U.S. House Redistricting: Illinois

[Verily]

Aurora-Bolingbrook-Joliet is also 61% Obama.

Also, Johnny, yes, but Lipinski's old seat was D+11 (64% Obama), so I don't see why he would be vulnerable to a primary challenge now but neither he nor his father before. Whatever, probably good for the Dems that he can soak up marginal areas.

[minionofmidas]

Part of the reason is that the Chicago seats have to expand, of course.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

Here are PDFs of the districts so you can see the township lines.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

Okay, here are a few more:

IL-03 goes from 64% Obama to about 59-60% Obama.
IL-06 goes from 56% Obama to about 51-52% Obama.
IL-08 goes from 56% Obama to 61% Obama.
IL-11 goes from 53% Obama to 61% Obama.
IL-14 goes from 55% Obama to about 50-51% Obama.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

John Atkinson, the guy challenging Lipinski in the primary who already has $500k in the bank, got put into IL-11.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Drawing it in DRA now, as best I can...

IL-10 goes from 61% Obama to ~63% Obama.
IL-12 goes up a point from 54% to 55% Obama.
IL-15 goes from 50% McCain to 54% Obama.
IL-16 goes from 53% Obama to about 50% Obama.
IL-17 goes from 56% Obama to about 59-60% Obama - Schock and Schilling are both in this district.
IL-18 goes from 50% McCain to 54% McCain.
IL-19 renumbered to IL-13 is 56% McCain, up from 54% McCain. - Shimkus and Johnson are both in this district.

Not sure where Kinzinger lives; somewhere in McLean County, I presume, but it's split between IL-13 and IL-18.

I'm going crosseyed, I'll try to do the rest later.

I think you made a mistake, I have IL-15 as 56% McCain and IL-13 as 54% Obama

[JohnnyLongtorso]

Yes, they're backwards.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

Here's a complete 2008 breakdown from someone on DKE:

1 - 80.7/18.6 Obama/McCain
2 - 81.0/18.3
3 - 58.4/40.3
4 - 80.4/18.3
5 - 69.9/28.7
6 - 51.3/47.4
7 - 89.4/10.0
8 - 61.3/37.3
9 - 68.5/30.3
10 - 63.0/36.0
11 - 61.2/37.6
12 - 54.7/43.6
13 - 54.2/43.9
14 - 50.7/48.0
15 - 42.8/55.5
16 - 50.1/48.1
17 - 59.7/38.8
18 - 44.5/54.0

[Verily]

So, 12-5-1 (or 11-5-2 if you don't count Costello making his district safe). Pretty good job by the Illinois Democrats, in the end.

[krazen1211]

John Atkinson, the guy challenging Lipinski in the primary who already has $500k in the bank, got put into IL-11.

Overlap map:

http://www.arcgis.com/home/webmap/viewer.html?webmap=d35d2ae99e8c4e8face75308512c37f9

The average GOP Congressional incumbent outperformed McCain by about 10 points in 2008, and none of their incumbents lost. For Roskam and Kirk that was closer to 14; hence the latter easily winning a 61% Obama district.



The GOP is going to have to get the right guys in the right seats to hold 8 and 11. 10 is pretty obvious: Dold sinks or swims. Kirk of course had an easy time after winning that seat 51/49.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

I doubt the 8th or 11th can be held by the Republicans. Roskam and Hultgren will go for the safe districts (6th and 14th, respectively), leaving, what, Joe Walsh (put into the 14th) for the 8th and Adam Kinzinger (who is either in the 2nd, 13th, or 18th, depending on who you believe) for the 11th? Judy Biggert's put into the 5th, so she'll probably just retire. Bob Dold is also probably screwed, since he barely won in a great Republican year against a terrible Democratic candidate. Making his district any more Democratic is probably going to push him over the edge.

[krazen1211]

Dold is an incumbent now, and most of his territory (although not his house) remains in the 10th. It looks to me though like they added some ultra-leftist latte liberal areas from Jan that will probably never vote GOP, unlike the ticket splitters slightly to the east.

Biggert is an incumbent in about half of that IL-11, and Kinzinger represents Joliet, so I guess it really depends on whether Biggert just calls it quits. This Atkinson guy looks like a top tier challenger, though. Kinzinger's 57% in 2010 is a bit deceptive, but he outperformed the other GOP freshmen.

Roskam is an incumbent in most of that IL-08, but he's not taking it unfortunately, which makes it tricky for them. Probably the most likely to go of the 3. Really depends on whether the Democrats here will vote for a non Christian I suppose.


In all likelihood its a clean sweep, but stranger things have happened. Democrats have kept nominating Dan Seals in IL-10 and nutters from Lower Merion in PA-06 who kept losing.

[Verily]

I doubt the 8th or 11th can be held by the Republicans. Roskam and Hultgren will go for the safe districts (6th and 14th, respectively), leaving, what, Joe Walsh (put into the 14th) for the 8th and Adam Kinzinger (who is either in the 2nd, 13th, or 18th, depending on who you believe) for the 11th? Judy Biggert's put into the 5th, so she'll probably just retire. Bob Dold is also probably screwed, since he barely won in a great Republican year against a terrible Democratic candidate. Making his district any more Democratic is probably going to push him over the edge.

Assuming that the two-point swing from 61% to 63% Obama were repeated congressionally in Dold's seat, he would have lost this new seat in 2010 49-51 (instead of winning 51-49), let alone in 2012 with Obama at the top of the ticket.

[BigSkyBob]

I doubt the 8th or 11th can be held by the Republicans. Roskam and Hultgren will go for the safe districts (6th and 14th, respectively), leaving, what, Joe Walsh (put into the 14th) for the 8th and Adam Kinzinger (who is either in the 2nd, 13th, or 18th, depending on who you believe) for the 11th? Judy Biggert's put into the 5th, so she'll probably just retire. Bob Dold is also probably screwed, since he barely won in a great Republican year against a terrible Democratic candidate. Making his district any more Democratic is probably going to push him over the edge.

Assuming that the two-point swing from 61% to 63% Obama were repeated congressionally in Dold's seat, he would have lost this new seat in 2010 49-51 (instead of winning 51-49), let alone in 2012 with Obama at the top of the ticket.

So, it all revolves down to the question of whether, or not, being the incumbent is worth 1.00001% of the vote.

[BigSkyBob]

I doubt the 8th or 11th can be held by the Republicans. Roskam and Hultgren will go for the safe districts (6th and 14th, respectively), leaving, what, Joe Walsh (put into the 14th) for the 8th and Adam Kinzinger (who is either in the 2nd, 13th, or 18th, depending on who you believe) for the 11th? Judy Biggert's put into the 5th, so she'll probably just retire. Bob Dold is also probably screwed, since he barely won in a great Republican year against a terrible Democratic candidate. Making his district any more Democratic is probably going to push him over the edge.

These are merely educated guesses presented as fact.

[Miles]

I doubt the 8th or 11th can be held by the Republicans. Roskam and Hultgren will go for the safe districts (6th and 14th, respectively), leaving, what, Joe Walsh (put into the 14th) for the 8th and Adam Kinzinger (who is either in the 2nd, 13th, or 18th, depending on who you believe) for the 11th? Judy Biggert's put into the 5th, so she'll probably just retire. Bob Dold is also probably screwed, since he barely won in a great Republican year against a terrible Democratic candidate. Making his district any more Democratic is probably going to push him over the edge.

These are merely educated guesses presented as fact.

I agree with Johnny.

[krazen1211]

I doubt the 8th or 11th can be held by the Republicans. Roskam and Hultgren will go for the safe districts (6th and 14th, respectively), leaving, what, Joe Walsh (put into the 14th) for the 8th and Adam Kinzinger (who is either in the 2nd, 13th, or 18th, depending on who you believe) for the 11th? Judy Biggert's put into the 5th, so she'll probably just retire. Bob Dold is also probably screwed, since he barely won in a great Republican year against a terrible Democratic candidate. Making his district any more Democratic is probably going to push him over the edge.

Assuming that the two-point swing from 61% to 63% Obama were repeated congressionally in Dold's seat, he would have lost this new seat in 2010 49-51 (instead of winning 51-49), let alone in 2012 with Obama at the top of the ticket.

So, it all revolves down to the question of whether, or not, being the incumbent is worth 1.00001% of the vote.

Nate Silver estimates that incumbency is worth about 5% if I recall. The issue is that CD-8 (on appearance, the weakest district of the 3) doesn't have a long term incumbent.

A 2 point swing wouldn't have beaten Kirk, and a 5 point swing wouldn't have beaten Roskam. 5 points would have beaten Biggert, however, but only by a very tiny margin.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

You can't really calculate an incumbent bounce in areas that weren't in the seat before.

I'm surprised they didn't give Dold a few precincts from Evanston.

[BigSkyBob]

I doubt the 8th or 11th can be held by the Republicans. Roskam and Hultgren will go for the safe districts (6th and 14th, respectively), leaving, what, Joe Walsh (put into the 14th) for the 8th and Adam Kinzinger (who is either in the 2nd, 13th, or 18th, depending on who you believe) for the 11th? Judy Biggert's put into the 5th, so she'll probably just retire. Bob Dold is also probably screwed, since he barely won in a great Republican year against a terrible Democratic candidate. Making his district any more Democratic is probably going to push him over the edge.

These are merely educated guesses presented as fact.

I agree with Johnny.

I, too, tend to agreee with Johnny. As I said, I consider them educated guessess. But, there are exactly that, educated guesses.

[BigSkyBob]

You can't really calculate an incumbent bounce in areas that weren't in the seat before.

I'm surprised they didn't give Dold a few precincts from Evanston.

True enough, 5% times what percentage of his old district does he still have?

Unless his district is 80% new to him, that is still the necessary incumbent advantage he needs.

[BigSkyBob]

I doubt the 8th or 11th can be held by the Republicans. Roskam and Hultgren will go for the safe districts (6th and 14th, respectively), leaving, what, Joe Walsh (put into the 14th) for the 8th and Adam Kinzinger (who is either in the 2nd, 13th, or 18th, depending on who you believe) for the 11th? Judy Biggert's put into the 5th, so she'll probably just retire. Bob Dold is also probably screwed, since he barely won in a great Republican year against a terrible Democratic candidate. Making his district any more Democratic is probably going to push him over the edge.

These are merely educated guesses presented as fact.

I agree with Johnny.

I, too, tend to agreee with Johnny. As I said, I consider them educated guessess.[With the exception of his writing off Dold, which I consider nonsense. Dold may have a high probablity of losing, but, it simply is not a certainty.]  But, there are exactly that, educated guesses.

[Sam Spade]

What are the Bush 2004 numbers in the respective districts?

[JohnnyLongtorso]

I don't think anyone's figured that out yet, since it requires a lot of number-crunching, rather than just drawing the map in DRA.

[cinyc]

I'm sure the residents of fast-growing exurban areas like New Lenox are going to love being represented by racist nutter Bobby Rush in IL-01.   They have little in common with the inner city Chicago ghetto that makes up about 55% of the district.  The city portion of IL-01 is 86% black.  The suburban and exurban parts of that district are 71% white.   The Will County exurban portion is only 2% black.  The district is about 53% black.

Given rates of exurban growth and black flight from Chicago, it might be possible that the district becomes majority suburban by the end of the decade.  That hasn't hurt Jesse Jackson Junior from getting reelected in IL-02, though - but the suburban areas in his district are more black than those in IL-01.

[Sam Spade]

I don't think anyone's figured that out yet, since it requires a lot of number-crunching, rather than just drawing the map in DRA.

I ask because it's probably the more relevant figure.  Someone will figure it out, eventually.