Swing State Project

• CA-Sen: Sorry none of us could be bothered to talk about this poll on Friday: Rasmussen polled the California Senate race again and found former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina gaining some ground on Sen. Barbara Boxer. Boxer leads 45-41 (it was 47-38 in March). Interestingly, though, Fiorina, who quite publicly drove HP into a ditch, already has negative favorable ratings (30/35, with 35% unsure), which has to be a bad sign for any challenger. Boxer is still in positive territory (50/47), so I have no idea to square those results with the head-to-head.

• IL-Sen: State treasurer Alexi Giannoulias had his official campaign launch this weekend, where he name-dropped Barack Obama at every opportunity.

• NY-Sen-B: Is this a sign that Rep. Carolyn Maloney may be backing away from the Senate race, or is she just sidetracked by the chaos in the House? She had been scheduled to announce her primary campaign against Kirsten Gillibrand today or tomorrow, but now Maloney tells the New York Post that the timetable is no longer in effect, and didn’t say anything about a new timetable, other than to say that “This week we are confronting health care.”

• AK-Gov: If the world seems a slightly lighter place today, it’s because it’s our first Sarah Palin-free day in a while; she turned the keys to the state over to Sean Parnell yesterday. I guess now I and other members of the media can, in honor of the American soldier, quit makin’ stuff up about her.

• MA-Gov: The Boston Globe polled Deval Patrick’s prospects and found he’s still in trouble. (The poll was conducted on the Globe’s behalf by often-clueless UNH, so take with the requisite spoonful of salt.) His job approvals are 35/56, and he narrowly loses head-to-heads with both prospective GOPers, 41-35 to Charlie Baker and 41-40 to Christy Mihos. If Dem-turned-Independent treasurer Tim Cahill gets in the race as planned, though, the Republicans fade into the background, as Cahill seems to vacuum up the anti-Patrick votes. Patrick and Cahill tie both matchups: 30-30-20 with Baker, and 31-31-18 with Mihos.

• NJ-Gov: Jon Corzine picked his Lt. Gov. running mate: state Sen. Loretta Weinberg, a 74-year-old granny from Bergen County noted for pushing for ethics reform. This comes instead of, as rumored, Apprentice winner Randal Pinkett. Those in the know seem to think that Corzine may have been motivated to pick her in order to emphasize ethics in the wake of the federal arrests of a swarm of lower elected officials, including some Corzine allies. The New York Times presents a dark picture of Corzine’s campaign, framing the corruption sweep as one more blow that he can’t handle, and actually starts speculating on what Dem might replace Corzine at the top of the ticket should be back out (it mentions Newark mayor Cory Booker and Rep. Frank Pallone). The NYT says Corzine still has no plans to bail, but state machine boss George Norcross is making no secret that he wants Corzine out of the race.

• VA-Gov: Barack Obama will be coming to Virginia to stump for Creigh Deeds, with both a public rally and private fundraiser on Aug. 6. This comes as GOP candidate Bob McDonnell has been seeking to increasingly go after Deeds on national issues, as at their first debate where McDonnell challenged Deeds on cap-and-trade and EFCA. Deeds may need some outside help, as he’s had trouble nailing down some of the local big names, most prominently former Gov. Douglas Wilder.

• IL-10: State Rep. Julie Hamos says she’ll officially announce tomorrow that she’s running for the Democratic nod in the now-open 10th. She had been planning to run for AG until Lisa Madigan surprised everyone by deciding to run for another term. Instead, she joins a top-drawer field with state Sen. Michael Bond and 06/08 candidate Dan Seals already in.

• NY-23: We’ll have to wait until tomorrow for Democrats in the 23rd District to have even a plan for picking a candidate, let alone have a candidate, as they seem to have not had much of a Plan B in the event that Darrel Aubertine didn’t run. The Dems say they’ve received about 18 applications; Watertown Daily Times gotten confirmations from 06 nominee Michael Oot, 94 nominee Danny Francis, attorney Stuart Brody, attorney Keith Caughlin, and state assistant inspector general for Medicaid John Sullivan that they are among the 18. Meanwhile, Jim Kelly (no, not the quarterback) sounds like he’s gearing up to run on the Conservative line.

• VA-05: Ex-Rep. Virgil Goode made it official that he won’t be running against Tom Perriello to get his seat back. (Now maybe he can stop running around the district handing out oversize checks.) Speculation turns to GOP state Senator Rob Hurt and delegate Rob Bell, who don’t have the name rec or fundraising power of Goode, but don’t have the polarizing reputations either.

To start, your Barrow numbers are wrong.  He (mis)represents a blue district; you must have him mixed up with another Georgia politician, Paul Broun perhaps.  So, look at those votes again with that in mind.  Look specifically at his anti-energy bill vote and notice just how close his district is to the coast and see how long you scratch your head.  Then, look at his PAC donations for this year.  Lot’s of energy money.

I also feel the need to answer some things said here and elsewhere in defense of the Blue Dogs.

1. I’ve seen the line that there are more conservatives brought up at least twice here.  First, the plurality of the electorate is self-identified moderates.  Add liberals, and you get 66%, leaving conservatives at just 34%.  Second, that’s self-identified conservatives.  After decades of “liberal” being a dirty word, of course fewer are going to self-identify as such.

2. A lot of people have convinced themselves

3. I’ve also seen a

I say primary them all.  Nineteen Blue Dogs come from Obama districts.  Another seven or so come from only marginal McCain districts, making claims of some huge Republican tide seem far-fetched.  And if we’re not going to get  

Johnny beat the annoucement that New York is ready, with a great map. (Nice going!)

I’ve also made a couple of improvements to the software, prompted by working with New York:

– Thinner block lines, so you can see the tiny blocks.

– The slow work of Assign Old CDs now happens when you click the button instead of on load. (It took about 4 minutes for NY on my not too slow machine.)

– Zoom: Scrollbar replaces slider.

Here’s a link.

Note also: I am looking at partisan data, but it will take some time.

Enjoy.

I have been working on (with some much appreciated help from pl515) a concept I’m calling PBI or Party Brand Index, as a replacement for PVI.  PVI (Partisan Voting Index), which is measured by averaging voting percentage from the last two presidential elections in each house district, and comparing it to how the nation as a whole voted, is a useful shorthand for understanding the liberal v. conservative dynamics of a district. But in my opinion it falls short in a number of areas. First it doesn’t explain states like Arkansas or West Virginia. These states have districts who’s PVI indicates a Democrat would be in a hard position to win, never the less Democrats (outside of the presidency) win quite handily. Secondly why is that the case in Arkansas but not Oklahoma with similar PVI rated districts?

Secondly PVI can miss trends as it takes 4 years to readjust. The main purpose of Party Brand Index is to give a better idea of how a candidate does not relative to how the presidential candidate did, but rather compared to how their generic PARTY would be expected to perform. I’m calling this Party Brand Index.

My best case for arguing against PVI is Indiana.  Bush won Indiana quite easily in 2000 and 2004. The PVI of a number of it’s districts showed them to be quite Red. Yet in 2006 democrats won several districts despite their PVI’s. Also Obama won Indiana in 2008 a state, which based on the make up of the districts PVIs, made little sense. I therefor chose Indiana as my first test case for PBI.

Indiana also had a number of other oddity that made it an interesting test case. Indiana has Senators from opposite parties that each won election by large blowouts. Lugar’s in particular was enormous as he was essentially unopposed. Indiana also had a number of districts that flipped in the 3 election cycle expanse that I’m examining. Finally it makes the best case for why PVI can be misleading.

To compute PBI I basically did the following. I weighed the last 3 presidential elections by a factor of 0.45. Presidential preference is the most indicative vote since it’s the one politician people follow the most. The POTUS is the elected official people identify with or despise the most, thus illuminating their own ideological identification. I then weighed each house seat by 0.35. House seats are gerrymandered and the local leader can most closely match their districts make up in a way the POTUS can’t. So even though they have a lower profile I still gave them a heavy weight. Lastly I gave the last two Senate elections a weight of 0.2. Senatorial preference can make a difference, although I think it’s less than that of the President or the House members. Also (more practically) because I have to back calculate (estimate) Senate result totals from county results, a smaller number helps lessen the “noise” caused by any errors I may make.

I was then left with this chart:

I now began to look at the results. Under my system Democratic leaning have a positive number, the GOP has a negative number. Donnelly in the Indiana 2nd is a perfect example of my issues with PVI. Under PVI Donnelly is in a Republican district with a PVI of -2. But look at how democrats have recently performed in this district. In 2008 Donnelly won reelection by 37%! Obama won this ditrict by 9 points, and Bayh won it by 22%! Does this sound like a lean GOP district? Under PVI it is, under PBI it’s not it’s a +11 democratic district.

I then decided to go all Nate Silvaish and gave more recent elections a greater weight. I gave an addition 5% weight to each election as it got closer to the most recent election. To be honest I pulled 5% out of my dairy air but Nate gave a similar weighting to poll results as fresher ones came in 2008, so I copied this formula. This resulted in the following:

The next issue I decided to tackle was to develop a way to weight for incumbents.  The reelection numbers for incumbants is so high it would be a mistake to weight a district soley on the fact that an incumbat continues to get elected. There is a long list of districts that have PVI that devate from their incumbant members, whom none the less keep getting elected. These disticts then change parties as soon as the incumbant member retires. This is evidence that incumbancy can disguise the ideology of voters in a district.

I decided on a weight of about 7% for House members. I remember reading that incumbency is worth about 5-10%. Also Nate wrote in a 538.com article that a VP pick from a small state was worth about a 7% swing, a house seat could in fact be thought of as a small state, that seems as good a number as any to start from. Conversely I will deduct 7% from an incumbents win. I think this will score them closer to the natural weight of a district. By the way I’m weighting the win 7% less, not actually subtracting 7% from the number.  Open seat races will be considered “pure” events and will remain neutral as far as weighting goes.  A seat switching parties will also be considered a neutral event. The 1st defense of a seat by a freshman house member will be given a weighting of 2%. The toughest race for any incumbant is their 1st defense. I decided to adjust for this fact. Note: Indiana’s bloddy 9th was a tough call a case could be made that when a seat keeps flipping, and the same two guys run 4 straight times in a row each election should be a neutral event.

Senate weighting will be as follows. In state with a single House seat the Senate seat will be weighted the same as a house. In states with mutiple seat, the Senate will get a wighting of 2%. Nate Silva stated that a VP pick in a large state is worth this amount. An argument could be made for a sliding scale of Senate weighting from 2-7%, this added complexity may be added at a later date. I will give incumbant presidents a 2% weighting, until I get better data on how powerful a “pull” being the sitting POTUS is, I will give them the same weighting as a senator.

The main purpose of Party Brand Index is to give a better idea of how a candidate does not relative to how the presidential candidate did, but rather compared to how their generic PARTY would be expected to perform. I’m calling this Party Brand Index.

______________________________________

The last major issue is how to deal with the “wingnut” factor. Sometimes a politician like Bill Sali (R-Idaho) or Marylin Musgrove (R-CO)lose because their voting record is outside of the mainstream of their district. I decided to try and factor this in.

First I had to take a brief refresher on statistics. I developed a formula based on standard deviations. Basically I can figure out how much the average rep deviates from their district.  If I then compare where a reps voting pattern falls (in what percentile) and compare it to their district’s PVI, I can develop a “standard deviation factor”. Inside the standard deviation will get a bonus, outside a negative.

For example, if Rep X is the 42 most conservative rep, that would place her in the 90th percentile. But if her district’s PVI was “only” the in the 60th, their is a good chance her margins would be effected. Using a few random samples I found most reps lie within 12% of their district’s PVI.

Using these dummy numbers I then came up with this.  

   SQRT[(30-12)^2 /2] = about 13%

    Her factor would then be 100 – 13 = 0.87.

So her victory margin would be weighted by 0.87 because she is more than 12% beyond her acceptable percentile range it making the victories in her district approximate 13% less “representative”.

    My theory yields the following formula:

        If rep’s voting record is > PVI then

            100 – SQRT[({Record percentile – PVI} – Standard PVI Sigma)^2 /2] = factor

        else if rep’s voting record < PVI

             100 + SQRT[({Record percentile – PVI} – Standard PVI Sigma)^2 /2] = factor

To really do this I need to compute the standard deviation for all 435 reps, which is a pretty large undertaking. Instead  I will do a google search  to see if anyone has already done this. If not well it will take some time. But this would deal with the wingnut factor. Since politician tend to vote relatively close to their districts interest (even changing voting patterns over time) this may not be a major issue. But developing this factor may eventually allow the creation of a “reelection predictor”, so I am still going to work on it.

One last note, the corruption factor (for example Rep. Cao (R-LA) beating former Rep. Jefferson) is outside of any formula I can think of. The only saving grace here is that because my formula uses several elections, the “noise” from a single event will eventually be reduced.

Next Up: Colorado ( have the data done already) and Virginia

Yeah, here’s another Minnesota redistricting…

My 7 seat map can be found here.

I did none of this with a computer program or anything like that.  i was fortunate that MN provides all the info I needed to do this with the MnSOS office providing all the vote totals and also precinct maps of every state house seat, which was the main way I broke down the districts by vote and population when I didnt need to break it down to city/township/precinct level.  The state legislature websites has excellent maps with the two I used constantly were a map of the all the state house seats that also showed city boundaries which made it my go to map for figuring out my planned geography.  More importantly though, a precinct map of the entire state showing election results from dark red to dark blue.  I found county population totals for 2007 and when they broke down beyond that point, I wikipediad it which sometimes included 2006 estimates but mainly for 2000 totals and then I used common sense for population movements, figured out the percentage of growth for that county/area, etc to figure out the 2007 population of said city/precinct.  There is certainly some error involved in this but nothing that would alter more than a couple precincts here or there and then my map accounts for current population movement as opposed to 2000, little bit of a trade off there.

Everything is recorded in excel spreadsheets, they look like a hot mess.

map with county lines can be found here

My CD4 is quite a gerrymander but none of that is essential to district make up.  This map could easily be changed to provide nice clean lines but I wanted to pack Dems and Reps to see what the best case scenarios could be.  Undoing any gerrymanders would still result in my intended goals.

This is map is either a 7/1 or 6/2 map. Bachmann can’t win her district but a more moderate Republican possibly could.  And Kline is now uber safe.  Paulsen is drawn out of his district and could possibly run there, but you’ll see later that the Obama margin for victory there is Philly/Chicago suburb like and he’d probably not bother moving. 7/1 at the best 6/2 at worst.

As for the tables, the first 08 is the new Obama vs McCain percentage for each of my districts, second 08 is what the current district got.  And then the following years are what the current districts got as well with them being the three-way vote.  Then next is population and what each county got in 08 and 04.

MN-1 Rep. Walz	Pop.	2008	2008	2004	2004
Total	651557	50/45.5	51/47	48/52	47/51
	Pop.	Obama	McCain	Kerry	Bush
Houston County	19515	54	44	48	51
Winona County	49802	58	39	52	46
Watonwan County	11022	49	48	45	53
Steele County	36378	46	51	56	43
Dodge County	19552	44	54	42	57
Wabasha County	21783	47	50	47	52
Olmsted County	76470	51	47	47	52
Mower County	38040	60	37	61	38
Freeborn County	31257	57	41	55	44
Waseca County	19528	45	53	43	56
Blue Earth County	59802	55	42	48	51
Nicollet County	31680	54	44	50	49
Martin County	20462	41	56	42	57
Brown County	26013	43	55	37	61
Murray County	8511	49	48	44	54
Jackson County	10883	47	51	46	52
Cottonwood County	11349	46	52	43	56
Nobles County	20128	48	50	42	56
Pipestone County	9305	42	55	38	61
Rock County	9498	42	56	39	60
Faribault County	14869	46	51	43	55
Fillmore County	21037	53	44	49	50
Lincoln County	5877	49	48	47	52
Redwood County	15519	42	55	38	62

This district changed very little, it took an extra county here and there but more or less, I didn’t want to change it.  Walz is already winning by large margins and he’s an excellent fit for the district.

MN-2 Rep. Kline	Pop.	2008	2008	2004	2004
Total	651855	40/58	48/50	38/60.5	45/54
	Pop.	Obama	McCain	Kerry	Bush
Wright County	117372	40	58	38	61
Scott County	62113	39	59	37.5	61.5
Carver County	88459	41.5	57	36	63
Dakota County	38718	44	54	39	60
Sherburne County	86287	39	58	39	60
Stearns County	86586	40	55	40	58
Benton County	5881	36	61	36	63
Hennepin County	72869	37	62	37	61
Anoka County	54649	40	58	40	59
Isanti County	38921	41	56	41	58

I decided to tie all the conservative exurban areas together along with Republican suburbs, putting all the republican counties into one congressional district instead of spread across two.  This makes it mainly a combination of CD2 and CD6, and takes out the main Republican-fundy base of Bachmann’s district.  It takes out the counties around the St. Cloud area, minus St. Cloud, keeps the former second’s GOP base of Carver and Scott county in the southwest (minus some of the suburbs that were 50/50’ish for Obama), also heavily conservative Wright county from CD6, and I threw in Isanti county from CD8 to shore up the GOP into one CD.  The district has a bit of a propeller as I need to pick up more population and those 4 townships in Benton were the most GOP areas to connect to CD2.  Kline lives in the portion of Dakota county that it includes and will be 100% safe in this district.  However, Bachmann will be looking for a seat as well. More on that later.

MN-3 OPEN	Pop.	2008	2008	2004	2004
Total	650300	57/41	52/46	53/46.5	48/51
	Pop.	Obama	McCain	Kerry	Bush
Hennepin County	487008	58	40.5	54	46
Anoka County	163292	53	43	51	48

This district shifts east and north as I cut out some of the traditional upper-to-upper middle class suburbs to take in more working class suburbs bordering Minneapolis to the west and north.  Eden Prairie, Bloomington, and most of Edina now are in CD5 (I kept some of Edina in CD3 for population and gerrymandering as some precincts went 2-1 for Obama while the city as a whole went about 55-45.)  The district then picked up Hopkins, Golden Valley, St. Louis Park, Fridley, Columbia Heights, and a few others in that area.  These areas also have a much higher proportion of minority voters so the district gets a bit less white and without Edina and Eden Prarie, probably drops pretty far in average income.

Paulsen lives in Eden Prairie so technically this district is open.  He could move to run here which he may to give it a shot but it voted for Obama by 16%, an increase of 10% from the current district lines.  We have a HUGE bench in this district to make that happen as there are roughly 25 state reps and senators per CD and the GOP only has about 6-7 of those seats in this CD.  I want to give Paulsen somewhat of a chance of retaining this seat (PA6, IL10) but I really dont know how he could.

Please tell me someone watched Mighty Ducks recently and these cities all sound familiar….  Cake eater is from Edina, Goldburg I believe is Bloomington.

MN-4 Rep. McCollum	Pop.	2008	2008	2004	2004
Total	651475	61/38	64/34	58.5/40	62/37
	Pop.	Obama	McCain	Kerry	Bush
Ramsey County	468147	66	31.5	63.5	35
Washington County	79263	47	51	44.5	55
Anoka County	104065	43	55	42	57

This is the district I gerrymandered the most as I wanted to pack as many Democrats into CD6 as possible.  The northern part of the district is represented by Anoka County exurbs that vote 2-1 GOP in some parts and the north third of Washington County which is exurban but not quite as Republican, maybe 60-40 at worst.  There really isn’t even much population up there as the main source is Ramsey county, which gets a little bit cut up.  The three blobs of gerrymander are as follows.  The main one is St. Paul, to the east, the district picks up the Republican precincts of Woodbury and then in the south it picks up Inver Grove Heights, a swingy suburb.  Safe for McCollum still.

MN-5 Rep. Ellison	Pop.	2008	2008	2004	2004
Total	647577	69/29	74/24	65/33	71/28
	Pop.	Obama	McCain	Kerry	Bush
Hennepin County	583048	71	27	67	31
Scott County	64259	48	50	42	57

As said previously, this district now picks up the south/southwest burbs in exchange for the very liberal first ring suburbs.  All the suburbs have been trending D quite rapidly and most voted for Obama.  The suburbs in Hennepin county, Edina, Eden Prairie, and Bloomington have trended pretty quickly while the two suburbs in Scott County, Shakopee and Savage, were once brutally Republican but population growth has exploded here and has brought them to suburban voting trends instead of exurban voting trends.  This is still extremely safe for Ellison.

MN-6 OPEN	Pop.	2008	2008	2004	2004
Total	648958	53/45	45/53	49.5/49.3	42/57
	Pop.	Obama	McCain	Kerry	Bush
Washington County	181743	54	44	49.5	49.4
Dakota County	327677	52	45.5	49	50
Ramsey County	31744	59	39	57	42
Goodhue County	45839	48	50	47	51
Rice County	17381	55	43	53	45

This is where I began this project as the main goal was how to get rid of Bachmann and make a Dem district.  It starts up in Washington county, takes in the Dem areas like Oakdale and Stillwater, cuts into Ramsey county to take in Maplewood, and then includes most of Dakota county where the northern portion is heavily populated suburbs that have heavily trended Democratic (hold all but one state house seat, which we picked up in 06 but lost in 08) while the rest of the county is townships and Republicanism.  It takes in swing Goodhue county and blue Rice county, where the colleges of Carleton and St. Olaf rack up margins for the Dems.  (Not to be confused with the St. Olaf Rose from Golden Girls is from, there is a St. Olaf township up north in Otter Tail county.)

Bachmann may no longer live in this district as I may have put her in CD4.  I know she recently moved to Woodbury, which is the city I gerrymandered.  So not sure which part of Woodbury carries that witch but regardless, she wouldn’t be a viable candidate in either CD.  I figure her and Kline could have an excellent face off in CD2 in an endorsement and primary.  Both have large constituencies in that district, almost 50/50, with maybe a slight edge to Bachmann in amount of former district.  So I’d consider this an open seat and it is a total swing district so it could go either Democrat or Republican, with the Dems being a slight favorite, especially in 2012 if Obama can manage another 8% win here.

I first had this district extremely gerrymandered to take in more Democrats but I decided to strengthen the Dems in CD3 in exchange for this CD as there is no way Bachmann can win this district, regardless. Here is a map of what I had before.

MN-7 Rep. Peterson	Pop.	2008	2008	2004	2004
Total	648519	47/50	47/50	43/55.5	43/55.4
	Pop.	Obama	McCain	Kerry	Bush
Kittson County	4505	58	40	50	49
Traverse County	3712	51	46	48	50
Stevens County	9624	49	48	47	51
Swift County	11192	55	42	55	43
Todd County	24029	43	54	41	57
Yellow Medicine County	10000	51	46	49	50
Lake of the Woods County	4095	42	60	38	60
Marshall County	9618	49	48	42	57
Becker County	31964	45	52	40	58
Polk County	30708	51	47	43	56
Pope County	11065	51	47	49	49
Clearwater County	8245	44	54	43	56
Red Lake County	4118	51	45	44	54
Mahnomen County	5129	61	36	53	45
Pennington County	13756	50	48	44	54
Clay County	54835	57	41	47	52
Otter Tail County	57031	42	55	37	61
Douglas County	36075	44	54	44	54
Grant County	6021	51	46	49	50
Big Stone County	5385	52	46	50	48
Lac qui Parle County	7258	52	46	53	46
Renville County	16132	48	49	45	53
Lyon County	24695	48	50	42	57
Beltrami County	43609	54	44	50	48
Roseau County	15946	40	58	31	68
Chippewa County	12465	52	46	52	47
Wilkin County	6418	45	52	33	65
Sibley County	15007	45	52	39	59
McLeod County	37220	38	58	37	62
Meeker County	23211	43	54	43	56
Kandiyohi County	40784	46	52	44	55
Norman County	6685	62	35	47	51
Hubbard County	18376	42	56	42	57
Wadena County	13382	40	58	39	59
Le Seur County	28034	47	51	45	54
Stearns County	7785	36	62	35.5	63

I left CD7 pretty much alone.  It’s GOP leaning and always will be, but the DFL is still quite powerful in most of the areas at the local level and it currently has a DFL incumbent, whose got a good decade if not more left until we should expect retirement.  

MN-8 Rep. Oberstar	Pop.	2008	2008	2004	2004
Total	649780	54/44	53/45	53/45	53/46
	Pop.	Obama	McCain	Kerry	Bush
Cook County	5398	60	37	53	45
Lake County	10741	60	38	60	39
St. Louis County	200528	65	33	65	34
Carlton County	33893	62	35	63	36
Pine County	228164	49	48	50	49
Koochiching County	13459	54	44	50	48
Itasca County	44542	55	42	55	44
Cass County	28723	45	53	43	56
Crow Wing County	61648	45	53	42	57
Morrison County	32733	39	58	41	58
Mille Lacs County	26354	45	52	43	55
Kanabec County	16090	44	53	44	55
Aitkin County	15910	48.7	48.8	48	51
Chisago County	50128	44	54	43	56
Benton County	33623	45	52	45	53
Stearns County	51680	53	45	51	48

My biggest question was, what should I do with St. Cloud?  It’s literally in the middle of extremely conservative Stearns, Benton, and Sherburne counties, it’s Dem but the vote margin is only 2,000, thus not making it worth much in votes considering the county I’d have to attach with it.  Benton county provided the smallest GOP margin and CD8 always goes Dem if by a smallish margin at the presidential, so I decided to include it here.  By adding this and eliminating Isanti county, it does get a nice Dem bump. Oberstar is safe until retirement and then it will still be safe DFL when open.

Time to put down the manga and pick up the ganja.

Iowans in House district 90 will elect a new state representative in a special election on September 1, and the Republican candidate appears to be planning to make same-sex marriage a major campaign issue.

The seat opened up when State Representative John Whitaker, a Democrat, accepted a position with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Republicans didn’t even run a candidate against Whitaker in 2008, but Iowa House district 90 has been competitive in the recent past. The southeastern Iowa district contains all of Van Buren County and parts of Wapello and Jefferson counties, including the Fairfield area (home to Maharishi University and the so-called “Silicorn Valley”).

The Democratic candidate for the special election is Curt Hanson, a retired driver’s education teacher who has won various teaching awards. Hanson plans to campaign on bread-and-butter issues: jobs, health care, education, and balancing the budget.

The Republican candidate is Jefferson County supervisor Steve Burgmeier. His name rang a bell for me because the Jefferson County supervisors made a show of posturing against same-sex marriage on April 27, the day the Iowa Supreme Court’s Varnum v Brien ruling went into effect. Burgmeier and his colleagues passed a resolution calling on Iowa legislators to take a stand against same-sex marriage. Since the Iowa Legislature had just adjourned for the year on April 26, the resolution served no purpose other than to put Burgmeier and on record loudly opposing marriage equality. He was probably planning to run for the legislature even before Whitaker’s seat opened up; a Republican Bleeding Heartland commenter had been recruiting Burgmeier to run next year in Iowa Senate district 45 (one of the GOP’s better pickup opportunities in the upper chamber).

Burgmeier’s press release announcing his candidacy for Iowa House district 90 highlighted two issues: cutting government spending and giving Iowans “a right to vote on the definition of marriage.” This is the new politically-correct Republican messaging. Instead of acknowledging that they want to write discrimination into the Iowa Constitution, Republicans say, “Iowans deserve the right to vote” on a marriage amendment, as if we were in the habit of subjecting minority rights to a majority vote in this country.

Republicans would like to win this special election for many reasons, not least to fire up their base about the potential to demagogue against committed same-sex Iowa couples next year. Democrats hold a 56-44 majority in the Iowa House. House Speaker Pat Murphy strongly supported the Varnum v Brien ruling and has made clear he will block efforts to bring a marriage amendment to the House floor.

You can donate to Curt Hanson’s campaign by clicking here. A strong volunteer effort will be crucial in this low-turnout special election, so if you live within striking distance of southeast Iowa, please consider volunteering for Hanson’s campaign before September 1.