Author: jeffmd

I’m as freaked out over Massachusetts as anyone – and I might be plenty angry/despondent/confused/hungover tomorrow morning.

But in the meantime, I’ve been working on a crude projection model using, in part, the “baseline” idea that Crisitunity and DavidNYC have made a part of SSP Election Night Tradition.

The model, as inputs, takes partial results from towns that have reported, and outputs a whole slew of numbers comparing the current situation to the “baseline” numbers.

Explanations below the flip.

So here’s the front end of the model:

http://spreadsheets.google.com…

You’ll see a few things:

• How Coakley and Brown are currently doing.
  

• How Obama was doing in 2008 with the same towns and parts of towns reporting.
  

• How a 2008 “baseline” Democrat on target to win by 1 vote would be doing.
  

• How Kerry was doing in 1996 against Bill Weld with the same towns and parts of towns reporting.
  

• How a 1996 “baseline” Democrat would be doing.
  

You’ll also see comparisons between Coakley’s performance and those of Obama, Kerry, and the two “baseline” Democrats.

Perhaps most significantly, you’ll see the “2010 Projection using 2008” line.

The model compares relative turnout between 2010 and 2008, and the relative performances of Coakley and Obama to project results from towns that have not yet reported.

The “2010 Projection using 1996” line does the same, except with 1996 data.

I’m not claiming this model is perfect. In fact, it’s pretty damn bad. I can think of a few glaring weaknesses:

• The fundamental problem of the ‘baseline’ idea: it assumes that every town will swing uniformly.
  

• Disparate turnout: this model compares turnout in aggregate, instead of at the town level. This may lead to an overestimation of turnout in areas with relatively low turnout (compared to 2008 and 1996) and the reverse in areas with relatively high turnout. This may potentially bias the projections in Coakley’s favor.
  

• Assumption of town uniformity: the model assumes that each town votes uniformly the same way, but…Jamaica Plain and Southie are not going to vote the same way, very simply. If a relatively Brown-friendly area of a town reports first, this will bias the projection in his favor. The reverse is true if a Coakley-friendly area reports first.
  

Incidentally, here are the blood and guts of the model: http://spreadsheets.google.com…

Update: In columns AS, AT, BB, and BC, you can see baselines for every town for both 2008 and 1996.

I threw in some junk results to test it, and so far I didn’t detect any coding errors. I don’t pretend that I’m better than the Associated Press – but I just want to have an idea of where we are at each point of the results phase.

Hopefully I’ll get a chance to keep this updated as results stream in tonight.

Lastly, if you live in Massachusetts, are reading this, and you haven’t voted (assuming you’re a citizen, not a convicted felon, etc..), what the hell’s wrong with you?!

Here’s hoping Coakley pulls this off.

A few threads back, there was a lively discussion about voting patterns in Brooklyn, and how that impacted the 2009 mayoral race.

Thanks to David who worked his lawyerly Freedom-of-Information magic, we got some precinct results to look at.

I compared Thompson’s performance to Obama’s performance, and the results are pretty stark as to where the areas of relative strength are for each candidate.

So the baselines first:

Obama beat McCain by 59.27%; he earned 79.34% to McCain’s 20.07%. 2,613,944 total votes were cast.

Thompson lost to Bloomberg by 4.38%; he earned 46.33% to Bloombo’s 50.71%. 1,154,505 votes were cast, meaning turnout was 44% of 2008 turnout.

Maps (what else do I post here?) and more over the flip.

So here are Obama and Thompson’s absolute performances in the city.

Obama’s performance we already knew about, but a few striking aspects of Thompson’s performance:

• Upper East Siders lurve them some Bloombo.
  

• Whites in the Bronx voted for Bloomberg.
  

• Hispanics voted mostly for Thompson (though not to the levels they voted for Freddy Ferrer, I would posit).
  

• Blacks stayed strongly loyal to Thompson, with slight drop-offs visible in Brooklyn and East Queens.
  

• Staten Island stayed Staten Island.
  

More interestingly, here is a comparison of Obama and Thompson’s absolute performances. A more intense blue indicates a stronger Obama performance; a deeper red indicates a stronger Thompson performance.

Obviously, most of the map is some shade of blue, since Obama’s margin was 63.65% greater than Thompson’s. Even given this, there are still two visible clusters of red in Brooklyn: Williamsburg and Borough Park. Thompson still lost these precincts by a decent margin, but he improved over Obama despite the tide moving 64% in the other direction. I took this as evidence of the Hasidic Jewish community’s growing dislike of Bloomberg, which had been mentioned a few times before the election.

On the flipside, as you would expect, Manhattan and Brooklyn Heights are home to the Obama-Bloomberg voters, especially on the Upper East and West Sides, in Midtown, and down in the Financial District.

The lighter shades of blue are in East Queens and Central Brooklyn – mostly majority-black precincts that went strongly for both.

Another interesting cluster of these, though, is on the South Shore of Staten Island; Thompson’s performance didn’t fall all that much off from Obama’s (admittedly already weak) performance there. It seems there, though, that the voters are more reflexively Republican than those in Southern Brooklyn, where Obama seemed to be a particularly bad fit. (backup evidence: Stephen Cymbrowitz and Carl Kruger are elected from those areas in Brooklyn. Southern Staten Island elects two Republicans to the Assembly/Senate, Lou Tobacco and Andrew Lanza).

Alternatively, this can be shown in graph form. Obama’s margin on the x-axis; Thompson’s on the y-axis.



Now any monkey could have told you generally a stronger Obama performance is correlated with a stronger Thompson performance, but the exceptions to that general rule are evident here as well. The large cluster of green on the bottom right are those previously mentioned Manhattan precincts, while the dispersed red dots towards the middle and lower left are the Brooklyn precincts in which Thompson actually improved. (Incidentally, yellow represents Staten Island, orange for the Bronx, and blue for Queens). The bright green line is the even-performance line.

Now two more maps of interest, each candidate’s performance relative to their citywide cumulative total (Obama first, then Thompson).

Obama did well throughout the city, a strong Obama performance was the norm. You don’t see many places darker than light blue, simply because you can’t get more than 100% of the vote! Where Obama underperformed, he really underperformed. You see this in Suburban Queens and also Middle Village/Maspeth, and of course Southern Brooklyn and Staten Island.

Thompson’s performance really varied much more. He overperformed in many places, and underperformed in many places as well; these deviations are of much more equal magnitude. Again, as we’ve realized, Thompson’s weakest area was the Upper East Side.

So all this poses the question, what happened?

Well, in three words, Thompson’s turnout problem.

Conventional wisdom dictates that minorities (who are actually a majority in NYC) turn out less in general. While this may or may not be true, I normalized and considered 2009 turnout as a percentage of 2008 turnout.

The results, first at the precinct level. The same color codes apply as before for borough. Turnout as a percentage of 2008 turnout is expressed on the x-axis; the Thompson-Bloomberg margin on the y-axis. (Turnout dropped most in the Bronx, in case you’re wondering.)



You see a general effect of center left to lower right, suggesting stronger Bloomberg performances being correlated with greater turnout. This effect is even more pronounced when we consolidate to an assembly district level:



It’s not pretty. For you stats geeks out there, the correlation on that bad boy is -0.77. Ouch.

Incidentally, that one AD with the lowest drop-off? None other than Dov Hikind’s 48th AD. Turnout there was lower there in 2008, but those that voted in 2008 were most likely to have voted again in 2009.

As a parting thought, take solace (or anguish) in this: if turnout had dropped to the 44% figure I mentioned at the start equally across the city, Thompson would have won, 49.16% to 48.00%.

Having arrived at Brooklyn, I’m going to sleep. I realize I owe you a proposed set of New York Senate districts. I just need to write the diary. I’ll get around to it…eventually.

As promised a few days ago, I’d post the second part of my proposed New York Senate map. So without further ado, here it is.

I also tried to have the numbers make more sense. The goal was to make the city entirely Democratic (except Staten Island), then to get as many districts out of upstate Democratic centers as possible.

I may have been a tad too aggressive upstate, with three Buffalo Dems, two Rochester Dems, two Syracuse Dems, two Albany Dems, and one Ithaca-Binghamton Dem (in addition to Aubertine).

I also tried to stick to one man-one vote and keep the deviations down, but I couldn’t resist underpacking some Democratic districts and overpacking Republican districts..

As long as I’ve been interested in politics, I’ve never understood how the NYS Senate was controlled by Republicans for so long, especially in a state as Democratic as New York.

So the purpose of my diary was two-fold: to understand the situation as it is now (our tenuous 2-seat majority), and to look at what a potential redistricting would look like that would cement Democratic control (for the next time…I don’t feel like formatting too much html.)

I started by analyzing Obama’s performance in each Senate district – after Pres-by-CD and the NY political data in Dave’s app, this wasn’t too difficult. Just follow me over the flip…

Here’s the massive table with results from Pres-by-SD.

In case you’re wondering, McCain won a scant 9 districts of 62. Since one, the 27th, is represented by Carl Kruger, there are a whopping 22 “Obama Republicans” in the NY Senate. There are 8 black-majority districts: 2 in Queens, 4 in Brooklyn, 1 in Manhattan, and 1 in Bronx/Westchester. There are 6 Hispanic-majority districts, 1 in Queens, 1 in Brooklyn, 2 in the Bronx, and 2 Bronx-Manhattan hybrids.

Is this surprising? Not really – Presidential toplines aren’t necessarily indicative, and this is certainly true here. But looking at the results a little differently, a pretty clear line is drawn in the Obama 58-60% range.

So I’d like to propose Obama at 59% as the ‘safe’ line for a Democrat in the NY Senate – only two Republicans live above this line, and six Democrats below: Brian Foley (54.69%) and Craig Johnson of Long Island (55.55%); David Valesky (58.46%), whose district which runs between Rome, Syracuse, and Auburn; Darrel Aubertine of the North Country (49.75%); and Bill Stachowski (56.30%) of Buffalo, and Carl Kruger of Sheepshead Bay, who I don’t think counts for many reasons maybe better saved for a diary on voting patterns in Brooklyn.

Only two Republicans live above this line – both of whom faced stiff challenges in 2008 and nearly fell victim to the Obama tide, Frank Padavan of Bellerose (Obama+26) and James Robach of Greece (Obama+33) (!!…Robach is a former Democrat).

There aren’t too many other surprises on this list, except for maybe that the most Republican district in all of New York is Andrew Lanza’s Staten Island district…

So now you’re asking…what does this mean for redistricting?

Well, a few things moving forward:

• the goal, unlike Congressional redistricting, is no longer solely to squeeze every Democratic district out possible, it’s to get to the magic number for control first.
  

• at a certain point, the weakening effect (on the margin) from creating another Democratic district becomes greater than the effect of that marginal Democrat. (For example, is there really that much of a difference between 43 and 44 Democrats out of 62?) [Sidenote: Yes, in some cases, like marriage equality, it does…but if we had 11 more Dems in the Senate, I’m pretty sure the bill would have passed…]
  

• the NYS GOP pushed the 5% up-or-down rule to the limit. Given the ideal district size of 306,072, districts in the city, on Long Island, and in Westchester have an average population of 311,344; the average population upstate is 298,269!
  

• the GOP gerrymandered well upstate: they conceded two districts in Buffalo and one in Albany, but split Syracuse and Rochester two-ways, and Ithaca three to dilute Democratic votes. This happens on Long Island as well, where the Democratic center of Nassau County in Uniondale and Hempstead are split between Kemp Hannon (who did almost lose), Carl Marcellino, and Dean Skelos.
  

• in a revised upstate (and Long Island) map, we simply need to uncrack these Democrats. This isn’t like congressional redistricting where Republicans need to be cracked so we can preserve our overwhelming advantage; we can concede a few districts without too much trouble. The same holds for Long Island and in the Hudson Valley.
  

• the opposite holds true in the city, where we have a large surplus of Democratic votes that we can dilute the influence of Republican voters.
  

My plan made 43 districts above the safe line. Assuming we can’t knock off Robach and we keep both Stachowski and Kruger, we’d be talking 44 or 45 Democrats. Funny how much tweaking boundaries can change things. Stay tuned for the map itself.\

Update:As Andrew says, maps would be helpful. Here’s the senate as it currently is. I’m working on final maps for my proposed districts.

(From the diaries – promoted by James L.)

David asked me to do a quick example of how I do my redistricting, so I decided to use a relatively ‘easy’ state, Wisconsin, since it has townships. In the same way I wouldn’t drive a car or ride a bike without brakes (yes, fixie riders, the laws of physics hate you too), I don’t want to redistrict without having both sets of information.

Before you start, take a look at the state, and try to think how much detail you’re going to want to go into. I usually do townships/municipalities when available, but sometimes precincts. For Wisconsin, I’m going shooting for 7-1, by making the 1st and 6th more Democratic. Wisconsin doesn’t have precinct-level census data, so we’ll have to stick with townships. I really do want to split the city of Milwaukee though, so we’re going to do some estimating in just a little bit.

So now, here’s a quick overview of the process ahead:

1. Collect political and population data

2. Aggregate data together into one spreadsheet

3. Prepare a GIS shapefile (we’ll get into that) for the precinct and precinct-equivalents we’re going to use.

4. Import data from the spreadsheet into shapefile

5. Redistrict!

Follow me over the flip…

You’ll also need a few things:

a) GIS software (I use MapWindow GIS)

b) Microsoft Excel

c) An image editor program, like MS Paint, Photoshop or GIMP

d) A database file (.dbf) editor (Excel 2003 works for this, Excel 07 does not)

Let’s get started with the data.

Political data for Wisconsin is rather easy to do, everything comes in a nice spreadsheet. (Get it here.).

With that in hand, let’s get the population data. This will take a bit of work. Luckily, we have American FactFinder. Scroll down to “Census 2000 Redistricting Data” and select custom table. Let’s get the data for municipalities, so click “geo within geo”, select county subdivision within a state. Add all the county subdivisions of Wisconsin, and then hit next. Choose race, and then total population. Nothing in Wisconsin is VRA protected, so we don’t have to worry about racial breakdown. Now you’ll get a table, which conveniently, you can download by going to print/download. Now you have two nice spreadsheets.

Now that we have two spreadsheets, we have to combine them. This process is pretty arduous, but if you sort everything alphabetically, just copy and paste the two together and run a spot check. Make sure you watch out for any jurisdictions starting with “St.” or “Mc” – the Census Bureau aggregates them as ‘Saint’ and ‘Mac’, something Excel won’t do for you. With the political data, we can get to map making!

So first, we need a map template. Luckily for us, the Census Bureau keeps those on hand in its TIGER/LINE database. Since we’re only using municipalities, we can just download one file, 2000 County Subdivision. Of course, a shapefile is actually several different files, we’ll concern ourselves with two: the .shp, the shapefile itself; and the .dbf, the attribute file that we’ll be editing.

In my maps, I like to have both some political data and population data. Since we’re not worried about racial composition, I only add two sets of data to the attribute file: the population, and the Obama-McCain margin. Population is straightforward, obviously. I calculate the Obama-McCain margin, round up to the nearest percent, and then add 100 (MapWindow doesn’t like negative numbers too much), so theoretically, margins will range between 0 and 200.

Now pop open your MapWindow GIS, and click “Attribute Table Editor”. Under Edit, select “Add Field”. Call the new attribute whatever you want (I’d suggest something intuitive, like “Population” or “08 Margin”, but that’s just me). They’re both integers, and width of 10 is fine. Make sure you do this step before opening your .dbf.

Close out of MapWindow and open your .dbf so we can add our new data. Now we’re tempted to sort by County FIPS and township name (NAMELSAD00), but don’t just yet! Shapefiles require that the attribute file keep the EXACT order of attributes in their original order, so make sure you create a new column of numbers so you can get them back into their original places. Add the population and political info (again minding your Macs and your Saints). There are also ghost shapes called “County subdivision not defined”, which unsurprisingly occurs in counties like Kenosha, Racine, Milwaukee, Ozaukee, Sheboygan, etc… Just mind those as well so all our created data gets assigned to the right shapes. [Alternatively, you can also use the VLOOKUP function to match if so you’re so inclined and don’t want to worry about order.]

Finally, we can get to map making. I like to map a few maps before any gerrymandering actually happens: one with political data, and one blank “precinct” map that you can color in your image editor to keep track of what you’ve done so far. In the legend sidebar, right-click on the name of your shapefile, and select “Properties”. Here you can edit a whole bunch of stuff on how you want your shapefile to look, from fill color to line width to transparency. Here, we want to create a coloring scheme. Click on coloring scheme, and you’ll get a pop-up menu. For field, select your margin field. Then, hit the plus sign to add colors. You’ll have to choose your colors. Under the values field, you can pick the values for which MapWindow will apply that color. You can do ranges, like “0 – 100” (this is why we wanted to avoid negative numbers). I use a 7-color scale, which is 13 in total (6 Dem, 6 Rep, and 1 for an exact tie).

With that in hand, you can take screenshots of your maps using Edit->Copy->Map. For finer resolutions, I usually zoom in a bit, take multiple screenshots, and piece them together in an image editor. Now you can get to gerrymandering. To keep running totals of population and political data, in my Excel sheet, I create a column for “District”, and have a series of “SUMIF” statements. This way, as I assign precincts to a district, we get a running total. In states that have VRA protected districts, we can also track the racial composition of a district as we go along. Use your blank precinct map to keep track on a visual basis of what you’ve assigned. MapWindow is helpful here, as its “Identify” function can tell you the name of precincts you’re looking at. If you’re feeling efficient, you can select multiple precincts (holding CTRL), and viewing them all using the ‘Attribute Table Editor’. You can copy all the info out of the Attribute Table into Excel.

Now, all that work comes for the fun part: gerrymander away!

Once you’re done, you can make maps of your finished plan. You can use the precinct map you’ve been using to keep a running track, or we can go back into MapWindow. You can add a new attribute for “District” into the .dbf, as we did before. (Add field in MapWindow first, then use your .dbf editor. Again, make sure the shapes are in the exact order as you found them in.) You can then assign a new coloring scheme based on district number. There are plenty of things you can do at this point, like labeling county names using the County Shapefile, or labeling municipality names (I don’t recommend this, as this will clutter your screen beyond recognition). From here, the choices are endless.

Now, I did actually do a map of Wisconsin. I went a few steps further and divided the city of Milwaukee into precincts. Unfortunately, Census didn’t keep track of those, so I pieced together the city block by block, all 7,394 of them. I won’t go into detail on that, but my plan does split the city between two districts, much like the pre-2000 map.

I’ll cut the usual fluff I put here, since I made you read this far, haven’t I?

Here’s the new map:

And here’s an inset of Milwaukee County, with municipalities labeled.

District by district, we have:

District	Population	Obama	McCain	Obama%	McCain%
1	670,184	216,461	138,012	60.30%	38.45%
Kenosha	149,577	45,836	31,609	58.38%	40.26%
Milwaukee	305,170	109,975	56,748	65.12%	33.60%
Ozaukee	0,103	0,053	0,026	67.09%	32.91%
Racine	167,842	48,846	37,464	55.97%	42.93%
Walworth	47,492	11,751	12,165	48.48%	50.19%

As I said at the outset, I wanted to draw Paul Ryan out. Plus, keeping Kenosha and Racine attached to Janesville required going through Republican Walworth County, something that made gerrymandering quite difficult. Thus, the new 1st sheds Rock County and instead climbs further through Milwaukee, grabbing St. Francis, South Milwaukee, and Cudahy, through some lakefront precincts to downtown, up the East Side, through to the Democratic-leaning North Shore towns. Kenosha County remains in its entirety, while the nastier parts of northwest Racine County are stripped out and packed into the Republican 5th. Obama’s performance in this 45% Milwaukee, 25% Racine, and 22% Kenosha district is up to 60%, up 9%.

District	Population	Obama	McCain	Obama%	McCain%
2	670,284	274,235	133,998	66.36%	32.43%
Columbia	5,154	1,697	1,174	58.34%	40.36%
Dane	426,526	205,984	73,065	72.93%	25.87%
Dodge	54,056	13,367	13,699	48.77%	49.98%
Jefferson	74,021	21,448	21,096	49.80%	48.98%
Rock	64,260	19,313	11,644	61.52%	37.09%
Walworth	46,267	12,426	13,320	47.72%	51.15%

Gains have to come from somewhere, and Tammy Baldwin’s 2nd and Gwen Moore’s 4th are where the Democrats that are weakened somewhat to boost the 1st, 3rd, 6th, and 7th. However, this district is still centered on Dane County and Madison. Instead of looking south and north, this district looks east, taking in the entirety of Jefferson County and parts of Rock, Walworth, and Dodge County. Home to UW-M, UW-Whitewater, and Beloit College, this district featured Obama at 66.4%, a drop of 3%. 63.6% of this district’s residents still live in Dane County, so I’m not too concerned.

District	Population	Obama	McCain	Obama%	McCain%
3	670,351	214,972	151,028	57.89%	40.67%
Barron	44,963	12,078	10,457	52.89%	45.79%
Buffalo	13,804	3,949	2,923	56.45%	41.79%
Burnett	15,674	4,337	4,200	50.03%	48.45%
Crawford	17,243	4,987	2,830	62.70%	35.58%
Dunn	39,858	13,002	9,566	56.72%	41.73%
Grant	49,597	14,875	9,068	61.29%	37.36%
Green	33,647	11,502	6,730	62.23%	36.41%
Iowa	22,780	7,987	3,829	66.85%	32.05%
La Crosse	107,120	38,524	23,701	61.13%	37.61%
Lafayette	16,137	4,732	2,984	60.49%	38.14%
Pepin	7,213	2,102	1,616	55.74%	42.85%
Pierce	36,804	11,803	9,812	53.59%	44.55%
Polk	41,319	10,876	11,282	48.18%	49.98%
Richland	17,924	5,041	3,298	59.77%	39.10%
Rock	88,047	31,216	15,720	65.58%	33.02%
St. Croix	63,155	21,177	22,837	47.38%	51.09%
Trempealeau	27,010	8,321	4,808	62.59%	36.16%
Vernon	28,056	8,463	5,367	60.22%	38.19%

Ron Kind gets a small boost too, from the inclusion of half of Rock County in his district. Ron Kind sheds Eau Claire to boost the 7th, but picks up Green and Rock from Baldwin and Burnett and Polk from Obey. Kind’s base of La Crosse stays, as does plenty of the dairy country that Kind’s been representing for years. You’re indeed right that Paul Ryan’s house in Janesville gets put in here, but Kind is favored in a Kind-Ryan matchup in this 57.9% Obama district, up half a percent. Paul Ryan’s represented 9% of this district before. Ron Kind’s representing 67% of this district – I’ll let you decide.

District	Population	Obama	McCain	Obama%	McCain%
4	670,531	218,908	106,663	66.63%	32.47%
Milwaukee	634,994	209,844	92,697	68.75%	30.37%
Waukesha	35,537	9,064	13,966	38.91%	59.96%

As I’ve said, Gwen Moore bears the other brunt of redistricting. She keeps the western half on Milwaukee County – including the heart of Milwaukee and some suburbs, plus Menomonee Falls in Waukesha. Not to fear though, Obama still got 66.63% here, a drop of about 9%. Still, in this 95% Milwaukee, 5% Waukesha district, a Democrat has the clear advantage.

District	Population	Obama	McCain	Obama%	McCain%
5	670,746	152,723	260,690	36.57%	62.43%
Columbia	1,983	0,328	0,747	30.04%	68.41%
Dodge	31,841	5,816	9,316	37.93%	60.76%
Fond du Lac	40,923	9,025	13,722	39.17%	59.55%
Green Lake	19,105	4,000	5,393	42.01%	56.64%
Ozaukee	82,214	20,526	32,146	38.59%	60.44%
Racine	20,989	4,562	8,490	34.61%	64.40%
Sheboygan	25,362	4,897	9,913	32.61%	66.02%
Washington	117,493	25,719	47,729	34.63%	64.27%
Waukesha	325,230	76,275	131,186	36.45%	62.69%
Winnebago	5,606	1,575	2,048	42.92%	55.80%

Sensenbrenner gets a boost too, as all the Republican votes of the Milwaukee suburbs and the Fox Valley get packed here. The trifecta of Ozaukee, Washington, and Waukesha counties are brutal for any Democrat (let’s not forget that Bush had a margin coming out of Greater Milwaukee!). Meanwhile, the North Shore of Milwaukee is removed – those were Democratic votes thrown in for no good reason. Throw in the unpalatable parts of Sheboygan, Fond du Lac, and Dodge County, and you’ve got this 37% Obama district.

District	Population	Obama	McCain	Obama%	McCain%
6	670,599	195,883	157,909	54.60%	44.02%
Adams	18,643	5,806	3,974	58.36%	39.95%
Calumet	40,631	13,295	12,722	50.31%	48.15%
Columbia	45,331	14,636	10,272	58.09%	40.77%
Fond du Lac	56,373	14,438	14,442	49.47%	49.48%
Jackson	19,100	5,572	3,552	60.24%	38.40%
Juneau	24,316	6,186	5,148	53.80%	44.77%
Manitowoc	82,887	22,428	19,234	53.00%	45.45%
Marquette	15,832	4,068	3,654	51.92%	46.64%
Monroe	40,899	10,198	8,666	53.33%	45.32%
Sauk	55,225	18,617	11,562	60.92%	37.84%
Sheboygan	87,284	25,498	20,888	54.30%	44.48%
Waushara	23,154	5,868	5,770	49.64%	48.82%
Winnebago	151,157	46,592	35,898	55.65%	42.88%
Wood	9,767	2,681	2,127	54.81%	43.49%

The 6th would be the elusive seventh Democratic district in the state, and I had to reach for this one. There was potential in the old 6th, but just need to be developed further. As a result, instead of Republican leaning Dodge County, this district goes farther west and southwest, grabbing Columbia and parts of Baraboo from the 2nd, and some more counties from the 3rd. It sheds the southern half (read: Republican half) of Sheboygan, all of Fond du Lac outside of a few towns and Fond du Lac proper, and Green Lake County. What we get is a district that Obama got 54.6% in, winning each county part except Fond du Lac, which he lost by 4 votes. This district won’t necessarily elect a Democrat – the Fox Valley isn’t exactly a Democratic stronghold, but it’s certainly more likely this way.

District	Population	Obama	McCain	Obama%	McCain%
7	670,602	207,247	150,865	56.98%	41.48%
Ashland	16,866	5,818	2,634	68.01%	30.79%
Bayfield	15,013	5,972	3,365	63.22%	35.62%
Chippewa	55,195	16,239	13,492	53.82%	44.72%
Clark	33,557	7,454	6,383	52.76%	45.18%
Douglas	43,287	15,830	7,835	65.93%	32.63%
Eau Claire	93,142	33,146	20,959	60.38%	38.18%
Iron	6,861	1,914	1,464	55.83%	42.71%
Langlade	20,740	5,182	5,081	49.92%	48.95%
Lincoln	29,641	8,424	6,519	55.40%	42.87%
Marathon	125,834	36,367	30,345	53.65%	44.77%
Oneida	12,802	4,029	3,913	50.07%	48.63%
Portage	67,182	24,817	13,810	63.15%	35.14%
Price	15,822	4,559	3,461	55.76%	42.33%
Rusk	15,347	3,855	3,253	53.14%	44.84%
Sawyer	16,196	4,765	4,199	52.52%	46.29%
Taylor	19,680	4,563	4,586	48.94%	49.19%
Vilas	1,613	0,591	0,809	41.68%	57.05%
Washburn	16,036	4,693	4,303	51.56%	47.28%
Wood	65,788	19,029	14,454	55.89%	42.45%

Obey’s district gets a boost too. Dave doesn’t really need the help, but should he retire, nothing should be up to chance. Not too much changes – 81% of the district is a carryover from the current 7th, but the Minneapolis exurbs are shed in exchange for Eau Claire. Obama got 57% here, an improvement of 1%.

District	Population	Obama	McCain	Obama%	McCain%
8	670,378	196,782	163,228	53.95%	44.75%
Brown	226,778	67,269	55,854	54.02%	44.85%
Door	27,961	10,142	7,112	58.14%	40.77%
Florence	5,088	1,134	1,512	42.33%	56.44%
Forest	10,024	2,673	1,963	57.13%	41.95%
Kewaunee	20,187	5,902	4,711	54.81%	43.75%
Marinette	43,384	11,195	9,726	52.77%	45.84%
Menominee	4,562	1,257	0,185	86.81%	12.78%
Oconto	35,634	9,927	8,755	52.42%	46.23%
Oneida	23,974	7,878	5,717	57.00%	41.36%
Outagamie	160,971	50,294	39,677	55.04%	43.42%
Shawano	40,664	10,259	9,538	51.14%	47.55%
Vilas	19,420	5,900	6,246	47.97%	50.78%
Waupaca	51,731	12,952	12,232	50.85%	48.02%

Lastly, we have the 8th, centered still on Green Bay and Appleton. Intentionally, I didn’t tweak too much since Steve Kagen seems to be getting slowly entrenched. 96.5% of the district is the same as the old 8th, including Kagen’s base in Outagamie County. With some rearranging of precincts in Oneida and Vilas counties moves the balance 0.4% to the left, to 53.9% Obama.

(From the diaries – promoted by DavidNYC)

This redistricting map has really been a long time coming, but trying to match up the 36,000 census blocks of NYC and the 20,000 blocks of Nassau County (among many, many others) with a precinct and creating a consolidated population-political data file tends to take a while. But unquestionably, I also think this is my best map yet. I used 2008 population estimates by city/town, projected forward to 2010. I also worked painstakingly hard for population equality, which I think is evident in that the total deviation for all 28 districts is 86, or 0.012% of a single district.

At a whopping 26-3, our NY delegation is already pretty maxed out. With the loss of a district in 2010, there’s a good opportunity to consolidate and create what could possibly be a 27-1 delegation. I chose to do this by eliminating John McHugh’s district and then employing some old-fashioned cracking of Nassau County to defeat Peter King. Side goals included strengthening Massa, Arcuri, Murphy, Hall, and McMahon, while preserving VRA districts for Meeks, Towns, Clarke, Velazquez, Rangel, and Serrano.

My district maps later. First, some eye candy:

I’m sure there’s enough in these maps to make for its own diary, but that’s for another time….

(Sidenote: Yes, I am sending my dataset to Dave and David, so hopefully this can be incorporated into DRA. I do have a ‘tutorial’ on how I do my redistricting where I used Wisconsin as an example that I will hopefully post shortly.)

Now, here’s my map:

Starting upstate:

As is the case with a lot of my districts, I took some inspiration from the districts of yesteryear (or… 1993-2003). This would still be Louise Slaughter’s district, recentered around Monroe County (with an arm to grab Geneseo out of Livingston County). The percentage drop seems daunting at first (down from 68.47%), and there’s not a good reason for Buffalo and Rochester to be packed into the same district. Anyways, Slaughter is familiar with the area and would be solid for any Rochester Democrat should Slaughter choose to retire.

I think a lot of times, we overestimate the Democratic strength of Brian Higgins’ district – he was only elected in 2004, and Obama only scored 54.19% here. I’ll admit, I shuffled around this district quite a bit, with it going from Buffalo north instead of south. We add all of Niagara and Orleans Counties, with a sliver of Monroe for population balancing, but we do retain all of Buffalo’s South District, which Higgins represented in the Buffalo Common Council before getting elected to Congress. From this we get slightly more than a 3% boost to 57.52%; this should be safe for a long time to come.

Granted, I shifted around Massa’s district quite a bit too, with it now going to Buffalo instead of Rochester. I did this in the interest of centering the 28th in Monroe County and leaving room for the sprawling 23rd. However, I think it retains its Southern Tier character (roughly 40%). The nastier bits of Steuben and Allegany counties are carved out. The Democratic boost from the remaining parts of Buffalo doesn’t hurt either, leaving this district 5 points better at 53.52%.

This district doesn’t substantially differ from Maffei’s current version, though I do take out a chunk of southern Onondaga county to make room for the 24th to pass through. Since we’re dismantling the current 23rd, the section of Oswego County begins to pick up some of the pieces. Still centered on Syracuse and DeWitt, this district has a marginal improvement of 0.2%, leaving it still a touch short of 56% Obama.

Tompkins County saved Arcuri from defeat in 2008, and this district helps on that front. It now incorporates all of Tompkins. Arcuri’s base in Utica remains as well, though the rest of Oneida County is surprisingly hostile to Democrats. Eastern Oswego and western Jefferson Counties are added, again to compensate for the elimination of the current 23rd. Overall, this district improves modestly to 52.08% from 50.33%. Obama only narrowly lost the district outside of Tompkins, but Ithaca is really what anchors the district.

I’ll be the first to say it, this district is pretty disgustingly drawn. Communities of interest went flying out the window – the only thing the parts of this district have in common are their Republican political dispositions. We go from the Buffalo suburbs (Clarence, Lancaster), across Western New York and the Southern Tier to near Binghamton, through to the Capital District (Schenectady, Saratoga) and also north to the Adirondacks and even parts of Rome. The 24th and its misshapen bird form was bad, but I really challenge you to tell me what the 23rd looks like.

With Ithaca out of the picture shoring up the 24th, and with the 23rd cutting off any access route, I had to scrounge for Democratic votes to keep Hinchey at a comparable level. We get a vaguely frog-like district (facing east), in my opinion. One leg is for Binghamton, another for the less-Republican areas not in the 23rd and for population balance. Retained is Hinchey’s base in Ulster and Sullivan counties, with arms for Newburgh and Middletown in Orange County. Also of note is the string along the Hudson in Dutchess County, from Red Hook through Poughkeepsie down to Beacon. The lack of Ithaca still shows, but with some effort, there’s only a 0.7% drop.

With problematic Schoharie County out of the way, Tonko’s 21st can look to some greener (bluer?) pastures. Mostly, this is just some housekeeping down in Otsego, Delaware, and Greene counties. Tonko’s residence in Amsterdam stays in, as well as the entirety of Albany County, and Rensselaer and Troy. The net is a very marginal (less than 0.1%) improvement.

You look at this district and you ask, can this really be called Scott Murphy’s and not Dede Scozzafava’s district? I say yes for two reasons. First, Murphy lives in the northern part of the current 20th, which is also included here. Second, slightly more than half the population is from the current 20th, including Saratoga Springs. Tedisco did quite well in Saratoga, but the more Republican parts are stripped out for the 23rd. For our efforts, we’re rewarded with a 2.5% boost to 53.2% from 50.7%.

We’re getting into Westchester now, so I’m guessing you’ll want a more detailed map:

John Hall’s district also gets quite the makeover. However, it retains Hall’s residence in Dover Plains and most of Dutchess County, as well as the Democratic-leaning parts of Putnam and Cortlandt/Peekskill in Westchester. There’s also an arm into Rockland, nabbing the heavily Democratic parts of Ramapo town. Notable removals include the heavily Republican towns of Monroe in Orange County (including Kiryas Joel village) and Carmel in Putnam County. In order to accomodate the 22nd, the 19th doesn’t get as much of a boost, only to 52.3%, up 1.6%.

To help Hall, Nita Lowey’s district picks up the eastern half of Putnam County. With Hall’s district shifted northward, most of Westchester gets put here, all the way from Somers to White Plains to New Rochelle and the Bronx line, with a nice arm into Yonkers to hold the Democratic percentage up. There’s still a 2.5% drop though, thanks to Carmel. Not that Lowey has to worry.

Finally, we’ve broken the city barrier. But first, the district takes in a lot of Rockland and Orange counties that didn’t get lumped into the 19th. There are some pretty Republican (or at least anti-Obama) pockets in the towns of Monroe and Ramapo – most likely owing to the Orthodox Jewish communities in Kiryas Joel, Monsey, and Viola. I do think there’s a good chance they’d vote for Engel, though. In Westchester, I kept the riverside villages of Hastings-on-Hudson, Dobbs Ferry, and Irvington whole (though the district still jumps the Tappan Zee). Yonkers and Mount Vernon are still here, as well as Wakefield and Woodlawn in the Bronx. Engel still lives here, though the district is less Bronx-centric (and yes, 10% less Democratic at 62.0%) than before.

Now that we’re in the city, here’s a map of the city districts.

She’s still Jenny from the Block, and this is pretty much the old 16th district centered on SoBro the South Bronx. More than 95% of the new and old 16ths overlap, and the result shows at 95% Obama. From Mott Haven through to Fordham, this district remains heavily Hispanic at 63.04%.

I’m not sure when the tradition of putting Rikers into the 15th was started, but it’s been that way since at least 1993, and I’ve kept it that way. Again, the vast majority of the district is the same, from Inwood to Washington Heights to Harlem, Spanish Harlem, and Morningside Heights. I tried for clean lines in the city: the border with the 14th remains straight on 96th street. The west side is a bit harder for population balancing. Still ridonkulously Democratic, giving the 16th a run for its money. (Note how Obama got 97.26% in the 70th Assembly District. That’s… almost Detroit-level.) Still plurality-Hispanic.

Again, not much different here either. Maloney keeps all of Central Park and the East Side of Manhattan through to Houston Street. Again, I tried for clean lines, with Central Park West/8th Ave., then 7th Ave. (with a bump-out in Midtown to balance population). On the Queens side, still essentially the same areas of Astoria and Ravenswood, though Long Island City/Hunters Point is shifted to the 12th. Again no news here, just a slight bump up from 78.2%.

McMahon keeps his Staten Island-centric district. I tried to make the Brooklyn parts as Democratic as possible, losing Dyker Heights, Bensonhurst, and Gravesend in favor of Democratic Coney Island. A 2.4% boost to 51.2% results, though I don’t think McMahon was really in any danger.

Really, nothing new here either, except we’ve shifted it from plurality to majority Hispanic. Same neighborhoods, from Sunset Park to Red Hook, Loisaida, Greenpoint, and Bushwick. A notable shift is that Chinatown is removed and Williamsburg is added, dropping Obama’s performance by 1% (to a still-astronomical 85%).

Not much new here either, still a central-Brooklyn based district for Yvette Clarke centered in Flatbush, Prospect Park, Park Slope, and Crown Heights. The district does move farther south into Ocean Parkway though, mostly to relieve stress on the 9th. Still majority-Black, though the southward shift lowers the Democratic percentage by 2 points.

Same story for Ed Towns, with an arcing district from Brooklyn Heights to Bed-Stuy, East New York, and south to Canarsie. Again a slight southward expansion to boost the 9th. Still majority Black, a slight drop to 88% Obama (oh the humanity).

Weiner was never in any danger, really, but it was just odd to have an only 55% Obama district in the city. (IMO, Staten Island doesn’t count.) The district becomes more Queens-centric, while retaining Weiner’s home in Forest Hills, as well as taking in Middle Village, Maspeth, Kew Gardens, parts of Ridgewood, and Ozone Park. Same deal in Brooklyn, keeping Gerritsen, Sheepshead Bay, and Brighton Beach. It does lose parts of Ocean Parkway and Borough Park, picking up slightly-less Republican Gravesend. The boost helps, bringing this to 59% Obama, up roughly 5%.

Nadler’s district, again, is mostly unchanged. Upper West Side, Chelsea, Greenwich Village, TriBeCa, SoHo, the FiDi, etc stay in the Manhattan parts. In Brooklyn, there’s Borough Park and Dyker Heights. Obama only scored 38% in the Brooklyn section. This is countered by the 84.8% Manhattan section, averaging out to 73.9% Obama (+0.2%).

Most of the creative districting in the city came in Queens, I think, and the 7th is a good example. The Bronx portion doesn’t change too much, except it stretches to the Hudson now that the 17th is more suburban. Otherwise, Co-op City, Pelham Bay, Soundview, and Parkchester stay in, jumping Long Island Sound at Throgs Neck. It takes in more suburban areas of Queens than before, including Whitestone and Beechhurst. Crowley does live in Woodside, but there’s an arm for that.

Gregory Meeks’ district gets quite the change as well, and becomes the first of three Nassau-Queens hybrid districts. The district remains centered on East Queens, though, from Jamaica and Ozone Park east to the Nassau line. In Nassau, we try to grab the most Republican parts in southwestern Hempstead, including Woodmere and Lawrence. Also of note is the shift of the entire Rockaway Peninsula (the western part of which is quite Republican) to the district. Broad Channel is also no longer split in two. Amazingly, the district is still majority-Black (just barely at 50.16% non-Hispanic-or-Latino Black). The Nassau parts do bring down the Democratic percentage 9.5% to 79.5%.

This district is pretty hideous, too. With a lot of suburban Queens in the 7th, the 5th can pick up more of the more-Democratic inner neighborhoods of Queens. So, we get a district that stretches from Elmhurst and Jackson Heights to Huntington. Again, harking back to the olden days, the district grabs out some choice precincts in Suffolk County, relieving pressure on the 1st and 2nd. In Nassau, it keeps Great Neck and Port Washington, but also adds Old Westbury, Syosset, and Glen Cove. In Suffolk, we avoid Huntington (the hamlet), since Steve Israel lives there, but we do get Cold Spring Harbor and Fort Salonga, all the way to the Huntingtown-Smithtown line. All this results in a 2% drop to 61.2% Obama, buoyed by the 74% Democratic section of Queens. Regardless, Ackerman will be fine.

Here’s the third of the Queens-Nassau districts. The current 4th gets its Democratic strength from Uniondale and Hempstead, but those would fit well in a newly Democratic 3rd district. Thus, two prongs into Queens, one into Briarwood and one into Flushing, which meet in Briarwood. In Nassau, this district includes closer-in Democratic areas like Elmont and Valley Stream balanced by swing areas like Mineola and extremely Republican Garden City. In total, the Queens section again anchors the district, leaving it at 58.2% Democratic, up 0.2%.

My favorite district, really. You might look at the map and say… is that really an improvement? Yes, Massapequa, Bethpage, and Levittown are still here, as Amityville, Copaigue, and West Islip. However, in picking up Uniondale, Hempstead, and Freeport in the Town of Hempstead, and parts of Syosset, Jericho, and Plainview, the Democratic performance improves quite a bit. It would have been higher had I not included the South Shore in Suffolk County and instead grabbed Plainview, but I wanted to hold the 2nd constant. All in all, up 6.6% to 54.0% Democratic. Perfect for someone like Dave Mejias who can keep the margins in Massapequa down.

Steve Israel’s district is mostly unchanged, still centered on the towns of Huntington, Islip, and Babylon, including Melville, Dix Hills, and Ronkonkoma. It also takes in a small section of Nassau (parts of Woodbury, Plainview, and Old Bethpage), keeping the Democratic performance up. Instead of Republican Smithtown, the district takes out Patchogue, Holtsville, and Farmingville from the town of Crookhaven. Democratic performance is essentially unchanged from 56.13%.

Lastly, we arrive at the 1st district, again, mostly unchanged. It contains the Hamptons, Southold, Riverhead, all of Smithtown, and most of Brookhaven. Obama’s performance is up just a tad to 51.52%.

And there we have it, my 27-1 plan for New York. Comments and questions (and witty remarks!) welcome, as always. (That tutorial is coming up, I promise!)