US House Redistricting: Arkansas

[JohnnyLongtorso]

Not much is probably going to happen in Arkansas, but I thought I'd throw together a 2-2 map of the state:



AR-01 (blue) becomes a completely safe Republican district; it went 65-32 for McCain.
AR-02 (green) adds Jefferson County in order to become more Democratic; it's now 51-48 McCain.
AR-03 (purple) shrinks a bit. Safe Republican, naturally, it's 64-34 McCain.
AR-04 (red) reaches up across the eastern half of the state, but in order to keep Mike Ross satisfied, doesn't turn the district into a Democratic stronghold. It's 56-41 McCain.

Since the state requires no county splits, the population numbers are a little high for AR-03 and a little low in AR-02 (by about 5,000 voters). AR-01 and AR-04 are pretty close to the target.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

Not much is probably going to happen in Arkansas, but I thought I'd throw together a 2-2 map of the state:




Since the state requires no county splits, the population numbers are a little high for AR-03 and a little low in AR-02 (by about 5,000 voters). AR-01 and AR-04 are pretty close to the target.

It looks like Logan has a small piece of AR-3.

Whoops, you're right; thankfully fixing that evens out the population a bit.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

The Eastern Shore is very much like the Deep South, culturally speaking.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

How much more Dem does AR-1 become?

Putting aside the northwestern shenanigans, they moved all of five counties around: Chicot, Desha, Drew, and Lincoln (well, almost all of Lincoln) got moved from AR-04 to AR-01, and Van Buren got moved from AR-02 to AR-01. Those counties, total, voted for McCain by a 53.5 to 43.7 margin, but it's all of 27,605 votes. It moves the district from 58.7 - 38.4 McCain to 58.2 - 38.9 McCain. A whole one-percent shift.

AR-02 loses one county and goes from 54.0 - 44.1 McCain to 53.8 - 44.3 McCain.

Without the Fayetteville numbers (I understand it went for Obama), AR-04 goes from 58.1 - 39.3 McCain to 59.1 - 38.3 McCain.

Arkansas Democrats are either really confident that 2010 was a hiccup, or just really stupid.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

Here's another crack at a 2-2 map:

[JohnnyLongtorso]

I've just been thinking that maybe it's because they don't want to give the one safe seat to a black.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

Here's another stab at a 2-2 map:



Ross and Griffin are put in the same district; Griffin could just move to the open AR-02, since it's become safe Republican. Ross might not like having Little Rock in his district, but it would make the district at lot easier for someone else to hold, while still preserving enough of Ross's base to keep him safe from a primary (not that it matters, since he's only going to run for one more term). AR-01 becomes tougher for Crawford to hold; I tried to pull out as many counties in the north as possible and replace them with counties in the south. The district's VAP is only about 28% black, so again, an electable (read: white) Democrat could get through the primary. Nothing interesting to say about AR-03, it just shrunk some.

2008 breakdown (not exact, but close enough; I applied the split counties to whichever county has the majority of the population):

AR-01 (blue) - 52.8 McCain, 44.7 Obama
AR-02 (green) - 65.6 McCain, 31.5 Obama
AR-03 (purple) - 63.6 McCain, 34.0 Obama
AR-04 (red) - 53.3 McCain, 44.7 Obama

I wasn't expecting the numbers to come out quite this balanced, but what the heck.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

Another day, another crappy map from the Arkansas Democrats.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

The crappy map passed the Senate with more support from Republicans than from Democrats.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

Here's the latest iteration of the map...

[JohnnyLongtorso]

Looks like Arkansas is getting that map. I would never have guessed a Democratic legislature would pass a map that will end up being 4-0 Republican by mid-decade.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

Once again, SSP comes through with numbers on the new districts:

AR-01 - 58.0% McCain, 39.2% Obama; 52.3% Boozman, 42.3% Lincoln
AR-02 - 53.8% McCain, 44.3% Obama; 53.8% Boozman, 42.0% Lincoln
AR-03 - 63.9% McCain, 33.9% Obama; 68.3% Boozman, 26.0% Lincoln
AR-04 - 60.0% McCain, 37.4% Obama; 58.1% Boozman, 36.5% Lincoln