First of all, I’m rather new to Swing State Project, so my apologies ahead of time if this diary is treading ground that’s already been discussed.
In any case, I decided to do a Virginia redistricting map after reading that Governor McDonnell had created a bipartisan advisory committee. Three points are worth noting about Virginia redistricting:
1) The legislature is under split control.
2) Virginia redistricting is always highly scrutinized for VRA purposes.
3) Virginia redistricting has tended to favor ‘least-change’ maps with whole county lines wherever possible.
In any case, I was just curious to do a ‘least-change’ map based on the new population estimates at Dave’s app to see whether it seemed any of the Virginia districts might be significantly affected from a partisan standpoint. The one that jumps out at me is VA-10. The only other district that changed significantly was VA-05, which picks up heavily Republican suburbs of Richmond.
Here’s my statewide map. More on VA-10 after the fold!
According to the estimates on Dave’s App, the NoVa seats need to shed population. That, of course, is to be expected considering NoVa accounts for the bulk of Virginia population growth. When applying the new population estimates at Dave’s app, VA-08 needs to gain 12,000 while VA-11 needs to shed 25,000 and VA-10 needs to shed 100,000. Even before I made my ‘least-change’ map it was readily apparent that VA-10 would have to contract into more of a Fairfax/Loudoun based district than it is now – and therefore would become more Democratic.
In any case, here’s a closer look at the district that I ended up with:
The VA-10 district was already an Obama district in 2008: Obama won the district 53% to 46%. The question then is how significantly the contraction might bump the Democratic performance.
On my map, VA-10 loses all of Warren County and all of Winchester City. It loses 60% of the Frederick County population and goes from half of the Fauquier County population to one third. These areas combined voted 43% Obama to 56% McCain. Of these, only Winchester City voted for Obama, so it’s worth noting the GOP loss would be greater if, say, VA-10 retained Winchester and instead lost more of Fauquier. The district also loses 15,000 Fairfax Co. voters to VA-08 and VA-11 and gains 22,000 Prince William Co. voters from VA-01 – which is essentially a wash.
So, I looked at the 2008 countywide figures and came up with an estimate of VA-10 votes lost assuming that they were uniformly spread across these counties (this method should actually slightly favor the GOP, because NoVa gets steadily more Republican the further out you go). I then subtracted these figures from the actual 2008 VA-10 figures.
The outcome is a 55% Obama to 44% McCain district. So then, this would clearly give a boost to a Democratic challenger against Frank Wolf. More importantly, Wolf will be 73 years old in 2012, so an open seat such as this would be a prime Democratic target.
In any case, here’s a final map comparing my projected VA-10 district with the current district:
All maps are encouraged, even in states that have already been done by other people.
A couple comments about your map though:
I don’t see either the State House, or Governor signing off on anything that weakens VA-10, without at least shoring up Republicans in the southern part of the state, particularly Robert Hurt. I think that Republicans MAY cede a NoVA district to the Democrats in exchange for massive changes downstate that would make all downstate districts R+8 or better (sans the 3rd, of course). But I really don’t think that the Republicans have given up on the 10th for this decade. I see them maybe shoring up the 11th for the Democrats, and taking the more marginal parts of the current 11th to make the 10th a little more Republican for a few years. But the DC suburbs are a long-term problem for the Virginia GOP, and if they are smart, they may cut Wolf’s district loose and not risk a dummymander.
Virginia posted but in my opinion its not been discussed out. For that matter folks are re-enacting the Civil war 150 years later so two discussions of 2011 redistricting in Virginia might be considered just starting. Thanks for the posting the map.
You did certainly hit one nail on the head. Northern Virginia has added population and there needs to be a general shift northward for the other districts.
In one way that’s good for the GOP as VA9 can actually be shifted to include the homestead of the new Freshman congressman. His home is just over the line in CD6 in Roanoke county. That move would help him out. The congressman from CD6 lives nearby so lines will have to be sorted out. I might see a more Northward move for VA9 as opposed to the eastward move but this could happen.
VA5 certainly needs to grow and almost certainly anything North or NE of the current boundary lines of VA5 would help congressman Hurt. He does not want to move Eastward into VA4.
With split partisan control its unknown what exactly happen. I actually think peace will breakout in NOVA but there may be some tussles in SE virginia. I think its unlikely the Fairfax county part of VA10 stays like this. Look for a swap of area with VA11. Just a guess.
Supposely legislative seats will be done 1st but I would not be surprised to see one bill handle congressional maps as well.
I personally do not see a federal panel doing anything but a standpat bill so I think that’s what the legislative body will do. They will shore up all incumbents and consider it a done deal.
Thanks for posting this map
of trying to get the city of Petersburg into the 3rd? I think that Randy Forbes would probably appreciate getting a 90/10 Obama, 80/20 Kerry jurisdiction out of his district.
I just tried it out in the DRA, and the current 3rd plus the city of Petersburg and the Jefferson Park voting district in Prince George (to connect it) came out to 550 over ideal.
In the same vein, New Kent County is pretty much wasted in the 3rd. It was roughly a 65/35 GOP jurisdiction the last two elections. It’s not large, but if it ended up in the 1st, 18k fewer Northern Virginians that Wittman would end up stranded with.
If the two parties were to compromise on a weakened 10th for the GOP but stronger 1st/2nd/4th for the GOP, I think those two changes might be part of the solution.
I hope that the balance can be restored in future elections and that the State Senate can help ensure their own majority is maintained.
Frank Wolf will retire and that seat can be made Dem without much difficulty. Also, why is Wolf so entrenched, does he have stellar constituent services?
Also, is VA redistricting going to be like it was last decade in NY where the State House draws their maps, the State Senate draws theirs, and the U.S. Congress districts are decided by compromise?
I’ve heard that Wittman want to keep his Newport News base. His district needs to shed voters and VA-2 need to add them, so I bet after tweeking more AA districts into VA-3 that the 2nd will have to extend SW into the 4th, forcing the 4th up into Cantor’s district and then his and the 10th will swallow up Wittman’s portion of Prince William County. The 9th will move NE to take Roanoke, and the 5th can take Lynchburg so Goodlatte moves somewhat NE to take in the overage from Wolf’s district.
They’ll also probably do some minor tweeks on the 8th & 11th to make the 8th even firmer and keep VA-11 a true swing district
Just fyi, in case you are interested, the Virginia Public Access Project has some very nice precinct level maps for VA. This really helps me when I am drawing maps of VA.
My preference would be to split VA-01 and VA-07 along an east-west line rather than a north-south one. In other words, I’d like to make VA-01 a Washington-exurban district and VA-07 a Richmond suburban/exurban one.
My issue and I don’t know what much can be done with it is that VA-03 clearly serves as a Democratic vote dump. Despite being nearly 100 miles away Bobby Scott represents both downtown (read African American) Richmond and Norfolk/Hampton Roads. The state is 20% African-American and there are 11 seats of which only this one is reasonably drawn so that an African-American can hold it. I know a lot of people have gone back and forth about the VRA laws and I’m not a lawyer so I won’t get into my thoughts on that but simply put if you made downtown Richmond and downtown Norfolk/Hampton Roads into different districts it could quite possible result in the election of 2 Democrats and likely it would put either Forbes or Rigell in danger. In reality thought I don’t know what can be done about that. Especially if Scott is forced to take Petersburg in, my gosh his district would be like D +22!
My other thoughts are the Frank Wolf is likely a Congressmen for life but once he retires in a neutral climate it will be a Democrat who takes his seat. The VA GOP would be wise to not dummymander the state and “sure up” Wolf.
Connolly is going to be a Congressmen for a long time. Yes he had a close scare but his district is trending blue and 2010 won’t happen soon (knock on wood).
The fun thing way down the road will be in 2020 when VA gets another district if current population trends continue and what happens with that.