Tag: Redistricting

Here is my spin on Virginia with the 2010 Census and political data in Dave’s App.  Because of Democratic control of the Senate and Republican control of everything else, a court-drawn map is a reasonable possibility in Virginia. I attempted to prioritize the same goals a court would.  These goals were:

1. Preserve a majority-black voter district

2. Avoid county splitting

3. Keep each district limited to one region of the state

4. Compactness

Hampton Roads:

Northern Virginia:

District 1: Tidewater

Incumbent: Rob Wittman (R)

Population: 726,817

Two-Party Partisan Performance:

New District: 45.5% Obama, 43.4% Democratic

Old District: 48.4% Obama, 44.8% Democratic

Racial/Ethnic Demographics:

71.3% White

18.8% Black

04.6% Hispanic

02.2% Asian

This district takes a portion of the northern peninsula in the Hampton Roads area, the rest of the Tidewater area to the north, and ultra-conservative Hanover County north of Richmond. It becomes less Democratic and safely Republican.

District 2: Hampton Roads

Incumbent: Scott Rigell (R), Randy Forbes (R)

Population: 727,545

Two-Party Partisan Performance:

New District: 49.1% Obama, 46.8% Democratic

Old District: 52.4% Obama, 49.1% Democratic

Racial/Ethnic Demographics:

66.3% White

19.1% Black

06.3% Hispanic

04.9% Asian

The district takes in all of Virginia Beach and the Delmarva Peninsula plus the whiter portions of Chesapeake, Portsmouth, and Norfolk.  The district becomes slightly more Republican. It would be tough, but not impossible, for a Democrat to win here. Randy Forbes and Scott Rigell both live in the district, but because this contains much more of Rigell’s territory, I think he’d have the edge.

District 3: Hampton Roads (VRA District)

Incumbent: Bobby Scott (D)

Population: 726,624

Two-Party Partisan Performance:

New District: 69.2% Obama, 65.1% Democratic

Old District: 75.7% Obama, 71.3% Democratic

Racial/Ethnic Demographics:

38.3% White

53.2% Black

04.0% Hispanic

01.8% Asian

This district becomes much more compact, leaving the Richmond area. It is still has a majority of black voters, though that majority is a few percentage points smaller. This district is very safe for Democrats.

District 4: Southside

Incumbent: Robert Hurt (R)

Population: 727,567

Two-Party Partisan Performance:

New District: 42.2% Obama, 43.2% Democratic

Old District: 51.0% Obama, 49.0% Democratic

Racial/Ethnic Demographics:

68.0% White

28.0% Black

03.0% Hispanic

01.1% Asian

This district shifts west, taking in Virginia’s Southside region. It becomes much more Republican and is probably unwinnable for Democrats.

District 5: Piedmont

Incumbent: None

Population: 728,108

Two-Party Partisan Performance:

New District: 49.7% Obama, 46.2% Democratic

Old District: 48.5% Obama, 47.3% Democratic

Racial/Ethnic Demographics:

73.6% White

14.4% Black

06.2% Hispanic

03.0% Asian

This district shifts north, still containing Charlottesvile but trading Southside for Virginia wine country and portions of the Northern Virginia exurbs. It becomes slightly more Democratic and is winnable with the right candidate. Eric Cantor would probably run here, since it contains a fair amount of his old turf.

District 6: Shenandoah Valley

Incumbent: Bob Goodlatte

Population: 728,381

Two-Party Partisan Performance:

New District: 42.4% Obama, 40.5% Democratic

Old District: 41.9% Obama, 57.9% Democratic

Racial/Ethnic Demographics:

83.9% White

07.9% Black

05.1% Hispanic

01.2% Asian

This is still a Shenandoah Valley district and very, very Republican.

District 7: Richmond

Incumbent: Eric Cantor (R)

Population: 726,869

Two-Party Partisan Performance:

New District: 61.8% Obama, 57.0% Democratic

Old District: 46.6% Obama, 42.1% Democratic

Racial/Ethnic Demographics:

54.0% White

32.7% Black

06.4% Hispanic

04.5% Asian

This district has undergone a huge change, going from a safe Republican to safe Democratic seat.  Eric Cantor would stand little chance of victory here. Sen. Donald McEachin and Del. Jennifer McClellan would be the likely Democratic candidates.

District 8: Northern Virginia

Incumbent: Jim Moran (D)

Population: 727,201

Partisan Performance:

New District: 68.2% Obama*, 54.9% Democratic

Old District: 69.3% Obama*, 57.9% Democratic

Racial/Ethnic Demographics:

52.4% White

14.1% Black

18.9% Hispanic

11.3% Asian

This district contains all of Arlington County and Alexandria City, plus other close-in suburbs in Fairfax County. It becomse slightly less Democratic, but remains safe.

*Note that President Obama’s performance is slightly understated due to an error in the data.

District 9: Southwest Virginia

Incumbent: Morgan Griffith (R)

Population: 728,247

Partisan Performance:

New District: 40.1% Obama, 43.2% Democratic

Old District: 40.3% Obama, 43.7% Democratic

Racial/Ethnic Demographics:

92.2% White

03.4% Black

01.8% Hispanic

01.3% Asian

This district contains Southwest Virginia. Its partisan makeup is unchanged and post-Rick Boucher is probably unwinnable for Democrats.

District 10: Northern Virginia

Incumbent: Frank Wolf (R)

Population: 726,837

Two-Party Partisan Performance:

New District: 54.7% Obama*, 53.6% Democratic

Old District: 50.2% Obama*, 47.2% Democratic

Racial/Ethnic Demographics:

62.8% White

06.0% Black

12.6% Hispanic

16.9% Asian

This district shrinks dramatically, dropping its territory outside Northern Virginia. It contains Loudoun County, the City of Falls Church, and northern Fairfax County. The district becomes significantly more Democratic, which might actually encourage a credible challenger to run against Frank Wolf. My guess would be state Sen. Mark Herring.  

*Note that due data errors, this President Obama performed about 2 percentage points better than it appears.

District 11: Northern Virginia

Incumbent: Gerry Connolly (D)

Population: 726,807

Two-Party Partisan Performance:

New District: 57.6% Obama, 51.1% Democratic

Old District: 56.6% Obama, 52.3% Democratic

Racial/Ethnic Demographics:

51.8% White

13.9% Black

17.9% Hispanic

12.6% Asian

This district takes in the remainder of Fairfax County and all of Fairfax City, Mannassas, Manassas Park, and Prince William County.  The partisan composition doesn’t change much.  Since Conolly survived 2010, I have to beleive he’ll be fine in the future.

This map would probably produce 5 Democrats and 6 Republicans.

Now that Dave’s app has updated data for Virginia, I figured I would see what a map drawn by courts or a commission would look like. I had the basic idea for this map for a while, but now I updated it with the new population estimates to see what the partisanship would look like.



Nova:

Districts:

VA-08:Arlington, Alexandria, Falls Church, inner Fairfax county

18+Pop: 56W/12B/18H/13A

2008:67O/33M

Avg Dem performance: 66D/35R

Representative: Jim Moran (D)

VA-11: Outer Fairfax county

61W/8B/11H/18A

57O/43M

54D/46R

Representative: Probably Gerry Connolly (D), but Frank Wolf (R) also lives in this district. I suspect Connolly is favored to win, but Wolf has substantial crossover appeal and would definitely have a chance. My initial guess is that Connolly would be the 60% or so favorite. It would almost certainly go D within the next decade, however.

VA-10: Prince William county (except Quantico Marine Corps base), inner Loudoun county

55W/15B/17H/11A

55O/45M (One caveat-many precincts in this district show 3-4K McCain votes but no Obama votes, so Obama total is probably somewhat higher)

49D/51R

Representative: None live in this district. The election for this new district will be a pure tossup.

VA-01: Far NoVA exurbs and the Shenandoah valley

78W/11B/7H

56M/44O

60R/40D

Representative: Unknown, but definitely a Republican

VA-06: Charlottesville area, Southern Shenandoah valley, Appalachian areas, Roanoke area

84W/10B

48O/52M

47D/53R

Representative: Probably Bob Goodlatte (R), however this district has gotten significantly more Democratic so it might be worth it to find a challenger to him. Tom Perriello could do it if he doesn’t run for senate. Also, Creigh Deeds lives in this district. Maybe we’ll see a Representative Creigh Deeds from here soon, something I’m sure SSpers are excited about. Also, Morgan Griffith lives in Salem, which I put in this district because there is no good reason to have Salem and Roanoke in separate districts. I suspect he moves to the 9th, however

VA-09: Southwest VA

90W/6B

59M/41O

44D/56R

Representative: I believe Morgan Griffith (R) would probably move here and win

VA-05: Piedmont area

69W/27B

45O/55M

44D/56R

Representative: Robert Hurt (R) would run here and be even safer than he is now

VA-04: Similar to what it is now, stretches from Chesapeake/VA Beach up to far-flung exurbs of Richmond

65W/25B

47O/53M

45D/55R

Representative: Randy Forbes (R), possibly Scott Rigell (R) depending on where he lives in VA Beach (anybody know?). If they are in a district together, Forbes would probably win the primary because Rigell is a freshman. Regardless, this district was no longer carried by Obama

VA-03: The most African-American parts of the Newport News area

44W/45B

71O/29M

66D/34R

Representative: Unknown, but likely an African-American Democrat. I decided to draw this as the VRA district for this map. Drawing districts more compactly is terrible for minority representation in Virginia, as the best I could do is a plurality-AA district here. African-Americans still make up a majority of the Democratic primary, and the district is safely Democratic so it would probably elect an AA Democrat. Interestingly, Obama significantly overperformed the average Democrat in this district, probably because of high African-American turnout.

VA-07: All the areas inside the Richmond beltway were 50K short of a district, so I added some areas just outside the beltway, regardless it’s basically a Richmond district

57W/31B/6H/5A

62O/34M

57D/43R

Representative: Maybe Bobby Scott (D), Eric Cantor (R) also lives here. Cantor probably couldn’t win this district, but Scott is also probably a bit to the left of this district. I have to give Scott the advantage, but he might have to actually contest a campaign every now and then.

VA-02:Tidewater area

74W/16B

Dave’s app kind of crapped out on me here and gave me -2,000,000 votes for both candidates, so I don’t know what the numbers are, but regardless it’s safe R

Representative: Rob Wittman (R) would probably win this district. Scott Rigell either lives here or in the 4th, but I suspect he loses the primary either way.

So you have 2 Safe D seats (8th, 3rd), 1 Likely D seat (7th), 1 Lean D seat (11th), 1 Tossup seat(10th), 1 Likely R seat (6th), and 5 Safe R seats (1st, 5th, 9th, 4th, 2nd). I could see the split being anywhere from 8R-3D to 6D-5R. Realistically I think the default standing for the parties is 4D-6R, with the 10th a pure tossup.  

Texas has always been, in my mind, the most interesting state for redistricting in 2010, partly because it grew much more than any other state (it gained four seats, while no other state gained more than two), and partly because much of that growth was Hispanic. This sets up a major conflict in the redistricting process: the Republicans, who control the trifecta here, will want to draw as many of those four new seats for themselves as possible, obviously, but the Obama administration’s Dept. of Justice, via the Voting Rights Act, will compel the creation of as many majority-minority seats as possible. Given the numbers that came out today, Texas Republicans may actually feel lucky getting away with two of the four new seats… assuming that’s what they end up with, after the conclusion of the inevitable litigation process that will result.

Texas gained a whopping 4,293,741 people between 2000 and 2010, growing from 20,851,820 to 25,145,561. Of that 4+ million, only about 10% were non-Hispanic whites. The non-Hispanic white population in 2000 was 10,933,313, and in 2010 it’s 11,397,345, a difference of 464,032. Contrast that with the growth in Hispanics, who went from 6,669,616 to 9,460,921, a gain of 2,791,305. Expressed as percentages, Texas now has only a plurality, not a majority, of non-Hispanic whites. They make up 45.3% of the population in 2010, along with 11.5% non-Hispanic blacks, 3.8% non-Hispanic Asians, and 37.6% Hispanics. (In 2000, non-Hispanic whites were 52.4%, along with 11.3% black, 2.7% Asian, and 32% Hispanic. Those don’t add up to 100 because there are also categories for Native Americans, Pacific Islanders, two or more races, and “some other” race.)

With Texas about to expand to 36 seats, that means the target average for each new congressional district will be 698,488. Here’s a chart that looks at each current congressional district, giving old and new populations, the amount gained (or lost), and the “deviation,” which is what we’re calling how many people each district will need to shed (or in a few cases, gain) in order to hit its 2010 target. (In case you’re wondering, yes, the 2000 data is for the post-2004 DeLay-mander configurations of each district.) I’m also including the 2000 and 2008 presidential election results, so you can see which direction the districts are headed (very different, when you contrast the trend in rural east Texas districts with suburbs for the major cities).

District	Rep.	2000 total	2010 total	Total change	Deviation	2000 election	2008 election
TX-01	Gohmert (R)	651,652	723,464	71,812	24,976	33/68	31/69
TX-02	Poe (R)	651,605	782,375	130,770	83,887	37/63	40/60
TX-03	Johnson, S. (R)	651,782	842,449	190,667	143,961	30/70	42/57
TX-04	Hall (R)	651,500	846,142	194,642	147,654	34/66	30/69
TX-05	Hensarling (R)	651,919	725,642	73,723	27,154	34/66	36/63
TX-06	Barton (R)	651,691	809,095	157,404	110,607	34/66	40/60
TX-07	Culberson (R)	651,682	780,611	128,929	82,123	31/69	41/58
TX-08	Brady (R)	651,755	833,770	182,015	135,282	31/69	26/74
TX-09	Green, A. (D)	651,086	733,796	82,710	35,308	69/31	77/23
TX-10	McCaul (R)	651,523	981,367	329,844	282,879	34/67	44/55
TX-11	Conaway (R)	651,590	710,682	59,092	12,194	25/75	24/76
TX-12	Granger (R)	651,770	831,100	179,330	132,612	36/64	36/63
TX-13	Thornberry (R)	651,665	672,781	21,116	(25,707)	26/74	23/77
TX-14	Paul (R)	651,837	779,704	127,867	81,216	36/64	33/66
TX-15	Hinojosa (D)	651,580	787,124	135,544	88,636	54/46	60/40
TX-16	Reyes (D)	652,363	757,427	105,064	58,939	59/41	66/34
TX-17	Flores (R)	651,509	760,042	108,533	61,554	32/68	32/67
TX-18	Jackson-Lee (D)	651,789	720,991	69,202	22,503	72/28	77/22
TX-19	Neugebauer (R)	651,610	698,137	46,527	(351)	25/75	27/72
TX-20	Gonzalez (D)	651,603	711,705	60,102	13,217	58/42	63/36
TX-21	Smith (R)	651,930	856,954	205,024	158,466	31/69	41/58
TX-22	Olson (R)	651,657	910,877	259,220	212,389	33/67	41/58
TX-23	Canseco (R)	651,149	847,651	196,502	149,163	47/54	51/48
TX-24	Marchant (R)	651,137	792,319	141,182	93,831	32/68	44/55
TX-25	Doggett (D)	651,477	814,381	162,904	115,893	47/53	59/40
TX-26	Burgess (R)	651,858	915,137	263,279	216,649	38/62	41/58
TX-27	Farenthold (R)	651,843	741,993	90,150	43,505	50/50	53/46
TX-28	Cuellar (D)	651,259	851,824	200,565	153,336	50/50	56/44
TX-29	Green, G. (D)	651,405	677,032	25,627	(21,456)	57/43	62/38
TX-30	Johnson, E. (D)	652,261	706,469	54,208	7,981	74/26	82/18
TX-31	Carter (R)	651,868	902,101	250,233	203,613	32/69	42/58
TX-32	Sessions (R)	650,555	640,419	(10,136)	(58,069)	36/64	46/53

Now let’s turn to the changes in racial composition in each district. The Hispanic population increased in all of Texas’s 32 districts, with the smallest increase being 35,816 (in TX-32 in north Dallas, the only district which lost population overall – I’m not quite sure why this district lost population, other than the fact that it’s fairly dense, and boxed in by other urban districts, so it’s unable to sprawl in any direction). Eight districts gained more than 100,000 Hispanics each, with the biggest gain in the Laredo-based TX-28, gaining 166,375. The second biggest gain was 159,747 in TX-10, the wormlike district that links Houston’s western suburbs with Austin’s eastern suburbs and which gained a whole lot of everybody of all races. TX-10 is also more remarkable in that the Hispanic share of the total population nearly went up 10%, from 19% to 29% (by contrast, in TX-28, the Hispanic share barely increased, seeing as how they’re already the vast majority there).

These two existing districts point to where two of the new VRA districts are likeliest to pop up: the Rio Grande Valley, and the Houston area. (A new Hispanic-majority Houston seat would probably be located in the downtown and western parts of town, pushing TX-07 and then TX-10 further west.) The third possibility is a Dallas area Hispanic-majority seat, which might be anchored in downtown and western Dallas but wander further west to grab areas near DFW airport and maybe even in Fort Worth. The GOP, I’m sure, would prefer to try to limit the number of VRA seats to two, but it may be a difficult balancing act; in particular, it’ll be hard to avoid having a new VRA seat pop up in the Rio Grande Valley (thanks to huge growth in TX-15 and TX-23, too) if they’re going to try to reconstruct a more Republican-favorable TX-27 in order to protect unexpected new member Blake Farenthold (maybe linking Corpus Christi with Victoria instead of Brownsville, for instance).

District	2000 white	White %	2010 white	White %	% change	2000 Hispanic	Hispanic %	2010 Hispanic	Hispanic %	% change
TX-01	485,238	74.5	514,939	71.2	-3.2	59,688	9.2	109,499	15.1	6.0
TX-02	462,830	71.0	493,830	63.1	-7.9	82,578	12.7	176,196	22.5	9.8
TX-03	467,828	71.8	539,627	64.1	-7.7	111,121	17.0	186,890	22.2	5.1
TX-04	540,477	83.0	666,802	78.8	-4.2	50,410	7.7	110,993	13.1	5.4
TX-05	505,283	77.5	523,328	72.1	-5.4	83,113	12.7	157,037	21.6	8.9
TX-06	477,168	73.2	537,602	66.4	-6.8	103,380	15.9	185,397	22.9	7.0
TX-07	505,703	77.6	529,586	67.8	-9.8	117,392	18.0	198,587	25.4	7.4
TX-08	553,472	84.9	686,659	82.4	-2.6	58,820	9.0	128,027	15.4	6.3
TX-09	213,041	32.7	240,882	32.8	1.1	213,195	32.7	310,931	42.4	9.6
TX-10	490,353	75.3	676,833	69.0	-6.3	122,894	18.9	282,641	28.8	9.9
TX-11	523,788	80.4	577,078	81.2	0.8	192,811	29.6	257,633	36.3	6.7
TX-12	505,402	77.5	635,292	76.4	-1.1	154,032	23.6	239,268	28.8	5.2
TX-13	526,737	80.8	544,719	81.0	0.2	114,488	17.6	157,732	23.4	5.9
TX-14	491,492	75.4	588,513	75.5	0.1	162,778	25.0	226,440	29.0	4.1
TX-15	504,686	77.5	674,927	85.7	8.3	506,447	77.7	649,297	82.5	4.8
TX-16	483,295	74.1	620,074	81.9	7.8	507,249	77.8	617,465	81.5	3.8
TX-17	512,489	78.7	585,982	77.1	-1.6	100,241	15.4	157,049	20.7	5.3
TX-18	240,569	36.9	281,511	39.0	2.1	231,548	35.5	313,533	43.5	8.0
TX-19	502,156	77.1	549,589	78.7	1.7	188,932	29.0	235,973	33.8	4.8
TX-20	425,519	65.3	500,530	70.3	5.0	437,800	67.2	509,208	71.5	4.4
TX-21	531,029	81.5	680,337	79.4	-2.1	138,599	21.3	240,713	28.1	6.8
TX-22	464,216	71.2	557,629	61.2	-10.0	132,379	20.3	244,900	26.9	6.6
TX-23	467,321	71.8	672,404	79.3	7.6	423,648	65.1	562,913	66.4	1.3
TX-24	476,428	73.2	488,398	61.6	-11.5	116,586	17.9	214,851	27.1	9.2
TX-25	439,574	67.5	584,962	71.8	4.3	220,942	33.9	315,776	38.8	4.9
TX-26	474,910	72.9	652,345	71.3	-1.6	93,451	14.3	193,973	21.2	6.9
TX-27	495,162	76.0	623,615	84.0	8.1	443,919	68.1	543,306	73.2	5.1
TX-28	518,245	79.6	748,669	87.9	8.3	505,754	77.7	672,129	78.9	1.2
TX-29	357,764	54.9	398,350	58.8	3.9	430,980	66.2	514,861	76.0	9.9
TX-30	238,931	36.6	256,028	36.2	-0.4	223,200	34.2	280,508	39.7	5.5
TX-31	477,328	73.2	647,694	71.8	-1.4	106,121	16.3	195,753	21.7	5.4
TX-32	439,551	67.6	422,818	66.0	-1.5	235,626	36.2	271,442	42.4	6.2

Unfortunately, for some reason, while American Factfinder has “Hispanic or Latino by Race” available for entire states, the only data it currently has available at the CD level is the less precise “Race and Hispanic or Latino.” While that seems like a minor semantic distinction, this means there’s no way to parse out non-Hispanic white (and non-Hispanic black, etc.) for CDs. Bear in mind that “Hispanic,” for Census purposes, isn’t a race unto itself, but a box that gets checked in addition to race. So, while most people who check “Some other race” are Hispanic, not all Hispanics identify as “Some other race;” in fact, more than half of Hispanics identify as “white” (with most of the rest as “some other”) instead. This makes a big difference, in making the sample look whiter than it actually is (at least if one defines “white” in the narrow non-Hispanic sense). At the state level, in 2010, Texas appears as 70.4% white, 11.8% black, and 3.8% Asian in this format, in addition to 37.6% Hispanic. (Considering that adds up to 124%, it’s very confusing. Here, it’s also confusing because it makes districts with an already-large Hispanic majority look like they got even whiter, at the same time as they gained more Hispanics.) So, I’d focus more on the Hispanic column than on the white column in this table, and maybe I’ll revisit this when we get data on non-Hispanic whites.

More data over the flip…

Finally, here are tables for the African-American and Asian populations for each congressional district. While African-American growth is fairly slow (though seemingly faster than growth in non-Hispanic whites), the Asian growth in Texas is just as fast-paced as Hispanic growth (if not faster, in certain suburban districts).

District	2000 black	Black %	2010 black	Black %	% change	2000 Asian	Asian %	2010 Asian	Asian %	% change
TX-01	120,705	18.5	127,714	17.7	-0.9	3,256	0.5	6,487	0.9	0.4
TX-02	124,420	19.1	168,647	21.6	2.5	16,395	2.5	26,501	3.4	0.9
TX-03	59,496	9.1	97,376	11.6	2.4	54,246	8.3	102,783	12.2	3.9
TX-04	67,155	10.3	87,583	10.4	0.1	4,300	0.7	17,420	2.1	1.4
TX-05	80,743	12.4	100,881	13.9	1.5	10,365	1.6	14,086	1.9	0.3
TX-06	83,081	12.7	134,647	16.6	3.9	21,819	3.3	32,795	4.1	0.8
TX-07	36,603	5.6	78,428	10.0	4.4	44,670	6.9	79,224	10.1	3.3
TX-08	56,930	8.7	65,401	7.8	-0.9	5,098	0.8	11,934	1.4	0.6
TX-09	244,295	37.5	262,525	35.8	-1.7	69,533	10.7	79,853	10.9	0.2
TX-10	59,420	9.1	111,799	11.4	2.3	25,383	3.9	57,124	5.8	1.9
TX-11	26,925	4.1	28,410	4.0	-0.1	3,527	0.5	5,222	0.7	0.2
TX-12	36,133	5.5	56,115	6.8	1.2	14,963	2.3	24,464	2.9	0.6
TX-13	36,690	5.6	39,620	5.9	0.3	7,762	1.2	11,586	1.7	0.5
TX-14	63,978	9.8	71,281	9.1	-0.7	10,962	1.7	27,358	3.5	1.8
TX-15	12,020	1.8	12,169	1.5	-0.3	3,588	0.6	6,854	0.9	0.3
TX-16	20,477	3.1	24,499	3.2	0.1	6,946	1.1	8,205	1.1	0.0
TX-17	67,278	10.3	74,834	9.8	-0.5	9,434	1.4	15,071	2.0	0.5
TX-18	263,106	40.4	265,109	36.8	-3.6	21,547	3.3	24,340	3.4	0.1
TX-19	35,845	5.5	39,777	5.7	0.2	5,521	0.8	8,840	1.3	0.5
TX-20	43,738	6.7	51,563	7.2	0.5	9,964	1.5	13,859	1.9	0.4
TX-21	41,027	6.3	57,403	6.7	0.4	16,805	2.6	32,375	3.8	1.2
TX-22	61,165	9.4	129,682	14.2	4.8	50,695	7.8	115,594	12.7	4.9
TX-23	18,617	2.9	29,870	3.5	0.7	6,650	1.0	16,040	1.9	0.9
TX-24	63,194	9.7	117,088	14.8	5.1	39,716	6.1	75,088	9.4	3.3
TX-25	63,750	9.8	64,042	7.9	-1.9	12,146	1.9	18,460	2.3	0.4
TX-26	100,881	15.5	122,856	13.4	-2.1	14,125	2.2	35,991	3.9	1.7
TX-27	17,084	2.6	17,385	2.3	-0.3	5,091	0.8	8,837	1.2	0.4
TX-28	8,178	1.3	13,116	1.5	0.2	3,179	0.5	6,502	0.8	0.3
TX-29	65,414	10.0	68,630	10.1	0.1	8,492	1.3	7,826	1.2	-0.1
TX-30	271,812	41.7	293,203	41.5	-0.2	8,552	1.3	8,848	1.3	0.0
TX-31	84,561	13.0	113,076	12.5	-0.5	14,275	2.2	31,047	3.4	1.2
TX-32	50,833	7.8	54,869	8.6	0.8	26,923	4.1	33,982	5.3	1.2

This is just a quick diary playing around the new version of Dave’s App and the new 2010 Census data for Virginia.

My first interest in playing with the new Census data was to figure out if two African-American-majority districts are possible, as most recent estimates have indicated. They are:

Here are the stats for those districts:

As you can see, it was just possible to make those two districts majority African American.

Here are close-ups of those two districts:

I found NoVA interesting too. In my ACS version of this map, which I don’t think I ever posted, VA-08 and VA-11 both fit entirely within the confines of Fairfax County and the closer-in localities, with a small amount of population left over. This ended up being true in the Census data as well.

What was different was VA-10. The ACS version took up the remainder of Fairfax County, along with all of Prince William, Loudoun, Manassas, and Manassas Park, and then also needed to go into Fauquier. The Census version not only doesn’t go into Fauquier, it takes in only about half of Loudoun (geographically.)

I also thought it was interesting that of the three NoVa districts, it was actually the exurban Prince William-Loudoun hybrid that was closest to being majority-minority.

Here’s a map of a true majority-minority district in NoVa — which doesn’t go into either Arlington or Alexandria(!):

The lime green district has a VRA breakdown of

41 white/18 black/25 hispanic/12 asian/0 native/4 other

The other two districts are 60% white. Obama won all three districts, even with the Loudoun County bug.

Here’s a map with two majority-minority districts:

VA-08 (blue) is 46/10/21/18/0/3. VA-11 (green) is 48/18/19/11/0/4. Pink is 69% white, with Asians as the next largest group at 12%. Obama won all three of these districts as well — interestingly, this is actual a better configuration for him. He won the pink district by about three points more in the 2 majority-minority configuration than in the single. This is primarily because much of Arlington ended up in the pink district.

Other configurations are certainly possible. I suspect, although I haven’t been able to construct it yet, that a majority-minority district where Asians are the second largest group after whites is possible. So far, the best I’ve done puts Hispanics five points ahead of Asians.

2010 data is here! Yesterday evening I uploaded Daves Redistricting 2.1. Here’s what is new:

2010 data is available for VA, MD and NJ. More states will be available in the next 2 days.

[Update: LA, MS and IN available]

[Bugs fixed in 2.1.1:

– old election data shows up

– 0% Obama districts corrected (to make them 0% McCain, too)

– unassigning districts now ok (lesson: don’t divide by zero!)]

Election data along with the 2010 data is available for VA and MD.

The UI is improved.

Z-Drag (like Ctrl-Drag) allows you to draw a box to color. Works on both Mac and Windows.

In other news, I will potentially be partnering with a non-profit and seeking contributions to support the Dave’s Redistricting project. I will let you know when I have more news on that.

More detail below.

1) The data: When you select a state you will be asked to select a data set from the choices available.

  — I’ve downloaded all the data for available states and the vote district (VTD) shapes from the Census site. I expect to have MS, LA, AR and IN late today. I’m currently using VTDs. I will evaluate using Block Groups in states where VTDs are too big.

  — 2010 data includes voting age population (18+) which is now shown with the overall population data.

2) Election data: a group of professors, led by Steve Ansolabehere of Harvard, is gathering election data for nearly all states. In general you will see the 2008 Pres numbers + an Average over some elections in the last decade. Important:

  — To aggregate the Average across VTDs, we use the voting age population for the VTDs.

  — To aggregate the 2008 Pres, we (temporarily) do the same. Steve is working to get VTD actual Pres vote counts in the data and I will use them when available.

3) The UI: Top Panel

  — you can minimize the top panel.

  — Tools and Area Views are collapsed by default. Tools includes less used stuff like Auto Color, Reposition CD Labels and more. Also, a check box to go back to the “Old” coloring method.

  — Help button takes you to a dialog where you can navigate to “How To” sections on common tasks. The link to the Help Page is on those dialogs.

4) The UI: Right Panel

  — The data for the current CD has been moved from the bar under the top panel to the right panel. This should give you much better readability, especially with more data.

  — You’ll notice also that VTD tool tips appear in the upper right of the map, also for better readability with more data. Note: I use the less desirable fixed-width font for performance reasons.

5) UI: Coloring:

  — “New” coloring (introduced 1 months ago) is on by default. “Old” is still available. See Tools.

  — Z-Drag, like Ctrl-Drag, drags out a box and colors the box. Ctrl-Drag was introduced 1 month ago, but does not work on the Mac. Z-Drag does the same thing and works on both Mac and Windows. [Hold down the Z key, hold down mouse button and move the mouse to draw a box. When you release, everything in the box is colored. On the Mac TrackPad, moving 3 fingers is the same as pushing the pad down while moving.

6) Show:

  — City/Town boundaries: These are a prominent magenta. They are meant to help you color in or out of the boundaries, rather than for pretty viewing.

  — Vote District lines: when you hide these the app zooms out and back in. I have found no other way to get them to go away. (I’ve tried a lot of other things.)

  — County lines are a little thicker.

7) Performance:

  — Bottom line: this takes a bunch of memory no matter what.

  — The DataGrid used to show CD data on the right panel is fairly expensive, which is why I didn’t use it for VTD tool tips.

  — Setting the tool tips has always been slow. When loading a saved DRF, I use to do them twice. That’s been fixed, but loading a large state is still slow. I intend in the future to push this to the background.

  — Silverlight 4 seems to have some memory leaks. There’s much discussion on their forums. My app may force you to upgrade to 4.0.6something, but not all is perfect.

  — Because of memory issues, I recommend refreshing your browser if you are switching a lot between states. I found that, using the 2010 data, if I did VA, then NJ, and both again, I would run out of memory. (Browser would should memory usage of 1.3GB.)

8) The Help pages are not updated yet. I’ll be working on that soon.

Thanks for your feedback. As always, let me know of bugs. Happy Redistricting!

For those who don’t know “a clause in the document annexing Texas to the United States allowed for Texas to be divided into five different states.”

For more info on that topic, you can visit: http://www.snopes.com/history/…

Long story short, it’s kind of unnecessary since Article IV, Sec. 3 of the U.S. Constitution already allows for states to be split apart.

Since Texas can’t succeed (sorry Gov. Perry) I thought why not for fun split it into five states.

Texas being so big it’s hard to classify the state. East Texas in general is more like the old South. West Texas is more like the plains states. South Texas is more like a border state in the Southwest. In addition:

…El Paso, in the western corner of the state, is closer to San Diego, California than to Beaumont, near the Louisiana state line; Beaumont, in turn, is closer to Jacksonville, Florida than it is to El Paso. Texarkana, in the northeastern corner of the state, is about the same distance from Chicago, Illinois as it is to El Paso, and Dalhart, in the northwestern corner of the state, is closer to the state capitals of Kansas, Colorado, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Wyoming than it is to Austin, its own state capital.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G…

Here goes…

After racking my brain to come up with some clever names for these 5 new states I finally came up with North Texas, South Texas, East Texas, West Texas, Central Texas. I also tried to estimate how the 36 congressional districts might get split between the 5 new states.

Starting with the smallest and working our way up.

West Texas

Green

Pop. 1.8 million

66% White/26% Hispanic/6% Black/2% Asian

75% McCain/25% Obama

Major cities: Midland, Odessa, Abilene, Amarillo, Lubbock, San Angelo, and Wichita Falls.

Now Gov. Perry can go back to West Texas and be governor.

Think of this as the Texas of the movies, i.e. Giant.

In terms of population it’s in between West Virginia and New Mexico, which would give it 3 congressional districts. No matter what, this would be a state that Republicans would dominate.

Central Texas

Purple

Pop. 3.3 million

65% White/21% Hispanic/10% Black/4% Asian

54% McCain/46% Obama

Major cities: Austin, Round Rock, Killeen, Temple, Fort Hood, Waco, Bryan, College Station

Although it has a Republican lean, I could easily see this state having a Governor Chet Edwards. A moderate-conservative Democrat could win statewide here.

In terms of population, it would be between Iowa and Connecticut with probably 4 congressional districts with maybe a 3-1 Republican majority or even at 2-2.

South Texas

Blue

Pop. 5 million

68% Hispanic/26% White/4% Black/2% Aisan

56% Obama/44% McCain

Major cities: San Antonio, El Paso, Laredo, Corpus Christi, Brownsville, McAllen

A state with a solid Hispanic majority, it’s a state that Democrats would definitely be the governing majority.

In terms of population, it would be just ahead of Colorado, so it would likely have 7 congressional districts, possibly all Democrats or a 6-1 Democratic majority.

East Texas

Yellow

Pop. 7.1 million

53% White/25% Hispanic/17% Black/5% Asian

56% McCain/44% Obama

Houston would be the dominate city in this state, followed by the smaller ones like Beaumont and Galveston

This state would definitely a Republican majority, but the right Democrat could probably win it.  If the minority population continues to increase, so could the Democratic influence. The right Democrat could probably have a chance here.

In terms of population, it would be in between Washington and Virginia so probably 10 congressional districts with a 6-4 Republican split or 7-3 Republican tilt.

North Texas

Pink

Pop. 7.7 million

64% White/18% Hispanic/13% Black/5% Asian

58% McCain/42% Obama

Major cities would of course be DFW, followed by the bedroom communities around them plus Tyler.

An even stronger Republican tilt, but again like East Texas, with increasing minority strength, it should be contested by Democrats.

In terms of population, again like East Texas, in between Washington and Virginia, so again, 10 congressional districts with a 6-4 or 7-3 Republican tilt.

For the two left over congressional districts, I’d lean to towards giving one to Central Texas and one to South Texas.  Both lean closer than the others to getting the extra seats.

In terms of the Electoral College, Democrats would come out ahead. The new division means the Senate and the Electoral College have to grow.

West Texas: 5 EV

Central Texas: 7 EV

South Texas: 10 EV

East Texas: 12 EV

North Texas: 12 EV

Republicans would conceivably win 36 EV, while Democrats would win 10 EV. The new reapportionment mean Texas gets 38 EV votes likely to go Republican.

This is the third of my diaries on the state of Maryland. What I have found is that there are many, many ways to draw the state of Maryland with eight Democratic seats. There are a couple things that I think any map of Maryland must do, however, in order to have a practical chance of passing:

*Keep the Eastern Shore intact in one district, to avoid upsetting the Shore legislators

*Give all Democratic incumbents a district that they would be okay with. None should have to move to represent a new district.

*Make sure that the district drawn for Frank Kratovil is one where he can win the primary. The last thing we want is to put in too much of Prince George County or Baltimore so that a liberal from those areas who cannot win the general makes it out of the primary.

*And of course, keep all districts Democratic, except for the district where Kratovil runs which should be around PVI EVEN so that he wins it.

Here are some possibilities I have come up with to accomplish those goals.

Option 1

The 8th and 6th show the familiar pattern; 8th taking the panhandle, 6th stretching into Montgomery. The 8th is 61/37 Obama and the 6th is 59/39 Obama. The 4th stretches up all the way to Carroll county now to pack in Republicans. This is terribly ugly, but the district is still 31%W/53%B/11%H and 76/23 Obama. The Carroll and western Howard county parts of the district are very white and Republican, but they do not have enough population to really make Edwards uncomfortable. Steny Hoyer’s 5th district located in eastern PG county, Anne Arundel co, and South Maryland is 60/39 Obama. The 7th district takes in some Republican areas in Anne Arundel county, making it 51%B/42%W and 68/31 Obama. The 3rd district stretches from the Baltimore county suburbs where Sarbanes lives through Howard County down to some of the most white areas of Northern PG county that were in the old 5th. It is even more Democratic than before, 62/36 Obama. The population base of this district is now in Howard county. This should be fine for Sarbanes as most of these areas are used to being represented by Baltimore representatives, but it does show that it would probably be a good idea for Sarbanes to move to Howard county in the long run, especially if he sees a statewide run in the future. This is even more true with the rapid growth in Howard’s population, as indicated by the last census. The 2nd district balances out some conservative areas in Baltimore and Harford counties with some white liberal areas in Baltimore city. It is 58/39 Obama, which represents a shift of <1% from before. Given that Ruppersberger won with 64% in 2010, he should be fine here, especially given that this district contains a lot of conservative Democrats who vote Republican nationally but Democratic locally so it is more Democratic than the Obama numbers suggest. The 1st district, drawn for Frank Kratovil, takes in the Democratic areas of Harford county and some majority-black, heavily Democratic areas in Baltimore County. It is 52/46 Obama, which I believe Kratovil should definitely win.

Option 2







This map makes extensive [ab]use of trans-Chesapeake water contiguity, giving the 1st some Democratic precincts up and down the Chesapeake, including drawing it straight into the city of Baltimore with no land connection. In this plan, the 1st is 52/46 Obama. The one potential advantage to this is that because the Democratic primary vote is split up between different areas instead of being concentrated in a single area, no liberal Democrat with a base in one area could upset Kratovil in the Democratic primary. The 2nd is 58/40 Obama, which again is a one point shift to the GOP from the current district but not enough to affect Ruppersberger given the landslide margins he has won by (and probably not enough to make it much more competitive in an open-seat election, either). The 3rd has the same partisanship it currently does, 60/39 Obama. It is much more of a Baltimore-area district than my first map, with only a tiny part of Montgomery and none of PG county in the district. The 7th is 51%B/43%W and 65/34 Obama, which is incredibly Republican for a majority-black district in Maryland. Steny Hoyer should be happy with this map, as it makes his district 69/30 Obama. Donna Edwards gets some Republican areas of Anne Arundel packed into her district, but it is still 72/26 Obama and 33W/50B/12H. The 6th and 8th are both 60/38 Obama.

Option 3







This is very similar to the second map, but it eliminates some of the ugliest uses of water contiguity in South Maryland by adding one some Democratic precincts in Anne Arundel and Baltimore city to the 1st. The 1st is now 53/45 Obama and the 7th is now 64/34 Obama, but all the other districts are the same. This is definitely my favorite of the three.

I’m interested to hear any potential problems that you think these maps have. I still strongly believe that it is possible to draw an 8-0 map of Maryland that all incumbents are okay with, even if it requires some very creative drawing like this.

The four states this week for the Census 2010 data dump are Illinois, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Texas. South Dakota has only one congressional district and Texas I’m reserving for its own special in-depth post which will look at changes in racial composition in each district over the decade (and Texas isn’t out yet today, so it’s a moot point), so here are just Illinois and Oklahoma. The Illinois target (based on the drop to 18 seats) is 712,813. (Check out the depopulation on Chicago’s South Side in IL-01 and IL-02. Bobby Rush and Jesse Jackson Jr.’s districts already include small amounts of suburbs, but they’re going to need to take on significantly more.)

In case you were wondering about population growth in the few Illinois districts where the state’s growth was concentrated, much of that growth is Hispanic. For instance, IL-08 went from 11% Hispanic in 2000 to 17% Hispanic in 2010. IL-11 went from 7% to 11% Hispanic. IL-13 went from 5% to 11% Hispanic, while IL-14 went from 18% to 25% Hispanic. (Perhaps not coincidentally, we lost seats in three of these districts, as turnout in 2010 was much whiter and older than in 2008.)

Oklahoma (which stays at 5, and where the growth has been remarkably consistent across CD boundaries) has a target of 750,270.

Here is my attempt at redistricting California’s U.S. House seats, following the commission’s goal of communities of interest as closely as I could. I included each incumbent’s name in roughly which district they’d end up in as a result of this redistricting. I was just not sure where Jerry Lewis would go, and many of the other SoCal reps were rough estimates.

Here are the numbers I ended up with when I finished. (Something odd I noticed in DRA was that when I colored in one block, blocks miles away were also colored in with that same color, like you can see in CA-16 with the color for CA-14.)

Safe Dem: 26

Likely Dem: 5

Lean Dem: 5

Toss-Up: 5

Lean GOP: 2

Likely GOP: 3

Safe GOP: 7

White-majority: 24

Hispanic-majority: 10

Black-majority: 1

Majority-minority with no one majority race: 18 (including the 2 districts that are 50% white; I wasn’t sure if they were 50.1-50.4% or 49.6-49.9%)

Here are the maps and descriptions of each district.

Outer NorCal

CA-01: North Coast + most of Solano County (Mike Thompson (D))

Demographics: 68% White, 17% Hispanic, 5% Black

2008 President: Obama 62%, McCain 36% (SAFE DEM: D+9)

CA-02: Northern Mountain south to Nevada County (Wally Herger)

Demographics: 82% White, 9% Hispanic

2008 President: McCain 53%, Obama 44% (LIKELY GOP: R+7)

CA-03: Sacramento Valley and part of Sacramento County; similar to 1990s configuration (Dan Lungren)

Demographics: 68% White, 18% Hispanic, 7% Asian

2008 President: Obama 51%, McCain 47% (TOSS-UP: R+2)

CA-04: Lake Tahoe and Sacramento suburbs in Placer and El Dorado Counties (Tom McClintock)

Demographics: 82% White, 10% Hispanic

2008 President: McCain 54%, Obama 44% (SAFE GOP: R+8)

CA-05: Sacramento (Doris Matsui)

Demographics: 50% White, 19% Hispanic, 13% Asian, 12% Black

2008 President: Obama 67%, McCain 31% (SAFE DEM: D+14)

San Francisco Bay Area

CA-06: Marin and Sonoma Counties (Lynn Woolsey)

Demographics: 76% White, 15% Hispanic

2008 President: Obama 76%, McCain 22% (SAFE DEM: D+23)

CA-07: Southwestern Solano County, western Contra Costa County except Richmond (George Miller)

Demographics: 58% White, 14% Asian, 13% Hispanic, 10% Black

2008 President: Obama 70%, McCain 28% (SAFE DEM: D+17)

CA-08: San Francisco (Nancy Pelosi)

Demographics: 44% White, 29% Asian, 15% Hispanic, 8% Black

2008 President: Obama 85%, McCain 13% (SAFE DEM: D+32)

CA-09: Richmond, Berkeley, Oakland (Barbara Lee)

Demographics: 33% White, 26% Black, 20% Hispanic, 17% Asian

2008 President: Obama 89%, McCain 9% (SAFE DEM: D+36)

CA-10: Most of Sacramento County, northern/eastern San Joaquin County (John Garamendi)

Demographics: 59% White, 19% Hispanic, 11% Asian, 6% Black

2008 President: Obama 51%, McCain 47% (TOSS-UP: R+2)

CA-11: Eastern Contra Costa County, western San Joaquin County (Open)

Demographics: 52% White, 24% Hispanic, 11% Asian, 7% Black

2008 President: Obama 62%, McCain 37% (SAFE DEM: D+9)

CA-12: Northern San Mateo County, southwestern San Francisco (Jackie Speier)

Demographics: 47% White, 28% Asian, 18% Hispanic

2008 President: Obama 74%, McCainn 24% (SAFE DEM: D+21)

CA-13: Western Alameda County; I had to expand to Pleasanton to maintain enough population (Jerry McNerney and Pete Stark)

Demographics: 38% White, 26% Asian, 22% Hispanic, 8% Black

2008 President: Obama 74%, McCainn 24% (SAFE DEM: D+21)

CA-14: Silicon Valley (Southern San Mateo County, western Santa Clara County) (Anna Eshoo)

Demographics: 57% White, 22% Asian, 15% Hispanic

2008 President: Obama 72%, McCain 26% (SAFE DEM; D+19)

CA-15: San Jose (probably Mike Honda)

Demographics: 55% White, 28% Asian, 21% Hispanic

2008 President: Obama 70%, McCain 29% (SAFE DEM; D+17)

CA-16: Eastern Alameda and Santa Clara Counties (probably Zoe Lofgren)

Demographics: 37% White, 28% Asian, 28% Hispanic

2008 President: Obama 65%, McCain 34% (SAFE DEM; D+12)

Central

CA-17: Northern Central Coast except with a little bit of Santa Clara added and the southern half of Monterey removed (Sam Farr)

Demographics: 53% White, 36% Hispanic, 5% Asian

2008 President: Obama 72%, McCain 26% (SAFE DEM; D+19)

CA-18: Stretching from Stockton in San Joaquin all the way to Kings County and part of Tulare County to get enough population (Dennis Cardoza)

Demographics: 53% Hispanic, 34% White, 5% Black, 5% Asian

2008 President: Obama 50%, McCain 48% (LEAN GOP; R+3)

CA-19: Parts of Stanislaus, Merced, and Madera Counties, all of Mariposa County (Jeff Denham)

Demographics: 56% White, 32% Hispanic, 5% Asian

2008 President: McCain 50%, Obama 49% (LEAN GOP; R+4)

CA-20: Fresno proper (Jim Costa)

Demographics: 43% White, 36% Hispanic, 10% Asian, 6% Black

2008 President: Obama 51%, McCain 47% (TOSS-UP; R+2)

CA-21: Most of Tulare and Kern Counties (Devin Nunes)

Demographics: 46% White, 45% Hispanic

2008 President: McCain 59%, Obama 40% (SAFE GOP: R+13)

CA-22: Bakersfield and Lancaster (Kevin McCarthy)

Demographics: 51% White, 34% Hispanic, 8% Black

2008 President: McCain 55%, Obama 43% (SAFE GOP: R+9)

CA-23: Southern half of Monterey, all of SLO and SB, far southwestern Ventura (Lois Capps)

Demographics: 63% White, 29% Hispanic

2008 President: Obama 57%, McCain 41% (LEAN DEM: D+4)

CA-24: Most of Ventura County (Elton Gallegly)

Demographics: 54% White, 35% Hispanic, 6% Asian

2008 President: Obama 56%, McCain 42% (LEAN DEM: D+3)

CA-25: Northern half of L.A. County plus a little bit of San Bernardino County (Buck McKeon)

Demographics: 53% White, 28% Hispanic, 9% Asian, 6% Black

2008 President: Obama 54%, McCain 44% (TOSS-UP: D+1)

Los Angeles/Orange County/Inland Empire

CA-26: West Side L.A. plus Thousand Oaks in Ventura County (Henry Waxman)

Demographics: 73% White, 13% Hispanic, 7% Asian

2008 President: Obama 67%, McCain 31% (SAFE DEM: D+14)

CA-27: San Fernando (Howard Berman)

Demographics: 64% Hispanic, 20% White, 7% Asian, 5% Black

2008 President: Obama 73%, McCain 24% (SAFE DEM: D+20)

CA-28: Northern L.A. suburbs including Glendale, Pasadena, and Monrovia (Brad Sherman)

Demographics: 44% White, 30% Hispanic, 14% Asian, 7% Black

2008 President: Obama 65%, McCain 32% (SAFE DEM: D+12)

CA-29: Eastern L.A. County including Pomona, Glendora, Baldwin Park (David Dreier)

Demographics: 52% Hispanic, 29% White, 11% Asian, 5% Black

2008 President: Obama 61%, McCain 37% (SAFE DEM: D+8)

CA-30: Downtown L.A. (probably Xavier Becerra)

Demographics: 53% Hispanic, 21% White, 14% Asian, 10% Black

2008 President: Obama 80%, McCain 18% (SAFE DEM: D+27)

CA-31: Burbank, South Pasadena, part of Downtown (Adam Schiff)

Demographics: 54% Hispanic, 23% White, 16% Asian

2008 President: Obama 77%, McCain 21% (SAFE DEM: D+24)

CA-32: Southeast L.A. County including Monterey Park, El Monte, and Diamond Bar (Judy Chu and Gary Miller)

Demographics: 40% Hispanic, 38% Asian, 17% White

2008 President: Obama 61%, McCain 37% (SAFE DEM: D+8)

CA-33: Santa Monica to El Segundo along the coast (Open; vacated by Jane Harman)

Demographics: 46% White, 29% Hispanic, 11% Black, 9% Asian

2008 President: Obama 76%, McCain 22% (SAFE DEM: D+23)

CA-34: South Central L.A. (Karen Bass and Maxine Waters)

Demographics: 51% Black, 42% Hispanic

2008 President: Obama 94%, McCain 5% (SAFE DEM: D+41)

CA-35: The Hispanic side of South Central (Lucille Roybal-Allard)

Demographics: 86% Hispanic, 10% Black

2008 President: Obama 86%, McCain 12% (SAFE DEM: D+33)

CA-36: Norwalk, Montebello, Downey (Grace Napolitano)

Demographics: 63% Hispanic, 22% White, 8% Asian

2008 President: Obama 64%, McCain 34% (SAFE DEM: D+11)

CA-37: Beach Cities, Carson, Palos Verdes Peninsula (Laura Richardson)

Demographics: 38% White, 33% Hispanic, 19% Asian, 6% Black

2008 President: Obama 59%, McCain 39% (LIKELY DEM: D+6)

CA-38: Long Beach (Linda Sanchez)

Demographics: 36% Hispanic, 32% White, 16% Asian, 13% Black

2008 President: Obama 66%, McCain 32% (SAFE DEM: D+13)

CA-39: Southwestern San Bernardino County including Fontana, Ontario, and Chino (Joe Baca)

Demographics: 52% Hispanic, 30% White, 8% Black, 7% Asian

2008 President: Obama 59%, McCain 39% (LIKELY DEM: D+6)

CA-40: Rialto, San Bernardino, Redlands, Calimesa (Jerry Lewis?)

Demographics: 41% Hispanic, 38% White, 12% Black, 5% Asian

2008 President: Obama 57%, McCain 41% (LEAN DEM: D+4)

CA-42: Around the city of Riverside; includes Norco and Moreno Valley (Open)

Demographics: 45% Hispanic, 36% White, 10% Black, 5% Asian

2008 President: Obama 60%, McCain 39% (LIKELY DEM: D+7)

CA-43: Riverside city and some of southwest Riverside County (Ken Calvert)

Demographics: 66% White, 22% Hispanic, 5% Black

2008 President: McCain 54%, Obama 45% (SAFE GOP: R+8)

CA-45: Most of coastal Orange County (Dana Rohrabacher)

Demographics: 72% White, 13% Hispanic, 11% Asian

2008 President: McCain 52%, Obama 46% (LIKELY GOP; R+6)

CA-46: North-central Orange County including Anaheim, Buena Park, and Garden Grove (Ed Royce)

Demographics: 44% Hispanic, 28% White, 22% Asian

2008 President: Obama 52%, McCain 46% (TOSS-UP; R+1)

CA-47: Central Orange County including Santa Ana, Irvine, and Orange (Loretta Sanchez)

Demographics: 51% Hispanic, 31% White, 13% Asian

2008 President: Obama 59%, McCain 39% (LIKELY DEM; D+6)

CA-48: Northeastern and most of Southern Orange County (probably John Campbell)

Demographics: 67% White, 17% Hispanic, 12% Asian

2008 President: McCain 55%, Obama 43% (SAFE GOP; R+9)

Outer SoCal

CA-41: All of Inyo County and most of San Bernardino County (Jerry Lewis?)

Demographics: 63% White, 23% Hispanic, 6% Black

2008 President: McCain 55%, Obama 43% (SAFE GOP: R+9)

CA-44: Most of Riverside County and all of Imperial County (Mary Bono Mack)

Demographics: 53% Hispanic, 40% White

2008 President: Obama 56%, McCain 43% (LEAN DEM; D+3)

CA-49: Far southern Orange County, southwestern Riverside County, northwestern San Diego County including Camp Pendleton (Darrell Issa)

Demographics: 61% White, 26% Hispanic, 5% Asian

2008 President: McCain 53%, Obama 45% (LIKELY GOP; R+7)

San Diego

CA-50: Most of coastal San Diego County (Brian Bilbray)

Demographics: 73% White, 15% Hispanic, 6% Asian

2008 President: Obama 58%, McCain 40% (LEAN DEM; D+5)

CA-51: Northern San Diego, Lemon Grove (Susan Davis)

Demographics: 50% White, 18% Hispanic, 18% Asian, 10% Black

2008 President: Obama 60%, McCain 39% (LIKELY DEM: D+7)

CA-52: Most of inland San Diego County (Duncan Hunter)

Demographics: 68% White, 22% Hispanic

2008 President: McCain 58%, Obama 40% (SAFE GOP; R+12)

CA-53: Southern San Diego, Chula Vista, Imperial Beach (Bob Filner)

Demographics: 48% Hispanic, 29% White, 11% Asian, 8% Black

2008 President: Obama 61%, McCain 37% (SAFE DEM: D+8)

Part 2 of my redistricting California series, the State Senate, will come in a few days.

• AZ-Sen, AZ-06: Rep. Jeff Flake, who announced his bid today, had to wait only a few hours before getting a valuable (for the GOP primary, at least) endorsement from the Club for Growth; he’s a natural fit for them, given his draconian budgetary views and laissez-faire social views. Even before Flake had announced, his potentially strongest rival for the GOP nod, ex-Rep. John Shadegg had announced that he wasn’t going to run. Shadegg’s AZ-03 replacement, Rep. Ben Quayle confirmed that he won’t be running either. The same goes for another Republican freshman, Rep. David Schweikert (that article also helpfully points out that famous Arizona residents Meghan McCain and Bristol Palin, who’ve both accomplished so much in the social media sphere in their short lives, are both too young to run for Senate). Former NFL player Kurt Warner has also taken himself out of consideration.

Buried in a Roll Call article on the whip race to replace Jon Kyl are a few more interesting bits: Trent Franks is “not expected” to run, while state Senate president and prime mover behind SB 1070 Russell Pearce is “out,” but “plans to run” for AZ-06, being vacated by Flake. There’s not much to report on the Dem side today, but there are further reports that ex-Gov., and current DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano (who didn’t poll well against Kyl according to PPP a few weeks ago, although they didn’t test her against Flake) has been calling around to gauge her support.

• CT-Sen: Ex-SoS Susan Bysiewicz rolled out her own long list of endorsements from local Dems, in response to a list unveiled several weeks ago by primary rival Chris Murphy. While Murphy’s list was heavy on the 5th District, naturally, Bysiewicz’s list is heavy on the 2nd District (which is interesting, as it may be an indication that Rep. Joe Courtney has decided against running… or it may be a preventative shot across Courtney’s bow). Bysiewicz is from Middletown, which is in the 2nd although kind of on its periphery. In terms of the Republican field, there was a straw poll taken of state Tea Party Patriots members this weekend. Given the sample size of 54 and the self-selecting nature of the nuttiest of the nuttiest, it’s barely worth mentioning, but they found Linda McMahon only barely winning with 15 votes, compared to Peter Schiff’s 14. Rob Simmons and Tom Foley each got 6, with state Sen. Scott Frantz at 5 and Danbury mayor Mark Boughton at 4.

• FL-Sen, FL-13: Like I’ve said before, don’t count out Republican Rep. Vern Buchanan for the Senate; the owner of numerous car dealerships is sitting on a big campaign account, has wealthy friends, and can self-fund too. And now he’s publicly saying he’s “not ruling it out.”

• MO-Sen: Over the weekend in Joplin was the first public joint appearance between the two announced GOP candidates so far, Sarah Steelman and Ed Martin. While they superficially only attacked Claire McCaskill, Martin sneaked in some anti-Steelman attacks by implication, saying that he’ll support “tort reform every time” and “take on the public sector unions.” (While Steelman has the support of the DC-based tea party astroturfers, the local teabaggers are skeptical of her insufficient purity on those two issues.)

• NV-Sen: Given behavior lately that might charitably be described as “erratic,” I’ve pretty much given up on trying to figure out Sharron Angle’s plans (her travel schedule seems to take her mostly to early presidential states these days, in case you had any doubts about the scope of her delusions of grandeur). But now she’s talking about Nevada Senate again, saying that she’d like to talk to John Ensign before deciding whether or not to challenge him in the primary.

• NY-Sen: As she becomes better-known to New Yorkers, Kirsten Gillibrand’s numbers keep going up. Siena’s newest poll finds her at 57/18 favorables, with a 52% re-elect (including even a plurality among Republicans). Liz Benjamin also notes that two Republican 2010 Gillibrand challengers – Joe DioGuardi (whom Gillibrand flatted) and David Malpass (whom DioGuardi beat in the GOP primary) – are both still considering the race. Ex-LG “Batshit Besty” McCaughey (who once ran for governor on the Liberal Party line) was also down in DC this past weekend, once again relishing her role as healthcare fabricator-in-chief at the loonier-than-thou CPAC conference – and also possibly trying to raise her profile for a potential run (something we noted a couple of weeks ago). Bring it on!

• OH-Sen: Newly elected state Treasurer Josh Mandel got some buzz at some point last month, and here’s some more for him: the Plain Dealer, in a longer piece wondering why the Republican field (in what could be a pickup opportunity with the right candidate) isn’t taking shape at all, points to him as a possible alternative in the face of disinterest from the A-list. Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor seems to be working on building her portfolio (taking over the state Dept. of Insurance), suggesting a plate too full for a Senate bid, while Reps. Jim Jordan and Steve LaTourette are enjoying their newfound majority. Mandel seems to have the best fundraising chops of anyone beyond that initial top tier.

• VA-Sen, VA-01: Here’s one more Republican name to add to the list in Virginia, and it’s kind of an unexpected one, in that usually low-profile guys with safe red districts in the House tend to stay where they are. The 1st’s Rob Wittman is saying he’s “considering” the race, along with the requisite “never say never.”

• WI-Gov: The AFL-CIO is already weighing into Wisconsin, even though the next gubernatorial election is three and three-quarters years away. In response to Scott Walker’s ham-fisted attempt to limit collective bargaining rights for most state employees, the union is taking to the airwaves with TV spots. Obviously, the target isn’t the next election but swinging public opinion against the members of the state legislature, who’ll have the final say on the matter. (As a more general question, though, I’ve gotta wonder if we’ll see much more of this type of issue advertising in off-years in the future, as we move more and more into “permanent campaign” mode and the ground needs to be seeded for the on-years.)

• WV-Gov: With Saturday’s filing deadline come and gone, we have an official list of all the candidates in the gubernatorial special election, and with 14 names total, it’s a doozy. Not much in the way of surprises, though; the only person expected to run who, in the end, didn’t seems to be Dem state Sen. Brooks McCabe. For the Democrats, it’s acting Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin, state Sen. Jeff Kessler, SoS Natalie Tennant, state Treasurer John Perdue, state House speaker Rick Thompson, and some dude Arne Moltis. For the Republicans, it’s ex-SoS Betty Ireland, Putnam Co.  Prosecutor Mark Sorsaia, state Sen. Clark Barnes, state Del. Mitch Carmichael, ex-state Del. Larry Faircloth, and some dudes Bill Maloney, Cliff Ellis, and Ralph William Clark.  National Journal’s Sean Sullivan makes a good observation that in fields this crowded and in a state without runoffs, ballot position (which studies have shown can add 1-3% to a candidate’s vote) may actually wind up making the difference here. The positions were determined by random draw; for the Dems, Tomblin is at the top while co-frontrunner Tennant is at the bottom. For the GOP, Ireland is 7 out of 8, while Maloney is listed first.

• CA-36: LA city councilor Janice Hahn keeps rolling out more endorsements in her attempt to get an early lock-down on the Dem nomination in the special election. Three big ones: two very relevant to California (new Assembly speaker John Perez, and Sen. Dianne Feinstein), one, um, not so much (Dick Gephardt).

• NY-10: Gov. Andrew Cuomo just tapped Democratic Assemblyman Darryl Towns to be the state’s new Homes and Community Renewal agency. Ordinarily, a special election in the remarkably-blue AD-54 would be too far in the weeds even for us, but you may recognize his name: he’s the son of long-time Rep. Ed Towns. The 76-year-old Towns is routinely viewed as a candidate for retirement (and his son a likely replacement), so this move is a puzzle: is it a sign that the elder Towns isn’t going anywhere (perhaps permanently fastened to his House seat by all the moss growing there), or perhaps a way for the younger Towns to burnish his credentials a bit and differentiate him a bit from his somnolent dad?

• NY-26: One more name to strike off the Republican list in the 26th (not that I’d known he’d been on the list): Assemblyman Dan Burling said he wouldn’t run, and threw his support behind fellow Assembly member Jane Corwin for the nomination.

• Redistricting: This local news piece on redistricting in Indiana exposes the most mind-numbing and tedious part of the process, one that gets easily overlooked: the process of turning census data into precinct data, seeing as how precincts exist in their own little world apart from blocks and tracts. Even though Indiana was one of the earliest to receive their data, this data-cleaning process is expected to take several weeks before the legislature can even begin tackling the numbers. Also, Indiana is one of the states that will allow citizens to get their hands on the data to try making their own maps… but because of licensing issues of some sort, they won’t be making the data available online. If you’re in-state, you can drop into one of a number of stations they’ll be setting up around the state where you can tinker with the data in person, though.

• Site news: DavidNYC here. I’m back from my vacation and I’ve had the chance to read through all of the comments (every last one) in the post where I announced our impending move to Daily Kos. While many of my replies are “thank yous” for the very kind expressions of support you offered, I also did my best to answer specific questions where I could. Rest assured that this won’t be the last I’ll have to say on the subject before we make the changeover. I’ll also take this opportunity to encourage you to create an account over at Daily Kos if you don’t have one already, and to play around with the new site (DK4 just launched this past weeked). (D)