Sounds like we’re getting exactly what we expected:
Indiana lawmakers unveiled a new draft of legislative maps Monday morning that would solidify some Republican congressional seats, while making one Democratic congressional seat nearly certain to shift into Republican hands.
The maps proposed in the Senate Elections Committee this morning would make major changes to Democratic U.S. Rep. Joe Donnelly’s 2nd District, in north-central Indiana.
Lawmakers are proposing to drop Howard County, which includes the Democratic-leaning city of Kokomo, as well as part of Democratic-leaning LaPorte County, and add all of Republican-leaning Elkhart County and much of strongly-GOP Kosciusko County, among other changes.
I’ll wait until the numbers get run, but it sure seems likely that this new map will inspire Donnelly to run for Senate instead. Assuming Hoosier Republicans don’t melt down the way their counterparts have just done in Louisiana, these new plans should pass easily, seeing as the GOP controls the trifecta. Anyhow, the new map is just below, and new state Senate and House maps are below the fold (and no, I don’t know why the House map appears to be suffering from gigantism).
UPDATE: Statement (via email) from Donnelly:
I am disappointed because it appears that politics played into the drawing of the congressional district lines revealed this morning by Republicans in the General Assembly. By comparison, the Indiana Senate Democrats released a map of congressional districts a few weeks ago that respected “communities of interest,” as called for by Governor Daniels. For example, in the Senate Democrats’ map, LaPorte County was intact in the 2nd Congressional District and Kosciusko County was intact in the 3rd Congressional District. In the Republicans’ map, LaPorte County is divided between the 1st and 2nd Congressional Districts and Kosciusko County is divided between the 2nd and 3rd Congressional Districts.
Even though it appears that politics played a role in the drawing of this map, I am confident that a Democrat can win in the new 2ndCongressional District. Then-Senator Obama performed well in this district in 2008, earning 49% of the vote. Also, it is not uncommon for a Democratic candidate in Indiana to outperform his or her nominee for president. I did it in 2008, outperforming then-Senator Obama by 13 points, and I know it can be done again.
As for my future plans, my decision will ultimately be based on how I can best serve the people of this great state. I will soon be sitting down with my wife and children and expect to make a decision in the coming weeks.
State Senate:
State House:
If Mourdock beats Lugar and Donnelly beats him.
That didn’t stop us from winning IN-08 or IN-09. Unless he gets a strong opponent or Obama looks like he’s going to get washed out in Indiana, I think Donnelly would theoretically be taking a smaller risk if he ran for reelection. The problem then would be that in 2014, when he’d be in danger from midterm turnout, he’d have nowhere to go. but he could just retire and then make a comeback in 2016 against the hapless Dan Coats.
whatever number that orange district is (6?) can be a Democratic district with Bloomington in there and the swingy areas along the Ohio River.
ALMOST what the Hoosier redistricting contingent here has been thinking would happen, but with a few odd twists in which counties got split.
CD1’s numbers seem off. When I do this in DRA with 2010 data I can only fit Lake and Porter in their entirety, not Michigan City as well.
It’s a good way to crack the state overall, though. Only CDs 1 and 7 would stay D, 7 now has ALL of the south side so it might be vulnerable in a 2010-like year with a better R candidate than Marvin Scott. Of the R seats, only CD8 is potentially vulnerable to a Blue Dog. CD9 becomes safe, CD6 remains safe, and CD5 gets a bit bluer but was so red to begin with that it doesn’t make any difference. I grudgingly have to admit that the state GOP did a good job.
Though it might backfire spectacularly if Donnelly gets into the Senate race and somehow actually wins it.
I’d say the upper bounds for a conservative Democrat to be favored depend on the region in question.
In Kentucky, for instance, the upper bounds are higher than, say, Ohio.
In general, though, I’d say that the upper bounds are about R+4, not R+6.
I tried the same in Dave’s App after I posted that and saw immediately that CD1 was spot on.
The hardest districts to match for me were CDs 4 and 7, I think – 7 because I’m also not quite sure where the division is and 4 because it took me a while to figure out they’d given it all of Kokomo, and that “foot” in Morgan county didn’t quite correspond to the map in DRA.
I’d love for them to release a better map of Marion. If I’m right and some of the northern Dem-friendly precincts are shifted to CD5, Carson will have a very difficult decade ahead of him.
It was slightly strengthened.
They were a lot less aggressive than I thought they would be, especially with Donnelly. While they’ll still be favored to take him out, they could have made it a much easier race for themselves.
this map is an unmitigated disaster for Dems. While the lines seem clean, this map wipes out 3 lean-dem districts.
This seems, in a Republicans eye, like karmic retribution.
However, I do agree with the poster above that, in essence, said a senate seat is worth more than a house seat. By getting rid of Donnelly, you’re literally forcing the best dem candidate onto the field.
We’ll see what happends!
so but there’s a pretty damn good chance that the senate goes Republican in 2012 and Lugar would become president pro tempore and chairman of the senate foreign relations committee. That’s pretty hard to pass up.
with the inevitable tea-bagging of dick lugar, he may have a chance in a high turnout election against a tea-bagger
Anyone know how this map will affect his ability to win another primary? Any chance he’d be defeated in ’12?
are upset with. The 9th is made securely Republican, but the 2nd isn’t shifted by 4-5 points. Yeah that would have been enough in 2010, but can you say there will be a worse year for Democrats, (particularly in the midwest), than 2010 anytime soon? It isn’t unwinnable, in fact it’s fairly similar to the district that Tim Roemer held easily in the 1990s. What’s more is that the 8th remains swingy as ever, if not slightly more Democratic, and Larry Buschon is the weakest Republican in their delegation. I feel this is easily a 3-5 Map, which is about what Dems can hope for in a state like Indiana, which leans Republican and where the Democratic vote is so heavily concentrated in just a few areas.
He sounds like he might be leaning toward running for the senate by saying “a Democrat can win this district” rather than “I can win this district”. Personally, I was thinking that the Republicans would have made the 2nd redder than they did at it would be a no brained for Donnelly to run for the Senate. He has a tougher choice now but the statement really makes me think he’s leaning toward the Senate. Thoughts?
But under this new map, that doesn’t look to change any, let alone get redder.
Anyone know what the Kerry numbers were in it? Same for IN-8 as well, please?
From our IN posters, could we get some insight on the state house and state senate maps as well? Does this secure the current margins or increase them for the GOP? Is there a way these could be dummy-manders for the GOP majority in either chamber for the next 10 years where dems could take either chamber?
when it comes to knowing PVI’s.
… was to run up totals in the Democratic NW part of the state, break about even in Marion County, don’t get killed too badly in the suburbs, and win the historically conservative by also Democratic far southern part of the state.
We can’t count on the southern part of the state anymore. I think the new way to win it is still winning the NW, still not getting killed in the suburbs, but now winning Marion County (which Obama got well over 60% in, but Bill Clinton never won), and piecing together votes in the meduim-sized cities — Fort Wayne (the city itself has moved in a D direction, but really Allen County as a whole), Anderson, Terre Haute, perhaps Evansville, etc. It’s still difficult math to put together.
I know that during the ’08 campaign, there was a state Democratic office opened in Hamilton County for the first time in about 20 years — and I’m sure that played a role in holding the Republican margins down enough for Obama to win the state. Previous to that, Democratic candidates would only go to Hamilton County for private $1000 a plate dinners in Carmel. But the area is still so reflexively Republican that any state legislative district there (or Congressional district the suburbs dominate) are going to vote R pretty much no matter what.
Out of the three former swing districts, only the 9th is officially off the radar. IN-2 and IN-8 are both probably best described as Lean R, probably with PVIs of around R+4 or so. Conservative to moderate Democrats are perfectly competitive, or even favored in seats up to R+6 or so.
I’m putting money on both these seats changing hands at least once during this decade.
have a chance to win the senate race, especially if Lugar wins the primary? Or would he be kinda like an Alvan Greene?
I thought they’d put South Bend in IN-01.
into one district and in Bloomington displace Matt Pierce into a rather conservative Morgan county based seat. Peggy Welch, a conservative Democrat, has been given the rather liberal parts of central Bloomington. She will probably face a primary from the left, which she would loose. I’m guessing all of this is designed to get rid of as many Democrats with seniority as possible.
Someone said that this map turns IN-08 from 51% McCain to 50.5% McCain. Is that correct?
He’s admirable if you solely look at that.
Most of the districts were really easy to emulate in Dave’s App. Unlike notanothersonofabush above, for example, I had no problem getting IN-01 to work in Dave’s App.
The one area I had trouble is the IN-05 (north central Indiana) & IN-07 (Indianapolis) split. The map that we have doesn’t seem to correspond well with the shapefile for northern Marion in the DRA. I did my best. The other seven districts should be accurate to within the margin of the population of the various split survey townships (ie, very accurate).
IN-01: W 67.8, B 18.2, H 11.7, A 1.2, N 0.2, O 0.9
IN-02: W 85.2, B 6.0, H 6.3, A 1.1, N 0.3, O 1.0
IN-03: W 87.8, B 5.4, H 4.2, A 1.4, N 0.3, O 0.9
IN-04: W 89.5, B 2.9, H 4.1, A 2.4, N 0.2, O 0.9
IN-05: W 84.5, B 8.1, H 3.6, A 2.6, N 0.2, O 1.0
IN-06: W 93.9, B 2.4, H 1.8, A 0.9, N 0.2, O 0.8
IN-07: W 62.0, B 26.4, H 8.0, A 2.0, N 0.2, O 1.4
IN-08: W 91.4, B 3.9, H 1.6, A 0.8, N 0.2, O 0.8
IN-09: W 92.1, B 2.4, H 2.3, A 1.9, N 0.2, O 1.0
good summary of the new 9th below. Not much I can add to the discussion. It is better than it could be, but it is still not good.
http://www.courier-journal.com…
Not sure if this has been linked to, but Cillizza thinks this map pretty much screws Donnelly and calls is a 7-2 Republican map:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/…