Illinois Redistricting 12-4-2

by: WeIll

Mon Dec 27, 2010 at 10:29 AM EST

It's been done to death, but it's where I live and work so, without further ado:

A Slightly More Cautious Gerrymander of Illinois 2.0

by: jsramek

Wed Dec 15, 2010 at 3:50 AM EST

I also drew each of the 3 VRA Black districts 53% Black.  Why 53% you might ask?  That is how much each of the districts contain now when you add in additional population to account for relative population loss.  That is the maximum you can realistically place in a VRA protected Black district from Chicago after 2010, assuming that the census estimates are accurate.  We'll know for sure in a few months.  I was under the impression that the courts have started interpreting the VRA to require 50%+1 when possible of the population but perhaps it's a bit more in areas where it is feasible to create such districts?

The other two highlighted changes from yesterday is that I firmed up the 14th and made it an almost certain Democratic pickup like the district I designed for Debbie Halvorson.  I do not agree with the comment made by a person or two that my finger down the lake for the 10th isn't robust enough.  I double checked the numbers today: it is nearly 150,000 new residents of precincts that on average gave 85-90% of their votes to Obama and probably 80-85% to Kerry four years earlier. This more than makes up for the loss of Waukegan.  Waukegan in turn helps Melissa Bean in her rematch with Joe Walsh.  I respectfully disagree with the comment suggesting it did not help elect a Democrat congressman finally to the 10th, although not three-time loser Dan Seals (please!).  Whether we want to quibble over whether I should label it safe Democratic or probably Democratic, Dolt is a one-term wonder.

The second significant change is that I created a second Republican vote sink in northern Illinois and placed Biggert, Roskam, and Hultgren in the same seat that swoops from the more Republican areas of DuPage out a narrow tendril to further exurbia.  Should be fun watching that primary.

I then grouped Manzullo and Schiller together in a district that favors Manzullo.  The third pair-up includes Schock vs. Kinzinger out of personal spite.  One of these glamour boys has got to go!  And it will be 2014 until they can think on taking on Dick Durbin or Governor Quinn; good luck again either!

My Democratic Gerrymander of Illinois (14-3-1)

by: jsramek

Mon Dec 13, 2010 at 10:40 PM EST

Here are my basic assumptions in drawing this map:

1) As one of the few states where Democrats can make a big difference, Illinois Democrats will squeeze out as much seats as possible.  Realistically, Maryland will only net us one more seat (7-1 seems more realistic than 8-0) and in the other states we control like MA we actually will lose a seat.  Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan is an old-school Democratic pol; he knows a thing or two about screwing the Republicans and he will.  Unlike 10 years ago when Denny Hastert could deliver goodies to Chicago and thus needed to be placated, there is no reason to accommodate any Republicans, and there will be no accommodation.

2) A second Hispanic seat is almost inevitable, given the VRA and the explosive growth of the Latino population in Chicago.  But see #3.

3) As Madigan's boy, Lipinski will be given another seat that he can win.  He will not be drawn out, which is more geographically logical, because he is Madigan's boy.  Don't know about Madigan and Quigley, but a Democrat is not going to sacrifice a seat here.  Instead, I drew Peter Roskam out of a seat; the 6th now joins the 4th as Chicago's 2nd Hispanic seat.

4) Of the incumbent Democrats who got defeated in 2010, Debbie Halvorson will get the sweetest deal?  Why?  She's a former majority leader (the #2 position in the caucus under Emil Jones) in the State Senate and thus in my view still has clout in Springfield.  Phil Hare will get a better seat.  And I drew a better seat for Foster to return to.  That leaves out Melissa Bean.  Oh well - not much of a Democrat is she?  

5) Partisan numbers: when the time comes for these to be uploaded, could you please put in the Kerry 2004 numbers if you are also going to do Obama numbers?  Obama got about what an average national Democrat would get below Springfield (home state advantage cancels out with the latent racism that I see every day living now in Southern Illinois among want-to-be southerners down here) but north of Springfield, particularly north of I-80, he got vote totals in Republican counties that no other national Democrat would have gotten.  No Democratic presidential candidate wins 55% of the vote in DuPage... I can see 47-50% nowadays as that county is becoming more moderate, but Obama PVI gives Democrats false assurance about redistricting.  Perhaps my map is one of those, I don't know.  I did try to retain as much as possible of each Democratic congress person's base in Chicago so that they would still be more than okay.

So it is hard to say for sure that all my districts will elect what I think they will elect.  But I think I've drawn a map that yields 14 reasonably safe Democratic seats (all the seats that string in and out of Chicago plus Jerry Costello's 12th downstate and the newly configured 15th downstate cities seat), 1 swing seat (for Melissa Bean - the 8th), and 3 uber-Republican seats (the 16th, the 18th, and the 13th).  Following Illinois custom, the Biggert seat (the current 13th) got axed and its number migrated downstate to become Shimkus's new seat number.

Disincumbenting Illinois: A Democratic Redistricting Plan

by: borodino21

Sat Dec 11, 2010 at 5:34 AM EST

The basic idea of disincumbenting is to make the new districts as unlike the current districts as possible. Doing so reduces the value of incumbency (hence  the name) by reducing the number of constituents who are familiar with the incumbent representative.

Illinois strikes me as a particularly fertile environment for the technique, because the party out of power on the state level has a large number of  contiguous seats. The Democrats have unified control over the line-drawing. In the most recent election, they lost four outstate districts, resulting in the Republicans controlling every non-Cook-County-based district except for Jerry Costello's 12th district in the far southwest. (The Republicans also control  the Cook-County-based 9th.) With so much adjacent territory under the control of the opposition party, it is fairly easy to draw new lines that wreak havoc  on the political bases of each incumbent.

As I said above, I find it difficult to get my head around Illinois' politics. This is because recent elections have been so very unrepresentative. 2010 was a Republican wave year. 2008 was a Democratic one, compounded by Obama's favored son status. Blagojevich's election numbers are impacted by the presence of a  significant Green candidacy. And so on. I tried to design the new districts so as to maximize the number of "Democratic opportunity" districts outside of  Cook County as best I could, but these districts aren't as numbers-based as I would like. I welcome any feedback from those who know Illinois better.

Aside from the goals of disincumbenting Republican incumbents and maximizing Democratic chances outstate, I had two other, inter-related goals: create a second Hispanic majority seat in cook County, thereby eliminating Lipinski's district. In a previous diary, I had created a second Hispanic seat by (inadvertantly) messing with Quigley. Geoneb suggested that Lipinski should be the target instead, so here's a plan that does that. These two goals have an unintended spillover effect of somewhat disincumbenting the Chicago Democratic representatives. If resistance from the Democratic incumbents proves too great, these two goals could be abandoned.

To demonstrate the disincumbenting strategy, in my district descriptions I'm making use of silverspring's Territory Transfer Percentage (TTP), introduced here. TTP is the percentage of the new district's population that was part of the old district. My impression is that Silverspring introduced it with the general intent of keeping TTPs relatively high. Because of the set of goals I applied to the creation of this map, I'm actually trying to keep TTPs low (at least in the Republican districts.)

Pictures and descriptions of the plan start after the jump.

(MI, NC, IL) Redistricting Potpourri

by: borodino21

Mon Nov 29, 2010 at 4:43 AM EST

I've started working on two related projects for Michigan for Dave's App. I'm collating partisan data and renaming the voting districts by municipality name and precinct number. (Currently, Michigan's voting districts are named using a 14 digit code.) I could use the following three forms of help:

1. I need a precinct map for the city of Detroit. This is looking ahead a bit, because Detroit is the final portion of the state I intend to work on, but it would really help. My Google-fu has failed me thus far.

2. In order to enable collaboration (see third form below), I need to figure out how to get the lines in my copy of vt26_d00.csv sorted by county and voting district number. The vt26_d00_data.csv file is already sorted like this, but its counterpart is somewhat helter-skelter. The solution that occured to me was to try sorting it using OpenOffice Calc (my only spreadsheet program), but that immediately lost leading zeroes, which breaks the CSV file. Any ideas out there?

3. Actual collaboration in collating and renaming. I'm currently going through the counties alphabetically. After two-ish weeks of sporadic effort, I just finished the H's with Huron County. (On to Lansing's Ingham County next!) That's about 19% of the state population. Doing Flint's Genessee County took most of the day yesterday, and I'm fairly frightened of Kent/Macomb/Oakland/Washtenaw/Wayne. Even if you're just interested in helping with some of the smaller, easier counties, I'd be grateful. If you're willing and interested, send me an email at my user name at gmail.com so that I can send you information about the conventions I've been using. Also, post a comment letting me know you emailed me -- it's a secondary email that I don't otherwise check.

After the jump, you'll see the following forms of actual content to assuage my conscience from this bleg:

Michigan: what my partisan map progress looks like so far and a potential Republican gerrymander (an abgin-esque atrocity by Michigan standards)

North Carolina: a Republican map that packs five Democratic incumbents into two districts

Illinois: an oxymoronic "good government" map of Illinois -- I'm posting it mostly to show that two majority Hispanic districts in Chicago are easily created and to show off an particular idea for a reconfigured 17th district.

Redistricting Roundup: 11/10

by: DavidNYC

Wed Nov 10, 2010 at 8:19 AM EST

"Indiana must have a fair redistricting based on geographic and community of interest lines - not politics. And I'll only sign one that meets that test."

Daniels' commitment will be seriously tested on this part of his platform, seeing as the GOP now controls both houses of the state lege (in addition to the governor's mansion, of course). Incoming House speaker Brian Bosma also claims he's a supporter of such reforms. We shall see.

The likely result is a new congressional map that protects all six Republican congressmen and keeps intact the majority black district home to the only Democrat, according to U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Saks.

Here's one stab at such a map. Can you do better?

Redistricting Illinois: 14 D - 4 R

by: Menhen

Sat Aug 07, 2010 at 11:10 PM EDT

Illinois is predicted to lose a congressional seat in 2012, going from 19 to 18 seats.  This necessitated the drawing together of two incumbents, Peter Roskam and Mike Quigley.  Illinois also currently has 4 VRA districts (3 African-American, 1 Hispanic) all based in the City of Chicago.  I preserved all 4 districts, and I felt that the sharp Hispanic growth required the creation of another majority Hispanic district.  Therefore, my map has 5 Minority-Majority districts.  

Current Illinois Projections

by: knickelbein5

Sun Jul 11, 2010 at 10:09 PM EDT

Senate-
Candidates: Alexi Giannoulias (D) vs Mark Kirk (R)
Current Rating- Toss Up

A few weeks ago, this race was probably at Leans Republican, but after it was revealed Kirk "misremembered" parts of his military and teaching careers and exaggerated some of his claims, Giannoulias has pulled even in the most recent Rasmussen poll. It really is a shame Democrats nominated Giannoulias; if Madigan, Schakowsky, or Gutierrez would have ran they would be beating Kirk by at least high single digits. As with most close Illinois races, this seat will probably hinge on moderate suburban voters in DuPage, Lake, and Will counties, and Giannoulias will have to hope for high turnout in Cook County.

Governor
Candidates: Gov. Pat Quinn (D- Inc) vs Bill Brady (R)
Current Rating- Toss Up/Tilt Republican

Yes Governor Quinn is that unpopular. Bill Brady is a downstate, very conservative Republican who has no business being competitive in a state like Illinois. But Quinn, who took over for disgraced former Governor Blagojevich in 2008, has been forced to deal with a huge budget deficit, and his combination of proposed tax increases and cuts to social services has angered just about everyone in Illinois. Brady will rack up huge margins downstate and in the suburban collar counties, the question will be, does Quinn have enough votes in Cook County to drag him across the finish? Right now it doesn't look good.

Secretary of State-
Candidates: Jesse White (D-Inc) vs Robert Enriquez (R)
Current Rating- Safe Dem

White is a popular incumbent who has been the SoS since 1998; Enriquez is largely unknown to the Illinois electorate.

Attorney General-
Candidates: Lisa Madigan (D-Inc) vs Steve Kim (R)
Current Rating- Safe Dem

Madigan is the most popular politician in Illinois who will have no trouble against Kim. Had she ran for Governor or Senate, she would have been the overwhelming favorite.

Comptroller-
Candidates: David Miller (D) vs Judy Baar Topinka (R)
Current Rating- Lean Rep

The Comptroller's position was vacated when Dan Hynes ran for the Democratic nomination for Governor against Quinn and lost by a few thousand votes. David Miller is a former state rep from the South Side of Chicago. He is a good candidate, but Baar-Topinka's superior name recognition from her '06 run for Governor currently makes her a slight favorite.

State Treasurer-
Candidates: Robin Kelly (D) vs Dan Rutherford (R)
Current Rating- Toss Up

This is a hard race to handicap. Kelly faced a tough primary against Justin Oberman and won, but her connection to the unpopular Giannoulias (she served as his chief of staff) was used against her in the primary. Rutherford is a former state senator who has raised over 1 million dollars, and should provide and tough challenge to Kelly.

House Seats
District 1
Candidate: Bobby Rush (D- Inc)
Current Rating- Safe Dem

Rush is safe in this heavily African-American district.

District 2
Candidates: Jesse Jackson Jr. (D- Inc) vs Isaac Hayes (R)
Current Rating- Safe Dem

Despite some ethical challenges surrounding Jackson and his connection to Blagojevich and the selling of Obama's old senate seat, Jackson is safe.

District 3
Candidates: Dan Lipinski (D-Inc) vs Michael Bendas (R)
Current Rating- Safe Dem

Oh how I would love a primary challenge to the Conservadem Lipinski. It was widely suspected Lipinski's father gave up his seat to the diabetic Lipinski so that he could receive health insurance afforded to members of Congress. Lipinski then voted "no" earlier this year on the second round of health care reform. He is safe in this Southwest Chicago district, though.

District 4
Candidate: Luis Gutierrez (D-Inc)
Current Rating- Safe Dem

Gutierrez is one of my favorite members of Congress. He is a true fighter for immigration reform and will likely be in the House for many years to come. I would love to see him as a senator one day.

District 5
Candidates: Mike Quigley (D-Inc) vs David Ratowitz (R)
Current Rating- Safe Dem

Quigley took over for Rahm Emanuel when he left to become Obama's Chief of Staff. Quigley is safe in this heavy Dem district.

District 6
Candidates: Ben Lowe (D) vs Peter Roskam (R-Inc)
Current Rating- Safe Rep

Roskam barely won this seat in a special election in 2006 over Tammy Duckworth, who now serves in the Department of Veterans Affairs. Democrats thought they had a top-level challenger last year in Jill Morganthaler, but she lost to Roskam by 16 percent. This is a district with an Even Cook PVI, but Lowe has no chance this year.

District 7 (My District!)
Candidates: Danny Davis (D-Inc) vs Mark Weiman (R)
Current Rating- Safe Dem

Davis is safe in this D+35 district.

District 8
Candidates: Melissa Bean (D-Inc) vs Joe Walsh (R)
Current Rating- Safe Dem

Republicans in Illinois had this seat listed as a potential takeover, that is, until they nominated a candidate. Walsh's campaign imploded in early May as his former campaign manager and other high-level staffers resigned the campaign and sent out press releases questioning Walsh's finances and his ethics. Bean is a prolific fundraiser and skilled politician who will win reelection.

District 9
Candidates: Jan Schakowsky (D-Inc) vs Joel Pollak (R)
Current Rating: Safe Dem

Schakowsky is safe in this district that gave Barack Obama 72 percent of the vote in 2008.

District 10
Candidates: Dan Seals (D) vs Bob Dold (R)
Current Rating: Toss Up\ Tilt Dem

This district is being vacated as Mark Kirk runs for Senate. Seals ran in '06 and '08 but Kirk won both times by around 6 percent. Republicans did the Democrats a big favor here by nominating the more conservative Dold over the more moderate state rep Elizabeth Coulson. Coulson had some high profile endorsements from former Gov. Jim Edgar, most of Illinois' Republican Congressional delegation, and Judy Baar Topinka, and her defeat in the February primary really helped Seals. Despite the leanings of this cycle, Seal's high name recognition tilts this race in the Dems favor.

District 11
Candidates: Debbie Halverson (D-Inc) vs Adam Kinzinger (R)
Current Rating: Lean Dem

Republicans nominated a solid candidate in Kinzinger, an Iraq war veteran. However, Halverson has a serious cash advantage (she had 1.3 million in the bank in March) and she should be able to win in what will still be a tough fight.

District 12
Candidates: Jerry Costello (D-Inc) vs Teri Davis Newman (R)
Current Rating: Safe Dem

This is only a D+3 district, but Costello shouldn't have much trouble holding onto the seat he has held since 1988.

District 13
Candidates: Scott Harper (D) vs Judy Biggert (R-Inc)
Current Rating: Safe Rep

This district voted for Obama by 8 points, but Biggert will most likely win big against '08 nominee Harper. This district is trending towards the Democrats, but this cycle will be too difficult for Harper to make a serious run at winning.

District 14
Candidates: Bill Foster (D-Inc) vs Randy Hultgren (R)
Current Rating: Toss Up

Bill Foster has held this seat since March of 2008, when he defeated businessman Jim Oberweis in a special election, and then again in the general. This is an R+1 district, and Hultgren was a surprise nominee defeating former Speaker of the House Dennis Haster's son, Ethan, in the February primary. An internal poll from Hultgren in May showed him beating foster 45-44 percent, but I would guess Foster is probably up by a few points right now.

District 15
Candidates: David Gill (D) vs Tim Johnson (R-Inc)
Current Rating: Safe Rep

Johnson will have no problems in this district that voted for McCain by two points in '08.

District 16
Candidates: George Gaulrapp (D) vs Donald Manzullo (R-Inc)
Current Rating: Safe Rep

This district is trending Democratic, but Manzullo is entrenched and will easily win reelection.

District 17
Candidates: Phil Hare (D-Inc) vs Bobby Schilling (R)
Current Rating: Likely Dem

Hare has represented this D+3 district since 2006. No polling has been conducted here, but I'm fairly certain Hare will have minimal problems in November.

District 18
Candidates: D.K. Hirner (D) vs Aaron Schock (R-Inc)
Current Rating: Safe Rep

Schock is fairly popular in this district, and he will prevail over the little-known Hirner.

District 19
Candidates: Tim Bagwell (D) vs John Shimkus (R-Inc)
Current Rating: Safe Rep

This is the most Republican district in Illinois, and Shimkus will easily be reelected in Novemeber.

SSP Daily Digest: 3/18 (Morning Edition)

by: James L.

Thu Mar 18, 2010 at 8:02 AM EDT

Previewing Senate Elections: Illinois

by: Inoljt

Sun Feb 28, 2010 at 4:55 PM EST

Illinois

In November 2010, Democratic State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias will face off against Republican Congressman Mark Kirk, in what looks to be a competitive Senate race. A heavily blue state, Democrats have been hurt by a bad national environment coupled with continuing fall-out from the Rod Blagojevich scandals.

Out of the three states being analyzed (the other two being California and New York), Illinois is the state in which Republicans are strongest. Out of the three, it is also the state with the most competitive forthcoming election. This post will analyze the political contours of the state, and the long and difficult path Mr. Kirk must tread for victory.

With respect to demographics, Illinois is structured very simply. It has three parts: Chicago, its suburban metropolis, and the mostly rural downstate.

To win, Congressman Mark Kirk will need to run a gauntlet of challenges in each of section of the state. He must capitalize on Republican strength downstate, revive it in the suburbs, and hope that Chicago turn-out is depressed. If done properly, this will result in a close-run, Scott-Brown type victory.

More below.