.5 you get 18,820,220.)

       The 2006 estimated population of Florida is 18,089,889, and they started in 2000 at 15,982,378, so at that rate, they’ll cross 18,800,000 well before 2010. (For what it’s worth, the census bureau’s 2010 projection for Florida is 19,251,691.)

       1. be able to prevent that?

          1. ….Democratic strongholds Pike and Scioto Counties into Zack Space’s district and out of suburban Cincinnati’s district.  Nice map.  The cities of Dayton and Springfield together in one district should go our way, as should a Cincinnati-based district contained entirely within Hamilton County.

    2. …the prediction was that Florida would gain THREE seats instead of two, so I’m afraid a Category 5 hurricane would have to displace a half million existing Floridians to limit their 2010 growth to one new seat.

12. so I thought I should jump in.
    The interesting thing out here is that we have an independent commission.  They have to make a couple of Voting Rights Amendment Hispanic-majority districts, and a couple of strongly Republican districts, but everything else is supposed to be as balanced as the demographics of the state allow for (this is Arizona, after all, which is why all of out “swing” districts have Republican PVI).
    Barring the need for two VRA districts, 2-3 strongly Rep districts in compensation, and the rest of the map to be composed of swing districts, here’s what I came up with based off of city and county projections by the state for ’10:

    1st: Most of the current 1st district (save for Yavapai county) along with the current 8th’s rural stretches.  [Coconino County, the Navajo reservation, rural ranching counties, east Pinal County, north and east Cochise County] Similar in tossup nature to the current 1st district, but slightly more Dem.

    2nd: Yavapai County from the current 1st, plus the northern 2/3rds of the 2nd district.  [Yavapai County, Mohave County, the furthest Phoenix exburbs of Surprise, Wickenberg, & Buckeye] Leans pretty strongly Rep, though somewhat better than the current 2nd district.

    3rd: The remaining population of the current 2nd district, plus 7th districts share of Maricopa and Pinal County. [The West Valley: Peoria, Avondale, Goodyear, Sun City, western half of Glendale, Maricopa, etc.]  Very solidly Rep

    4th: Similar to composition of the 4th now, but cutting off its northern edges and taking on some Hispanic populations in the West valley currently in the 2nd & 7th. [eastern half of Glendale, south Phoenix, Tolleson]  Solid Dem; one of the VRA Hispanic-majority districts.

    5th: Parts of Phoenix from the current 3rd & 4th.  [central Phoenix, Paradise Valley] Hard to get exact inter-Phoenix demographic info, but probably a complete tossup combining working class neighborhoods, upper-class neighborhoods, and a sizable Hispanic minority, comparable to Tucson’s current 8th district.

    6th: The northern half of the current 3rd, along with Scottsdale from the current 5th.  [north Phoenix, Scottsdale, Anthem, Fountain Hills]  Scottsdale is not as red as you would think: Rep-leaning, but at about the same level as the current 3rd.

    7th: Similar to what’s left of the current 5th, along with the western part of the current 6th. [Tempe, Chandler, Ahwatukee, half of Gilbert, and part of west Mesa].  Similar swing district to the current 5th, although even more purple.

    8th: Similar to what’s left of the current 6th. [the rest of Mesa & Gilbert, Queen Creek, Apache Junction] Solid Rep.

    9th: Similar to the current 7th, but without the Pinal & Maricopa County potions.  [west Tucson, Yuma, Nogales, Parker].  Solid Dem; the other VRA Hispanic-majority districts.

    10th: Similar to the current 10th, but with only a little of Cochise County.  [east Tucson, Oro Valley, Catalina Foothills, Sierra Vista].  Total swing district, as this part of the state tends to be.

    Oh and I made a map of my idea.  It’s not great (especially because it was made paint), but if you know nothing about Arizona geography it will probably help some.
    http://tinyurl.com/y…
    Oh, and here’s the current map for comparison’s sake:
    http://upload.wikime…

13. A commission draws Washington’s districts.  I am assuming a swing district will be drawn in the Seattle suburbs.  The district will likely be created from chunks of WA-01, WA-02, WA-03, WA-07, and WA-08.  The district will probably elect a Democrat. 

    1. is whether the lost LA seats have simply migrated to urban TX.

14. Although the state doesnt lose or gain any districts, Democrats could likely make NC-08(Robin Hayes) a lean Dem district by adding more liberal Charlotte precincts and giving half of heavily Republican Cabarrus county to Mel Watt, whose district is so Democratic that it would still be very safe for him.  Larry Kissel would have won this new district by 53%-47% in 2006, Beth Troutman who lost 44%-56% to Hayes would have come within 1,000 votes of winning it in 2004 and Chris Kouri, who lost by 44%-54% to Hayes would have won by about 3,000 votes in 2002 under these lines. 

15. Republican Governor Sonny Perdue is term-limited in 2010.  This one open seat has the potential to create a chain-reaction that could result in numerous open seats and could be a window of opportunity for us. 

    Senator Johnny Isakson, Lieutenant Governor Casey Cagle, and House Speaker Glenn Richardson, among others, are all rumored to be considering the job on the Republican side.  For us, rumored candidates include Attorney General Thurbert Baker and House Minority Leader Dubose Porter. 

    If Isakson runs, you might see several Congressional Republicans like Phil Gingrey, John Linder, and Lynn Westmoreland try for a promotion, especially if Democrats retain/increase their House majority in 2008 and like to do the same in 2010.  You would expect to see lots of interest in Cagle’s job, including possibly by Secretary of State Karen Handel.

    If this starts to happen, espect several House and Senate members to step up to run for Congress and state offices below the governor.

    It could certainly get interesting.

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