Posted on 11/04/2010 7:57:42 PM PDT by scrabblehack
I don't know if others find this as interesting as I do but let's see. On another thread there was some discussion about whether PA-12 (Critz, Murtha's successor) would be eliminated in 2012. If the estimates at census.gov are any good, let's suggest some mapping strategies for any number of states. I'm guessing there won't be enough interest to break this into state-by-state threads.
It’s really unwise to try to go after Kind in Wisconsin.
Just let him be.
In WV, Capito’s district has to shrink while the other 2 have to grow. So it should be a hold.
Georgia:
I’ve been trying this.
A 10-4 map is easily possible.
An 11-3 map is possible.
I’ve been looking at the actual data...probably better to wait until the pros do it, but hey...
AL: 7th (Sewell) has to grow by almost 80K. Currently 6-1 Republican, closest one was the 2nd (Montgomery & Southeast). 7th could grow in that direction and shift the 3rd north.
AZ: Two hispanic districts here, 4th and 7th. 8th could be made more Democrat. The new district near metro Phoenix, R’s should have a good shot.
AR: 4th (Ross) has to add about 70K; probably can’t make it tilt R. Shifting it up into the current 1st makes it more Dem.
CA: The multipartisan commission could throw a lot of monkey wrenches in the system, but let’s see. Majority hispanic districts 18 (Cardoza D), 20 (Costa D), 21 (Nunes R), 28 (Berman D), 31 (Becerra D), 32 (Chu D), 34 (Roybal-Allard), 35 (Waters), 38 (Napolitano D), 39 (Sanchez D), 43 (Baca D), 47 (Sanchez D), 51 (Filner D).
Potential others: 17 (Farr D - Monterey),
23 (Capps D - its only chance of surviving is to become majority hispanic).
37 (Richardson D - LA County).
The two most populous districts are 44 (Calvert R, at 844K, 367K hispanic) and 45 (Bono-Mack R at 914K - 413K hispanic);
if they’re all concentrated in one part of the district, and they tend to vote Democrat, R’s could actually lose a seat out of this deal.
CO - 1st (Degette D) has to gain 56K, 7th (Perlmutter D) has to gain 40K. 2nd (Polis D) has to lose 15K, and 6th (Coffman R) has to lose 79K. The 7th is winnable.
FL: Majority black: 3rd (Brown) - has to add 37K population and 4K blacks, 17 (Wilson D), 23 (Hastings D)
Majority hispanic:
18 (Ros-Lehtinen R), 21 (Diaz-Balart R), and 25 (Rivera R).
The most populous districts are the 5th (Nugent R - north
of Tampa) and 14th (Mack R - Ft. Myers).
GA: Majority black: 4th (Johnson), 5th (Lewis), and 13th (Scott). 2nd (Bishop) is only 48%; could easily exchange territory with the 8th to get over 50% though.
Most populous is the 7th (Woodall R). The new district figures to be metro Atlanta, favoring R.
ID: 1st has to send 58K constituents to the 2nd.
IL: Majority black: 1, 2, 7. 7th needs to add 74K residents and 30K blacks; 1st needs to add 125K residents; 2nd needs to add 110K residents.
Majority hispanic: 4, which needs to add 112K residents.
The 8 contiguous seats in the Chicago area are 1.3M short — just enough for 6.13 seats. The 4th probably has to retain its odd shape; also the 7th, to remain majority black, has to shift south — forcing the 1st and 3rd to take about 120K residents from the 13th and the 2nd to take about 120K residents from the 11th.
The 4th, with its apparently high illegal alien population, elected Gutierrez with only 63K votes and can’t take on as much Republican territory as other districts.
So the 4th, 5th, and 9th shift north. Democrats did win the Lake County portion of the 10th and the Cook County portion of the 8th. So a Dold-Schakowsky matchup is possible, with Walsh possibly inheriting some unfriendly real estate.
IN: Discussed already
IA: None of the state’s 3 Dems won by a large margin, and each has to add at least 119K constituents. A Latham-Boswell or Latham-Braley matchup is possible.
KY: 1st should drop 36K to the 2nd (both R), 4th (R) needs to drop 18K and the 6th (narrow D) needs to drop 36K to the 5th.
LA: already agreed on a map I think — Landry and Boustany in the same district.
ME: nearly even already but they don’t put a new one in place until 2014.
This is best I came up with.
Current Texas delegation is 23-9. I smash up Gene Green's 29th (used to be 62% Obama, now 55% McCain), shored up Canseco (53% McCain) and Farenholdt (51% McCain) as much as possible.
I also created a new Dem district in Dallas, which has to be done. Should be 27-9.
MD - We’ve discussed this one already; my only new wrinkle is that it is realistically possible to put 2 black majority districts in Prince George-Montgomery-Charles....if that did happen, it would be hard for Steny Hoyer to hold his seat.
MA - largest district is 664K; smallest is 644K; the remaining 9 have to expand to 727-728K. The current delegation is 10-0 D.
Maryland - They plan to leave Bartlett alone, and combine the eastern shore with PG county blacks to try to sink Harris.
Massachusetts - The current map is an obvious gerrymander to avoid a Worcester County district, or a Plymouth/Cape Cod district. They’ll eliminate Lynch or Frank and just shift the rest of the districts.
MI - Black majority: 13 and 14; they need to add 342K residents and 74K blacks.
The 9th should be dissolved, and the 12th should absorb the Democrat parts of the 9th (southeastern). Thus, 13 and 14 will shift north, but that will leave enough white Dems in Wayne-Washtenaw for Dingell, and he wouldn’t even need Monroe County.
MN - 4 & 5 (Twin Cities) need to add about 95K. 3 (suburban Mpls) is about 13K short. Michelle Bachmann has 96K more constituents than she needs, and Kline has 70K more. The 1st (south) is about 18K short, and the 7th (west) is about 37K short.
MS - 2 (Delta) needs to add 74K. Thompson won’t be in any trouble though.
MO - It looks like the plan is to combine 1st (Clay) and 3rd (Carnahan). Cleaver (KC) needs to add 115K; won only 53-44.
NV - Clark County has enough for a majority hispanic district. That might make the 1st a bit more competitive, but I’d still look for a 2-2 split in the delegation.
NH - nearly even already.
NJ - 1st needs to add 63K. 2nd, 3rd, and 4th can either add 164K or lose 568K. However, the 6th and 12th cannot absorb even 1/2 of 568K so my guess is that the 6th will cede 164K.
The 10th needs to add 2K blacks and 98K residents; the 13th needs to add 20K hispanics and 48K residents.
The remnant of the 6th/12th is 474K, plus the 13th, 10th, 8th, and 9th gives 4.25 seats. But, Leonard Lance lost the Middlesex portion of the 7th, so I’d expect Dems to cut out at least 4.5 seats, and then match up Lance vs. Holt or maybe Pascrell or Rothman vs. Garrett.
NM - not too much change needed here. 1st is at 702K pop and 339K Hispanics (needs to be 686/343?); 2nd is at 663K/343K, and 3rd is at 693K/270K. Ironically enough, it’s the Anglo seat that’s represented by a Hispanic. 1st could gain some more of Santa Fe County (51% Hispanic) for Anglo areas in Sandoval or Torrance.
NY - A NYC-area seat will be lost and an upstate seat.
Majority black: 6, 10, 11. 6 needs to add 21K blacks and 66K residents. It is bordered by the 9th (only 34K blacks out of 660K in the district), the 5th (32/670), and the 4th (130/663). So most likely it has to expand into the 4th.
Suffolk get 2.08 seats (Bishop and Israel), and Nassau gets another 1.86 (King, McCarthy, Ackerman, and possibly Meeks will be nibbling away). So if King is safe, I’d say you’re looking at a McCarthy/Ackerman primary.
Majority hispanic: 16-Serrano (67%). Its neighbors are 15-Rangel (46% hispanic, 32% black; yes some are both) and 7-Crowley (44% hispanic).
Anyway, the 17th and 18th will need to take away about 135K of the current 19th. Connect the other 5 Republican districts and you’ve got 5 seats with 325K left over. But, if two Dems have to face each other in NYC then two R’s have to face each other upstate.
The 27th/28th (Buffalo/Rochester) Democrats need to add 195K of that. The 22nd (Lower Hudson-Ithaca) needs to add 38K and the 21st-23rd (Albany-Northway) needs to add 92K. Dems might prefer a Syracuse-Ithaca seat that would be very hard for Buerkle to hold.
NC:
Majority black: none. 1st is 49.6%, but has to add almost 100K population; 12th is 43.9%. So far as I know they were both above 50% at the start of the decade.
I think zendari’s 2nd try is closer to what needs to happen.
In order to get the 1st above 50% black it needs to take in some of Raleigh/Durham.
Getting the 12th above 50% black is somewhat problematic. Watt won comfortably, although everything between Charlotte and Winston-Salem voted against him.
I had thought about connecting Charlotte to Fayetteville instead. Anson County is 49% black; the 48th State House District in Hoke/Scotland is 45% black. You would need some thin strips through Union and Richmond Counties though.
You’d also have a majority white district stretching from Winston-Salem to roughly Raleigh that would favor the Democrats.
OH - Combine the Toledo/Cleveland/Youngstown seats from 5 down to 4, with 124K left over. The 14th has to use up 73K of that. The Cuyahoga portion of the 13th voted Republican.
OK - 4th (southwest) has to add almost 20K to the 2nd (east) and 3rd (northwest). It won’t cause Boren to lose.
OR - minor adjustments seem in order here among the 4 Dem seats.
PA - This map http://www.locklin.org/ suggests that the 14th needs to grow to the Northeast.
Tim Murphy of the 18th then faces Jason Altmire of the 4th. He must then cede some territory to the 12th — part of Westmoreland or Washington. Another Republican isn’t likely to get 70% of the vote in Western Washington; I’d recommend Westmoreland. Some additional tinkering may be necessary to make it harder for Critz to hold the 12th.
The 17th will likely stretch up I-81 to Scranton, possibly as far south as Harrisburg.
SC: Clyburn’s district should be made as Democrat as possible. This means splitting Joe Wilson’s district, but that’s OK — Tim Scott’s will get Beaufort and even Colleton from Clyburn (he lost this county), then Myrtle Beach will form the nugget of the new district. Dems may still have a chance here. I don’t think it’s realistic to make two black majority seats.
TN: 9th (Memphis) has to grow by almost 100K; it’s already majority black. 8th (northwest) has to grow by almost 50K; 6th (exurban Nashville) and 7th (west central) have to shrink by 80K+. I don’t expect too many major changes.
Democrats get the blue (CD-1), red (CD-4), peach (CD-13), and light blue (CD-12). We get the rest. 9-4
Toledo/Cleveland/Youngstown can actually be combined down from 5 to 3. Then you create a brand new CD in the city of Columbus.
OK - Sutton lost the Cuyahoga and Medina portions of her district. So combine Sutton-Ryan and then Kucinich-Fudge.
Also the 9th should take in as many Dems as possible in Lorain County.
Renacci would get a pretty big chunk of Cuyahoga County (definitely winnable - State House seats 16 17 18 are all R; unfortunately he’ll probably have to absorb 1.5 Dem state house seats - 14 was 64-36 D, 13 and 15 unopposed).
But then the district wouldn’t stretch to Canton-Akron.
Maybe shift Gibbs there, and then split up the 18th.
The 12th is at 756K, 35K over ideal size, but the adjoining
15th is 39K under, 7th is 38K under, 4th is 88K under, and the 18th (which I’m now planning to split up) is 68K under.
Columbus is Democrat so maybe you’re suggesting splitting it three ways instead of two.
1. Latta grabs a lot of the suburbs west of Toledo.
2. Kaptur grabs Lakewood/Lorain/Elyria City.
3. Fudge grabs the rest of Cleveland.
4. Warren, Akron, Youngstown, Kent, and Canton are all combined in Ryan's district.
5. You plop a brand new Dem CD on Columbus itself. Columbus is about 787k people, so 712k of that or so goes into this new CD.
So you’re putting Tiberi or Stivers up for a loss then?
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