Sorry folks, I’m sick to death of New York. Here’s a Republican map of Indiana:
The plan here was to eliminate Donnelly and Hill, while conceding IN-08 to Ellsworth. Here’s the breakdown:
IN-01 (blue, Pete Visclosky – D) – Took LaPorte County form neighboring IN-02 and dropped the Republican-leaning counties in the south of the district. Easily went for Obama by about a 2-1 margin.
IN-02 (green, Joe Donnelly – D) – Shifted the district east; basically the only old parts are St. Joseph County and Elkhart. Went from 54-45 Obama to about 51-48 McCain. Donnelly might have a shot at holding this one, but it would be much tougher.
IN-03 (purple, Mark Souder – R) – Remains centered in Fort Wayne, but the rest of the district goes south now. Formerly a 56-43 McCain district; my rough estimate is about a 55-44 McCain margin now.
IN-04 (red, Steve Buyer – R) – Shifts from the Indianapolis suburbs to the north central part of the state, but I scooped out about half of Tippecanoe County to compensate for losing those Republican suburbs. Another formerly 56-43 McCain district, I’m guessing it’s about the same now, maybe a point less Republican.
IN-05 (yellow, Dan Burton – R) – Shrinks down to mostly the northern Indy suburbs, although I did add in part of the aforementioned Tippecanoe. Was 59-40 McCain, I’d say the margin’s more like 57-42 now.
IN-06 (teal, Mike Pence – R) – Stretchy! Instead of comprising the mid-eastern part of the state, it goes from Muncie, around the outskirts of the Indy area, up to the northwest end of the state. Was 53-46 McCain, actually I think it’s a little more Republican now, around 55-44 McCain.
IN-07 (grey, Andre Carson – D) – Pretty much unchanged, although slightly bigger, easily high-60s for Obama.
IN-08 (light purple, Brad Ellsworth – D) – Interestingly-shaped to remove Bloomington from IN-09, this one now includes pretty much all the Dem-friendly territory in the southwest of the state. Formerly 51-47 McCain, this flips to around 53-46 Obama.
IN-09 (light blue, Baron Hill – D) – Loses Baron’s most favorable territory and adds in some Republican parts on the west and northeast sides. Was 50-49 McCain, now a whopping 58-41 McCain.
A lot of the very white parts of Lake County south of Merrillville aren’t that Democratic. You might as well run a thinner strip from Hammond through East Chicago, Gary, Michigan City, all the way through South Bend. Donnelly will be hard to beat as long as he has South Bend, especially since he’s been positioning himself as a centrist for a long time.
Just by eye-balling it IN-6 would have a ton of media markets serving its varied geographic regions- Chicago, Lafayette, Terre Haute, Muncie, Indianapolis, and Bloomington! The Dayton(OH)/Richmond(IN) market might actually reach a small portion as well. You’d have to strategically pick you media buys in that district.
Evansville, Fort Wayne, South Bend, and Louisville would be the only 4 markets not covering portions of the district.
put Bloomington in the Indianapolis district. Then you could give both Ellsworth and Hill McCain districts.
The 1982 redistricting was an extreme Republican gerrymander; it included packing three Democratic incumbents into the same district. It backfired though; by the end of the decade the Indiana delegation had an 8D – 2 R split.
The quickly blueing Central part of the state could push IN-04 and IN-05 into the Democratic column and I think Donnelly would survive in this new district. Really, the only thing this map would do is make Hill’s life tougher but not completely impossible considering much of his old territory remains. I think this could wind up being like the PA gerrymander of 2002 where Democratic growth in the Philly suburbs wound up flipping GOP drawn seats there same thing could happen here with IN 04 and IN 05 (possibly IN 03 and IN 06 longer term). Really every district but IN 01 is modestly competitive versus the three GOP and one safe seat now. Depending on the national mood could be as bad as R 7 D 2 to D 7 R 2.