Redistricting makes taking back the House difficult for Dems

[Torie]

And the reason as pointed out with some stats is not that the GOP will gain seats from the process (it will be about a wash), but because so many marginal seats held by the GOP will become substantially safer.  Granted the GOP has already booted the ball a bit in a few places such as Indiana, and we shall see what happens in PA and OH, but the bottom line is that the Dems will have to get about 53% of the House vote (or close to it) or so to take control. That is a pretty big headwind.

[freepcrusher]

people said the same thing during the 1991 round of redistricting where the democrats controlled FAR more legislatures and had something like a 270-165 house majority. Look what happened there.

[Torie]

people said the same thing during the 1991 round of redistricting where the democrats controlled FAR more legislatures and had something like a 270-165 house majority. Look what happened there.

The Pubbies made progress in that round of redistricting (not as much as this time), and then secured about 52%-53% of the vote or so, if I recall correctly, in 1994. The 1992 CD's were not as Gerried towards the Dems as the 2012 seats will be for the Pubbies in any event.

[they don't love you like i love you]

There was basically the same situation in 2002. The only state that flipped in control is North Carolina. OK the Democrats had Georgia too but that was an atrocious dummymander. At least this year the Democrats got Illinois and there is some restraint on the Republicans in Florida, as well as Obama DOJ's veto on many maps.

[krazen1211]

There was basically the same situation in 2002. The only state that flipped in control is North Carolina. OK the Democrats had Georgia too but that was an atrocious dummymander. At least this year the Democrats got Illinois and there is some restraint on the Republicans in Florida, as well as Obama DOJ's veto on many maps.

Are you thinking of 1990? Because in 2000, the GA Dems created 2 new districts that held the decade, and flipped the 8th for most of the decade.

There's Alabama too. Montgomery was removed from the black district, and now put back in. Louisiana, well, I suppose not much has changed except the 6th had all its Baton Rouge blacks removed.

[Torie]

The Pubs this time got total control of PA and OH, and that is critical.  They also grabbed the lesser fry of Indiana and Wisconsin.  The Tom DeLay Texas six pack I think was for the 2004 election no?

[they don't love you like i love you]

That not-quite-majority black seat in the south Atlanta metro was going to happen no matter what, the only way a Republican could gerrymander it and not threaten nearby Republican seats would violate the VRA. It didn't have to look as ugly as the Democrats made it, but there's a reason the Republicans didn't change it much in their re-remap.

I'm think mostly of the 11th here, which was a good example of why specifically targeting one person (in this case Barr) can backfire. You'd think the Georgia Democrats would've learned from the 90s...also they initially botched the 12th too.

In Alabama the goal was to get the third district ripe for a conservative Democrat. But it didn't work. Louisiana's map barely changed.

The Pubs this time got total control of PA and OH, and that is critical.

Just as they did in 2002.

Indiana and Wisconsin don't look to be changing much, and the GOP may not even hold the Senate in Wisconsin by the time redistricting comes around.

[Torie]

I doubt from the map that the Pubs had control of Ohio. You are right about PA.  I forgot because their effort was such a Dummymander. The Dummymander in Indiana this time still around moved one CD from marginal to safe (IN-09), and another from lean Dem to marginal or lean GOP.  In Wisconsin, a lean Dem seat becomes slightly lean GOP (WI-07).  Drip, drip, drip.

[they don't love you like i love you]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Speakers_of_the_Ohio_House_of_Representatives
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Presidents_of_the_Ohio_Senate

We all know who was Governor of Ohio at that time, but I won't say him by name because it's pretty depressing.

[Torie]

OK.  I guess the big change is the population collapse in the Dem zones in Ohio (outside of Columbus). Ditto Michigan (outside of Ann Arbor and Lansing).

[DrScholl]

Redistricting only goes so far, you can't guarantee percentages will stay the same every cycle. Trends can happen fast and even without trends, swing seats are not every truly off table. You plug one up, there will be another one that shows unexpectedly. This will be the last time Republicans can gerrymander to protect anything, by the end of the decade, it will be sink or swim in many places.

[TJ in Oregon]

The reason why the current Ohio map looks like a bipartisan gerrymander is that Gov. Bob Taft was worried about Sherrod Brown running against him in 2002 so he gerrymandered OH-13 to be a safe Democratic seat instead of a toss-up. They also drew a strange tail of OH-18 into St. Clairsville to try to get Charlie Wilson to run in OH-18 instead of OH-6 to give the Dems both seats in southeastern Ohio instead of just one (which only wound up happening after 2006 and backfired in 2010).

However, the rest of the state is a Republican gerrymander outside of the forementioned places. The southwest part of the state manages to give reasonable districts to 6 Republican congressmen all living withing 50 miles of each other covering almost half the state. It is really designed to shut the Dems out of Columbus and Cincinnati but just didn't count on Columbus trending Dem and the greatly increased black vote in Cincinnati in 2008. Otherwise it has been a pretty good Republican gerrymander.

Northwestern Ohio has the Republican version right now because it attaches Lucas county to the counties to the east along the lake instead of soaking up some solid Rep territory to the west as OH-9. This is an example of a spot where gerrymandering is almost impossible to avoid. If you try to draw a fair map in NW OH, you'd start by putting Toledo in a district. But then where do you go for the other 300k people? Any Dem map will go west and any Rep map will go east. Both are equally valid choices from a COI standpoint. The current map is the Rep option because it goes east.

The rest of NE OH on the current map is really pretty boring and there weren't many options ten years ago. The possibility of drawing a Republican seat on the west side of Cleveland wasn't there then so it looks like a fairly standard Dem-friendly map even though it was drawn by Republicans.

So in short, yes it was a Republican map, but it was drawn by IMO one of the most incompetent governors in the nation's history more out of self-preservation than anything else and really didn't function as a Republican map.

[krazen1211]

That not-quite-majority black seat in the south Atlanta metro was going to happen no matter what, the only way a Republican could gerrymander it and not threaten nearby Republican seats would violate the VRA. It didn't have to look as ugly as the Democrats made it, but there's a reason the Republicans didn't change it much in their re-remap.

It didn't have to, necessarily. The other black districts (4, 5, 2) could have absorbed most of 13's Democrats. As it is, all 3 have some Republicans in them that could be excised out. There's plenty of ample precedent to rack up blacks to 67% or so.

12 definitely would have been a 'proper' Republican district.

[they don't love you like i love you]

There's plenty of obvious Republican-beneficial touches to the current Ohio map, OH-01 extending into Butler County is clear, so is how OH-03 was handled, and the way Columbus was split even if that pre-dates that map. OH-14 is obviously designed to squeeze a Republican district out of an area where there shouldn't be one with that many seats, it may not look hideous but the intent is quite clear. Of course this also relates to the shoring up Sherrod Brown thing.

The weird split in SE Ohio is also because they were intent on making sure Traficant was the chopped rep and wanted to not only carve up his district but make it so that there's no way he could possibly get elected from any other, so OH-06 runs up the border to take some of his territory. This worked but also because of a convenient scandal, and backfired in the sense that it took out longtime Democratic Rep. Tom Sawyer (he had some weird parents) from Akron, because he was forced into a seat that also contained the Mahoning Valley which didn't want to be represented by a pro-free trade urban liberal. Hence his primary defeat to Tim Ryan.

I'll also draw attention to the cracking of Athens County, even though OH-06 was designed to be conceded to Strickland the GOP was obviously eying it once he made his inevitable gubernatorial run, and might've taken it if it hadn't been such a disastrous year. They got it eventually but frankly with the current redistricting situation might've been better off not doing so.

[Torie]

I still love my Ohio map BRTD.  I might have it framed.   10 Pubbie seats with GOP PVI's of at least 4%, with 8 of the 10 over 5% or close to it.  It is my piece de resistance given that dmapper has demonstrated beyond per adventure that he is considerably more competent and creative than I  at screwing the Dems legally in Michigan.  Of course, the GOP came up with something rather lame there, although not as pathetic as Indiana and to a lesser extent Wisconsin.

[CatoMinor]

I still love my Ohio map BRTD.  I might have it framed.  

Its better than that Penn mao you made?

[Mr.Phips]

people said the same thing during the 1991 round of redistricting where the democrats controlled FAR more legislatures and had something like a 270-165 house majority. Look what happened there.

In 1991, Democrats had control over redistricting in all Southern states, Indiana, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, and Texas, while Republicans only had it in Utah. 

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

people said the same thing during the 1991 round of redistricting where the democrats controlled FAR more legislatures and had something like a 270-165 house majority. Look what happened there.

The Democrats epic failed with Georgia.

[Torie]

I still love my Ohio map BRTD.  I might have it framed.  

Its better than that Penn mao you made?

Yes, because it was more creative. PA was just slogging through, with a couple of clever pawn moves (like picking up Little Italy in southside Philly and appending it to a Pubbie CD via the airport and turning the Holden GOP leaning CD into a Dem sink, an idea that seems conventional wisdom now).  Ohio required a lot of thought, and presented a lot of problems. But where there is a will, there is a way - sometimes, including this time!