Most Democratic Gerrymander possible

[Vega]

If there is already a thread for this, I apologize.

But say Democrats had their way in all the Redistricting battles, much like the Republicans did. What would their map have looked like?

[Skill and Chance]

Using a 57-58% Obama 2008 minimum criterion for likely Democratic districts, ignoring Blue Dog opportunities, and fully maintaining all VRA Section 2 districts, here are some of the limits I've found:

WA: Commission
OR: 4D/1R
CA: Commission
AZ: Commission
NM: 2D/1Swing
CO: 5D/2R
NV: 3D/1R
UT: 3R/1D
NE: 2R/1D
KS: 3R/1D
OK: 4R/1Swing (OKC to Tulsa 51% Obama 2008 district, looks like NC-12)
TX: Don't know, probably something like 20R/16D?
MN: 6D/2R
IA: 2D/1R/1Swing
IL: 12D/6R
WI: 6D/2R
MI: don't know, thinking 10D/4R?
OH: I think 10D/6R
KY: 5R/1D (can't make 2 D-PVI seats)
MO: don't know
AR: 3R/1D
LA: 4R/2D
MS: 2R/2D
TN: 2D/6R/1Swing (54% Obama 2008)
AL: 5R/2D
GA: 7R/7D (seriously, with heavily Obama seats)
FL: don't know- remember FDF
SC: 5R/2D
NC: 7D/6R with liberal Obama districts, more if creating Blue Dog districts
VA: 7D/4R
MD: 7D/1R
PA: probably 11D/5R/2Swing?
NJ: commission
NY: 24D/3R realistically
CT: make all 5 equally as D as the state
RI: see CT
MA: see CT
NH: Option of 2 Swing or making Kuster's seat 60% Obama for 1D/1R
ME: 2D, see CT

So that would be at least a Dem gain of 30 seats in a 2012 environment over what they actually had.

 

[Bacon King]

Skill and Chance I would love to see your even split GA map

[muon2]

I'm not sure your criteria works for IL. Obama's home state advantage caused a large overperformance in 2008, particularly in some suburban areas. One result was that the Dems tried to draw a 13-5 map, took 12, but are now down to 10-8. The three downstate CDs should be no more than 2, and Dold's results in IL-10 show that the PVI there due to Obama is misleading.

[Skill and Chance]

This also shows that if 2009 was the redistricting year, Democrats would likely have held the House continuously since 2006, which further implicates gerrymandering.  It doesn't matter whether who you think would have won control in 2012 on a fair map.  The fact that a party can draw a 2006 or 2010 proof map should be scary enough.

[Skill and Chance]

I'm not sure your criteria works for IL. Obama's home state advantage caused a large overperformance in 2008, particularly in some suburban areas. One result was that the Dems tried to draw a 13-5 map, took 12, but are now down to 10-8. The three downstate CDs should be no more than 2, and Dold's results in IL-10 show that the PVI there due to Obama is misleading.

I went with what was actually enacted in IL and MD because they were D controlled.  In the case of AR, I have seen a 57% Obama district demonstrated here.  I agree in practice that 61-62% Obama is closer to the safe Dem district cutoff in IL and I believe that is what the legislature did with all the Chicago districts.  Clearly many of these districts on the hypothetical Dem gerrymanders would have been lost for a cycle in 2010 and 2014. 

[muon2]

I'm not sure your criteria works for IL. Obama's home state advantage caused a large overperformance in 2008, particularly in some suburban areas. One result was that the Dems tried to draw a 13-5 map, took 12, but are now down to 10-8. The three downstate CDs should be no more than 2, and Dold's results in IL-10 show that the PVI there due to Obama is misleading.

I went with what was actually enacted in IL and MD because they were D controlled.  In the case of AR, I have seen a 57% Obama district demonstrated here.  I agree in practice that 61-62% Obama is closer to the safe Dem district cutoff in IL and I believe that is what the legislature did with all the Chicago districts.  Clearly many of these districts on the hypothetical Dem gerrymanders would have been lost for a cycle in 2010 and 2014.  

In the lawsuit over the IL congressional districts it came out they they were mostly not drawn by the legislature, but by the DCCC. The Dems in DC cut the margin much closer than the Dem legislature did for the GA map. The result was a partial dummymander. If the districts can't be held in off years, they really aren't successful gerrymanders. The success of the Pub gerrys is that they held up in 2012. What I don't know is whether a sustainable 12-6 could be drawn in IL. My gut tells me that 11-7 may be the best.

To follow up, Obama got 63% in IL-10 in 2008. Needless to say that was not a safe Dem district for the suburbs.

[Nichlemn]

The thing about a gerrymander is that if your goal is maximising the probability you control the House, then there's not a lot of point in drawing a district that can survive wave years. In an environment where Democrats had a shot of winning the House majority, they would very likely have also won IL-10 in its current composition. The one caveat is the potential for incumbents to entrench themselves - for instance, maybe in a future cycle Democrats miss the House majority by 1 seat because Dold survived with the help of his incumbency advantage.

[Vega]

Hate to bump this, but I might as well.

Are there any Dem gerrymanders that have been done of states by people on here, other than Scott's thread?

[Torie]

Hate to bump this, but I might as well.

Are there any Dem gerrymanders that have been done of states by people on here, other than Scott's thread?

Sbane really got into here, with CA. If you move to earlier pages in the thread, you can view what his little line drawing mouse did to the rest of the state. He was trying to prove the point, that the Pubs in CA could be held to 4 seats or something. The rate things are going in CA, and the Pub party nationally, the Pubs may garner in due course but 4 seats in CA without needing to gerrymander.

[Virginiá]

The rate things are going in CA, and the Pub party nationally, the Pubs may garner in due course but 4 seats in CA without needing to gerrymander.

Looking at the party strength in California over the years, Republicans have almost consistently been bleeding House seats for decades now (or simply not winning any of the newly apportioned seats). An extra 10 seats just from California alone would be wonderful for Democrats.

Is this happening because conservatives are leaving the state and/or Democratic voters are spreading out from the Cali urban centers? Or maybe the Republican voters there are just way less conservative then the party as a whole and are switching over?

[Torie]

The rate things are going in CA, and the Pub party nationally, the Pubs may garner in due course but 4 seats in CA without needing to gerrymander.

Looking at the party strength in California over the years, Republicans have almost consistently been bleeding House seats for decades now (or simply not winning any of the newly apportioned seats). An extra 10 seats just from California alone would be wonderful for Democrats.

Is this happening because conservatives are leaving the state and/or Democratic voters are spreading out from the Cali urban centers? Or maybe the Republican voters there are just way less conservative then the party as a whole and are switching over?

White CA voters have tended to be less religious for a long time, while also being more into self expression. It's socially anomic atmosphere, and materialistic (even hedonistic) culture in many places (think LA and Orange County in particular), tends to cause things to go that way. Combine that with the white working class leaving, the labor-management divide waning away to next to nothing (that drove many socially liberal minded executive types into the Pub party), and the industrial base being more knowledge based, with aerospace going away largely, and the Hispanic percentage steadily increasing, and now the Asian (who don't take too well in general to the vibe of Evangelical Christianity), and you have a recipe for Pub disaster.

[Asian Nazi]

There are plenty of white Republicans in California (CA whites are a few points more Republican than WA and OR, for example, and I think Romney actually won the CA white vote in 2012), especially in the interior and southern portion of the state.  But they're now a decided minority against the white liberals + minorities Dem coalition.  In fact, I'd attribute the GOP's decline in the state almost entirely to the increasing Hispanic vote.  It doesn't help that the CA GOP shot themselves in the foot with things like Prop 187 and the Schwarzenegger disaster either.

[Virginiá]

White CA voters have tended to be less religious for a long time, while also being more into self expression. It's socially anomic atmosphere, and materialistic (even hedonistic) culture in many places (think LA and Orange County in particular), tends to cause things to go that way. Combine that with the white working class leaving, the labor-management divide waning away to next to nothing (that drove many socially liberal minded executive types into the Pub party), and the industrial base being more knowledge based, with aerospace going away largely, and the Hispanic percentage steadily increasing, and now the Asian (who don't take too well in general to the vibe of Evangelical Christianity), and you have a recipe for Pub disaster.

Interesting. Sounds like a response to some of the structural deficiencies of the modern GOP.

I went over some of the GOP's California CDs, and 39th looks like it has some potential, 36th has a R+1 PVI but a Democratic Rep and its voting history does suggest it's likely to be more Democratic than not until 2022. Given the demographics of the 25th district (assuming Wiki is right) and past election results, this is a flip just waiting to happen. 21st is a Republican-held Democratic-leaning seat, so incumbency is their savior there I guess. The 10th district is yet another one on a knife's edge

45th also looks like it has some future potential, but not before the next redistricting and who knows what it will be then.

I'm actually quite surprised how precarious the situation is with their remaining seats in this state. I thought they had already basically hit rock bottom, but obviously there is a ways to go yet.

[Vega]

Hate to bump this, but I might as well.

Are there any Dem gerrymanders that have been done of states by people on here, other than Scott's thread?

Sbane really got into here, with CA. If you move to earlier pages in the thread, you can view what his little line drawing mouse did to the rest of the state. He was trying to prove the point, that the Pubs in CA could be held to 4 seats or something. The rate things are going in CA, and the Pub party nationally, the Pubs may garner in due course but 4 seats in CA without needing to gerrymander.

Do you have an actual thread link for that?

[Torie]

There are plenty of white Republicans in California (CA whites are a few points more Republican than WA and OR, for example, and I think Romney actually won the CA white vote in 2012), especially in the interior and southern portion of the state.  But they're now a decided minority against the white liberals + minorities Dem coalition.  In fact, I'd attribute the GOP's decline in the state almost entirely to the increasing Hispanic vote.  It doesn't help that the CA GOP shot themselves in the foot with things like Prop 187 and the Schwarzenegger disaster either.

Mittens per the exit poll got 53% of the non Hispanic white vote in CA. That is not enough for a Pub to win statewide, and has not been, since probably prior to the Great Depression. Sure the rise in Hispanic voters, is probably the biggest factor in the Pub decline, but by no means the only factor.

Beyond the natural brand image of the Pubs, and its policy positions, the Pub problem in CA is that the state party has not adapted very well to the local environment. It's been in denial. That is a local weakness for them. Offsetting that local drag, is that a fair number of the Dems are way, way, out there, so given its absolute control of the state, sometimes the Dems overreach, and do kooky stuff, and that precipitates a reaction, and some of those folks who used to be Pubs, but are now estranged, go back to voting for them. And thus, in survey after survey, one finds that the ideology of the two parties, or at least their representatives in the State Legislature, are the most politically polarized in the nation, a combination of non adaptable Pubs, and Dems who are out there making their dreams come true.

There is a natural tendency over the long haul for parties to tend to be competitive in each state, as the party with the majority goes as far as it can to enact its agenda, even if it means losing votes, but only so long as there still is a majority of some sort for them. Surplus votes are spent on getting things a party wants done, in other words.

[Torie]

Hate to bump this, but I might as well.

Are there any Dem gerrymanders that have been done of states by people on here, other than Scott's thread?

Sbane really got into here, with CA. If you move to earlier pages in the thread, you can view what his little line drawing mouse did to the rest of the state. He was trying to prove the point, that the Pubs in CA could be held to 4 seats or something. The rate things are going in CA, and the Pub party nationally, the Pubs may garner in due course but 4 seats in CA without needing to gerrymander.

Do you have an actual thread link for that?

My link should work now. Sorry about that.

[Asian Nazi]

There is a natural tendency over the long haul for parties to tend to be competitive in each state, as the party with the majority goes as far as it can to enact its agenda, even if it means losing votes, but only so long as there still is a majority of some sort for them. Surplus votes are spent on getting things a party wants done, in other words.

This is how it should work in theory.  In practice, we find evidence to be lacking, especially below the national level.  American history is full of states with extended periods of one party rule and more often than not it's difficult for state parties to disassociate with the national brand and develop their own.  The CA GOP has been particularly bad at disassociating with the national GOP (and this is at least as much do to Californian political geography as it is to do with the decisions of individual party leaders).  At some point in the future we might see a national party alignment which puts California in the GOP column, but until that point the state Republican party will be in a losing position, with the diminishing exceptions of occasional perfect storm gubernatorial elections.

[Torie]

White CA voters have tended to be less religious for a long time, while also being more into self expression. It's socially anomic atmosphere, and materialistic (even hedonistic) culture in many places (think LA and Orange County in particular), tends to cause things to go that way. Combine that with the white working class leaving, the labor-management divide waning away to next to nothing (that drove many socially liberal minded executive types into the Pub party), and the industrial base being more knowledge based, with aerospace going away largely, and the Hispanic percentage steadily increasing, and now the Asian (who don't take too well in general to the vibe of Evangelical Christianity), and you have a recipe for Pub disaster.

Interesting. Sounds like a response to some of the structural deficiencies of the modern GOP.

I went over some of the GOP's California CDs, and 39th looks like it has some potential, 36th has a R+1 PVI but a Democratic Rep and its voting history does suggest it's likely to be more Democratic than not until 2022. Given the demographics of the 25th district (assuming Wiki is right) and past election results, this is a flip just waiting to happen. 21st is a Republican-held Democratic-leaning seat, so incumbency is their savior there I guess. The 10th district is yet another one on a knife's edge

45th also looks like it has some future potential, but not before the next redistricting and who knows what it will be then.

I'm actually quite surprised how precarious the situation is with their remaining seats in this state. I thought they had already basically hit rock bottom, but obviously there is a ways to go yet.

Yes, I agree with all of the above. And beyond that, the Pub margins in their coastal SoCal seats are getting thinner and thinner (that seat in San Diego County that takes in most of the coastal areas up to Carlsbad now having actually flipped, and unlikely to come back). They cannot afford to do as poorly with Asians as Romney did for long in particular. The 45th district is getting rapidly more Asian. There is this huge new housing tract in Lake Forest for example. Most of the home buyers are Asian.

[Asian Nazi]

Also, as an Asian American, I'd reject the idea that it's our secularism that turns us off from the GOP.  There are a sh**t ton of Evangelical Asians, especially in diaspora populations.  In Canada and Australia, for example, conservative parties have been very successful in winning over East Asian voters on the basis of cultural issues.  Even in the United States, many older Asians and particular ethnic groups (such as Vietnamese) still vote GOP, because of religious and cultural reasons as well as anti-communism.  What turns younger Asians away from the GOP is our relative financial insecurity.  While Asians tend to have higher incomes on average, we still lag well behind whites in terms of wealth.  We were hit particularly hard by the Great Recession.  And financial insecurity + increasing adoption of liberal values makes us an obvious Democrat demographic.  Barring a major partisan realignment, we're going to just keep trending Democrat as older Asians die off and turnout rates increase.

[Torie]

That's interesting. Thanks. But did Asian wealth take more of a hit than white wealth? The thing is, in this country, is outside the top decile or so, nobody in America has much wealth. It's just shockingly low.

Sbane should weigh in here perhaps. He has his own thoughts on this, and is Asian too, and grew up in CA. One thing out there either way is affirmative action and its impact, or potential impact in the future, on Asians in college admissions. I wonder if the Pubs have gotten around to using that to appeal to Asians? Granted, more Asians, might mean fewer whites. Poor Pubs. What are they going to do now?

[Asian Nazi]

That's interesting. Thanks. But did Asian wealth take more of a hit than white wealth? The thing is, in this country, is outside the top decile or so, nobody in America has much wealth. It's just shockingly low.

Sbane should weigh in here perhaps. He has his own thoughts on this, and is Asian too, and grew up in CA. One thing out there either way is affirmative action and its impact, or potential impact in the future, on Asians in college admissions. I wonder if the Pubs have gotten around to using that to appeal to Asians? Granted, more Asians, might mean fewer whites. Poor Pubs. What are they going to do now?

Well, idk about affirmative action, but there are any number of wedge tactics that the GOP could use to pull Asians away from African Americans.  They'd hardly need to manufacture animosity --- CA in particular has been an epicenter of antagonism between black and Asian communities.  I think the GOP's best case scenario would be that assimilation follows the historical model, i.e. Asians and Latinos become like the Irish, Italians, Germans, Jews etc. and become more friendly to the Republicans as they assimilate, move up the socioeconomic ladder, and start associating more politically with WASPs than the black underclass.  There are signs that this is happening already.  Outmarriage is one of the top signs of assimilation, and both Asians and Latinos outmarry at much higher rates than white ethnics did historically.  At the same time, social mobility is definitely not as it once was.  As you mentioned, the white middle class has been taking a beating lately too, so I'm not sure how much models from the historically mobile, high-growth American economy can be used for the stagnant, low growth era we live in.

[Vega]

I think "Asian" in general has become such a large term (though it always was). There is a fair shot of difference between a South and East Asian, the latter of which is more applicable to the above.

[DC Al Fine]

That's interesting. Thanks. But did Asian wealth take more of a hit than white wealth? The thing is, in this country, is outside the top decile or so, nobody in America has much wealth. It's just shockingly low.

Sbane should weigh in here perhaps. He has his own thoughts on this, and is Asian too, and grew up in CA. One thing out there either way is affirmative action and its impact, or potential impact in the future, on Asians in college admissions. I wonder if the Pubs have gotten around to using that to appeal to Asians? Granted, more Asians, might mean fewer whites. Poor Pubs. What are they going to do now?

Well, idk about affirmative action, but there are any number of wedge tactics that the GOP could use to pull Asians away from African Americans.  They'd hardly need to manufacture animosity --- CA in particular has been an epicenter of antagonism between black and Asian communities.  I think the GOP's best case scenario would be that assimilation follows the historical model, i.e. Asians and Latinos become like the Irish, Italians, Germans, Jews etc. and become more friendly to the Republicans as they assimilate, move up the socioeconomic ladder, and start associating more politically with WASPs than the black underclass.

This is really problematic for the GOP, because if you look at income, and wealth stats, Asians already outperform whites, which in turn suggested they are losing a lot of winnable votes.

The success of the Canadian Conservatives among Chinese voters lends a model for the GOP to copy:
a) Stop being so strongly identified as the party of a regional subculture (Southern for the GOP, Alberta for the Tories)

b) Social conservatism is ok, but it needs to be packaged differently. The Tories relied less on abortion and gay marriage, while heavily implying in the Asian communities that they were the only party in favour of hard work, nuclear families etc.

I think "Asian" in general has become such a large term (though it always was). There is a fair shot of difference between a South and East Asian, the latter of which is more applicable to the above.

This is true. For example, in British Columbia, the Chinese community tends to vote right, while Indo-Canadians vote NDP.

[dpmapper]

I would imagine that Asian immigrants to Canada are higher-performing (economically speaking) than Asian immigrants to the US, given Canada's more selective immigration policies.