Author: drobertson

Yesterday, Scott Walker blamed David Prosser’s apparent loss on Madison and, to a lesser extent, Milwaukee. He said that he was confident that the recall elections would be okay for his party because, in his words, “Those Senate recall elections both on the Democrat and Republican side are not being held in Madison and not being held in Milwaukee. They’re being held in other parts of the state”. This is pretty disingenuous; the elections aren’t being held in Waukesha, either, and Kloppenburg carried 30 counties in addition to Dane county (Madison) and Milwaukee county. But let’s indulge Walker’s fantasy for a moment. Imagine that Wisconsin were to split into two separate states. Dane and Milwaukee counties form the new Democratic People’s Republic of Fake Wisconsin, or just Fake Wisconsin for short (don’t forget to buy the official state underwear). The rest of the state then forms the state of Real Wisconsin (like Real Virginia, only with more cheese). There might be legal issues arising from having a state that is composed of two non-contiguous parts, but technically I don’t think that the constitution requires states to be composed of contiguous territory. Leaving aside the legal issues, though, it turns out this proposal might not be as good for the GOP as Scott Walker thinks it would be.

In the 2008 election, Obama still would have gotten 52.5% of the vote in Real Wisconsin. He would also have carried the state of Fake Wisconsin with 70.3%. The Fake Wisconsin secession would have added two electoral votes to Obama’s total, as Fake Wisconsin would have two electoral votes in addition to the two it would steal from Real Wisconsin. In 2004, taking out Milwaukee and Dane only leaves Kerry with 45.6% of the vote in Real Wisconsin. But Kerry would have carried Fake Wisconsin with 63.9% of the vote. Kerry would have lost Real Wisconsin’s six eight electoral votes but kept Fake Wisconsin’s four, leaving him down a total of two. Under this scenario, if Kerry had won Ohio he still would have become President. These two elections give Real Wisconsin a Cook PVI of approximately R+2, or in other words the same as Virginia or Florida. Even without Madison and Milwaukee, Wisconsin is still basically a swing state. Fake Wisconsin, on the other hand, would have a PVI of D+17, or four points more Democratic than Vermont, currently the most Democratic state in the union.

Not only would the secession of Dane and Milwaukee not benefit the GOP in presidential elections, it would decidedly hurt them  in the senate. Fake Wisconsin would now have two senators in addition to the two senators from Real Wisconsin. It’s basically guaranteed that Fake Wisconsin’s senators would be Democrats (probably Russ Feingold and Herb Kohl, as both of them live within the boundaries of the new state), while Real Wisconsin could easily elect one or two Democratic senators as well. Ron Johnson lives in Real Wisconsin, so he would remain a senator, at least until 2016. But the other senate seat of Real Wisconsin would be open, and one of the strongest potential Democratic senate candidates, Rep Ron Kind, would have a good chance of winning it in 2012. The best the GOP could hope to do is break even among senators from the former Badger State, and likely the Democrats would come out with one or two more senators.

Of course, the biggest reason that splitting Milwaukee and Dane from Wisconsin wouldn’t be good for Walker is that Walker would be a resident of Fake Wisconsin. Even back in the days when he could win an election for county executive in Milwaukee, Walker still probably couldn’t win the governorship of Fake Wisconsin, as governor’s elections are more partisan than county executive elections, not to mention the fact that he would have to deal with Dane county as well. I suppose Walker could move to the suburban counties and run for the governorship of Real Wisconsin. Maybe he could make sure that his house remained an enclave of Real Wisconsin, or change the laws so that anyone named Scott Walker doesn’t have to be a resident of Real Wisconsin to be governor. This is his dream world, after all.

All things considered, it seems that the secession of Fake Wisconsin from Real Wisconsin would probably be a good thing for Democrats. This idea may be the one thing Scott Walker and I agree on.

Since the GOP controls redistricting in Indiana, it seems likely that Democrats will be forced down to two congressional districts in the new plan for the state (fortunately, Mitch Daniels seems like he won’t do anything too crazy with redistricting, so we’re unlikely to see any Indy-to-Gary Democratic vote dumps). This is what a hypothetical Democratic map of Indiana would look like.

1st District (blue): Safe D

Basically the same as it is now.

2nd District (green): Safe D

Takes in the Democratic parts of Fort Wayne and loses some of the more conservative parts of the current district. I believe it should be safely democratic now.

3rd District (purple): Safe R

All the Republican parts of Northern Indiana.

4th District (red): Safe R

Indy suburbs. These areas showed some of the strongest swings towards Obama in 2008 of anywhere in the state, meaning that they might becoming competitive in the future, but for now this is deep red country.

5th District (yellow): Safe R

6th District (teal): Safe R

This was once Democratic territory, but it has trended Republican to the point where I don’t see it being competitive for any Democrat.

7th District (gray): Safe D

Gets a couple points more Republican in order to help the 8th, but still safe for Andre Carson.

8th District (slate blue): Likely D

This district includes liberal Bloomington, Democratic leaning Delaware and Madison counties, and some African-American parts of eastern Marion county. The non-Marion parts of the district voted 57% for Obama, and the precincts in Marion county (about 100K people) are 70-80% Democratic, so overall it should have a pretty strong Democratic lean. Still, it might be competitive in a great Republican year (Dan Coats narrowly won here, I believe).

9th District (light blue): Tossup/Lean D?

This district voted 52% for Obama, which would normally make it a tossup district. However, this is an area where conservative Democrats do very well, which is why this may be a Lean D district in practice. If Brad Ellsworth were to run here again I suspect he would win pretty easily.

In a previous diary, I showed what an Arizona redistricting plan with three majority-minority districts might look like. With the new census data for Arizona, it is actually possible to draw four majority-minority districts in the state.

1st district (blue):

46.1% W, 30.7% H, 19.0% N (18+ population only)

Because of low turnout rates among Native Americans and Hispanics, the electorate here is probably majority-white. But since Flagstaff has a lot of white Democrats, the district is probably pretty swingy. I would guess the PVI is something like R+1 or so, but I’m not sure.

2nd district (green):

82.9% W, 13.7% H

Trent Franks no longer lives in this district, so if this map were actually drawn I would expect him to run for senate. More than 60% of the district’s population now lives outside of Maricopa county, meaning that the state would have two districts not based in Phoenix or Tuscon.

3rd district (purple):

76.7% W, 14.5% H

Ben Quayle and Trent Franks both may or may not live here, but this is probably where both of them would run (assuming Franks doesn’t run for senate). I don’t think Quayle could make it through the primary here, but regardless it’s a safely red district.

4th district (red):

32.5% W, 8.3% B, 52.3% H

The only majority Hispanic district in the state under this map, and also the most Democratic.

5th district (gold):

69.5% W, 16.4% H, 6.6% A

This district mixes liberal Tempe with conservative Gilbert and Chandler. It probably leans republican, but if Democrats wanted to take a majority of the state’s districts this would be their primary target.

6th district (teal):

83.2% W, 10.2% H

David Schweikert would probably be this district’s representative. Ben Quayle may live here but I doubt he beats Schweikert in a primary. Schweikert would be much safer here than in his old district.

7th district (gray):

49.2% W, 40.0% H

A majority of the district’s electorate is probably white, but Tuscon has enough liberal whites that this district would be very Democratic.

8th district (slate blue):

77.2% W, 15.2% H

The demographics of the district are similar to what they were, but the whites in Pinal/Maricopa counties are much more conservative than the whites in Pima county, so it probably gets more Republican.

9th district (light blue):

45.2% W, 6.2% B, 40.9% H

Despite being majority-minority, this district probably leans Republican. It would undoubtedly be very competitive, however.

—-

Interestingly, there are only two really Democratic districts here, just like in the current map. Having four majority-minority districts isn’t exactly a Democratic gerrymander. This plan would certainly be better for Democrats than the current districts, but if I were to approach this from a Democratic standpoint the map would probably be pretty different.  

It’s clear now that there are massive protests in Wisconsin over the governor’s plan to remove collective bargaining rights from some public employees. But how do the majority of people in Wisconsin feel about the governor’s plan? Lets look at some polling on the issue.

We Ask America had a poll on the situation Thursday. They ask:

As you may know, Gov. Scott Walker has proposed a plan to limit the pay of government workers and teachers, increase their share of the cost of benefits, and strip some public-employ unions of much of their power. We’d like to know if APPROVE or DISAPPROVE of Gov. Walker’s plan.

43.05% Approve

51.90% Disapprove

(2400 Wisconsin residents)

First of all, remember that WAA is a Republican group. Note that there is no mention in that wording of collective bargaining rights. Yet they still find a majority opposed.

WAA also asked this question:

It was reported today that Democratic state senators have left the capitol in order to prevent a vote of Gov. Walker’s measures. Do you think that the Democratic state senators should return to the state capitol to vote on the issue?

Yes (should return): 55.99%

No (shouldn’t return): 36.38%

This is not surprising to me, personally. I believe that the calculation made by the state senators is that by leaving the state they make this a bigger news item, which could give them more benefit than leaving the state hurts them. I highly doubt the decision by Democratic lawmakers to leave the state significantly impacted anyone’s opinion of the bill itself.

A poll by The Shop Consulting group for Building a Stronger Wisconsin was also conducted on Thursday. The poll asked the following:

Rather than negotiate with public employee Unions to address budget

issues in Wisconsin, Governor Walker (WALK-ER) has proposed a number of changes that would directly affect many public employees in Wisconsin. With the exception of police and firefighters, all  state, county and municipal employees including teachers will be asked to contribute greater amounts to help pay for health care and retirement benefits which would be in effect a pay reduction of around 9%.

How would you characterize your feelings about this portion of the proposal?

Would you say:

I fully support Walker’s proposal: 33.7%

I think that public employees should pay more of the costs of their health care and  retirement, but I think this proposal goes too far: 26.6%

I oppose Walker’s proposal and believe it is an  attack on Unions and Wisconsin workers: 35.2%

The Walker proposal includes not only significant increases in public employee contributions for health care and retirement, but strips them of the ability to collectively bargain on any issue other than wages. Collective bargaining between workers and management is used to address many issues from workplace discipline to working hours and conditions.

What do you feel about Walker’s proposal after learning this?  

Would you say:

I fully support Walker’s proposal: 31.9%

I support some additional contributions by employees for health care and retirement, but removing the ability to collectively bargain is going too far: 32.1%

I oppose Walker’s proposal and believe it is an attack on Unions and Wisconsin workers: 32.9%

(602 Wisconsin “voters”-I assume they mean registered voters, not likely voters or residents, but I could be wrong)

I would definitely take this poll with a grain of salt-Building a Stronger Wisconsin is a progressive group and some of the question wording seems biased to me. However, I think it makes an important distinction: namely, whether people support lowering benefits for public employees and whether they support stripping them of benefits. It seems to me a large portion of people could support reducing public employee pay/benefits to balance the budget, but still think they should have the ability to collectively bargain.

Now let’s look at Gov Walker’s own ratings. The most recent poll was taken by PPP on Dec 10-12. It showed Walker slightly underwater, with 41% having a favorable opinion of him compared to 49% unfavorable. This is significantly less than the polls taken right before the election, which showed Walker with a consistently favorable image among likely voters:

The reason PPP gives for this is a simple one: their December poll was of registered voters, the earlier polls were of likely voters. Democrats traditionally do better in polls of registered voters compared to polls of likely voters, and this was especially true in 2010. This is a possible explanation, but it seems a little strange to me that the shift from likely to registered voters alone would cause such a large shift in opinions, from a +14 spread in favorable ratings to a -8 one. In the 2010 elections, Democrats did about six points better in registered voter polls versus likely voter polls, although some firms showed larger gaps. This is significantly less than the gap between the pre election likely voter polls of Walker’s favorable ratings and the post election PPP poll. This suggests that either PPP’s Dec poll was an outlier, which is definitely possible, or that Walker’s favorable ratings fell in the space between the election and when PPP took the poll. There was significant news coverage in this time period of then gov elect Walker’s promise to cancel a high speed rail connection between Madison and Milwaukee. This could have slightly hurt Walker, however given that he declared his attentions to do this many times on the campaign trail that seems somewhat unlikely to me, and regardless I doubt that issue alone would have caused such a profound drop in Walker’s ratings. And all of this polling was before the controversy over this new legislation, which undoubtedly has had a large impact on Walker’s ratings, either positive or negative. This old poll is of little use to us now, and it seems a new poll on Walker’s approval rating is badly needed.

With the only polls directly dealing with this situation being one from a Republican firm, one sponsored by a progressive organization, and one that is terribly outdated, it seems there is little relevant polling on this situation. So it might be worth it to look at polling on the question of public sector unions in general.

A very comprehensive poll covering many union-related topics was taken by Pew on Thursday.

Now that Dave’s app has updated data for Virginia, I figured I would see what a map drawn by courts or a commission would look like. I had the basic idea for this map for a while, but now I updated it with the new population estimates to see what the partisanship would look like.



Nova:

Districts:

VA-08:Arlington, Alexandria, Falls Church, inner Fairfax county

18+Pop: 56W/12B/18H/13A

2008:67O/33M

Avg Dem performance: 66D/35R

Representative: Jim Moran (D)

VA-11: Outer Fairfax county

61W/8B/11H/18A

57O/43M

54D/46R

Representative: Probably Gerry Connolly (D), but Frank Wolf (R) also lives in this district. I suspect Connolly is favored to win, but Wolf has substantial crossover appeal and would definitely have a chance. My initial guess is that Connolly would be the 60% or so favorite. It would almost certainly go D within the next decade, however.

VA-10: Prince William county (except Quantico Marine Corps base), inner Loudoun county

55W/15B/17H/11A

55O/45M (One caveat-many precincts in this district show 3-4K McCain votes but no Obama votes, so Obama total is probably somewhat higher)

49D/51R

Representative: None live in this district. The election for this new district will be a pure tossup.

VA-01: Far NoVA exurbs and the Shenandoah valley

78W/11B/7H

56M/44O

60R/40D

Representative: Unknown, but definitely a Republican

VA-06: Charlottesville area, Southern Shenandoah valley, Appalachian areas, Roanoke area

84W/10B

48O/52M

47D/53R

Representative: Probably Bob Goodlatte (R), however this district has gotten significantly more Democratic so it might be worth it to find a challenger to him. Tom Perriello could do it if he doesn’t run for senate. Also, Creigh Deeds lives in this district. Maybe we’ll see a Representative Creigh Deeds from here soon, something I’m sure SSpers are excited about. Also, Morgan Griffith lives in Salem, which I put in this district because there is no good reason to have Salem and Roanoke in separate districts. I suspect he moves to the 9th, however

VA-09: Southwest VA

90W/6B

59M/41O

44D/56R

Representative: I believe Morgan Griffith (R) would probably move here and win

VA-05: Piedmont area

69W/27B

45O/55M

44D/56R

Representative: Robert Hurt (R) would run here and be even safer than he is now

VA-04: Similar to what it is now, stretches from Chesapeake/VA Beach up to far-flung exurbs of Richmond

65W/25B

47O/53M

45D/55R

Representative: Randy Forbes (R), possibly Scott Rigell (R) depending on where he lives in VA Beach (anybody know?). If they are in a district together, Forbes would probably win the primary because Rigell is a freshman. Regardless, this district was no longer carried by Obama

VA-03: The most African-American parts of the Newport News area

44W/45B

71O/29M

66D/34R

Representative: Unknown, but likely an African-American Democrat. I decided to draw this as the VRA district for this map. Drawing districts more compactly is terrible for minority representation in Virginia, as the best I could do is a plurality-AA district here. African-Americans still make up a majority of the Democratic primary, and the district is safely Democratic so it would probably elect an AA Democrat. Interestingly, Obama significantly overperformed the average Democrat in this district, probably because of high African-American turnout.

VA-07: All the areas inside the Richmond beltway were 50K short of a district, so I added some areas just outside the beltway, regardless it’s basically a Richmond district

57W/31B/6H/5A

62O/34M

57D/43R

Representative: Maybe Bobby Scott (D), Eric Cantor (R) also lives here. Cantor probably couldn’t win this district, but Scott is also probably a bit to the left of this district. I have to give Scott the advantage, but he might have to actually contest a campaign every now and then.

VA-02:Tidewater area

74W/16B

Dave’s app kind of crapped out on me here and gave me -2,000,000 votes for both candidates, so I don’t know what the numbers are, but regardless it’s safe R

Representative: Rob Wittman (R) would probably win this district. Scott Rigell either lives here or in the 4th, but I suspect he loses the primary either way.

So you have 2 Safe D seats (8th, 3rd), 1 Likely D seat (7th), 1 Lean D seat (11th), 1 Tossup seat(10th), 1 Likely R seat (6th), and 5 Safe R seats (1st, 5th, 9th, 4th, 2nd). I could see the split being anywhere from 8R-3D to 6D-5R. Realistically I think the default standing for the parties is 4D-6R, with the 10th a pure tossup.  

This is the third of my diaries on the state of Maryland. What I have found is that there are many, many ways to draw the state of Maryland with eight Democratic seats. There are a couple things that I think any map of Maryland must do, however, in order to have a practical chance of passing:

*Keep the Eastern Shore intact in one district, to avoid upsetting the Shore legislators

*Give all Democratic incumbents a district that they would be okay with. None should have to move to represent a new district.

*Make sure that the district drawn for Frank Kratovil is one where he can win the primary. The last thing we want is to put in too much of Prince George County or Baltimore so that a liberal from those areas who cannot win the general makes it out of the primary.

*And of course, keep all districts Democratic, except for the district where Kratovil runs which should be around PVI EVEN so that he wins it.

Here are some possibilities I have come up with to accomplish those goals.

Option 1

The 8th and 6th show the familiar pattern; 8th taking the panhandle, 6th stretching into Montgomery. The 8th is 61/37 Obama and the 6th is 59/39 Obama. The 4th stretches up all the way to Carroll county now to pack in Republicans. This is terribly ugly, but the district is still 31%W/53%B/11%H and 76/23 Obama. The Carroll and western Howard county parts of the district are very white and Republican, but they do not have enough population to really make Edwards uncomfortable. Steny Hoyer’s 5th district located in eastern PG county, Anne Arundel co, and South Maryland is 60/39 Obama. The 7th district takes in some Republican areas in Anne Arundel county, making it 51%B/42%W and 68/31 Obama. The 3rd district stretches from the Baltimore county suburbs where Sarbanes lives through Howard County down to some of the most white areas of Northern PG county that were in the old 5th. It is even more Democratic than before, 62/36 Obama. The population base of this district is now in Howard county. This should be fine for Sarbanes as most of these areas are used to being represented by Baltimore representatives, but it does show that it would probably be a good idea for Sarbanes to move to Howard county in the long run, especially if he sees a statewide run in the future. This is even more true with the rapid growth in Howard’s population, as indicated by the last census. The 2nd district balances out some conservative areas in Baltimore and Harford counties with some white liberal areas in Baltimore city. It is 58/39 Obama, which represents a shift of <1% from before. Given that Ruppersberger won with 64% in 2010, he should be fine here, especially given that this district contains a lot of conservative Democrats who vote Republican nationally but Democratic locally so it is more Democratic than the Obama numbers suggest. The 1st district, drawn for Frank Kratovil, takes in the Democratic areas of Harford county and some majority-black, heavily Democratic areas in Baltimore County. It is 52/46 Obama, which I believe Kratovil should definitely win.

Option 2







This map makes extensive [ab]use of trans-Chesapeake water contiguity, giving the 1st some Democratic precincts up and down the Chesapeake, including drawing it straight into the city of Baltimore with no land connection. In this plan, the 1st is 52/46 Obama. The one potential advantage to this is that because the Democratic primary vote is split up between different areas instead of being concentrated in a single area, no liberal Democrat with a base in one area could upset Kratovil in the Democratic primary. The 2nd is 58/40 Obama, which again is a one point shift to the GOP from the current district but not enough to affect Ruppersberger given the landslide margins he has won by (and probably not enough to make it much more competitive in an open-seat election, either). The 3rd has the same partisanship it currently does, 60/39 Obama. It is much more of a Baltimore-area district than my first map, with only a tiny part of Montgomery and none of PG county in the district. The 7th is 51%B/43%W and 65/34 Obama, which is incredibly Republican for a majority-black district in Maryland. Steny Hoyer should be happy with this map, as it makes his district 69/30 Obama. Donna Edwards gets some Republican areas of Anne Arundel packed into her district, but it is still 72/26 Obama and 33W/50B/12H. The 6th and 8th are both 60/38 Obama.

Option 3







This is very similar to the second map, but it eliminates some of the ugliest uses of water contiguity in South Maryland by adding one some Democratic precincts in Anne Arundel and Baltimore city to the 1st. The 1st is now 53/45 Obama and the 7th is now 64/34 Obama, but all the other districts are the same. This is definitely my favorite of the three.

I’m interested to hear any potential problems that you think these maps have. I still strongly believe that it is possible to draw an 8-0 map of Maryland that all incumbents are okay with, even if it requires some very creative drawing like this.

My last diary attempted to draw an effective 8-0 map of Maryland. This ran into problems, because my idea of drawing MD-01 across the Chesapeake from the Eastern Shore to St. Mary’s county left Steny Hoyer without a clear district to run in. In light of that, I have played around some more with the map of Maryland, and this is the best way I have come up with to guarantee Hoyer a district while drawing 8 democratic districts:

In the west the pattern is similar to my last plan. Chris Van Hollen’s MD-08 takes in the panhandle and becomes 61%O/38%M. MD-06 now stretches down into Montgomery County and is now 60%O/38%M. MD-05 is a district drawn for Steny Hoyer. It’s basically his ideal district, composing Southern Maryland, Eastern PG Co, and part of Anne Arundel County. It is 61%O/38%M, and should be safe for Hoyer. MD-04 stretches out of PG Co to take up the part Anne Arundel that isn’t in MD-05 (except for two precincts that are in the 2nd). It is just barely majority-black (51%B/38%W), but safely democratic at 73%O/25%M. The 1st district composes Frank Kratovil’s base in the Eastern Shore, Aberdeen Proving Ground in Harford Co, some parts of SE Baltimore county, and some heavily Democratic areas in Baltimore city. The district as a whole is 50%O/49%M. That is much more democratic than the previous district, but still Republican leaning on a national level. I believe, however, that this would be even better for Kratovil than the district I drew for him in my last diary. Most of the voters in this district’s section of Baltimore county are conservative Reagan Democrats who vote Republican on a national level but still elect conservative Democrats at a local level. These voters should be generally friendly to a conservative Democrat like Kratovil. In addition, these conservative Democrats would help make act as a buffer against an unelectable liberal democrat winning the primary. Between them, the Democrats in Baltimore city, and the Eastern Shore voters who have typically been Kratovil’s base, I think Kratovil should not have trouble winning this district. The 7th stretches up along the 95-or along I-95, as some east coast people say (see the old diary for those who don’t get the reference). It takes in many conservative areas, but is still 51%B/43%W and 68%O/31%M. The 3rd composes most of the close-in suburbs of Baltimore and is even safer D than before (63%O/35%M). The 2nd takes in the northern part of Baltimore county, some rural areas, much of Howard county, and some DC suburbs in PG and MontCo. The partisanship is the same as it is now, 59%D/39%R.

The big problem with this district is not political but regional. In this map, the PG+Montgomery areas of the 2nd district composed around 300K of the district’s 700k people. The areas outside of PG, Montgomery, and Howard counties only total 200K of the district’s population. This means that a majority of the Democratic primary in that district would probably be DC area voters instead of Baltimore area voters, because the areas in PG and Montgomery are much more Democratic than the other areas and because turnout rates are higher in Democratic primaries in PG Co and Mont Co as the Democratic primaries there are effectively the general election. I don’t know whether or not Ruppersburger would face a primary challenge (he could move to Columbia, which would put him in the center of the district and would probably be a good idea anyway given that these districts are going to have to be drawn somewhat differently from the above map due to population shifts to that area), but I know that the Baltimore area state legislators would not be happy with losing the influence of one congressman, especially since Andy Harris who lives in the Baltimore area would be gone as well. With that in mind, I drew another map of the state that preserves Baltimore’s influence in Congress, however with less clean lines overall.

This map draws MD-03 down into PG county a little and gives MD-02 some majority-black areas of Baltimore county. This has the effect of making both districts a little closer to each other in partisanship (MD-02 is 61%O/37%M and MD-03 is 62%O/36%M), and it allows the Baltimore area to dominate both districts. None of the other districts are changed. This map has many advantages, but it definitely looks more gerrymandered than the first one.

Sorry about the corny title. I felt that after the infamous Delaymander of Texas, this needed a similar name, and Steny Hoyer’s name didn’t lend itself to this as much as Chris Van Hollen’s name did. Anyway, this map attempts to defeat Andy Harris and Roscoe Bartlett while keeping all Democratic incumbents safe. And as an added bonus, it draws a new majority-minority district, just for the hell of it. Overall, this map is probably even cleaner looking than the current map of MD (which was always unnecessarily ugly, IMO). The only really ugly looking district is the 3rd, and even that looks better than it did before.

DC Area:

Baltimore:

Starting in the west, the panhandle is now in MD-08. In most of this area, the I-270 serves as the barrier between MD-08 and MD-06, with the area SW of the 270 in the 8th and the area NE of the 270 in MD-06. The 8th is 61%O/38%M and the 6th is 62%O/37%M. Van Hollen should be safe, and Bartlett is toast. MD-05 is the new majority-minority district. The racial stats are 49%W/28%B/15%H/7%A. I actually wasn’t intending to do this, but it just so happened that when I drew MD-05 it turned out 51% white, so I decided to tinker with the borders a little to make it majority-minority. The citizen voting age population is probably still majority-white, but that doesn’t really matter as this wasn’t required anyway. MD-04 takes in Calvert and some GOP parts of Anne Arundel Co. It is 39%W/53%B and 75%O/24%M. The 1st loses all its territory in the Baltimore suburbs and now crosses the water in the south into St. Mary’s, Charles, and a tiny part of PG Co. It is now 50%O/48%M, which would be slightly Republican leaning nationally but should be easy for Kratovil to win, especially now that Andy Harris is drawn out of the district. Interestingly, the PG Co parts of the district make up a tiny 33K people, or 5% of the total population of the district, however without these areas the district goes from 50/48 Obama to 47/51 McCain.

In the Baltimore area, the 2nd and 3rd districts have lost their spagetti-like shape and become much more compact. The 2nd district contains Harford and most of northern Baltimore counties as well as the northern part of Baltimore city. The district is 58%O/40%M, which is slightly less than the previous total of 59%O/39%M, but not significantly enough to affect this district much. The 3rd is now a crescent shaped district that stretches around from John Sarbanes’s home in Towson around Baltimore, Howard, and Anne Arundel counties as well as some liberal white areas of Baltimore around the Inner Harbor and Fells Point. It is now 59%O/39%M, which like the 2nd is slightly less than the 60%O/38%M it was before but not significantly. The 7th composes most of the majority black areas of Baltimore, however it stretches out to grab up Republican areas in Baltimore county from the surrounding districts. It is 42%W/52%B and 70%O/28%M.

I guess this map isn’t technically an 8-0 map, as the 1st still has a slight Republican lean. That could easily be gotten rid of by messing with the borders between the 4th and the 1st some more, however I decided that wasn’t necessary and it would require making the map look a little uglier. This 1st contains Kratovil’s base in the Eastern Shore, where he always did very well, but not the Baltimore suburbs that he consistently lost. I guess it’s theoretically possible that the GOP could pick up the 2nd or 3rd in an open-seat situation (maybe), however I really, really doubt they have much more of a chance than they do under the current map.

Just for fun, I decided to see how pro-GOP you could make a map of New Mexico. My strategy was to pack as many Democrats as possible into a super-Democratic district running from Albuquerque up along the Rio Grande, thus making the other districts as Republican as possible. This is what I came up with:



The districts are:

NM-01 (Blue)

32% W, 6% N, 57% H

74%O-25%M

NM-02 (Green)

44% W, 18% N, 34% H

49%O-50%M

NM-03 (Purple)

49% W, 44% H

48%O-50%M

Two McCain districts in a state that voted for Obama by a 15% margin. That’s what horrendously ugly gerrymandering like this can do. You could actually get the blue district up to the high 70’s by taking it into the Navajo Reservation area, but that would inevitably end up splitting up the Navajo Reservation which was too much for even this map. What’s really interesting to me about this map is that all of the districts are majority-minority here, but two of them still vote Republican.

With Washington gaining a tenth congressional district this year, the general assumption is that the new seat will be a heavily Democratic seat in the Seattle suburbs, which will turn Dave Reichert’s WA-08 into a Republican leaning district. I attempted to see if there was any way to prevent this. My goal was to draw a new Democratic WA-10, make WA-08 more Democratic, and protect all the surrounding districts, especially the potentially vulnerable WA-02, and keep WA-03 competitive, if not Democratic-leaning.  My goal with the suburban Seattle seats was to keep them all around D+5, which I think is the perfect balance between keeping the seats Democratic and making sure that they aren’t too packed. I came up with two ways to do this:

one that is slightly more compact that draws 7 Democratic seats, one lean-GOP seat, and two safe GOP seats…

…and one that is slightly less compact that draws 7 Democratic seats, one tossup-to-lean-Dem seat and two safe GOP seats

The only difference between these two maps is the Southwestern part of the state and the 3rd and 6th districts. In the first map, the 3rd is a district with a pvi of somewhere between EVEN and R+3 that takes up the Vancouver area, most of Cowlitz, Skamania, and Klickitat counties (gotta love those Washington county names), the Yakama Reservation, and the Hispanic-majority areas of Yakima county. In the second map, all the areas east of Clark co that were in the third in the first map are now in the 6th, and the 3rd stretches up along the Pacific coast. This 3rd is probably about D+1 or D+2.

The rest of the state is the same in both these maps. The 6th has dropped Tacoma and gained Olympia, which makes this area look a lot neater without really changing the partisan makeup at all. The 9th is now a very compact Tacoma district. The 1st is now a district composed of the Puget sound islands, Whatcom county, and Skagit county north and west of Mt Vernon. I tried to make the 5th as Democratic as any district in Eastern Washington could be, which is not really saying much. It contains the city of Spokane, which is slightly Democratic, but not the heavily Republican surrounding areas, the college town of Pullman, the Tri-Cities area, and some surrounding areas with large Hispanic populations (the district as a whole is 25% non-white). It is still probably considerable Republican-leaning, probably with a PVI of something like R+5. The devious thing about this district is that it draws Doc Hastings and Cathy McMorris Rogers into the same district. I expect McMorris Rogers will win the resulting primary, with the support of both the Republican “establishment” and the support of conservatives like Sarah Palin. Maybe this will convince Doc Hastings to jump into the gubernatorial primary. I haven’t heard any talk about him doing that, but it seems he could find a niche as the “true conservative” candidate. Democrats would of course love this because Doc Hastings would have no chance of winning the general election for governor.

Now on to the Seattle area:





The 2nd has swapped out some areas with the 1st, gaining the part of Snohomish Co part of the 1st and dropping some of the Northern areas. It is now probably a point or two more Democratic. The 7th has lost some heavily Democratic areas to the new 10th and gained some swingier suburban areas. It is somewhat less Democratic, but this doesn’t matter at all really. The new 10th is carved out of SW King Co, with territory taken from the 7th, 8th, and 9th districts. It contains Dave Reichert’s home in Auburn as well as some GOP-leaning areas in the eastern part of the district, but the heavily Democratic areas along the coast that make up the majority of the district’s population should make sure it has a strong Dem-lean, probably with a pvi of about D+6. Dave Reichert might be able to hold on to this district, but I think the Democratic candidate would start out with a solid advantage over Reichert given the fact that Reichert has never represented most of the district and the fact that Obama should be carrying this district with >60% of the vote. The 8th has also become more Democratic, with the loss of some GOP-leaning areas to the 10th and the gain of some heavily Democratic areas in the NW of King Co.