Dave's Redistricting App

[JohnnyLongtorso]

Does it load for you? My browser keeps crashing when it tries to load the "new population estimates" part. I've never had this problem with any of the other states.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

Well, having done New York, I can say it's a really boring state to redistrict. Here it is losing a district; I axed NY-23.



NY-01 through NY-17 - These districts didn't change much, if any. All safe D, except for NY-01, which leans D, NY-03, which leans R, and NY-13, which is a swing district.
NY-18 (purple, Westchester-based district; Nita Lowey - D) - Picks up Republican Putnam County, which should be balanced out by Westchester.
NY-19 (ugly green Dutchess/Orange district; John Hall - D) - Loses Putnam and is basically all of Orange and Dutchess now, making it slightly more Democratic.
NY-20 (brown, Scott Murphy - D) - Chopped off the southern part of the district and added parts of NY-23. A couple points more Democratic now.
NY-21 (pink, Albany-based district; Paul Tonko - D) - Slightly more Republican due to some Republican parts of NY-23 added, but still safe D.
NY-22 (dark red, Maurice Hinchey - D) - Lost quite a bit of Dem territory, but still Dem-leaning.
NY-23 (pink, backwards-C shaped district, Eric Massa - D, formerly NY-29) - Cut out a lot of the Republican parts and added Tompkins, Seneca, and more of Monroe. Probably won by Obama now.
NY-24 (dark purple, Mike Arcuri - D) - Still a 50-50 district. If Scozzafava wins in NY-23, she'll be in this district, so Arcuri's going to have to learn how to campaign better.
NY-25 (pale green in the middle of the state, Dan Maffei - D) - Picked up Cortland and part of Chenango. Probably a little more R now, but still leans D.
NY-26 (grey, Chris Lee - R) - Safe R district! Pretty much every Republican county in Western NY.
NY-27 (dark pink, Erie-based; Brian Higgins - D) - Didn't change much.
NY-28 (green, Niagra/Orleans/Monroe/Erie district, Louise Slaughter - D) - Nor this one.

So, there you have it. If the Democrats pick up NY-23 this year, it's going to be hard for them to preserve the district, because NY-29 has a lot of Republican territory that would have to be split up.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

Massa does indeed live in Steuben, the only reason that county is in his district.

Was not aware Slaughter lived in that part. Wikipedia's maps showing the location of towns in NY are crappy.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

Here's a map of Louisiana with 150k population districts (29 in total):



I wanted to see how many majority black districts I could make; I ended up with 9, although as you can see that required a little finesse in some places. There are three of them in New Orleans (yellow, dark blue, and dark green), two in Baton Rouge (light green and pink), one between those two cities (grey), one northwest of Baton Rouge (light green, sort of dog-shaped) one in Shreveport (orange), and one in the Monroe area (purple "--C"-shaped one).

[JohnnyLongtorso]

10 districts of Arizona excitement, brilliantly cut off by the stupid jpg converter:



AZ-01 (magenta, Ann Kirkpatrick - D) - Pretty much unchanged.
AZ-02 (teal, Trent Franks - R) - Also mostly the same. I kept the stupid little gerrymander the state law requires.
AZ-03 (red, John Shadegg - R) - Once again, kept close to the original.
AZ-04 (purple, Ed Pastor - D) - Moved a bit to the left, but still majority-Hispanic.
AZ-05 (yellow, Harry Mitchell - D) - Chopped off the northeastern parts and made it more Democratic.
AZ-06 (blue, Jeff Flake - R) - Shifted north to pick up the aforementioned removed parts of Mitchell's district.
AZ-07 (light purple, Raul Grijalva - D) - Removed the La Paz and Santa Cruz portions of the district. Still 54% or so Hispanic.
AZ-08 (gray, Gabrielle Giffords - D) - Took out the Oro Valley part of the district and added the heavily-Hispanic part of Santa Cruz to make it more Democratic.
AZ-09 (green, new district) - Majority-Hispanic district, safe Dem.
AZ-10 (teal, new district) - Stretches from the Oro Valley up to the southeastern tip of Maricopa. Should be safe Republican.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

Dem gerrymander of Michigan:



MI-01 (dark blue, Bart Stupak - D) - I didn't change Stupak's district much. At best it's added a couple of Dem-leaning counties.
MI-02 (pink, Vern Ehlers - R) - Combination of Hoekstra's district and the Grand Rapids portion of Ehlers'. Should be a fairly Democratic district.
MI-03 (brown, open) - A safe Republican district encompassing the suburbs of Grand Rapids and the Republican counties north of there. Ehlers would probably move here.
MI-04 (red, Dave Camp - R) - Added Saginaw to Camp's district, making his re-election much harder.
MI-05 (dark green, Dale Kildee - D) - He lost Saginaw but retains heavily-Democratic Flint. Also picks up some Democratic portions of Candace Miller's district. Should still be safe.
MI-06 (light purple, Fred Upton - R) - Expands east to take in the Republican territory from Schauer's district. Safe Republican.
MI-07 (light green, Mark Schauer - D) - Basically a Battle Creek/Lansing district, so it'll be much safer for Schauer.
MI-08 (teal, Mike Rogers - R and Thad McCotter - R) - I put Rogers and McCotter in a new, Ann Arbor-based district. Either one would lose the general. Rogers might move and challenge Kildee in his district, but that would still be an uphill climb for him.
MI-09 (grey, Gary Peters - D) - Not much changed here, although he did lose a few Republican bits at the top of his district.
MI-10 (purple, Candace Miller - R) - Safe Republican district, didn't change much.
MI-11 (light blue, John Dingell - D) - Dingell's district expanded southwest to include the slightly-Republican county of Lenawee. It should still be balanced out by the Wayne portions of the district.
MI-12 (yellow, Sander Levin - D) - Not much changed here.
MI-13 (magenta, Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick - D) - Expanded a bit, but still majority-black (51%).
MI-14 (light purple, John Conyers - D) - Same here, 53% black.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

Dave's added Alabama, Colorado, Illinois, Maryland, Mississippi, and Virginia. I will be posting a Virginia map shortly.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

No time wasted...



Click to embiggen.

VA-01 (teal, Rob Wittman - R) - Wittman's district is reconfigured to stretch from the Northern Neck (eastern edge) to the West Virginia border, taking in the exurbs of Northern Virginia along the way. Safe Republican district.
VA-02 (dark green, Glenn Nye - D) - I excised the Republican portions of Virginia Beach, added all of Norfolk and minority-heavy parts of Chesapeake and Suffolk. The district is 35% black now and probably voted pretty strongly for Obama, I'd guess in the high-50s.
VA-03 (dark blue, Bobby Scott - D) - Not much changed here. Removed Norfolk, added Petersburg and some more territory around Richmond. 53% black.
VA-04 (purple, Randy Forbes - R) - Pretty much all the population here is Chesapeake, Virginia Beach, and Chesterfield. The district is solidly Republican now.
VA-05 (red, Tom Perriello - D) - The heavily-Republican southwestern part of the district is removed, and instead it stretches both down southeast to the Greensville/Emporia area and northeast to Caroline/Essex/King & Queen, both Democratic areas. Also included most of Lynchburg, not a heavily Democratic city but friendlier territory than the Bedford area. District probably voted for Obama in the low-50s. Now 27% black.
VA-06 (light green, Bob Goodlatte - R) - Picked up the aforementioned Bedford area, and lost Lynchburg and the Democratic parts of Roanoke. Safe Republican.
VA-07 (yellow, Eric Cantor - R) - Instead of stretching up almost to NoVa, the district now spreads east to the Jamestown/York/Williamsburg historic triangle. Sorry, Williamsburg.
VA-08 (grey, Jim Moran - D) - Alexandria, part of Arlington, and eastern Fairfax. Safe D. Interestingly, this district is only 54% white.
VA-09 (magenta, Rick Boucher - D) - Poor Rick Boucher, can't do much for him. Added the Democratic parts of Roanoke and snaked up to Bath County, so Creigh Deeds could give it a try in the future if he felt like it.
VA-10 (light blue, Frank Wolf - R) - Wondering about the population growth in NoVa? Well, this district now consists solely of Loudoun, Prince William, Clarke, and a sliver of Fairfax. Probably won by Obama with around 55%, Wolf would be able to hold it but it would be a tossup (slightly Dem-leaning) in an open seat.
VA-11 (light purple, Gerry Connolly - D) - western Fairfax, Falls Church, part of Arlington, Manassas/Manassas Park and one or two precincts of Prince William. Safe Dem seat, probably 60%+ for Obama.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

Dave has switched to using voting districts for the maps. Since they're bigger than census tracts, it's presumably less work for him.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

Colorado:



CO-01 (gray, Diana DeGette - D) - Chopped off the northeastern part of Denver and added some of the suburbs. Remains solid Dem.
CO-02 (green, Jared Polis - D) - Drops the Weld County portion of the district and extends west to take in some of the Republican rural counties and south to the Denver suburbs and Park County. Should remain a Democratic district.
CO-03 (blue, John Salazar - D) - Removed a few heavily Republican counties. Maybe slightly more Democratic now.
CO-04 (purple, Betsy Markey - D) - Removed all the heavily Republican rural counties on the eastern third of the state. Added parts of Adams and Denver. Should be significantly more friendly to the Democrats now.
CO-05 (red, Doug Lamborn - R) - Takes in some of the Republican counties from CO-04, but since they're sparsely populated it shouldn't shift the population base much.
CO-06 (yellow, Mike Coffman - R) - Same as above.
CO-07 (teal, Ed Perlmutter - D) - Drops most of the Adams County portion and adds part of Denver to make the district more Democratic.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

I have two version of Virginia to present to you tonight.

The first was basically just cleaning up the current map, with the only major changes happening in the Hampton Roads area (basically, Norfolk and Hampton are now completely in Nye's district except for one voting precinct in Hampton, and Virginia beach is almost entirely in Forbes's district in order to both make both safer and allow Forbes's district to contract into just the Hampton Roads area and not snake over to the Richmond suburbs for population.

The second hit me after I finished the first version, when I realized what a golden opportunity those Democratic-voting counties in eastern rural Virginia were for shoring up Tom Perriello and when I was annoyed with how long and spindly Bob Goodlatte's district had become. It only rearranges three of the eleven districts, but it makes Perriello, well, not safe, but reasonably secure in a district that may have voted for Obama, and it makes Goodlatte's district much more compact.

For those interested in the splitting of Roanoke City, I made the probably safe assumption that Goodlatte does not live in one of the majority-black precincts, all of which I gave to Boucher.

My map at the top of the page is remarkably similar to your second map -- VA-09 looks to be one or two voting districts different, but is virtually the same, and we both had the same double-armed approach for Perriello and Cantor's districts. I would never put Poquoson and York in a district with a Democrat, though.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

There are precincts in Newport News that are bigger than and as Republican as Poquoson. York's not all that Republican, either. Nye's district is easily D+8 on my map; you forget that it includes all of Norfolk and almost all of Hampton.

Anyway, you appear to have left Fredericksburg out of Perriello's district in favor of Danville and Henry County, but those areas are trending away from the Democrats while the Fredericksburg area is becoming much friendlier to the Democrats, especially Perriello-types (while Perriello is really too intellectual to get much traction in southern/southwestern VA).

Fredericksburg is a Democratic city, but the surrounding counties of Spotsylvania and Stafford (despite Obama cutting the margin) remain solidly Republican. They're a guaranteed vote in the mid-50s for just about any non-joke Republican. I've got another map in the works that does something different from either approach for VA-05 which I will post tomorrow morning.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

Bipartisan incumbent protector:



VA-01 (blue, Rob Wittman - R) - Wittman picks up all of Stafford and part of heavily-Republican Hanover and loses some of the counties that went for Obama, and the parts of Williamsburg and Newport News as well. Also picks up the more Republican part of Hampton from Glenn Nye, as well as the Eastern Shore. This may seem weird, but while the Eastern Shore is not physically connected to VA-01, it is culturally much more like parts of the district than Virginia Beach.
VA-02 (green, Glenn Nye - D) - Dropping the Republican parts of Virginia Beach and Hampton and picks up all of Norfolk, Portsmouth, most of Suffolk and the minority-heavy part of Chesapeake. I've actually gotten it to a coalition district, as it's 49% white. Should be a safe district now, although Nye may not be safe from a primary challenge from the left unless he moves left accordingly.
VA-03 (purple, Bobby Scott - D) - Ladies and gentlemen, may I present a contiguous VA-03. Removing the Southside Hampton Roads parts of the district, I've added all of Newport News, Sussex/Greensville/Emporia, and Petersburg and the black parts of Hopewell. Remains 53% black.
VA-04 (red, Randy Forbes - R) - Losing the black parts of Chesapeake and parts of the district given to Bobby Scott, and adding the Republican parts of Virginia Beach and more of Chesterfield should make Forbes' district more Republican.
VA-05 (yellow, Tom Perriello - D) - District shifts north to Northern Virginia. Dropped all the southern part of the district and pushed it up north to Prince William. The tradeoff for Perriello is having to run in the expensive DC media market.
VA-06 (Bob Goodlatte - R) - Didn't change this district much, it just shifted south a bit.
VA-07 (grey, Eric Cantor - R) - Cantor's district is possibly even more Republican now, taking in much of the heavily-Republican Southside counties and a few Democratic counties out of Wittman's district instead of pushing northwest towards the Shenandoah Valley.
VA-08 (light purple, Jim Moran - D) - Alexandria, Arlington, and eastern Fairfax. Safe Democratic.
VA-09 (light blue, Rick Boucher - D) - Picks up Danville and drops the Ronaoke area. Not much you can do for Rick.
VA-10 (magenta, Frank Wolf - R) - Dropping Prince William and going west into the Shenandoah Valley should make this district more Republican.
VA-11 (light green, Gerry Connolly - D) - Western Fairfax, should be safe Dem.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

Alabama with two majority-black districts:



AL-01 (purple, Jo Bonner - R) - Removing Mobile and adding the heavily-Republican southern counties has probably made this one of the most Republican districts in the country.
AL-02 (blue, Bobby Bright - "D") - Added all of Montgomery and stretched it west in order to make this district the primary majority-black district in the state. It is 56% black, 39% white. Bright would almost assuredly get knocked out in the primary by a black Democrat, who might actually vote with the Democrats sometimes.
AL-03 (yellow, Mike Rogers - R) - Of course, the sacrifice here is that Rogers' district is pretty much unwinnable for the Dems now. Removing the parts of Montgomery in the district has dropped the black population from about 32% to 24%.
AL-04 (teal, Robert Aderholt - R) - This district didn't change very much, although it did take in the northern hook of AL-06. Very, very, very safe Republican.
AL-05 (grey, Parker Griffith - "D") - Also didn't change this one much. Can't say I care what happens to Griffith at this point.
AL-06 (red, Spencer Bachus - R) - Loses the aforementioned northern hook around Birmingham and moves a bit to the southeast, which is not going to hurt Bachus any.
AL-07 (green, open) - This is what remains of Artur Davis's seat after giving a lot of it to AL-02. Takes in more of the Birmingham area to compensate, but remains 52% black, 43% white.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

If you were to reduce the blue district to 51%-52% African-American, how might that tidy up the lines? Not that it isn't an impressively acceptable gerrymander as it is... Is there any way to trade the SE corner to that district so the yellow district doesn't extend that far south?

It's possible, but unfortunately my map didn't save in the app so I don't have it available to play around with.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

Easy peasy. It even looks like a reasonable map:



Districts 1-5 are 29-33% black, 6-7 (the top two) are 11-14% black. When the black population is concentrated in a band in the middle third of the state, it's easy to dilute their voting strength.

As a bonus, here's MS under the same auspices:



The non-red districts are 36-38% black, the red one is 32% black.

Edit: Mississippi is harder to draw since there's a higher proportion of black voters and a fewer districts to spread them out over. This is kind of fun, in a perverse sort of way. I may do the rest of the Southern states available on the app.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

Another flagrant violation of VRA:



Green 35% AA, blue and red 33%, yellow 30%, purple 28%, teal 21%, grey 14%.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

Another in the Jim Crow series, Louisiana this time:



Nice, clean lines, huh? Teal district is 35% AA, purple and yellow are 34%, blue is 32%, green is 28%, and red is 24%.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

Illinois with 18 districts:



Click to embiggen.

IL-01 (dark blue, Bobby Rush - D) - Extends southwest to Will County, but remains majority-black, if only just barely (52%).
IL-02 (dark green, Jesse Jackson Jr. - D) - Same as IL-01, except it takes in more of Will County and is 53% black.
IL-03 (dark purple, Dan Lipinski - D and Judy Biggert - R) - Extends into the DuPage County suburbs, taking in Judy Biggert's home. The population is still centered in Cook County, so Lipinski should be safe, but it's a more appropriate district for his moderate views.
IL-04 (dark red, Luis Gutierrez - D) - Somewhat of a gerrymander still, but much less so than before. I hope Gutierrez doesn't live in the old northern part of the district. 70% Hispanic.
IL-05 (yellow, Michael Quigley - D) - Didn't change this one much. It's only 54% white.
IL-06 (teal, Pete Roskam - R) - Now stretches up from DuPage around to take in some Republican parts of northern Cook and Lake Counties. Probably somewhat more Republican now.
IL-07 (grey, Danny Davis - D) - I had a hell of a time getting three black-majority districts out of Illinois. This one is 52% black. I think we'll be seeing the loss of one of the black-majority districts and gaining another Hispanic-majority district in Illinois either in 2010 or 2020.
IL-08 (light purple, Melissa Bean - D) - Reconfigured the district to drop McHenry and add more of northwestern Cook County. Should be more Democratic.
IL-09 (very light blue, Jan Schakowsky - D) - Pretty unchanged, solidly Dem district.
IL-10 (magenta, Mark Kirk - R) - Pretty much unchanged, so it should still be a Democratic district. If only a Democrat can win it in 2010.
IL-11 (very light green, Will County-based district, Debbie Halvorson - D) - Shrunk this district to just Will and Kendall Counties. Should be easy for Halvorson to hold.
IL-12 (very light purple in the southwest, Jerry Costello - D) - More or less unchanged, added some swing counties in the north of the district and dropped some Republican parts in the southeast.
IL-13 (pink, John Shimkus - R) - Formerly the 19th district, pretty much all Republican territory in the south of the state.
IL-14 (brown, Bill Foster - D) - Replacing the phallic old district, IL-14 now stretches from Foster's home base of Aurora/Batavia, through DuPage and up to Rockford. Should be more Democratic now.
IL-15 (orange, Timothy Johnson - R) - Created a slightly Republican-leaning district that should be competitive in an open seat, but Johnson probably wouldn't break a sweat holding.
IL-16 (light green district in the northwest corner, Don Manzullo - R) - Takes in all the swingy and Republican territory in the northwest, should be safe for Manzullo.
IL-17 (purple district with spidery tendrils, Phil Hare - D) - Still a gerrymander but much less ridiculous; shouldn't change the partisan composition much.
IL-18 (yellow, Aaron Schock - R) - Takes in all the Republican territory in the middle of the state. Safe Republican.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

I just tried to play around with the borders of my map, and I managed to get Quigley's district up to 44% Hispanic before I gave up, because there's nowhere else I could take territory from except for IL-7, which would have ended up going under 50% black. So while it's possible to make another Hispanic-majority district, it's still difficult, and I doubt they'd enforce VRA in this case.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

Dave's added California and Kentucky to the app, and apparently will be adding all the remaining states with more than one CD soon.

Edit: It looks like all the 2+ CD states are added at this point. Wow.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

Utah:



UT-01 (blue, Rob Bishop - R) - Ridiculous population growth causes this one to shrink to the counties north of Salt Lake City. Probably voted around 68-69% McCain.
UT-02 (green, Jim Matheson - D) - Perhaps the Republicans can dispense with the ridiculous attempts at getting rid of Matheson and resign themselves to the fact that, yes, there's going to be one seat in the state that the Democrats can hold. Consists of Summit County, Salt Lake City proper, and some of the surrounding suburbs. Almost undoubtedly voted for Obama.
UT-03 (red, Jason Chaffetz - R) - Made this the "rural district", but the part of Utah County that is in the district is still a large chunk of the population. Really shows you how few people live outside of the SLC/Provo area of the state. Went 70+% for McCain easily.
UT-04 (purple, open) - New suburban district, gonna go out on a limb and guess it's safe Republican. Probably mid-60s for McCain.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

Kentucky:



KY-01 (blue, Ed Whitfield - R) - Removed the stupid little tail coming off the southeast end of the district. May have moved a couple of points toward the Dems, but still solidly Republican.
KY-02 (green, Brett Guthrie - R) - Not much changed here, aside from taking in part of the aforementioned stupid tail. Safe Republican.
KY-03 (purple, John Yarmuth - D) - Almost completely unchanged; all but a couple precincts of Louisville. Fairly safe for the Dems.
KY-04 (red, Geoff Davis - R) - Stretch of Republican territory along the Indiana, Ohio, and West Virginia borders. Should be pretty safe for the Republicans.
KY-05 (yellow, Hal Rogers - R) - Takes in all the Republican areas of SE Kentucky. Safe Republican.
KY-06 (teal, Ben Chandler - D) - Reconfigured this district to take in all of the most Democratic areas of eastern Kentucky. It's gone from a 12-point McCain margin to about a 3-point McCain margin.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

Thought I'd take a look at the other side of the aisle. Given Tennessee's trend towards the Republicans, here's a GOP gerrymander of the state (I used the Ford/Corker numbers from 2006 as a 50/50 baseline for federal elections) intending a 6-3 Republican map:



Click for bigger.

TN-01 (blue, Phil Roe - R) - Didn't change this one much, just reconfigured it to give some of its territory to the Democrats. still uber-safe Republican.
TN-02 (green, John Duncan - R) - Stretches west to take in some Democratic counties from TN-04 and TN-06, but the population remains centered in Knoxville. Will shift the margins for the Republican candidate from the 70s to the 60s, but still a safe seat.
TN-03 (purple, currently open R) - Also stretches out to take some Democratic territory from TN-06, but should remain Republican.
TN-04 (red, Lincoln Davis - D) - Screwed over Lincoln by chopping out most of his district and adding in parts of TN-01 and TN-06. A strong Republican should flip this seat.
TN-05 (yellow, Jim Cooper - D) - One of the two safe Dem seats on the map. Metro Nashville and Robertson County. 58-42 Obama.
TN-06 (teal, Bart Gordon - D) - Again, removed most of the existing district (only three counties of the old TN-06 remain) and added in some Republican territory in the south of the state. As with Lincoln, would probably flip with a strong Republican candidate.
TN-07 (grey, Marsha Blackburn - R) - Didn't change too much, but it did take in a couple Democratic counties. Still safe R though.
TN-08 (light purple, John Tanner - D) - All the most Democratic parts of western Tennessee that aren't Memphis. Tanner should be able to hold it easily, although an open seat might be more interesting.
TN-09 (light blue, Steve Cohen - D) - Memphis! 64% black! 80-20 margins for Democrats!

[JohnnyLongtorso]

GOP gerrymander of Kansas:



KS-01 (blue, currently open R) - Took heavily Democratic Wyandotte County from KS-03, but remains safe Republican.
KS-02 (green, Lynn Jenkins - R) - Took the rest of Douglas County from KS-03 and expands west to the heavily Republican counties to compensate. 56-44 McCain.
KS-03 (purple, Dennis Moore - D) - Loses all his Democratic territory and gains a bunch of rural Republican counties. 57-43 McCain.
KS-04 (red, currently open R) - Stretches east to take in the one Democratic county in SE Kansas, but the population remains centered in Sedgwick County. 58-42 McCain.