Talk Elections

Not sure where to put it, but seems like important changes in a number of states, especially in the Midwest. According to the web site of the National Conference of State Legislatures, the following chambers appear to switch from Republican to Democrat control:

Iowa House and Senate
Minnesota House
Michigan House
New Hampshire House and Senate
Oregon House
Wisconsin Senate
Indiana House

In addition, Pennsylvania House is still too close to call, but Dems seem to be ahead.  No chambers seem to have gone the other way, but Oklahoma Senate is now tied (was a small Dem lead). A number of Western states haven't reported yet, though.

In NY, though, the State Senate stays Republican. There might be one Dem pick-up (in a seat that went to a recount last time, and is very close this time as well), which would make it go from 35:27 to 34:28 Republican.

Got a good link?

NY will probably have to wait for the next redistricting. No severe gerrymandering of NYS senate = Democratic majority.

For Washington, if my math is right...it was a small massacre.  Also note when looking at the numbers that there are about five Washington house seats where the GOP barely leads, and that could change in later counts; most of the Democratic margins aren't so close.

The Republicans lost 1/4 of their seats in the Senate, and just under 1/5 in the House; the latter number may go up to around 1/4, though.

Senate
Democrats 31 (+6)
Republicans 18 (-6)

House*
Democrats 64 (+8)
Republicans 35 (-8)

* - The House only has 98 members, but the base numbers I'm using seem a little messed up.  It's something like this, though.

Blankenship's attempt to buy the WV Legislature failed miserably :)

As usual, http://www.ncsl.org/

BTW, even OK Senate is not quite a GOP pick-up: ties are broken by Lt. Gov, and he's a Dem.

Only Montana left to report now. PA house still too close to call.

The Democratic Whip lost his seat.

A lot of incumbents in both chambers are losing their seats due to the pay raise.

;D

My district  is 6 votes apart with 100% reporting.

In CT, it looks like we will get a situation similar to what used to be the norm in MA: a REP governor, but a DEM supermajority in the legislature. At the latest count, it is

House D 97, R 44, Undecided 10
Senate D 25, R 10, Undecided 1

Hartford Courant reports Dems expect their final total to be, at least, 103 seats, a net gain of 4, giving them the supermajority for the first time. In the Senate, where they had a bare supermajority before, they've already gained a seat and still might get another one.

In MA the results imply a one-party rule, now that the governorship is in Dem hands. You'd think Republicans couldn't do any worse, than the last time, but they did:

House D 141 (+4), R 18 (-3), vacant/undecided 1
Senate D 35 (+1), R 5 (-1).

I guess there is a vacancy open for the position of the second major party in MA. The Republicans are increasingly a minor party in the state. Greens? Libertarians? Anyone?

In Michigan, I know the Dems have taken the House 58-52, and the Senate is coming down to one seat (32nd district) in which the votes are still being counted. If the Dems can win that seat it would tie the chamber 19-19 and the tiebreaking vote of Lt. Gov. Cherry would give the Senate to the Dems.

Here's a NCSL summary

Alabama: Rep gains 2 in the Senate, 1 in the House. 23/12 Dems in the Senate, 62/43 Dems in the House

Alaska: Dems gain 1 in the Senate and at least 2 in the House. 11/9 Rep in the Senate, 23/16 Rep in the House with 1 undecided

Arkansas: No changes in the Senate, Dems gain at least 2 in the House. 27/8 Dem Senate, 74/23 Dem in the House with 3 undecided

Arizona: No changes in the Senate, Dems gain 7 in the House. 18/12 Rep Senate, 32/28 Rep House

California: No changes expected

Colorado: Dems gain at least one in the Senate and at least 3 in the House. 19/15 Senate (1 undecided), 38/26 House (1 undecided)

Connecticut: Dems gain at least 1 in the Senate, and the House is up in the air, change-wise. 25/10 Dem Senate, 97/44 Dem House. Dem gains expected in the House

Deleware: No changes in the Senate, Dems gain 3 in the House. 13/8 Dem Senate, 23/18 Rep House

Florida: No changes in the Senate, Dems gain 7 in the House. 26/14 Rep Senate, 78/42 Rep House

Georgia: No changes in the Senate, GOP likely to pick up seats in the House. 34/22 Rep Senate, 104/73 Rep House (3 uncided)

Hawaii: No changes in the Senate, Dems gain 2 in the House. 20/5 Dem Senate, 43/8 Dem House

Illinois: Dems gain at least 4 in the Senate and at least 1 in the House. 35/21 Dem Senate (3 undecided), 65/49 Dem House (3 undecided)

Indiana: Dems win 3 seats to take the Indiana House. 51/49 House. No changes in the 33/17 Senate.

Iowa: Dems win 5 seats in the House and 4 seats in the Senate. 29/21 Senate, 54/45 House (1 undecided, I think)

Kansas: Dems win 6 seats in the House, making it a 77/48 Rep House.

Kentucky: Dems gain 5 in the House, making it 61/38 Dem

Maine: Reps gain 1 in the Senate, Dems gain at least 6 in the House, 80/51 Dems is the results now with 20 districts either out, or represented by other parties

Maryland: Dems gain 2 in the Senate and 10 in the House. 34/13 Dem Senate, 108/33 Dem House

Massachusetts: Dems gain 1 in the Senate and 4 in the House. 141/18 Dem House, Dem 35/5 Senate

Michigan: Dems gain at least 1 in the Senate and they have a shot at a tie (from 22/16 Rep to 19/17/2 Rep). Dems gain 9 in the House while winning a majority.

Minnesota: Dems win 6 in the Senate (going from 38/29 to 44/23) and 20 in the House (from 67/66/1 to 86/48)

Missouri: Dems gain at least 5 in the House and at least 1 in the Senate. 91/71 Rep House (1 undecided), 21/12 Rep Senate (1 undecided)

Montana: Dems gain at least 9 in the Senate (from 27/23 to 36/22/1) and the House is too close to call (50/50 to 47/46/7)

Nevada: Dems gain 1 in both chambers. 11/10 Rep Senate, 27/15 Dem House

New Hampshire: Dems gain at least 84 in the House and 5 in the Senate for a 234/156 House and a 13/11 Senate

Seems like a trend.. doesn't it?

Indiana Democrats may yet add a House seat, giving them 52.  It will be interesting to watch, what with Mitch Daniels in the big chair.  I've never been able to figure Daniels. 

I voted against my State Senator, a Republican, for the first time.  I did so because I voted a straight ticket -- first time for that, ever!  I really do like the guy and am not disappointed that he won.  He's done some really good things to make the roads and highways safer. 

Map of state legislatures (counting Nebraska as tied due their special system. Ignore the shadings, I forgot to remove them :P)

Old map:
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New map:

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It was a sizeable massacre here for the Republicans... the house went frm 68/66 Republicans to 85/49 for the DFL.  The senate went from 38/29 Dems to 44/23 Dems.

My hometown defeated their Republican senator for an amazing DFL candidate who likely has a future lined up for her (Possibly governor?).

These are nearly veto-proof majorities. 

The Senate Majority Leader was defeated, however.  Dean Johnson was defeated because of tapes released that revealed him telling pastors not to worry that he had blocked a referendum on gay marriage, because it was already illegal in the state.

I'm almost glad he lost.  We'll get someone new in there that will be better.

Gerrymandering FTW - little change. I think (bloody slow SoS) it turned out dead even. The Reps took House Districts 54 (open) and (in an upset) 61 while the Dems took House Districts 37 (open) and (in even more of an upset) House District 53 (I am so going to have to see how that happened :P ) and defended their open seats in Valencia County (Districts 7 and 8 ) which I suspect they would have lost in an election not so overwhelmingly anti-Republican ;) so it was a wash.

If I ever finish my precinct project I'll provide 2004 Presidential Numbers and all that. :P

Rick Jore won a seat in the Montana House of Representatives on the Constitution Party ticket. A first for them. He defeated an incumbent Democrat.

Looks like this in the Texas House and Senate:  Overall, a decent night for the Dems.

* - means open seat

Senate:
R20 D11 (R+1, gained TXS-18*)

House:
R82, D68 (D+3, gained TXH-47*, TXH-107, TX-134)

A few notes:
TX-47 is SW Travis County and was expected to go Dem
The Texas Dems had already gained TXH-48 earlier due to resignation.
TXH-107 is an inner (very inner) Dallas suburb within the city, a seat which is most likely moving left at all phases of politics.
TXH-134 is an inner Houston ritzy area seat that is probably moving Dem like TXH-107.

The closest holds were these:
TXH-11:  A rural Democratic East Texas seat that was barely held onto again.  The House member got 51%
TXH-17:  Rural area in-between Austin and Houston (a lot of TX-10 is here).  Incumbent Dem barely survived by 1% of the vote probably because of Bastrop County.
TXH-33:  Solomon Ortiz Jr. (D) won 52-48 to take this open House seat formerly held by Vilma Luna (D).  Probably looking to go the way of his father.  Nueces County (Corpus Christi) mostly.
TXH-35:  Another West Texas rural Hispanic Dem Rep. survives with 52%.
TXH-52:  Mike Krusee (R) got 50% and survived a challenge in this Williamson County (Austin suburb) race.
TXH-96:  Bill Zedler (R) won with about 52% in the Fort Worth exurban HD.
TXH-102:  Another inner-city Dallas GOP member who survived (instead of losing), Tony Goolsby.  His HD is still mostly within Dallas city limits but is much more suburban than TX-107.
TX-106:  Mainly Grand Prairie (Dallas suburb) HD that Kirk Englund (R) held onto by about 1% margin.
TX-118:  Carlos Uresti's (D) old House HD (San Antonio outskirts, with some South Side precincts) that the Democrat held onto with 48%.  Libertarian got 7%


And finally in a shocker that Al will like, in TXH-85, Democrat Joe Heflin held onto Pete Laney's old House seat out in far west Texas by a margin.  Heflin is a trial lawyer and more liberal than Laney and will probably have trouble holding onto this seat in the future, but it was a most interesting win.

Ah... I'd be wondering how that one had gone. Interesting.

In IL the Dem's definitely picked up 4 Senate seats. That becomes interesting since with 36 votes (vs. 23 R) the Dems have a veto-proof majority there. Though the Gov is also a D, there has been some disagreement between the Dems in the legislature and Gov over the last four years. This may add an interesting twist.

There appears to be a gain of 1 House seat for the House Dems putting them at 66 - 52. There are two races where the margin is less than 200 votes and each party currently leads in one. These may take a couple weeks to sort out while counting absentee and provisional ballots.

edit: a close senate race has now gone for the Dems. That means the pickup in 5 and there will be a 37-22 advantage. It's the smallest GOP caucus in memory.

Muon, am I to assume you won your race? :)

An interesting observation. Republicans are still controlling the governoships in 3 New England States (VT, RI, CT), but in 5 out of the 6 legislative chambers in those states Democrats now have veto-proof majorities! The sole exception  is the VT House, but even there Republicans are now reduced to under a third, with independets now making up the balance. Thus, Republicans on their own are unable to block an override of a veto in any New England State they still govern!

We have:

VT
House D 93 (+10), R 49 (-11), Independent/Other 8 (+1)
Senate D 23 (+2), R 7 (-2)

CT
House D 106 (+7),  R 45 (-7)
Senate D 24 (no change), R 12 (no change)

RI
House D 61 (+1), R 14 (-1)
Senate 33 (no change) R 5 (no change)

Yep, I got just over 60%. :) I'm still sorting through the precinct data. I'll post a map when I've got it all.

Oddity in state legislative elections this year: 

It looks like the only legislative chamber in the country to flip from Dem to GOP will be the Montana House, where it was tied at 50-50 before and will now be 50R-49D-1C, as the first Constitution party member ever won a state House seat.

Also interesting is that the state Senate there appears to have moved from 27D-23R to 25D-25D.

Exactly. When will people realize that the "Montana Miracle" was really the "Martz Miracle." Gov. Judy Martz essentially gave the Governorship, the State House and the State Senate to the Democrats.

I believe the seat the Constitution Party won was only won by the Democrats last time because of vote-splitting between the Republican and Constitutionalist, so it's not that surprising that they lost it this year. Still, it will be interesting to see if Montanans prefer a GOP Senate and House even though Schweitzer and the Democrats did an amazing job there.

To an extent, it has to be kept in mind that Schweitzer probably carried the Democratic party in Montana with him in 2004. Without him on the ballot I'd imagine things to be harder for the Dem party there.

Congratulations on your victory! Hopefully you can work constructively with the party leadership on both sides and Gov. Blagojevich to get things done.

Exactly... The Democrat beat the Constitution party candidate last time with only about 1/3 of the vote and by some 6 votes (after the Courts stepped in to demand that all ballots be counted).  So, the incumbant Dem's loss there is hardly unexpected.

I am, however, a little disappointed that Dems lost two seats in the senate.   The Burns-Tester race, however, probably drove lots of hardcore GOPers to the polls and with such a close win Tester didn't really have any coattails. 

I imagine Dems will make up some ground with the inevitable Schweitzer landslide in '08.

By the way, Dems lost one state senate race in California.

Democratic candidate Lou Correa lost the heavily Latino central Orange County (Santa Ana/Anaheim) seat of retiring state senator Joe Dunn to moderate Republican state assemblywoman Lynn Dauscher by just over 500 votes out of more than 80,000 cast.  Note that this district overlaps with Congresswoman Sanchez' district where her opponent sent out a nasty mailer to try to supress the Latino vote.  Dauscher had been opposed by some hardline conservative bloggers as too moderate and Correa won a nasty primary over Dem assemblyman Tom Umberg who was tainted by an admission of marital infidelity.

The incumbents won all other contests, though a few were close:

-Assemblywoman Nicole Parra barely won reelection in her heavily Latino Southern Central Valley district.  She won by less than 1500 votes out of 50000 cast.  She is term-limited so the seat will be open in '08.  However, that might actually bring an improvement for Dems because Parra is somewhat of a divisive figure.  The GOP candidate for this district this year, however, did not get much support and if the GOP actually had a good candidate here, they might be able to pull it off.


--Cathleen Gagliani easily held AD 17, a Stockton/Merced County swing district over GOPer Gerard Machado.  Since she won so handily in an open seat, I expect she'll hold the seat for 3 terms.

-Assemblywoman Bonnie Garcia held on to her heavily Democratic Eastern Riverside County/Imperial county 80th district.  She faced underfunded Democrat Steve Clute.  She will be forced to retire because of term limits and Democrats should pick up the seat.

Map of the WV House elections:

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Not that a lot of districts elect more than one member and that some districts have members from both parties (usually a single Republican and several Democrats).

WV State Senate now:

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Half the seats were up this year, the other half next year.

Interestingly enough, the Democratic State Senator who's re-election campaign was nearly ended by the airing of some photos of him and some other men only wearing bodypaint was re-elected in the 11th.

Kentucky House:

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Michigan House:

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Georgia now:

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Some of the defectors seem to have run unopposed.

So, yeah, an update from California.

Orange County Democrat seems to have pulled ahead of Republican Lynn Dauscher in the 34th state senate district in Orange County now that outstanding provisional ballots have been counted.  He now leads by 282 votes.

If Lou Correa retains his margin, Democrats will have not lost any seats in the legislature this year.  Moreover, not a single seat will have changed party control in the state legislature since the incumbent-protecting redistricting was passed in 2002.

Texas House

Texas is Big  (http://home.pipeline.com/~jimrtex/_uimages/txhouse.png)

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TX-85 almost looks sort of like a swastika.

Still counting.  Where are you all getting such excellent legislative outline maps?  GIS?

As you may know, the district was Pete Laney's.  In 2001, the legislature failed to redistrict, and under the Texas Constitution, legislative redistricting  is then done by the Legislative Redistricting Board (LRB), comprised of the Lt.Governor (Bill Ratliff), the House Speaker (Laney), Attorney General (now Sen. Cornyn), Comptroller (Rylander/Strayhorn), Land Commissioner (now Lt. Governor Dewhurst).

This was a 4-1 GOP majority, with Cornyn acting as chairman and Laney on the sidelines.

Under the Texas Constitution (as interpreted by court cases), counties with a population smaller than one representative may not be split.  In West Texas, there are a number of counties with population in the 80-94% range (Potter & Randall - Amarillo; Wichita - Wichita Falls; Taylor - Abilene; Tom Green - San Angelo; Midland - Midland; Ector - Odessa) which must be combined with a number small counties attached to these larger cores.  Lubbock County has a population slightly less than 2 districts, so it must have one whole district, and the remnant treated liked the other mid-sized counties (Texas House districts average about 139,000 in population).  After you use up the population for the 9 districts with a mid-sized core, then there is population enough for 4 rural districts, which are the districts in the eastern Panhandle; along the Red River wrapping around Wichita Falls; in the Hill Country; and Laney's.

As the LRB was considering the GOP proposal, an amendment was offered that would extend TX-85 further south.  Laney said something like, "this is getting a bit personal"; to which Cornyn responded, "Touché".

This may have led Laney to queer the congressional districts drawn by a Texas district court.  Since the legislature also failed to redistrict the congressional districts, this ended up in both state and federal courts.  The state court produced a most reasonable map based on ideas by Lt.Governor Ratliff.   The state district judge, then said I'm going to make a few minor changes at the request of Speaker Laney (he was a Democrat judge - because the Democrats had filed in his district, sooner than the Republicans had filed elsewhere).  The Texas Supreme Court threw out the revised state district court plan.  Since there was no valid state plan, the federal district court then started with the last legal plan the 1991/1996 Frostrocity and drew their map, which was replaced in 2003 by the Legislature.

Texas Redistricting Site - Legislative Council  (http://www.tlc.state.tx.us/redist/redist.htm)
At the lower right corner is a link to their FTP site which has ESRI "shp" files for the various districts.

I use a program called Global Mapper which in free mode can do projections (shp files are typically in latitude-longitude decimal degrees) and has various options for rendering boundaries, and you can scale maps.  So it is sufficient for creating base maps.  I use a program called PixWizard to do a screen capture create .bmp files.  In this case, I did one capture for the state, and then set Global Mapper to a larger scale and panned to the various areas to create the maps for the largest counties.  I also did a screen capture to get the color scale.   I used Microsoft Paint to color the maps and merge the detailed maps, and PixWizard to convert to a .png format (which is much smaller).

Incidentally, the Census Bureau has lots of .shp files for all the census geography (except blocks).  They have legislative districts(at least some states), but they are as they existed in April 2000 at the time of the Census, before redistricting.

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Most of those rural legislators are quite conservative Democrats, but if you want that, go right on ahead.  :)

Do they have Tory Democrats anywhere but Texas?

PA House

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102-101  GOP   :)   I can proudly say that I played a good part in why one vulnerable Montco seat stayed GOP.

My old State Rep...matt wright lost in the 142nd, thats the bright red...now middletown is entirely represented by dems. Sigh.

I live in one of the few unfortunate middletown wards in the 141st...tony melio land.

Where are you guys getting the blank maps for these?

I'd do Minnesota if Iknew where to get any.

Your state legislature has an excellent GIS resources page, with one thing missing... GIS files :)

http://www.gis.leg.mn/

http://www.commissions.leg.state.mn.us/gis/html/download.htm

Well aren't you just Mr. Link finder, Alcoun :P

That is my Hebrew name.

The 2007/2008 New Hampshire General Court, by the numbers

240: The Number of Democrats in the General Court for the 2007/2008 session

149: The Number of Democrats in the General Court for the 2005/2006 session

71/52: The Democrat/Republican split in Hillsborough in 07/08 session

45/77: The Democrat/Republican split in Hillsborough in 05/06 session

2123: The Number of votes recieved by Shirl Garhart (D) and Steve Spratt (D) for 4th place in Hillsborough-3. Hillsborough-3 only has 4 seats.

8: The Number of Recounts scheduled for today though next Tuesday.

36/1: The Democrat/Republican split in Strafford for 07/08.

4: The number of counties which had Democratic majority delegations in 05/06

7: The number of counties with Democratic majority delegations in 07/08

5: The number of married couples elected to the General Court. Those couples are The Katsakiores (R-Rockingham-5), The Rollos (D-Stafford-2), The Merricks (R-Coos-2), The Obers (R-Hillsborough-27), and the Knowles (D-Hillsbourgh-27)

I was thinking about what would happen if these rules were applied to Texas federal districts...

There would be two districts entirely in Bexar County, and not much outside them.

No change is needed in El Paso, obviously.

Lloyd Doggett's Austin district would look much as it did in 2002-4. The remainder could be combined with Bastrop, Hays, and Hill Country areas, perhaps even including the small Bexar remnant.

South Texas gets weird. Cameron and Hidalgo have to go into separate districts, and Solomon Ortiz' Cameron-Nueces district is also impossible.
Hidalgo could be rounded off with Starr, Brooks, Jim Hogg and Zapata, with another district linking Cameron and Webb. Nueces would be combined with territory to the northwest and northeast, with its district bordering the Fort Bend and outer Austin districts.
(The Trans-Pecos + Eagle Pass/Del Rio areas of the 23rd will have to be combined with parts of the Permian Basin in that case...)

In the Dallas area, there'd be three districts entirely in Dallas, two districts entirely in Tarrant, one essentially Collin Co district (perhaps Collin/Grayson/Rockwall), one essentially Denton Co district (perhaps Denton/Cooke/Wise/Parker/Hood). The Dallas and Tarrant remnants could be combined with each other, Johnson, and Ellis.

Around Houston, there'd be 5 entirely Harris Co districts. A Galveston/Brazoria/remainder of Harris district is a possibility. Montgomery and Fort Bend (and Jefferson, too) would each dominate a fairly large district.

There are maps for MN, but they are PDFs and not color coated and pretty like the ones posted here.

It is pretty interesting how the state legislature split.. I see a split on old ethnic lines.  If you ignore the metro area (which is hard to do with so much of the state living there, but just bear with me).. you can see that the farmer and labor DFL strongholds still going.

The Scandinavian farming areas of northwestern, west-central, and southwestern MN stretching down the MInnesota River Valley to about Mankato, and then again in far south-eastern MN have all gone for the DFL.. the same goes for the eastern European labor areas of the iron range/Duluth areas.

The central MN and south central traditionally German areas have gone Republican.  It should also be known that Germans didn't have a very active position in Minnesota politics (at least in comparison with the Norwegians) until 1978... that year was also known as the "minnesota Massacre" when Democrats suffered major losses in the state.

The metro area, where people tend to forget their ethnic heritage, is a more typical picture of the U.S with the inner-city and inner-ring suburbs going DFL, with a slight DFL hold in the St. Paul suburbs while the Minneapolis exurbs go strongly GOP.

Right, what I want are ones I can easily make results maps out of.


Something that no doubt is infuriating the GOP, they thought they would make permanent gains there-didn't happen.

This also should hopefully stick a fork in their dream of one day turning the Iron Range Republican, not that they were all that succesful, but they liked to pretend they were.


Actually most of the areas just outside of here (Mankato) and to the immediate west tend to be German and Republican, though some of those leg districts did go DFL suprisingly.


But their hold is weakening. See Austin and Rochester.

I find it rather telling that Gutknecht lost Olmsted County. This is his home county and political base, and one area he should've overperformed. The GOP's collapse in Rochester continues...

ATTN: Snowguy and BRTD:

Base map for MN, derived from GIS files

http://stuff.donjohnson.org/mn-housemap.gif

http://stuff.donjohnson.org/mn-senatemap.gif

What is awesome about the MN GIS files is that they include precinct-level election results for statewide elections (prez, sen, sos, etc) going all the way back to 1992!!!

I've posted a presidential map by precinct:
https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=49625.0

That map is cool except for the fact it's mostly just a giant mess of black, now if each county had an individual map that'd be very cool.

I should hopefully get state leg maps done tommorow. I have to use school comps though, it's virtually impossible to do so on mine.

Here's the State Senate:

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That D > 80 in the northwest corner and the only R > 80 should both be > 90, both incumbents were running unopposed.

I think I'll do State House tonight.

Where is Bachmann's old seat?

The large blue one to the northeast of the metro below the light red one.

GOP only retained it by 5 points suprisingly. But it's not that conservative actually. People weren't aware of how nuts Bachmann was when she was first elected. In fact, she did worse there than she did district-wide, Klobuchar won it, and Bachmann could've lost reelection had she ran again.

Independence    JOHN PAUL BINKOWSKI    3014   8.11   
Republican    MICHELE BACHMANN    17806   47.90   
Democratic-Farmer-Labor    PATTY WETTERLING    16321   43.91   

Word is that in the final race to be decided in the PA House, the Republican is up just nine votes, but this is not official (the local Dems are claiming the margin in just nine). Final official count could come tomorrow.

State House:

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As you can see by both maps, the GOP has really lost it in rural areas.

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About half the races are from 2004. All >90s are unopposed, though one in Seattle was 89.6-10.4 Dem... so close!

Repulsives lost big in suburban Seattle.

There was a story in the Seattle Times today about the losses of the Republicans in suburban areas of Seattle. My district was one of the few to keep their delegation split (we have two representatives and one senator per district; in mine, the 41st, my senator is a Dem, and I have one Republican rep, and one Dem rep).

:(  :(  :(


The PA GOP has lost control of the state House by one seat, giving the Dems a 102-101 makeup of the body. There are rumors about some members switching parties to give the GOP the majority but it is not going to matter (I think you can determine for yourself what that means).

This is a GOOD thing. Rep. Clymer can no longer block changes in ballot access legislation! Hooray!

And now some Dem chairman will just continue blocking it.

Not likely. They actually believe the LP and CP will undercut Reps more than the Greens will undercut Dems. A shame nobody really considers FAIRNESS!

Damn, my map's out of date already.

Was it the open Chester seat?

Yes, it was Elinor Taylor's seat. That seat was also completely written off by the PA GOP.



I bet they still block it but we'll see.

Yep, Chester. Good blog here:

http://chescocount.blogspot.com/

The best one for what goes on in Harrisburg - http://www.harrisburgbuzz.blogspot.com/ (http://www.harrisburgbuzz.blogspot.com/)

GOP officials say they are far from conceding the Chester county race. Leaders are said to be going over several options. They're making the point for a full recount since this is the first time Chester county has used the new voting machines but I just think that this is putting off the inevitable - we lost it, guys. Let's start working on 2008 now.

This is extremely good news. :) :) :)

Just as Dems have been celebrating in PA House, it seems Reps have smthg to celebrate in MT House. The recount of the tied race there has given it to the Reps by 3 votes. Hence, it is 50R, 49D and 1C, and if the C organizes w/ R they have the control.

Do you really care who controls the PA House?

Not at all. He is clearly doing it to an asshole/his usual self.

I can see some benefits to a dem lower house...perhaps we'll get table games legalized in PA.

No more driving to Jersey!

Booooo   :P

check out the Senate race by leg districts. Ouch...

this is the Senate:

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I'll do the House later. Next I'll do the Governor's race by Senate district.

Governor's race by State Senate district:

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Yes I do, just as I care which party controls every state legislative chamber in every state in this country.

Stop crying about Santorum Phil. Someone is going to have to take away your shoelaces soon if you can't grow up and start acting like an adult.

Oh, little Deano. You amuse me so much.  :) Have a good night, pal!  :)

Too bad you're probably half my age, little girl.

Alhough, to read your idiotic posts, I find it hard to believe you are even that old. Maybe I'm going to have to start writing to the PA School Board. If you're what the public shools are churning out these days, the future of this country is bleak indeed.

Phil went to a Catholic school. More evidence of why private schools are evil abominations. PA public schools are just fine.

I didn't go to Philadelphia public schools, pal. I am far too smart for that/Catholic. Keep up the positive posting. You are honestly one of my favorite members now!  :)  :)  :)

Coming from...someone who knows...?


Ouch.

You've got to be kidding me.

Hack went to private schools and he is this stupid and foolish?

Pretty typical for private schools.

Well, they were Catholic schools and I currently attend a final state school, my friend.  :)

LOL!!

Wow, if you are the product of private PA School, it makes me shudder to think just how dumb the ones are who come out of the public schools.

Although I think BRTD is probably right. I bet the public shools are just fine. After all, it's hard to imagine anyone being any more clueless than you are.

Awwwwww. You shouldn't have. I must say, you are pretty damn smart, Deano. Maybe I'll catch up one day.  ;)

I went to Catholic shools for 12 years myself.

Obviously, Hack here is evidence that it's much more about how the individual student applies him/her self (or in his case, how much you don't) that matters, not that qaulity of the school.

Damn. The whole time my school was kidding me with my first and second honor awards?  :(  Maybe you can tutor me, Deano? Please?  :)   :)

I actually was a tutor, for four years.

But I only tutored inner-city public school 2nd and 3rd graders who were behind their reading level, not private school high schoolers were mentally retarded hacks.

Sorry, Phil.

Keep embarrassing yourself, though - this is fun! :) :)

Good. I am glad you gave back to the community. :D


Oh...  :(  Well, maybe you can reconsider it just this once?  :)


Sure thing, pal!

Do you live in Cleveland or Columbus?

I'm currently in Toledo, moved back a little bit ago. I lived in Columbus before then.

Ignoring the previous several posts... ::) here is some information dealing with actual State Legislative Elections. :P All data publlicly available somewhere or another, but not assembled of course.

NM Statewide House Districts. All those intense colors are unopposed incumbents. Count 'em up and get depressed at the lack of competition. The four districts with hatches on them were gains from the other party, but as there were two each the overall balance remains.
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Inset: Albuquerque Area
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Inset: Las Cruces Area
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Inset: Santa Fe Area
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What? And miss all the fun? No way, Jose!

:P Fortunately for me no matter how you look at it candidates I supported won somewhere or another. ;D

You've got to be kidding me.

You're supersmart and you're using stupid and foolish as different words?

You know, megalomania IS curable. Or can at least be treated. You should check it out.

so it looks like there was a lot of state legislative election action down South.  I'm guessing Democrats lost the two seats because of the retirement/death of dixiecrat dinosaurs.  Why did the GOPers got knocked off in the Las Cruces area?

Here's the Senate race by State House district. More to show just how pathetic Kennedy really was:

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Do you have friends?

yes. what's that have to do with this?

I already did the Senate and Governor's races by State Senate districts, so now I got around to this one. I should do the Governor's race by State House districts by the end of the weekend.

You are just a very sad boy who keeps picking on/seems to be obsessed Mark Kennedy.

We all know that if Santorum ever won with results like the ones I'm posting we'd never hear the end of you gloating about how he's the greatest person ever and all that.

Anyway, this is the first time I've bashed Kennedy in quite awhile. Just an appropiate time to point it out with the map finally completed.

No, you don't know anything. A win would have been enough. I said that for awhile. Plus, I'd be more justified in gloating since it would be a huge upset and I got all kinds of sh**t from people like you. We all knew Kennedy would lose for months and the rubbing in when it was evident is really lame.


What would that be...an hour or two?

Here's the Governor's race by state house:

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Yeah, oddly enough the South was the most interesting part of the night.

Your Democratic dixiecrat retirement guess is correct for one seat - NM-54, where Joe Stell retired from the Carlsbad-Artesia-rural seat and a Rep picked it up. Likely to stay Rep.
NM-61, a razor-thin flip, was a bit of a surprise, as Dem Donald Whitaker, easily the most conservative Democrat in the state House, fell in a conservative Hobbs-Lovington-Eunice-Jal seat he had held for some time. I suppose the district caught up with him, or maybe there was a local issue this time (there certainly wasn't a movement toward Reps in general :P ). Likely to stay Rep if Whitaker doesn't run again.
NM-37 has been getting closer as Dona Ana's population has grown and the flip to the Dems from retiring Rep William "Ed" Boykin in this Las Cruces district was probably the result of the wave, which seems to have been stronger in Dona Ana this year. Probably going to be close for a while yet, but the Dem should hold it.
NM-53, the fall of Rep Terry Marquardt from his Las Cruces-to-Alamogordo district, is a complete surprise to me. I need to find out what happened down there. :)

Hey, matching open-seat flips and matching incumbent-defeats...

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Here's the MS House of Represenatives.

It's pretty ridiculously gerrymandered :(


Take a look at Oktibbeha County, where 23, 35, 37, and 38 and wind in a spiral...if that's not an intentional attempt to block out the student vote of MSU, I don't know what is..

Wow. MS 34, 84 and 97 are my favorites, Harry.

I suspect it it is build up the population count of the districts.  If you made a Starkville-based district, you would have to eliminate one of the other 4 districts which I'm guessing are two black and two white.

They ought to do like New Zealand does.  NZ electorates are based on population.  The NZ census records as well as the NZ voter registry records whether a person or voter is Maori or not.  In addition, a Maori voter may choose to be on the general roll or the Maori roll. 

When electorates are drawn, the population for an area is attributed to Maori seats based on the proportion of the Maori voters who requested to be on the Maori roll.

For example, let's say that an area had 1600 non-Maoris, and 400 Maoris, and 250 Maori voters, with 100 (40%) registering on the Maori roll.  Then 1600 + 400 x 0.60 = 1840 of the population is attributed to the general electoral population, and 400 x 0.40 or 160 of the population is attributed to the Maori electoral population.

The number of South Island general electorates is set at 16, and the quota is determined by dividing the South Island general electorate by 16.  The number of North Island general electorates and Maori electorates is then calculated from this quota.

The general electorates and Maori electorates both cover the entire country and are independent of each other.    One of the Maori electorates (7 total) covers all of South Island and Wellington on North Island.

So in Mississippi, voters could register on the White roll, Black roll, or the general roll.  Depending on how many signed up for each would determine the associated electoral population for each type of district.  The districts could be drawn without consideration of race.  In an area with small concentrations of blacks (in towns for example) you could simply draw a Black district covering the entire area, instead of a districting snaking between the areas to link them.

What, you're not going to color-code this for us? :(

we don't have statewide elections till 2007...maybe I'll do it then for yall

Well hopefully MS has the districts in a file or image or something so he would only have to color them...

Hop to it. :P

Looks like the Dems will come a step closer to taking over the NY State Senate without waiting for the next election. Spitzer has just managed to appoint a Republican state senator from Nassau county to deal w/ homeland security issues in his administration, and the NYTimes says the Dems now have higher registration in the senate district (unsurprizing in Nassau these days), so that without the incumbent they should be favored to take the seat. The Republican 34:28 majority is thus reduced to 33:28 and, quite likely, it will be 33:29 after the special election. Slow attrition, but this may very well make all the difference in 2008. 

At this point, NY State Senate is the "northeasternmost" Republican-controlled legislative chamber (and one of only three anywhere in the Northeast, alongside the DE House and PA Senate), and the last major stronghold of state-level Republicans in NY.

This Tuesday - PA House showdown - Our Speaker's race will be decided on swearing in day and I'll be up there to witness the events. Control might also flip (102-101 Dem) with a few party switches quite possible. Let's hope for an interesting day. I'll keep everyone posted.

The GOP has a good candidate in Nassau County Clerk Maureen O'Connell so they may keep the seat.  Dems, it looks like, may go with Nassau legislator Craig Johnson.

Zell Miller Part Deux:

http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/16352325.htm

It's amazing how many assholes we have in our party that will turncoat like Tom Caltagrione.  John Perzel will still be Speaker. :(

You won't do Lott/Fleming by state house district?

I wouldn't be so sure that Perzel will pull through. If anything, I have the feeling that he will lose. Some Republicans are refusing to vote for him so Caltagrione's vote might not even matter.

I hope tomorrow is fun. I'm going to love being in Harrisburg during the drama. I'll keep everyone posted.  :)

I heard some conservative Republicans maybe Perzel's problem there.  Ouch what happened to Tom Stish, but still he's an asshole too.

In the end it's even more interesting than was expected. Perzel got not one, but three Dems to vote for him, but he won't be the Speaker. Dems nominated a Republican member, Dennis O'Brian (R, Philadelphia) nominated (in fact, DeWeese nominated him), and O'Brian got 7 Republican votes (including his own), to make it 105 votes for O'Brian against 97 for Perzel. Quite some fun!

I finished up one of the most exciting days in my political life just a few hours ago. I'd love to go into every detail but it is impossible. As many know, Denny O'Brien is my State Representative (I have mentioned him a number of times on the forum) and currently my favorite elected official. We weren't expecting what we got today but when we got it, it was amazing. The man truly deserves the job and will make an excellent Speaker.

I know there is talk about which party he will be a member of but that doesn't mean everything to me. I know that is harder for other Pennsylvania Republicans to accept but as someone who has been one of the most active volunteers, this is more personal for me. Regardless of what party, he's going to make us proud. I wish I could go into why O'Brien might switch but it is not my place to do so. I might not agree with the party switching but let's just say that it is not totally irrational considering what he has been through.

Hats off to the Dems for their amazing skills in nominating O'Brien. They knew they didn't have the votes for DeWeese but they outmanuevered Perzel by going with Denny. I am not a DeWeese fan but I greatly admire what he did today.

Again, I wish I could go into further detail about the excitement of the day and other things but you wouldn't understand.

That thing in the PA House is amazing.  I am at a loss for words myself, and I wasn't even there.  So who gets the majority in the committees and the committee chairmanships?

Oh, do tell.  I'm interested, but you're right, I don't understand this maneuvering or the setting or the actors involved.  Perhaps you could help us out?

It's great that you got to observe this in person.

As Speaker O'Brien said, the Dems have the majority so they have the committees. However, there is a proposal in a set of the rules (to be voted on by the members) that was proposed by the Dem who left to support Perzel which stated that half of the committees would be controlled by the GOP and half by the Dems with each committee having equal amount of members from both sides serving. It is unlikely to pass and I am happy about that.



It's far too much to tell and some things I cannot say out of respect for privacy.