I don't think the new Third would be that much more Republican.

Eaton is not as Republican as Ionia is, with Delta Township having a lot of Democratic votes in it. Delta and Chester Townships alone gave Obama 10,602 to 7,632, or around 3,000 of his 5,000 vote advantage in the county, plus the potion of Lansing that's in the county. And it was one of two counties in the 7th that voted for Schaeur over Walberg. Even though that wouldn't be enough to make a difference in a year like 2010, if I'm not mistaken wouldn't the new 3rd would have been won by Obama in 2008? Probably wouldn't make much of a difference at a local level, though.

20, Democrat, Male, MI-06 (Home), MI-02 (College)

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by: koolbens @ Sat Nov 06, 2010 at 04:31:40 AM UTC

Sorry, just noticed Ionia's still in the district.

20, Democrat, Male, MI-06 (Home), MI-02 (College)

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by: koolbens @ Sat Nov 06, 2010 at 04:32:53 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Still a decent point on the role of Eaton county

I have to admit, I was looking at the 2004 numbers more closely than the 2008 ones. I tend to view the 2008 election as an extreme high-water mark; the narrower Democratic victory in 2004 seems more typical to me. In 2004, Eaton went for Bush 54-46, adding about 4000 votes to his statewide margin. In 2008, Eaton went for Obama, 54-46, again adding about 4000 votes to his statewide margin.

With your question, I took the time to calcute the new PVI. I came up with R+4.5. Wikipedia has the current district at R+6. So, contrary to my expectations, Eaton looks to be a slight drag on MI-03.

So, revised pitch for Eaton in MI-03: The old 3rd had the second most Republican PVI in the state. It can afford to take on a slightly swingy county so that the 7th or 4th don't have to.

Finally, re: Obama winning the new 3rd -- I'm pretty sure he won the current 3rd also.

30, male, MI-11 (previously VA-08). Evangelical, postconservative, green.

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by: borodino21 @ Sat Nov 06, 2010 at 05:16:58 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

I agree that 2008 was a little of an anomaly in Michigan.

Also, I didn't realize that taking that much of norther Kent out of the district would make that much of a difference in the 2008 numbers. I do think, though, that whatever the results of this years election, south-central Michigan and southwest Michigan are slowly trending Democratic. After all, Eaton voted for Granholm for governor in 2002 in a pretty split year where Posthumus won Democratic-leaning swing areas like Manistee and Macomb, and counties like Eaton, Jackson and Clinton didn't even vote for Clinton in either of his runs, and voted for all of the Democratic statewide winners in 2006 and 2008 before voting strongly like Snyder and local Republicans this year. I do think Berrien (high black turnout in Benton Harbor) and probably Jackson were flukes, though.

As someone from the 6th district, I wonder if Republicans might try to gerrymander his district to make it more Republican based on how hard of a swing the district took in 2008. Even if he doesn't have any trouble winning elections down the future, it's hard to see, when he retires (which could be a while, since he's only 57, even though he's served since 1987) that if Republicans don't put some more Republican territory from the 2nd or the 7th district they'll be able to keep much of a permanent lock on the district AND shore up Walberg, Huizinga or Amash safer. I just don't see how much more they can fiddle around with the edges of the district much more before it really becomes a problem for Republicans.

Upton and Walberg are pretty damn lucky that despite the strong Democratic leanings of Kalamazoo, the marginal leanings of Calhoun and Eaton, and the pockets of Democratic strength in Van Buren and Cass that there's basically no Democratic bench in any of those districts besides Schauer and a few state reps and councilman from Kalamazoo and Battle Creek.

MI-6 (home), MI-2 (college)


20, Democrat, Male, MI-06 (Home), MI-02 (College)

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by: koolbens @ Sat Nov 06, 2010 at 05:42:27 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

I really appreciate your insight into the western side of the state.

I'm from Wayne county (11th CD), so my knowledge of your side of the state is not as strong.

Since you have a special interest in the 6th, I calculated it's new PVI also. It still came out PVI Even. I ignored the Branch townships, since those aren't big enough to swing the percentages. Apparently swallowing the rest of Allegan from the 2nd wasn't enough to impact the score.

Re: West Michigan generally -- I think it's pretty clear that Amash, Huizenga, Upton, and Walberg can't all be made safer. There are only so many Republicans to go around, even in West Michigan. I really think that Walberg is a lost cause -- there's no significant pocket of Republicans anywhere near him to stretch for. Huizenga is, PVI-wise, the safest of the bunch. If anything, it would probably be best if they brought his PVI down slightly to strengthen someone else. I'm just not sure how to accomplish that. (In terms of this current map, the sticking point is oddly Monroe county in the far southeast. The 7th pretty much has to pick it up, which distorts the shapes of the districts it's adjacent to, and so on.)

As for Upton, the only way to get more Republicans into his district is north into the 2nd, starting with Ottawa county. Unfortunately for him, that's the home base of Hoekstra (his old counterpart) and Huizenga (his new). According to Wikipedia, Huizenga is from the eastern part of Ottawa. Maybe the 6th could stretch up the coastal part of the county a bit? (But what does the 6th lose, and how does that shape other districts?)

30, male, MI-11 (previously VA-08). Evangelical, postconservative, green.

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by: borodino21 @ Sat Nov 06, 2010 at 06:19:58 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

If they did stretch into Ottwawa for Upton..

My guess is that they would take all of Barry County, Allegan, and Western Ottawa, including Holland, and put that in with Berrien (where Upton is from, in St. Joseph), Van Buren, Cass, all of Kalamazoo and Portage cities and western Kalamazoo County and cut off the eastern parts of Kalamazoo County into Walberg's district, which might help him since eastern Kalamazoo County, except for Oshtemo, is very conservative. Then they'd probably put St. Joseph County in with Walberg's district. But I'm not sure this would work, since Holland and Zeeland are the main population centers of Ottawa County, and if you did that then Huizinga's district would probably need either Grand Traverse or all of Kent County to have enough population, because without those two cities I'm pretty sure Obama would've won the 2nd based on his stenght in Lake, Manistee and Muskegon Counties, and it wouldn't have enough people in it. Huizinga is from Jenison in eastern Ottawa, which is a tiny little town, and would be kind of on the fringe of a district that cut off most of the rest of Ottawa and stretch all the way to the north coast, so I don't think they could do this AND get enough people into Amash, Walberg, and Benishek's district. Your map seems more logical then anything I can think of.

I'm not sure Republicans care that much about saving Upton anyways. Even though he's not that moderate and is the dean of the state's Republican delegation in Washington, he almost got teabagged to death this year in the Republican primary and never has had an opponent with the ability to make him sweat in the general.

20, Democrat, Male, MI-06 (Home), MI-02 (College)

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by: koolbens @ Sat Nov 06, 2010 at 06:41:04 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

I tried out a reconfigured 6th based on your suggestions.

Berrien + Van Buren + Cass + western half of Kalamazoo + Allegan + Barry = 5k people short of a congressional district.

This improves the 6th district to R+1 PVI. It's amazing how hard it can be to shift the numbers sometimes.

To run the 6th up into any significant part of the 2nd, it looks like you'd either have to drop the Barry county idea or drop Kalamazoo county out of the 6th completely. (The latter of which does Walberg no favors.)

Looking at that more closely, Berrien + Van Buren + Cass + Allegan + Barry + St Joseph + the Holland county municipalities of [Zeeland + Holland + Park + Port Sheldon + Grand Haven + Ferrysburg + Spring Lake] is about almost perfect for a CD (about 1k over). Tomorrow, I might look at the PVI of that district to see how much it shores up the 6th. But once you've added all of Kalamazoo to the 7th, you may have just traded it away....

30, male, MI-11 (previously VA-08). Evangelical, postconservative, green.

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by: borodino21 @ Sat Nov 06, 2010 at 07:28:54 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

I've always thought, long term...

The Republican's main problem is that they can't find a way to throw Calhoun and Kalamazoo together, carve some rural areas out of both, and call it a day. Create a safe Democratic seat in West Michigan, and make the surrounding areas safely Republican. I'm assuming that there's no population model that could get either Upton's district high enough without west Ottawa or Walberg's without Lansing if you took these two cities out of their districts, though.

Interestingly enough, Walberg actually lives in Tipton in Lenawee County, so any changes that move his district more int he direction of Monroe might benefit him a lot more then just moving it northwards or westwards.

20, Democrat, Male, MI-06 (Home), MI-02 (College)

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by: koolbens @ Sat Nov 06, 2010 at 07:39:26 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Nicely done...

I think Rep.-elect Walberg is the Republican Lansing would most like to throw under the bus anyway. Something tells me his birther self and any Republican with a shot at statewide office in a blue state like Michigan don't get on well at parties, and he's going to generate some negative publicity unless he shuts up.

Not a terrible outcome for the Democrats, who could wind up with just as many seats in Michigan as they'll have in the 112th Congress in the 113th Congress if they have even a neutral year in 2012.

As for a potential matchup between Reps. Peters and Levin, I have an inkling Levin may be planning to retire anyway; he'll be 81 by the time of the 2012 elections.

20, center-left independent, Auckland Central resident, MD-05 voter, OR-01 native

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by: SaoMagnifico @ Sat Nov 06, 2010 at 05:28:04 AM UTC

Well, I wouldn't exactly call it...

...throwing Walberg under the bus. If they gave him Lansing, like in one of my earlier maps, that would qualify. But my current proposal pretty much just swaps out Eaton to bring in Monroe, which is actually a minor upgrade to a slightly more Republican county. My point about his being beyond help is about there not really being anything to do that would radically improve that district for him.

Levin could certainly retire in 2012, but if the Democrats do retake the House, he's only very recently taken the gavel of Ways and Means from under-ethics-investigation Charlie Rangel. He might be loathe to give that up.

30, male, MI-11 (previously VA-08). Evangelical, postconservative, green.

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by: borodino21 @ Sat Nov 06, 2010 at 06:31:42 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Great Work

It is disappointing that the Republicans control so many state legislative chambers.

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by: edward @ Sat Nov 06, 2010 at 05:52:29 AM UTC

If Monroe keeps trending Republican, and...

either Eaton (a.k.a. Charlotte, Eaton Rapids, and west Lansing) is taken out of Walberg's district or parts of Ingham aren't included, then he'll be fine unless there's some massive 60-80 Democratic wave in the next few years. I would agree with you on his craziness if the voters in the district hadn't ALREADY voted him in once. The fact that in even a Republican-leaning low-turnout group like this years electorate returned Walberg to Congress says a lot about the mood people are in right now.

I don't really see the benefit of redistricting Walberg out of existence just to put Peters and Levin together, since Republicans in the long run may have to worry more about what happens when Upton retires or what happens if Rogers decides to make a run statewide or actually gets a tough opponent. Throwing these Democratic-leaning counties in with Republican-leaning rural areas can only work for so long since Republicans at the statewide level don't wrack up the kind of margins in rural areas outside of West Michigan that they do in other Midwestern states.

I say they try to shore up Benishek by putting Traverse City back into his district, then try to make either the 6th (Upton) or the 3rd (Amash) stronger unless Upton gives some hints he may retire if he doesn't get the chairmanship of Energy in the next Congress

MI-6 (home), MI-2 (college)

20, Democrat, Male, MI-06 (Home), MI-02 (College)

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by: koolbens @ Sat Nov 06, 2010 at 05:57:09 AM UTC

As I just said upstream...

... I don't think I'm doing Walberg any particular disfavor on this map. My remark in the conclusion about him being "unhelpable" was sort of an oblique pun about his craziness, but my real point there was that there just isn't anything you can do to that district to make it significantly more Republican. (Not, at least, without doing significant harm to one of his Republican neighbors. This is the problem of owning all of the seats outside of the Detroit-Ann Arbor-Flint CMSA. It turns the outstate redistricting process into a zero sum game amongst the Republican incumbents.)

Upton we're talking about upstream. Rogers should actually have a stronger district under this plan. Lapeer has a PVI about one point more Republican than Clinton, and it's slightly more populous.

I agree about Benishek and Traverse City -- that's why my map does exactly that.

30, male, MI-11 (previously VA-08). Evangelical, postconservative, green.

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by: borodino21 @ Sat Nov 06, 2010 at 06:57:04 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

That comment was actually supposed to be a reply to SaoMagnfico's comment.

I accidently put it down as a general comment on the threat. I was addressing his point about Walberg, where I agree with you  that nothing can be done really to make his district redder without really screwing up the surrounding districts.

20, Democrat, Male, MI-06 (Home), MI-02 (College)

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by: koolbens @ Sat Nov 06, 2010 at 07:03:16 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

MI-07

Previously working for Schauer (MI-07) and living outside of AA I knew the Democrat's goal (if they held re-districting power) was to cut up McCotter's district and push the liberal Lansing regions into the 7th and give the Republican sections to Rogers and the western districts. Also, they wanted to split Candice Miller's district with a bit of Levin's and a bit of metro Detroit to make 2 more democratic seats.

I really hope the Republicans can't split Levin's district anymore because then they would need to hurt one of their own incumbents.

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by: kman23 @ Sat Nov 06, 2010 at 16:49:22 PM UTC

Interesting

I like your second attempt because it took me out of McCotter's district.  If the Dems controlled the process, it would probably be McCotter that would be redistricted out of office.  Instead, we could get stuck with him for many more years.  I hope nothing close to your final solution happens.  That would put me into a very Republican district.  

My initial instinct was the GOP would target Peters and Levin.  But who knows what they'll do.  

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by: blue_onyx @ Sat Nov 06, 2010 at 19:08:49 PM UTC

To demonstrate the power of line-drawing...

... here's my current version of a Democratic gerrymander.

 [Credit to both pbratt's diary and koolbens comments in this thread for inspiration for this plans versions of the 3rd and 6th districts, respectively.]

Overview: At worst a 7-7 map; at best 11-3 Democratic; meant to be 10-4 Democratic.

This map targets all of McCotter, Amash, Upton, Walberg, and Rogers. McCotter's district disappears. Amash and Upton suddenly find themselves in urban-heavy districts. And Walberg and Rogers now share a district dominated by Ann Arbor.

Benishek's 1st (blue) expands slightly into the 4th. It's still potentially winnable by a good Democratic candidate.

Huizenga's 2nd (green) is radically altered. He'll have to introduce himself to a districts that's probably 70%+ new. Fortunately for him, they're mostly Republicans.

Amash's 3rd (purple) is now super-urban, consisting solely of portions of Kent and Muskegon counties. This district has a even PVI.

Camps' 4th (red) has lurched west, taking in the northern half of the old 2nd. Camp should be safe here.

Kildee's 5th (yellow) drops Saginaw to pick up the Thumb from Candice Miller. It will be less Democratic, but I still believe that Flint is too dominate for Republican victory.

Upton's 6th (teal) now stretchs east to pick up Battle Creek. As an entrenched incumbent, he'd probably hang on for a while. But a retirement or Democratic wave could easily result this district flipping parties.

Walberg's 7th (grey) now houses both Walberg and Rogers in a district containing all of Ann Arbor's Washtenaw county. I'm not 100% sure that Washtenaw can dominate this district enough to make it completely safe for the Democrats, but it certainly has a heavy Democratic tilt.

Roger's 8th (slate blue) no longer houses Rogers. Worse for him, it now stretchs up to Saginaw and Bay City instead of east to northern Oakland. This is completely safe Democratic district.

Peter's 9th (cyan) is exactly like the one in my GOP gerrymander. The difference here is that Levin still has a district to run, even if he doesn't live in it.

Miller's 10th (deep pink) loses the Thumb to take in the more-Republican-y parts of Oakland county that I stripped from Rogers and McCotter. It's technically an open seat -- Miller lives in the new 12th -- but whichever Republican runs here wins.

McCotter's 11th disappears. Completely. I reuse the desigination for Dingell's district. (See below.)

Levin's 12th (cornflower blue) takes in the most Democratic parts of Macomb. Levin doesn't live here any more (Miller does), but it's a solidly Democratic district for whoever runs.

Clarke's 13th (salmon?) stretches to take in more of Downriver. VRA: 50% black, 37% white.

Conyer's 14th (olive drab) swings west to take on the core of McCotter's turf, including his hometown of Livonia, subsuming the most Republican parts of Wayne county with the western half of Detroit. VRA: 54% black, 40% white.

Dingell's 15th is renumbered the 11th (lime green). He loses Ann Arbor and now streches into Lenawee in the south, but this is still a solidly Democratic district.

30, male, MI-11 (previously VA-08). Evangelical, postconservative, green.

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by: borodino21 @ Sat Nov 06, 2010 at 23:05:50 PM UTC

Good map.

Thanks for the shout out. Even though this is never going to happen this year, maybe you should make a new thread for this.

Too bad Democrats have never gotten their act together (i.e. lost the governorship in 1990, the house in 1998), although I wonder if Republicans wouldn't still try to pull something by putting Battle Creek and Kalamazoo together, even if it makes Upton's district a little less friendly considering that the Republican wave almost completely destroyed Democrat's benches in Kalamazoo and Calhoun. After all, if it hadn't been for Battle Creek, Schaeur wouldn't have won Calhoun County against Walberg (out of a 1,000 vote margin, I don't know where else any Democratic votes in a Republican wave year would've come from in Calhoun).

20, Democrat, Male, MI-06 (Home), MI-02 (College)

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by: koolbens @ Sat Nov 06, 2010 at 23:20:11 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Very well done

I have to say, this is one of the best redistricting diaries I've seen in terms of depth. Gov-elect Snyder bills himself as "one tough nerd"--is he the kind of nerd that reads SSP in his spare time and is taking notes?

20, CD MA-03/NH-01/MA-08

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by: MassGOP @ Sun Nov 07, 2010 at 01:23:57 AM UTC

MI-08

MI-08 resident, here.  I've been wishing for some time that someone unsaddles ultra-conservative Livingston from us (Lansing, here).  Mike has his office based out of Lansing, but beyond that, the only time Livingston County-based Mike is in Lansing is to fundraise.  It's like not even having a congressman.  Any redistricting couldn't be much worse than the current one.

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by: MIvotee @ Sun Nov 07, 2010 at 03:39:06 AM UTC

BTW

Does anyone have a list or map of the 4 state senate seats lost to the Dems on Tuesday, and all of the House seats lost?  Did the Dems flip any House seats?

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by: MIvotee @ Sun Nov 07, 2010 at 04:53:42 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

List, I can do; Map, not as easy

Senate Loses

* District 10 - Sterling Heights(Central Macomb)
* District 26 - Burton (E Genesee and Random N Oakland) -- seriously, it's the 2nd worst gerrymander in the state senate, touch point contiguity and all
* District 31 - Bay City (Saginaw Bay and Thumb)
* District 38 - Marquette (Most of the UP)

No gains

House Losses

* District 20 - Plymouth/Northville (NW Wayne) -- my district
* District 24 - St. Clair Shores (SE Macomb)
* District 32 - New Baltimore (NE Macomb bleeding into St Clair)
* District 57 - Dexter/Chelsea/Saline (W Washtenaw)
* District 55 - Milan/Dundee (S Cen Wastenaw/W Monroe)
* District 56 - Monroe (Most of Monroe)
* District 57 - Adrian (Lenawee)
* District 64 - Jackson (S and W Jackson)
* District 65 - Grass Lake (N and E Jackson)
* District 70 - Ionia (Montcalm and N Ionia)
* District 83 - Port Huron (Sanilac and a tendril into St Clair to pick up Port Huron)
* District 84 - Bad Axe (Huron and Tuscola) -- by 28 votes!
* District 92 - Norton Shores (Outer Muskegon)
* District 101 - Ludington (Mason to Leelanau)
* District 103 - West Branch (Missaukee to Iosco)
* District 106 - Alpena (Alpena, adjacent counties, and Crawford)
* District 107 - Gaylord/Cheybogan (Cheboygan, Antrim, Charlevoix, Otsego)
* District 108 - Sault St Marie (Chippewa, Mackinac, Emmet)
* District 110 - Houghton (Baraga, Iron and points west)

No gains

Quick Analysis

Nothing really seems strikes me in connection to the Senate losses.

For the House losses, the first thing that sticks out is the shellacking in the 1st Congressional district. Previously, Democrats held six of the eight House districts wholly or partly in the that CD. On Tuesday, they lost five of those six.

The six of the other fourteen losses are concentrated in south central Michigan, mostly the 7th Congressional district. This is interesting, of course, since those are the two CDs that swapped hands on Tuesday.

The next biggest blocs are on the three on Lake Michigan coast and the three-or-so in the Thumb. That leaves three isolated cases: Plymouth/Northville, St. Clair Shores and Ionia.

The final thing that strikes me is the dog that merely woofed instead of barking: Metro Detroit. I was expecting to see more than two districts go down in the tri-county area.

30, male, MI-11 (previously VA-08). Evangelical, postconservative, green.

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by: borodino21 @ Sun Nov 07, 2010 at 06:08:37 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

For the Senate

For District 38, it was Michael Lahti and Tom Casperson for Prusi's open seat - seems like having Dan Benishek turning out Republicans in western U.P., usually a Democratic area, combined with Virg underperfoming and Casperson having a strong base in the district combines for a lose. Can't believe the only Democrat left representing the U.P. now is Steve Lindberg - it wasn't even Virg's worst area in the state.

Can't believe Democrats lost Jim Barcia's seat. What the hell happened? I can understand most the House loses, but the just slaughtering of Democrats in the U.P. and the Lake Michigan area around Bay City, Saginaw, suburban Flint is just horrendous.

20, Democrat, Male, MI-06 (Home), MI-02 (College)

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by: koolbens @ Sun Nov 07, 2010 at 07:40:45 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

By the way, we need more Michiganders at SSP.

20, Democrat, Male, MI-06 (Home), MI-02 (College)

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by: koolbens @ Sun Nov 07, 2010 at 07:41:31 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

And meant Lake Huron, not Michigan, though we took a beating there, too.

20, Democrat, Male, MI-06 (Home), MI-02 (College)

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by: koolbens @ Sun Nov 07, 2010 at 07:50:40 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

List

Was this a list?  I've been trying to find the wins and losses online everywhere, but can't.

Anyway, yeah, it looks like the UP is shifting, or that it was simply suceptible to the swing, this time.  Honestly, if Stupak had stayed on, he could have held this district all the way down the ticket for this year, even with his unpopular health care vote.  If he cared about holding that seat and the downticket seats for the Dems in the UP, he'd have resigned after the election.

10 & 26 look like senate seats we should be able to get back on the next go around.

In the House, 20 looks like a strange one.  Isn't that the district that Granholm has lived in forever?  I'd always thought Plymouth/Northville, while upscale, was a Dem district.  Meh.  52 is kind of a surprise.  55, 56, & 57 don't come as much of a surprise to me.  I'm surprised to find that they were in Democratic hands to begin with.

92 is Muskegon, itself, because the map I have seems to show it as such with 91 covering the out-county area.

Yeah, the losses in Northern Michigan and the UP are worrisome, but you can mostly chalk it up to the simple fact of higher Republican turnout, so maybe it's anamoly.

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by: MIvotee @ Sun Nov 07, 2010 at 10:07:56 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Realignment, I hope not

The northern stuff worries me. Those have always been conservative districts and I don't know if they'll come back. The Alabama state leg flipped and there's no way it comes back, the conservative Dems just decided they're conservative Reps now. I know the UP isn't Alabama at all (sorry for the implication Yoopers) but I fear a similar change in thinking. In the Northern Lower Peninsula, when a Sheltrown can't win the 103rd, I think the Apocalypse has come. (BTW, all the northernmost Congressional districts in the Midwest used to be held by Dems, Collin Peterson is alone now, someone please tell me I'm being paranoid)

32, M, MI-6, Iconoclastic Leftist

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by: octaviuz @ Sun Nov 07, 2010 at 10:42:45 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Swing

One election does not a trend make, or at least you can't tell from just one election if there is a trend.  The nation, in general, is swinging back and forth more often and more wildly, now.  Everything is being thrown out of whack.  I hardly think that it'd be sensible to start panicking now because Democratic voters didn't show up, this year.  Dems need to start articulating their accomplishments, better.

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by: MIvotee @ Sun Nov 07, 2010 at 11:30:06 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

I compiled the list myself...

... by comparing Wikipedia's list of incumbents (which hasn't been updated for the election) with the Secretary of State's list of elections results. That's apparently resulted in at least one typo, because I described the lost Muskegon area district correctly. It's just that the lost district is, in fact, District 91 instead of District 92. (District 92 remained Democratic by a 2:1 margin.)

If redistricting changed none of the senate districts, I think all four are recoverable for the Dems.

District 20 is my home district. When I moved back home from the DC area a couple years ago, I was surprised to find it in Democratic hands. In 2008, McCain eked out victories in only seven muncipalities in Wayne County: Plymouth Township and Northville Township in northwest, Grosse Isle Township in the southeast, and four of the five Grosse Pointes in the northwest.

It is Granholm's home district, but she's never held local office here. Her first elected office was state AG, moving up from appointive offices as Wayne County Counsel and assistant US Attorney.

I have opposite feelings about the districts in the fifties. I'm surprised that western Washtenaw was ever Democratic; and I'm surprised that both of the Monroe districts fell. Having been looking at the Presidential numbers recently, it appears that Monroe is either shifting Republican or was just more Republican than I thought all along.

30, male, MI-11 (previously VA-08). Evangelical, postconservative, green.

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by: borodino21 @ Sun Nov 07, 2010 at 16:01:09 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Monroe County.

Long-ass, all information from uselectionatlas.org

In 2000, Monroe voted 51% for Gore, 46% for Bush. State Results, 51% for Gore, 46% Bush. No meaningful difference.

In 2004, Monroe voted 50% for Bush, 48% for Kerry. State Results, 51% for Kerry, 47-48% for Bush. Kerry stays the same percentage wise, Bush gains 1-2% statewide, but Monroe sees a 1% dropoff for Dems, and a 4% swing to Republicans.

In 2008, Monroe voted 51% for Obama, 46% for McCain. State Results, 57% for Obama, 40-41% for McCain. Monroe voted 5-6% more Republican, and 6% less Democratic then statewide, and only swung 3 points for Obama and McCain only lost 4% of Bush's percentage.

By contrast, Washtenaw went from 63-35 Kerry-Bush to 69-28 Obama-McCain, Oakland went 49/50-49 Kerry-Bush to 56-41/42 Obama McCain, Macomb went 50-48/49 Bush-Kerry to 53-44/45 Obama-McCain. Washtenaw, which voted 12% more Democratic and 11% less Republican then statewide in 2004, voted 12% more Democratic and 12-13% less Republican then statewide in 2008. Oakland, which voted voted only about 1% less Democratic statewide in 2004 voted a more average 1% less Democratic statewide and voted either 1% more or about even for Republicans statewide. Macomb, which voted 2-3% less Democratic and 2% more Republican statewide in 2004, votes 4% less Democratic and 3% more Republican then statewide in 2008. The comparison is even more troublesome if you go back to 2000. In that election, Oakland went 49-48 Gore, and 50-48 Gore, so only a 2% dropoff for the Democrat statewide and a 1% dropoff in Oakland and Macomb, respectively. So in 2008, Monroe was 6% more Republican then the statewide average compared to 2000, Macomb was 1-2% more Republican compared to the statewide average in 2000, and Oakland was 1% less Republican then the statewide average compared to 2000. That means if this keeps up, to get 50% or above in BOTH Macomb and Oakland in Michigan, a Democrat would on average need about 52% of the vote, but do the same with Monroe, based on the 2008 numbers would need about 56% of the vote, but unlike in the past Democrats can win with just 49%-51% of the vote in EITHER Macomb or Oakland (See Stabenow 2000, Granholm 2002, and Kerry 2004) because of lessened Republican margins in southwest Michigan, Kent County and the farm counties in central Michigan.

It seems pretty clear that Democrats, especially after this election cycle where Gary Peters hung on and Democrats saw negligible losses in the state legislature compared to the rest of the state in the three main metro Detroit counties (i.e. Wayne, Macomb, and Oakland), along with Washtenaw but saw John Dingell LOSE Monroe County 26,785 to 19,767 to Rob Steele, while winning the Washtenaw portions of his district 54,683 to 25,224 and the Wayne County portions 43,883 to 31,479 over Steele that Democrats should begin to write off Monroe, especially with their gains in southwest Michigan and in some of the farm counties in the central part of the state. After all, Kalamazoo County cast almost 60,000 more votes then Monroe County did in 2008, and Obama won Kalamazoo County 58/59-39, and Calhoun County cast only 13,000 less then Monroe County, but went for Obama by a margin of 53/54-44/45.

20, Democrat, Male, MI-06 (Home), MI-02 (College)

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by: koolbens @ Sun Nov 07, 2010 at 19:39:34 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Here, in MI-06...

It's exactly the same thing, except Fred Upton does get some votes from Kalamazoo by earmarking highways and beautification projects, but besides that you never would know the guy exists. The current redistricting is pretty bad, I have to agree with you. Grand Rapids, second biggest city in Michigan, split up so the Democratic urban core of it is thrown together with a few of it's high-income suburbs and some rural areas (MI-3); Lansing, the fifth largest, diluted by throwing it together with Livingston  (MI-08); Kalamazoo (15th), and biggest in southwest Michigan, thrown in with a bunch of not-that-conservative rural areas, but still enough Republican votes at the local level to dilute K county, when a fair plan would put Kalamazoo and Battle Creek together with maybe Eaton County (MI-6); and Muskegon thrown together with Ottawa, which gives 60-70% of its votes on average to the Republican candidate (though this is mostly a problem of geography, not redistricting) (MI-02).

I really don't know how Michigan's redistricting could get any worse for Democrats, since the only way they could make Kildee, Levin, Peters or Dingell's districts any worse would make McCotter, Miller, Walberg or Roger's more Democratic. Peter's is about as maxed out redistricting wise as it can get, seeing as how it was designed to be safe for Knollenberg and to dilute Pontiac, so I'm really shocked he pulled out a win, even with his terrible opponent.

20, Democrat, Male, MI-06 (Home), MI-02 (College)

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by: koolbens @ Sun Nov 07, 2010 at 04:58:10 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Yep

They've basically reached the peak of their advantage in Michigan.  That's what you get with a state's population that's stagnated.  That Walberg, for instance, got his seatback isn't really much a result of his district being super conservative, rather, Michigan (generally) had pretty poor turnout, this year, which almost always favors Republicans.  Heck, Wayne County turned out less than 40% of its voters on Tuesday.  If we knew then what we know, now, Schauer could have worked in turned out a few extra thousand folks in Battle Creek, Jackson, and Delta Township (suburban Lansing).  

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by: MIvotee @ Sun Nov 07, 2010 at 05:30:20 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

New Approach

Interesting discussion, but I think you're missing the point on this plan.  Gary Peters will not be given a solid Democrat distict in the middle of Oakland County.  I agree that carving up Levin's 12th is the way to go, but I think you might see something more like this in the Metro Detroit area:

9th (Peters)- Republicans level the playing field here by dumping Royal Oak and Berkley and moving the district north and west.  Would pick up all of Orion, Independence Townships, Addison, Oxford, Brandon, Groveland and Springfield.  Also takes northern half of Farmington Hills.

10th (Miller)- Extends south along the lines of this plan picking up virtually of that proposed in this plan.

11th (McCotter)- Dumps Van Buren Twp. in Wayne County and picks up Rose and Holly Twp. in Oakland.  Cuts Farmington Hills in half taking in the southern half.

12th (Dingell)- Most of out-county Wayne including Dearborn, all of downriver and western townships (except Canton).  Would extend out to pick up Ann Arbor and most of current Washtenaw 15th.

13th (Clarke)- All of Detroit not included in new 14th, the Pointes and River Rouge, Melvindale.  Given Detroit's population loss, this makes perfect sense.

14th (Conyers)- Breaks new ground by including northern Detroit with SE Oakland County (Southfield, Royal Oak, Oak Park)and Warren, Eastpointe, Roseville in Macomb.  Solid Dem seat with potential for a congressional newcomer.

There are still a lot of calculations needed on this plan, but it leaves 8 solid Republican seats, 4 solid Dem seats, one leaning R seat (9th) and toss-up in the 7th.

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by: thinkpad @ Tue Nov 09, 2010 at 14:57:13 PM UTC

Your plan is highly problematic

{Preamble: I really appreciate the feedback. I especially appreciate it now that this diary has slid off the front page. I'm about to be very critical of your idea, so I wanted to make sure I said that upfront. Really, thanks.}

Your plan has two basic problems: the population figures don't work and it wreaks havoc outstate.

Here's my best attempt to replicate your plan in Dave's app:

Population Problems

You can see the population figures on the left. The 9th is 15k over; the 11th is 66k under. Even if you adjusted the boundary between them, the 11th would still be 50k under.

The 12th is 40k over -- that's picking up the bare minimum Democratic portions of the county: Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti, and enough townships to connect them.

The 13th I drew using the suburbs you mentioned, plus Hamtramck and Highland Park, then adding enough of Detroit to make a district. The 14th got the suburbs you mentioned, plus what of Detroit is left over. This version of the 14th is not only 50k over populated, it also violates VRA. It's 48% white, 47% black (as you can see in the demographics bar at top.)

And that VRA problem makes this plan difficult to salvage. You can achieve rough population parity (within 5k) for the 9th, 11th, and 13th by the following changes:

* Move Southfield Township and the rest of Farmington Hills to the 11th
* Move Huntington Woods, Oak Park, Ferndale, and Pleasant Ridge to the 9th
* Move Clawson to the 13th

But the 13th's racial demographics don't change, and there's no easy way to fix that. My guess is that to get the 13th back within VRA limits you'd have to move at least 50k people around -- probably more. For example, you could move the Macomb County parts of your 13th in the 14th, and then have the 13th take back more of Detroit.

And that still doesn't solve the problem of the 12th. Even if you removed Ann Arbor and Superior Townships from this plan and used a (legally-speaking-in-Michigan highly-questionable) sliver of Pittsfield to attach Ann Arbor to Ypsilanti, it's still 26k over. By (again legally-dubiously) removing parts of Ypsilanti Township until the 12th is at rough population parity, you end up with something like this:

(VRA stats for the new Detroit districts -- 13th: 52% black, 43% white; 14th: 60% black, 28% white.)

This preserves the core ideas of your plan: wholly subsume the current 12th into Detroit, move the 9th and 11th north into more Republican parts of Oakland County, and tie together southern Wayne County and Ann Arbor. Under Michigan redistricting law, the fact that there's not a single district solely in Wayne County along with the fact that slivers of Pittsfield and Ypsilanti Townships are being used to string together the 12th are highly suspect. But let's run with this for now, so that we can see what this version of Metro Detroit looks like statewide.

Outstate Havoc

The summary here: your plan destroys the 7th and 8th from a GOP perspective, endangers the 4th, and loses an opportunity to shore up the 1st.

Sticking with my 10th pulls the 5th east into the Thumb. Moving the 9th and 11th north as you do to subsume all of Oakland County pushes the 8th to the west. My plan has the 8th pick up Lapeer County. Under your plan, only the 5th can do so, pulling it out of Saginaw County, forcing the 4th to pick that up. Relatively less of Washtenaw County is in the 12th under your plan, so the 7th has to come east to pick it up. This causes the 6th to slide east as well.

The new 8th is now a district won by Obama by 40k votes. The Washtenaw portions alone of the new 7th voted for Obama by 40k; the overall margins in the new 7th are about 55k. Even if you flipped Battle Creek to new 6th to try to hold that margin down, you'd just be making Fred Upton's life more difficult.

Dave Camp's existing 4th is only R+3. I think it can handle smaller Bay County, but Saginaw County is twice as big. Obama won this version of the 4th by 20k -- and that's with keeping Grand Traverse in the district. Which, in turn, prevents the Republicans from shoring up the 1st. In fact, the 1st gets marginally worse, since it actually takes in Bay City under this map -- the current 1st stops just short of doing so.

Summary

Your specific Detroit-area plan doesn't work from a population perspective, but even if it's tweaked to work, it wreaks havoc with the outstate. Subsuming the entire 12th into Detroit-based districts is a cute idea. Strengthening McCotter and weakening Peters by moving their districts north is in-and-of-itself a sound idea. But you've pulled Dingell's new 12th and Kildee's new 5th too far east, exposing the central Michigan districts to too many smaller-city Democrats.

Your summary for your plan read

There are still a lot of calculations needed on this plan, but it leaves 8 solid Republican seats, 4 solid Dem seats, one leaning R seat (9th) and toss-up in the 7th.

Instead, I think your end results at best look something like this:

Safe Republican districts: 2nd, 3rd, 11th
Lean Republican districts: 1st, 6th, 9th, 10th
Toss-Up: 4th
Lean Democratic districts: 7th, 8th, 5th
Safe Democratic districts: 12th, 13th, 14th

And I think that's being generous to the GOP about the 1st and 9th.

30, male, MI-11 (previously VA-08). Evangelical, postconservative, green.

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by: borodino21 @ Tue Nov 09, 2010 at 18:43:08 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

I read that post over twice...

... and I still missed at least one basic-copying problem. Most of the time when I'm referring the 13th I mean the 14th and vice verse. Hopefully the maps will help it make sense.  

30, male, MI-11 (previously VA-08). Evangelical, postconservative, green.

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by: borodino21 @ Tue Nov 09, 2010 at 18:46:21 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Analysis of Redistricting plan

Thanks for the shoutout as well borodino21. I've done a bit of closer analysis of your plan, and calculated the strength of your districts because on the Democratic Baseline (which is based on the Democratic vote share for the Board of Education Races.

Before I begin the analysis, I think that this plan is going to be facing a couple of problems. First, you have a number of GOP incumbents who are not going to like their new homes. Miller in the 10th will not like having a tougher district, McCotter will not want to be facing a challenge by Glenn Anderson in 2012, and Tim Walberg is going to be in a seat that is going to be somewhat different and open to a conservative Democratic challenger. Secondly, the Apol standards are pretty stringent about checking some of your districts, most notably the division Wayne County into four districts, when the standards clearly stress compactness and frown on districts crossing county lines. I'm not saying that the GOP Supreme Court won't approve the map, but just a couple of early road bumps to be careful about.

Looking at one district in particular would raise some alarm bells for the GOP. The 10th, while still a Republican seat, has a pretty strong Democratic baseline based on the municipalities that you include. The Democratic baseline in 2008 was 54%, 50% in 2006, 47% in 2004, 45% in 2002, and 51% in 2000. This district is clearly open for the picking if there is 1) a Democratic wave year (such as 2008 and 2006) or 2) an open seat (such as 2002). A good gerrymander looks at creating districts that can withstand the strongest wave.

If I were a GOP strategist, I'd also be concerned about the new 11th and the redrawn Walberg seat. Both give Republican incumbents a lot of new territory to represent in districts that went DEM in 2006 and 2008 in their reconfigured forms.

Personally, if I wanted to try and kept the Dems down to five seats, I'd spread out more of the Dems that you put in Miller's seat into other seats. How I'd do it I'm not quite sure right now.

Great map though-well thought out and I'm sure GOP will take a look at your plan.

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by: pbratt @ Sat Nov 13, 2010 at 22:08:04 PM UTC

Thanks!

I really appreciate your comments, pbratt. Your Democratic 3rd was a brilliant idea and using the Board of Elections votes as a proxy for voter registration is equally inspired.

I broadly agree with your criticisms of the final plan I present in my diary. Miller's district definitely gets weaker, although I'm suprised it got that much weaker. Walberg also doesn't get much (if any) help, but I really can't see where he can get help from.

I'm a little surprised, though, about the specific criticism of having Wayne County split into four parts, because this is really just a continuation of the current map. Two Detroit-based districts, one district combining the southern part of the county with eastern Washtenaw, and one district in the northwest running into Oakland. Also, as I mentioned in my pre-conclusionary note, this is actually one fewer county-fragment for the tri-county area than before, since you don't have the equivalent of the current Oakland-portion of the 12th.

Continuing in the vein, is there really any such thing as a Republican gerrymander that doesn't split Wayne into four parts? McCotter lives in Livonia, right? So the 11th has to just take in the most Republican parts of Wayne County and then head for greener pastures -- unless they just abandon him, I suppose...

Again, I really do appreciate your feedback. I'm trying to draw realistic maps, so getting a good handle on what's kosher is important to me. (And on that note, what does the term "Apol" in "Apol standards" mean?) As I understood things from your diary, Michigan has basically three rules: don't split municipalities, really try not to split counties, and stay within +/- 5% of ideal population. (Although, federal rules supercede that last one when it comes to population variance in congressional districts, yes?)

I've been working on some state senate maps. And the current state senate map has a couple of real doozies that I don't understand in light of those rules. The touchpoint contiguity in District 26 and arbitary-seeming string of Jackson and Washtenaw townships in District 17 both come to mind. Is there anything you know of that would clarify how the standards are applied? Thanks!

30, male, MI-11 (previously VA-08). Evangelical, postconservative, green.

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by: borodino21 @ Sun Nov 14, 2010 at 04:54:51 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Yes,

McCotter does live in Livonia.  If state Sen. Glenn Anderson had run in 2008, I believe he would have defeated McCotter.  I wouldn't be surprised if the GOP does try to make the district safer for him.  I guess they could put the more Democratic areas (Westland, Wayne, Garden City) into Dingell's district and include more of northern Oakland county in the 11th.

I agree about Wayne county having 4 districts.  I've been playing around with the redistricting program myself and I usually end up splitting the county into 4 districts too.  I'm not sure there would be any redistricting proposal, Democratic or Republican, that wouldn't split the county into 4 districts.  

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by: blue_onyx @ Mon Nov 15, 2010 at 05:05:01 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Wayne County

Thanks for the thoughts-I mispoke about Wayne County. My quibble was more that three of the four Wayne County districts spill into other counties. Under the Apol standards, making districts cross county lines are frowned upon, although the GOP did it quite nicely in 2001 with Wayne and Washtenaw Counties. I think that the current map has two districts (11th and 15th) covering portions of Wayne County, so there wouldn't be any change with your map.  

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by: pbratt @ Mon Nov 15, 2010 at 15:10:38 PM UTC

Michigan CD redistricting

Hello all. You might be interested in the CD maps that I created for Michigan. I have three of them. They all I think meet Michigan's legal requirements.  

The first plan tries to hold the Dems down to just 4 seats, but it is at the cost of making CD-11 and Cd-08 uncomfortably marginal.

The second plan makes all the GOP incumbents safe, gets rid of Peters and CD-09, and makes Levin and CD-12 marginal. However, it combines Cd-11's share of Wayne County (and his home in Livonia), with Livingston County, Rogers' base in CD-08, forcing Rogers to move to Oakland County, and run in a district which is all in Oakland, or which his current district takes in a small part. Rogers and McCotter may not like that. It is a pity, because the map is quite elegant and compact, and minimizes county splits which the law encourages.

In the third plan, Rogers does not have to move, since his CD-08 now becomes limited to just Livingston County, and parts of Oakland County (including taking in Dem Pontiac and essentially neutralizing it (along with West Bloomfield Township), with an ocean of GOP precincts in the balance of the CD.  So this is the plan that I think the GOP will actually adopt.  

I might note that the now all Macomb County CD-12 can be redrawn a bit, and include Harrison Township, the home of Candice Miller (CD-10), if she chooses to take a risk, and run in this marginal CD, rather than her existing CD-10. The 2004 PVI of the new CD-12 is about +1% D. It could be made about an even PVI (i.e. Bush 2004 would have carried it by about a 3% margin), by jiggling the lines a bit, as part of the process of appending Harrison Township to it. It was tricky to do it however, because you are allowed just one township or city split between two CD's. So I had to play with the numbers until I could suck up all of Dem Mt. Clemens in CD-10, with the township split linking Mt Clemens to Macomb Township in CD-10 via a land bridge of two precincts in Clinton Township. Without taking in all of Mt. Clemens, that would be two splits, which is prohibited by law.

To the extent however CD-12 is made a percentage point more GOP, CD-10 will be made about 0.5% less (which takes in northern Macomb, the thumb, and suburban Flint).

The link to the maps is below. If anyone has any comments, I would be most interested to hear them. Thanks.  

http://uselectionatlas.org/FOR...

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by: Torie @ Sat Dec 11, 2010 at 19:57:40 PM UTC