Democratic Majority in the House

[ian]

Possible, yes.  Likely, no!

[Notre Dame rules!]

If Tanner retires, or seeks to run for the Senate in '06, then the 8th district  of TN could very well go Republican. 

Tanner, a Blue Dog Democrat, has always been popular here.  The district, however, could easily favor a GOP candidate if it was an open seat.  The larger population centers: North Shelby County, Tipton County, and the city of Jackson, have become pretty strongly GOP.  The district also includes some of Fort Cambell, which leans pretty heavily to the GOP.

[muon2]

1. Look at the actual results, *please*... this includes finding out how many congressmen is potentially competative districts had only paper opponents.

2. I don't see why this matters so much to you. Certainly computers make anything to do with maps easier, but the idea that you can't draw a gerrymander without computorised stuff is idiotic.

$400,000 worth of computational power for the 2002 redistricting would have been an unfeasable amount of computation power for the 1982 redistricting.

You can analyze the data more quickly, but you had people in both parties that could basically do the same things in their heads in 1982, or with just a little help from pencil, paper, and pocket calculator.  I would argue that the 1982 PA-4 was a far worse gerrymander than anything out there now in PA. 

I also disagree with the idea that it's solely political.  It was possible in 1982 and 2002 to have created a GOP district largely from Westmoreland, Somerset, and parts of Cambria Counties (probably running into Bedford and Indiana Counties).  Both times, the GOP legislature used this to knock off an incumbent Democrat, but both times they could have used it to knock off two incumbents and elect a Republican in the place of one.

Basically, the plans, both times, were used to protect John Murtha (D-12).  In 1982, he was part of the majority party, close to the Speaker, and was more senior than his opponent (Don Bailey).  In 2002, he was about two decades senior to his opponent (Frank Mascara) and now the ranking Democrat on several committees.  The GOP legislature did not want to lose that clout in DC in either case.

There are other motives in the politician's mind than raw numbers of House members when they re-district.

I agree with Al and J.J. on this. I've created real voting district maps, as well as some alternative maps that I've posted from time to time on this forum. An intentional map just requires someone good at geography and juggling numbers. There have been plenty of people able to do that throughout US history. The real maps I've done used nothing more than a spreadsheet, and could easily have been done paper alone. The spreadsheet just keeps the data in a more compact form.

I've worked with some of the groups that use the fancy GIS systems for their mapping needs. What I find is that the high-powered tools let people with less geographical sense handle the districting tasks. The computer of course follows some max-min algorithm with parameters set by the user. The programs tend to not be very flexible without a competen user. One downside of this is that, less than the best users overlly rely on the program output. For instance statistically insignificant area swaps are made because it improves the absolute performance of a district. But, the swaps create unnatural groupings, that statistically would not matter in voting outcomes.

Highly competent users can use the software to better manage the data options. What-ifs are much faster. But one of the strongest pluses for the system is the trust that clients of the software place on its optimization. For instance, the IA redistricting commission said that their final map was the absolute best given the constitutional parameters they worked with. The use of the computer gave this statement more credibility.

[muon2]

Can anyone name any specific Republican held districts that could switch in 2006?
I think Iowa's 1st district could go to the Democrats if Jim Nussle runs for governor in 2006.

Iowa, Connecticut, New Mexico have vulnerable Republicans.

Theres one Republican in Illinois that's vulnerable, I think.

There's an Indiana district where a Dem incumbent lost by almost no votes.

There's John's seat in Louisiana.

Yes, but it will be difficult for the Dems to hold IL-8 won from Crane in a heavily Rep district.

[Middle-aged Europe]

This thread is funny.


And my favorite comment was this one :

The Senate is structurally advantaged to the GOP. It's almost impossible for Democrats to take and hold the Senate in the next 20 years.