Author: DavidNYC

The Census Bureau has released its annual population estimates, so that means the usual players are in the field with their reapportionment projections. First up is Election Data Services. (You can check out their prior studies as well: 2007 | 2008.)

EDS now offers six different projection models. The column headers indicate the range of time used to calculate each projection.

The biggest losers in this new batch of projections are, not too surprisingly, the sun-belt states of Arizona and Florida. Last year, Arizona was expected to gain two seats under every single projection model. Now, in a stark demonstration of how southern migration has slowed in the midst of the Great Recession, the three nearest-term projections all show it picking up just one seat. Meanwhile, Florida, which still looked to gain two seats according to longer-term projections in 2008, now grabs just one new seat under all models.

Other losers include Oregon, which was slated to grab a new district under four of five models last year – it’s off the list entirely this time. North Carolina was in a much more marginal situation in 2008 (gaining a seat under two of five models), and it too drops from the list. Texas shows a teeny bit of wobble, as the longest-term projection now shows it picking up three rather than four seats, but it seems like the odds still favor four. California, on the other hand, stabilizes some more, with four of six models (including all the nearer-term ones) indicating it won’t lose any seats (last time, only two of five did).

The biggest gainers? That would be Missouri, which isn’t on this list at all – and for the Show Me State, that’s a good thing. In 2008, all five models projected a one-seat loss, and in fact, in 2007, all three models did as well. Now EDS thinks Missouri won’t lose any seats. Meanwhile, Washington state is brand-new to the list, gaining a tenth district acoss the board.

Polidata also has an analysis out. They only do one projection, based on the most recent year’s numbers, which matches EDS’s 2008-2009 projection in all respects. They also offer a list of which states barely hang on to their final seats and which states are oh-so-close to nabbing one more:

EDS has a similar chart with “last six/next six” on the final page of their PDF, with different iterations for each of their models. The bottom line is that right now, Missouri looks very lucky and Minnesota looks very unlucky. But given the small numbers involved and the fact that we’re dealing with estimates rather than actuals counts, I would not be surprised at all if things changed by the time we get final numbers in from the 2010 Census.

P.S. Check out Dave’s diary for some more discussion of these new studies.

Could newly-minted turncoat Parker Griffith get teabagged to death? It’s looking like a real possibility. You’d think that if the NRCC could score a party switch (always a big deal), it would come with assurances that the primary field would be swept clear. And just a few years ago, when the Republicans were in the majority and promoting conservatism was equated with supporting Bush, I have no doubt that would have happened. (After all, no GOPers complained when Rodney Alexander changed parties.) But today, with wingnuts demanding absurd levels of purity, it’s a different ballgame:

Madison County Commissioner Mo Brooks (R) said Tuesday afternoon that he won’t be clearing out of the GOP primary in Alabama’s 5th district to make way for Rep. Parker Griffith, who announced earlier in the day that he was switching parties and joining the Republican Conference.

Brooks also warned the Congressman that his party switching ways will not go over well with GOP primary voters, who make up the vast majority of the 48 percent of the 5th district electorate that voted against Griffith in the 2008 general election.

“That’s a tough jury to sell, particularly when you’ve voted with [Speaker] Nancy Pelosi [D-Calif.] 85 percent of the time,” Brooks said. “It’s unbelievably good fortune that Parker Griffith would jump into our pool and want to play. … He has just propelled us to favored candidate status.”

This just goes to show you: You can vote against the Democrats on every single big-ticket item – the stimulus, the Obama budget, cap-and-trade, healthcare, finacial regulatory reform, and even equal pay for women – and they’ll still find something to hit you on. In this case, Mo Brooks is smacking Griffith for his WaPo “Voting with Party” score. Nevermind that Griffith has one of the lowest scores on the list – trying to fight from a defensive crouch is almost always a recipe for failure. The GOP would surely have used this number against him had he stayed a Dem; it’s nice to see he’ll still get whaled on with it as a Republican. (And let that be a lesson to other conservadems who think they can hide behind lousy voting records.)

But don’t worry – Griffith’s new Republican buddies have plenty more ammo:

But just five years ago, Griffith donated $1,500 to the presidential campaign of liberal icon Howard Dean – with one donation coming when Dean’s campaign was already faltering in February 2004.

(Griffith also gave $1,000 to Sen. Harry Reid [D-Nev.] in December 2003 – something his conservative detractors will be sure to point out.)

Howard Dean! LOL! Who knew that me and Grif had so much in common? I was a big Dean supporter back then, too! But I think that even I knew it was time to jump ship by February (hell, his campaign folded in the middle of that month). You can bet that if a guy pretending to be a Southern-fried conservative was at one point a Dean backer, he’s said and done a lot of other libruhl shit over the course of his career. Like this:

A Dem source noted that while all of his back-and-forth with GOPers was going on, Griffith actually took the time to attend the 12/9 DCCC holiday party, an event that featured Speaker Nancy Pelosi. That doesn’t exactly paint the picture of a man wavering in his party commitments.

You can bet that isn’t the only time Grif has hobnobbed with Pelosi. But wait – there’s more! Plenty more. I think Griffith’s primary opponents could run this old ad – courtesy of the NRCC, circa 2008 – without changing a single word:

I know you didn’t think I was done yet. Our compadres at the Club for Growth is happy to Scozzafava good ol’ Grif, too:

Griffith’s voting record is far from conservative, too. Granted, he voted against the Big 4 – Obama’s first budget, the Stimulus, Cap and Trade, and ObamaCare.  However, his vote on the budget is slightly deceptive since he originally voted for 9 of the 12 spending bills that make up the budget.  And he voted against all the Stimulus amendments that would reduce its size.

But just a quick perusal of 2009 shows that he voted  YES on the 2009 pork-filled Omnibus; YES on Cash for Clunkers, NO on waiving the harmful Davis-Bacon provision, and had a pathetic 0% score on the 2009 RePORK Card.

This party switch signals Griffith’s nervousness, but it doesn’t signal that his incumbency is safe.

Zing! I think it’s very possible that it will be easier for Brooks to beat Griffith in a primary rather than a general. The DCCC is squeezing Grif to get back their money (something they did successfully with Rodney Alexander), so that’ll hurt him on the financial front. What’s more, he’s got a bit of a “damned-if-he-do, damned-if-he-don’t” situation on his hands: If the NRCC decides to openly support Griffith, it would almost certainly provide major fodder to the teabaggers – Charlie Crist 2.0. On the flipside, if they don’t back him (very possible, since they have to care more about blue seats than red ones), well, then, he loses out on major institutional backing. Not a good problem to have.

It’s important to remember that to remain a member in good standing of the conservative movement, it isn’t enough just to vote a certain way. You have to evidence a very particular tribal belonging – you need to hate the right people, be ignorant of the right facts, be fearful of the right bogeymen, and be arrogant about the whole enterprise. If you somehow fail this tribal litmus test, it doesn’t matter how right-wing you are – that’s how, for example, a wildly conservative guy like former Rep. Chris Cannon could lose a primary to another wildly conservative maniac.

And Parker Griffith is no Chris Cannon. Good luck, li’l buddy.

Money can’t buy me love. Here are the November fundraising numbers for the six major party committees (October numbers are here):

We’ve added a new column to the chart, “CoH Change.” This just shows how much each committee’s cash-on-hand moved from the prior month, whether positive or negative. As you can see, the RNC spent a ton.

In recent days, several folks have asked for a clearer description of the kind of discourse that’s acceptable at the Swing State Project, and what’s off-limits. Before I get into that, let me explain my personal feelings on the matter. In my not at all humble opinion, I think SSP is one of the best political sites on the Internet, and has been for a long time. A big part of the reason is the comments section – it’s intelligent, civil, thoughtful, and almost entirely free of fights and flamewars. There are good reasons why it is that way, and there are good reasons why it ought to stay that way.

So why are the comments here so great? Well, for one, just based on the general topic of this blog, we attract a lot of very knowledgeable people. But there are plenty of sites out there with super-smart userbases but comment boards that are a total morass. What makes SSP different is focus. We stay relentlessly focused on one subject and one subject only: political horserace analysis. The discussion is always on-point, and you are bound to learn something from reading the comments to every post. What’s more, I think that precisely because it’s not a free-for-all, people are inclined to be more thoughtful in what they say. And it’s a virtuous circle – good comments foster a good site which attracts more good people to visit.

The other thing that makes SSP so excellent – and this something that is both somewhat subconscious and also the thing that people sometimes have the greatest struggles with – is that we strive to be bloodless. What do I mean by that? I think the best analyses tend to avoid a discussion of personal feelings and emotions. We’re trying to describe the political world as it exists – not as what we wish or hope or fear. When we set aside our own emotions, I think we are at are most accurate and astute. On the flipside, when things become heated and emotional, that is when the conversation is most likely to derail.

Now, I am not at all suggesting we never express a personal preference – that would be ridiculous. But it’s important not to let those personal preferences get in the way of clear-eyed analysis. If you like Candidate A more than Candidate B, it’s crucial to be able to step back and acknowledge that Candidate B has a better shot of winning the primary, if that is in fact the case. The same is true for legislation. We don’t debate legislation on the merits here – there are plenty of other sites for that. But to the extent legislation affects the horserace, we need to be able to stand aside from our own feelings and let the cold hard facts take center stage.

I want to be clear: As far as “bloodlessness” goes, I’m not trying to lay out hard-and-fast rules here. Yes, we do have some rules: stick to the horserace; no insults or ad hominems; support your arguments with facts and links. Those are pretty straightforward. The intersection of analysis and emotion is a lot trickier, and we aren’t robots. And we’re also a partisan site, which means it’s generally going to be okay to bash Republicans (though even there, lines can be crossed). It’s usually on our own side of the fence that we run into trouble – primaries or intramural legislative battles.

I’m pretty sad and disappointed that I once again have to perform my least favorite activity. After the derail in this thread, I’ve suspended several users for a week. Those accounts will have access restored next Saturday. Also, one user who had received repeated warnings not to engage in derails (and promised me several times that he would stop doing so) has been permanently banned for his participation in this latest derail.

I will at some point put together an FAQ of some sort outlining my vision for the site. But everyone involved in that thread was a longtime user who knew exactly what was and wasn’t okay here. There weren’t many political sites you could go to during the 2007-2008 presidential primaries and avoid the ceaseless wars between competing factions. SSP was one of those few. And this site will remain a haven for all its days, whether it’s healthcare or some other contentious, emotional issue that crops up.

First, please follow our new-and-improved Twitter feed. Rather than have our RSS feed automatically pump out each post, we now lovingly handcraft our tweets from the finest artisanal electrons. So follow SSP today.

Second, if you haven’t already seen it, check out our awesome redistricting contest. There’s babka in it for the winner (natch). UPDATE: Check it out – we have our first entry, from MattTX2. Nice work!

And finally, check out Carly Fiorina addressing her supporters in Bakersfield, Calif.:

Carlyfornia dreaming indeed.

Now that we’ve finally been able to name a winner in our 2009 predictions contest, we’re ready to open up some new frontiers. Check it out:

The Short Version: Redistrict New York state so that your map would likely elect at least 26 Democrats and no more than two Republicans. Post your plan as a diary. Win babka.

The Long Version: Dave (of Dave’s Redistricting App) and Jeffmd have been hard at work implementing partisan political data for New York, and the results have recently gone live. So you have from now until Sunday night, January 10th, at midnight Eastern in which to post a diary containing your maps & descriptions. Jeff, who has graciously agreed to judge this contest, will then decide which plan he deems “best.” There are a few criteria which I’ll detail below, and those have to be met in order for your plan to be eligible. But as far as what constitutes the “best” plan, well… this is going to be something like an art contest, and the judge’s sense of aesthetics will rule the day. After all, redistricting is as much art as it is science!

Here are the criteria to follow:

0) Not that we would expect anyone to do otherwise, but you have to use Dave’s Redistricting App.

1) You must have 28 districts of equal population size, within ~±1% of the ideal district size of 700,334 (i.e., any district between 693,331 and 707,337 will work).

2) You must draw seats for at least 26 Democrats – 26-2, 27-1, and 28-0 plans are all acceptable.

3) Assume that all current incumbents are re-elected in 2010. You will therefore have to eliminate at least one incumbent’s district.

4) Your over-arching goal should be to shore up all Democratic seats which are potentially vulnerable. If you choose to eliminate an incumbent Democrat’s district, the trade-off should mean bluer districts for remaining incumbents.

5) Not a requirement, but bonus points for screwing Peter King in some fashion

6) Water contiguity is permitted (bonus points for connecting along bridges).

7) Touch-point contiguity is not permitted. (Touch-point contiguity occurs when two geographical units only meet each other at a single point. Think of the famous “Four Corners” in the American southwest: Arizona and Colorado share touch-point contiguity, as do New Mexico and Utah.)

8) VRA compliance is required. VRA-compliant districts should be centered around the geographic areas covered by the the present-day districts listed below. These districts may be re-numbered and re-shaped however you see fit, so long as your final plan includes districts which meet the criteria below. They may also be combined & re-fashioned, especially in the case of NY-10 and NY-11.

We won’t require strict adherence to any particular set of numbers, but these are probably pretty decent guidelines:

     • NY-06 area (Jamaica, St. Albans, Springfield Gardens, Far Rockaway): 50%+ African-American

     • NY-10 area (Bed-Stuy, Canarsie, East New York, Downtown Brooklyn): 50%+ African-American

     • NY-11 area (Crown Heights, Brownsville, Park Slope, Flatbush): 50%+ African-American

     • NY-12 area (Greenpoint, Bushwick, Glendale, Lower East Side): 48%+ Hispanic

     • NY-15 area (Harlem, Spanish Harlem, Upper West Side, Washington Heights): Majority-minority

     • NY-16 area (South Bronx, Morrisania, High Bridge, Port Morris): 60%+ Hispanic

9) All 28 districts must be described in your writeup. Each district writeup must include:

     • A list of any current incumbents whose homes are in that district. If more than one incumbent lives in a district, you must describe whom you think the district “belongs” to.

     • A brief narrative summary of major counties, cities, towns, and/or neighborhoods encompassed by the district. This list need not – and should not – be exhaustive. It should just hit the high points.

     • Demographic information about racial breakdowns by percentage.

     • 2008 presidential election results, both for the new district and the old district (to the extent there is a corresponding old district).

     • Total population.

10) Your writeup must include maps sufficient to show all 28 districts with reasonable detail. Use zoomed-in maps for densely populated areas. Please make maps no more than 590 pixels wide – any larger and they break the site’s formatting on many monitors. But by all means link to full-size images.

11) Your map can be as gerrymandered or as compact as you wish. Bonus points for creativity.

12) Only one entry per user – but you can post your diary at any time during the contest period (again, until midnight Eastern time on Sunday, Jan. 10th).

13) Please email your saved .DRF.XML to Jeff (jeffmd [at] swingstateproject [dot] com). Dave has instructions for locating your file in his help file (scroll down to the section “Saved Files”), for Mac OS, Windows XP, and Windows Vista. Do not post this file online.

If you have any questions or need any clarifications, please feel free to ask in comments. To the winner goes the babka!

P.S. To assist you, a list of each represenative’s area of residence is below the fold. If you have more detailed information about any of them, please let us know in comments.

UPDATE: Please put the phrase “Contest Entry:” at the start of your diary title, and please also put the tag “redistricting contest” in your tags.

Also, here’s a helpful map of NYC neighborhoods (warning: large PDF).

UPDATE 2: There are special instructions for turning on the political (Obama vs. McCain) data:

To access this new data, you need to check the “Use Test Data” checkbox in the upper right corner of the app before selecting New York State. (Because the data format is different than I have been using, I’ve separated it into a separate directory on the server.)

We’ve been patiently waiting for the New York State Board of Elections to certify the results of the NY-23 special election so that we could name the winners of our 2009 predictions contest. Well, the numbers are finally in, so here we are! But first, thanks as always to everyone who participated. We received 110 valid entries, which is about as many as we had in 2008. Not bad for an off-year election!

If you are listed as a winner, send me an email and I will send you a super-delicious Green’s babka posthaste. Without further ado:

Congratulations to all the winners! If you’d like to find out how you did, please click here. The average score was 29. KainIIIC, Tiger in Blue Denver, and overall winner Zeitgeist9000 nailed NY-23 exactly (average error: 7). No one got NJ-Gov on the nose, though GoodWellOK and third-place finisher pinhickwv were off by just one point (average error: 9). Six folks got VA-Gov (second-place finisher andyroo312, brownsox, gabjoh, GOPVOTER, PropJoe & Zeitgeist9000, once again), while seven got ME-Init (bennytoothpick, David Kowalski, DGM

GoodWellOK, Lois, Mark & stevenaxelrod). (Average errors were 5 and 7, respectively.) Also, only one person correctly picked the victors of all four races. NJCentrist rightly named Owens, Christie, McDonnell and “Yes” as the winners of the four big 2009 races. Nice going!

In any event, props once again to our winners, and thanks once more to all who participated. If you didn’t win this time, have no fear – one thing I can predict is that there will be more babka in the very near future!

Speculation about outgoing NYC Comptroller Bill Thompson’s future has been all over the place. Rumors include a run for state comptroller, a run for Charlie Rangel’s House seat, a second run for mayor in 2013, or a primary challenge to appointed Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand. That last possibility is the subject of two new polls, which offer widely differeing results.

Quinnipiac (12/7-13, registered voters, no trendlines):

Kirsten Gillibrand (D-inc): 28

Bill Thompson (D): 41

Other: 1

Undecided: 28

(MoE: ±3.7%)

As you might expect, Thompson cleans up among black voters, 65-11. Interestingly, he also leads among women, 39-28. Gillibrand gets good favorables among Democrats (34-7), but Thompson, probably by virtue of his recent mayoral campaign, is even better known among members of his own party (45-6). In the state as a whole, both Dems have pretty low name rec, with Gillibrand at just 26-15 faves and Thompson at 25-10. (This almost certainly explains why both are shown losing to non-candidate Rudy Giuliani – Gillibrand is down 50-40, and Thompson is down 52-36.)

Siena (PDF) (12/6-9, registered voters, no trendlines):

Kirsten Gillibrand (D-inc): 32

Bill Thompson (D): 23

Harold Ford (D): 7

Jonathan Tasini (D): 3

Undecided: 35

(MoE: ±5.5%)

Somewhat hilariously, Siena tested Harold Ford (yeah, that Harold Ford) – hopefully this is the last we’ll hear of that nonsense. In any event, while the Dem head-to-head margins diverge considerably, both pollsters show Gillibrand with similar levels of support. Also, some of the favorables (PDF) don’t look too different. Gillibrand is 31-22 overall and 35-18 among Dems, while Thompson is at 25-17 and 32-16 (that last number differs the most). Gillibrand nets similar numbers against Rudy (49-42), but edges Pataki (46-43), while Thompson loses 56-34 and 49-36, respectively.

So it’s hard to say what exactly is going on here. Polling folks with such low name recognition can be tricky. What’s more, neither Siena nor Quinnipiac divulges their sample composition (come on, guys), so we can’t judge who best has their finger on the pulse of the state. I’ll also note that Siena had a smaller sample than Q – exactly how small, I’m not sure, because they didn’t reveal their Dem-only sample size. But Quinnipiac tested more Dems (719) than Siena’s entire sample (665). (UPDATE: Siena’s Dem sample size was 315.) Anyhow, this may all be moot if Thompson doesn’t take the plunge, but food for thought nonetheless.

And we’re here to serve it up – or hide it in the dryer. Rasmussen (12/15, likely voters, 10/19 in parens):

Charlie Crist (R): 43 (49)

Marco Rubio (R): 43 (35)

Some other: (5) (4)

Not sure: 9 (12)

(MoE: ±5%)

It’s a tie game. Maybe this explains why Charlie Crist didn’t celebrate his first anniversary with his wife – the campaign is clearly demanding too much from him.