DAMN IT!
I forgot to check draft.
Consider that a taste. And maybe a very long savory taste because I have no idea how close I am to done, Im sure Ill think up more things to look at by the time I look at the other stuff. I was just testing how the first maps looked because I dont want to get everything done and then see my maps screw up the formatting and then Id have to redo them.
First the 8 seater.
So Ive done MN several different ways now, so here’s a new one, the compromise version, that creates several swing districts within the metro area of Minneapolis/St Paul and does a better representation for Greater Minnesota. Peterson is given an even more Republican district to give the GOP representation in central MN and giving the DFL a Safe DFL district in Northern MN. I decided the “make compact districts” thing is crap because it’s all just packing, so instead I made just one central one and spread out the remaining 4. They all do adhere to major metro areas dictated by the transit and freeway systems used. There is a southern, northwestern, western, and northeastern.
The 8 seater is projected at 1 Safe DFL, 1 Safe GOP, 2 Likely DFL, 1 Lean GOP, 1 Lean DFL, 2 Swing if they were all open.
MN-1 Rep. Walz
I did do a little gerrymandering up the NW part of the state to make the district to creep north. I wanted to keep MN-7 as a central MN district, as that is one complaint of Republicans and would give it a better shot of going GOP, at the expense of MN-1 going a point more Democratic. Nonetheless this is still only like D+1 and is a good swing district.
MN-2 Rep. Kline
Kind of the same configuration, but shifted over to the east a bit and now contains all of Dakota county. The districts shifts a bit further into Walz’s district, which makes way for CD3. This is the other swing district, and it barely went for Obama. It is quite the hybrid district of it being minutes outside of downtown St. Paul to being far out into some of the best farmland in the country.
MN-3 Rep. Paulsen
This district no longer includes any northwestern metro portions and strictly goes straight west from Minneapolis and also includes the two southern burbs of Richfield and Bloomington. It’s a slight bit more Democratic, which reflects how the western burbs have changed.
MN-4 Rep. McCollum
A touch more Republican and CD-5 does cut into McCollum’s Ramsey county base. The district still includes all of St Paul and is more of a NE suburb district+ St. Paul. It evens out to a pretty solid DFL seat. And some of the suburbs given to CD5 out of Ramsey county are barely DFL anyway.
MN-5 Rep. Ellison
Still a compact district. Minneapolis is still the major anchor, and then it expands going north and east. CD4 has usually had all of Ramsey county but this was the best way to achieve a compact central district for MN-5 and to make CD-4 more like the others..
MN-6 No incumbent
This is the suburban GOP district. This seat is trending our way and will be ours by the end of this decade (2020) as many people are moving here and turning it more swingish, or at least not quite 60-40. But for now, it’s a St. Cloud/Nw suburbs seat and is a very quickly growing corridor (the one I’m from.) This version has more suburbs and less teabagger territory, which is given to MN-7. Clark maybe be able to win this one, but it’s still quite Republican on the local level, save for the a couple of the suburbs.
MN-7 Rep. Peterson
His seat becomes much more Republican. The current seat was a McCain by 2%, the one I propose McCain won by 12%. Peterson may still win, but this is the compromise and this is very Republican area and they should get a solid Greater MN seat in this compromise. But, a DFLer may always still win. We’ve got a pretty even number of DFL and GOP state legislators and someone like Peterson can certainly win.
MN-8 Rep. Oberstar
This district is now an entirely Northern Minnesota district. I put it as likely DFL but it’s pretty much a solid seat. We control a very large majority of the state legislative seats and these areas still have a heavy tradition in progressive politics.
So OH could certainly use quite a bit of work and has been a state I’ve been working with off and on. I know nothing about OH, Ive driven through it once and I know a few people from there, so the map could probably use some tweeks in trading certain cities for others to ensure a maximum Democratic effect. But Im pretty sure my map would create 9 solid Dem districts, 5 solid Dem districts, and 2 swingish districts.
I decided the two Id get rid of was Schmidt and Kucinich. I figured it’d be an even trade, our extreme lefty for your extreme righty.
Southern OH
Blue: OH-1
Rep. Dreihaus vs Rep. Schmidt
Should be a safe district now that it is all of Cincinnati and is contained to Hamilton county. I threw in Schmidt’s residence here just to make sure she’d have to move to run against an incumbent if she wanted to represent part of her old district again.
Lilac: OH-8
Rep. Boehner
Another safe district for Boehner with it no longer taking in apart of Dayton.
Purple: OH-3
Rep. Turner
This districts now goes closer back to it’s 90’s version, taking in all of Montgomery county and it reaches up grab the city of Springfield in Clark county. This makes it a toss-up seat that leans slight Democratic probably.
Periwinkle: OH-12
Rep. Tiberi
Tiberi is now given an extremely safe GOP district that is suburban and exurban Columbus.
Orange: OH-15
Rep. Kilroy
She now gets a safe district entirely within Franklin county.
Turquoise: OH-6
Rep. Wilson
This district keeps its southeastern Applachia roots, and then is given a chunk of Columbus to make it a solid D district.
Grey: OH-7
Rep. Austria
He lives just on the edge of the district over in the Dayton suburb of Beavecreek. It combines a lot of Schmidt’s old territory, not as much of his own, but meh, people dont like Schmidt but they can respect Austria.
OH-2
Green: OH-2
Rep. Space
This district nows moves up to pick up Canton, and also some swing counties that are in OH-6 which should make a district that’ll lean our way even in an open seat situation.
Northwestern OH
Red: OH-4
Rep. Jordan
Not much change here.
Yellow: OH-5
Rep. Latta
Again, not much change here.
Cyan: OH-9
Rep. Kaptur
Looses parts of Lorain county and becomes more compact. It may have dipped a point or two but any Democrat should be just fine here.
Northeastern OH
Peach: OH-13
Rep. Sutton
Loses its parts of Akron and picks up territory left open from the elimination of Kucinich’s district and also more of Lorain county. Should be fine for a Democrat.
Pale Lime Green: OH-11
Rep. Fudge
I couldnt manage to keep a black majority seat due to it needing to expand, so its 48% AA and 42% white. Fudge should still be fine, both with an AA advantage and as an incumbent.
Olive: OH-14
Rep. LaTourette
This is one seat I dont know how I did with as I dont really know how how the Cleveland suburbs vote. I assume I kept it as a swing district, and probably helped it a bit with taking in more suburbs closer in to the city.
Pink: OH-10
Rep. Ryan
He loses parts of Akron which makes his district a bit more Republican, but it’s still quite a safe Democratic district.
Lime Green: OH-16
Rep. Boccieri
His district now takes in all of Akron, which makes this seat solidly Democratic now. I saw this as a bit of a switheroo, Space gets Canton, Boccieri gets Akron, and then Sutton and Ryan get slightly more disfavorable districts.
MN has a fair shot at either keeping its 8 seats or it may lose a seat, which only means more fun for me as I get to ponder up new maps for any and all combinations. If you’ve been following this blog religiously so far this year, you’ve seen me post redistrictings here, here, and here. The first two kind of suck as I did the work for them before Dave’s app and before I really knew how Democratic the suburbs had become, and the third traded in what was actually possible for what was the dream scenario in redistricting and gerrymandering.
This map would hopefully produce a 7-0 map. Clark is given a much more swing district to run in, Kline is combined with Paulsen, and Bachmann is combined with McCollum. However, the map could end up resulting in a 4-3 GOP majority if we didnt have the incumbents already set in 5/7 of the districts. But this isn’t any different than the current map, Gore and Kerry won 3 of my districts and they also only won 3 of the current districts. But MN has quite an overall Dem lean so even when the margins are against us, we still do much better at the local level do to our history of being progressive and populist.
On to the map!
map with county line here
MN-1 Rep. Walz
50-47 Obama
The district doesn’t change much at all. It comes in much closer to the Twin Cities now, and it takes in a bit more Republican areas, makes room for MN-7 to take in some Democratic areas there.
MN-2 OPEN
50/48 McCain
This is mainly the old MN-6 with a giant chunk of MN-3. It cuts out everything west of St. Cloud save for St. John’s University. It nows takes in the northern half of Hennepin county starting at the Minneapolis border. It now takes all of the blue portions of Anoka county while still taking in some 2-1 McCain exurbs. Most of these areas have been trending blue as lower income moves from the city in search of better schools, and the suburbs are too expensive while the exurbs provide a cheap housing market. By 2012 rolled around, I wouldnt be surprised if the district voted for Obama.
What I think makes Clark have a great shot is that I see there being two competitors who would hop into this race against her, two in state house leadership, Kurt Zellers and Tom Emmer. Emmer is from tea-bagger country, Zellers is from the suburbs, which would set-up a nasty primary. The tea-bag country would dominate in numbers for the GOP endorsement but in the general, there is enough moderate-Dem territory to knock out a tea-bagger unlike the current MN-6.
MN-3 Rep. Paulsen and Rep. Kline
52/46
This district goes from being a western suburban district to a southern one. It unfortunately doesn’t get any more Democratic; if it were an 8 seat map I’d be able to work something out quite favorable to us but there is still GOP leaning areas that need to get spread out.
Id hope a primary between Kline and Paulsen would allow a DFL candidate to save up their money and make a go at this seat. The DFL does have a commanding majority in state legislature seats so we should be able to find a solid candidate
MN-4 Rep. McCollum
60-38 Obama
Has to expand a bit to pick-up population so I threw Bachmann in with McCollum to eliminate that hot mess. It does expand up into the exurbs a little bit, but the district really doesn’t change much at all.
MN-5 Rep. Ellison
69-29 Obama
This district changes a bit in that the current district is Minneapolis and then just expand outwards in all directions until it has enough population. To save as many inner suburbs for MN2&3 to boost their Dems, this district heads directly west which makes it both urban, suburban, and also a little bit exurban.
This is a map I decided to make for Clark in MN-6 and Bonoff in MN-3, both have been solid legislators, have won swingy state senate districts, one in a district we could simply use a little more help winning and another where the incumbent is so ridiculous we’ve got a great shot.
Then, after I did that portion of the map, I decided, what can I do for Greater Minnesota? Is it possible to make an Obama/Peterson district in MN-7? It took some creative maneuvering and a bit of gerrymandering, but I succeeded and created a map where Obama won 7 out of 8 of the districts. So with the current delegation I have envisioned for these seats, it’d be 1 Blue Dog, 6 liberals, and 1 Texan.
I would certainly never advocate for the Greater Minnesota districts to actually take this shape as the gerrymanders shift the margins by mere percentages and none make or break an incumbent’s re-election chances. It was just for fun!
The metro area districts, though, are something I’d heavily advocate for (with of course some tweaking and less gerrymandering). The metro area was butchered by the courts when they drew the lines for us this last time as MN2,3&6, while having at least half of their populations based in the suburbs, all have exurban and rural territory that make winning these districts quite tough if not impossible in the case of MN-2 and if it weren’t for Bachmann, MN-6 as well. I instead wanted to keep the metro area in the metro area with MN3-6 having Minneapolis/St Paul and all of its suburbs and making MN-2 the de facto exurban district, and then keeping MN1,7&8 as rural as possible, with some encroachment to the metro as the rural areas lose population.
I did the population on Dave’s and then did the vote totals by asking the MN SoS office for an excel spreadsheet with all the vote totals. I then made an excel spreadsheet that had all the municipalities of my districts, and then literally cut and paste every precinct from the results spreadsheet into a new one for the totals. Only took a couple of hours as everything was divided by county so I could cruise through counties I didn’t break up.
Map with county lines for those who know where stuff is and curious to see how it all lined up. The map with the county lines also has a zoomed version of the metro area, as I figured a zoomed in area would be quite helpful with county lines.
MN-1: Rep. Walz
49/48 Obama
This district doesn’t change too much. It trades out some mainly Republican precincts in the southwest to make room for the MN-7 gerrymander, which makes it move a bit more north on the east side. Still all farmland, still all Walz’s.
MN-2: OPEN
40/58 McCain
This is an open seat that takes in every piece of Republican territory as I could possibly make it with there being less than 10 Dem precincts in the whole district. The exurbs are what form the main block of the district and then all the gerrymandering is it picking up as much of the Red River Valley as I could before reaching the population max. It takes in strongly Republican Meeker, McLeod, and Sibley counties from MN-7, Benton, parts of Sherburne, Stearns, and Wright from MN-6, and then the gerrymanders are Todd and Otter Tail County, Douglas and Stevens county, the middle is giving the city of Litchfield to MN-7 in exchange for Republican parts of Kandiyohi county, and then the bottom snaking piece is Brown and Redwood counties. I’d estimate that the exurban areas account for a solid 70%-80% of the district and then the rural areas make up the rest. Kline no longer lives in this district as he lives in a suburb and is thus included in a different district.
MN-3: Rep. Paulsen
57/41 Obama
This district is designed for Bonoff and she is a solid bet to win here. The district is no longer a west metro district but now a south metro district. I didnt really like the shape I had to give it as Bonoff lives in Minnetonka, a suburb directly west of Minneapolis. It takes in everything bordering Minneapolis south of New Hope/Crystal, giving it a few suburbs that vote 2-1 DFL, suburbs from the old MN-3 like Edina, Eden Prarie (where Paulsen lives) and Bloomington and then moves east to pick-up Apple Valley, Burnsville, Eagan, and then the little gerrymander is picking up the main parts of Cottage Grove. The northern part of Dakota County that are 2-1 DFL suburbs are also thrown in for good measure. The district no longer picks up exurban Hennepin County and is strictly suburban, which is what makes it such a solid district. I have a hunch if I looked at the 2004 numbers, the shift to 50/50 would be rather large as the district has shifted a lot since then.
MN-4: Rep. McCollum vs. Rep. Bachmann vs. Rep Kline
61/37 Obama
The district needed to expand south to pick-up population taken by MN-3 and MN-6 that took in the inner St Paul suburbs. It takes in more of the Washington county suburbs, including Woodbury where Bachmann lives. It then picks up the last ring of suburbs south of MN-3, which includes Lakeville where Kline resides. McCollum is still quite safe in this district. The areas that she picked up, while more Republican, are quickly shifting to the Democrats as these former exurbs turn into suburbs, which will make the district just as Democratic as it was within a decade, easily. This means that within a decade when that area south of MN-3 is full-fledge suburban territory and votes like the other suburbs, I’d give those areas to MN-3 to make the two districts less gerrymandered.
MN-5: Rep. Ellison
68/30 Obama
Still containing Minneapolis, the district is now gerrymandered to pick up other cities besides the ones immediately bordering it pretty much. It connects to the western suburbs through New Hope, Crystal, and Robbinsdale, suburbs that are a bit of an oddity in that they don’t vote 2-1 DFL considering their locale to Minneapolis. The district then pick-ups up Plymouth to the west and then goes to pick-up the Lake Minnetonka area suburbs a little more west and south from there. (A couple of exurbs sneak in there as well.) It moves even futher south into Scott County to pick-up the three suburbs there for population purposes. This cuts the margin by 12% yet the district still maintains it’s 13% black population. I do like that I added Lake Minnetonka as Minneapolis is littered with lakes and has some of the most gorgeous (and biggest) houses in the metro. A black Muslim being able to win, sure it’s questionable, but I think he’ll be fine. A Democrat will certainly win this district and Ellison will clearly have a huge upper-hand in a primary and endorsement. Minneapolis is 62% of this district’s population, plus many of these suburbs are shifting quickly as they grow in population.
MN-6: OPEN
52/46 Obama
This district is designed for Clark who is running against Bachmann. This district connects St Cloud (where Clark lives) down to the northwest suburbs which really makes sense as this district exactly follows HWY 10 and the new commuter light rail that’s going in (only half of it is opening in a month and the other half to St Cloud will open in a few years). While it looks kind of gerrymandered, when it comes to community of interests, this is one entire suburban and travel corridor and probably would be one of the best districts in the state for the community of interests argument, if not country. St. Cloud is swingish/Dem leaning and is roughly 65k population. I included the suburbs around St. Cloud as well, which went 55/45 McCain to 50/50. Reason for this is there aren’t any other blue areas to pick-up and Clark should be able to do well due to hometown advantage. The district then heads southeast, goes through some exurbs that are exploding in population thus no longer making them like 75% GOP. The suburbs NW of Minneapolis have rapidly shifted to leaning Dem and the inner suburbs go 2-1 DFL. This kind of takes over for MN-3 and becomes the swing-suburban seat.
MN-7: Rep. Peterson
50/47 Obama
Yes, I made an Obama/Peterson district! Ok, it took some creativity and made me have to silence the “good government” in me, but Obama did indeed win this district. It keeps the main part of the district but now MN-2 cuts into it to take in as many Republican votes as possible, which gave me room to create that tendril. The tendril picks up St Peter which has Gustavus college, Democratic Faribault city, Northfield, which has St. Olaf college and Carleton college (for Golden Girls fans, Rose is from St Olaf MN, which is way up in Otter Tail County and is not related to the college), snakes up Dakota County to pick-up Hastings, and then on up to Stillwater. The district did use to pick up Red Wing but then I decided to give that to MN-1 to ungerrymander a little and to give some votes back to Walz, who is the one who got hurt the most by Peterson getting a safer district. At the north end, the gerrymander with MN-8 is for MN-8 to pick-up the more Republican parts of the North Country, with MN-7 taking in Bemidji.
MN-8: Rep. Oberstar
53/44 Obama
This district changes very little. It adds a percentage point to the Dems as MN-2 also took in some Republican parts from MN-8. The district does start venturing into exurban/suburban territory at the south end but that is somewhat unavoidable as the rural areas are shrinking and the suburbs growing. The district is still based in Duluth and the Iron Range, anchoring it down as a DFL seat.
Random question I wanted answered, how often does a party gain seats in the Senate while managing to defend all of their own seats two cycles in a row.
What I found was really interesting as it’s only happened one time before since we began electing Senators and what I found could be very indicative to the future of the Democratic Party.
The 17th Amendment, which made Senator an elected position, was implemented in 1914 so that is where I start. I also attempt to explain why a certain party had the advantage in said election and how they managed to get such a sweep.
| 1914 | Dem | +5 | Huge Republican gains in House which contrasts Senate gains for Dems, ? |
| 1920 | Rep | +10 | Large Republican wave coinciding with Harding’s first win and Wilson’s unpopularity |
| 1926 | Dem | +6 | Midterm |
| 1928 | Rep | +7 | Republican wave coinciding with strong economy and Hoover’s first win |
| 1932 | Dem | +12 | FDR’s win and the Great Depression causes huge wave |
| 1934 | Dem | +9 | Last class of GOP Senators to be up after Dem dominance so still cleaning house |
| 1938 | Rep | +6 | Midterm through FDR’s second term |
| 1942 | Rep | +9 | Midterm through FDR’s third term |
| 1946 | Rep | +12 | Referendum on extremely unpopular Truman in his first mid-term |
| 1948 | Dem | +9 | Truman bounceback, campaigned on obstructionist Congress so large focus there |
| 1958 | Dem | +13 | Mid-term through Eisenhower’s second term |
| 1980 | Rep | +12 | Landslide Reagan election |
| 1990 | Dem | +1 | Not indicative of anything except incumbency rules, go Wellstone! |
| 1994 | Rep | +8 | Electorate sick of Democrats and not happy with Clinton |
| 2006 | Dem | +6 | Mid-term through Bush’s second term |
| 2008 | Dem | +8 | Landslide election for Obama, referendum on Bush still |
As you can see, doing it twice in a row has only occurred only one other time, in 1932 and 1934.
The first thing to observe is that one-sided gain largely occurs in wave elections and few times else, coinciding with mid-term anti ruling feelings or wins coinciding with the winning presidential candidate’s party. And these one sided gains are generally pretty large.
With the distinction of these being wave elections, then there are instances where the power of a wave election can be nulled, when the incumbent never won a general election or when the incumbent has become a flawed candidate and also when the seat is open and candidate recruitment trumps national trend.
There are four such elections where large, bloodless gains were made and the opposing party was able to capture a seat. They all feature the above characteristics of massive gains and wave elections and they all featured the opposite party only gaining one other seat with my above exceptions. In 1924, the GOP gains five seats but also loses NM, where the GOP incumbent was appointed, won a special election in September but then lost his election to a full term three years later. 1986 wouldve been nine seats for the Dems if it hadn’t been for an open MO seat where former Gov. Bond beat the current Lt. Gov, so candidate recruitment mainly.
In 1930 the Dems gained eight seats but lost IA where the Dem incumbent actually lost the election 6 years earlier by just under 1,000 votes but he challenged the election and the Senate seated him instead of the GOP winner, who eventually won in 1930. And in 1936, the Democrats captured six but lost their open seat in Massachusetts with a crappy candidate who FDR wouldn’t even endorse.
While the current political climate certainly isnt portraying this, the overall political climate we are living through is similar only to that of the 1930’s, when there was the realignment from the Republicans to the Democrats, a realignment that was deep and affected our country until the conservative resurgence with Reagan. And even with the conservative resurgence, there was never a two-cycle interval where the Republicans dominated the Democrats in such a manner, which leaves me to believe that they never had a realignment, they instead got a good two to three decade run to ________ (insert various ways they screwed up.)
If you include 1930 and 1936, then the Democrats enjoyed four consecutive cycles of bloodless Senate gains amounting in 35 Republican seats being flipped, but by the numbers, the two times in the history of Senate elections where a party has gained seats while losing none of their own are 1932 and 1934, and 2006 and 2008, with this occurrence almost always coinciding with wave elections and them being huge gains. Again, if you include 1930 and 1936, they all seems to synch up. 2006/1930 pissed off electorate voting out incumbent party, 2008/1932 was solidifying these gains and electing a Dem president, and then hopeful thinking would be 2010/1934, large gains to finally get rid of that class of Senators who need to be Democrat-ified, and then 2012/1936 some more gains while re-electing Dem president.
What I think is most interesting is the process of the Republicans gaining back all of these losses after the hey-day of the early 30’s. The three mid-term elections starting with FDR’s second resulted in large, bloodless gains by the GOP and coincided with each of the three Senate classes, giving the GOP a chance to reclaim their loss seats from every class in a mid-term. This model then would show large losses in 2014, 2018, and 2022.
So with my question answered, it turns out that Schumer and Menendez could make history if the current political climate shapes up in our favor and we can manage to capitalize on the Senate map we’ve got for this cycle. It’s certainly still quite doable but every poll makes the likelihood of the hat trick a bit dimmer. But, the larger take away message I got from researching this was that regardless of what happens in the mid-term elections, the only comparable period in Senate elections to the one we just currently went through are that of the progressive revolution in the 1930’s, so give yourself a pat on the back all, we’re back and ready to start taking names and kicking asses.
Yeah, here’s another Minnesota redistricting…
My 7 seat map can be found here.
I did none of this with a computer program or anything like that. i was fortunate that MN provides all the info I needed to do this with the MnSOS office providing all the vote totals and also precinct maps of every state house seat, which was the main way I broke down the districts by vote and population when I didnt need to break it down to city/township/precinct level. The state legislature websites has excellent maps with the two I used constantly were a map of the all the state house seats that also showed city boundaries which made it my go to map for figuring out my planned geography. More importantly though, a precinct map of the entire state showing election results from dark red to dark blue. I found county population totals for 2007 and when they broke down beyond that point, I wikipediad it which sometimes included 2006 estimates but mainly for 2000 totals and then I used common sense for population movements, figured out the percentage of growth for that county/area, etc to figure out the 2007 population of said city/precinct. There is certainly some error involved in this but nothing that would alter more than a couple precincts here or there and then my map accounts for current population movement as opposed to 2000, little bit of a trade off there.
Everything is recorded in excel spreadsheets, they look like a hot mess.
map with county lines can be found here
My CD4 is quite a gerrymander but none of that is essential to district make up. This map could easily be changed to provide nice clean lines but I wanted to pack Dems and Reps to see what the best case scenarios could be. Undoing any gerrymanders would still result in my intended goals.
This is map is either a 7/1 or 6/2 map. Bachmann can’t win her district but a more moderate Republican possibly could. And Kline is now uber safe. Paulsen is drawn out of his district and could possibly run there, but you’ll see later that the Obama margin for victory there is Philly/Chicago suburb like and he’d probably not bother moving. 7/1 at the best 6/2 at worst.
As for the tables, the first 08 is the new Obama vs McCain percentage for each of my districts, second 08 is what the current district got. And then the following years are what the current districts got as well with them being the three-way vote. Then next is population and what each county got in 08 and 04.
| MN-1 Rep. Walz | Pop. | 2008 | 2008 | 2004 | 2004 |
| Total | 651557 | 50/45.5 | 51/47 | 48/52 | 47/51 |
| Pop. | Obama | McCain | Kerry | Bush | |
| Houston County | 19515 | 54 | 44 | 48 | 51 |
| Winona County | 49802 | 58 | 39 | 52 | 46 |
| Watonwan County | 11022 | 49 | 48 | 45 | 53 |
| Steele County | 36378 | 46 | 51 | 56 | 43 |
| Dodge County | 19552 | 44 | 54 | 42 | 57 |
| Wabasha County | 21783 | 47 | 50 | 47 | 52 |
| Olmsted County | 76470 | 51 | 47 | 47 | 52 |
| Mower County | 38040 | 60 | 37 | 61 | 38 |
| Freeborn County | 31257 | 57 | 41 | 55 | 44 |
| Waseca County | 19528 | 45 | 53 | 43 | 56 |
| Blue Earth County | 59802 | 55 | 42 | 48 | 51 |
| Nicollet County | 31680 | 54 | 44 | 50 | 49 |
| Martin County | 20462 | 41 | 56 | 42 | 57 |
| Brown County | 26013 | 43 | 55 | 37 | 61 |
| Murray County | 8511 | 49 | 48 | 44 | 54 |
| Jackson County | 10883 | 47 | 51 | 46 | 52 |
| Cottonwood County | 11349 | 46 | 52 | 43 | 56 |
| Nobles County | 20128 | 48 | 50 | 42 | 56 |
| Pipestone County | 9305 | 42 | 55 | 38 | 61 |
| Rock County | 9498 | 42 | 56 | 39 | 60 |
| Faribault County | 14869 | 46 | 51 | 43 | 55 |
| Fillmore County | 21037 | 53 | 44 | 49 | 50 |
| Lincoln County | 5877 | 49 | 48 | 47 | 52 |
| Redwood County | 15519 | 42 | 55 | 38 | 62 |
This district changed very little, it took an extra county here and there but more or less, I didn’t want to change it. Walz is already winning by large margins and he’s an excellent fit for the district.
| MN-2 Rep. Kline | Pop. | 2008 | 2008 | 2004 | 2004 |
| Total | 651855 | 40/58 | 48/50 | 38/60.5 | 45/54 |
| Pop. | Obama | McCain | Kerry | Bush | |
| Wright County | 117372 | 40 | 58 | 38 | 61 |
| Scott County | 62113 | 39 | 59 | 37.5 | 61.5 |
| Carver County | 88459 | 41.5 | 57 | 36 | 63 |
| Dakota County | 38718 | 44 | 54 | 39 | 60 |
| Sherburne County | 86287 | 39 | 58 | 39 | 60 |
| Stearns County | 86586 | 40 | 55 | 40 | 58 |
| Benton County | 5881 | 36 | 61 | 36 | 63 |
| Hennepin County | 72869 | 37 | 62 | 37 | 61 |
| Anoka County | 54649 | 40 | 58 | 40 | 59 |
| Isanti County | 38921 | 41 | 56 | 41 | 58 |
I decided to tie all the conservative exurban areas together along with Republican suburbs, putting all the republican counties into one congressional district instead of spread across two. This makes it mainly a combination of CD2 and CD6, and takes out the main Republican-fundy base of Bachmann’s district. It takes out the counties around the St. Cloud area, minus St. Cloud, keeps the former second’s GOP base of Carver and Scott county in the southwest (minus some of the suburbs that were 50/50’ish for Obama), also heavily conservative Wright county from CD6, and I threw in Isanti county from CD8 to shore up the GOP into one CD. The district has a bit of a propeller as I need to pick up more population and those 4 townships in Benton were the most GOP areas to connect to CD2. Kline lives in the portion of Dakota county that it includes and will be 100% safe in this district. However, Bachmann will be looking for a seat as well. More on that later.
| MN-3 OPEN | Pop. | 2008 | 2008 | 2004 | 2004 |
| Total | 650300 | 57/41 | 52/46 | 53/46.5 | 48/51 |
| Pop. | Obama | McCain | Kerry | Bush | |
| Hennepin County | 487008 | 58 | 40.5 | 54 | 46 |
| Anoka County | 163292 | 53 | 43 | 51 | 48 |
This district shifts east and north as I cut out some of the traditional upper-to-upper middle class suburbs to take in more working class suburbs bordering Minneapolis to the west and north. Eden Prairie, Bloomington, and most of Edina now are in CD5 (I kept some of Edina in CD3 for population and gerrymandering as some precincts went 2-1 for Obama while the city as a whole went about 55-45.) The district then picked up Hopkins, Golden Valley, St. Louis Park, Fridley, Columbia Heights, and a few others in that area. These areas also have a much higher proportion of minority voters so the district gets a bit less white and without Edina and Eden Prarie, probably drops pretty far in average income.
Paulsen lives in Eden Prairie so technically this district is open. He could move to run here which he may to give it a shot but it voted for Obama by 16%, an increase of 10% from the current district lines. We have a HUGE bench in this district to make that happen as there are roughly 25 state reps and senators per CD and the GOP only has about 6-7 of those seats in this CD. I want to give Paulsen somewhat of a chance of retaining this seat (PA6, IL10) but I really dont know how he could.
Please tell me someone watched Mighty Ducks recently and these cities all sound familiar…. Cake eater is from Edina, Goldburg I believe is Bloomington.
| MN-4 Rep. McCollum | Pop. | 2008 | 2008 | 2004 | 2004 |
| Total | 651475 | 61/38 | 64/34 | 58.5/40 | 62/37 |
| Pop. | Obama | McCain | Kerry | Bush | |
| Ramsey County | 468147 | 66 | 31.5 | 63.5 | 35 |
| Washington County | 79263 | 47 | 51 | 44.5 | 55 |
| Anoka County | 104065 | 43 | 55 | 42 | 57 |
This is the district I gerrymandered the most as I wanted to pack as many Democrats into CD6 as possible. The northern part of the district is represented by Anoka County exurbs that vote 2-1 GOP in some parts and the north third of Washington County which is exurban but not quite as Republican, maybe 60-40 at worst. There really isn’t even much population up there as the main source is Ramsey county, which gets a little bit cut up. The three blobs of gerrymander are as follows. The main one is St. Paul, to the east, the district picks up the Republican precincts of Woodbury and then in the south it picks up Inver Grove Heights, a swingy suburb. Safe for McCollum still.
| MN-5 Rep. Ellison | Pop. | 2008 | 2008 | 2004 | 2004 |
| Total | 647577 | 69/29 | 74/24 | 65/33 | 71/28 |
| Pop. | Obama | McCain | Kerry | Bush | |
| Hennepin County | 583048 | 71 | 27 | 67 | 31 |
| Scott County | 64259 | 48 | 50 | 42 | 57 |
As said previously, this district now picks up the south/southwest burbs in exchange for the very liberal first ring suburbs. All the suburbs have been trending D quite rapidly and most voted for Obama. The suburbs in Hennepin county, Edina, Eden Prairie, and Bloomington have trended pretty quickly while the two suburbs in Scott County, Shakopee and Savage, were once brutally Republican but population growth has exploded here and has brought them to suburban voting trends instead of exurban voting trends. This is still extremely safe for Ellison.
| MN-6 OPEN | Pop. | 2008 | 2008 | 2004 | 2004 |
| Total | 648958 | 53/45 | 45/53 | 49.5/49.3 | 42/57 |
| Pop. | Obama | McCain | Kerry | Bush | |
| Washington County | 181743 | 54 | 44 | 49.5 | 49.4 |
| Dakota County | 327677 | 52 | 45.5 | 49 | 50 |
| Ramsey County | 31744 | 59 | 39 | 57 | 42 |
| Goodhue County | 45839 | 48 | 50 | 47 | 51 |
| Rice County | 17381 | 55 | 43 | 53 | 45 |
This is where I began this project as the main goal was how to get rid of Bachmann and make a Dem district. It starts up in Washington county, takes in the Dem areas like Oakdale and Stillwater, cuts into Ramsey county to take in Maplewood, and then includes most of Dakota county where the northern portion is heavily populated suburbs that have heavily trended Democratic (hold all but one state house seat, which we picked up in 06 but lost in 08) while the rest of the county is townships and Republicanism. It takes in swing Goodhue county and blue Rice county, where the colleges of Carleton and St. Olaf rack up margins for the Dems. (Not to be confused with the St. Olaf Rose from Golden Girls is from, there is a St. Olaf township up north in Otter Tail county.)
Bachmann may no longer live in this district as I may have put her in CD4. I know she recently moved to Woodbury, which is the city I gerrymandered. So not sure which part of Woodbury carries that witch but regardless, she wouldn’t be a viable candidate in either CD. I figure her and Kline could have an excellent face off in CD2 in an endorsement and primary. Both have large constituencies in that district, almost 50/50, with maybe a slight edge to Bachmann in amount of former district. So I’d consider this an open seat and it is a total swing district so it could go either Democrat or Republican, with the Dems being a slight favorite, especially in 2012 if Obama can manage another 8% win here.
I first had this district extremely gerrymandered to take in more Democrats but I decided to strengthen the Dems in CD3 in exchange for this CD as there is no way Bachmann can win this district, regardless. Here is a map of what I had before.
| MN-7 Rep. Peterson | Pop. | 2008 | 2008 | 2004 | 2004 |
| Total | 648519 | 47/50 | 47/50 | 43/55.5 | 43/55.4 |
| Pop. | Obama | McCain | Kerry | Bush | |
| Kittson County | 4505 | 58 | 40 | 50 | 49 |
| Traverse County | 3712 | 51 | 46 | 48 | 50 |
| Stevens County | 9624 | 49 | 48 | 47 | 51 |
| Swift County | 11192 | 55 | 42 | 55 | 43 |
| Todd County | 24029 | 43 | 54 | 41 | 57 |
| Yellow Medicine County | 10000 | 51 | 46 | 49 | 50 |
| Lake of the Woods County | 4095 | 42 | 60 | 38 | 60 |
| Marshall County | 9618 | 49 | 48 | 42 | 57 |
| Becker County | 31964 | 45 | 52 | 40 | 58 |
| Polk County | 30708 | 51 | 47 | 43 | 56 |
| Pope County | 11065 | 51 | 47 | 49 | 49 |
| Clearwater County | 8245 | 44 | 54 | 43 | 56 |
| Red Lake County | 4118 | 51 | 45 | 44 | 54 |
| Mahnomen County | 5129 | 61 | 36 | 53 | 45 |
| Pennington County | 13756 | 50 | 48 | 44 | 54 |
| Clay County | 54835 | 57 | 41 | 47 | 52 |
| Otter Tail County | 57031 | 42 | 55 | 37 | 61 |
| Douglas County | 36075 | 44 | 54 | 44 | 54 |
| Grant County | 6021 | 51 | 46 | 49 | 50 |
| Big Stone County | 5385 | 52 | 46 | 50 | 48 |
| Lac qui Parle County | 7258 | 52 | 46 | 53 | 46 |
| Renville County | 16132 | 48 | 49 | 45 | 53 |
| Lyon County | 24695 | 48 | 50 | 42 | 57 |
| Beltrami County | 43609 | 54 | 44 | 50 | 48 |
| Roseau County | 15946 | 40 | 58 | 31 | 68 |
| Chippewa County | 12465 | 52 | 46 | 52 | 47 |
| Wilkin County | 6418 | 45 | 52 | 33 | 65 |
| Sibley County | 15007 | 45 | 52 | 39 | 59 |
| McLeod County | 37220 | 38 | 58 | 37 | 62 |
| Meeker County | 23211 | 43 | 54 | 43 | 56 |
| Kandiyohi County | 40784 | 46 | 52 | 44 | 55 |
| Norman County | 6685 | 62 | 35 | 47 | 51 |
| Hubbard County | 18376 | 42 | 56 | 42 | 57 |
| Wadena County | 13382 | 40 | 58 | 39 | 59 |
| Le Seur County | 28034 | 47 | 51 | 45 | 54 |
| Stearns County | 7785 | 36 | 62 | 35.5 | 63 |
I left CD7 pretty much alone. It’s GOP leaning and always will be, but the DFL is still quite powerful in most of the areas at the local level and it currently has a DFL incumbent, whose got a good decade if not more left until we should expect retirement.
| MN-8 Rep. Oberstar | Pop. | 2008 | 2008 | 2004 | 2004 |
| Total | 649780 | 54/44 | 53/45 | 53/45 | 53/46 |
| Pop. | Obama | McCain | Kerry | Bush | |
| Cook County | 5398 | 60 | 37 | 53 | 45 |
| Lake County | 10741 | 60 | 38 | 60 | 39 |
| St. Louis County | 200528 | 65 | 33 | 65 | 34 |
| Carlton County | 33893 | 62 | 35 | 63 | 36 |
| Pine County | 228164 | 49 | 48 | 50 | 49 |
| Koochiching County | 13459 | 54 | 44 | 50 | 48 |
| Itasca County | 44542 | 55 | 42 | 55 | 44 |
| Cass County | 28723 | 45 | 53 | 43 | 56 |
| Crow Wing County | 61648 | 45 | 53 | 42 | 57 |
| Morrison County | 32733 | 39 | 58 | 41 | 58 |
| Mille Lacs County | 26354 | 45 | 52 | 43 | 55 |
| Kanabec County | 16090 | 44 | 53 | 44 | 55 |
| Aitkin County | 15910 | 48.7 | 48.8 | 48 | 51 |
| Chisago County | 50128 | 44 | 54 | 43 | 56 |
| Benton County | 33623 | 45 | 52 | 45 | 53 |
| Stearns County | 51680 | 53 | 45 | 51 | 48 |
My biggest question was, what should I do with St. Cloud? It’s literally in the middle of extremely conservative Stearns, Benton, and Sherburne counties, it’s Dem but the vote margin is only 2,000, thus not making it worth much in votes considering the county I’d have to attach with it. Benton county provided the smallest GOP margin and CD8 always goes Dem if by a smallish margin at the presidential, so I decided to include it here. By adding this and eliminating Isanti county, it does get a nice Dem bump. Oberstar is safe until retirement and then it will still be safe DFL when open.
Minnesota is going to possibly lose a seat and with a DFL governor, we’ll be able to do some damage. These districts should pass any compactness laws as nothing is gerrymandered beyond unacceptability. My 8 seat map is in the works and near done and both of these maps reflect what I think is possible and appropriate for Minnesota, all Dem seats with one GOP dump district.
I did none of this with a computer program or anything like that. i was fortunate that MN provides all the info I needed to do this with the MnSOS office providing all the vote totals and also precinct maps of every state house seat, which was the main way I broke down the districts by vote and population when I didnt need to break it down to city/township/precinct level. The state legislature websites has excellent maps with the two I used constantly were a map of the all the state house seats that also showed city boundaries which made it my go to map for figuring out my planned geography. More importantly though, a precinct map of the entire state showing election results from dark red to dark blue. I found county population totals for 2007 and when they broke down beyond that point, I wikipediad it which sometimes included 2006 estimates but mainly for 2000 totals and then I used common sense for population movements, figured out the percentage of growth for that county/area, etc to figure out the 2007 population of said city/precinct. There is certainly some error involved in this but nothing that would alter more than a couple precincts here or there and then my map accounts for current population movement as opposed to 2000, little bit of a trade off there.
Everything is recorded in excel spreadsheets, they look like a hot mess.
map with county lines can be found here: http://s635.photobucket.com/al…
I figured I had three options with Minneapolis/St. Paul. 1. Put each in their own CD and have to expand them, which meant expanding into more Dem friendly suburbs, which in turn would mean I would end up strengthening Paulsen. 2. Put them both into the same CD, making one uber D+35-like district which would then leave behind all Dem burbs currently in the two districts plus a little bit of one of the cities. I could then gerrymander two suburban seats into two Dem-leaning districts, most likely. But McCollum lives in a burb just outside of St Paul so while it wouldnt make an Ellison v McCollum, it would mean her district being gerrymandered to be really Dem and then Paulsen would just get beefed up in return as a consequence. I could put Ellison in a suburban district but well, that’d never work for him. McCollum could survive it fine probably. And option 3, which I chose, was to divide up MSP into three districts and pair them with adjacent suburbs, creating 3 solid Dem seats. This was the more devious and fun way to go.
I will say at first, doing it this way REALLY bugged me but I was being politically minded, I looked at this and thought, that would never happen. Quite frankly, I think it would have a decent shot after I’ve sat on it. The map doesn’t look messed up, it puts the cities and suburbs all compactly into three districts and the other districts all make perfect sense. It’s compact, simple, but really does a lot of damage. You just have to get past Minneapolis dominating two districts.
CD1,7,8 all stay heavily rural districts with some exurban areas picked up and CD2 is one huge swath of Republican exurbia.
This map would result in a for sure 6/1 delegation as the seat I eliminated was Bachmann’s and Paulsen’s is now a heavy DFL seat. An open MN-6 would probably make it 5/2 but maybe not.
As for the tables, the first 2008 is new the district’s 2008 total, the second is former districts. I also did the 2004 totals since many of you asked in other redistrictings what they would be. And then are the county totals for each one so one would know where to watch for votes and such.
| MN-1 Rep. Walz | Pop. | 2008 | 2008 | 2004 | 2004 |
| Total | 740228 | 52/47 | 51/47 | 48.5/51 | 47/51 |
| Pop. | Obama | McCain | Kerry | Bush | |
| Houston County | 19515 | 54 | 44 | 48 | 51 |
| Winona County | 49802 | 58 | 52 | 48.8 | 49.3 |
| Watonwan County | 7535 | 53 | 44 | 47.5 | 48 |
| Steele County | 36378 | 46 | 51 | 56 | 43 |
| Dodge County | 19552 | 44 | 54 | 42 | 57 |
| Wabasha County | 21783 | 47 | 50 | 47 | 52 |
| Olmsted County | 76470 | 51 | 47 | 47 | 52 |
| Mower County | 38040 | 60 | 37 | 61 | 38 |
| Freeborn County | 31257 | 57 | 41 | 55 | 44 |
| Waseca County | 19528 | 45 | 53 | 43 | 56 |
| Blue Earth County | 59802 | 55 | 42 | 48 | 51 |
| Nicollet County | 31680 | 54 | 44 | 50 | 49 |
| Dakota County | 121909 | 46 | 52 | 43 | 57 |
MN-1 is now more based in the southeast corner and is almost indentical to the 1990’s lines (it just worked out that way), this makes it 1% more for Obama as the southwestern rural counties are the Republican ones while the southeast is heavily DFL. It now includes some of exurban MSP, but still keeps its rural district title. Walz lives on the edge of the district and should still be quite safe.
| MN-2 OPEN | Pop. | 2008 | 2008 | 2004 | 2004 |
| Total | 736283 | 42/56 | 48/50 | 38/61 | 45/54 |
| Pop. | Obama | McCain | Kerry | Bush | |
| Wright County | 112870 | 40 | 58 | 38 | 61 |
| Scott County | 126642 | 44 | 55 | 40 | 60 |
| Carver County | 75075 | 42 | 57 | 36 | 63 |
| Sherburne County | 78127 | 39 | 60 | 37 | 62 |
| Stearns County | 81037 | 39 | 58 | 38 | 60 |
| Anoka County | 132044 | 41 | 57 | 40 | 59 |
| Washington County | 7336 | 43 | 56 | 39 | 60 |
I combined all the exurban Republican counties from Kline and Bachmann’s districts as they are by far the most Republican in the state and a great population base. Also, the district took in parts of Hennepin county for population and gerrymandering purposes. The areas it picked up are exurban for the most part and are extremely Republican, the Lake Minnetonka cities (but not Minnetonka) and also Maple Grove had to be included, and these suburbs lean pretty heavily GOP, as well.
Kline now lives in CD1 but the city he lives in, Lakeville, borders CD2. I would assume he’d opt to run in the new CD2 as he would certainly not beat Walz and the territory of his included in CD1 are his least favorable counties, and nor would he let Bachmann simply claim CD2 as hers. Bachmann’s district is simply gone and I would assume she’d move to run here, which means that I may not have eliminated Bachmann, but actually strengthened her, depending if she could win the primary. Bachmann could dominate in the caucuses and probably get the GOP endorsement but primary voters would probably be more apt to voting for Kline. This is a consequence we can live with as at least someone got eliminated still and she is a good fundraiser for us.
| MN-3 Rep. Paulsen | Pop. | 2008 | 2008 | 2004 | 2004 |
| Total | 739257 | 61/36 | 52/46 | 57/41.5 | 48/51 |
| Pop. | Obama | McCain | Kerry | Bush | |
| Hennepin County | 489340 | 65 | 33 | 60 | 38 |
| Dakota County | 249917 | 52 | 42 | 51 | 48 |
This district combines Edina, Eden Prarie,, part of Minnetonka, Bloomington, southern Minneapolis and also Eagan in Dakota County. All of the suburbs are trending Democratic with most of the areas in the district voting for Obama, but also voting for Paulsen, except for Bloomington which went Madia. Paulsen lives in Eden Prairie and would be in this district, but would certainly get his ass kicked by just about any Dem challenger. This district is now solid Dem, whatever the political climate.
| MN-4 Rep. McCollum | Pop. | 2008 | 2008 | 2004 | 2004 |
| Total | 739603827 | 60/36 | 64/34 | 58.5/40 | 62/37 |
| Pop. | Obama | McCain | Kerry | Bush | |
| Ramsey County | 499891 | 66 | 32 | 63 | 36 |
| Washington County | 199318 | 53 | 45 | 49 | 50 |
| Dakota County | 22126 | 58 | 39 | 61 | 37 |
| Anoka County | 18098 | 49.2 | 48.6 | 44 | 55 |
This district stays pretty much the same except for it adds most of Washington county. I initially divided MSP up three ways perfectly with some of the St. Paul state house seats going to CD5 but this district then dipped below 60% for Obama. I wanted to maintain at least 60% in CD4&5 so this district maintains all of it’s Ramsey county territory and largely is a St. Paul+burbs district still.
| MN-5 Rep. Ellison | Pop. | 2008 | 2008 | 2004 | 2004 |
| Total | 740611 | 62/35.5 | 74/24 | 60/40 | 71/28 |
| Pop. | Obama | McCain | Kerry | Bush | |
| Hennepin County | 569459 | 65 | 33 | 61 | 37.5 |
| Anoka County | 171152 | 53 | 45 | 49 | 50 |
This district takes in the north half of Minneapolis (where Ellison resides) and includes all the suburbs to the west and then also to the north in Anoka County of Minneapolis, and then also picks up suburbs on the Hennepin/Anoka border and also Blaine. Everything except Maple Grove and Plymouth are Democratic in Hennepin while the Anoka areas vary with Dem leaning to slight Repub suburbs. Keith Ellison is really liberal but doesn’t cause very many waves and would still be safe here.
| MN-6 Rep. Peterson | Pop. | 2008 | 2008 | 2004 | 2004 |
| Total | 737087 | 47/51 | 47/50 | 43/55 | 43/55 |
| Pop. | Obama | McCain | Kerry | Bush | |
| Kittson County | 4505 | 58 | 40 | 50 | 49 |
| Traverse County | 3712 | 51 | 46 | 48 | 50 |
| Stevens County | 9624 | 49 | 48 | 47 | 51 |
| Swift County | 11192 | 55 | 42 | 55 | 43 |
| Todd County | 4378 | 43 | 54 | 41 | 57 |
| Yellow Medicine County | 10000 | 51 | 46 | 49 | 50 |
| Lake of the Woods County | 4095 | 42 | 55 | 38 | 60 |
| Marshall County | 9618 | 49 | 48 | 42 | 57 |
| Becker County | 31964 | 45 | 52 | 40 | 58 |
| Polk County | 30708 | 51 | 47 | 43 | 56 |
| Pope County | 11065 | 51 | 47 | 49 | 49 |
| Clearwater County | 8245 | 44 | 54 | 43 | 56 |
| Red Lake County | 4118 | 51 | 45 | 44 | 54 |
| Mahnomen County | 5129 | 61 | 36 | 53 | 45 |
| Pennington County | 13756 | 50 | 48 | 44 | 54 |
| Clay County | 54835 | 57 | 41 | 47 | 52 |
| Otter Tail County | 57031 | 42 | 55 | 37 | 61 |
| Douglas County | 36075 | 44 | 54 | 44 | 54 |
| Grant County | 6021 | 51 | 46 | 49 | 50 |
| Big Stone County | 5385 | 52 | 46 | 50 | 48 |
| Lac qui Parle County | 7258 | 52 | 46 | 53 | 46 |
| Renville County | 16132 | 48 | 49 | 45 | 53 |
| Lyon County | 24695 | 48 | 50 | 42 | 57 |
| Beltrami County | 43609 | 54 | 44 | 50 | 48 |
| Roseau County | 15946 | 40 | 58 | 31 | 68 |
| Chippewa County | 12465 | 52 | 46 | 52 | 47 |
| Wilkin County | 6418 | 45 | 52 | 33 | 65 |
| Sibley County | 15007 | 45 | 52 | 39 | 59 |
| Kandiyohi County | 40784 | 46 | 52 | 44 | 55 |
| Norman County | 6685 | 62 | 35 | 47 | 51 |
| Hubbard County | 18781 | 42 | 56 | 42 | 57 |
| Wadena County | 13382 | 40 | 58 | 39 | 59 |
| McLeod County | 9603 | 40 | 57 | 36.5 | 62 |
| Meeker County | 23211 | 43 | 54 | 43 | 56 |
| Le Seur County | 28034 | 47 | 51 | 45 | 54 |
| Stearns County | 2465 | 55 | 43 | 49 | 51 |
| Wright County | 4502 | 48 | 50 | 48 | 51 |
| Martin County | 20462 | 41 | 56 | 42 | 57 |
| Brown County | 26013 | 43 | 55 | 37 | 61 |
| Murray County | 8511 | 49 | 48 | 44 | 54 |
| Jackson County | 10883 | 47 | 51 | 46 | 52 |
| Cottwonwood County | 11349 | 46 | 52 | 43 | 56 |
| Nobles County | 20128 | 48 | 50 | 42 | 56 |
| Pipestone County | 9305 | 42 | 55 | 38 | 61 |
| Rock County | 9498 | 42 | 56 | 39 | 60 |
| Faribault County | 14869 | 46 | 51 | 43 | 55 |
| Fillmore County | 21037 | 53 | 44 | 49 | 50 |
| Lincoln County | 5877 | 49 | 48 | 47 | 52 |
| Redwood County | 15519 | 42 | 55 | 38 | 62 |
| Watonwan County | 3487 | 41 | 56 | 38 | 60 |
This is the old MN-7 with it having the same base and will have the same congresscritter. The district had to expand and the only option was into CD1 as CD2 areas are way Republican and the old CD8 is a northern Iron Range district that consistently elect a pretty progressive Dem. (Oberstar is a lot more liberal than one would think based off the district.) I managed to only make this district a tick more Republican, which is pretty good considering the areas to expand were all Republican.
| MN-7 Rep. Oberstar | Pop. | 2008 | 2008 | 2004 | 2004 |
| Total | 737135 | 53/44 | 53/45 | 52/46 | 53/46 |
| Cook County | 5398 | 60 | 37 | 53 | 45 |
| Lake County | 10741 | 60 | 38 | 60 | 39 |
| St. Louis County | 200528 | 65 | 33 | 65 | 34 |
| Carlton County | 33893 | 62 | 35 | 63 | 36 |
| Pine County | 228164 | 49 | 48 | 50 | 49 |
| Koochiching County | 13459 | 54 | 44 | 50 | 48 |
| ItascaCounty | 44542 | 55 | 42 | 55 | 44 |
| Cass County | 28723 | 45 | 53 | 43 | 56 |
| Crow Wing County | 61648 | 45 | 53 | 42 | 57 |
| Morrison County | 32733 | 39 | 58 | 41 | 58 |
| Mille Lacs County | 26354 | 45 | 52 | 43 | 55 |
| Kanabec County | 16090 | 44 | 53 | 44 | 55 |
| Aitkin County | 15910 | 49 | 49 | 48 | 51 |
| Chisago County | 50128 | 44 | 54 | 43 | 56 |
| Isanti County | 38921 | 41 | 56 | 41 | 58 |
| Benton County | 39504 | 44 | 53 | 44 | 55 |
| Stearns County | 62549 | 53 | 46 | 50 | 48 |
| Sherburne County | 8160 | 57 | 40 | 56 | 42 |
| Washington County | 7655 | 43 | 51 | 42 | 57 |
This is the old CD8 with its base up north in Duluth and on the Iron Range. Unlike what many have done, I left it completely intact except by removing Bemidji. I put in St. Cloud and then also included the colleges St. Ben’s and St. John’s which are blue. It was tricky to figure out where to put St. Cloud since it is +2000 votes for Obama but the counties attached to it are all so Republian. The district had to pick up counties south for population and I managed to make it a tick less Republican. Oberstar is safe and so is his successor, House Majority Leader Sertich. He could be speaker if Kelliher runs for governor, and he’s young so it’ll be in our hands for the next 50 years guaranteed.
Loading ...Him endorsing PAYGO and the Democrats getting it passed will down the road lead to the Democrats avoiding a HUGE political issue of allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire. With establishing PAYGO, that means when the Republicans want to pass legislation to extend or make permanent the Bush tax cuts, they will first have to list everything they will cut from the budget. Then, the Democrats will attack the crap out of it obviously and be able to show what actually happens in one, precise way what Republican ideology and governance means.
Over the Bush years, they cut stuff randomly but it wasn’t a big enough ordeal to show what the ideology is all about. But they’d be forced to do a whole package of cuts, how many gazillions were the tax cuts anyway because I’m sure that would be a lot of cutting. And considering we’d hardly be able to pay for stuff as is, this will just be one huge massive, wtf?!!?!?! The Democrats will then be able to battle the tax and spender title as the Republicans will get beat down just as hard for cutting taxes for the rich and using that to cut social programs from the poor, with it being explicit and in writing.
Good move Obama and crew, do it after the stimulus but what about health care? How is that going to happen without massive spending I’m assuming.
Think of future Republican legislation to cut taxes for the rest of history with having to list what they’ll cut AND imagine them having to try to repeal PAYGO as that would be the most hypocritical position to their ideology. With PAYGO, their platform is exposed and will be shot down by the electorate.
New Hampshire’s State Senate voted on a 14-10 vote to pass the new gay marriage bill but the house however, voted it down on a 188-186 vote. They voted afterwards to send it back to the Senate to negotiate a compromise by a vote of 207-168. They did vote down a move to kill the bill altogether so it needs to be put into the context that they voted down the new language of the bill, which is a fluff piece for the religious right.
The bill will be up again in two weeks.
California’s Supreme Court was going to rule tomorrow, but it will no longer be doing so. It was rumored that Newsom requested the court to delay the announced decision as tomorrow is the 30th anniversary of the White Night Riots, which occurred after Harvey Milk and Mayor Mascone’s murder, Dan White was given the lowest penalty and Castro rioted and caused lots of damage.
Newsom’s office has denied that so whatever, it’s still get delayed which means it may not be good news if they are thinking it may cause a riot. But either way, it’ll cause quite a huge response. Expect it to go to the ballot in 2010 and for them to get their shit together. They need to get the minority Congressmembers from LA and Orange counties on board to communicate with the black and Latino community asap. They all way outperform their districts on social issues. I read a great article somewhere where Frank was questioned about minority voters voting for prop 8 and he was like, in Congress, the CBC is the biggest ally for gay rights after us gay members.
Maine has determined the language for the gay marriage amendment that would put on the ballot if Mainers can collect 55087 signatures in 90 days for it to be on the 2010 ballot. It’ll be..
“Do you want to reject the new law that lets same-sex couples marry and allows individuals and religious groups to refuse to perform these marriages?”
I’d assume it’s going to be on the ballot, and it could be close. Anyone from Maine give us any insight?
I would also say the NH House is going to work something out to get it passed. The House passed it already before so it should want to do it again obviously. It’s not dead and we should hope to hear news soon.
Everyone is pretty pessimistic about California but a 2010 ballot to overturn Prop 8 would certainly be in the works.
