Well, look what HE's doing to US now...

[Wrecking Ball and Chain]

This was pretty cool. Can't believe I missed it last time.

PLYMOUTH & (what's the name of that lake?)

Lake Minnetonka

I also think it would make more sense to keep Austin and Albert Lea together. Albert Lea would HATE your district including it.

Here's how they'd all vote:

MINNEAPOLIS 1-4 - all solid DFL obviously
BLOOMINGTON - swing seat. Probably votes GOP if they can get a moderate through the primary. Otherwise DFL. Probably held by a DFLer now based on the state leg seats.
RICHFIELD - EDINA - HOPKINS - Lean DFL
EDEN PRAIRIE & MINNETONKA - Lean GOP
SAINT LOUIS PARK & GOLDEN VALLEY - Fairly strong Dem
BROOKLYN PARK - see Bloomington
PLYMOUTH & LAKE MINNETONKA - Fairly strong GOP
MAPLE GROVE - super-ultra-strong GOP
SAINT PAUL 1-3 - Solid DFL, yawn...
ROSEVILLE & SHOREVIEW - Fairly Strong DFL
MAPLEWOOD & WHITE BEAR LAKE - Lean DFL
COON RAPIDS - Tossup. Slight DFL Lean
BLAINE & LINO LAKES - Lean GOP
RAMSEY & ANDOVER - Lean GOP
WOODBURY - tossup leaning DFL
OAKDALE & STILLWATER - tossup leaning GOP
EAGAN - Leans GOP, goes DFL if they nominate a hard right winger
BURNSVILLE - see above
SOUTH SAINT PAUL & ROSEMONT - DFL
LAKEVILLE & HASTINGS - Fairly strong GOP
RED WING & FARIBAULT - Lean DFL
ROCHESTER - Traditionally strong GOP, now weakening greatly. DFL now controls the state leg seats in the area, but I'll be nice and assume the GOP still has this one.
WINONA - Heavily Leans DFL
AUSTIN - Strong DFL
SHAKOPEE (?) & CHASKA - Strong GOP
CHANHASSEN & HUTCHINSON - Super-strong GOP
MANKATO - Lean DFL
ALBERT LEA - Lean GOP (and everyone in Freeborn county is very very pissed off)
REDWOOD FALLS, FAIRMONT & NEW ULM - Super-strong GOP
MARSHALL & WORTHINGTON  - Strong GOP
WILLMAR & LITCHFIELD - Probably GOP, but the DFL would have a great shot
SAINT MICHAEL - Super-strong GOP
SAINT CLOUD - complete tossup
LITTLE FALLS - Lean GOP
SAUK RAPIDS & SHERBURNE - Strong GOP
LOWER SAINT CROIX - Strong DFL (and a badly drawn district)
DULUTH - Uber-DFL
IRON RANGE & BOUNDARY WATERS - Uber-DFL
CAMBRIDGE & MILLE LACS - Lean GOP
BRAINERD & LEECH LAKE - Lean GOP
FERGUS FALLS & MORRIS - Fairly strong GOP
MOORHEAD - DFL wins it if they get a populist through the primary. Probably would
BEMIDJI & INTERNATIONAL FALLS - Fairly strong DFL
THIEF RIVER FALLS & CROOKSTON - Lean GOPd

So you basically have 25 DFL seats, 23 GOP seats and a complete tossup one. Dependening on circumstances though the DFL seats could be anywhere from 18-35 and GOP seats anywhere from 14-31

I'll comment on the North Dakota one tommorow too.

That SD majority Native seat is interesting too in guessing if it'd elect a Native Democrat or white Democrat. I'd guess a white Democrat.

[Grad Students are the Worst]

Aye, Lewis, whatever happened to that?

[Vasall des Midas]

Aye, Lewis, whatever happened to that?

I quit.

Obviously.

Nor am I going to restart it, at least until I'm finished with Kingdom Cum.

[Vasall des Midas]

For decades Chicago has been divided into community areas that now coincide with groups of census tracts that have summary data collected for them. In terms of census data they area at an equivalent level to townships. The Chicago Community Area Data can be found at the City of Chicago's Department of Planning and Development.

The url for the page with the map is map page

The population data can be looked up on this page: pop page

If you want my suggestions on the division into 100 K units I'll be happy to oblige.

Funny thing is, I'd only just now sent muon a pm asking about those links again... but they don't seem to be working right now.

[Wrecking Ball and Chain]

I just calculated, the Native majority district in SD voted 51.81% for Kerry. So it possibly could go Republican in a very low Native turnout situation. Of course it also voted 61.58% for Daschle in 2004, so it wouln't be that difficult for a Democrat to overperform on Kerry's numbers and get a bit of a cushion. Most likely a relatively moderate white Democrat would win and become an entrenched popular incumbent.

[Vasall des Midas]

I just calculated, the Native majority district in SD voted 51.81% for Kerry. So it possibly could go Republican in a very low Native turnout situation. Of course it also voted 61.58% for Daschle in 2004, so it wouln't be that difficult for a Democrat to overperform on Kerry's numbers and get a bit of a cushion. Most likely a relatively moderate white Democrat would win and become an entrenched popular incumbent.

Where's a White Democrat for that district going to come from? It's inhabited almost exclusively by Native American Democrats and White Republicans.

[Wrecking Ball and Chain]

Lyman and Charles Mix counties no doubt have a significant number of white Democrats. Bennett too.

[Grad Students are the Worst]

Lyman and Charles Mix counties no doubt have a significant number of white Democrats. Bennett too.

Indeed - there's plenty of white Democrats in the area, if you look at precinct results for towns that are almost entirely white.  They're obviously the minority, but they certainly exist in significant numbers.

[Vasall des Midas]

Lyman and Charles Mix counties no doubt have a significant number of white Democrats. Bennett too.

Indeed - there's plenty of white Democrats in the area, if you look at precinct results for towns that are almost entirely white.  They're obviously the minority, but they certainly exist in significant numbers.

Yeah, but could one win a primary?

[Grad Students are the Worst]

Lyman and Charles Mix counties no doubt have a significant number of white Democrats. Bennett too.

Indeed - there's plenty of white Democrats in the area, if you look at precinct results for towns that are almost entirely white.  They're obviously the minority, but they certainly exist in significant numbers.

Yeah, but could one win a primary?

I don't see why not.  It's not as if Native Americans aren't used to voting for white Democrats for everything.

After all, Stephanie Herseth's 2006 opponent was an Indian.  But then again, he probably was hardly contested.

I think a moderate Indian Democrat is more likely.  But how high is NA turnout in the primary?

[Wrecking Ball and Chain]

Lyman and Charles Mix counties no doubt have a significant number of white Democrats. Bennett too.

Indeed - there's plenty of white Democrats in the area, if you look at precinct results for towns that are almost entirely white.  They're obviously the minority, but they certainly exist in significant numbers.

Yeah, but could one win a primary?

Native turnout is usually rather low, I'd imagine that in primaries it's absolutely atrocious.

That's usually what happens in similar state legislature districts btw. I believe that the State Senator for the district that contains Sioux county in ND is a white Democrat from Grant County.

[Wrecking Ball and Chain]

Here's a brief comparison of white vs. Native turnout:

Haakon is the only predominately white county in Lewis' district. It has a population in 2004 I'm estimating of around 2000, of which 1600 were of voting age. 1240 votes were cast in it in 2004.

Shannon County had a population of around 13,400 in 2004. Of those about 7800 were legal voting age. It had 4214 votes cast in it in 2004.

That means Haakon had eligible voter turnout of 77.5%, while Shannon had turnout of 54%.

And 2004 was a good year for Shannon. In 2000 it had half as many votes cast. My rough calculations show an eligible voter turnout of around 27%.

BTW, I don't know about SD's leg, but I looked at ND's and didn't find any Native members, even in the heavily Native districts. I also learned that out of 47 districts, Kerry only won 2 of them, one based around Rollette county, the other located in Fargo. He also came about a point of winning a seat in Grand Forks, and about 2 points of winning a district that contains some heavily Native areas near Minot (and that includes Mountrail county that he came within 2 points of winning). All of these seats elect Democrats, and all are white, even the Rollette county district (which is the only Native majority one in the state)

[Vasall des Midas]

SD has two-member House districts that also serve as single-member Senate districts... except for two Senate districts that are split into single-member districts so that one of them is Native-majority. Another district, which includes Pine Ridge, would appear to be Native-majority anyways. As far as I can see, there would appear to be three Native legislators, all Democrats. The Pine Ridge Senator (who looks full-blood to me, and is a woman, and has one of those pretty surnames - "Two Bulls"), one Pine Ridge Representative (who's obviously mixed-blood, though. His White colleague is a Republican), and one of the split district Representatives (for Corson etc - he too would appear to be mixed blood). At Rosebud though, there is indeed a White Democratic state Rep holding the native-majority split district.

[Wrecking Ball and Chain]

SD has two-member House districts that also serve as single-member Senate districts...

Same deal in ND.

The Pine Ridge Senator (who looks full-blood to me, and is a woman, and has one of those pretty surnames - "Two Bulls")

I remember how I got really pissed in early grade school because I didn't have a cool last name like lots of my classmates

one Pine Ridge Representative (who's obviously mixed-blood, though. His White colleague is a Republican), and one of the split district Representatives (for Corson etc - he too would appear to be mixed blood). At Rosebud though, there is indeed a White Democratic state Rep holding the native-majority split district.

Interesting, but the difference between Pine Ridge and the ND reservations is Pine Ridge is almost exclusively Native and thus no one else can run, but all the ND areas have a significant white population. The district containing Standing Rock also contains some nearby heavily white counties (and voted over 60% for Bush despite all three representatives being Democrats) and even Standing Rock itself contains some areas of significant white settlement, my neighborhood was about 1/3 white (and it actually wasn't located in Fort Yates proper, but neither does a majority of the Fort Yates area), Selfridge is about 40% white (and voted for Bush narrowly) and I there's a predominately white area out in the western part of the county (this explains the two precincts that voted over 77% and 66% for Bush and in 2000 each vote over 67% for Bush with Pat Buchanan taking over 11 and 12% leaving with Gore with less than 20% in both) and Rolette county is about 25% white. I assume the case is simply that Natives aren't interested in politics beyond the tribal and local level and aren't running. The State Senator from Rollette (who is also Minority Leader) looks like he's mixed-race though, the wiki article on him says he holds his family's original claim to their land from the Homestead Act of 1862, so if they've lived there that long there probably no doubt has been some mixing.

BTW, one of the peculiarities of Sioux County that I still haven't figured out is that the Hispanic population is larger than the state average and is almost 4% in Fort Yates proper. I do know a Hispanic from there though, a good friend of my mom's, she now lives in Mandan, has a white husband whose also a Buddhist (how's that for a couple in North Dakota?) and an adopted Native daughter.

[Vasall des Midas]

Yeah, me too. It's just that I don't know how to make them. And am not always working from the same computer.

Nowadays, of course, we have the DRA.

I'll not be sticking to the rules outlined in the opening post though. Less tolerance now, say 5000 from the state average. Still keeping the number of county splits to a minimum.

[Vasall des Midas]

Crazy Laconia & points se district is, I think necessary if you want to split no more counties than necessary and split no townships except Manchester (which is slightly too large for one district) and have one district entirely in Manchester. Might be preferable to ignore the meaningless New England counties, but the Nashua district is dictated by the remaining rules anyways, and room for maneuver is limited across Hillsborough and Rockingham, so something odd would probably arise anyways.

New Hampshire North 101,429, 55.3% Obama
Lebanon 99,966, 61.3% Obama
Cheshire 101,923, 62.4% Obama
Laconia & North Rockingham 101,180, 49.8% Obama (would no doubt elect a Republican)
Dover & Rochester 103,347, 61.5% Obama
Portsmouth 101,608, 57.7% Obama
Derry & Mid Rockingham 103,123, 53.4% McCain
Salem & Hudson 102,363, 54.9% McCain
Nashua 99,169, 81.0% anglo, 54.9% Obama
West Hillsborough 102,177, 51.3% Obama (would no doubt elect a Republican)
Manchester 99,709, 81.9% anglo, 55.2% Obama
Manchester West & Hooksett (or whatever you'd call it) 100,391, 52.2% McCain
Concord 100,085, 59.9% Obama

All other districts over 90% anglo.

[Vasall des Midas]

Reworked it. That Laconia district was just too damn silly. Even reduced the number of county splits by one.

Granted, the districts between Manchester and Nashua look a bit silly now, but that's exurbia anyways. (One of them is also very near the upper limit of tolerance now.) On the plus side, West Hillsborough has been improved on.



New Hampshire North 101,429, 55.3% Obama
Lebanon 101,065, 62.5% Obama
Cheshire 101,923, 62.4% Obama
Concord 100,708, 58.1% Obama
Belknap 100,859, 51.3% Obama (would no doubt elect a Republican)
Dover & Rochester 103,347, 61.5% Obama
Mid Rockingham (or whatever you'd call it) 100,251, 53.3% McCain
Portsmouth 101,608, 57.7% Obama
Derry & Salem 104,559, 53.7% McCain
West Hillsborough 99,655, 51.1% Obama (would no doubt elect a Republican)
Manchester 100,966, 81.8% anglo, 55.2% Obama
Merrimack & Hudson (or whatever you want to call it, these are just the two largest townships) 100,931, 53.5% McCain
Nashua 99,169, 81.0% anglo, 54.9% Obama

All other districts over 90% anglo.

[Vasall des Midas]

Moving this to a new thread.