Conventional wisdom regarding Michigan's congressional redistricting process to this point has looked towards the state Republicans dealing with Michigan's lost seat by consolidating Sander Levin and Gary Peters into a single district. Two relatively new sources of information are challenging that wisdom.
First, the actual census numbers came out. And the beating that Detroit took over the last ten years was a lot worse than generally thought. As best as I can tell, it's no longer possible to draw two majority-black congressional districts in Wayne County. Instead, whichever district is centered on western Detroit is going to have to crossover into southern Oakland County to pick up, at the very least, the city of Southfield. Which suggests the option of having that district scoop up as many white Oakland County Democrats as it can, since it's in the neighborhood anyway. Which in turn suggests that the relevant pairing is going to be Levin-Conyers, not Levin-Peters.
Second, per a recent digest, state representative Marty Knollenbeg, a member of the redistricting committee and son of Peter's predecessor, has moved from talking about challenging Peters in 2012 to actually starting the machinery of his campaign, in the form of an exploratory committee. That suggest that Knollenberg thinks Peters (or at least the bulk of Peters' district) is going to be in such a form that it would be amenable to electing a Republican. Which again cuts against the Levin-Peters pairing.
So: If there's a district for Knollenberg, some other district is still geting cut. Maintaining two VRA black districts requires one of the Detroit districts to cut into Levin's Twelfth. Putting that together, perhaps the Twelfth is the district to go? What would that look like?
I explore three possible solutions after the jump.
This is first in a series of diaries looking at redistricting in the Michigan State House. I'm not totally sure how many parts there will be yet. The current diary is focused on Wayne County, home of Detroit, and the county with the worst numerical net loss of population over the last ten years of any in the country -- just short of a quarter million.
The upshot here is that Wayne County currently possesses 23 state house districts; with the population loss, it's going to drop to 20. All three seats loss are Detroit-based.
Michigan has a 110-member state house. In 2010, the Republicans gained nineteen seats while losing none, to take control of the chamber by a 63-47 margin.
I haven't done a full map yet, so I don't know for sure where those seats are going, but I have to assume that the loss of three safe seats in Detroit is going to make the task of regaining the chamber even more difficult for the Democrats.
Maintaining two VRA majority-African-American districts in the metro Detroit area is going to be much more of pain than I originally thought. In the relevant population by CD thread, I breezily commented:
And, on an even more important "not-to-mention" note, the Detroit metro area still has more than enough African Americans for two VRA districts, so consolidating MI-13 and MI-14 isn't in the cards quite yet.
This is not untrue, but the measures required to get those two districts were a lot more dramatic than I expected. The most recent Census estimates painted a very different picture from the actual Census's report of massive population loss in Wayne County. And so the new districts are likely to be quite different from what I (and others) had previously imagined.
After the jump, I present two different scenarios for the Detroit area districts. Please feel free to post your own -- this is very much more about getting a discussion going than presenting anything close to a polished proposal.
Today's Census data dump is three slow-growth northern states: Massachusetts, Michigan, and New Hampshire. Massachusetts is set to lose one seat (from 10 down to 9), meaning its new target is 727,514 (up from about 634K in 2000). Interestingly, the growth among all the districts was pretty consistent, with only about 20,000 difference between the state's largest and smallest districts. Estimates over the decade had shown Boston losing population, but in the final count it did eke out a small gain.
With no clear loser on the population front among the districts, that makes the question of who draws the shortest redistricting straw even more complicated... unless someone reverses course and decides to retire, either to challenge Scott Brown (most likely Mike Capuano or Stephen Lynch) or to call it a career (John Olver). Olver's 1st did wind up being the smallest by a small margin, so the most talked-about mashup of the 1st and 2nd may well happen; alternatively, based on seniority the axe could fall on the delegation's newest member, William Keating. At any rate, with Dems firmly in charge of the process, don't look for any of these districts to lose their bluish hues; the main question is who gets left without his musical chair.
District
Rep.
Population
Deviation
MA-01
Olver (D)
644,956
(82,558)
MA-02
Neal (D)
661,045
(66,469)
MA-03
McGovern (D)
664,919
(62,595)
MA-04
Frank (D)
656,083
(71,431)
MA-05
Tsongas (D)
662,269
(65,245)
MA-06
Tierney (D)
650,161
(77,353)
MA-07
Markey (D)
648,162
(79,352)
MA-08
Capuano (D)
660,414
(67,100)
MA-09
Lynch (D)
650,381
(77,133)
MA-10
Keating (D)
649,239
(78,275)
Total:
6,547,629
When it was revealed in December that Michigan was the only state out of 50 that actually lost population since 2000, it was clear that the state's urban districts were in a world of hurt... but I have to admit I'm still surprised at the way that Detroit has utterly cratered. The Motor City, at one point the 4th largest city in America, is now down to 15th, with a population of 713,777 (now smaller than johnny-come-latelies like Columbus, Austin, and Charlotte). The 13th may be the 2nd least populous district in the country at this point (after WY-AL). I briefly had to wonder whether we might actually see Detroit turned into one CD, mostly contiguous with the city boundaries (since it's now about the same population as an ideal district), but I can't imagine that the Obama administration's DOJ would allow the state GOP (which controls the redistricting trifecta) to pack only one overwhelmingly African-American VRA district when the population is there to support two, albeit two that will have to reach significantly into the suburbs now.
Michigan's current target is 705,974 (based on the drop to 14 from 15 seats), up from about 663K in 2000. That means that six of its districts (the Upper Peninsula-based 1st, the Flint-and-Saginaw 5th, and the 9th and 12th in Detroit's northern suburbs, in addition to the 13th and 14th) outright lost population over the decade. With the 9th and 12th also big losers, and with the VRA looming over the 13th and 14th, this all seems to confirm what most people are expecting, that Gary Peters and Sandy Levin are going to get much better acquainted with each other in a Dem primary. If you go further out into the districts that contain Detroit's exurbs (the GOP-held 8th and 10th), those are the two districts in the state that actually need to shed some population.
District
Rep.
Population
Deviation
MI-01
Benishek (R)
650,222
(55,752)
MI-02
Huizenga (R)
698,831
(7,143)
MI-03
Amash (R)
694,695
(11,279)
MI-04
Camp (R)
686,378
(19,596)
MI-05
Kildee (D)
635,129
(70,845)
MI-06
Upton (R)
671,883
(34,091)
MI-07
Walberg (R)
676,899
(29,075)
MI-08
Rogers (R)
707,572
1,598
MI-09
Peters (D)
657,590
(48,384)
MI-10
Miller (R)
719,712
13,738
MI-11
McCotter (R)
695,888
(10,086)
MI-12
Levin (D)
636,601
(69,373)
MI-13
Clarke (D)
519,570
(186,404)
MI-14
Conyers (D)
550,465
(155,509)
MI-15
Dingell (D)
682,205
(23,769)
Total:
9,883,640
These two district states are really drama-free, and New Hampshire might be the least dramatic of all. The two districts in the state stayed remarkably balanced (as they always do... the state has had two districts since the 1800s, with the boundaries rarely moving much), to the extent that the 1st needs to pick up only 254 people from the 2nd. I'll leave it to the good folks in comments to argue over which ward in Hooksett should be the one that gets moved. (New Hampshire's target was 658,235, up from 618K in 2000.)
Now that it's 2011, the redistricting games will soon begin in earnest, with more detailed Census data expected in the coming weeks 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 Massachusetts, Michigan, and Minnesota.
The Michigan Republicans are in the enviable position of controlling the governor's office and both houses of the legislature, as they were back in 2001. The state has a fairly restrictive redistricting law that stresses respecting city and county boundaries and forbids really abusive gerrymanders, so the state's districts will probably look more or less like they do on the current map, which is Republican-friendly but has nothing outrageous.
As we all know, the GOP did very well in a lot of state-level races around the country, in addition to their big gains in the House. This was especially true in Michigan, where the Michigan House of Representatives flipped from D to R after a 20 seat Democratic loss, and the Republicans gained seats in the Michigan Senate, going from a 22-16 majority to a 26-12 supermajority. Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Snyder won convincingly. And over on the Michigan Supreme Court, two GOP-backed candidates (one incumbent justice, one challenger to an incumbent recently appointed by outgoing Gov. Jennifer Granholm) won their races as well, turning a narrow 4-3 "Democratic" majority into a 4-3 "Republican" majority. (The races and the court are nominally non-partisan...but everyone knows.)
There has been much buzz about exactly what this complete GOP control of the redistricting process means for the reapportionment process. Given the fact that Michigan is home, I've been among those wondering just that. This is my attempt at a prediction (or two). As an added bonus, it is my first diary ever here at SSP!
This diary presents potential redistricting maps for Michigan, North Carolina, and Illinois. It also carries the ulterior motive of the following bleg:
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.
The Republicans controlled the redistricting process in 2000, shifting the map from a 9-7 Democratic advantage to a 9-6 Republican one. (Michigan lost a seat in reapportionment.) They did this by redistricting three seperate pairs of Democratic incumbents into the same districts, thereby creating two new open Republican seats elsewhere. Architect of this plan? None other than then-state-senator Thaddeus McCotter, who oh-so-thoughtfully created one of those new open districts around his home base.
The GOP plan had turned into a little bit of a dummymander, since by 2008 the Democrats had flipped two districts to get an 8-7 advantage. This week's election, however, has restored the Republican's 9-6 edge. The 1st and 9th districts are in opposite hands from the 2002 elections; all other districts are controlled by the same party that won them eight years ago. (Wikipedia's version of the pre-Tuesday districts is above for reference.)
The Genesis of this Plan: Failed Attempts
One of my consolations on election night was the idea that even with control over redistricting again, the Republicans couldn't really make it any worse. At the time, it looked the the Democrats were going to be down to five districts: Dearborn-Ann Arbor, Flint-Saginaw, Southfield-Warren, and the two Detroit districts. That seemed like pretty much the rock bottom base of support for the Democrats in Michigan. But then Gary Peters pulled out a narrow victory, and I started to look to see whether the Republicans could get the Democrats down to five after all. Michigan is almost certainly losing another district, so let's see if it can be made a Democratic one.
Four of the six Democratic seats seemed pretty much untouchable. The VRA-protected Detroit-based 13th and 14th districts are, of course, ridiculously Democratic. Sander Levin's 12th district pulls together an only somewhat less-ridiculously-Democratic set of inner suburbs on Detroit's north side. And despite Dale Kildee's narrower-than-expected win on Tuesday, Flint is big enough to dominate pretty much any district you could conceivably put it in. That leaves Gary Peter's 9th district and John Dingell's 15th district as the remaining targets.
My first attempt actually took on John Dingell's district. Stretching from blue collar Dearborn to the university town of Ann Arbor, it was created as one of the three "pairing" districts, setting up then-Representive Lynn Rivers against Dean of the House Dingell. Dearborn was easy to move into John Conyer's 14th district. Ann Arbor has to end up in Democratic district, so I swung Gary Peter's 9th district around to pick it up. Thad McCotter's 11th then mostly gives up its claim on Oakland county to pick up the rest of the dismembered 15th.
The problem with this plan from a GOP perspective is what it does to McCotter. The distict is probably about 60% - 70% new to him, and it's not nearly as Republican as his old district. I haven't run the numbers, but just from eyeballing it, I would be surprised if this version of the 11th district didn't have a Democratic PVI.
My second attempt left Dingell's district more-or-less alone. (As pictured, all of Dingell's hometown of Dearborn ends up in Conyer's district, but this could possibly be played with.) Instead I merged McCotter's 11th district with Peter's 9th district. The resulting district has about half of its population come from each district. (Old Peters in blue; old McCotter in green.) It cuts out the most Democratic parts of each district (Wayne, Westland, and Garden City for the 11th; Pontiac, Auburn Hills, and Royal Oak for the 9th). Again, I haven't run the numbers for PVI; I suspect it's a Bush '04-Obama '08 district.
McCotter probably isn't the best candidate for an incumbent vs incumbent race, but this district -- in isolation -- would probably suit the state GOP fine.
The problem is what the rest of the state looks like.
Merging the 9th and 11th pulls Mike Roger's 8th district further east and north. This saddles the already swingy 7th district just won by Tim Walberg with heavily Democratic Lansing. The 7th, in turn, now donates Democratic-leaning Battle Creek to Fred Upton's already even-PVI 6th district.
The Solution
So if I couldn't dismantle Dingell's district without giving McCotter too much hostile territory, and if merging McCotter's district and Peter's district resulted in weaker districts for Walberg and Upton, then what?
I was stumped for about a day, when the answer occured to me: attack Sander Levin's 12th district instead.
By bringing the Detroit-based 13th district north across Eight Mile into Macomb county, I could merge the Oakland portion of the 12th district into the 9th. (The old 12th is roughly outlined in white.)
Brief District-by-District Rundown
I'm considering working through the data to get firm PVIs for the proposed districts. For now, you have eyeballing-it. I did refer to the 2004 and 2008 numbers while drafting; I just never actually ran the calculations.
1st District (Blue)
This district is newly captured by Republican Dan Benishek. In the 2000 redistricting, this district was pulled down the Lake Huron coast towards Bay City as part of the dismantling of then-Representative Jim Barcia's district (he got paired with Dale Kildee in the 5th). Without such concerns, I pulled it down the Lake Michigan shoreline instead. Adding the Traverse City area instead of the upper Saginaw Bay area should make this district just slightly more Republican. Traverse is also a better cultural fit for the district. (Note that everything not pictured in the north of the state is in this district.)
2nd District (Green)
This district is currently Michigan's most Republican district by PVI. I don't think my alterations will change that. It gives up its northern reaches to the new 1st and stretches inland, taking in Grand Rapids' northern suburbs and exurbs.
3rd District (Purple)
The primary Republican concern with this district is making sure it has enough suburban/exurban territory to overwhelm the Democratic urban core in Grand Rapids. It gives up some territory north of the city and gains Eaton county to the east. I think this will be slightly more Republican than the existing 3rd.
4th District (Red)
As currently configured, this district is something of a left-overs district, taking in the northern counties not in the Upper Peninsula-based 1st or the Lake-Michigan-coast-based 2nd. Under my proposal, it becomes a somewhat more focused Central Michigan district. Largest city (and hometown of incumbent David Camp) Midland is now in the center of the district instead of on its eastern fringe. It takes in all of Democratic Bay county, but I think the rest of the territory is Republican enough to handle it.
5th District (Yellow)
The proposed 5th district is much like its 1990s-district-plan predecessor, taking in much of the Thumb instead of Bay City. This is because eliminating Levin's 12th district pulled Candice Miller's 10th district out of the Thumb. Since it's over that way anyway, it runs a tendril down the St Clair River to relieve Miller of smallish-but-heavily-Democratic Port Huron.
6th District (Teal)
Not much changes for the 6th. It exchanges a few townships in Calhoun county for a few in Branch, and takes in the rest of Allegan county. That last change should make it slightly more Republican. Incumbent Fred Upton should remain fine here.
7th District (Grey)
This proposal's greatest weakness. Newly re-elected Tim Walberg has a district with a PVI of R+2. Getting Monroe county from the dismantled-by-reapportionment 15th in exchange for giving the new 3rd Eaton county is essentially a wash. I just don't think that there's much the Republicans can really do to shore this district up.
8th District (Slate Blue)
Still subsumes Lansing in a sea of Republican-heavy exurbs. This configuration gives up somewhat-Republican Clinton county to gain very-Republican Lapeer county, so Mike Rogers should be happy.
9th District (Cyan)
The new 9th is one of the center-pieces of the plan. It combines most of Gary Peter's current 9th with about half of Sander Levin's current 12th. If it came to a primary, I'm not sure what would happen. Where the current 9th was designed as a Republican seat that's just slipped away, this 9th would be a Democratic safe seat, anchored by Southfield, Royal Oak, and Pontiac.
10th District (Deep Pink)
Candice Miller's 10th is pulled south by the elimination of the old 12th. Losing most its rural hinterland, the new 10th is definitely more Democratic than the old one, but I don't think it's that much more. I think Miller should still be fine. In one of the rare set of calculations I did do, the portions of Macomb county not in the district (ie, in the new 13th) voted for 63% for Obama. The portions of Macomb in the district voted only 52% for Obama. That probably means that Bush won the new 10ths portion of the county in 2004 (here, we're back to no calculations.)
11th District (Lime Green)
In order to shore up McCotter, the district loses three of its inner surburbs and snakes around the north side of the new 9th to pick up some more heavily Republican territory. McCotter should put up much better numbers in this reconfigured district.
12th District (Cornflower Blue)
With the dismantling of the old 12th, I reused the district designation for the reinvention of Dingell's dismantled-by-reapportionment 15th. The new 12th loses Monroe county to pick up the southern portions of Downriver. I'm pretty sure this will push its PVI in an even-more Democratic direction, and Dingell (and/or his successors) should be safe here all decade.
13th District (Salmon?)
The other centerpiece of this plan. It takes in roughly similar portions of Detroit as its predecessor (along with the Grosse Pointes and Harper Woods.) Instead of stretching into Downriver, though, it crosses over into southern Macomb, snatching away the eastern half of Levin's district and saving Miller from having to take on the most Democratic parts of the county. VRA: 53% black, 42% white.
14th District (Olive Drab)
Conyers' new district takes in basically the same portions of Detroit as his old one. The primary difference are the addition of Redford township, the subtraction of any part of Dearborn, and the taking in of the northern half of the Downriver communities instead of the western half. VRA: 53% black, 34% white.
Pre-Conclusionary Note
I was originally concerned about whether this was too much county-splitting in the Detroit area, but it's actually less than currently exists. Currently, the tri-county Detroit metro area has the following configuration:
Wayne: 2 full districts (13th, 14th), 2 partial districts (11th, 15th) Oakland: 1 full district (9th), 3 partial districts (8th, 11th, 12th) Macomb: 2 partial districts (10th, 12th) for 10 total county-fragments.
Under this new configuration, the tri-county Detroit metro area looks like this:
Wayne: 1 full district (14th), 3 partial districts (11th, 12th, 13th) Oakland: 1 full district (9th), 2 partial districts (8th, 11th) Macomb: 2 partial districts (10th, 13th) for 9 total county-fragments.
Conclusion (TL;DR version)
By eliminating Levin's 12th district, I created four packed super-safe districts for the Democrats in the metro Detroit area, with one other safe Democratic district in the Flint-Saginaw area. Republican incumbents in the 1st, 3rd, 6th, and 11th districts are shored up. Republican incumbents in the 4th and 10th districts take minor hits. The Republican incumbent in the 2nd district needed no help; and the one in the 7th district is unhelpable. This plan would more or less lock in an 8 GOP - 5 Dem - 1 swing district pattern for the rest of the decade.
11:07pm: Follow us over here.
11:05pm: One more KS-Sen point before we wrap up this thread: four of the largest counties in Moran's KS-01 have reported either 0 or 1 precincts so far: Reno (Hutchinson), Geary (Junction City), Ford (Dodge City), and Finney (Garden City). So the tide is only beginning to turn.
10:57pm: More on KS-Sen: even with Johnson Co., Moran is still leading Tiahrt in the neutral districts, 48-45. Their own districts are a wash: Moran is winning the 1st 69-28, and Tiahrt is winning the 4th 67-28.
10:55pm: Now this is interesting. Johnson Co., the biggest county in Kansas, seemed to report every precinct en masse... and it went narrowly for Tiahrt (49-45) despite Moran, at least to my mind, fitting its suburban profile better. Nevertheless, despite losing the prize of Johnson Co., Moran is, as expected, starting to pull back ahead. He's up to a 48-46 lead over Tiahrt, with 56% reporting statewide.
10:51pm: SSP Labs is projecting 39.1% for Benishek, 37.4% for Allen when all is said and done in MI-01.
10:48pm: 88% are reporting in MI-01 R, and we aren't anywhere near a conclusion yet. It's Benishek over Allen, 39-38, with a 900-vote spread separating them.
10:46pm: And add yet one more. The AP has called MI-07 R for Tim Walberg, who beats Brian Rooney 59-31. That's gotta be good for us... Walberg is too wingnutty for that swing district, and having run for that office the last three times, everybody already knows him.
10:44pm: The AP adds one more call: the D primary in MI-12. Sandy Levin beats the promotion-seeking state Sen. Mickey Switalski fairly convincingly, 73-27.
10:43pm: And the AP has called KS-04 D for Raj Goyle, who most definitely did not get VicRawl'd tonight. He beats Robert Tillman 81-19, a bit like smashing an ant with a hammer, but those ads will still help build up his name rec for November.
10:41pm: The AP has called MI-Gov R for Rick Snyder. Good news: the next governor of Michigan will not be a wingnut. Bad news: Snyder, with his moderate appeal, will probably be the toughest matchup for Bernero in November.
10:37pm: I haven't seen this many Dutch guys beating the crap out of each other since the last time Feyenoord played PSV Eindhoven. (Sorry, obscure 'football' reference there.)
10:36pm: Meanwhile, back in MI-02, which Hoekstra is probably feeling bad about having vacated, it's a 30-30 tie between Huizenga and Kuipers. Social con Riemersma (who polls had in the lead) is falling back to 18, with teabagger Cooper at 12.
10:34pm: No AP call yet on the GOP side in MI-Gov, but we're getting word that Peter Hoekstra has conceded the race (presumably to Snyder, who leads Hoekstra 37-26, with Cox at 24).
10:32pm: Here's more data from SSP Labs, about KS-Sen, where the spread is about 600 votes. About 40% of Tiahrt's district has reported, though, while only 23% of Moran's has, and Moran is winning the other two CDs, 51-41.
10:31pm: In Missouri, Vicki Hartzler has pulled into a bigger lead in the MO-04 GOP primary. She's up on Stouffer, 42-30. That's with 62% reporting, including both of their home counties fully in.
10:29pm: Great White Dope Lynn Jenkins is going back to the House from KS-02 for another term, it looks like. The AP has called her race against Dennis Pyle, although she finishes with an underwhelming 59%.
10:26pm: In KS-Sen, the real question mark is going to be Johnson County. This is the most populous county in the state, the suburbs ringing Kansas City, Kansas, and the core of KS-03. Only 1 of 447 is reporting so far (with a 50-42 lead for Moran, in case you care).
10:25pm: This is the first time all night we've seen a Todd Tiahrt lead in KS-Sen. They're both at 47%, with Tiahrt ahead by about 900, with 27% reporting. Bear in mind, though, that Segwick Co. (Wichita, Tiahrt's town) has largely reported; it's 74% in. So this is probably as good as it gets for Tiahrt.
10:20pm: We've suddenly jumped to two-thirds reporting in the MO-07 R primary. That clot of Nodler voters in Newton Co. apparently showed up, but it's not enough to swing the needle. It's still Long 35, Goodman 29, Nodler 16.
10:08pm: Over in MI-01, Benishek now leads Allen by 39-38. In KS-01, Huelskamp has pulled to a 35-25-24 lead over Barnett and Mann, but there are lots of votes left to count there.
10:03pm: In the KS-Sen race, Moran now leads Tiahrt by only 47-46, but bear in mind that Tiahrt's home district (KS-04) has more precincts reporting than Moran's 1st CD so far.
10:01pm: Over in MI-13, Clarke leads Cheeks Kilpatrick by 48-38 with just under 37% in. To take a look at the track record of other House incumbents who've faced primaries this cycle, check out our handy chart here.
9:58pm: With more than 1/3 in, things are still very tight in MO-04. Hartzler leads Stouffer, 37-35. On the Dem side, the race has been called for Ike Skelton. He defeated man/lion hybrid Leonard Steinman... the very kind of being that the GOP is looking to stamp out... 81 to 19.
9:56pm: One race that isn't close is MI-07, also with almost half in. It's Walberg 58, Rooney 32. Thus ending the dream of two Rooney brothers in the House... and of Domino's Pizza having its own personal in-house Representative.
9:55pm: More than half is reporting in MI-01, and Jason Allen continues to nurse a small lead (39-37) on Dan Benishek.
9:53pm: On the R side, we're probably nowhere near a call. Snyder's at 37, with Hoekstra closest at 26, and Cox at 24. Bouchard (and by extension Ted Nugent) pretty much a non-factor here at 11.
9:51pm: The AP has called MI-Gov D for Virg Bernero! He leads Andy Dillon at the same 58-42, with about 20% reporting.
9:49pm: Wow, things are even closer in KS-Sen now. It's Moran 47, Tiahrt 46 with 10% in.
9:48pm: In KS-04, we have enough to report on: Mike Pompeo leads at 37, with Jean Schodorf (who led at very first) at 29, and Wink Hartman at 21. And on the Dem side, looks like the Raj Goyle ad blitz paid off, and then some. He's beating Robert Tillman 79-21.
9:47pm: Back in KS-02, Lynn Jenkins continues to underwhelm in the GOP primary; she's at 59 against teabagging state Sen. Dennis Pyle. At least she's doing better than Sean Tevis, who's in 3rd and last place among the Dems.
9:46pm: Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick looks like she's on her way to becoming the 4th primary casualty in the House this year. With 27% in, she trails Hansen Clarke 50-35.
9:45pm: Wow, nearly a 3-way tie in the GOP field in KS-01: Mann 29, Huelskamp 28, Barnett 26.
9:43pm: Things are just getting underway in KS-03, with about 3% in, but Kevin Yoder has a pretty solid lead over Patricia Lightner in the GOP primary: 48-35.
Moving the party over to a fresh new thread.
