Party control of redistricting after census

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Potential gains for states possibly under one party control

SC - Spratt could be targeted

Doubtful.  With SC likely to regain it's 7th district, I suspect the GOP will be working hard to make certain it can gain the open seat without putting either the 1st or 2nd district at risk because of Democrats being displaced out of the now smaller 6th.  The 5th will likely fall into GOP hands when Spratt retires or dies anyway.   The only way I expect Spratt to lose his seat because of 2010 redistricting will be if we're forced to draw two majority-minority districts, which I know the GOP will try to avoid because that will guarantee the Dems two of our seven seats.

[Brittain33]

Remember places where states are losing districts. NY loses a district in 2010, and it's the area around Lee and Slaughter's districts that's losing population most rapidly (basically, I expect the two of them to end up in the same, fairly Democratic [D+5 to 8], district).

Chris Lee lives in a suburb of Buffalo, while Slaughter lives in a southeastern suburb of Rochester. I think it's more likely Lee ends up drawn in with Higgins in a lean Democratic district.

[minionofmidas]

The last gasp of Southern Dem state party struglging to maintain a majority of districts in LA.  1996 gave the GOP a majority of the districts and this monster was sleiged by the Supreme Court I believe in 1997 or 1998. I believe this was also an attempt to oust Jim McCrery by forcing him into the 5th district with an incumbent Dem congressmen. Somehow McCrery defeated that guy and the Supreme Court put him back into his original districts.

As you probably know, the Bush Justice Department basically drew this district.

[Dan the Roman]

South Carolina, if it gets another seat, may very well end up with another seat like Spratt's, winnable by a democrat under good circumstances. This year the Democrats won 52% of the vote cast in House races, and both the first and second districts had very close calls, 52-48, and 54-46. The first is especially problematic as Charleston is moving left at the speed of light. If I were the GOP map drawers I would create a Charleston district in addition to Clyburn's for Ketner or whoever else wants to run, and move the remaining downstate white democrats into it. Then I would shore up the remaining 4 seats to make them safe Republican, and hope that Spratt's goes the right way when he retires.

This is far from sure. SC is not AL or MS. Its taking in a lot of transplants just like North Carolina, and the fact that Obama improved substantially on Kerry's performance among white voters is a giveaway of this. If the Republicans get too greedy they could end up 4-3 Dem.

[Mr.Phips]

South Carolina, if it gets another seat, may very well end up with another seat like Spratt's, winnable by a democrat under good circumstances. This year the Democrats won 52% of the vote cast in House races, and both the first and second districts had very close calls, 52-48, and 54-46. The first is especially problematic as Charleston is moving left at the speed of light. If I were the GOP map drawers I would create a Charleston district in addition to Clyburn's for Ketner or whoever else wants to run, and move the remaining downstate white democrats into it. Then I would shore up the remaining 4 seats to make them safe Republican, and hope that Spratt's goes the right way when he retires.

This is far from sure. SC is not AL or MS. Its taking in a lot of transplants just like North Carolina, and the fact that Obama improved substantially on Kerry's performance among white voters is a giveaway of this. If the Republicans get too greedy they could end up 4-3 Dem.

The Obama justice department will have a signifant say in how the SC districts are drawn.  They will likely prohibit any big racial gerrymanders(they hurt Dems in ajoining districts). 

[Verily]

Remember places where states are losing districts. NY loses a district in 2010, and it's the area around Lee and Slaughter's districts that's losing population most rapidly (basically, I expect the two of them to end up in the same, fairly Democratic [D+5 to 8], district).

Chris Lee lives in a suburb of Buffalo, while Slaughter lives in a southeastern suburb of Rochester. I think it's more likely Lee ends up drawn in with Higgins in a lean Democratic district.

Also possible. The Buffalo area is losing population (much) faster than the Rochester area.

Here's a map I made last spring of population growth/decline in New York, 2000-2007. I will update it soon, when the 2008 county estimates come out. The scale is 1% per color, except the darkest green is >7% growth (second darkest is 5-7%) while the darkest red is >6% decline (second darkest is 5-6%).

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

South Carolina, if it gets another seat, may very well end up with another seat like Spratt's, winnable by a democrat under good circumstances. This year the Democrats won 52% of the vote cast in House races, and both the first and second districts had very close calls, 52-48, and 54-46. The first is especially problematic as Charleston is moving left at the speed of light. If I were the GOP map drawers I would create a Charleston district in addition to Clyburn's for Ketner or whoever else wants to run, and move the remaining downstate white democrats into it. Then I would shore up the remaining 4 seats to make them safe Republican, and hope that Spratt's goes the right way when he retires.

This is far from sure. SC is not AL or MS. Its taking in a lot of transplants just like North Carolina, and the fact that Obama improved substantially on Kerry's performance among white voters is a giveaway of this. If the Republicans get too greedy they could end up 4-3 Dem.

Don't agree with that at all.  McCain won Spratt's district by goodly margin despite Spratt winning 61-37 against a token Republican.  For a change, the Dems ran about the best candidates they possibly could against Brown and Wilson in a good year for the Dems and they still lost.  Brown should be safe enough for 2010 and Wilson definitely.  I agree that the GOP will need to take some steps to keep the 1st district safe GOP for 2012 and after, but they should be able to achieve it.  The only monkeywrench that might sabotage GOP hopes for keeping the Dems to 1 safe seat plus the one that Spratt holds onto via the power of incumbency would be if the numbers support a second majority-minority district.  The numbers will be close.  Even without gerrymandering counties, there's enough majority minority areas to support half a district, and if it goes down to a precinct level there might be enough for two such districts, though such a map would be an unholy monster.  The reason our current majority-minority district doesn't look as bad as most such abominations is that extra half a district to work with.

[Dan the Roman]

South Carolina, if it gets another seat, may very well end up with another seat like Spratt's, winnable by a democrat under good circumstances. This year the Democrats won 52% of the vote cast in House races, and both the first and second districts had very close calls, 52-48, and 54-46. The first is especially problematic as Charleston is moving left at the speed of light. If I were the GOP map drawers I would create a Charleston district in addition to Clyburn's for Ketner or whoever else wants to run, and move the remaining downstate white democrats into it. Then I would shore up the remaining 4 seats to make them safe Republican, and hope that Spratt's goes the right way when he retires.

This is far from sure. SC is not AL or MS. Its taking in a lot of transplants just like North Carolina, and the fact that Obama improved substantially on Kerry's performance among white voters is a giveaway of this. If the Republicans get too greedy they could end up 4-3 Dem.

Don't agree with that at all.  McCain won Spratt's district by goodly margin despite Spratt winning 61-37 against a token Republican.  For a change, the Dems ran about the best candidates they possibly could against Brown and Wilson in a good year for the Dems and they still lost.  Brown should be safe enough for 2010 and Wilson definitely.  I agree that the GOP will need to take some steps to keep the 1st district safe GOP for 2012 and after, but they should be able to achieve it.  The only monkeywrench that might sabotage GOP hopes for keeping the Dems to 1 safe seat plus the one that Spratt holds onto via the power of incumbency would be if the numbers support a second majority-minority district.  The numbers will be close.  Even without gerrymandering counties, there's enough majority minority areas to support half a district, and if it goes down to a precinct level there might be enough for two such districts, though such a map would be an unholy monster.  The reason our current majority-minority district doesn't look as bad as most such abominations is that extra half a district to work with.

I'm not sure. According to Swing state-project, the district numbers for the Presidential race were:

1:40-59
2:43-56
3:34-64
4.38-60
5.45-54
6:62-47

I really don't see how you get down to 2 seats if the state gains one. Spratt's district is fairly democratic for a Southern seat, and was much better than say AL-5 which Obama lost 60-39. And the Democrats won an open seat there this year. All I'm saying is even in its current configuration, I'm not convinced the Spratt seat is lost if he retires, and especially if the GOP is going to have 7 seats to play with, its better to go for 5-2 split of safe seats by moving Clyburn into Charleston, and giving some of the black areas to Spratt to make that seat solidly Democratic.

Also I'm not sure if the candidates in SC-1 and SC-2 were the strongest possible ones. Miller was outspent by 4-1, while Ketner was a lesbian. Nevertheless, they got 46% and 48% respectively. What would a straight Ketner or a properly funded Miller have done last year? Does the GOP want to take a chance during another bad year?

[Mr.Phips]

South Carolina, if it gets another seat, may very well end up with another seat like Spratt's, winnable by a democrat under good circumstances. This year the Democrats won 52% of the vote cast in House races, and both the first and second districts had very close calls, 52-48, and 54-46. The first is especially problematic as Charleston is moving left at the speed of light. If I were the GOP map drawers I would create a Charleston district in addition to Clyburn's for Ketner or whoever else wants to run, and move the remaining downstate white democrats into it. Then I would shore up the remaining 4 seats to make them safe Republican, and hope that Spratt's goes the right way when he retires.

This is far from sure. SC is not AL or MS. Its taking in a lot of transplants just like North Carolina, and the fact that Obama improved substantially on Kerry's performance among white voters is a giveaway of this. If the Republicans get too greedy they could end up 4-3 Dem.

Don't agree with that at all.  McCain won Spratt's district by goodly margin despite Spratt winning 61-37 against a token Republican.  For a change, the Dems ran about the best candidates they possibly could against Brown and Wilson in a good year for the Dems and they still lost.  Brown should be safe enough for 2010 and Wilson definitely.  I agree that the GOP will need to take some steps to keep the 1st district safe GOP for 2012 and after, but they should be able to achieve it.  The only monkeywrench that might sabotage GOP hopes for keeping the Dems to 1 safe seat plus the one that Spratt holds onto via the power of incumbency would be if the numbers support a second majority-minority district.  The numbers will be close.  Even without gerrymandering counties, there's enough majority minority areas to support half a district, and if it goes down to a precinct level there might be enough for two such districts, though such a map would be an unholy monster.  The reason our current majority-minority district doesn't look as bad as most such abominations is that extra half a district to work with.

I'm not sure. According to Swing state-project, the district numbers for the Presidential race were:

1:40-59
2:43-56
3:34-64
4.38-60
5.45-54
6:62-47

I really don't see how you get down to 2 seats if the state gains one. Spratt's district is fairly democratic for a Southern seat, and was much better than say AL-5 which Obama lost 60-39. And the Democrats won an open seat there this year. All I'm saying is even in its current configuration, I'm not convinced the Spratt seat is lost if he retires, and especially if the GOP is going to have 7 seats to play with, its better to go for 5-2 split of safe seats by moving Clyburn into Charleston, and giving some of the black areas to Spratt to make that seat solidly Democratic.

Also I'm not sure if the candidates in SC-1 and SC-2 were the strongest possible ones. Miller was outspent by 4-1, while Ketner was a lesbian. Nevertheless, they got 46% and 48% respectively. What would a straight Ketner or a properly funded Miller have done last year? Does the GOP want to take a chance during another bad year?

Obama getting 45% in a deep Southern district is actually quite good.  SC-01 and SC-02 could become competitive districts in the future because there is a slight Democratic trend in the area. If the black majority SC-06 did not take all of the black precincts formerly in SC-01 and SC-02, they would have picked up both seats.   

[nclib]

Potential gains for states possibly under one party control

Dems in control

Already have all seats: CT, ME, MA, NH, NM, RI

AR - Boozman is hard to endanger based on the geography of his district
CO - Lamborn and Coffman are prob. safe
IL - Roskam, Kirk, Biggert could be targeted
MD - Bartlett is hard to endanger based on the geography of his district
NY - McHugh and Lee are prob. safe, King's LI district could conceivably be weakened but unlikely
NC - Perhaps Myrick's district could be altered
OR - Walden is hard to endanger based on the geography of his district
WV - Capito's district is unlikely to be targeted
WI - Ryan could be vulnerable

GOP in control

FL - already a GOP gerrymander
GA - already a GOP gerrymander
NE - already have all seats, but could shore up Terry
SC - Spratt could be targeted
TX - already a GOP gerrymander
UT - if Matheson can win in the current UT-2, the GOP won't be able to defeat him under usual circumstances

Remember places where states are losing districts. NY loses a district in 2010, and it's the area around Lee and Slaughter's districts that's losing population most rapidly (basically, I expect the two of them to end up in the same, fairly Democratic [D+5 to 8], district).

Utah is an example in the opposite direction, where the addition of a new district makes Matheson impossible to unseat, so the Utah GOP will just give him a safe seat in Salt Lake City and Summit County.

Yeah, and if NC gains a district, Myrick would be safe, especially since her district was actually NC's fastest-growing.

Since Calif. is favored to be all Dem if a Dem succeeds Arnold, Lungren (CA-3), Gallegly (CA-24, pres. results uncertain), McKeon (CA-25), Dreier (CA-26), Calvert (CA-44), Bono Mack (CA-45), Campbell (CA-48), and Bilbray (CA-50) could possibly be vulnerable since they all represent districts won by Obama, though I'm not sure if/how the Dems would target any of them if they can.

[nclib]

Democrats are 2 seats away in MN, and Republicans are in KS.

MN should be interesting, since Dems could also succeed Pawlenty in the Gov mansion. If so, Kline, Paulsen, and Bachmann could be targeted, but only if their districts are redrawn to include parts of the Twin Cities.

I doubt the Kansas GOP would try to go after Moore, since that would possibly endanger Jenkins.

Tennessee, Indiana, and Oklahoma could easily end up all-Republican following 2010.

The governor of TN has no say in redistricting and I don't expect Democratic control of the House to last. I can't imagine how they would change that map other than to split Blackburn's district into two Republican districts at either end, squeezing out one of the Blue Dogs.

Indiana has a Democratic gerrymander that could be unpacked to make Baron Hill's district substantially more Republican while ceding IN-8 to Ellsworth. Donnelly's district could be made more Republican for the long haul, too, if not enough to defeat him in any given year. This would give the Democrats three or possibly four districts out of nine, unless Mike Sodrel runs for a re-re-re-rematch.

Possibly, and in OK, Boren should be safe.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Obama getting 45% in a deep Southern district is actually quite good.  SC-01 and SC-02 could become competitive districts in the future because there is a slight Democratic trend in the area. If the black majority SC-06 did not take all of the black precincts formerly in SC-01 and SC-02, they would have picked up both seats.   

Doubtful.  All the racial gerrymander does is to ensure that the 6th elects a black Democrat and helps weaken the 5th District for the Democrats.  A purely partisan gerrymander would still see 2 out of 6 districts in South Carolina being Democratic, but with the 5th not trending Republican.

[Smash255]

Remember places where states are losing districts. NY loses a district in 2010, and it's the area around Lee and Slaughter's districts that's losing population most rapidly (basically, I expect the two of them to end up in the same, fairly Democratic [D+5 to 8], district).

Chris Lee lives in a suburb of Buffalo, while Slaughter lives in a southeastern suburb of Rochester. I think it's more likely Lee ends up drawn in with Higgins in a lean Democratic district.

Also possible. The Buffalo area is losing population (much) faster than the Rochester area.

Here's a map I made last spring of population growth/decline in New York, 2000-2007. I will update it soon, when the 2008 county estimates come out. The scale is 1% per color, except the darkest green is >7% growth (second darkest is 5-7%) while the darkest red is >6% decline (second darkest is 5-6%).

Both Nassau & Suffolk county have challenged the estimates and won, don't remember how much that changes the original estimates.

[Verily]

Just because they challenged and won doesn't mean their challenge means anything. It's just an estimate. (Although I was surprised to see that the estimate had Nassau losing population.) But it wouldn't affect which district gets the axe anyway; that will inevitably be something upstate. (However, if Nassau is contracting/not growing enough, King's district might become very uncomfortable for the Republicans, although they may lose it in 2010 without him running anyway.)

[Mr.Phips]

Obama getting 45% in a deep Southern district is actually quite good.  SC-01 and SC-02 could become competitive districts in the future because there is a slight Democratic trend in the area. If the black majority SC-06 did not take all of the black precincts formerly in SC-01 and SC-02, they would have picked up both seats.   

Doubtful.  All the racial gerrymander does is to ensure that the 6th elects a black Democrat and helps weaken the 5th District for the Democrats.  A purely partisan gerrymander would still see 2 out of 6 districts in South Carolina being Democratic, but with the 5th not trending Republican.

I dont know, if you look at the old map before 1992 when there was no black majority district, SC-01 and SC-02 were highly competitive and Democrats came close to winning them both at least once in the 80's. 

[Smash255]

Just because they challenged and won doesn't mean their challenge means anything. It's just an estimate. (Although I was surprised to see that the estimate had Nassau losing population.) But it wouldn't affect which district gets the axe anyway; that will inevitably be something upstate. (However, if Nassau is contracting/not growing enough, King's district might become very uncomfortable for the Republicans, although they may lose it in 2010 without him running anyway.)

I was saying that based more off the size of the district.   Long Island currently has 4 1/4 districts, based off the initial estimates it looked like they would lose 1/4 of a district.  Now it looks like it might be something like 4 1/6 or 4 1/8 district or something like that  The population of the districts were a little over 650,000 in 2000, based off the population trends in NY it would likely be in the 690-695k range from the 2010 census losing one district.  The 07 estimate before the revised on actually had the district losing about 25,000 (which I doubt is true).  With the revised numbers that will likely go down and you will probably have little or no change in the district so will need to grab about 40,000 from somewhere.  

My guess is they add a little bit from everywhere, will likely take the Nassau County portion of Israel's district back.  Syosset, Jericho, Plainview, Woodbury.  A liberal middle to mostly upper middle class area with a large Jewish population.  In turn it would likely give back to Israel some of the areas in SW Suffolk, and could even get a bit creative there, by shifting the area of the 3rd that is in Suffolk a bit further north to include the areas they purposely carved around last time.  Israel's district was estimated to now have 680,000 and that was before the revisions so it might need to shed some population anyway.  Depending on how much shifting you do with Israel's district you will still have some population needed to fill the district that you can grab from either Democratic areas of McCarthy's district or McCarthy's district.  You can also trade some areas around shoveling some GOP portions of King's district and grab some Democratic areas from either McCarthy or Ackerman's district.   If that 625,000 was close to accurate than you push it even further into McCarthy's district.

 For example moved Levittown back into McCarthy's district and grab Freeport & Roosevelt or Freeport & Baldwin.  This would make the 4th a bit more Republican, but unlikely enough to really give the GOP much of a chance there.   Anyway due to needing additional population you probably need to expand it a bit anyway, so push the 4th into portions of Ackerman's district in NW Nassau,  and you can make is about as Democratic as it was before swapping areas with King's district.  Or just grab some areas from Ackerman's district and play the swap game as an added bonus.  Ackerman's district is solid dem enough so it can afford to lose some of the areas and on top of Queens anyway.   Ackerman did recently move from the Queens portion of the district (Jamaica Estates) to the Nassau portion (Roslyn Heights)