I basically tried to put together a NY standpat map, which could happen if Gov. Cuomo backs down from his threat to veto any gerrymandered map. The Senate Republicans passed a constitutional amendment for non-partisan redistricting, which would only take affect in 2022. I guess this could also be a judges map, if the judges just wanted to keep everything pretty much the same. I just tinkered with the edges in NYC, not wanted to run afoul of the VRA. The upstate areas I tried to clean up the map, save the Plattsburgh to Syracuse district for Bill Owens. The map takes apart NY-05 and NY-25.
Ok starting in Western NY:
27: Higgins get a compact district, solely in Buffalo. Safe as well, Obama won with 62%. (TEAL)
26: The special election winner for Chris Lee’s old district gets a Obama 46% district. It eats up the Slaughter earmuffs and Chautauqua County. (SLATE)
5: Slaughter gets a compact district in her home Monroe County (I just called this NY-05 because Gary Ackerman’s district evaporated). This is an Obama 58 % district. (YELLOW)
25: Tom Reed’s district takes a chunk of Richard Hanna’s blue-color district, as that compacts towards Hanna’s home in the Utica area. Gets some of the area’s around Ithaca. Obama 47.5%. (RED)
23: Richard Hanna’s district is now cleaner and more centered around Utica. It picks up some area from Bill Owens’ district and Gibson’s. Obama 49%. (INDIGO)
21: Paul Tonko picks up a Greene county from Gibson in what is now an Obama 57% district. (DARK BROWN)
This is NY-23, which now runs from Owens’ home in Plattsburgh to Syracuse. He is probably safe with an Obama 58% district. He may be vulnerable to a primary challenge however from a Syracuse based politician. Gibson gets a few of the counties up north here.
22: Hinchey picks up all of Delaware county. He keeps the tendril to Ithaca and picks up a little area in Orange county. Obama 58% (LIGHT BROWN)
20: The southern half of Gibson’s district doesn’t change much. It stays swingy, Obama won it with 52.5 %. (PINK)
19: Hayworth district picks up part of Nita Lowey’s district that had been in Rockland county, the area north of New City. Obama 51% (GREEN)
18: Nita Lowey gets a solely Westchester based seat. She loses her areas in Rockland to Engel and Hayworth and picks up New Rochelle, Mount Vernon and parts of Yonkers from Engel. Still safe, Obama 64% (YELLOW)
17: Engel picks up New City from Lowey, as well as some areas strongly Democratic from Joe Crowley in the Bronx. This becomes a Rockland/Bronx/Yonkers district. Obama 72% (BLUE)
7: Crowley’s district loses some Hispanic areas of the Bronx, but retains the more White, eastern area of it. He gets parts of Flushing, Great Neck and Elmhurst as well. While this is a minority-majority district, Crowley holds immense power as head of the Queens Democratic Party, so he would probably be safe from a primary. Obama 71 %, W 33 B 9 H 33 A 21 (SILVER)
16: Jose Serrano’s district grabs a few precincts to its east. Stays mostly same though. Obama 88 %, 62% Hispanic. (GREEN)
15: Charlie Rangel’s district stays pretty much the same, just picks up a few blocks on the UES and UWS. Obama won 92 % here. B 30 H 47, so this may be won by Senator Espillat whenever Rangel leaves. (ORANGE)
14: Maloney picks up little more area in Queens, but other than that, no major changes. Obama 78%. (OLIVE)
9: Anthony Weiner’s district pulls out of Brooklyn for the most part. I had to give him a little chunk to the West of Marine Park, but other than that this is a Queens district (Weiner lives in Forest Hills). He picks up a big chunk of Ackermans old district in the Flushing area and Corona. Obama 64%, W 47 H 25 A 18 (LIGHT BLUE)
6: Meeks district picks up a little bit of the area from Ackerman. They are mostly white voters, and my map couldnt keep him above 50 % black voters for this VRA district. I’m sure its possible though, but its just darn hard. 88 % Obama, 49.9 % Black. (TEAL)
10: Towns’ district gives some Hispanic areas to Velasquez in the North, and picks up some White areas from Weiner’s old Brooklyn area near Marine Park. Obama 86% B 56 H 15 (LIGHT RED)
11: Yvette Clark picks up a little bit of Weiner’s district as she moves slightly south. 88 % Obama, 55 % Black.
12: Velasquez expands a little bit in the Williamsburg area. This inches slightly closer to a majority hispanic district. Obama 56 %, W 24 B 10 H 48 A 15. (LIGHT BLUE)
8: Nadler’s district stays the same, snaking from Manhattan to Boro Park, but he adds all of Coney Island as well from Weiner. Obama 72 % (DARK BLUE)
13: Michael Grimm picks up a few more Brooklyn Precincts from Weiner. Obama 49 % (SALMON)
This is where Ackerman gets taken out.
4: McCarthy takes a tiny piece of Queens, as well as the Southern half of Ackerman’s Nassau portion. Obama 58 % (DARK RED)
3: Peter King picks up Port Washington and Great Neck and keeps his weird tendril to grab Republican voters in Suffolk. Obama 48.5% (PURPLE)
2-1: Steve Israel’s district goes a little farther into Nassau county (GREEN: Obama 56 %) as Bishop (BLUE: Obama 52 %) grabs a little more Suffolk County territory to make up for population loss.
All in all, most of the republicans that won in 2010 stay within a point or two of where they were before. Hanna gets safer, Higgins becomes safe, Slaughter loses a few points of PVI but gets to be in her home base of Rochester. The map gets a lot cleaner upstate, few counties are split. All the congressmen in this map would be okay with very few new constituents, and the Dems would not be giving safe seats to all the republicans that just own their seats.
Say, can they do mid-decade redistricting once Dems regain the State Senate in 2012? They did it in Texas and GA, why not in NY for a bit of revenge?
they should secure a Syracuse-based district and an Adirondack district.
That looks great
I suspect Owen would prefer a bit less of Onondaga county bu that’s just me. It would be easy enough to swap some territory. That’s just my thinking.
Corwin the freshman but she is also a state legislator so Buerkle and Hanna seem matched up in a primary.
For your goal (little change despite losing two districts), this is a good map. I can acknowledge that while saying the following:
I don’t like the Syracuse-Plattsburgh district, nor the Adirondacks-Upper Hudson district. These are not common communities of interest.
With that said, I think Dem’s have an easy way of getting rid of at least two Republicans in Upstate while losing one of their own downstate.
1) Give Buerkle Syracuse, Auburn and Ithaca, while removing Wayne County. I have a map I plan to post that does this. I imagine it would go to the Dem’s 60-40. (The only reason I haven’t posted is that I really need to go through NYC better.)
2) Merge Hayworth with Lowey or Gibson. She lives close to both of them. I imagine she’d be the one with a hard time to win either district.
I agree with you that Ackerman’s home will be put either with King or McCarthy. He could give McCarthy a run for her money, but with King he’d have to learn too much new territory.
Buerkle and Ackerman? Interesting. I was thinking Jane Corwin (if she wins NY-26) and a Queens Dem with less seniority (like Maloney or Crowley) were more obvious choices. Ackerman’s been there almost 30 years! But then again, Buerkle’s district is too Dem for her to hold in a neutral year and Owens needs shoring up, and as for NYC, Crowley and Maloney aren’t exactly newbies.