Author: shocky27

It seemed way too easy to make 2 VAP (Voting Age Population) black districts in Louisiana. I feel like even if there wasn’t 3 VAP districts, there could easily be two with another heavily leaning Dem district, making the new delegation a 3-3 split with LA losing one seat this year.

As I gerrymandered through New Orleans, Baton Rouge and LaFayette, I realized I didn’t even have to really go to Shreveport to Monroe for 2 districts, and it seemed there were quite a few black precincts left so I decided to try to make 3 VAP districts. It took a lot of maneuvering and one area of water contiguity over the lake, but I did it! It’s the most horrible map, though, and would never obviously be drawn.

My other goals were to not use touch-point contiguity, which I did not, and also not use water contiguity, which I failed to do, but oh well.

All racial numbers are VAP, if it was simply out of all population, the black percentage numbers are a few points higher in all districts. Also, the biggest deviation from target population is the blue district, which has 5,691 more than the target.

Enjoy!

LA-01: The Green district here is the first VAP black district. It is centered on New Orleans, of course, and carefully zigzags around to avoid highly white voting districts and also to pick up extra black precincts outside of New Orleans. I have a feeling this district would have been much easier to create 7 years ago.

38.8% White, 50.1% Black, 6.5% Hispanic, 2.8% Asian

LA-02: The Blue district is where I used water contiguity. It takes in very, very white areas in Eastern Louisiana outside of Baton Rouge, and every white area imaginable inside New Orleans. Look at the big map I first posted for larger look of where the arms extend outside of the city.

79.0% White, 10.0% Black, 7.9% Hispanic, 2.3% Asian

LA-03: The purple district is the second VAP district, and this one is nasty. This district takes in virtually every black precinct imaginable without breaking contiguity, taking in parts of LaFayette, Baton Rouge, Lake Charles, New Iberia and Opelousas. I avoided every area I could that was extremely white (I would take places that were, say, 65% or 70% instead of 80% or 90%. This makes a HUGE difference.)

44.4% White, 50.1% Black, 2.8% Hispanic, 1.4% Asian

LA-04: The red district takes up everything in Southern Louisiana that isn’t black along the coast, and also LaFayette white areas. It also reaches some into Eastern Louisiana, but most of the district is along the coastal parishes. This is the whitest district.

81.9% White, 9.3% Black, 3.4% Hispanic, 1.4$ Asian

LA-05: The yellow district is almost as white as LA-04. It takes in everything that is white in Western and Central Louisiana. It was really annoying to make this contiguous with the last district, but I finally managed to do it without making the final VAP district go under 50.1%.

81.0% White, 12.8% Black, 3.0% Hispanic, 1.0% Asian

LA-06: Dark Green district. This was soooo hard to make VAP for awhile. I kept swapping territory to shed whiter areas to even just a few percentage points lower white areas, and also swapped territory with the purple district and I finally got it. It takes in black areas of Shreveport and Monroe, and also black areas further south in and around Alexandria in the central part of the state. This may be the ugliest district, along with LA-05.

45.7% White, 50.2% Black, 2.0% Hispanic, 0.7% Asian

Here is my take on an 8-0 Maryland. I must thank abgin for this incredible inspiration of using stripe-style gerrymandering (the famous map he did of NY). I employed this technique in reverse – I asked myself, how can I link all of these heavy Dem areas to Republican areas to dilute their votes? I thought of where their votes are concentrated, and the biggest source is Northern Maryland and the Baltimore Suburbs.

So, I set out to link Dem heavy areas to Republican areas in Northern Maryland, and it worked well. The map is not too bad looking, although Ruppersberger and Sarbanes would have trouble fitting into this map, but they can move. Hoyer and Van Hollen would have decent district and maintain a lot of their territory. Barlett and Harris are completely drawn out, and I managed to make two VRA districts that are 51% black, while they take in as many heavy R precincts as possible in Northern Maryland the Baltimore Suburbs so they can leave liberal white areas and other AA areas to shore up other districts.

I wanted the Obama-McCain lean to be roughly 60%-40%, and I did well in that regard, I think only one is 57% Obama and the rest are over 58% Obama, so all districts are around D+5 to D+8, with the VRA districts being more Dem heavy. The only district I think that would be in trouble would be the Eastern Shore based one, but if Kratovil runs, it is his. So, here you go!

Below is the state as a whole. The CDs aren’t numbered well on my map, since I ended up editing a lot, so I’ll just leave the CD numbers off the map and make different numbers.

CD1 in Perriwinkle: Panhandle. Hagerstown, Frederick, Potomac – This district is similar to the ones others have posted to make this district less friendly to Barlett (currently the 6th.) There is no way he would win this district. This has much of Van Hollen’s 8th district, so I would assume he would run here. If he doesn’t live here, the move isn’t far. (Pictures are below)

Obama:59% McCain:40%

White:70% Black:10% Asian:9% Hispanic:8%

CD2 in Grey: Silver Spring and DC burbs extending to Northern Border – The worst thing about this district is that there seems to be no clear incumbent here. Cummings would move to a VRA district, Van Hollen would want the 1st (he could take this if he wants too I guess, his choice) so I suppose this would be a new Democratic Representative. Bartlett could try running here, but I doubt he’d come close. Fairly neat looking district.

Obama:60% McCain:38%

White:61% Black:13% Asian:8% Hispanic:16%

CD3 in Dark Green: College Park, Columbia and the Northern Border – Takes in heavily Dem areas in the DC burbs, through Columbia and then sucks up heavily R areas up north on the border. This district also presents a huge problem for current reps. I guess Ruppersberger may be willing to make the move… Cummings again wouldn’t be here, and there really is no one else who I can see running here.

Obama:59% McCain:39%

White:55% Black:24% Asian:8% Hispanic:11%

CD4 in Green: Eastern DC suburbs stretching to Baltimore Suburbs – The challenge I had with this map in general was diluting suburban Baltimore while keeping two majority black districts. This was one part in solving that problem. I was able to keep this 51% AA while stretching it from heavily AA precincts outside of DC to heavily Republican areas South and East of Baltimore City.  This district does take a lot of the AA territory from Donna Edwards current district, MD-4, so she should run here and be safe.

Obama:72% McCain:27%

White:41% Black:51% Asian:2% Hispanic:5%

CD5 in Purple: Southern Maryland to Annapolis– This district pretty much drew itself after the two black majority districts were drawn. I could take remaining AA precincts outside of DC, pull them in with rural more R leaning areas in Southern Maryland, then bring them to Annapolis naturally. Steny Hoyer would have a lot familiar territory, but now he gets Annapolis and AA areas outside of DC instead of areas NE of DC. Still should be a fairly easy hold for him.

Obama:60% McCain:39%

White:62% Black:30% Asian:3% Hispanic:4%

CD6 in Yellow: Northern Baltimore, Baltimore Suburbs, down to liberal areas northeast of DC– One of the nastier districts, this links two areas of Dem strength leftover from other districts – liberal areas between DC and Baltimore, and northern parts of Baltimore itself. I was able to perfectly combine these, while incorporating Baltimore burbs to dilute Republican votes while keeping this district solidly Dem leaning. Maybe Sarbanes would move to this district? Or Ruppersberger? Those two really are the odd men out in general. since their current districts are disgusting. If they want their jobs with this map, they need to move.

Obama:58% McCain:40%

White:63% Black:26% Asian:6% Hispanic:4%

CD7 in Blue: Western Baltimore City, Baltimore Burbs and Rural areas in Northern Maryland. – I had a hard time trying to keep this at 51% black while at the same time sucking up as much anti-Obama votes as possible. To do this I had to find the anti-Obama votes (much like abgin did in NY, where he drew all districts to NYC to find Dem votes.) Once I adopted that strategy, I was able to do the wrap-around kind of districts near Baltimore for CD6 and CD7 in my map. This naturally gave way to making all districts have a north-south orientation in order to dilute Republican strength in Rural North Maryland. Cummings keeps a lot of his old territory in Baltimore, so this district would fit him nicely.

Obama:71% McCain:27%

White:42% Black:51% Asian:3% Hispanic:3%

CD8 in Red: Eastern Shore stretching to Baltimore City– I’m sorry I divided you into 4 pieces, Baltimore. But Kratovil would love this district. It is fairly Democratic, even someone more liberal than Kratovil can win here. But this would be a perfect fit for him. Harris would never win. I did use a tiny, TINY bit of water contiguity near Perryville where the shore meets to mainland in a U-shape (you can kinda see it, its not too bad.) I did this to keep the district from having to take in a couple R-heavy precincts, and the district honestly doesn’t look any worse than any MD district currently.



Obama:57% McCain:42%

White:66% Black:27% Asian:2% Hispanic:3%

This is my first diary post using Dave’s App, so any suggestions are welcome 🙂

I tried to create a slight Democratic Gerrymander of Florida. I didn’t follow VRA very much, so I will be working to make a VRA map with 2 AA majority districts and 3 hispanic majority districts. I don’t believe the DOJ will require a 3rd in North Florida (Corrine Browns awful district.)

But being able to basically ignore the VRA in Florida opens amazing opportunities, especially in South FL. And luckily, some of the districts around the Tampa Bay area and a few others may end up being the actual districts with the new Fair Districts initiative being passed.

So, here are my maps:

Panhandle:

CD1 in Blue: It’s pretty hard to do anything here unless you want to send an arm from CD2 to to suck up Pensacola voters, but that would just look to crazy. This district is Safe Republican for the next decade at least.

76% White, 13% Black, 4% Hispanic

Rating: Safe R

CD2 in Green: This district is based in Tallahassee, and differs from the current district because it extends further north and east (Repubs drew an arm from Andrew Crenshaws district on the GA border over into CD2 to suck up Blue Dog voters and take out Allen Boyds home town in Monticello)

Here, I put a lot of traditionally Dem voting areas (Wakulla and Jefferson counties) along with very Democratic Leon county. This district is probably around even PVI, and I can easily see a Dem winning this (probably a moderate).

68% White, 24% Black, 4% Hispanic

Rating: Tossup

North Central FL and Jacksonville:

CD3 in Purple: This is a Gainesville based district. I toyed with trying to tie this to Tallahassee or Jacksonville, but decided to just give this district traditionally Democratic Madison county in the northwest part of the district, heavily Dem Alachua county and high AA parts of Ocala in the southern part of the district, and also extends over to Palatka in the east down through hispanic De Leon Springs. It has enough of an AA population along with the University of Florida to make it a competitive district. I am fairly unsure of what Obama % this district would be, but I think another fairly moderate Dem could easily hold this district barring another 2010.

70% White, 19% Black, 7% Hispanic

Rating: Tossup

CD4 in Red: This district sucks up heavily Republican suburbs of Jacksonville including all of Nassau county. It stretches further south to suck up rural white populations away from the east coast.

82% White, 8% Black, 5% Hispanic

Rating: Safe R

CD5 in Yellow: I decided to let Jacksonville have it’s own district, but at the same time keep it competitive for Dems. It’s only 55% white, but the Jacksonville area is very racially divided. However, with some liberal whites, a high AA populations, and some hispanics, this district will also probably be very competitive. It all depends on AA turnout in the city.

55% White, 34% Black, 6% Hispanic, 3% Asian

Rating: In Presidential years – Lean D In off years- Tossup

CD6 in Blue-Green: This district was designed to be as Dem as possible on the east coast. It takes in fairly wealthy beach towns, and heavily AA areas like Titusville and Holly Hill. It extends over towards Orlando to pick up heavily minority Sanford.

74% White, 12% Black, 10% Hispanic

Rating: Lean D

CD7 in Grey: I love this district. It covers heavily rural and Republican areas all through the big bend and central part of the state.

83% White, 7% Black, 8% Hispanic

Rating: Safe R

I’ll come back to CD 8 after the Tampa area.

Behold, Tampa!:

CD9 in Cyan: This is a solely Tampa based district and is plurality-white. It doesn’t include all of the New Tampa area (which is technically part of the city.) It stretches down a bit to take in Gibsonton and  Riverview, and east to take in the diverse Brandon area and heavily AA Progress Village and Clair Mel City.

49% White, 21% Black, 25% Hispanic

Rating: Safe D

CD10 in Magenta? / Pink: A Tampa suburb district. This takes in Republican leaning areas in Pasco, down through heavily R Sun City, absorbing the rest of the R leaning Tampa suburbs.

72% White, 7% Black, 16% Hispanic

Rating: Likely R

CD11 in Pale Green: St. Petersburg district. If you look closely at the current district map, the actual city of St. Pete is gerrymandered out of this district, and linked to downtown Tampa and Bradenton to the south by water (awful.) So adding downtown St. Pete makes this district much more Dem friendly, considering it is already a Tossup. Once Bill Young retires, this would easily go D.

76% White, 12% Black, 7% Hispanic

Rating: Lean D after Young retires.

CD12 in Light-Bluish: Coastal Pasco and Hernando and Northern Pinellas. This district takes in Greek populations north of Clearwater, and suburban R leaning Pasco and Hernando. Bilirakis would probably run here and win, with his family name. As for the long term, this district may slowly trend D as its population explodes and suburbs continue to become slightly more D friendly.

Rating: Likely R, possibly Lean R by the end of the decade.

Now for the Orlando Area:

CD8 in Light Blue: This district is majority-minority when adding all minority groups. It includes the western half of Orlando, and heavily hispanic areas to the south and west of downtown Orlando. The Dem primary here would be interesting.

47% White, 25% Black, 20% Hispanic, 5% Asian

Rating: Safe to Likely D

CD14 in Ugly Brown/Green: I’m really unsure of the Obama % here. There is a decent minority vote here, along with the eastern half of downtown Orlando. I know this area is quickly growing, and becoming more D as the Puerto Rican population skyrockets. This district also slides east to pickup the space center and Merritt Island.

70% White, 7% Black, 17% Hispanic

Rating: Unsure… could be between Lean R and Lean D.

CD15 in Orange: One of my more gerrymandered districts that I am proud of. It is barely majority white. This takes in south Orlando, Kissimmee, St. Cloud, along with downtown Winter Haven and Lakeland. It could be tweaked maybe to make it majority-minority.

50% White, 12% Black, 33% Hispanic

Rating: Likely D

SW Florida and South Central FL:

CD 13 in Tan: I apologize for the colors here. This districts includes all of Brandenton, Sarasota, Venice, Punta Gorda, and Port Charlotte. Bye-bye, Vern Buchanan. He might run in CD10 or CD16 instead.

81% White, 7% Black, 10% Hispanic

Rating: Likely D

CD16 in Bright Green: Republican vote sink extraordinaire. Probably my favorite R vote sink in FL. This district sucks in all of the R heavy and R leaning areas from Hillsborough County all the way down through the spine of central FL, ending at Lake Okeechobee.

73% White, 9% Black, 16% Hispanic

Rating: Safe R

CD17 in Purple: Another fun east coast district, including Melbourne all the way down to Fort Pierce. Not too sure about this district either… I know the coastal areas are fairly swingy, but I assume Obama carried them narrowly, but lost the inland parts I put in CD16.

74% White, 12% Black, 10% Hispanic

Rating: Lean D to Tossup

CD18 in Pale Yellow: This district takes some very low population inland Everglades areas, and eat up part of the East coast and we approach the Miami area. I believe a lot of the white population here is wealthy, and also I think we are starting to get into some Jewish population areas. If anyone wants to help fill me in on the type of white population that lives here that would be awesome!

63% White, 17% Black, 16% Hispanic

Rating: Lean D to Tossup?

CD19 in Lime Greenish: This district includes Palm Beach. It has a decent AA and hispanic population (that I don’t think is too Cuban heavy yet.) We’re also getting into the more Jewish populated areas.

61% White, 14% Black, 22% Hispanic

Rating: Likely to Lean D

CD20 in Pale Pink: Fort Myers and Cape Coral. These heavily populated areas are Lean D, considering they are a huge hot-spot for retirees. This district is probably R leaning, but I may be wrong and it could elect the right D.

77% White, 6% Black, 14% Hispanic

Rating: Lean R

South Florida!:

CD21 in Brown: How do you make Rs in Florida pissed? Make them have a nasty primary between old white people in Naples and Cubans near Miami. Should be an R district, until the Cuban populations shift to Dems (hopefully soon)

48% White, 14% Black, 35% Hispanic

Rating: Likely R for now.

CD26 in a Greyish color below the Lime green district: Boca!

I apologize again for the picture here. This district should be heavily Jewish with a 12% AA population. I don’t think this district will leave the D column.

69% White, 12% Black, 15% Hispanic

Rating: Likely D

CD27 in Aquamarine:  Ft. Lauderdale. This district was my leftovers kind of. It’s extremely diverse, but with over 30% AA and most of the white population being Jewish, it seems like it should be a Dem district.

42% White, 34% Black, 19% Hispanic

Rating: Safe to Likely D

Miami Area:

CD22 in White: Hollywood. A barely white majority district, diluting some of the Cuban power in the area. With the Jewish population and % AA population combined, it should be Lean D.

50% White, 8% Black, 36% Hispanic

Rating: Lean D

CD24 in Purple: North Miami. This is the only AA majority district I have here, so the VRA would be sad.

14% White, 52% Black, 30% Hispanic

Rating: Safe D

A closer look at the South Miami Area:

CD23 in Teal-ish color: Miami Cuban areas. Can’t get much more Cuban than this district.

9% White, 6% Black, 83% Hispanic

Rating: Safe R for one of the Diaz-Balarts or Ms. Ileana.

CD25 in Light Pink: Hialeah. This sucks in Hialeah and makes a C shape to suck in more Cuban populations to the south.

14% White, 5% Black, 79% Hispanic

Rating: Safe R

Looks like Tea Party activists didn’t learn from NY-23

http://politicalwire.com/archi…

Political Wire says that they’ve registered as an official party for this November and will have a candidate. Further down in the comments thread of the Political Wire story, a comment says that Jon Ralston is reporting that their candidate will be Jon Ashjian. Apparently he is the president of a few companies in Las Vegas.

Does anything think a Tea Party candidate will gain traction in an election in Nevada? For some reason Nevada doesn’t strike me as Tea Party-land, but I could be wrong.

I think even if this guys only musters 1-2% of the vote it could be a huge difference. I’m giving Reid a 55-45 shot at being re-elected with a Tea Party candidate on this ballot.

What say you?

http://politicalwire.com/archi…

Very unexpected news coming from North Dakota. I’m shocked.

We need to find a candidate for this race immediately. Is anyone familiar with ND politics? Are there any other statewide officeholders besides Earl Pomeroy who may run?

And does anyone know what the chances of Hoeven jumping in are? There are a lot of questions to be answered regarding ND-Sen

UPDATE

http://politicalwire.com/archi…

Looks like Hoeven will run. I’d say our chances of holding this are less than 1% 🙁 even if Pomeroy runs.

Despite North Dakota’s Republican lean, ND is represented by two Democratic Senators, and a Democratic Rep. Dorgan has been a reliable Democratic vote (much more so than his counterpart, Conrad) on most major Democratic initiatives over his many years in the Senate.

While we would all love for him to stay, we need to find a candidate ASAP!

Earl Pomeroy sounds good on paper, but does anyone know what his chances would be if he switched to a Senate Race? Or any possible competition besides sitting Governor Hoeven?