First Redistricting Project: DFL Gerrymander with 8 Seats

Editors Note: First posted at the SwingStateProject on July 25th, 2009, now with some edits. This was done before Dave's Redistrict App supported Minnesota and was completed through county population estimates, city population estimates, and excel spreadsheets of election results provided by the Secretary of State's office. All information is compiled in an Excel Spreadsheet.

This is the eight seat version of the DFL gerrymander I worked on.





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.