What do these two states have in common? Nothing. They are just two random states that I redid today after finally figuring out how to use Dave’s Redistricting Software App, an amazing free tool that makes accurate and precise redistricting extremely easy and fast. The only thing it lacks are 2008 election results built into its precinct data.
But, without further ado, let me get to the first state:
Missouri:
As you can see I made some massive alterations from the current map, most of all Blane Luetekemeyer’s district is completely demolished and replaced by a massive, almost completely rural district for Sam Graves that covers all of Northern Missouri.
This belies the main point of the entire map, to find some way to make the current MO-04, held by highly respected long time incumbent Ike Skelton, a conservative Democrat with a lot of clout, holdable. Skelton will be 79 years old by the time he’s inaugurated for 18th term next year. He’s been in congress since 1977 and has to retire eventually, and his current district is, out of nine districts, the third most Republican, including being more conservative than three Republican held districts.
In fact merely making holding a strong possibility was a big challenge that led to the restructuring of the whole state. Whereas the old map thought vertically, with districts going north south for the most part, I though horizontally, making wide districts.
My solution to holding Skelton’s district was to take liberal Boone County out of the 9th and anchor it down in Skelton’s new district. From that point I kept all of Lafayette, (Skelton’s home), and Saline counties in and both of these are much more Democratic at a local level than their Presidential numbers would suggest. Then I shifted the lines and absorbed much of western Jackson County to add more Democratic leaning suburbs and give it more areas that were trending Democratic. From there it curled up north, took parts of suburban and conservative Clay and Platte Counties, and then took in all of the City of St. Joseph, the home of the Current State Auditor Susan Montee. Its a traditionally Democratic, Blue Dog area and its inclusion, along with Boone, is meant to give the new district two firm population anchors.
Despite all these efforts, from rough figuring, the new district is still swingish, but I got one that went for Obama, whereas the old one went 61-38 for McCain and 64-36 for Bush. But its a district that went narrowly for Obama.
Now is this map realistic? Because that’s what I was working towards. I think yes. Democrats hold the Governors Mansion meaning Legislative Republicans will likely have to compromise. This is not a bad map for them, sure it massively cuts down the odds they can pick up Skelton’s district when he retires, but in exchange it creates five districts Democrats can never ever win, not a bad trade off considering they recently had competitive elections for two of these districts. Its not a bad compromise, and Luetekemeyer is a small sacrifice, and if he really wanted to he could go off and run in the new MO-05, (the yellow, forgot to number them), which is actually amazingly like Skelton’s current MO-04.
Now for Oregon:
Now I know what you’re thinking, “That’s some beautiful gerrymandering.” Thank you. Now I hardly went to the length of Ihatebush and split Portland and Eugene three ways to create 6 52% Democratic districts, but I think I made a good 5-1 map. Even in doing this I somewhat uncomfortable violated my own principles. I don’t believe redistricting should be used to undermine Democracy, and originally drew a map with 2 Republican congressional districts and lot more continuity. However I lost that map and drew another and this would be a likely gerrymander. I think its the best option.
Why? Its not too extreme. (And sorry, but I just realized that for population purposes there still some significant adjustments I needed to make but forget, but pay no mind, mostly would have just ended up putting more of Lane County into DeFazio’s district). With the exception of the yellow 5th, Peter DeFazio’s district, each district is fairly compact.
Since this map didn’t revolve around one district, how about a district by district overview.
The First District, Blumenauer’s, remains as liberal as always, and very compact, covering only Multnomah County.
The Second District, Wu’s, is very crucial in tying down conservative areas. Its Washington County based, and Washington County has gotten reliably liberal enough to do this, and then Yamhill and Polk Counties.
The 3rd was drawn for Kurt Schrader and its pretty nice. Contains all of Democratic trending Clackamas, (his political base), as well as hard blue Hood River and the the urban edge of Wasco County, which leans Democratic and is trending more so. It takes in small part of Yamhill and a larger portion of Marion, (though most of its population is in the 4th). It also takes in most of conservative Linn County, and, to keep it Democratic, it contains a larger portion of South Portland, overwhelmingly Democratic turf and so remains, from conservative estimates, at least 55-45 Obama, and probably significantly more so.
The 4th is the new district, and its a beauty as far as trying to find Democratic votes. Takes in Democratic leaning Clatsop, Columbia, and Tillamook Counties, (all trending more Democratic in the long run), as well as heavily Democratic Benton and Lincoln counties and some of the more rural and swingish parts of Lane county, before taking part of Linn county in and taking most of Marion County’s population, centering around Salem, which is a politically swingish city. Ideally a strong Democratic candidate from Salem would be the best candidate for this district, which is again, 55-45, maybe a bit more, at best. Is Salem Mayor Janet Taylor a Democrat? Anyone? I can’t find specifically what her political allegiances are.
The 5th is the most gerrymandered of all. Douglas County is so conservative and Coos is fairly too, even though its trending away. So I took in the central block around Eastern Douglas, (which is trending Dem), Coos, and Eugene, then sent out a little tendril to take in the main urban area of Democratic trending Jackson County, with the thinking that the urban area would be significantly to the left of the county itself, which went only narrowly for Obama. So, about a 58-42 Obama district, unless I mistakenly over-compensated the Democratic lean.
Finally the 6th. Not much to say. Enormous, heavily Republican and mostly unchanged.
It’s a pretty funny story but if only you guys knew how hard it was for me to get to this point there would be more clapping. Just wait though, until you see my redone Michigan map and my Iowa map.
Again, PLEASE VOTE in the poll. It doesn’t spam your computer, it takes two seconds, and its really useful as an encouraging tool that gauges readership. Even if you could care less, please VOTE, for me if anything else. Its a counter to see what kind of response and public readership I’m getting, which is always nice to know, keeps you going seeing you have a following.
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I’d like a good discussion on it.
burbs. Russ Carnahan’s district is a lot more conservative under that configration and Todd Akin’s district is made significantly more Democratic, thought still Republican. It would probably look a good bit different in that area, I realize now.
Do you mean David Wu?
Not bad work overall, though I’m not sure Oregon has to be quite that ugly to still elect 5 Democrats. As or the 4th,yYou can take in Curry, most of Josephine (though maybe not all of it; Grant’s Pass is very conservative), and more of Jackson (though maybe not Medford, which I think leans Republican. Big turnout at Southern Oregon University in Ashland is probably why Obama almost flipped the county more than anything). Then, you get the hell out of Douglas County except for the coast. It might be a bit less liberal, but will look a lot better.
And maybe the new district numbers?
Thanks.
Missouri’s probably losing a seat this time around
its like a rebellion.
we accept that Skelton’s seat is just really too Republican to save and tried to put Republicans into it instead….thus trying to make districts like 9, where Baker ran strong, 6, where Barnes could do better with more of KC in the district, and 2, which isn’t very Republican to begin with more Democratic?
would that make more sense??
Is there any way to gerrymander two Dems ones instead of making a Dem and Rep one? What makes Carnahan’s more Dem than Atkins?
sure Republicans have large majorities, but they’ll be getting a seat. I think trading off a few points of PVI here and there is an adequate tradeoff for a gauranteed seat.
Why do you think they’d want to let the Democrats even come close to making the 4th a competetive district when they can take it from us and deal with a competetive 2nd.
It looks very fair (and I think it really is fair). The red river district is a good idea, and a good way to rescue Columbia.
I’m really optimistic about the 5-1 split in Oregon, there’s no reason why Democrats can’t dominate everything besides the eastern part of the state.
As for Missouri, I was hoping for something eventually that would pit Carnahan and Akin together in a district that leans our way. If Missouri retains its seat this time though, then I guess they’ll keep their own districts.