US House Redistricting: Minnesota

[So the Heroes Fall]

34: New district for powerful Republican figure Warren Limmer, now more safe. BTW it looks kind of ugly on a map but makes sense to anyone who's driven on I-94. Safe GOP.
35: I think this seat is actually open. It's a pretty safe Republican district. Safe GOP.
36: This is a swing seat based off the old 47 that fell in 2010. Few changes, Benjamin Kruse will have a fight on his hands. Wonder if he'll flee to the 35th? Toss Up.
37: Pretty much the same. Pam Wolf is the incumbent, should be a competitive seat. Toss Up.
38: Incumbent Roger Chamberlain lives here, and he should be thankful that it is far more Republican than his old seat. Safe GOP.
39: This is actually the closest thing to Michele Bachmann's old seat. It's actually a bit more DFL than the old seat in fact due to the pulling out of Anoka County, but not enough to be truly competitive (won by McCain but he didn't break 50%), if it weren't for that the current incumbent Ray Vandeveer is as crazy as she is. Lean GOP.
40: Chris Eaton won the special election for this this year when the old incumbent died, and it's still a very safe seat. Safe DFL.
41: Barb Goodwin, the Democrat who ousted the old corrupt incumbent in this area should have no problem winning again. Safe DFL.
42: Normally this would be a reasonably safe DFL seat. However the incumbent John Marty is one of the most liberal members of the State Senate, he ran for Governor as the most liberal candidate with a platform based on gay marriage and single-payer health care. The seat has shifted a tad to the right. He probably still wins though. He could also run in the 66th but that would open a primary battle. Lean DFL.
43: Basically the old 55, incumbnet Chuck Wiger should win easily. Safe DFL.
44: The new seat of Terri Bonoff, who survived 2010 by the skin of her teeth. But if she hung on then, she should have no problem from now on. Safe DFL.
45: Democrat Ann Rest should keep winning here fine. Safe DFL.
46: This is basically the "Jew seat", so the lean is obvious. Ron Latz is safe. Safe DFL.
47: Julianne Ortman won this seat held by Pawlenty's Lt. Gov., safe GOP seat in heavily Republican Carver County. Safe GOP.
48: This is a 52% Obama seat, but the numbers in megachurch crowd-heavy Eden Prairie are pretty misleading, where lots of rich more secular Republicans freaked out over the stock market crash and Sarah Palin. Incumbent David Hann did a joke campaign for Governor in 2010 that went nowhere and he didn't put any real effort into (think Fred Thompson) which no doubt annoyed some people, and he won by a fairly unimpressive for 2010 margin, but the district is polarized. We'll call it Lean GOP for now, might be a true Toss Up by the end of the decade.
49: This is great news for the Democrats, the district is basically the old 41 held by Republican Geoff Michel forever. It's 54.7% Obama and has got more Dem each cycle, even though the Republicans currently hold both House seats, one is an almost certain goner (more on that later.) Michel should've held it easily regardless, but he just announced his retirement. Lean DFL.
50: No incumbent here, it most resembles the old 63 represented by Ken Kelash but he lives outside the boundaries. He might want to run here regardless. Otherwise the incumbent narrowly defeated in 2010 Jon Doll might want to do a return since his old Bloomington to Burnsville seat is now far more Republican. Safe DFL no matter what.
51: Resembles the old 38, a classic swing suburban seat that narrowly fell in 2010. Ted Daley will run again but he could lose a rematch. Toss Up.
52: This is a safe seat and is home to the DFL PPT James Metzen. He'll win easily. Safe DFL.
53: This is based around Woodbury, a very affluent suburb and swing area, Republican Ted Lillie represents the closest district in resemblance but he doesn't live in it. The seat is a bit more DFL anyway since it now goes to Maplewood instead of exurbs, so he'll have a tough time no matter what. Toss Up.
54: Basically the old 57, DFLer Katie Sieben barely survived 2010 but it's a Democratic seat, not every election will be 2010. Lean DFL.
55: Safe Republican district, Claire Robling holds it, will still do so. Safe Republican.
56: This is a former swing district, now barely competitive, Obama won it but by only 0.4% in an area he greatly overran. The incumbent is pretty conservative and unpleasant though (he's known for claiming that school integration destroyed Minneapolis back in April), so it's not quite safe, call it Lean R.
57: This district is a tad more swingy than you'd expect one this distance from the city centers to be, Apple Valley for whatever reason does have quite but the incumbent Chris Gerlach has never had much trouble, with him it's Safe R.
58: Exurban seat, no trouble for incumbent Dave Thompson, Safe R.

The rest are all Twin Cities seats, except 66 which is basically evenly split between part of St. Paul and some inner suburbs, and is a safe DFL seat regardless. So 56-67 are all Safe DFL. I'll just point out that at 87.9% Obama, mine remains the strongest DFL seat in the state.

More to come.

[ilikeverin]

Wikipedia says Bonoff lives in Hopkins; the Minnesota Legislature says Minnetonka.  Are we sure what district she lives in?

[So the Heroes Fall]

I'd trust the legislative site before Wikipedia. Mind you she's not running the 46th anyway.

The MN Sec of State site does somewhere have a list of every candidate that filed for office in various years's filing report including their address, so this stuff can be confirmed.

Edit: Oh wait, the legislative site gives her actual address. Well then yeah that's definitely more reliable. I should go fix Wikipedia.

[So the Heroes Fall]

OK I see where the confusion comes from, her zip code is mostly Hopkins and Google Maps confuses her address for a Hopkins one. But her precinct is definitely Minnetonka. Yes I looked it up.

Never knew she was Jewish either. Probably not that surprising though considering she's not too far off from St. Louis Park.

[So the Heroes Fall]

I'll do more tomorrow after church when I got free time, but here's something of note, I got a fundraising email from the anti-gay marriage ban amendment group that was written by Rep. John Kriesel, one of four Republicans opposed, whose speech against the amendment went viral. He notes in it that he's also not seeking re-election to "spend more time with his family".

This is notable for a few reasons:

1-He probably didn't want to risk losing and ruining all his goodwill with liberal activists (I mean he was selected as man of the year by the magazine of Minneapolis' gay community.)
2-He only served one term, and is very young. So he might just be sick of the far right in his party.
3-His seat will be near impossible to hold without him, especially as the GOP will likely nominate some teabagger nut to replace him.

The third being the most relevant here.

[So the Heroes Fall]

OK I think I'll revive this soon, especially with my recent thoughts about assigning parliamentary seat style names (most likely Canadian-style) to all of them, which I find much easier in tracking them. For that though I think I'll create a new thread inviting others to do so for all states. This will actually help a ton since most seats have obvious predecessors but often the numbers are way different making tracking changes under the numbers a little difficult.

I will note that the DFL seems to have done a decent job with candidate recruitment in western Minnesota, and we might pick up some surprising seats, though I'll wait for the weekend to do a bit more in depth look into that.