Posted on 01/02/2012 5:14:27 PM PST by Impy
SEATTLE (AP) — With less than two hours to spare, members of the Washington State Redistricting Commission signed off on plans Sunday night that will reshape legislative and congressional maps for the next decade.
(Excerpt) Read more at seattlepi.com ...
Sounds like we made out okay.
The open (Jay Inslee) first district has been made more competitive and now contains the home of former CD-2 candidate John Koster. He is running there. It was already a pickup opportunity now it’s a much better one.
Of course that means Larsen doesn’t have to face Koster in the second, I don’t know whether that district is better or worse, probably worse since it some it’s rural areas shifted to the first.
The new 10th district is centered on rat Olympia, they will probably win it.
But that means the 3rd district of newly elected Republican Jaime Herrera Beutler has been made more Republican.
Dave Reichert’s 8th district was also made more Republican
The 9th district of rat Adam Smith is now majority-minority. He claims that warms his heart but it could mean primary challengers.
10th seat, huh. Add another democrap to the roster.
They will get the 10th seat but the GOP has a good chance to take the 1st district from them.
And 2 competitive Republican districts have been made safer.
So it will R +1 (5-5 tie) if we take the 1st, D+1 (6-4 D) if we fail.
Either way we aren’t likely to lose any of the seats we do have.
http://www.komonews.com/news/local/Redistricting-panel-OKs-new-political-maps-136520128.html
There’s the map. The 2nd looks safe rat.
Winning the 6th district if it’s ancient democrat occupant ever retires would be an interesting possibility. Strange district that one.
As a friend of mine put it, “If it means I don’t have to vote for Reichert, then I’m happy!”
Good ol’ Norm Dicks. The 6th is a heavily blue collar district(loggers, fishermen, Bremerton Shipyard, etc). Kitsap county is as corrupt, if not more so, than King county. It’s been demonrat controlled forever. Jefferson, Clallam, Grays Harbor are very clannish and suspicious of outsiders. I was a deputy sheriff in Jefferson county in the late 70s. They was a plenty of banjo strummin’ a goin’ on back then.
Clallam County is still the place to live!
Clallam County is still the place to live!
WA state ping
But, Clallam that voted for republicans over the two worhtless democrats (Tharinger and VandeWege), would have probably been much better off without the influence of Port Townsend. We did what we could. I think Gorton caved. They gave some concession on Inslee's district because he is going to maybe disappear after McKenna takes the Governor race and republican strength grows in the House of Representatives back in DeeCee after the national referendum on Obama's socialist agenda.
Jefferson yes, every election they are behind only King and San Juan counties(or San Juan and King) in support for the democrats.
Kind of “hicky” area eh? Politically unusual region. I’d figure the Olympic Peninsula ought to be trending Republican like most other 90% White areas.
It seems to me that very little of the current WA-01 is in the redrawn WA-01; most of Inslee’s CD appears to have been parceled off between the moonbat WA-07 and the now-safe-Dem WA-02 (Larsen was the biggest Dem winner in redistricting, unless he draws a primary challenger). The new WA-01 appears to be extremely marginal—I wouldn’t be surprised if the 2004 presidential vote went 50-50 there. And, yes, Herrera and (especially) Reichert have much more comfortably GOP CDs now. On the negative side, Rodgers’s WA-05 may no longer be safely Republican with Adams, Okanogan and part of Walla Walla Counties being excised; McCain got 52% in 2008 and Bush got 57% in 2004 under the current lines, but they probably got 51% and 55%, respectively, under the new lines.
So I agree with Impy that the likeliest results are a 5-5 delegation split or a 6-4 Dem edge, depending on who wins the redrawn WA-01. However, the WA-06 and perhaps the WA-10 could be winnable for the GOP (I’m guesstimating that under the new lines Bush got over 45% in WA-06 and around 44% in WA-10, although perhaps I’m underestimating Dem performance in the latter).
Overall, we couldn’t expect to do much better in WA, given how little leverage we had (if the GOP and Dem commission members hadn’t reached a compromise, the very liberal state supreme court would have taken over the process). I guess that Larsen really wanted that safe seat and WA Dems decided to give it to him and draw a new Dem CD in return for placing the two marginally GOP seats pretty much out of reach for them (at least for now), instead of rolling the dice with a court-drawn maps.
The new 1st is clearly the successor district of the current 2nd, they should have swapped the numbers.
I guess Larsen wanted to keep his district number much like a professional athlete would like the keep the same uniform number.
So are hippies the reason for Jefferson’s rat lean? Kind of like Vermont or Humboldt County California?
No doubt. Jefferson County is huge and rural with a population of about 1 person per sq mile. The city of Port Townsend is a small enclave consisting of almost all ultra liberal socialists that are very similar to the social culture of Santa Cruz or Berkeley. Much of their population is government dependent or supported by trusts. In the last election that district had over 90% voter turnout and votes 74% democrat.
Blue collar has usually leaned towards the rats. The logging industry is a ghost of it’s former self, so now the hippies are carrying water for the rats.
On a side note, it has been many years since I had to lay a steel flashlight alongside a logger’s head at the “Whistling O”(Oyster)tavern in Quilcene.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.