US House Redistricting: New York

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Yeah I really hope GOP donors get excited about beating Lowey and Slaughter and pour millions into their opponents instead of the GOP incumbents upstate/vulnerable Republicans in other states and Mitt Romney's superPACs. Reminds me of the idiots who gave millions to Christine O'Donnell instead of Sharron Angle or Ken Buck (or even Joe Miller).

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Not quite, that's a 55% Obama district.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

There might be more, sort of orthodox but not ultra-observant (you know, not wearing the clothes, not living in uniform enclaves) Jews elsewhere in the county that might vote Democratic and be swingable, I don't know. It's possible.

Isn't that basically what Joe Lieberman is?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Why compromise on the Senate map? Better to just bottle it up and get a court-drawn map that'll no doubt end several GOP incumbents (Obviously the Democrats will probably take it anyway even with the current gerrymandered monstrosity in the next decent Dem year but better to secure that).

BTW I actually have worked on what a court-drawn Senate map might look like, should upload it.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Well I'm going to post my map anyway after tweaking a few things.

Fun fact: My church's "Leap of Faith 2012" packet advises on Tuesdays during the season to "worship through creativity" "doing something creative that connects you to God" then mentioning "Write, journal, draw, sing, dance, sew, paint, build, whatever comes to mind". So I did this by...drawing maps on DRA. And some primary prediction county maps in MS Paint.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Analysis coming up...

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Alright:

Long Island
Swing districts: 1, 4, 5, 8, 10
Republican districts: 2, 3, 7
Dem districts: 9

9 is majority minority and almost 70% Obama. Some of those swing districts are in the vicinity of 55-56% Obama but since Republicans hold such seats on Long Island now I'm calling them swing. 2 voted for Obama 50-48 but almost certainly would elect a Republican.

10 doesn't go too far into Jamaica. It has a lot of land area, but that's because of the airport.

NYC
OK some interesting districts but the only ones worth noting from a partisan perspective are 20 (the pink south Brooklyn one), 23 (southern Staten Island) and 24 (the purple one near 21, NY Jew's dream seat). 21 is basically a swing seat, 51.1% McCain, but Democrats hold such districts in that area now. 23 would obviously go Republican, (61.3% McCain FTR), 24 is 62.3% McCain but who knows how bloc voting in that area goes, so we'll call it a swing seat. The rest are obviously all safe Dem (11-36), so that's 23 Dem seats, 2 swing ones and 1 Republican.

Westchester area
You got a south Westchester seat, 37 (dark blue) and a northern seat (teal), both are >60% Obama, oddly the outer one is more Dem (62.2-61.7%). Both go Dem. 39 is Rockland County's seat, it has almost enough population for a district, lol. Probably held by a Republican despite being won by Obama. Further north you have two likely Republican seats, though the green one was about 52% Obama (the brown one is about 50%) McCain, so 3-2 from this region.

Further upstate
Well count this up till 55 (the one right west of Syracuse). The safe or near safe Dem seats are 41 (Kingston-Poughkeepsie, about 58% Obama), 45 (Albany), 51 ("Only" about 55% Obama, but since it contains Ithaca the GOP's going to need a hell of a candidate running up the vote in the non-Ithaca areas) and 53 (Syracuse). 44 would be winnable for the Dems, (53.2% Obama, running up to Canada on the Vermont border), also possibilities are 46 (Schenectady), 50 (Binghamton), 54 (Suburban Syracuse-Oswego) which were about 52-53% Obama. 43 (that pink rural area), 47 (around Albany) and 48 (the other big northern seat) all voted for Obama with about 51%, but thus would be kind of tricky to win in most years. 49 (Utica-Rome) was 52.8% McCain and 55 (Auburn) voted for Obama by just a couple hundred votes, probably truly unwinnable. So 4 Dem seats, 5 likely Republican seats, and 3 swing ones, that would no doubt be Republican held now.

West
52 (ugly color on the southern border), 58 (purple) and 59 (red) are obviously all very safe Republican seats. That guy in Rochester is doomed, district 57 contains the city and is 73% Obama. 62 is the main Buffalo seat, that's 75% Obama. 60 (the yellow seat along the coast) and 61 (Niagara Falls to Amherst) are swing districts, about 52.5% Obama and 54.8% Obama respectively, 56 (suburban Rochester) is 51% Obama, so probably would be won by a Republican most of the time. 2 Dem seats, 2 swing, and 4 Republican.

So that's 32 Dem seats, 16 Republican, and 14 swing. Probably ends up with about 36-39 Dem seats.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I think the issue is more that nothing is done to shore up Hochul, and if you consider Turner's seat a Dem one currently Republican by a fluke it's two Dem seats eliminated. Sure the inverse is true of Hochul but with her just losing that's not quite a fair trade. And the only seat that becomes so Dem in a neutral environment it's guaranteed to flip is Buerkle's, which probably would've happened anyway. Losing Hochul, Buerkle, Hinchey and Turner may be a net zero but it's not exactly "fair" if you look at the details.

The problem with a "packed Jewish Dem CD" is that the Jews don't segregate like the races do except the Hasids NY Jew is so obsessed with, for example the Manhattan part of Nadler's seat certainly has a lot of Jews but many non-Jews as well. And the problem with the packed Jewish GOP seat NY Jew desires so much is the makeup depends primarily on who else you put there, it's quite easy to combine all the Hasidic areas and put them in a majority black seat. Nadler's seat is actually the closest thing to a "Jewish seat" that can be drawn.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I mentioned that earlier. It's quite easy to keep all the Orthodox areas together and put them in a majority black district.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

While we're inventing "communities of interest" that are supposedly screwed over by the map, how about the huge white liberal population in Brooklyn? Right now they are basically all in seats that are either black, Hispanic, or represented by someone in Manhattan (Nadler). I suppose you could've made a case for Weiner while he was in office but the part of Brooklyn in his district wasn't the liberal one. And unlike the Hasids they have enough population for their own district.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

No there would be no VRA violation since the preferred candidate of the black community would clearly win that district.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Man, Hasids love No True Scotsman more than any other group.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

If I were a Republican strategist, I'd be arguing that Slaughter isn't worth it. First of all you still have to consider any opponent's going to need about 1/6 of Obama voters while keeping the Tea Party people who already aren't happy about Romney satisfied. Not easy to do simply on the "old and in office too long" way of thinking, it didn't even work against Kanjorski without a GOP wave and he had corruption issues on top of that. More like a recipe for Slaughter to end up with only 53-54%, which might finally convince her to retire. But that just means a new fresh Dem takes the seat. And even if they manage to pull it off, the seat is gone as soon as the Dems have a good year again. There's plenty of vulnerable GOP incumbents who are more in need of that money, including ones in the same state.