Dave's Redistricting App

[Is JCL in mushy sappy love]

Here's a redo of Indiana.  I'm not really sure why their districts were so funky looking in the first place.

You need to draw a 10-district plan first.

Then choose a district in the middle of the state to dismantle, and it can't include the Marion County seat.  To the extent possible, add 11% of the dismantled district to each of the 9 remaining districts.  If you could do this, the old representative won't be able to find enough of his old district available to challenge anyone.

If that isn't possible, try to spread the additions from among several adjoining districts (eg for the Gary district, add 5% going east and 6% going south).  But be careful that you don't disrupt the other districts too much.

Alternatively, combine two districts in the middle of the state in a way that the incumbents can't really avoid a primary battle and the distribute the rest of the combined districts as above.

No... You split Marion county amongst the 4 surrounding districts (Good bye Andre Carson)
Find a way to force Vislowsky and silent Joe Donnelly into the same district (bye bye Donnelly)
Create a North Central District (Kokomo, Rochester, Peru, South Bend) which would be represented by Jackie Walorski.

[CultureKing]

Here is my take on Washington with 10 congressional districts:



Close-up of Puget Sound:



This would put the new 10th district in the South Sound. While Thurston county would lean democratic the addition of Lewis and southern Pierce would moderate the district (honestly I am not sure exactly how it would vote).

1st district (Northern Seattle/Snohomish county): Would be solid dem
2nd district (Everett to Bellingham): I actually barely changed the 2nd, would remain lean dem.
3rd district (Vancouver crossing into Eastern WA): Changes to lean/moderate Republican
4th district (Tri-cities): Remains solid Republican
5th district (Spokane): Would probably become slight less Republican but still difficult for democrats to capture even under good conditions.
6th district (Aberdeen/Bremerton/Tacoma): Slighlty less dem because of losses in Tacoma but remains lean dem.
7th district (Seattle): Even more solid dem
8th district (Bellevue): Goes from toss-up to slight dem. With the loss of Pierce county Reichart would be in BIG trouble
9th district (Kent/Federal Way): Becomes more solid democratic

End Result:
7 dem districts
3 rep districs
(though likely the 8th and 10th could switch to either party)

Any thoughts?

[Senator Napoleon]

Stuck Murphy in the green district so that the red district would be a more Republican, Waterbury based district.

Just for fun. It would still be about D+2 or D+3 though.

[davebradlee]

Hi Everyone,

I'm the author of the redistricting app. Not long ago I ran across all of your posts here on the app and I wanted to say "Thanks" and let you know what's going on with the app. I've posted diaries about the app on SwingStateProject.com over the last 1.5 years if you want to look at some of the history.

Until now, the app has been an avocation. I had a good chunk of time between jobs in the winter of 2008-09 when I got started on this, but since May 2009 I've had a "real" job...until now. I'm taking the plunge and working on the app full time for at least the first 1/2 of this year. I've been talking to a bunch of people and am trying to get some funding for it. At the moment it looks good, but not yet a done deal.

I plan to get all the new 2010 census data when it's available (Feb-Mar). The partisan data story is still unknown. Getting the data at the right granularity and format is a pain. For the states that have it now it's a few other people who have made that possible.

Version 2.0.4 is up there now. I can see many of you have used 2.0.x. I've created a survey that is open until next Monday night, January 17th (at 11:59pm PST). To take the survey paste www.kwiksurveys.com/online-survey.php?surveyID=HBNLOI_a50d3df in your browser (without the blanks -- since I'm a newbie the Blog won't accept me putting a link in there.) The survey will help give me some direction in my work over the next few months.


I bought a Mac and have been debugging the app there and so hope to have some improvements for you Mac users (boy -- the MacBook is really nice :-))

Anyway, please fill out the survey if you feel inclined. I will now try to check in here periodically to hear your thoughts and let you know when I'm making upgrades.

Thanks!

Dave

[Jbrase]

Thank you for your wonderful redistricting app

[Vazdul (Formerly Chairman of the Communist Party of Ontario)]

Thank you for your wonderful redistricting app

[Vasall des Midas]

I plan to get all the new 2010 census data when it's available (Feb-Mar).

Great!

Thank you for your wonderful redistricting app

[Χahar]

Here's the link that Dave Bradlee couldn't post:

www.kwiksurveys.com/online-survey.php?surveyID=HBNLOI_a50d3df

[bgwah]

Your app is pretty much a dream come true. I had always wished there was something like it!

[muon2]

Here's the link that Dave Bradlee couldn't post:

www.kwiksurveys.com/online-survey.php?surveyID=HBNLOI_a50d3df

I fixed it in his post as well.

[So the Heroes Fall]

For those who have wanted to draw state leg districts or whatever for At-Large states, there is now data for every state except Alaska up.

[realisticidealist]

For those who have wanted to draw state leg districts or whatever for At-Large states, there is now data for every state except Alaska up.

Hooray!

[So the Heroes Fall]

OK while doing North Dakota I must ask what this "New Minneapolis" (amusing name) place is, I see it in Stutsman County off I-94 which I've driven a million times but have never seen any road sign for it and this is the first I've heard of it.

[Kevinstat]

For those who have wanted to draw state leg districts or whatever for At-Large states, there is now data for every state except Alaska up.

Hooray!

Dave also now has block groups available for New England states, which, for Maine and New Hampshire at least, are better than the voting districts which for Maine were the tracts of territory in the same county, state senate district, state house district and county commissioner district (but not necessarily the same congressional district) before the 2003 redistricting (so under the lines drawn based on the 1990 census) and in New Hampshire were the wards of cities (or perhaps some non-cities) with all other municipalities in each county being lumps into "Voting Districts not defined, [Whatever] County" (except for Carroll County which apparently has no cities and had the entire county in the "CARROLL Voting District").

In both of those states (at least), however, some block groups include multiple towns, in Maine at least one pair of towns (Rome and Vienna) which were not only in different "Voting Disrricts" (as they were (and still are) in different state house districts) but were each coterminous with one "Voting District."  Overall, however, the block groups are definitely more useful, although it would be nice if the name of the census tract were included in the block group name rather than just "Block Group 1" or "Block Group 2" and if I new how the '(part)'s of block groups were divided (at least adjacent "Block Group 1"s of different census tracts in the same county are in different districts ('disticts' here being the indivisible building blocks of 'CD's)).

[JohnnyLongtorso]

In celebration of this achievement, I've made 2-CD maps of all the at-large states (minus Alaska), with the intent of giving the minority party in each state a CD they could win.

Delaware:



The green district might have actually been a narrow Obama win, but it would be dominated by Kent and Sussex, so Republicans would be able to win it pretty easily. The blue district is probably over 70% Obama.

Montana:



The blue district is around 53-44 Obama, while the green one is around 55-42 McCain.

North Dakota:



This one, along with Delaware, has the advantage of looking pretty nice as well. No county splits even! The blue district is about 52-46 Obama, while the green one is about 60-38 McCain.

South Dakota:



Less so here. Blue district is pretty much even, while the green one is about 58-40 McCain.

Vermont:



Really no way to make a Republican-opportunity district here. The blue district almost certainly is over 60% Obama, while the green one is over 70% Obama.

Wyoming:



Opposite problem, thought not *quite* as bad. My guess is the blue district is around 60% McCain, while the green one is over 70%.

[So the Heroes Fall]

How many state legislative seats do the Democrats have in Delaware outside of New Castle County? With the maps I'm drawing I'm having a tough time seeing them win anything outside of up to two Dover based House seats and one Dover Senate seat. Dover's black population is so high though that the Democrats would probably win anything based around it even without the state employee voters that make most state capitals more Democratic than the state.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

In the Senate, they've got SD-14 (split between New Castle and Kent) SD-17 (Dover), SD-20 (beach towns, Millsboro, Selbyville), and SD-21 (Laurel/Delmar).

SD-17 and 20 were up last year, the former being a 2-1 win and the latter unopposed. They lost SD-15 last year, which is the western half of Kent County.

In the House, there's HD-14 (Rehoboth), HD-28 (Smyrna), HD-31 (Dover), HD-32 (Dover), and HD-41 (Millsboro), though HD-41's representative is only a Democrat because he was a Republican who had to resign from the House due to a scandal (domestic abuse, to be specific), then he came back and ran as a Democrat.

The 14th was close (54-46) last year, 28th and 31st weren't, the 32nd was a 50-44 win, and the 41st was a 55-45 win. They lost the 33rd 52-48 last year, which is Milford and Riverview.

Here are the current maps:

http://elections.delaware.gov/information/districtmaps/districtmaps.shtml

[So the Heroes Fall]

Weird, they must hold some pretty conservative areas then. Some of those districts would've had to voted for O'Donnell. I have a tough time seeing how anyone could vote for both O'Donnell and a Democrat.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

Results by House district. Coons carried HD-14 by 49-48 (about 150 votes), HD-28 by 55-42, HD-31 by 57-39, and HD-32 by 51-44.

Looks like HD-41 was the one Dem-held House district that voted for O'Donnell, 58-38. HD-33, which the Republicans picked up, went for O'Donnell as well (57-39). Meanwhile, Coons carried every seat in New Castle County, including the five Republicans left there (HD-11, 12, 20, 21, 22), and the three House seats they picked up (HD-6, 9, and 24).

After a quick calculation of the Senate districts that were up last year... SD-14 went for Coons by 55-41, while SD-20 went for O'Donnell 56-40. SD-17, which the Dems lost, went for O'Donnell 54-42.

So that's two districts that were up that went for O'Donnell/a Democrat. As I've said, Atkins is a DINO, and Bunting (the Senator from SD-20), aside from being unopposed, is pretty conservative, I believe.

[Verily]

Weird, they must hold some pretty conservative areas then. Some of those districts would've had to voted for O'Donnell. I have a tough time seeing how anyone could vote for both O'Donnell and a Democrat.

Knowing rural Delaware, at least some of those Democratic legislators from Sussex County probably voted for O'Donnell.

[So the Heroes Fall]

Weird, they must hold some pretty conservative areas then. Some of those districts would've had to voted for O'Donnell. I have a tough time seeing how anyone could vote for both O'Donnell and a Democrat.

Knowing rural Delaware, at least some of those Democratic legislators from Sussex County probably voted for O'Donnell.

Delaware has ConservaDems? Kind of weird, it's traditionally Republican rather than Democratic and never had any type of Dixiecrat machine. FDR even failed to win it in 1932.

[Verily]

Weird, they must hold some pretty conservative areas then. Some of those districts would've had to voted for O'Donnell. I have a tough time seeing how anyone could vote for both O'Donnell and a Democrat.

Knowing rural Delaware, at least some of those Democratic legislators from Sussex County probably voted for O'Donnell.

Delaware has ConservaDems? Kind of weird, it's traditionally Republican rather than Democratic and never had any type of Dixiecrat machine. FDR even failed to win it in 1932.

Well, yeah, New Castle County has always dominated the state, and back when Philly was GOP, so was Wilmington. But Sussex and to a lesser extent Kent County might as well be in rural Alabama, politically. See also: Eastern Shore of Maryland.

[So the Heroes Fall]

Still kind of odd that they'd still be around this late, and that the guy in HD-41 was even welcomed into the caucus (I'd be pretty outraged about that if I were a Delaware Democrat, though I don't know the whole story, maybe they were pretty reluctant.)

I just found something odd though it might just be an error, there's a precinct near Wilmington which is literally 100% white, and it has almost 1000 people (close to Canby Park). It's about in the area where the black population starts to fade, but not to that level, the surrounding precincts are about 20% black.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

Yeah, Sussex and Kent culturally belong with the Eastern Shore of Maryland. You could cut the state off at the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal and put the southern part in with Maryland and I doubt anyone would complain.

Sussex actually still has a slight Dem registration edge (52k to 49k), while Kent's is more pronounced (46k to 33k).

[JohnnyLongtorso]

Still kind of odd that they'd still be around this late, and that the guy in HD-41 was even welcomed into the caucus (I'd be pretty outraged about that if I were a Delaware Democrat, though I don't know the whole story, maybe they were pretty reluctant.)

I just found something odd though it might just be an error, there's a precinct near Wilmington which is literally 100% white, and it has almost 1000 people (close to Canby Park). It's about in the area where the black population starts to fade, but not to that level, the surrounding precincts are about 20% black.

Democrats didn't pick up the House until 2008, so they may have been hedging their bets in case Atkins became the deciding vote for Speaker. A little googling suggests that he presented himself as a "changed man", so maybe he's cleaned up his act.

That precinct is probably just an error. I looked at the neighborhood on Google and it's a mix of townhouses, split-levels, and other small single-family homes; doubtful that it's 100% white.

Edit: Although maybe not, there are some other heavily-white precincts in the area (near the cemetary). Maybe it's a white working-class neighborhood like Hampden in Baltimore.