Arizona and Michigan county maps

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Who else wants to take a stab at this?

I'll have some up.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

That Michigan map would definitely be a Santroum victory (remember that Wayne County's proportion of the state in a GOP primary is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay less than it is in a general election.)

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Before I introduce my maps, CD predictions for Michigan. Would do Arizona except it's pointless because of WTA. First the map:



MI-01: Strong Santorum
MI-02: Tossup. Can Grand Rapids proper outvote the other counties? That's the answer to who wins here.
MI-03: Strong Santorum, he takes the rural counties easily, Romney might have some strength in Kent County but then he's winning the state big time.
MI-04: Strong Santorum.
MI-05: Tossup.
MI-06: Strong Santorum, Romney did lousy here even in 2008.
MI-07: Tossup, kind of an odd area to predict.
MI-08: Lean Romney, if he loses here it'll be disastrous.
MI-09: Strong Romney, not much to say.
MI-10: Tossup.
MI-11: Strong Romney
MI-12: Strong Romney
MI-13: Strong Romney
MI-14: Strong Romney

So Romney favored in 6 districts, Santorum favored in 4, 4 tossups. If I had to predict the tossups I'd say MI-02: Santorum, MI-05: Romney, MI-07: Romney, MI-10: Romney. So Romney wins 9-5 which is 18-10 delegates, and 20-10 if he wins the state. But even if Santorum wins, he probably doesn't win more than 7 districts, and even all the tossups still gives him 18-12 which is weaker than Romney's (who'd take 22-8 in a sweep), Romney can even conceivably carry 8 districts and lose the state, which would give him a 16-14 delegate advantage. Got to be somewhat amused by the GOP delegate allocation method which actually weakens the clout of their strongest areas...

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

So here is Michigan:

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Arizona was a little tricker (besides the obviously "Mormons for Romney"):



I kind of used the McCain/Hayworth numbers as a rough guide and adjusted for Mormonism.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

MI-02: Tossup. Can Grand Rapids proper outvote the other counties? That's the answer to who wins here.
MI-03: Strong Santorum, he takes the rural counties easily, Romney might have some strength in Kent County but then he's winning the state big time.

Grand Rapids proper is in MI-03; the bits of Kent County in MI-02 are adjacent suburbs.

Then that split is pretty pointless then. Well then flip the status of those. Actually MI-03 might be a bit more winnable for Romney than MI-02 plus Grand Rapids but I'd have to bet on Santorum for both.

So here is Michigan:

Er, no.  At the very least, you're severely overrepresenting the size of the Romney cluster that will exist in southeast Michigan; for example, I would be surprised if Santorum doesn't win Livingston County.  Though Grand Rapids is full of hipsters, as I'm sure you know, well, hipsters don't vote in primaries and the rightists in Grand Rapids are still of the Christian Reformed type, likely to go for Santorum.  Ingham County will probably go Romney, but likely less than 40%, thanks to MSU.  (same story re: Washtenaw County)  Clinton might go Romney, too; it depends on how well his margin is in the Lansing exurbs compared to the rural hinterlands.

Romney would have to really fall from 2008 to lose Livingston.

Does Grand Rapids really have hipsters? I thought it was a pretty boring place, yes they have one of the trendiest bands in hardcore today (La Dispute), but I don't think you would've heard of them. But all urban areas seem to be big for Romney, see Jacksonville, also see the lack of Huckabee strength in Kent in 2008.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Yes I know who Rob Bell is, my church planting pastor buddy is a huge fan of his most recent book and is basically lending it to anyone who asks (I haven't yet). But remember that it was still just 65% for Obama and has quite similar racial demographics to Minneapolis.

So are you living in Michigan and still somehow not aware of La Dispute? Because even in your case I'd find that shocking. Even though they really sound just like a mewithoutYou ripoff except they aren't Christian and even most atheists agree aren't anywhere near as good...but they are huge and trendy now. Some guy at a show who went to high school in Kalamazoo told me about how there was a battle of the bands in the area and he got all the kids from his high school to come and vote for his terrible ska band...and THEY BEAT LA DISPUTE.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Romney would have to drop massively from 2008 to lose MI-05.

You missed districts 6, 7 and 12.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Looks like I nailed the CD predictions, though I did overstate Santorum in MI-01 obviously. Interestingly I understated him (or rather overstated Paul and Newt) in the rest of rural Michigan.

I was wrong on Kent County, but Romney obviously did take Grand Rapids proper at least.

My Arizona map wasn't actually too bad in county rankings, just shift everything about 10 points toward Romney.