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.
Tiberi has a district. Stivers and Gibbs are combined.
You have to eliminate a Republican in any case.
Columbus has been split for years; I would say keep it that way. While it is growing and Dems have increased their chance of winning 1 (or 2 if it is split) seat, I would not hand them a victory like that unless I really had to.
The 12th and 15th, as they are currently configured, number 756K and almost 682K. An exchange of about 35K would make them ideal size. Tiberi won 56-41 and Stivers won 54-41. Yes, it was a good Republican year and at another time, the results would not have been so good.
Also I’m sure Dems themselves would prefer to keep one of their current incumbents.
Few issues:
1. I don’t care what the Democrats think. Right now there’s a lot of Republicans stuck in Kucinich and Sutton’s district. All the NE Dems can be crammed into 3 districts, not 4.
2. The Columbus split districts have already proven weak. We lost the 15th, and the Dem population there is growing. It’s much more logical to seal it off.
If there’s a House Republican looking to run against Sherrod Brown then that district should be eliminated.
TX:
black majority: none
Closest ones are 18 (38%) and 30 (42%). I think it is not possible to make 18 black majority. The best I could do was about 42%. 30 could get close, but it would be easier to make it majority hispanic than majority black.
Hispanic majority: 15, 16, 20, 23, 27, 28, 29
The 9th and 18th can be made majority hispanic.
The only other particularly close one I can see is 32, but I’m not sure it is possible if 30 is made majority hispanic.
More later...
The 16th (El Paso) must shrink by 59K (these figure to be mostly Democrats) and the only possible recipient is the 23rd, which stretches all the way to San Antonio. Canseco won only 49-44 - could donate Maverick, Dimmit, and Zavala to the 28th, but might also prefer to run in a new district closer to Metro San Antonio. The north end of the 28th and 15th voted Republican, but Fahrenhold (won 48-47) might prefer that territory as well.
Every county outside Travis voted against Doggett, but then the Travis County portion of the 10th voted Democrat also.
The 25th should be shrunk to entirely inside Travis, with the remainder forming the nucleus of a new district.
So, let’s see...we’ve got a new district southeast of San Antonio, unless Fahrenhold wants to run in it, in which case we have a new district in South Texas (Democrat). There is one east of San Antonio, unless Canseco wants to run in it, in which case we’ve got a new district in West Texas (Tossup?).
The 22nd (metro Houston) has to drop 212K, but there might not be quite enough growth for a new district. The 8th might get a suburban focus instead of a rural one, with the new district being the old 8th outside Montgomery County, with some extra from the 6th.
The 26th (metro Dallas) has to drop 216K, the neighboring 3rd has to drop 144K, the 12th has to drop 133K, and the 24th almost 100K. The 4th has to drop 148K. I don’t see this district necessarily favoring the Democrats.
http://gis1.tlc.state.tx.us/ has some plans under consideration.
It looks like Pate has a new 21st north of San Antonio (with Canseco and Smith in 28 & 35; Cuellar in 23), 33 in North Houston, 34 in Dallas, and 36 in South Texas - also an expanded 9th - my guess is that it’s more favorable to Republicans.
GRIT 1 has Barton in 34, with a new 6th near Ft. Worth; 33 in north exurban Dallas, 36 in Houston, 35 in east exurban SA.
Owens has 33 in Dallas, Flores in 35 and a new 17th in south exurban Dallas, 36 in Houston, and 34 in South Texas.
GRIT 2 is similar to GRIT 1 but has Fahrenhold in 35, with a new 27th in South Texas.
New District in DFW really has to go to the Democrats.
Dallas + Tarrant County combined voted for Obama, and we only have 1 Democratic district there. If you don’t draw a 2nd Democratic district, we’ll lose 24, 26, 32, and possibly 3 by the end of the decade. New District basically connects all the Democrats in FT. Worth to those in West Dallas County.
My Texas map is better than both of the GRIT ones, IMO.
I would not regress too heavily on the Obama-McCain race. I recall Michael Barone saying there were a lot of areas that ordinarily vote Republican that voted for Obama.
House Republicans in ‘10 took 56%, and that’s not even counting the 24th (Marchant was unopposed).
For the TX State Representatives in ‘10, the count was 57% R. 25 Seats, 17-8 R. Average population of the 8 Dem seats: 148059. Average population of the 17 R seats 167282.
Iowa is done. Latham and King are in the new 4th, but Latham is moving to challenge Boswell in the 3rd. Braley and Loebsack are in the new 1st, but Loebsack is moving to the empty 2nd.
UT - there’s probably no way to make a mistake here. It’s been impossible to unseat Matheson so maybe the best thing to do is to put him in a Salt Lake City district. Then Bishop in the northern exurbs, and Chaffetz in the southern exurbs. The new district could be the majority of the outstate, but even that one would have to borrow some from at least one of the 4 most populous counties.
VA - a hispanic district could be drawn in Northern Virginia. Either way I’d look for 2 Dem districts there.
There’s split control here so compromises have to be made.
9th (Southwest) has to expand by 71K+. Griffith won narrowly. The only places to expand to are the 6th (Shenandoah) and 5th (South Central). 6th was unopposed, 5th also won narrowly.
8th (Arlington-Alexandria) actually has to gain 26K+, and then the adjoining 11th has to drop 65K and the adjoining 10th has to drop 142K. Prince William in the 11th went Republican so that’s where the drop will be.
2nd (Delmarva peninsula - Va Beach) has to add 81K. It borders the 3rd and the 4th. Maybe it legally borders the 1st with Chesapeake Bay. Also it takes in a bit of Hampton so it could build on the western shore that way.
WA - Republican seats 3-4-5-8 total 4.59 seats. But Thurston and Pacific in the 3rd voted Democrat, bringing that down to 4.34 seats; removing them pushes the 3rd from a 107K excess to a 57K deficiency. The 8th has a 138K excess, so I’d expect the 3rd to expand into Pierce County. The new 10th might have a Thurston County (Olympia) focus. Dems might also try to weaken the 8th (52-48).
WI - only minor adjustments needed here.
AR is done. No crashes here — it would appear incumbents are in good shape but I haven’t looked at it too closely.
Utah: Split Salt Lake City into 4 rather than 2. Matheson loses.
VA - Supposedly there was a deal to let the Democrats draw the Senate map, and the GOP draw the House/Congressional map. That fell through, though, so its now up for grabs.
In Virginia, though, Congressional maps can wait until 2012. If the GOP wins control of the state senate in 2011, we can draw our own map.
Virginia should be 8-3; Connolly’s seat will be ceded and Scott’s 3rd will be packed.
IN is nearly done. I don’t see any differences between the two maps but maybe there are some:
http://www.in.gov/legislative/senate_republicans/files/Proposed-Congressional.jpg
http://www.in.gov/legislative/house_republicans/rd/pdfs/Congressional.pdf
Yeah, its tolerable, but not great.
We could draw a much stronger 7-2 map.
It appears to me that the blackest possible district outside metro Atlanta would stretch from Augusta through Macon to Albany, with some wiggle room as to the exact borders. It could generally follow county lines.
But there would be enough constituents south of the Black Belt for only 2 seats. That would put Kingston and Barrow in the same district. Barrow would carry Savannah but that’s about it. Then Austin Scott would get SW Georgia.
Metro Atlanta would still get a new seat, but the other one would likely have a Columbus focus. House Democrats did carry Muscogee County by 7-8K votes, but did well enough outside that county to hold the advantage.
I made a slight miscalculation — it’s more like 2.5 seats south of the Georgia Black Belt. So you could give Barrow and Kingston their own seats, and then let the new 8th wrap around the southwest corner — Quitman, Clay, and Stewart are Dem but only a few hundred votes — easily outweighed by Decatur, Grady, and Thomas. The new 2nd goes from 48% black and having to add 60K residents to 55% black, breaking few if any county lines, and nearly ideal population.
Stan Rosenberg of Amherst is on the committee and is good friends with John Olver, the Berkshires' congressman, so he's going to try to maintain two seats in Western Mass.
Howie Carr keeps saying that there just aren't enough people out there to make that work. Olver's district extends from the New York border to the suburbs of Lowell -- an exaggeration, but not much of one.
The earlier talk was that Barney Frank might be the one to lose his district, with New Bedford thrown in with the Cape district and his Boston-Newton territory tossed in with one of the Boston area districts. Maybe the committee will go that way, though Frank must have a lot of clout in the party by now.
Maybe you’re right. Berkshire 131K; Franklin 71K; Hampden 463K; Hampshire 158K - Total 824K, enough for 1 CD plus 96646 left over. Worcester Co. is 798K+. If the 3rd goes west from Worcester, it could capture Springfield. Then other CD’s would have to mop up the remaining 168K of Worcester County.
You can actually redistrict Bishop out as well. I prefer to do exactly that.
Obama’s Justice Dept. would approve that?
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