State Legislatures and Redistricting

[Nichlemn]

How are the Republicans doing in key redistricting states like OH, PA?

[Nichlemn]

Here it says the GOP gained at least 13 Democratic seats in the PA House.

[Nichlemn]

How are the Republicans doing in key redistricting states like OH, PA?

In PA, they had the Senate by a fair amount and were about 5 seats short in the House.  I've heard they took the House, big time.

The GOP will be redistricting PA. 

Edit:  The GOP was down by 3 in the State House, 100-103.  I don't have the numbers but I've heard they gained control.

Heh.  Good luck trying to squeeze any more Republican seats out of this state after tonight.  Same with Ohio, where Republicans are going to have to cut one of their own. 

I think the object of redistricting will be making the freshman incumbents safer.

[Nichlemn]

If those results hold, that's probably a net loss for Republicans, who might have got a compromise map out of CA again regardless.

[Nichlemn]

Hilarious that New Hampshire's legislature is about as Republican as Utah's and only behind unambiguously behind Wyoming.

I am also surprised at the the strength of some of other the new Republican majorities. The newly-Republican Alabama Senate is close to a 2/3 majority. For a state that had such large DFL majorities before, Minnesota's Republican majorities are not large but not the razor-thin ones I expected. Maine Senate 60% GOP? I didn't even realise the chamber was considered competitive. (Interestingly, Maine now has a GOP redistricting trifecta, not that it matters much in a state with two districts. Perhaps you could draw an R+1 district?) The Arkansas House, while still majority Democratic, is only 55% from 72% before, and the GOP notoriously failed to nominate candidates that might have won this year.

[Nichlemn]

Now that the Republican control the House, Democrats wont be facing the same kind of headwind they are currently facing.  Democrats will probably lose the Louisiana House, but have a good chance to hold everything else.  The one thing to watch is retirements in the Virginia Senate though.  Democrats will likely pick up seats in the Virginia House of Delegates after they were wiped out in 2009.

I think the Presidency is by far the most important factor (given that Democrats controlled Congress from 2006 and it didn't appear to hurt their gains).

[Nichlemn]

Can anyone with knowledge of Arkansas politics predict would have happened if the GOP had nominated candidates everywhere? Apparently, they lost all seven contested state Senate races. I can't imagine the difference between the strongest contested Democratic seat and the weakest uncontested seat being all that large, so fail for the Arkansas GOP.

[Nichlemn]

I presume they won't make the same mistake in 2012. But it might be too late to capitalise on all the good opportunities then.

What's with Arkansas and uncontested races anyway? In 2008, all four House races and the Senate races had no major party opposition. Is there something of a quid pro quo going on with party leaders? Bad recruiting?

[Nichlemn]

I'm guessing Arkansas Republicans extrapolated too much from Beebe's popularity.

[Nichlemn]

I think pretty much all (if not all) of these were single seat changes, so localised races could have swung the difference.

Most of these states are blue states where there wasn't much of a swing in 06/08 and thus little to swing back this year. The exceptions were PA and WV. PA is probably due to Republicans being overextended in the Senate (given that they did make significant gains in the House, they just did it from a lower starting point). WV is kind of interesting given the gains in places like AR, I'd guess Manchin and local factors are responsible.

[Nichlemn]

I've made an updated map:

Red = full Democratic control
Blue = full Republican control
Green = split control
Gray = non-partisan commission (or N.A. for at-large states)

Nebraska is technically non-partisan, but will have a GOP map.
New York has a chance of having full Democratic control.
Minnesota has a chance of having full Republican control.
Rhode Island has an Independent, but will likely have a Democratic map.
Maine has legislative elections again before it redistricts.

Any other adjustments?

Wouldn't NH be technical GOP control due to GOP supermajorities in the legislature? Not that it matters a lot with two districts that would probably be about the same either way.

[Nichlemn]

Although Maine currently redistricts after years ending in a 2, might they change the law to do it early this time? First and foremost, Maine Republicans will want to protect their own majorities and could do so with gerrymandering. Secondly, it makes a single electoral vote a tossup or even R-leaning for 2012 and ensures it for 2016 and 2020. Finally, it's easy for them to justify as "synchronising with other states".

[Nichlemn]

Although Maine currently redistricts after years ending in a 2, might they change the law to do it early this time? First and foremost, Maine Republicans will want to protect their own majorities and could do so with gerrymandering. Secondly, it makes a single electoral vote a tossup or even R-leaning for 2012 and ensures it for 2016 and 2020. Finally, it's easy for them to justify as "synchronising with other states".

There was also a bipartisan bill introduced to do so.

That said, Maine very rarely crosses town lines in districting. Any effort to gerrymander, especially given some of the bizzareness of the 2010 result would be risky and might backfire immensely. Really the only thing that could be done is to move Lewiston/Auburn to the second congressional district. House districts are too small to gerrymander.

I think gerrymandering is one of those obscure "beltway" issues that is pretty hard to get people really riled up about. They might vote for a non-partisan redistricting amendment, but they probably wouldn't care enough about it to vote against egregiously gerrymandering politicians. (Can anyone cite any examples to contest my hypothesis?)

[Nichlemn]

SD-60 gave Obama 77%.

[Nichlemn]

So suppose the GOP wins the state Senate, how do they gerrymander a way for them to hold it in 2012 presuming that SD-60 is a near certain loss? They'd need to convert another Democratic seat.

[Nichlemn]

Optimal redistricting is interesting from a game theoretic perspective. If John Boehner could draw every district, he'd want to draw about 220 safe Republican districts and about 215 safe Democratic districts (a bare majority plus a couple extra for security against scandals/localised swings). If you're redistricting only Texas, though, your incentives are different. Since other states will be Democratic/non-partisan gerrymanders, and many of the Republican gerrymanders are in states are less Republican, you need to draw a decidedly Republican map. But how ambitious it should be is not obvious. People cite 2006 and 2008 as examples of ambitious Republican gerrymandering failing in many states, but a good gerrymander should not be infallible. There is not as much value in the difference between 200 and 210 seats as there is between 210 and 220, so it's worth weakening your 210th best seat to shore up the 220th.

[Nichlemn]

Pretty good article on Gerrymandering:

http://pajamasmedia.com/zombie/2010/11/10/gerrymandering-101/

Pretty ridiculous to claim that the current maps favour Democrats on net.

[Nichlemn]

Given the state of the N.Y. Senate, the Dems should be at least trying to woo one Republican senator over to their side with the promise of a safe district and some power.

Couldn't Republicans do just the same?

[Nichlemn]

Given the state of the N.Y. Senate, the Dems should be at least trying to woo one Republican senator over to their side with the promise of a safe district and some power.

Couldn't Republicans do just the same?

Redistricting and NY's demographics are going to make it difficult to hold their majority in the long term, even if they get another shot to draw the maps for their chamber. The long-term stock for NY Republicans is about as good as that of Mississippi Democrats. Life in the minority in either chamber of the NY legislature is dismal, too.

I am not sure this makes a huge amount of difference for a self-interested legislator. Even if they're inevitably in the minority within the next decade, the short term gains of what the Republicans can offer might outweigh the long term benefits. In addition, the fact that the Republicans know their majority is unlikely to last the long term might allow them to make crazier deals that Democrats, with their long term interests to look after, would be less inclined to do.

[Nichlemn]

I'm thinking: from a game theoretic perspective, the minority party in Congressional redistricting (in today's case the Democrats) should try to maximise the number of "tilt Democratic" districts they can, while Republicans should aim for many "likely GOP" seats. Why? Consider that a good Republican gerrymander should result in the Republicans winning the House despite losing the popular vote. Therefore, any situation where Democrats win the House involves them likely winning the popular vote by a modest margin. In such a scenario, they should win the vast majority of seats that would tilt Democratic in a neutral year. Yes, it would look like a "dummymander" in a poor year, but they would never win the House under such a scenario anyway.

[Nichlemn]

I wonder if there are three Arkansas state senators who might switch from D to R to flip that chamber?

Not likely. The Arkansas Democratic Party is almost as strong as that in West Virginia.

What do you mean, "strong"? In terms of electoral strength, clearly not. Democrats retained strong majorities in the West Virginia legislature, whereas they had much reduced majorities in Arkansas even as Republicans failed to contest many seat (I believe the Republicans in fact won every single statewide race or state legislative seat they contested, indicating they almost certainly could have won more if they had contested them).

[Nichlemn]

I wonder if there are three Arkansas state senators who might switch from D to R to flip that chamber?

Not likely. The Arkansas Democratic Party is almost as strong as that in West Virginia.

What do you mean, "strong"? In terms of electoral strength, clearly not. Democrats retained strong majorities in the West Virginia legislature, whereas they had much reduced majorities in Arkansas even as Republicans failed to contest many seat (I believe the Republicans in fact won every single statewide race or state legislative seat they contested, indicating they almost certainly could have won more if they had contested them).

The fact that they contested so few seats shows the institutional strength of the Democratic Party in Arkansas compared to the rest of the South.

And/or that that Republicans overestimated the Democratic Party's strength. The fact that they would likely have won more seats had they bothered to contest them makes it more likely for Democrats to switch, either because they're afraid they could lose if their seat was contested or that other losses will cause them to fall into the minority next time.

[Nichlemn]

Nice map, but a couple of things:


- The Democrats gained 2 seats in the Delaware House.
- MS/LA should be grey because no elections were held, even if there have been some defections, because it makes it look like they didn't swing much.