Author: Englishlefty

Idaho has, as Nathaniel90 put it, a shot at “the prize of least interesting congressional redistricting process of the decade.” The current ID-1 and ID-2 are R+18 and R+17 and the minor revisions they’ll receive will not change this to any great extent.

On the other hand, at current growth rates there’s an outside chance that Idaho will receive a third congressional district after 2020, and almost certainly after 2030. And that’s where things get interesting.

Idaho is a fast-growing state. 6 counties saw growth of above 25% between April 2000 and July 2009, including the three largest counties of Ada, Canyon and Kootenai and for the state as a whole population increased by an impressive 19.5%.

But this growth is unevenly distributed, being much more notable in urban than in rural counties, higher in the Panhandle than in central and eastern Idaho and highest of all in the Boise-Nampa Metropolitan area in south-western Idaho.

Given that the growth is here and that the area will contain around half the state’s population, it’d be natural to locate a third congressional district here.

Republicans would be unlikely to be keen, as whilst McCain won all but 3 small counties in the state, Obama’s next best county was the state’s biggest, Boise. If portions of this were combined with (the admittedly very conservative) fast-growing Canyon County to its north-west, you’d have a district a garden-variety of insane Republican could lose and not just a Bill Sali kind of insane Republican.

Yet whilst Republicans dominate the state, Idaho opted for bipartisan redistricting in the 1990s. Democrats and Republicans both name three representatives to a commission that draws the maps and with Republicans often divided between the lunatic fringe and more mainstream conservatives, Democratic power on the commission is even more disproportionate to their popular support than the numbers would suggest.

I therefore suggest than if Idaho receives a third seat in 2020, the commission will draw a very compact Boise-Meridian-Nampa-Caldwell district that would rival WA-7 as the smallest district in the northwest. This would likely be a fair fight district, and in retaliation Republicans would almost certainly try to reintroduce partisan redistricting.

Read on for the districts themselves and methodology.

To estimate the 2020 population of Idaho and its distribution, I took the April 2000 population of each county. I then recorded its growth up to July 2009 (as the 2010 numbers aren’t yet out) and extrapolated this out to April 2020.

I only split two counties, namely Ada and Canyon, but here I encountered some problems. The city of Boise itself has enjoyed only modest growth, whereas other cities have nearly doubled in size in the past decade. It’s unlikely this will be allowed to continue unimpeded for another decade, but by the same token other smaller cities will be likely to experience explosive growth.

Rather than trying to model this, I took the cop-out option of working out what proportion of the two counties I needed to draw into other districts to achieve population equality, then removing them based on the population in Dave’s Redistricting App. This is not a rigorous method and will undoubtedly be out by several thousand in the final analysis, but it did at least allow a rough picture of the likely districts to be drawn.

ID-1

2000 population: 466396

Estimated current population: 524907

Estimated 2020 population: 614623

This district combines the Idaho panhandle with most of the Treasure Valley and a couple of rural counties thrown in for population equality.

It’s slightly oversized because it made the mental arithmetic slightly easier, but moving one block group would fix that and there are plenty of suitable ones around Boise.

Guaranteed safe Republican.

ID-2

2000 population: 360291

Estimated current population: 486060

Estimated 2020 population: 610485

From Boise in north-central Ada County this heads west along I-84 (west) until Caldwell, taking in Meridian and Nampa along the way. For the most part the Boise River is the northern boundary, but it heads beyond that to take in northern parts of the capital as well as the town of Eagle.

As the scale shows, it’s probably only around 200 square miles and hence takes up less than a quarter of a percent of the state’s land area.

Probably leans Republican, but a lot less so than the other two districts.

ID-3

2000 population: 467289

Estimated current population: 534835

Estimated 2020 population: 613230

This district fits communities of interest surprisingly well, as it takes in all of eastern Idaho and the Magic Valley as well as the Wood River Valley.

It would also include the rest of central Idaho, but I had to remove Custer and Lemhi counties to ID-1 for population reasons. This is a shame, as they have no road connections in that direction. However, if, as seems likely, population in rural eastern counties continues to decline, it might be possible to include them in this district in a 2020 map.

Would be monolithically Republican, even if it wasn’t even more Mormon than the present ID-2 already is.

Republicans had a great night in Pennsylvania this November, which makes drawing a decent map for them really hard.

The problem for them is, fundamentally, that they won in all the wrong places. They knocked off Carney and Kanjorski, whereas if they’d taken only one of them they could have packed the survivor’s district and used the redder bits of his district to make Charlie Dent a little later. They held PA-6 and took back PA-7 and PA-8, meaning that it’s that much harder to protect their representatives in the suburban Philadelphia area, whereas if the Dems had held one seat then it would have been possible to shift the other districts further from the city.

And they didn’t knock off Critz or Altmire, meaning that they’ll have to work a little harder to give them unwinnable districts.

All in all, they’d have a lot more options for the coming redistricting if they’d won a few less districts and if more of them had been in western PA.

But what’s done is done. Republicans can enjoy their gains for now and they’ll just have to work to try to keep them – because there’s no way they’ll willingly concede seats in the next redistricting.

This map is an attempt to strengthen the Republican freshmen and to eliminate the last two Democratic representative in western Pennsylvania outside Pittsburgh. By giving Tim Holden a reasonably strong Democratic district, it frees up enough red territory to give the Republicans a fighting chance of a 13-5 advantage out of the state.

But this is not without risk. McCain got beaten by ten points in Pennsylvania and five Republicans in this new map will represent districts he lost. If they all flipped, Democrats would have a 10-8 advantage out of the state. If Joe Pitts can’t adapt to his new district, it could be as bad as 11-7.

On the other hand, it’s almost impossible to defend all twelve Republican congressmen in the state effectively. This map improves the prospects of each Republican in a district Obama won by at least four points net. I won’t pretend this map doesn’t have weaknesses, but it’s probably the best the Republicans can do.

As an added challenge, I endeavoured to keep townships together, as I don’t think the advantage gained by splitting them outweighs the negative press received for doing so. This doesn’t apply in Philadelphia, as the Republicans have no reason to care about a backlash there.

I would have like to be able to give Sestak-Toomey results, as it’d establish how safe these seats would be in a good year (i.e. if Joe Pitts’ district would still have been a bit marginal this year then he might be in trouble either way), but sadly not all counties have put up results by precinct yet. Most have, but several important ones like Montgomery and Erie haven’t, so sadly we lack that method of double-checking.

PA-1

Incumbent: Bob Brady

Population	White	Black	Hispanic	Asian
684861	35	50	8	5

	Obama %	McCain %
Old lines	88	12
New lines	87	12
% change	-1%	+0%

Like I said, redistricting isn’t going to be as much fun for the Republicans as it might have been. If they want to enjoy themselves, they’ll have to make their own entertainment.

In this map I represented that by drawing the new PA-1 as minority-majority (which the Republicans would be mad not to try for, as with no retrogression they can create two Democratic vote sinks that will be almost impossible to eliminate).

I also noted that according to his candidate petitions Bob Brady lives in Ward 34 Precinct 34, which is on the very western edge of West Philadelphia. I therefore slipped it into Allyson Schwartz’s district.

Now, Bob Brady is quite capable of moving a few blocks back into the district, assuming election law actually requires him to. And he’s represented a minority-majority district for long enough that making it 50% black won’t have him quaking in his boots. But still, Republicans have to get their giggles somehow. And spite is the gift that keeps on giving.

The district itself is somewhat less interesting. It keeps its strip through southern Delaware County to Chester, as well as the areas of Darby, Yeadon and Sharon Hill, and combines these these with south, west and central Philadelphia, together with portions of north Philly and much of Kensington.

PA-2

Incumbent: Chaka Fattah

Population	White	Black	Hispanic	Asian
685048	34	50	10	3

	Obama %	McCain %
Old lines	90	10
New lines	88	12
% change	-2%	+2%

Chaka Fattah is harder to draw out, so Republicans will have to settle for just giving him the biggest district in the state population-wise.

There’s very little to say about this district. It narrowly remains above 50% black and takes in the rest of Philadelphia, bar small portions of the Northeast and Northwest. Much of it is new to Fattah, but I can’t imagine him facing too many problems with it.

PA-3 (was PA-13)

Incumbent: Allyson Schwartz, Bob Brady, Patrick Murphy

Population	White	Black	Hispanic	Asian
681192	83	8	3	4

	Obama %	McCain %
Old lines	59	41
New lines	64	35
% change	+5%	-6%

It’d be much easier to pack the Democratic vote if the Philadelphia suburbs hadn’t elected so many Republicans this year. As a result, the task is largely left to Schwartz, who gets a district that’s absolutely safe in the hope she doesn’t get ideas like running for governor any time soon.

I’ve renumbered the districts, because if you’re going to gerrymander you should at least care enough to cover your tracks by numbering the districts in a vaguely logical order (even if my order does involve flying betwen north and south Pennsylvania like a fairground ride.)

The district keeps its core in southern Montgomery County and Northeast Philadelphia, although much of northern Montgomery is moved elsewhere. To this it adds Northwest Philadelphia west of Wissahickon Creek and north of Cresheim Creek, plus Bensalem southern parts of Levitttown in Bucks County. In doing so, it also mops up the home of Patrick Murphy, in an attempt to keep him out of Fitzpatrick’s hair.

PA-4 (was PA-8)

Incumbent: Mike Fitzpatrick

Population	White	Black	Hispanic	Asian
682279	92	2	2	2

	Obama %	McCain %
Old lines	54	45
New lines	52	47
% change	-2%	+2%

Fitzpatrick’s district is improved by four points net and Murphy is removed from his district. That said, it’s not all smiles for him.

Swapping southern Bucks for reddish or marginal parts of eastern and northern Montgomery helps him a little. On the other hand, he could be helped a lot more if the last 35,000 of his population requirement didn’t have to be filled by taking Easton off Charlie Dent’s hands.

This district is slightly more Republican than the nation as a whole, and if Fitzpatrick endears himself to his constituents he could well survive. On the other hand, he has to be hoping Sarah Palin gets nowhere near the Republican nomination. The last thing he needs in 2012 is a combination of presidential year turnout and a candidate guaranteed to drive suburban voters into voting for Democrats.

PA-5 (was PA-6)

Incumbent: Jim Gerlach, Manan Trivedi

Population	White	Black	Hispanic	Asian
680512	90	3	3	3

	Obama %	McCain %
Old lines	58	41
New lines	53	46
% change	-5%	+5%

Jim Gerlach is never going to be entirely safe, but this district might give him a bit of extra comfort for a couple of cycles.

Like Fitzpatrick, he has to help Dent out in the Lehigh Valley, in Gerlach’s case grabbing Bethlehem plus southern portions of Lehigh and Northampton counties. Nevertheless, these areas aren’t overwhelmingly blue and in all other cases boundary changes are in his favour.

He gives up much of Chester County to let the new PA-6 through and abandons Reading and its most Democratic suburbs to Tim Holden.

In return, he picks up absolutely blood-red, 70-30 McCain areas in northwest Berks and northeast Lancaster, which are less likely to turn blue suddenly than his current suburban turf.

PA-6 (was PA-7)

Incumbent: Pat Meehan

Population	White	Black	Hispanic	Asian
679961	90	5	2	3

	Obama %	McCain %
Old lines	56	43
New lines	51	48
% change	-5%	+5%

Pat Meehan is probably the big winner on this map, which is largely accidental, as I figured that if there had to be a Republican casualty in the southeast, he’d be first in line as a freshman who hadn’t previously served in Congress.

His district moves a net ten points towards Republicans. Well, I say his district. Rather than being centred on Delaware County, it now draws less than 250,000 from that source. In the process, it has offloaded the homes of Sestak and Bryan Lentz to Joe Pitts’ district.

It makes up for this by heading west through the central parts of Chester county, turning northwestwards and heading through Lancaster county into southern Lebanon county and eastern Dauphine county, finishing up in the outer suburbs of Harrisburg.

With no part of the district outside Delaware County large enough to provide a base for primary challengers and with a lot of new turf that won’t turn blue in a hurry, Pat Meehan can afford to feel very pleased with himself.

Until he realises that Obama still won this district, so he can’t feel entirely comfortable.

PA-7 (was PA-16)

Incumbent: Joe Pitts, Joe Sestak, Bryan Lentz

Population	White	Black	Hispanic	Asian
681623	91	4	3	1

	Obama %	McCain %
Old lines	48	51
New lines	49	51
% change	+1%	+0%

Although he represents the first district we’ve yet seen that McCain won, Joe Pitts is probably the biggest Republican loser on this map.

It’s not drastic in terms of pure partisanship. Obama improves by only 1% compared to the old lines. But whilst he’s dropped Reading and Lancaster and picked up reliably red turf in southern York County, he’s also absorbed a little over 200,000 new largely Democratic voters in Delaware County.

If he’s ready to adapt himself to a more suburban audience, he’ll do fine. McCain won the new district and it’s likely Bush did so with huge margins. But if he can’t do that and if Joe Sestak fancies running for Congress again, there could be problems for Pennsylvania Republicans.

PA-8 (was PA-17)

Incumbent: Tim Holden

Population	White	Black	Hispanic	Asian
683263	77	9	10	2

	Obama %	McCain %
Old lines	48	51
New lines	56	43
% change	+8%	-8%

This isn’t, I will admit, a pretty district, but it’s a functional one. The cities of Lancaster, Harrisburg, Lebanon, Pottsville and Reading are joined by stretches of extremely red countryside, forming the semblance of an M, then parts of central Schuykill are shoved in to make sure Holden runs here.

A community of interest district of south-eastern Pennsylvanian cities that don’t simply look to Philadelphia is created, Tim Holden gets a much safer district, but a progressive enough one for him to be troubled in the primary and Republicans get to take vast red areas from his current district, as well not having to face up to him in the general election. Everybody wins, except the 30% Obama areas that get their voting preferences drowned out by the cities.

PA-9 (was PA-15)

Incumbent: Charlie Dent

Population	White	Black	Hispanic	Asian
681623	88	3	7	1

	Obama %	McCain %
Old lines	56	43
New lines	54	45
% change	-2%	+2%

This district isn’t as much as an improvement as some, but Charlie Dent won’t be too disappointed. His new territory in the Poconos went for Obama, but Pat Toomey won it by over 5,000 votes and the Coal County portions of the district went narrowly for McCain.

In the old core of the district, meanwhile, his margins are hardly hurt by exchanging Easton and Bethlehem (and his last challenger) for red bits of north Berkshire County is hardly going to hurt.

Of course, Dent has always won fairly easily by keeping his head down and he might suffer some backlash from this fairly deliberate attempt to carve up the Lehigh Valley. But I doubt that’ll do him enough damage to cancel out the four-point net Republican improvement in this district.

PA-10 (was PA-11)

Incumbent: Lou Barletta

Population	White	Black	Hispanic	Asian
680221	97	1	1	1

	Obama %	McCain %
Old lines	57	42
New lines	52	47
% change	-5%	+5%

Let’s be honest here – Paul Kanjorski was a terrible candidate. He nearly lost a district that Obama won by fifteen points in 2008, and followed that up by a ten-point defeat against the same opponent in 2010, whilst Joe Sestak carried the district by four points.

Given a better year for Democrats and a better candidate like Corey O’Brien, Barletta could be in real trouble. The district is therefore heavily reconfigured. Swingy Carbon and Monroe Counties are given to Dent, whilst in Lackawanna County it abandons Scranton (and O’Brien’s residence in Moosic) to the 11th, whilst absorbing most of the 11th (old 10th)’s portions of Lackawanna County, as well as the entirety of Wyoming County.

In the south-west of the district, it expands to take in much of the Coal Region, including the entirety of Northumberland and Montour counties, northern Dauphin and northwest Schuykill.

It’s still a district Obama won, although the margin is slightly less than he managed nationally. But without the Democratic juggernaught of Scranton and with downscale and monolithically white coal counties which ought to be sympathetic to his immigrant-baiting populism, Barletta might just have a chance of holding on past 2012.

PA-11 (was PA-10)

Incumbent: Tom Marino, Chris Carney, Corey O’Brien

Population	White	Black	Hispanic	Asian
680774	94	2	1	1

	Obama %	McCain %
Old lines	45	54
New lines	46	53
% change	+1%	-1%

Chris Carney performed very strongly in his portion of Lackawanna County, but he got beaten by at least ten points everywhere else. There’s no great shame in that, as they’re all red counties and he outperformed Joe Sestak by at least 5% in every single one of them, but he did lose pretty big.

Carney initially won by the simple expedient of running in a very strong Democratic year and facing an incumbent who choked his mistress. He retained his position in 2008 by maintaining a very conservative voting record. But this isn’t a very Democratic district and Marino ought to be able to hold on here with ease.

I therefore didn’t feel any great need to concentrate on making Marino too safe. I gave him the rest of Lycoming County to build his base and he also picked up Perry, Juniata and Mifflin counties, which whilst small are also the most Republican in Pennsylvania. These advantages, however, are more than outweighed by the loss of Wyoming County, the addition of a section of Centre County (including State College) that went for Obama by 15 points and Scranton.

Obama won the Lackawanna parts of the district by 32 points. McCain won the rest by 13 points. So it’s not like my attempts at diluting Scranton’s votes are subtle. But it ought to work, especially since Carney’s path to a rematch is likely to be blocked by a primary with a Lackawanna Democrat and since many of the primary voters will be further to the left than the Blue Dog Carney.

PA-12 (was PA-19)

Incumbent: Todd Russell Platts

Population	White	Black	Hispanic	Asian
682014	92	3	3	1

	Obama %	McCain %
Old lines	43	56
New lines	41	58
% change	-2%	+2%

I didn’t set out to strengthen Platts, but given the strength of the red turf around him it was hard not to. His district loses much of York County to give Joe Pitts a chance and compensates by grabbing the rest of Cumberland County plus Franklin County.

Except for York and a very few Harrisburg suburbs, there’s pretty much no Democratic strength in the district.

That said, it’s neither an overly cohesive nor a pretty-looking district. Franklin County doesn’t really belong in s South Central Pennsylvania district and the lines in York are as bad as they are because I had to preserve Platts’ home in the district.

If Republicans pick a more cautious option, expect them to concede a seat in the Delaware County area and combine Pitts with Platts. Platts’ occasional outbursts of sanity would surely doom him in the primary and it’d be possible to draw much neater lines.

For that matter, I wouldn’t be shocked if Republicans drew Platts out of here anyway and replaced him with somebody more reliably obstructive.

PA-13 (was PA-9)

Incumbent: Bill Shuster, Mark Critz

Population	White	Black	Hispanic	Asian
680879	96	2	1	0

	Obama %	McCain %
Old lines	35	63
New lines	42	57
% change	+7%	-6%

Removing Mark Critz really isn’t that difficult. He lives in Johnstown and derives his margin of victory from parts of Cambria County plus the towns along the Monongahela River.

By throwing all of Cambria County into the new 13th, which otherwise takes only a few small and red-leaning parts of Armstrong and Indiana from the old 12th, he’s left with a district a net fourteen points more Republican than the one he currently has. Meantime, Shuster keeps all his old base.

Otherwise, this district is basically just a much less ugly version of the old 9th. County fragments are reduced, with the district no longer taking in any of Fayette or heading north-west through the Appalachians towards Harrisburg. Spurs towards the Allegheny Plateau and Pittsburgh make it a little less compact than it might otherwise have been, but it’s a long way from the worst district on this map.

In the process, it goes from being a 35% Obama to a 42% Obama district, but there’s really not much need for an R+17 district in Pennsylvania. R+10 or so is fine.

PA-14 (was PA-5)

Incumbent: G. T. Thompson, Kathy Dahlkemper

Population	White	Black	Hispanic	Asian
683996	95	3	1	0

	Obama %	McCain %
Old lines	44	55
New lines	46	52
% change	+2%	-3%

The most populous district designed for a Republican, this district remains broadly similar to the old 5th, it just shifts a county or so north-west.

In the process, the city of Erie is drawn into the district. Without Erie, the district is actually even more Republican than before (the removal of State College to the 11th helps). With it, the district moves towards the blue team, although as there’s a lack of Democratic strength anywhere in it outside the north-west of the district, it shouldn’t be overly vulnerable.

Kathy Dahlkemper lives here, but most of the district is new to her and the rest of the district could be won by just about any Democrat, so there’s no reason to assume she’d be the obvious 2012 challenger.

PA-15 (was PA-3)

Incumbent: Mike Kelly

Population	White	Black	Hispanic	Asian
681691	94	4	1	0

	Obama %	McCain %
Old lines	49	49
New lines	47	51
% change	-2%	+2%

I know almost nothing about Mike Kelly, so if he’s a complete nutter then you might need to give him a safer district. If he’s at least somewhat sub-Bachmann, however, this district, which maintains the core of the old 3rd, ought to be defensible by him.

Residual Democratic strength in Lawrence and Beaver Counties might cause him a little problem initially, but at least on a presidential level Democratic strength is already limited to the areas bordering the Ohio, Beaver and Shenango rivers, and if he’s still around by the end of the decade then Democratic strength in western PA may be a bygone memory.

PA-16 (was PA-4)

Incumbent: Jason Altmire, Keith Rothfus

Population	White	Black	Hispanic	Asian
682825	96	2	1	1

	Obama %	McCain %
Old lines	44	55
New lines	42	57
% change	-2%	+2%

Altmire just hung on this year, but the unwinding of Democratic strength in the west will make his job a little harder everyday. This map just aims to make it that little bit harder.

Beaver and Lawrence counties, which still vote Democratic downticket, are replaced by large chunks the considerably more Republican Westmoreland County. Of the seven state representatives representing Westmoreland-based districts in the general assembly, Democrats hold two that was uncontested and one that was contested this year, Republicans hold three (including one gain), whilst the seventh representative was nominated by both parties, so the downticket trend is clearly well-advanced there.

In Allegheny, most of the land north of Pittsburgh and the rivers is taken, except for a small area in the north-east that I dumped into the 13th. South of the Ohio, a thin line of swingy tonwships is also taken to help out Tim Murphy.

This might not finish off Altmire entirely – you’d need to dissect his base and doing so could endanger somebody else – but it’ll make his life more difficult and make him that much more vulnerable to bad Democratic years.

His 2010 challenger, Keith Rothfus, remains in the district, but other and more intimidating candidates might emerge.

PA-17 (was PA-14)

Incumbent: Mike Doyle

Population	White	Black	Hispanic	Asian
684659	74	21	1	2

	Obama %	McCain %
Old lines	70	29
New lines	69	30
% change	-1%	+1%

Doyle’s district maintains its original core of the city of Pittsburgh and some close suburbs, but to achieve population equality and to screw over Mark Critz whilst protecting Tim Murphy, it then heads down the Monongahela valley, taking in parts of Allegany, Washington, Westmoreland, Fayette and Green counties and reaching almost to the West Virginia border. No townships are split, which is the reason the district becomes slightly less Democratic.

The district remains entirely safe, and the other half of Mark Critz’s base is securely esconced in a Democratic district.

PA-18

Incumbent: Tim Murphy

Population	White	Black	Hispanic	Asian
683653	95	2	1	1

	Obama %	McCain %
Old lines	44	55
New lines	46	53
% change	+2%	-2%

Murphy takes, somewhat obviously, everything that’s left. This basically consists of non-riverine portions of Fayette, Greene and Washington, south-east Westmoreland and much of south and south-west Allegheny.

Whilst it does get a little more Democratic, Murphy has represented most of this area for long enough not to face too many problems.

–  –  –  –  –  –  –  –

I think it will have become clear by now where the major weaknesses with the map lie. How long can the GOP hold on to suburban Philadelphia seats that are trending against them, and would it be smarter just to give them up? How do you get three Republicans out of the Lehigh Valley and the north-east without making yourself very vulnerable to waves? Is it safe to split Erie County? How much do you have to weaken Altmire to guarantee his defeat? How much duct tape will be needed to shut up Joe Pitts?

I’d guess that at some point towards 2020 this map will be 10-8 Republican at best. It could get even worse. But I can’t see them abandoning any of their incumbents, so they have relatively little choice.

Suggestions as to how they can do this better are, of course, gratefully received

Texas redistricting is the big prize on offer in 2010 state elections. Both sides have strong motives to want control, quite aside from the fact that it’s got 32 seats already and will probably have 36 next time round. Democrats, still smarting from Tom DeLay’s mid-decade shenanigans, would love to control the maps, allowing them to take advantage of rapid Hispanic growth and perhaps to draw a district for a longtime conservative state legislator who can scrabble out enough of a foothold to keep himself afloat with rural whites for another few years.

Republicans want to maintain their huge edge and to fix elements of the Delaymander that are falling apart – districts like TX-32 and TX-10 where a changing population will draw the ground out from under the Republicans by 2020. They also don’t want to see a return to the 1991 Democratic gerrymander.

My impression is that Republicans have the edge, so I’ve drawn a gerrymander for them. However, with Democrats controlling the Justice Department, minority rights will have to be respected. Texas Republicans cannot just draw four new districts for white Anglos, or the map will be thrown out.

Dave’s Redistricting App estimates Texas’ population as being 54% white, 11% black, 4% Asian and 31% Hispanic.

That ought to shake out to four black-majority districts, but the population just isn’t packed enough for that to be possible. I’ve kept the three districts that are already designed to elect black representatives, although they’re all black-plurality rather than black-majority. Two are at 47% black and are fairly safe, whilst the other is 38% black and may be Hispanic-plurality by 2020. That said, it’ll still probably elect a black representative from there for years afterward.

You can’t draw an Asian district, although in Houston an Asian-influence district might just be possibility come 2020. That leaves us with Texas’ 7.8m Hispanics. That ought to equate to 11 Hispanic-majority districts. I tried to do that and preserve a GOP gerrymander, but the numbers aren’t quite there. Instead I got 10 and an Austin district, where Doggett could easily be succeeded by a Hispanic.

In the meantime, I think I preserved a GOP gerrymander fairly well. There are 24 districts McCain won and in 20 of those he got 60% of the vote or more. In only one Republican did McCain get less than 58% of the vote.

[Map]

West Texas

TX-01 – blue

[Demographics]

Obama: 65 McCain: 34

Likely candidate: Silvestre Reyes

First things first: yes, I’ve renumbered the districts. This is partly because I started in west Texas, headed east to the sea then spiralled clockwise round the state, finishing in the Houston suburbs and was too lazy to swap the colours later. But it’s also partly because there’s almost no rime nor reason to Texas’ current numbering system, so I don’t see the urgent need to change.

Reyes’ district shrinks slightly as El Paso grows. The district gets negligibly less Democratic, but I don’t think he’s going to be quaking in his boots.

TX-02 – dark green

[Demographics]

Obama: 62 McCain: 37

Likely candidates: Henry Cuellar, Ciro Rodriguez (?)

This district covers the Mexican border from El Paso to Zapata county and clocks in at a hefty 81% Hispanic. It looks an awful lot like Ciro Rodriguez’s current district, only straying into some south-eastern (and not entirely Hispanic) outskirts of San Antonio.

On the flipside, it now contains Laredo. Cuellar won the last primary, and as the Democratic primary will be the decider, I wouldn’t bet against Republicans crossing over to support him. I’m not even certain whether Ciro lives in this district, but either way he might consider running in the new third instead, except for one thing…

TX-03 – dark purple

[Demographics]

Obama: 38 McCain: 61

Likely candidates: Mike Conaway (?), Ciro Rodriguez (?), Henry Bonilla (?)

Democrats have always been keen on the idea of a Hispanic-majority West Texas seat. This seat gives it to them, just, but in a form they can’t win. The core of the old 11th around Midland is here, but rather than taking in San Angelo and the Hill Country, the district instead dives south-east to take in central San Antonio.

Although Hispanics make up 50% of the district’s population, many of them can’t vote (and plenty of the more rural ones are quite conservative) so McCain beat Obama by 50,000 votes here.

The flip-side of this is that the district is guaranteed to swing left, as rural west Texas depopulates and Hispanics become eligible to vote. Right now around 40% of the district’s inhabitants (and 60% of its Hispanics) live within Bexar county.

Given that trend, Conaway might decide to give the new 3rd a miss and move to the 10th, which northern bits of Midland protrude into. Who could step into the breach for the GOP? A Hispanic candidate would help, although primary voters might not warm to him. How about Henry Bonilla?

TX-09 – light blue

[Demographics]

Obama: 39 McCain: 60

Likely candidates: ?

This is essentially a Hill Country and Colorado River watershed district. A few almost uninhabited counties aside, the district is anchored in the west by San Angelo and bits of Austin and its suburbs in the east.

The rest of the district is largely rural, with Brady probably the largest town outside Travis and Tom Green counties. I’m not sure who the GOP would pick to run here, but I’d put good money he’d try to grab a seat on the agriculture committee.

TX-10 – magenta

[Demographics]

Obama: 34 McCain: 65

Likely candidates: Mike Conaway (?), Chet Edwards (?)

Now that Charles Stenholm is busy with lobbying, there’s much less need for Republicans to draw three blood-red districts in west and north-west Texas. Instead I’ve created a series of strips heading east-west and reaching into Central Texas in an attempt to combine ultra-Republican West Texas with very Republican Central Texas.

This district is a two county tall line through West Texas, taking in north Midland, Big Spring, Sweetwater and Abilene amongst others before abruptly turning south-east. From there it extends just far enough to take in Killeen and half of Waco.

If Mike Conaway decides he’s too crazy to feel safe representing a majority-Hispanic district, he might run here. Otherwise there are plenty of local legislators willing to step up. The district contains 170,000 (mostly Democratic) voters from Bell County, 130,000 from McLennan County and 110,000 from Abilene. So whether the primary winner would be from Killeen, Waco, Abilene or even somewhere further west is an open question.

Either way, I can’t see Chet Edwards running here. Depending on which side of Waco he lives on he might be resident here and he’d like to represent Fort Hood again, but the only bit shared between this district and the current TX-17 is western McLennan county. He won’t want a district that borders New Mexico.

South Texas

TX-04 – red

[Demographics]

Obama: 69 McCain: 31

Likely candidates: Ruben Hinojosa

McAllen is big enough for its own district now. I made up the numbers with south-eastern Hidalgo county, including Hinojosa’s hometown of Mercedes.

At 88% Hispanic, almost certainly the US’ most Hispanic district.

TX-05 – yellow

[Demographics]

Obama: 63 McCain: 36

Likely candidates: ?

An amalgam of the current 28th, 27th and 15th districts, this district takes in Brownsville, Herlingen, Kingsville and a lot of thinly populated rural areas. No current representative lives here, although Solomon Ortiz might move if he doesn’t like the 6th. Either way, he’ll surely face a primary from a local boy.

TX-06 – teal

[Demographics]

Obama: 44 McCain: 55

Likely candidate: Solomon Ortiz

This district begins near Corpus Christi and continues along the coast as far as Jackson and Calhoun counties. To this it adds a fairly Hispanic hinterland of counties a little further inland. So far, so understandable.

However, it then sends a dogleg north-east to pick up enough of southern Bexar county (including south-central San Antonio) to make it Hispanic-majority.

I tried to clean up the dogleg both to improve Republican prospects and to make it look less like an obvious gerrymander, but it can’t really be hidden.

At 54% Hispanic it’s less vulnerable on voting rights grounds than the 3rd, but if Solomon Ortiz runs here expect him to involve the courts.

Either way, of course, Republicans will be finding it difficult by 2020, especially if they’re still chasing the nativist vote. Still, this could be a pick-up in 2012 with a decent candidate.

[San Antonio map]

TX-07 – grey

[Demographics]

Obama: 58 McCain: 41

Likely candidate: Charlie Gonzalez

This district isn’t radically changed from the old TX-20. It continues to be a metro San Antonio district with a Hispanic majority, although not as much of one now that so many other districts have taken bites out of the city.

Still, at 54% Hispanic I don’t see Gonzalez having too many problems winning re-election.

TX-08 – light purple

[Demographics]

Obama: 44 McCain: 55

Likely candidate: Lamar Smith

The northern bits of the old TX-21 are removed for this district so that it’s made up of majority white sections of northern San Antonio as well as western Guadalupe county and the counties north of Bexar.

Smith might be in trouble if Hispanics if northern San Antonio rapidly gets more liberal or more Hispanic, but as the district is at 63% McCain right now he ought to be able hold them off for a few years yet.

North Texas

TX-11 – light green

[Demographics]

Obama: 29 McCain: 70

Likely candidate: Randy Neugebauer, Chet Edwards (?)

Now that Charlie Stenholm is no more, you could make Neugebauer’s turf into a more reasonably shaped district. Or you could just use it to annoy Chet Edwards. Guess what I did?

This district begins in the Llano Estocado around Lubbock and heads east along county lines until it hits the Metroplex exurbs. It extends as far as Mineral Wells but afterwards turns south and south-east, shadowing my TX-10. It gets as far as McLennan County, taking in eastern Waco, before the district reaches its population complement.

This district is more like Chet Edwards’ than TX-10. It includes around 180,000 of his current constituents and all or part of four counties he represents (Hood, Somervell, Bosquet and McLennan). On the other hand, 75% of the district is new, it voted for McCain by forty points, it borders New Mexico and he may not even live here. If he runs here, he’s a brave man.

TX-12 – metallic blue

[Demographics]

Obama: 24 McCain: 75

Likely candidate: Mac Thornberry

I really tried to minimise the pain amongst Texas Republicans by spreading it evenly. That’s very difficult to do with TX-12.

Any district beginning in the Panhandle has a long way to go before it hits an area of demographic strength. What’s more, it has to go through the northern exurbs of the Metroplex, which are solidly Republican and heavily populated.

If I’d gerrymandered a little harder, I could have got this district to Fort Worth. But even then, it’d still be a 70% McCain district, so why bother?

Instead I just chucked all the Panhandle into the district then marched the district along the counties bordering Oklahoma, before turning south to pick up northern bits of Denton County.

TX-13 – terracotta

[Demographics]

Obama: 38 McCain: 61

Likely candidate: Kay Granger (?)

Whilst Kay Granger could run here, she’d work just as well in TX-23 (although it is slightly more marginal) and has no pressing need to move. It’s more likely that this will be filled by new blood. Whether it’s a hard-right suburbanite or a a hard-right exurbanite is the major question here.

Arguably this isn’t a North Texas district but a DFW district. Whilst the bulk of its geographical area is made up two counties west (Park and Wise) and two south (Hill and Johnson) of the metroplex, it sends an arm into Tarrant County, picking up south-eastern Fort Worth and central Arlington. Nearly half of the district lives in this arm.

Yet whilst the 325,000 people within Tarrant County in the district are only 45% white and voted for Obama 58-41, the rest of the district is 85% white and went for McCain 75-24. So long as the margin in the rural/exurban sections remains so lopsided, this’ll stay safely Republican and it’ll behave like a North Texas district.

If the Tarrant County section starts to dominate or if the outlying areas start to moderate, things will get closer. But even if it’s looking a bit ropy come 2020, it’ll likely take a wave year to flip it.

Incidentally, Chet Edwards currently represents the two southern counties of this district. However, I can’t see him running here because a) he doesn’t live here and b) I’m not convinced he’d win the primary. He currently represents less than 30% of the district’s residents and those two counties have less than 20% of TX-13’s Democrats. I just can’t see black and Latino voters in Fort Worth and Arlington (who’ll likely be decisive in the Democratic parimary) deciding that the representative they really need is a conservative white guy from central Texas.

DFW Metroplex

[map]

TX-14 – greenish brown

[Demographics]

Obama: 38 McCain: 61

Likely candidate: Michael Burgess

Population growth shrinks this county heavily. The old TX-26 gives up its portion of Tarrant County, splitting it beween TX-13, TX-21 and TX-23, and its spur into Cooke county joins north Denton in TX-12.

On the other hand, it takes over south-east Denton from the old TX-24 and extends across the border into Collin County, picking up Frisco and the eastern fringes of McKinney.

Burgess’ margins improve 6 points net from 58-41.

TX-15 – orange

[Demographics]

Obama: 37 McCain: 61

Likely candidate: Sam Johnson

TX-15 could be entirely confined to Collin County, but I’ve decided not to so as to give myself a little more freedom.

Which is not to say that it’s not a Collin County district – the Dallas County part of the district contains less than 4% of its inhabitants. More specifically, it’s a Plano-McKinney district, and around 9 points more Republican net.

TX-17 – dark blue

[Demographics]

Obama: 61 McCain: 38

Likely candidate: Pete Sessions (?)

No, this isn’t really Pete Sessions’ intended district, but it might be the one where he actually lives, as I can’t work out which bit of Dallas he lives in. If Pete can win a district that’s only 30% white, then I’m a gazebo. If he lives here, he’ll move, probably to TX-20. That said, TX-20 is probably more likely to include his home anyway.

(Yes, I did draw these districts before checking where each incumbent lives. Nevertheless, in general I got away with it – DFW is a slight exception and even there it’s clearable.)

As it is, this is the Metroplex’s new Hispanic district. I have no idea who the likely new incumbent would be here.

TX-18 – slightly pale yellow

[Demographics]

Obama: 79 McCain: 20

Likely candidate: Eddie Bernice Johnson

The basic shape of the district isn’t changed enormously and it remains a plurality-black district. In fact, it’s now blacker than it used to be, up from 42%. That said, I couldn’t find any way of getting to 50%.

TX-19 – grassy green

[Demographics]

Obama: 39 McCain: 60

Likely candidates: Joe Barton, Chet Edwards (?)

This district begins in south-western Tarrant and south-eastern Dallas county, but only to absorb swing whites in the area within a much redder district. From there’s it’s a long strip south-south-east through Barton’s base in Ennis county, Navarro, Limestone, Freestone, Roberton and north Brazos (including Bryan and College Station).

This isn’t wildly dissimilar to Barton’s current district, which differs mostly in that it turns east at Freestone and in that it includes more of the Metroplex.

If Chet Edwards doesn’t require, here’s probably his best bet to challenge, as the southern half of the district is pretty familiar to him. That said, Barton is pretty well-embedded in the district and we can’t assume Edwards will win any district just because it’s slightly less Republican than his current one.

TX-20 – salmon pink

[Demographics]

Obama: 41 McCain: 58

Likely candidates: Pete Sessions, Ralph Hall

There was no active need to screw Ralph Hall over in this map, but I don’t think that’s inherently unlikely in a Republican gerrymander. There are several reasons for this.

Firstly, he’s 86 and plenty of ambitious state legislators in North-East Texas would like to see him retire so they can replace him. Secondly, his committee assignments aren’t crucial to Texas – his seniority on Energy and Commerce is considerable, but Joe Barton is already ranking member and is 26 years younger, whilst Science and Technology is a relatively minor committee with a lot of Texas Republicans on it, including Lamar Smith as the third in seniority. Thirdly, Hall used to be a Democrat and whilst he’s effectively been a Republican since he joined Congress, he’s still not the member they most want to protect.

None of this means he will be drawn out of his district. Rockwall County could join the new TX-16, although it’d require a lot of shifting around amongst the DFW districts. Nevertheless, it’s questionable whether Hall will be running for re-election in 2012, so I’ve drawn Rockwall into the new TX-20.

The rest of the district is made up of northern and north-eastern Dallas County, including Richardson, Rowlett, Addison, University Park, Highland Park, bits of Garland and much of north Dallas. A lot of this is already represented by Pete Sessions and whilst a district extending into Rockwall instead of Irving might be new, it shouldn’t pose a challenge. And Ralph Hall certainly shouldn’t, as this much more Sessions’ district than it is Hall’s.

TX-21 – reddish brown

[Demographics]

Obama: 39 McCain: 60

Likely candidate: Kenny Marchant

This district no longer includes the Denton county portions of Carrolton, but otherwise Marchant has no reason to complain. Although he does pick up a fair amount of black voters near the Fort Worth-Arlington boundary, his new district went by McCain by over twenty points.

What’s more, the new district is a lot less likely to slip away from under his feet than the last one. Now that the southern part of the old TX-24 is gone, Marchant represents the third least Hispanic district of all Texas’ predominantly urban districts (beaten only by TX-14 and TX-15 just to his north). It’s therefore unlikely that increasing Hispanic eligibility to vote will cut his margins as much as will happen elsewhere.

TX-23 – very light blue

[Demographics]

Obama: 42 McCain: 58

Likely candidate: Kay Granger

The last district wholly within the Metroplex is also the one Republicans will be most wary of. It includes the bits of Tarrant Granger already represents plus a little more on central Fort Worth. Of course, that kind of reduction in size tends to betoken population growth. And this being Texas, population growth means Hispanics.

At 24% Hispanic,  TX-23 could become quite hairy by 2020. Unfortunately there’s no obvious way to avoid this – Fort Worth doesn’t have a huge amount of monolithically Hispanic neighbourhoods, and some of them have been dropped into TX-13, but it has enough of them scattered in every area for it to be hard to minimise Hispanics.

Therefore, Granger may have to play up her moderate bona fides. Maybe she’ll hold it, maybe she won’t. A lot will depend on how much she can cut Democratic margins amongst the Hispanic community.

East Texas

TX-16 – bright green

[Demographics]

Obama: 29 McCain: 70

Likely candidate: ?

This is basically Ralph Hall’s district minus Ralph Hall. A few lines are straightened up, it grabs a couple of small counties and now only splits Collin County, but nothing to write home about.

However, without Rockwall in the district it’ll lack an incumbent, so expect a free-for-all in the Republican primary. Just don’t expect any Democrat to stand a chance in the general.

This is a district so red I really should have worked out a way to send it into Tarrant to help out Granger.

TX-22 – muddy brown

[Demographics]

Obama: 35 McCain: 64

Likely candidate: Jeb Hensarling

This is in some ways a Dallas district, as it provides more than a third of the district’s population and is the biggest contributor to the total by some margin. Certainly the district’s centre of gravity lies in the suburban and exurban parts of the old TX-5.

On the other hand, to the core of that district I’ve added a bunch of thinly populated East Texas counties reaching down towards Dallas. Whilst it’s not going to be enough to worry Dallas resident Hensarling about a possible primary, it does keep the district nice and red and provides it with a potential out into a future existence as a proper East Texas district when overwhelmed Republican districts start to have to flee DFW in 2020.

TX-24 – very dark purple

[Demographics]

Obama: 31 McCain: 69

Likely candidate: Louie Gohmert

What can I say here? Like TX-16, the changes are not major. Three counties to the north are lost and in return most of Cherokee county is taken. Had I not been playing to strict population equality rules – no more than 1000 plus or minus than the average – I’d have taken the entire county and created a district that actually looks naturally shaped.

Either way, it’d still be a monstrosity for Democrats and a sinecure for Gohmert.

TX-25 – dark pink

[Demographics]

Obama: 34 McCain: 65

Likely candidate: Ted Poe (?)

This was originally designed as a fairly pure South-east Texas district. Although population equality necessitated a move out of that area, I had hoped to do it just by hopping Galveston Bay and grabbing most of Texas City.

Then I checked and found out Ted Poe lives in Humble. After deciding it wasn’t practicable to essentially swap Brady and Poe into each other’s districts, I then had to abandon the Galveston Bay hop and head into Harris County, necessitating a fair bit of boundary reworking between this district, TX-26 and TX-31. That and the need to keep TX-31 as black as possible account for most of the very ugly lines in north Harris, with population equality causing the rest.

Nevertheless, South-east Texas still predominates here, as less than 25% of voters are resident in Harris county. Indeed, Ted Poe still might not live here, as I only included about two-thirds of Humble. Poe isn’t completely immune from a challenge emanating from Beaufort or Port Arthur.

Either way though, Republicans are heavily favoured.

TX-26 – dark grey

[Demographics]

Obama: 26 McCain: 73

Likely candidate: Kevin Brady

My initial plan called for this seat to be based around Montgomery County, heading down into Harris to pick up some northern outliers of Houston.

Having to draw Ted Poe back into TX-25 screwed that up, especially as a lot of the north Houston suburbs ended up being needed for Sheila Jackson-Lee’s district.

Instead the district limits itself to only a few forays over the Harris-Montgomery line and instead heads eastward to take in San Jacinto, Polk and Tyler counties. These appear to be fairly standard East Texas counties and are thus quite different from rapidly growing Montgomery county, but the culture clash shouldn’t be a problem for Brady, as he already represents everything in this district bar the portions of Harris.

At 73% McCain, this is a very safe district.

Central Texas

TX-27 – emerald green

[Demographics]

Obama: 40 McCain: 59

Likely candidate: John Carter

I’m skipping over Houston for now and heading straight on to central Texas. Except of course that I’ve mostly done central Texas using the tendrils of TX-10, TX-11, TX-19 and TX-22.

In practice, therefore, I’m left with only three districts. Once you exclude the metro Austin one, you’re left with two and this is the only one that makes a concerted effort to stay within the area’s borders.

I can’t say I’m entirely happy with it. I’d hoped to make Carter safer than this, but screwing over Chet Edwards sucked up many of the reddest bits of central Texas and the southern parts of this district aren’t quite as Republican as Erath, Hamilton and Correll counties, which have been removed.

That said, this district isn’t a disaster. Williamson and Bell counties are getting bluer, but this bluening is not necessarily permanent and is in any case balanced out by my removal of Killeen from the district and the much more rural eastern end of the district.

Carter might not like this district, but he can win it, as it voted for McCain by around 3% more than the rest of Texas. Even in 2020, it’s unlikely Texas will be much more than a swing state and much of that change will be driven by Hispanics, who aren’t a massive factor here.

Carter or his successors just have to hang on for five more terms, by which time Chet Edwards will be long gone and a central Texas district staying further away from Austin can be drawn.

TX-28 – light purple

[Demographics]

Obama: 72 McCain: 26

Likely candidate: Lloyd Dogget, Mike McCaul (?)

Splitting Austin was a cute idea, but realistically an over-ambitious one. Since Republicans have failed to eliminate Lloyd Doggett that way, they’re better off giving him a metro Austin district. That way they can run against Austin liberals in the event of San Francisco falling into the sea and can also sit back and hope he falls victim to a race-based primary.

Northern and eastern portions of Austin were included in TX-9 to bulk up the numbers and the Travis county bit of Round Rock joins Pflugerville in TX-27, but otherwise Travis County belongs to this district.

No Republican is going to win here, so Michael McCaul should move.

TX-29 – dull green

[Demographics]

Obama: 38 McCain: 61

Likely candidate: Michael McCaul (?)

This would be a good place for McCaul to move, as no other congress-critter lives here and it’s Republican by quite a significant margin.

That said, it doesn’t include much of his previous district. Both the old TX-10 and the new TX-29 are Austin to Houston districts, but the old version took a rather more northerly route. Only two counties – thinly populated Austin and Waller – are found in both districts in their entirety – whilst the three other counties where some ground is shared still don’t bring the shared areas above 100,000 people.

On the other hand, Mike McCaul cannot win a minority-majority Austin district, and this is the only nearby district without an incumbent.

McCaul’s problems don’t stop there, however. Whilst the district goes from the Travis County border to take in one voting district from Harris County, it also extends south to the Gulf of Mexico. In the east it takes in half of Fort Bend county, including the lion’s share of Rosenberg and in the south-east it picks up heavily Hispanic areas towards San Antonio, including San Mateo and Seguin.

The district’s 31% Hispanic population poses a ticking timebomb for McCaul. Prboably not one that will get him by 2020, although by then it’ll be a minority-majority district. But certainly one that will make him difficult to protect come the next redistricting.

Houston

New York is a very Democratic state. It voted for Barack Obama by more than twenty-five points.

But it’s not uniformly Democratic. You can’t make 28 63-36 Obama districts, because whilst Obama won the Five Boroughs by somewhere in the region of 1.6m votes, his margin in the rest of the state was only half a million votes, which my very hurried mental arithmetic tells me is about a 55-45% margin.

What’s more, even there the vote is concentrated. Obama recorded convincing victories in major population centres such as Albany, Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo and Yonkers, but he also lost twenty-six counties in the state.

If NYC was located where Albany is, these hurdles would be much more manageable. One could send out tendrils across the state, pairing the bluest bits of Manhattan with the reddest bits of Hamilton County. But with NYC’s actual position, the best you can do is send a rainbow through Westchester and those unbearably ugly tentacles would in any case peter out somewhere around Delaware and Schoharie counties. [EDIT: Turns out abgin proved me wrong.]

All of which is a very long way of saying that I don’t think a sustainable 28-0 map for Democrats exists. In fact, I don’t think 27-1 can ever be properly secure and if we hadn’t run the table since 2006, I’d be sceptical of 26-2.

So why am I trying for 27-1? Because I want to win this competition, and figure I’ll do better with a more ambitious gerrymander. No, this isn’t an unbreakable map. But it does seem likely to flip one Republican district and to drastically increase the survival chances of at least three Democrats, without making any incumbent more vulnerable than they already are.

I’ve drawn this map with a couple of aims besides those given in the contest rules. Firstly, I’ve attempted to reduce the number of obvious gerrymanders, such as Hinchey’s leg to Ithaca. I’ve paid more attention to this Upstate, whereas in NYC I’ve figured that nobody cares about the present gerrymanders so I can draw some atrocious looking districts when it benefits me. Long Island falls somewhere in between – the lines aren’t clean, but I junked a couple of early drafts where they got too silly.

Secondly, I’ve tried to preserve towns intact, on the basis that keeping counties whole makes the process very difficult, but towns are functional enough as units of local government for that to be used as a defence. This hasn’t applied on Long Island, where the towns are too large, the borders aren’t given in Dave’s app and it makes effective gerrymandering extremely difficult.

Nor have I followed district boundaries in New York, as that would take ages, screw with the VRA districts and give me a tremendous headache for very little benefit. Where possible, however, I have tried to preserve neighbourhoods fairly intact.

Finally, I’ve tried to make districts where constituent service is possible. Some measure of compactness and community of interest has been used as a criterion. Whilst this has prevented me from all the fun you can have with a Long Island Sound district, I did completely ignore this rule for the 9th. But that’s OK, because I was actively trying to make the votes of southern Staten Island irrelevant, and at last I didn’t follow my earlier plan of sticking it into the 11th!

NY 28 (light purple): No incumbent (Louise Slaughter – D)

Population	Obama	McCain	Obama %	McCain %	Old Obama %	Old McCain %	White	Black	Asian	Hispanic
704928	185889	125411	59	40	69	30	77	14	1	6

This district – composed of north-west Buffalo, most of Niagara county, the Orleans coast, north-west Monroe and all but the very east of Rochester – does not look like Louise Slaughter’s old district. It looks even more like John LaFalce’s district than the current 28th does. Slaughter doesn’t even live in this district – Perington, where she has her residence, was only just inside the 28th and including it would have shaved two points off Obama’s margin.

On the other hand, the chairwoman of the House Rules Committee is not going to lose a district that includes most of Rochester and a sizeable proportion of Buffalo. She can move and survive. And whilst her retirement in a bad year might give somebody like Maziarz a chance in a great Republican year in a 57% Obama district, a 59% Obama district is pretty much bulletproof.

Hopefully Louise will move and continue to win for another decade. It not, we can at least be sure that her successor will be a reliable vote.

NY 27 (Painful green): Brian Higgins – D, Chris Lee – R

Population	Obama	McCain	Obama %	McCain %	Old Obama %	Old McCain %	White	Black	Asian	Hispanic
695684	192096	130007	59	40	54	44	79	14	2	3

Not much change for Higgins’ district. It exchanges some of its sections of Buffalo for NY-28’s and swaps south-east for northern Erie (hence moving Chris Lee’s home into a district he can’t win) but retains seemingly similar lines. Blacker bits of Buffalo, however, raise Obama’s percentage here to 59%. Higgins becomes absolutely safe.

NY 26 (Dark grey): No incumbent (Chris Lee – R)

Population	Obama	McCain	Obama %	McCain %	Old Obama %	Old McCain %	White	Black	Asian	Hispanic
694230	136584	179963	42	56	46	52	94	2	1	1

The district retains the core of the old 26th, but replaces suburbs and exurbs of Rochester and Buffalo for much of the Southern Tier. All Cattaraugus and Allegany counties, plus all of Steuben bar Corning, joins eastern Erie (but not Clarence), most of Yates, half of Schuyler and south-western Ontario in the district. In return, the district gives up almost all Niagara as well as the towns of Gates, Greece and Parma.

McCain would have won this district 56-42, so any Republican ought to be safe here, but with its incumbent drawn out, there could be an interesting primary as several Republican State Senators may want to jump ship from that redistricting. Ranzenhofer in the 61st is out, as he lives in Clarence, but Volker in the 59th (just) and Young in the second both live in the district and represent much of it.

NY-25 (dark pink): Dan Maffei – D

Population	Obama	McCain	Obama %	McCain %	Old Obama %	Old McCain %	White	Black	Asian	Hispanic
706912	185238	136930	56	42	56	43	88	6	2	2

Maffei’s district retains Onondaga County, but otherwise is almost entirely different. Whereas previously it went westwards, towards Rochester, here it gives up northern Cayuga, Wayne and north-east Monroe to the 23rd, and heads south-east through territory largely represented by Arcuri. Absorbing all of Madison, Cortland and Chenango, plus most of Otsego and the southern half of Cayuga, it finishes up by taking a tiny sliver of Herkimmer so as to help out NY-20.

Despite its shift in orientation, the district remains at 56% Obama. Only scandal or a 1994 style wave is likely to worry Maffei.

NY-24 (blue verging on purple): Eric Massa – D, Louise Slaughter – D

Population	Obama	McCain	Obama %	McCain %	Old Obama %	Old McCain %	White	Black	Asian	Hispanic
698110	190684	142212	56	42	51	48	89	4	3	2

The number is Arcuri’s, but the district is made for Massa. I decided to avoid reshaping Higgins’ district too much, so I couldn’t send the district to Buffalo and needed to keep Binghamton in the 22nd to avoid imperilling Hinchey, so maintaining its orientation towards Rochester was inevitable.

However, its previous southern tier character has been largely removed, since those counties are simply too red to secure Massa. Only Massa’s home in Corning is preserved from Steuben County, from where the district heads east into Chenango and Tioga, before turning north-west.

Arcuri will miss Tompkins County, but an outspoken liberal like Massa needs somewhere like Ithaca in his district. The 24th then takes in some of the better bits of Yates and Schuyler, all of Seneca and the more heavily populated bits of Ontario, including Geneva and Canandaigua, before absorbing most of eastern Monroe, including East Rochester, as well as the 6th, 21st and 23rd wards of Rochester.

Although it stretches from Lake Ontario to the Pennsylvania border, I’d like to think it doesn’t look too horribly gerrymandered. I’m not sure many would agree with me however, and it most certainly is, since Obama got 56% here, an improvement of 8% from the old 29th and 5% from the current 24th. Short of Slaughter deciding to run here, Massa is safe.

NY-23 (mildly feverish green): Bill Owens – D

Population	Obama	McCain	Obama %	McCain %	Old Obama %	Old McCain %	White	Black	Asian	Hispanic
705623	149248	130941	52	46	52	47	93	3	1	2

Perhaps less a North Country district now than a Great Lakes-Canadian border district, the district drops its southern protusions in return for Wayne County, the rest of Essex County and the town of Webster in Monroe.

Although the lines are perhaps neater, the percentages don’t change much. Obama stays on 56%, whilst McCain drops a point.

Hoffman now lives in the 23rd, but his three best counties in the special election, Madison, Oneida (part) and Lewis, have now been entirely removed from the district. Wayne County is more conservative than any of them, but Owens is at least no more in danger of teabagging under this map than he is right now. Only one Republican Senator, Joseph Griffo, lives in and represents the new 23rd.

NY-22 (brown): Maurice Hinchey – D

Population	Obama	McCain	Obama %	McCain %	Old Obama %	Old McCain %	White	Black	Asian	Hispanic
703054	175214	139995	55	44	59	39	86	5	2	6

I think this district is an improvement on the old 22nd, although it isn’t as compact as I’d hoped. In fact it actually includes one more county than the current district.

This district isn’t as Democratic, but I don’t think Hinchey needs it. He’s a great representative, but he’s not a magnet for controversy and he’s won in tough conditions before.

It begins in Broome – which isn’t as strong as you might think, as northern Broome is conservative enough to partly balance Binghamton, before continuing into strongly Republican Delaware and Greene counties.

The bulk of the district’s population is situated to the south. Hinchey keeps all of Sullivan and Ulster counties, and has two separate bits of northern Orange – one in the north-west, taking in Port Jervis and stopping more or less where the NJ border begins, and one around Middletown, in territory he mostly already represents.

To the north, the district takes pressure off those around it by adding bits of Otsego and Schoharie to Greene and Delaware. In the east, it takes in most of Columbia County, bordering Massachusetts but also takes Schodack in Rensslaer so the 20th can take north-east Columbia.

NY-21 (red wine stain): Paul Tonko – D

Population	Obama	McCain	Obama %	McCain %	Old Obama %	Old McCain %	White	Black	Asian	Hispanic
703431	186093	144815	55	43	58	40	89	5	2	3

The 21st looks similar, but moves north and west to gain populationand help out the 20th. In the process it gets less Democratic, but at 55% Obama it’s hardly marginal.

Tonko keeps all of Montgomery and Schenechtady and also gains all of Fulton. To this I added bits of Herkimmer and Otsego, Saratoga south of Saratoga Springs, most of Schoharie and almost all of Albany.

Not all, however. Several wards in Albany are moved to the 20th to shore that one up. i can’t imagine state legislators are overjoyed, but at less than 100000 Albany is too small to control a district, and might actually find its influence enhanced by being split.

NY-20 (skin pink): Scott Murphy – D, Michael Arcuri – D

Population	Obama	McCain	Obama %	McCain %	Old Obama %	Old McCain %	White	Black	Asian	Hispanic
700948	156774	148240	51	48	51	48	91	5	1	2

This district voted for Obama, but to be honest it leans Republican. It may actually lose us two Democratic incumbents.

Either way, it loses us one. Utica and Glens Falls are combined, throwing Murphy and Arcuri into the same district.

The reasons I picked these two are various, and combine the political and the pragmatic. Firstly Upstate needed to lose a district. Secondly carving up Chris Lee makes his neighbours more vulnerable, and I wanted to keep Massa. Thirdly, rural New York east of Syracuse just doesn’t have enough strong clumps of Democrats – not unless they suddenly annex Vermont and gerrymander that in. Fourthly, Murphy is junior and Arcuri is a weak campaigner. Fifthly, they’re both Blue Dogs and Murphy in particular is an unreliable vote.

The district itself is not just a mash-up of the current 20th and 24th. Much of the 24th has been reassigned to Maffei and Massa, whilst the 20th loses its southern portions.

Instead the district begins Oneida County, housing Rome, which is surprisingly conservative for a city, and Arcuri’s home in Utica. It heads north to take in Lewis county, then takes in most of Herkimmer county (although much more in terms of area than in terms of population).

Next up is Hamilton, Obama’s worst county in the state. It’s followed by Warren, where Murphy lives, and northern Saratoga (including Saratoga Springs). The district then turns down the Vermont border. It keeps all of Washington and heads on into Rensselaer.

Here it picks up Troy and heads across the river into Albany in a desperate bid to find some Democratic votes. It drops marginal Schodack township and replaces it with heavily Democratic Chatham, Canaan and New Lebanon townships in Columbia.

The end result is a 51-48 Obama district, which both the 20th and 24th now are. However, the unfamiliar territory and heavily rural nature makes it a tough hold, however, especially in Republican years. And its more northerly orientation probably means it won’t blue as fast as Hudson Valley districts.

I can’t say for sure how the primary will go. I’d like to think Murphy’s anti-HCR vote will doom him, but he probably represents slightly more of this district already, so I’d favour him to win the primary and lose to a pro-HCR Republican that November.

NY-19 (grassy green): John Hall – D

Population	Obama	McCain	Obama %	McCain %	Old Obama %	Old McCain %	White	Black	Asian	Hispanic
694702	171172	132308	56	43	51	48	78	8	3	10

Hall will like this much improved district for him. It swaps much of its current incursions into Orange County for northern Dutchess, drops Carmel from Putnam and pushes south into Westchester as far as Mount Pleasant.

The end result is a 5% rise for Obama and a concommitant fall for McCain.

NY-18 (yellow): Nita Lowey – D

Population	Obama	McCain	Obama %	McCain %	Old Obama %	Old McCain %	White	Black	Asian	Hispanic
694795	185455	112686	62	38	62	38	65	14	5	15

Rather than throwing her district across the sound, I elected to continue the process of throwing Lowey’s district further north. It begins in Carmel and similarly conservative bits of Putnam and proceeds south into Westchester.

Skirting around Mount Kisco, Bedford and Newcastle, it then proceeds to its effective anchor – southern Westchester. It takes in more of this than it does now – the 17th gives up Mount Vernon and a bit more of Yonkers to this district. The end result is that the margins are largely unchanged for Obama and McCain.

NY-17 (dark blue): Eliot Engel – D

Population	Obama	McCain	Obama %	McCain %	Old Obama %	Old McCain %	White	Black	Asian	Hispanic
699892	160041	117574	57	42	72	28	67	11	4	15

Although this is the first district to cross the city lines, this isn’t really a NYC district. It’s much more of a Rockland district. It takes in the whole of that county and expands into Orange.

It then sends a thin line through Westchester, taking in the Yonkers shore, before crossing over in to the Bronx.

Containing Riverdale, Van Cortlandt Park and associated bits of the Borough, the district remains safe.

Nevertheless, whilst Engel – moderate, able to appeal to conservative Orthodox Jews and eminently suited to represented an outer suburbs district – is in no danger, the district loses enough Democrats that Obama only got 57%.

NY-16 (neon green): Jose Serrano – D

Population	Obama	McCain	Obama %	McCain %	Old Obama %	Old McCain %	White	Black	Asian	Hispanic
701769	170961	8917	95	5	95	5	2	32	1	62

What’s to say? This district is largely unchanged. It drops its spur into Queens, it spreads a bit further east and it loses Fordham and environs to the 15th. But it’s basically the same extremely Hispanic South Bronx district as before.

NY-15 (orange): Charlie Rangel – D

Population	Obama	McCain	Obama %	McCain %	Old Obama %	Old McCain %	White	Black	Asian	Hispanic
706507	200710	13410	93	6	93	6	10	30	3	55

The 15th abandons Queens and heads into the Bronx.

Beginning at Central Park, it heads through Harlem to Washington Heights, before crossing into the Fordham/University Heights area in the Bronx.

In the process, it goes from a minority-majority district to a Hispanic-majority district. At 55% Hispanic, it’s actually more Hispanic than Velazquez’s. With those kinds of numbers, it wouldn’t surprises me if the Justice Department imposes a VRA Hispanic district here anyway.

NY-14 (unfortunate brown): Caroline Maloney

Population	Obama	McCain	Obama %	McCain %	Old Obama %	Old McCain %	White	Black	Asian	Hispanic
695589	232945	55306	80	19	78	21	65	4	16	12

Continuing with my habit of confining districts to one borough, NY-14 is yet another district that doesn’t enter Queens. In exchange for its territory there, it heads further south into Manhattan, reaching as far as the Lower East Side and Chinatown.

The white population drops 8% to 65% and Obama improves two points to 80%.

NY-13 (salmon pink): Mike McMahon

Population	Obama	McCain	Obama %	McCain %	Old Obama %	Old McCain %	White	Black	Asian	Hispanic
703495	108243	75500	58	41	49	51	56	7	14	19

I know there’s no good reason to split Staten Island, but it’s fun. My only defence is that I tried to keep to existing boundaries to some extent. Lou Tobacco’s assembly district is almost entirely removed, and much of Janele Hyer-Spencer’s district is also lost.

Over the Verranzano Narrows, much more of Brooklyn has to be absorbed. Bay Ridge, Dyker Heights, Gravesend and Bensonhurst stay in the district, which snakes around Borough Park to take in Sunset Park and Red Hook.

At 58% Obama, it’s probably strong enough to deal with the Staten Island backlash for screwing them over. As an added bonus, McMahon would under these lines very likely be succeeded by a Brooklyn Democrat. As a 56% white district, he might even be replaced by a Hispanic.

NY-12 (light blue): Nydia Velazquez – D

Population	Obama	McCain	Obama %	McCain %	Old Obama %	Old McCain %	White	Black	Asian	Hispanic
701512	138150	26924	83	16	86	13	22	10	13	51

As much a Queens district as a Brooklyn one, this district takes in Williamsburg, Bushwick, Sunnyside, bits of Woodside, South Corona and Elmhurst.

I can’t say much more about this, because I know nothing about NYC. 83% Obama can’t be bad though.

NY-11 (NY-16 green): Yvette Clarke

Population	Obama	McCain	Obama %	McCain %	Old Obama %	Old McCain %	White	Black	Asian	Hispanic
704746	203935	27185	88	12	91	9	26	54	5	11

This central Brooklyn district is the standard blacks and Republicans mixture. Ocean Park and similar dead-losses are combined with Flatbush, Crown Heights and Bedford-Stuyvesant for a 54% black and monolithically Democratic district.

Assuming I drew the lines right and Clarke doesn’t have to move, she has nothing to complain about here.

NY-10 (dark pink): Edolphus Towns

Population	Obama	McCain	Obama %	McCain %	Old Obama %	Old McCain %	White	Black	Asian	Hispanic
704474	167880	42933	79	20	91	9	30	51	5	11

This district, to my mind, looks like a man in a homburg hat vacuuming. Just so you know…

It’s the same principle as NY-11, but more so. From East New York and Brownsville, it sends a thin tendril through Canarsie into Georgetown before absorbing Republicans around Manhattan Terrace and Home Crest, before continuing on to Coney Island and Sea Crest. Only 79% Obama.

NY-9 (light blue): Anthony Weiner

Population	Obama	McCain	Obama %	McCain %	Old Obama %	Old McCain %	White	Black	Asian	Hispanic
697804	120275	87072	58	42	55	44	53	10	9	22

A conscious monstrosity, this district combines central Queens with southern Staten Island via the Rockaway Peninsula, Manhattan Beach and Marine Park. Bits of north-east Brooklyn were added in to pad the margins.

At 58% Obama, it’s not actually as much of an improvement as it might have been, and Weiner is probably a better fit for Brooklyn Jews than Staten Island Italians.

On the other hand, he does retain his Forest Hills base, the district will give him increased recognition in other boroughs if he wants to run for mayor again and Republicans aren’t about to start winning districts that are only 53% white and likely to be majority-minority by 2020.

NY-08 (purple): Jerrold Nadler – D

Population	Obama	McCain	Obama %	McCain %	Old Obama %	Old McCain %	White	Black	Asian	Hispanic
705168	236867	50065	82	17	74	26	61	11	8	17

I’d argue this is a substantial improvement on the current 8th in terms of logical lines, but it isn’t compact by any means. From Nadler’s home on the Upper West Side, it snakes down the west side of Manhattan and crosses the East River over the Brooklyn Bridge.

Once in Brooklyn, it takes in Downtown before marching further south into Prospect Park. By this point it’s ridiculously Democratic, such that it absorbs the majority of Borough Park and barely takes a hit for it. At 82% Obama, it’s actually one of the biggest improvements of any district. Not that Nadler needs it, of course.

NY-07 (light grey): Joe Crowley – D

Population	Obama	McCain	Obama %	McCain %	Old Obama %	Old McCain %	White	Black	Asian	Hispanic
704836	161725	36669	81	18	79	20	33	26	8	28

Crowley may be the Queens Democratic chair, but his new district is much more Bronx-based. He keeps Queens’ northern shore, taking in Ravenswood, Astoria, Flushing, College Point and Beechurst. He may even keep his home in Woodside, but if not the lines could be changed easily enough.

Most of his territory is in the Bronx, however. In addition to Riker’s Island, his district crosses the Whitestone Bridge to take in Schuylerville, Pelham Park, Parkchester, Co-op City and the rest of the East Bronx.

The district remains majority-minority and becomes rather more so. Whilst white are the largest group, they’re only 33%, and blacks and Hispanics are almost at parity. If Crowley retires, it’s anybody’s guess who replaces him. My money’s on DavidNYC, for the record.

NY-06 (teal): Gregory Meeks

Population	Obama	McCain	Obama %	McCain %	Old Obama %	Old McCain %	White	Black	Asian	Hispanic
697850	202891	68157	75	25	89	11	31	50	4	10

I tried the tactic of putting Oyster Bay in this district, but couldn’t make any maps I liked with it. Instead I settled for this more compact district, which is nevertheless a deliberate attempt to make irrelevant the votes of LI Republicans. Jamaica and Far Rockaway form the core of this district, and about 450000 of the district’s inhabitants are 65% black or so.

The other 250000 are mostly LI Republicans. Whilst I took in some black areas just outside the city lines, mostly I took Republican leaning areas like East Rockaway, Malverne and Franklin Square. Pockets of Democratic strength in south-west Nassau, most notable Lynbrooke, were excised.

Note that I may have described these areas wrongly, as I’m doing this from Google maps. Either way, we have a 50.2% black district that voted 75-25 for Obama. That means a lot of Republicans now have their votes wasted

NY-05 (child’s paint yellow):

Population	Obama	McCain	Obama %	McCain %	Old Obama %	Old McCain %	White	Black	Asian	Hispanic
694477	123549	81485	60	39	63	36	54	4	23	17

I’ve been much less ambitious in Long Island than some other entries. This is largely because I didn’t want to create fajita strips. I didn’t succeed entirely, but this is a district Ackerman would recognise, whereas other entires have reconfigured NY-05 much more.

The Nassau section is only very slightly changed. Most of the changes have been in Queens. It still includes neighbourhoods like Douglaston and Auburndale, but it’s been expanded further west, up to the Brooklyn border. By skating through Rego Park I drew Ridgewood and the Middle Village into the district.

In general, however, I was surprised how similar the lines were, as the 5th was one of the last districts I drew. The major change is a fairly hefty drop in the Hispanic percentage. If the district goes majority-minority, Ackerman’s replacement is more likely to be Asian than Puerto Rican.

NY-04 (red): Caroline McCarthy

Population	Obama	McCain	Obama %	McCain %	Old Obama %	Old McCain %	White	Black	Asian	Hispanic
696289	163148	111809	59	40	58	41	59	10	13	14

NY-04 is much more changed than NY-05, due to the need to remove Peter King. This is an obviously gerrymandered district, stretching well into NYC and being only one voting district wide at two separate points. On the other hand, it’s still 59% Obama, so I’m willing to forgive its aesthetic unpleasantness.

This is no longer a compact Nassau County district. In the city, it goes as far as Kew Gardens and if it doesn’t stray into Jamaica too many times, that’s only because I had to keep NY-06 black-majority.

Outside the city, it’s a mess of tendrils. It snakes its way through North Hempstead (and hopefully includes McCarthy’s home, although I won’t absolutely vouch for that, then sends one tentacle into Hempstead township and some form of stubby proto-foot into Oyster Bay.

The Hempstead one hoovers up the more Democratic portions that NY-06 – places like Lynbrooke, Freeport, South Hempstead and Uniondale. The Oyster bay stump appears to take in Levitttown, Hicksville and Farmingdale, but I could easily be wrong. It certainly takes in bits of Massapequa. This stump isn’t as Democratic as the tendril, since it isn’t designed to boost McCarthy’s numbers. It’s designed to split King’s base.

NY-03 (purple): Peter King – R

Population	Obama	McCain	Obama %	McCain %	Old Obama %	Old McCain %	White	Black	Asian	Hispanic
695671	174340	139832	55	44	47	52	73	12	3	10

This is not an unwinnable district for a Republican, but it’s not a nice one. Obama improves eight points to 55%. I wouldn’t expect King to lose by 30 points. But I would expect him to lose, especially against a strong candidate like Suozzi or Meijas, or to run statewide or retire instead.

On the North Shore, the district takes in Glen Cove and the rest of northern Oyster Bay. From there it heads south, narrowing near Plainview as 4th and 2nd both intrude upon it and continuing towards the South Shore.

Once it gets there, it diverges. One side of it goes to Long Beach, largely staying close to the coast but sending up a hook towards Bellmore. On the other side, it moves in to Suffolk, where it mostly hugs the coast through Babylon.

It doesn’t look that different. But it does look like it’ll give King headaches.

NY-02 (dark green): Steve Israel – D

Population	Obama	McCain	Obama %	McCain %	Old Obama %	Old McCain %	White	Black	Asian	Hispanic
694752	162562	141316	53	46	56	43	75	8	3	13

I’m not entirely happy with Long Island. I’m only submitting now because the deadline is fast approaching. And I do think that if this map has a weakness, it’s NY-02.

Not that Steve Israel is doomed. Obama still got 53% here and Israel is an entrenched incumbent whose district isn’t changed overwhelmingly. But if Long Island does become redder, he could face some tougher re-election efforts.

In Nassau, Israel keeps Plainview and the lines are mostly just neatened. In Suffolk, he takes all of Huntington and heads south-west towards Brentwood and Islip.

And if that was all he did, he’d be fine. The problem is he also takes Smithtown, and that’s a bit of an anvil for him.

Then again, he’s a Blue Dog with no trouble raising cash. Smithtown hampers him, but it shouldn’t cripple him.

NY-01 (blue): Tim Bishop – D

Population	Obama	McCain	Obama %	McCain %	Old Obama %	Old McCain %	White	Black	Asian	Hispanic
701716	162574	145024	53	47	52	48	84	4	2	8

Bishop’s district isn’t wildly different. It’s the same eastern Suffolk district with the same thin Democratic margins. In the north he drops Smithtown and in the south he gains some of Islip, but I didn’t make huge changes.

Because of this, the Democratic margin doesn’t change much. It improves from 52% Obama to 53%, but mostly I’m relying on Bishop’s continued good relations with his constituents.

If he’s caught up in a scandal, we’ve likely lost the district and if he retires it’ll be a close race. Otherwise, I’d say he’ll probably keep this seat without too much trouble.

Since we now know the presidential results in most congressional districts for 2008, we now possess all the tools we need to calculate the new PVIs.

Charlie Cook’s official results will be out in a few months, but unlike in 2004 (where results from 2000 had to be fitted to the new congressional districts) there’s no reason we shouldn’t jump the gun and have our own figures ready. And there’s every reason to want to know who’s representing their districts and who’s a lot more vulnerable than they used to be.

I’m therefore going to attempt to calculate the new PVIs for the states listed in the diary title. They were picked because we have all the results from districts in those states, and because they represent around 20% of America’s congressioanl districts and I’m too lazy right now to do more than that in a sitting.

My methodology conforms to that given in David NYC’s comment to DGM’s diary. My figures are taken from this spreadsheet. My figures are approximate and you should probably ignore everything beyond the decimal point, because I’m using data rounded to the nearest whole number for the district-by-district results.

Details in the extended entry:

If anybody knows how to render this in tabular form, I’m all ears. There’s a Google spreadsheet with my data here and I’ve given a brief list of the new PVIs below.

The numbers aren’t that great, but that’s mostly because of Obama’s improved performance over Kerry. Expect a lot of these numbers to move back slightly towards the Dems if Obama can perform similarly in 2012, and bear in mind that D+0 is now a lot safer than it used to be. It’s also worth noting that the likes of Arkansas and north Florida were much better territory for Gore than for Obama.

AK-AL: R+15.6

AR-1: R+10.4

AR-2: R+7.0

AR-3: R+18.0

AR-4: R+9.4

AZ-1: R+8.2

AZ-2: R+15.3

AZ-3: R+11.8

AZ-4: D+10.7

AZ-5: R+7.2

AZ-6: R+16.8

AZ-7: D+3.6

AZ-8: R+7.0

CT-1: D+10.0

CT-2: D+3.7

CT-3: D+6.7

CT-4: D+2.8

CT-5: R+0.2

DE-AL: D+4.4

FL-1: R+23.6

FL-2: R+8.0

FL-3: D+15.7

FL-4: R+19.2

FL-5: R+11.5

FL-6: R+15.0

FL-7: R+11.0

FL-8: R+5.0

FL-9: R+9.5

FL-10: R+3.2

FL-11: D+9.0

FL-12: R+8.5

FL-13: R+8.0

FL-14: R+13.5

FL-15: R+9.5

FL-16: R+7.0

FL-17: D+31.8

FL-18: R+5.2

FL-19: D+12.2

FL-20: D+10.1

FL-21: R+7.7

FL-22: R+1.7

FL-23: D+25.8

FL-24: R+7.5

FL-25: R+7.0

GA-1: R+18.4

GA-2: R+1.7

GA-3: R+21.4

GA-4: D+21.7

GA-5: D+23.2

GA-6: R+20.4

GA-7: R+19

GA-8: R+12.5

GA-9: R+30.1

GA-10: R+17.0

GA-11: R+22.6

GA-12: R+1.7

GA-13: D+12.2

HI-1: D+8.5

HI-2: D+11.6

IA-1: D+2.4

IA-2: D+4.6

IA-3: R+1.2

IA-4: R+2.4

IA-5: R+11.6

ID-1: R+20.4

ID-2: R+20.0

IL-1: D+31.3

IL-2: D+33.3

IL-3: D+8.1

IL-4: D+29.2

IL-5: D+16.7

IL-6: R+1.9

IL-7: D+31.8

IL-8: R+2.9

IL-9: D+17.0

IL-10: D+3.6

IL-11: R+3.2

IL-12: R+0.1

IL-13: R+4.0

IL-14: R+4.0

IL-15: R+8.7

IL-16: R+4.5

IL-17: D+1.7

IL-18: R+7.5

IL-19: R+12.8

Republicans have a built-in advantage in the Senate. In the last congress, when the Senate was split 51-49, Republican Senators represented only 367 congressional districts between them, whilst the 51 Senators caucusing with the Democrats represented 503 congressional districts between them.

This is, to a large extent, a function of the way America’s states were formed. They began as a hodge-podge of different territories of varying histories and sizes and more were added rather haphazardly according to matters of population, prestige and transient electoral politics.

Meanwhile the Senate, a legacy of the time when states’ rights was more than a convenient label for segregationists to hide behind, gave two Senators to each state whether they had fifty representatives in the House or five. Ten states possess a majority of America’s electoral votes, yet they are outnumbered in the Senate by representatives of the eleven states with only three or four electoral votes.

And since a low population in a state tends to correlate with rurality and since the rural vote is generally extremely conservative, it is no surprise that there is a Republican skew to the Senate as a general rule.

For all the importance of redistricting, Democrats could gain much more if they could redistrict across state lines. They could give themselves a massive advantage in presidential races and a good chance of veto-proof Senate majorities. They could create a Permanent Democratic Majority that would last much longer than Karl Rove’s sorry attempt.

So let’s give this a go. A few suggestions have been made in the DE-AL comments thread, but I want to take this much further. Let’s dream of what we could do in an ideal world, and while we’re at it get some practice in before the next census is upon us

Before I begin, I’ll give the ground rules under which I’m operating:

1) All new states should be contiguous unless they include Alaska or Hawaii. Alaska and Hawaii must be attached to states with Pacific borders. Yes, I know Sarah Palin would enjoy being Governor of Oklahoma, but let’s be realistic with this exercise that bears no relation to reality.

2) All new states should have a roughly equal population. I’m lazy, so I’ve just made 15 states of 8 congressional districts each (in fast-growing areas of America) and 35 of 9 congressional districts each.

3) All new states should have some rationale to their existence beyond gerrymandering. In other words, don’t get too ambitious. Yes, you could make a new state stretching from Idaho to New Orleans, but there would be nothing real holding the state together. Stick to areas of common culture, religion, or geographical location.

With that aside, here’s a map of 50 new American states:

And here are their descriptions:

Olympia: This state is essentially Washington west of the Cascades, plus Alaska and northern Oregon. As Washington is likely to pick up a district in 2012, I’ve given it only eight CDs.

It contains AK-AL, OR-1, WA-1, WA-2, WA-3, WA-6, WA-7, WA-8 and WA-9. By my calculation, it’s 2004 PVI would have been D+5.5. That may not be entirely accurate, as throughout I’ve just added up the PVIs of the various CDs and averaged them.

Cascadia: One of four vote sinks in sagebrush country, Cascadia is made up of Idaho, eastern Washington, eastern Idaho and north-eastern California. I’ve given this eight CDs as well, which may have been a mistake given that most of this state is uninhabitable desert, but I had the idea that the Mormon population and global warming might keep this region growing at an above-average rate.

It contains CA-2, CA-4, ID-1, ID-2, OR-2, WA-4, WA-5 and WA-8. Estimated PVI is R+11.4.



Mormonistan: I don’t think this is one of my better states. Originally it included WY-AL, but due to me accidentally making San Francisco a 10-CD state, I had to give that up and take in CA-19 instead. This makes this district a little too Californian (it goes right up to the edge of L.A., because CA-25 is a huge district) and not really Mormon enough (although it is still centred on Utah and Cow Country). Also, I should probably have put Las Vegas elsewhere, but perhaps the rapid growth there will make this a winnable state in a couple of decades.

The state contains CA-19, CA-25, NV-1, NV-2, NV-3, UT-1, UT-2 and UT-3. Estimated PVI R+10.

San Jose:  This state takes in the east coast of California between L.A. and S.F, plus the Republican districts immediately inland of there. It was by far the easiest of the California replacements to make.

It contains CA-17, CA-20, CA-21, CA-22, CA-23, CA-24, CA-27, CA-28 and CA-30. Estimated PVI D+6.1.

Arizona: Nothing to see here. It’s a state with eight congressional districts and fast growth, so I decided just to leave it as is and call it a day. PVI should be around R+1.25.

Red Mexico: This is a combination of Colorado and New Mexico minus CO-04. I picked this name because I didn’t like the sound of New Colorado and I figured that this would be the place where Tom Tancredo would least want to live.

Estimate PVI is R+1.1, but I think that would be significantly changed if we were using 2008 PVIs.

Rio Grande: The Texas districts were a bastard to deal with, because almost all of them have either insanely Republican PVIs or very swingish numbers, despite being in 60% Hispanic districts. This is partly because of low Hispanic turnout, partly because of the Bush effect and his high numbers with Hispanics in 2004, and partly because the Delaymander was very clever. All four of the states I made from Texas have Republican PVIs, but two of them are winnable and swinging our way and it’s probably worth leaving the other two as vote sinks to help us speed that.

Rio Grande is made up south Texas districts and contains just about every Democratic district not held by Chet Edwards or a black representative. The districts in question are: TX-15, TX-16, TX-20, TX-21, TX-23, TX-25, TX-27 and TX-28. Estimated PVI is R+0.1.

North Texas: This area is a disaster zone for Democrats. Given Obama’s appalling performance here, it seems likely that one of TX-11, TX-13 and TX-19 will have the worst PVI in the country once the 2008 numbers come out. Bush is probably still popular here.

The district contains the the three districts already mentioned, plus TX-3, TX-12, TX-24, TX-26 and TX-32. It’s PVI is a stunning R+18.

East Texas: This area isn’t quite as bad as North Texas, but it’s a close-run thing. As a vote sink, this is more or less ideal. My only regret is that I couldn’t put Eddie Bernice Johnson’s Dallas district to good use.

The new state contains TX-1, TX-4, TX-5, TX-6, TX-8, TX-17, TX-30 and TX-31. Estimated PVI is R+11.6.

Louissippi: This is a state made up of Louisiana and the two southern districts of Mississippi, MS-3 and MS-4. I figure since Louisiana’s going to wrong way and we’ve been having no luck there, it’s best just to cut out the bits of territory we can use elsewhere and leave the rest well alone. Thanks to LA-02, it’s only R+6.2, but I wouldn’t put money on Mary Landrieu winning re-election here.

Kanslahoma: The third of the sagebrush vote sinks, this new state is made from all of Oklahoma, Kansas minus Dennis Moore’s district and CO-04. Sadly, I think it rather destroy any hope of Betsey Markey or Kathleen Sebelius moving up to the Senate, since it’s an imposing R+12.7.

Northern Plains: This puts a whole lot of empty space on the map where lines used to be. This vast state comprises Montana, Wyoming, Nebraska, the Dakotas, MN-7 and IA-5, just because I don’t think Iowans deserve Steve King.

The PVI is R+11.9, although Obama’s performance here may have improved that somewhat, and we hold enough Senators in the area already that we might still stand a chance here.

Minnisconsin: The last of the states which I had the room to label on the map, this is just an amalgam of Minnesota and northern Wisconsin. In an earlier form it also included the Upper Peninsula, because I figure it fits in better with Wisconsin that Minnesota, but my aforementioned mistake with San Francisco torpedoed that idea.

The districts present here are MN-1, MN-2, MN-3, MN-4, MN-5, MN-6, MN-8, WI-7 and WI-8. PVI is D+2.9.

Pacifica (1): This state stretches from Portland, down the Oregon coast to the northern outskirts of San Francisco, before turning inland to head towards the Nevada border and allow us to redistrict out Dan Lungren in 2012.

The districts here are CA-1, CA-3, CA-5, CA-6, CA-7, CA-10, OR-3, OR-4 and OR-5. The PVI is a very healthy D+9.5.

San Francisco (2): I tried not to allow this district to become too Democratic, but I failed (and, as previously mentioned, also tried to give this new state ten CDs). There’s definitely room for an attempt to be made to absorb more of wingnut country, who will be horrified by having two Senators with San Francisco values. Made up of CA-8, CA-9, CA-11, CA-12, CA-13, CA-14, CA-15, CA-16 and CA-18, it works out at D+18.8.

West L.A. (3): L.A. is large enough that it quite obviously has to be two states. The only question was how to accomplish this. If one were willing to cheat horribly, you could make some appalling spaghetti slices to match inner-city districts with Republican strongholds in the exurbs.

But personally, I couldn’t be bothered. I tried to absorb the less Democratic districts here, but pretty comprehensively failed, leaving West L.A. with a PVI of D+21. The districts used were CA-29, CA-31, CA-32, CA-33, CA-34, CA-35, CA-36, CA-37 and CA-46.

East L.A (4): The name is perhaps misleading here, since this district extends right out to the southern border of Orange County, encompassing CA-26, CA-38, CA-39, CA-40, CA-42, CA-43, CA-44, CA-47 and CA-48. Still, it works out as a comfortable D+1.7 and Hispanic growth and Obama’s strong Californian performance suggest that that Democrats will actually have more of an advantage here.

San Diego (5): Making a Democratic stronghold out of San Diego is almost impossible. So I cheated a little, rather than extending the district out to Phoenix, I merely joined it to Hawaii. This gives you a PVI of exactly 0, but Obama’s performance in Hawaii will have moved that in the right direction. The exact San Diego area districts used were CA-41, CA-45, CA-49, CA-50, CA-51, CA-52 and CA-53.

Houston (6): Made up of the Texas districts not used thus far (2, 7, 9, 10, 14, 18, 22 and 29,) this state gives us a PVI of R+2.3. Such a margin is not overwhelming, however, and I’d suspect that it would begin to lean strongly Democratic by 2016.

Arkasouri (7): A combination of the four Arkansas districts, the St. Louis districts of MO-1, MO-2 and MO-3 and the south Missouri districts of MO-7 and MO-8, Arkasouri clocks in at R+1.1. Disappointingly, this is also one of the few relatively marginal states that is probably trending in the wrong direction. I didn’t manage to create a strong progressive state based around Memphis and St. Louis. I’m open to suggestions as to how this could be done.

Missouwa (8): Made up of KS-03, the Missouri districts not in Arkasouri and all the Iowa districts bar IA-05, Missouwa is R+0.2. I can only argue that the Iowa caucuses will probably keep up turnout enough there that they’ll be able to balance out the rural Missouri parts of the state.

Illisconsin (9): I have to admit that this is a state that looks strange on a map, and would probably look strange even if I hadn’t drawn it. It might in fact have made more sense for down-state Illinois to go with Missouri and Iowa to go with the Quad Cities and western Wisconsin. Then again, I like the portmanteau.

The districts used were IL-12, IL-14, IL-15, IL-16, IL-17, IL-18, IL-19, WI-2 and WI-3. The PVI is R+0.2.

Wiscago (10): Beginning in the Madison area, this state takes a narrow path along the coast to draw in the North Side of Chicago and the northern suburbs. In between, it takes in enough of exurbia to wind up as a comfortable but not super-safe D+3.9. The constituent districts are IL-5, IL-6, IL-8, IL-9, IL-10, WI-1, WI-4, WI-5 and WI-6.

Undetroit (11): Originally this state was made up of all Michigan except for the north and the UP, Detroit and the Oakland county congressional districts. But with MI-1 back in the district, I had to reduce the south-east border by giving up on MI-8.

Other districts in this form of it are MI-2, MI-3, MI-4, MI-5, MI-6, MI-8, MI-10 and MI-12. At R+0.6, it has a very mild Republican lean.

Greater Chicago (12): The centre and South Side of Chicago, combined with some suburbs to the south and south-west and the Gary area make this new state. Joe Donnelly’s district was thrown in to make up the numbers and lower the PVI, but it’s an urban enough state that the PVI is still D+16. The consistuent districts are IL-1, IL-2, IL-3, IL-4, IL-7, IL-11, IL-13, IN-1 and IN-2.

Toledo Wedge (13): Harking back to an 1830s border dispute, this state is made up of the bluest bits of Michigan and the most insanely red bits of north-east Indiana and north-west Ohio. In an earlier and rather better iteration, it included Marcy Kaptur’s district, but that’s now been replaced with MI-8.

The other constituent parts are IN-3, MI-7, MI-11, MI-13, MI-14, MI-15, OH-4 and OH-5. Detroit counts for enough to give this a PVI of D+3.7.

Ohio River (14): Mostly filling gaps in my map, this state leaves relatively slim pickings for Democrats. It’s centred on Indiana, but replaces the Gary area with Louisville and the north-east with western Ohio and some Cincinnati suburbs.

It’s R+7.3. Obama’s performance in Indiana plus Democratic successes in the non-Indiana parts of the state might suggest better times ahead, but this will always lean Republican. The districts enclosed within are IN-4, IN-5, IN-6, IN-7, IN-8, IN-9, KY-3, OH-1 and OH-8.

Mississippi River (15): An attempt to make a Democratic district extending along the Mississippi, this state comes in at R+1.9 because Bennie Thompson’s district and the Memphis area can’t quite balance out western Kentucky, central Tennessee and north-eastern Mississippi. To be marked down as Democratic, it would probably have to extend up towards St. Louis instead.

The constituent parts are KY-1, KY-2, MS-1, MS-2, TN-5, TN-6, TN-7, TN-8 and TN-9.

Greater Alabama (16): This is quite a simple district, made up of all Alabama plus FL-01 and FL-02. It’s also a bit of a nightmare for Democrats, but considering that only 9% of Alabama whites voted for Obama, I think we knew that anyway. The PVI is R+9.

North Florida (17): Taking in Georgia’s coastline before heading down to Orlando and  west to the Gulf of Mexico, this is basically a cracker district, but with a black majority district unfortunately trapped within. The exact constituent parts are FL-3, FL-4, FL-5, FL-6, FL-7, FL-9, FL-12 and GA-1, which combine for a PVI of R+4.9. Like the other Florida-based states, it has eight congressional districts.

Central Florida (18): If this state appears messy, I blame the Florida 2002 redistricting plan. For the most part it’s a relatively simple formation, made up of the south-east portions of the Orlando metropolitan area and the land heading roughly south-west of there to Tampa, but for gerrymandering purposes it also includes FL-23, which has an absurd shape, being comprised of a chunk of land inside and a couple of squiggles into downtown Miami. Some sort of landswap with the state of Miami would certainly seem sensible here. Nevertheless, Alcee Hasting’s district is Democratic enough to turn this from a swing state to a Democratic bastion at D+3.1. Other districts in the state are FL-8, FL-10, FL-11, FL-13, FL-15, FL-16, FL-23 and FL-24.

Miami (19): Made up of those bits of Florida not already used, this state is mostly a narrow coastal strip on the Atlantic, with the numbers being made up by the Keys, the very southern tip of the Mainland and Fort Myers. It clocks in at a fairly comfortable D+6.8.

Atlanta (20): This is my attempt to produce a Democratic state from Georgia based on 2004 results. It’s centred on metro Atlanta and the Black Belt, but for population reasons it also has to include the districts of Lynn Westmoreland and Tom Price.

Right now it’s D+2.5, but I fully expect that Obama’s performance added a couple of points here. The districts within it are GA-2, GA-3, GA-4, GA-5, GA-6, GA-8, GA-12 and GA-13.

Sumter (21): Yes, I picked that name purely to annoy. This fast-growing new state is made up of all South Carolina, plus a western eextension made up of GA-7 and GA-10 that stops just outside Atlanta. It’s not going to be easy picking for Democrats in the short-term, as it’s R+9.25.

Charlotte (22): Containing pretty much all of North Carolina bar the Triangle and the Appalachian regions, Charlotte clocks in at R+4.1. 2008 results notwithstanding, I suspect you could get a better map if you were prepared to make some ugly looking states. Districts used are NC-1, NC-2, NC-3, NC-6, NC-7, NC-8, NC-9 and NC-12.

Southern Appalachia (23): Another vote sink, this new state is made up of northern Georgia, western North Carolina and eastern and middle Tennessee. I’d expect this to be a state with little internal cohesion but a lot of cultural cohesion. I don’t think you could expect to elect a single progressive here.

The PVI is R+12.5 and the districts are GA-9, GA-11, NC-5, NC-10, NC-11, TN-1, TN-2, TN-3 and TN-4.

Northern Appalachia (24): The slightly less red companion to its southern neighbour, this is actually a state where Democrats could still compete at lower levels. Containing KY-4, KY-5, KY-6, OH-6, VA-6, VA-9, WV-1, WV-2 and WV-3, it isn’t going to produce great progressives, but you could get some decent economic populists and union supporters from here. PVI is R+6.2.

Real Virginia (25): It’s not really what Nancy Pfotenhauer meant, but I like the name. This version takes in North Carolina’s Triangle, all of southern Virginia bar the very western portions and goes up into Communist Country at its northern extnet. And all for a PVI of R+1.3, which is probably now reversed. The specific districts here are NC-4, NC-13, VA-1, VA-2, VA-3, VA-4, VA-5, VA-7 and VA-11.

Baltimore (26): Despite the name, this district is a sprawl. It begins in the DC suburbs (but does not include DC, as I’m leaving that out of this restructuring), curves round the Chesapeake Bay, moves on to the Eastern Shore and continues up through Delaware into southern New Jersey. I’ve just noticed that it’s not actually contiguous, since Elijah Cummings’ district extends to the shoreline, but since I’m too lazy to fix that we’ll just pretend that that district has given away a two foot wide stretch of shoreline to this new state.

So this State of Baltimore (without the city of Baltimore, much like Kansas) has a PVI of D+5.3. It takes in DE-AL, MD-1, MD-2, MD-3, MD-5, NJ-1, NJ-2, VA-8 and VA-10.

Allegany (27): This is a quite blatant gerrymander, stretching from the Pittsburgh metro area down through rural Maryland into the DC suburbs and Baltimore. I imagine there’d be a degree of cultural clash between the more liberal Maryland portions of the district and the culturally conservative Appalachian regions, but there’s a decent chance you could elect a black Senator here and the D+7.6 PVI is not to be sniffed at. The districts used are MD-4, MD-6, MD-7, MD-8, PA-4, PA-9, PA-12, PA-14 and PA-18.

Columbus (28): This state is essentially made up of the bits of Ohio I couldn’t use elsewhere. Still, for a rump it’s a lot better than it could have been and its PVI is only R+1.2. Extending from Cincinnati through the central portion of the state, it once reached the Cleveland outskirts but I had to change it to take in Marcy Kaptur’s Erie-side district and it now gets no closer than the Mahoning valley.

The component parts are OH-2, OH-3, OH-7, OH-9, OH-12, OH-15, OH-16, OH-17 and OH-18.

Lakeside (29): Based around the coastlines of Lakes Erie and Ontario, this state stretches from Cleveland to Rochester. It also extends out wildly to enclose PA-5. In my defence, it looked a lot less weird when I also had NY-29 in here, but that had to change to help clear up my mistake with San Francisco.

The PVI is D+5.8 and other unmentioned districts here are NY-26, NY-27, NY-28, OH-10, OH-11, OH-13, OH-14 and PA-3.

Delaware River (30): This district is based around Upstate but also extends down through the Poconos into Philadelphia’s outer suburbs and northern New Jersey. It’s mildly Democratic, with a PVI of D+2.1, although that’s only because I cheated a little and extended it down into the north-western edge of New York City.

The current seats are NJ-5, NY-17, NY-22, NY-24, NY-25, NY-29, PA-10, PA-11 and PA-15.

Philadelphia (31): This was a comparatively simple district to draw. Luckily, Philadelphia’s centre and blueing suburbs easily swamp the portions of the T here and I extended the district into New Jersey just because I needed somewhere to put Adler’s district. If you wanted to respect state lines where possible, you could swap it for Patrick Murphy’s district for no difference whatsoever.

The PVI is D+6.9 and the districts are NJ-3, PA-1, PA-2, PA-6, PA-7, PA-13, PA-16, PA-17 and PA-19.

North Jersey (32): At this point, I’d like to apologise for the map. If I could draw, I would have made a better one. It’s not very clear here, so let me just explain that this is basically just central and northern New Jersey, plus Patrick Murphy’s Pennsylvania district for geographical compactness.

The PVI is D+8.2 and the districts used are NJ-4, NJ-6, NJ-7, NJ-8, NJ-9, NJ-10, NJ-11, NJ-12 and PA-8.

Manhattan (33): One of two NYC districts, this one has a whopping D+28.3 PVI. Unfortunately, urban areas generally tend to clump together and produce unnecessarily large Democratic PVIs and this trend is exacerbated because of NYC’s geographic location. On the plus side, I reckon that a minority candidate would be the favourite to win a Senate seat in a state like this.

This state is made up of Manhattan, Staten Island, most of the Bronx, parts of Queens and Brooklyn and Albio Sires’ New Jersey district. That means NJ-13, NY-7, NY-8, NJ-12, NJ-13, NJ-14, NJ-15, NJ-16.

Long Island (34): This area isn’t quite as Democratic as Manhattan. Still, it does have a suitable impressive D+19.2 PVI, so I wouldn’t worry about losing it. It’s basically made up of areas east of Manhattan State, curving around Jamaica Bay, by which I mean NY-1, NY-2, NY-3, NY-4, NY-5, NY-6, NY-9, NY-10 and NY-11.

Greater Connecticut (35): Not much to say here. This is just Connecticut plus New York down to Yonkers and the congressional districts in Massachusetts based around Worcester. PVI is D+8.5 and constituent parts are CT-1, CT-2, CT-3, CT-4, CT-5, MA-2, MA-3, NY-18 and NY-19.

Cape Cod (36): Again, there’s little to see here. This is just Rhode Island stuck together with eastern Massachusetts. PVI of D+16.2, districts are MA-4, MA-5, MA-6, MA-7, MA-8, MA-9, MA-10, RI-1 and RI-2.

Algonquia (37): I’ll close this out with a state that’s essentially charged with watching the border for a Canadian invasion. Made up of all Maine and New Hampshire, Vermont and New York down to Albany (NY-20, NY-21 and NY-23) it’s D+4.8.

If we count anything below R or D+2 as a swing state and anything above R or D+5 as a safe state, then we end up with the following statistics:

Democratic safe: 176 EV (17 states + DC)

Democratic lean: 75 EV (7 states)

Swing (Democratic edge): 11 EV (1 state)

Absolutely balanced: 11 EV (1 state)

Swing (Republican edge): 108 EV (10 states)

Republican lean: 30 EV (3 states)

Republican safe: 127 EV (12 states)

I’ll be the first to admit that Republicans could win on this map. But it wouldn’t be easy. Democrats have more than half of their total locked up and since it’s hard to flip swing states, they essentially start at 251 EV to Republicans’ 157.

Then add in the fact that Republicans have a lot more marginal states to defend and that some of those states are trending blue pretty fast, and we begin to see a map where a 50:50 race leans distinctly Democratic.

Meanwhile, in the Senate there are at least 30 seats where there is no reason for Democrats to nominate a minority and a good half a dozen states where minority candidates could easily win election.

I think this would be a better map than the one we have now. But if you can improve it further, or suggest a new map entirely, post it in the comments.