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2010 Census: Who Gains, Who Loses

by: James L.

Thu Nov 15, 2007 at 9:53 PM EST


The battle for redistricting and the reapportionment of House seats has been a hot topic at the Swing State Project for a while. A few days ago, we took a look at the fastest and slowest-growing House districts in the nation. It might be time to follow that up with Polidata's projections (based on '06 estimates) for the states that stand to gain and lose House seats after the 2010 Census:

State Delegation Change
Arizona 4R, 4D +2
Florida 16R, 9D +2
Georgia 7R, 6D +1
Illinois 10D, 9R -1
Iowa 3D, 2R -1
Louisiana 5R, 2D -1
Massachusetts 10D -1
Michigan 9R, 6D -1
Minnesota 5D, 3R -1
Missouri 5R, 4D -1
Nevada 2R, 1D +1
New Jersey 7D, 6R -1
New York 23D, 6R -2
Ohio 11R, 7D -2
Oregon 4D, 1R +1
Pennsylvania 11D, 8R -1
Texas 19R, 13D +4
Utah 2R, 1D +1
Washington 6D, 3R +1

To recap, while many of the states that stand to lose seats are of a bluish hue, the net effect of these changes will be decided mostly by the Democrats' strength at the redistricting table. The redistricting process varies from state to state, but the DLCC has an extremely handy chart here detailing how it's done in all 50 states, along with the balance of power in each state legislature. (Note: this chart is not updated to reflect the Democratic gain of the Mississippi and Virginia state senates.)

With some artful redistricting, Illinois should be able to rid itself of a few GOP House incumbents, for instance. Michigan's delegation is also out of whack, but the Dems will need to reclaim the state senate in order to get a total edge in the process. Republicans have already done some amazingly twisted things with the Texas map this decade, so it'll be hard to see how they could squeeze four more pick-ups out of their new bounty. I have to imagine that one or possibly two of those new seats will be Latino-dominated.

Any other thoughts from our crack team of redistricting fans in the comments?
James L. :: 2010 Census: Who Gains, Who Loses
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2010 Census: Who Gains, Who Loses | 84 comments
MN
::sigh::  If we dont win the governor's mansion in 2010, this is going to be ridiculously messy.

And we will have 6 out of 8 of our incumbent representatives being no more than 4-5 terms old.  Kline 2002, McCollum 2002 (I think) Ellison, Walz, and Bachmann 2006, whoever wins CD3 2008.  And since I think we have the upperhand in CD3, we will have a 6-2 ratio and the only way I can see in possibly getting rid of a Republican CD is to get rid of an incumbent DFLer, either Ellison or McCollum and that battle would be extremely divisive.

McCollum was 2000.....
....but you're definitely correct that the GOP's goal will be to pit Ellison and McCollum up against each other in an indigo-blue all-urban district.  Even if we capture Ramstad's seat next year, I fear that the geography of Minnesota will make it incredibly hard to pick off a Republican seat if we lose a district, particularly given that the growth areas of the state are in Kline and Bachmann turf. 

I'd be surprised if the 2011 redistricting process ends up being as messy as the 2001 fiasco in Minnesota, where we had to deal with conflicting maps put forth by the DFL Senate, the GOP House, and the Independence Party Governor.  It ultimately had to be settled by a group of nonpartisan judges....and I gotta say, they did a good job in terms of drawing up as competitive district lines as possible.  That's why we've experienced such drastic waves in the last three election cycles, with the GOP making huge gains in the 2002 massacre, and the Democrats totally kicking butt in 2004 and 2006.  At least in terms of making incumbents vulnerable with the prevailing political winds, Minnesota's current district lines make it one of the most volatile.

[ Parent ]
puerto rico
there's been talk of congress making puerto rico a full fledged state by 2012, in time for redistricting and they're saying it would get six votes and would probably pass.  since it's a zero-sum calculation in the house, it could be worse and this data could be useless (though we'd get most of PR's house seats and the senate seats.)

Top ten signs you're an SSPer #1: your favorite song is "Panic At Tedisco" and no one understands what you mean.
Puerto Rico as the 51st state would be awesome!
However, it would take a fillibuster proof 60 Democratic Senators for a binding (Up or Down) vote on statehood to be sent to Puerto Rico.  Statehood is THE issue in Puerto Rico with approval at about 50%.  If a binding vote was actually presented to the Puerto Ricans, hopefully, they would vote for statehood.  Statehood for Puerto Rico should be a "plank" of the Democratic party platform.  We should expect the addition of 6 House and 2 Senate non-competative Democratic seats.  Why is it a zero-sum calculation in the House?  Could Congress add the 6 House seats to make a total of 441?
[ Parent ]
Non-starter unless we have 60 seats
This would be an absolute party line vote.

[ Parent ]
You're probably right but . . .
. .  . we should go ahead and try it just because watching Mel Martinez (R. FL) squirming while forced to vote against it would be so delicious-- and we'd hope so memorable.
[ Parent ]
My take on some of the states, minus MN
Florida, ugh, people should stop moving there.  They've already been on huge dissapointment as is.

Illinois I think should be fine.  There is a lot of CD's to play around with but solid majorities and Dem governor (for now).

Iowa will be fine except I just remembered it is all done by courts and straight by county lines....  That's too bad.  We could've gotten rid of Latham easily enough and since his CD has a D-PVI, we could give whats his face from CD3 who represents the Des Moines CD some more Democrats to cover him.  Give the more Republicans spots to King and voila, political incumbency, but alas, courts....

Lousiana has to work in our favor.  There simply aren't any D's to cut!

Massachusetts, they'll have to cut out Tsonga, she will be the newest, she performed horribly in the special, she's gone in 2012, sucks for her.

Michigan, if we dont fix that CD map I'll be pissed.  That is probably the most unrepresentative CD delegation out of any state.  Well, I guess the Dakotas, but their's is due to great candidates, not gerrymandering.

Missouri-I bet we lose a seat.  Especially if we were to gain CD6 in 2008, unless we take the governor's race, that could alter things quite a bit.

Nevada-I'm assuming that new seat will be ours.  I don't see how they can gerrymander a whole red CD when all the growth is really in CD3 and that CD is practically 50-50 as is.  We should at least be able to hold a 2-2 Congressional delegation.

New Jersey-there are quite a few vulnerable Repubs in that state, we should be able to get rid of a GOP seat maybe at the exspense of strengthening other GOP seats though.

How will Ohio play out?  We'll have Strickland still and that CD delegation will change more for our favor after 2008.  We could probably fix 1 and 2 and make it more centered around Cincinatti instead of cutting it in half and weakening the Dems there.  Yeah, if we do that with all the major cities more (CD15 mainly), we can insulate some Dems there and just let the rural parts of the state take whatever shape around the Dem sanctuary CD's if you will.

Oregon, that has to be a GOP seat.  The 4-1 delegation is pretty misrepresented (a 3-2 would be quite fitting) so a 5-1 delegation seems impossible.  But again, the right candidate, most things are possible.

Some ideas
I should mention that if a Democrat is in the White House for the 2012 redistricting, their justice department can have a huge say in redistricting.  For instance, if Republicans try to do more damage to Democrats in Georgia or Florida, they can strike it down and say that there are not enough African Americans in each district, which could help us greatly by spreading out Democratic voters more efficiently accross states.

Anyway, here's what should happen in redistricting:

In Illinois we will probably throw Shimkus(IL-19) and Johnson(IL-15) into one heavily Republican downstate district, which will include Republican territory that is currently in IL-11 and will remove any Democratic territory in IL-15 or IL-19 into IL-11.  We can likely get rid of Roskam(IL-06) by extending the district further into the Cook suburbs and throw part of DuPage into either IL-01, IL-02, IL-04, IL-07 or all since they are so Democratic that it doesnt matter.  We can do the same with Biggert(IL-13).  That would likely leave us with a delegation in Illinois of 13-5 Dem assuming we pick up IL-11 in 2008.  That represents a gain of three for Democrats.

In Missouri, Ike Skelton's seat will likely be elimated and split between Roy Blunt and Emmerson.  He will then retire.  Thats a loss of one for us. 

In Michigan, if we get the state Senate, which we should and keep the governors office, we can probably throw Pete Hoekstra(MI-02) and Vernon Ehlers(MI-03) into one super Republican district.  Then we can make MI-07(Wahlberg), MI-08(Rogers) and MI-11(McCotter) lean Dem districts by unpacking Democratic votes from super-Democratic districts like MI-05(Kildee), MI-15(Dingel), and MI-14(Conners).  This will turn Michigan into a delegation of 9 Democrats and five Republicans.  A gain of three for Democrats. 

In Minnesota, we could somehow throw John Kline and Michelle Bachmann into one heavily Republican district. 

In Pennsylvania, I would throw a couple of the central state Republicans into one district and shore up Altmire by giving him some heavily Democratic Pittsburgh precincts now in the heavily Democratic PA-14.  That is probably the best we are going to do here, since the map is already pretty good even though Republicans drew it. 

If we can take over the state House in Texas, we can probably protect Lampson by taking Brazoria and Harris out of his district and giving him all of Galveston and Jefferson county. 


[ Parent ]
MN
See, MN I think is tricky because if we were to put Bachmann and Kline together, there are two ways to do it.  The one that makes most sense is to use Washington county as a bridge inbetween the two (far right county, border between Wisconsin) but that is a 50-50 county and should be used to effecitevly Dem up the new 6th.  The other way is to make one really awkward CD that spans all the way around the metro area goes from the Wisconsin border and almost all the way back around to it in a circle.  I dont mind gerrymandering a bit but I think there should be a limit.

I'd like to look into combining Minneapolis-St Paul and use the suburbs that already encompass both CD's to add significantly to the Dem population in CD3 (Ramstad, 51-49 district) to make that safe for whichever Dem wins that seat and then add other Dem suburbs in CD5 to CD6 to try to oust Bachmann.

Only problem is, you go from 2 really safe Dem districts, a complete toss up and one Rep favored CD to 1 untouchable Dem seat, one Dem favored seat and one toss up seat.  And you screwed over an incumbent, either our liberal Ellison who is awesome, or slightly moderate McCollum who has her eyes on seniority positioning and has a seat on Appropiations.

Maybe we could get McCollum to move to Washington county and take on Bachmann.  It's probably 15 minutes from where she currently lives...  That'd be the race of the century for me.

[ Parent ]
There Is No Way....
....to put Bachmann and Kline together, at least not in any way that would create any real advantage.  Kline lives in the southwest metro....Bachmann lives in the northeast metro.  Combining them is logistically impractical.  I maintain as I did last week that we concede a supermajority horseshoe-shaped GOP district stretching from Lakeville and Apple Valley on the south, moving west and north to Shakopee, Chanhassen, Buffalo, and St. Michael, and then hooking east to pick up Elk River and Andover.  Bachmann can then hold most of Anoka County and all of Washington County (the weakest links of her current district) and force her to inherit the DFL-leaning northern suburbs of Ramsey County.  I can't see how Bachmann keeps her seat with that map.

We absolutely DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE want to combine Minneapolis and St. Paul.  It would be a kamikaze mission. We can dilute MN-04 and MN-05 by trading more DFL areas outside in the respective districts for less DFL areas currently going to waste in neighboring districts.  Put Eagan and Rosemount in with St. Paul and MN-04 would still be a dark shade of blue.  Put Bloomington in with MN-05 and it would still be a dark shade of blue.  And in the process, MN-06 can benefit by inheriting Maplewood and New Brighton from MN-04, while MN-03 can benefit from inheriting Crystal, New Hope and Golden Valley from MN-05.

[ Parent ]
but
Which CD would you get rid of?  CD3?  I would absolutely hate to lump them into Kline or Bachmann's district, they are way too conservative and putting them with Ellison would be a horrible fit, he is way too liberal.  McCollum would represent them well but alas, Minneapolis is sort of in the way.....

I guess we could get rid of CD3 though, make it part of Anoka and Washington county, whoever will be the incumbent  can go up against Bachmann and we would have a pretty good chance there.  I like this plan more now actually.  I no longer think combining MSP is a good idea :)  I really just wanted to get rid of McCollum, she pisses me off.

[ Parent ]
How about combining Districts 6 & 7?
Peterson, who has a conservative voting record, could defeat Bachmann in such a scenario.

[ Parent ]
Just Out of Curiosity....
.....why don't you like McCollum?  I don't really know that much about her.  Unfortunately, if a district in Minnesota is eliminated, I think MN-03 is the most likely suspect.
[ Parent ]
Redistricting Minnesota
Remember, you have to balance the population outcomes in the new districts.  Where have we lost population??? in the 7th and 8th, and probably in the 1st.  The current 4th, 5th, 3rd and 2nd, have not lost population. 

So you balance by taking from the 6th, and adding parts to the 8th, to the 5th, and 4th, to the 3rd, and the 7th -- and "shortening" the 7th, so as to add to the 1st district -- essentially add the St. Cloud area to the 7th. Compactness of Districts, Interest representation, all these play into redistricting, and the argument is pretty clear that we still over-represent ag interests proportional to population.  What with all the new condo's and apartments in the cities, I think you will see the 4th and 5th growing in population in the next census. 

[ Parent ]
Actually.....
this site just listed MN-05 as one of the biggest population losers in the country...and I'm certain MN-04 is down slightly too.  I'll grant you MN-07, but I'm thinking growth in Rochester and Mankato is keeping MN-01 fairly stable and MN-08 is absolutely bursting at the seams with new cabin dwellers in the Brainerd area and the northern exurbs of the Twin Cities (granted, not many of these people are Democrats, but it'll take generations to wipe out the DFL edge in MN-08) so I'm not expecting the geography of Oberstar's district to change much at all.

The population loss in MN-05 and MN-04, together with the fact that the lowest-seniority House member will most likely be from MN-03, means that MN-03 is the most likely to be split up.

[ Parent ]
Too moderate
Not in the House Progressive Caucus.  Ran as the more moderate DFL choice for her CD.  She endorsed and did a lit piece for this one conservative DFLer on the St Paul City Council who I worked hard to defeat.  (He was mum in the 2002 Senate election and probably supported Coleman, supported Randy Kelly (mayor of St Paul, DFL, publicly backed Bush)).  

And the one time I met her and was doing things with her, she was just rude.  

She has a lot of leeway to be a liberal progressive, she got re-elected with 70% and that will be in office until she retires, guaranteed, waste of a strong D seat on somewho is almost there but just not quite there.

[ Parent ]
Personally...
What I'd like to see in the New Texas map would be, for Lampson anyhow, some way reconnect TX-22 with the rest of Pasadena, taking the rest of Galveston County, while perhaps removing some of the worse areas of Brazoria/Fort Bend/Harris.

For Jefferson County, what I'd like to see is 2 completely East Texas districts, one based in Beaumont(which is Jefferson) extending northward rather than into heavily GOP rich suburbs of Kingwood, and another using elements of both Sandlin and Turner's old districts. One completely Fort Worth district (there is none) that would probably elect a Dem, and 1 Dallas dem district and another higly competitive Dallas/Arlington district. 2 Austin-based districts represented by Lloyd Doggett and Michael McCaul's replacement. 2 heavily GOPer districts based primarily in the Northwest exurbs of Harris + Montgomery, as well as the Northeast exurbs + Montgomery (and some surrounding counties). And, of course, another Hispanic South Texas district.

but we will need to have at least of a majority of the committee (3/2) if we want even some of our aims, and a 4/1 majority if we want to enact a complete reversal.

[ Parent ]
HIspanic demand
The Hispanic groups in Texas, LULAC and maybe others, fought DeLay's dirty mid-district gerrymander all the way to the Supreme Court, arguing that they had been cheated out of TWO Hispanic-minority districts. The racism of the redrawing was so blatent that even the Supremes flinched and ordered ONE district to be redrawn. That resulted in a modestly Hispanic and modestly Repub district where Ciro Rodriguez defeated Henry Bonilla.

But the Hispanics said that decision was only half a loaf. Going into the redistricting after 2010, they say they are already owed one. Add FOUR NEW districts to that and I don't think they'll come out with only one.

What the Dems can hope for, and the Hispanics too, is for the process to deadend in the capitol and go to the courts. If you want to follow the case, better book at the extended stay motel. The Hispanics will appeal right up to the Supremes again if their demands are not met. In Texas they do that. (And good for them.)

While the Hispanics were arguing that they were cheated out of a seat, guess what? The blacks, NAACP I think, argued that they were cheated out of a seat too. (How could Tom DeLay do such a thing!)

So there should be another majority-minority district coming in Dallas-Fort Worth and another in Houston, though hard to say which minority would come out on top if two were created.

My hunch is that the courts, with an eye on incumbent protection, but noting the disparate treatment of minorities the last time around, will give one district to each of the biggest metro areas. (D-FW up 16.3% since 2000, and H-town up 17.49.) At least one and probably two seats more will come in Central and South Texas, with one of them majority-minority Hispanic. (Austin up 21.11%, San Antonio up 13.47%, and the rapidly growing Border towns of McAllen up 23%, Brownsville up 15.66, and Laredo up 19.86% .) One new Anglo district could come somewhere along the Austin-Dallas-Houston triangle.

Of course, once they start to move the furniture in Houston, Dallas, and Central Texas, the new lines could create winnable districts even in East Texas, where deep red suburban districts were stretched absurdly far into the Piney Woods to create Repub seats in historically Democratic turf.

[ Parent ]
The problem
with creating creating black majority districts is that they drain votes away from nearby districts that would otherwise elect a Democrat.  For instance, TX-09, TX-18, and TX-30 are districts that are 75% Dem and reducing them to just 60% Dem could likely help elect Democrats in nearby districts like TX-07, TX-24, and TX-10. 
[ Parent ]
Apartheid districts
I understand that the Repubs have turned the Voting Rights act on its head, segregating blacks into heavily black districts, 75% Dem as you say, and leaving them surrounded by virtually lily-white suburban districts.

I was not advocating such apartheid. But the Repubs will likely control the redistricting in TX, and if they can, they will try to do it again. That is unless the Dems take the House and can jam up the works, throwing it into the hands of the courts.

If the judges get in on it, they are gonna follow the law to a large extent, and create more majority-minority districts, to ensure that blacks and Hispanics are not shut out. Looks like they did a very good job in redrawing Ciro's district, which is IIRC not quite 60% Hispanic.

God bless 'em. If all districts were capped at a minority percentage of 60% it would remake the political map of the South, now rendered in stark black and white, into race-free shades of grey.

[ Parent ]
A Fort Worth district
could be created by taking the part of Tarrant county in Kay Granger's seat now and the part that is in TX-26 and putting them both together.  The result would be a swing/lean Dem district like the one Jim Wright held until 1989. 
[ Parent ]
Missouri
St. Louis, as a whole city, has enough population for less than .5 of a Congressional district. It's already a stretch to serve as the basis for two districts, Clay's in the north and Carnahan's in the South, and population is declining. The St. Louis area is effectively a Democratic gerrymander that puts some Republican suburbs in the 9th and the others in an extremely safe 2nd.

If the Republicans are drawing districts, they have every incentive to eliminate Carnahan's district and keep Shelton's district around until they can pick it up when he retires. The 2nd would become slightly more competitive, but not enough for Akin to sweat.

If Kay Barnes wins in the 6th this year, all bets are off. Republicans could choose to dismember her district instead. If Nixon wins, as looks likely, he could veto any map and send it to the courts, which should abolish Carnahan's district as the slowest-growing non-VRA district in the state.

[ Parent ]
Oregon = maybe.
The thing, though, is that Democrats control both chambers of the Oregon legislature, and, with Kitzhaber likely to run in 2010, are almost certain to retain control of OR-Gov. Also, the part of the state that's growing is western Oregon, i.e. the less conservative half. There's no reason to add an additional seat to Eastern Oregon, as Walden's district, as huge as it is, isn't heavily populated, nor is it growing very quickly compared to the Portland area. Most likely they carve up parts of OR-01, 03 and 05 and mash them together as a "swing" district. Put Lake Oswego (rich people) and West Linn (people who wish they were rich enough to live in Lake Oswego) in with half of Clackamas County (Portland suburbs) and just enough of Portland's east side (minority ghetto), and you've got yourself a swing district. Add a bit of Blumenauer's district to Hooley's to keep Hooley safe, and cut off half of Beaverton/Tigard from Wu to give to Blumenauer. Result:
Two safe D districts (OR-01, 03), one lean D district (05), and one swing district (06) similar in composition to the current WA-08. Maybe if Gordon Smith gets defeated for re-election to the Senate next year he can move to Lake Oswego and run for OR-06. It's not as though Lake Oswego isn't where his major in-state donors are. He'd be right at home. (Gaw, what a horrifying thought...)
[ Parent ]
Mostly True, But
The only true safe D district currently is Blumenauer's (03, Portland city). Would taking the silicon forest areas (Beaverton/Tigard/Hillsboro) from Wu hurt him? I don't know, but I'm concerned about it.

The new district suggested would be an interesting mix - probably lean D, but would also be amenable to the right (wrong?) wingnut. Clackamas was big in the anti-gay marriage initiative back in '04.

I do like the idea of helping Hooley, she deserves a break after several cycles of tough elections.

[ Parent ]
Well...
To be honest, the silicon forest areas are probably about 60% of what's keeping Wu afloat. The high-tech professionals are really becoming the driving political and economic force in western Washington County - they've got the only good jobs in the area, are about the only people who can reliably GET good jobs in the area, and are spending so much on housing that rent has gone out of control and now nobody else can afford to live there. If the major (and rapidly growing) tech sector constituency didn't tend to lean D, Wu would have a much worse fight on his hands.

The other major group in OR-01 is the crusty coastal folks in Clatsop and Columbia counties, which maintain a huge Democratic registration advantage and were both on the very short list of rural Oregon counties won by Kerry in 2004. Both together counterbalance any Republican tilt from Lake Oswego, Tualatin, Bull Mountain, and the Portland exburbs.

Actually, I think my concept of OR-06 would lean R. Lake Oswego and West Linn are heavily Republican. Adding some of the East Side wouldn't totally balance that out. Throw in the Clackamas suburbs, and you've got, as you yourself have said, a district "amenable to the wrong wingnut". Clackamas is the deciding factor here, and it tends to lean Republican - Kerry lost the county by about 2,000 votes in 2004. Also, if everything went according to what I said before, it would probably keep OR-01 at about the same partisan level as it is now. On one hand, half of the silicon forest would be out of Wu's district and in OR-03, but he'd still have the other half, and would also be getting rid of Lake Oswego, which balances it out.

[ Parent ]
In Oregon
what we could probably do is leave Wu pretty much alone in OR-01 and switch some Clackamas precincts around to shore up Hooley in OR-05, but slightly weaken Blumenauer in OR-03, but not anywhere near enough to make his seat even remotely competitive.  I would then create a new OR-06 that would eat up about half of Marion county(now in OR-05) and give it to the new district(OR-06).  The new district would also take Benton and Linn out of DeFazio's district, which would make his district about three points bluer.  Then the district would extend West to take in Yamhill county. 

The result would be a new district based on Marion and Linn counties that would lean Republican(about 53%-46% Bush).  It would also help Darlene Hooley marginally in OR-05, by moving her district from being 50%-49% Bush to 50%-49% Kerry. 

[ Parent ]
That sounds very reasonable
A 4-2 Dem advantage in Oregon is sustainable over time, while 5-1 is not.

Districts should be drawn to sufficiently protect Democratic incumbents so they can withstand a GOP wave election, which will come sometime in the next decade.

In the last redistricting, Republicans over-reached in several states (Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Virginia) and have paid (or are about to pay) the price for that.

[ Parent ]
If The Dems Hold Michigan in 2010....
....we can turn our 6-9 deficit into an 8-6 majority after 2010.  Now that Rick Santorum helped us rip up Pennsylvania's Republican incumbent protection map, Michigan definitely has the ugliest and most impenetrable gerrymander.

My guess is Jim Leach was hoping to hang onto his Iowa seat for another three terms, allowing him to retire going into 2012 and keeping the Democrats from heading into the next gerrymander with an incumbent.  The geography of Iowa pretty much ensures us of two surefire Democratic seats and one Republican seat.  With Leonard Boswell almost certainly en route to retirement before 2012, Latham is certainly in line to be the fourth member of the delegation, but if his district merges with metropolitan Des Moines, his ability to hold his seat is no sure thing.  Best case scenario....Boswell retires next year, allowing the Democrats the opportunity to install an incumbent in IA-03, then hope that the north-central Iowa farm town where Latham is from gets gerrymandered into a district where the majority of the population resides in the current IA-03.  Then again, retaining IA-03 post-Boswell is no sure bet considering suburban Des Moines is growing fast and is almost monolithically Republican.  IA-03 is a classic case of the city of Des Moines versus the rest of the district.

Unfortunately, there is a (D) to cut in Louisiana....Charlie Melancon.  If it comes down to Melancon versus Boustany, my money's on Boustany.

In Missouri, I bet Clay and Carnahan are forced to run against each other....so we will lose a seat.

In Ohio, we can turn an 0-4 Republican advantage into a 2-2 split or even a 2-1 Dem advantage if we put the city of Cincinnati and the city of Columbus in one district.

[ Parent ]
Mark, regarding Iowa, I'm from there and...
...know it well. 

I've lived in D.C. the past 14 years, but I still have close family there, go home often, and follow state politics closely.

And I can tell you I DON'T want Boswell to retire until after a 2010 reelection.  Republican state Senator Jeff Lamberti was a strong-ass candidate and held Boswell to a 52-46 margin last year in a strongly Democratic year.  This in a district whose voter registration at the time was 35.3 percent Democrat, 34.4 percent independent, and just 30.3 percent Republican.  Today the breakdown has independents up slightly with Democrats reduced less than Republicans, but no significant difference.  Lamberti comes from money and can self-fund to at least some extent.  So if that seat becomes open anytime too soon, I fear Lamberti could run again and win it.

On the flip side, I haven't heard Lamberti is interested in a 2008 rematch with Boswell, so I suppose his interest might not necessarily reignite in the future.

43, male, Indian-American, Democrat, VA-10

[ Parent ]
I Live In Iowa Right Now....
....in Boswell's district no less, and am not convinced that Lamberti would do any better against a generic Democratic challenger than he did last year against Boswell.  Perhaps I'm wrong, but I think Boswell's age and health issues worked against him more than Lamberti's textbook red-meat Republican campaign in a Democratic year.  If Boswell retired now, and any number of Democratic candidates stepped into replace him in what we hope is a Democratic year in 2008, that Democrat would have two terms of incumbency that would position him/her better against a possible faceoff with Tom Latham in 2012.

[ Parent ]
In Louisiana
Either a New Orleans-based Democrat or Charles Melancon will survive the 2011 redistricting, but not both.

There are probably VRA restrictions preventing them from putting New Orleans' 250,000 voters into a ~750,000 person district based on Metairie and sure to elect a Republican with or without N.O. If so, they'll put it in with Melancon's district, and he'll have to fight it out in the primary.

[ Parent ]
Wouldn't a Democratic State Senate
be able to prevent that?
[ Parent ]
I'm not optimistic
There are a couple of reasons why.

First of all, I don't think the numbers are there. New Orleans either has to go into Jindal's hyper-Republican district or into Melancon's district, but the population is down so much it can't carry its own weight any more.

Secondly, the Democrats in Louisiana haven't tried to help Congressional Democrats in the past. They had huge majorities in 2001 but drew a status quo map when they could have made the Baton Rouge district competitive. They just don't care about Washington Democrats. Too many of them want to run for Congress as a Republican in the future. Many of the others wouldn't mind sticking it to New Orleans one way or another.

[ Parent ]
A 5-1 GOP edge in Lousiana is possible ...
but by no means inevitable.

Since neither party controls the process, a partisan GOP map is not the most likely outcome.  Melancon served in the State House and probably has some influence there.

It seems asured that there would be one safe Dem district, with New Orleans as its base.

Then, the 3rd district (Melancon's) would be combined with a GOP-held district: either the 6th (Baker) or the 7th (Boustany).  A combined 3rd-7th district would cover much of Cajun country.  This district could be won by either party.


[ Parent ]
I Could See....
....a Democratic supermajority district combining the cities of New Orleans and Baton Rouge together as well, but I think the Republicans would prefer to snuff out Melancon by combining his district with either Jefferson's or Boustany's.
[ Parent ]
The courts
may strike down a district that takes blacks out of the other Louisiana districts and puts them in one district. 
[ Parent ]
Good points
I'll say that the MA seat will not necessarily be Tsongas, as by 2012 she may no longer be the shortest-tenured incumbent (Olver, for example, will be 76 in 2012, he may already have hung up his spikes...Frank, Delahunt, Neal, and Markey are also not exactly kids).

There's actually been some talk of Delahunt retiring, so it may be his district they choose to eliminate.

With regard to Missouri, I think we stand a relatively chance of winning the gubernatorial election, so I'm not sure we will lose a seat.

But it's as good a reason as any to send some cash to Jay Nixon...

[ Parent ]
Massachusetts
I think they're going to draw together the 1st (Berkshires, north) and 2nd (Springfield) districts. Western Mass. has the slowest population growth in the state and the least clout on Beacon Hill. The 5th district and 3rd districts would shift west to take up some of those towns, and Boston should still have two districts.

If Therese Murray is still President of the Senate in 2011, which is possible, she'll protect Delahunt's district or may run for it herself.

[ Parent ]
That's a good point
Murray is from the South Shore, and I can't imagine she especially wants to blend her district into Lynch's (or Frank's, for that matter).

And given Olver's age, he probably wouldn't object too much to being redistricted out.

Of course, he is the only MA Rep on the Appropriations Committee, so if he's willing to stick around for a while, the State House may want to protect him.

[ Parent ]
Olver
I didn't think about the Appropriations committee. Perhaps they'd draw the maps to make the new 1st district favor him over Neal.

When I think about this subject, I think of it as a game of musical chairs. We have to have an Essex-based seat because of geography, so some version of the 6th is safe. Beacon Hill likes having two Boston-centered seats, one Cambridge-oriented and one Southie-oriented, so we'll still have an 8th and a 9th district. I think a Cape and Islands district is pretty safe because of geography, although if Murray leaves, it could look very different. That's the 10th.It's hard not to have a Worcester-based seat of some kind, and the 3rd district backs up against the hinterlands of all of its neighbor districts, so I think it's secure.

That leaves the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th, and 7th hostage to state politics and incumbent issues. You could make really good arguments for dividing up the 4th on geography alone. It's a hybrid district whose ends have more in common with their neighbors than with each other. The 5th district could be easily cut up among its neighbors without causing disruption to others. Ditto for the 7th.

Of these, the 4th and 7th will be held together by the will of their incumbents alone. The 1st, 2nd, and 5th have bigger problems. A lot can happen before 2011!

[ Parent ]
Olver or Neal
Olver might be the state's only member on Appropriations, but Neal's the state's only member on Ways & Means. And given that Neal's 12-13 years younger, and already pretty high on the seniority ranking of that panel, to the extent these kinds of things come into play in legislators' minds I don't think it's obvious they'd want to favor Olver over Neal.
[ Parent ]
Most unrepresentative state
No, Michigan is bad but at 40% Democratic, the ratio is only about 15% out of whack.  It is now Virginia, with the highest proportion of republican seats of any large or mid-sized state (72.7%).  What makes this worse is that one of the three democratic House members (Rick Boucher) comes from a 39% Kerry district.  The state was designed to be 9-2 Republican in a 50-50 environment.

How?  Well I don't live there but I've visited enough to see the gerrymander at work.  VA-3 (Bobby Scott) is a majority minority district that weaves in and out to pick up enough black neighborhoods to let Thelma Drake in VA-2 escape by the skin of her teeth.  Two more compact districts would deliver two Democrats.  Seeing that, I have to believe that there is a lot of finagling going on with VA-10 (Frank Wolf) and VA-11 (Tom Davis).  meanwhile, we get massive maergins from our one NoVa district (Moran, IIRC) while they have two 55/45 districts.  NoVA, of course, has become the Democrats power base within the state, just not in the US House, thank you.

FWIW, the next most Republican delegations (both 5-2, 71.4%) are Alabama and Louisiana.  Amomg small states, OK is 4-1 Republican and NE is 3-0.

[ Parent ]
How about a Democratic Gerrymander?
This is of course completely contigent upon us holding the Governorship and retaking the House of Delegates in 2009, us losing the VA-01 open seat, and Frank Wolf (VA-10) keeping his seat in the future... Start off with making sure that there are 3 Northern Virginian seats; whether or not you would want to include Winchester among those seats is still up in the air, but they would be 3 dem seats. Create a brand new seat stretching from Richmond and Henrico county all the way to Charlottesville and Albemarle county, perhaps taking some of the inner Chesterfield county residents. Give Bobby Scott all of Newport News, Hampton, Williamsburg and James county, as well as the Eastern Shore; this should make him less safe, but still safe enough to win here. Have Thelma Drake's district compose wholly of Virginia Beach and Norfolk; Norfolk will turn the district blue. Boucher's district will likely expand into Goode's and Goodlatte's districts, which will be little problem. Randy Forbes district has to remove Powhatan, Chesterfield, Amelia and Dunwiddle counties while adding Brunswick county, Portsmouth and the (likely) remainder of Norfolk. This would leave Southside, the Shenandoah, North-Central Virginia and Northern Hampton Roads between 3 different districts, all strongly GOP. This would give us 1 dem-held repub seat (Boucher), 3 NOVA seats, and 4 competitive Hampton Roads + Richmond seats. This doesnt mean that we can't possibly lose any of those competitive seats - we'd have to fight for all of them (if Thelma Drake + Randy Forbes were better reps maybe they could, or Frank Wolf), Bobby scott for example would be reduced from a 70% Webb district to somewhere in the range of a 55-60% Webb district. But I like competitive districts, and I think if VA Dems have a shot, they should implement a map like this.
[ Parent ]
Excellent Point....
....I had forgotten how badly butchered Virginia's map was.
[ Parent ]
Michigan, O Michigan
Don't be pissed about Michigan. 

Kilpatrick and Conyers district will stay, and will only continue to grow larger as their city of Detroit home base loses population.

The Michigan district lost [-1] will probably be Sander Levin's District [District 12] covering the southeastern portion of Oakland county and the southern half of Macomb county.

So it may be another Democrat loss, with the delegation going to be 9 Republican, 5 Democrat, if you all can't pick up a seat in the mid-state.

Levin's district will be carved and split into Knollenberg's and Miller's districts.

Just like every year, you all will lick your chops, and Republicans will wring their hands and fret about ol' Joe Knollenberg.  But ol' Knolly will be just fine.  He has a campign coffer second to none in the Michigan delegation.

As far as Candace Miller's district [District 10] goes, she is by far one of the most popular politicians in the state. 

Thaddeus McCotter [District 13] could be in "trouble", as his district is by far the most swing district in the state delegation.  He might be in trouble if the Democrats could have him face state Senator Glenn Anderson in the 2012 Election. 

But that would mean that Anderson would have to give up his seat halfway through his second state sentorial term, something I have serious doubts that Mr Anderson would do. 

If Anderson runs versus McCotter, expect the slug-fest of the century.  McCotter has never lost an election, was raised in politics, and will never go quietly.  But...last year Anderson beat incumbent state Senator Laura Toy in a race she was not expected to lose...until the votes were counted.

Mike Rogers [District 8] may not be that safe, as his district could be re-configured as a Lansing / Jackson / Battle Creek district.  If he were to pick up those areas, look for a serious challenge from current state Senator Mark Schauer, from Battle Creek. 

I am not sure about the outcome of that race, as I feel that Right to Life has never targeted Schauer [non-pro-life] like they could have, and would pull out all stops to prevent his victory. 

Dave Camp [District 4] from Midland is in the House for life.  With Fred Upton [District 6], the millionaire's name is synonymous with SW Michigan. 

Ehlers [District 3] and/or successor has been there since the 1980s, and will be there for a long time.  Hoekstra [District 2] is from the the most pro-life [aka Republican] district in the Midwest. 

Tim Walberg [District 7], they say, is the most astute politician in the entire Michigan delegation, but who knows?  With the right boundary change, he just might be vulnerable, against let's say, a former state Senator Liz Brater, if she were put into his district, or if for rep. Lynn Rivers were to surface again.

But, when the day is over, the delegation will probably be 9R-5D; or at best, 8R-6D, with a Walberg or Rogers loss.  Let's face it, in Michigan 75% of all Democrat voters are in only 3 counties.

And don't forget about something that may occur from the foreclosure capital of the the USA, Michigan.  The state may lose 2 seats!!

Then McCotter, in his suburban district, is in real trouble.

[ Parent ]
Im sorry, but
Republicans are not going to be able to sustain the perfect map that they currently have in Michigan.  It is likely that Democrats will control at least one branch of government(almost certainly the state House) and they would prevent another Democratic seat from being abolished.  Its possible that Sander Levin's seat would be eliminated, but doing that would likely put Knollenberg and Miller in great jeopardy by extending their districts into heavily Democratic territory(currently MI-12).  Democrats would have a much better shot at picking up MI-09 and MI-10 if this happened.  Doing this would probably end up creating a delagation that is a 7-7 tie. 
[ Parent ]
Michigan Loses 2 Seats!!
I think Michigan is going to lose 2 seats. 

Instantly, the GOP will want to carve up McCotter's district.  Dingell [or his son, Chris] and Conyers [or his wife, Marcia] will get the Wayne county balance, and the Oakland County part of the District will go to Knollenberg, and the extreme northern tier to Kildee.

So Joe is then going to get South Lyon, Milford, and Novi which will bolster his chances; as he will be picking up Southfield and the "progressive" suburbs of Ferndale, Oak Park, and Pleasant Ridge.  But in his battle against Levin, it will be a slugfest for the ages.

Joe and Sandy [Sander Levin] will both be biting their nails on the night of Tuesday, November 6th, 2012; but how many times has Joe been predicted for dead? And the magic Levin name did not assure victory for Andy Levin in 2006 for state Senate, even in a year when the GOP performed dismally.

Candace Miller will be safe as she even carried the ultra-lower tier of Macomb County's Eastpointe, Center Line, and Warren in both of her Secretary of State battles back in 1990s.

She may not win by her accustomed 65-35%; it may be more like 58-42%, or 56-44%.  Throw in state Senator Switalski from Roseville as her opponent, and who knows?  Levin will not run against her, that is a guarantee.  But what if ol' Dave Bonior can be coaxed into the race.

If that happens, expect one of the most expensive Congressional races in the history of the Great Lake State.

The big problem with Michigan is that if the state loses 2 seats, then 70% of all Democrats will live in 3 basic areas; Dingell's, Conyer's, and Kilpatrick's. 

I will grant you this. The current 9R-6D is definitely the GOP's high point. 

But the Dems could not pick up even 1 seat this last time around?  In a year that they re-took the US House?  They couldn't make a little more difficult for McCotter?  Couldn't make Rogers squirm?  They even let Walberg take his new open seat in a cakewalk?

But I do agree with you on one point, the Dems should try to create a super-seat out of Lansing / Grand Rapids / Battle Creek / Jackson. In that case, you all should nominate a pro-life Dem to run for the seat, like popular Dem State Rep Mike Sak.

What about other unseen factors?  Namely the one factor that the Dems dread: "Stupak [District 1] Retiring".  The District is 51%R-49%D.

Or Republicans fear headline: "Mike Rogers Accepts President Giuliani's Nomination to Dept of Homeland Security Head". The seat is 52%D-48%R.

Then, all of a sudden, these seats would come into play.

By the way, the current makeup of the Michigan House, is definitely the Dems high water mark.  They will lose 3 seats this time around:  Corriveau in Plymouth, Dean in Kent County, and one of the Jackson/Lenawee Dems.

The MI House always tilts back and forth. 

But even in the GOP disaster year of '06, the Republicans still held on to the state Senate, and have since the early 80s. 

Who knows who the Governor will be that signs the re-districting bill.  Mike Cox? Terry Land? Debbie Stabenow [she could run for Gov in 2010, and still hold her seat if she loses]? 

[ Parent ]
Michigan
I don't think Stupak will be retiring anytime soon.  He's only in his early 50's and is widely popular. 

As for the Michigan House, Republicans have some term limited members like Tom Casperson who seats could very easily go Dem in 2008, so there is a pretty good chance of there being little change in the House.  Also, many Republican state Senators are term limited in 2008, opening up several seats that could go Dem as well. 

[ Parent ]
Two seats
It's virtually impossible for Michigan to lose two seats. I think it's barely losing one, despite its economic problems and outmigration.
[ Parent ]
California
I believe this would be the first reapportionment since statehood in 1850 in which California did not gain a seat.
Nevada
After we win and hold NV-02 it will be 2D 1R in Congress.  We really need to pick up at least one seat in the Nevada Senate so that we control the Legislature for redisticting.  Redistricting should result in at worst 3D 1R after the 2012 Congressional election.
Correction
Make that NV-03
[ Parent ]
New York
If we get the State Senate in time, a bigger if with the immigration debate and Spitzer's free fall, we can probibly knock off two Republican seats in the redistrict game. Knock out one upstate seat, and split Staten Island. Give half to Nadler's District and take part of his Brooklyn area and combine it with Clark's District as well as the other half of Staten Island.

progressive, NY-8 (home), PA-7 (college)
re: New York
New York is 23D-6R, and by 2012 might be 26D-3R (rooting for Massa, Maffei and Powers). If that is the case then it will be really hard to justify taking away Republican districts instead of Democratic ones. Since Staten Island is about 3/4 of a Congressional district, it doesn't make sense to split it.

26, male, Dem, NJ-12
[ Parent ]
NY
Spitzer isn't a big fan of partisan redistricting by the way.
[ Parent ]
True
he would rather non-partisan commission, but I doubt Silver would give up that power. I don't know what a non-partisan would do though.

progressive, NY-8 (home), PA-7 (college)
[ Parent ]
How to build a Lasting Democratic Majority in Ohio
Step One: Control enough of the statewide Constitutional offices to hold a one vote majority on the Commission that redraws the districts for the state legislature.

Status: After the 2006 elections, we hold the majority on the commission, BUT if we were to lose even one spot in the 2010 elections, we would be screwed.

[The fact that Barbara Sykes lost to Taylor, for state Auditor (one of the seats on the commission) 49.36% to  50.64% could come back to haunt us.]

Step Two: Flip as many of the current Ohio US House seats as possible in 2008. Taking three seats would be historic, taking four would be incredible. AND we've got to hold for Zach Space.

The outstanding crop of challengers that we have this year are what I call "gerrymander busters."

In college basketball, they have one weekend where the mid-major conference schools get to play the big schools. It's called "bracket busting" because if the underdog schools can win, it will change the way the tournament selection committee draws the brackets.

We face that situation here in 2008. If STRONG candidates with excellent fund raising like Franklin County Commissioner Mary Jo Kilroy, Major (and state senator) John Boccieri, Appellate Court Judge O'Neill and Ohio House Minority leader Steve Dreihaus can break through, it will make life MISERABLE for the Ohio GOP.

Until now, much of the GOP stranglehold here has come from the strength of their Congresscritters (Think Pryce, Ney, Oxley), but if we flip this delegation? "Bye, Bye Boehner."

It should be noted that the GOP Congressional committee is broke while the DCCC is pretty flush. The Club for Growth is REALLY cannibalizing the GOP fund raising. They do "Seagull campaigning." That's where they fly in, squawk a hell of a lot, sh*t all over and then fly away.

Sadly, there are other Congressional Districts in Ohio which might be in play, except that we just don't have effective candidates. There are too many parts of the state where our bench is ZILCH.

Step Three: We MUST gain control of one chamber in the Ohio General Assembly. The Senate is hopeless. We are four seats away in the Ohio House. If we control the intra-state redistricting process, the Governor's Mansion and either chamber all will be well when it comes to reapportionment.

Our US House District map is such a COMPLETE clusterf**k that we should wipe it out and start fresh, protecting our incumbents (even though SOME OF THEM don't deserve it!!!) and screwing over theirs.

Which must be what the voters want-- since they overwhelmingly rejected a state Constitutional initiative to try and come up with a means for non-partisan district making...

I love that there are other "crack redistricting fans" in the world...
...and we have a support group here in blog form.

I redrew Ohio a while ago using some lovely resources (a map of Ohio districts and the NYT's great Senate race site from last year - click the "state by state tab and geek out!). I think your description of what we have to do to get map-drawing power is apt.

Here goes:

Stuff all of Cincinnati and its immediate Hamilton County into one swingy/lean D seat. Call that the 1st.

Draw a big R-leaning seat out of chunks of the non-Cincy 2rd, the non-Dayton 3rd, and the 8th. This puts Boehner and Schmidt (if she makes it) in the same seat. That's the new 2nd.

Put Montgomery County (Dayton), most of Clark and some of Greene into another swingy Dayton-based seat. New 3rd.

Put the rest of the old 8th and chunks of the 4th and 5th into a big west-side seat. New 4th.

Add Pike, Perry, and Scioto to the current 18th. Dump Holmes, Knox and Licking. Call it the 5th.

The 6th stays pretty similar.

The new 7th is a lot like the old one - R-leaning, running from Greene up the east side of Columbus to Knox and Holmes.

Columbus and environs becomes the new 8th.

The old 5th more or less ceases to exist.

The 9th is pretty similar but maybe stretches a little west and south. 10 and 11 are still chunks of Cleveland.

The new 12th is a big chunk running from the counties north of Columbus up past Findlay, not quite reaching the lake.

The 13 stays similar, maybe moving a little south and east into Cuyahoga and Medina, to give some of Lorain County to the 16th.

The 14th stays similar - a swingy seat.

Call the 17th the new 15th, it stays similar.

The 16th will still be the 16th, but reaches a little northwest.

So we wind up with 6-7 reasonably safe D seats, 4-5 swingy maybe-lean-D seats, a swing maybe-lean-R seat, and 4 uber-safe R seats (the new 2nd in the southwest, the new 4th in the west, the new 7th south and east of Columbus, and the new 12th north of Columbus).

If I feel ambitious I might do Pennsylvania next week...


[ Parent ]
We Definitely Need to Get....
....Democratic strongholds Pike and Scioto Counties into Zack Space's district and out of suburban Cincinnati's district.  Nice map.  The cities of Dayton and Springfield together in one district should go our way, as should a Cincinnati-based district contained entirely within Hamilton County.
[ Parent ]
Georgia
My guess is that the new district would be somewhere in the Metro Atlanta area.  Most of the growing counties are in the Atlanta MSA but are scattered around Atlanta, so it's difficult to really say where in the area it will be.  I'm guessing it might be in Northwest Georgia somewhere. 

I think the net result will be a gain of one Republican seat.

Follow the elections in Georgia at the 2010 Georgia Race Tracker.

Interesting list
I'm not familiar with this Polidata person, but this list doesn't seem quite right, based on other projections I've seen. Perhaps population trends have changed radically in the past few years, but for California and Colorado not to gain seats seems highly unlikely. The fastest growing county in the country is (still) here in the Denver suburbs, for instance. And California only needs to grow by a tiny percentage to gain another seat.

Is Texas really growing that fast? I don't think so.

California
It has to grow by a large percentage to get another seat. It doesn't just need another 720,000 people; all 53 districts in the state already have to grow by an equivalent amount just to keep up with the country as a whole. The first 3-4 million people added to California in 2000, then, only serve to keep it from losing seats to state growing even faster. There are districts in L.A. and the Bay Area that are completely built out and stagnant or declining in population. They need to poach voters from other districts just to stay viable.
[ Parent ]
The 54th seat
(if it happens) will probably be in the Inland Empire (San Bernardino and Riverside counties), and we might be able to craft it so it's another majority-Latino seat. CA-41 (Lewis), CA-44 (Calvert), and CA-45 (Bono) are all huge right now according to the 2006 estimates (750-800K people each), and at least half that growth has been Latino.
[ Parent ]
Polidata...
...is the source used by the National Journal.  (You may have heard of them.)

You might want to link to the other projections you've seen, otherwise the debate is just: their data and analysis vs. your impressions.

[ Parent ]
Exactly
The DLCC link has a totally different list of predictions, which to me seem a lot more likely. (I'm extremely skeptical of Washington picking up a 10th seat, for starters.) As best as I can tell, PoliData's predictions are based on starting with the 2006 census estimate and extrapolating to 2010 based on 2000-2006 growth, while the DLCC's predictions are based on the actual 2010 census bureau projection. (I don't see a cite on the DLCC pdf that says that's their method, but I crunched the numbers myself last year based on the census 2010 projection and they were almost identical to the DLCC's numbers.)

Here are the predictions from the DLCC:
Arizona +2
California +1
Florida +2
Georgia +1
Illinois -1
Iowa -1
Louisiana -1
Massachusetts -1
Michigan -1
Missouri -1
Nevada +1
New York -2
Ohio -2
Pennsylvania -1
Texas +3
Utah +1

[ Parent ]
Question
How much would growth in Florida have to slow for it to gain only one seat?
[ Parent ]
Heh
They'd pretty much have to slam the floodgates shut next year. I'd predict that the largest population they could have in 2010 and stay at only 26 seats would be about 18,800,000. (The Census Bureau predicts 2010 nationwide population of 308,935,581, meaning an average district target of 710,197, and if you multiply that by 26.5 you get 18,820,220.)

The 2006 estimated population of Florida is 18,089,889, and they started in 2000 at 15,982,378, so at that rate, they'll cross 18,800,000 well before 2010. (For what it's worth, the census bureau's 2010 projection for Florida is 19,251,691.)

[ Parent ]
Last Year....
...the prediction was that Florida would gain THREE seats instead of two, so I'm afraid a Category 5 hurricane would have to displace a half million existing Floridians to limit their 2010 growth to one new seat.
[ Parent ]
Shirley you jest, Colo Dem
"Is Texas really growing that fast? I don't think so."

Growth from 2000-2006

Cali
7.6%

Colo
10.5%

Texas
12.7%

of which

Austin metro
21.1%

Houston metro
17.5%

Dallas-Ft Worth metro
16.3%

San Antonio metro
13.5%

McAllen metro
"the Valley"
lower Rio Grande border
23.0%

 

[ Parent ]
Interesting wild card for Texas/La
is whether the lost LA seats have simply migrated to urban TX.
[ Parent ]
Total migration = about 200,000
That's a fraction of a seat (710,000), and many from Louisiana went to Atlanta. It may make the difference between gaining three seats or four in Texas, though.
[ Parent ]
Florida
It looks like no one has posted about Florida yet.

The 16th district, represented by Tim Mahoney, spans the outer exurbs of both the Gulf Coast and Palm Beach County. With population growth on the Gulf Coast, I expect it will be split with a Republican-leaning open district on the Gulf Coast and Tim Mahoney representing a district centered on Martin and St. Lucie counties on the Atlantic coast.

Other areas of growth are along the coast south of Jacksonville and north of Tampa, which I expect to lead to a new Republican district. The lines around Orlando are so twisted because of incumbency and Tom Feeney's drawing a district for himself that I can't guess where they would put it. However, they can't limit Democrats to one district in north-Central Florida forever. Eventually there will be a Democrat from Jacksonville and one from Orlando, but it may take a good election to get it.

Democrats are actually overrepresented on the Gold Coast under the current lines.

On edit
It doesn't look like there will be enough population growth for the southern Gulf Coast to have three whole seats to itself... but it may still make sense to split Mahoney's seat and put the bits of Charlotte County into the 13th or perhaps the 12th.
[ Parent ]
What they did in the Gold Coast
was pack Jewish voters on the Gold Coast into two overwhelmingly Democratic districts(FL-19 and FL-20) as well as packing African American voters into two even more overwhelmingly Democratic districts(FL-17 and FL-23).  Back in the 1980's when Democrats had control of redistricting, Democrats held every Gold Coast seat but one(Clay Shaw's) by spreading Jewish and Black voters among among six different districts as well as heavily Cuban and Republican parts of Dade County. 
[ Parent ]
Right
And since we won the two Republican "mirror" districts created by putting all the Jews and African-Americans in safe Democratic districts, and haven't made headway in the Cuban districts yet, we're doing extremely well in PBC and Broward County.
[ Parent ]
Georgia independent
The only way I see how the redistricting is going to go in Georgia is that they split Gwinnett County into two, with South Gwinnett, Walton, Putnam, Henry & Newton Counties making up the new 14th district & combining North gGwinnett with the 9th district. Or just make Gwinnett County one whole district by itself.
No one's talked about Arizona yet
so I thought I should jump in.
The interesting thing out here is that we have an independent commission.  They have to make a couple of Voting Rights Amendment Hispanic-majority districts, and a couple of strongly Republican districts, but everything else is supposed to be as balanced as the demographics of the state allow for (this is Arizona, after all, which is why all of out "swing" districts have Republican PVI).
Barring the need for two VRA districts, 2-3 strongly Rep districts in compensation, and the rest of the map to be composed of swing districts, here's what I came up with based off of city and county projections by the state for '10:

1st: Most of the current 1st district (save for Yavapai county) along with the current 8th's rural stretches.  [Coconino County, the Navajo reservation, rural ranching counties, east Pinal County, north and east Cochise County] Similar in tossup nature to the current 1st district, but slightly more Dem.

2nd: Yavapai County from the current 1st, plus the northern 2/3rds of the 2nd district.  [Yavapai County, Mohave County, the furthest Phoenix exburbs of Surprise, Wickenberg, & Buckeye] Leans pretty strongly Rep, though somewhat better than the current 2nd district.

3rd: The remaining population of the current 2nd district, plus 7th districts share of Maricopa and Pinal County. [The West Valley: Peoria, Avondale, Goodyear, Sun City, western half of Glendale, Maricopa, etc.]  Very solidly Rep

4th: Similar to composition of the 4th now, but cutting off its northern edges and taking on some Hispanic populations in the West valley currently in the 2nd & 7th. [eastern half of Glendale, south Phoenix, Tolleson]  Solid Dem; one of the VRA Hispanic-majority districts.

5th: Parts of Phoenix from the current 3rd & 4th.  [central Phoenix, Paradise Valley] Hard to get exact inter-Phoenix demographic info, but probably a complete tossup combining working class neighborhoods, upper-class neighborhoods, and a sizable Hispanic minority, comparable to Tucson's current 8th district.

6th: The northern half of the current 3rd, along with Scottsdale from the current 5th.  [north Phoenix, Scottsdale, Anthem, Fountain Hills]  Scottsdale is not as red as you would think: Rep-leaning, but at about the same level as the current 3rd.

7th: Similar to what's left of the current 5th, along with the western part of the current 6th. [Tempe, Chandler, Ahwatukee, half of Gilbert, and part of west Mesa].  Similar swing district to the current 5th, although even more purple.

8th: Similar to what's left of the current 6th. [the rest of Mesa & Gilbert, Queen Creek, Apache Junction] Solid Rep.

9th: Similar to the current 7th, but without the Pinal & Maricopa County potions.  [west Tucson, Yuma, Nogales, Parker].  Solid Dem; the other VRA Hispanic-majority districts.

10th: Similar to the current 10th, but with only a little of Cochise County.  [east Tucson, Oro Valley, Catalina Foothills, Sierra Vista].  Total swing district, as this part of the state tends to be.

Oh and I made a map of my idea.  It's not great (especially because it was made paint), but if you know nothing about Arizona geography it will probably help some.
http://tinyurl.com/y...
Oh, and here's the current map for comparison's sake:
http://upload.wikime...

22, Democrat, AZ-01
Peace. Love. Gabby.

Washington
A commission draws Washington's districts.  I am assuming a swing district will be drawn in the Seattle suburbs.  The district will likely be created from chunks of WA-01, WA-02, WA-03, WA-07, and WA-08.  The district will probably elect a Democrat. 
North Carolina
Although the state doesnt lose or gain any districts, Democrats could likely make NC-08(Robin Hayes) a lean Dem district by adding more liberal Charlotte precincts and giving half of heavily Republican Cabarrus county to Mel Watt, whose district is so Democratic that it would still be very safe for him.  Larry Kissel would have won this new district by 53%-47% in 2006, Beth Troutman who lost 44%-56% to Hayes would have come within 1,000 votes of winning it in 2004 and Chris Kouri, who lost by 44%-54% to Hayes would have won by about 3,000 votes in 2002 under these lines. 
NC-12
Isn't that district always flirting with the VRA boundary, though? I don't know if it can take on a Republican county.
[ Parent ]
It wouldnt make much difference
NC-12 is currently 45% black and this would bring it to 40% black. 
[ Parent ]
A Further Note About Georgia
Republican Governor Sonny Perdue is term-limited in 2010.  This one open seat has the potential to create a chain-reaction that could result in numerous open seats and could be a window of opportunity for us. 

Senator Johnny Isakson, Lieutenant Governor Casey Cagle, and House Speaker Glenn Richardson, among others, are all rumored to be considering the job on the Republican side.  For us, rumored candidates include Attorney General Thurbert Baker and House Minority Leader Dubose Porter. 

If Isakson runs, you might see several Congressional Republicans like Phil Gingrey, John Linder, and Lynn Westmoreland try for a promotion, especially if Democrats retain/increase their House majority in 2008 and like to do the same in 2010.  You would expect to see lots of interest in Cagle's job, including possibly by Secretary of State Karen Handel.

If this starts to happen, espect several House and Senate members to step up to run for Congress and state offices below the governor.

It could certainly get interesting.

Follow the elections in Georgia at the 2010 Georgia Race Tracker.

I would love
to see Tom Price move out of the House.  That guy is probably the biggest asshole in Congress. 
[ Parent ]
GA-House
Every singe one of those guys give me the creeps. I have those that personally get under my skin like Putnam and some of the newer Texas Reps., but Georgia's entire Republican delegation just hurts my soul. It's like every one of them acts as extreme partisans whom are not interested in looking out for their districts.

Mini John Cornyn's, party first, governing second.

26, Male, Democrat, TX-26

[ Parent ]
2010 Census: Who Gains, Who Loses | 84 comments

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