Talk Elections

I began this project to make state CD maps for a 600 member House.  I have Maine and PA finished with maps.  I have a bunch of others that I do not have computer maps for.  If anyone knows where to get good, large county maps, share.

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Now to the question, who would run against the following incumbents in 2004.
italics mean they are not running for re-election

District   1-Robert Borski (D)
District   2-Chaka Fattah (D)
District   3-Robert Brady (D)
District   4-Anthony Williams (D)
District   5-Jim Greenwood (GOP)
District   6-Jon Fox (GOP)
District   7-Joe Hoeffel (D)
District   8-Curt Weldon (GOP)
District   9-Joe Pitts (GOP)
District 10-Pat Toomey (GOP)
District 11-
District 12-Paul Kanjorski (D)
District 13-Tim Holden (D)
District 14-Robert Mellow (D)
District 15-Jeffrey Piccola (GOP)
District 16-Todd Platts (GOP)
District 17-Robert Jubelrier (GOP)
District 18-Phil English (GOP)
District 19-John Peterson (GOP)
District 20-Don Sherwood (GOP)
District 21-Melissa Hart (GOP)
District 22-Tim Murphy (GOP)
District 23-Mike Doyle (D)
District 24-John Murtha (D)
District 25-Ron Klink (D)
District 26-Bill Shuster (GOP)

I think we need to bring back Kentucky's 7th district in the far eastern part of the state that the Republicans abolished after the 1990 census. I think that was the one district in Kentucky that had decent representation nonstop since the New Deal, so naturally they abolished it.

Edit: Actually the district around Bowling Green had a good congressman for years, but not anymore.

Oh great.  Then there would be long arguments about PA 7.

Hmmm, wonder why they got rid of it?  Maybe because Kentucky only gets 6 congressman.

Then they should have abolished the 4th district, which hasn't had a decent congresscritter since the '60s.

Who would represent Maine, and why the horrific gerrymander of 4 and 5? 1,2 and 3 are somewhat acceptable. Pennsylvania looks good, and not gerrymandered.

Sounds good to me!  :)

Actually, maybe not.

Borski would be representing PA 1 (I just noticed) and since I live a view blocks away from him, I'd probably be in that district and focus on that race.

TN, with districts comprising approximately 400,000 people, horribly calculated:

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Dist 1: Bill Jenkins (R)
Dist 2: Jimmy Duncan (R)
Dist 3: Tim Burchett (R)
Dist 4: Lincoln Davis (D)
Dist 5: Zach Wamp (R)
Dist 6: Van Hilleary (R)
Dist. 7: Bill Ketron (R)
Dist. 8: Marsha Blackburn (R)
Dist. 9: Rob Briley (D)
Dist. 10: Dianne Black (R)
Dist: 11: John Tanner (D)
Dist. 12: Bob Schutt (R)
Dist. 13: Mark Norris (R)
Dist. 14: Harold Ford Jr. (D)

PA - 11 Dominic Defrancisco or Lowman Henry (both - R).

"Interesting" that despite there being 5 (or is it 4?) more Congressmen, you've managed to to draw on less Democratic congressman than there is at the moment...

Muhahahaha!

The odd man out (other than Jim Cooper who I think would be replaced by Briley) would be Bart Gordon.  Bart represents an increasingly Republican district but continues to get elected with huge margins based on a strong sense of loyalty and just enough Democrats to keep him afloat. (Not to mention weak GOP candidates since Gill and Blackburn's close losses in the mid 90's) Split up Rutherford county and give Trousdale and other Dem counties to Lincoln Davis and Gordon is out of the picture.

District 10 would be competitive in a Kurita(D) vs. Black(R) matchup though.

I'd spotted that... your map is an excellent example of the fact that a map doesn't have to look ugly to be biased towards one side.
Very clever... almost a work of art actually. Congratulations ;-)

Can't see the maps :-(
Can you do them in .png or .gif ?

Neither can I

Also, will you post the # of reps per state

I don't think Jon Fox would have survived until 2004, he only got 44% in a state house race this year.

Yeah that was pathetic. He's done with politics.

Or has politics done with him? ;-)

Yeah...I guess that would be a better way of putting it.

The maps are updated.  The free image hosting site limits you to a certain amount of downloads.

For both maps I used counties.  Maine turned out almost perfect, as far as people in counties was concerned, though I think I used my wrong Maine map.  They should only have 3 reps, I think.   

htmldon's Tennessee is very good :)

Jake: how many districts for each state?

I'll post the list later today.  It is buried in my desk.

Yay! :-)


I know the feeling...

I was going to comment about ME, but I see you've caught that.

Did you use the official 2000 numbers? I get the following list for apportionment (469K/seat with 600 seats):

AL 10, AK 1, AZ 11, AR 6, CA 72, CO 9, CT 7, DE 2, FL 34, GA 17, HI 3, ID 3, IL 26, IN 13, IA 6, KS 6, KY 9, LA 10,  ME 3, MD 11, MA 14, MI 21, MN 11, MS 6, MO 12, MT 2, NE 4, NV 4, NH 3, NJ 18, NM 4, NY 40, NC 17, ND 1, OH 24, OK 7, OR 7, PA 26, RI 2, SC 9, SD 2, TN 12, TX 45, UT 5, VT 1, VA 15, WA 13, WV 4, WI 11, WY 1


A real change in the number of seats could in principle be placed into effect for 2010 to be used in the next apportionment.  Using the projection method I discussed with jimrtex recently, and 600 seats, the ideal district would become 519K in 2010.

The new apportionment for 2010 would look like:
AL 9, AK 1, AZ 13, AR 6, CA 75, CO 10, CT 7, DE 2, FL 38, GA 19, HI 3, ID 3, IL 25, IN 12, IA 6, KS 5, KY 8, LA 9,  ME 3, MD 11, MA 13, MI 20, MN 10, MS 6, MO 11, MT 2, NE 3, NV 6, NH 3, NJ 17, NM 4, NY 38, NC 18, ND 1, OH 22, OK 7, OR 7, PA 24, RI 2, SC 9, SD 2, TN 12, TX 48, UT 5, VT 1, VA 15, WA 13, WV 4, WI 11, WY 1

Thank you muon, I couldn't find my list.  I think that Maine was for my 1000 seat project.

How would this effect the electoral college?  Would DC be entitled to more EVs?

I think the consitution gives it as many EVs as the smallest state.  WY still has 3, so I don't think DC would get more.   Electoral College would be 703.

Bush: 361

Kerry: 342

Correct, I missed that some states still only ahd one Rep.

Specifically they can have no more than the smallest state, but they can have less.

Excellent...

how would MS look?

WV is easy: just bring back the pre-'92 map and add a few counties to WV-4 'cos of population loss.
I'll post a map in a minute (interestingly there's no way that Capito could have won under the old map)

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I moved Boone into WV-4... could have done more fiddling, but I suspect that the the above is the map that the legislature would draw.

As for Congressmen:

WV-1: Mollohan (D)
WV-2: Staggers (D)
WV-3: Humphreys (D)
WV-4: Rahall (D)