Talk Elections

I don't believe there is a thread for this yet.

Here is a change that would make Boren's seat much more competitive. He would almost certainly win near every county in his district so I cut it in half and extended both halves deeper into territory that might not vote reflexively for him.

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The three counties he lost in 2010 (against a complete nobody) were Delaware, Ottawa, and Rogers. You took Rogers out of the district, might want to leave that in. Take out Nowata instead, it went for him 62-38. I'd also take out McIntosh and Okmulgee, they're near his home in Muskogee and also went 62-38 for him.

ok, kinda going on what Johnny Longtorso said, I have this map.

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Yeah, that looks more like it. I don't see why they won't at least take a shot at getting rid of Boren. There's no downside to it, since there's no chance of any of the other seats becoming competitive. And even the Little Dixie part of the state started sending Republicans to the legislature last year.

Is there any reason for the GOP to get rid of Boren at all?  I mean, he helps to give a "bipartisan" coloration to legislation. When was the last time Boren crossed the GOP on something that really mattered? Gerrymandering is not all about party affiliation numbers. That would be just dumb.

Seeing as Republicans want to protect their house majority, getting rid of Boren would be helpful to those plans. Wherever they can get rid of Democrats, they will do it.

Well I can't argue much with conviction, against the existence of the dumb gene in that High School that has the same address as Capitol Hill - by coincidence - not.

Yeah, there can be a certain value to protecting useful idiots.

Speaking as someone from Oklahoma (who lives right next to Dan Boren's district) he is literally a "Democrat in Name Only".  It would be pointless to get rid of Boren.  Hell, it would be pointless to keep him.  He is the definition of "worthless".
And if you really want to damage Dan Boren's chance at re-election instead of redistricting him to northeastern Oklahoma just simply redistrict him out of Little Dixie and into South Tulsa (which is VERY Republican).  The redistrict map that Jbrase brought up would add Okmulgee county to John Sullivan's district of OK-1 which is a bad idea (they are very Democratic by Oklahoma standards).  Instead move OK-2 west into South Tulsa County and move part of OK-1 northwest into parts of OK-3.  The result should be an all Republican House representation from Oklahoma.
I'll put up a map soon.

EDIT: Just realized I'm an ignorant moron on counties within my own state.

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Here we go.
As you can see OK-1 has been redistricted towards north central eastern Oklahoma and north Tulsa.  This would make it more Democratic than usual since North Tulsa has a high (for Oklahoma) percentage of blacks and hispanics and withdrawal of South Tulsa from OK-1 would lose the upper middle class white voter population that makes it solidly Republican.  However the addition of the aforementioned affluent area of South Tulsa with middle-upper income folks being well populated throughout along with the growing suburbs of Broken Arrow and the loss of the southern part of Little Dixie OK-2 goes from being solid Dem to lean Republican (I believe a little more than a third of the OK-2 constituency would be in South Tulsa under the new redistricting so yeah).  OK-3, which has always been known as the Western Oklahoma district remains solid Republican.  OK-4, which now has the southern part of "Little Dixie" included in it minus the Lawton area undergoes a significant Democratic shift though probably not enough to make it competitive against an established Republican incumbent like Tom Cole.  OK-5, which now extends from Oklahoma City to Okmulgee might make a little lean toward the Democrats though not near enough to make it competitive.
All told this map would make races a little more competitive in OK-1, OK-4, and OK-5 but would also make OK-2 a possible Republican bastion in the future.  So yeah that's my analysis.

I combined the earlier idea about drawing donut districts for the lols with Okusa's question about drawing an Obama district in OKC.
I haven't actually done the math on the yellow district, mind, and the app doesn't include partisan data for Oklahoma.

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Damn. I cant even tell which would be my district...:o

has the idea ever been discussed of Oklahoma basically doing to Boren what Arizona did to Mo Udall 30 years ago. They basically were like this: we know you are safe in your district, so we'll make an uber safe district for you connecting the most democratic precincts of the two biggest cities to help the republicans elsewhere.

Under this map, the green district is Boren's district and is only 53 percent white.

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Under that map, Boren would get primaried so fast his head would spin. His base is not urban whatsoever.

lol. Its almost like if 10 years ago, one was to draw a district for Ralph Hall (who at the time was one of the most conservative house democrats) that took his home in Rockwall County and attached it to all the 90% black precincts in Dallas.

That would be the point, wouldn't it?

A less conservative Democrat would beat Boren in that district, it wouldn't be safe for him. Boren votes with Republicans enough where they wouldn't do this too him and it's not like they'd have a reason to do this other than spite, which they probably don't have toward Boren.

Boren won't vote for Republican House leadership.

But if OK Republicans are to yield the fact that a single Democrat will be elected from Oklahoma regardless of the map, having this Democrat be the 8th most conservative member of the Democratic caucus is much more preferable to them than the Democrat being a standard progressive.

I really don't see the point in drawing that district at all. Look, the logical thing to do is to keep all of eastern Oklahoma in the same district; Boren is a useful idiot, the district would not be impossible to win under current circumstances if he fell under a bus or something, and in any case it keeps things nice and safe elsewhere in the event of trouble at some point over the next decade.

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The map passed by the House.

I guess they went the "no need to bother screwing DINO Boren over" route. That barely changes the map at all.

Haha wow, look at that deviation.

The Green lines are change on 2000, or what?

Yes. Marshall County goes from the 4th to the 2nd, that little bit of Canadian goes from the 4th to the 3rd, the nub of Rogers goes from the 1st to the 2nd, and a tiny bit of Creek goes from the 1st to the 3rd. And it looks like they adjusted the 4th/5th border of Oklahoma County a bit.

What's the point of slicing off part of Oklahoma county then tacking on those rural counties to the east?

I think the point is to allow the election of two OKC Republicans, rather than either one or (unlikely) zero, but one OKC Democrat.

I don't know, but its certainly not for partisanship.  That part of OK county is actually more conservative than the rest of it (being fairly white suburbs).  Also remember that OKC stretches into Cleveland county, which is already in the 4th district, so its not a separate split of OKC.

Also those counties to the east aren't really rural as much as they are OKC suburbs.

The OKC metro doesn't really extend out far in that direction. The northern part of Pottawatomie could probably be considered OKC exurbs but in Seminole you got a bunch of rural towns in an county with less than 40 people per square mile.

There used to be a district that included Tinker, AFB, Fort Sill, and Altus AFB,which was long and narrow.  When there were 6 districts, one was in Okie C, one in Tulsa, one in the northeast, one in Little Dixie, one in the west and northern wheat-growing areas, and the military district.   The Little Dixie district had to keep expanding and was eliminated when the 6th seat was lost.

OK-2 was extended southward and shifted eastward so that the western, northern district (now OK-3) can come all the way to Tulsa.  It also takes Canadian and Altus.  OK-4 is the successor to the Tinker-Sill-Altus district, with some areas from Little Dixie like Ardmore and Duncan added.

Oklahoma County used to be chopped up a lot more.  You would still have to split it even if Pottatomie and Seminole were moved to OK-4.

So as Lewis raised earlier, is it possible to draw an Obama district in Oklahoma?

Yes actually. This is 51.3% Obama:

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Also 56.6% white VAP (17.3% black and 14.7% Hispanic.)

Actually assuming that Hispanic turnout in Oklahoma is really bad (which seems likely since it doesn't have much of an established Hispanic population like further west or in Texas), some number crunching shows that Obama probably got around 40% of the white vote in this district, which considering it's Oklahoma is fairly impressive. Oklahoma doesn't have any actual white liberal areas like Georgia, Texas, Louisiana and northern Florida do, but it does have some areas where white liberals are not all but nonexistant unlike Mississippi and Alabama for instance.

Norman isn't a white liberal area? Then how do we explain its voting patterns? (Also, quite a lot of minority-influence-but-white-majority Democratic areas in OKC, and quite a few democratic hillbillies left in the eastern part of the state.)

Of course, I already drew this monstrosity:

78.9% white VAP, 53.3% McCain. Definitely not a white liberal area, just not as radically conservative as the rest of the state.

Well the dense part of Norman. It's surrounded by hyperrepublican OKC suburbia, wasn't sure about where the city limits fall. It's quite white, though.

Oh the area around the University of Oklahoma! Yeah I guess that would apply, funny I missed it as it's my map above. But the rest of Norman is just standard Republican OKC suburbia, though the city limits are quite large area-wise, I bet most of those Republican areas have little to do with the actual university. It might be enough for a white liberal State House seat though.

Yep, I can draw a 57.7% Obama seat that's 76.9% white around the U of O. It's also possible to draw an only 51% McCain seat nearby, split it differently and you can get two white Obama seats.

BTW Lewis I'm guessing you aren't using the City/Town Lines checkbox. Not only does it give you the city borders it also points out universities apparently (never noticed that until now.)

Wow, it never thought it was possible to draw an Obama district in Oklahoma. What cities are providing the bulk of that Obama vote? I guess that leaves Idaho as the only (not at-large) state where it is impossible to draw an Obama CD.

Those Obama districts are basically the black/Hispanic parts of Tulsa and Oklahoma City plus the University of Oklahoma environs in Norman.

Is it possible to draw an Obama seat in West Virginia? I doubt it is without splitting counties, and even with county splits it'd be tricky. Arkansas can't be done without county splits either, though you could with them (it'd be as ugly as this Oklahoma seat though.)

My district also went to Stillwater (Oklahoma State University), the black areas in Lawton, and a few odd black enclaves in some rural areas.

Arkansas isn't hard at all. Just put Jefferson, Pulaski, and some Delta Counties in 1 district. I posted a map earlier in that thread.

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I went for the maximum Democratic pack while keeping counties whole.

WV is not all that bad actually, most of the South-Central part of the State is 50/50 and the Republican lean comes from the parts on the edges of the state.  Obama only lost Kanawha county (Charleston) by about 400 votes, and that's 300,000 people right there, take in a couple of the neighboring counties that were also about 50/50 and you probably can draw an Obama district that looks relatively compact.

With of course the caveat that the Dem vote (and the minority population) is far more dispersed in OKC than in Tulsa, whose north side is a ghetto; and the further caveat that you need some more population. Red went to Lawton, I went to 50-50ish rural areas with quite a sizable native presence in the east part of the state (and to Okemah and Muskogee).

The DEM proposed OKC seat is Safe R in 2022. Doesn't matter of course, gotta crack.

Wrong Oklahoma thread.