Sunday, April 24, 2011

Ohio Democratic Gerrymander

Editor's Note: First posted at the SwingStateProject on January 14th, 2010.

OH could certainly use quite a bit of work and has been a state I've been working with off and on. I know nothing about OH, Ive driven through it once and I know a few people from there, so the map could probably use some tweeks in trading certain cities for others to ensure a maximum Democratic effect. But Im pretty sure my map would create 9 solid Dem districts, 5 solid Dem districts, and 2 swingish districts.

I decided the two I'd get rid of was Schmidt and Kucinich. I figured it'd be an even trade, our extreme lefty for your extreme righty.

Southern OH

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Blue: OH-1
Rep. Dreihaus vs Rep. Schmidt
Should be a safe district now that it is all of Cincinnati and is contained to Hamilton county. I threw in Schmidt's residence here just to make sure she'd have to move to run against an incumbent if she wanted to represent part of her old district again.

Lilac: OH-8
Rep. Boehner
Another safe district for Boehner with it no longer taking in apart of Dayton.

Purple: OH-3
Rep. Turner
This districts now goes closer back to it's 90's version, taking in all of Montgomery county and it reaches up grab the city of Springfield in Clark county. This makes it a toss-up seat that leans slight Democratic probably.

Periwinkle: OH-12
Rep. Tiberi
Tiberi is now given an extremely safe GOP district that is suburban and exurban Columbus.

Orange: OH-15
Rep. Kilroy
She now gets a safe district entirely within Franklin county.

Turquoise: OH-6
Rep. Wilson
This district keeps its southeastern Applachia roots, and then is given a chunk of Columbus to make it a solid D district.

Grey: OH-7
Rep. Austria
He lives just on the edge of the district over in the Dayton suburb of Beavecreek. It combines a lot of Schmidt's old territory, not as much of his own, but meh, people dont like Schmidt but they can respect Austria.

OH-2
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Green: OH-2
Rep. Space
This district nows moves up to pick up Canton, and also some swing counties that are in OH-6 which should make a district that'll lean our way even in an open seat situation.

Northwestern OH
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Red: OH-4
Rep. Jordan
Not much change here.

Yellow: OH-5
Rep. Latta
Again, not much change here.

Cyan: OH-9
Rep. Kaptur
Looses parts of Lorain county and becomes more compact. It may have dipped a point or two but any Democrat should be just fine here.

Northeastern OH

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Peach: OH-13
Rep. Sutton
Loses its parts of Akron and picks up territory left open from the elimination of Kucinich's district and also more of Lorain county. Should be fine for a Democrat.

Pale Lime Green: OH-11
Rep. Fudge
I couldnt manage to keep a black majority seat due to it needing to expand, so its 48% AA and 42% white. Fudge should still be fine, both with an AA advantage and as an incumbent.

Olive: OH-14
Rep. LaTourette
This is one seat I dont know how I did with as I dont really know how how the Cleveland suburbs vote. I assume I kept it as a swing district, and probably helped it a bit with taking in more suburbs closer in to the city.

Pink: OH-10
Rep. Ryan
He loses parts of Akron which makes his district a bit more Republican, but it's still quite a safe Democratic district.

Lime Green: OH-16
Rep. Boccieri
His district now takes in all of Akron, which makes this seat solidly Democratic now. I saw this as a bit of a switheroo, Space gets Canton, Boccieri gets Akron, and then Sutton and Ryan get slightly more disfavorable districts.
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Saturday, April 23, 2011

MN Redistricting: Clark/Bonoff Edition

Editor's Note: First posted at the SwingStateProject on October 6th, 2009.

This is a map I decided to make for Clark in MN-6 and Bonoff in MN-3, both have been solid legislators, have won swingy state senate districts, one in a district we could simply use a little more help winning and another where the incumbent is so ridiculous we’ve got a great shot.

Then, after I did that portion of the map, I decided to see if I could make an MN-7 that voted for Obama through gerrymandering. Delegation I have envisioned for these seats, would be 1 Blue Dog, 6 liberals, and 1 Texan.

I would certainly never advocate for the Greater Minnesota districts to actually take this shape as the gerrymanders shift the margins by mere percentages and none make or break an incumbent's re-election chances. It was just for fun!

The metro area districts, though, are something I'd heavily advocate for (with of course some tweaking and less gerrymandering). The metro area was butchered by the courts when they drew the lines for us this last time as MN2,3&6, while having at least half of their populations based in the suburbs, all have exurban and rural territory that make winning these districts quite tough if not impossible in the case of MN-2 and if it weren't for Bachmann, MN-6 as well. I instead wanted to keep the metro area in the metro area with MN3-6 having Minneapolis/St Paul and all of its suburbs and making MN-2 the de facto exurban district, and then keeping MN1,7&8 as rural as possible, with some encroachment to the metro as the rural areas lose population.

I did the population on Dave’s and then did the vote totals by asking the MN SoS office for an excel spreadsheet with all the vote totals. I then made an excel spreadsheet that had all the municipalities of my districts, and then literally cut and paste every precinct from the results spreadsheet into a new one for the totals. Only took a couple of hours as everything was divided by county so I could cruise through counties I didn’t break up.

Clark/Bonoff map

Map with county lines for those who know where stuff is and curious to see how it all lined up. The map with the county lines also has a zoomed version of the metro area, as I figured a zoomed in area would be quite helpful with county lines.

MN-1: Rep. Walz
49/48 Obama
This district doesn't change too much. It trades out some mainly Republican precincts in the southwest to make room for the MN-7 gerrymander, which makes it move a bit more north on the east side. Still all farmland, still all Walz's.

MN-2: OPEN
40/58 McCain
This is an open seat that takes in every piece of Republican territory as I could possibly make it with there being less than 10 Dem precincts in the whole district. The exurbs are what form the main block of the district and then all the gerrymandering is it picking up as much of the Red River Valley as I could before reaching the population max. It takes in strongly Republican Meeker, McLeod, and Sibley counties from MN-7, Benton, parts of Sherburne, Stearns, and Wright from MN-6, and then the gerrymanders are Todd and Otter Tail County, Douglas and Stevens county, the middle is giving the city of Litchfield to MN-7 in exchange for Republican parts of Kandiyohi county, and then the bottom snaking piece is Brown and Redwood counties. I’d estimate that the exurban areas account for a solid 70%-80% of the district and then the rural areas make up the rest. Kline no longer lives in this district as he lives in a suburb and is thus included in a different district.

MN-3: Rep. Paulsen
57/41 Obama
This district is designed for Bonoff and she is a solid bet to win here. The district is no longer a west metro district but now a south metro district. I didnt really like the shape I had to give it as Bonoff lives in Minnetonka, a suburb directly west of Minneapolis. It takes in everything bordering Minneapolis south of New Hope/Crystal, giving it a few suburbs that vote 2-1 DFL, suburbs from the old MN-3 like Edina, Eden Prarie (where Paulsen lives) and Bloomington and then moves east to pick-up Apple Valley, Burnsville, Eagan, and then the little gerrymander is picking up the main parts of Cottage Grove. The northern part of Dakota County that are 2-1 DFL suburbs are also thrown in for good measure. The district no longer picks up exurban Hennepin County and is strictly suburban, which is what makes it such a solid district. I have a hunch if I looked at the 2004 numbers, the shift to 50/50 would be rather large as the district has shifted a lot since then.

MN-4: Rep. McCollum vs. Rep. Bachmann vs. Rep Kline
61/37 Obama
The district needed to expand south to pick-up population taken by MN-3 and MN-6 that took in the inner St Paul suburbs. It takes in more of the Washington county suburbs, including Woodbury where Bachmann lives. It then picks up the last ring of suburbs south of MN-3, which includes Lakeville where Kline resides. McCollum is still quite safe in this district. The areas that she picked up, while more Republican, are quickly shifting to the Democrats as these former exurbs turn into suburbs, which will make the district just as Democratic as it was within a decade, easily. This means that within a decade when that area south of MN-3 is full-fledge suburban territory and votes like the other suburbs, I'd give those areas to MN-3 to make the two districts less gerrymandered.

MN-5: Rep. Ellison
68/30 Obama
Still containing Minneapolis, the district is now gerrymandered to pick up other cities besides the ones immediately bordering it pretty much. It connects to the western suburbs through New Hope, Crystal, and Robbinsdale, suburbs that are a bit of an oddity in that they don’t vote 2-1 DFL considering their locale to Minneapolis. The district then pick-ups up Plymouth to the west and then goes to pick-up the Lake Minnetonka area suburbs a little more west and south from there. (A couple of exurbs sneak in there as well.) It moves even futher south into Scott County to pick-up the three suburbs there for population purposes. This cuts the margin by 12% yet the district still maintains it's 13% black population. I do like that I added Lake Minnetonka as Minneapolis is littered with lakes and has some of the most gorgeous (and biggest) houses in the metro. A black Muslim being able to win, sure it’s questionable, but I think he’ll be fine. A Democrat will certainly win this district and Ellison will clearly have a huge upper-hand in a primary and endorsement. Minneapolis is 62% of this district's population, plus many of these suburbs are shifting quickly as they grow in population.

MN-6: OPEN
52/46 Obama
This district is designed for Clark who is running against Bachmann. This district connects St Cloud (where Clark lives) down to the northwest suburbs which really makes sense as this district exactly follows HWY 10 and the new commuter light rail that’s going in (only half of it is opening in a month and the other half to St Cloud will open in a few years). While it looks kind of gerrymandered, when it comes to community of interests, this is one entire suburban and travel corridor and probably would be one of the best districts in the state for the community of interests argument, if not country. St. Cloud is swingish/Dem leaning and is roughly 65k population. I included the suburbs around St. Cloud as well, which went 55/45 McCain to 50/50. Reason for this is there aren't any other blue areas to pick-up and Clark should be able to do well due to hometown advantage. The district then heads southeast, goes through some exurbs that are exploding in population thus no longer making them like 75% GOP. The suburbs NW of Minneapolis have rapidly shifted to leaning Dem and the inner suburbs go 2-1 DFL. This kind of takes over for MN-3 and becomes the swing-suburban seat.

MN-7: Rep. Peterson
50/47 Obama
Yes, I made an Obama/Peterson district! Ok, it took some creativity and made me have to silence the "good government" in me, but Obama did indeed win this district. It keeps the main part of the district but now MN-2 cuts into it to take in as many Republican votes as possible, which gave me room to create that tendril. The tendril picks up St Peter which has Gustavus college, Democratic Faribault city, Northfield, which has St. Olaf college and Carleton college (for Golden Girls fans, Rose is from St Olaf MN, which is way up in Otter Tail County and is not related to the college), snakes up Dakota County to pick-up Hastings, and then on up to Stillwater. The district did use to pick up Red Wing but then I decided to give that to MN-1 to ungerrymander a little and to give some votes back to Walz, who is the one who got hurt the most by Peterson getting a safer district. At the north end, the gerrymander with MN-8 is for MN-8 to pick-up the more Republican parts of the North Country, with MN-7 taking in Bemidji.

MN-8: Rep. Oberstar
53/44 Obama
This district changes very little. It adds a percentage point to the Dems as MN-2 also took in some Republican parts from MN-8. The district does start venturing into exurban/suburban territory at the south end but that is somewhat unavoidable as the rural areas are shrinking and the suburbs growing. The district is still based in Duluth and the Iron Range, anchoring it down as a DFL seat.
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The Hat Trick in Senate Elections

Editor's Note: First posted at the SwingStateProject on September 3rd, 2009.

Random question I wanted answered, how often does a party gain seats in the Senate while managing to defend all of their own seats two cycles in a row.

What I found was really interesting as it's only happened one time before since we began electing Senators and what I found could be very indicative to the future of the Democratic Party.

The 17th Amendment, which made Senator an elected position, was implemented in 1914 so that is where I start. I also attempt to explain why a certain party had the advantage in said election and how they managed to get such a sweep.

1914Dem+5Huge Republican gains in House which contrasts Senate gains for Dems, ?
1920Rep+10Large Republican wave coinciding with Harding's first win and Wilson's unpopularity
1926Dem+6Midterm through second term for Harding Coolidge's term
1928Rep+7Republican wave coinciding with strong economy and Hoover's first win
1932Dem+12FDR's win and the Great Depression causes huge wave
1934Dem+9Last class of GOP Senators to be up after Dem dominance so still cleaning house
1938Rep+6Midterm through FDR's second term
1942Rep+9Midterm through FDR's third term
1946Rep+12Referendum on extremely unpopular Truman in his first mid-term
1948Dem+9Truman bounceback, campaigned on obstructionist Congress so large focus there
1958Dem+13Mid-term through Eisenhower's second term
1980Rep+12Landslide Reagan election
1990Dem+1Not indicative of anything except incumbency rules, go Wellstone!
1994Rep+8Electorate sick of Democrats and not happy with Clinton
2006Dem+6Mid-term through Bush's second term
2008Dem+8Landslide election for Obama, referendum on Bush still


As you can see, doing it twice in a row has only occurred only one other time, in 1932 and 1934.

The first thing to observe is that one-sided gain largely occurs in wave elections and few times else, coinciding with mid-term anti ruling feelings or wins coinciding with the winning presidential candidate's party. And these one sided gains are generally pretty large.

With the distinction of these being wave elections, then there are instances where the power of a wave election can be nulled, when the incumbent never won a general election or when the incumbent has become a flawed candidate and also when the seat is open and candidate recruitment trumps national trend.

There are four such elections where large, bloodless gains were made and the opposing party was able to capture a seat. They all feature the above characteristics of massive gains and wave elections and they all featured the opposite party only gaining one other seat with my above exceptions. In 1924, the GOP gains five seats but also loses NM, where the GOP incumbent was appointed, won a special election in September but then lost his election to a full term three years later. 1986 wouldve been nine seats for the Dems if it hadn't been for an open MO seat where former Gov. Bond beat the current Lt. Gov, so candidate recruitment mainly.

In 1930 the Dems gained eight seats but lost IA where the Dem incumbent actually lost the election 6 years earlier by just under 1,000 votes but he challenged the election and the Senate seated him instead of the GOP winner, who eventually won in 1930. And in 1936, the Democrats captured six but lost their open seat in Massachusetts with a crappy candidate who FDR wouldn't even endorse.

While the current political climate certainly isnt portraying this, the overall political climate we are living through is similar only to that of the 1930's, when there was the realignment from the Republicans to the Democrats, a realignment that was deep and affected our country until the conservative resurgence with Reagan. And even with the conservative resurgence, there was never a two-cycle interval where the Republicans dominated the Democrats in such a manner, which leaves me to believe that they never had a realignment, they instead got a good two to three decade run to __________ (insert various ways they screwed up.)

If you include 1930 and 1936, then the Democrats enjoyed four consecutive cycles of bloodless Senate gains amounting in 35 Republican seats being flipped, but by the numbers, the two times in the history of Senate elections where a party has gained seats while losing none of their own are 1932 and 1934, and 2006 and 2008, with this occurrence almost always coinciding with wave elections and them being huge gains. Again, if you include 1930 and 1936, they all seems to synch up. 2006/1930 pissed off electorate voting out incumbent party, 2008/1932 was solidifying these gains and electing a Dem president, and then hopeful thinking would be 2010/1934, large gains to finally get rid of that class of Senators who need to be Democrat-ified, and then 2012/1936 some more gains while re-electing Dem president.

What I think is most interesting is the process of the Republicans gaining back all of these losses after the hey-day of the early 30’s. The three mid-term elections starting with FDR’s second resulted in large, bloodless gains by the GOP and coincided with each of the three Senate classes, giving the GOP a chance to reclaim their loss seats from every class in a mid-term. This model then would show large losses in 2014, 2018, and 2022.

So with my question answered, it turns out that Schumer and Menendez could make history if the current political climate shapes up in our favor and we can manage to capitalize on the Senate map we've got for this cycle. It's certainly still quite doable but every poll makes the likelihood of the hat trick a bit dimmer. But, the larger take away message I got from researching this was that regardless of what happens in the mid-term elections, the only comparable period in Senate elections to the one we just currently went through are that of the progressive revolution in the 1930's, so give yourself a pat on the back all, we're back and ready to start taking names and kicking asses.
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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.



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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. WalzPop.2008200820042004
Total65155750/45.551/4748/5247/51
Pop.ObamaMcCainKerryBush
Houston County1951554444851
Winona County4980258395246
Watonwan County1102249484553
Steele County3637846515643
Dodge County1955244544257
Wabasha County2178347504752
Olmsted County7647051474752
Mower County3804060376138
Freeborn County3125757415544
Waseca County1952845534356
Blue Earth County5980255424851
Nicollet County3168054445049
Martin County2046241564257
Brown County2601343553761
Murray County851149484454
Jackson County1088347514652
Cottonwood County1134946524356
Nobles County2012848504256
Pipestone County930542553861
Rock County949842563960
Faribault County1486946514355
Fillmore County2103753444950
Lincoln County587749484752
Redwood County1551942553862


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. KlinePop.2008200820042004
Total65185540/5848/5038/60.545/54
Pop.ObamaMcCainKerryBush
Wright County11737240583861
Scott County62113395937.561.5
Carver County8845941.5573663
Dakota County3871844543960
Sherburne County8628739583960
Stearns County8658640554058
Benton County588136613663
Hennepin County7286937623761
Anoka County5464940584059
Isanti County3892141564158

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 OPENPop.2008200820042004
Total65030057/4152/4653/46.548/51
Pop.ObamaMcCainKerryBush
Hennepin County4870085840.55446
Anoka County16329253435148

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. McCollumPop.2008200820042004
Total65147561/3864/3458.5/4062/37
Pop.ObamaMcCainKerryBush
Ramsey County4681476631.563.535
Washington County79263475144.555
Anoka County10406543554257


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. EllisonPop.2008200820042004
Total64757769/2974/2465/3371/28
Pop.ObamaMcCainKerryBush
Hennepin County58304871276731
Scott County6425948504257


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 OPENPop.2008200820042004
Total64895853/4545/5349.5/49.342/57
Pop.ObamaMcCainKerryBush
Washington County181743544449.549.4
Dakota County3276775245.54950
Ramsey County3174459395742
Goodhue County4583948504751
Rice County1738155435345


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. PetersonPop.2008200820042004
Total64851947/5047/5043/55.543/55.4
Pop.ObamaMcCainKerryBush
Kittson County450558405049
Traverse County371251464850
Stevens County962449484751
Swift County1119255425543
Todd County2402943544157
Yellow Medicine County1000051464950
Lake of the Woods County409542603860
Marshall County961849484257
Becker County3196445524058
Polk County3070851474356
Pope County1106551474949
Clearwater County824544544356
Red Lake County411851454454
Mahnomen County512961365345
Pennington County1375650484454
Clay County5483557414752
Otter Tail County5703142553761
Douglas County3607544544454
Grant County602151464950
Big Stone County538552465048
Lac qui Parle County725852465346
Renville County1613248494553
Lyon County2469548504257
Beltrami County4360954445048
Roseau County1594640583168
Chippewa County1246552465247
Wilkin County641845523365
Sibley County1500745523959
McLeod County3722038583762
Meeker County2321143544356
Kandiyohi County4078446524455
Norman County668562354751
Hubbard County1837642564257
Wadena County1338240583959
Le Seur County2803447514554
Stearns County7785366235.563


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. OberstarPop.2008200820042004
Total64978054/4453/4553/4553/46
Pop.ObamaMcCainKerryBush
Cook County539860375345
Lake County1074160386039
St. Louis County20052865336534
Carlton County3389362356336
Pine County22816449485049
Koochiching County1345954445048
Itasca County4454255425544
Cass County2872345534356
Crow Wing County6164845534257
Morrison County3273339584158
Mille Lacs County2635445524355
Kanabec County1609044534455
Aitkin County1591048.748.84851
Chisago County5012844544356
Benton County3362345524553
Stearns County5168053455148


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.
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First Redistricting Project: DFL Gerrymander with 7 seats

Editors Note: First posted at the SwingStateProject on June 20th, 2009. This was done before Dave's Redistrict App supported Minnesota and was done through county population estimates, city population estimates, and excel spreadsheets of election results provided by the Secretary of State's office.


Minnesota is going to possibly lose a seat and with a DFL governor, we'll be able to do some damage. These districts should pass any compactness laws as nothing is gerrymandered beyond unacceptability. My 8 seat map is in the works and near done and both of these maps reflect what I think is possible and appropriate for Minnesota, all Dem seats with one GOP dump district.

Photobucket


Map with county lines can be found here

I figured I had three options with Minneapolis/St. Paul. 1. Put each in their own CD and have to expand them, which meant expanding into more Dem friendly suburbs, which in turn would mean I would end up strengthening Paulsen. 2. Put them both into the same CD, making one uber D+35-like district which would then leave behind all Dem burbs currently in the two districts plus a little bit of one of the cities. I could then gerrymander two suburban seats into two Dem-leaning districts, most likely. But McCollum lives in a burb just outside of St Paul so while it wouldnt make an Ellison v McCollum, it would mean her district being gerrymandered to be really Dem and then Paulsen would just get beefed up in return as a consequence. I could put Ellison in a suburban district but well, that'd never work for him. McCollum could survive it fine probably. And option 3, which I chose, was to divide up MSP into three districts and pair them with adjacent suburbs, creating 3 solid Dem seats.

I will say at first, doing it this way REALLY bugged me but I was being politically minded, I looked at this and thought, that would never happen. Quite frankly, I think it would have a decent shot after I've sat on it. The map doesn't look messed up, it puts the cities and suburbs all compactly into three districts and the other districts all make perfect sense. It's compact, simple, but really does a lot of damage. You just have to get past Minneapolis dominating two districts.

As for the tables, the first 2008 is new the district's 2008 total, the second is former districts. I also did the 2004 totals since many of you asked in other redistrictings what they would be. And then are the county totals for each one so one would know where to watch for votes and such.

MN-1 Rep. WalzPop.2008200820042004
Total74022852/4751/4748.5/5147/51
Pop.ObamaMcCainKerryBush
Houston County1951554444851
Winona County49802585248.849.3
Watonwan County7535534447.548
Steele County3637846515643
Dodge County1955244544257
Wabasha County2178347504752
Olmsted County7647051474752
Mower County3804060376138
Freeborn County3125757415544
Waseca County1952845534356
Blue Earth County5980255424851
Nicollet County3168054445049
Dakota County12190946524357


MN-1 is now more based in the southeast corner and is almost indentical to the 1990's lines (it just worked out that way), this makes it 1% more for Obama as the southwestern rural counties are the Republican ones while the southeast is heavily DFL. It now includes some of exurban MSP, but still keeps its rural district title. Walz lives on the edge of the district and should still be quite safe.

MN-2 OPENPop.2008200820042004
Total73628342/5648/5038/6145/54
Pop.ObamaMcCainKerryBush
Wright County11287040583861
Scott County12664244554060
Carver County7507542573663
Sherburne County7812739603762
Stearns County8103739583860
Anoka County13204441574059
Washington County733643563960

I combined all the exurban Republican counties from Kline and Bachmann's districts as they are by far the most Republican in the state and a great population base. Also, the district took in parts of Hennepin county for population and gerrymandering purposes. The areas it picked up are exurban for the most part and are extremely Republican, the Lake Minnetonka cities (but not Minnetonka) and also Maple Grove had to be included, and these suburbs lean pretty heavily GOP, as well.

Kline now lives in CD1 but the city he lives in, Lakeville, borders CD2. I would assume he'd opt to run in the new CD2 as he would certainly not beat Walz and the territory of his included in CD1 are his least favorable counties, and nor would he let Bachmann simply claim CD2 as hers. Bachmann's district is simply gone and I would assume she'd move to run here, which means that I may not have eliminated Bachmann, but actually strengthened her, depending if she could win the primary. Bachmann could dominate in the caucuses and probably get the GOP endorsement but primary voters would probably be more apt to voting for Kline. This is a consequence we can live with as at least someone got eliminated still and she is a good fundraiser for us.

MN-3 Rep. PaulsenPop.2008200820042004
Total73925761/3652/4657/41.548/51
Pop.ObamaMcCainKerryBush
Hennepin County48934065336038
Dakota County24991752425148


This district combines Edina, Eden Prarie,, part of Minnetonka, Bloomington, southern Minneapolis and also Eagan in Dakota County. All of the suburbs are trending Democratic with most of the areas in the district voting for Obama, but also voting for Paulsen, except for Bloomington which went Madia. Paulsen lives in Eden Prairie and would be in this district, but would certainly get his ass kicked by just about any Dem challenger. This district is now solid Dem, whatever the political climate.


MN-4 Rep. McCollumPop.2008200820042004
Total73960382760/3664/3458.5/4062/37
Pop.ObamaMcCainKerryBush
Ramsey County49989166326336
Washington County19931853454950
Dakota County2212658396137
Anoka County1809849.248.64455

This district stays pretty much the same except for it adds most of Washington county. I initially divided MSP up three ways perfectly with some of the St. Paul state house seats going to CD5 but this district then dipped below 60% for Obama. I wanted to maintain at least 60% in CD4&5 so this district maintains all of it's Ramsey county territory and largely is a St. Paul+burbs district still.

MN-5 Rep. EllisonPop.2008200820042004
Total74061162/35.574/2460/4071/28
Pop.ObamaMcCainKerryBush
Hennepin County56945965336137.5
Anoka County17115253454950


This district takes in the north half of Minneapolis (where Ellison resides) and includes all the suburbs to the west and then also to the north in Anoka County of Minneapolis, and then also picks up suburbs on the Hennepin/Anoka border and also Blaine. Everything except Maple Grove and Plymouth are Democratic in Hennepin while the Anoka areas vary with Dem leaning to slight Repub suburbs. Keith Ellison is really liberal but doesn't cause very many waves and would still be safe here.

MN-6 Rep. PetersonPop.2008200820042004
Total73708747/5147/5043/5543/55
Pop.ObamaMcCainKerryBush
Kittson County450558405049
Traverse County371251464850
Stevens County962449484751
Swift County1119255425543
Todd County437843544157
Yellow Medicine County1000051464950
Lake of the Woods County409542553860
Marshall County961849484257
Becker County3196445524058
Polk County3070851474356
Pope County1106551474949
Clearwater County824544544356
Red Lake County411851454454
Mahnomen County512961365345
Pennington County1375650484454
Clay County5483557414752
Otter Tail County5703142553761
Douglas County3607544544454
Grant County602151464950
Big Stone County538552465048
Lac qui Parle County725852465346
Renville County1613248494553
Lyon County2469548504257
Beltrami County4360954445048
Roseau County1594640583168
Chippewa County1246552465247
Wilkin County641845523365
Sibley County1500745523959
Kandiyohi County4078446524455
Norman County668562354751
Hubbard County1878142564257
Wadena County1338240583959
McLeod County9603405736.562
Meeker County2321143544356
Le Seur County2803447514554
Stearns County246555434951
Wright County450248504851
Martin County2046241564257
Brown County2601343553761
Murray County851149484454
Jackson County1088347514652
Cottwonwood County1134946524356
Nobles County2012848504256
Pipestone County930542553861
Rock County949842563960
Faribault County1486946514355
Fillmore County2103753444950
Lincoln County587749484752
Redwood County1551942553862
Watonwan County348741563860


This is the old MN-7 with it having the same base and will have the same congresscritter. The district had to expand and the only option was into CD1 as CD2 areas are way Republican and the old CD8 is a northern Iron Range district that consistently elect a pretty progressive Dem. (Oberstar is a lot more liberal than one would think based off the district.) I managed to only make this district a tick more Republican, which is pretty good considering the areas to expand were all Republican.

MN-7 Rep. OberstarPop.2008200820042004
Total73713553/4453/4552/4653/46
Cook County539860375345
Lake County1074160386039
St. Louis County20052865336534
Carlton County3389362356336
Pine County22816449485049
Koochiching County1345954445048
ItascaCounty4454255425544
Cass County2872345534356
Crow Wing County6164845534257
Morrison County3273339584158
Mille Lacs County2635445524355
Kanabec County1609044534455
Aitkin County1591049494851
Chisago County5012844544356
Isanti County3892141564158
Benton County3950444534455
Stearns County6254953465048
Sherburne County816057405642
Washington County765543514257

This is the old CD8 with its base up north in Duluth and on the Iron Range. Unlike what many have done, I left it completely intact except by removing Bemidji. I put in St. Cloud and then also included the colleges St. Ben's and St. John's which are blue. It was tricky to figure out where to put St. Cloud since it is +2000 votes for Obama but the counties attached to it are all so Republian. The district had to pick up counties south for population and I managed to make it a tick less Republican. Oberstar is safe and so is his successor, House Majority Leader Sertich. He could be speaker if Kelliher runs for governor, and he's young so it'll be in our hands for the next 50 years guaranteed.
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