Two states that are not kind to Democrats. My intentions here were to shore up Chandler and Matheson’s seats. The tradeoff for Kentucky is essentially ceding the rest of the seats, but as we’ve seen in the past few cycles, those seats are well-nigh unwinnable, even in a great Dem year like 2006.
Kentucky
KY-01 (blue, Ed Whitfield – R) – Removed the stupid little tail coming off the southeast end of the district. May have moved a couple of points toward the Dems, but still solidly Republican.
KY-02 (green, Brett Guthrie – R) – Not much changed here, aside from taking in part of the aforementioned stupid tail. Safe Republican.
KY-03 (purple, John Yarmuth – D) – Almost completely unchanged; all but a couple precincts of Louisville. Fairly safe for the Dems.
KY-04 (red, Geoff Davis – R) – Stretch of Republican territory along the Indiana, Ohio, and West Virginia borders. Should be pretty safe for the Republicans.
KY-05 (yellow, Hal Rogers – R) – Takes in all the Republican areas of SE Kentucky. Safe Republican.
KY-06 (teal, Ben Chandler – D) – Reconfigured this district to take in all of the most Democratic areas of eastern Kentucky. It’s gone from a 12-point McCain margin to about a 3-point McCain margin.
Utah
UT-01 (blue, Rob Bishop – R) – Ridiculous population growth causes this one to shrink to the counties north of Salt Lake City. Probably voted around 68-69% McCain.
UT-02 (green, Jim Matheson – D) – Perhaps the Republicans can dispense with the ridiculous attempts at getting rid of Matheson and resign themselves to the fact that, yes, there’s going to be one seat in the state that the Democrats can hold. Consists of Summit County, Salt Lake City proper, and some of the surrounding suburbs. Almost undoubtedly voted for Obama.
UT-03 (red, Jason Chaffetz – R) – Made this the “rural district”, but the part of Utah County that is in the district is still a large chunk of the population. Really shows you how few people live outside of the SLC/Provo area of the state. Went 70+% for McCain easily.
UT-04 (purple, open) – New suburban district, gonna go out on a limb and guess it’s safe Republican. Probably mid-60s for McCain.
because upstate Nevada will get broken up.
You might note that KY-04 is dominated by the Cincinnati suburbs, which are very right wing.
But Chandler does well in his district, as would Luallen and a few others. Could we draw KY-05 entirely into Appalachia and make it a heavily mountainous seat (more than it is already)? This would involve shifting the eastern end of the 4th to the 5th, leaving the 4th even more Cincinnati-centric. That wouldn’t have helped the Obama margin (probably would have made it worse), but it might be like NC-11, where a popular conservative Dem might win in a historically poor, Democratic, region. Also, might you be able to send a tentacle of the 1st to take in Bowling Green…shed something else to the 2nd.
Your Utah is excellent. In the short term, Matheson’s incumbent protection here is overkill. Split SLC right down the middle. Send one tentacle out to Summitt County just as you have. That’s a new D district. Give Matheson the other half of Salt Lake (the north end of your purple district) and whatever rural territory, not in the Provo-Odgen Wasatch Valley, is needed to make up the population balance, to Matheson (I’d suggest some way to get to Carbon, Grand, and, maybe, San Juan, which are Republican, but less so than other rural areas). The first Dem should be fairly progressive. Matheson will be…Matheson.
I just finished a map where Salt Lake City was connected to most of Utah County with Utah County having more people in it. Something like 33%-40% SL County (2-1 Dem?) and 60-67% Utah County (3-1 Rep).
CD1 is Box Elder, Cache, Weber, Rich, part of Tooele, and the following cities in West SL County (West Valley City, West Jordan, South Jordan, Riverton)
CD2 is Davis, Morgan, Summit, Wasatch, Duchesne, Daggett, Uintah, Carbon, Emery, Grand, Wayne, Garfield, San Juan, Kane, Washington, part of Utah, part of Sanpete
CD3 is most of Utah County and Salt Lake City.
CD4 is Juab, Millard, Sevier, Piute, Beaver, Iron, part of San Pete, part of Tooele, and the following cities in SL County: South Salt Lake, Taylorsville, Murray, Midvale, Sandy, Draper, Bluffdale, Herriman.
Here’s SL County under this Rep map.
Here’s Utah County
Here’s Northern Utah
Here’s Southern Utah
I think the split in the 3rd will keep it within 20 but without a solid shot of a victory in a Matheson/Chaffetz matchup.
The 1st is very Rep. The 2nd has 2 Obama counties, and 7 counties where McCain topped 70%. The 4th cancels out any possible Dem voting in the southern suburbs with a heavy Rep advantage in the rest of the district. The 4th is over half SL County.
I know it’s a bit off topic, but do any of the knowledgeable Utahns here have any idea how SLC became so Democratic? I’d guess that demographically it looks pretty much like the rest of the state – predominately White and Mormon. I doubt if the LDS Church promotes non-conservative political philosophies. It can’t be just because it’s an urban area – there are some pretty conservative urban areas in other bright red states. Any insights would be welcome.
Good work again as always….
Your Kentucky redistricting is about the best possible scenario that is both realistic and not totally gerry-mandered-looking. Well done.
And while Republicans would do well to just leave Matheson alone (meaning: load his district with every Dem-leaning precinct they can find) I do think they might be dumb enough to try the previously-mentioned pizza slice scenario and just gerrymander the crap out of the state. Still, I would bet Matheson could hold on in whatever the strongest Dem district is that ends up being created in that scenario.
Western Kentucky
Eastern Kentucky
The 5th (Eastern Kentucky) and 1st (Western) are more likely to go Republican when they’re open. Rogers and Guthrie are paired in the 2nd.
The 2nd and 4th should be Republican. 3rd and 6th Democratic. The 1st and 5th would swing occasionally
In an open seat scenario CD-1 could still be won by the right conservative Democrat. Adding Democratic friendly Warren at the expense of some potentially less reliable rural counties seems like a good exchange.