Alternate US States

[Antonio the Sixth]

Disclaimer: I have rebooted this project at the bottom of page 6, so if you're new to this thread and wanna binge the whole thing you can safely skip to there.

I wanted to try creating new US states in order to represent better demographic/geographical factors and to have less inequalities between State sizes. My choices can obviously be contestable sometimes, but I tried to do a map that makes sense geographically, also by doing some research about US intra-state regions. Here is the map I managed to make after several days of work.
Note that this will result in having 51 States, since I consider DC to be the 51st State IRL.



States which were split into two or three new States
States which were merged into one new State
States whose borders were modified, either by taking some territory from them, or by giving some to another State


Now, I would like to make a more detailed analysis of the political consequences of this redrawing, and particularly on Presidential Elections. First of all, here's a quick presentation of the new/modified States, with the EVs they would get after the 2000 census.

Split States

- Adirondack (AD) : Comprises all the counties which aren't generally considered to be in the NYC's sphere of influence. Corresponds more or less to the so-called "upstate New York". 12 EVs.
- New York (NY) : The southernmost part of the State, comprising only NYC and suburbs, would keep its original name. 22 EVs.
- Pennsylvania (PA) : Philadelphia Metro plus eastern part of the State. 13 EVs.
- Allegheny (AY) : Pittsburgh and the western part of the State. 10 EVs.
- Erie (ER) : Since it would make no sense to call it "Northern Ohio", the Cleveland Metro and the northernmost part of the RL Ohio will be given this name. 9 EVs.
- Ohio (OH) : The rest of the RL State. 12 EVs.
- Chicago (CH) : As the name indicates, this state comprises all the Chicago CSA. 16 EVs.
- Illinois (IL) : The RL State without Chicago. 8 EVs.
- North Florida (NF) : Northern part of the State, but also comprising central Florida to equilibrate the two states' population. 12 EVs.
- South Florida (SF) : Comprises Tampa Metro area. 17 EVs.
- Texas (TX) : The easternmost part of the OTL State. 13 EVs.
- Rio Grande (RG) : The southernmost part of OTL State. 12 EVs.
- North Texas (NT) : Comprises the northern plains but also Dallas metro. 14 EVs.
- California (CA) : The original California name would be given to the State comprising mainly the Central Valley. 11 EVs.
- West Coast (WC) : The name that could be given to the northern coastal part of OTL California, with San Francisco as biggest city. 15 EVs.
- California Del Sur (CS) : Because South California would have the same initials of South Carolina. Anyways, this would be the country's most populous State. 32 EVs.

Merged States

- New England (NE) : In fact, comprises only three of the six traditional New England States : VT, NH and ME. 7 EVs.
- Massachusetts (MA) : Would take RI. 13 EVs.
- Maryland (MD) : Would also comprise Delaware and DC. 12 EVs.
- Dakota (DK) : I've chosen to merge SD, ND and NE in only one State. I know it makes it a very big one, but in term of population it'd be at the same level than RL Iowa. 7 EVs.
- Big Sky (BS) : this comprises the whole States of Montana, Wyoming and Idaho, as well as the eastern parts of Oregon and Washington. 8 EVs.

Modified States

- Michigan loses its territory at the West of lake Michigan, but that doesn't change anything. 17 EVs.
- Wisconsin, however, by a funny transfert, gains a Congress seat and thus an EV (it also loses Kenosha County to CH, but it's irrelevant). 11 EVs.
- Indiana loses its northwestern counties going to Chicago State and one EV. 10 EVs.
- Nevada takes California's easternmost counties without gaining anything. 5 EVs.
- Oregon loses its easternmost counties to Big Sky, but keeps all its EVs. 7 EVs.
- Instead, Washington loses 1 EV. 10 EVs.

Also, note that due to weird apportionment effects, North Carolina loses a Congress seat and thus will have only 14 EVs in this scenario.


A state-by-state analysis of the 2008 Presidential Election, with county maps etc., coming soon.

[Antonio the Sixth]

No State of Jefferson?

Not a good idea. I read something about it when I redrew California, but even if it could make sense demographically, it definitely doesn't in terms of EVs. With only 400 000 inhabitants, it would become the less populous state of the country, whereas one of my purposes is to limit too big inequalities. So better not.

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Yeah, I thought to this problem, but couldn't find a better name. Adirondack (AD) seems good, thanks.

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Well, let's rename WP in Allegheny (AY). As for eastern, we should just keep Pennsylvania, since I would like to eliminate the less historic names I can.

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Don't like names based on the biggest city, except when the two entities are really confused.

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Well, we'd have a technical problem for the abreviation : how to differentiate it with South Carolina ? An option would be to call it California Del Sur (CS) in reference to the importance of hispanics here, as well as the Mexican origins of California.

Oah, that's impressive. According to all of you, when does such a reform of the electoral map could be put in place?

Probably never. States are too focused on their own "identity" and prerogative to even consider modifying borders.

Welcome in th forum, by the way.



Also, before starting with the State-by-State analysis, here is a little map of what could be regions in the new USA :



Northeast
Rust Belt
Southern East Coast
Gulf South/Deep South
Outer South
Midwest
Great Plains
Southwest
West
West Coast
Pacific

[Antonio the Sixth]

Well, no other comments ?
Anyways, let's start with new states.

New England

Cosisting in real-life VT, NH and ME, New England would be a solid democratic state. In 2008, Obama's score here would be very close to his real score in Maine, so that we can consider that democrats' enormous margin in Vermont and their far closer one in New Hampshire would almost nullify each other.

NE town map :


NE county map :


Barack Obama : 1,026,011 (58.06%) => 7 EVs
John McCain : 710,781 (40.22%)
Others : 30,387 (1.72%)


Also, for this State-by State analysis, I'll regularly use what I will call "Local Net Political Index", that is a very simple unit permitting to measure how democratic/republican a State is in a tied election. The formula is simply : (Democratic percent in the State - Republican percent in the State) - (Democratic percent in the country - Republican percent in the country). Therefore, a positive LNPI means a state is more democratic that the country, and a negative one means a state is more republican. That will be very useful later to evaluate the consequences of this redrawing on the Electoral College structure.

New England's LNPI is therefore +10.57, what I would qualify of "solid democrat". As a consequence, this fusion would result in a loss for Democrats, since they would win only one state instead of 3, and therefore lose 4 EVs. However, this would secure the two Electoral votes NH brings to the state, whose LNPI was of about 2.3.

Massachusetts

Not a great change, since MA and RI are pretty similar politically. The maps are nice, though.

MA town map :


MA county map :


Barack Obama : 2,200,669 (61.94%) => 13 EVs
John McCain : 1,274,245 (35.87%)
Others : 77,921 (2.19%)


LNPI : +18.81 => solid dem.
This also results in a net loss of 3 EVs for democrats.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I would like to thank anyone who commented it, I'm glad to discover someone is following.

Cool thread.  Where would the capitals of the merged, splinter, enlarged and shrunken states be (where different from the existing capital for the states not colored in red or blue in your first map)?  Perhaps you could just do that for each state as part of your analysis of that state, while naming the capital for New England and Massachusetts first.

Good Idea, I'll do it now. The capital of MA remains Boston, Whereas NE capital is set in Augusta.

And, of course, as you've modified Oregon/Washington/Idaho, there would have been something to do with WV/Virginia/Maryland. And, well, in this case, DC would grow with its suburbs.

Right, I should also have thought to Wahington. Frankly, I think I was just too tired after doing States like FL, PA, OH or TX, that were really awful to redraw... And the South in general seemed quite equilibrated in terms of EVs, so that I gave up here.

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The main reason is that the State also created would be really too big. For the same reason, I renounced to give NYC all its Metro Area, including parts of NJ and CT. I prefer to keep States as "median" as possible in terms of population.

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Well, I'm probably still not expericenced enough on US regions... Sorry fo the mistake.

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Well, I was really waiting for this one... Political questions have obviously been central in my redrawing, though I always tried to avoid senseless gerrymanderings. Particularly for the States I split, I tried to give a political representation to different political areas, so that most of them are split into a "democratic" and a "republican" state. However, I don't know the final consequences of my work in terms of Electoral vote structure. This is the reason why I'm doing this analysis, in order to have a precise idea of the new electoral map. We'll see if it advantaged Democrats or Republicans globally.


Also, let's go with another State.

New York

New York State would be totally dominated by his homonymous capital, which would make it probably the most democratic State of the country (unless it's Chicago... we'll see). Its 22 Electoral vote would therefore be a solid guarantee for Dems.

NY town map :


NY county map :


Barack Obama : 3,265,245 (68.20%) => 22 EVs
John McCain : 1,486,975 (31.06%)
Others : 35,712 (0.75%)


LNPI : +29.88 => dem stronghold.
Since this State is the result of a split, the net gain or loss it represents for democrats will be known only after analyzing Adirondack. This can result in a democratic gain of 3 Evs or a Republican gain of 12 and a democratic loss of 9.

[Antonio the Sixth]

More!

Sorry, I'm gonna be buisy for some time, and you should wait until next weekend.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Bump.

Sorry for the waiting. Here we go with Adirondack.

Adirondack

A bit surprisingly, the State would be relatively democratic. As you can see, results here are almost identical to NH's. That makes Adirondack a solid Obama state in 2008, even if he doesn't comprise any county related with NYC metro area. Also to note the good showing of "Others" (don't know if it's Nader of someone else), that makes me think to New England...

AD county map :


Barack Obama : 1,539,700 (53.97%) => 12 EVs
John McCain : 1,265,796 (44.37%)
Others : 47,520 (1.67%)


LNPI : +2.34 => lean dem.
As a consequence, we can now certify that the split of New York would benefit to the Democrats, gaining 3 EVs and partly compensating for the two previous fusions.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Would Albany, as an existing capital, be the capital of Adirondack?  Or would the capital be at a more central location within the new state like Syracuse?

Sorry, forgot this point.
Well, let's say that they choose to keep the State's buildings in Albany in order to make institutions work immediately. Anyways, Syracuse could also be an option.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I apologize again for the long time between two updates. Here is a new one :

Pennsylvania

This is the westernmost, and unsurprisingly the most liberal part of OTL Pennsylvania. Indeed, Philadelphia Metro Area would make it a solidly democratic state, comparable to Michigan or even Illinois. Obama would obviously have no difficulties to carry it in 2008, approaching 60% of the votes.
Harrisburgh would remain the capital.

PA county map :


Barack Obama : 2,179,650 (59.04%) => 13 EVs
John McCain : 1,466,984 (39.74%)
Others : 45,100 (1.22%)


LNPI : +12.04 => solid dem.
Without any surprise, we can see that PA's 13 EVs would unequivocally go to the democrats, except in case of an Eisenhower-esque Republican win. It's also sure that Allegheny will have a negative LNPI, so that the Pennsylvania split will result in a gain of 10 EVs for republicans and a loss of 8 for Democrats. What will be more interesting is to know if AY will be republican enough to vote for McCain in 2008 or if Obama would carry it as he did for Ohio.

[Antonio the Sixth]

This is my dream map for several reasons.  The first reason is obvious.  The second is that I can see no reason why this wouldn't benefit my party.  You basically just split up every state, except Texas, that is reliably Democratic.

Well, don't be so sure of this. There's many things to take into account : Erie, Rio Grande, all the fusionned republican States... We'll see who will finally benefit : I personally don't know.

Call it Southern California, not San Bernardino.

California Del Sur is better.

[Antonio the Sixth]

This is formidable. Congratulations for your work.

1960 is really surprising. However, I think you're wrong on WI and MI : My transfert isn't sufficient to either make MI rep or WI dem. Nevada also surprises me, since the few counties I added aren't populous at all. Maybe eastern PA could also be democratic that time.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Well Nevada did go Democrat in 1960.

Fixed. I don't know why, but I was sure to have seen it blue on your map.

More to come..........

Please just let 2008 to me !

[Antonio the Sixth]

More to come..........

Please just let 2008 to me !

Your scenario.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Well Nevada did go Democrat in 1960.

Fixed. I don't know why, but I was sure to have seen it blue on your map.

THe first time I uploaded the map I accidently made Nevada blue. So it probably wasn't your imagination.

Ok, better so...

[Antonio the Sixth]

Damn... I never noticed he got destroyed even in Cook county !

[Antonio the Sixth]

Let's go with Allegheny.

Allegheny

Solidly Republican even with Pittsburgh, Allegheny would've been John McCain's closest state after Missouri (MT doesn't exist).
I accept propositions for the State capital, since the only city I know there is Pittsburgh.

AY county map :


John McCain : 1,188,901 (51.17%) => 10 EVs
Barack Obama : 1,096,713 (47.21%)
Others : 37,599 (1.62%)


LNPI : -11.23 => solid rep.
If the State was expected to be more republican that the average, this huge LNPI makes it almost as republican as PA is democratic. As I said before, the final result of Pennsylvania split is a gain of 10 EVs for republicans and a loss of 8 for Democrats. Anyways, interesting to see how democrats have lost ground around here, whereas AY would probably have been more democratic than PA in the past.

[Antonio the Sixth]

2004 results in Allegheny would be more interesting.

I don't think Kerry would've carried it.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Just for curiosity, how do you proceed for these maps ? Do you do some math or just look at the county maps ?

Anyways, that seems right everywere.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I would've expected Carter and Mondale to win East Coast and Rio Grande...

[Antonio the Sixth]

What state is East Coast?

Isn't it evident ??

The western part of OTL California

[Antonio the Sixth]

What state is East Coast?

Isn't it evident ??

The western part of OTL California

Going off the map of California for 1980 and 1984, it looks like Reagan won all but San Francisco and a few other counties. Going off his margin of victory in the state as a whole I concluded that he was popular enough to have won all three states that constitute California IOTL. Maybe I'm grossly underestimating the size of San Fran and those few other counties, but Reagan's margins of victory suggests he won a decisive victory on the West Coast. With the exception of some minority groups, very few people could match the sellability of Reagan (I would argue he was even more so than Nixon and LBJ who won landslides against extremists), who won the biggest electoral landslide since FDR 1936 IOTL against a candidate who may not have been moderate, but who was I believe didn't even approach the region of extremism. Although Reagan won less than 60% of the popular vote, his effectiveness in winning every state besides Minnesota (and in this case New York) suggests that he had a definite wide appeal to a majority of the electorate. In fact, IRL the biggest shock (from what I have seen from youtube) was that Mondale won Minnesota. There were newstations predicting that Reagan had a real possibility to win ALL 50 STATES, not just win the election. There was even footage of Reagan joking "I'm really concerned about my chances at re-election!" (crowd laughs).
Sorry if this seems like a long winded rant, just making my case as to why Carter and Mondale probably wouldn't win West Coast or Rio Grande (it would be very close though).

Sad but entirely true.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Bump!

Sorry, I'm really too busy with school and Atlasia..

I can post Maryland, but I can't go farther before a few months...

[Antonio the Sixth]

Hi there ! I've left this thread for much time, while it seemed to be pretty popular at the time. Well, I think it's high time to restart it ! I'm very curious to know how this will end up in terms of electoral map, thus I've already started working on the next States.

But before all, I wanted to study more deeply a topic I had neglected before : population an electoral votes. After some big works with excel spreadsheets, I now publish a detailed list of what would be each State's population at the 2000 Census, at the number of congressional seats it would result in. Note that I used State population, and didn't include overseas population as does the Census, for the simple reason I have no clue how it would be dealt between States. Also to note that the total is 436, due to inclusion of DC in Maryland.

State	Population	CDs
California del Sur	19,329,839	30
New York	12,689,665	20
Michigan	9,620,828	15
South Florida	9,568,583	15
Chicago	9,312,255	14
West Coast	8,496,308	13
New Jersey	8,414,350	13
Georgia	8,186,453	13
North Carolina	8,049,313	12
North Texas	7,419,327	12
Massachusetts	7,397,416	11
Pennsylvania	7,317,947	11
Texas	7,183,333	11
Virginia	7,078,515	11
Maryland	6,652,145	10
Ohio	6,558,359	10
North Florida	6,413,795	10
Adirondack	6,286,792	10
Rio Grande	6,249,160	10
California	5,853,806	9
Tennessee	5,689,283	9
Missouri	5,595,211	9
Wisconsin	5,531,714	9
Indiana	5,294,408	8
Arizona	5,130,632	8
Washington	5,075,758	8
Allegheny	4,963,107	8
Minnesota	4,919,479	8
Erie	4,794,781	7
Louisiana	4,468,976	7
Alabama	4,447,100	7
Colorado	4,301,261	7
Illinois	4,042,692	6
Kentucky	4,041,769	6
South Carolina	4,012,012	6
Big Sky	3,685,492	6
Oklahoma	3,450,654	5
Connecticut	3,405,565	5
Oregon	3,244,200	5
New England	3,119,536	5
Dakota	3,108,307	5
Iowa	2,926,324	5
Mississipi	2,844,658	4
Kansas	2,688,418	4
Arkansas	2,673,400	4
Utah	2,233,169	3
Nevada	2,189,952	3
New Mexico	1,819,046	3
West Virginia	1,808,344	3
Hawaii	1,211,537	2
Alaska	626,932	1

I've used the same red-blue-green color key as usual in this thread.
I have also deeply modified the opening post, in order to correct State names I've modified, new (and precise) EV totals coming from this work, as well as some English mistakes I made because I was quite new at the time ().

[Antonio the Sixth]

Well, it was popular once...

[Antonio the Sixth]

Thanks guys for your encouragements.

Anyways, here is the EV map of the new US States :




And some interesting effects of the new apportionmebnt, in terms of gains of representatives.

Gains :
- New York and Adirondack have together 30 Representatives, while RL New York State had only 29.
- Texas, Rio Grande and North Texas have together 33 Representatives, while RL Texas had only 32.
- With the territory take to Michigan, Wisonsin gains a seat even though Michigan desn't lose any.
- With the territory the lost to BS, WA loses only one and OR doesn't lose any. However, BS's 6 Representatives are two more than the total Idaho+Montana+Wyoming.

Losses :
- Massachussets has only 11 Representatives, while the sum of RL MA and RI would have given 12.
- The sum of Erie's and Ohio's Representatives is 17, even though RL Ohio had 18.
- Weirdly, North Carolina loses a Representatives even though its territory remains unchanged, getting 12 instead of 13.
- The sum of CA, WC and CS gives only 52 Representatives, even though RL California had 53.

[Antonio the Sixth]

And now we get back to States with Maryland.

Maryland

With the inclusion of Delaware, and above all DC, Maryland becomes even more solidly democratic than it used to be. With this new State, democrats would have 12 Electoral Votes totally ensured. However, the fusion of three solid democratics States would effectively make them lose 4 EVs.
Annapolis should probably remain the capital of the new State.

MD county map :


Barack Obama : 2,130,726 (64.37%) => 12 EVs
John McCain : 1,129,603 (34.13%)
Others : 49,736 (1.50%)


LNPI : +22.98 => dem stronghold.
With a similar LNPI, McCain couldn't hope to with the state without breaking the 60% threshold nationwide. DC alone brings 5 more points to the State's LNPI, so that it becomes one of the few democratic strongholds (IRL, only 4 States could be qualified as "dem strongholds" : DC, HI, VT and RI). Still, none of the 3 former States was really close enough to be in danger for democrats, so that merging them would rather favor Republicans. As a result, 4 EVs will be taken to the democrats.