Month: March 2009

• CA-45: After years of letting California’s 45th district (the most Democratic-leaning district in California still represented by a Republican, where Obama won 52-47) lay fallow, the Democrats actually seem to have a top-tier (or close to it) challenger lined up. Palm Springs mayor Steve Pougnet just started a campaign committee for a face-off against Mary Bono Mack. The openly gay Pougnet has been mayor of the city of 40,000 since 2007.

• KY-Sen: Dr. Dan may get some company in the primary. 39-year-old Attorney General Jack Conway has announced “there’s a good chance” he’ll run for Senate in 2010. Subtexts in other quotes suggest that he’s been negotiating with Rep. Ben Chandler and Auditor Crit Luallen, who may be stepping aside for him.

• CO-Gov: Now this seems unexpected. Ex-Rep. Scott McInnis, after butting heads with more conservative elements in the state GOP and studiously avoiding the 2008 and 2010 senate races in Colorado, has chosen a much more uphill battle: he’s running for governor against Democratic incumbent Bill Ritter. He may still face a primary battle against up-and-coming state senator Josh Penry (who used to be McInnis’s press secretary).

• PA-Gov, PA-06: Jim Gerlach acknowledged in an interview that people have been soliciting him to run against Arlen Specter in the 2010 senate primary (which would turn it into moderate/moderate/fiscal wingnut/religious wingnut chaos). However, he’s still charging full speed ahead on his gubernatorial bid instead.

• MI-12: Here’s one of the least likely places you could imagine for a heated primary, but it may happen. State senator Mickey Switalski will challenge 14-term incumbent Sander Levin in this reliably Dem (65-33 for Obama) district in the Detroit suburbs. (To give you an idea how long Levin has been around, he’s Carl Levin’s older brother.) This doesn’t seem to be an ideological challenge as much as Switalski is term-limited out of the state senate in 2010 and needs somewhere else to go.

• CA-10: San Francisco city attorney analyst (and former political editor for the San Francisco Examiner) Adriel Hampton has announced his candidacy for the open seat being vacated by Ellen Tauscher. What may be most memorable about this is that his may be the first ever candidacy announcement made by Twitter; he faces long odds against state senator Mark DeSaulnier (who won’t announce until Tauscher’s resignation is official).

• New Dems: One other musical chairs item left in the wake of Tauscher’s resignation is who takes over as the chair of the New Dems. The New Dems have five vice-chairs, but it looks like the hyper-ambitious Joe Crowley has enough support nailed down to take command bloodlessly. The CW is wondering whether this will complicate Crowley’s efforts to join House leadership (he lost a caucus vice-chair bid in 2006), but my question is what the heck is a New Dem doing in NY-07 (which went for Obama 79-20)?

• FL-20: Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz told the Miami Herald on Saturday that she successfully battled breast cancer over the past year. We wish her good health as she continues her recovery. (D)

• Maps: For those of you who enjoy seeing maps breaking things down by congressional districts, here’s a new one from real estate site hotpads.com: which CDs have the highest foreclosure rates.

Sorry for the short diary but I need to make a delivery for work but thought that this news needed to be shared with the SSP community.

This is astounding and the numbers are worse than anything GWB dived into, though not by much (19/78 approval/disapproval).  Not that their performance is in any way equitable, its not, but just in pure numbers this is awful.  Cuomo beats Paterson 55-22% among AA voters(!) and 67-17% overall in a potential primary matchup.  

Paterson needs to step aside for Cuomo.

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_…

Now that we have complete presidential results by CD for the entire nation, we can take a look at how members of Congress fared compared to the top of the ticket in each district. The vast majority of Congressmen and women typically perform better than their party’s presidential candidates. The reasons for this are plain: Most members don’t face serious challenges, and individual Congresscritters can tailor their politics to suit their CDs far better than any presidential office-seeker, who (in theory, at least) has to appeal nation-wide.

Some Congressmembers, however, invariably run behind the ticket. First up are the laggard Republicans:

Most of the folks on this list are freshmen who are almost all certain to do much better in 2010. A handful of others are in extremely red districts to begin with, making any difference between their performance and McCain’s mostly a matter of minor noise.

Some, however, stand out for reasons all their own, and their underperformance signals a weakness which could potentially be exploited (again). They include the ethically plagued Don Young, the hapless Patrick McHenry, the well-hated Jean Schmidt, the befuddled Henry Brown, the batshit Virginia Foxx, the caught-napping Mike Rogers, and the loose-lipped Michele Bachmann. While all sit in red districts of varying difficulty, each could be vulnerable (particularly Brown and Rogers, I feel).

Now for the Democratic list:

Once again, the vast majority here are freshmen. There are also quite a few more folks in absurdly blue districts (much bluer than the most Republican districts are red). A few stand out as potentially more than just noise, though. Nancy Pelosi puts in a token appearance here – obviously you’re going to take a few dings if you’re the party leader, but not quite enough for us to be welcoming Congresswoman Sheehan as our new overlord.

Anyhow, I wouldn’t be surprised if Artur Davis’s long-manifest desire to run for higher office hurt him with the folks at home. (UPDATE: It was Danny Davis in IL-07, not Artur Davis in AL-07.) Meanwhile, Lynn Woolsey’s outspoken, er, leadership of the Progressive Caucus might be chafing at her favorability ratings. Charlie Rangel, of course, endured tons of bad press thanks to his tax problems. And David Scott had to face down all kinds of bullshit from Deborah “The Defrauder” Honeycutt. None of these seats, of course, could ever turn red (is Anh Cao laughing at me as I say this?) – it’s just that their current inhabitants had (and in some cases still have) varying “issues” in front of them.

As for more serious situations, it’s no surprise to see Paul Kanjorski on this list. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick also has a featured spot, thanks undoubtedly to the serious primary challenge she got last year and her bellicose defense of her disgraced son Kwame (the ex-mayor of Detroit). I wouldn’t be surprised if she got primaried again. Otherwise, I don’t see too many vulnerable Dem veterans on this list – but Kanjorski and Kilpatrick seriously need to consider retirement.

UPDATE: Himes’s margin of victory was actually four points, not one – I had failed to include the votes he got on the Working Families Party line.

Is this the “dark horse” in CA-10 who will challenge Tauscher-clone State Senator Mark DeSaulnier?  Fog City Journal thinks so.  DeSaulnier is one if the names mentioned to replace Rep. Ellen O. Tauscher who has been nominated for a State Department position.  Here is his official biography.  DeSaulnier just got elected to the California State Senate in November, 2008, and has already voted in favor of the Louisiana-style “blackmail primary” which would allow candidates for office to conceal their party affiliation and turn California into the land of a thousand Liebermans.   He also has a blog.

(From the diaries with minor edits – promoted by DavidNYC)

As I’d promised in my diary on New Jersey, Pennsylvania would be the next state I’d tackle. This would  have been done a lot sooner, but those things called work and exams kind of got in the way….

My goal, flat out, was to carve more Democratic districts. I’m all for compactness when it comes to suitcases and mp3’s, but not when I’m gerrymandering states. Again, I kept Democratic Congresscritters in their homes.

Unlike New Jersey though, Pennsylvania is probably maxed-out when it comes to Democrats (save Gerlach and Dent, whose districts are certainly Democratic.) Pennsylvania is also losing one seat (most likely) in 2010, so I drew 18 seats on 2008 population estimates. I didn’t “merge” two districts per se, but more like took the 16th, 17th, and 19th and produced two districts from them.

I had the following goals in mind:

• Dislodge Gerlach (6th) and Dent (15th) by increasing Democratic performance in their districts.

• Give Dahlkemper (3rd), Altmire (4th), Murtha (12th), and Holden (17th) more favorable territory. They represent McCain districts now, I wanted to change those to Obama districts.

• Maintain strength for Sestak (7th), Patrick Murphy (8th), Kanjorski (11th), and Schwartz (13th). They have decently strongly Democratic districts, which I wanted to maintain at their current levels.

• Keep Brady (1st), Fattah (2nd), and Doyle (14th) in strongly Democratic districts, but perhaps not as absurdly strong as before. Obama scored 88%, 90%, and 70% respectively, I felt this could afford to be lowered somewhat. A corollary to this goal is keeping Fattah’s district majority Black. I didn’t bother with Brady’s currently plurality Black district, though it may still be.

Here’s the new map (click for full-size version):

Much more below the flip.

Again, to start, I used this map of Obama’s performance across the state, by municipality. As before, lightest shade is a margin of less than 5%, then 5 to 15, 15 to 25, 25 to 35, and the new uber-dark, which is a margin of 35+.

Going district by district, here’s what we’ve got. As a sidenote, I didn’t bother renumbering districts to make sense (which they don’t right now). I think it’s easier to keep core areas the same when numbering, since I think most of us automatically relate, for example, “PA-14” to Pittsburgh.

Summary statistics are: County, Population, Obama Votes, McCain Votes, Total Votes, Obama%, McCain%.

I’m going to go Northwest to Southeast, as opposed to in order by non-sensical district number. I think that makes the most sense.

Sad to say, this district probably isn’t much more gerrymandered than its current counterpart. It contains the entirety of Erie and Crawford counties in the northwest, and starts a slow march towards State College. I’d hate to leave those Democratic votes behind, and plus they’re a good way to shore up Dahlkemper’s district, which Obama lost by 17 votes. It takes in the Democratic parts of Centre and Clinton counties on the east end, with some arms into Clarion and Venango. I’d like to think I succeeded, since Obama scored 45% in the 3rd’s part of Venango and 50% in Clarion, compared to 35% and 33% in the parts not in the 3rd. All in all, a 54% Obama district – a 6% increase from its current form.

Episode 4 in my series of diaries mapping out possible redistricting scenarios in the states is here! I was inspired to finally put it together after BigTentProgressive’s excellent Texas redistricting diary. On the agenda today: some peaches for the First Lady’s new garden. (Which is my not-so-clever way of saying that I’m covering Georgia and New Jersey in today’s diary.)

Previously covered:

Diary 1: Massachusetts and Texas

Diary 2: Michigan and Nevada

Diary 3: Iowa and Ohio

Unfortunately, my districts are based on county estimates from 2007, and just this week the Census released 2008 numbers. Since my maps were drawn before the 2008 release, they are worth taking with a grain of salt. Also, I am using projected seat totals for post-2010 redistricting that are equally subject to change.

Geeky playtime below the fold!

Georgia

Sadly for those of us who live here, there is close to zero chance of a Democratic takeover in the legislature and only an outside chance of snagging the open governor’s mansion in 2010, as the Dem bench has become thinner and thinner since the state GOP’s rebirth in 2002. So I drew this map with a GOP gerrymander in mind, and as a result, it doesn’t look dramatically different than the 2005 map currently in place. With the Atlanta area providing the vast majority of growth in the state, a new 14th District is likely to be carved out of suburban counties, and should lean Republican given who will be drawing the lines.

One wrinkle to the plan in this state: the Supreme Court’s ruling in Bartlett v. Strickland means that the 2nd, 12th, and 13th Districts, all with black populations around 40-45%, will not be considered protected by the Voting Rights Act for purposes of future redistricting. Now, Sanford Bishop and David Scott are both black and have never been GOP targets, but John Barrow could be a casualty in future cycles (since his seat is under 50% black, the Supreme Court would not consider it VRA-protected). The real question is, would GOP mapmakers gerrymander Barrow’s district for a white Republican, or for a black Democrat? Given the sensitivity of the issue, and the need not to spread GOP votes too thin, I’m guessing the latter option would be more likely in this case, so I clearly tried to increase the 12th’s black % by including more of Augusta.

Barrow’s seat should stay Dem-leaning, probably getting even more so as its black population is boosted. Bishop, Johnson, Lewis, and Scott will all be protected by a GOP-drawn map (though I couldn’t figure out how to make Scott’s a VRA African-American seat as long as it resembles its current form). Then, of course, there’s Jim Marshall. Knowing Republicans will try again to mess with him, I cut out Dem-trending Newton County and added some rural Middle Georgia turf with the aim of getting his 8th District to be about 60% McCain instead of 56%. But as long as his Macon base isn’t split, it’s hard to make the 8th much more inhospitable. (One obvious option I didn’t consider to endanger Marshall: trade some of his southern turf with Jack Kingston, whose seat is already ridiculously safe. Perhaps only a real Republican would think of these things.)

Anyway, Marshall aside, the other five Dem seats are as safe as before, if not safer.

Enough ado, here it is:

District 1 – Jack Kingston (R-Savannah) — my Representative (cringe) will have the most heavily Republican seat south of the Appalachian hills. Savannah’s east side and islands do lean Republican, but it’s really the many rural counties of South Georgia that cause my travesty of congressional representation.

District 2 – Sanford Bishop (D-Albany) — may be right on the threshold of 50% black, but either way, it stays at least 54-45 Obama, somewhat rural but anchored in Columbus and Albany, and doubtlessly safe for Bishop.

District 3 – Lynn Westmoreland (R-Grantville) — these are some of the most Republican counties in the Atlanta area, so perhaps some of them could be reserved for the new 14th, but I found that after finishing the 13 incumbents, there was leftover population east of the city, not west of it.

District 4 – Hank Johnson (D-Lithonia) — still majority-black and overwhelmingly Democratic, but now entirely within DeKalb County.

District 5 – John Lewis (D-Atlanta) — also majority-black and overwhelmingly Democratic, but now entirely within Fulton County.

District 6 – Tom Price (R-Roswell) — probably remains the most educated and wealthy district in the state, and despite Democratic trends in Cobb and north Fulton, the whole inclusion of Cherokee County will protect Price and future Republicans here.

District 7 – John Linder (R-Duluth) — entirely within Gwinnett now, safe for him (for now) but trending the other way long-term. I guesstimate that McCain would have won only 54-57% in this district, so the GOP would probably draw it a bit differently than I, but there’s no escaping the inevitable: whether it involves Linder’s retirement or a competitive new 14th, eventually there will be a Democrat representing the eastern suburbs as long as the area continues its long-term diversification.

District 8 – Jim Marshall (D-Macon) — a bit more Republican than before; Marshall might survive in this conservative and military-heavy district, but a future Democrat probably wouldn’t.

District 9 – Nathan Deal (R-Gainesville) — some of the most conservative territory anywhere is in Appalachian North Georgia, so Deal gets the “safest Georgia Republican” prize.

District 10 – Paul Broun (R-Athens) — I hate Athens being in this hard-right district, but Republicans quite like the arrangement.

District 11 – Phil Gingrey (R-Marietta) — with Cobb County trending Democratic long-term, Gingrey can take solace in the rest of his district, with fast-growing but very conservative Paulding County now a secondary population base.

District 12 – John Barrow (D-Savannah) — intending to increase the black percentage here, I give Barrow 71% of Chatham and 83% of Richmond. Though Barrow is getting entrenched, a credible black primary challenger could give him a run for his money, and as an open seat this would be good territory for a black pol from either Augusta or Savannah. In any case, the district’s Obama percentage should be boosted a couple points into the high 50s.

District 13 – David Scott (D-Atlanta) — this is an ugly and meandering shape, but my intent was to keep fast-growing eastern suburbs together in a GOP seat and consolidate Scott’s Atlanta base. I don’t know the black population in this district (can’t be much more than 40-45%), but including the entirety of Clayton County, and 13% of Fulton, can’t hurt. Though it holds 66% of somewhat GOP-leaning Henry County, the other suburban areas are fairly Dem-friendly (25% of Douglas County, Smyrna and other towns in eastern Cobb).

And the new District 14 – runs clockwise from Forsyth County down to Henry County — the long-term trends in this district are blue, at least in its southern half, but with deep-red Forsyth the largest source of population, Republican X should be fine for a few cycles at least. As long as Gwinnett and Henry stay in the GOP column, Democrats can only make so much headway here by winning Newton and Rockdale. My guess is the 2008 vote would have been about 60-40 McCain here.

So the end result is an 8-6 GOP delegation if Marshall survives, 9-5 if he doesn’t. Now if only I could figure out how to put my home in Barrow’s district without disrupting the 12th’s delicate VRA balance…

New Jersey

In New Jersey, the game is rather different. A bipartisan/independent commission draws the lines, but unlike in Iowa, political considerations are very present in the mapping process. This being a bipartisan effort, incumbent protection is a top priority. My map focused on protecting all incumbents, especially two in South Jersey (Dem John Adler, whose district under my proposal would be about as solidly Democratic as Rob Andrews’, and Republican Frank LoBiondo, whom I gave the most Republican district I possibly could). I kept Albio Sires’ seat VRA Hispanic and Don Payne’s VRA African-American.

The pinch is this: New Jersey is expected to shed a seat, for a new total of 12. I was initially planning to force together two North Jersey Dems (Bill Pascrell and Steve Rothman) then thought to instead put together two Republicans (Rodney Frelinghuysen and Leonard Lance), but realized that a bipartisan commission would likely seek a bipartisan fight. Thus my North Jersey districts are a bit ugly, especially Rothman’s 9th, but the solution was reached: Pascrell vs. Frelinghuysen in the new 8th, which probably would have favored Obama by a fair amount but is otherwise something of a swing district.

Again, apologies to Steve Rothman for the messy lines. He’s the new Frank Pallone in terms of representing an emaciated serpent in Congress:

District 1 – Rob Andrews (D-Haddon Heights) — still safely Democratic, but less so to help Adler, who would now represent 58% of Camden County, the home county of both Congressmen.

District 2 – Frank LoBiondo (R-Ventnor) — dominated by Ocean and Atlantic Counties, the most heavily Republican seat I could possibly carve out of South Jersey. It probably voted for McCain, though not by a lot, which is an improvement for the incumbent from a 54-45 Obama seat. Unlike before, Republicans would have a great shot at holding the 2nd when LoBiondo retires.

District 3 – John Adler (D-Cherry Hill) – 58% of Camden and 96% of Burlington = a safe seat.

District 4 – Chris Smith (R-Hamilton) — would now be not just more Republican, but more conservative too.

District 5 – Scott Garrett (R-Wantage) — sorry, folks, unless he’s a candidate for elimination, Garrett will be made safe by any commission-approved plan.

District 6 – Frank Pallone (D-Long Branch) — you must admit that these lines make a lot more sense.

District 7 – Leonard Lance (R-Clinton Township) — I attempted to pick up if not the more Republican areas of North-Central Jersey, then at least the less Democratic ones. The current 7th only narrowly voted for Obama and I think what I constructed may have (barely) voted for McCain, but there’s only so much that can be done for an incumbent with a district trending the other way. For Lance’s sake, he should work to maintain a moderate reputation.

District 8 – Bill Pascrell (D-Paterson) vs. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-Morristown) — this is something of a quintessential North Jersey seat, with 67% of Pascrell’s home Passaic County, 59% of Frelinghuysen’s Morris, and the leftover 11% of Bergen. Since both Reps. have seniority and entrenched House careers under their belts, the real question is whether this district is liberal enough for Pascrell or conservative enough for Frelinghuysen. I have no idea how a real race would unfold here.

District 9 – Steve Rothman (D-Fair Lawn) — gerrymandered not for political expediency (Rothman has a safe seat, no question about it), but for pure numerical equalization.

District 10 – Donald Payne (D-Newark) — should still be majority-black and heavily Democratic.

District 11 – Rush Holt (D-Hopewell Township) — in the last round of redistricting, protecting Holt was the first consideration. Since his current district voted 58-41 for Obama, there’s little concern there, so my intent was to keep the district Dem-leaning and make it a little more compact.

District 12 – Albio Sires (D-West New York) — probably close to 50% Hispanic now due to demographic changes anyway, and including the leftover 27% of Union County shouldn’t much harm the district’s VRA legal status, particularly with all of Hudson County preserved in my proposed configuration.

11 incumbents are safe (most of them safer than before) in my plan, and the only real popcorn-worthy fight would be in the new 8th. New Jersey is one of the states I am least knowledgeable about demographically, so I’d greatly appreciate some insight into my hypothetical Pascrell/Frelinghuysen contest.

*UPDATE*

Wow, thanks everyone for the compliments and (very gentle) criticism – a great welcome to the SSP community! In particular, you've all decided to let me self-correct the mythical 37th leaning-Democratic district in central Houston without any (much-deserved) harassment. Once I decided that settling for incumbent protection and one new, solid Republican seat was optimism too far for the Texas Republican Party, I forgot to take it out, is all. You gotta admit, Greg Wythe's theorizing on it was pretty compelling.

*What to look out for*  This map is the accumulation of several weeks' occaisional free time, so I don't know that I'll be able to post an edit taking into account everyone's very good suggestions for a little while. However, look for better, district-by-district explanations, as Englishlefty was quite right: I wrote my diary as a Texan apportionment nerd to apportionment nerds everywhere; the slight was unintentional, I assure you.  I'll give everything the once over to take into account 2008 population estimates, and districts in Central and Southeast Texas will get an especially close review  (Sandlin has indeed moved to South Dakota and met himself a powerful woman.  Guess he wasn't that conservative).  And Chet  Edwards-centric commenters, you have not been forgotten! In the meantime, here's an updated map with district numbers.

—

A huge tip of the hat to Nathaniel90, who went and inspired me to consolidate my generalized interest in political process issues into one article. I've taken his attempt at Texas redistricting, whatever maps of previous Congresses that I can find, and tried to figure out how to read the information the State of Texas provides to produce the map that follows after the jump.

Yet another huge hat tip to Greg Wythe of Greg's Opinion, whose post on additional possibilities for Texas's four shiny new congressional seats was great help where the combined illumination of Nathaniel90 and my own meager internet search skills was not sufficient to deobfuscate the Republican political mind.  If you think of any of their proposals when you take a look at my map, it's because I did too.

I know I've gotten the county map from somewhere, too.  Probably Wikipedia, but knowing how much I tinker with maps I can't say for sure – if you see something that looks like yours, feel free to lambast me and I'll edit in a hat tip for you, too.

Follow me after the jump for the map and its explanation.

 So there you have it. I'd like to think that planning for the worst but hoping for the best includes charting out what one hopes the best would look like, and this is definitely it.  Eerily pre-DeLaymander is what my fellow political junky friends called it.  What I basically did was take the opportunity of astonishing population growth, and making lemonade out the lemon that is the GOP-trending rural Texas to allow bygones be bygones (who said moving on is the art of forgetting how much you hate the other guy without letting that bastard screw you over again?).

–(updated) I must admit, I gave only grudging solace to Michael McCaul, and I wish I could renumber all the old districts back to the way they were, but I don't know how the Texas Republicans would feel about that.  But the best thing about the now-25th, granularity at this level of zoom is such that I can just claim to have about the number necessary for a seat (it's at 725,000-ish per seat this time around, isn't it?) and leave it at that.  Hopefully Chet Edwards will find his new district to be a lot like his old district, because I indulged in one of the two fits of (egregious) sentimentality that are present on this map and gave him the chance to get back on I-35 where he started out.  John Carter can move to Granbury, the people there are nicer than the anti-liberals in Williamson County (“Keep Round Rock Mildly Eccentric”) anyways. If he and Representative Edwards decide to switch places, though, he'll find that Brazos and Walker Counties are (somehow) trending blue, long-term.

-Essentially, most of the Democrats targeted by DeLay were conservative Democrats, and I think everyone knew that by the time they were gone the national party would be too far to the left to have much more than a fifty-fifty chance of retaining the seat.  Nowhere is this more true than in East Texas, so what's the harm in reshaping our current districts to look a little like the old ones?  Jim Turner's or Max Sandlin's old districts could almost pass for attempts at gerrymandering top-of-the-ticket Republican voters, were it not for trends in Harris county and the moderately slower march to the GOP that is Smith and Nacadogches Counties.

(Although I'm not gonna lie, I like me a fighter, and Nick Lampson is him, so I did my due diligence on Ted Poe only to find out he was as inane a Republican Congressman as you could ask for, and decided it wouldn't hurt to try and give Lampson his old seat back)

-I couldn't really figure out a way to do DFW better than Nathaniel90, except that I didn't know exactly how the population was distributed in Tarrant County, so I figured I'd just treat it as if it was pretty much equally distributed except for the center of Fort Worth, and if I was egregiously wrong I could hope for the wisdom of large crowds to help me out.  Also, despite Martin Frost being instrumental in the idiotic gerrymander that did almost everything the Republicans did in 2003 but years earlier, and to the Republicans, I still like the guy – especially compared to Joe Barton.

-In South Texas, I liked Nathaniel90's idea of letting Republicans prove they're not completely lily white and proud of it by giving Henry Bonilla another chance at elected office – but I must admit, I checked his record, and where I could find it I did not see much trace of his district.  So I threw in some more Democrats than was perhaps wise to hopefully moderate our theoretical Henry Bonilla II out a little bit.  But hey, now that Webb County's got so many people, we've only got one “fajita strip” left!

-Last but not least, we've got West Texas, where the South Plains area was startlingly receptive to the Obama message – trend-wise, at least.  In not a single county did Obama brake the 40% mark of the vote, but it was still a huge improvement over Kerry, and even Gore to some extent.  Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure that even if we did manage to elect a Democrat there, he'd most likely just be another old, white, conservative, corruptible candidate for AgSec.  No, Charlie Stenholm isn't moving to Lubbock.

 Well, there you have it.  Any questions?  Concerns?  Criticisms?

I created a map showing the results for the 2008 Presidential Election by Congressional District. It also shows the contrast to the party that won the congressional race in that district.

I uploaded it to Wikipedia, let me know if I need to make any changes.

Thanks and enjoy!