How To Stop the Embarrassment: MN Redistricting 8 Seat Map

Yeah, here’s another Minnesota redistricting…

My 7 seat map can be found here.

I did none of this with a computer program or anything like that.  i was fortunate that MN provides all the info I needed to do this with the MnSOS office providing all the vote totals and also precinct maps of every state house seat, which was the main way I broke down the districts by vote and population when I didnt need to break it down to city/township/precinct level.  The state legislature websites has excellent maps with the two I used constantly were a map of the all the state house seats that also showed city boundaries which made it my go to map for figuring out my planned geography.  More importantly though, a precinct map of the entire state showing election results from dark red to dark blue.  I found county population totals for 2007 and when they broke down beyond that point, I wikipediad it which sometimes included 2006 estimates but mainly for 2000 totals and then I used common sense for population movements, figured out the percentage of growth for that county/area, etc to figure out the 2007 population of said city/precinct.  There is certainly some error involved in this but nothing that would alter more than a couple precincts here or there and then my map accounts for current population movement as opposed to 2000, little bit of a trade off there.

Everything is recorded in excel spreadsheets, they look like a hot mess.



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map with county lines can be found here

My CD4 is quite a gerrymander but none of that is essential to district make up.  This map could easily be changed to provide nice clean lines but I wanted to pack Dems and Reps to see what the best case scenarios could be.  Undoing any gerrymanders would still result in my intended goals.

This is map is either a 7/1 or 6/2 map. Bachmann can’t win her district but a more moderate Republican possibly could.  And Kline is now uber safe.  Paulsen is drawn out of his district and could possibly run there, but you’ll see later that the Obama margin for victory there is Philly/Chicago suburb like and he’d probably not bother moving. 7/1 at the best 6/2 at worst.

As for the tables, the first 08 is the new Obama vs McCain percentage for each of my districts, second 08 is what the current district got.  And then the following years are what the current districts got as well with them being the three-way vote.  Then next is population and what each county got in 08 and 04.

MN-1 Rep. Walz Pop. 2008 2008 2004 2004
Total 651557 50/45.5 51/47 48/52 47/51
Pop. Obama McCain Kerry Bush
Houston County 19515 54 44 48 51
Winona County 49802 58 39 52 46
Watonwan County 11022 49 48 45 53
Steele County 36378 46 51 56 43
Dodge County 19552 44 54 42 57
Wabasha County 21783 47 50 47 52
Olmsted County 76470 51 47 47 52
Mower County 38040 60 37 61 38
Freeborn County 31257 57 41 55 44
Waseca County 19528 45 53 43 56
Blue Earth County 59802 55 42 48 51
Nicollet County 31680 54 44 50 49
Martin County 20462 41 56 42 57
Brown County 26013 43 55 37 61
Murray County 8511 49 48 44 54
Jackson County 10883 47 51 46 52
Cottonwood County 11349 46 52 43 56
Nobles County 20128 48 50 42 56
Pipestone County 9305 42 55 38 61
Rock County 9498 42 56 39 60
Faribault County 14869 46 51 43 55
Fillmore County 21037 53 44 49 50
Lincoln County 5877 49 48 47 52
Redwood County 15519 42 55 38 62

This district changed very little, it took an extra county here and there but more or less, I didn’t want to change it.  Walz is already winning by large margins and he’s an excellent fit for the district.

MN-2 Rep. Kline Pop. 2008 2008 2004 2004
Total 651855 40/58 48/50 38/60.5 45/54
Pop. Obama McCain Kerry Bush
Wright County 117372 40 58 38 61
Scott County 62113 39 59 37.5 61.5
Carver County 88459 41.5 57 36 63
Dakota County 38718 44 54 39 60
Sherburne County 86287 39 58 39 60
Stearns County 86586 40 55 40 58
Benton County 5881 36 61 36 63
Hennepin County 72869 37 62 37 61
Anoka County 54649 40 58 40 59
Isanti County 38921 41 56 41 58

I decided to tie all the conservative exurban areas together along with Republican suburbs, putting all the republican counties into one congressional district instead of spread across two.  This makes it mainly a combination of CD2 and CD6, and takes out the main Republican-fundy base of Bachmann’s district.  It takes out the counties around the St. Cloud area, minus St. Cloud, keeps the former second’s GOP base of Carver and Scott county in the southwest (minus some of the suburbs that were 50/50’ish for Obama), also heavily conservative Wright county from CD6, and I threw in Isanti county from CD8 to shore up the GOP into one CD.  The district has a bit of a propeller as I need to pick up more population and those 4 townships in Benton were the most GOP areas to connect to CD2.  Kline lives in the portion of Dakota county that it includes and will be 100% safe in this district.  However, Bachmann will be looking for a seat as well. More on that later.

MN-3 OPEN Pop. 2008 2008 2004 2004
Total 650300 57/41 52/46 53/46.5 48/51
Pop. Obama McCain Kerry Bush
Hennepin County 487008 58 40.5 54 46
Anoka County 163292 53 43 51 48

This district shifts east and north as I cut out some of the traditional upper-to-upper middle class suburbs to take in more working class suburbs bordering Minneapolis to the west and north.  Eden Prairie, Bloomington, and most of Edina now are in CD5 (I kept some of Edina in CD3 for population and gerrymandering as some precincts went 2-1 for Obama while the city as a whole went about 55-45.)  The district then picked up Hopkins, Golden Valley, St. Louis Park, Fridley, Columbia Heights, and a few others in that area.  These areas also have a much higher proportion of minority voters so the district gets a bit less white and without Edina and Eden Prarie, probably drops pretty far in average income.

Paulsen lives in Eden Prairie so technically this district is open.  He could move to run here which he may to give it a shot but it voted for Obama by 16%, an increase of 10% from the current district lines.  We have a HUGE bench in this district to make that happen as there are roughly 25 state reps and senators per CD and the GOP only has about 6-7 of those seats in this CD.  I want to give Paulsen somewhat of a chance of retaining this seat (PA6, IL10) but I really dont know how he could.

Please tell me someone watched Mighty Ducks recently and these cities all sound familiar….  Cake eater is from Edina, Goldburg I believe is Bloomington.

MN-4 Rep. McCollum Pop. 2008 2008 2004 2004
Total 651475 61/38 64/34 58.5/40 62/37
Pop. Obama McCain Kerry Bush
Ramsey County 468147 66 31.5 63.5 35
Washington County 79263 47 51 44.5 55
Anoka County 104065 43 55 42 57

This is the district I gerrymandered the most as I wanted to pack as many Democrats into CD6 as possible.  The northern part of the district is represented by Anoka County exurbs that vote 2-1 GOP in some parts and the north third of Washington County which is exurban but not quite as Republican, maybe 60-40 at worst.  There really isn’t even much population up there as the main source is Ramsey county, which gets a little bit cut up.  The three blobs of gerrymander are as follows.  The main one is St. Paul, to the east, the district picks up the Republican precincts of Woodbury and then in the south it picks up Inver Grove Heights, a swingy suburb.  Safe for McCollum still.

MN-5 Rep. Ellison Pop. 2008 2008 2004 2004
Total 647577 69/29 74/24 65/33 71/28
Pop. Obama McCain Kerry Bush
Hennepin County 583048 71 27 67 31
Scott County 64259 48 50 42 57

As said previously, this district now picks up the south/southwest burbs in exchange for the very liberal first ring suburbs.  All the suburbs have been trending D quite rapidly and most voted for Obama.  The suburbs in Hennepin county, Edina, Eden Prairie, and Bloomington have trended pretty quickly while the two suburbs in Scott County, Shakopee and Savage, were once brutally Republican but population growth has exploded here and has brought them to suburban voting trends instead of exurban voting trends.  This is still extremely safe for Ellison.

MN-6 OPEN Pop. 2008 2008 2004 2004
Total 648958 53/45 45/53 49.5/49.3 42/57
Pop. Obama McCain Kerry Bush
Washington County 181743 54 44 49.5 49.4
Dakota County 327677 52 45.5 49 50
Ramsey County 31744 59 39 57 42
Goodhue County 45839 48 50 47 51
Rice County 17381 55 43 53 45

This is where I began this project as the main goal was how to get rid of Bachmann and make a Dem district.  It starts up in Washington county, takes in the Dem areas like Oakdale and Stillwater, cuts into Ramsey county to take in Maplewood, and then includes most of Dakota county where the northern portion is heavily populated suburbs that have heavily trended Democratic (hold all but one state house seat, which we picked up in 06 but lost in 08) while the rest of the county is townships and Republicanism.  It takes in swing Goodhue county and blue Rice county, where the colleges of Carleton and St. Olaf rack up margins for the Dems.  (Not to be confused with the St. Olaf Rose from Golden Girls is from, there is a St. Olaf township up north in Otter Tail county.)

Bachmann may no longer live in this district as I may have put her in CD4.  I know she recently moved to Woodbury, which is the city I gerrymandered.  So not sure which part of Woodbury carries that witch but regardless, she wouldn’t be a viable candidate in either CD.  I figure her and Kline could have an excellent face off in CD2 in an endorsement and primary.  Both have large constituencies in that district, almost 50/50, with maybe a slight edge to Bachmann in amount of former district.  So I’d consider this an open seat and it is a total swing district so it could go either Democrat or Republican, with the Dems being a slight favorite, especially in 2012 if Obama can manage another 8% win here.

I first had this district extremely gerrymandered to take in more Democrats but I decided to strengthen the Dems in CD3 in exchange for this CD as there is no way Bachmann can win this district, regardless. Here is a map of what I had before.

MN-7 Rep. Peterson Pop. 2008 2008 2004 2004
Total 648519 47/50 47/50 43/55.5 43/55.4
Pop. Obama McCain Kerry Bush
Kittson County 4505 58 40 50 49
Traverse County 3712 51 46 48 50
Stevens County 9624 49 48 47 51
Swift County 11192 55 42 55 43
Todd County 24029 43 54 41 57
Yellow Medicine County 10000 51 46 49 50
Lake of the Woods County 4095 42 60 38 60
Marshall County 9618 49 48 42 57
Becker County 31964 45 52 40 58
Polk County 30708 51 47 43 56
Pope County 11065 51 47 49 49
Clearwater County 8245 44 54 43 56
Red Lake County 4118 51 45 44 54
Mahnomen County 5129 61 36 53 45
Pennington County 13756 50 48 44 54
Clay County 54835 57 41 47 52
Otter Tail County 57031 42 55 37 61
Douglas County 36075 44 54 44 54
Grant County 6021 51 46 49 50
Big Stone County 5385 52 46 50 48
Lac qui Parle County 7258 52 46 53 46
Renville County 16132 48 49 45 53
Lyon County 24695 48 50 42 57
Beltrami County 43609 54 44 50 48
Roseau County 15946 40 58 31 68
Chippewa County 12465 52 46 52 47
Wilkin County 6418 45 52 33 65
Sibley County 15007 45 52 39 59
McLeod County 37220 38 58 37 62
Meeker County 23211 43 54 43 56
Kandiyohi County 40784 46 52 44 55
Norman County 6685 62 35 47 51
Hubbard County 18376 42 56 42 57
Wadena County 13382 40 58 39 59
Le Seur County 28034 47 51 45 54
Stearns County 7785 36 62 35.5 63

I left CD7 pretty much alone.  It’s GOP leaning and always will be, but the DFL is still quite powerful in most of the areas at the local level and it currently has a DFL incumbent, whose got a good decade if not more left until we should expect retirement.  

MN-8 Rep. Oberstar Pop. 2008 2008 2004 2004
Total 649780 54/44 53/45 53/45 53/46
Pop. Obama McCain Kerry Bush
Cook County 5398 60 37 53 45
Lake County 10741 60 38 60 39
St. Louis County 200528 65 33 65 34
Carlton County 33893 62 35 63 36
Pine County 228164 49 48 50 49
Koochiching County 13459 54 44 50 48
Itasca County 44542 55 42 55 44
Cass County 28723 45 53 43 56
Crow Wing County 61648 45 53 42 57
Morrison County 32733 39 58 41 58
Mille Lacs County 26354 45 52 43 55
Kanabec County 16090 44 53 44 55
Aitkin County 15910 48.7 48.8 48 51
Chisago County 50128 44 54 43 56
Benton County 33623 45 52 45 53
Stearns County 51680 53 45 51 48

My biggest question was, what should I do with St. Cloud?  It’s literally in the middle of extremely conservative Stearns, Benton, and Sherburne counties, it’s Dem but the vote margin is only 2,000, thus not making it worth much in votes considering the county I’d have to attach with it.  Benton county provided the smallest GOP margin and CD8 always goes Dem if by a smallish margin at the presidential, so I decided to include it here.  By adding this and eliminating Isanti county, it does get a nice Dem bump. Oberstar is safe until retirement and then it will still be safe DFL when open.

11 thoughts on “How To Stop the Embarrassment: MN Redistricting 8 Seat Map”

  1. I would rather see MN-05 weakened some more and MN-06 strengthened; there are too many DFL votes wasted in Ellison’s district.

    A few other things:

    1) The link to your 7-district map didn’t work.

    2) I don’t like calling even Bachmann a “witch.” That doesn’t add anything.

  2. I expect that, if such a map were actually considered, CD-4 would be smoothed out.

    Good work with Paulsen’s district. I guess it helps that Hennepin County is so blue that one can put Paulsen on ice without weakening Ellison.

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