Month: December 2010

• AK-Sen: This shouldn’t come as a surprise and I highly doubt that Joe Miller would listen to anything Mark Begich would say even if it weren’t a surprise, but Begich is now encouraging Miller to drop his pointless challenge to Lisa Murkowski so Murkowski can get sworn in on schedule and the pork can continue to flow to the Last Frontier. Meanwhile, Miller is now actually saying that he would have gotten away with it, if it weren’t for those meddling Inuits. In a Washington Times column, Miller blames the Native Alaskan corporations for backing Murkowski (via the Alaskans Standing Together PAC), and even (gasp! call the Fox voter fraud hotline!) putting boots on the ground to teach people how to spell “Murkowski” and bus people to the polls!!1!

• FL-Sen: If you were wondering if there was still a flicker of possibility that Jeb Bush was going to run against Bill Nelson, that’s pretty much extinguished: Bush himself acknowledged that over the weekend, admitting there’s a major problem given his support for immigration reform (and opposition to Arizona’s new law) that puts him at odds with the ascendant teabaggery. Mike Haridopolos is also letting everyone know that he wouldn’t be running if Bush were going to run, but that he’s gotten Bush’s green light. (The latter article also includes a few additional GOP names that we haven’t seen yet in connection with this race, like sophomore Rep. Tom Rooney and Adam Hasner, the former state House majority leader.)

• IN-Sen: State Sen. Mike Delph is waving his arms around madly trying to get the tea partiers’ attention for a possible primary against GOP apostate Richard Lugar, with a widely-circulated post to his own blog saying that he’s “increasingly concerned” with Lugar’s actions, especially support for the DREAM Act. The real question is whether state Treasurer Richard Mourdock gets in; Lugar’s best shot at getting through, like Dan Coats in the 2010 Senate primary, is to have the multiple teabaggers cannibalizing each others’ votes.

• NV-Sen: Democratic Rep. Shelly Berkley is mentioning some sort of timeline for deciding on whether to run for the Senate against John Ensign (or whoever decapitates him in the GOP primary): she’s saying early 2011, probably before mid-February. Worth noting: she’s sitting on $1.1 million CoH, more than your average Rep. and a good head start for a Senate bid.

• WV-Sen: John Raese, who has run and lost four times statewide, is pretty much ruling out another run for office, aware that it’s probably not a good investment of his family fortune. Also, he says he’s “worn out” (and probably wants to spend more time with his new glass conservatory). As for who will actually run, Shelly Moore Capito is naturally at the top of the GOP’s wish list, but it sounds like she’s more interested in running for Governor in 2012, making a run from some other self-funding B-lister against Manchin seem likely.

• MN-Gov: Tom Emmer’s legal team, over the weekend, pulled a large number of frivolous challenges: 2,600 of them, all from Hennepin County (Minneapolis). Between this token act of perceptions-management, and signals from Emmer attorney (and ex-state supreme court chief justice) Eric Magnuson that Emmer isn’t likely to prevail, it looks like we may actually get some resolution on this sooner rather than later.

• CA-11: I’m not sure if anyone was still wondering if David Harmer had conceded this race, as Jerry McNerney declared victory nearly a month ago and the AP also called it a few weeks ago, but he finally pulled the plug over the weekend. Harmer says he has no plans to run again.

• VA-09: Um, oooops. Here’s one veteran Dem who seems to have gotten caught with his pants down, when a late move in the polls in what had previously seemed an OK race (recall the spike in the last SurveyUSA poll of this race) seemed to come too late for him to do a last-minute ad blitz. Rick Boucher had by far the most money left over of any House Dem who lost: $699K. (Chris Carney came in second with $262K.)

• House: Here’s a long pointless list of races where the loser is operating in the usual “not ruling another run in or out” post-election mode: Glenn Nye in VA-02, Tom Perriello in VA-05, Chet Edwards in TX-17, Patrick Murphy in PA-08, and Republican Ilario Pantano in NC-07.

• DCCC: Another changing of the guard at the DCCC: Robby Mook is taking over as executive director, from Jon Vogel. He’s following the same path as Vogel, having led the DCCC’s independent expenditure arm during the 2010 cycle.

• NY-St. Sen.: The last two races in the New York state Senate are more or less resolved. Suzi Oppenheimer, as expected, has been declared the victor, and GOP opponent Bob Cohen has conceded. Craig Johnson, on the other hand, has lost, or at least was on the wrong end of the recount, although he plans to appeal. Assuming nothing changes in SD-7, the GOP will control the Senate 32-30 for this session.

• Redistricting: In Massachusetts, Democratic Secretary of State Bill Galvin is floating the idea of switching to an independent redistricting commission (albeit one that would apparently be non-binding). That’s odd, since if there’s one state where the Dems have firm control of the trifecta, it’s the Bay State. As you might expect, Dem legislative leaders are expressing little interest in the idea. They’re moving full speed ahead on the 2012 process, with state Senate president pro tem Stan Rosenberg in charge just as he was in 2002. As far as tea leaves for who might get protected in the elimination of that tenth House seat: I’m not sure if Rosenberg would be considered a John Olver ally, but it’s worth noting that Rosenberg is, like Olver, from Amherst, and succeeded Olver in the state Senate, taking over Olver’s old seat in 1991 upon Olver’s special election to the House.

As an ex-New Yorker, I keep my eyes perennially glued to New York politics.  It did not shock me terribly that Republicans took back a fair number of upstate New York house seats.  There were a lot of 27-1 or 28-0 nonsense maps put on this website last winter that failed to take into account that Republicans in New York often vote Democratic for president when they think the national candidate is too extreme but have no problem voting Republican downballot the rest of the way.  This may eventually change, like the voting habits of Dixicrats in the South apparently have, but it will take a while.

What shocked me the most was that it appears that the State Senate, and with it the Democratic trifecta that everyone was counting on last winter, has switched back into narrow GOP control pending the recounts in a few still undeclared State Senate seats.  With the lost of the North Buffalo seat to a Republican candidate, it appears our best hopes lay on working to a 31-31 tie.  Still, even were the lieutenant governor to cast a tie-breaking vote to organize the chamber for the Democrats, we have to keep in mind that there are quite a few scumbags in the delegation (Carl Krueger always tops the list in my view now that Espada and Montserrate are gone) who are more than willing to cut a deal with Dean Skelos (the GOP leader in the State Senate).  I therefore assume the following:

1) The GOP will have a seat at the table with redistricting.  Even with the very best scenario of the state senate breakdown of 31-31, it would be very hard to pass a Democratic gerrymander through the state legislature.  That’s just the reality.  

2) It will be an incumbent protection map that discomfits only those chosen to be drawn out.  

3) Despite Cuomo’s enthusiasm for a commission drawing the maps, it will not be passed in time to affect this round of redistricting and probably won’t be passed ever.  I can hardly ever see Shelly Silver giving up on drawing the State Assembly lines and that’s what it would take for Cuomo’s idea to prevail.  The Democratic leadership of the State Assembly perennially sold their party brothers and sisters over in the State Senate down the river for decades in going along with all the pro-GOP gerrymandering of the State Senate.  I hardly see anything different now.  

So this will be an agreement brokered between 3 men in a room, like the state budget or anything in New York State politics.  (For those of you not from New York or familiar with this phrase, it refers to the governor, the Assembly Speaker (always Democrat) and the State Senate President (usually historically Republican).

4) In addition to protecting the 4 black VRA districts and the 2 Hispanic VRA districts, a 3rd Hispanic district out of Joe Crowley’s currently minority-majority district that is Queens/Bronx will likely have to be passed to pass VRA preclearance.  This complicates greatly the map for downstate in a way that 2000 did not.  I would imagine that one of the three Queens white Democrats (Ackerman, Weiner, Crowley) gets the axe but expect there to be bitter racial tension over this.  Even if the GOP is closed out from redistricting through some act of miracle like the Buffalo state senator deciding to caucus with Democrats and/or Craig Johnson and Suzi Oppenheimer both winning their recounts, all it takes is one or two disgruntled Latino politicians that their constituency isn’t getting their “fair share” of congressional districts for them to bolt tactically to the Republicans.  If you don’t think this is a serious concern, I consult you to the 2001 mayoral election as a textbook example.  Fernando Ferrer sat on his hands – the Bronx Democratic machine did nothing on election day – and Bloomberg won.

So the crux of the matter is that a third Hispanic district will be created, very likely in the Queens/southern and eastern Bronx area.  Despite the fact that Crowley has close ties to Shelly Silver, he seems likeliest to be discomfited the most by the stark demographic realities of New York City.

5) In the past, New York State politicians in Albany have tended to privilege clout above all else.  Anyone who sits on Appropriations (Israel, Hinchey, Lowey, Serrano), Ways and Means (Rangel for now, Crowley, Higgins), or Financial Services because of the state’s ties to Wall Street and the large donations these members can draw (Maloney, Velazquez, Ackerman, Meeks, McCarthy) are generally immune from losing their districts.  I would add to this list Peter King (the incoming chair of Homeland Security – very important in swinging money to NYC and the State which overrides national partisan political objectives) and Slaughter (on Rules, which if the national Democrats get their act together and win back the House, she will again chair).

6) Western New York, which took the brunt the last time will not this time around, even though that is the part of the state that is losing the most population.  Either a prettier version of the dumbells will be created again for Slaughter, or there will be a Buffalo-Niagara Falls and a Rochester-Monroe County district.

7) The Hudson Valley (which gave up the other lost seat in 2002) will also not lose a seat.  Nita Lowey is too powerful to consent to a Westchester brawl between her and Nan Haysworth.  Hinchey’s on the powerful appropriations committee so a Hudson Valley conglomerated district between him and Haysworth also isn’t going to happen, either.  Given the state GOP’s desire to want to protect their most imperiled pickup, Buerkle’s surprise defeat of Dan Maffei in the Syracuse-based district, Hinchey’s elongated Southern Tier-Hudson Valley district will be needed to suck up ultra liberal votes out of Tompkins County.

Therefore, who might get targeted for elimination?

If New York only loses one seat, it seems easy to me to predict the outcome.  Bill Owens and Chris Gibson will be merged together in an Eastern Upstate New York congressional district that combines the northern most counties with the upper Hudson Valley, swooping around Albany.  It would be, depending on how you draw the lines, anywhere between a 52-54% Obama district and truly a “fair fight.”

What I’ve been struggling with is who gets the axe in addition if it’s a two-seat casualty loss and New York only has 27 seats after 2010.  In this scenario, the bipartisan redistricting scenario would require one Democratic and one Republican seat to vanish.  Upstate New York is where they would almost definitely take the Republican seat from.  Bill Owens would be left alone and Hanna and Gibson or Gibson and Haysworth would be merged.

Okay, so far so good.  Which Democrat gets the axe?  Remember, NYC is an universe all to itself and city politicians have a tendency to privilege the maintenance of clout and seniority over all else.  Also, it seems to me that even when I run the numbers on Dave’s redistricting app, a 3rd Hispanic district will still have to likely be created; therefore Crowley is still in a lot of peril one way or the other.

My guess is Eliot Engel of the north Bronx will eventually get the axe.  He is not well-liked in the delegation, nor by the Bronx party machine.  The demographic realities of a two-district loss mean that upstate will push a bit south even with losing one seat (because all of the population growth has been Hudson Valley-South for the past 2 decades at least) and there isn’t enough room in the Bronx to maintain a white district for him.  He sits on Foreign Affairs, which is a plum committee, but for pork barrel and “I scratch your back, you scratch mine” New York parochial politics, that aint good enough when push comes to shove.

The only thing that gives me pause is that when I play with it on Dave’s application, it does make the map a bit messy.  Haysworth swings south a tiny bit, like in the current map, to grab up more Republican-leaning or mixed areas of northern Westchester and northern Rockland.  Lowey takes the rest of Rockland and Westchester easily enough.  Then you would have Nadler swing north into Riverdale and left-over parts of Yonkers not needed in Lowey’s district.  Rangel could then have retain a black-plurality for his district by going into the north Bronx, Mt Vernon and parts of New Rochelle.  And then you would have room enough to create the 3rd Hispanic district in the southeast Bronx/northern Queens areas.  Down in Brooklyn, Grimm gets the heavily McCain precincts, the two black districts expand a bit more in that direction to gain new population, and Anthony Weiner gets the rest of the area that Nadler gives up.  Weiner is exactly the kind of Democrat that these voters would vote for so that’s not a big problem.

My only other guess is what to do out in Long Island.  Is it possible to really help Bishop at the expense of Israel or (ripple effects) McCarthy?  Bear in mind that Peter King has a safe pass given a) his position as the chair of Homeland Security and b) Dean Skelos being a fellow Nassau County Republican.  Realistically also, and this was the major flaw in many of the maps I saw it last year, no New York City politician wants to have to represent Long Island – there is just this hostility between the two regions as well as this narrow parochialism that is a New York City disease (and I can say that being a former New Yawker myself – I absolute refuse to give up rooting for my often lousy Mets).

So Peter King gets a safe GOP district, but unless you go into the City and have some of the City districts come out into the Island a bit, there are only enough Democrats for 2 districts (the current 2nd and 4th, both at 59% Obama performance).

So that’s what I foresee happening; Bishop not being helped all that much (except maybe the removal of Smithtown and the home of Altschuler) with some minority areas of Islip Town being added in its place.  This brings his district up from 52-53% Obama to 55% Obama, not that much of a help frankly.  It would have to be done in such a way not to imperil Israel most of all (as an appropriator he has a tremendous amount of clout) and McCarthy indirectly (because if you have Israel grab black areas in Nassau to compensate for losing minority voters in Islip, you risk imperiling McCarthy).

So the likeliest Democratic casualty if it is a 2-district loss seems to me to be Eliot Engel.  The only other possible scenario that I keep playing in my head is that perhaps Weiner gets the axe with everyone expecting (including himself all these years) that he will run for mayor in 2013.  I also note that he does not sit on any important clout committee – Education and Labor is not important enough in steering resources or in protecting tax provisions for Wall Street for Albany politicians to care much to want to protect him.  Engel still might not out of the woods with this scenario, though.  Might Shelly Silver protect his protege Crowley by drawing Eliot Engel into a Hispanic-majority district, axeing Weiner and drawing Crowley a dream Queens district where he can marshal the Queens Democratic machine behind him?  Intriguing possibilities….

I welcome your thoughts on this.  As someone who, because of my job, now resides in southern Illinois and only comes back to the City 2-3 times a year or to the Hudson Valley (where I’m originally from), my political radar antenna isn’t as perceptive as it might be were I still resident in New York.  

This was the first redistricting I did and I chose NM because its only three CDs.   I tried to the best of my ability to make clean districts, keep counties intact, and keep the population of the districts as close to being equal as possible.  Of course, this being a Democratic redistricting I wanted to make sure that President Obama won a substantial majority of votes in each new district.

1st (Blue) : Obama 56-43.  Las Cruces and the southwest, most of the west.  pop: 605,938.  There would be a new congressperson elected from this district.  None of the current reps live here.

2nd (Green): Obama 58-40.  Part of Albuquerque, all of Torrance and Lincoln, and Eddy counties, Roswell, central to southeast. pop: 606,486.  This would be Steve Pearce's new district (right now he represents a district that went 50-49 for McCain but this one would be much 9% more Democratic).  This would create a 2012 matchup between Steve Pearce and Martin Heinrich for this district, which Heinrich would be favored to win.

3rd (Purple): Obama 57-42.  Most of the east, all of the Northeast, the northwest, Santa Fe, part of Albuquerque, and north central.  pop: 606,622.  Ben Lujan would run in this CD.

http://i1215.photobucket.com/albums/cc513/sysm29/nm.jpg?t=1291594479

The assumption behind this map is that Capuano runs for Senate and all other incumbents are protected.  All cities and towns are kept intact, excepting Boston.

Boston Detail:

1st district – Oliver (Blue)

Gains some Worcester suburbs and some 495 belt towns, which makes it slightly more conservative, but at D+14 it has some room to spare.

2nd District – Neal (Green)

Adds a couple Republican towns in the East and Democratic ones in the West, overall not much changed.

3rd District – McGovern (Purple)

Keeps its Worcester and Fall River anchors, in fact gaining the portion of Fall River that Frank used to have.  The district shifts slightly, losing the Northern suburbs of Worcester and gaining other towns in Norfolk and Bristol counties.  Overall, not much change in partisan composition.

4th District – Frank (Red)

Like the 3rd, this district retains it’s anchors, but shifts slightly East.

5th District – Tsongas (Gold)

This district is made safer, swapping its 495 belt towns for more liberal towns in the Metrowest area.  (Fun fact: Framingham, at 67,000 inhabitants, is the largest town in New England)

6th District – Tierney (Teal)

Embattled rep Tierney needs some shoring up, so he gets the biggest prize from Capuano’s district: Cambridge and Somerville.  While this should make him safe in the general, if Tierney’s ethics troubles get any worse, he could be vulnerable in the primary, especially since much of the territory in this district is new to him.

7th District – Markey (Gray)

This district, while picking up the Alston-Brighton neighborhood of Boston, gets slightly more conservative overall, as it trades the metrowest towns that Tsongas picked up for some more conservative ones that Tierney lost. At D+15 it still has a strong liberal inner suburb base and should be fine.

8th District – Lynch (Periwinkle)

Lynch’s district changes radically in order to preserve the majority-minority district required (maybe?) by the VRA.  Lynch may not be too happy about this, since he has the most conservative voting record of any of the delegation and will now have a very Liberal district.  He could be vulnerable to a primary challenge, perhaps from State Senator Sonia Chang-Diaz.

9th District – Keating (Cyan)

This district doesn’t change much, unfortunately.  There are only so many ways to draw a district that stretches from Quincy to Cape Cod.  If O’Leary had won the primary we would have had more options.

The new 8th district is 48% non-hispanic white, which is comparable to the current 8th.  Just for fun, I tried to draw a district that would bring this number as low as possible:

40% White, 27% Black, 10% Asian, 21% Hispanic, 2% other.

Now that we know that the Texas House and Governor’s mansion will be safely in the hands of the Republican Party during redistricting, I decided to draw a map using Dave Bradlee’s application that predicts what the Republicans might do.  (I used 1.0 instead of 2.0 because I had a previously drawn map that I could easily modify in 1.0.  If there is an easy way to convert a 1.0 map to a 2.0 map, then please let me know in the comments.) Again to be clear, this is a prediction of what I think the new map might look like, not what I hope happens.  I really wish I was sharing a more liberally friendly map than this one.  

It’s also a pretty boring map with the following objectives:

1) Keep all incumbents with their base voters, except McCaul.

2) Draw a Republican safe district for McCaul.

3) Draw a non-VRA Republican safe district using the suburban-exurban part of Nueces for Farenthold.

4) Draw a non-VRA Republican safe district using the Northern part of Bexar for Canseco.

5) Draw a new Republican safe district in Harris.

6) Draw a new VRA Democratic safe district in DFW.

7) Draw two new VRA Democratic safe districts from the current 23 and 27.

I suspect objectives (1)-(5) are real Republican goals, and objectives (6)-(7) will likely be required by the Obama DOJ.  Here are the maps with the pretty colors.

The state.

Greater Houston.

DFW.

Central Texas.

The Valley.

El Paso.

CD 1: (Blue) [31% Obama – 68% McCain, Wh 66%, Bl 19%, Nat 0%, Asn 1% Hisp 12%] Tyler based district for Gohmert.

CD 2: (Dark Green) [41% Obama – 58% McCain, Wh 54%, Bl 19%, Nat 0%, Asn 2% Hisp 24%] Northeast Harris based district for Poe.

CD 3: (Purple) [43% Obama – 56% McCain, Wh 59%, Bl 10%, Nat 0%, Asn 12% Hisp 17%] Plano based district for Sam Johnson.

CD 4: (Red) [35% Obama – 65% McCain, Wh 65%, Bl 12%, Nat 1%, Asn 2% Hisp 19%] Rockwall based district for Hall.

CD 5: (Yellow) [42% Obama – 57% McCain, Wh 55%, Bl 17%, Nat 0%, Asn 1% Hisp 25%] Dallas based district for Hensarling.

CD 6: (Teal) [43% Obama – 56% McCain, Wh 54%, Bl 9%, Nat 0%, Asn 7% Hisp 28%] Dallas based district for Sessions.  Sessions district now goes up into Collin County making him significantly safer. (I switched the numbers on 6 and 32, because the color contrast was poor with 4.  It’s strictly a visual effect, and I don’t expect the numbers to switch.)

CD 7: (Silver) [42% Obama – 57% McCain, Wh 50%, Bl 7%, Nat 0%, Asn 8% Hisp 34%] Houston based district for Culberson.  This district is a little safer than his current district.  

CD 8: (Violet) [25% Obama – 74% McCain, Wh 76%, Bl 7%, Nat 0%, Asn 1% Hisp 14%] Montgomery County based district from Brady.

CD 9: (Sky Blue) [76% Obama – 24% McCain, Wh 15%, Bl 39%, Nat 0%, Asn 10% Hisp 35%] Houston based district for Al Green.

CD 10: (Hot Pink). [39% Obama – 60% McCain, Wh 68%, Bl 9%, Nat 0%, Asn 3% Hisp 18%] Austin/Waco/Johnson Country district for McCaul. Really, the only challenge in this map was McCaul. He lives in liberal Austin, which is a few hundred miles away from his base voters in one of the conservative parts of Harris County.  Furthermore, because of population growth in both Harris County and Austin, there is no way to keep this district together for him.  In fact, I used that part of Harris to draw the new Republican district mentioned in objective (5). A congressperson does not have to live in his/her district, so McCaul could hypothetically run for the Harris district.  However, there are several state legislators in that district, who are looking up, and he could get hit with a primary.  So, I really don’t think living that far away from a district is practical.  Hence, I drew him in with Johnson County, which is very Republican and is not home to a congressperson.  With Waco in this district, there is a chance Chet Edwards could run against him, but I doubt it.

CD 11: (Lawn Green) [25% Obama – 75% McCain, Wh 59%, Bl 5%, Nat 0%, Asn 1% Hisp 34%] Midland based district for Conaway.

CD 12: (Steel Blue) [36% Obama – 63% McCain, Wh 59%, Bl 5%, Nat 1%, Asn 3% Hisp 32%] Fort Worth based district for Granger.

CD 13: (Dark Salmon) [25% Obama – 74% McCain, Wh 70%, Bl 5%, Nat 1%, Asn 1% Hisp 22%] West Texas based district for Thornberry.  This one though now spreads east and has a new conservative base in Wichita Falls.  

CD 14: (Olive) [39% Obama – 60% McCain, Wh 56%, Bl 13%, Nat 0%, Asn 3% Hisp 27%] Galveston based district for Paul.

CD 15: (Orange) [68% Obama – 31% McCain, Wh 9%, Bl 0%, Nat 0%, Asn 1% Hisp 89%] Hidalgo County based district for Hinojosa.  This district is much more compact.  [UPDATE: Several comments have noted that this district may be too Hispanic.  The 15 was after all one of the districts that the courts redrew in 2006.  That could very well be true.  This issue could easily be resolved by redrawing 15 and 28 (and possibly the new 33) similar to how they are drawn now to reduce the Hispanic influence in 15.  I considered doing this myself, but I decided against it.  One reason for my decision was that I ran out of time to work on this.  Two, I actually decided that the GOP could argue that (a) this district is compact and within a single community, (b) all of the neighboring districts are safely VRAs too, and (c) breaking up this district would break up a community, which is against the spirit of the VRA.  That’s not a great argument, but Justice Kennedy might buy it.  Since it gives the GOP a chance to weaken the Democrats in 28 almost down to a swing district, I wouldn’t be surprised if they made this argument. (See description of 28 below.)  Nonetheless, even if it doesn’t go as predicted, I suspect they will go with a fix by redrawing 15 and 28.]

CD 16: (Lime) [65% Obama – 34% McCain, Wh 14%, Bl 3%, Nat 0%, Asn 1% Hisp 81%] El Paso based district for Reyes.

CD 17: (Midnight Blue) [33% Obama – 66% McCain, Wh 64%, Bl 15%, Nat 0%, Asn 2% Hisp 18%] College Station based district for Flores. This district was moved out of Johnson County and McClennan County to make 10 friendlier for McCaul.

CD 18: (Yellow) [75% Obama – 24% McCain, Wh 17%, Bl 32%, Nat 0%, Asn 4% Hisp 46%] Houston based district for Jackson.

CD 19: (Yellow Green) [26% Obama – 74% McCain, Wh 59%, Bl 6%, Nat 1%, Asn 1% Hisp 32%] Lubbock based district for Neugebauer.

CD 20: (Pink) [65% Obama – 34% McCain, Wh 15%, Bl 4%, Nat 0%, Asn 1% Hisp 78%] San Antonio based district for Gonzalez.

CD 21: (Maroon) [42% Obama – 57% McCain, Wh 68%, Bl 4%, Nat 0%, Asn 3% Hisp 24%] San Antonio/Austin based district for Smith.

CD 22: (Chocolate) [39% Obama – 60% McCain, Wh 52%, Bl 8%, Nat 0%, Asn 12% Hisp 27%] Sugar Land based district for Olson.

CD 23: (Cyan) [33% Obama – 66% McCain, Wh 65%, Bl 3%, Nat 0%, Asn 2% Hisp 29%] North Bexar based district for Canseco.  As noted previously, this district is much more Anglo and Republican than the current VRA 23.

CD 24: (Indigo) [41% Obama – 58% McCain, Wh 63%, Bl 8%, Nat 1%, Asn 8% Hisp 18%] Southlake/Coppell based district for Marchant.

CD 25: (Violet Red) [69% Obama – 30% McCain, Wh 41%, Bl 10%, Nat 0%, Asn 5% Hisp 41%] Austin based district for Doggett.

CD 26: (Grey) [34% Obama – 65% McCain, Wh 72%, Bl 7%, Nat 1%, Asn 3% Hisp 16%] Flower Mound/Denton based district for Burgess.

CD 27: (Spring Green) [39% Obama – 60% McCain, Wh 53%, Bl 6%, Nat 0%, Asn 1% Hisp 38%] Greater Corpus Christi based district for Farenthold.  It is no longer a VRA district since it extends north.

CD 28: (Plum) [53% Obama – 46% McCain, Wh 24%, Bl 3%, Nat 0%, Asn 1% Hisp 72%] Laredo based district for Cuellar.  This district however is not nearly as safe as it is today even though is still safely a VRA.  It could be a Republican target, but Cuellar is a staple in Laredo, so I doubt he is going anywhere.

CD 29: (Dark Sea Green) [70% Obama – 30% McCain, Wh 13%, Bl 22%, Nat 0%, Asn 2% Hisp 63%] Houston based district for Gene Green.

CD 30: (Light Salmon) [76% Obama – 23% McCain, Wh 15%, Bl 29%, Nat 0%, Asn 2% Hisp 54%] Dallas based district for Eddie Bernice Johnson.

CD 31: (Khaki) [43% Obama – 55% McCain, Wh 61%, Bl 12%, Nat 1%, Asn 4% Hisp 21%] Williamson County based district for Carter.

CD 32: (Orange Red) [39% Obama – 60% McCain, Wh 64%, Bl 14%, Nat 0%, Asn 3% Hisp 18%] Ellis County based district for Barton.  (See comment about switching 6 and 32 above.)

CD 33: (Slate Blue) [58% Obama – 41% McCain, Wh 19%, Bl 2%, Nat 0%, Asn 1% Hisp 78%] Corpus Christi/South Padre Island based district for Ortiz, possibly Ortiz Junior if Ortiz Senior is ready to retire after losing.

CD 34: (Lime Green) [61% Obama – 38% McCain, Wh 21%, Bl 8%, Nat 0%, Asn 1% Hisp 69%] South Bexar/Border based VRA district for Rodriguez.

CD 35: (Orchid) [66% Obama – 33% McCain, Wh 29%, Bl 29%, Nat 0%, Asn 5% Hisp 36%] New Dallas-Fort Worth based VRA district for some Democrat like Royce West or Rafael Anchia. [UPDATE: curiousgeorge noted that this may not be a VRA district.  That is probably true.  After all, it looks a lot like Martin Frost’s old 24th district that the courts allowed DeLay to butcher in his mid-decade redistricting. Nonetheless, I still believe that there will be a new Democratic district in DFW.  Otherwise, at least one Republican would be seriously weakened.]

CD 36: (Dark Orange) [35% Obama – 65% McCain, Wh 61%, Bl 7%, Nat 0%, Asn 7% Hisp 24%] New Harris County based district for some Republican like Dan Patrick or Debbie Riddle.

Overall 24 R – 12 D.

[UPDATE: I corrected some minor typos, added racial percentages, and addressed the issue of 15 being too Hispanic.  There are some other minor issues with the map, but I think that the overview is about right.  Specifically, we’ll see a 24 R-12 D map with the Democrats representing the following: 3 from Greater Houston, 2 from DFW, 2 from the Valley, 1 from El Paso, 1 from Austin, 1 from San Antonio, 1 from Laredo, and 1 from South San Antonio to the border.]

No surprise:

Democrat Mark Dayton has won his bid to become Minnesota’s next governor, defeating Republican state legislator Tom Emmer after a recount, according to updated vote results released Friday by the Minnesota Secretary of State.

Dayton, a former U.S. Senator, lead Emmer by more than 8,715 votes with 99.99 percent of all ballots recounted.

An additional 765 ballots remain challenged by the Emmer campaign, too few to affect the final outcome.

But from what I understand, Emmer has vowed to take this one all the way to the World Court in the Hague, so it might be a few decades or so before we can put this one to bed.

(Hat-tip: LookingOver)

I have yet once again redone my Maryland map.  I’m using the “original” version of Dave’s Application here as I did the map a while back but just haven’t had the chance to do the write-up.

Bottom line: there’s no reason not to do an 8-0 map, knowing that the GOP will do something similar in a number of states.  Democrats still have the trifecta in Maryland (we actually picked up a few seats in the state Senate here in November, btw !)

I had several goals in mind for this map:

– VRA: Both African-American-majority districts must have black population that is at least 1.5 times the size of the white population in those districts (to ensure representation).  The map does really well in this respect.  The black population in both MD-4 and MD-7 goes down from 57% and 59%, respectively, under the existing 2002 map — to 51% and 57%, respectively, under the proposed map here.  HOWEVER, because of the way the districts are reconfigured (expanding to include a lot more GOP-leaning territory in the northern part of the state) the proportion of African-Americans as a percentage of the Democratic primary vote in both districts goes up from approximately 70% now to approximately 80% under the proposed plan.

– Incumbency: Keep at least 50% of each Democratic incumbent’s current territory (population-wise) in the new district.  The percentages that each district gets to keep are below:

MD-1 – 66%

MD-2 – 70%

MD-3 – 62%

MD-4 – 53%

MD-5 – 74%

MD-6 – 49%

MD-7 – 55%

MD-8 – 78%

As you can see, it looks pretty good.  Other than the two minority-majority districts, each Democratic incumbent would get to keep at least 62% of their constituents.  This is important in any realistic redistricting plan for Maryland.  Although their districts get to keep only 53% and 55% of their existing constituents, Donna Edwards and Elijah Cummings should still be quite happy with their new districts for the reason discussed under “VRA” above.  In the case of MD-7 it should be noted that many areas in the eastern part of Baltimore City which were previously part of the district (prior to 2002) are now “returned” back to the district. So, while Cummings does not currently represent those constituents, the areas would likely be quite receptive to having him as a representative.  (I should also note that Steny Hoyer’s new district also contains territory which he has represented prior to 2002 — accounting for another 6% of the population —  so, in effect, the proposed MD-5 here includes 80% of territory Hoyer is currently representing or has represented in the past).

– Keep different parts/regions of the state “intact”.  This includes keeping the Eastern Shore whole in one district (same goes for Southern Maryland), keeping MD-2, MD-3 and MD-7 in the Baltimore orbit, while keeping MD-4, MD-5 and MD-8 in the Washington, DC orbit.  Likewise, I wanted to keep more communities intact.  Under the map here, the only incorporated cities that are split are Baltimore City (for obvious reasons), Mount Airy (because it is already split between two counties), and Hyattsville (although now it would only be split between two districts and not three like under the existing map).

Also, wanted to minimize county fragments and ensure that each district “corresponds” to a region or county.  Listed below is the largest jurisdiction (percentage of  district’s population) that each district is comprised of (you can look up the whole break-down under each district further down):

MD-1 – 62% Eastern Shore

MD-2 – 62% Baltimore County

MD-3 – 64% Anne Arundel and Howard Counties

MD-4 – 68% Prince George’s County

MD-5 – 76% Southern Maryland and Prince George’s Co.

MD-6 – 55% Montgomery County

MD-7 – 59% Baltimore City

MD-8 – 78% Montgomery County

As you can see, Montgomery Co. (the state’s largest) would form the majority of two Congressional districts under this plan.

– Partisanship (last, but not least !): Each new district must ensure that a Democrat is elected.  The percentages are discussed below the maps:

District 1:

Current District:  Obama 40; McCain 58

Proposed District:  Obama 56; McCain 43

Proposed District Demographics: 68% white; 25% black

Population: Eastern Shore 62%, Prince George’s Co. 20%, Anne Arundel Co. 18%

The 56% Obama percentage here would more than ensure that Frank Kratovil could make a comeback in 2012.

District 2:  

Current District:  Obama 60; McCain 38

Proposed District:  Obama 59; McCain 39

Proposed District Demographics: 66% white; 25% black

Population: Baltimore Co. 62%, Baltimore City 22%, Harford Co. 17%

District 3:  

Current District:  Obama 59; McCain 39

Proposed District:  Obama 59; McCain 39

Proposed District Demographics: 68% white; 19% black

Population: Howard Co. 33%, Anne Arundel Co. 31%, Baltimore Co. 26%, Baltimore City 10%

District 4:

Current District:  Obama 85; McCain 14

Proposed District:  Obama 72; McCain 27

Proposed District Demographics: 51% black; 33% white; 12% Hispanic

Population: Prince George’s Co. 68%, Carroll Co. 24%, Howard Co. 6%, Montgomery Co. 2%

District 5:

Current District:  Obama 65; McCain 33

Proposed District:  Obama 60; McCain 39

Proposed District Demographics: 59% white; 29% black

Population: Southern Maryland 47%, Prince George’s Co. 29%, Anne Arundel Co. 24%

District 6:

Current District:  Obama 40; McCain 58

Proposed District:  Obama 59; McCain 40

Proposed District Demographics: 66% white, 14% black, 10% Hispanic

Population: Montgomery Co. 55%, Frederick Co. 29%, Washington Co. 16%

District 7:  

Current District:  Obama 79; McCain 20

Proposed District:  Obama 69; McCain 30

Proposed District Demographics: 57% black; 38% white

Population: Baltimore City 59%, Baltimore Co. 24%, Harford Co. 17%

District 8:  

Current District:  Obama 74; McCain 25

Proposed District:  Obama 65; McCain 34

Proposed District Demographics: 63% white; 13% hispanic; 11% black; 11% asian

Population: Montgomery Co. 78%, Western Maryland 19%, Frederick Co. 3%

Not always I want leave in 0 to the republicans. Iowa is not a state for want it. My map for Iowa find 2D-1Swing-1R.

Habitually I bid not for the states without political data, because still I have enough with California or Pennsylvania (maybe later) for think in other states, but I have a idea what make so easy the calculus and I think the result of the bid help for it.

This is the map:

CD-01: B Braley (D)

57.98% Obama => D+5 (Currently D+5)

Based in Davenport (3rd city in Iowa)

Includes all of: Scott, Clinton, Jackson, Dubuque, Delaware, Clayton, Allamakee, Buchanan, Fayette, Winneshiek, Black Howk, Bremer, Chickasaw, Howard, Grundy, Butler, Floyd, Mitchell, Worth, Cerro Gordo and Franklin counties.

CD-02: D Loebsack (D)

57.97% Obama => D+5 (Currently D+7)

Based in Cedar Rapids (2nd city in Iowa)

Includes all of: Jones, Cedar, Muscatine, Louisa, Des Moines, Linn, Johnson, Washington, Henry, Lee, Benton, Iowa, Keokuk, Jefferson, Van Buren, Tama, Poweshiek, Mahaska, Wapello, Davis, Monroe, Appanoose, Lucas and Wayne counties.

CD-03: L Boswell (D) and T Latham (R)

53.75% Obama => D+1 (Currently D+1 and EVEN)

Based in Des Moines (1st city in Iowa)

Includes all of: Hardin, Marshall, Jasper, Marion, Hamilton, Story, Polk, Warren, Clarke, Boone, Dallas and Madison.

CD-04: S King (R)

46.05% Obama => R+7 (Currently R+9)

Based in Sioux City (4th city in Iowa)

Includes all of: The rest of the counties.

They are compact districts what respect the boundaries of the counties and respect the unity of the metropolitan areas in the state.

The new CD-01 and CD-02 districts are in risk of lose some point in the Cook PVI rating because both districts must asume new areas from districts with less democratic rating. Still I think this model for redistricting Iowa keep booth enough safe. The same reason make the future CD-04 down from R+9 until R+6.

The new CD-03 can give a decent chance to L Boswell because every bid for make a new district here what keep all the Polk county inside the district will give a strong position to L Boswell against T Latham.