IA: Voter/Consumer Research for American Future Fund (R): Democrats lead

[Tender Branson]

IA-01:

50% - Bruce Braley (D)
39% - Ben Lange (R)

IA-02:

47% - Dave Loebsack (D)
39% - Mariannette Miller Meeks (R)

IA-03:

48% - Leonard Boswell (D)
39% - Brad Zaun (R)

...

The poll was conducted by Voter/Consumer Research August 31 through September 3, 2010 in Iowa’s First, Second, and Third Congressional Districts.  300 Iowans were polled per district and the results show low re-election numbers for incumbent Democratic Congressmen.

http://americanfuturefund.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/aff-poll-0910.pdf

[Torie]

The IA-3 numbers (a district in real play, and with not much of a Dem lean), leapt out at me, when I saw them this morning. Either Iowa is very different, or this poll is just wrong, to the extent it contradicts others.

[Eraserhead]

Really? I would have figured Iowa to be a bloodbath what with Culver and everything. Hmm.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

Surprisingly good numbers for Boswell, considering all the other Republican polls have had him losing.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Digging deeper in the poll, numbers remain good for Democrats: they win the generic R v. D in each district (though only by 1 to 2 points each), and further, Democrats lead among those "certain" to vote (by between 5 and 6 each race, generally).

The only caveat here is that the poll surveyed only 300 per district. Big MOE.

[Brittain33]

The IA-3 numbers (a district in real play, and with not much of a Dem lean), leapt out at me, when I saw them this morning. Either Iowa is very different, or this poll is just wrong, to the extent it contradicts others.

You missed the third option.

http://www.whotv.com/news/who-story-brad-zaun-scandal-081910,0,7211285.story

[Torie]

The IA-3 numbers (a district in real play, and with not much of a Dem lean), leapt out at me, when I saw them this morning. Either Iowa is very different, or this poll is just wrong, to the extent it contradicts others.

You missed the third option.

http://www.whotv.com/news/who-story-brad-zaun-scandal-081910,0,7211285.story

So it would appear.

[Brittain33]

Should Boswell survive, 2012 will be an interesting year in Iowa with the three-way game of musical chairs in the western 2/3 of the state.

[Mr.Phips]

I wonder if the harassment charges against Zaun are what changed the margin in that district.  Shades of VA-02 in 2006. 

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Should Boswell survive, 2012 will be an interesting year in Iowa with the three-way game of musical chairs in the western 2/3 of the state.

Latham is at a real disadvantage geographically. Most likely he goes down. Of course if he ends up facing King crossover Democrats might back him just to get rid of King.

Boswell might also just retire (he's old and not in great health), but I don't see Des Moines accepting either King or Latham as their rep.

Here's an Iowa map I drew:



Puts King and Latham in the same seat. Of course the red district is probably too Democratic to elect King, so if he won the primary we could end up with an all Dem delegation.

[minionofmidas]

Then again, the purple district is hardly a done deal for Democrats, is it?

[Torie]

Then again, the purple district is hardly a done deal for Democrats, is it?

It looks like a GOP lean district to me.  I bet it has a GOP PVI.

Addendum: Its PVI is GOP +1.05%

The green district is Dem +8.75%.  However, if you bounce out Johnson County, it drops to Dem +3.17%. 

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

R+1 isn't exactly insurmountable, that's what my old home in MN-01 is. Boswell's current seat is just D+1.

[minionofmidas]

R+1 isn't exactly insurmountable.

I don't think anybody claimed that.

[Torie]

R+1 isn't exactly insurmountable, that's what my old home in MN-01 is. Boswell's current seat is just D+1.

Sure, and with a few exceptions, moving some counties around at the edges does not make much difference in Iowa. And west (more cattle, less corn) and east (more corn, less cattle) Iowa have been separating from each other politically. Latham's district as it is, has an even PVI. So, basically, this map gets rid of one marginal district. Latham just has to move, or retire. Boswell would pick up a lot of new territory in the west (including Dallas County, where the Des Moines bourgeoisie live by and large), in which he probably would not do well, and Polk has been trending GOP for some reason. Polk's swing to Obama from Kerry was about 5%, or half the national average. Polk has been trending GOP for quite awhile, which is the main factor that has put Iowa more in play than it used to be.

I guess the point is that the purple district has more of a GOP trend future, than either of the marginal districts that it is replacing, it seems to me.

[Meeker]

Interesting.

[Torie]

This map takes a different approach, and creates two urban based districts (one heavily Dem and one marginal), and two rural based districts (one GOP and one that leans pretty decidedly Dem).  IT makes more sense from a community of interest standpoint, I think.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Splitting counties isn't allowed in Iowa. And even with that rule not that much population deviancy. I'm not sure if that map would pass Iowa's rules on district compactness and whatnot too.

[Torie]

Splitting counties isn't allowed in Iowa. And even with that rule not that much population deviancy. I'm not sure if that map would pass Iowa's rules on district compactness and whatnot too.

Counties have to be split to equalize population (so at least 3 counties will have to be split (I didn't bother doing a split for the green Davenport, Cedar Rapids, Iowa City, Clinton, Muscatine and Dubuque district since the non split number was close enough for the moment)). Yes the numbers are a bit off (and I am missing a few tiny precincts that I can't see on the map, so 1,000 folks are unassigned), but the population numbers are just estimates in any event. Some marginal tweaking will be required to precisely equalize.

The districts look pretty compact to me, and I tried to draw them to maximize that, after drawing the two urban districts, again emphasizing compactness. By the way, I first tried to draw after the two urban districts, one northern district, and one southern district, but the southern district just got too ugly (the population has a rather heavy northern bias), so I abandoned the endeavor, and went east versus west instead. The reason that I started with the idea of a northern and southern band first, was in hopes of creating two more marginal districts.

The Des Moines district's PVI by the way is about Dem PVI +1% precisely (excluding the handful of voters in the rural sliver of Boone put into the district (which excludes the county seat)). The western district is PVI +7.34% R, the eastern purple district is PVI +2.23% D (I thought it would be more D), and the green Davenport/Cedar Rapids district is PVI +7.21% D.   So there is a certain partisan symmetry to the map. I like it!  

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

If it requires county splitting, it won't happen. Iowa's rule against that is pretty ironclad.

[Torie]

If it requires county splitting, it won't happen. Iowa's rule against that is pretty ironclad.

BRTD, CD's must have precisely equal populations. You do understand that, don't you? It is SCOTUS law, and trumps anything the state might have enacted to the contrary.

[DrScholl]

The no county splitting stipulation will be adhered to, none of the counties were split last reapportionment and all districts added up rather closely. Iowa's population centers are scattered about in a way where they can be paired with smaller counties to add up to a reasonable population.

[Torie]

Well, if there are no county splits in the Iowa map then the districts must not be precisely equal in population, and that must be because the map was not legally challenged.  My assumption, is that SCOTUS will not tolerate more than one precinct worth of population variance, and even that has not been tested, because usually the mappers even split individual pre-existing precincts using block by block census data to get precisely equal populations. In any event, splitting counties or not, will not make any difference. If a map will survive a bit of population variance, to keep a county intact, well fine. Delete my splits. The end.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

None of Iowa's maps that I have available have ever split a county, and they go back to the 70s.

[minionofmidas]

If it requires county splitting, it won't happen. Iowa's rule against that is pretty ironclad.

BRTD, CD's must have precisely equal populations. You do understand that, don't you? It is SCOTUS law, and trumps anything the state might have enacted to the contrary.

This statement is false.

On several fronts, even, I think. JimRTex will know this stuff better, but roughly speaking a) they've never established a threshold - they've ruled that one figure (5%? 2.5%?) was too much, and another figure (1%, I think) was just fine as long as legitimized by additional considerations enshrined in state law. As is the case in Iowa, whose map is essentially computer-generated according to some formula. Or in Arkansas, which simply bans splits of counties. (It helps that neither state includes a county of massive size.)

When mappers split individual pre-existing precincts to get precisely equal populations, they do this out of the vileness of their dark hearts.