Well, look what HE's doing to US now...

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

This was pretty cool. Can't believe I missed it last time.

PLYMOUTH & (what's the name of that lake?)

Lake Minnetonka

I also think it would make more sense to keep Austin and Albert Lea together. Albert Lea would HATE your district including it.

Here's how they'd all vote:

MINNEAPOLIS 1-4 - all solid DFL obviously
BLOOMINGTON - swing seat. Probably votes GOP if they can get a moderate through the primary. Otherwise DFL. Probably held by a DFLer now based on the state leg seats.
RICHFIELD - EDINA - HOPKINS - Lean DFL
EDEN PRAIRIE & MINNETONKA - Lean GOP
SAINT LOUIS PARK & GOLDEN VALLEY - Fairly strong Dem
BROOKLYN PARK - see Bloomington
PLYMOUTH & LAKE MINNETONKA - Fairly strong GOP
MAPLE GROVE - super-ultra-strong GOP
SAINT PAUL 1-3 - Solid DFL, yawn...
ROSEVILLE & SHOREVIEW - Fairly Strong DFL
MAPLEWOOD & WHITE BEAR LAKE - Lean DFL
COON RAPIDS - Tossup. Slight DFL Lean
BLAINE & LINO LAKES - Lean GOP
RAMSEY & ANDOVER - Lean GOP
WOODBURY - tossup leaning DFL
OAKDALE & STILLWATER - tossup leaning GOP
EAGAN - Leans GOP, goes DFL if they nominate a hard right winger
BURNSVILLE - see above
SOUTH SAINT PAUL & ROSEMONT - DFL
LAKEVILLE & HASTINGS - Fairly strong GOP
RED WING & FARIBAULT - Lean DFL
ROCHESTER - Traditionally strong GOP, now weakening greatly. DFL now controls the state leg seats in the area, but I'll be nice and assume the GOP still has this one.
WINONA - Heavily Leans DFL
AUSTIN - Strong DFL
SHAKOPEE (?) & CHASKA - Strong GOP
CHANHASSEN & HUTCHINSON - Super-strong GOP
MANKATO - Lean DFL
ALBERT LEA - Lean GOP (and everyone in Freeborn county is very very pissed off)
REDWOOD FALLS, FAIRMONT & NEW ULM - Super-strong GOP
MARSHALL & WORTHINGTON  - Strong GOP
WILLMAR & LITCHFIELD - Probably GOP, but the DFL would have a great shot
SAINT MICHAEL - Super-strong GOP
SAINT CLOUD - complete tossup
LITTLE FALLS - Lean GOP
SAUK RAPIDS & SHERBURNE - Strong GOP
LOWER SAINT CROIX - Strong DFL (and a badly drawn district)
DULUTH - Uber-DFL
IRON RANGE & BOUNDARY WATERS - Uber-DFL
CAMBRIDGE & MILLE LACS - Lean GOP
BRAINERD & LEECH LAKE - Lean GOP
FERGUS FALLS & MORRIS - Fairly strong GOP
MOORHEAD - DFL wins it if they get a populist through the primary. Probably would
BEMIDJI & INTERNATIONAL FALLS - Fairly strong DFL
THIEF RIVER FALLS & CROOKSTON - Lean GOPd

So you basically have 25 DFL seats, 23 GOP seats and a complete tossup one. Dependening on circumstances though the DFL seats could be anywhere from 18-35 and GOP seats anywhere from 14-31

I'll comment on the North Dakota one tommorow too.

That SD majority Native seat is interesting too in guessing if it'd elect a Native Democrat or white Democrat. I'd guess a white Democrat.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I just calculated, the Native majority district in SD voted 51.81% for Kerry. So it possibly could go Republican in a very low Native turnout situation. Of course it also voted 61.58% for Daschle in 2004, so it wouln't be that difficult for a Democrat to overperform on Kerry's numbers and get a bit of a cushion. Most likely a relatively moderate white Democrat would win and become an entrenched popular incumbent.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Lyman and Charles Mix counties no doubt have a significant number of white Democrats. Bennett too.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Lyman and Charles Mix counties no doubt have a significant number of white Democrats. Bennett too.

Indeed - there's plenty of white Democrats in the area, if you look at precinct results for towns that are almost entirely white.  They're obviously the minority, but they certainly exist in significant numbers.

Yeah, but could one win a primary?

Native turnout is usually rather low, I'd imagine that in primaries it's absolutely atrocious.

That's usually what happens in similar state legislature districts btw. I believe that the State Senator for the district that contains Sioux county in ND is a white Democrat from Grant County.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Here's a brief comparison of white vs. Native turnout:

Haakon is the only predominately white county in Lewis' district. It has a population in 2004 I'm estimating of around 2000, of which 1600 were of voting age. 1240 votes were cast in it in 2004.

Shannon County had a population of around 13,400 in 2004. Of those about 7800 were legal voting age. It had 4214 votes cast in it in 2004.

That means Haakon had eligible voter turnout of 77.5%, while Shannon had turnout of 54%.

And 2004 was a good year for Shannon. In 2000 it had half as many votes cast. My rough calculations show an eligible voter turnout of around 27%.

BTW, I don't know about SD's leg, but I looked at ND's and didn't find any Native members, even in the heavily Native districts. I also learned that out of 47 districts, Kerry only won 2 of them, one based around Rollette county, the other located in Fargo. He also came about a point of winning a seat in Grand Forks, and about 2 points of winning a district that contains some heavily Native areas near Minot (and that includes Mountrail county that he came within 2 points of winning). All of these seats elect Democrats, and all are white, even the Rollette county district (which is the only Native majority one in the state)

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

SD has two-member House districts that also serve as single-member Senate districts...

Same deal in ND.

The Pine Ridge Senator (who looks full-blood to me, and is a woman, and has one of those pretty surnames - "Two Bulls")

I remember how I got really pissed in early grade school because I didn't have a cool last name like lots of my classmates

one Pine Ridge Representative (who's obviously mixed-blood, though. His White colleague is a Republican), and one of the split district Representatives (for Corson etc - he too would appear to be mixed blood). At Rosebud though, there is indeed a White Democratic state Rep holding the native-majority split district.

Interesting, but the difference between Pine Ridge and the ND reservations is Pine Ridge is almost exclusively Native and thus no one else can run, but all the ND areas have a significant white population. The district containing Standing Rock also contains some nearby heavily white counties (and voted over 60% for Bush despite all three representatives being Democrats) and even Standing Rock itself contains some areas of significant white settlement, my neighborhood was about 1/3 white (and it actually wasn't located in Fort Yates proper, but neither does a majority of the Fort Yates area), Selfridge is about 40% white (and voted for Bush narrowly) and I there's a predominately white area out in the western part of the county (this explains the two precincts that voted over 77% and 66% for Bush and in 2000 each vote over 67% for Bush with Pat Buchanan taking over 11 and 12% leaving with Gore with less than 20% in both) and Rolette county is about 25% white. I assume the case is simply that Natives aren't interested in politics beyond the tribal and local level and aren't running. The State Senator from Rollette (who is also Minority Leader) looks like he's mixed-race though, the wiki article on him says he holds his family's original claim to their land from the Homestead Act of 1862, so if they've lived there that long there probably no doubt has been some mixing.

BTW, one of the peculiarities of Sioux County that I still haven't figured out is that the Hispanic population is larger than the state average and is almost 4% in Fort Yates proper. I do know a Hispanic from there though, a good friend of my mom's, she now lives in Mandan, has a white husband whose also a Buddhist (how's that for a couple in North Dakota?) and an adopted Native daughter.