Potentially the hottest California Congressional race in a decade, a matchup between Secretary of State Debra Bowen and Los Angeles City Councilwoman Janice Hahn provides a great opportunity to show how mapping can inform each campaign.
Hahn is in. Activists on Twitter are saying that Bowen will decide by Tuesday. Marcy Winograd, who ran unsuccessfully in 2010 is mulling a run, and Republicans Mattie Fein and Nathan Mintz could still be in the mix. The following uses Maptitude to explore what the candidates are going to face.
This coastal area has elected Republicans in the past, and it can be seen how in this map. Many of the higher income portions are either Republican leaning or narrowly Democratic. However the northern part of the district, including the city of LA portions makes this a safe Democratic seat.
The Latino density is greatest inland and in the southern area where Hahn is most well known. Latinos could be a Hahn strength provided that these communities show up in a low-turnout election.
African American residents are more inland than CD 36, with only a small representation, mostly in the West Carson and LA portions of the district. Normally the African American vote would be a strong factor for Hahn as she and her father have strong support within that community. There has been some discussion that the district would have a larger African American base if the Commission made the coastal lines East/West rather than North/South. This would create two South Bay seats in which African Americans could be influential, however do so potentially at the expense of coastal communities of interest.
Asian Voters could be a key voting bloc in this contest with the densest concentrations inside Torrance. Clearly this is a race where Ted Lieu would have been formidable, if he weren't in the middle of his own race for State Senate.
Janice Hahn ran for Lieutenant Governor in June 2010, and this map shows where she won and lost, by precinct. A sitting councilmember with massive Name ID losing to a mayor from San Francisco in her LA backyard shows a major point of vulnerability.
Marcy Winograd ran against Congresswoman Jane Harman in the June 2010 primary. Her campaign was primarily fueled by a progressive backlash to Harman who has been hawkish on middle east issues. As this map shows, a number of the most progressive precincts, particularly those up in the Venice area preferred her over Harman.
The 2006 primary election for Secretary of State was a low-interest down ballot race with Ortiz performing strongly among Latinos. This can be seen in this map where the West Carson portion of the district is strongly supportive of Ortiz. However, Bowen wins the vast majority of the district, ultimately winning by a large margin.
We know from the maps below that in the 2010 Democratic Primary for Lieutenant Governor Janice Hahn lost a chunk of precincts to San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom. But how does this relate to her performance in other parts of LA? As this map shows, Hahn won Congressional Districts 31-39. But of those CD 36 was her worst performance. In the districts mapped, Hahn beat Newsom by an average of 31 points, but in CD 36 she only beat him by 9 points. The heavy lift for the Hahn campaign will be confronting the fact that she is extremely popular in the city core, but had her worst election night performances along the coast.
This compares the 2006 Bowen v. Ortiz race to the 2010 Hahn v. Newsom race, showing something local activists may already understand: Bowen is strongest in the most liberal and white portions of the district, while Hahn is strongest in the more urban LA and West Carson portions. This should be very concerning to Hahn as her base of support is also the lower registration and turnout part of the district.
California is a minority-majority state. Therefore any non-partisan redistricting plan drawn there should reflect the diversity of the state by maximizing the number of minority-majority districts -- as long as those districts can be drawn to be compact, drawn to preserve community interests, and otherwise adhere to the other requirements of the new Commission. 11 out of 14 persons on the Commission are themselves minorities; therefore it is quite plausible that they may draw the new districts in this manner. I tried to put aside all partisan bias when drawing this map, and tried to use only non-partisan criteria like compactness and adherence to the VRA.
I was almost done drawing this map last year when I realized that the passage of Prop 20 is a likely outcome. A Democratic gerrymander of California then became moot of course and so I never finished. However, I recently thought it would be neat to post anyhow, as many of the maps posted here are only theoretical and don't have a chance of becoming reality (or anything close to reality). So I finished my map - but perhaps not taking as much care as when I first started. Hence, I should note that the area around Los Angeles and Kern Counties was drawn "after the fact" and is therefore not as "thought out" as other parts of the map.
I have drawn a number of maps trying to predict California's 2012 redistricting. I will not be posting any of them in this diary, as I think it's just a guessing game trying to figure out how exactly the lines will look. There are several different ways the lines can be drawn - all adhering to the new commission standards. (OK, maybe I will post a prediction map at some time in the future, once I feel confident that I am drawing the lines in a purely objective way - which is hard to do perfectly) ...
We've already had a lively discussion with regard to California redistricting in this diary below, but now that I have diary rights I want to finally post my own projected map of the new California districts. Needless to mention, redistricting California is a daunting task, particularly in light of the newly approved 'nonpartisan' commission. So, a few notes and caveats are in order.
1) My map is only as good as the data provided by Dave's Redistricting App. Clearly then, to whatever extent that data is invalid, my output will be likewise.
2) In this installment I'll mainly just outline the process that I followed in placing the districts. I might go over the political results or the VRA ramifications in a subsequent installment if there seems to be enough interest. In short, I welcome any feedback or criticism regarding my decisions. I want to be reasonably confident about the validity of my mapping scheme before I go into much detail about how it affects individual districts.
3) I did not take any account of the current districts when putting together my map. However, I went back and numbered them based on the closest current district merely so as to facilitate discussion. I have added the incumbent that holds that currently numbered district, though I generally have no idea whether they'd still live in said districts. Also, when I doublechecked this afternoon I realized that several of the LA County and OC County districts were not optimally labelled in the map I posted to the other thread. More on that when I get to it.
4) The purpose of this exercise is in part to counter the popular notion that we can't project some reasonably accurate version of the new California district configuration. My basic premise is that: If the commission simply follows the rule of crossing county and city boundaries only when necessary, then in most cases it's obvious which way to go, so long as you have a starting point.
5) None of my districts deviate by more than +/- 600 people. The majority deviate by less than +/- 200. Again, this is based on Dave's app of course. And, speaking of Dave's app: It's glitchy at spots. I've edited these glitches out of the maps below.
Now that it's 2011, the redistricting games will soon begin in earnest, with more detailed Census data expected in February or March and some states holding spring legislative sessions to deal with drawing new maps. Long ago I planned to do state-by-state rundowns of the redistricting process as soon as 2010 election results and Census reapportionment were clear. Now that time has arrived, and it's time to look at California, Colorado, and Connecticut.
The coming redistricting in California will see two significant forces working to give the new lines. The first is population, how it has grown and shifted since the last maps were drawn. The second is the commission process that will follow set rules around keeping cities and counties together, compactness, communities of interest, and drawing lines without considering where candidates live.
To survey the political landscape I put together this chart showing population growth in each congressional district. While the commission does not need to start from the existing lines, this does show the disparity in population growth among current districts.
Swing State readers should quickly realize that districts with the greatest overages are Republican. This is seen statewide where Republican congressional seats are on average 42,000 over target population, and Democrat-held seats are 28,000 under.
Tightly packed Democratic seats like those in Los Angeles will have to geographically expand, stealing population from other neighboring Democrats to gain the requisite number of residents. Conversely, Republican districts will be contracting as they give up voters, and could provide more opportunity to other Republicans.
Current Congressional Districts and Variation from 2010 Projected Targets
Member Residence Variation
1 Mike Thompson D St Helena Under By 19,552
2 Wally Herger R Chico Over By 23,927
3 Dan Lungren R Gold River Over By 52,873
4 Tom McClintock R Elk Grove Over By 78,971
5 Doris Matsui D Sacramento Over By 21,151
6 Lynn Woolsey D Petaluma Under By 82,302
7 George Miller D Martinez Under By 47,071
8 Nancy Pelosi D San Francisco Under By 28,457
9 Barbara Lee D Oakland Under By 47,004
10 John Garamendi D Walnut Grove Under By 4,079
11 Jerry McNerney D Pleasanton Over By 68,602
12 Jackie Speier D Hillsborough Under By 73,416
13 Pete Stark D Fremont Under By 59,603
14 Anna Eshoo D Atherton Under By 47,104
15 Mike Honda D San Jose Under By 17,541
16 Zoe Lofgren D San Jose Under By 7,756
17 Sam Farr D Carmel Under By 63,360
18 Dennis Cardoza D Merced Over By 27,745
19 George Radanovich R Mariposa Over By 49,586
20 Jim Costa D Fresno Over By 18,060
21 Devin Nunes R Tulare Over By 75,114
22 Kevin McCarthy R Bakersfield Over By 71,524
23 Lois Capps D Santa Barbara Under By 54,321
24 Elton Gallegly R Simi Valley Under By 29,472
25 Howard McKeon R Santa Clarita Over By 4,084
26 David Dreier R San Dimas Over By 10,372
27 Brad Sherman D Sherman Oaks Under By 41,458
28 Howard Berman D Los Angeles Under By 37,913
29 Adam Schiff D Burbank Under By 39,041
30 Henry Waxman D Los Angeles Under By 31,871
31 Xavier Becerra D Los Angeles Under By 55,157
32 Judy Chu D Monterey Park Under By 54,149
33 Diane Watson D Los Angeles Under By 36,444
34 Lucille Roybal-Allard D Los Angeles Under By 47,705
35 Maxine Waters D Los Angeles Under By 39,585
36 Jane Harman D Los Angeles Under By 34,005
37 Laura Richardson D Long Beach Under By 36,943
38 Grace Napolitano D Norwalk Under By 51,103
39 Linda Sanchez D Lakewood Under By 44,407
40 Ed Royce R Fullerton Under By 37,637
41 Jerry Lewis R Redlands Over By 100,829
42 Gary Miller R Diamond Bar Under By 10,593
43 Joe Baca D Rialto Over By 57,355
44 Ken Calvert R Corona Over By 191,982
45 Mary Bono Mack R Palm Springs Over By 200,712
46 Dana Rohrabacher R Huntington Beach Under By 40,074
47 Loretta Sanchez D Anaheim Under By 43,323
48 John Campbell R Irvine Over By 437
49 Darrell Issa R Vista Over By 65,129
50 Brian Bilbray R Carlsbad Over By 13,076
51 Bob Filner D San Diego Over By 7,693
52 Duncan Hunter R Lakeside Under By 25,845
53 Susan Davis D San Diego Under By 25,626
The following shows variations for congressional districts by region, however they do not match county growth perfectly as several Congressional districts overlap counties and skew the numbers.
Variation from Ideal 2010 Population, by Congressional Districts in Regions
.: Northern California +4.5% 4 districts over by 175,000, 1 under
.: San Francisco Bay -5.8% 11 districts are under by 415.000
.: Central Valley +6.9% 5 districts over by 240,000
.: Los Angeles -5.5% 13 districts under by 550,000
.: Orange County +1.4% 1 district is over, 4 are under
.: San Diego +1% 2 districts are under, 3 over
.: Inland Empire +11.4% 8 districts are over by 640,000
Regional Differences...
San Francisco Bay Area Bay Area congressional districts have largely not kept up with statewide growth, putting them under the required population by about 4.5%. The only exception is the Jerry McNerney district, but the growth in this district is primarily within the San Joaquin portion. Excluding McNerney, the remaining ten districts need to expand to capture another 415,000 residents.
Excluding the McNerney district the remaining Bay Area seats have to grow 6% on average. This does not seem significant when looked at for an individual district where it is like adding the city of Pacifica. However, as each district takes from the next, the impact is added up. In the end the last district is going to shift by the equivalent of gaining or losing a city the size of Oakland.
Central Valley and Norcal Tightly packed urban Democratic seats like those in the Bay Area will have to geographically expand, stealing population from other neighboring Democrats to gain the requisite number of residents. Conversely, Republican districts like these in the Central Valley and Northern California will be contracting as they give up voters, and could provide more opportunity to other Republicans as these regions add a district.
Aside from population, the requirements for geographic compactness and keeping cities and counties together will wreak havoc on the current districts.
Los Angeles As can be seen above, the cumulative impact of shrinking population is that LA districts have to go searching for an additional 540,000 residents. In a redraw that follows the new commission rules this should cause the loss of one congressional seat for the region.
The greatest volatility could come in the San Gabriel Valley where population growth has been slowest. The districts of Grace Napolitano (CD 38), Judy Chu (CD 32) and Xavier Becerra (CD 31) have only had growth of 2-2.5% - putting them under the state average by approximately 8%. Furthermore, South and West facing beaches limit the ability for districts in the City of LA to move in either of those directions, meaning that expanding districts must shift North and East - likely toward the Inland Empire that has seen the highest growth rate in the state.
The only district in Los Angles with an overage is also the only district held by a Republican.
Orange County Orange County congressional districts have largely not kept up with statewide growth putting them under the required population by about 5%. The only exception is the Ken Calvert district, but the growth in this seat is primarily within the Riverside portion of the district. Excluding Calvert, the remaining five districts need to expand to capture another 130,000 residents.
While Orange County currently has six congressional members, it only has four who live within the county. The districts held by Miller and Calvert extend from Orange County into Riverside and San Bernardino where those members live. Given Orange County population estimates, the county should have 4.25 members of congress.
San Diego Overall growth in San Diego is just 1% above the state average. Yet that shifts to about 1% under the state average after accounting for the Issa District that overlaps with Riverside and the Filner district that takes in the Inland Empire. As can be expected, it is the southern, more densely populated portion of San Diego that has had the least growth.
Inland Empire Past redistricting efforts have not done a good job of keeping the Inland Empire intact or creating lines that benefit this growing portion of the State. The area has eight congressional seats with only three districts entirely within its boundaries and five that overlap from Los Angeles, San Diego and Orange Counties. Half of the Inland Empire's congressional representatives live outside of the three-county area.
In a redraw that respects city and county lines and pays no regard to where current members live, it can be expected that the three Congressional districts entirely within the Inland Empire would increase to five, and the districts that only dip into the Inland Empire would be stopped at the county lines. This would be an increase in the region's true representation, but a decrease in the number of representatives that have any part of the Inland Empire.
OK, so I've had more time to process what happened. And I had a chance to talk with my old Cali friends at Netroots California last Saturday. And I came out surprisingly hopeful about our future.
I was originally typing this as a comment in the open thread, but saw it grow and grow to the point that I decided to write a diary comparing my predictions to the actual results. Overall, my predictions statewide were pretty much spot-on. I may have been off by a few percentage points in the statewide races, but not too shabby. The district races and ballot measures, on the other hand, some were way off due to lack of polling and information. Without further Apu, here goes.
Governor - Likely to Strong Brown; Brown by 14.33% in my number predictions - (Brown by 11.9%) - pretty close though a little less than I was hoping for with the way voters were pissed at Whitman running ads nonstop
Lt. Gov. - Lean Newsom - (Newsom by 10.4%) - looks like I underestimated Newsom, especially with a rare moderate and Hispanic Republican who was also the quasi-incumbent. Being associated with "16%" Arnold likely turned out to be the drag I predicted
Attorney General - Toss-Up - (Still not yet called with Cooley leading by 0.3%) - right on the mark here, regardless of whether it ends up being Harris (please!) or Cooley; I'm a nervous wreck watching this one seesaw back and forth!
Secretary of State - Solid Bowen - (Bowen by 15.8%) - little less than predicted but still good
Treasurer - Solid Lockyer - (Lockyer by 19.7%) - almost on the mark
Controller - Strong to Solid Chiang - (Chiang by 18.1%) - almost on the mark here too
Insurance Commissioner - Likely to Strong Jones - (Jones by 12.6%) - another one that was reasonably on target
School Superintendent - Toss-Up - (Torlakson by 9.4%) - didn't have much information so I just threw a prediction out there
The ballot measures I was mostly WAY off; they were mostly shots in the dark due to a dearth of information about how they were faring, because 19, 23, and 25 stole the show. Maybe from now on I'll just give my recommendations.
Prop 19 - Lean Yes - (No by 8%)
Prop 20 - Toss-up/lean No - (Yes by 22.8%)
Prop 21 - Toss-up - (No by 16.8%)
Prop 22 - Toss-up/lean No - (Yes by 22%)
Prop 23 - Likely No - (No by 22.4%) - wow, this of all ballot measures was where I was actually close!
Prop 24 - Toss-up - (No by 17.2%)
Prop 25 - Likely Yes - (Yes by 9.4%) - then again, with this, 19, and 23 gobbling up all the airtime, it should have been easier to predict these than the other 6
Prop 26 - Toss-up - (Yes by 4.6%) - not too shabby for a ballot measure that received little attention
Prop 27 - Toss-up - (No by 19.2%)
U.S. Senate - Lean Boxer; Boxer by 6.67% - (Boxer by 9.4%) - I knew all along that Boxer would put up a helluva fight and win similar to 1998.
CA-03 - Toss-Up/Tilt Lungren; Lungren by 3.75% - (Lungren by 7.9%) - a little off, but I knew it was still a fight, and putting resources into this race may have helped us downticket in AD-05
CA-11 - Lean McNerney; McNerney by 2.75% - (McNerney by 0.3%; by 421 votes with thousands more still to be counted) - closer than predicted
CA-18 - Likely Cardoza; Cardoza by 10.75% - (Cardoza by 15%) - better than predicted
CA-20 - Lean Costa; Costa by 2.75% - (Vidak by 0.2% pending absentee ballot counts)
CA-44 - Lean to Likely Calvert; Calvert by 13.17% - (Calvert by 11%) - another bull's-eye; a shame we didn't invest more here after 2008
CA-45 - Likely Bono Mack; Bono Mack by 15% - (Bono Mack by 10.1%) - a little less than predicted but hey, I'm not complaining!
CA-47 - Lean Sanchez; Sanchez by 8.25% - (Sanchez by 8.7%) - pretty close to the mark here
SD-12 - Toss-up/tilt Caballero - (Cannella (R) by 6%) - have to look into this one a bit more deeply
SD-34 - Likely Correa - (Correa (D) by 27%) - guess I took his near-loss in 2006 a bit too seriously
AD-05 - Toss-up - (Pan (D) by 2.8%) - one of those toss-ups that is great to see...one that breaks our way!
AD-10 - Toss-up/tilt Huber - (Huber (D) by 7.8%) - similar to Correa
AD-15 - Tilt/lean Buchanan - (Buchanan (D) by 5%) - another bull's-eye
AD-30 - Lean Valadao - (Valadao (R) by 24.6%) - way off here. I guess from now on, anybody but a Florez or a Parra! Not sure if Dean Florez plans on running for CA-20 if Vidak does win or when Costa retires (if he does hold on this year).
AD-33 - Lean Achadjian - (Achadjian (R) by 21.2%) - looks like I was right in saying we have a long way to go in the southern Central Coast outside Santa Barbara.
AD-36 - Lean to Likely Knight - (Knight (R) by 15.8%) - should have gone with police officer Watkins in the primary
AD-68 - Lean Mansoor - (Mansoor (R) by 11.8%) - Nguyen was a great candidate, but we still have a lot of work to do to win in OC outside Santa Ana/Anaheim.
AD-70 - Lean to Likely Wagner - (Wagner (R) by 20.9%) - I thought a close race in this district with Fox's stronger-than-average campaign and Wagner's presence (or lack thereof) seemed too good to be true. While Obama won this Newport Beach-centric district, we still have work to do to build up the D bench here.
And finally, some races that were not on my radar screen but from what I had heard may have been in trouble should have been paid more attention:
AD-35 - (Williams (D) by 8%) - This is a very Democratic area; what happened? Was turnout here very low too? The Dem numbers in Santa Barbara seem much smaller than usual; usually SB is about on par with California as a whole. A California political neophyte who only saw these election results would think Santa Barbara was a swing county, rather than being a bellwether for how the state goes.
AD-53/54 - (Butler (D) by 7%/Lowenthal (D) by 13%) - Was turnout in the normally Democratic South Bay L.A., despite fellow South Bayers Bowen and Chiang winning in landslides at the top of the ticket, depressed too?
This coastal area has elected Republicans in the past, and it can be seen how in this map. Many of the higher income portions are either Republican leaning or narrowly Democratic. However the northern part of the district, including the city of LA portions makes this a safe Democratic seat. 
The Latino density is greatest inland and in the southern area where Hahn is most well known. Latinos could be a Hahn strength provided that these communities show up in a low-turnout election. 
African American residents are more inland than CD 36, with only a small representation, mostly in the West Carson and LA portions of the district. Normally the African American vote would be a strong factor for Hahn as she and her father have strong support within that community. There has been some discussion that the district would have a larger African American base if the Commission made the coastal lines East/West rather than North/South. This would create two South Bay seats in which African Americans could be influential, however do so potentially at the expense of coastal communities of interest.
Asian Voters could be a key voting bloc in this contest with the densest concentrations inside Torrance. Clearly this is a race where Ted Lieu would have been formidable, if he weren't in the middle of his own race for State Senate. 
Janice Hahn ran for Lieutenant Governor in June 2010, and this map shows where she won and lost, by precinct. A sitting councilmember with massive Name ID losing to a mayor from San Francisco in her LA backyard shows a major point of vulnerability.
Marcy Winograd ran against Congresswoman Jane Harman in the June 2010 primary. Her campaign was primarily fueled by a progressive backlash to Harman who has been hawkish on middle east issues. As this map shows, a number of the most progressive precincts, particularly those up in the Venice area preferred her over Harman.
The 2006 primary election for Secretary of State was a low-interest down ballot race with Ortiz performing strongly among Latinos. This can be seen in this map where the West Carson portion of the district is strongly supportive of Ortiz. However, Bowen wins the vast majority of the district, ultimately winning by a large margin.
We know from the maps below that in the 2010 Democratic Primary for Lieutenant Governor Janice Hahn lost a chunk of precincts to San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom. But how does this relate to her performance in other parts of LA? As this map shows, Hahn won Congressional Districts 31-39. But of those CD 36 was her worst performance. In the districts mapped, Hahn beat Newsom by an average of 31 points, but in CD 36 she only beat him by 9 points. The heavy lift for the Hahn campaign will be confronting the fact that she is extremely popular in the city core, but had her worst election night performances along the coast. 
This compares the 2006 Bowen v. Ortiz race to the 2010 Hahn v. Newsom race, showing something local activists may already understand: Bowen is strongest in the most liberal and white portions of the district, while Hahn is strongest in the more urban LA and West Carson portions. This should be very concerning to Hahn as her base of support is also the lower registration and turnout part of the district.
