Month: November 2010

Quick History

The Republicans controlled the redistricting process in 2000, shifting the map from a 9-7 Democratic advantage to a 9-6 Republican one. (Michigan lost a seat in reapportionment.) They did this by redistricting three seperate pairs of Democratic incumbents into the same districts, thereby creating two new open Republican seats elsewhere. Architect of this plan? None other than then-state-senator Thaddeus McCotter, who oh-so-thoughtfully created one of those new open districts around his home base.

The GOP plan had turned into a little bit of a dummymander, since by 2008 the Democrats had flipped two districts to get an 8-7 advantage. This week's election, however, has restored the Republican's 9-6 edge. The 1st and 9th districts are in opposite hands from the 2002 elections; all other districts are controlled by the same party that won them eight years ago. (Wikipedia’s version of the pre-Tuesday districts is above for reference.)

The Genesis of this Plan: Failed Attempts

One of my consolations on election night was the idea that even with control over redistricting again, the Republicans couldn't really make it any worse. At the time, it looked the the Democrats were going to be down to five districts: Dearborn-Ann Arbor, Flint-Saginaw, Southfield-Warren, and the two Detroit districts. That seemed like pretty much the rock bottom base of support for the Democrats in Michigan. But then Gary Peters pulled out a narrow victory, and I started to look to see whether the Republicans could get the Democrats down to five after all. Michigan is almost certainly losing another district, so let's see if it can be made a Democratic one.

Four of the six Democratic seats seemed pretty much untouchable. The VRA-protected Detroit-based 13th and 14th districts are, of course, ridiculously Democratic. Sander Levin's 12th district pulls together an only somewhat less-ridiculously-Democratic set of inner suburbs on Detroit's north side. And despite Dale Kildee's narrower-than-expected win on Tuesday, Flint is big enough to dominate pretty much any district you could conceivably put it in. That leaves Gary Peter's 9th district and John Dingell's 15th district as the remaining targets.

My first attempt actually took on John Dingell's district. Stretching from blue collar Dearborn to the university town of Ann Arbor, it was created as one of the three "pairing" districts, setting up then-Representive Lynn Rivers against Dean of the House Dingell. Dearborn was easy to move into John Conyer's 14th district. Ann Arbor has to end up in Democratic district, so I swung Gary Peter's 9th district around to pick it up. Thad McCotter's 11th then mostly gives up its claim on Oakland county to pick up the rest of the dismembered 15th.

The problem with this plan from a GOP perspective is what it does to McCotter. The distict is probably about 60% – 70% new to him, and it's not nearly as Republican as his old district. I haven't run the numbers, but just from eyeballing it, I would be surprised if this version of the 11th district didn't have a Democratic PVI.

My second attempt left Dingell's district more-or-less alone. (As pictured, all of Dingell's hometown of Dearborn ends up in Conyer's district, but this could possibly be played with.) Instead I merged McCotter's 11th district with Peter's 9th district. The resulting district has about half of its population come from each district. (Old Peters in blue; old McCotter in green.) It cuts out the most Democratic parts of each district (Wayne, Westland, and Garden City for the 11th; Pontiac, Auburn Hills, and Royal Oak for the 9th). Again, I haven't run the numbers for PVI; I suspect it's a Bush '04-Obama '08 district.

McCotter probably isn't the best candidate for an incumbent vs incumbent race, but this district — in isolation — would probably suit the state GOP fine.

The problem is what the rest of the state looks like.

Merging the 9th and 11th pulls Mike Roger's 8th district further east and north. This saddles the already swingy 7th district just won by Tim Walberg with heavily Democratic Lansing. The 7th, in turn, now donates Democratic-leaning Battle Creek to Fred Upton's already even-PVI 6th district.

The Solution

So if I couldn't dismantle Dingell's district without giving McCotter too much hostile territory, and if merging McCotter's district and Peter's district resulted in weaker districts for Walberg and Upton, then what?

I was stumped for about a day, when the answer occured to me: attack Sander Levin's 12th district instead.

By bringing the Detroit-based 13th district north across Eight Mile into Macomb county, I could merge the Oakland portion of the 12th district into the 9th. (The old 12th is roughly outlined in white.)

Brief District-by-District Rundown

I'm considering working through the data to get firm PVIs for the proposed districts. For now, you have eyeballing-it. I did refer to the 2004 and 2008 numbers while drafting; I just never actually ran the calculations.

1st District (Blue)

This district is newly captured by Republican Dan Benishek. In the 2000 redistricting, this district was pulled down the Lake Huron coast towards Bay City as part of the dismantling of then-Representative Jim Barcia's district (he got paired with Dale Kildee in the 5th). Without such concerns, I pulled it down the Lake Michigan shoreline instead. Adding the Traverse City area instead of the upper Saginaw Bay area should make this district just slightly more Republican. Traverse is also a better cultural fit for the district. (Note that everything not pictured in the north of the state is in this district.)

2nd District (Green)

This district is currently Michigan's most Republican district by PVI. I don't think my alterations will change that. It gives up its northern reaches to the new 1st and stretches inland, taking in Grand Rapids' northern suburbs and exurbs.

3rd District (Purple)

The primary Republican concern with this district is making sure it has enough suburban/exurban territory to overwhelm the Democratic urban core in Grand Rapids. It gives up some territory north of the city and gains Eaton county to the east. I think this will be slightly more Republican than the existing 3rd.

4th District (Red)

As currently configured, this district is something of a left-overs district, taking in the northern counties not in the Upper Peninsula-based 1st or the Lake-Michigan-coast-based 2nd. Under my proposal, it becomes a somewhat more focused Central Michigan district. Largest city (and hometown of incumbent David Camp) Midland is now in the center of the district instead of on its eastern fringe. It takes in all of Democratic Bay county, but I think the rest of the territory is Republican enough to handle it.

5th District (Yellow)

The proposed 5th district is much like its 1990s-district-plan predecessor, taking in much of the Thumb instead of Bay City. This is because eliminating Levin's 12th district pulled Candice Miller's 10th district out of the Thumb. Since it's over that way anyway, it runs a tendril down the St Clair River to relieve Miller of smallish-but-heavily-Democratic Port Huron.

6th District (Teal)

Not much changes for the 6th. It exchanges a few townships in Calhoun county for a few in Branch, and takes in the rest of Allegan county. That last change should make it slightly more Republican. Incumbent Fred Upton should remain fine here.

7th District (Grey)

This proposal's greatest weakness. Newly re-elected Tim Walberg has a district with a PVI of R+2. Getting Monroe county from the dismantled-by-reapportionment 15th in exchange for giving the new 3rd Eaton county is essentially a wash. I just don't think that there's much the Republicans can really do to shore this district up.

8th District (Slate Blue)

Still subsumes Lansing in a sea of Republican-heavy exurbs. This configuration gives up somewhat-Republican Clinton county to gain very-Republican Lapeer county, so Mike Rogers should be happy.

9th District (Cyan)

The new 9th is one of the center-pieces of the plan. It combines most of Gary Peter's current 9th with about half of Sander Levin's current 12th. If it came to a primary, I'm not sure what would happen. Where the current 9th was designed as a Republican seat that's just slipped away, this 9th would be a Democratic safe seat, anchored by Southfield, Royal Oak, and Pontiac.

10th District (Deep Pink)

Candice Miller's 10th is pulled south by the elimination of the old 12th. Losing most its rural hinterland, the new 10th is definitely more Democratic than the old one, but I don't think it's that much more. I think Miller should still be fine. In one of the rare set of calculations I did do, the portions of Macomb county not in the district (ie, in the new 13th) voted for 63% for Obama. The portions of Macomb in the district voted only 52% for Obama. That probably means that Bush won the new 10ths portion of the county in 2004 (here, we're back to no calculations.)

11th District (Lime Green)

In order to shore up McCotter, the district loses three of its inner surburbs and snakes around the north side of the new 9th to pick up some more heavily Republican territory. McCotter should put up much better numbers in this reconfigured district.

12th District (Cornflower Blue)

With the dismantling of the old 12th, I reused the district designation for the reinvention of Dingell's dismantled-by-reapportionment 15th. The new 12th loses Monroe county to pick up the southern portions of Downriver. I'm pretty sure this will push its PVI in an even-more Democratic direction, and Dingell (and/or his successors) should be safe here all decade.

13th District (Salmon?)

The other centerpiece of this plan. It takes in roughly similar portions of Detroit as its predecessor (along with the Grosse Pointes and Harper Woods.) Instead of stretching into Downriver, though, it crosses over into southern Macomb, snatching away the eastern half of Levin's district and saving Miller from having to take on the most Democratic parts of the county. VRA: 53% black, 42% white.

14th District (Olive Drab)

Conyers' new district takes in basically the same portions of Detroit as his old one. The primary difference are the addition of Redford township, the subtraction of any part of Dearborn, and the taking in of the northern half of the Downriver communities instead of the western half. VRA: 53% black, 34% white.

Pre-Conclusionary Note

I was originally concerned about whether this was too much county-splitting in the Detroit area, but it's actually less than currently exists. Currently, the tri-county Detroit metro area has the following configuration:

Wayne: 2 full districts (13th, 14th), 2 partial districts (11th, 15th)
Oakland: 1 full district (9th), 3 partial districts (8th, 11th, 12th)
Macomb: 2 partial districts (10th, 12th)
for 10 total county-fragments.

Under this new configuration, the tri-county Detroit metro area looks like this:

Wayne: 1 full district (14th), 3 partial districts (11th, 12th, 13th)
Oakland: 1 full district (9th), 2 partial districts (8th, 11th)
Macomb: 2 partial districts (10th, 13th)
for 9 total county-fragments.

Conclusion (TL;DR version)

By eliminating Levin's 12th district, I created four packed super-safe districts for the Democrats in the metro Detroit area, with one other safe Democratic district in the Flint-Saginaw area. Republican incumbents in the 1st, 3rd, 6th, and 11th districts are shored up. Republican incumbents in the 4th and 10th districts take minor hits. The Republican incumbent in the 2nd district needed no help; and the one in the 7th district is unhelpable. This plan would more or less lock in an 8 GOP – 5 Dem – 1 swing district pattern for the rest of the decade.

Another brick in the wall: Local media have been declaring Dem Rep. Gabrielle Giffords the victor over Republican Jesse Kelly tonight, and the Associated Press just made the call in her favor. A good save for Team Blue.

Ugh, please no:

Like @maghabepolitico said, Altschuler spox Rob Ryan is saying recanvass has Altschuler up 392 over Bishop in #ny01. No BOE confirmation.

That’s from the Twitter feed of Newsday reporter Reid Epstein. The pain continues…

UPDATE: Maggie Haberman has more:

There’s over 9,000 absentee ballots to be counted starting next week, but the Republican had been down by 3,400. …

A bit more: Apparently Altschuler’s team asked to have the machine votes impounded this morning. One veteran Long Island watcher writes in that the machines weren’t expected to be recanvassed until next week.

And a breakdown of the absentees:

   * Democrat: 3,563

   * Republican: 3,889

   * Independence: 292

   * Conservative: 240

   * Working Families: 12

   * Blank: 1,753

Additionally, 3,600 absentees have still yet to come in. (All must be postmarked by November 1, and military ballots have until November 24 to arrive at the Board of Election’s office.)

Later Update: Yikes, a Bishop aide is confirming that Altschuler now has the lead.

It’s time we had a little pep talk:

• WV-Gov: I’ve complained at length before about the sheer haziness of West Virginia’s succession laws, and they aren’t going to get any clearer: Joe Manchin, as one of his final acts as Governor, isn’t going to call a special session to clarify. The law is clear that Senate President Earl Ray Tomblin becomes Acting Governor upon Manchin’s resignation (which will probably happen as soon as the election results are certified, as Manchin is able and ready to serve in the lame duck session in place of temp Carte Goodwin), but all it says is that a special election must be held to fill the vacancy, without saying, y’know, when. Legislative counsel have made the best guess that two elections should happen in Nov. 2012 (one special election for the remaining two months of the term, the other regularly scheduled one for the following four years), but that doesn’t have the force of law yet.

• AZ-07: This was one where victory was pretty clear yesterday, but today it’s officially been called for Raul Grijalva. He’s up more than 6,000 now, as friendly Pima County precincts have kept reporting.

• AZ-08: Looking right next door, things are also looking up for Gabby Giffords. She’s up by about 3,000 votes. 30,000 votes remain to be processed in Pima County, although it’s unclear how many of those are in the 7th or in the 8th. The local paper says it’s expected the race will be called in her favor today.

• CA-11: J-Mac looks to be coming back, if today’s news is any indication. Jerry McNerney’s lead over David Harmer has edged up to 568 votes (although potentially that could erode a bit in today’s further counting as there are still some San Joaquin Co. votes outstanding). California doesn’t have an automatic recount provision, but Harmer seems to already be laying groundwork: he’s filed a suit in Contra Costa County saying his team should be able to stop the vote-by-mail signature-verification process in order to challenge signatures.

• KY-06: Ben Chandler is declaring victory, despite Andy Barr’s plans to pursue a recanvass. The final count is Chandler up by 649, although that’s not SoS-certified yet, and the recanvass may change that (although probably not to the extent that Barr could win).

• NV-St. Sen.: 84-year-old long-timer Bill Raggio won’t be the Republican leader in the Nevada state Senate for the first time in ages. He pulled his name from consideration for another stint as minority leader after it was clear that he wasn’t going to win the internal struggle against Mike McGinness. Raggio’s sin? Endorsing Harry Reid over Sharron Angle (who, you might remember, ran and lost to Raggio in a 2008 GOP primary battle in his Reno-area seat).

• Leadership: The big news on Capitol Hill today, of course, is that Nancy Pelosi has made clear that she will seek to become minority leader. One more indication how quickly the daily CW (which had a quick transition to Steny Hoyer penciled in yesterday) can change on a dime. Hoyer is likely to stay in place, so Pelosi will probably only face a minor challenge from Heath Shuler. Only a few other surviving conservadems are publicly opposing Pelosi so far (no surprises: Altmire, Boren, Matheson). Chris Van Hollen, unsurprisingly, is also out as DCCC chair… although it’s hard to tell how much his star has dimmed for future leadership endeavors, as a third term at the DCCC would have been unlikely even if the Dems had salvaged a majority. (There’s plenty of other discussion on this topic, including the GOP leadership ladder and committee chairs, underway over in MassGOP’s diary.) UPDATE: Here’s some last-minute tension: Dems are less one leadership slot, having to drop down to the minority, and it looks like that’s going to be resolved with a battle for minority whip between Steny Hoyer and Jim Clyburn. That could produce some fireworks.

• Polltopia: Nate Silver went there: his newest post is called “Rasmussen Polls Were Biased and Inaccurate.” His graph of major pollsters’ performance finds Rasmussen both off by the widest average margin, and with the most greatest amount of bias in a particular direction (the Republican direction, natch). (Quinnipiac had the smallest average error, and PPP was the closest to having no bias. He also has kind words for SurveyUSA and YouGov.) PPP’s Tom Jensen also has some interesting divining from Tuesday’s entrails: if you were wondering whether the dropoff was from Obama voters staying home, or Obama voters voting for Republicans this time around, he finds it was almost exactly half-and-half of each.

Just walk away, Renee. You won’t see me follow you back home:

Republican Renee Ellmers, who will likely face a recount in her bid to unseat Rep. Bob Etheridge (D-N.C.), appealed for help Thursday from the National Republican Congressional Committee.

The NRCC declined and Ellmers isn’t happy about it.  

The Republican said she asked the committee for help covering the costs related to a looming recount – Ellmers leads Etheridge by some 1,600 votes and earlier this week the incumbent signaled his intention to request a recount.

After elections officials discovered a counting error in one of the state’s counties, the Republican’s lead over Etheridge shrunk. The difference between the two is now less than 1 percent of the vote, enabling Etheridge to ask for a recount.

Now, the Ellmers campaign has always had a notoriously frosty relationship with the NRCC, but since when is that a valid reason to cut a seat loose? What the hell is going on here?

It’s all over but the legal wrangling:

Faced with news that an all-night vote count in Bridgeport has apparently swung the disputed gubernatorial election to Democrat Dannel Malloy, Republican candidate Tom Foley  said Friday he’s lost some confidence in his prospects but won’t concede defeat until he’s certain that the results are accurate.

And he said he’d consider a lawsuit to force a recount if he be believes it’s warranted.

An all-night vote count in Bridgeport went for Malloy, with 17,973 votes to Republican Tom Foley’s 4,099, Bridgeport Mayor Bill Finch’s office said Friday morning after local election officials concluded their work. The numbers appear to bring Malloy’s total statewide to 566,351, to Foley’s 560,886, with a difference of 5,465.

The margin appears to be enough to overcome the 8,409-vote lead that Foley held before the Bridgeport votes were counted.

Apparently, a final result will “hopefully” be released later today. I’ll add only this: I certainly hope that the incoming Secretary of State, Denise Merrill, will take a more proactive approach to Bridgeport’s recurring shortage of ballots than Susan Bysiewicz has over the past two cycles.

That was fast:

To no one’s surprise, Attorney General Jon Bruning tossed his hat into the ring for the 2012 U.S. Senate race.

Bruning’s announcement Friday came 19 hours after Gov. Dave Heineman, the state’s leading Republican, announced he would forgo a possible race to unseat U.S. Sen. Ben Nelson, the state’s leading Democrat.

Bruning, at a Capitol rotunda news conference, announced that he had formed an exploratory committee to solicit input from Nebraskans and raise campaign funds for the race. He said he could not envision a scenario in which he would not run.

“I want to run, and I’m ready to run,” the 41-year-old said. “Nebraska needs to replace Ben Nelson.”

Other Republicans considering the race are former AG Don Stenberg (who lost to Nelson by 2% in 2000, and was just elected as state treasurer this week), and, reportedly, ’06 mega-loser Pete Ricketts (!).

What kind of odds do you give the Benator?

Nate’s preliminary analysis of pollsters’ performance is out.  And the headline is what we’ve all known:  Rasmussen is biased.  Up to 2009, Scotty’s bias was held in check to some degree.  Since then, he’s left it all hang out.  And it shows.  The proof is in the pudding.  (And Nate doesn’t even address Rassmussen’s 12 point final generic).

The 105 polls released in Senate and gubernatorial races by Rasmussen Reports and its subsidiary, Pulse Opinion Research, missed the final margin between the candidates by 5.8 points, a considerably higher figure than that achieved by most other pollsters. Some 13 of its polls missed by 10 or more points, including one in the Hawaii Senate race that missed the final margin between the candidates by 40 points, the largest error ever recorded in a general election in FiveThirtyEight’s database, which includes all polls conducted since 1998.

Moreover, Rasmussen’s polls were quite biased, overestimating the standing of the Republican candidate by almost 4 points on average. In just 12 cases, Rasmussen’s polls overestimated the margin for the Democrat by 3 or more points. But it did so for the Republican candidate in 55 cases – that is, in more than half of the polls that it issued.

If one focused solely on the final poll issued by Rasmussen Reports or Pulse Opinion Research in each state – rather than including all polls within the three-week interval – it would not have made much difference. Their average error would be 5.7 points rather than 5.8, and their average bias 3.8 points rather than 3.9.

Who did well?  Q, SUSA (in the last three weeks) and, surpisingly, YouGov:

The most accurate surveys were those issued by Quinnipiac University, which missed the final margin between the candidates by 3.3 points, and which showed little overall bias.

The next-best result was from SurveyUSA, which is among the highest-rated firms in FiveThirtyEight’s pollster rankings: it missed the margin between the candidates by 3.5 points, on average.

SurveyUSA also issued polls in a number of U.S. House races, missing the margin between the candidates by an average of 5.2 points. That is a comparatively good score: individual U.S. House races are generally quite difficult to poll, and the typical poll issued by companies other than SurveyUSA had missed the margin between the candidates by an average of 7.3 points.

In some of the house races that it polled, SurveyUSA’s results had been more Republican-leaning than those of other pollsters. But it turned out that it had the right impression in most of those races – anticipating, for instance, that the Democratic incumbent Jim Oberstar could easily lose his race, as he eventually did.

YouGov, which conducts its surveys through Internet panels, also performed fairly well, missing the eventual margin by 3.5 points on average – although it confined its polling to a handful of swing races, in which polling is generally easier because of high levels of voter engagement.

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.n…

Alot of people have pointed out that House losses in Ohio shouldn’t be a big deal because the GOP has already gerrymandered Ohio to their maximum advantage.

However, what that fails to take into context is that Ohio is about to lose 2 of its 18 seats once the census figures are published, which gives the GOP an opportunity to take a 13-5 House advantage to 13-3. Below are some scenarios that will enable them to accomplish that:

Lost Seat #1: Shore up Jim Renacci, combine Tim Ryan and Betty Sutton.

This scenario seems like the easiest call for the Republicans. Currently Renacci was just elected to OH-16 which contains Stark (Canton/Massillon), Wayne (Wooster), Medina (Cleveland exurbs), and Ashland (rural, very conservative) Counties.

This district was drawn in 2000 to protect GOP moderate stalwart Ralph Regula who lived in the Canton area. Canton & Stark County also happen to be the most Dem friendly parts of the district as currently constructed, voting for both Kerry and Obama in 2004 & 2008. With Renacci’s home in Wadsworth (Medina County), it will be easy for Republicans to combine parts of the current OH-10, 13, 16, 17 & 18 into two districts.

Renacci’s new district will shift north and west, abandoning Stark County in the process by swallowing the Medina & Cuyahoga County portions of OH-13 (these suburbs: Strongsville, North Royalton & Brecksville are the most reliably GOP leaning areas of Dem-heavy Cuyahoga County), the eastern Lorain County portion of 13 (Avon, Avon Lake, North Ridgeville: fast growing GOP suburbs) and the western edge of OH-10 (Bay Village, Rocky River, Westlake). Whatever portions of Wayne & Ashland counties in the southern part of his current district that won’t fit population-wise can be eaten up by Gibbs in present-day OH-18.

That leaves a new Democratic district comprised of Akron, Canton & Youngstown that draws Sutton’s home in Copley (just outside Akron) and Ryan’s home in Niles (just outside Youngstown) into the same district and forces a primary between the two most promising congressional Dems in Ohio. Taking one of these two out will be a major boon to the GOP by eliminating or weakening the strongest challengers to Portman or Kasich in 2014 and 2016.

Lost Seat #2: This is where it gets harder for the GOP to come up with another lost Dem seat. The possibilities in order of likelihood:

1. With Renacci squeezing Kucinich to the west, the Republicans could draw a new minority-majority district in Cleveland by moving Fudge and Kucinich into the same district. This would involve LaTourette scraping off the eastern edge of Fudge’s territory. The new map would basically be the city of Cleveland + inner ring suburbs.

In this situation, Kucinich would likely retire or move to the suburbs to challenge Renacci where he would lose in an R+ district.

2. Split up Columbus 3 ways. Columbus presents a problem for Republicans in the state. It is the area that is experiencing the most population growth in the state, and it is also the area that is trending the strongest towards Democrats.

Currently OH-12 (Tibieri) and OH-15 (Stivers) represent the city by drawing in as much as they can from the sparsely populated surrounding counties. Even here, both districts are perpetually threatened, with Kilroy (D) holding OH-15 for one term before her defeat this year. OH-12 is actually the bluer of the two Columbus districts, but Dems can never seem to recruit the right candidate to beat Tibieri.

To stave off flipping one of these seats permanently to Team Blue, the GOP could find a way to give Gibbs or Turner a slice of the Columbus pie and keep Dem votes divided.

3. The last scenario I could see happening doesn’t get the GOP to 13-3, but could be a prudent strategic move for them in SW Ohio.

By eliminating OH-2 (Schmidt), they could expand Chabot’s district to the east and leave him less vulnerable to a Democratic wave year like 2008. Turner and Johnson (OH-6)would take what was left of Mean Jean’s territory and help shore up their own re-election hopes.

Schmidt’s constant underperformance is likely a drag on RCCC funds as they constantly have to defend the 2nd most Republican seat in Ohio due to the relative unpopularity of Ms. Schmidt.

These are just a few scenarios and I’m sure I’m missing others. Another possibility would be to force Marcy Kaptur and Bob Latta into a showdown, but Kapur’s seat is already so gerrymandered, I’m not sure how you draw in Toledo & the islands without strengthening the Dems.

Any thoughts?