US House Redistricting: Kentucky

[minionofmidas]

Certainly no reason to cede him a safe seat. He probably can have some positive corrections on the margins.

[minionofmidas]

I don't think KY 2000 was a GOP gerrymander or even an incumbent gerrymander.

It preserved the 1990 map, which I'm not sure who drew it and how it was intended, but which certainly functioned as a GOP gerrymander from 94 on (until Chandler captured the sixth and dug in. Counting the continued presence of a Blue Dog in the 4th as an accident.) It splits the Dems' coal country strongholds.

[minionofmidas]

It's not just that. The southern end of coal country has swung really, really, heavily to the GOP over the last decade. Like, really heavily. Like they've rediscovered their submerged GOP roots after 70 years.

[minionofmidas]

*whistles innocently*

[minionofmidas]

Nice Dem Gerry there. 

Yep - the Green district was drawn as a max R pack based on the 1996 results map.



Though *something somewhat like this map* is actually also what makes the most CoI sense... I'll need to find some better solution for the red district and especially for Fort Knox / Elizabethtown. There's a few too many people west of Frankfort (which I feel belongs with Lexington) and the Cinci burbs and a few too few to the east...

[minionofmidas]

Dems pass their map.

Reps pass theirs.

Now they negotiate. Filing begins January 31st unless they change the law because they haven't passed a map yet.

As you can see, Reps agree to remove the silly little splinters into Louisville in favor of a reasonable split, helping Yarmuth. Both parties are mildly ambitious regarding the 6th. The Dem map also tries to make the 5th marginally interesting should Rogers retire (he's 74) - and only-just-about keeps his home in the district. And attempts to remove the inherited sillyness in Western Kentucky, apparently with little partisan motif.

[minionofmidas]

I don't understand what the deal is with the border between the 1st and 2nd in the GOP map/current map.  What's the reason for the 1st hooking underneath the 2nd.  Is it to keep incumbents in their districts or something.  I actually like the GOP map better except for that part.

It's because that's what it's been since... uh... it gets worse with every census as the state's growth areas are elsewhere, but Owensboro has always (whatever time frame "always" is, here) been in the 2nd district and not in a district that !!!1!!!stretched to the Mississippi!!!1!!!omg!

[minionofmidas]

http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/2b8b32eee01b4f26a5c4525c93c70a33/KY-XGR--Political-Redistricting/

[minionofmidas]

http://www.kentucky.com/2012/02/10/2063378/senate-panel-approves-compromise.html#storylink=rss

Nice article.

[minionofmidas]

The final district for Chandler is further east than what Dems originally proposed, and I think more Democratic as well. So I think it's safe to say that the changes to the first and fifth were intended and used largely as bargaining chips. And used well.

[minionofmidas]

Perhaps, although Northrup held on for a long time. Be that as it may, out of curiosity, because it was so easy to calculate, based on the 2012 numbers, the PVI was - you guessed it - 0.0% on the button. Well it was 0.1% Pub, but given that one must excise about 5 or so hyper Pub precincts from either Oldham or Bullitt counties, I figure it's at absolute zero. So it does seem that in 10 or 20 years, it would indeed take a talented Pub to win it.

Northup was kind of a fluke.  She won in 1996 and was lucky to not have a really bad GOP year until she finally lost in 2006.

Northup also had a personal machine in the Black parts of Louisville.