Partisan Population Distribution

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

The worst state for the Democrats is probably Indiana. Even with the 2008 numbers, it's hard to draw a State Senate that'd be under 60% R even if we assume every Obama won seat went to a Democrat. The 1000 districts map I drew for it was even worse, the Democrats are too spread too thinly in the state outside of NW Indiana and Indianapolis. The only area where the Democrats have a lot of voters outside those areas where they can be properly put to use is South Bend and maybe the Muncie/Anderson area (with smaller districts like the legislature, you can get a few more safe seats, like one in Bloomington obviously and probably one in Terre Haute, but the rest are easy to cancel out.)

For all the talk about how bad Wisconsin is, compare Wisconsin 2004 to Indiana 2008, both razor thin Dem victories.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

One county where the distribution clearly affects the Democrats, even though it obviously doesn't in the state, is Hamilton County, Ohio. For some reason the black population is just randomly scattered throughout, including alongside the northern edge, and it's pretty hard to draw a consistently R-voting State House district in it without absurd gerrymandering, except for the western part of of the county (which also serves as an R pack.)