Looks like Republicans win 3 districts

on the 2004 map. The Presidential race this year was something of an exception, and the downballot races were considerably closer.  

---

by: andgarden @ Mon Oct 12, 2009 at 14:34:32 PM UTC

only 2 actually ...

OR-2, obviously ...

and OR-5 (by 1 point, exactly the same as the current OR-5).

The new OR-4 voted for Kerry (by 1 point).

The partisan index of OR-4 and OR-5 under this map remains virtually EXACTLY the same as that of the current districts, but the new lines are smoother, AND a new Democratic-leaning district is created in the suburbs and exurbs west of Portland.  

I guess you could make 4 hyper-Dem. districts and have 2 GOP-leaning ones (not sure if the districts would be as compact), but the Dem. percentage in OR-4 and OR-5 has been enough over the years to make those two elect mostly Dems. to Congress.  

I think, overall, this would be a win-win for Democrats:  smoother lines, all current Dem. districts remain the same (without reduction in Dem. percentage) and a new Dem. seat is created.

---

by: silver spring @ Mon Oct 12, 2009 at 14:49:32 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Maybe my eyeball math is wrong

but 1 and 4 look sort of weak.

In any case, I think OR uses a commission.

---

by: andgarden @ Mon Oct 12, 2009 at 15:18:48 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

not sure re. commission ???

I know Washington uses one, not sure about OR ...

"but 1 and 4 look sort of weak" -- have you read the actual stats in the diary ???

new 4 is exactly as Democratic as the current 4 (actually, very marginally more Democratic)...

new 1 is a few points more Democratic than the current 1 (and at 63% Obama, I would not consider it "weak")...

now, if you were thinking of making 4 super-Dem. districts and 2 GOP ones, that's another story (and some of these may indeed look weak -- though not OR-1 in any case) ... but relative to the current map, the Dem. districts here are as Democratic or more Democratic than the current ones ...

"looks" can certainly be deceiving, and your eyeball math may be deceiving you ...

---

by: silver spring @ Mon Oct 12, 2009 at 15:28:43 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Fair enough

I guess I'm mostly reacting to your using Obama-McCain numbers. Using those numbers alone just strikes me as a bad idea.  

---

by: andgarden @ Mon Oct 12, 2009 at 15:40:49 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

I see what you're saying ...

I didn't list the Kerry numbers as I only ran them for the more marginal districts to see how the new districts compare w/ the old (as discussed) ... should have discussed Kerry w/ respect to the new OR-6 also ...the most change towards the Dems. between 2004 and 2008 was in Washington Co. (and Hood River also, but that only affects OR-3) and as Wash. Co. forms the bulk of the new OR-6 under this map, that certainly would be a factor there. Nevertheless, it looks like Kerry still wins the new 6th by 3 points, and apparently much of the growth over the last 5-10 years has been more progressive people moving in, which bodes well for the future.

re. pres. elections further back, it seems Oregon has been kind of "steadily" Democratic for some 20 years now ... looking at gubernatorial elections, the districts here also appear in good shape:

if you look at Kulongoski v. Saxton in 2006:

the 2 Portland-based districts (1&3) are solid; 6th is fine also; OR-2 went strongly for Saxton ofcourse ...

OR-5 - is surprisingly good: Kulongoski even carried Marion Co. (Salem area) - though narrowly; lost Polk but only by 23 votes !; won Benton in a blowout and won the Clackamas Co. part (which, btw, as drawn under this map is the most Dem. part of the county -- even more Dem. than the Clackamas parts incorporated into OR-3).

OR-4 - Kulongoski won the Lane Co. portion by over 31,000 votes, but lost the remainder of the new 6th by about 16,000, so still not bad overall.

looking at 2008 Senate race:

1st & 3rd appear good for Merkley.  

Merkley wins new OR-4 by about 17,000 votes ... but appears to lose new OR-5 ...

Merkley wins new 6th by 264 votes (the Multnomah sliver puts him over the top !!)

---

by: silver spring @ Mon Oct 12, 2009 at 16:28:46 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Interesting, thanks

It looks like there's a good case for having 5 and 6 creep into Portland a little bit.  

---

by: andgarden @ Mon Oct 12, 2009 at 18:34:29 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

I think you're right ...

this plan was drawn with compactness in mind as a significant factor, but you can easily make the districts a little less compact but a lot more Democratic (can keep the part of Portland that is currently in the 5th for ex. and get away w/ it easily as you wouldn't even be changing anything from the current plan) ... bottom line is, you can easily make an OR plan that's 5 Dems. and 1 GOP .. even this particular one w/ almost perfectly compact districts comes close to achieving that goal, but if you tweak the lines a bit more, it's very doable ...

---

by: silver spring @ Mon Oct 12, 2009 at 20:15:04 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

also, from what I'm seeing ...

it appears that even though OR-4 and OR-5 look almost exactly the same in terms of Obama numbers, OR-5 is more marginal in other races, while the progressives in Eugene seem to outweigh the more GOP parts of OR-4 in virtually every close race ...

---

by: silver spring @ Mon Oct 12, 2009 at 16:36:06 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

No Commission in Oregon

The State Legislature/Governor have fist crack at redistricting. If they cannot agree, the SOS draws the lines.

---

by: edward @ Mon Oct 12, 2009 at 15:32:20 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

You're right

I was confusing OR with WA.

---

by: andgarden @ Mon Oct 12, 2009 at 15:39:53 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

from what I looked up ...

it looks like the legislature does it (and the OR Supreme Court reviews) ... assuming we keep the legislature, this  plan appears doable -- Democratic-leaning districts yet compact enough to satisfy the Court.

---

by: silver spring @ Mon Oct 12, 2009 at 15:34:16 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Another nice job!

How likely is it that Oregon will gain a seat?

---

by: davybaby @ Mon Oct 12, 2009 at 16:10:31 PM UTC

not sure ????

does anybody know the likelihood ...

---

by: silver spring @ Mon Oct 12, 2009 at 16:30:10 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

50/50

It's on the edge right now, competing with South Carolina for an extra seat. A smidge of population growth in either direction could make the difference. Oregon has a high unemployment rate, which could hurt it, but South Carolina's is higher and the state is just as reliant on in-migration, so they're both doing badly. It's hard to predict.

For now, I'd predict it's not likely to get it because the recession is freezing people in place, particularly Californians who own houses. But I wouldn't be surprised if they get it.  

---

by: brittain33 @ Mon Oct 12, 2009 at 20:53:31 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

thanks !

my aunt and my grandma actually live in OR, and my mom and her boyfriend are seriously considering moving there ... I will have to urge my mom to move prior to 2010 ... every person may count ! (LOL) and I'd rather have OR get it than SC where you know what the GOP there will do w/ it ..

---

by: silver spring @ Mon Oct 12, 2009 at 20:57:48 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Nope:

Democrats lose your first and 4th first bad election, keeping all of Douglas is a baaad idea and Jackson is not reliably Democratic, and your first is too dependent on the outer Portland suburbs dumping a strong margin on the Democrat.

Call no man happy until he is dead-Aeschylus

---

by: ArkDem the Ragin Cajin @ Mon Oct 12, 2009 at 17:35:54 PM UTC

i can see your reasoning re.

4th (even though the version here is marginally more Dem. than the current 4th; & not looking at just the Obama numbers, but the district seems to be "lean Dem." & it's a consistently "lean Dem." as opposed to more of a marginal "lean Dem." as my new 5th is .... but ....

don't follow your logic at all re. the new 1st - ??  It's 63% Obama (more than the current 1st) and the different parts of it are pretty consistently Dem.  .. pls. explain your reasoning (?)

(just not sure what you mean by "too dependent on the outer Portland suburbs dumping a strong margin on the Democrat" ... the new 1st doesn't really have too many "Portland suburbs" it's almost a half and half mix of City of Portland (consistently Democratic urban core area) and coastal Oregon (leans Democratic) ... only a small part of Columbia Co. could be considered "Portland suburbs"

---

by: silver spring @ Mon Oct 12, 2009 at 20:23:59 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

re. Jackson ... you're

right that it's not reliably Dem., but when drawing this, I was also looking at trends in OR ...

the current OR-4 & the proposed OR-4 are almost identical in terms of performance ... however (other than for reasons of compactness, which was a major goal of mine when drawing this particular map) you can also look at where areas are heading and can argue that the new 4th is better than the current 4th (even though both have almost the exact same Obama & Kerry percentages) b/c the areas I take out of the 4th (for ex. Coos and Curry Co's.) are trending less Dem. than areas I put into the 4th (for ex. Jackson) ... over the long term, this will make the district progressively better for us.

---

by: silver spring @ Mon Oct 12, 2009 at 20:44:17 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

sorry, your first is fine

Call no man happy until he is dead-Aeschylus

---

by: ArkDem the Ragin Cajin @ Tue Oct 13, 2009 at 21:56:20 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Using some rough math

it looks like the Democratic districts taken together are just a few points more Democratic than the state as a whole. Supposing that's right, and additionally supposing that swings are relatively even within a state between elections (a bad supposition, but useful), you've carved out a new state that in an open seat race, gives Dems about an 8 point advantage (just a rough estimate based on flipping back through Dave Leip's site and looking at recent statewide races in Oregon).. Not a bad place to start. But here's the question: faced with a 54/46 D state standing on its own, would you feel comfortable trying to draw a Congressional map that gave Dems all of the seats? I think most people would find that to be a fairly risky experiment, especially because partisan strength is never distributed evenly.

For my own comfort, I'd want a predictable Democratic margin of at least 15-20 points before I would consider trying to take everything. So the first question is: can we squeeze more Republicans into the second district?

---

by: andgarden @ Mon Oct 12, 2009 at 20:54:54 PM UTC

you could definitely squeeze ...

more GOP into the 2nd .... if this map was gerrymandered more, you could make the 2nd 60% or more McCain (but probably not much more than the low 60's as there just isn't that high a concentration of GOP in OR except in the very sparsely populated eastern counties ... you could then make the remaining 5 districts all around 60%  Obama -- just need to be creative w/ the lines ...

---

by: silver spring @ Mon Oct 12, 2009 at 23:00:46 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

OR-6

I like this map, similiar to one I drew with colored pencils and a map.

There are a few possible candidates in OR-6:

Republicans

State Sen. Bruce Starr
County commish Tom Brian

Democrats

Sen. Mark Hass
Sen Richard Devlin
Rep. David Edwards
Labor Commish Brad Avakian
Former Sen Ryan Deckert
Commish Desari Strader
Senator Suzanne Bonamici

and many more...  

---

by: AJBrad @ Mon Oct 12, 2009 at 21:27:54 PM UTC

Nice work, but is possibly a 6-0 for Dems in Oregon?

For have 6 dem districts maximizating the difference Obama-McCain for the district with less difference, you must find all the districts have the same difference.

Mathematically, if your data are right, and im sure they are, because you work with high detail level, the aproximate expected value for the 6 districts would be:

56,6 % Obama
40,6 % Obama

That only assuming all your 6 districts have the same population, or better, the same population with right of vote. You can make the little correction. The numbers would have a very little change.

We can think this level of difference is sufficent for afford a redistricting without red district? Here can be the doubt.

If the answer is yes, and you try find the 6-0 for dems, you should find aproximatelly all they have a 56-57% of vote for Obama and a 40-41% for McCain. Not more and not less.

Your work again is really good. Congratulations.

---

by: abgin @ Tue Nov 10, 2009 at 17:10:03 PM UTC