US House Redistricting: Ohio

[TJ in Oregon]

Yeah...I hope I'm wrong, but I suspect this map may just end up hurting them with republican-leaning and Republican-trending Independents, canceling out any marginal gains from such an unnecessarily covoluted map.  The NC Republicans and Illinois Democrats can probably get away with their monstronsities better than political parties in a long-time swing-state like Ohio.  Then again, their Republican neighbors in Democratic-leaning Pennsylvania didn't seem to suffer a noticable backlash....

On this front, after reading the comments section on the Cleveland newspaper's website, the outcry isn't half bad. The public seems unable to distinguish between tame gerrymander and this monstrosity. It doesn't seem any different really than the response in the Millwaukee paper after the Wisconsin map was released and the Republicans did their weak gerrymander there.

[TJ in Oregon]

Ohio Supreme Court rules unanimously that the maps can be sent to a referendum.

Ouch.

Who is going to vote for this monstrosity?

Not me and I'm a partisan Republican.

If you look at the comments on that Cleveland Plain Dealer website, you'll notice a decent number of the Republicans are miffed because the expected the GOP to draw out Kucinich and the GOP more or less gerrymandered it to keep Kucinich.

[TJ in Oregon]

As an alternate to the grotesque Ohio map, one that favors Republicans but is highly competitive.

Six safe R: 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 11
Four safe D: 7, 9, 10, 16 

Six with a McCain/Obama margin of less than 5%.  Three won by Obama, three by McCain.

1 +2.8% O
13 +4.4% O
15 +0.7% O

3 +4.6% M
12 +3.6% M
14 +4.4% M

A couple comments on this map:
If the GOP drew this, they would likely add an arm of your district 4 into Clermont County so that Jean Schmidt would be in OH-4 instead of paired up against John Boehner in your OH-2. Washington County could then be transferred to OH-14 to put Johnson in that seat (and likely make it a bit safer since Washington County is pretty GOP for that part of the state).

Your OH-3 is 100% safe GOP as drawn as long as Mike Turner is the Republican and still pretty solidly favoring the GOP in an open seat.

I think the idea of pairing up Austria against Jordan  in your OH-5 is interesting and I haven’t seen a map that does that yet. Though, this OH-5 could probably shed some Republicans. What is it, R+17?

OH-1 could be easily improved by breaking the county lines and if you did it would become a fairly safe GOP seat. I think it can be justified legally since it currently is that way.

There really ought to be some kind of unwritten rule against putting Cleveland’s eastern and western suburbs in the same seat. Everything east of OH-10 in Cuyahoga County needs to be in OH-15. It would also be better to put northern Summit County in OH-15 as well because it is more of a community of interest with Lake and Geauga Counties than southern Mahoning is. LaTourette also performs better in the marginal part of Summit County than in the other areas. Adding southern Mahoning to OH-14 also wouldn’t do as much damage to that district as the presidential numbers might suggest because Bill Johnson lived there for a while.

[TJ in Oregon]

Here’s my guess at what an Ohio map drawn by a judge might look like:



OH-1 Cincinnati Obama 52.5-McCain 46.5
OH-2 Southern Ohio McCain 59.6-Obama 38.4
OH-3 Dayton McCain 49.7-Obama 48.8
OH-4 West-Central Ohio McCain 60.0-Obama 38.1
OH-5 Rural Northwest Ohio McCain 54.1-Obama 43.9
OH-6 Southeast Ohio McCain 50.5-Obama 47.3
OH-7 Mansfield/NC Ohio McCain 55.8-Obama 41.8
OH-8 Cincinnati SuburbsMcCain 61.0-Obama 37.8
OH-9 Toledo/Lake Erie Obama 63.7-McCain 34.7
OH-10 Cleveland-West Side Obama 53.6-McCain 45.1
OH-11 Cleveland-East Side Obama 80.2-McCain 19.0 46.9% VAP black
OH-12 Columbus SuburbsMcCain 51.9-Obama 46.7
OH-13 Akron-Canton Obama 53.5-McCain 44.8
OH-14 Lake/Geauga/LeftoversObama 51.0-McCain 47.4
OH-15 Columbus Obama 65.6-McCain 32.8
OH-16 YoungstownObama 57.4-McCain 40.4

I assumed the judge would try to preserve the current districts where it makes sense and would not draw OH-11 as a majority black seat since this version is much cleaner and is still plurality black.

Safe GOP Seats(6) OH-2 (Jean Schmidt, R-Loveland), OH-4 (Jim Jordan, R-Urbana), OH-5 (Bob Latta, R-Bowling Green), OH-7(Bob Gibbs, R-Lakeville), OH-8 (John Boehner, R-West Chester), OH-12 (Pat Tiberi, R-Galena)
Lean GOP Seats(4) OH-1 (Steve Chabot, R-Cincinnati), OH-3 (Mike Turner, R-Dayton vs. Steve Austria, R-Beavercreek), OH-6 (Bill Johnson, R-Marietta), OH-14 (Steve LaTourette, R-Bainbridge Township)
Toss-Up Seats(2) OH-10 (Dennis Kucinich, D-Cleveland vs. Rob Frost, R-Lakewood), OH-13 (Betty Sutton, D-Copley vs. Jim Renacci, R-Wadsworth)
Lean Dem Seats(1) OH-16 (Tim Ryan, D-Niles)
Safe Dem Seats(2) OH-9 (Marcy Kaptur, D-Toledo), OH-15 (Mary Jo Kilroy, D-Columbus)
Safe Dem Seats if the Dems Exhumed and nominated Adolf Hitler (1) OH-11 (Marcia Fudge, D-Warrensville Hts. )

[TJ in Oregon]

OH-05: This is kind of the same, now includes Lima I guess, almost 55% McCain, that boring forgettable white guy that Ohio is full of is safe.

Hey now, the Latta family is a dynasty

OH-06: Now a bit more Mahoning Valley based, narrowly for McCain but over 60% Dem average, if Wilson lives here prime for a comeback. Probably would vote Dem in most cases.

Wilson does live here and would be a great candidate for the Democrats. Still, this seat is somewhere in the neighborhood of R+5, so it’s probably a true toss-up.

OH-07: This is now completely different and has removed Austria's home and his base (cue krazen: OMG RACIST CONSPIRACY!), now it's more of an Appalachian seat like the current OH-18, so the guy who holds it probably runs here, a bit more Republican than OH-07 but definitely winnable for the right Democrat. 52.3% McCain, 56.5% Democratic.

This is probably a solid GOP seat because it includes more of the area away from the river, which is less West Virginia Democratish, and it has more of the safer Republican river counties (Washington, Gallia, Meigs, Lawrence). The %Democratic numbers are really misleading for this area because it includes the 2010 gubernatorial race and Strickland is from Scioto County.

OH-10: Yeah Kucinich hangs on. Actually the seat is only 54.3% Obama, so he might be sort of vulnerable.

Kucinich would be toast in this district. However, if the Democrats choose a more moderate candidate in the future they could win it back.

OH-14: This seat now contains Youngstown and is no longer an attempt to gerrymander a Republican seat in a region that shouldn't have one. 56.5% Obama, 61.5% Dem. Bye bye LaTourette. Tim Ryan probably runs here.

So now instead of a Republican gerrymander we have a Democratic gerrymander. Lake and Geauga Counties aren’t the same metropolitan area as Youngstown at all. This is a terrible COI district. There really isn’t a good way to draw this part of the state because you invariably are left with about half the population of a district that doesn’t belong anywhere stuck in the corner. This may look cleaner on a map but it’s a pretty egregious Democratic gerrymander. If you wanted to make this un-gerrymandered as possible, I think Portage County would be a the best candidate to add to the current OH-14.

By the way, LaTourette no longer lives here and you drew him into the Akron district.

[TJ in Oregon]

Apparently Republicans are proposing to pick off Democratic votes by stretching OH-3 from Columbus to Dayton, making it 42% black and possibly violating court precedents while wrecking one of the few areas of the map that didn't look like Maryland.

Well, at this point why not? The map is already so terribly gerrymandered that anyone who looks at it will instantly know the idea of a community of interest played no role in its drawing.

I wonder why they didn't just chop Columbus into five pieces while they're at it. Get Jean Schmidt in on the action. Once the GOP decided they don't care how it looks, why not go all the way?

[TJ in Oregon]

If you pull Boehner out of Dayton, you can have him grab most of the suburban Cincinnati blacks without it looking too tortured (you can do it with Schmidt but it looks horrible).

I don't remember exactly what you end up with, but it's somewhere in the neighborhood of R+2 or R+3. The other thing to keep in mind is that Obama overperformed compared to most Democrats in Cincinnati because of the increase in black turnout in '08. Any year when he's not on the ballot, the "marginal" seat is pretty safe for the GOP.

[TJ in Oregon]

http://www.cantonrep.com/newsnow/x422404093/Kucinich-lobbies-for-GOP-redistricting-plan

An Ohio congressman facing a primary fight against a fellow Democrat is lobbying for an embattled GOP redistricting plan, asking voters to call state lawmakers on his behalf.

One Democrat targeted by the robo-calls, state Rep. Timothy DeGeeter of Parma, said Wednesday that he received such a call at his home and fewer than a dozen phone calls from residents who contacted him in response to U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich’s overture.

This is ingenious, the self-serving nature of Dennis! strikes again. I'm going to love watching him fight the Democrats to preserve the ridiculous GOP map just because it was gerrymandered to save him.

I do wonder, though exactly what the Democrats are asking for in Cincinnati, they may be asking for a district that contains all of the blacks in the metropolitan area. Since, there are very few white liberal areas and the few that exist are mostly directly west of downtown, drawing them out would be nearly impossible. Chabot actually lives in that area and it's sandwiched between the black areas and the hyper-GOP western suburbs that the GOP would need to keep in OH-1. It's hard because Cincinnati's racial voting patterns don't look much different than New Orleans or Memphis.

[TJ in Oregon]

There's certainly not going to be a compromise that gives Chabot more than a ~50% survival chance.

Even if you gerrymander the districts to try and get rid of Chabot, he’d still have a better than 50% chance of surviving unless you threw county and city lines out the window and drew him into Hamilton and Middleton. There are about 300,000 people who live in black, heavily Democratic areas and virtually everything else around is extremely Republican.  To give him the boot without an equally hideous map, you would need a Democratic gerrymander and a 2008-style wave among black voters. The PVI in Hamilton County is incredibly misleading because it assumes a black turnout like 2008. If you drew a district entirely in Hamilton County including all the black areas and purposely cutting out the 80% Republican suburbs to keep the 65% Republican suburbs, you would still give Chabot about a 70% chance of getting re-elected just because the 2008 numbers are skewed in that area. And Steve Dreihaus isn’t exactly primed to make a comeback now that he’s suing the Susan B. Anthony List, so you would need to find a new candidate used to appealing to swing voters.

Kucinich may of course be talking himself straight out of a job, whether the map survives or not. I can imagine Kaptur's ads in the Toledo media market... he's going to get so destroyed in the western half of the district.
Kaptur's pro-life record may count against her... but will the relevant donors flock to Kucinich? And is he making it any easier for them, defending that map?

There are a couple underlying assumptions here that are problematic. The Democratic primary won’t likely be about abortion because neither candidate is particularly loud about that issue. If the roles were reversed and the woman was pro-choice and the man pro-life, it would matter much more because Emily’s List would run adds against the pro-life man. But the necessary interest groups will likely sit out this one. I also wouldn’t assume that Kucinich’s current district is more pro-choice than Kaptur’s. It would be close between them and I could just as easily see the opposite being true. Kaptur actually has more of a history of being challenged from the right than from the left.

The real fight will be one of a political machine pitted against a competent Congresswoman  with a regional base in tiny, chopped up Toledo. Kaptur has done poorly in the eastern tail of her district for years because she hasn’t devoted much time there. Part of the reason why I suspect I received a reply to a letter I sent her last year was because I have a Sandusky address. She is having trouble getting support outside of Toledo. Kucinich will have the exact same problem. His support is built on a political machine from Cleveland issues involving lighting companies in the ‘70s. You wouldn’t believe the number of people who still vote for him because of that. He’ll be harmed a lot by the Toledo part of the district both in the primary and general election, but he will have a clear primary advantage because the GOP, in making the district look as hideous as they did, drew much more of the Cleveland metropolitan area into it than the Toledo area.

Kucinich’s base is primarily poor working class people, not the type who would make large donations. So, almost all of his donations come from trips to the east and west coasts. He never has relied on in-district fundraising before. It won’t hurt him financially at all.

[TJ in Oregon]

That's quite a bit cleaner than I expected actually, and yes that would doom Chabot.

[TJ in Oregon]

You don't need to gerrymander to get a district that would probably throw Chabot out. A district that excises the western suburbs in Hamilton County instead of the eastern ones (and is still entirely contained in Hamilton County and has very smooth edges following municipal boundaries) is just over 56% Obama and 53% generic Democrat. That's enough to make Chabot likely to lose (especially in a Presidential year), although certainly not guaranteed.

Not that there is any chance of the Republicans drawing such a district, of course.

Perhaps I have a little bit of "homer" in my perception of who would win, but I would still expect the Eastern Hamilton map to favor Chabot slightly. The generic %s for Ohio are slanted toward the Democrats because I think they use 2006 numbers. The whole state is 54.5% Democratic according to those when Ohio is really about as close to 50/50 as it gets. This would probably be rated a "toss-up" by most people, but man I'd still put my money on Chabot. 2008 was a once in a generation election for black turnout. It will be high still in 2012, but not as high as 2008. In an off-year Chabot would have no problem.

[TJ in Oregon]

Here's an OH-1 Compromise map:

I started off with the current OH-1 and added all the black areas that aren't in it now first. Then I added the more suburbs nearby that weren't already part of it.

Obama 53.5-McCain 45.4
Democrat 51.0-Republican 49.0

It includes all of the black areas in Hamilton County and has a PVI close to even.

[TJ in Oregon]

OK but why would black Democrats be excited about stranding thousands of black voters in a Republican district?

I have no idea. Even if they gerrymander it to be a Democratic seat, I still highly doubt it'll elect a black congressman.

[TJ in Oregon]

And they seem to be obsessed with triple-splitting Mercer County. 

That seemed strange to me too. Why slice off that one township to tack on to Jordan's district when there are plenty of others they could use without splitting any counties? It's not like Jordan's seat is super marginal, even if it was, they split off one of the more moderate townships in Mercer County insead of the super Republican one just to the south.

My suspicion is that there is someone else who lives in that district waiting in the wings to run in OH-4 after Jordan leaves to run for something else. I checked the bios of the State House Rep (who lives in Darke County, so it's not him) and the State Senator Keith Faber, who's bio says he lives "outside of Celina". Lo and behold, that township borders Celina. I have a feeling the Ohio GOP (or Faber himself) wanted Faber to be in OH-4 instead of OH-5 for some reason that will appear in due time.

Edit: LOL. Not only is Faber a State Senator, he's the President Pro Tempore.

[TJ in Oregon]

What I would like the Ohio Republican Party to do at this point is draw Renacci and Gibbs into a district and keep Kaptur and Kucinich in separate districts, while cleaning up all of the uneccessary county splits everywhere. It would result in an 11-4-1 map with the 11 seats being slightly safer than before. Maybe we could get a few Democrats to agree to that?

Oh, and clean up Stivers' seat as well so it doesn't look like a pair of scissors.

[TJ in Oregon]

The Ohio Supreme Court has 6 Republicans and one Democrat (who was appointed by Ted Strickland to fill a vacancy). A Democrat has not been elected since 2000.

[TJ in Oregon]

If the Democrats are asking for 7-8 seats they would have a good chance of winning, then the Republicans should never agree to that. That's not too far from a Democratic max gerrymander. The GOP is better off trying our luck with the courts.

[TJ in Oregon]

Oh, the map will be voted down all right, but that doesn't mean the Democrats will get to draw the next one.

The GOP should never settle for a 5-5-6 map. Ohio may be an R+1.36 state overall but once you draw the D+30ish seat on the East side of Cleveland the rest of the state is around R+3. A 5-5-6 map would need to be a Democratic gerrymander because the Democrats are so concentrated unless the 6 swing districts are in the R+2 range.

I think the GOP is going to have to sacrifice that awful OH-9 lake thing. The bargaining chip would be a contested seat in Cincinnati or Akron. The GOP should not give up both and should give neither unless there are enough votes to pass the map that way. With neither, we stand at 10-4-2 and with one of them we stand at 9-4-3. I suppose we could attempt to argue that LaTourette's seat is "swingy" and maybe call it 8-4-4.

[TJ in Oregon]

Here’s my attempt at a 5-5-6 Ohio. I would classify this as a moderate Democratic gerrymander.
My intent
Democratic: 7,9,11,13,16
Republican: 2,4,8,12,15
“Swingy”: 1,3,5,6,10,14

Notice how many of the “swing” districts are really Republican seats under most circumstances and how flaky 9, 13, and 16 are for the Democrats. This would be an epic Dummymander if they tried to draw it, yet without cutting up OH-11 or making it look hideous, they can’t do much better. The Republican would be favored in every swing district except maybe District 1. Even with Lorain and Elyria gerrymandered into District 5, Latta will likely still win. Once Kaptur retired, OH-9 could be won by a Republican. You can’t do much better than this for the Democrats.

1 Cincinnati D+2
2 Ohio river near Cincinnati R+17
3 Dayton R+1
4 West-Central R+19
5 North-Central R+2
6 Ohio River R+4
7 Columbus D+16
8 Cincinnati Suburbs R+18
9 Toledo D+4
10 Cleveland West EVEN
11 Cleveland East D+27
12 Columbus Northern Suburbs R+10
13 Akron/Medina D+1
14 Lake/Geauga R+3
15 Columbus Southern Suburbs R+11
16 Youngstown/Canton D+6

[TJ in Oregon]

I have trouble understanding how that 13th comes to be so competitive.

Good map though overall, and I remember it now.

It's full of white, not high income voters. I wouldn't really describe it as competitive; the right Democrat should hold it easily.

But the incumbent is exactly the wrong Democrat: Dennis Kucinich. To add to the Democrats issues, the west side of Cleveland has been slowly drifting away from them over the last ten years. OH-10 was a D+10 seat in '04 and a D+6 seat in '08. The Republicans also have exactly the right candidate running in 2012 in Rob Frost. In order for the Democrats to be favored to keep a western Cleveland seat like that it would probably need to be in the D+2 or D+3 range, especially with Kucinich.

[TJ in Oregon]

Nah, the Democrats main problem here is that no one knows or cares what the map looks like. Other than being on the cover of the Plain Dealer for a whopping one day, it has had very little news exposure. Even some of the most informed Ohioans I know just haven't been paying attention. The blogosphere is not representative of real life. It's a political bubble with vastly different views. Most people just don't care what it looks like and won't bother to find out.

[TJ in Oregon]

Keary McCarthy, chief of staff for House Minority Leader Armond Budish, D-Beachwood, said the map is “virtually” the same one that Democrats refused to support in early November.

HB 369

It's a little less erose I guess. The Democrats must see the writing on the wall that they can't get enough signatures to agree to that.

[TJ in Oregon]

OH-13 is around D+9 on this map, but concentrated in the Mahoning Valley, which has been swinging in the Republican direction considerably over the decade. This version may be too gerrymandered for it to happen, but I have to wonder, could this be a competitive district by the end of the decade?

[TJ in Oregon]

OH-13 is around D+9 on this map, but concentrated in the Mahoning Valley, which has been swinging in the Republican direction considerably over the decade. This version may be too gerrymandered for it to happen, but I have to wonder, could this be a competitive district by the end of the decade?

The index is based on the 2008 presidential race, and the 2010 governor, auditor, and SOS race.  Because of including 3 races from 2010, it has about a 1:2 2010 (Republican) bias.  It's less than 1:3 because of the higher 2008 turnout.  In addiition, the 2010 SOS race was not close at all.  The AG race would have been a better race to use.

The claim was made that the governor, auditor, and SOS were chosen because they comprise the redistricting board for legislative redistricting.  But that doesn't mean their election is representative.

It would be interesting to map the SOS race vs. the governor race.  I googled a little bit and the Democratic candidate for SOS was portrayed as anti-2nd amendment, because she was particularly zealous when she was a Columbus city councilor in asserting a home rule right to restrict carrying of firearms, such that someone from Toledo could be arrested if they traveled to Columbus.  If this was the difference (and there was about a 10% differential from the governor's race), then it might show up more in places like Youngstown than elsewhere.  Perhaps OH-6, which while rural is not particularly Republican.

I was using only the 2008 presidential numbers for that D+9, so it only includes whatever bias that might have. (I have the new OH-13 at 62.3-35.7% Obama). I didn't consider 2010 numbers (and I'm not sure there's anything remarkable of note). The reason why I ask this is because every county in that district has trended toward the Republicans from 2000 to 2008. I'm considering trying to look at the trend for Congressional numbers over the decade, but I don't think that will help much because of Jim Traficant's numbers vs. Tim Ryan's, and Traficant's independent bid in 2010 against Ryan. It's hard to tell too much.

Also, Youngstown itself is probably not going to change a lot, rather the areas around it. Youngstown will contribute to the GOP trend only by shrinking (it's down to like 63,000 now). You might see some larger shifts in Warren and Niles (those cities have fewer minorities and more working class whites). All in all, this might have been prevented by the gerrymander; OH-13 goes through too many urban cores and takes in too few of the areas between to be competitive. Yet, I still think under the right circumstances in 10 years we may be seeing some sign of competitiveness.

[TJ in Oregon]

The one possible real trouble spot is that Gibbs in OH-07 (who hangs out in a rural portion of hyper GOP Holmes County), which takes both Canton and Massilon. I suspect he won't run well there relatively speaking, and a Canton based Dem who is reasonably moderate might give him trouble. The Pubs should have a Canton based candidate themselves really. Such is life.

This is a really good point actually. Canton is a potential problem area for the Republicans becase Former Representative John Boccieri will likely be the Democratic opponent for Gibbs. Boccieri is from Alliance, not Canton, but he's won Stark County by pretty good margins before. He lost to Renacci in 2010, but he's probably much more of a threat than most of the Democrats who lost. Boccieri is fairly moderate and could pose a threat to Gibbs. OH-7 and OH-16 have close to the same margins ~51% McCain, but I'd be more afraid of Boccieri winning thn Sutton if I were the Ohio GOP because Sutton has absolutely zero cross-party appeal whatsoever, maybe less than Kucinich (though she'll have less Democrats vote against her than Kucinich). Of course when Boccieri won it was an R+4 seat and now its an R+6 seat, but that's not a great match-up for the GOP. The Democrats could always nomine someone from Lorain or somewhere else in which case Gibbs's chances are much better.