Swing State Project

Conventional wisdom regarding Michigan’s congressional redistricting process to this point has looked towards the state Republicans dealing with Michigan’s lost seat by consolidating Sander Levin and Gary Peters into a single district. Two relatively new sources of information are challenging that wisdom.

First, the actual census numbers came out. And the beating that Detroit took over the last ten years was a lot worse than generally thought. As best as I can tell, it’s no longer possible to draw two majority-black congressional districts in Wayne County. Instead, whichever district is centered on western Detroit is going to have to crossover into southern Oakland County to pick up, at the very least, the city of Southfield. Which suggests the option of having that district scoop up as many white Oakland County Democrats as it can, since it’s in the neighborhood anyway. Which in turn suggests that the relevant pairing is going to be Levin-Conyers, not Levin-Peters.

Second, per a recent digest, state representative Marty Knollenbeg, a member of the redistricting committee and son of Peter’s predecessor, has moved from talking about challenging Peters in 2012 to actually starting the machinery of his campaign, in the form of an exploratory committee. That suggest that Knollenberg thinks Peters (or at least the bulk of Peters’ district) is going to be in such a form that it would be amenable to electing a Republican. Which again cuts against the Levin-Peters pairing.

So: If there’s a district for Knollenberg, some other district is still geting cut. Maintaining two VRA black districts requires one of the Detroit districts to cut into Levin’s Twelfth. Putting that together, perhaps the Twelfth is the district to go? What would that look like?

I explore three possible solutions after the jump.

Common Threads

All three of my solutions have six districts that are identical: MI-01, MI-05, MI-09, MI-10, MI-13, and MI-14. The new MI-12, which is now the designation for Dingell’s district, stays more or less in place for all three maps also. Here’s the process by which those six districts were built.

First, the inner Metro Detroit districts. Basically, all three of these maps are looking at scenarios where MI-14, based in western Detroit, takes in the western (Oakland County) portion of the dismantled MI-12, while MI-13, based in eastern Detroit, takes in the eastern (Macomb County) portion of the dismantled MI-12.

The particular version stretches MI-13 to its breaking point — it’s almost literally 50%+1 black by VAP. (It’s 50%+218.) It takes in heavily Democratic Warren, Eastpointe, and Roseville, along with not quite so Democratic St. Clair Shores. (I’m realizing now that I should look at scenarios where St. Clair Shores is in MI-10.) It’s forced into taking the Grosse Points and Harper Woods, and after that it can’t take any more non-black population. That’s why MI-14 has the odd arms to take in white Hamtramck and hispanic southern Detroit.

Besides those arms, MI-14 takes in the rest of Detroit, and then moves north in Oakland County, taking in Southfield for its black population, and the spreading east and west to take in the most Democratic parts of southeastern Oakland. It can’t quite do this cleanly, the little city of Clawson ends up split between it and the undrawn MI-09.

MI-12, having been dismantled, is then reborn as the designation for Dingell’s district. It takes in the most Democratic of the Wayne County suburbs, leaving the western tier of townships for McCotter (or at least he hopes so). Note that dismantling and relocating MI-12 in this way prevents Dingell from hanging on to Ann Arbor, which is going to be problematic for the Republicans later.

Then MI-10. It takes up the rest of Macomb, and then fills its balance by taking in as much of St. Clair County as it can. There’s been significant population growth in St. Clair and northern Macomb. This, combined with the fact that MI-13 isn’t taking in all of the old MI-12’s portion of Macomb County, causes Candice Miller to lose most of her Thumb Counties.

Obama won Macomb County by about a 36k margin. Warren by itself accounts for about 13k of that margin. The rest of MI-13’s part of Macomb County is about another 15k. That means that the rest of the county went for Obama by about an 8k margin, out of about 285k total votes (for the rest of the county.) Obama won the part of St. Clair County that’s in this district by about 3k out of 72k. That adds up to Obama winning this district by 11k out of 285k total votes. That’s not going to be as comfortable as for Candice Miller as her current R+5 district, but it should be manageable.

And now the Thumb. The Thumb Counties proper are fairly Republican, so I’m assigning them to our rebuilt MI-09 (which will also be taking in a good part of Oakland, as you’ll see later). That implies the assigned shape for MI-05: Gennessee and Bay Counties plus the most Democratic parts of Saginaw County that will fit.

Which in turn implies this shape for MI-01. Having been kicked out of Bay County by MI-05, it needs to pick up population somewhere, and adding Republican Grand Traverse County to it will help anchor it for Benishek. One goal going forward is to keep that move from harming Dave Camp too much.

Okay, so with those 5-6 district set in place, what sort of options do we have for the others?

Interlude

The current Republican map of Michigan has some very finely wrought pieces. In particular, they went out of their way to make sure that most of Michigan’s Democratic-leaning cities in the outstate ended up in separate districts where they could be drowned out by rural and exurban voters. The cases in point: Muskegon in MI-02, Grand Rapids in MI-03, Kalamazoo in MI-06, Lansing in MI-08. MI-07 was such a case when it was created, keeping Battle Creek safely away from more Democrats (Jackson, so far as I can tell, is swing-tilt-Republican); but Lansing’s western suburbs in Eaton County have blued significantly over the last decade. They then decided that Flint-Saginaw-Bay City was too dangerous to crack, and also packed in Ann Arbor with the southern Detroit suburbs.

This analysis is important because, while we’ve maintained the packed district for Flint, we weren’t able to maintain the Ann Arbor to Dearborn packing. And none of the outstate districts can afford to take on Ann Arbor in addition to the existing Democratic city that they’re warding. The upshot of this is that if Knollenberg is successful at getting a seat made for himself, and if I’m right that Levin’s is then the disappeared seat, then Knollenberg is going to be creating a seat for himself at some other Republican’s expense.

Said another way, the current breakdown of the delegation is nine Republicans and six Democrats. One seat needs to go away; the Republicans obviously want it to be a Democratic one. In addition, Knollenberg is trying to flip a Democratic seat into a Republican one. That would make the delegation 10-4. I submit that it’s impossible to make a map of Michigan with only four districts that are Democratic. 9-5 is the GOP max. Since there are 9 Republicans already, adding another one to the delegation necessarily involves booting an incumbent.

In all three of my sample maps below, that person is Tim Walberg. This is because he is (1) a freshman who is (2) out of step with his swing district which can (3) be made into another MI-05-esque medium-sized-city Dem vote sink. The three options are named for the cities that the new MI-07 covers.

Option 1 — Ann Arbor, Battle Creek, Delta Township

Option 1 has MI-07 cover central Michigan from Ann Arbor to Battle Creek, with an arm reaching out to take in the western suburbs of Lansing.

In the west, MI-02 subsumes deep blue Muskegon and the swingy coastal counties with deep red Ottawa and north Kent. (Although not picture, MI-02 takes in all of the coastal counties up to Leelanau. MI-04 has the interior counties that aren’t in MI-01.) MI-03 takes a third of a turn clockwise, dropping Ionia and most of Barry to grab Allegan and Van Buren. Camp’s MI-04 replaces its loss of Republican Grand Traverse with very Republican Ionia and Barry.

Upton’s MI-06 now stretches across southern Michigan, where he picks up an unwelcome constituent in Tim Walberg. Rogers in MI-08 is left to hold down more-or-less the same district that he has now.

Finally, there are the two metro Detroit districts. Knollenberg here adds the northwestern third or so of Oakland County to the Thumb Counties to make the new MI-09, resulting in a reasonably Republican district, even if he’s still holding onto Pontiac. McCotter actually gets shored up here, I think. He picks up Democratic West Bloomfield but loses the most Democratic parts of his current district, which I think balances out in his favor. He also gains Monroe County, which I’m under the impression is swing or lean-Republican these days.

Overall, I think this is the best of the three options for the Republicans. One problem is that having two Oakland-Wayne districts probably violates Michigan’s redistricting standards. That’s more of a political problem than a legal one, though.

Option 2 – Ann Arbor, Battle Creek, Lansing

Option 2 has MI-07 cover central Michigan from Lansing to Jackson, with obviously-gerrymandered-yet-Michigan-standards-compliant arms to pick up Battle Creek and Ann Arbor-Ypsilanti.

Off-screen, MI-02 has picked up Wexford, Lake, and most of Newaygo Counties from MI-04, which is has in turn picked up the rest of Eaton and a big chunk of Calhoun. This is bad for Dave Camp. In other news worth mentioning, Walberg is now McCotter’s problem — although the massive amounts of Washtenaw he also picks up are an even larger problem. If I recall some math I did the other day, if you exclude Ann Arbor, the rest of Washtenaw voted 2-1 for Obama. Excluding Ypsilanti also helps, but not that much.

Overall, this map is better for Upton, Amash, and Rogers; and worse for Camp and McCotter.

Option 3 – Battle Creek, Kalamazoo, Lansing

Option 3 has MI-07 cover central Michigan from Lansing to Kalamazoo without dealing with the Ann Arbor problem.

Offscreen, we’re back to the arrangment of the first map — coastal = MI-02, interior = MI-04. Walberg is back to being Upton’s problem — but he’s also lost Kalamazoo, so that’s a legitimately Republican district now. Amash and Camp should both be happy. (Amash’s district in this arrangment, incidentally, is at zero-deviation from ideal.) Rogers should be okay — taking in Ann Arbor for Lansing-East Lansing should balance out. But McCotter’s still in trouble — again, even without Ann Arbor, Washtenaw is a 2-1 Obama jurisdiction.

Bonus Option

As I was writing the diary, I had the inspiration for a pro-Knollenberg, anti-Walberg map that cut out Dingell instead of Levin. MI-13 is 52.2% black VAP, MI-14 is 53.4% black VAP. Here it is without further commentary, because I need to get myself to bed.

I had several goals here:

1. Knock out either Gardner or Tipton

2. Keep a district that Perlmutter can continue to hold relatively easily.

3. Make Coffman have to actually campaign, at the very least.

4. Create a district that Salazar or another moderate Dem can win and continue to hold.

District 3 (Purple): This is currently represented by Scott Tipton, but he lives in the new 4th, and would probably much rather try to primary Gardner than hold this marginal seat. The seat is now Pueblo-based and adds all the liberal ski towns from the 2nd district.  It does add conservative Park and Fremont counties from the 5th, but its loss of all the heavily GOP counties on the Western Slope more than offsets that.  It has a little arm reaching back to nab Grand Junction in order to meet population equality.  My best guess is this goes from its current R+5 rating to around R+1 or R+2. Salazar probably would have won re-election if he had this in 2010 and could easily win in any other year.  Other possible candidates include State House Minority Leader Sal Pace of Pueblo.

Likely D if Salazar runs; tossup otherwise

District 4 (Red): This GOP vote sink manages to combine both Cory Gardner, who lives in Yuma in northeast Colorado, and Scott Tipton, who lives in Cortez in southwest Colorado.  It contains all of the heavily GOP counties on both the Eastern Plains and Western Slope.  In addition, it loses both Fort Collins and Greeley, resulting in perhaps the most Republican district in the state.  It could be anywhere from R+15 to R+20.

Safe R

Metro Denver:

District 1 (blue): This is Diana DeGette’s Denver-based district.  Other than adding a few Arapahoe County precincts for population equality, not much of a change here. It’s currently D+21

Safe D

District 6 (teal): This is Mike Coffman’s suburban district, currently R+8.  However, it sheds extremely wealthy and conservative Douglas Country, as well as rural Elbert County, and the rural eastern part of Arapahoe County.  It adds a bunch of suburban areas in slightly D-leaning Jefferson and Adams Counties.  Although Coffman could probably still be able hold it, this would become a toss-up if he vacates the seat.  This is probably between R+3 and even PVI.

Lean R for Coffman, Tossup if open

District 7 (gray): This is the other suburban Denver district, currently held by Ed Perlmutter.  It basically just trades parts of Adams County for Jefferson County, which is pretty much a wash, and is probably still around the current D+4, but after dismantling Fraiser by 11% in 2010, he’s definitely safe.

Likely D for Perlmutter, Lean D if open

Northern Colorado:

District 2 (green): Jared Polis’ Boulder-based district sheds the ski towns, but adds liberal Fort Collins and Greeley to remain safe.  Probably unchanged much from the current D+11.

Safe D

Colorado Springs:

District 5 (yellow): This incredible GOP vote sink, held by Doug Lamborn, takes in Colorado Springs and a bunch of extremely wealthy parts of Douglas County: Castle Pines, Castle Rock, Lone Tree, etc.  It sheds liberal Lake County and swingy Chaffee County to the 3rd, as well as conservative, prison-filled Park and Fremont Counties.  It is probably even more Republican than its current R+14, and could be approaching R+20.

Safe R

So, here’s a recap:

District 1: Diana DeGette, Safe D

District 2: Jared Polis, Safe D

District 3: likely D for John Salazar, tossup otherwise

District 4: Cory Gardner/Scott Tipton, Safe R

District 5: Doug Lamborn, Safe R

District 6: Mike Coffman, Lean R for Coffman, tossup otherwise

District 7: Ed Perlmutter, Likely D for Perlmutter, lean D otherwise

I’d like to use this thread to give folks who read the Swing State Project but haven’t yet opened an account a chance to “de-lurk” and say hi in comments. Creating a new account is free & easy – just click here – and you can start commenting right away. We’re a very friendly and welcoming bunch here, so whether you’ve been reading SSP for three weeks or three years, if you’ve been lurking this whole time, why not stop in and say hello? We look forward to meeting you!

UPDATE: Welcome to all the new users! And I can even offer an inducement to sign up that I hadn’t thought about before, but which brand-new user TMBJon just pointed out. When you sign up for an account and are logged in, the system will keep track of which comments you’ve alread read, and which comments are new, flagging the new ones with a very visible red “*[new]” flag. That makes it much easier to follow conversations, even if you aren’t participating yourself.

UPDATE 2: What a great thread! Welcome again to everyone! So far we’ve had over 30 new signups since this thread went up, as well as several de-lurks from folks we haven’t heard from in a long time. How awesome! I’m eager to give a personal welcome to each of you, but the thread’s grown quite enormous, so forgive me if I inadvertently skip your maiden comment. The First Lady and I are headed out to dinner, but I’ll be back later to chat some more.

UPDATE 3: If you want to edit your sig line or just provide general personal information, here’s how you do it: First, click on your username, or on the “[Username]’s Page” link in the menu on the right-hand sidebar. Then, click on the “Profile” tab. There, you can edit to your heart’s content. You can even put your email address in there, which is a great way to let other people contact you offline. (Note that you can use limited HTML in the sig line, but not in the other boxes.)

Senate:

• AZ-Sen: So what the heck happened with Trent Franks? The Arizona Guardian is reporting that the Republican Congressman had been promising people jobs on his pending Senate campaign, and that his people had even gone so far as to ensure proper media risers were available at the hotel where Franks was supposed to make his big announcement. Yet it all vanished in a heartbeat when Franks unexpectedly pulled the plug. Says the Guardian: “The good thing is, there’s still another year-and-a-half to get the full story before the 2012 elections.” Also, in case you haven’t seen it yet, Dave Catanese penned a piece explaining the backstory on how he got burned by Franks’ consultant. It just adds to all the weirdness.

• FL-Sen: Tucked inside that Quinnipiac poll which showed tough numbers for Obama was this nugget:

Democratic U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, who like Obama is on the 2012 ballot, is in better shape, with a 47-26 percent approval rating, a 43-39 percent lead over an unidentified Republican and voters saying 43-35 percent that he deserves another term in the Senate.

• MI-Sen (PDF): A week or so ago, Republican-affiliated pollster Market Research Group offered some better-than-everyone-else approval ratings for Gov. Rick Snyder. Apparently, they also polled the Senate race at the same time, pitting Dem Debbie Stabenow against Some Dude Randy Hekman. Amusingly, the polling memo says the Senator has a “slim” 11-point lead over Hekman, 45-34. But the real problem is the sample, which is 26 R, 26 D, 43 I – in other words, nothing like reality.

MRG also polled a hypothetical state Supreme Court matchup between incumbent Supreme Court Justice Brian Zahra and former Gov. Jennifer Granholm, which had Zahra up 38-33. (Moving from the statehouse to the high court is not unheard of in Michigan.) Speaking of Granholm, she was supposedly under consideration to head up the Consumer Financial Protection Board but says she withdrew her name (and likes Elizabeth Warren for the job). It sounds like Granholm is keeping pretty busy, and the article notes she’s teaching at UC Berkeley, so perhaps she’s enjoying the weather out in Cali a bit more than back home. But Granholm is a former state AG and was even supposedly a possible Supreme Court pick, so perhaps a judicial run is plausible.

• PA-Sen: Sam Rohrer, the teabaggy ex-state Rep. who got pounded by Tom Corbett in the PA-Gov GOP primary last year, says he’s “50-50” on running against Bob Casey this cycle. Rohrer has the perfect pedigree: He runs the Pennsylvania chapter of the malevolent David Koch front group Americans for Prosperity.

• VA-Sen: Passed along without comment:

NBC 4’s reporter-anchor Craig Melvin is a tall African-American. Which apparently led to this exchange with former Sen. George Allen, according to Melvin’s Twitter account Tuesday night:

“For the 2nd time in 5 months, fmr. gov. and sen candidate George Allen asks me,”what position did you play?” I did not a play a sport.”

Actually, I changed my mind. If you still don’t think George Allen is a racist fuck, read this coda from ThinkProgress writer Lee Feng. And no, Allen didn’t apologize – he offered a classic bullshit “I’m sorry if I offended you” response. That’s bullshit.

Anyhow, Roanoke College released a poll of the race, showing Allen leading Tim Kaine by 45-32 – a rather different picture than what we saw from PPP. However, the WaPo ran an above-the-item update warning readers to be “cautious” about this survey because “[r]esults were adjusted only for gender, and the resulting sample is not representative of Virginia’s racial composition, its age structure or regional population densities.” It also looks like the horserace question was asked after about a bajillion issue-related questions (PDF), some of them kind of weird.

Finally, in Some Dude news… some other Some Dude (an African-American minister named Earl Jackson) decided to get into the GOP primary, a race with a lot of Some Dudes already in it.

Gubernatorial:

• GA-Gov: PPP did a re-do poll in Georgia, too, and found Dem ex-Gov. Roy Barnes would edge actual Gov. Nathan Deal by a single point today, 46-45. Tom says that this isn’t a case of voter disgust with Deal (he has pretty meh ratings, not downright radioactive ones like Scott Walker), but rather a clear sign of last year’s enthusiasm gap that will forever haunt us. There’s also a smorgasbord of other Peach State odds-and-ends at the link.

• KY-Gov: Gov. Steve Beshear (D) is out with his first radio ads of the campaign, touting his small-town roots, a week after his likely Republican opponent, David Williams, also went up on radio. Unlike Beshear, Williams faces a primary on May 17th, so he’s also going up on cable TV with a new ad you can watch here. NWOTSOTB for any of these.

• MS-Gov: Turns out PPP did in fact test the Republican gubernatorial primary in Mississippi. Click through if you really, really care. (Hint: You won’t.)

• UT-Gov: State Rep. Stephen Sandstrom, a teabagger fave to challenge immigration apostate Gary Herbert for the governor’s mansion, says on Facebook that he has “no plans or intentions to run.” (Yes, it would be more awesome if his name were Stephen Sandstorm.)

• WV-Gov: In case you weren’t sure where all the players in the Democratic primary field stand on the ideology spectrum (something we’ll be rectifying with a more in-depth post shortly), this is a helpful guidepost: Acting Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin was endorsed by the WV Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber also endorsed the only two legit Republicans running, Betty Ireland and Bill Maloney.

House:

• CA-26, CA-06: Assemblyman Anthony Portantino is getting some high-profile fundraising help: Steve Israel is coming out to Pacific Palisades this weekend for a breakfast event. The same piece also notes that Assemblyman Jared Huffman raised $120K for a federal account in Q1; Huffman is interested in 73-year-old Rep. Lynn Woolsey’s seat, if she retires. Woolsey apparently will decide whether to seek another term by June.

• FL-25: Idiot.

• IL-08: I’m not exactly broken up by this news: Ex-Rep. Melissa Bean, whose race was the closest in the nation last year (she lost by 290 votes to a real piece of work), says she won’t run again. She’s now CEO of something called the Executives Club of Chicago, which doesn’t really give off a man-of-the-people vibe, now does it?

• MI-09: If there’s one guy repeatedly written off as a redistricting victim who I’d really love to see find a way to survive, it’s Rep. Gary Peters. Despite what must have been an exhausting last several years raising money, the Michigan Dem wasted no time getting right back into the game, pulling in over $400K in Q1. He has half a mil on hand.

• NM-01: This Roll Call piece (also linked below in a redistricting item) mentions a few Dem names we hadn’t discussed here before: state Rep. Al Park, Bernalillo County Clerk Maggie Toulouse Oliver, and Bernalillo County Commissioner Michelle Lujan Grisham, who lost the 2008 primary for this seat.

• NY-13: Ex-Rep. Mike McMahon will join the “government relations” (i.e., lobbying) group at a mid-sized NYC law firm. He’s apparently being brought on as “counsel” status, rather than as a partner, so this could just be a way-station to allow him to pay the bills as he weighs a re-match… but of course, he risks getting hit with the lobbyist taint.

• PA-17: Activist Sheila Dow-Ford confirms the rumors that she’s considering another run against Rep. Tim Holden, against whom she took 35% in the Democratic primary last year. Holden could get a bluer district when all is said and done, so a challenge from the left is a real possibility – but as Dow-Ford herself notes, others are interested, and I wouldn’t be surprised if some bigger-name candidates got in if the seat became markedly more Dem.

• UT-02: Huh – I can’t exactly accuse the Salt Lake Tribune of burying the lede, since they put this in the second graf, but Rep. Jim Matheson says he’s waiting to see what the new district lines look like before deciding whether to run again, or instead if he’ll seek statewide office. A statewide run doesn’t seem like a particularly appealing escape hatch, but both Gov. Gary Herbert (see item above) and Sen. Orrin Hatch could wind up damaged by teabaggers, so you never know. A couple of other statewide offices Matheson could see (Treasurer, Auditor) are up as well.

Also, Some Dude Chuck Williams, an Air Force vet who lost a couple of GOP primaries for Congress… in California… says he plans to challenge Matheson for his House seat, and that he’ll run regardless of where the lines get drawn.

• VA-11: Via FEC Kenobi, Some Dude Christopher Perkins just filed as a Republican to challenge Gerry Connolly. That’s a pretty un-Google-able name, so I can’t tell you much about him… though I do know his home is worth $743,130!

• WV-01: Freshman Rep. David McKinley (R), who won a close race last year, says he’s raised over half a mil in the first quarter. Note, though, that he still has $670K in campaign debt from last cycle.

Other Races:

• Allegheny Co. Exec.: PoliticsPA, via Municipoll, has a race out on the Allegheny, PA County Executive’s race. I’m gonna admit straight off the bat that I don’t know the players here, but click through for details.

• IN-SoS: So a judge allowed a Dem challenge to SoS Charlie White’s eligibility to serve in office to proceed, but really, you just need to read Bob Bobson’s summary of where things stand – and where things will head now. (Bob’s been doing an awesome job of staying on top of this oftentimes-complicated story, so pay attention to him.)

• Champaign, IL Mayor: Here’s a nice little election result that we otherwise missed: The avowedly teabagging mayor of Champaign, Illinois was narrowly defeated by a political newcomer on Tuesday night, the first time, in fact, that he’d ever been opposed in 12 years in office. I’m a little surprised that the university town of Champaign would have elected such a wingnut in the first place, but this is still good news.

• Specials: Johnny Longtorso:

Democrat Kevin Johnson won a 5-point victory over Republican Sonny Sanders in South Carolina’s HD-64.

[On whether this seat was supposedly a Dem stronghold:]

I took another look at it; it’s almost all of a county that Obama got around 56% in along with one or two precincts of an adjacent county, and it’s about 50/50 white/black, so black turnout may have been low. So he just did a few points worse than Obama’s numbers in 2008.

• Wisconsin Recall: Dems filed over 22,000 signatures to recall state Sen. Randy Hopper yesterday. Republicans claim they are close to filing petitions for Sen. Robert Wirch, one of the more endangered Dems on the list.

Remainders:

• WATN?: Ethan Hastert, son of ex-Speaker Denny the Hutt and victim of a genuinely impressive teabagger-fueled anybody-but-Ethan movement to deny him the GOP nomination in IL-14 last year, has managed to win elective office this year. He earned a council seat in the village of Elburn, IL, which has a population that is actually a few thousand smaller than my census tract. Don’t call it a comeback!

Redistricting Roundup:

• Arkansas: Total impasse: The state House rejected the state Senate’s congressional redistricting plan, complementing the Senate’s recent rejection of the House plan. Some procedural maneuvers may be used to try to get things moving forward again, which lawmakers are probably eager to do, since the legislative session was scheduled to end over a week ago.

• California: Look, it’s basically impossible to find a law firm that knows anything about redistricting which has never had any prior political involvement. So I don’t understand why it’s coming as a surprise that Gibson Dunn, the firm hired by the redistricting commission, has a political fund and has used it to make donations. Oh wait, I think I do – it’s because most (but by no means all) of those donations were made to Democrats, so the GOP is continuing its plan to do everything it can to “discredit” the entire process. It’s especially silly, because the firm specifically tasked one Dem attorney and one Republican attorney to lead the effort… but then again, the GOP is especially silly.

• Louisiana: Nathan Gonzales has a good piece untangling the wreck that is Louisiana redistricting, and offering some insight into the behind-the-scenes process. I strongly encourage you to click through the link for the full flavor. (As an inducement, there’s a bowl full of cat food inside.) Apparently, a compromise plan is in the works, but Nathan says that if an agreement isn’t reached by next week, the lege will have to wait until next year to finish its work. (They can’t call a special session?) Anyhow, like I say, read the whole thing.

• New Mexico: Though legislators won’t hold a special session on redistricting until the fall, apparently a plan is brewing among Democrats to excise GOP-leaning Torrance County from the 1st CD. The problem, though, is that while Dems control the lege, Gov. Susana Martinez is, of course, a Republican – a very similar situation to the last round of map-drawing in 2001, which eventually ended up in court.

• Texas: You can play with various Texas map proposals at the link.

• Virginia: Two Virginia items. First, the House of Delegates approved the Republican gerrymander for that body, though most Democrats were actually stupid enough to vote in favor of the plan. (Hasn’t anyone ever heard of a symbolic protest vote to at least signal to your supporters that you know you’re getting the shaft, even if it’s for the greater good?) Second, a (the?) congressional plan was released, and it’s potentially not as bad as it could be. Have a look-see.

This is an attempt to draw new Florida districts based on the initiative they just passed prohibiting gerrymandering. There are three majority-Hispanic, one majority-black, and one plurality-black district all in the state’s south end, but beyond that the lines are just geography. I tried to keep counties and metropolitan areas together, and to a lesser extent cities. This map is what I think a neutral Iowa-type commission might come up with, but in practice I think the new map is likely to end up more like Michigan in that the districts will be fairly clean but more subtly drawn to favor Republicans.  

Anyway, for the districts w = Anglo, b = black, h = Hispanic, a = Asian. O = Obama, M = McCain. Numbers are voting age pop.

State map:

Miami closeup:

FL1 (blue): 77.5w-12.5b-4.6h-2.7a. Deep red. Jeff Miller (current FL1) lives here.

FL2 (green): 68.6w-23.0b-4.8h-2.8a. Should still be likely R. Steve Southerland (current FL2) lives here.

FL3 (purple): 59.2w-27.6b-7.0h-4.2a. This is nothing like the current FL3, which is plurality-black but not remotely compact. This proposed FL3 is about 1 point more black than Duval county as a whole, which is about R+4. This new version is maybe R+2 or R+3 (lean R). Corrine Brown (current FL3) probably lives here but would be too liberal to win this version.

FL4 (red): 75.9w-14.9b-5.4h-2.1a. Also deep red, not too far off the current FL4. Ander Crenshaw (current FL4) probably doesn’t live here but could run here.

FL5 (yellow): 73.8w-13.4b-8.5h-2.8a. This would be a competitive district as it includes the college town of Gainesville. It’s basically Levy (M12-O7), Alachua (O73-M47), Marion (M90-O71), and Putnam (M19-O13). Collectively that’s roughly M168-O164 or about R+4. Cliff Stearns (current FL6) lives here but could potentially lose this to a blue dog.

FL6 (teal): 79.3w-8.9b-8.7h-1.8a. Has St Johns (M69-O36), Flagler (O25-M24), and most of Volusia (O127-M113). Resembles the current FL7 whose rep John Mica does not live here. Probably likely R.

FL7 (gray): 65.2w-8.5b-20.9h-3.7a. Orlando area district with Seminole (M105-O99) and generally whiter parts of Orange (O272-M186). Lean R? Mica and Dan Webster (current FL8) both live here, and Sandy Adams (current FL24) probably does too.

FL8 (blue-gray): 43.7w-25.0b-23.3h-5.4a. Western Orange. The whole county is D+6 and this end has more minorities so it’s probably likely D to safe D. Even Alan Grayson could hold this.

FL9 (toothpaste blue): 77.1w-7.5b-10.7h-3.0a. Southern Volusia, eastern Orange, and most of Brevard (M157-O127). Should be lean R to likely R. Adams could probably run here as it overlaps with most of her current district. Bill Posey (current FL15) also lives here.

FL10 (pink): 83.4w-6.2b-7.8h-1.3a. Four very red counties containing much of the current FL5. There isn’t going to be any free for all here, because Richard Nugent has a stranglehold on this district. Safe R.

FL11 (pea soup green): 84.9w-3.3b-8.5h-2.1a. Pasco (M110-O102) and north Pinellas (O244-M207). Lean R?  Gus Bilirakis (current FL9) lives here.

FL12 (light blue): 77.6w-10.6b-7.1h-3.1a. South Pinellas, mostly St Pete. Lean D? The county is D+0 to D+1 and this is probably the more liberal end of it. I think Bill Young (current FL10) lives here.

FL13 (pink-gray): 52.3w-16.8b-25.4h-3.6a. Mostly Tampa, lots of overlap with current deep-blue FL11 whose rep Kathy Castor probably lives here. Lean D to Likely D?

FL14 (olive): 67.3w-10.7b-17.8h-2.7a. East Pinellas, north Manatee. No incumbent. Lean R to likely R?

FL15 (orange): 59.1w-12.0b-25.3h-2.0a. Maybe 2/3 of Polk (M129-O114) and Osceola (O59-M39). Toss up? Dennis Ross (current FL12) lives here.

FL16 (garden hose green): 72.5w-8.2b-16.6h-1.5a. This spacious hinterland district had to take a chunk of the coast because there weren’t quite enough people in the interior counties. No incumbent. McCain won all of these counties. Likely R to safe R.

FL17 (indigo): 85.1w-3.7b-8.9h-1.2a. Most of Sarasota, Charlotte, north Lee. Likely R? Connie Mack (current FL14) appears to live just outside.

FL18 (yellow): 74.8w-10.8b-11.7h-1.4a. South Brevard, Indian River (M40-O30), St Lucie (O67-M52), Martin (M44-O33), a little bit of northeast Palm Beach. Lean R to likely R? I think Tom Rooney (current FL16) lives in the little bit.

FL19 (money green): 64.1w-11.2b-20.9h-2.4a. Mostly the less-black parts of north Palm Beach, and  takes a contorted shape in order to make FL23 plurality-black. Probably lean D to likely D. The whole county is D+8, although the bluest parts are in FL23. Apparently no incumbent. Lois Frankel, who plans to run against West, probably lives here.

FL20 (pale pink): 70.5w-6.6b-20.7h-1.3a. Collier, much of Lee, a bit of Miami-Dade. Safe R. Mack lives here.

FL21 (red-brown): 72.2w-9.7b-13.6h-2.8a. South Palm Beach, north Broward. Ted Deutch (current FL19) lives here. Likely D to safe D?

FL22 (sky blue): 58.8w-9.1b-27.2h-3.2a. Much of southern and eastern Broward, which is D+14 overall. Probably safe D. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (current FL20) lives here, and probably Allen West (current FL22) also does. That would be entertaining, although it wouldn’t be close.

FL23 (light blue-green): 32.0w-46.0b-17.6h-2.3a. This plurality-black district would probably produce a black rep so I would guess it would be VRA compliant. It looks compact, but it’s really a big cluster in the middle of Palm Beach, another big cluster in the middle of Broward, and the smaller Pahokee and Belle Glade areas on lake Okeechobee connected together by lots and lots of empty space. No incumbent either, unless West lives here. Safe D.

FL24 (purple): 28.8w-4.9b-63.6h-1.8a. After you carve out a majority-black district, what’s left of Dade will necessarily be majority-Hispanic. This overlaps with much of Ileana Ros-Lehtinen’s current FL18. Lean R?

FL25 (raw hamburger): 12.1w-52.6b-31.0h-2.4a. You can carve out a nice majority-black district that looks sort of like a mini-Florida from interior north Dade and the south end of Broward. Frederica Wilson (current FL17) and Alcee Hastings (current FL23) both live here. Safe D.

FL26 (gray): 6.1w-2.1b-90.6h-1.0a. Ninety percent! Seems to overlap with much of Mario Diaz-Balart’s current FL21. Lean R?

FL27 (sea foam green): 22.7w-11.1b-63.1h-1.9a. This overlaps with much of David Rivera’s current FL25 which is R+5, but loses a piece of Collier county that is 9% black and 43% Hispanic (the rest of the county is just 3% black and 11% Hispanic) so it probably isn’t anywhere near the county’s overall PVI of R+15. Probably still lean R to likely R if its new areas in Dade county aren’t much different from its old ones.

If my estimates of these districts are correct, this map is 18-8-1 considering only the partisan lean of the districts, but about half of the “red” districts would be competitive whereas the only really competitive “blue” district is probably FL12 in St. Pete. In practice I think this map would be in the range of 17R-10D to 15R-12D in most years. The current map has just 5 districts with a PVI of +4 or less one way or the other. I think this map would have considerably more, which should make for the more competitive elections the voters said they wanted this past November.

Thoughts? I don’t know this state well at all and would appreciate any pointers about these proposed districts.  

This map creates two Democratic districts with a PVI of at least D+10 and two Republican districts with a PVI of at least R+30, which would be the two most Republican in the country.

The districts are contiguous, even when they don’t really look like it, including a narrow strip along the gulf shoreline for the fourth district.

As always I crunched the actual precinct data to produce these maps. However in this case, to my horror, I could have saved a week of transcribing scanned county records and just maximised the minority districts since they produce almost exactly the same map. Nevertheless at least this way we have precise voting totals for each district.

1st(Blue): 63.2% Obama 37.8W 57.3B

2nd(Green): 66.2% Obama 36.1W 59.1B

3rd(Dark Magenta): 22.4% Obama 79.6W 16.0B

4th(Red): 22.3% Obama 78.8W 15.1B

With Wisconsin in the news so much lately, I wanted to see how voting patterns have shifted.  Here we are.  Special thanks to californianintexas’s blog for PVI info!

This was Wisconsin in 1968.  The labor-heavy northwest (Sean Duffy’s district) was heavily blue, particularly compared to today.  Milwaukee and Madison, “Fake Wisconsin” were blue as well, although the inner suburbs seem to be even more conservative back then.  Kenosha was quite blue as well (was labor strong there too?)  Sheboygan and Manitowoc along Lake Michigan were once union strongholds as well.  The farming country of Southern Wisconsin, the Milwaukee Suburbs, and the Northeast (Green Bay, Fond du Lac, Appleton) were conservative, as were some sparsely populated northern counties

This was Wisconsin in 1984.  The Northwest shifted even more strongly to the Democrats, even as labor began to decline.  Some of this shift can probably be attributed to Walter Mondale being from neighboring Minnesota and much of this area being in a Minnesota media market. Some of the rural North became more Democratic too, while in farming country, we can see the beginning of a leftward shift that still exists today (Ron Kind’s district, basically).  Racine and Milwaukee both got bluer as well.  

This was Wisconsin in 2000, another sixteen-year shift.  Milwaukee’s suburbs shifted back to the right. The central northwest counties lost union workers and went GOP.  However, the Minnesota border and Wisconsin Iron Range counties stayed with Democrats.  A huge shift occurred along the river, in the Southwest.  This still exists today.  The counties near Madison all became more Democratic.  In a reverse of Ohio’s Democratic strength, Wisconsin’s is West and South, not East and South.  

Please give feedback.

You know the drill. Disclaimer: I have never even been to WA and pretty much know nothing about the state, so feel free to criticize (it should be a learning experience).

I went for 6-4 because my guess is that the commission which redistricts WA will shore up every incumbent and add a new Dem seat while avoiding really ugly gerrymanders. Although I have seen maps that add a new Dem seat in the Olympia/Tacoma area, I chose to add one in the Seattle suburbs.

Also, I guess I somehow missed a precinct which somehow has 0 residents but 4 voters, but we’ll ignore that. All incumbents have been kept in their districts, and the greatest population deviation is 379 people.

WA-03 Incumbent: Jaime Herrera, R-Camas

Old: 53-47 Rossi

New: 56-44 Rossi

Description: Withdraws from Democratic-leaning Pacific and Thurston counties and moves east, making Herrera safer. It’s possible that McCain may have won this now, or at least only lost it narrowly.

WA-04 Incumbent: Doc Hastings, R-Pasco

Old: 64-36 Rossi

New: 64-36 Rossi

Description: Loses its northwestern part and moves east, swallowing up Walla Walla, Lewiston, and Pullman. Remains a safe R district mostly based in Yakima and the Tri-Cities.

WA-05 Incumbent: Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Spokane

Old: 59-41 Rossi

New: 59-41 Rossi

Description: Loses SE portion and gains some area in the west, making it somewhat more rectangular. Eats a few precincts of Wenatchee in Chelan County for population reasons. Still Spokane-based and Safe R.

WA-01 OPEN

Old: 56-44 Murray

New: 56-44 Murray

Description: Essentially the same, although goes a bit further north and east. Unfortunately, douchebag Brian Baird still lives here, but this district is sure to elect a Democrat no matter what.

WA-02 Incumbent: Rick Larsen, D-Lake Stevens

Old: 51-49 Murray

New: 52-48 Murray

This district shrinks considerably, pulling entirely out of King and much of Snohomish. Gains some liberal suburbs from the 1st, but not much. Nevertheless, that, combined with the shedding of conservative territory, moves the needle towards Team Blue a bit. If Larsen could survive 2010, he’s probably fine.

WA-07 Incumbent: Jim McDermott, D-Seattle

Old: 81-19 Murray

New: 81-19 Murray

Not much change here, may have gotten very very very slightly more Democratic. Seattle, Vashon Island, and a small piece of Seattle’s southern suburbs.

WA-09 Incumbent: Adam Smith, D-Tacoma

Old: 53-47 Murray

New: 56-44 Murray

Smith will like this district. He drops his moderately Democratic portion of Thurston County for very Democratic portion of Tacoma that was in the 6th before. With all of Tacoma and some of the southern King suburbs, Smith would have won easily even in 2010.

WA-10 OPEN

Old: N/A

New: 54-46 Murray

This is the new district, anchored in the eastern suburbs of Seattle. It contains Suzan DelBene’s home of Medina, so she could probably get elected to Congress. 54-46 Murray is a pretty solid Democratic margin (probably around 60% Obama), so as long as DelBene is the #1 Democratic vote-getter in the primary she should win the general easily. However, State Sen. Rodney Tom, who briefly challenged Darcy Burner in the 2008 primary, lives in Medina here too, so he could give DelBene trouble.

WA-06 Incumbent: Norm Dicks, D-Bremerton

Old: 53-47 Murray

New: 53-47 Murray

Dicks drops his heavily D portion of Tacoma but gains Pacific County and heavily D Olympia in exchange. Basically a wash.

WA-08 Incumbent: Dave Reichert, R-Auburn

Old: 51-49 Rossi

New: 55-45 Rossi

So I was a bit uncomfortable with pulling this into Chelan and Kittitas counties, but even if there were a way to avoid that, I think this district would still swing a bit towards the Republicans, since the new 10th takes a lot of the liberal Seattle suburbs off this district’s hands. This district only contains part of Auburn but I am pretty sure it contains Reichert’s home. It also contains Carnation, home to Darcy Burner, but this district is far too Republican for her to win.